He saw the bearded man standing in the front row, well dressed but obviously not an aristocrat. Then he saw the man's right hand, and his own hand flashed towards the pistol at his side even as he leapt forward and his other hand reached for Sharleyan.

But that instant of shock had held him just too long.

The double-barreled pistol in Hainree's hand had been made in Charis. He'd found that grimly appropriate when one of his original followers ambushed and murdered a Marine officer and brought him the weapon as a trophy.

It had been surprisingly difficult to acquire any sort of accuracy with the thing, and he'd quickly used up all of the ammunition which had been captured with it. A silversmith had no problem preparing the mold he needed to cast his own bullets, however, and he'd practiced hard even before Sir Koryn Gahrvai had arrested Father Aidryan and broken Hainree's own organization. He'd also sawed two inches off its barrel in order to make it more easily concealable and he'd devised a canvas scabbard to carry it under his left arm, hidden inside his generously cut tunic. There'd been times he'd wondered why he'd bothered, and why he'd kept a weapon which would automatically have convicted him of treason against the Regency Council if it had been found in his possession.

Now, as the heel of his left hand cocked both locks in a single, practiced swipe, his right hand raised the weapon, and he squeezed the trigger.

Flame flashed from the pistol's priming pan and Merlin heard the distinctive "chuff-CRACK!" of a discharging flintlock in the instant before he reached Sharleyan.

His own pistol fired in the same fragment of time. It all happened far too quickly, too chaotically, for even a PICA to sort out. The two shots sounded as one, the assassin's second barrel discharged into the floor, Merlin's fingertips touched Sharleyan's shoulder ... and he heard her sudden sharp grunt of anguish.

Impossible.

The single word had time to flash through Paitryk Hainree's mind before the sapphire-eyed Imperial Guardsman's bullet exploded through his right lung a quarter inch from his heart. No human being could move that quickly, react that quickly!

Then the agony ripped him apart. He heard himself cry out, felt the pistol buck in his hand as the second barrel fired uselessly, felt himself going to his knees. He dropped the smoking weapon, both hands clawed at the brutal chest wound, he felt blood spraying from his mouth and nostrils in a choking, coppery tide, and a sudden terrible fear roared through him.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He'd come here knowing he was going to his death, succeed or fail, so what was wrong with him? Why should the actual approach of death terrify him this way? What had happened to his faith, his belief? And where was God's comfort and courage when he needed Him most?

There were no answers, only the questions, and he felt even them pouring out of him with his blood as he swayed and then toppled weakly from his knees.

But I did it, he told himself, his cheek pressed into the floor in the hot pool of his own blood as the blackness came for him. I did it. I killed the bitch.

And somehow, in that last bitter moment of awareness, it meant nothing at all.

.IX.

Sir Koryn Gahrvai's Townhouse and Royal Palace, City of Manchyr "So what do you think of her now, Alyk?"

Koryn Gahrvai sat back in his comfortable chair, listening to rain drum on the roof. The lanterns illuminating the garden at the heart of the square-built townhouse were barely visible through the pounding raindrops, and thunder rumbled intermittently, still somewhere to the south but rolling steadily closer.

"I'd ask her to marry me, if she weren't already married to an emperor," Alyk Ahrthyr said. He reached out to the punch bowl on the table and stirred it gently with the silver ladle, then snorted. "And if she didn't scare me to death!" he added.

"Now why should she do a thing like that?" Gahrvai's father asked sardonically. He sat at the head of the table, in the chair which would normally have been his son's, nursing a glass of Chisholmian whiskey. "It's not like she's done anything extraordinary lately, now is it?"

All five of the men sitting around that table looked at one another as a louder peal of thunder grumbled its way across the heavens. Lightning flickered, and Gahrvai raised his own glass in an acknowledging salute to his father before he looked at the Earl of Tartarian and Sir Charlz Doyal.

"Did either of you see that coming?" he asked.

"Which 'that' did you have in mind?" Tartarian inquired dryly. "Her performance, the assassination attempt, Seijin Merlin, or the fact that she survived?"

"How about all the above?" Gahrvai retorted.

"I didn't see any of it coming, at any rate," Doyal admitted. "Just for starters, she certainly hadn't discussed any pardons that I knew of."

He raised his eyebrows at Earl Anvil Rock and Earl Tartarian, but both of the older men shook their heads.

"Not with us," Anvil Rock said. "And I had a word with Archbishop Klairmant afterward, too. She hadn't mentioned anything about it to him, either."

"I didn't think she had," Doyal said. "And something I find almost as interesting is that she didn't ask anyone for a copy of their trial transcripts, either. Despite which she seemed to know more about all of them than we did."

"That might actually be the most easily explained part of it," Tartarian observed. Doyal looked at him with an expression of polite incredulity, and the earl chuckled. "Don't forget, it was Seijin Merlin's agents here in Corisande that put us onto the plot in the first place, and we still don't have any idea how they gathered some of the information they gave us." He shrugged. "All we do know is that every bit of that information checked out when we investigated. I think it's entirely possible they may have kept back some facts and suspicions they figured couldn't be proven in a court, and I don't imagine Merlin would have many reservations about sharing something like that with Empress Sharleyan."

"I suppose that could explain it," Doyal said in a tone which implied he believed nothing of the sort, and Tartarian pointed an index finger at him.

"Don't you go shooting holes in my perfectly good theory unless you've got one to replace it with, young man," he said severely. Doyal, who wasn't that many years Tartarian's junior, laughed, and Tartarian shook his head. But then his expression sobered. "And don't go shooting holes in my theory until you've got an explanation that won't scare the shit out of me when you come up with it, either."

"She really is more than a little frightening, isn't she?" Gahrvai said into the small silence Tartarian's last sentence had produced. Lightning flashed again overhead, close enough this time that the thunderclap seemed to rattle the opened garden windows in their frames.

"I'm not sure frightening is exactly the right word," his father objected, but Tartarian made a moderately rude noise in his throat.

"It'll do until we can come up with a better one, Rysel," he said.

"I think a lot of it was Archbishop Maikel's fault," Doyal put in. The others looked at him and he raised his right hand, palm uppermost as if he were releasing an invisible bird. "Remember how he reacted after that assassination attempt in Tellesberg Cathedral. According to the reports, he didn't even hesitate-just went ahead and celebrated mass with the assassins' blood and brains splashed all over his vestments. Frankly, I had my doubts about the stories at the time; now I'm starting to think it must be something in the water in Charis!"

"You may be righter about that than you think you are, Charlz," Gahrvai said ruefully. Doyal raised an eyebrow, and Gahrvai shrugged. "Don't forget, before he celebrated mass, he also rebuked the members of his congregation who wanted to go out and start stringing up Temple Loyalists in revenge. Does that remind you of anything?"

Doyal gazed at him for a moment, then nodded, and Gahrvai nodded back while his mind replayed the chaos and confusion of the assassination attempt.

The only thing he'd been able to think when the would-be killer shouted was that Cayleb Ahrmahk would never forgive Corisande for allowing his wife to be murdered on her very throne. There'd been no way the man could miss, not from a range of no more than fifteen feet. Gahrvai would have been one of the first to admit that it was far harder to fire a pistol accurately than most people probably believed, especially when someone was gripped by the excitement and terror of a moment like that. Still, at that range? The man could almost have reached out and touched her with the pistol's muzzle before he pulled the trigger!

But his fears-like the assassin, apparently-had failed to reckon with Merlin Athrawes. Despite all the stories Gahrvai had heard, and despite the things he knew firsthand were true, he would never have believed any mortal man could move that quickly. The seijin clearly hadn't seen anything coming before the assassin produced his weapon. Despite that, the first two shots had sounded as one, and his bullet had hit the man who'd been identified as Bahrynd Laybrahn (although Gahrvai sincerely doubted that had been his true name) before "Laybrahn" could fire his second shot. The smear of lead where Laybrahn's second bullet smashed into the marble floor was barely two feet in front of where his body had fallen, and Spynsair Ahrnahld's left shoulder had been grazed by the ricochet before it buried itself in the ceiling.

Gahrvai had been in more than his fair share of chaotic, violent situations. He knew how impressions could blur, how a man could be absolutely positive of what he'd seen ... and yet absolutely wrong about what had actually happened. And Merlin had reacted so quickly, moved with such speed once he did see the weapon, that he'd seemed almost to have been teleported by a wizard's spell out of some children's tale. But still, granting all of that, it simply didn't seem possible Sharleyan could have been missed.

Yet when Captain Athrawes rolled aside, coming up on one knee from where he'd covered her protectively with his own body, she'd been unhurt. Well, perhaps not totally unhurt, which certainly shouldn't surprise anyone. Merlin had been more concerned with protecting her from assassins than gentleness, and the weight of an armored man his size coming down that hard would have been enough to knock the breath out of anyone.

From Sharleyan's expression and the tightness of her shoulders when Merlin assisted her to her feet, Gahrvai had been certain for one heart-stopping moment that she had been hit. She'd leaned to her left, left hand pressed hard against her ribs, and her face had been pale and strained. But then she'd straightened, drawn an obviously cautious breath, and shaken her head-hard-at something Merlin must have said into her ear.

Shouts and screams had still filled the huge chamber, and no one else had been close enough to hear what the seijin might have said, anyway, but Gahrvai had no doubt at all what Merlin had advised. Unfortunately, even seijins had their limits, and one of those limits, clearly, was Sharleyan Tayt Ahrmahk.

"Be seated!" she'd shouted, and somehow she'd managed to pitch her voice so that it could be heard. Not by very many people at first, but those closest to her first stared at her in disbelief and then started repeating her command at the top of their lungs. In less than two minutes, by some sorcery Gahrvai didn't come close to understanding, she'd actually managed to restore something like order as she stood almost straight, one hand still pressed to her side.

Merlin Athrawes had stood beside her, his pistol still in his right hand, merciless sapphire eyes scanning the witness-filled benches, and Sergeant Seahamper had stood on her other side with an expression which could only be described as murderous. Gahrvai hadn't blamed either of them at all. God only knew if there was another assassin out there. It didn't seem possible, but then Gahrvai wouldn't have believed the first one could have gotten in unchallenged. And if there was another assassin, the slender white-and-blue-clad figure who'd lost her crown and whose long hair had come tumbling down about her shoulders would be a perfect target.

She'd seemed unaware of that, however, just as she'd seemed unaware of the bruise already darkening her left cheek. She'd simply stood there, exposed to any follow-up shot, willing the Corisandians back onto their benches. Only after the last of them sat had she seated herself once more, sitting very erect, her left elbow beside her and her upper arm still pressed against those ribs.

"Thank you," she'd said in a calm voice whose normality seemed utterly bizarre under the circumstances. Then she'd actually managed a smile, and if it was a bit shaky and passed quickly, who should blame her? She'd reached up with her right hand, tucking a strand of that fallen, glorious sable hair behind her ear and shaken her head.

"I deeply regret that this should have happened," she'd said, looking down at the body in the pool of blood as four of Gahrvai's guardsmen prepared to remove it. Her eloquent brown eyes had been shadowed, and she'd shaken her head sadly. "Surely God weeps to see such violence loosed among His children."

Stillness had seemed to flow outward from her. The scraping sound of the corpse's heels as the guardsmen picked up the body had seemed shockingly loud in the silence, and the empress had turned her head, watching as the man who'd tried to kill her was carried from her presence. A trail of blood droplets had followed him, dark in the lamplight as the guardsmen and their burden vanished through the double doors, and she'd gazed at those doors for a handful of heartbeats before she'd turned once more to look out at the assembled witnesses.

"There are times," she'd told them quietly, almost softly, "when all the killing and all the hatred strike me to the heart. When I wonder what sort of world my daughter will inherit? What kind of men and women will decide how the people of that world live? What they're allowed to believe?"

Gahrvai's eyes had widened as he realized she'd abandoned the royal "we." And they'd gone even wider as he saw those benches filled with Corisandians leaning towards a Chisholmian queen who was also a Charisian empress and listening intently. She'd no longer been a conquering monarch dispensing justice and retribution; she'd been something else. A young mother worried about her own child. A young woman who'd just survived a murder attempt. And a voice of calm when she should have been demanding vengeance upon those who had allowed such a thing to happen.

"Is this what we truly wish?" she'd asked in that same quiet voice. "To settle our differences with murder? For those of us on one side to leave those on the other no option but to kill or to be killed? It grieves my soul to know how many people-some of them known personally to me, some of them beloved friends and kinsmen, and far more who I never met but who were someone's kinsmen or kinswomen or beloved-have already died, yet the death toll is only starting. Yesterday I sat here in front of you and sent thirty-nine people to the headsman. Tomorrow and the next day I'll send still more, because I have no choice, and those decisions, those confirmations of the sentences of those brought before me, will live with me for the rest of my own life. Do you think any sane woman wants to order the deaths of others? Do you truly believe I wouldn't rather-far rather-pardon, as I've just pardoned Master Ibbet, Master Pahlmahn, Master Lahmbair, and young Dobyns? Despite anything the Group of Four may say, God does not call us to exult in the blood and agony of our enemies!"

She'd paused, her expression sad, her eyes dark in the shadows yet lit by the lamplight while the stink of blood and voided bowels and the brimstone reek of gunsmoke drifted like Shan-wei's perfume, and then she'd shaken her head.

"I wish I had some magic wand that could make all this go away, but I don't, and I can't. The only 'peace' someone like Zhaspahr Clyntahn will ever accept is the destruction of everything I know and love and hold dear. The only 'agreement' he will ever tolerate is one in which his own twisted, vicious perversion of God's will rules each and every one of God's children. Charis didn't start this war, my friends; Charis simply survived the war someone else launched at her like a slash lizard crazed by blood. And Charis will continue to do what she must to go on surviving, because that's what she owes to her own people, to her own children, and to God Himself.

"Which is what brings me to this throne in this room, delivering and confirming sentences of death. Many of these people amply deserve those sentences. For others the case is less clear-cut, however clear the law itself may be. And in still other cases, what the law decrees is neither true justice nor what compassion and mercy require. I must err on the side of caution in the cause of protecting that which I'm charged to protect, but where I can, where the chance exists, I'll grant that mercy whenever and however I may. I won't be able to do that as often as I wish, or as often as you could wish, but I'll do it as often as I can, and I'll ask God's help to live with the many times when I cannot."

A ripping sound had been loud in the stillness as Edwyrd Seahamper tore open Spynsair Ahrnahld's sleeve and applied a dressing of fleming moss from the emergency case each of her Imperial Guardsmen carried at his belt. She'd looked down, watching her secretary's pale face as the bandage was adjusted, then cocked her head at him.

"Can you continue, Spynsair?" she'd asked him, and Ahrnahld's hadn't been the only eyebrows which rose in astonishment at her question.

"Yes-I mean, of course, Your Majesty. If that's your wish," he'd said after a moment.

"Of course it's my wish," she'd replied with a crooked smile, that elbow and upper arm still pressed against her ribs. She'd sat very erect, but she'd also sat very still, and Gahrvai suspected it had hurt her to breathe. Yet if that was so, she'd allowed no sign of it to cross her expression or shadow her voice.

"We have much still to do today," she'd told her secretary, her eyes rising across the puddle of her assailant's blood to include the gathered witnesses in the same statement. "If we refuse to let Clyntahn and the Group of Four stop us, then we won't allow this to, either. Let us proceed."

And proceed she had, Koryn Gahrvai thought now. For another four hours, until lunch. She'd seemed unaware her hair was steadily tumbling into looser and looser falls about her shoulders, just as she'd seemed unaware when Merlin Athrawes picked up the crown which had fallen from her head and stood holding it in the crook of his left arm like a paladin's helmet. There'd been the slightest, barely perceptible breathlessness in her voice, like a catch of pain, yet it was so faint Gahrvai suspected most of those watching her never heard it at all.

Seventeen more people were sent to execution that morning ... but another six were pardoned. And in each case, Empress Sharleyan-still without notes-had recited the extenuating circumstances which led her to grant mercy in those cases. She'd continued unhurriedly, calmly, as if no one had ever attempted to harm her at all, and by the end of that morning, she'd held that audience of Corisandian witnesses in the palm of one slender hand.

The bell announcing the end of the morning session had sounded at last, and the empress had looked up with a wry smile.

"We trust no one will be disappointed if we adjourn for the day at this time," she'd said. "Under the circumstances, we believe it might be excusable."

There'd actually been an answering mutter of laughter, and her smile had grown broader.

"We'll take that as agreement," she'd told them, and stood.

She'd stepped down from the dais, and Gahrvai's eyes had narrowed as she took Merlin Athrawes' left arm. She'd swayed slightly, and her nostrils had looked pinched as she'd seemed to stumble for a moment. Her elbow had still pressed against her ribs, and there'd been a certain fragility to her normally graceful carriage, yet she'd smiled graciously at him and at the others who bowed as she passed them.

And then she'd been gone.

"How many women do you know who could've done what she did today?" Gahrvai asked now, looking around at his father and the others.

"Shan-wei!" Anvil Rock retorted. "Ask me how many men I know who could've done what she did today!"

"Either way, men or women, the answer is damned few," Tartarian said. "And don't think for a moment all those witnesses didn't realize it, too. Oh, I'm sure a lot of it was political calculation. She had to know how it would affect all of us. But even if that's true, she managed to do it, and I think it was at least as sincere as it was calculated. Probably more, to be honest."

"I think you're right," Gahrvai said. "And I have to ask myself whether or not those reports about her being 'uninjured' are truly accurate."

"Her ribs, you mean?" Windshare asked. Gahrvai nodded, and the dashing young earl shrugged. "I noticed that, too. Not that surprising, I suppose, with Merlin landing on top of her that way! Must've bruised the hell out of her."

"I think they were more than just bruised," Doyal said quietly. "I think it's entirely possible they were broken."

"Nonsense!" Anvil Rock objected. "I'm as impressed with her as any of you, but let's not get too carried away. Broken ribs are no joke, I've had my share of them over the years, by God! If she'd had that on top of almost being killed, not even she would have just sat there."

"With all due respect, My Lord," Doyal replied, "don't forget that this isn't the first time she's almost been killed. Think about that affair at Saint Agtha's. According to my reports, she picked up her dead Guardsmen's rifles and killed at least a dozen of the attackers herself!" He shook his head. "Whatever else Sharleyan Ahrmahk may be, she's no hothouse flower. In fact, I'm coming to the opinion that she's even tougher than we thought she was."

Gahrvai started to say something, then changed his mind and sat back in his chair. His father didn't seem to notice, but one of Tartarian's eyebrows quirked slightly. He looked a question at the younger Gahrvai, but Sir Koryn only shook his head with a smile and listened while Earl Anvil Rock disposed of the notion that even Empress Sharleyan would have continued to dispense justice with broken ribs.

Tartarian let the moment pass, and Gahrvai was just as happy he had. After all, there was time to double-check his men's report in the morning. The would-be assassin's first bullet had to have gone somewhere, and the fact that no one had been able to find it-yet!-proved nothing. He'd been certain they were going to find it embedded in the massive throne somewhere, but they hadn't, which meant it had to have hit the rear wall, instead, didn't it? Of course it did!

Still, probably better to keep his mouth shut until they did manage to find it. If his father found Doyal's notion that Sharleyan had managed to go right on with broken ribs ridiculous, he would have found the suggestion that perhaps-just perhaps-that bullet hadn't completely missed its mark after all ludicrous.

Because it is ludicrous, Koryn, Gahrvai told himself firmly. Absolutely ludicrous!

"I never want to hear another word about how stubborn Cayleb is," Merlin Athrawes said severely as he helped Sharleyan across her bedchamber. The rush of pouring rain and the rumble of thunder half drowned his voice, but she heard him and looked up with a battered, bruised, but still game smile.

He was glad to see it, but he'd been less than amused when he'd first gotten her back here.

The adrenaline, determination, and sheer willpower which had carried her from Princess Aleatha's Ballroom to her own suite had deserted her once she crossed the threshold. She'd virtually collapsed into Merlin's arms, and Sairaih Hahlmyn had fluttered around the seijin in shocked dismay as he'd scooped her up, carried her to her sleeping chamber, and deposited her gently on the enormous bed.

Sairaih's dismay had turned into something very like outrage as Merlin began calmly unbuttoning and unlacing the empress' gown.

"Seijin Merlin! What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, hush, Sairaih!" Sharleyan had said weakly, her voice much thinner and breathless than usual. "The seijin's a healer as well as a warrior, you ninny!"

"But, Your Majesty-!"

"I am not going to have a Corisandian healer in here examining me," Sharleyan had said flatly, sounding much more like her usual self for a moment. "The last thing we need is some wild rumor about how I was actually shot after all, and you know that's what would happen if word got out that I'd summoned healers to my bedchamber. By Langhorne's Watch, they'd have me on my deathbed!"

"But, Your Majesty-!"

"There's no point arguing with her, Sairaih," Merlin had said in a resigned voice. "Trust me, if there is any serious damage, Edwyrd and I will have a healer in here in a heartbeat, whatever she says. But she's probably right about the rumor potential, so if it's only bruising...."

"But, Your Majesty-!"