Pride of Empires (The Powers of Amur Book 3)

by J. S. Bangs

  And Apurta? He, too, might miss her. He should find Apurta, commiserate, make plans.

  A stone pressed down on his chest. He did not weep. He lay on his bed without moving and felt his limbs and his heart grow numb.

  That was how Chadram found him after a slow, immeasurable time soaking in misery.

  Chadram tore the curtain over Kirshta’s door aside without fanfare or announcement, stepped in, then tugged it carefully back into place. He opened his mouth to speak, took in Kirshta’s position, and said softly, “Get up.”

  “She’s gone,” Kirshta said.

  “You took a lover already? You should be keeping—”

  “My sister.”

  “Ah,” Chadram said. He hesitated. “Was that your maid Vapathi?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wondered. It was clear she was more than your servant, and I didn’t think you two were lovers. I don’t believe the Emperor knows.”

  “He didn’t. That’s why the house-master was able to get her out without danger. For her safety.”

  “Then she’s escaped.”

  Kirshta laughed bitterly. “Apparently she’s safer without me than with me.”

  Chadram’s lips drew together into a grim smile. “Neither of us has been safe for years, Kirshta. Not when you marched with me from Virnas, not when we served Ruyam. Come. Today we complete our examination of the men in the Dhigvaditya, and by Jakhur’s mercy we’ll escape with no more innocent blood shed.”

  “And the Ushpanditya? The Emperor will insist that we examine every minister, bureaucrat, and maid in the place.”

  “Will he?” Chadram said. “We may be able to stop him. And then your sister may return. Get up. Where’s Apurta?”

  His gaze on Kirshta was as cold as marble, but there was pity in it. Shame suddenly bloomed in Kirshta’s gut. Chadram should not have to enter here and chastise him as a child.

  “Apurta is in the barracks of the Dhigvaditya,” he said as he rose.

  “I’ll send someone after him. Follow me.”

  The examination room was empty, and Vadya, for once, was not present. Kirshta lit a stick of incense and let the sweet odor fill the room. He breathed deeply. The movement and the smell quieted his thoughts, and he assumed the Lotus posture. His breath became regular, and soon he descended below the chatter of his thoughts and the querulous rumbling of his body into the inner stillness.

  He heard the patter of feet and the rumble of Chadram’s voice, and he rose to half-consciousness of the room around him. Apurta and another guard led the next examinee into the room. A young man, wearing the red sash of the imperial guard, with his beard freshly trimmed and his face washed. He opened his hands crisply atop his legs and assumed a strict Cane posture.

  Chadram took his seat next to Kirshta and glanced over the young soldier. “What is your name?”

  “Ladham,” the boy said. He did not look at Chadram, but kept his gaze fixed straight ahead.

  “You were with us in Virnas, I believe,” Chadram said. “I saw you among our legion.”

  “I was,” Ladham said. His responses were crisp and practiced. With his inner sight Kirshta saw him flickering with fear, but there was no hint of deception or betrayal.

  “Did you work with the usurper Ruyam when he drove us to Virnas?”

  “I did not,” Ladham said immediately, “aside from obeying the orders which were given to the whole company of the Red Men.”

  “And do you have any doubt or disloyalty to Praudhu-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling?”

  “No,” he said without hesitation.

  Chadram looked at Kirshta. Kirshta nodded. There was nothing to see here—an ordinary soldier, obedient to his orders, disinterested in politics, competent in his service. No reason to waste time on him.

  Chadram waved his hand in dismissal and said, “Return to your barracks. You are loyal to the Emperor, and so long as you stay that way you have nothing to fear.”

  The boy bowed deeply and allowed a tiny smile of relief to cross his face. He left the room—

  A jagged bolt tore through Kirshta’s mind. Not the boy who had left, it was coming—Praudhu face down in a pool of blood, a head rolled across stones, teeth of ice falling into an endless throat of darkness—he shuddered and clenched his fists.

  “What is it?” Chadram’s voice rose in alarm. “Are you—”

  Kirshta opened his mouth to speak, but before he could coax his tongue into forming words a herald spoke outside their room.

  “Praudhu-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling, approaches. Let all fall down and make obeisance.”

  A glance of alarm passed from Kirshta to Apurta, but there was no time. All four of them bowed their faces to the ground. Why hadn’t Kirshta seen it earlier? This was his fault, he had been so disturbed by Vapathi’s disappearance that his farsight was occluded. Had he seen nothing with the soldier because there was nothing to see, or because Kirshta was too distracted?

  The Emperor stepped into the room with a sound like the tearing of a sheet. Blood dripped from the hem of his dhoti.

  “Rise,” he said. He looked at Kirshta with a revenant smile, and when he looked at Chadram his face bubbled with bile.

  No, less of that—when his farsight leaked into his ordinary vision it was too much. Kirshta withdrew himself from the inner stillness and focused his mind on the material world in which Praudhu stood flanked by guards and glowered at them.

  He blinked. The blood disappeared from Praudhu’s feet. The herald stood with his head bowed behind Praudhu, and Apurta and the other guard held their spears tightly in their fists.

  “Enemies,” Praudhu said in a low voice. “Everywhere I look I’m surrounded by enemies. What are you doing, Chadram?”

  Chadram calmly folded his hands in his lap. “I am examining my soldiers, my Emperor.”

  “You examine them!” Praudhu said, throwing his hands into the air. “For what? For flecks of rice? For dust on their spear-shafts? But not for treason.”

  “I examine them as you have ordered, my Emperor.”

  “But you let that last man go,” Praudhu said, pointing an accusing finger out the door. His gaze blazed at Chadram.

  “That man had done nothing. He was loyal and obedient.”

  “Lies.” Praudhu began to pace from one wall of the chamber to the other. “Lies, all of it.”

  Chadram bowed his head and clenched his jaw. “If I may dare to ask a question of my Emperor, of what crime was that man guilty?”

  “He worked for the mad thikratta! The usurper Ruyam who destroyed my father and nearly tore the empire from our hands. How could you suffer a man to live?”

  “He was part of the legion which Ruyam led out of Majasravi,” Chadram said. “But nothing else.”

  “Nothing else,” Praudhu said. “That is enough, and you know it.”

  “Would you destroy the entire legion?” Chadram said. His hands curled into fists.

  “If I want to destroy one of my legions and create a better one, a loyal one, then it’s my prerogative to do so,” Praudhu said. He whirled and pinned Chadram with a wild-eyed glare. “Do you doubt it?”

  “I do not doubt that you have the power and the right,” Chadram said quietly. “But I urge you, Praudhu-daridarya my Emperor, do not destroy men who have only served loyally and obeyed the orders they were given.”

  Praudhu turned his back to them and bowed his head. His thumbs pressing against his forehead. “So it’s true.” He spoke to someone outside the room, “You were right.”

  Vadya stepped through the doorway, bowed, and spoke with a sorrowful expression. “I took no great pleasure in informing my Emperor of the disloyalty among his highest staff. But I must serve my Emperor loyally.” He looked at Chadram with a tiger’s smile.

  “Then it must be done,” Praudhu said, his face darkened by weariness. He waved at Chadram. “Take him.”

  “What—” Chadram began, but Vadya entered the room and gr
abbed him by the collar of his red kurta. A trio of Red Men behind him. Apurta drew back and gave Kirshta a look of horror—he had no clue of what Praudhu had planned. Vadya’s soldiers pulled Chadram to his feet.

  “You,” Chadram said to Vadya, his voice boiling with hate. “What did you do?”

  “Unlike you,” Vadya said, “I serve only the Emperor.”

  “I have never served another.” Chadram looked from Vadya to the Emperor, but Praudhu had turned his back and stood muttering to himself.

  Kirshta rose cautiously to his feet. The numbness which he had felt at Vapathi’s disappearance returned—not the vigorous indifference of the inner stillness, but a deadly loss of feeling, the numbness of rot and decay.

  Vadya gave Kirshta a poisonous glance. “You’ll keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.”

  A stoic calm descended over Chadram’s face. He shook his shoulders free of the grip of the Red Men and stood in the rigid, fearless Cane posture. “So this is how it will be. Very well. I’ll go myself.”

  He marched out of the room before the Red Men could drag him. Kirshta began to follow.

  A heavy hand landed on Kirshta’s shoulder. He turned to see the Emperor. Praudhu stank of rice beer and perfume, and his hand shook on Kirshta’s shoulder. He drew Kirshta close and pressed his forehead against Kirshta’s. Heavy creases showed around his eyes and beneath his lids. Gray stubble pocked his cheeks.

  “My Lotus,” he said. “You’re still a young man. So young. Still there’s a chance.”

  “A chance for what, my Emperor?” Kirshta said. His voice was soft and calm, rising from the black numbness.

  “You served under Ruyam,” Praudhu said darkly. “But I may still need you, you have been—but no, Chadram had corrupted your judgements—I saw you, and Vadya will tell me the truth.”

  His eyes roved over Kirshta’s face. He seemed half mad.

  “Yes—yes, my Emperor,” Kirshta stammered.

  Praudhu pulled Kirshta forward, crushing him into his chest and smothering him with the smell of sweat and the myrrh on his clothes. He ran his hands through Kirshta’s hair. “You will be true, won’t you? You’ll be mine.”

  “I am your minister, your Lotus,” Kirshta said. But he was unable to summon even a simulacrum of emotion from the depths of his numbness.

  “Let’s go,” Praudhu said. “See the destruction of my enemies.”

  With his hand on Kirshta’s shoulder he pulled them out of the examination room. Kirshta glanced back and saw Apurta following, a desperate mixture of confusion and fear in his eyes.

  The Dhigvaditya was full of yelling and footsteps. The Red Men scattered and drained out into the courtyard as the herald announced the Emperor’s approach.

  The courtyard was nearly full when they arrived. Vadya and his guards stood around Chadram, protecting him from the gathering legions of the Red Men. The soldiers poured into the yard without any semblance of military order, a storm-churned sea of red lapping around the island of menace. The upper balconies filled with officers, their faces wracked with horror.

  The chaos parted for the Emperor. Praudhu pulled Kirshta forward with him, the Red Men pulling back as if they might get caught up in Chadram’s doom if they got too close. Near the center of the yard Praudhu and Kirshta stopped, a few paces short of Vadya and Chadram.

  Vadya bowed to the Emperor and addressed him in a loud voice. “My Emperor Praudhu-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling, I accuse this man, the Emperor’s Spear, of treason against yourself, the Empire, and Lord Am.”

  Praudhu shook, in pleasure or in fear. “Chadram,” he said. His voice was almost sorrowful. “Do you admit your crime?”

  Chadram lifted his chin. “I admit nothing. I have been a loyal and faithful servant of the Emperor since the day I was sworn into his service twenty-five years ago.”

  “Twenty-five years,” Vadya said with disdain. “And at the end of it, you turn to conspiracy and treason.”

  Chadram answered calmly and evenly. “Neither treason nor conspiracy has been found in my hands or my mind.” He fixed Praudhu with a stare. “And who is this man that accuses me? As one of the Emperor’s ministers, by ancient custom I may only be examined by the Emperor himself.”

  A wild look passed through Praudhu’s eyes. “You think I don’t examine you? You think I don’t know what you’ve done? Two thousand men you’ve examined, and at every turn you resisted giving them justice, sheltering those who were treasonous, fighting against the counsel of my loyal servants and supporting the servants of my enemies.”

  “None of that is true.”

  “All of it.” Praudhu voice rose to nearly a scream. “All of it! I find you guilty.”

  Chadram bowed his head.

  “Hear my sentence,” Praudhu shouted. “Destroy him before his lies, his treason, his madness—they will poison the remnants of my army. Vadya, destroy him.”

  The Red Men with Vadya grabbed Chadram by his shoulders and forced him to his knees. With calm, deliberate action, Chadram touched his forehead and brushed his fingers to the ground. In a barely audible voice he said, “I give my dhaur to Lord Am and to the Powers.”

  He bowed his head.

  Vadya took his sword from its scabbard. Something akin to pity crossed his face. He said to Chadram, “I will be swift.”

  The sword rose. A single stroke. Chadram’s body collapsed forward, and his head rolled across the stones.

  * * *

  Kirshta sat with Apurta in the Lotus’s chambers. A tray of curried rice and grilled eels sat between them. A servant girl—not Vapathi—had brought dinner at sundown. Neither of them had touched it. The dying light coming through the window underscored their gloomy silence.

  “The house-master was right,” Kirshta said quietly.

  Apurta closed his eyes. “If Chadram can go….”

  “Then it was only a matter of time before the Emperor turned on Vapathi.”

  “Am’s balls,” Apurta swore. He smashed his fist against the wooden table, setting the tray of rice rattling. The wooden pallet resting atop the rice fell to the ground. Apurta kicked it aside.

  “Chadram was a good man,” he said angrily. “Better commander than anyone else in the Dhigvaditya. Ten times the captain that Vadya is.”

  “Do you even know where Vadya came from?” Kirshta asked. He leaned back and rested his head against a cushion in weariness. “Was he in the Dhigvaditya when we marched out?

  “No, he was part of the garrison of Gumadha,” Apurta said. “At least, that’s what I heard. He thinks it’s to his advantage to get rid of everyone who ever served under Ruyam or Dumaya. The Emperor wanted to clean house, and Vadya’s taking the chance to get himself ahead.” He swore again.

  “And he’s feeding the Emperor’s paranoia,” Kirshta muttered.

  “Like throwing dry corn sheaves on a fire.”

  For a moment both of them were quiet.

  “I think,” Kirshta said folding his hands behind his head, “that we should prepare.”

  “Prepare for what?”

  “To leave.”

  Apurta was quiet. “Praudhu-daridarya seemed plenty taken with you today.”

  Kirshta grunted. “And how long will that last?”

  Apurta bent and picked up the fallen spoon. He stirred the uneaten rice with hard, angry motions. “Do you mean…?”

  “Think,” Kirshta said. “If the Emperor turns on us, it’ll be as swift as when Chadram was taken. We have to be ready to go in a moment.”

  “And we need warning. Farsight?”

  Kirshta murmured. He rose to an elbow, considered for the fifth time whether he should eat something, then decided he didn’t want food. “Farsight gives no promises. There are things I can see, but I don’t know precisely when they’ll come to pass.”

  Praudhu facedown in a pool of blood.

  “I’ll keep my eyes open,” Apurta said. “I have a few other friends in the Dhigvaditya… we may get wa
rning.”

  “Chadram probably had friends. It didn’t help him.”

  “Well, then,” Apurta said. He banged the spoon on the edge of the tray. “I guess we should just give ourselves up for execution right now.”

  “No, I’m sorry. We have a chance. We have to be aware. Anything you can get, Apurta—”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I’ll watch.”

  “And I’ll watch,” Kirshta said. “With and without farsight.”

  The gloomy quiet returned. The evening light in the window had faded to near-total darkness. Apurta set the spoon down, tore off a pinch of roti, and took a bit of rice. “At least Vapathi is safe.”

  “Safer than the rest of us,” Kirshta said. He rose and lit a lamp. The darkness retreated, and the yellow flame cast a comforting glow over the gold and yellow silk of the Lotus.

  “I didn’t come this far to fall to the Emperor’s paranoia,” he said. “Nor to have my sister taken from me. One way or another, we’ll be together again.”

  Mandhi

  The inside of the basket was dark. The air was stale and tasted of wet reeds, her own breath, sweat, and blood. The stone crushed her down. She heaved, pressing against the top with all her strength. Useless. It didn’t budge, not a thumb’s width.

  Jhumitu.

  She heaved again. Nothing. She tried to rock back and forth to dislodge it or tip it. Nothing.

  They took my son.

  Fury and terror mingled in her veins. She tried to uncurl her legs, to press against the sides of the woven basket and burst free. With all her strength, she only succeeded in making her feet bleed from abrading the reeds. The weave of the basket cut into her skin.

  She let out a grunt against the gag in her mouth. No words—but she didn’t want words. She growled and screamed. No one heard her. But—

  She heard an infant crying. Jhumitu. He was near, they had him, she had to get to him—all her strength at once, heaving against the lid of the basket—she must get out, find Jhumitu, escape—nothing.

  She screamed and screamed and shook with sobs and screamed again and—