The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

  Imperator Elgar was unperturbed. “Any proposition may sound fair or foul when couched in the appropriate terms. Let me guess at what yours would be: I should leave Esthrades to you, when I could have it easily, simply because it is yours by rights? And what rights are those? Because your ancestor betrayed the masters he was sworn to serve and carved out a realm for himself by force?”

  “Funny, I’d thought your own story was rather similar.” She took another leisurely sip of wine. “At least we never had to fight our own people for power.”

  Elgar scoffed. “The Margraines were ever proud.”

  “You should read your history, sir. If you had, you would find that the Margraines were ever eccentric—hardly a generation passed without all the noble-blooded families in Valyanrend laughing at us for some reason or other. Why should the first Daven have taken as his reward a dilapidated ruin and a stand of apple trees? Why should the sixth Daven favor his daughter at a time when the Ninists taught us all to favor sons, and why should she fiddle with so many laws, wiping out centuries of tradition in favor of pithy arguments and long strings of numbers?” She leaned back in her chair. “I’m sure I needn’t remind you that the dilapidated ruin and the apple trees remain, while Elesthene is long gone—along with the noble houses of our disdainful friends. We are entirely used to being called fools, yet we have a habit of outliving those who would name us so.”

  Far from being chastised, Elgar laughed. “It was never my intent to call you a fool. On the contrary, I have long held the hope that your knowledge might be of use to me, as mine might be to you.”

  She barely stirred, but her eyes narrowed, her posture suddenly straighter. “I can well believe you desire some part of my knowledge, but why on earth would I ever give it to you?”

  “You aren’t a fool, my lady, so don’t play the part of one.” He turned about, started pacing again. “It’s no use to pretend you don’t know what I’m speaking of; we both understand full well that we are perhaps the only people who can aid each other in this. We might accomplish together what we never could alone.”

  She shrugged, but her eyes were still fastened on him. “How do you know I never could?”

  “I know you have met with no success thus far. I know you haven’t, else you wouldn’t have bothered to come here—you wouldn’t have concerned yourself with a pointless parley at all. You would’ve been past all that. But you are not, and so you are here.”

  She frowned, contemplating her glass. To look at them, you’d think they’d forgotten they weren’t alone in the room, but Kel knew they would not be speaking so obliquely but for his presence. What was Elgar getting at?

  “We do have one wish in common,” the marquise said at last. “I won’t deny that. But it is not a goal we can pursue together.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you have a greater desire, one that eclipses all others. The fact that you admire Elesthene at all…” She shook her head. “You clearly don’t understand.”

  That made him scowl. “What does Elesthene have to do with anything?”

  “Elesthene,” Lady Margraine said, “was a land of brilliance and plenty—or so we are told to believe. But the truth is not even well hidden, despite the efforts of so many. Elesthene was a dead land—golden, certainly, but a corpse covered in gold will not smell any sweeter. As Elesthene grew, magic waned, until not a breath of power stirred the air from the Howling Gate to the cliffs south of Eldren Cael. And all the coin the Council ever held could not buy it back again.” Her gaze grew distant, as if she could picture it. “Anyone who seeks to restore any part of that can only be my enemy.”

  Elgar sniffed. “To think they call me superstitious.”

  “It is not superstitious to read of the past and understand its lessons,” Lady Margraine said, “but I don’t expect you to own that. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing I can do for you, nor you for me.”

  “Then why are you here?” Elgar snapped.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Well, I’d thought—”

  He laid his hands on the table. “I mean to say, why not show yourself out, if you’re going to be so obstinate? Kelken still wants to treat with me, I think, so let me talk to him. Let me talk to him without you dripping poison into his ear.”

  She only laughed at that. “Of course, if you prefer. I wasn’t finding this little exchange especially compelling anyway.” She got to her feet, but laid her half-empty glass on the table before heading for the door. “I believe I will tour the castle again, Kelken,” she said, right before opening it. “Perhaps the mist will lift for a moment and I’ll actually be able to see something.”

  Kel saved his frown until after she had gone—Elgar had gotten rid of her far too easily, hadn’t he? He’d thought she was the kind of person who enjoyed obstructing others just for the sake of it. Even if not, didn’t good counsel dictate that leaving him and Elgar alone together was just what she shouldn’t do?

  Elgar, looking at the door, seemed to be having the same thought. “She’s certainly arrogant enough, but at least she knows where she’s not wanted,” he said, before turning back to Kel. He finally took to his chair, pulling it close to the table. “Before I say anything else, answer me just one thing. Unless I am very much mistaken, you do not even want the throne of Reglay, do you? It certainly brings you no joy, that’s plain enough.”

  Kel took a deep breath, but Elgar would be able to tell if he lied about something like this, wouldn’t he? “It doesn’t,” he agreed, “and I don’t. Everyone always told me I would have it one day, but it never seemed real to me—it doesn’t seem real now.” He looked down at his hands. “But my father wanted me to have it. That was his last wish—for me to have it. So I have to try.”

  “It is no fault in you to seek to be steadfast, or to carry on your father’s hopes,” Elgar said. “But a king is more than a son; the responsibility he bears his people must come first, before any common human attachment. If I must take Reglay by force, Kelken, then many of your people will die—people who need never be called to battle, who might be free to stay in their fields and their homes. They will die for nothing, because I will defeat you in the end. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say they will die for the sake of your father’s wish.” He folded his arms. “How many lives is that wish worth?”

  What could he possibly say to that? “If I knew for sure that it would be better—”

  “Neither one of us can know that,” Elgar said. “But I imagine you fear for your own life, and for your sister’s life. I understand that, but you must believe that I do not wish you dead. Arianrod Margraine would have you believe the worst of me, but that won’t save you—either of you. As far as that woman goes, all she has are her throne and her pride, and I swear to you, I will strip her of both before my conquest ends.” His eyes flashed, and Kel struggled not to wince. “But as far as you are concerned, I would rather be merciful, as much as it is in my power. I would rather have you rule for me than have to kill you and set someone else up in your place.”

  “Why?” Kel asked. “Why do you care what happens to me at all?”

  Elgar smiled. “You won’t believe for mercy’s sake, I’m sure, or because of any admiration I might have for you. Fair enough. Let me explain, then, how I profit from keeping you alive: it gives me good standing in the eyes of the people. In my own city I become a conciliator, not a butcher, and here the people will be more likely to accept me without a fuss if I rule them through the one they believe has a right to the throne. If I thought you would make a poor administrator where someone else in my employ would show some especial brilliance, that would be another matter. But men, I’ve found, are much the same one to the next.”

  “Maybe … maybe so,” Kel said. It didn’t sound any better out loud than it had in his mind.

  Elgar sighed. “Well, never let it be said I wouldn’t give you time to think it over. I promise you, if the letter bearing news of your surrender is put into my hand the very moment
I am about to signal my men to march, I will send the lot of them home again with a cheerful heart. But as soon as I have marched, that will be the end of it—and the end of you, very shortly. I will also promise, however, that no matter what you choose, I will do all I can to spare your sister’s life—she made no decision to resist me, after all.”

  Was Kel supposed to thank him for that? “I—I must think—”

  “Yes, I expect you must,” Elgar agreed. “But think quickly, Kelken, for your own sake.”

  He left Kel sitting there, staring at the map without truly seeing any part of it. He knew what a king would do in a situation like this—if he gave up his throne, he would cease to be a king. But what would a good man do? What was the right thing to do—for everyone, and for him?

  He thought of what would happen to Reglay if Elgar decided to attack it, what would happen to him and Lessa. Was keeping the throne truly worth all that grief?

  It wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. But he could see no other way.

  * * *

  “This ancestor of yours was a proper magician, Kelken,” Lady Margraine called over the balcony, her one-armed grip on the ladder so tenuous that Kel’s own fingers clenched tight in sympathy. “Do you know the Ninists swore up and down that they’d burned every copy of The Golden Future in existence? The Council itself supported it—as they always did, the bastards. Where did he find this?” She flipped a few more pages with her free hand, heedless of how her body was leaning.

  “Um,” Kel said. “Do you think you should—”

  “I’ve never even heard of this one,” she continued; Kel wondered if she was even talking to him anymore. “Old Lantian Wards … that could be useful, but I suppose it’s more likely a lot of nonsense … hmm.”

  The bookshelves curved along the walls of the library tower, stretching up two floors high. Even if he didn’t need crutches, you couldn’t have gotten Kel up on one of the rickety ladders for anything. Alessa and Seren and even Cadfael all seemed to feel the same way; they were staring up at Lady Margraine with the same vaguely panicked consternation Kel was sure was reflected on his own face.

  She smiled suddenly. “Oh, this one I remember,” she said, discarding the other books in favor of pulling out a thick, fragile tome with yellowing pages and a strained spine. “One Hundred and One Dangerous Plants. My old tutor and I could actually tolerate one another when we talked about this.”

  “Dangerous … plants?” Kel asked. “What’s so special about that?”

  “It was copied countless times during the days of the empire,” she said, flicking through it absently. “Even today you can hardly swing a sword around without hitting one. In the empire they used to have entire academies dedicated to the pursuit of learning—which makes the long-standing tradition of book burning all the more bitterly ironic, of course—and this book was considered the absolute pinnacle of its kind. As a work of scholarship it’s quite unmatched—the author must have dedicated decades to research. It isn’t just about descriptions, symptoms, effects—every poison mentioned in this book has an antidote, and a good number of them were probably the author’s own creations. And yet even though she—or he or they, I suppose—made such a mark in her field, she never put her name to the book, or else it got left out somehow in the copying. No one knows the author’s true identity, though many have tried to find out.” She smiled again. “You yourself have benefited a great deal from this book, without even having to read it.”

  Kel blinked. “Have I?”

  “You treat your legs with snow’s down, don’t you? Before this book, it was known only as a deadly poison, but our mysterious author wrote extensively of its ability to reduce pain and combat inflammation. People used to use dusk nettles instead, and I’m given to understand some of the aftereffects were … unpleasant.”

  Kel wanted to ask her more about it, but Cadfael tapped his foot on the floor. “That’s not what you’re here for, is it?”

  She would’ve paid a speck of lint on her sleeve more regard. “I half wonder what I am looking for. It doesn’t seem like the king’s illustrious ancestor cared much for organizing these. If only I had more time…” She closed her eyes a moment, leaning her head forward so it almost rested on the leather spines in front of her. “I’ll just have to be more efficient, I suppose.”

  She’d gone nearly all the way around the second floor when she found the first book that made her pause. She didn’t announce this one to them, though, just pulled it free and began to leaf through it as if she were alone in the room. Kel couldn’t tell if she was pleased with what she found or not, but before too long she simply put it back and started scanning the rows of titles again. Once she was finished with the upper shelves, she descended to their level and continued reading the spines assembled there.

  Lessa bit her lip and looked as if she wanted to say something helpful, but she evidently couldn’t think of anything. Cadfael began to pace restlessly, and Seren just kept standing perfectly still, following the marquise with her eyes. “Ah,” Lady Margraine finally said, pulling another book free. It puffed out a cloud of dust as she opened it, but she barely blinked. However, she didn’t spend long on that book either, and then she pulled away from the shelves, frowning.

  “Kelken,” she said, “if I were free to enjoy these books at my leisure, you would find few more delighted by the prospect. However, since I am forced to engage with these texts in a businesslike manner, looking only to ends … I must admit it is somewhat disappointing.”

  “You didn’t find what you were looking for, then?” Kel asked.

  “I intend to keep looking,” she said, “but I’m beginning to doubt it’s here. I’m beginning to doubt it can be found in any of the past works of this world, even if I had all of them within my grasp.” She shrugged. “No matter. I can always think of more things I wish to learn, and this library allows me to fill some of those gaps, at least.” She started to turn toward the bookcases, but a sudden thought arrested her, and she turned back, that customary smirk tugging at her lips again. “While I’m thinking of it, there is a deal you and I might make with each other, provided it doesn’t conflict with the one you made with Elgar.”

  Kel nearly jumped, tightening his grip on his crutches. “What?”

  “I assume that was why he wished to speak to you alone, wasn’t it? I won’t ask what he said, but I doubt I need to. Never fear—what I would have of you is hardly as consequential as your throne.”

  Kel started to frown, and then thought better of it; he shouldn’t do that before he’d even heard what she had to say. “What is it you’d want from me?” he asked.

  She tapped her chin. “It wouldn’t be here … it must all be at Second Hearth. Your father’s papers—I understand this is a raw subject for you, but if you could go through your father’s papers sooner rather than later, and save any letters you can find between him and King Jotun of Issamira, old King Eira of Lanvaldis, or my own father, Caius … I would be much obliged if you could send them to me.”

  Cadfael had started when he heard King Eira’s name, and for several moments Kel allowed himself to wonder about that so he didn’t have to wonder about how he was going to answer her. In the end, though, he asked what seemed to be the logical question: “And if I did … what would you do? Would you repay me for it?”

  Lady Margraine shrugged. “That depends. What do you want?” He opened his mouth, but then she continued, “It’s no use asking me for men, though—I can’t spare any, and I mean it. If I could’ve chased Elgar off, I’d have done it already.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” Kel sighed. “I may have to go to Issamira after all.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s up to you, of course, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  That gave Kel pause. He, his father, and Eirnwin might have argued about methods, but they’d all been able to agree that getting help from Issamira was the only option open to them. “You don’t think I should try an alliance with Issam
ira?” he asked, just to make sure he’d heard her right.

  Lady Margraine shrugged again. “Well, no, I don’t think that either, but that wasn’t what we were talking about, strictly speaking. You were saying you planned to go to Issamira, and a worse plan than that I can hardly think of, unless you’re planning to hold a sword out in front of you and trip.”

  “Is the journey there truly so perilous? I’d heard that the Gods’ Curse is harsh, but once you’ve crossed it—”

  She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Oh, I don’t expect the journey will be any great matter. It’s once you’ve arrived that your problems will really begin.” She was still looking through the book titles, but she hadn’t taken any more out yet. “I wouldn’t be standing in the Issamiri throne room right now for every scrap of gold in the whole country. And they’re richer than Elgar over there—don’t let him tell you otherwise.” She half drew out another book, then shook her head and put it back. “You and I may be smaller and weaker, Kelken, but no one’s about to challenge our right to the succession. A contested throne is a serious thing, and sooner or later it always becomes an ugly one; the fact that everyone seems so calm and reasonable now only means it’ll be that much uglier later.”

  “But the throne isn’t contested,” Kel said. “Prince Landon is the oldest, then Adora, then Hephestion; everyone agrees on that. If Prince Landon’s alive, he’s the king; if he isn’t, the crown goes to his sister.”

  “And if I were Princess Adora,” Lady Margraine said, “it would have been just that simple. But Adora loves to make simple things complicated, and refuses to so much as close her fingers around the power that’s been dropped into the palm of her hand. Princess Regent? She should be queen, for the gods’ sakes, but instead she lets her widowed mother keep her pretenses to that title. Meanwhile, the Issamiri people have no great love for her, but they adore their prince, a dashing, empty-headed dandy who rides about brawling in the streets and chasing every pretty skirt. He’s a fool, but even fools can occasionally see a thing once it’s placed right in front of their eyes, and someone, sooner or later, will give him to understand that his sister has left the throne empty and his backside is every bit as royal as hers.”