The Broken Throne

by Christopher Nuttall

  The Levellers, Emily thought. Her blood ran cold. Viscount Hansel was making his move, using his mercenaries to round up the Levellers now they were no longer necessary. But things had changed. When it got out – and it would – the entire city would explode into bloodshed. There was no way the mercenaries could get all the weapons off the streets before the shit hit the fan. What is he doing?

  She glanced at Cat, who looked as stunned as she felt. Hansel was crazy. She’d known he hated the new rules – and the Great Charter he’d sworn to uphold – but this? He was going to throw his city back into madness, unless he was stopped. She’d have to stop him. There was no one else.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go fix this.”

  “You can take a message to the troops,” Cat said to the messenger. “Tell them to be ready to march on the manor.”

  Emily forced herself to think as she strode down the street, her magic bubbling under her skin. Should she send Cat to take command of the troops? There was no one else she trusted to do the job – and besides, there was no one else the soldiers would follow without question. The Leveller speakers – their leaders – were under arrest now. And yet, she also needed Cat at her back. Hansel would have to be insane to make a fight of it, but he’d already backed himself into a corner. Alassa was not going to be pleased when she found out.

  Cat would tell me if he thought I was doing the wrong thing, she thought. Her lips twitched in a flicker of cold amusement. Of course he would.

  The manor was guarded by a small army of mercenaries, a handful wearing ill-fitting charmed armor. Emily puzzled over it for a moment, then guessed it had been taken from dead bodies and handed out as war booty. A full suit would be worth thousands of crowns, even if it didn’t fit properly. But anyone who tried to make the armor fit properly ran the risk of accidentally disenchanting it. There were few enchanters who would care to try.

  She smiled, coldly, as she recognized Gars. The mercenary looked deeply worried, although his concerns clearly hadn’t been enough to keep him from accepting suicidal orders. He turned to face her, schooling his face into a blank mask that revealed nothing. Behind him, his men shifted uncomfortably. Emily could almost taste their confusion. She didn’t look very intimidating – she certainly didn’t have Lady Barb’s sheer presence – but they knew her reputation. They’d even seen her hurling spells around on the battlefield.

  “My Lady,” Gars said. “I have orders not to let anyone enter without permission...”

  “Stand aside,” Emily ordered, flatly.

  She met his eyes, daring him to defy her. Charmed armor was good, but it wasn’t invulnerable. Magic twitched at her fingertips, ready to shove the mercenaries out of the way. They wouldn’t land a blow on her if she unleashed her full power. And they had to know they were in an untenable position. Even if they killed Emily and Cat, even if they held the line, the population would tear them apart. They had to know it.

  Gars stared back at her, his eyes grim. He knew the truth – she could see it in his eyes – but he also didn’t want to back down in front of his men. Emily gritted her teeth, readying a spell to remove him. She didn’t have time. Hansel wouldn’t bother with any show trials, unless he was so far gone that he didn’t realize they’d inflame the mob. He’d just behead the Levellers as soon as they were arrested. And then everything would explode...

  The mercenary stepped back, then motioned for his men to stand aside. One of them started to protest, only to be violently silenced by his mate. Emily walked past them, keeping her head up high; the gates were locked, so she used a spell to tear them down and scatter the debris over the lawn. Cat followed her as she walked up to the manor and smashed the door. Servants fled in all directions, scared out of their wits. They probably knew the manor was on the verge of being invaded, burned and looted too.

  Emily hesitated, unsure which way to go, then strode up the stairs towards the audience chamber. Wards brushed against her magic, trying to stop her; she tore them apart effortlessly, silently mocking the wardcrafter who’d put them together. They weren’t bad, but they were useless against any genuine sorcerer. The doors were locked: she gathered herself, shaping a spell in her mind, then smashed them down and stepped into the chamber. The gathered aristocrats – and a handful of wealthy merchants – stared at her in horror.

  “... Lady Emily,” Hansel managed. He was seated on an elevated chair, his brother standing next to him. “What are you...?”

  Emily strode through the room until she was standing in front of his chair, her hands clasped behind her back. “What are you doing?”

  A series of emotions crossed Hansel’s face. She could tell that he was thinking about lying to her, even though she already knew what he was doing. His face paled as he snapped out an answer. “I’m taking back my city!”

  “You swore to uphold the Great Charter,” Emily said, quietly. Behind her, she heard feet rustling uncomfortably. “And then you decided to break it as soon as you didn’t need the commoners any longer.”

  Hansel half-rose from his chair. “They’re commoners,” he said. “They’re mine! I own them. I own this city. It’s mine!”

  “You sound like a small boy refusing to share his toys,” Emily said, sharply. “You knew that accepting the Great Charter was the price for our help. And now you are trying to cheat us!”

  “I made promises under duress,” Hansel said. “I have been cheated too!”

  Emily felt her magic surge forward, demanding release. “You promised your people that you would grant them the rights guaranteed by the Great Charter,” she said. “And now you have turned on them. Do you think you’ll be allowed to get away with it?”

  “I have an army,” Hansel snapped.

  “They have a hulk,” Emily said. Her lips curved into a smile. It was a shame that no one else would appreciate the joke. “A hulking army, with weapons and experience and a belief that – finally – they don’t have to take orders from inbred aristocrats who won a lottery when they were born. You have taken some of their leaders, but not all. They will come for you, Viscount, and your mercenaries will melt away like ice under the hot sun. It is too late to put the gunpowder explosion back in the barrel.”

  Hansel glared. “This is my city. I will not let it go. And they will not take it from me.”

  Emily hesitated, then flared her magic. Hansel’s eyes went wide. She was flaring it so strongly that everyone would be able to sense her power thrumming in the air, even if they normally had no gift for magic at all. Feet shuffled behind her, as if their silent audience was torn between the desire to run and fear of what would happen if they tried. Emily ignored them, keeping her attention fixed on Hansel and his brother. Hansel was staring at her as if he’d never really seen her before; Tobias was watching her coolly, but she could see sweat on his forehead. His hand had dropped to his sword, yet he wasn’t fool enough to draw it. Emily could kill him in a heartbeat and they both knew it.

  “No, they won’t take it from you,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, even in her own ears. “Because I will. You and your brother are stripped of your titles and removed from the civil list. You no longer have a place here, nor any claim to your former rights. Get off that throne.”

  Hansel stared at her. “You can’t...”

  Emily shaped a spell, yanking him off the chair and tossing him across the room. Tobias stared at her in shock, then hastily scrambled off the dais as Emily cast a second spell. The chair shattered into a pile of debris, the pieces crashing to the floor. Emily turned slowly, trying not to enjoy how the watching aristocrats flinched from her. They might not have taken her seriously before. They might have looked at her, seen a young woman barely out of her teens, and decided her reputation was overblown. They might even have thought that Cat was doing all the work.

  Her lips curved into a bitter smile. They didn’t think that now.

  “Cat, escort the former viscount and his brother to the gates,” Emily said. “They may take enoug
h food with them for five days, then they’re on their own.”

  “I’ll complain to the queen,” Hansel protested. “She won’t let you do this.”

  Emily shrugged. Alassa had given Emily a great deal of authority. She might not be happy, if she decided to side with the aristocrats over the commoners, but she wouldn’t undo Emily’s work. It would cast doubt on the powers issued to other ambassadors and representatives, in the future. No, Hansel would never rule a city again. The best he could hope for, if he grovelled enough, was a sinecure at court. Or perhaps a chance to go into exile as a mercenary.

  Cat frogmarched the two brothers out of the room, leaving Emily behind. The remaining aristocrats stared at her, their eyes wide. Emily didn’t give them any time to think.

  “The Great Charter will be implemented and it will be uphold,” she said, keeping her voice under tight control. “Do not, now or ever, think otherwise. The world is no longer the one you knew. Either adapt to the new realities or go the way of” – she hesitated, on the cusp of mentioning the dinosaurs before remembering that it wouldn’t mean anything to them – “Viscount Hansel.”

  She dismissed them with a wave of her hand, then walked down to the dungeons. The guards, quick to realize that there had been a shift in the balance of power, were already releasing the Levellers. They were surprisingly unharmed for men who had been rounded up and thrown into a medieval dungeon. Emily had had a worse time of it when Randor had put her in a cell, even though the guards had orders to treat her relatively decently. She guessed the mercenaries had been smart enough to realize it might be a good idea not to be too violent with the prisoners.

  “Lady Emily,” Gus said. “I knew you’d come for us.”

  Emily felt herself blush. “Thank you,” she said, as he shook her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

  “It’s quite alright,” Gus said. He sounded insanely cheerful. But then, he’d been on the verge of being beheaded... if he was lucky. “Better late than never.”

  He cleared his throat. “What now?”

  Emily looked at him. “You’ve inherited a city,” she said. “Hansel is gone. The remaining aristocrats aren’t going to stand in your way. Now... you have to decide what you’re going to do with it.”

  “We’ll make our people proud,” Gus said. He paused. “What about the mercenaries?”

  “Let them go,” Emily advised. “They’ll be glad to get out of here with their heads attached to their bodies.”

  Gus didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “And you? How long will you be hanging around?”

  “Long enough,” Emily said. She hoped Gus and his friends would do a good job, but she knew they’d make mistakes. And yet... some lessons could only be learnt by doing. “I’ll be here for a couple of days, then I’ll be on my way.”

  “To victory,” Gus said, as they walked into the audience chamber. “And to a long and happy life.”

  “Just don’t let yourselves get too powerful,” Emily advised. “That won’t lead to a long and happy life for anyone. Including you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “SO,” CAT CALLED, AS THEY GALLOPED away from the city. “Did Alassa have anything to say?”

  “She was pleased that I’d nipped a civil war in the bud,” Emily said. “But she was irked that I sent Hansel and Tobias to her.”

  She sighed at the thought. Perhaps it would have been better to give the brothers a purse of money and tell them to go seek their fortune on the other side of the world. But what could they have done? Tobias could have become a mercenary, she supposed; Hansel was nothing without a title and he knew it. She dismissed the thought with a shrug. Alassa had found the two brothers meaningless positions in her retinue, which at least allowed them to claim they hadn’t lost everything. Emily doubted that anyone would be fooled. Their lack of lands and real money meant they’d be forever at the bottom of the pecking order.

  But still above the peasants and merchants, she thought, wryly. They’ll cling even more to what little they have.

  “I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Cat said. “And if she doesn’t, she can always turn them into toads.”

  She smiled, then sat back in the saddle for a long ride. Three mighty armies had moved up and down the road, turning it into a muddy nightmare. A number of shackled men were working to clear the road and replace damaged cobblestones, but it looked as if the work would take forever. The armies hadn’t just torn up the road either, she noted as they picked up speed. Entire towns and villages had been razed to the ground. She wouldn’t have known where some of them had been if she hadn’t seen the blackened soil. Nature would reclaim them within a year.

  And that’s not going to be good for us, she thought. Lord Burrows had burnt fields and crushed corn, destroying everything he couldn’t take. Winter Flower had been permanently short of food even before the war. Now, famine was a very real possibility. We can’t ship in enough food to make a difference.

  She shivered as she saw a handful of peasants surveying the remains of their homes and villages. Emily was no expert, but it looked as though it would take years of work to repair the damage. They’d be practically starting from scratch. She wondered, grimly, just how many peasants would simply leave the farm and walk west to Cockatrice in hopes of finding something better. Gus had pledged his new council would help the farmers rebuild, if only to make sure the city was fed, but Emily doubted they’d be ready to plant a crop before it was too late. The farmers should be harvesting their grain by now. Instead, they’d been driven from their lands.

  “It’s supposed to be worse, in the east,” Cat said, quietly. “The king is not being merciful.”

  Emily nodded. The stories from the east – some of which had been confirmed by Alicia – grew more and more horrific with every retelling. Randor seemed to have declared war on everyone, from the highest in the land to the lowest. Castles were being smashed, towns and cities were being put to the sword, farms and farmers were being systematically destroyed to starve the opposition. Emily wondered, grimly, if Randor had snapped completely. He’d been on the verge of losing it even before outright civil war had broken out.

  “We’re going to have to stop him,” she said, quietly. She knew – intellectually – that the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked. Lord Burrows hadn’t poisoned the ground with salt, let alone radioactive waste. But thousands of people were still going to starve over the coming winter. “And we have to hurry.”

  She retreated back into her own thoughts as the horses picked up speed. Alassa and her army were moving slowly but steadily towards Winter Flower, allowing her the chance to sweep up stragglers from the enemy army and secure her supply lines. She was in more danger than she realized, Emily suspected. There was little hope of being able to live off the land, not when crops had been destroyed and food animals driven away. Alassa and her men would be in real trouble if their supply lines were cut.

  They passed a handful of peasants, one making a rude gesture as they galloped past then cantered through a large forest. Emily could feel unseen eyes watching her, a tingle running down her spine suggesting that the eyes weren’t entirely human. The forest seemed sinister despite the bright sunlight. She peered into the gloom below the branches and saw nothing, yet the feeling she was being watched refused to fade. The forest didn’t look to have been reserved for the king – the forest laws had been a major grievance before the war – but she doubted poachers tried to hunt within its shadows. Anyone who went in might not come out again.

  Her back was aching, again, when they finally caught up with the army. A trio of pickets intercepted them, muskets at the ready; Emily put her tiredness aside, somehow, and showed them her credentials. They weren’t particularly trusting as they escorted Emily and Cat down to the Royal Tent, their hands never far from their weapons. Emily approved, despite knowing just how easy it was to accidentally fire a musket. The guards didn’t relax until they passed through the wards without incident.

  �
��Emily,” Jade said, glancing out of the tent. “Come on in!”

  Emily hadn’t been sure what to expect when she walked into the tent, but she hadn’t expected a foldable table, a handful of chairs and a small nest of blankets on the floor. Alassa was sitting on a chair, one hand rubbing her baby bump as she studied a map; Imaiqah was seated next to her, reading a detailed report. They both looked up as Emily and Cat stepped into the tent, smiling. Alassa’s smile had an edge to it.

  “Your birthday present was horrible,” Alassa said. “I don’t know where I’m going to put them.”

  “You could always turn them into pretty little trinkets and put them on the mantelpiece,” Cat suggested, before Emily could say a word. “Or just tell them to go whining to your father if they want their titles back.”

  Emily had to smile. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I had to get them out of the city.”

  “I understand,” Alassa said. “But I have to treat them gently too.”

  “I know,” Emily said.

  They shared a long look. Hansel and Tobias were unimportant – and most of Alassa’s aristocratic backers wouldn’t have given them the time of day even before they’d been stripped of their lands and titles – but Emily had set an ugly precedent. Alassa’s backers would start to worry if something would happen to them if they stepped out of line, particularly as very few of them would see anything wrong with Hansel moving to regain control of his city. To them, Hansel would have done something he needed to do, only to get kicked in the teeth by his superior.

  “I’ll find them something here, maybe just important enough to keep the whining to a dull roar,” Alassa said, after a moment. “Tobias is competent, right?”

  “He’s not the worst military officer I’ve ever seen,” Cat said, damning with faint praise. “Oh, he’s brave enough. He’s got nerve and zest and everything else I might want in a cavalry officer. But he’s too focused on the short-term over the long-term, to the point where he’d throw away a war just to win a battle. He can’t even see the value of winning over his own men.”