Free The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham Page B

young beauty—Aleera—who seemed of more import to him than his throne. Beside him his chancellor: resolute, confident, disciplined, a gifted swordsman, ambitious in the ways that Leodan was not.
    “Leodan was never exactly a jewel in his father’s eye,” Maeander said, grinning.
    Gridulan, he claimed, thought his son weak. But a son is a son; Gridulan had no other. He could not be denied. This is why Gridulan did the best he could to harden Leodan, even as he watched Thaddeus from the corner of his eye. He wanted his son to have a strong chancellor, but he had reason to fear Thaddeus’s gifts. Thaddeus was an Agnate, after all. He could trace his lineage back to Edifus himself. He might, in certain circumstances, make a legitimate claim to the throne. This became a greater threat—from the old king’s perspective—when Thaddeus wed a young woman, Dorling, also from an Agnate family. They had a boy child their first year together, a full two years
before
Aleera would give birth to Aliver. So there was strong Thaddeus, an officer in the Marah, with a young wife and child, with a fine lineage and the adoration of the populace and support of the governors—who saw the chancellor as a shrewd advocate for their causes. In short, Thaddeus had become a threat that Gridulan could not ignore, even if Leodan was oblivious to it.
    “Guess what he did about it,” Maeander urged. “Have you any idea?”
    Rialus did not, although it took him some moments to convince Maeander of this.
    “I’ll have to tell you, then,” the Mein went on. “Gridulan conspired with one of his companions. At the king’s bidding, this companion acquired a rare poison, the kind used by leaguemen. Deadly stuff. He personally saw to it that Dorling consumed a dose of it in her tea. Her child—still nursing—was poisoned through his mother’s milk. Both died.”
    “They were killed at the king’s order?” Rialus asked.
    “Just so.”
    At the time nobody knew what to make of the deaths. Some suspected murder, but no fingers were pointed—not in the right direction, at least. Gridulan was the first to offer Thaddeus condolences. Leodan was beside himself with grief. Thaddeus himself bore his suffering admirably, but he was never the same man afterward. Gridulan had chosen well. He managed to snuff out Thaddeus’s ambition while leaving the man alive to aid his son. Leodan did not find out about the murders until some years later, after his father died and he read his private logs. But what was he to do with the knowledge that his own father had killed his best friend’s wife and child all in order to protect him?
    “Perhaps a strong man would have confessed everything to his friend,” Maeander said, shrugging, for he did not seem certain of this point. “Perhaps. In any event, Leodan kept his mouth shut. He told nobody, only meting out punishment against his father’s companion, the one who had administered the poison. Have you any idea who this person was?”
    Maeander did not wait for Rialus to answer this time. “That’s right,” he said. “Your beloved father, Rethus, set the poison into play! That is why you are here before me now, a miserable governor of a miserable province. You are being punished—as was your father before you—for loyalty to Gridulan. Family secrets run deep, Rialus. I can tell by the perplexity on your face that I have both delivered surprises to you and answered old questions at the same time.”
    It took Rialus a moment to gather his wits enough to ask, “How do you know all this?”
    Maeander looked to one side and spit out an olive pit. “My brother has a great many friends in positions to know such things. The league, for example, watches all of this with interest, glad to offer bits and pieces of information to help us stir the pot. Believe me, Rialus, the story I just told you is true. A few months ago my brother shared the information with Thaddeus Clegg himself. The news made quite an