He swung his sword at the commander in a wide arc and Sabian stepped easily out of the way. “I’m not going to toy with you, Avitus. This is not a duel; this is an execution.”
Avitus laughed mirthlessly as he steadied his sword and made another lunge. With barely a move out of place, Sabian stepped in towards him, knocked the sword out of the way and, bringing his knee up and his arm down simultaneously, broke the old man’s sword arm at the elbow.
“You…” Avitus gasped, his shattered wrist flopping uselessly by his side and now his splintered elbow matching it. He stood pathetically, watching his sword lying on the ground, hopelessly beyond his reach with his broken arms.
“You’re a match for no one these days, old man,” Sabian grunted. “Without a hidden knife or an archer at your shoulder you’re nothing. Caerdin has lived twenty years with a wound you probably gave him by accident, and yet even as a man over fifty years of age, the general is a match with a blade for any man on this field. You’ve just relied on your reputation and your money to cover your weaknesses as a man.”
Avitus growled, glaring with pure hatred.
Sighing, Sabian stepped forward and raised his sword, pulling it back over his shoulder. With a last sad look at his former lord, he swung, the blade sweeping through the air and barely slowing as it met the resistance of Avitus’ neck. The iron-grey head toppled and rolled across the grass, a short fountain of blood rising from the severed neck before the whole body collapsed gently forward, folding in on itself. Sabian stood silently for a long time, staring down at the body and then turned.
He looked up at Balo on his horse. “Caerdin met with the other lords before dawn and disposed of them I presume?”
The mercenary looked over his shoulder and the rest of those present followed his gaze to see a white villa on a spur of land overlooking the valley, flames roaring around it and thick roiling black smoke pouring up from the hillside.
“He thinks it’s redemption,” the scarred man said sadly. “He burned Quintus and thought the Gods cursed him for it, so he’s making amends by burning himself now and taking our opposition with him. Destroy and rebuild, see?”
Darius fumbled for the neck clasp on his helmet and let it fall away to the ground. “He’s dead?”
“Must be by now,” the mercenary replied. “Roof’s gone on that place. Nothing inside will have survived. In fact, I can see Cialo’s men coming down the hill now, so they must consider the job done.”
“The job?” demanded Darius incredulously. “He didn’t have to…”
“But he did,” interrupted Balo, “can’t you see? That’s the only way he felt he could do it. It’s the only way he thought the Gods would let it happen. He was dying anyway; you’ve watched him. You know he didn’t have many days left in him, so he chose to end there and make sure he got the job done. This morning he was so bad he worried he’d even get as far as the villa.”
Ah thought occurred to Darius and he turned in his saddle. “Tythias?”
But the man wasn’t there. The one armed prefect was already half way across the battlefield, making for the burning building. Darius sighed and turned back to Sabian.
“There’s been enough killing in these past months. Let Avitus be the last. I’ve no wish to execute you, Sabian. You’re responsible for our freedom and without you, we’d never have been here to face Avitus. You saved the life of everyone on Isera several times over and you’ve never lifted a finger to harm me or any of mine. You’ve committed no treason.”
Sabian bowed his head gently and uncomfortably, a fresh stream of blood running from his neck.
“Highness, there’s something you should know; something you really need to know and I’m one of very few people left in the world that’s aware of this…”
Darius sat on his horse with one eyebrow raised, waiting with a curious air. Sabian cleared his throat and, when he spoke, there was a strangely emotional quiver in his voice.
“I came across several documents when I was on Isera; documents that had been secreted away and stored under lock and key. Sarios will be able to confirm this; I expect he has the scrolls with him now. They were genealogies; histories of the Imperial line and its offshoots. Sarios’ carefully constructed claim that you’re of the Imperial blood isn’t far from the truth. I expect he laughed about that as he passed out your supposed fictional claim. The blood of the line does run in you, though, Darius. Not directly, but it’s still there.”
Darius’ brows furrowed. “Go on…”
“Your mother was the lady Livilla Dolabella, a cousin of Quintus the Golden and a child of the house of Corus. That means that you truly are the claimant to the throne, by blood and right…” His voice trailed away and he stared at the ground.
“And?” urged Darius. “There’s more, yes?”
“And your father was not Fulvius. Your father was Caerdin. It’s been hidden from you both since you were a child.” He swallowed hard. He’d promised Sarios a long time ago on the island not to reveal the truth, and some of it should be forever buried, but at some level, Darius needed to know. “You were rescued from the Caerdin villa when it burned, but fell into the hands of Avitus. He had you imprisoned on Isera, knowing who you were, and never told anyone that you’d lived. Your birth name was Quintus, not Darius; Quintus Caerdin, named for the Emperor. The scroll I found must have been put together after your imprisonment, as it has your current name, not your birth name. I’d expect that it was Sarios himself who drew up the genealogies, or at least replaced your name on it so that some day someone would find out. Caerdin’s never even suspected anything. His wife and child died twenty some years ago when the villa burned. I only tell you this now because he’s gone and you should know.”
Darius stared at the commander for a long moment and then cleared his throat. “Commander Sabian? I hereby confer on you the rank of Marshal of the Western Provinces. As such, I want you to deal with this army; your army. Any lords still in command of their men are to be invited to the command tent on the other side of the field. There I and my counsellors will see them all individually and we can decide whether or not they deserve to be given public office. I have the suspicion that most of them will, as Caerdin…” he paused for a moment, his eyes glazing for a second before shaking his head and taking control again. “…as Caerdin seems to have dealt with the rest of them. I want the soldiers bringing to the middle of the field and there they can take their oath shortly. After that I’ll leave them with you to organise. You’ll want to promote some and discharge some no doubt.” He smiled a very strange smile.
“Unfortunately, right now, I have more urgent business.”
Sabian blinked. He was still standing slightly stunned by his sudden promotion as Balo winked at him and the two men turned and rode off back toward their lines. Prince Ashar rode up and slid from the back of his horse.
“You’re a very lucky man, aren’t you? Darius has always been rather fond of you, Sabian, and you have a good reputation, but was it really fair to tell him that now?”
“He had a right to know,” the commander replied, still watching the retreating riders. “What gets me though is how easily he took it.”
Ashar laughed. “He’s a Caerdin sure enough. I’d better get back to my men and tell them to stand down, and you’ve got enough to keep you occupied, Marshal of the western Provinces.” He laughed again and, wheeling his horse, rode back off toward the Imperial lines.
Sabian stood and watched him go for a moment before turning back with a curious smile to the lines of kneeling men. His grin widening, he tore his insignia from the sleeve of his tunic and dropped it to the floor.
“Alright! Form into units and prepare to move! If you don’t know the Imperial Oath, don’t worry. You can just repeat it after me. Anyone of noble rank here should come out front as the Emperor would like to see you personally. Now move!”
The grin on his face widened. “Oh, and somebody get me a medic…”
On the hill, Da
rius reined in with Balo close behind to find not only Tythias but all of the Wolves and several other commanders of the army watching the white walls collapse into rubble. There was a groan from the stressed beams as another section of wall gave way and fell inwards. Through the flames and smoke. Darius could just see a figure, torched and unidentifiable leaning out through one of the open windows, the charred shaft of an arrow protruding from the burned face. The lords had not met their end stoically apparently and Cialo’s men had been forced to contain them. For some reason the young Emperor was assailed by images of the ruined Golden House back on Isera that swam in and out of focus. The charred octagonal room where he used to go for sword practice. More than two decades ago Caerdin had sealed the doors, possibly of that very room and watched as his best friend burned inside. And here another villa on its way to becoming a ruin and he’d done the same again, only this time he’d locked the door from the inside
Mercurias wordlessly uncorked a wolf-embossed flask and took a swig of the neat spirit inside, before flinging the entire thing through a broken window and into the building. There was a brief flare as the liquor burned. “Rest well, you old bastard,” the medic sighed.
Next to him, Brendan uncorked his flask and did the same, followed by Athas and Marco. Balo slipped from his horse, unstoppered his own wolf flask and took a swig, handing the flask up to Darius. The young man, suddenly acutely aware of the long-term camaraderie of the men around him and the link he himself had to them, took a swig of something that tasted foul and then slung the flask into the dying fire.
“Goodbye father.”
The rest of them turned to face Darius. Only Mercurias betrayed no surprise, with merely a knowing smile. Brendan, his eyes wide with astonishment, strode over to the young Emperor. “Whaddya say?”
Mercurias grinned. “Don’t you mean ‘whaddya say, your majesty’?” he laughed.
“When did you find out?” the grizzled medic asked, turning to his Emperor.
“Sabian told me just now, down on the field. And you?”
Mercurias gave a sad smile. “I’ve known for a while. Pretty much since I met you, I’d say. I’m somewhat surprised no one else ever made the connection. You don’t quite look like him, but it’s mostly cos of the hair colour and that comes directly from your mother. She was raven black. If anyone looked at you and tried to combine what they saw in Kiva and Livilla, it’d have been pretty obvious.”
He laughed. “I’m a doctor. We notice these things.”
Brendan whistled through his teeth. “’E’s right though. Y’can see it clear as day if’n y’know what yer lookin’ fer.”
Darius nodded. “I know much the general meant to you all. I’m only really starting to come to terms with what it meant for me and I think I’ll have to sort that out later. It may seem a little unfeeling, but I don’t have time to deal with all this right now and I don’t have time for you to either. I need you back down in the valley. There’s a whole army to administer the oath to and deal with down there. Then there are a lot of lords to meet. The lords are going to be abolished entirely, though the deserving should get estates and public offices. I’m going to need so much help with this, I can’t even picture how enormous the task is. I’ve appointed Sabian as one of the new marshals. I want Athas and Tythias to join him if you’re amenable, and Sithis when I see him?”
Athas looked across at his young master and smiled in a sad way. “I’d be honoured, though I’m not sure how I’ll ever live up to the reputation of the old marshals. No one’ll ever match him. You know that? For all his faults, he may have been the best man I’ve ever known.”
Tythias laughed, again with an edge of tragedy to his voice. “Don’t be daft, Athas. Kiva was the best of the marshals, but don’t forget Avitus was his peer and look at him. I think you’re exactly what Darius needs in a marshal. Kiva may have been a leader to the Wolves, but you’ve always been their father. I’d be proud to serve you, highness. Your father was a great man.”
Marco looked across at them. A tear had run down his cheek and left a glittering trail in the grime caused by the smoke. “What of everyone else, Darius?”
The Emperor smiled. “In the old days, a man with your record and the wound you took in service to the Empire would be pensioned out and when everything settles down, I intend to revive most of the old traditions. A villa somewhere, or an inn or something, Marco. Time to calm down now there’s going to be peace. And you, Brendan, Balo, and all the others down there like Filus and Crucio. The army’s going to need Prefects and senior officers. We’ll need you all…”
Brendan smiled unhappily. “Don’t think my heart’s in it anymore, Darius. With no Kiva, I don’t really want to be a soldier. Hell, I’d have finished years ago if it weren’t for him.”
“There’s decades ahead of us to sort everything out, Brendan. We’re going to have peace, finally. We need to organise things in the valley and then the world will be what we make it. Time to mourn the dead when we’re at rest ourselves. For now…”
He turned his steed and looked down the hill and into the valley, where the two armies had met in the middle of the field with no blades and no blood and the world was being made whole again.
“For now? Let’s go and build an Empire.”
Epilogue
The Emperor Darius the Just struggled out of his bed and winced as his tired feet touched the cold floor. Every day it was getting harder and harder to get up in a morning. These old bones were not as light as they once were and the muscles not as strong. He sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what time it was. There was light outside, so it was clearly after dawn and his eldest son Kiva would be here before long no doubt, with a list of official duties for him. Kiva would never be a soldier; that was clear. He was quiet and gentle like his mother, but an extremely able administrator. The younger one, Quintillian, was the soldier and reminded Darius so much of himself in those old days of imprisonment that he couldn’t help but smile. Kiva would be Emperor soon and would do a good job of it in these days of peace, but Quintus would always be there looking after his older brother and there was virtually nothing the two of them couldn’t accomplish as long as they were so close.
He sighed, wondering whether to go and find his robes or just stay in his sleeping garments for now. ‘Who cares?’ he thought to himself and struggled to his feet. With slow and weary steps, he wandered over to the window. The sun must be over the horizon certainly, but most of the garden was in shadow from here. Various people in the past decades had tried to persuade the Emperor that an east-facing window would be better for him, but Darius liked to watch the sun set from his chair by the window and the view from Sarios’ old room was just too familiar for him.
A few years ago he’d had a long avenue cut through the western orchard so that the view from his window was unobstructed. For some reason it gave him great comfort to see the graveyard down there where so many friends lay buried. All the former marshals of the Empire lay there now, alongside his father, the great general Caerdin, whose body had been removed from the wrecked villa all that time ago. Marshals Tythias and Athas had both gone less than a decade into the new Emperor’s reign, within a month of each other, amidst memorial ceremonies that had taken place across the length and breadth of the Empire. They’d both been popular with both the army and the people. That had been a hard year for Darius; harder than Sithis going six years later, though Sithis went out the way he’d always intended, leading a charge against a small barbarian army that had crossed the northern border. The hardest of all had been Sabian last year. After that autumn morning when Darius had strode out into the grassy courtyard to see the marshal face down on the grass, surrounded by concerned guards and servants, he’d suddenly realised that he was the last person alive who could remember all those men who’d been instrumental in rebuilding a shattered empire. Mercurias had dropped dead from a heart attack while administering a lecture to the palace doctors in the Peacock Palace years ago, Marco had die
d from his wounds only a year after Kiva, and Balo less than two months later from an overdose of mare’s mead, since when its use had been outlawed Empire-wide. Even the younger ones were gone. Cialo had died in a riding accident a decade hence, leaving a huge family that seemed to swarm around Isera every summer when they visited. Sathina had seemed to just waste away after her husband had been taken and one morning just never woke up, discovered in her bed with a sad smile on her face by their eldest. All gone except him.
Still, he chided himself, there was no call for such maudlin thoughts. People went and that was the way of things. Soon he’d be able to see them all again in paradise. The high priests had assured him that his father would have been admitted to paradise for he’d redeemed his actions. Darius had laughed about that and made sure that it was made public knowledge empire-wide that he was their Emperor, but by no means divine. When he died, he would just go where all the ordinary folk went and enjoy their company.
And, of course, for every one of them that had died, there was their legacy. Titus Tythianus was already a prefect in the army, rising rapidly and, being a good friend of both the Imperial heirs, he would likely be a marshal before long. He reminded Darius so much of his father. He’d lost a finger in his sword training even as a boy and already ached when the winter snows came on. The aging Emperor chuckled to himself. Then there was young Sabianus, who was currently engaged in writing a history of the civil wars and took every opportunity he could to bother Darius and make him strain to remember the smallest details.
There were others. He couldn’t really remember them all. His memory wasn’t what it once was and the court seemed so full of young people rushing around these days. Thank the Gods young Kiva was there to organise him.
Where was Kiva this morning? Surely he should be here by now with his lists of foreign dignitaries waiting for audiences and the appointments with members of the senate seeking his approval of new laws and amendments and so on. Perhaps young Ashar would be here today. He’d been in the city for a month now, so he might drop in again. The current Parishid King was unlike his father, more involved in mercantilism than politics or war, but had stood firmly behind his father’s position on the alliance with the empire. Pelasia and the Empire enjoyed a free border these days with no trade restrictions and no taxes. The citizens of both states were commonly seen in the cities of the other.
Interregnum Page 55
