by Sales, Ian
It was, she realised, a brittle shell with which the commander armoured himself. And she seemed to have a talent for creating cracks in it. It amazed her he seemed to return her feelings.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching across the table. She let her hands fall before they touched the commander’s blue coat.
“You plan to release Norioko?” Mubariz asked.
She accepted the change of subject gratefully. “If I can.”
“If he is in the custody of the Bailiffs, it will be for good reason.”
Finesz shrugged. “Not necessarily.” In fact, she knew full well that only politics could be the cause of Norioko’s incarceration. The man was a staunch supporter of the Imperial Throne and above reproach.
“You believe he is involved in this conspiracy?”
Was Mubariz fishing? Finesz wondered. He had enough to report to the knights signet on his arrival on Shuto. But more intelligence would certainly not go unrewarded. She squashed that thought: the commander had not chosen sides for the reward.
“Do I think he’s helping Ahasz? No, not at all. But he’s involved in something. I’m sure of it.” She gestured vaguely. “He hates corruption as much as you seem to accept it. That’s probably what prompted his arrest: he has evidence that some high noble has his paws in the coffers and they’ve retaliated.”
Mubariz bridled. “I do not ‘accept’ corruption, Sliva. I will not have it in my fief. I simply recognise my limitations.” His expression of offence settled into a glower. “As you do not.”
“I’m not in your position, Abad. I have no fief to lord it over, I have no world of my own to make over according to my principles —”
“A city, not a world.” The commander grunted. “A small city.”
“Never mind.”
Finesz sat back, recoiling from the chasm which was opening between them. Until now, their difference in social rank had never occurred to her. Perhaps that had been foolish. Mubariz was a baron and she a mere yeoman. She could rue the man’s often insufferable rectitude, all the while admiring him for the fixity of his moral compass; but she would not have her own principles disparaged. No matter how elastic they might be.
“I find you a contradictory creature,” Mubariz said, apropos of nothing. “It is both your least acceptable aspect and your most beguiling.”
Finesz crossed her arms tight across her bosom and glared mulishly at her prisoner. “I don’t even know what that means,” she said, pouting.
“You intend to release your patron, Norioko. To do so would be to break the very laws you are sworn to uphold.”
That was all Mubariz had meant? For one brief moment, Finesz had suspected him of flirtation. But no.
“A greater good, Abad,” Finesz returned lightly.
“Immaterial,” he argued. “A system exists and you have given your oath to perpetuate it. Would that we all could ignore those laws we felt were unfair or wrong.”
“You really do see everything in black and gold, don’t you, Abad?” marvelled Finesz. “A law may be morally wrong, but it’s a greater sin to break that law because it is the law.”
“It is the foundation of Imperial society.”
She laughed. “Rubbish! I thought you said you had studied history?”
“Your cynicism is equally unattractive, I might add.”
Finesz slid out from behind the wardroom table. Rising to her feet, she looked down at Mubariz. “I think I’ll go. I have reports to write. Or something.”
She left the commander gazing at Finesz’s abandoned cup. He had clasped his hands on the table before him, and was alternately squeezing and releasing his fingers. Let him stew, she thought. He was astute enough to realise he had upset her, and it would have him feeling uncomfortable for a while. She knew him well enough to know that. Perhaps he might tread a little more lightly around her in future. She had spent the weeks since her seduction of him being sensitive to his feelings.
It was time he reciprocated.
CHAPTER NINE
The pall of smoke drifting across the Imperial Household District could not dampen the spirits of the officers ambling across the back-slope of Palace Road. The blasted earth and scorched grass could not spoil their mood. White-hot bolts from the Imperial Palace’s cannons, scoring the sky twenty feet above their heads, exploding grass and burning-hot soil when they hit the ground, could not silence their chatter.
This was, after all, the greatest adventure of recent history.
The Duke of Ahasz, arms folded, watched them from the entrance to the trenches he was having dug. He did not share their excitement. No matter, he thought sardonically, that he was responsible for it. Perhaps there had not been a “good war” for generations, perhaps not even since the Pacification Campaigns of the Empire’s first three centuries. Attachment to the Imperial Army Abroad or Boundary Fleet did not always result in combat. Not that Ahasz himself had ever been in battle—in fact, this was his first. As a young man, he’d served with the Imperial Gold Watch, but as the heir to a powerful noble family he had been kept far from harm’s way.
An air-searing beam from one of the Palace’s cannons shot overhead and hit dirt twenty yards away. A Housecarls regimental-major flinched at the explosion and then laughed self-consciously. Another pushed him and he stumbled on the lip of an old crater beside him. More laughter rang out.
Scowling, Ahasz turned about and regarded his sappers’ handiwork. They had cut a trench into the ground, gently sloped to a depth of eight feet. It led to a T-junction, with a trench leading off to left and to right, both one foot in from the edge of the highway facing Mount Yama. Carpenters had put up wooden revetments over the packed-dirt walls. Above, more sappers had broken up the surface of Palace Road and used it to construct a parapet.
Colonel Tayisa approached along the trench, stepping high over carpenters’ tools and materials. He exhibited none of the warlike enthusiasm of the Housecarls officers: he had seen combat, most recently when Ahasz had sent troops into the Marquis of Nevola’s fief. That invasion had been a fierce and dirty conflict. Calling it a “liberation” had proven no defence from the law—
Dirt rained down from the parapet, rattling against the wooden walls. Ahasz looked up. A figure stood silhouetted against the blue sky. It crouched, jumped forward and down. Booted feet hit the trench decking with a thud. A pole lashed out. A carpenter fell forwards. Blood sprayed from the side of his head.
“What in heavens —”
Ahasz saw bucket helm, grey coveralls, a waist-length white tabard. A sword emblazoned on the attacker’s chest. Knight militant. Or rather, a serjeant of the Order of the Sword. The duke ran forwards, yanking his sword from its scabbard.
Colonel Tayisa stumbled, put his hand to his own sword. He fell to his knees. The serjeant swung his stave, narrowly missing the colonel’s bowed head. Drum beats echoed off the walls as more knights militant dropped into the trench.
Running forwards, Ahasz brandished his sword. One of the attackers turned to him, jabbed with his stave. Ahasz side-stepped, saw the cuirass beneath the man’s tabard. Damn! His blade would never pierce it. He moved again, saw an opening… and ran the man through in the gap between cuirass and chin-guard. He put his boot to the serjeant’s stomach, shoved the body off his blade.
“Get some men here!” he yelled. He doubted the Housecarls officers on the back-slope had even noticed the assault. He turned —
Tayisa scrabbled around on the ground, fumbled out his regulation sword, rolled onto his back and stabbed up at the serjeant standing over him. He caught him in the groin. The knight militant stumbled back, pulling the colonel’s sword free. Red blossomed on his grey coveralls.
Now a knight-lieutenant, helmet-less, appeared on the parapet. He vaulted easily down into the trench, sword held at guard. Ahasz stepped within the man’s reach and punched him in the mouth with his hilt. As the knight fell back, the duke stabbed him through the throat.
&n
bsp; Serjeants of the Order of the Sword filled the trench. The carpenters were laying about themselves with planks. Wood splintered and snapped as it met metal staves. Tayisa had taken refuge in a recess. Out of the melee, he pulled a caster from his belt and bellowed into it. A serjeant stabbed the point of his stave at Ahasz. The duke’s sword did not have the reach. He swivelled his hips, felt the length of the stave slide past his waist. Stepping forward, he put the flat of his hand to his attacker’s helm, pushed. As the serjeant’s head went back, Ahasz took him beneath the chin with his sword. The body he shoved one-handedly to the side. It tumbled across an approaching serjeant, knocking him sideways.
Soil skittered down the wall beside him. He looked up, saw a head and torso lean over. Without thought, he leapt up, putting a foot to the revetment and propelling himself higher. He jabbed, arm straight, and caught the knight militant in the stomach. The knight fell back. Ahasz landed badly and stumbled. Drops of blood hit him in the face; he grimaced and spat. He turned, back to the insuperable trench-wall. Grey-clad figures milled about the narrow defile, flashes of red among them the smocks of Ahasz’s household troopers. Corpses lay scattered about, broken and bleeding.
And still more knights militant came.
A serjeant leapt across the trench, was stabbed in mid-air by a halberd. The latter, made defenceless by his wide swing, fell to the ground as another serjeant punched through his helmet with a stave.
Figures in red appeared, running past Ahasz, armed with halberds. Against armoured foes, swords were near useless.
A hand grabbed his arm, pulled. Ahasz spun, blade up. And dropped it when he saw Tayisa. “Your grace!” the colonel shouted. He gestured back towards the exit from the trench. “We must have you safe!”
Ahasz reluctantly followed Tayisa to safety. Red-smocked troopers jostled the two officers as they made their way towards Palace Road’s back-slope. There, the duke stopped and turned back.
Red and grey collided, the charging red of the Ahasz household troopers and the grey of the knights militant bunched at the trench’s T-junction. The troopers piled in close, preventing the serjeants from swinging their staves. They stabbed with their halberds, seeking gaps in the serjeants’ armour, puncturing helmets.
“Get me a hammer,” Ahasz snapped.
“Your grace!” Tayisa protested.
“I’ll not stand by and watch men die.”
“They’re armoured. You’re not.” The colonel took the duke’s arm in a tight grip. “We can’t afford to lose you, your grace.”
So he watched.
He saw troopers speared on staves, points bursting through backs. The points of halberds punched through cuirasses and helms. Axe-blades chopped down on serjeants, biting into limbs and torsos. A trooper stumbled out of the fray, hands mangled and bloody and unrecognisable. A halberd swung down and a serjeant’s face cleaved in two as it impacted. Blood sprayed across the new-sawn wood of the walls. Red mud stained the planks of the decking.
In the narrow confines of the trench, the melee grew more fierce and more confused. Knights militant leapt in from the parapet, household troopers rushed in from left and right. The heads of halberds dinged off helms and bounced against chests and backs. Fast-moving staves snapped arms. Halberd-points lodged in cuirasses. The Order of Sword were superlative soldiers, although perhaps not as well respected as the Order of the Emperor’s Shield. They could not have known that Ahasz had secretly—and illegally—trained his household troops to a higher and more vicious standard.
He saw—
Shaking Tayisa’s arm loose, Ahasz pulled out his sword and re-entered the trench. The melee had moved left and right from the T-junction. A knight militant in a knee-length tabard and no helmet stood at the junction. A knight-captain. Ahasz gave a feral grin.
The knight-captain stamped a foot and lunged. Ahasz twisted and threw his shoulders forwards and stomach back. The knight’s blade slid by his abdomen with less than an inch to spare. The duke hammered down with his hilt, catching the knight-captain’s hand with his cross-guard. The knight stumbled back a step. Ahasz thrust, but was knocked as he made the move. His point missed, pricked the rear of a serjeant behind the knight-captain. He followed his blade, pulling his sword-hand into his stomach, smashed his free elbow into the knight-captain’s chin. The manoeuvre gave him room to turn side-on, pull his blade back, drop his hand and jab it up. His sword’s point pierced the knight-captain’s neck, grated on bone, and into the brain. The knight militant’s knees sagged. His eyes turned glassy.
The scuffle opened up. The knights militant fell back. But they had nowhere to go—the trench was eight feet deep and its wooden sides sheer. They could not fight their way through the household troopers blocking the left and right branches. They turned and broke for the exit onto Palace Road’s back-slope.
And were met by Housecarls running to join the melee. Two regimental officers in the vanguard went down immediately, faces smashed in and skulls pierced by staves. Troopers with hammers used them to advantage. Orders rang out, words lost above the clash of weapons. But meaning was there in the rhythms of speech. The Housecarls moved smartly into formations and boxed in the fleeing knights militant. An ignominious death. Out-numbered, the serjeants died beneath the hammer-spikes of the troopers pressing in on them.
Ahasz looked up. If there were more knights militant on the parapet, they did not show themselves. He dropped the point of his sword, breathed in deeply through his nose. The trench stank of blood and death. Bodies, in grey and red, lay sprawled about him. At his feet, the knight-captain lay legs akimbo, blood leaking from his open mouth.
“Damn,” muttered Ahasz.
He worked his way through the corpses back towards the exit from the trench complex. He found Tayisa overseeing a squad of surviving household troopers in gathering up the weapons dropped during the combat. The colonel turned to the duke. Blood streaked his face, his jacket was torn. But he was, thankfully, uninjured.
“Well?” Ahasz demanded. “Why were they permitted to get so close?”
“I shall find out, your grace.”
“Send a runner to the Housecarls lieutenant-colonels. I want a briefing. And tally me up the casualties. Get me their names.”
“Yes, your grace.”
“Call for a parley with the Palace. Let them have their dead.”
There was much to be done: the damage repaired, the trenches finished. Tayisa would see to it. Ahasz trusted him to do so. He climbed the incline to Palace Road’s surface. There were dead here too, most in red smocks and helmets. Pools of blood, some glistening red, some darkened to black, decorated the highway. Ahasz swore under his breath. The assault had been beaten back but it had been expensive. If this siege were to last, if it were to accomplish its objective and take the Imperial Palace, such attacks could not be suffered again.
They had met in their customary place, a book-lined study in the Imperial Apartments, with a wide window overlooking the District. A bright summer sun beat down from the sky, throwing rectangles of brightness across the ancient rugs scattered about. Emperor Willim IX rose from a deep armchair, a leather-bound book clutched in one hand, as a footman ushered Ahasz into the room.
“Ariman,” said the Emperor, smiling with pleasure.
“Willim,” the duke replied, crossing to take the Emperor’s proffered hand. “Good of you to see me.”
The Emperor settled back in his chair, placing the book he had been reading on a table by his side. “You’re always welcome in the Apartments,” he said. “As it is, we see little enough of you.”
“I think you know why I’m here,” Ahasz said. He put a hand to the sword on his hip but it was not there. No one was permitted armed in the Emperor’s presence and he felt naked without his blade. The lack of it had him feeling more nervous than he had been before entering the room. He crossed to the window and gazed down at the District below—the shining length of Palace Road, traversing his view from left to
right; the obsidian cube of the Admiralty Fort; the castellated wall of the Emperor’s Division garrison. A familiar sight but not one that made him feel more comfortable.
“Flavia, eh?”
The duke glanced back at the Emperor and saw him smile. There was something paternal in it, although Willim had a son of his own: High Prince Hubret, heir to the Imperial Throne.
“Yes, Flavia…”
Ahasz and the Emperor’s daughter had been lovers for a dozen years and friends since her childhood. She was a decade his junior and a serving officer in the Imperial Navy. He continued,
“I would ask for her hand in marriage.”
“And you shall have it, Ariman. I can think of no better husband for her.”
The duke turned from the window and crossed the room to stand before Emperor Willim IX. “I need more, Willim,” he said. “She’ll not have me—she’s wedded to her career. You must make it clear to her that her future lies with me, not the Navy.”
“She’ll do as she’s damn well told. Hubret has yet to settle his affections and I despair of him ever siring an heir. I’d sooner not rely on Flavia or Auspica, but it’s time both produced families.”
Ahasz gave a tight smile. Hubret had plenty of heirs, but none were legitimate. The duke had dossiers on each and every one of the Imperial Heir’s liaisons, fruitful or not. He suspected Willim himself boasted similar intelligence. It mattered: not once in almost thirteen centuries had any Shutan allowed an illegitimate heir to make a claim on the Imperial Throne. They would sooner it went to a distant cousin, as it had on several occasions.
“She won’t listen to you,” Ahasz pointed out. “She never has before, and she’ll not start now. Speak to the Lords of the Admiralty. They can bring pressure to bear.”
“Don’t think to tell me how to instruct my children,” the Emperor snapped. “You’ve been a good friend to the Throne, Ariman, but I’ll not have you presume on that friendship. I shall make my wishes plain to Flavia. That will be enough.”
