Free The King's Name by Jo Walton

opened it reluctantly.
    "Sulien, this is the hardest letter I've ever had to write, and it doesn't seem right I have to write it twice. It was bad enough the first time. It seems impossible not to trust you, but then it would have seemed impossible not to trust Urdo, or other people I trusted and had proof, real proof, before my eyes, that they were deceiving me and in league against me.
    "But Sulien, old comrade, even if I don't trust myself or my own judgment, I still trust you. I remember when I
    first met you, you were gangly and overgrown and your hair was all spiky and you came out of nowhere with your sword in your hand ready to fight anyone as long as you got to fight.
    Everything seemed so simple then.
    I was young and there wasn't any question who the enemy was. In those days I thought Urdo was true and just and honorable—I can't believe he wasn't, however much he may have changed since. We were all so young, you and me and Osvran, dear Osvran, and Eirann, so beautiful.
    "Forgive me rambling, Sulien, but you probably have the other letter that says it all clearly. The mead helped me write that one, but I'm not sure it's helping me now, because I'm wishing I was that young decurio prince
    with nothing to worry about but keeping my lance pointed in the right direction. Yet they call me "the Lucky"
    because of Quintien. Nobody is lucky who has to live in a house with Morthu and hear his poison in my ears all day long. And once you give in to him, even a little way, then you give in more and more until he has fingers everywhere, he will not be content with enough. I don't know whom to trust!"
    I could feel his pain coming through the words. But what could Morthu have done to turn him against Urdo? I
    skimmed down the page; more pain, examples of friends who had betrayed him, warnings against trusting the mails because Urdo was interfering with them. Urdo? How could he believe Page 28

    that? He said Urdo had come to want power and control. I just shook my head reading it. Then I came to a piece about Bregheda and read more slowly.
    "This latest insult is meant to take me straight in the teeth. I have written and written to him about it and he either ignores my letters entirely or writes to me slightingly ignoring my concerns and saying he is sure I will understand. Penda of Bregheda died, as you will have heard. His son and heir Cyndylan died before him, having no children. Cyndylan died in Dun Idyn in fact, he had come here with his wife to make a pilgrimage to Thandeilo in the hope she might conceive. So there is nobody living with an undisputed claim to be king of
    Bregheda. Naturally Urdo must choose, and of those possible he chooses a commoner, and not just a commoner but his own man, a nobody he has raised to be great, whose wife was a groom and who will be loyal to Urdo only and not to the land. This Glyn has an older brother who is lord of Clidar, a part of Bregheda.
    He could not rule the whole land, but he had children who would be suitable, with the lord of Clidar as regent.
    Or if this did not suit Urdo, my own grandmother, though not his, Avren's first wife Branwen, was Minmanton's daughter, and so all my kin have a claim on Bregheda. Any of my children save my heir would be ideal, or any of Penarwen's save the eldest, or, as my first thought was, it would be something for Morthu to do which would give him responsibility suited to his station and get him out of my house! He could even marry one of
    Clidar's girls, when they're old enough. But no. I wrote to Urdo suggesting this, and I know Morthu has written. He has not even refused it, he has ignored me and appointed a man of low breeding without consultation, either with me or with the land. You know how important it is that the land consents, and Urdo must know, yet he appoints some quartermaster who has not lived there since he was fifteen years old."
    He went on in this vein for some time. Angas was clearly wounded deeply. It was all nonsense.
    He did