by Bunch, Chris
“Those are your orders, Tribune Damastes á Cimabue. Now carry them out.”
I had been expecting that the emperor would want to punish Kallio, but not this terribly. I took a deep breath.
“No, my emperor. I will not.”
“What?” It was the hiss of the snake.
“Those are orders against the way of gods and men. I cannot obey.”
“You swore an oath to me!”
“I swore an oath to you,” I agreed. “My family’s principle is ‘We Hold True.’ But your orders are evil, and come from the heart, not the head, and it’s my duty to keep you from evil as best I can. You swore an oath of your own to rule wisely and well, and to never treat your subjects with cruelty. I placed the crown on your head when you said those words.”
“I am the emperor, Tribune!”
“You are the emperor,” I said. “I shall obey any wish you have, including killing myself if that’s your desire. But not those commands. I am sorry, sir.”
Veins pulsed at the emperor’s temples, and his lips were a thin line. “Very well,” he said. “If you will not obey me, I shall find someone who will. You are relieved of your duties, Tribune Damastes á Cimabue, and I order you to return immediately and directly to Nicias. You are to issue no orders of any nature to anyone formerly under your command, is that clear?”
“It is, sir.”
The emperor’s eyes gazed into mine, a black glare of demoniac intensity, then the Seeing Bowl was blank.
I was ruined.
SIX
THE WATER PALACE
The nymph giggled lasciviously and dove into the seething pool. She swam to where the waterfall cascaded, then climbed the sheeting water as if it were a ladder. She was very lovely, very naked, and had white-blond hair. She also had Marán’s face. Near the top of the waterfall the nymph stepped onto a half-hidden, moss-framed ledge. She crooked an inviting finger at me, then vanished behind the waterfall, into her cave.
The nymph, or rather the foot-tall sorcerous illusion, had been a present from Marán when we’d been married for two years, one time, and forty-two days. I’d asked the occasion, and she’d said “Just because.” Just because seemed like an excellent tradition to establish, and so it was.
I sat on a stone bench, heedless of the drifting mist that cloaked the garden around me. The nymph’s slightly bawdy antics, which never seemed to repeat, generally cheered me. But nothing changed my mood, which remained as dark, as empty, as the season.
We’d left Polycittara five days after I’d been relieved, as soon as Sinait decided Kutulu could travel.
Domina Bikaner assumed my duties as well as those of the prince regent until a replacement arrived. He tried twice to bring up what had happened, but I refused to allow it. We were both soldiers, oathed to obey the lawful orders given us. He ordered the Red Lancers to escort Marán, my staff, and myself to Nicias. Once the capital was reached, I’d no longer be entitled to my bodyguards, nor any of the staff allowed by the emperor. Karjan, however, announced he’d remain in my service. I said that was impossible — he was carried on the rolls of the Ureyan Lancers and should return to the regiment and normal duties. “I said what I said,” he told me. “Y’ll have me as a so’jer or a deserter. I don’t give a shit which.” Once again Bikaner provided a solution. Karjan was detached for “special duties” to me.
Prince Reufern’s corpse, held in a stasis spell, was wrapped in dark silks, and the black-draped hearse traveled at the head of our column, behind the point riders. Behind Reufern was the ambulance carrying the still only semiconscious Kutulu.
I’d intended to ride out without ceremony, to avoid embarrassment, but that wasn’t possible. The Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers and the Tenth Hussars, in full dress, were drawn up in the main courtyard, and when Marán and I came down to our carriage, the men cheered as if we’d won a great victory, cheered and cheered again.
I swallowed hard, then went to Domina Bikaner and told him to call for a cheer for the emperor. His lips tightened, then he nodded and gave the order. The men obeyed, although I won’t praise the lustiness of the response.
There was no one on the streets of Polycittara as our wagons and carriages went down toward the city gates. The Kallians were cowering indoors, awaiting the lash they knew was coming.
The fast river packet Tauler, a ship I’d been aboard in better times, was waiting at Entotto, its usually gay bunting replaced with black mourning. We were its only passengers. We carried Prince Reufern’s corpse aboard and then sailed north, down the Latane River, for Nicias.
There was a great procession waiting at the docks in Nicias for the body of the emperor’s brother, and the whole city was draped in black. As for Marán and myself — there was no one at all. There was no representative from the emperor, no honor guard such as a tribune was entitled to, none of the friends we’d thought we had.
We had two palaces in the city — the one on the waterfront that was Marán’s, a family gift when she married her previous husband, and the enormous Water Palace granted me after I’d crowned Tenedos emperor. I was for going to our house, but Marán shook her head. “No,” she said. “Perhaps they think they can shame us like this, but the sons of bitches can’t take away what the emperor has given us! We’ll go to the Water Palace!”
I didn’t bother reminding her the “son of a bitch” was the emperor — Marán knew that full well, and if she wished to think otherwise, what mattered it?
The journey through the streets was eerie. All taverns were closed, and few people were abroad. Nicias is a city of lights, laughter, and music. But not now. As Tenedos mourned, so would his kingdom.
At first when we reached the Water Palace, I thought Marán had been right in her decision. Our staff was still at the sprawling manor and greeted us as eagerly as if we were returning heroes. If they’d heard of my disgrace, no one then or afterward gave any sign. But after a few days, I began to think Marán had been wrong.
The Water Palace is monstrously large. It was built for the amusement of the Rule of Ten. Water from the nearby Latane River was pumped into an artificial lake atop a great hill. The water coursed down in a hundred or more creeks and rivulets, over falls, up fountains, and into ponds, surrounded by huge gardens. The gardens were planted with many herbs, flowers, and trees, from the mountainous jungles near the Disputed Lands, to the hothouse orchids of Hermonassa, to the river plants of the Nician delta. Those that did not thrive naturally were kept alive by sorcerous spells, tricked into believing they were in their native land. Statuary was scattered throughout, in every style from sacred to eyebrow-raising profane.
The palace was always thronged with the beautiful ones of Numantia, eager to see and be seen. But now it appeared abandoned, the only people on its winding paths were servitors or gardeners keeping the grounds in their always perfect trim. Unpeopled, in this autumnal time, it was the ideal place for glooming.
Actually, this time was harder on Marán than on me. Disliking the vast country estates of the Agramóntes, she’d come to Nicias searching for knowledge, freedom, and new ways of thought. Since the Agramóntes were one of the most ancient, most respected of the aristocratic families, and Marán was both beautiful and witty, she’d become the talk of the town. Now, no one came to the Water Palace, and when she went calling, those she visited were out, or so their servants said, or the occasion was short, stiff, and formal. Even her dearest friend, Amiel, Countess Kalvedon, was supposedly away from the capital with her husband at one of her river estates. Marán wondered if Amiel had heard of our disgrace and turned away like the others. I said that was ridiculous — Amiel lived her own life, caring little about what others said or did. Marán looked skeptical.
I shared some of her hurt, not just for her sake, but for my own, for my warrior friends were also conspicuously absent. I wondered how much longer we’d remain in this gray world of nonexistence. A time? A year? Forever?
The nymph peered out and smiled. I smiled back, and sudde
nly realized how wet my ass was. A laugh came, not the tinkle of the nymph’s invitation, but a harsh, grating sound. I was on my feet, hand reaching for a sword that wasn’t there as a swarthy man stepped from behind a high ornamental fern. He had wild curls and beard and a nose that had been bent at birth and further mutilated in a dozen brawls. He was dressed like a border brigand. He had a sword sheathed on one side and, just behind it, a dagger.
“Ah, Cimabuean,” he growled. “Sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, eh? Serves you damned well right, trusting kings and shit like that.”
It was Yonge, perhaps the oddest tribune of all. He was a Kaiti, a mercenary guarding our embassy in Sayana when the Seer Tenedos and I met him. Like most hillmen, he was an instinctual killer, but unlike many, he knew how to command and, as importantly, how to follow.
“I heard none of your brothers-in-arms have the balls to pay a visit, for fear the never-to-be-sufficiently-kowtowed-to emperor might smack their little bottoms, eh? A long time ago, I said I wished to learn more of honor. Perhaps I’ve learned all there is to learn in Numantia. Perhaps it’s time for me to return to my hills. What say you, Cimabuean? Perhaps you’ll give up this shit, turn your back on Numantia, and become a proper warrior in my band?”
Yonge had chosen a hard way to learn about honor, marching with us on that terrible flight from Sayana, and then done this and that in Nicias, with some equally disreputable friends, until the Tovieti rose and Kallio rebelled. Then there was a place for his sly talents, and he took charge of the army’s skirmishers. He was made general and then, after our victory over Chardin Sher, Tenedos named him one of the first tribunes.
Authority hadn’t changed his ways. He’d been given a palace, as had the other tribunes, but refused it, not wanting anyone to think he was part of this damned tropic marsh that was Nicias. Sooner or later, he’d return to the mountains, he said. He lived in the barracks with his men, although he spent as little time under a roof as they did. The skirmishers were always in the field, if they weren’t fighting bandits or on the frontiers.
When Yonge was in Nicias, he was a constant scandal. Why so many women were so fascinated with the rogue no one, least of all their husbands, fathers, or brothers, could fathom. He’d fought half a dozen duels without ever taking a serious wound, and now his loves went unchallenged, Nicians preferring horns to the funeral pyre. If he were anything other than the best, no doubt he would have been cashiered. But he was Yonge, and so served on.
The smile the nymph had brought to my face firmed and grew broader. As always, I was glad to see him. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m never drunk, Damastes. I’m just drinking.”
“How’d you get into the palace? I do have guards, you know.”
“Guards? I could wear a pink skirt, have drums and bugles, and walk past them without their dull cow eyes seeing me. Guards! Your brain is going! You need a drink!”
I took him to one of my libraries and bade him wait. He slumped onto a worked-leather couch, without regard for what his drenched garments would do, and said I’d best summon a bottle, for everyone knew a Man of the Hills grows cranky when denied his pleasures. I asked if he wished to clean up, and he said, “Why? I already bathed this year,” and chortled happily. It would be a long evening.
I found Marán and asked, knowing the answer, if she wished to join us. She made polite noises. It wasn’t that Marán disliked Yonge —
I think he frightened her. She was comfortable in the presence of warriors. But as I said, Yonge was a simpler breed, a pure killer. She said she thought not, but she’d at least come in and say hello.
My majordomo, Erivan, brought a wire-sealed flask of Yonge’s favorite tipple, the raw, clear brandy made from grape skins the Varans never exported, but let their peasants swill instead; and a bottle of chilled mineral water for me. A serving man carried a tray of pickled vegetables, several varieties of olives, goat cheeses, and tiny, burning-hot olives.
Yonge waited until the door closed, then growled, “Damastes, I do not like what is going on these days.”
“I’m not very fond of it myself,” I said.
“Everyone knows you were in the right in what you did. Don’t look surprised. Of course what happened in Kallio’s all over the army and everywhere else. It makes quite a story. I think our emperor’s mind has gotten soft. Perhaps he can’t think on anything but his inability to breed a baby emperor on anyone who comes close.”
“Careful,” I warned, knowing one and most likely several of my servants would be spying for Kutulu.
“Piss on care! I say the emperor is acting like he shat his brains out and is trying to think with an empty arse, and I’d say it to his face if he were here.” Yonge was telling the truth. “An idiot,” he went on, “or some kind of primitive asshole in the hills. Like Achim Fergana. You know he still holds the throne in Sayana?” Fergana was king in Kait and held the capital of Kait by cunning and violence. He was the one who’d forced us out of his city on the death trek through Sulem Pass.
Yonge saw the gleam in my eyes. “Now, there would be a task for a dozen, maybe two dozen, good men,” he said. “The emperor won’t know you’re gone. Why don’t you and I and some others slip across the border and call on Fergana? We would gain long-overdue revenge, and maybe even take the kingdom. Now, wouldn’t that be a blow to that little magician you serve, if he had to treat you as a fellow monarch?” Yonge bellowed a humorless laugh. “Don’t look so worried, Cimabuean. I know you’ll hold to your oath, even if Tenedos lets you rot in this swamp you think is a palace.”
He got up, tore off a piece of cheese, and stuffed it into his mouth while pouring another drink. “I said I didn’t like what was happening, Damastes, and I meant more than just what the emperor is doing to you.”
“Why? What’s going on now? I’ve been busy lately.”
“You should take a look at the flitter-tits who’ve joined his court. I’ve never seen a bigger pack of gold-plated fools who do nothing more than prattle the emperor’s praises and try to pry into his treasury. What worries me is that they’re succeeding.” I remembered Kutulu saying much the same thing. “But more,” Yonge went on, seeing my almost imperceptible nod. “Look at the army. Have you seen any of the new commanders? Nilt Safdur, for instance, who’s now got your cavalry. A blowhard and a fool who could lose his way behind a plow horse. Tenedos will take an officer who’s done no more than beat up a few bandits, and make him a general. Worse, he’s named a dozen, maybe more, new tribunes from their ranks. I’d piss on ‘em, but none of them are worth the water. They aren’t like we are, Damastes.”
“We” were the first six the emperor had named tribunes after Chardin Sher’s defeat: myself; Yonge; Herne, whom I liked but little for his ambition, but respected for his ability; Cyrillos Linerges, a former ranker, a patriot who’d left the army to become a peddler, a man who led from the front and had been wounded many times; Mercia Petre, humorless, dedicated, a student of war who’d devised the reorganization of the Army that gave Tenedos victory over the Kallian rebels and his throne; and Myrus Le Balafre, a swordsman, a brawler, and the bravest of the brave.
There’d been others appointed in the years since, some I knew well, others only by reputation.
“What’s he trying to do? Give more work to the gilt-makers?” Yonge complained. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I fear he is getting ready to go to war, and needs more sword-wavers to holler ‘Charge’ for him.”
“I think both of us,” Yonge went on, his voice still low, “know who it might be against.” He shuddered, a grimace of real horror. “You’ve never seen what lies beyond Kait. Maisir goes on forever beyond my mountains. Forests you could lose all Dara in. Swamps with creatures — and the sorcerers who control them — such as none of us have ever dreamed of. Plains that go to the horizon so far away your eyes hurt trying to reach it. I fear, if that’s where the emperor’s dreams lie, we might all find our doom.”
I hope I managed to cover, remembe
ring the emperor’s words: Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia.
Yonge took an olive, then put it back and drained his glass. “Do you remember, Damastes,” he said, seemingly irrelevantly, “after Dabormida, when I came to your tent, drunk?” I did. “Do you remember what I said? That I thought my men were thrown away, were slaughtered, for a reason I didn’t know then — and don’t know now?”
“Yes.”
“Think on that, Damastes,” he said, suddenly gloomy. “If we march south, march into those wastelands of that king, whatever his name is — ”
“Bairan.”
“Whatever … if we march against him, what will happen?”
“Tenedos will become emperor of both countries,” I said firmly.
“Probably,” Yonge said. “But where will you and I be? Bones, forgotten bones, scattered by the wolves of the desolation.”
A dark wind whispered across my soul. I forced a laugh. “What else happens to soldiers?”
“Especially,” Yonge said, “those who are fools enough to trust kings or seers. Double fools those who believe someone who is both!”
“I truly want to thank you for coming here, Yonge, and cheering me so thoroughly,” I said sarcastically. Before Yonge could answer, there was a tap at the door and Marán entered.
“Ah, the beautiful one,” the Kaiti said. “Your appearance is at a perfect moment, Countess.”
“You’ve run out of brandy and want more.”
“Well, not quite, but soon. No. It is time for us to talk about other things than war and such, and perhaps you’ll lead the way.”
Marán looked at Yonge skeptically, not sure he wasn’t making fun of her, but she realized he was serious. She found the pull. When Erivan appeared, she told him what Yonge wanted and added, “And bring a bottle of the green Varan first spring pressing for me.” She saw my lifted eyebrow. “Since none of my friends seem to think I’m worth visiting, the least I can do is cultivate yours. Yonge, start by calling me by my name.”
