Rex Regis

12

In the end, Quaeryt and Vaelora only stayed a little over a glass at Lehyln before they returned to Eelan. Although staying at Lehyln would have been far more comfortable than at the Silver Swan, Quaeryt wanted to save his impositions on High Holders for the times when they were truly necessary. He also hoped the combination of power and forbearance would make an impression on Nephyl and Mergiana, but there were times when he wondered if anything except absolute power made any impression on anyone. Still … he felt he had to try. And hope it won’t be your undoing.

Both Vaelora and Quaeryt were happy to leave Eelan early on Samedi morning. Again they found the road to the north a packed dirt track in the middle of what once had been a road almost twice as wide. They also managed to travel almost fifteen milles before Quaeryt and the imager undercaptains had to replace and rebuild yet another bridge.

By the following Meredi afternoon, as they neared the town of Berryhyl, Quaeryt could take a certain satisfaction in the number of bridges and causeways that they had improved or replaced. At the same time, he was astounded and amazed at the number. Was that a passive defense against the depredations of Kharst and his predecessors? Or did Kharst create his elite corps of crossbow assassins because the roads precluded use of troopers with any haste? Or did they go together?

Quaeryt doubted that he’d ever discover an answer. He did know that one likely duty for imagers in the years ahead would be the gradual improvement of roads, if only to bring them up closer to the standards of Telaryn highways.

As he and Vaelora rode closer to the town, he saw low hill after low hill seemingly covered with bushes set in neat rows. A closer look showed that on more than half of the hills the bushes appeared not to have been that well tended recently, with undergrowth around them, and in places, goats, sheep, and cattle grazing in, on, or around the bushes.

Quaeryt did notice one young shepherd take a look at the troopers and immediately begin to use his dog and his staff to try to move the flock up over the hill and out of sight of the road.

“He didn’t want us getting any ideas,” observed Vaelora.

“Something like that,” said Quaeryt.

Then, in the midst of the hills filled with berries, was a larger hill on the east side of the road. The top of the hill bore traces of a fire, and there were clumps of stone and brick scattered down from the crest across ground that held but a few scattered scraggly bushes and patches of weeds. The devastation continued on the slope west of the road, all the way down to the Phraan River, where Quaeryt could make out the charred remnants of several piers, some scarcely above the water, but most below it and barely visible.

“It looks like someone salted the ground,” said Vaelora. “Is this what you were telling me you’d seen along the Aluse on your way to Variana?”

“This looks older, but the holding’s been treated the same way.”

“You think it was Kharst?”

“More likely his father or grandfather.”

“And they didn’t give the lands to another High Holder?”

“If they did, whoever received them doesn’t seem to care much for them.”

Vaelora shook her head.

Farther north of the devastated hold, for almost a mille, the berry-bush-covered hills continued. Then past a stone wall in advanced disrepair, there was a small holding with neatly trimmed and tended trees, apple trees, Quaeryt thought.

A few hundred yards later was another millestone: BERRYHYL-2 M.

Quaeryt gestured to Vaelora, then called to Zhelan, riding ahead of them with Baelthm. “Major?”

“Yes, sir?”

“According to the maps, there’s nowhere else to stay for at least another ten milles, and it’s already past fourth glass. If there’s anything that looks feasible here…”

“Yes, sir.”

Even from the southern edge of the town proper, with older, if small, stone and timber houses, all neatly kept, Quaeryt gained the impression of a place that had once been prosperous, but that still took pride in its appearance. They rode past several dwellings that looked to be empty, but which were still well kept.

There was a large inn on the square. That Quaeryt could see from three blocks south. By the time they reached the square, it was clear that the three-story Berry Inn was the largest inn they’d seen since Daaren, and possibly even larger than the Grande Laar Inn there. Its timber and stone construction gave it a more rustic appearance. Quaeryt did see that all the windows on the south wing were shuttered, but even the shuttered wing seemed to be well maintained.

A glass later, Quaeryt and Brem, the innkeeper, a muscular but trim graybeard, had reached a satisfactory arrangement, and Vaelora, Quaeryt, and Brem sat at a circular table in the spacious public room.

“It’s slow this time of year,” admitted Brem. “When berrying season comes round, we get more visitors. Still can’t fill the inn, not like in the old days.”

“The town took its name from the berries on the hills, then?” asked Quaeryt.

“That’d be so, sir. Folks called the holder High Holder Berryhill. Don’t rightly recall what the family’s real name was. The place was burned out by Rex Kharst’s sire when my da was a boy. He said you could see the flames from here in town.”

“What did the holder do with all those berries?” asked Vaelora.

“They made jams and jellies and fancy sauces. They raised game fowl and fed ’em on the berries. My da said the holder shipped them downriver on his flatboats all the way to Kephria. That was when you could do that. River’s never been the same since they built that Great Canal. Don’t see why it was necessary. You could use the river all but three months out of the year.”

Quaeryt nodded, not voicing the thought that one major difference was that the canal allowed goods from the north and west to travel to and from Variana, not just one way, all year around. “Why did Kharst’s sire burn out the High Holder?”

“One day … one of the sons of the rex came to visit. That was Rex Kharst’s sire, but it was before he was rex. No one knows what happened. Some say he fancied the young wife of the holder. Others say he fancied the brother of the wife … Anyway, he left in haste and in anger. Weeks later the troopers came.”

“And no new holder came?” asked Quaeryt.

“The lands belong to the rex. Well, they did. I suppose they belong to Lord Bhayar now. Back then, the council sent a missive to Variana asking who to expect as the new High Holder. Never received an answer. So the folks graze their flocks there, careful like, and pick the berries. No one says much when travelers come during berrying season, but…” The innkeeper shrugged, then looked at Vaelora. “Might your brother be appointing a High Holder to bring back the berrying?”

“He will be appointing some new High Holders,” Vaelora conceded, “and I will certainly bring Berryhyl to his attention.”

“Be a shame for the lands to lie so poorly used,” added Brem.

“But it would take the right kind of High Holder,” Quaeryt said.

“Aye. Not ones like some around Semlem.”

“What do you know about them?” asked Quaeryt, for whom Semlem was just a town on the map located some fifty milles upriver.

“There’s two, maybe three, from what I hear. One was killed last fall when you folks defeated Kharst. He was the worst. Used to ride into town with his armsmen and pick up any lass he fancied. No one ever saw any of them again.”

“No one did anything?” asked Vaelora.

“He had two hundred armsmen. He owned the silver mines in the hills to the east. They say his heir’s not much better, but who would know?”

“And the others?” prompted Quaeryt.

“Can’t say I know, except one of them would graze his cattle on the lands of freeholders whenever water or forage got short. He’d just laugh and tell them to ask Rex Kharst for relief.”

After more stories, and another quint, Vaelora glanced meaningfully at Quaeryt.

Quaeryt smiled and rose, as did Vaelora. “We appreciated hearing what you had to say, but we’ve had a long ride today, and there are a few other matters we need to address.”

“I’d not be meaning to take your time…”

“No … the pleasure was ours.”

Quaeryt and Vaelora retreated to their room, one of the “grand chambers” overlooking the river, with not only a large and firm bed, but a separate bathing chamber, if one that required water be carried up by the inn’s chambermaids, a task Quaeryt had arranged.

After bathing and eating with the officers in a large private dining room that Quaeryt suspected had not been used much, if at all, in recent years, the two returned to their chamber.

In the dim light cast by a single wall lamp, Quaeryt sat in a chair, while Vaelora, propped up with pillows, stretched out on the bed.

“This land is fertile enough,” mused Vaelora. “It’s as if Kharst and his sire went out of their way to ruin it.”

Quaeryt shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say, dearest?”

“They didn’t want to make the effort to rule it. So they laid down a few rules and let it go at that. The first rule was not to thwart or oppose the rex. The second rule was to pay your tariffs. So far as I can tell, there wasn’t a third rule. That allowed the factors to act almost like local governments, but none of them dared to go further than that. The High Holders didn’t dare to act together because the moment one of them said or did anything, he was killed and his hold leveled. I imagine Kharst kept an ear and an eye out for any High Holder who tried to build up his armsmen, and the other High Holders probably would tell the rex as well, because none of them wanted a truly strong ruler to replace Kharst.”

“But why did Kharst attack Ferravyl?”

“You’ve seen the state of the Great Canal and of Ephra. He wanted an open route to Solis on the Aluse for his traders. They doubtless told him that would create more tariffs, and it would have. His marshals didn’t see that many Telaryn forces around Ferravyl. Initially, your brother was heavily outnumbered. And most people tend to believe that other people behave the way they do. Kharst knew your brother was young for a ruler, and probably didn’t understand that Telaryn was ruled far better than was Bovaria. He thought he had more troopers. His marshals thought so, too, and they knew Bhayar didn’t have that much in the way of cannon or muskets. Given all that, they weren’t about to tell Kharst they couldn’t attack. By the time they realized Telaryn was far stronger than they thought, it was too late.”

“That was because of you and your imagers, dearest.”

“Partly, but not totally. Because Telaryn has better roads, your brother could raise and bring more troops to Ferravyl than Kharst’s marshals realized. Even had we not been there, in the end, I believe his attacks would have failed.”

“At a terrible cost.”

“To both lands.”

Vaelora frowned, then reached for the leatherbound book on the side table. She paged through it quickly, then nodded, and moved the bookmark, before handing the volume to Quaeryt. “You might find this interesting. Start with ‘all men believe.’”

Quaeryt opened the book and began to read at the phrase she had spoken.

All men believe in something. That was one of Rholan’s favorite sayings. Even those who claim to believe in nothing are believing something, he would say. He often confounded people by asking about what they believed … and then told them things about themselves that he could not have possibly known. Conversely, he would listen to someone talk for a time, and then say something like, “The Nameless in which you believe weighs the acts of good and evil like lead weights upon a scale balance.”

The same was true of rulers, he believed, except that since they often acted like they were gods, they saw themselves reflected in the images of other rulers that they built in their thoughts. Thus, Lord Ofryk thought that Hengyst of Ryntar was more thoughtful, in the way that Ofryk himself was, while Hengyst hesitated to attack Tela because he could not believe, based on his own character, that Ofryk could have failed to prepare for war. That being so, Rholan was no fool, nor did he believe that shrewd men continued to persist in seeing themselves in others, and that only fools did so. By those lights, he regarded Hengyst as shrewd and Ofryk as a self-deluded fool.

As he closed the book and handed it back to Vaelora, he nodded and said, “I hadn’t remembered that passage. At least, I didn’t remember reading it, but it must have stuck in my thoughts somewhere.”

“Kharst was a fool, according to Rholan’s definition.”

“When I read that book, I get the feeling that Rholan thought most men were fools.” And, at one time or another, most of us are.

“He didn’t even bother to observe women,” said Vaelora.

“I doubt he would have been any more or less charitable.”

“In small ways, the book shows he was far less charitable.”

Given Vaelora’s firm tone and, he had to admit to himself, what he’d read, Quaeryt wasn’t about to argue that. “You’re right, and that’s too bad.”

“Are you placating me?”

“If trying to avoid an argument when you’re right is placating … yes.”

Vaelora laughed softly. “You’re sweet when you try not to be so obvious in admitting something.”

“I thought I was very obvious.”

“You can be sweet about that, too.”

Quaeryt was definitely not about to argue that.