“What about his mother?” Sasha pressed. “I hear stories.”
“Oh everyone in this city tells stories,” Alythia scoffed. “Lady Renine is an amazing woman. She’s well educated, she speaks five tongues and knows so much of the history of these lands, yet the Civid Sein speak of her as though she were stupid. She’s the reason Alfriedo has had such a good education. She is a fine mother to her son.”
“And what of you?” Sasha pressed. “What is your situation with them?”
“Family Renine have been very kind,” said Alythia, with measured satisfaction. “I have been granted my own quarters, with a staff of five. I am a guest of the noble household.”
“I can think of several other words for it.”
“Such as?”
“Hostage. Bargaining piece.”
“Sasha, all institutions shall seek power and leverage,” Alythia said impatiently, “including this one. You don’t think the Nasi-Keth seek similar advantage from you and Kessligh?”
Sasha opened her mouth to retort, then thought of Ulenshaal Sevarien and Reynold Hein, their efforts toward the Civid Sein and their attempts to drag her and Kessligh into it. She looked away in frustration.
Alythia frowned at her. “Sasha, is something the matter? You seem a little…tense.”
“I’m all right.” She was actually pleased that Alythia had noticed. “Unwanted male attention,” she admitted.
Alythia smiled broadly. “Ah,” she said wisely. “You can’t kill them all, can you?” Sasha scowled at her. “It’s someone of status, yes? Someone well regarded within the Nasi-Keth? Difficult when there are no clear lines of good and evil, isn’t it?”
“I’m glad it amuses you.”
Alythia clasped Sasha’s hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re finally in my world. I cannot be the blunt instrument all the time that you are, Sasha. Or the sharp one, more correctly. I can’t just fight people who offend me, there is too much etiquette at play, too many conflicting loyalties. If I have been short with you in the past, it is perhaps because you seemed to have so much success taking the easy way out, and fighting. I’ve had to tolerate fools, Sasha, and unwanted advances, and all kinds of demeaning nonsense. You never did, and I envied that.”
Sasha smiled at her, and grasped her hand tightly in return. They had been enemies for so long, and now, they were friends. It was the discovery of long-lost family.
“So, how do you see it?” she asked. “What do Family Renine want from you?”
“It’s difficult to say,” Alythia said. “I’m not entirely certain they are themselves sure. But consider the options from their perspective. First, the Army of Lenayin wins, and marches on Tracato. They have me for a hostage, or at least for a negotiator, perhaps to put in a good word for them with our father.”
“If you were wed to one of them…” Sasha added, and did not need to complete the sentence.
“There have been leading questions,” Alythia admitted. “But no firm offers for now. Under Lenay law the marriage would not stand without the king’s first prior approval…”
“Unlikely,” Sasha agreed.
“But it bears thinking on. The second option is that the Army of Lenayin loses, in which case they may expect to see members of our family fall.” Sasha nodded grimly. “In that case, there is no telling where I would stand within the succession-”
“Nowhere, as women cannot sit the throne.”
“But if wedded, what of my husband?”
Sasha stared at her for a moment, thinking that over. “No no no,” she said. “I’m not that far gone from noble circles that I don’t know at least the basic rules of succession. Foreign husbands can’t inherit, men have to be true born Lenays. It’s Koenyg, then Wylfred-”
“Who has taken the oath of brotherhood and cannot stand,” said Alythia.
“Then Damon and Myklas,” Sasha finished. “You’re older than Damon but he and Myklas still come before you as men…”
“And if they all fall?” Alythia said sombrely.
Sasha didn’t like to think about that, but circumstance demanded she must. “I’m not sure anyone knows. Our family’s only sat the throne for a hundred years. The circumstance has never arisen.”
“This is the point, Sasha. I’m not sure that anyone knows.”
“But surely…I mean, Great-Grandpa Soros must have written it down?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alythia, “the rules of succession are set, as you said. But they’re old, Sasha, and untested. You know Lenayin, you know the battle to get the lords to do anything the way it’s supposed to happen. Lenayin today is a vastly different nation than Grandpa Soros thought it would be, a hundred years since the Liberation.”
Sasha nodded. Alythia made a lot of sense. “If all our family’s men fall, what’s supposed to happen?”
“Sons of the oldest heir,” said Alythia, “in descending order of course.”
“Little nephew Dany,” Sasha said distastefully. “A Hadryn inherits the throne.”
“He’s not actually Hadryn.”
“His mother is. And if Koenyg were dead, she’d rule his choices, the Archbishop would control his education…”
“Yes,” Alythia conceded with a shrug. “It would be like the Hadryn acquiring the throne of Lenayin, certainly. Which would upset so many Lenay lords, to say nothing of Lenay people, that likely war would result. Which is why I don’t think the lords would allow it to happen, and Grandpa’s rules of succession be damned.”
“So who would have an equal competing claim? Surely not a son of yours with some Tracato noble?”
“Sasha, think about it.” Alythia leaned forward, eyes deadly serious. “What has been the single greatest advantage our family has had in ruling Lenayin the last century? The reason why the lords don’t just get rid of us, as they so easily could?”
“We don’t get involved in lordly disputes.”
“Exactly. Baen-Tar is not a true province, and the royal family has no provincial loyalty. We’re independent. The lords abide by Father’s decisions because they know he is impartial. However much they disagree with any decision he makes against them, they’d still rather keep the king on the throne because they know the one to replace him would be a provincial great lord, and that would be intolerable.”
“Like having a Hadryn on the throne,” Sasha said slowly.
“Exactly,” said Alythia, knocking the table for emphasis. “Half of Lenayin would rather tear the land apart than see it happen, because they know the chances of impartiality from a Hadryn king are precisely nil. And the Hadryn know the same of them.”
“You think that an outsider, born in Tracato…”
“As Grandpa Soros was educated in Petrodor,” Alythia agreed, “to the extent that he was practically a Torovan when he ascended to the throne and barely spoke a native tongue…”
“Oh,” said Sasha.
“It’s not without precedent in Lenayin,” Alythia concluded. “Most of the great lords would rather see a son of mine, raised in Tracato, ascend to the throne than any son of Koenyg’s.”
“Wait, there’s Petryna, she’s older than you.”
“And her son is heir to the Great Lordship of Yethulyn, same problem as with Hadryn. And Marya’s older than us all, but the chances that any in Lenayin would let sons of the new King Marlen of Torovan ascend are unlikely, given it would simply make Lenayin a province of Torovan, beneath the command of King Marlen Steiner.”
“And a son of Sofy would be beholden to the commands of Larosan nobility,” Sasha added.
“Besides which, I’m older,” Alythia agreed. “But yes, the very advantage of it being a son of mine, if the Army of Lenayin lost its fight, is that Family Renine are relatively powerless outside of Rhodaan. If the Army of Lenayin had lost, it would certainly suggest the current order here would still stand, which precludes Family Renine from assuming any greater feudal power. Meaning a son of mine would be a true outsider, with no unwanted connections. Perfect for Lenayin.”