Still, it was a relief for the Lord Chancellor to be able to sink back into his own labors without having to do Count Eolair’s most important work as well. Many of the issues closest to his heart had been all but ignored while the royal couple were traveling, and he was anxious to catch up.
Clerks hurried back and forth down the long hall like bees in clover, bearing piles of documents—ledger rolls, pleading letters, and tax records, each with its own complicated history. Pasevalles could not help being sourly amused by the misunderstanding most of the kingdom’s subjects had about power—that the king and queen merely sat on their thrones and decided what should be done next, then their eager minions hurried out and turned these whims into fact. In truth, ruling anything, let alone the largest kingdom in the history of Osten Ard, was a process of learning about and reacting to hundreds upon hundreds of small problems, some of which would quickly become larger problems if left unsolved, and then persisting with them until they had been solved or at least reduced from crisis to mere irritation. And standing between a ruler and these solutions was not a horde of loyal subjects waiting only to be told what to do, but thousands of individuals, each with his own plans and wants, most of them quite willing to break the rules if they could get away with it, and yet each of them also furious at any idea their own rights might be somehow abrogated. And of these plaintiffs, the nobles were the worst, prickly and full of righteous demands.
Pasevalles had been born the nephew of an important Nabbanai border lord, Baron Seriddan of Metessa, and his childhood in the baron’s castle had also been the last time he was satisfied with his lot in life. Though his own father, Brindalles, had been a quiet and scholarly sort, young Pasevalles had always had his own eye set on a life of valor. He had even taken it upon himself to care for the family collection of arms and armor, because no one else in Metessa seemed to care about the greatness of the past—at least not the way Pasevalles did. All the years of his childhood the great armor hall and the foundry where armor was built and repaired had been his true homes; he had been nearly a stranger to his father’s study. He had learned to read and write and do sums, of course, as any young man in a noble family was expected to do, but had considered every hour spent beneath his tutors’ watchful gazes to be an hour wasted, time when he could have been out watching the men at arms practicing or performing the tasks he had allotted to himself in the armor hall, preserving the glory of his ancestors’ warlike ways and dreaming that a similar glory would one day be his.
But dreams change, he told himself. Especially those of children.
Pasevalles’s dreams had changed for good on the day that Prince Josua, brother of King Elias and son of Prester John, had arrived in Metessa seeking help in his struggle against his brother and his brother’s terrifying ally, Ineluki the Storm King. Pasevalles had been too young to understand all of it, of course—he was a mere eight years old—but he had been thrilled to learn that the legendary Sir Camaris, greatest warrior of his age, was alive and fighting for Josua. And when Josua’s siege of the Hayholt began, Pasevalles would have been even more thrilled that his own scholar father had joined the fighting, going so far as to volunteer for a masquerade, pretending to be Josua while the prince led a group of men and Sithi into the castle by other means.
But Pasevalles had not been there. He did not see the glory of his father’s charge, riding the prince’s horse in through the very gates of the Hayholt. Neither was he there to see the terrible ending when King Elias’ trap was revealed, and his father was cut down and hacked to pieces by defenders in the castle courtyard.
Pasevalles had instead found all this out when the messengers had reached Metessa a fortnight later, just a day ahead of the bodies of Pasevalles’ father and his uncle Seriddan, who had died of his wounds a few days after the battle.
The weeks and months after hardly existed in his memory now, a black vortex of time, days and nights in seemingly endless succession where all he felt was pain and disbelief. It was not until his aunt decided to remarry a year later that Pasevalles had begun to take notice of his surroundings again.
None of that went well, either. His mother died from one of the fevers that scourged Nabban after the Storm King’s Wars. His aunt, who had married the widower who owned the adjoining barony, also died from that same fever. And his aunt’s new husband had promptly turned Pasevalles out, sending him to live with poor relatives along Nabban’s northern coast in a house so cold and damp that he might as well have been living in the marshes themselves. Bitter, chilly days . . .
No. Anger is a distraction, he reminded himself. Anger is the enemy of success. He had plans, he had a purpose, he had responsibilities and should not let himself be weighed down by bad, old memories. At this very moment he had a huge pile of bills waiting to be approved and taken to the king and queen, as well as dozens of other payments waiting to be examined one last time before being dispersed to the crown’s various creditors, because rebuilding castles was expensive work. All these years later, the Erkynland was still paying for the Storm King’s War. And, just to make the need to avoid wallowing in the past even more obvious, here came Father Wibert with another pile of petitions.
“Where does your Lordship want these?” his secretary asked. “On the floor? In your lap?” Wibert was not a young man, but age had made him thinner rather than heavier. He had something like a sense of humor, but that was all it was—something like it. In fact, the most interesting thing about Wibert was his complete disinterest in anything other than himself. Pasevalles found him extremely useful, but nobody in the castle thought of him as a charming companion.
“On the floor, I suppose.” Pasevalles noticed something that did not look like the other documents. “What’s that on the top?”
“A letter from Princess Idela,” said Wibert with a mirthless grin. “Scented. She wants a favor, I’m betting.” He set down the tipping pile of documents, gave them a cursory straightening, then plucked the folded sheet off the top and handed it to Pasevalles. “The good Lord grant us all patience. Why He thought of women is more than I can understand.”
I don’t doubt that’s true, Pasevalles thought. People in the Hayholt sometimes suggested Wibert had been born a priest. Pasevalles knew it was nearly true: Wibert had arrived from St. Sutrin’s orphanage when he was still a young boy, to work as an acolyte in the cathedral. Pasevalles doubted the monk had ever had a moment in his life free of Mother Church looking over his shoulder.
“Are you going to open it?”
Pasevalles felt an unpleasant remark rise to his but did not indulge himself. Wibert had all the social grace of a plowhorse let loose in the royal chapel, but he was a useful man, hard-working, incurious, and, best of all, absolutely predictable.
“I will look at it later, thank you. Just set it there on the table.”
Father Wibert hung about for a few moments, clearly hoping that the Lord Chancellor would change his mind and open the princess dowager’s letter—like so many of the clergy, Pasevalles had found, Wibert lived for gossip—but eventually he gave up and went out. Pasevalles thought that with his bony elbows and knees, his secretary looked more like a string-puppet than a man of God.
And that is my curse, he thought to himself. To see what truly is instead of what others would prefer me to see. It was a curse, beyond doubt, but he sometimes thought it was also a glory, to be less blind than others, who hid themselves from that which they did not want to know.
He picked up the letter from the princess with a certain caution, as if the folded paper itself might have a blade-sharp edge. That was what he thought of sometimes when he saw the princess—a knife, something that could lie unused and unnoticed for a long time, and then suddenly emerge to change everything in a dreadful moment. He wondered if it were actually true of Prince John Josua’s widow or if, for once, he was fooling himself. In any case, he feared the complications she could bring, but he was also not blind to the advantages her friendship could gain him. He sniffed the letter. Scented, as Wibert had noted—rosewater and balsam, the profane and the sacred mixed, earth and spirit. A message? Or just her ordinary scent? Pasevalles studied the seal, and when he was certain it was unbroken, he opened and unfolded the letter.
My dearest Lord,
I know that the absence of our beloved king and queen kept you most busy in recent months. In truth, we all are in debt to you for your hard, selfless work. I am certain that some day your value to this kingdom will be noticed and you will be rewarded as you deserve.