Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3)

by Frances Smith

  “Who are you that come this way?” the Lord Commenae demanded.

  “I am Romana, daughter of Demetrius, the fifth since the founding, descendant of the Empress Aegea,” Romana replied.

  “Why are you come, Romana?” Michael asked.

  “To claim the Purple Throne,” Romana declared.

  “By what right do you claim the throne?” Michael said, speaking a line that would have been spoken by the Commander of the Army had he been present.

  “By right of blood,” Romana said. “My brother, Demodocus, second since the founding, is dead. I am his closest living heir. I am descended from the Divine Empress Aegea the Great, and Panthus who led our people to the city that bears his name. The throne is mine. Who are you to deny it to me?”

  Michael slid off the back of his horse, and knelt before her on the ground. “I am no one but a servant of the Empress, sworn to defend the realm of Aegea, who now swears to defend you with his life.”

  The Lord Commenae dismounted smoothly, and knelt. “I am no one but a servant of the Empire, who now swears to give you council and command your armies, as my ancestors have done before me. Soldiers, kneel before Romana, the first since the founding, Princess Imperial and the voice of Aegea upon this earth.”

  The entire line of the Seventh Legion collapsed more surely than if it had been shattered by some charge of Mavenorians, and the soldiers in the centre formed a platform with their shields.

  Romana restrained a smile. She had, she could confess to herself, been especially looking forward to this part.

  She leapt from the saddle of her horse and allowed Michael and the Lord Commenae to help her onto the platform of shields, borne upon the shoulders of the soldiers beneath her. She stood in the centre of this wooden roof, standing upon the emblem of the Seventh Legion, feeling the strength of the soldiers beneath her, waiting for the moment when that power would be unleashed.

  “As my predecessors did, so do I,” Michael said. “In the name of the Empress I, Michael, Lord Callistus, First Sword of the Divine Empire, do acclaim Romana, the first since the founding, as Princess Imperial of the Divine Empire of All Pelarius, Liandra, Triazica and All the Lands that Lie Between and May Be Found Beyond.”

  “As my forefathers did, so do I,” the Lord Commenae declared. “In name of the Empire and the Imperial Army I, Alexius, Lord Commenae, do acclaim Romana, the first since the founding, as Mistress of the Legions and Steward of the Throne and Empire.”

  “Soldiers of the Empire,” they both spoke as one, and Romana wondered idly if they had had to practice to get it right. “What say you to Romana?”

  For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then the soldiers lurched to their feet, bearing Romana into the air atop their shields so violently that a lesser person would have lost their balance and fell. But she was no lesser person but Romana, Aegea’s heir, and so she kept her feet perfectly as all the soldiers there assembled roared out, “Hail Romana! Hail the Princess Imperial!” They hailed until their throats must have been hoarse from shouting, and all the while Romana laughed for joy like a little girl as the armed might of the Empire acclaimed her as its mistress.

  Is this not what it feels like to be a god? What sensation in the world could feel sweeter than this?

  When they had hailed her some thirty times at least, the shouting stopped and the soldiers crouched down again to let the princess descend once more down to the earth.

  “Hail Romana, Princess Imperial,” the Lord Commenae said as he took her right hand to help her down.

  “Hail Romana, long may you reign,” Michael said, taking her by the left hand.

  Romana favoured Michael with a smile as she climbed off the shields, a rare moment when she allowed Romana to shine through beyond the mask of the Princess Imperial.

  Michael smiled back. He does have a nice smile, Romana thought. It makes his face look almost comely.

  Standing before Romana now was a great mass of common rustics, farm hands and labouring men with clubs and hoes and pitchforks. Or at least, that was how they were intended to appear; in actual fact they were men of those companies of the Household Foot who had not participated in Romana’s procession, and had been dressed up as rustics for the day to play this part in the pageantry. It was thought, as Romana had discovered when researching the ceremony, more reliable to do it this way, as real rustics might have had difficulty remembering the lines.

  “Children of the Empire,” the Lord Commenae declared. “Princess Romana, first since the founding, daughter of Demetrius and descendant of Aegea, claims the throne by right of blood and birth. What say you to Romana’s claim?”

  “Citizens of the Empire,” Michael said. “Princess Romana, first since the founding, daughter of Demetrius and descendant of Aegea, has been named Steward of the Throne and Empire by the Divine Empress. What say you to the Empress’ will?”

  “People of the Empire,” the Lord Commenae said. “Princess Romana, first since the founding, daughter of Demetrius and descendant of Aegea, has been acclaimed as Mistress of the Legions by the soldiers of the Imperial Army. What say you to the legions’ wisdom?”

  The rustics knelt. “All hail Romana, Princess Imperial. Long may you govern justly and well, bringing peace to this land and prosperity to your subjects.”

  They stood aside for her as Romana and her ever-increasing procession of followers proceeded down the road.

  Lastly, she was confronted by a crowd of all the magistrates and leading equestrians of the city arrayed in all their finery, a glittering assemblage whose gold sparkled and whose robes and togas shone in the brightness of the day.

  The Lord Commenae declared. “Citizens of Eternal Pantheia, the Princess Imperial Romana, first since the founding, is come to claim the capital that is rightfully hers. The Empress has invested her, and legions, lords and people alike have all acclaimed her. Shall she now be admitted into the city of her ancestors, to take her rightful place at the head of the state? Does any man deny her claim and right?”

  The magistrates of the city drew near and bowed before her. “All hail Romana, descendant of Aegea and Panthus. Enter the city and be welcome.”

  “All hail Romana,” Michael declared. “By the grace of Aegea Princess Imperial of the Divine Empire of All Pelarius, Liandra, Triazica and All the Lands that Lie Between or May Be Found Beyond; Mistress of the Legions, Steward of the Throne and Empire, Tribune of the People, Guardian of the Frontiers and voice of the Divine Empress upon this earth. All hail Romana, long may she reign!”

  “All hail Romana!” the people cried. “All hail Romana!”

  Romana closed her eyes for a moment, and smiled. There would be time for cares and worries, as there had been before. But right now, in this moment, she let the acclaim of the people flow over her and allowed herself to feel content.

  I am Princess Imperial. The Empire is mine. My hour is come.

  May the Empress look kindly upon me as I do her work.

  “Receive now the regalia of your rank,” Michael said. He drew the sword that he wore at his hip, none of the three blades with which he customarily armed himself, but an ancient blade, straight and double edged, with a gilded hilt and a pommel in the shape of a wolf’s head. “Take up Destiny, the sword of Aegea the Divine, that you may defend the realm from all its enemies.”

  Romana hesitated. The sword of Aegea herself, the blade that she had carried into battle, the weapon with which she had cut down the Tarquin king at Eudora, the weapon with which she had led her armies to victory after victory, the sword…her hand came very close to trembling as she reached out and closed her fingers around the gilded hilt. She fancied that she felt a spark go through her.

  “I swear the Empire shall be safe within my grasp,” she said.

  “Take up the shield of law, and remember to always temper the ferocity of justice with the gentleness of mercy,” the Lord Commenae said, holding out a bronze shield with cowhide draped over it, and on the cowhide was written some
of the ancient Ausonian laws that Romana’s ancestors had brought with them on their journey to a new home.

  Romana slipped her arm into the straps of the shield. “I swear I shall uphold all the laws of this land, and shall be just and merciful in all my judgements.”

  The Lord Commenae motioned with one hand, and Romana’s cupbearer emerged from out of the crowd. Hyllia of the Subura – such was a kinder name than Hyllia Nemon Filius – was of common birth, as one could tell if one spent enough time in her presence, but it was Romana’s hope that her descendants might be more, and in the meantime Hyllia herself was the very benchmark of loyalty. In her arms she held the heavy Mantle of the World, folded into a neat pile, and she visible struggled under the weight, until it seemed that she was not so much running as staggering along, desperately trying to keep from falling.

  Together, Michael and the Lord Commenae took the mantle and unfolded it, revealing a long cloak, made out of layer after layer of heavy cloth, embroidered with a map of the world as it had been known in Aeneas’ day, complete with the land in green and the sea in blue. Upon the map was sewn the Imperial symbol: the wolf and the winged unicorn combatant, with an infinity symbol dividing them. The wolf was picked out in opals, and the unicorn in pearls, while the infinity symbol was formed with diamonds. Onyx stones lined the edges of the mantle. It looked heavy, even in the grip of two strong men. It was supposed to be heavy. It was supposed to be nearly as heavy as the burden of ruling the world that lay each day upon the shoulders of a ruler.

  Knowing what was coming – this was the part of the ceremony that Romana had not been looking forward to – she knelt; the road felt hard upon her knees.

  “Receive now the Mantle of the World,” Michael said. “May you bear it as easily as you bear the Empire upon your shoulders.”

  Together, the two men draped the mantle upon her – it felt as heavy as it looked, her shoulders sorely protested it – and fastened the golden clasp around her neck. It felt cold upon her skin.

  They stepped back, and Romana waited, feeling the weight settle upon her like a knapsack full of stones. The mantle was the only part of the Aenean regalia that Thetis had retained, this was the only part of the old ceremony that survived in the newer form, and the precedent was clear: she could spend as long as she wanted knelt down before she tried to stand up, but once she did try to stand then she would have to rise smoothly and without obvious difficulty. If she tried to rise, and the weight of the heavy mantle was too great for her, then it would be seen as a bad omen upon her governance. She remembered that Demodocus had had to be helped to his feet by his guardsmen in the end, and old men said her father had trembled when his turn came.

  I am not my brother. I am not my father. I am Aegea’s heir, fated and destined to assume this throne. This weight is mine by rights and I can bear it as easily as I can bear the Empire itself.

  Now all I have to do is to prove it to the world.

  Romana closed her eyes and bowed her head, praying to the Divine Empress her inspiration for strength in this trial.

  “What are you doing?”

  Romana looked up. The voice was that of a young girl and at first she, absurdly, thought that Hyllia had spoken out of turn. But it was not Hyllia who stood in front of her, looking down at her, purple eyes wide with curiosity. It was…Romana. It was herself as she had been, when she was a very young girl, with baby fat in her cheeks and her hair in curls, wearing a purple dress that stopped just below her knees.

  Romana blinked. “I…I’m getting ready.”

  “Is that heavy?” young Romana asked. “It looks heavy?”

  Romana smiled. “It is. A heavy burden.”

  “Then why don’t you take it off?”

  “Because it is mine,” Romana said. “From now until I die I will carry this weight on my shoulders.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “Oh, it’s wonderful,” Romana said. “It is all that I have ever wanted, and all that I could wish for.”

  Young Romana frowned. “I don’t understand. Why do you want it if it’s so heavy?”

  “Because I am the only one who can bear it, and wear it well,” Romana said. “Because my dreams foretold it from when I was your age. But most of all…most of all…” Her smile widened, and the weight of the mantle seemed to melt away as she rose to her feet in a single smooth motion. “Because with this weight comes the power to change the world, and to remake it better than it is.”

  To the crowd, the lords, the soldiers and the citizens she declared, “I swear that I shall never falter in my service to the Empire.”

  And, just like that, she was in name what she had been in truth for some two months: ruler over the Empire. Princess Imperial Romana, the first since the founding.

  Long may I reign.

  The crowd waited expectantly. It was traditional at this point to say a few words.

  Romana glanced at Michael, who probably had the best idea of what words that she would say. She would rely on him, in days to come. He had been what she had not, what she might never be: anointed, as kings and prophets were anointed in the days of old by the hand of Aegea herself. He shared her vision, the Empress’ vision of a greater Empire, greater in reach and strength and also in honour and virtue and all other such things. An Empire better than it was now. An Empire renewed in the light of the Empress’ love.

  Yes, Romana hoped that he knew what she would say.

  “I ascend to the throne amidst bitter tragedy,” Romana said, her voice ringing out across the crowds. “Our beloved brother, Demodocus, was slain by the treachery of the vile impostor Quirian of Aureliana, who not only laid violent hands upon the Prince Imperial but upon Portia, the Princess Consort, who had she lived would have given the Empire a princely heir to sit the throne in his father’s place. For these grievous losses we have held thirty days of mourning throughout the Empire. The realm has wept not only for the prince that it has lost but for the prince that might have been had wicked fate not intervened.

  “But all the tears in the Empire, though they be sufficient to create another ocean, would not be sufficient to undo what has been done. His Majesty is dead, and so it is with a heavy heart that I assume the throne of my ancestors.

  “Many of you, in times past, have thought me strange. You have whispered at my devotion to Aegea, at my pretensions, at my words. Well, to all of you I say the Risen Empress is as real today as she was when she first ascended into heaven, and she watches over us still. She has sent us back a winged unicorn as a sign of her continued love for us, and it is our task to once more display to her the devotion that the Empress has always displayed to us. Too long has the Empire forgotten what it is and what it is meant to do, what it is meant to be. Too long have we slumbered while our enemies gathered all around us, too long have we wasted in idleness and scheming, employing those energies which we ought to have deployed against our foes against those who should have been our comrades and our friends, too long have we let the Empire wither like fruit left to rot unpicked upon the stem. We have suffered the biting of the Crimson Rose, endured the harassment of the barbarians, turned a blind eye to the schemes of Qart-Hadasht, and ignored all the strictures and the teachings of Aegea. ‘This is your destiny, my faithful sons: to rule all peoples by command and impose the customs of peace upon them, to bring the whole world under your sway and raise up all those who are benighted to share in our glories and our prosperity. To lift up the humble, wear down the proud with arms and be just.’

  “How long has it been since any of us last took those words to heart? Too long. But now I swear that we shall wear those words upon our hearts once more. We shall expand our borders once again, we shall revive the antique honour and good faith with which the Empire was once synonymous, and we shall cease our squabbling and make common cause against our foes without. We shall waken from our slumbers and remind the world that the Divine Empire is a force to be reckoned with and to be feared, until mothers on the far side
of Xarzia chase their children to bed with the threat that the wolves will come and gobble up the disobedient. The world will tremble to our footsteps as it did of old, together we shall make the Empire great again!”

  They cheered, the lords and the soldiers and the common folk, cheering for her, cheering her name, cheering the revival in the Empire’s fortunes that she promised. Romana waited until the cheering had died down before she continued, for she did not want a single word of what she said to be lost.

  “And with the fruits of our new conquests we shall fund reform at home,” Romana said. “Too many of our children dwell in filth beneath the open sky, too much of our greatest cities, even our very capital, are taken up with lean-to huts and crudely erected shelters. With the spoils of our foreign wars we shall make our cities the envy of the world in beauty, in cleanliness, in order and in entertainment, in all the measures by which the greatness of a metropolis might be measured.” Romana smiled. “And we shall do it without adding one single penny to the tax burden.” That got a slight chuckle, especially from the wealthy equestrians who considered that they suffered too great of a tax burden already as it was. A little touch of levity, Romana considered, would not harm her cause.

  “I promise you this,” she said, her tone returning to its former grave solemnity. “I vow, that from this moment until the last moment I shall dedicate myself body and soul in service to every one you, not only here but across Pelarius, Liandra, Triazica and every land on which our standard flies. The Empire is mine but you are not; rather I belong to you, to all of you, to each and every one of the members of our great Imperial family. Wherever you are, that is my home. Whoever you are, remember you are kin to me. And I, Romana, first since the founding, in the sight of the Empress dedicate my life to the improvement of yours.”