Princeps Fury ca-5

by Jim Butcher

  The Senatorial Guard and the Crown Legion had been slowly reasserting control, but it was an agonizingly methodical process, rife with the political maneuvering of Citizens struggling to seize new titles and power in the reclaimed territory-all while the holders who lived there coughed their lives out in the winter cold or starved to death after eating their shoes. With the financial and public support of the Dianic League, Isana had been doing all that she could to organize relief efforts into the region-until the night two men with drawn swords had reached the doors of her bedroom before her bodyguard had stopped them.

  The news of the emergence of an heir to the Crown had spread like wild-fire, of course, from one side of the Realm to another within days. It had brought with it a storm of fresh political infighting, as the plans of every ambitious Citizen in the Realm were abruptly sent crashing into ruin. A great many people did not like the notion at all, and many were already decrying Tavi as a fraud and demanding that the Senate declare him an illegitimate heir.

  The Senate had no grounds to do so. Septimus had seen to that, ensuring that there were witnesses and evidence enough to validate his son’s identity. Evidently, though, someone had decided that if some of the witnesses conveniently vanished, the Senate might be able to oppose Octavian’s installation. As the foremost of said witnesses, Isana was the natural target for such schemes.

  At the First Lord’s suggestion, she had accepted Aria’s invitation to visit Placida, ostensibly to speak at several important gatherings of the Dianic League. In truth, she knew perfectly well why she had come: It was the only place in the Realm where she could be reasonably certain of her safety. Gaius’s suggestion was a tacit admission that even the First Lord could no longer protect her in Alera Imperia.

  Of course, “reasonably certain” was not the same thing as “certain.”

  There was no certainty anymore.

  Isana had no idea of the cause of the raised voices and running feet in the courtyard below her window, but she took no chances. She rose from her bed, dressed only in her nightgown, and immediately seized the long, armored coat from the stand by the bed. She slid into the heavy garment, the motion swift and automatic after the endless practice sessions Araris had forced her to endure. Though the coat seemed to be made of heavy leather, sections of the finest steel plate had been sewn into place between two layers of the lighter material. While not as effective as true lorica, the coat offered far more protection than her skin alone, and could be donned swiftly at need.

  Once the coat was in place, she slid her feet into light leather shoes and, with a moue of distaste, slung a leather baldric over one shoulder, so that her sword, a standard Legion gladius, hung at her side. She regarded the weapon without enthusiasm. She had managed to acquire some rudimentary knowledge of self-defense using a blade, again at Araris’s insistence. She’d felt that she had little choice in the matter. After all, it was Araris who had risked his own life to stop the assassins who had nearly reached her, and it seemed the least she could do to follow his advice and help him perform his duty as a singulare to the First Lady. She had diligently applied herself to learning the basics of swordplay-but she did not think that she would ever feel truly comfortable wearing one.

  Although what made her most uncomfortable, she reflected, was the fact that the weight of the sword and armor, once settled upon her, made her feel more reassured than ridiculous.

  She felt the presence of someone tense with anxiety a full second before a soft footfall sounded outside her door, and by the time it opened she had her sword in hand and held in a defensive guard. Light from the furylamp in the hallway made a black outline of the intruder, but Isana’s watercrafter’s senses identified him more surely than her eyes could have within another heartbeat.

  “Araris,” she said quietly, lowering the sword. She waited until he had shut the door behind him to say, “Light.”

  The little furylamp beside her bed responded to her voice, flickering to life, casting a warm yellow glow over the spacious chambers, revealing Araris. He was a man of medium height and average build. He wore his hair shorn close to his head, in the Legion style, and one side of his face was hideously marred with a mass of scar tissue in the shape of the brand the Legions used to mark men convicted of cowardice in the face of the enemy. He wore simple, well-made clothing, including a coat not unlike Isana’s own, and bore a gladius upon one hip and a duelist’s long blade on the other.

  His anxiety faded a little when his eyes met hers, and Isana felt the sudden warm rush of his affection and love-among other, rather less poetic expressions of masculine approval. “Good,” he said quietly, nodding at her sword. “But next time, come away from the window before you turn on the light.”

  She stepped away from the window with a sigh, shaking her head, and extended her hand to him. “I’m sorry. I just woke.”

  He stepped closer to her and took her hand, just barely touching the tips of his fingers and thumb to her skin. “It’s all right. You never expected to be forced to live with this sort of thing.”

  She gave him a small smile. “No. I suppose not.” She shook her head. “What’s happening outside?”

  “A courier has arrived from the capital,” Araris replied quietly, lowering his hand. “Her Grace requests that you join her in her study with all possible haste. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

  Isana looked down at herself and sighed. Then she carefully put the sword away. She’d given herself several minor cuts before learning the sufficient degree of respect for the weapon’s edge. “I look ridiculous.”

  “You look like someone serious about survival,” Araris corrected her. He glanced back as more feet hurried down the hall outside. All around them there was a rising amount of activity in the household, evidenced by the opening and closing of doors, and the sound of rising numbers of voices. “To be frank, my lady, this kind of disruption is an ideal situation for another attack. I’m just as happy to have you in the armor if you’re going to be moving around the hallways.”

  “Very well,” Isana said. “Then let’s waste no more time.”

  One advantage of such a modest-sized household, Isana reflected, was that one never had to plan an expedition complete with guides and pack animals to reach the other side of it, the way it had often seemed necessary in the capital, or in Aquitaine. Isana traded greetings with a young Knight, a chambermaid, and a senior scribe, all of whom she’d broken bread with on several occasions, circled the courtyard, and walked up a single flight of steps to reach the High Lady’s private study. Araris followed her silently, a constant presence, two paces back and slightly to one side, his eyes wary, calm, and everywhere.

  Guards were posted outside of Lady Placida’s study.

  Isana paused and traded a glance with Araris. This was a first. Aria was one of the more… confident women Isana had ever known where matters of potential violence were concerned. If the reports Isana had heard were to be believed, it was with good reason. In Alera, most female Citizens gained their status through marriage. Aria hadn’t. As a young academ, she’d fought a duel with the newly installed High Lord of Rhodes-a situation arising from a rather forceful rejection of his attention during evenings at the Academy, if rumor was to be believed. She’d beaten the young man handily, too, and in front of far too many witnesses for anyone to question her claim.

  Isana scarcely wished to consider what situation might have arisen that would cause Placidus Aria to post guards at her door. Her wishes, however, were quite immaterial to the matter. She strode forward, nodding to the guards, both of whom saluted her sharply. One of them opened the door for her without bothering to inquire of those within whether or not he should.

  Isana felt herself begin to wince and forced the expression away. She felt quite rude, not to mention presumptuous, simply striding into the High Lady’s personal study-but as odd as she might find it, Isana was, at least nominally, Aria’s peer and marginal superior. In an emergency situation, the First Lady of Alera di
d not need to ask permission to enter the room. Whatever Isana might have felt personally, she had an obligation to maintain the status of her office, as well as fulfill its duties.

  Aria’s study could easily have been mistaken for a garden. Several fountains chuckled quietly within, and growing plants were everywhere but upon the several bookshelves spaced around the walls. The fountains drained into a pool in the center of the room, and furylights of every color twinkled at the pool’s bottom like tiny, jeweled stars.

  Lady Placida herself arrived less than a minute later, striding into the room with confidence, energy, and purpose. She was a very tall woman, with lovely red hair and, like Isana herself, appeared to be a young woman in her early twenties. Also like Isana, she was in fact a good deal older than that. She wore the green-on-green of the House of Placidus in her gown and long tunic, and in the trim of her white traveling cloak and gloves.

  “Isana,” she said, coming toward them, holding out her hands.

  Isana took her hands and received a kiss on the cheek. At the touch, Isana felt the wrenching anxiety beneath the High Lady’s practiced, serene expression. “Aria. What’s happened?”

  Lady Placida nodded politely to Araris before turning back to Isana. “I’m not yet certain, but sealed orders from the First Lord arrived, and my lord husband has already left to mobilize Placida’s legions. We are commanded to leave for the capital at once.”

  Isana felt her eyebrows lifting. “Only us?”

  The High Lady shook her head. “Half a dozen of my husband’s most powerful lords have been summoned as well-and from what the messenger said, similar summons have gone out to the entire Realm.”

  Isana frowned. “But… why? Why do such a thing?”

  Aria’s expression remained calm, but it could not hide the woman’s worry from Isana’s senses. “Nothing good. Our coach is waiting.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Isana had been to the great hall of the Senatorium only once before, during the presentation ceremony when she and several others had been brought forth in front of the Realm as a whole and introduced as new Citizens of Alera. At the time, dressed in the scarlet and sable of the House of Aquitaine, she had mostly been too self-conscious-and, she could admit to herself now, ashamed-to notice how large the place was.

  The Senatorium was built from sober, somber grey marble, and was ostensibly large enough to hold not only the Senate, which included the Senators and their retinues, but every Citizen of the Realm of Alera as well. Isana had been told, at some point, that it could seat more than two hundred thousand souls, each and every one of them able to see and hear what transpired thanks to the cleverly arranged furycraft in the construction.

  It resembled an enormous theater more than anything else. Upon the bottom and center of the Senatorium was the actual half circle of seating for the Senate, presided over by the Proconsul, the Senator with the most votes within the body of the Senate itself. Then, rising in rank upon rank upon rank, bench seating stretched up and out for hundreds of yards. Looking down upon the Senate floor, one had only to lift one’s eyes up a little to see the First Lord’s Citadel, the heart of Alera Imperia, rising above the Senatorium.

  “What’s so funny?” murmured Lady Placida.

  “I was thinking how one couldn’t help but notice how large and threatening is the First Lord’s Citadel up above us upon entering,” Isana said. “It’s hardly subtle.”

  “That’s nothing,” Lady Placida replied. “When leaving, the view is of the Grey Tower. An even more poignant vista.”

  Isana smiled, and glanced over her shoulder to see that Aria was correct. The Grey Tower, that unassuming little fortress, was a prison built to hold powerless even the strongest furycrafters in the Realm-and was a silent statement that no one in Alera was beyond the reach of the law.

  “One cannot help but wonder,” Isana said, “if whichever First Lord presided over the construction meant the view to reassure the Senators or to threaten them.”

  “Both, naturally,” Lady Placida replied. “Senators loyal to the Realm first can rest easy knowing that personally powerful, ambitious men will always be held accountable-and the ambitious receive the exact same message. I believe it was the original Gaius Secondus who constructed the Senatorium, and he-oh my.”

  Isana could not blame Lady Placida for breaking off in the midst of a sentence. For though the vastness of the Senatorium was generally more or less empty, hosting only the various retinues of the Senators and a few curious parties, allowed by law to watch the proceedings, that night was different.

  The Senatorium was filled to the top rows of its seats.

  The noise of the crowd was enormous-a sea of talk, a thunderstorm of murmurs. More than that, though, was the overwhelming emotion of those present. None of it was particularly sharp, but there were so many people there that the accumulated weight of all their low-intensity anxiety, curiosity, impatience, irritation, amusement, and too many others to name hit her like a sack of grain.

  Isana felt it when Lady Placida called upon her metalcrafting to shield her mind against the storm of emotions, and briefly wished that she could have done something similar-but she couldn’t. She simply ground her teeth for a moment, fighting back the surge of outside emotion, and found Araris’s hand beneath her arm, holding her steady, his calm concern a bedrock and a shelter against the tide that threatened her. She gave him a swift, grateful smile and, working from that solid point, methodically pushed away the other emotions to let them back in gradually, bit by bit, to give herself a chance to acclimate to them. Araris and Lady Placida stood on either side of her, patiently waiting for her to adjust to the environment.

  “All right,” she said, a moment later, as other Citizens continued to file in. “I’m better, Araris.”

  “Best we take our seats,” Lady Placida murmured. “The Crown Guard is beginning to arrive. The First Lord will be here any moment.”

  They descended to the rows of box seats just above the Senate floor. While not specifically, legally granted to the High Lords, it was well understood who would be occupying those seats, and tradition had long since established which High Lord would occupy which box in the Senatorium at the infrequent assemblies of both the Senate and lords.

  The seats for Lord and Lady Placida were situated above the places of the Senators from the areas governed by Citizens beholden to them. Lady Placida took a few moments to descend to the Senate floor, exchanging greetings with several people, while Isana and Araris sat down in the box.

  “Lady Veradis?” Isana asked, recognizing the young woman in the box beside theirs.

  The serious, pale-haired young healer, daughter of the High Lord of Ceres, turned to them at once, and offered Isana a grave nod. She was notably alone in her father’s section, and seemed all the more slender and frail for the open space around her. “Good evening, Your Highness.”

  “Please, call me Isana. We know one another better than that.”

  The young woman gave her a fleeting smile. “Of course,” she said. “Isana. I am glad to see you well. Good evening, Sir Araris.”

  “Lady,” Araris said quietly, bowing his head. He glanced around the empty box, and said, with perfectly bland understatement, “You seem less well attended than I would expect you to be.”

  “With excellent reason, sir,” Veradis said, returning her attention to the Senate floor. “As I trust will be made clear shortly.”

  Isana settled back, frowning, and studied the seating behind the High Lord’s boxes in general, where the visiting Lords and Counts as a rule settled in behind their own patrons. Behind Lord Aquitaine’s box, for example, was a sizeable contingent of finely dressed Citizenry, mostly sporting the scarlet and black of the House of Aquitaine, while the gold and black of Rhodes made for an only slightly smaller contingent in the seats behind that High Lord’s box.

  By contrast, the sections behind Lord Cereus’s box, and for that matter, behind the box of Lord and Lady Placidus, were rather sparsely
populated. And the section behind the empty box where the High Lord of Kalarus would have been seated was entirely empty of any citizen bearing the green and grey of the House of Kalare. That wasn’t a surprise, given that the House was hardly in favor after Kalarus Brencis’s open rebellion against the Crown had failed so miserably and spectacularly.

  Even so, the Citizens seated in that section were at its fringes, and wearing the colors of one of the other greater Houses. Surely someone should have been wearing Kalarus’s colors, if for no other reason than out of tradition and force of habit. Some of those families had been wearing those colors for centuries. Regardless of the actions of the most recent Lord Kalarus, they would not have abandoned their own traditional garb-indeed, many of the poorer Citizens of that region simply could not have afforded a new court wardrobe, given the devastation the rebellion had wreaked upon their economy.

  Where were the Citizens from Kalare, from Ceres, and from Placida? What has Lady Placida not told us?

  She felt a similar sense of concerned curiosity from Araris, and turned to him, expecting him to have noticed the same absences she had-only to find him staring intently across the Senate floor.

  “Araris?” she murmured.

  “Look at Aquitaine’s box,” he murmured quietly. “Where is Lady Aquitaine?”

  Isana blinked and looked more closely. Sure enough, High Lord Aquitainus Attis sat in his box without the familiar, stately figure of his wife Invidia at his side.

  “Where could she be?” Isana murmured. “She would never miss something like this.”

  “Perhaps now that an heir has appeared, they finally decided to kill one another,” murmured a wry, familiar voice. “Though if so, I lost money in the pool the Cursors had going as to the victor.”