The Court of Broken Knives

by Anna Smith Spark

  ‘I don’t know … Please … Please … I’ll tell the Emperor. Please …’

  Orhan removed his hands and retied the bandage. ‘You can have some more hatha, if you want. Keeps the pain away, though it will kill you quicker. I’ll bring the Emperor to you later. You confess all, that you plotted to kill him, that those men were acting on your orders, that they were about to kill him when I stepped in to save the day. As soon as that’s done, I’ll get them away to safety. Your daughter, your wife, your son.’

  Tam nodded again. ‘The Emperor? He’s … still alive?’ He smiled weakly. ‘I won, then. You’ll appoint … good men. The kind of men I would have chosen … You’ll do as I … would have done.’ His face was blurred with pain but he shook his head when Orhan offered him the vial of hatha syrup. ‘No. No more. I’ll see him … as I am … Lie to him as I am.’ A spasm of pain tore through him and he gasped and writhed, clutching at his stomach. Grasped Orhan’s arm and muttered something, his face pallid, his voice harsh and urgent, not his voice at all. ‘Alive … He’s … still alive. Shouldn’t be alive … What have we done? What have you done? He’ll kill us, Orhan!’

  ‘I’ve done what was needful,’ Orhan said as he left. Speaking to himself as much as to Tam. He went out into the gardens, where dawn was breaking and birds were singing in the trees. He washed his hands in the lake, and was sick, and wept at what he was reduced to doing. There is never any need for these things, he thought. We could just have got on with our lives.

  Tam Rhyl confessed to everything a few hours later, the Emperor and everyone and anyone Orhan could drum up in attendance. March Verneth was not among them, his men engaged in minor skirmishes with Orhan’s in the Grey Square, ostensibly over the best way of shoring up the smouldering Great Temple buildings. Cammor Tardein was present, his support for March wavering after Elis, in an uncharacteristic display of cunning, started dropping suggestive hints regarding a possible marriage proposal to the youngest Tardein girl. That Darath was making the same hints to March about Elis and a possible marriage proposal to the oldest Verneth girl was possibly unfortunate, but not unpredictable if any of them thought about it. By mid-afternoon, the Emperor was back on his slightly smoke-stained throne in the charred shell of his palace, appointing Orhan the Emperor’s Nithque in Tam’s place and filling the Imperial Bureaucracy with Emmereth and Vorley placemen. The Imperial army, sworn solely and absolutely to the person of Emperor, patrolled the streets glaring at people to stop panicking and get back to normal life. By late afternoon, Orhan was sitting in an office off the throne room, half dead from exhaustion, trying to focus his smoke-sore eyes on a list of the identifiable casualties and what their jobs had been.

  ‘A very effective coup, Orhan. I should congratulate you. Very novel, I must say.’

  Orhan spun round. His sister stood looking at him. She seemed almost pleased.

  ‘Holt is thrilled. Good-brother to the Emperor’s personal saviour! He finally sees a reason in having married me. Forgave me my last dress bill, even. You did it all for that, I’m sure.’

  Orhan sighed. ‘I’m tired. I’m busy. Go away.’

  ‘I thought you might want someone to watch over you while you slept. Stop someone else sticking a knife in your heart. Although Darath seems to have done that several times over already.’

  ‘Indeed. Go away. I can’t sleep now anyway.’

  Celyse sat down next to him. ‘You need to sleep, Orhan. Really. Even Darath is worrying about you. You can’t do this alone, not all of it.’

  ‘I have so far. We’re all still a heartbeat from dying if I let go now.’

  ‘Oh, March will come around. Eloise knows which way things are going. She’s not as stupid as her son. He’s just piqued none of this occurred to him first.’

  ‘None of what, Celyse? I had the privilege of saving His Eternal Eminence from Tamlath Rhyl’s fiendishly cunning attempt at his life, an attempt possibly but not definitively planned with support from Immish. Nothing “occurred” to me.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes. Well, March is piqued he didn’t do the saving first, then. He’s making his big stand now to feel he’s a free agent, then he’ll come back to see what he can get out of this. A Vorley marriage and a couple of men he trusts in lucrative positions, assurance this all means what we all know it means, I believe is the likely current price.’

  She was good at this, his sister. ‘So what does it all mean?’ Orhan asked. Interesting to find out what they were saying about his reasons for all this.

  ‘Restored glory to the Empire. Better counsel to the Emperor. Greater strength through greater wisdom. A big army recruitment drive. Oh, don’t worry, brother dear, everybody knows your motives for everything were purer than pure. Far more so than March Verneth’s would have been, if any of this had occurred to him first.’

  Orhan rubbed his eyes. ‘And as a result I have a lot of work to do. Do your sources also say whether the current price is acceptable to everyone?’ It would be nice to get this all over before blood had to start flying in the Grey Square. March had a wonderworker of some kind, he thought vaguely. The litter-maker. Didn’t Celyse say Eloise had kept him on? They’d do all this, and end up blasted to ashes by someone originally hired to flash up a party …

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say at this stage. If Elis gets a better haircut, that might help. But what will you do about Cam Tardein’s girl? Or is poor Elis going to have to commit bigamy?’

  The woman knew everything, she really did. He should probably be profoundly relieved she hadn’t known about his plans. Or at least hadn’t told anyone about them if she had.

  Celyse looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘No, wait, of course: there’s my own dear son, isn’t there? Better hope Bil has a girl, brother dearest, he’ll be a much more attractive prospect with the Emmereth titles attached as well. Zoa Tardein’s pretty-faced enough, if a bit old for him really. I expect he’ll be content. Whether she will … But her father will make her, of course.’ She laughed. ‘We’re all as subtle as blunt blades, in the end, aren’t we? It’s only Darath I wonder about. Did he really do all this out of lust for you?’

  Despite everything, Orhan couldn’t help but laugh too. ‘I’m not that good a lover, Celyse.’ He’d wondered about Darath’s reasons himself on occasion. The thrill of the game? The chance to be something more than he was? The need to find something new to spend his money on? Or perhaps he really did share Orhan’s vision of a renewed Empire, better governed, stronger, more disciplined, kinder to its people.

  Kinder! He almost wept thinking that. A few hours ago he’d been torturing an old friend and he was still trying to believe it was for a greater good.

  But it would be. It would be. Things had to change. They had to. If he had to make every change himself.

  People, he thought wearily. Not ‘things’. People. No euphemisms. The bone-white truth, as he’d given Tam. People had to be changed. A whole lot of people. We killed people, in order that others may live. We soaked the city in blood, to make it clean. It’s for the best. One day people will see that. Yes?

  He sighed again, and left Celyse in charge while he had a bath and a sleep. She would have managed to pull it off properly, he thought sourly. Probably at a lower cost, in coin and lives.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  If Skie was still alive, Tobias would have to kill him.

  Tobias had reached this conclusion before everything had even started. Been contemplating it for a year or more, indeed, before this job came up and offered the ideal opportunity. Skie and Geth were good comrades. Skie was an excellent commander. But … Couldn’t really put it into words. He’d just outgrown them. Needed to be his own man. And Skie had bloody shafted him, not telling him about Lord Prince Marith bloody Altrersyr. ‘Not much for us there, I’d have thought’! Fed up with splitting the rewards of his labour three ways, seeing Skie pocket most of it ‘for the Company’. The money from Lord Rhyl was all his. They’d agreed, him and Skie, that Geth was becoming expenda
ble. Getting old. Making mistakes. Never been the same since he took a spear in his arm the winter before last. Betraying Skie as well was just a logical extension of that.

  So now he was on his own with a good haul of money and two half-decent men to build on. Things looked like they might be getting rather more unstable all over the place, what with conspiracy in Sorlost, deeping fever in Chathe and whatever the hell was going on in the Whites. Could only be to the good for a man in his line of work.

  And then on top of that there was poor lost little Prince Marith. Currently passed out in a pool of vomit in the best bedroom, apparently now entirely dependent on Tobias for everything in his sorry excuse for a life. The gratitude he’d shown when Tobias had given him a bottle of spirits from the house’s larder had been almost touching. Gone upstairs quiet as a lamb, smiled sadly when Tobias had locked the door on him. Could probably butcher all three of them in a heartbeat. Instead, he’d just looked at them with tired eyes. Worth a lot of money to the right people. Showed almost frightening promise as a hired killer, too.

  Prince Marith. Marith wasn’t passed out in a pool of vomit in the best bedroom, he’d be sitting in an impregnable fortress at his father’s right hand learning how to be a king. How to command people. Lead armies. Wield power. Make people grovel. All that crap.

  Tobias would have pissed himself laughing just thinking about that, not long ago. Pretty new boy Marith, who dug the latrines.

  Descendant of Amrath. Demon born, dragon kin. All that crap.

  His face, killing people.

  Somehow it made the skin crawl.

  Skie has been a fool there too, Tobias thought then, not to have kept a closer check on the boy. Cost them Emit. Emit would have died anyway, so it hadn’t been the worst thing ever to have happened in Irlast. But it was still bloody dangerous, having something like that around without knowing it.

  Oh, yes, Skie was getting old and making mistakes. Misjudged how to handle Marith. Got too complacent with Tobias. Secrets and firewine drunks and betrayal – if Skie’d not been getting rusty he would have seen the danger in one of them, at least.

  Even going to Sorlost at all. An unreal city. A dream. They killed children here to ensure that old men were able to die. What did Skie think, that they could come here and not be changed by something?

  Rate’s leg was recovered enough the next morning that he was able to stand to cook breakfast. Fast healing, he was, he said proudly. But Alxine was still shaky and in pain, his arm heavily bandaged. Tobias didn’t feel particularly good himself, his leg aching like an old man, slightly feverish. Could do with another few days in bed. They’d have to move on soon, though. Someone was bound to start wondering where whoever had lived in the house had disappeared to. And the smell coming out of the cellar was becoming frankly vile.

  The streets outside were still empty. There had been men out at first, some armed and shouting about invasion, some obviously taking the opportunity to engage in a little light looting while no one really knew what was going on. The shop next door had been ignored, fortunately. Bringing down an empire and then being killed in the subsequent petty violence when someone did over a bookshop would have been a particularly pathetic way to go. But now everything was quiet, the occasional figure scurrying from one house to another but nothing more.

  ‘We ought to be leaving,’ Tobias said to Rate and Alxine over a breakfast of stale bread and stale meat. Marith sat silently in the corner, nursing a cup of water with his head in his hands. Really didn’t look well. The only reason he was there at all was because they’d dragged him downstairs. If he was awake, Tobias wanted him firmly where he could see him.

  ‘You need to eat something, boy,’ Tobias said encouragingly at him. ‘Get some strength up. The bread’s not that bad.’

  Marith shook his head, blinked red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Tobias surveyed his men. ‘I’m going to send Rate out for a look round. If the gates are open, we’ll head out after lunch. Try to get up into the hills before dusk. Be slow-going, but I’ll feel a lot better once we’re out of here for good and all.’

  With a nagging feeling that he was repeating a previous mistake, Tobias gave Rate a handful of dhol for some more new clothes and supplies.

  ‘You sure there’ll be shops open to buy from?’ Rate asked.

  Alxine rolled his eyes. ‘This is the heart of an empire built on trade, Rate, not a village of cow herds. Course everything’ll be open. A couple of buildings burning down and some big nobs being dead doesn’t stop people wanting bread and novelty goods.’

  Rate looked at the coins and grinned. ‘Fine. In that case, I’ll see you all in a firewine pit around sundown, then. Or shall I just be extra generous and give it all to a dying street whore straight off?’

  ‘Don’t even bloody joke about it, you bastard. And don’t be so cruel as to mention the f-word in My Lord Prince’s presence, either. Look at his poor little face. Looks like he’s going to cry.’

  To Tobias’s intense relief, Rate returned just after midday with clothes, fresh bread, dried meat and raisins, and a lot of news.

  ‘The gates are open. The main ones, the Gate of Dust and the Gate of the Evening, anyway. Lots of soldiers around, but I don’t think they’re looking for people, just on edge generally. I spoke to a few people while I was shopping: nobody’s quite sure what happened but the general view seems to be that the Immish attempted some kind of armed attack. The Emperor is said to be alive: or, at least, nobody’s saying he’s dead. A couple of the nobles started skirmishing but that all seems to have faded out too. Several Immish families got it in the neck, though. Mob went through and torched a couple of Immish merchants’ houses and shops. ‘‘Death to the murdering foreigners’’, usual sort of thing. The Street of the Money-lenders was quite badly hit. Several of the blokes lynched there may not actually have been Immish, in the bright light of a new day and all, but you know how these things can go. The big thing they’re all talking about is that their Great Temple was desecrated. Very unlucky, obviously. Several of the priestesses are dead. Including the High Priestess. The one who … you know … children and everything …’

  ‘Good riddance,’ said Alxine with a shudder. ‘Hardly a great loss to the world.’

  ‘Oh, they’re all terribly upset. Some of them seem to believe their dead will stop dying if the High Priestess isn’t around to, um, encourage things along. Point out enough people must have died in the last few days to rather obviously disprove that, and they just look at you funny. Point out people not dying sounds quite good too and they get really antsy and start muttering under their breath.’

  ‘First rule of success in our line of work is not to bate the locals, Rate,’ said Alxine. ‘Especially not when you’ve just butchered half their government.’

  Curious. More than curious. ‘Odd thing to happen the same night, don’t you think? Unless …’ Tobias frowned. ‘Do they say who did it?’

  ‘They seem quite convinced it was the Immish. Got a couple of dead Immish blokes they’re waving around with their heads chopped off.’ Rate looked up suddenly. ‘Fuck. We did it?’

  Alxine whistled. ‘Nobody mentioned that. Thank all the gods Skie didn’t give us that to do. I wouldn’t have gone in there for any money.’

  Which is presumably why he didn’t tell anyone, Tobias thought. Far less risky in practice, killing a load of women, but … Hired soldiers could combine profane rationality with a superstition that would cripple most hedge witches. He’d probably have thought twice about doing it, if he’d been asked. So Skie had taken a couple of particularly unlucky buggers and done it himself. And been unlucky himself, hopefully.

  ‘Well, they certainly got value for money out of us lot,’ Tobias said.

  Have a quick lunch of odds and ends left in the house larder and then just try and get out. The city was alive with fear; the air was seething around them, there was a smell of smoke and burning, ash from the palace was still blowing on the wind. Sma
ll knots of armed men occasionally marched past, staring at them suspiciously as men out walking in a group, but asking no questions. People hurried about their tasks with wary faces. In the smaller streets children played hesitantly, unsure why their parents were afraid but feeling it and responding to it in kind. Even the street whores and the hatha addicts kept silent and resentful in the shadows, frightened and sullen that this trouble had come and disturbed their painful little lives.

  They skirted wide round the Great Temple, agreeing without speaking that it was not worth going too close. Soldiers do not believe in gods until they do something to offend them. A place best avoided at the best of times by those not born in the Empire, the Temple. Decorated now by Skie’s head.

  The streets became busier as they neared the gate. People were moving towards it with bundles, foreigners, Immish especially, frightened for what had happened, trying to get away. It’s all over now, Marith wanted to shout. There’s not much point you leaving now, is there? Everything’s settling down again and you can just get on with your lives. The Emperor’s on his throne and the city is saved from chaos. I know: the man walking next to me made me leave him there.

  In a narrow street leading down to the Gate of Dust, they stopped for a moment, sitting to rest on a carved bench outside a wine shop with shuttered windows and a broken door. The roofs of the buildings almost met above them, reducing the sky to a thin high ribbon, shining colourless bright. The air was soft and cool with a smell of stone. It is a beautiful city, Marith thought, looking around him at the carved flowers decorating the building opposite. Alxine was tired out already, his face pale and sweaty; he was struggling to keep going. If he was anyone else, Marith thought, Tobias would have killed him by now and had done with it. Should have let him do it in the palace and saved Alxine several days of pain. Tobias looked drawn and weary too. Only Rate seemed even half alive.

  A movement, a flash of something golden and shining, made Marith stand up and step away from the other men. A woman was pressed up against the wall of a narrow alleyway across the street, four men in a circle around her, leering at her, one holding a knife. Nothing to concern himself with, except that the woman was rather more attractive than most. He almost turned away again.