by J. B. Lucas
The final night was simple. Although the thick ice had gone, cold rain came down hard, whipping diagonally across them as if the mountains were taking their last chance to inflict hurt. Before they lit the fire, which they lidded with a pot, Marcan saw a pool of light at the end of the pass. It was there briefly, then the rain came again and closed his first glimpse of the distant Palova.
The morning brought surrender, or at least a ceasefire, from the mountains. Sunlight pushed back the wet, and the snow became infrequent underfoot. The beasts even gave an occasional snort or nervous bite of excitement as they saw the land fall warm and flat in front of them.
But Loreticus could see the cold still haunted Marcan. His eyes were frozen and his pinched lips remained blue after their cloaks were flung over the horses’ flanks.
The storm clouds that appeared to be permanently in the mountains when seen from the capital were now seen to be hovering on the other side of the plateau. They were majestic, huge, rolling within themselves.
“I always thought that they sat on top of the Border Mountains,” said Marcan.
“They most often do. They’ve obviously taken a tour of the valley in your honour.”
“How do you do that journey?” asked Marcan. “It’s bone breaking.”
I’ve only gone through the mountains a few times. But when you know what to expect, it’s no worse than when I was fighting the barbarians in my youth. In those days, instead of mountains, it was frozen forests. You remember habits, manage your thoughts.”
“No wonder you’re such a melancholy bastard.”
“That’s more to do with my current employment,” replied Loreticus. He felt that Marcan’s forced familiarity was unnecessary. There was nothing between them now other than duty, and so there was no reason to engage. Loreticus wondered why he had expected a different relationship with his emperor just because he had saved him.
“Don’t you think that my return is a cause for joy?”
“If you get through this, then probably. If we must slog it out for another year, then maybe. If the zealots get massacred by you or the boneheaded generals, or taken back as slaves, then no.”
Marcan ignored him and stared out, squinting at the city in front of them.
“It doesn’t look much.”
“It’s different. It’s growing fast.” He paused. “Unlike our capital, this is a city made beautiful by its people more than its buildings.”
“Where will you go if you have to run into exile?” “Here, I suppose,” replied Loreticus. “Then Surran, then beyond the water. Why? Planning your contingency?”
“Loreticus, you think that I owe you a lot so I’ll be honest. Desertion from my fate is likely to be my first choice. You, Selban and Demetrian, and certainly Darcy, have a clear idea of who an emperor is. I’ve failed once, despite the advantages I was given. I’m as likely to fail again. Add on to that a reward for my death, two countries chasing me and a wife who will judge me for the rest of my life, and I don’t feel that going back offers me anything other than unhappiness.”
“Well,” replied Loreticus with a smile. “You do have a few challenges. But at least you can count them, whereas many people don’t want to understand what’s making them sad. No-one is happy, they’ll say. Life is not perfect.” He prodded a finger towards Marcan. “But you, my poor little runaway, you have a unique potential to make it better for thousands of people. If you don’t squander it again. Just remember that you’ll always be lonely, no matter what you do. Running or leading, neither can be done in partnership. Anyway, I heard that you were a poor actor.”
“Maybe I can sing,” replied Marcan.
“No, you can’t. I’m surprised your memory loss allowed you the luxury of forgetting that.”
“Well then, old man, what do you want from me? A simple puppet or a sacrificial offering to get your politicking ways?”
“No. I want an emperor. My country, the one I’ve lived in since birth, the one my family lived in, the one I’ve served for all my adult life, needs a strong emperor. You have it inside you. We’re all idiots for the first half of our lives until we’re not. I don’t want the soil my wife and child are buried in to change. I buried them well. Forgetting the glory and the promise of the capital is forgetting them.”
“You can’t put that on me.”
“I can and I have. You can have a little more time to wallow in your weakness, but you need to grow up fast. You can be an idiot, but you are the most intelligent man I know most of the time.”
“Then how come I’m here?” asked Marcan.
“Because you’re not always intelligent.” Loreticus pushed his unfinished food away. “I don’t trust you, Marcan. It isn’t your motives, or your intellect that I have difficulties with. It’s your common sense. It’s your dislike of loyalty, either being loyal or trusting people. You’ve always had this flighty behaviour and it’s causing me, us, your wards, untold damage. I don’t believe that you betrayed us at Felix’s. I think that you were about to do something foolish, but the others believe that you have sold out to the generals. Much as you like to think yourself a man, you act like an adolescent.”
Marcan stared at his food.
“I don’t trust you, Loreticus,” he said slowly. “I can’t understand you. I don’t understand why you don’t take the throne and run the country as you see fit. It feels illogical of you to fight for me to win the throne.”
“I don’t take that power, Marcan, for many, many reasons. The first is that I am a man of tradition, and the throne is yours. What does that say about me if I stab someone in the back for passing glory? Another reason is simply that I don’t like people overall. Other than circuits at parties and court visits, I prefer my old friends.”
“Why?” asked Marcan. “What have you got to hide?” “As much as anyone else. But it’s not that. It’s how these common people ask about personal issues, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to forget.” He sucked in a deep, angry breath through his nose. “No. Let me do my good work, then let me rest. I don’t care for another man to judge me.”
Marcan stared at him.
“I was asking about the throne, not someone’s judgement.”
“You were asking too much,” stated Loreticus and stood up to pack his food supplies away.
The downward slope and the sight of buildings spurred the horses’ gait. They made the edge of the small city by mid-afternoon.
“Don’t talk,” Loreticus instructed. Marcan had infected him with doubt and this link in the whole chain, this evening’s activities were the weakest of his whole plan. Walking the exiled emperor into enemy territory, to the very home of the man who had been the most brutal separatist of the zealots. “Don’t wear your hood. In fact, change already into the clothes I gave you. Remember to put a dot of blue dye between your brows occasionally. Plead ignorance quite openly and say you came into the city from a farmstead.”
“You do know that you’ve told me this many, many times before?” asked Marcan, seeing the old man’s nerves.
“Yes, but remember you have a poor memory.”
When they stopped for a short, warm supper, they both changed into blue clothes and marked their brows with the dye. The horses were tired and fidgeted with their saddles when the riders were off.
“Maybe it will keep me honest,” chuckled Marcan. His humour had returned with the warmth of the town.
“Maybe. But maybe you keep yourself safe and hidden away until I come back.”
“And when will that be, Loreticus?” Marcan offered his cupped hands for Loreticus’s knee as he mounted. Loreticus didn’t look at him but took the help.
“I don’t know. Soon. I need to understand what we should do next.”
“Shouldn’t I be involved in that?” “No, not now.”
“Keeping me hidden away is not going to improve that situation. You realise that if you want me to be the emperor, I need to understand the responsibilities? Perhaps I should order you to include
me.”
“Firstly, you were once an emperor with a big mouth and secondly, try enforcing that instruction whilst you’re stuck eating flatbread on the wrong side of the mountains.”
“I do worry you don’t respect me enough sometimes, old man.”
“Well, that’s because at this moment in time you’re bloody useless. You’ve made some incredibly bad choices, so why should I cross the mountains to get your approval every time I need to act? Your job is to be quiet and to stay strong for the next month or so. My job is to fix a broken throne.”
Marcan watched him for a moment. The sun was colder here, but the grass and the flowers smelled fresher. A citric fragrance surrounded them, small flies hovering low as the air sank for the night.
“Where is it you care for me? Is it in your head, your heart or simply because you don’t like the other option? It seems between me and the other three monkeys, I am the best of a bad choice.”
“Why do you care?” said Loreticus, then regretted his surliness. “Maybe there is a lot of truth in what you say. I didn’t like the person you were, but I am loyal to the man before you and to your wife. I am hoping you’ll be a better man than you were before you left the palace in the spring.”
“Why help me at all? Why you, Loreticus? You could go away and live your years out.”
“Because,” said Loreticus, “one day, several years ago, I made a promise to a mother and son that I shall make this kingdom safe and quiet. A place where children smile every day, where families are safe because violence has no place in its streets. I have certain options to get to my goal. But I have no options about whom to sit on the throne.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that.”
“You don’t have to feel anything,” said Loreticus, cold once more. “I’ll give you your throne back and I’ll give you a safe country. You simply need to follow the breadcrumbs.” Loreticus gave his famous smile once more, but there was a coldness in the expression. He had lost none of his suave manner, and his voice contained little anger or frustration. Quiet again. Whatever friendship Marcan considered forging with Loreticus had dissipated. There was nothing between them but a shared destiny, and Marcan was tired of being blamed for a different man’s mistakes. He hadn’t asked for the details of what had happened to make this old man so bitter. It was not his fault, not his problem. “So what happens if the old Marcan comes back?”
“He won’t. You’re a changed man,” stated Loreticus flatly. “Or are you implying that you’re not the real Marcan?”
“And what if I’m not the real Marcan? What if I’m a fraud?”
“If you mean another claimant might arrive, then think back to what I want. A worthy emperor is preferable to a legitimate one.”
The horses sluggishly lifted their hooves again, disgruntled at their being ridden further at the end of a long day.
“At least come back in a fortnight to keep me up to speed.” “I expect to, dependent upon how passable the mountains are and how paranoid the generals.”
“Loreticus,” said Marcan, “I’m your emperor.”
“No. You’re not yet.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you for reading LORETICUS, the first book in the Lost Emperor Trilogy series. I hope that it offered some escape and some inspiration in its pages.
My vision for this story partly came from a boardroom struggle to which I was a close witness. It struck me that it was a timeless story. That was the plot.
The setting was originally an exploration of the India– Pakistan separation. I read about how the difference in beliefs and cultures drove the segregation of the countries, but of course the functions of the original state didn’t split as evenly. The army was very much Pakistani in its roots, and so when the smaller country formed it found itself with a large military machine to support. This has caused troubles since; every government needs to win the support of the generals before they win control of the country.
In the Lost Emperor trilogy I cheat and use an alternative historical setting, a fictional world based on Rome. Were I to have used Rome in its true form, the details of how the characters interacted with their environment would have been of greater importance than the plot in my mind. I was keen to divorce from this historical legacy, but keep its splendor. Better I focus on the exchanges of imperfect information between the characters in the book, than the imperfect knowledge of real history by the author and/or the reader.
Instead I concentrated on the patchwork of stakeholders, each with their ambitions and desires. This plot is drawn straight from real life (excluding the occasional assassination and use of poisons). As a soldier without a general in that particular fight, it was a fascinating and troubling series of episodes for me to watch.
Loreticus continues his struggle to put his candidate back on the throne in the next book in the trilogy, THE BATTLE OF PALOVA, in which he brings the generals face to face on the battlefield. The final episode, THE SETTLEMENT OF SURRAN, concludes the Lost Emperor trilogy as the empire unwittingly bursts its borders.
You can sign up for free pre-release orders via the mailing list at www.loreticus.com (limited numbers each month), as well as receiving free exclusive content such as the play script, maps and character backgrounds.
J.B. Lucas
LORETICUS RETURNS IN THE BATTLE OF PALOVA
Chapter 1
She measured her toes against the mock battlements on the edge of the roof and looked out over her final sunset. Below her, the palace gardens reached in etched detail to the thick walls. Miniature soldiers marched along them, slow and relaxed in their routines. Elma was a tall lady, handsome in an unusual way which her brother told her was unique and charming. She felt nothing of the sort. She felt, gangly and stretched. Too tall for a woman and too gentle for her height. Not in his eyes though. Elma could make him and his friends laugh with her wit when she knew them well, and she would lead a stylish dance with any who dared when the music arose.
So it was a pleasant relief that she felt the good moments in her soul as she stepped over. Not the embarrassment, or the loss. The certainty that she would be back with her brother and father very soon. As the grand red tower sped past her, windows and gargoyles blurring past, she fell in full control of herself.
With a soft crack, her body landed with tremendous speed in to the rose garden at the base of the tower. A small garden accessed by only one door at ground level and one master door to the tower. Guards rarely came in here, even more rarely visitors. This was the spymaster’s tower and this was Elma’s only chance to ensure that he understood the importance of her message.
HELP LORETICUS ON HIS JOURNEY
Reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Kobo and B&N are the single most important way for debut authors to build their readership. If you enjoyed LORETICUS, and think that at least one other person might while away a few hours enjoyably in these pages, please leave a short sentence saying as much.
