Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

“I am grateful to you, Your Grace, for whatever blessings you have afforded my son.” He turned to his fellow regents. “I will take my leave of you now. I have dead to bury, as do you all.”

“You’ll have more, unless you listen a moment longer,” said Tristan Steward.

—

—

The curt tone drew the attention of all present in the room. The Lord Roland’s blue eyes burned with fire that smoldered within a fragile control. He regarded them seriously, almost contemptuously, then lingered for a moment, staring at Nielash Mousa.

“Take your leave now, Your Grace,” he said, his tone barely civil. “Return to His Highness, the Crown Prince, and tell him what has occurred. Inform him that I will be contacting him shortly. My retinue will see you to the border.”

The Blesser of Sorbold stared at him for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. He turned to the dukes.

“I do apologize most deeply on behalf of my countrymen for what has befallen your subjects,” he said, then looked to his fellow benisons. “I pray you remember, my brothers in grace, that we are all children of the All-God, sons of the Creator. Whatever evil has been causing this tragic violence amongst Orlandan citizens and the Lirin of Tyrian has now spread to Sorbold, but it is not in any way condoned by the Crown. Please keep this in mind, and keep cool heads. I assure you, the prince will make restitution for this, and do everything he can to see that it does not occur again.”

He waited for a response, but the dukes and benisons of Roland stood silent in the wake of his words. After a few moments of awkwardness he bowed and left the library.

Tristan Steward waited until the door had closed behind Mousa, then turned back with barely disguised wrath to confront the regents and the clergymen.

“I have been warning you all for some time that this was coming, that we needed to take action, but you spurned those warnings, every last one of you.” He glared pointedly at Stephen. “Now the winter solstice has been cursed, stained with the blood of citizens from each of our provinces, and even from the realm of Sorbold. I will tolerate this reckless lack of preparedness no longer. If you wish to remain blind to what is happening around you, fine. But I will no longer stand by while Orlandan subjects are slaughtered.

“Therefore, I invoke my rights as high regent and prince of the capital province. I declare sovereignty over the all the armies of Roland, and am assuming command thereof. It is high time to end this madness and combine our forces under a sole leadership— my leadership. Any province who opposes me will be cast out of the Orlandan alliance, and will no longer be under the protection of Bethany.”

“You are declaring yourself king, then?” demanded Ihrman Karsrick.

“Not yet, though that may follow as the natural progression.” Tristan’s gaze went from face to face, assessing the reactions of the various dukes and benisons. “My title is not important. The survival of Roland is. The Cymrian War fragmented this land into a ridiculous arrangement of egos and agendas, teetering on a precipice of disaster. No more! Too long we have bowed and scraped to each other, dancing gingerly around this issue to salve your fragile self-importance. My army protects your regions now. It has been Bethany’s soldiers, Bethany’s supply troops, that have maintained the peace throughout Roland for years now—

—

—with the aid of a considerable amount of taxes,” finished Martin Ivenstrand, the Duke of Avonderre. “Any one of us could have built the forces that you have had they been given the assessments from which you have benefited.”

“Be that as it may, none of you have had the stomach, or the loin-pouch, to do so,” retorted Tristan angrily. “It is my right, as high regent, to claim command, and I do so now. Those who oppose me will no longer be under my protection. I will end all trade agreements with renegade provinces, and will sever any and all diplomatic ties as well.”

“You can’t be serious,” sputtered Quentin Baldasarre.

“I am completely serious. I will strip your provinces from the mail caravan, tear up your grain treaties, ostracize you so completely that you will be for all intents a foreign land. I have had enough—more than enough—of this nightmare. It has cost me far more than I am willing to continue paying.” His words faltered as he thought of Prudence, her dismembered corpse strewn about the grass of Gwylliam’s Great Moot in Ylorc. “Now decide—are you with me? Or are you out?”

The other dukes stared at each other in dismay. Tristan’s voice was deep with power; his shoulders trembled with rage. The air in the room had gone as dry as a Yarim summer. Stephen thought he could taste blood in the back of his mouth.

The silence thudded heavily through the library, punctuated by the threat of the fire’s crackle, the accusatory ticking of the clock.

Finally Colin Abernathy, the Blesser of the Nonaligned States, turned to Tristan.

“I will take my leave now, my son,” he said pleasantly. “It is not fitting that I be privy to these discussions, as my See is not within the realm of Roland. Let me say, for what it is worth, however, that your plan seems the right one to me. It is high time, in my opinion, that Roland sort out its lines of succession, and unify behind one royal house. As a foreign national I can assure you the clarity will benefit both Roland and its allies.”

For the first time since he had entered the room, Tristan smiled slightly.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Abernathy bowed shakily to Stephen Navarne. “I will make arrangements to collect the remains of our people who have died this day on your soil with your chamberlain, my son.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Stephen replied. “He has been told to stand ready.”

“Very good. Well, then, farewell, my brothers in grace, and m’lord regents. I wish you wisdom in your discussions, and in your decisions.” Abernathy stood tall as he bowed to the clergy and the nobility, then crossed the library and closed the door soundly behind him.

Tristan turned back to the other regents of Roland.

“Sometimes it is easier to see the wisdom of an undertaking from the outside,” he said. He turned to Stephen Navarne, waving his hand to silence the other dukes as they prepared to speak.

“Let us cut to the chase. You, Stephen—you, my own cousin—you opposed me when I made a call for unity before. See where your folly has led? Four hundred dead, maybe twice that by the time the injured succumb. At your hands, Stephen—their blood is on your hands, because you failed to heed my warnings. You thought your pathetic wall could save you—it couldn’t even protect your keep against the peasant revolt last spring from which I had to rescue you. What is it going to take to convince you? Wasn’t the decapitation of your own wife enough?” A collective gasp echoed through the room. “M’lord!” Philabet Griswold choked.

“Your tongue is napping dangerously, Tristan,” said Quentin Baldasarre acidly, pulling free from Lanacan Orlando’s nervous clutches and interposing himself between Stephen and the Lord Roland. “Best batten it down before you swallow it.”

“If you wish to call him out, Stephen, I will happily stand as your second,” added Martin Ivenstrand angrily.

“No,” Stephen said, pushing Quentin out of the way and locking his gaze on to Tristan’s. Silence fell over the room again. “No,” Stephen repeated. “He’s right.”

Tristan’s nostrils flared, and he exhaled deeply. His fists unclenched at his sides.

“Will you stand with me now, then?” he demanded. Stephen could feel the eyes of the others trained on him. Tristan had confronted him first deliberately, he knew, because the other dukes would align themselves with Stephen either way. Finally he nodded, still holding Tristan’s gaze. “Yes,” he said.