The King's Name by Jo Walton Read Free Book Online Page B

with it. I wasn't expecting anything and it would have been less impious." I felt detached from the whole thing.
    "He was never noted for strategic thinking, though he was a very good steward and I will miss that." Veniva smiled grimly. "He admits he has been intercepting your letters."
    "My letters?" I echoed inanely. My letters to Urdo? But I had been getting answers, Daldaf certainly wasn't capable of forging them. The thought that he might have been reading them was Page 20

    dreadful enough. I wondered who else might have written to me and what they might have said. I hadn't heard from ap Erbin for some time.
    "We trust the red-cloaks so much," Veniva said. "We think what we have written will be delivered. It seems many things have been going astray. We will have to check his room. He said he had destroyed most of them but there were some he was saving to send to Demedia."
    "To Morthu?" I asked, though I knew it was true. Our eyes met, and she raised her chin in affirmation. Veniva had hated Morthu as much as I had since the day of Morien's death. I felt ill at the thought of Morthu reading
    Urdo's letters and knowing so much of what he thought and dreamed. I took a slow breath and tried to clear my head. "The most urgent thing is Marchel," I said, putting my hand on the map again. "Did he say exactly where she would land?"
    "He didn't know," Veniva said. "But you're wrong. The most urgent thing is writing to the kings. If Marchel lands that is an invasion; that doesn't break the Peace. If the kings rise—it will be the way it was after Avren's death. I have lived through that once, and we so barely saved anything of civilization that time. If it happens again that will be the end, I think, the end of everything that was good about Vincan ways of life, the end of Peace, and the world will go down in darkness and petty squabbling forever." She leaned forward and gripped my arm with surprising strength. "Even if Urdo wins he will not be able to hold the country without the trust of the kings. If there is constant war, the next time somebody manages to stop it there will be nobody left who knows how to make pipes for hot water or who can remember how to make laws people will keep. We must hold onto this fragment of Peace whatever happens or there will be nobody left to understand what Peace is"
    I had never realized how much it meant to her. "I will write to them," I said. "But I am only one person, and I
    am not sure how much they trust me. I don't know if they think of me as a king like them or if they think I am the High King's Praefecto first and Lord of Derwen afterward." I knew that some of them at least thought that.
    Custennin had never made any secret of it.
    "And are you?" Veniva asked, never taking her eyes off mine for an instant.
    I hesitated. "I never wanted to be Lord of Derwen, but I have always done my best for land and people, as my father did. I am Lord of Derwen; I stand between land and people, before the gods. They are my responsibility, and I accept that as I have accepted it since we came home after Morien died. But I still serve Urdo the High
    King, and always will."
    "That would go very badly with Flavien," Veniva said, releasing my arm. She stood up. "Still, you must write to them for whatever little good it may do to hold the Peace. Tell them you support Urdo and he is no tyrant, whatever he is doing in Bregheda."
    "What choice does he have in Bregheda?" I asked. "Glyn is—"
    "If the kings won't accept it, and it seems they won't, then Urdo is being stupid," Veniva said firmly.
    "There is nobody alive who is the child or the grandchild of a king of Bregheda," I said.
    "Cyndylan's horse tripped and he broke his neck, then old Penda died of grief for the last of his sons. Urdo had to make a decision."
    "Make a decision, yes. He didn't have to make one that would antagonize half the kings.
    Glyn is the great-grandson of Minmanton of Bregheda, yes, but he is also Urdo's own man, and everyone knows