CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE EMPEROR SITS

THE EMPER OR OF CROTHENY counted to three and then clapped his hands in delight as Hound Hat produced a partridge from what appeared to be thin air.

“Most excellent, Sire!” the Sefry said. “And now I shall produce a fire, if to you I might implore, please this time to count to four.”

Muriele glanced hard at the Sefry and then more gently at her son. “Charles,” she said. “It is time to hold court.”

Charles looked at her, his face working. “Mother,” he whispered, “I can't count to four. What am I to do?”

“Charles,” she said, her voice a bit more insistent. “It is time for court. You must concentrate and be king.”

“But Father is king.”

“Your father is away. In his place, you must be king. Do you understand?”

He must have heard the frustration in her voice, for his face fell. Charles didn't always understand words, but at times he could be surprisingly sensitive to mood.

“How do I do that, Mother? How do I be king?”

She patted his hand. “I will teach you. Some men are going to come in, in a moment. You will know some of them. Your uncle Fail de Liery, for instance.”

“Uncle Fail?”

“Yes. I will talk to them, and you will remain silent. If you do this, then afterwards you can have fried apples and cream, and play games on the lawn.”

“I don't know that I want to go to the lawn,” Charles replied dubiously.

“Then you can do whatever you wish. But you must be silent while I talk to these men, unless I look at you. If I look at you, then you are to say, ‘That is my command.’ Only that, and nothing more. Can you do that?”

“That is how a king behaves?”

“It is exactly how a king behaves.”

Charles nodded earnestly. “That is my command,” he practiced.

Muriele flinched, for in that instant he sounded almost exactly like her dead William. Charles must have listened more than she'd thought, the few times he had been to court.

“Very well.” She started to nod at the Royal Footguard, but paused, briefly, to glance at Sir Neil, who stood stiffly a few feet from her.

“Sir Neil?” she asked. “Are you fit for this?”

Sir Neil turned his dark, hollowed eyes to her. “I can serve, Your Majesty,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “Come close, Sir Neil,” she said.

He did so, kneeling before her.

“Rise, and sit with me.”

The young knight with the old eyes did as he was told, taking a seat on the armless chair to the left of her own.

“Sir Neil,” she said softly, “I need you with me. With Erren gone, I need all of you here. Are you here?”

“I am with you, Majesty,” Neil replied. “I will not fail you again.”

“You have never failed me, Sir Neil,” she said. “How can you think you did? I owe you my life more than twice. No other man in the kingdom could have preserved me at Cal Azroth, and yet you did.”

Neil did not answer, but his lips tightened, and she saw the doubt.

“I know you loved my daughter,” she said softly. “And no, Erren never told me. I never saw it on your face, either, but I saw it in Fastia's.

“Sir Neil, we do not lead lives aimed toward happiness, here near the throne. We lead the lives we are given, and we do as best we can. My daughter had little happiness in her life. I watched her wither from a joyful maid to a bitter old woman in the space of a few years. You brought happiness and hope back to her, before her end. I could not have asked a better service of you.”

“You could have asked me to save her,” he said bitterly.

“That was not your charge,” Muriele said. “Your duty was to me. That duty you discharged. Sir Neil, you are my one true knight.”

“I do not feel worthy of that, Majesty.”

“I do not care what you feel, Sir Neil,” she said, letting anger creep into her voice. “When this court begins, look around you. You will see Praifec Hespero, a man of ambition and influence. You will see Lady Gramme, and next to her my hus-band's bastard, and you will notice a keen glint of avarice in her eyes. You will see twice five nobles who believe this is an opportune time to substitute their fat bottoms for my son's on the throne. You will see my own family and your old companions from Liery, spoiling for a war with us, wondering if perhaps it isn't time that Crotheny returned to a Lierish patrimony. And always there is Hansa, building her armies, weaving her plots against us.

“Who among them killed my husband? It could have been any of them. He was feathered with Lierish arrows, but that is a most transparent ploy. Someone here killed him, Sir Neil, and my daughters, and Prince Robert. Someone in this very court, but who? Here in Eslen you will see nothing but my enemies, Sir Neil, and all I have between them and me is you. So I do not care what you think your shortcomings are. I do not care how much you grieve, for I swear to you it is no tenth of what I feel. But I will command you, as your queen and the mother of your king, that you will protect me, keeping your senses sharp and your wits about you. With you, I may last a few months at this game. Without you, I will not survive the day.”

He bowed his head, and then raised it, and at last she recognized something of the young man she had first seen praying in the chapel of Saint Lier.

“I am here, Majesty,” he said, firmly this time. “I am with you.”

“Good. That is fortunate.”

“Majesty? May I ask a question?”

“Yes.”

“Will it be war with Liery?”

She measured that a moment before answering. “If it is,” she asked, “can you kill those you once fought beside?”

He frowned as if he did not understand the question. “Of course, Majesty. I will kill whoever needs killing, for you. I want to know only so I can better prepare the guard.”

“The war with Liery is the least of my concerns,” she said. “In me they see a way to eventually have this throne without a fight, and they have Saltmark and Hansa to concern them. I need only suggest that in me they have a powerful influence on the throne; let one of my cousins court me, perhaps. The facts surrounding my husband's death and the Sorrovian ships we sank can be quietly forgotten, and they will be. I do not know what William and Robert were about, and probably never will, but I can sweep up the mess. It is Hansa that concerns me, and daggers in my own house.”

“Yes, Majesty,” Neil said.

She inclined her head. “Now, as I said, you must watch what I cannot. Hespero will be admitted first, and I will make him my prime minister.”

Sir Neil raised his brow. “I thought you did not trust him.”

“Not in the least, but he must not know that. He must be lulled and coddled. He must be watched, and that were easiest if he is always at my right hand. After I have spoken to him, then the sea lords will come, and we will make our peace with them.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath.

“That is my command!” Charles shouted experimentally.

Neil bowed to Charles. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he told the emperor. “As in all things, I am your servant.”

Charles grinned, a boyish, silly grin. “This will amuse,” he said.