He paused at an intersection. Once, a relaxing dip into a book would have been enough to calm him. Now he felt nervous. Tense. A little … like he assumed Vin usually felt.
Maybe I could learn from her, he thought. What would Vin do in my situation? She certainly wouldn’t just wander around, brooding and feeling sorry for herself. Elend frowned, looking down a hallway lighted by flickering oil lamps, only half of them lit. Then he took off, waking with a determined stride toward a particular set of rooms.
He knocked quietly, and got no response. Finally, he poked his head in. Sazed and Tindwyl sat quietly before a desk piled high with scraps of paper and ledgers. They both sat staring, as if at nothing, their eyes bearing the glazed-over look of someone who had been stunned. Sazed’s hand rested on the table. Tindwyl’s rested on top of it.
Sazed shook himself alert suddenly, turning to regard Elend. “Lord Venture! I am sorry. I did not hear you enter.”
“It’s all right, Saze,” Elend said, walking into the room. As he did, Tindwyl shook awake as well, and she removed her hand from Sazed’s. Elend nodded to Demoux and his companion—who were still following—indicating that they should remain outside, then closed the door.
“Elend,” Tindwyl said, her voice laced with its typical undercurrent of displeasure. “What is your purpose in bothering us? You have already proven your incompetence quite soundly—I see no need for further discussion.”
“This is still my home, Tindwyl,” Elend replied. “Insult me again, and you will find yourself ejected from the premises.”
Tindwyl raised an eyebrow.
Sazed paled. “Lord Venture,” he said quickly, “I don’t think that Tindwyl meant to—”
“It’s all right, Sazed,” Elend said, raising a hand. “She was just testing to see if I had reverted back to my previous state of insultability.”
Tindwyl shrugged. “I have heard reports of your moping through the palace hallways like a lost child.”
“Those reports are true,” Elend said. “But that doesn’t mean that my pride is completely gone.”
“Good,” Tindwyl said, nodding to a chair. “Seat yourself, if you wish.”
Elend nodded, pulling the chair over before the two and sitting. “I need advice.”
“I’ve given you what I can already,” Tindwyl said. “In fact, I’ve perhaps given you too much. My continued presence here makes it seem that I’m taking sides.”
“I’m not king anymore,” Elend said. “Therefore, I have no side. I’m just a man seeking truth.”
Tindwyl smiled. “Ask your questions, then.”
Sazed watched the exchange with obvious interest.
I know, Elend thought, I’m not sure I understand our relationship either. “Here is my problem,” he said. “I lost the throne, essentially, because I wasn’t willing to lie.”
“Explain,” Tindwyl said.
“I had a chance to obscure a piece of the law,” Elend said. “At the last moment, I could have made the Assembly take me as king. Instead, I gave them a bit of information that was true, but which ended up costing me the throne.”
“I’m not surprised,” Tindwyl said.
“I doubted that you would be,” Elend said. “Now, do you think I was foolish to do as I did?”
“Yes.”
Elend nodded.
“But,” Tindwyl said, “that moment isn’t what cost you the throne, Elend Venture. That moment was a small thing, far too simple to credit with your large-scale failure. You lost the throne because you wouldn’t command your armies to secure the city, because you insisted on giving the Assembly too much freedom, and because you don’t employ assassins or other forms of pressure. In short, Elend Venture, you lost the throne because you are a good man.”
Elend shook his head. “Can you not be both a man who follows his conscience and a good king, then?”
Tindwyl frowned in thought.
“You ask an age-old question, Elend,” Sazed said quietly. “A question that monarchs, priests, and humble men of destiny have always asked. I do not know that there is an answer.”
“Should I have told the lie, Sazed?” Elend asked.
“No,” Sazed said, smiling. “Perhaps another man should have, in your same position. But, a man must be cohesive with himself. You have made your decisions in life, and changing yourself at the last moment—telling this lie—would have been against who you are. It is better for you to have done as you did and lost the throne, I think.”
Tindwyl frowned. “His ideals are nice, Sazed. But what of the people? What if they die because Elend wasn’t capable of controlling his own conscience?”
“I do not wish to argue with you, Tindwyl,” Sazed said. “It is simply my opinion that he chose well. It is his right to follow his conscience, then trust in providence to fill in the holes caused by the conflict between morality and logic.”
Providence. “You mean God,” Elend said.
“I do.”
Elend shook his head. “What is God, Sazed, but a device used by obligators?”
“Why do you make the choices that you do, Elend Venture?”
“Because they’re right,” Elend said.
“And why are these things right?”
“I don’t know,” Elend said with a sigh, leaning back. He caught a disapproving glance from Tindwyl at his posture, but he ignored her. He wasn’t king; he could slouch if he wanted to. “You talk of God, Sazed, but don’t you preach of a hundred different religions?”
“Three hundred, actually,” Sazed said.
“Well, which one do you believe?” Elend asked.
“I believe them all.”
Elend shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You’ve only pitched a half-dozen to me, but I can already see that they’re incompatible.”
“It is not my position to judge truth, Lord Venture,” Sazed said, smiling. “I simply carry it.”
Elend sighed. Priests … he thought. Sometimes, talking to Sazed is like talking to an obligator.
“Elend,” Tindwyl said, her tone softening. “I think you handled this situation in the wrong way. However, Sazed does have a point. You were true to your own convictions, and that is a regal attribute, I think.”
“And what should I do now?” he asked.
“Whatever you wish,” Tindwyl said. “It was never my place to tell you what to do. I simply gave you knowledge of what men in your place did in the past.”
“And what would they have done?” Elend asked. “These great leaders of yours, how would they have reacted to my situation?”
“It is a meaningless question,” she said. “They would not have found themselves in this situation, for they would not have lost their titles in the first place.”
“Is that what it’s about, then?” Elend asked. “The title?”
“Isn’t that what we were discussing?” Tindwyl asked.
Elend didn’t answer. What do you think makes a man a good king? he had once asked of Tindwyl. Trust, she had replied. A good king is one who is trusted by his people—and one who deserves that trust.