‘Yes, but if the governor finds out I knew you would be arriving early and didn’t tell her… she’ll…’ trailed off Varle.
‘She’ll-?’ prompted Barzano.
‘Well, she won’t be pleased.’
‘Excellent, then we’re off to a good start.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Adept Barzano,’ protested Varle.
‘No need to apologise, no reason you should understand. Games within games, my dear chap.’
Lortuen Perjed coughed pointedly, tapping his cane on the metal crew ramp and stared at Barzano, who waved his hand dismissively. ‘Pay no mind to me, my dear fellow, I’m rambling. Do that a lot whenever I meet someone new. Now, to business. I think we’ll pay a visit to the Imperial palace first, what do you think?’
‘I think that the governor won’t be expecting you so soon.’
‘Then again…’ mused Barzano, pointing to a gap in the trees where a cobbled road led towards the city walls. Uriel watched as an open-topped carriage drawn by a quartet of trotting horses made its way along the road towards the edge of the landing platform.
The carriage was borne aloft on anti-grav technology similar to that used by the Chapter’s land speeders and its lacquered sides bore a heraldic device depicting a garlanded artillery shell.
Uriel knew that such technology did not come cheaply and that this conveyance must have cost a small fortune. . The horses, surely an affectation of tradition, came to a halt in a cloud of dust and a tall, rakishly handsome man clad in a black suit and blue velvet pelisse with an elaborate feathered bicorn hat clambered down from the carriage and hurried
over towards the Thunderhawk, his full features smiling in greeting.
Lortuen Perjed moved to stand beside Barzano and Uriel, his emaciated frame appearing skeletal beside the armoured bulk of the Space Marine captain.
‘Vendare Taloun,’ whispered Perjed. ‘His family cartel produces artillery shells for the Imperial Guard. Governor Shonai ousted him ten years ago and now he leads the opposition to her in the Pavonis senate. Rumour has it that he engineered the death of his brother after they were deposed in order to become family patriarch.’
‘Is there any real proof?’ whispered Barzano before Taloun reached them.
‘No, not as yet.’
Barzano nodded his thanks without turning and stepped forward to greet the new arrival. Uriel noticed a frightened look cross Ballion Varle’s face and stood beside Barzano, his hand straying to his sword hilt.
Vendare Taloun bowed elaborately to Barzano and Uriel, doffing his hat and sweeping it behind him. As he stood erect once more Barzano gripped his hand and pumped it vigorously up and down.
‘A pleasure Lord Taloun, an absolute pleasure. The name’s Ario Barzano, but of course you know that. Come, let us take your magnificent coach into the city, eh?’
Taloun was taken aback by Barzano’s manner, but recovered well.
‘Certainly, adept,’ smiled Taloun, indicating his hovering carriage. ‘Would any of your companions care to join us? I believe we can accommodate another one or two.’
‘Uriel and Lortuen will join us I think. Adept Ballion, be a good chap and have some food and drink brought to the fellows here will you? Very good!’
As Barzano and Vendare Taloun strode towards the carriage, Lortuen Perjed whispered up to Uriel, ‘Well at least we know not to trust Ballion.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Uriel as he watched the rounded adept make his way dejectedly back to the observation building where he emerged with a long cape and longer frown.
‘How else do you think the Taloun knew to come and greet us?’
Uriel considered the question. ‘You suspected you could not trust him and still told him our time of arrival?’
Adept Barzano felt it was likely that the local adept was in the pocket of one of the local highborn. At least this way we know whose.’
Seeing Uriel’s surprise at his candour, Perjed smiled indulgently ‘It’s common enough on worlds like these out here in the eastern fringes where a planet might go for decades without official contact from the Administratum.’
‘Not in Ultramar,’ declared Uriel fiercely.
‘Perhaps not,’ agreed Perjed. ‘But we’re not in Ultramar anymore.’
JENNA SHARBEN SMASHED her shield into the man’s yellow-stained face and pushed him back into the crowd. The holding cells in the back of their Rhinos were already full. More were on their way from the precinct, but for now all the two lines of judges could do was lock shields and keep the crowd back from the roadway that led to the palace gates.
Nearly five hundred people had gathered since the palace bell had begun ringing but the great, dolorous peals were sure to bring more. She cursed whoever had thought to ring the damned thing. It had been used in the early days of Pavonis’s history to gather the members of its senate, but now it was only rung out of tradition.
A damn stupid one at that, reflected Jenna as she pushed the crowd back with her shield. She knew full well that the cartel senators were all contacted directly when required for an assembly. All the bell summoned now were lots of disenfranchised workers who were angry at the very people who would soon be passing this way towards the palace.
‘Keep those people back!’ shouted Sergeant Collix from behind the line of judges.
What did he think they were doing, wondered Jenna? Enjoying a quiet discussion with scores of furious workers? She had heard the talk around the precinct about the massacre he’d caused in Liberation Square and how he had apparently only stopped the shooting when Virgil Ortega had ordered the judges to cease fire and fall back. What other mistakes might he make and how many people would pay for it?
She realised that this line of thinking was dangerous and tried to push it away as another man reached to grab the top of her shield. She smacked its top edge sharply across his nose and he dropped screaming to the ground.
The pitch of the crowds yelling changed and she risked a glance over her shoulder, seeing a horse-drawn hover carriage approaching the gates. The crowd pushed forward and she grunted as its weight bent the judges’ line back.
She dug in her heels and pushed back.
SOLANA VERGEN RECLINED in the padded leather couch of the skimming carriage and examined her moist eyes in a small compact, pondering if they looked suitably grief-stricken. Satisfied that she presented the perfect image of a grieving daughter, beautiful but also teasingly vulnerable, she ran an ivory and silver brush through her long, honey blonde hair as she peered through the velvet-draped window onto the brightness of Liberation Square.
She gave a yawn, seeing more of the tiresome workers lining the road, yelling at her carriage as she passed towards the palace gates. Really, what did they hope to achieve? Then she noticed that many of them were wearing the green and yellow overalls of the Vergen cartel. Why weren’t they at work in the manufactorum? Didn’t they realise that they were working for her now?
Just because her father had foolishly got himself killed last week did not mean that people could just swan off work whenever they felt like it. She made a mental note to contact the local overseer and have him gather names of all those who had been absent today. To teach them all a lesson she would dismiss them and the overseer for allowing such indiscipline amongst the workforce.
They would all soon see that she was not the soft touch her father had been.
Remembering her father, she pouted as she thought of the condescending crocodile tears Taloun had shed with her after the riot that had seen her father die. Did the man really think that her marriage to his idiot son was anything more than one of convenience? No doubt he thought to install his son as puppet head of the Vergen cartel, but he had reckoned without Solana Vergen.
She already had contacts in the other cartels who would be only too pleased to listen to some of the things her fiancé had sobbed to her as they lay in the darkness after satisfying his baser urges.
Her father’s advisors had been
horrified at the idea of her taking over the reins of production, but for the life of her she could not imagine why. The head of the Shonai cartel was a woman and governor of the entire planet, for goodness sake! She pulled her pelisse tighter and rested a silk-gloved hand on the edge of her carriage as she pondered the future.
Yes, the Vergen cartel was definitely going to see some changes.
TARYN HONAN TAPPED his fat, beringed fingers in a nervous tattoo on the window of the carriage, feeling the uncomfortable vibration of his carriage’s wheels with the cobbles on his ample backside.
He cursed again that he had not been allowed to spend his own cartel’s money to invest in an anti-grav carriage. And it was an investment, couldn’t the committee see that? It was so humiliating to arrive at the palace on a clattering wagon rather than on a smooth, prestigious conveyance like the ones used by Taloun and de Valtos.
One day he hoped to be as successful as them and have the respect and admiration of the lower cartels. He resolved to watch them closely at this gathering of the senate. Whichever way Taloun and de Valtos went, so too would he. They would be sure to recognise him as an equal if he continued to support their politics. Wouldn’t they? Or would they think him spineless, following their lead simply to curry favour? Taryn Honan chewed his bottom lip and wondered what the committee would do.
But his thoughts turned petulant as he pictured them behind the long, oaken desk shaking their humdrum heads as they turned down yet another exciting business venture he had brought before them.
It was so unfair that he alone of the cartel leaders had to answer to a committee. He knew the others all laughed at him
because of it, even the tiny, one-manufactoram cartels who could barely afford a seat on the senate.
So he had made a few mistakes. Who in business had not?
Yes, a few trade deals had not gone nearly as well as he might have hoped, and, yes, there had been the unfortunate business of the boy-courtesan who had accessed his credit slate and run up a mammoth debt before fleeing Pavonis on one of the many off-world freighters. But was that any reason for the committee to strip him of executive power and install themselves as omnipotent masters of his finances?
Honan fervently hoped the boy had been aboard one of the ships raided by the eldar and tortured in all manner of sordid ways. That brought a smile to his fleshy face and he licked his rouged lips at the thought, picturing the boy’s debasement at the hands of eldar slavers.
He gripped his ebony cane tighter.
KASIMIR DE VALTOS yawned, wincing as his lungs burned with the bitter smog in the air and closed his eyes as his anti-grav carriage smoothly carried him towards the palace. Briefly he wondered what the Shonai bitch could want now, but dismissed the thought as irrelevant. Who really cared what she wanted any more? He smiled as he wondered if it was perhaps to announce her absurd proposal to hunt down the eldar raiders. Did she really think that his cartel could be bought so easily or that the Taloun would not see through her transparent ploy in a heartbeat?
If she thought they were going to play so easily into her hands, then she was even more stupid than de Valtos had given her credit for.
Mykola Shonai may have been a worthy political adversary once, but now she was just a tired old woman. She was barely hanging onto power by her fingertips, not realising that there was a queue of people waiting to stamp on them.
And Kasimir de Valtos was first in line.
He withdrew a silver tobacco tin from beneath his pelisse, pulling out and lighting a thin cheroot. He knew they were bad for his lungs and laughed bitterly at the irony.
After the eldar had finished with him on their infernal ship all those years ago, a breath of fog could sometimes cause his
lungs to seize up, but he was damned if he was going to let that stop him from doing exactly what he pleased.
He always had done and always would do, and damn anyone who tried to stop him.
VENDARE TALOUN SMILED, exposing a row of perfect teeth, and Uriel was reminded of the fanged grins of the hissing hormagaunts he’d killed on Ichar IV. Uriel had only met the man ten minutes ago, but already did not like him.
‘So, Adept Barzano, Ballion Varle tells me that your ship was attacked during your journey. A bad business indeed. The governor must do more to prevent such atrocities.’
Uriel noticed Taloun was cleverly not trying to hide the fact that Varle had told him of their early arrival, guessing that Barzano must have already known. He wondered if Taloun thought that Barzano could be bought as easily.
‘Yes, my dear Taloun, a bad business,’ agreed Barzano. ‘We were indeed attacked, but saw the rogues off sharpish.’
‘That is good to know,’ nodded Taloun. ‘We have heard such tales about these despicable aliens.’
The man smiled at Uriel, patting his armoured knee. ‘But now the brave warriors of the Ultramarines are here, we have nothing to fear, yes?’
Uriel inclined his head, unimpressed by the man’s over-familiarity.
‘I thank you for your vote of confidence, Guilder Taloun,’ replied Uriel, using the local form of address for one of the cartel chiefs. ‘By the Emperor’s grace we shall rid you of these blasphemous aliens and return peace to Pavonis.’
‘Ah, would that it were that simple, my dear Captain Ventris,’ sighed Taloun, ‘but I fear that Governor Shonai has led us down too ruinous a path for the simple elimination of some bothersome raiders to save our beloved world’s economy. Her tithe tax hurts us all, and none more so than myself. Why, only two days ago I was forced to dismiss a thousand people from my employ in order to lower costs and improve margins, but does the governor think of people like me? Of course not.’
Uriel masked his contempt for the man’s selfishness and allowed his words to wash over him.
‘And what of the extra manpower she promised us to protect the manufactorum from the Church of Ancient Ways? I have lost over seven thousand man-hours of production to their bombs!’ continued Taloun, warming to his theme.
Uriel wondered how many actual men he had lost or if he even cared.
‘Perhaps, Guider Taloun,’ suggested Uriel with steel in his voice, ‘we might leave all this talk of politics for the senate chambers and just enjoy the journey?’
Taloun nodded in acquiescence, but Uriel could see annoyance briefly flare behind his eyes. Taloun was obviously a man unused to being put down by those he perceived as his political inferiors.
Uriel ignored the man and studied the landscape as it sped past them. The city walls were high and sloped inwards towards an overhanging rampart. He could see grenade dumpers worked into the machicolations and power field generators studded along its length. From his readings on Pavonis, Uriel knew that virtually everything would have been produced locally by one or other of the family cartels. The cities of Ultramar did not need such technological trinkets to defend themselves. No, they had stronger defences. Courage, honour and a people that embodied the best examples of all human nobility.
Trained from birth and educated in the ways of the Blessed Primarch, they would never break, never surrender and never submit to such unnecessary luxuries.
Uriel was startled from his bombastic reverie by a pointed cough from Perjed as they moved through the bronze gates of the city.
When seen from ground level the buildings on the inside edge of the walls were much less impressive, functionally constructed, with little or no ornamentation. The buildings of Macragge, while simple, were cunningly constructed to provide a solid, dependable structure as well as presenting something of aesthetic value. He realised that the boxy constructions of Pavonis were designed to be as cost effective as possible and lamented the fact that those who held the purse strings so often hamstrung the architect’s art. Here and there, Uriel saw men and women cleaning the building walls of a
filmy, ochre residue, the inevitable fallout of living so close to heavy industry. He noticed that all the cleaners wore white overalls so as to be less visible.
Taloun waved to the passers by and Uriel was struck by his confident, easy manner.
‘You are well known in these parts?’ asked Barzano.
‘Yes, indeed. I have many friends within the city.’
‘I take it that the majority of these friends are cartel members?’
‘Of course. The common people generally do not venture within the walls of the city. It’s the tolls, you see. Most of them cannot afford to come inside. Especially now, what with the governor’s tithe tax squeezing every last coin from them.’
‘People have to pay to enter this part of the city?’
‘Why, yes,’ replied Taloun, as though any thought of any other possibility was ridiculous.
‘And how much is this toll?’
Taloun shrugged. ‘Not sure exactly. Cartel members are exempt from its payment of course, but I contribute a small amount from the yearly profits towards my comings and goings.’
Barzano leaned forwards and waved his hand over the edge of the carriage. ‘How then are the city’s parks maintained? The buildings cleaned? Who pays for that? The Imperium?’
‘No, no, no!’ explained Taloun hurriedly. ‘I believe a portion of general taxes go towards their upkeep.’
‘So in other words,’ mused Barzano slowly, ‘the populace all contribute towards this lovely place, but cannot enjoy it unless they pay for the privilege once more?’
‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,’ replied Taloun haughtily. ‘But no one complains.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ pointed out Uriel, nodding towards the angry mob gathered before the black gates of the Imperial palace. ‘They don’t look too happy about it.’
JENNA WATCHED THE latest carriage approach the palace gates and rolled her eyes as she saw that this one was open-topped. Didn’t these fools realise what was happening on the city streets? Those carriages that had already passed had been pelted with bottles and cobbles torn up from the square and only by the Emperor’s grace had no one been injured.
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