Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [43]
“The Writ and Rule.” Karal shrugged. “I don’t know, but does it really matter? The point is that she knew that there was a record of the old ways in the archives, and everything we found confirmed or added to what she had already declared. Ulrich was one of the former Black-robes she assigned to the archives, and since I was his secretary, I worked beside him.”
The serving-girl came to clear away their empty plates, refill their cups, and bring them a dessert of fruit and cheese. Rubrik said nothing while she was there, and spent some time carefully cutting up an apple without continuing the conversation. “None of this ever got to Valdemar,” he said at last. “We only heard that there had been some disturbance, and that suddenly the ruler of Karse was a woman. Then we learned nothing at all for a year or two.” He looked up from his apple dissection, and cocked an eyebrow at Karal. “Is there any connection between your Solaris and the other woman that called herself ‘the Prophet of Vkandis’ about ten or fifteen years ago? The one that decided she was going to be the head of your army and damn near got herself a big chunk of Menmellith?”
Karal shook his head. “No—and in fact, that woman is the reason the original Crown of Prophecy went missing. It was lost with her when she vanished.”
No point in getting into that; the story was much too complicated. And if Rubrik did not know the part of Solaris’ story that his own countrywoman Talia figured so prominently in—he wasn’t as well-informed as Karal had thought.
Rubrik ate his apple thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine that the rest of your priesthood just rolled over like cowed dogs and let Solaris rule as she wanted.”
Indeed they didn’t, Karal thought quietly. But this was one of the subjects Ulrich had instructed him to say nothing about. There had been a great deal of opposition to Solaris’ new Writ and Rules, and to her decrees as well. Not only from the Priests, either.
There had been plenty of people in Karse who liked the corrupt ways very much indeed. A number of the highly born resented the intrusion of the Priests into areas of governance they had always considered their private preserve. There had been a kind of understanding between the Priests and some of the nobles that certain—excesses—would be ignored if gifts “to the Temple” were valuable enough. There had been Priests who were as corrupt as some of those nobles; they had shared in those excesses.
Solaris put an end to those “understandings.” And an end to the slave trade, to a profitable market in deadly intoxicants, and a number of other unsavory trades that had been ignored or even given tacit sanction by the Priests.
This did not earn her friends in some quarters.
There were Priests and the favorites of Priests who lost prestige and position with the change in stature of the Black-robes-those who were no longer permitted to call demons did not inspire the same fear. This didn’t earn her any goodwill from those factions, either.
There were even those at the borders who wanted the demon-summoners back. At least when demons roamed the night, the bandits stayed hidden, and conducted their raids only by day, when it was somewhat easier to see them coming and to fight them. There were plenty of border dwellers who feared the Rethwellans, the Valdemarans, and the Hardornens on the other side of those borders, and wanted the demons and their summoners to keep the “foreigners” away.
The two years that followed the Miracle were not easy ones, and Solaris had fought a grim and mostly-silent battle against a number of enemies. But Karal was not going to tell Rubrik any of that. If the Valdemaran spies weren’t good enough for their Queen to have learned that much, too bad. And if no one had bothered to inform this agent of the Queen of these things, that was not Karal’s problem.
“So, at some point after Ancar stole his father’s throne, he decided that Karse was an easy target, hmm?” Rubrik took the hint, restarting the conversation with something obvious.