The Pirates of Pacta Servanda (Pillars of Reality Book 4) (41 page)

Mari just nodded.

“Why aren’t you celebrating, Lady Mari?” Princess Sien asked.

This time Mari shrugged. “I don’t particularly feel like it. We have a Mage who can send messages. I’ve asked him to contact a General Flyn, who operates around the Free Cities.”

“You think that this Flyn will come?”

“He’s, um, already sworn himself to my service,” Mari said. “He’s a good commander, and I’ll be more than happy to turn over fighting battles to him. I’m not actually that good at it.”

Princess Sien raised a questioning eyebrow. “In that case I would hate to go against you in something you think you
are
good at. You’ve every right to feel proud of this victory. You’ve helped ensure the safety of this town and eliminated a warlord who has done great harm.”

Mari let her distaste show. “And all I had to do was kill a lot of people.”

“I see. You don’t like causing deaths.”

“No. Even when it’s totally justified. Even when it’s the only good option.”

“But you do it anyway,” Sien observed.

“I don’t have any choice, Princess. How else do we stop people like that? If you know another way, please tell me.”

Sien watched Mari for a little while without speaking. “As you say, we have no choice. But I understand you participated in the combat, in firing your Mechanic weapon at the warlord’s soldiers. As commander, you didn’t have to do that.”

“Maybe not.” Mari gave the princess an angry look. “But how could I tell somebody else to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself?”

The princess nodded. “I see more and more why people follow you, Lady Mari.”

“Feel free to explain it to me sometime,” Mari offered, feeling irritable.

Sien’s lips curved in a wry smile. “It’s not my place to do that. I will say that the choices we make define us to the world. You seem to make difficult choices for the right reasons.”

Mari laughed. “I wish I had choices, Princess Sien. It seems more like I’ve got lots of things I have to do, and then whatever choices exist are between bad or worse.”

“Really? I understand you even granted a merciful death to a troll. That was a choice.”

Mari looked away, agitated and angry over feeling defensive about her action. “Why not? Why shouldn’t I have done that?”

The princess’s expression was impossible to read. “You felt sorry for a hideous creature whose only function in life was to kill.”

“That wasn’t the troll’s fault,” Mari replied with a scowl. “It had to die. I know that. That didn’t mean it had to suffer. It wasn’t like Raul. It didn’t choose to be what it was.”

“You speak truth.” Sien glanced out of the window again. “Tiae has suffered at the hands of those who care nothing for the pain others endure. Yet we came to this state in part because of those who hesitated to punish, even those who most deserved it.”

Mari leaned back again, watching the princess’s face. “Alain knows a lot of history, but I don’t.”

Sien gave Mari a startled look. “You depend upon a Mage for knowledge of the world?”

“Well…yes.” Mari couldn’t suppress another sudden, brief laugh. Mages believed the world to be an illusion and most knew practically nothing of it, let alone any history. “I know that’s a little strange. But Alain’s not a typical Mage, either.”

“Obviously,” the princess observed. “The entire history of Tiae’s troubles is too long and complicated to force upon you at this time, but in short, my parents were well-meaning but naïve. So I’ve been told by those who knew them well and who I trust, for my memories are those of a very young child.” Her face was shadowed by old grief. “They would not act against those who were acting against them, and they would not take steps needed to stop those who defied them. Perhaps they were already trapped in this Storm you and your Mages spoke of, helpless before the fate that had come to Tiae in their time.”

“What happened to them?” Mari asked.

“Eventually, one of those they would not confront brought about their deaths. My brothers and sisters and I were all too young to assume the throne, so a regent was appointed.

“The regent,” Sien continued, “was my uncle, a man as hard as my parents were soft. Where they would inflict only the mildest of punishments, and then only reluctantly, he dealt death as a common remedy for wrongdoing. And my uncle greatly expanded the list of those things considered wrongdoing. He killed many enemies but created far more in the process. One of them ended his life and his regency. By then Tiae was in great turmoil after the combined excesses of kindness and harshness. But there were other problems, mostly the rage of our people against the Great Guilds and the repression the Great Guilds ordered as punishment. There are few records surviving from that time, but I suspect the Great Guilds had demanded many of the most severe actions my uncle took against his own people.”

“I’m very sorry,” Mari said.

Princess Sien eyed her. “If you still represented the Mechanics Guild whose jacket you wear, your words would mean nothing. I would regard you as just one more agent of those who helped destroy Tiae.”

Mari nodded. “I had to decide whether I would keep defending that Guild. I realized that I couldn’t.”

Sien sighed. “After my uncle was killed, the next regent died within weeks. Then my eldest brother, who was close to reaching the age at which he could rule, was slain by poison, for by that point many others thought they saw the way to power over Tiae.”

Mari looked away, not wanting to see the sorrow on the princess’s face. “I guess it just got worse after that.”

“It did,” Sien confirmed. “Full-scale riots erupted in the cities. The army fell apart as officers and politicians vied for control. The Great Guilds unleashed spasms of violence that fed the chaos instead of suppressing it. Trade collapsed as the roads became unsafe. In the midst of that, my brothers and sisters and cousins and I became pawns. Powerful people, or people who wished to be powerful, wanted to control us, and to kill the ones they didn’t control. Tiae broke into two parts, then three, then shattered completely. The royal family died person by person. I was traded for a while among captors wishing to use my royal status, narrowly escaping from the last thanks to some still loyal to Tiae itself. Those brave men and women died to save me. I hid. I fought. I survived. I learned how to judge who I could trust and who I could not. A single mistake would have doomed me.”

“How did you survive?” Mari asked. “I’ve only gotten this far because of Alain.”

“I had no Alain,” Sien said, averting her eyes from Mari. “I did have those who still believed that Tiae meant something. Who were willing to run the greatest risks in what seemed a hopeless effort to keep one small part of Tiae alive.” She paused, staring out the window. “I eventually ended up here. I have done all I could to help Pacta Servanda hold out, to remain Tiae, while the rest of my country sank further into barbarism.”

The Princess looked at Mari again. “Why did the Great Guilds do nothing? They left what had been Tiae. They left us to suffer. Why? Did they no longer wish to rule the commons here, or consider us not worth the effort?”

Mari shook her head. “They were afraid. Every tool they were used to using to control the commons had failed. Trying something else would have required them to change, and both the Mage Guild and the Mechanics Guild are dedicated to not allowing any change.”

“That is…stupid,” Sien said. “They control the world. Shouldn’t that be their priority?”

“They control the world because they haven’t allowed any change,” Mari said. “The Great Guilds have long since made that tactic into their whole reason for being. Change must not happen. Yet change did happen in Tiae, and anything else the Guild did would open the door for greater change. What would happen to the world’s stability if the Bakre Confederation restored order in Tiae with the help of the Guild and then decided to stay, thereby doubling its size and power? What would happen if the Confederation moved into Tiae and instead of restoring order the social collapse in Tiae spread into the Confederation? So the Great Guilds did nothing, because the Great Guilds feared doing anything else.”

Mari leaned forward, resting her forearms on her legs as weariness struck again. “That’s why I’m here. Why my Guild decided to kill me even before I knew I was…that person. Because I thought that kind of reasoning was terrible and I want it to stop. I want to fix things, not let them go to blazes because I’m afraid change might undermine the way things are.”

The princess watched Mari a little longer, then shook her head. “Would that you had been born twenty years earlier. Perhaps you could’ve prevented much suffering here.”

Mari shook her head in turn, closing her eyes for a moment. “No. I don’t think conditions would’ve been right twenty years ago for me to get the support I’ve needed. Besides, it’s not me alone. I wouldn’t be here now if not for Alain. He’s kept me alive and kept me going. Without him, without his skills as a Mage, I’d be lost. Actually, I’d be dead. And I know a lot of people look at us and think we couldn’t possibly really be in love, but we are. He’s my partner in every way.”

“Your partner.” Sien nodded. “A nice thing to have. Can he then take your place if the worst happens? You told me the others would follow only you.”

“I’m afraid that’s true.” Mari sighed, raising both palms in a what-can-I-do gesture. “Don’t ask me why. They listen to Alain because they think he’s telling them what I want. Even though he’s smarter than I am. Probably has a lot more common sense, too.”

“Success depends upon you,” Sien noted. “As it depends upon me for Tiae. I’m all my country has left to rally around, Lady Mari. There should be an elected parliament to exercise some authority. That disappeared long ago and will need to be recreated, but even when the government has been rebuilt my status will stay the same in one very important way. I literally
am
Tiae, by the laws and beliefs of Tiae.”

“I’ve got enough trouble with being the woman of the prophecy,” Mari said. “I can’t imagine being a country.”

“If I fall, all will be lost. There is no one and nothing else left that all of Tiae could look to. It would be generations, or never, before Tiae was whole and happy again.”

“If the Storm hits as the Mages keep warning, it’ll be a lot longer than that,” Mari said. “Why does it have to be me? I’ll bet you’ve wondered the same thing plenty of times.”

The princess nodded at Mari. “You may be the only other person in the world who understands how I feel. And I may be the only one who fully understands how you feel.” She blinked, smiling sadly. “I remember as a small child playing in the palace in Tiaesun. Tiae was whole and at peace. It seems an impossible memory now, a dream of a place that never really was. I’ve spent so many years hiding, trying to stay alive, trusting in only a few. Even within this town only a trusted few know my true identity, because if it became widely known that the last princess was here, the warlords would flock to capture or kill me. There has been no one I could share the burden with.”

“I’m sorry you never found your own Alain,” Mari said.

Sien lowered her head, the smile changing into something that Mari couldn’t interpret. “I have had three men who intended to marry me. The first was when I was ten years old.”

“What?” Mari asked, thinking she couldn’t have heard right.

“He was much older. He claimed he would protect and love me and help me save Tiae when, with my help, he became ruler of Tiae. Wasn’t that noble of him? But he was killed by rivals, and I changed hands. The second man gained control of me when I was fifteen, holding me prisoner and swearing that I would marry him and do exactly as he demanded so that he could become king someday. Are you seeing a pattern?” Sien paused, her eyes shadowed by memory.

Mari swallowed before she could speak. “What happened to him?”

The princess smiled again. “I had hidden a knife on myself. Only a small knife, but I had learned enough of the ways of violence by then to kill him with it when he attempted to attack me in the bedroom that was my cell. With his keys I was able to escape.” Her expression changed again, becoming wistful. “And then, at seventeen, I met a knight in shining armor. Faris had defied the embargo of the Great Guilds, coming south from Danalee in the Confederation to try to learn the fate of relatives who had been trapped in Inser when the kingdom was broken. He was twenty, and he believed in good things and meant all the best, and I believe to this day that he truly loved me. But he thought that if we wed we should be equals in all things, and I told him that was not possible, that I would always be Tiae and he could not be. He did his best to understand, I think, and perhaps in time he would have been able to accept that. But our small group was ambushed, and he died as valiantly as any hero could have wished, holding off the bandits until I and a few others could escape. It has been almost ten years since he died, and there has been no one since, for I would not again put myself at the mercy of another, and I could not put enough trust in anyone.”

“I…don’t know what to say,” Mari confessed. “Except that I don’t know that I would have survived what you have, let alone come out of it as…as well as you have.”

“I have my demons, Lady Mari,” Sien said, looking at Mari again. “They come in the night, usually, but sometimes in the day, to mock me and frighten me and attempt to warp me into something that would harm Tiae and all who believe in it. Maybe being Tiae is what has kept me sane.”

A soft knock sounded on the door, then the old woman looked in. “The Mage is here asking after Lady Mari.”

“Send him in,” Sien said. “Mage Alain. You are welcome, and I thank you as I thanked Lady Mari for your service to Tiae.”

Alain nodded, moving to stand next to Mari. “One of the first things I learned from Mari was the need to do the right thing.”

“Is there no end to the good that Lady Mari does in this world?” Sien asked with just the right amount of humor in her voice. “I now face the need to live up to her example.”