• May 21, 2012 /  Memoir

    If she had said those words in life, the ones written in her will, none would have batted an eye.  There would have never been a question of it.  None of it the slightest stretch of the imagination to those who knew her.  But now, in her death, Charmaine ab Harmon had lost either her judgement or her strength, or so he would have us believe.

    Undue Vandagan influence.  The accusation was on many lips, Kaemgen ab Beauparlant’s chief among them.  Always charismatic, even then.

    I have said before that living with his wife’s betrayal broke Kaemgen, but in this time, in the wake of Charmaine’s death, was when I learned how deep those cracks ran.  He spoke for Charmaine as her half-brother by marriage, nevermind that those ties were cut for Aureliane’s would-be crimes.  I think that he truly believed it, that he thought he knew her better than any other.  But his protests gave lie to that fact, for all he didn’t see it.  Always they were well and truly his own concerns and never hers.

    Cecil dul Montaigne was an early friend on my arrival in Lithmore.  An unquestionably Vavardi man, I found him well-reasoned and worthy of my respect.  When I met him, he was what the sainted Cardinal Jochen ab Blackwell called his camerlengo, and in the following years he also served as Grand Inquisitor and then Cardinal himself.  When he stepped down as Cardinal, I had not thought it was something which was done, but I did not blame him for it; the weight Lithmore puts upon her Cardinals, the every detail of shameful sin which must be fought, is more than I would ever ask.

    But I digress.  Whatever I might have thought of Cecil dul Ansari, dul Montaigne before his ennoblement, others held darker views.  Cardinal Aidan Samson saw the new Marquis publicly branded for his actions when he was Cardinal. 

    And Aureliane confided to me that the branding was at Kaemgen’s urgings, based on private confessions and driven by old jealousies. 

    I think it surprised no one when Samson disappeared a short time later; Charmaine never recognized Cecil’s branding except in the most practical sense.  Only recently appointed as her Keeper of the Seal, he continued to fill that role behind the scenes as his new wife took it on officially.

    And in her final wishes, Charmaine requested that he take that mantle back up, and with it a seat on a new regency council that would rule, the first seat.  Is it any wonder that Kaemgen objected?  His gambit had failed and his enemy had suddenly become the most powerful man in the Kingdom.

    Of course he did not use those words, and, of course, the arrangement was not a standard one. 

    Ianka von Dusairus’s unborn son, the offspring of Prince Enakai, would be king, and until his majority, a regency council would rule in his place:  each of the Dukes and the Keeper of the Seal, Cecil dul Ansari.  Between them, they were to ensure that Lithmore was wisely governed, five voices to reach sensible and even decisions. 

    Kaemgen protested that Vandago was behind this.  Charmaine would not have wanted this.  We should have her son Enakai as King and it was only through their meddling that she did not declare it so. 

    No matter that she was quite clear in life that he would never inherit, after his actions at the royal summit.  And that Vandago was likely offended that neither the unborn king’s mother nor grandfather were to serve as regent.  And that Anastaci von Dusairus was soon found just as dead as Charmaine.  It was far easier to point to Charmaine’s trust of Anastaci, her Keeper’s brand, and the fact her will was changed only shortly before her death.

    We fought, Kaemgen and I, in the days following Charmaine’s death.  His words were incendiary.  The people would not stand for it.  Vandago must be stopped.  Enakai should be crowned.  But I would not listen to his madness, and it drove a wedge between us.  I would not condone war, and I told him I believed Charmaine’s wishes were her own.  And I told Cecil of his rebellion, worried for his sanity.  He saw demons everywhere, overtaken by the suspicion that had become his life.  I think he truly believed them, in the dark place that his life had become, but I would not let it influence me against Charmaine’s words, whatever friend he might once have been.

    And then he was gone, fled into hiding.

    I worried for him, but the Kingdom needed me.  They would be hard times, especially if Kaemgen incited riot, and the Regency Council was untested.  I would advise them as best I could, rising to whatever challenges would be ahead in a world without Charmaine.

    Posted by Marisa @ 8:38 pm