by J. B. Lucas
“A sibling? A cousin? Her last lover?”
“Only child, no close cousins. Why would she take it with her?”
“Must be a lover then. No wonder Iskandar sacrificed the scheming wench if she has form enough in the past. The woman’s a veteran of this sort of thing.”
They turned to look at the stooped figure of Marcan. His face turned to them, hearing their emotional whispering. “Hello there!” smiled Selban, raising a glass. Loreticus had to turn his back at the dismal melodrama of the cry, his eyes rolling.
“Better,” grumbled Marcan. “What happened?”
“Oh, the heat, the press, and so on. Most likely you have a touch of a fever as well.” Selban went over, his gait that of a family nurse. “You’re safe now. Let’s work out what’s next.”
“Next step,” stated Loreticus gruffly, “is for the boy to sleep for the day. He can keep his appointment tomorrow morning and then he is out of the city.”
“Where to?” asked Marcan. “And you do realise that I’m not a boy? I’m almost middle aged.”
“Everyone looks like a youth to Loreticus,” sniggered Selban. “He was born an old man with an old man’s eyes.”
“You’re going somewhere safe,” said Loreticus. “To stay with a friend outside the city.”
“Don’t you think that I should know?”
“No. There’s no disrespect intended, but I think it’s better that you find out when you find out. That way there aren’t any whispers and certainly no opinions for me to tidy up.”
Alba was more formal early the next morning, if somewhat more accepting of his presence. This time her hand servant was frequently present, seemingly without any mischievous intent, and the lady herself was relaxed and met him in the gardens of the palace. There was a strange, cloying sense of fondness in Marcan’s chest, the shape of a feeling which had lived there before.
Loreticus had told him that he was grieving for his old life, but Marcan didn’t believe him. This sadness was something else. He was looking in on a world that he had once valued so dearly but now realised was fundamentally sordid.
“I thought about you the entire night,” he said earnestly. “I don’t have all of my memories back yet, but I realise that whatever we had was wonderful and then broken. I’m sure it was my fault. I can’t remember why, but I’m sure it was.”
“It was,” she stated. “My tutor used to tell me that a person’s character was never consistent. There is a central part, the heart, which remains anchored. The rest of it is like a cloud, drifting in the direction of whichever person they are talking to at that time. You were always trying to be busy and you drifted a lot. Too much.”
Alba spoke in concepts as a rule, rarely offering a specific instance for him to interpret. “I gave myself to you, without regret and without concern. You were just an honest soldier then. It was the politicking that made everything a mess.”
They were walking and she kept a step ahead. He watched her through the pale dress she wore; occasionally her figure was illustrated by sunlight catching through the thin material.
Marcan was spellbound by her. Her neck rose so gently from her shoulders, too thin to be able to hold her hair, which was thick and deep brown. When she ducked to look at a broken leaf or a young seedling, he spied that bottom lip and it made him tremble with a memory he couldn’t find.
The old emperor had designed every aspect of the garden with cryptic shapes. All the little tricks that he had employed, thought Marcan, all the energy he spent scheming.
Alba was talking about something, but he was watching her without thought. She stopped and turned and he had to gather his wits. Had she asked a question? By her expression, it seemed so. Desperately, he looked for an escape route.
“Have I been in these gardens before? They seem familiar.”
She watched him, looking for guilt.
“Yes,” she said. “They were your gardens for a long time.”
“They don’t feel familiar to be in, just they seem. . . . . not strange.”
He was lying. She was watching his expression with distaste.
“I sometimes get panicked by what I’ve forgotten.”
“I’m sure it will pass,” she said coldly. He looked up at her, but before their eyes met she begun to move forward again. They retreated into an older corner of the garden, one intentionally untouched by the emperor’s hand. He had once used it as a deep green oasis to disappear from the court, to drop his mantle as leader of the empire, and he would sit and find his childishness again. It was nothing, a small square of thirty paces by thirty, three sides bricked up, but for him it was the unkempt heart of the garden. Roses ran along the walls and potted plants in broken amphorae sat in various spots. In the centre of the square was a small, tiled pool with water shaded a fine pale blue. Alba slipped off her shoes and sat down, letting her feet slide into the water. Marcan at first poised himself half-heartedly on a bench, a certain shyness cramping his legs, but then he joined her. The air turned cold. Something changed in his heart as he sat there, and it shaped the direction of his thoughts. His destiny was real, and it was manifesting itself now. He sat as the cohort of the imperial princess, alone, intimate, mere weeks after sleeping in fields and eating burnt meat off the bone. A quiet confidence rose in him, a stain which was now indelible as it was no longer faith but real. He smiled silently, lifting his chin up.
With an otherworldly doip, a raindrop tumbled heavily into the pool. The breeze shifted again as the trees woke up to the clouds and breathed in the scent of rain. Doip doip doip. The rain was cool and the air warm. They sat, postures mimicking each other, close but not touching, unable to concentrate as they waited for the smallest thing to spoil it. The rain felt like a fresh sheet had been thrown across the garden, the grass and gravel fizzing and crackling from a hundred thousand contacts.
“What next?” she asked. He knew that she wanted to hear that he would be back the next day, and had he been a braver man, he would have agreed. But he had to follow his fate.
“I leave.” She closed her eyes, turning her face to the clouds. Marcan watched then did the same, jumping slightly every time a fat drop slapped him. “I don’t know how long for, or where to. But it won’t be forever and it will be somewhere safe. Do you want to come with me?”
“No,” she laughed. “I’m safe enough here and you would be endangering both of us by taking me. You know that I’ve learned that all advice is bad. All of it. The only thing that they should have ever told me was that life will often be sad, but more often it will be beautiful.” The water ran from her forehead, over her damp hairline and down her pale temples. “Marcan, don’t worry about me. I am vindicated. No more do I feel like the victim, or the fool. No more do I feel like the romantic adolescent. I am happiest when I am on my own, as I always was as a child. Even more so now without that onerous expectation of marriage. The world would always be for you men of politics, born and designed to thrive either in your little huddles of power or on the battlefield, and only amongst yourselves. I don’t blame you, Marcan.”
He waited for a moment, feeling the rain drape itself like a sheet over them both. And then when it was uncomfortably cold for him, he stood. Alba hadn’t moved, her face lifted, her eyes closed.
He bent, feeling like a thief, and stole a kiss, expecting her to move away from him. Instead she accepted his lips, the roughness of his chin on her perfect cheek, the loneliness in his touch. He wouldn’t ruin the moment, so he stood and briskly walked away, through the garden, through the corridors, between Loreticus’s guards by the door and out, blessed now for the coming battle.
Chapter 22
Darcy sat with his usual edginess in the foyer of the ancient complex, grouped with the daily clients of Ferran. There was something demeaning for him being amongst these money men and soldiers in their second career. His leg bounced erratically, and he felt his fine features and balding pate mark him as somewhat less masculine than these back-slapping apes.
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His was a world of favours, subtle cajoling and out-and-out blackmail. It wasn’t an environment of pleading for as much as you could and being grateful for it. Outcomes for him were black and white; only the means changed. The opposite was true for his peers in the waiting room and it felt to him as if he spoke a different language or was a different race.
Ferran came through the doors without any pomp. He slipped through, two enormous guards in polished mail behind him, and looked around the room. The clients had fallen silent, pivoting towards the great doors which had admitted petitioners to the noble family for generations past. It was akin to being in a place of religious worship. Ferran caught Darcy’s eye and waved him in, turning without waiting to see whether the small man had seen or reacted.
Darcy pushed through the clumsy crowd, grumbling as his expensive material smudged on some lesser apparel or caught on someone’s belt buckle. He popped out of the front line, scampering the dozen or so paces to the open doors.
He had not been in this ancient home before. It wasn’t somewhere one tended to visit, unless you were a client like those outside, or a whore, a mercenary, a butcher or a wine merchant coming after hours. The room was much more austere than he had imagined. It was rectangular, with natural light from an open end, which led to a small garden, and a long aperture in the ceiling which ran almost the entire length. On the floor were mosaics of insignias belonging to families who had married into the dynasty. The nearest were pale from being worn by footfall over the seasons. Ferran stood by a strategically placed table, dramatically lit by the downward sun. On the table, silver jugs and carafes held the horizontal light from the garden and spread it around their girth. The ubiquitous pot of rock salt sat on one end.
“The Noses through the ages,” laughed Ferran in his drawl, gesturing with his arm. Ancestors were caught in acts of honour, battle or seduction in painted panels on the walls. Almost all had had their beak exaggerated. Darcy looked, interested in the depth of history in the room, and Ferran appeared proud that a man like Darcy was taken by his inherited vanities.
“You must hate this routine,” said Darcy, his eyes still on the panels. “All of this beautiful family allusion only to open the doors to a bunch of peasants asking for things.” He turned to accept the cup from Ferran’s extended hand. A black wine rolled around inside, soaking up the shadows in the room.
Ferran shrugged, moving back to the open end of the room. Darcy found himself following without being bidden, obeying without being told to. They sat and Ferran leant forward.
“I do what I am expected to do,” he explained. “I have more duties than anyone I know, with fewer aspirations. Keep the family alive, marry well, have a few sons, support whoever is on the throne.”
“We always presumed that you wanted the throne for yourself,” said Darcy, leaning heavily on a straight arm to silence his bouncing knee.
“Why?” laughed Ferran. “I’m of the blood, I’m comfortable and I don’t want any more responsibility.”
“But you’re the only one of the royal blood left.”
“Well, that’s not strictly true. There’s my cousin Marcan and there’s Alba.”
“I thought that Marcan was soiled and is planning to flee the kingdom.”
“Still alive.”
“But no threat to you.”
Ferran rocked on his buttocks, rising on to tiptoes and then letting his feet fall flat.
“And that’s why you’ve decided to put your bets on me?” he asked.
The garden was being tended by two slim middle-aged servants, both wearing the ankle strap of slave status. Few families were legally allowed to own slaves in these modern times, and many of those who still did had used religious authority and so left in the exodus. Ferran’s clan, being a family of state, was always entitled to own slaves and it would have been almost improper for them not to have them.
“Where does Antron fit into this little scene of the new Emperor Ferran?” asked Ferran. “Did your crack team of squirrelling schemers think of that issue?”
Darcy winced at the patronising comment. “Just me,” he said. “Not Selban. Not Loreticus.” “Just you?”
“The others are proud and principled men; by which I mean that they are more lawyers than realists. In my mind, the most likely outcome is that Antron assumes control of the state but he is not a royal. You should take the throne and let him run the country.”
“A bold recommendation. A dangerous one to be spoken so calmly.”
“You have a valid claim. More so than anyone else.”
“Darcy, I didn’t mean dangerous for me,” stated Ferran flatly. “Besides, you’re asking me to be a puppet prince.”
“As a ruler with a wise counsellor.”
They watched the gardeners for a moment, Ferran’s silence giving them breath from a rather awkward path of conversation.
“And why should I not be the wise one?”
“Would you like more clients and petitioners nagging you?”
Ferran laughed. His colourful, sharp eyes glanced around at a home familiar to the point of claustrophobia. Ten years ago, he had been riding at the head of a eager and active army, and this had been a peaceful home to return to.
“As simple as that, eh? And why do you presume that Antron will accept it?”
“That is a discussion to be had. But of the two conversations–with you or with him–which was the logical one for me to have first?”
Ferran nodded, his face calm. That he was listening was a positive sign and Darcy sat up slightly straighter, pushing ahead with his momentum.
“Of course, for this to happen and for us to make your assumption easier than Antron’s, you need to stop antagonising friends and enemies.”
Ferran turned, pivoting his palm on his knee to look directly at Darcy.
“Could you explain a little more?”
“Well, stop stealing people. Every host puts their second-best cook in the kitchens when you visit in case you like the food and decide to kidnap him. The old emperor had to station an extra garrison of rangers on the border to try to head off your raiding trips into the zealots.”
Ferran laughed. “I’m a collector,” he said. He pointed at the gardeners. “The best temple garden attendants from the new country.” He gestured to a door in the far corner which appeared to be a small kitchen. “The best personal cook in the kingdom.” He continued indicating doors and people out of sight. “The best cartographer from the northern tribes. The most beautiful daughters of the barbarian kings. The wisest philosophers from the islands.” He turned and regarded Darcy again. “This is a divine environment. Nowhere else on earth will you find a community so close to perfection as this.”
“They’re all slaves,” replied Darcy. “Doesn’t that somehow dim their minds?”
Ferran shook his head, and it seemed he hadn’t heard the judgement in Darcy’s voice. “After a few months, they realise that there won’t be any violence or escape. When they are used to their new lives, they begin to contribute with whatever they have.”
He drank deeply.
“You understand my point though, even if it was made badly? As an aristocrat, you have a certain protection, but as head of state you would cause a war if you went raiding.”
“Of course, I understand what you are asking for.” “Stability for trade. Wealth for the country.”
“A royal emperor like the country deserves,” laughed Ferran, and he drained his cup.
Chapter 23
Dess was waiting outside again when Loreticus was shown in. This time, they sat on the terrace which looked out to the dry hills, raised high up above the dirt storeys below. He had decided to call on her without warning, but she had recognised his carriage as it approached.
Even without notice of his arrival, she was still beautiful, still elegant, still threatening. But there was a little less care in her arrangement, as if she no longer valued her appearance as much. With its ugly and barren slopes, this countrysi
de was certainly not a place to breed optimism and hope.
“I brought you a small library this time,” he said as he entered.
Just like his late wife, Dess was easy to make smile, thought Loreticus. He wondered whether this transparency of spirit lent Dess the same humility.
“Thank you,” she said gently. “When I heard that you had arrived, I thought that it was with a couple of butchers. Close off a dirty secret to protect the emperor.”
“Well,” he said, lost for words for a moment.
“It’s a beautiful view,” she continued. The hills were rolling, dun, a canvas for shadows from the clouds and each other. She ignored the rocks, the scree clattering across dusty undulations. “I hated it when I first arrived. Now I find it perfect.”
“He’s not the emperor anymore,” stated Loreticus. “Nor is it a secret anymore.”
She turned to him. “That surprises me,” she said. Loreticus felt himself becoming tense, the side of his body closer to her going rigid at the thought of her erratic temper. With surprise, Loreticus realised why powerful men fell in love with Dess. He had always assumed that it was due to some dark seduction that she plied. It wasn’t. It was because she was raw and worthy of protection.
“Well, it was quite the spectacle,” he said, staring out over the fort’s wall. “You did plan it well.”
She fell quiet, looking at the side of his face for a moment and then turned away.
“When you come to kill me,” she said indolently, “no blood and no pain, please. Don’t make me become an item of gossip.”
“I won’t kill you,” he replied. “I think if those orders were to be given, they would have been sent already. I just think that they don’t know what to do with you now.”
“Wonderful,” she said sardonically. “The punishment of purgatory. But you do know that ultimately the result will be the same? There are too many secrets yet to be revealed to allow me to float around the palace or the court.”
