Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  Sjistevo, clearly sensing an opportunity, laid a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “Credola Karista’s losses are indeed substantial,” he said. “And it is understandable that she has questions that we—”

  “Stop.” Tain banged the table, but he didn’t look angry. He ran a hand through his hair and looked around the table, making eye contact with everyone individually until they all quieted. “There’s no one in this room who hasn’t been hurt by this. Whoever they are, local or otherwise, the enemy we’re facing is picking us apart, and if we can’t trust each other, we’re going to lose. They know that. They know that. We can’t fight an enemy if we’re turning on each other. We have to decide, here and now, to meet this together. Someone is coming for us and we have to figure out where they’re coming from and how to stop them. We have to.”

  Salvea nodded. “I agree with the Chancellor. We are all in pain, but it will be nothing to what will happen if these enemies are allowed to continue to divide us.”

  But Karista was looking at me with loathing and suspicion, and as I looked around the table as many faces shared the suspicion as not. With a sinking, hot certainty in my chest, I knew, then and there, that the Council would not be united on this, could not trust each other, not with me there. Our enemy had done too good a job, too subtle a campaign. No matter that they did not believe I was responsible for the main attacks, they didn’t, couldn’t, trust that I was not working as some kind of secret assassin, prioritizing the interests of my family and Tain’s over the safety of the city, using the chaos against my personal enemies. Some of them, doubtless, believed I had murdered a man in some kind of drug-addled sex gone wrong, and then used my power and influence to cover it up. And we had lied, we had ignored Council structures and made decisions affecting the city without consulting them. And we would do it again.

  I cleared my throat. Tain gave me an indecipherable look, but I did not meet his eyes. Forgive me, I thought. “If I might address the Council just one more time,” I said quietly, and everyone turned to look at me. A strange feeling gripped me, of being on the brink. A dangerous and heady feeling. This time I jumped. “It’s obvious to me that on this point, our enemy has won. I haven’t been running around murdering my political adversaries or anyone else, and I’ve never done anything in this room to protect my personal interests over what I saw as those of the city. Some of you know that’s true, but some of you don’t and can’t believe it. And I understand, I really do. This Council hasn’t exactly got a long and glorious history of being honest and selfless, has it?

  “But the Chancellor is right. The Council has to be able to run on trust or the country won’t make it through. We’re facing ruthless murderers who are targeting the people in this room and any innocent people who happen to be in their way. They’ve tried to sabotage our chances with our allies. They’ve turned us on each other. They want us friendless and gnawing ourselves to pieces while they launch their attacks, and so far it’s working.” I took a breath, determinedly avoided Tain’s eyes, and plunged on. “I won’t be part of that. So as of today, I’m stepping down from my seat on this Council.”

  There were perhaps three heartbeats of empty silence as they digested my words. Tain’s eyes, very wide, were fixed on me, unblinking, shocked.

  Then it erupted.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Credo Jovan! You cannot—”

  “Jov, no.” I heard the last among the glamour, spoken softly, pitched only for me. I felt dizzy, disoriented, but somehow free, like I was plummeting off a cliff with no ground in sight, just tumbling through the air. I’m sorry, I thought, but I couldn’t look at his face, I couldn’t bear seeing my betrayal play out there. Best not to think about him at all right now, or I might lose my resolve. I closed my eyes a moment, then opened them again. I didn’t need to count, and none of my muscles were twitching. I felt empty, calm, almost relaxed.

  “Credo Jovan!” An-Suja spoke in a shocked, shaking voice. “You cannot step down in the middle of a threat like this. Your heir is a mere child, and a traumatized one at that, who cannot be left to—”

  “I was not proposing Dija or anyone else to take my place,” I said, and another ripple passed around the room. Lazar and, to my surprise, Sjistevo, of all people, were both shaking their heads forcefully.

  “This Council was founded with six Credol Families,” Lazar said, sounding on the verge of panic. His chin wobbled as he looked around at the other Family heads, searching for support. “That must be maintained! There has been much change in recent years but I’m afraid this is one I cannot support. I cannot.”

  “I agree,” Sjistevo said, albeit with a trace of reluctance. “This is not the time for an upheaval.”

  “Then we are agreed this is foolishness, and Credo Jovan will not be stepping down?” Tain had recovered from his stupor enough to speak, but his voice sounded suspiciously shaky.

  Sjistevo waved a finger. “Now, now, that’s not what I said, Honored Chancellor,” he said silkily. “In fact I agree it is best for Credo Jovan to step down, given the … sensitivities of the situation. But I do not feel the Oromani family should be unrepresented. The issues are confined to the Credo himself, surely?”

  My initial disbelief at hearing his objection faded. Of course. His loyalty to the entrenched structures of power and wealth here in the Council overrode even his dislike of my family. “Then I nominate my cousin Etrika as a replacement Oromani representative,” I said. “An-Suja, I think you’ve probably had dealings with her, and many of you will remember her from younger days when she spent more time in the city. She is intelligent and capable and, I think, sufficiently removed from me to satisfy those who are concerned with my personal integrity.”

  “Etrika has a good head,” Budua said. “Clever, measured. I taught her in school, you know.” She turned her penetrating stare on me, but added nothing further.

  Marjeta, beside her, nodded. She looked more sad than annoyed. “I agree. Etrika Oromani is a wise and honorable woman. I would happily accept her as a temporary stand-in for Credo Jovan.”

  “Temporary,” Eliska repeated, voice tight. I found I couldn’t look at her, either. Why were they all taking this as a personal insult? They could see as well as I what was happening here. I glanced over at Sjistevo and Karista; they were whispering together at the other end of the table. Salvea, two seats up, looked deeply grieved, one hand over her mouth, apparently unwilling to speak.

  “It is all the same to me,” Il-Yoro said flatly. “I do not happen to believe this is necessary, Credo Jovan, but if this will enable … certain members … of this Council to swallow their petty grievances and concentrate on things that matter to the common people of this country—”

  “Like staying alive, for example,” Ifico interjected.

  “—then I am all for it.”

  “This requires a vote,” Javesto said. He wasn’t looking at me, just staring down at the table, one hand smoothing his beard, half-hiding his expression. I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or relieved or upset. Likewise with Lazar, who picked at his fingernails and mumbled to himself under his breath, visibly flustered.

  “Then vote,” I said. “Though you will have to ask Etrika about this and it’s always possible she will refuse.” The thought of Etrika’s face when I told her I’d volunteered her for this mess almost made me smile. I’m an old woman, Jovan, I could almost hear her complain, even though she wasn’t old by any sensible measure.

  In the end, they all voted to accept Etrika in my place, notwithstanding she had never been my formal heir. Different degrees of reluctance marked the votes sourced from doubtless different reasons, but they all got there. It came around to Tain in the end, who had sat, spinning the little water bowl we used to wash hands at the beginning of the meeting, round and round and round, eyes downcast.

  “Honored Chancellor?” I asked him, hating how stiff and formal my voice sounded.

  “Honored Chancellor?” Moe
st, on Tain’s left, nudged him gently. “The vote?”

  It was a mere formality. The Council did not need Tain’s vote to accept a nominated successor or heir. But I willed him to be sensible about it all the same.

  “I accept the nomination,” he said at last, sounding choked. “Though I would like it recorded that I find accusations and rumors about Credo Jovan to be unfounded, malicious, and beneath the integrity and honor to which everyone in this room should aspire.” Then, his composure cracking, his gaze accusatory as he glared around the room, he added, “Almost everyone here would be dead if it wasn’t for Jovan, and turning on him the second you’ve got a chance is a fine bloody repayment for everything he’s given.”

  “Honored Chancellor, thank you for your support,” I said quietly. “But what anyone believes about me now is irrelevant. This is about having a decision-making body that can function without descending into accusations. With me on it, it can’t.” My turn to look around the room, to make eye contact with every person there. “With me gone, it had better. Call me melodramatic if you want, but we won’t need a Council if we’re all dead.”

  * * *

  I knew he would need to yell at me for a while, so although I left the meeting before anyone could corner me, I returned to the Manor within the hour to meet Tain in his study, alone. I had made some quick enquiries and the beginnings of a plan in the interim, but he wouldn’t listen to those until he’d burnt out on the yelling, so I came bearing good tea.

  Tain waited until the servant bringing in the hot water left before exploding at me. “What in the hells was that?” he demanded.

  “The right way forward, I think,” I said wearily, sinking onto a cushion.

  “My Heir is dead and you thought the only way forward was to take the only person I trust absolutely off the Council? You thought leaving me without my best adviser, supposedly my best friend, was the right move, just because fucking Karista and Sjistevo are bitching about something?”

  I turned the teapot carefully, letting the deliberate motions keep me calm. “This isn’t just bitching, Tain, and you know that. Most of Karista’s family were just wiped out. Sjistevo’s isn’t doing much better, and they were struggling to keep the family living on as it was. They’ve inked in more family members in the last few years than in the whole of their history combined. These aren’t petty squabbles and political opposition. These are people afraid they’re being picked off to extinction.”

  “Not by you!”

  I turned the teapot around one more time and let my breath out slowly through my nose. “Well, quite,” I said.

  “This isn’t funny, Jov!” He kicked a cushion into the bookshelf. “Don’t act like I’m being some kind of unreasonable toddler. This was the Council, that was your job, you can’t just abandon it and let whoever is doing this beat us. You can’t.”

  “I don’t think you’re being unreasonable,” I said. Strangely, no painful swelling of feelings choked me, no constant replay of the decision to second-guess myself sounded from the part of my brain usually so reliable to attack me. I sounded calm because I was calm. “You’re reacting to a blow like anyone would. I get it. I’m not mad about it.”

  “Oh, how very fucking noble of you!” He glared down at me, eyes wild with fury. “Afraid I can’t say the same. What were you thinking? They target your family and set this nonsense up to discredit you and you just let them take your position away?”

  “They haven’t taken anything away.” I prepared two cups. “The Oromanis still have a seat. Etrika is wise, probably substantially more so than me. You won’t be alone in there. You have plenty of allies, plenty of reasonable voices. Look.” I set the cups down and looked directly at him. “It’s like muse.”

  Tain blinked. “What?”

  “When we play, I usually win, right?”

  This old argument cut through his anger momentarily and a flicker of competitive good nature passed across his expression, as I’d hoped. “Debatable, but what’s that got to do with this?”

  “You make fun of me because I’m too measured.” He usually used a ruder term, but the point stood. “You’re impulsive. You make dumb mistakes but sometimes you’re so unpredictable you just surprise me and pull something off.”

  “More than sometimes,” he grumbled. “The point, though?”

  I folded my hands in my lap. They felt oddly relaxed, not clenching, not tapping, no rhythm or numbers scrolling through my head. “I played muse with Dija last night and she did the same thing to me. She let me take her red and I thought she was being careless. But you can’t play the spiral dive with the yellow if your red is on the board, which is why you barely ever see the move, because people are always so protective of their red.”

  “Honor-down, Jov, if you don’t blow me away with this analogy soon, the next thing I kick won’t be a pillow. What is the point.”

  “The point is,” I continued, “if someone is concentrating on attacking a particular piece and suddenly you take that piece out of the equation, you can get yourself an advantage.”

  “And you’ve taken yourself off the board.”

  “The person attacking us knows our relationship. They specifically targeted my family because they know we’re an important barrier to you, right?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “We don’t actually know the why of anything, do we?”

  “Well, we can speculate. They went to all this trouble, over a period of months, not to try to have you killed, but only to try to make me look bad. So the rest of the Council didn’t trust me. They know we’re friends, they know what kind of position that puts you in. So, let’s make all that time and energy a wasted cause. No one can seriously claim Etrika was involved in any of this, so the Lekas and the Ashes can stop obsessing about attacks from me and start concentrating on the things that actually matter.”

  “They’ve latched on to this idea that Aven is the ultimate mastermind.” Tain frowned. “They’re going to put the best interrogators from the determination council onto her.”

  A dull chord of anxiety struck in my chest, but I didn’t let it deter me. “That’s another conversation made worse by me being in it. I can’t consider her unemotionally or rationally.”

  He gave a hollow laugh. “And I can?”

  “Maybe I’m wrong and she really has been pulling the strings the whole time. Maybe she’s been sitting there laughing herself stupid as I dig around audit reports and try to trace payments and suspect all our allies of working against us. Or maybe she’s just a distraction they want us to waste time trying to decipher.” I took a deep breath. “Look, what’s happened every other time we’ve been threatened? I’ve hunkered down, stuck to your side, suspected everyone around us.”

  “And shouldn’t we?” The anger flared again in his dark eyes, glimmering and deep. “Merenda died trying to get us information about another bloody traitor. Isn’t suspecting everyone exactly what we should be doing?”

  “I thought that, too. It was all I could think about at first.” But I’d shaken off the instinct to obsess and I did it again now. “But two things strike me about it. One, whoever wrote it might be relaying information but they’re not in charge. Two, who’s likely to be the traitor who wrote that note? Someone we trust, through conscious choice or necessity. Guards and blackstripes who’ve been in our households for years, been alone with you or me or Merenda a hundred times. Erel’s got your schedule and attends half your meetings—he’s a kid, but kids can sell information as easily as adults. Even a Councilor, again.” I shook my head. “We can’t manage this crisis just between the people we trust absolutely because a handful of people aren’t enough to run a country, so we have to share information and delegate tasks. It’s the only way we’ll get anything done. And proofing isn’t the secret it once was. Realistically, if any one of them wants you dead, it won’t be through poison, and me being here won’t change it one way or the other.”

  “What do you mean, you being here?” His eyes had gone
wide with apprehension.

  I took a deep, steadying breath, uncertainty wavering my resolve for the first time since I’d had the idea. “My instinct is to treat everyone with suspicion, but anyone who paid attention last time knows that. They’ll know what happened with Marco and Aven has made us wary and they’ll expect me to focus on finding a traitor here and protecting you, because that’s what I do.” I took another breath, making myself look at him. It wasn’t fair to make it easy on myself. “I think I should leave the city.”

  Tain stared at me, unspeaking, for a very long moment. Then he calmly poured the tea for both of us, set down the pot, and looked directly at me. “I assume that’s some kind of stupid joke.”

  “Famous as I am for stupid jokes in the face of crises,” I said dryly, “in this particular instance, no. It’s not a joke.” I held up a hand. “Listen. Lini will still be here, and she’ll be trying to work out who the traitor is and what the assassin’s book means. Dee will prepare all your food and you can get it from our apartments or Sjease or Dee can deliver it. You don’t exactly eat much anyway. And I’m honestly doubtful there’s any assassination attempt coming. They already have us divided and scrambling, they don’t need to kill you.”

  “And you?” He was clearly grappling with his temper, but he held his cup to his lips in a passable imitation of calm. “What are you going to be doing?”

  “I’m going to go to the estates. I think what’s happening there is more important than anyone realized, and I think our enemies don’t want or expect us to pay attention to it.”

  He forgot to be furious for a moment, set down the cup, and stared at me. “To the estates? We sent An-Ostada to do that already.”

  “An-Ostada went out there before we knew there were Darfri mixed up with the other side.”