By Heresies Distressed by David Weber Page B

loneliness through him. It was still a marvel to him that someone should have become so deeply, almost painfully, vital to him in so short a time. And not just on a pragmatic level. In fact, if he was going to be honest with himself, not even
mostly
on a pragmatic level, any longer.
    He glanced over his shoulder to where Merlin rode at his back in the uniform of the new
Imperial
Charisian Guard. The blackened armor remained, as did the black tunic, but the golden kraken on Merlin’s breastplate now swam across a kite-shaped shield in the blue-and-white of the House of Tayt. Sharleyan’s personal guard detachment wore the same uniform, except that hers bore Chisholm’s doomwhale in place of the kraken.
    â€œImpressive, isn’t it?” the emperor said quietly, twitching his head at the building looming before them, and Merlin snorted.
    â€œSo is the Temple,” he pointed out, equally quietly. “The wrappings are less important than the contents.”
    â€œIs that one of those wise
seijin
proverbs?” Cayleb asked with a grin.
    â€œNo, but it probably should be.” Merlin cocked his head, studying the Hall’s imposing façade. “I wish Her Majesty were here to play tour guide,” he added.
    â€œSo do I,” Cayleb admitted, then stopped speaking as they reached their destination and halted in the space a cordon of halberd-armed Royal Army infantrymen had kept clear before Parliament Hall.
    The emperor swung down from his saddle, accompanied by the sharp-eyed, handpicked Imperial Guard troopers of Merlin’s detachment. Those guardsmen were even more alert than usual, Cayleb noticed. None of them were oblivious to just how convenient certain parties would find it if something fatal were to overtake one Cayleb Ahrmahk.
    Despite the cold temperature, which struck Cayleb and the majority of his Charisian-born bodyguards as outright frigid, a substantial crowd had assembled outside Parliament Hall. The overwhelming majority of the spectators standing there amid steamy clouds of exhaled breath were commoners, probably because most of the nobles in the capital were already sitting snugly in their seats inside the Hall, Cayleb thought just a bit enviously as the cheers began to rise. The crowd’s enthusiasm meant he had to proceed slowly, graciously, acknowledging their greetings rather than scurrying towards the Hall’s waiting warmth.
    His guardsmen almost certainly shared his desire to get inside and out of the wind as quickly as possible, but they allowed no sign of that eagerness to distract them from their duties. They formed a loose ring around him, wide enough to keep anyone who might break through the Army cordon from getting to him with a knife. Ranged weapons were more problematical, of course, but Cayleb took a certain satisfaction from the knowledge that Merlin and Owl, the
seijin
’s computer henchman, had provided him with garments made out of the same sort of “antiballistic smart fabric” (whatever
that
was) from which they’d made Archbishop Maikel’s vestments. Even if some unfriendly soul with an arbalest or a rifle were crouched behind one of the windows overlooking Parliament Hall, nothing he could do was likely to leave Cayleb with anything more than a painful bruise or two.
    Well, that and the need for some fairly inventive explanations, I suppose
.
    His lips quirked at the thought, and then he heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief as he managed to get inside the building’s comforting warmth at last.
    It was much quieter inside Parliament Hall than it had been outside, although he wasn’t certain it was all that much of an improvement. However happy the members of the Commons seated on the western side of the Hall’s grand meeting chamber might be to see him, the Lords seated on its eastern side appeared to find it remarkably easy to restrain any unseemly enthusiasm
they
might be experiencing.
    I suppose it’s