The Will to Battle--Book 3 of Terra Ignota

by Ada Palmer

  “Good. Valor, pull the fire alarm to give us a cover story. Andalusia, go outside to make sure no one’s out there spreading rumors. Utopians, am I right in guessing you’ve been blocking satellites and cameras and whatever else might record us since this started?”

  Vizors exchanged quick glances. “Yes.”

  “Good, then keep it up, and see if you can doctor some images to make things plausible, then you and your beasts vanish to wherever you came from, quickly as you can. As for you, MASON, it’s obvious you’re going to carry off Gilliard and whomever else you like, so just carry them off and go. The longer you stay, the more people will notice. Go! Get! Shoo!”

  Only mildly fazed by the Chief Sensayer’s condescension toward their Imperial Master, the guards approached the would-be assassin, but had to stand back like any mortals while the dragons kept their prey. The Utopians who had ringed Jehovah had now fanned out around the courtyard, their long coats transforming the Masons’ uniforms, one making them into living calligraphy, another into trees shading a sun-swept lake whose lily pads supported toy-sized tenements and halls and clock towers, where prompt frog denizens hopped about in coats and hats. The Masons frowned as they waited for the dragons to withdraw. There was no obvious cause for the delay, but the twitch of silent Utopian lips and fingers showed they were consulting some broader constellation. At last the glassy cheetah dropped the confiscated gun into a Mason’s waiting bag. Then all at once there were no dragons, no cheetah, no archaeopteryx, no thrum of robots with their lazer lights, and no Utopians. The world felt dim.

  “Wait! MASON!” It was the ex-Brillist Mitsubishi, Jess Tilden-Crowner, who was brave enough to call to the departing Emperor.

  Caesar does not rise from his seat lightly. “What?”

  “Tell us J.E.D.D. Mason isn’t your successor.”

  His eyes grew dark. “Lex prohibit conloquium de Imperatore Destinato.” He translated himself: “The law forbids discussion of the Imperator Destinatus.”

  Tilden-Crowner pressed on. “Sniper’s whole cause is fired by everyone thinking J.E.D.D. Mason’s going to take power in every Hive. Just announce they aren’t your successor and it’ll all die down.”

  MASON’s words were stony as the obelisk in Alexandria, where the grim law stands inscribed in all the great languages of the ancient age when it was supposedly carved. “Lex prohibit discussion of the Imperator Destinatus. This is your second warning. There will not be a third.”

  Tilden-Crowner has deep reserves of courage. “I know you want us to know it isn’t them. That’s why you adopted them in the first place, since it’s common knowledge that a porphyrogene never becomes Emperor. But people are paranoid. Just say it publicly, that they aren’t your successor. That’s all we need to end this!”

  MASON nodded to the one among his guards who wore the gold and blue cording of a Romanovan deputy over his Masonic gray. The guard at once placed a heavy hand on the offender’s shoulder. “Jess Tilden-Crowner, I place you under arrest for public and repeated violation of the First Black Law, action likely to result in extensive or uncontrolled loss of human life, which, as clarified by Senatorial Consult 2147–129, covers public discussion of the Imperator Destinatus. You will come with me.”

  I saw little more, nor did I have time then to wonder whether Julia had somehow planned this, too, the elegant removal of her most ambitious potential replacement.

  Those who took Tilden-Crowner came for me, too. I do not resist MASON’s agents unless the need is dire, but I did cling to a railing long enough to grope and find by touch the now-invisible Utopian who had shielded and pinned me in the moments of crisis. I shouted my test. “Delian!”

  They spun. They all spun, a heavy whish filling the courtyard as all the invisible Utopians turned as one. I was right. Someone else might have mistaken it for a trick of the coat’s stormy lightning, that sun sigil that had blinded me when the Utopian first appeared—but I knew that shape well, from the flyleaf of Apollo’s Iliad, and from a grimmer source. When Saladin patrols an alley in Apollo’s captured coat, its Griffincloth turns Hive Members’ customary dress to how Apollo imagined their wartime uniforms: Europeans to updated historic uniforms, Cousins’ wraps to nurses’ scrubs in azure and warm cream, Mason’s suits to gray-piped black and purple. From time to time Saladin passes a Utopian, nowhere overlaying nowhere. When he does, Apollo’s program does not replace his comrades’ coats, but instead stamps that blazing sun sigil onto each Utopian’s back. Delos is the sacred birthplace of Ἄναξ Apollo and his sister, deadly Artemis. Apollo’s Delians; Apollo’s army. I released the unseen figure, and said nothing more, not as MASON’s guards sat me beside my Master in the car, not as their medic checked us, not as we flew across the noon-bright sea toward Alexandria’s fortressed Sanctum. What could I have said? It was no accident if Utopia had flashed the Delian sigil before the eyes of the one person on Earth most likely to recognize it. They had their army. While Achilles struggled to turn servicers into soldiers, and Saladin to turn thugs into a commissariat, Utopia wanted me to know that they, at least, stood ready.

  “I should not have come to the Conclave.”

  Jehovah’s face and voice were still expressionless as He sat beside me, but I could feel His pain, as if my soul were its own sense, able to perceive anguish in another, or in Him at least. Which ancient was it who called the soul a sense? Aristotle?

  “It wasn’t your fault, Ἄναξ,” I consoled. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.” I forced myself to use English with Him, playing my part in regenerating His ability to sort languages. “The Chief Sensayer summoned You to help Your Peer’s priests, You couldn’t refuse that. You shouldn’t refuse that.”

  “Yet I did harm.”

  “It had to happen.” I forced a smile. “You know that, Ἄναξ. There is Providence. All that happens serves the Plan, and Your ongoing Conversation. Or are You afraid that, because His Providence does not dictate Your actions, You might act against the Plan and thereby change or harm it?”

  “That is not My fear. My Peer wants Me to change His Plan or else He would not invite Me.”

  “What, then?”

  “Thinkest thou that My Peer knows how terrible harm feels to His creations? Or is His experience too removed from theirs for empathy? And if the latter, is it so for Me? If I make My creatures suffer, as He makes His suffer, would I realize it?”

  Never again, reader, let me call myself anxious when the great Anxieties of This Infinite Being so dwarf such petty spheres as Earth, and Time. A whole universe could be in torment and He might not know. “I’m sure that isn’t true, Ἄναξ. You care so much. I’m sure You’d know.”

  “Yet how could I? If the mote cannot perceive the workings of the Whole, how can the Whole comprehend the anguish of the mote?”

  He does not know how to weep, this kindly Visitor so unfluent in the subtleties of body. So I wept for Him. “I’m sure You can perceive suffering, Ἄναξ. You’re learning. You’re learning even now.”

  SOURCE: Rosetta Forum, 4/14/2454, 5:30 PM UT

  ARTICLE HEADLINE: CONCLAVE PROGRESS

  TEXT: Spokesperson Andalusia Whitewing describes the Sensayers’ Conclave as “optimistic” about the plan they will present to the Senate tomorrow in response to the Senatorial Order that the Conclave address the theological questions raised by the attack on J.E.D.D. Mason sixteen days ago. The plan will address both private and public discourse, and proposes action to be taken both by the College of Sensayers and external bodies. An account of J.E.D.D. Mason’s own experience of the attack is also expected. Scientific investigation of the incident is under way, and Whitewing urges everyone to be patient and await the results. Despite reports of their arrest earlier this week, Conclave Head Julia Doria-Pamphili led the deliberations, which, according to Whitewing, focused on seeking a way to satisfy the safety requirements of the First Black Law without interfering with the course of science, or stifling individual dialogue. Deliberations took a t
urn for the dramatic when the fire alarm system was triggered by two type Yulóng-AI766 dragons, which strayed onto the Conclave roof in the course of removing the equipment Sniper used to escape the Forum after the attack. The dragons’ operator apologized for the error.

  CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

  Grace

  Written July 24–26, 2454

  Events of April 14

  Zürich, Palma de Mallorca, & transit

  “You can’t get them out of here soon enough. We’ve handled politically sensitive prisoners before, and our share of whackos, but this has shut us down, completely shut us down. We figured we’d have to keep them away from other prisoners, but it’s just as bad with the guards. I know that look a prisoner gets when they see a—if you’ll excuse the expression—a piece of ass they can’t resist. Half my staff has that look now, more than half. And who can blame them? The nutcase won’t wear clothes. Ripped the uniform to shreds whenever we dressed them by force, just stood there totally stark naked and … distracting. Do you have any idea how distracting—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “They won’t eat,” the warden ranted on, “won’t drink, won’t sit down or even lean on anything.”

  “I see.”

  “They just stood there naked in the center of their cell until they passed out from exhaustion. Got a concussion on the way down, then flipped out when they woke up in the infirmary, attacked the sheets.”

  “Of course they did.” These gentle interruptions came from the companion who followed behind me and the warden, his soft steps precise, not like a guard’s stiff march, but like a dancer’s.

  “Why? Why attack the sheets?”

  “They weren’t silk.”

  “So?” I smiled at the warden’s obliviousness as he rambled on. “I wasn’t told about the ex-president being allergic to cotton or anything.”

  The view through the infirmary door before us cut short any answer. Milo’s Venus shattered at my feet could not have raised worse sobs in me. The prisoner’s sun-gold mane was sweat-tarnished, his alabaster skin faded from moon-pale delicacy to death’s-door sickness. His fingertips, once so delicate it seemed they could have plucked one flake from a snowbank, were all bandages and scab, his perfect nails cracked from the clawing struggle of the arrest. The injuries of his fall were still with him, bandages on his cheek, around his ribs, his ankle, while newer gauze across his forearms failed to conceal more recent injuries, where he had attacked his own arm after the medics dared mix liquid nutrients with his royal blood. Soft fetters prevented him from increasing the self-damage, but his frame was so weak that he did not as much struggle as quiver in his bonds, like a dragonfly whose death throes are indistinguishable from the breeze that continues to stir the carcass hours after life has left. Zeus himself would not have recognized his Ganymede.

  « Be easy, Your Grace, » I called as I broke through the clinging prison wraiths to reach the duke’s bedside. « We’re here to move you to more proper quarters. »

  French stirred him. The duke’s eyes slit weakly open, still as bright as the Hope Diamond with its trail of murder. He knew me, and I saw his starved cheeks flush with healthy scorn. Scorn too can be a form of relief, reader. In a world of scum unworthy to raise our eyes to his, I at least was scum who knew it.

  « His Majesty has made arrangements, Your Grace. You will be moved to La Almudaina. »

  My companion drew close behind me. « We are sorry it took us so long to arrange matters, La Trémoïlle. »

  Ganymede’s throat released a gasp of voiceless breath, but it took his cracked lips three tries to shape that breath into a whisper. « … Ss … Sfu-uu … Sp-ain … »

  « Spain? » Folly’s blindness left the warden’s eyes at last as he gaped at my companion. « You! You’re—Your Maj— »

  The King of Spain held a fast finger to his lips. « Today I am simply an agent dispatched by Romanova to facilitate the humane treatment of this prisoner. »

  « Nothing inhumane’s been done! » the warden almost screamed. « I’ve seen to it! I’ve worn myself ragged seeing to it! »

  The king did not raise his voice. « I know. Your efforts have been a credit to your office, but you are not equipped to handle this prisoner’s special needs. In the duke’s world a nobleman hangs with a rope of silk, not hemp. »

  « What? We don’t hang— »

  « It was just a simile. You haven’t done anything wrong, it’s just how the duke was raised. You must think of Their Grace as a time traveler. To them this place, which would send a son of royal blood to prison without his silks and servants, is insane. Imagine yourself in a prison from a thousand years ago, or a thousand years from now, where your treatment was incomprehensible, and violated a thousand unspoken social rules that your captors did not share. Even if your captors tried their best, if you couldn’t communicate the problems you would not fare much better than the duke has here. »

  The king’s own hands helped me free Ganymede’s wrists from the padded fetters. His Grace was too weak to raise his head, but not so weak that I could not feel him trying as I lifted him straight enough to sit. It had to be me they sent. The duke would not have tolerated a stranger, and, besides myself, the only servants trained to know his needs were his own, not trusted by the powers, or Madame’s, not trusted at all.

  « Drink, Your Grace. »

  I saw the warden’s eyes widen as Ganymede’s lips, which had spat back like poison every drink the prison had offered, accepted my silver flask of alpine spring water.

  “It is not your fault, warden. You did all anyone could have.” I could not see the king’s face as I nursed the duke, but his tone had the edge of tears. “It was their upbringing.”

  The jailer frowned down. “Raised so they can’t live normally. Like a set-set.”

  Isabel Carlos II did not answer.

  The duke sputtered. « Da … naa … »

  « Your noble sister is safe, » the king replied at once, « I spoke with them today. » Here strictness replaced softness. « We require Your Grace’s parole that you will not attempt to flee, or cause disruption, while in our custody. »

  « … ha … y … wuu … » I could not make out a syllable, but between gentlemen it was enough. Sniper itself could have burst through the brickwork now with an army at its back, and the duke’s word would have remained his bond.

  I held the silver flask again to Ganymede’s lips. I choked up seeing him like this, reader, his white cheek, which had once put lilies to shame, pale like a grub that should not yet have been uprooted from its tomb-home within the black decay of earth. Not that I have any great love for the duke—rather it felt as if Nature herself were lessened, wounded, by having her masterwork so despoiled.

  « Is it true, Your Majesty, » the warden interrupted, joining us in French, which made the question feel more private, « what they say about your … I mean your relationship to the Porphyrogene? » I suppose he should be commended for managing to wait so long with answers dangling close.

  « People say many different things about Epicuro Mason, » Spain answered mildly.

  « Is it true you’re their real father, like Sniper said? »

  The king paused only a moment. « Yes. »

  The warden gasped, though I think it was less the truth that stunned him than the ease with which His Majesty admitted it; never forget how many of history’s kings have waged wars to avoid acknowledging a bastard.

  I brushed off the tendrils of prison wraiths which stuck like cobwebs to my arms and fingers, lest my unclean hands further distress the duke. « Are you ready to be moved, Your Grace? »

  Ganymede tugged at the collar of his hospital smock, his bandaged fingers too weak to rip the cloth.

  « We have proper attire waiting, Your Grace, but they wouldn’t let us bring it in. »

  Even before prison’s starvation, Ganymede had been delicate enough to carry easily in my arms. Feeling his warmth against me, reader, I could well understand how hopeless had b
een the warden’s efforts to inoculate his staff against desire’s epidemic; Saladin’s dear heart, ever master of my own, could not keep my hands from trembling with the thrill of touch.

  The waiting car had a satin dressing gown, soft slippers, an inlaid comb, and a meal of broth, champagne grapes, fresh-squeezed mandarin juice, young cheese, wine from Ganymede’s own vineyard, and a fresh baguette, still warm. Broth and fruit’s sweetness breathed quick life into the duke’s lips, but he did not speak; parched membranes or politic caution kept him silent. The king spoke instead, a gentle summary of the events the prisoner had missed. He spoke of the proud-hearted Humanists, how they had united behind Ancelet, who snatched from the dust Ganymede’s lost presidential crown and bore it in conscientious stewardship. He spoke of the angered hordes at Odessa, and the more calculating horde which had exploited the riots there to strike at those who use Brill’s arts to rear unearthly set-sets. He spoke of the Mitsubishi general strike which still stretched on, of Sniper’s spreading bull’s-eye sigil, of the Senate’s triumph over chaos, and of the second Senate battle coming on the morrow, when the Conclave would present its new prescription for salvation. He spoke of the terra ignota. I, who weep too easily, strove at least to weep in silence. His majesty was too kind. Every actor he mentioned he made seem full of dignity and purpose. Even Tully. I would have called them poison incantations, the videos which leaked from my coward enemy, fertilizing the thorny weeds of war. The king called them instead « the prayers of one who, despairing of peace, hopes at least to warm the war with meaning. » As my tracker continued to scroll through hate-filled newsfeeds, the kind king felt as miraculous as lost Mommadoll.

  « Majesty! Dear Majesty, they’ve tried to kill our darling Son! »

  The car had not even landed before Madame’s voice burst in, making Ganymede shudder beside me like a rain-soaked nightingale.

  « What? » Spain tried to block the doorway as he stepped out, but I caught a glimpse of fluttering frills. « Is Epicuro hurt? » he asked.

  « Not hurt, Cornel’s guards took care of it. He’s with Cornel now, but they tried to kill Him! Right in the Sensayers’ Conclave! It’s too much! Too much! »