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TOMAS AND THE KNIGHT-HOLDER OF MARCH
"Let me tell you about the Knight-Holder of March," I said, knowing that the story would damn me in her eyes, and knowing that only by damning myself could I ever convince her to trust me nough to do what needed to be done..
She had come to my room as I had known she would ever since I had made the decision to leave my Holding at Martyr's Tor and travel here to Cassel for the Harvest Festival, to once again see my brother and my niece, my last remaining relatives, and try to save their lives. I knew that her father had sent her (and in the company of the Protector's Conveyor for goodness sake!) because he knew I could not keep from her what I would have kept from him. My brother knows me well, even though it had been ten years since we had seen each other and good judges have said that I have become a different man in that time. My brother knows better.
Katherine is like a picture of her mother, the woman I had failed to save ten years ago through my own inadequacies, however much I wanted to blame Elias at the time. But Katherine isn't as strong as her mother. She may not be strong enough for what faces her. Certainly, she will need to be pushed into making decisions which need to be made. She has to see the threat.
So I told her what Ksaver was going to do. That he wasn't just going to assert his authority as the Margin's foremost Knight-Holder. His aim was to have himself made Warden or at least the only candidate for Warden once Elias died. And I told her why that would be a disaster, how Ksaver could never have any legitimacy as Warden, how he would inadvertently weaken the Boundaries in the very place that they were most vulnerable. I knew she would doubt the story, her own fear of having to make decisions leading her to be dishonest with herself. I needed to convince her that there was a plot here, not just a personal vendetta.
So I used the most powerful tool at my disposal. I told her the story.
"Ksaver was not always the man he is now. He would never have challenged your father in his youth. The man he is now has been made.
"We were great friends when we were young. Inseparable. He was fostered here after his mother died, so we grew up together as brothers. You know of course that I was much the youngest of my father's children. Ksaver was much closer in years to me than any of my siblings.
"When we were eighteen, we were sent together to spend three years at the Protector's Court in Kahrain. In Kahrain we met Ksaver's betrothed, Caroline, the daughter of the Landholder of Correl who was also to spend three years in the capital. The betrothal had been arranged years before by their parents. He had spent time in Correl and she in March and they had come to know and love each other. It was one occasion when the arrangement had worked. Ksaver was besotted with her.
"So was I.
"For two years I never said anything to either of them. I believed that they would be happy together, I still believe that they would have been. But I spent as much time as I could with her and I became her closest friend. I prayed with all my being that she and Ksaver would fall out and she would turn to me. Even so, I believed that I was hiding my feelings, but she knew.
"One summer's evening, in Emilinda's Garden next to the Protector's Watch, she told me. And, just as I was denying it she hushed me and told me that she felt the same.For a moment my heart sang But then my misguided sense of duty smothered it. I told her that this could not be, that I wouldn't betray my friend. As if I hadn't already. I left her alone in the gardens.
"The Boundaries teach us that the Truth is not the same as Honesty, that we can be dishonest without being untruthful. This is what I had done. I had never once lied to my friends, but I hadn't been honest with either of them. I had told myself that I was doing what was best. I fact, I was just taking the easy option. Honesty would have been difficult and painful, but we would have faced the dilemma together.
"Ksaver and I were together when a messenger arrived from the Protector himself, calling us into his presence. We were directed to his private office. He was already past his prime then, his vitality beginning to wane. But he still knew how to command a room. In this little chamber, his presence was almost overbearing. It was a moment before I noticed that Caroline was there as well, the only other person present.
"Caroline had gone to the Protector to ask for her betrothal to be annulled because she had fallen in love with me. She hadn't told Ksaver or me, or even hinted. She told me later that she had wanted to know that it was possible before she told me. She hadn't understood that the Protector would act in the way he did. The Boundaries dictated that the truth be brought into the open.
"Ksaver was mortified. He could not bring himself to believe that Caroline and I hadn't been having an affair behind his back. The Protector packed us off back to the Margin where Caroline's request would be judges by the Warden. Because they would have lived in the Margin, Elias had the responsibility to judge her request.
"Ksaver refused to travel with us. He had left the city within two hours, traveling alone and leaving me to escort Caroline. The Protector had been very firm in making sure that we understood that Caroline remained betrothed to Ksaver and not to me. He told me that there was certain to be a scandal once this became public but that I mustn't allow gossip to become truth. All the way south, I rode as one of the Troop which the Protector had assigned as escort. I made sure that we had barely any contact and that what we had was in public.
"Caroline had got over her initial shock at the speed of events and had settled into a sort of fatalistic contentment now that she had made her decision to be open and all the other decisions would be made by other people.
"Ksaver had been in Cassel for a week by the time we got there, and he had already told his story to Elias. But the Warden knew his job well enough not to blindly believe Ksaver's accusations of trysts and dishonour. He listened to Caroline and to the Conveyor that the Protector had sent to give his version of events. By the time he talked to me, he already knew what had happened and, I believe, he had made his decision.
"But he wanted to be sure that I knew what he was about to do. That I understood it and why he had to act as he was going to. He wanted me to acknowledge my responsibility.
"He was going to break a formal contract between two of the Protectorate's Landholders. He was sure that it was within his rights, and more to the point that it was the right thing to do. He said that to force Caroline into a marriage against her will would simply ensure an unhappy life for her and for Ksaver. It would lead to dishonesty and betrayal. His duty to Ward the Boundaries would not allow him to bless a union which would inevitably weaken them.
"The victim of the decision would be Ksaver. His love for Caroline remained undiminished. But now he could not marry her without spending his life knowing that she wanted to be with someone else. This was my responsibility because I chose to keep my feelings for Caroline secret. When I chose to be dishonest with myself and my friends I was taking the easiest course rather than the right one. And when I made that choice I committed a crime against Ksaver and Caroline. Had I been honest, then dealing with it would have been a shared responsibility. I denied Ksaver the chance to resolve the problem in a way which may have allowed the relationship between the three of us to be healed.
"The relationship between people are what bind the Protectorate together and protect the people. I sundered the relationship between Ksaver, Caroline and me with my dishonesty. Ksaver was never able to trust us again. Elias annulled the betrothal knowing that it was likely to destroy his relationship with the man who would become the most powerful Landholder in the Margin.
"Because of my dishonesty.
"But when Ksaver had the best excuse in the world to go against the Warden, when his world had crumbled and he felt betrayed by his best friend and his love, and Elias had taken the thing he cared about most away from him, Ksaver did not turn on him. He accepted the Warden's right to make the decision and he accepted it in good grace. He made a point of seeking a private meeting with Elias to tell him that March would stand with the Ward as it always had when he inherited.
"Let me be clear. The Ksaver I knew would not have turned on your father. Even the Ksaver I betrayed did not do that. This Ksaver has been made by somebody else. Your job and mine is to find out who."
Her face had remained blank throughout his story. She stood when he was finished and told him that she would think over what he had said. That was all. She simply turned and walked, without hurrying but not wasting any time, to the door taking her Conveyor companion with her.
He walked to the window and looked out over the courtyard towards the great Watch which squatted threateningly beyond the low, circular Counsel building. Sander emerged from behind the curtain where he had listened to the conversation.
"Do you think it worked?" he asked, knowing what the answer would be but wanting to hear it.
"You should have told her the rest of it. You are committing the same crime as you did then," was Sander's predictable reply.
"Yet I can tell her no more until I know that I can trust her. But she's the only one who can do what needs to be done."
"You could still tell Elias." This argument had been fought and won months ago at Martyr's Tor, but Sander wouldn't give up an argument just because he had lost it.
"You know why that won't work. If he knows then there is only one thing he can do and that would be disastrous."
Sander would have continued the argument but that was the moment that Gabriella and Viria arrived back from the Town with the news that the conflict that was brewing this Harvest Festival in Cassel had claimed its first life.

  

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