by Alma Boykin
“Imperial master?”
“St. Klara the Wise.” He walked over and tapped the map. “I wish to sponsor a sister to that house. I will pay for her maintenance and for the support of the house there.” His half-sister would not be able to plot against him there. Well, she might, that was her sin, but she could not have visitors who would seek her out, coming and going without being observed and noted. She might be family, blood of my blood, but she threatens NovRodi and my children, and I will not have that. “Are there any copies of the rolls of honor, the volumes that date to my father’s time, in the archives?”
“I do not know, Imperial master. Shall I find out?”
“Yes. Please,” he added, since it would require going into the Archbishop’s library.
“Very good, imperial master.” After exchanging blessings, the man departed, leaving the map.
Tap tap. He turned to see Strella. “Yes?”
She bowed low. “Our half-sister.”
“Yes.” He gestured and she came into the library. “She refuses to learn.”
Strella seemed about to speak, then made a cutting motion with one hand. “She is the imperial sister still, my lord.”
And would that I could change that. “Her blood remains sacrosanct.” Even though Isaac’s and mine would not have been, had she and Grigory acted as they wished. “But she shall not remain here. She will go to St. Klara the Wise.” He pointed.
Strella’s eyes followed his finger well to the north, several weeks’ travel from Muskava. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “So far?”
“The sons of the Chosen Guard do indeed seek her out, for ‘council and wisdom’ or so the priest in charge of St. Molly’s reports. I cannot tolerate that.” He drew himself up to full height, his hair brushing the ceiling. “Market rumor holds that several of the men are planning to find a way to regain their ‘rightful rank’ by force. I will not tolerate it.”
She’d cowered back from him, face pale, eyes wide. “Wh— What do you propose to do, imperial majesty?”
“You will learn in due time, sister. I will shed no more blood than is strictly necessary.”
She nodded, bowing as low as a servant as he strode out.
“You want to do what?” Archbishop Adam’s face darkened with anger. The snug private meeting room in the archbishop’s house felt very small as Pjtor confronted him.
“I will burn the last copies of the old Rolls of Honor in the beast market, for all to see. The descendants of the Chosen Guard will have no further grounds to claim rank their fathers forfeited. What they earn themselves they may keep, provided they are loyal to me and to the church.” Pjtor kept his voice quiet and his hands still.
“I cannot allow that. Those books include families that go back to the early days of Muskava and are the final record of service to Godown and to the lords of Muskava.” Adam stood and paced back and forth before turning to Pjtor again. “They are too precious to destroy.”
“And NovRodi is less precious?” Do not meddle in my world, archbishop.
“No, but there is no need to destroy the volumes. You have said that the families of those who refused to do their duty have been returned to common rank. That is sufficient. Allow them to retain their past and pride. Godown charged you with rendering justice, not with vengeance.”
Ice filled Pjtor’s voice. “Their pride has led them to seek out Sara and to plot against me once more. Without the books there is no proof to their claims that they are only seeking to reclaim what their families earned a hundred years ago and more. Some of them have not lifted a finger to protect NovRodi during their lifetimes, but they demand the privileges of service. No, Archbishop Adam, justice demands that the last possibility of claim be erased.”
“And you have proof?”
“Proof of Sara’s treachery and power-greed. Proof of her meeting with them when she is not supposed to, just as no cloistered sister is to meet with anyone. And rumor of treason. For that reason I do not seek them out, Archbishop Adam, not unless rumor becomes solid evidence. Sara will leave, going well away from the temptations of Muskava. And I would remove the temptation of the Rolls of Honor, like removing an irritation from near a wound so that it may heal.” He’d practiced the words with Strella, trying to find a way to keep his temper in check if the meeting did not go as well as he had hoped it would. Why would the archbishop not see reason?
“No. The books are part of our history. They remain. The matter is ended.”
“Very well, Archbishop. Godown be with you.”
“And also with you,” the cleric replied automatically. Pjtor turned and walked out. Servants waited in the courtyard with the horses and a small cart that had carried supplies, part of the tithe from the southern lands that Pjtor had brought with him. As he glanced into the empty cart, he noticed some corners and edges poking out from under the canvas that had covered the cart’s load. He smiled a little. Michael Looven had accomplished his task.
He had not stolen the books, Pjtor thought as they returned to the palace. He had removed what belonged to the emperor from the Archbishop’s custody. And it had been done before Adam had forbidden it, so Pjtor had not defied one of Godown’s priests. Looven had a fair hand and would copy out the parts that were truly important for the history of NovRodi, and then have them printed on the new printing press in the foreign district and made available for anyone who wished to read. The names? Consigned to the flames.
Pjtor did not want to confront Sara himself. He wanted her gone, removed from Muskava and any possibility of attempting to claim the throne. She had died to him, wallowing in sins of disobedience and pride, and needed a spiritual healer, someone who could break through her will and make her see the danger she’d put her soul in. Her soul and NovRodi both. The nobles will never listen to her. She cannot lead men, she cannot fight, and if she tried to act as regent through Pjtor and Adam, the lords of court would fight each other in order to dominate the council. The Harriers would return and destroy all that I gained. No.
After thinking over the matter, Pjtor gave his orders. “Take a full company, plus enough provisions for ten women for a month. Sister Annie Muskava will travel in a locked sleigh-coach with two other sisters to preserve her reputation. If the two choose to return with you, they may do so. If anyone attempts to attack her, or to kidnap her, act as you see fit.”
“Yes, Imperial Master” Captain Alyxson murmured. Pjtor had chosen him because of his good sense, his loyalty, and his loathing of Sara. She’d forced the captain’s mother into service-slavery for five years to pay for a dress that Sara claimed the serving woman had ruined, and the woman’s master had treated her so badly that she’d died not long after earning out her contract.
The next market day, as soon as Looven finished copying the important parts of the books and cutting out the decorated pages in order to preserve them, and once Alsice, Geert, and Strella had confirmed his judgment, Pjtor and his personal troops took the books to the beast market. Either Archbishop Adam had assumed that Pjtor would not disobey his orders, or his clerks failed to check the library after Pjtor’s visit, because Pjtor had not heard anything from the church about missing volumes. Any guilt Pjtor might have had shrank to the size of a pepperseed when he thought about the damage Sara and Grigory had inflicted on NovRodi. He looked at the high walls around the noble houses, the few bare branches rising above the stone and wood marking the presence of orchards. Once again he wondered how foolish the Harriers had been to try to starve Muskava just before his great-grandfather’s day. But they came close, when they burned the outer gate and breached the first wall. Truly Godown was with us that day. Only a third of Muskava’s people had been killed or enslaved.
Pjtor wanted Geert with him, but had decided this once not to order his friend to accompany him. Murmurs against the foreigners grew in strength every winter, fading in spring and summer, and Pjtor did not need someone trying to destroy the foreigners’ district. The foreigners and the soldiers t
hey’d trained had broken the Chosen Guard five years before. People remembered that and some had never forgiven the foreigners for their intervention, eve foreigners who had sworn allegiance to Emperor Pjtor Adamson. Pjtor sniffed, smelling smoke from cooking and work fires, the familiar damp wet of old snow, and a sharp, eye-stinging whiff of someone rinsing freshly dyed dark-blue cloth. His horse snorted and shook his head as he clopped along. I agree. They’d better not pour the dye into the river.
The main sales had finished for the day when the men arrived at the square that held the beast market. Peasants and small farmers had brought old, dry-of-milk cows in to sell as food beasts, along with geese, pfiggies, and other animals they could not feed through winter. The laws of Muskava permitted fowl to live within the city walls, and beasts of burden, and pfiggies between the first frost and St. Basil’s Day. Otherwise all large animals stayed outside the walls. Pjtor had heard that it dated to just after the Fires, when a pfiggy ate one of the noble’s children during the chaos following a cattle stampede. He was just as happy not to have people keeping large beasts in the city—they made too much waste. Pjtor signaled the soldiers and the removed wood from the sleigh and piled it on the hard-packed dirt at the center of the market square. The novelty attracted attention and soon a good-sized crowd had gathered to see what might be happening.
“Light it.”
The dry wood, touched with rancid oil, burned easily once the men lit kindling and fed it into the pile. Pjtor gestured and the men pulled the three enormous books out from under the canvas in the sleigh. He stood in the stirrups and called, “It has come to pass that Sister Annie of Muskava, once known as Princess Sara, the regent of NovRodi, has allowed temptation to lead her back into danger of rebellion. Against the orders of the council and the holy church, she has met with young men eager for worldly prizes and glory.” He paused looking at the crowd. Yes, he saw at least three young men acting nervous or upset. Two wore long beards, showing their willingness to pay the tax rather than obey. He looked at them, watching, weighing them.
“It is said that a good father does not guide his children into temptation, but instead shields them from evil. For that reason,” he stopped, swallowed, and continued. You forced me to do this, Sara, you and the puppies who refused to heed the warning. “For that reason the temptation to rebellion is being removed. The Rolls of Honor do not exist. Honors must be earned, not inherited. For too long some people have rested on the works of their great grandfathers and grand-uncles. No longer.” Pjtor rode as close to the fire as the black horse would tolerate, accepted a volume from the soldier, and tossed it into the center of the flames. The crowd gasped and some moaned. Books, precious treasures, the relics of the Landers, burned!
“No! You will not destroy my family,” one of the bearded young men yelled, rushing toward the fire and the soldiers holding the other two books. “The true emperor would not do this! The true emperor cherishes the Rolls of Honor. We earned our lands and you have no right to keep us from our privileges!” He drew a sword and attacked one of the soldiers, who used the book to fend off the attacker. The crowd gasped, seeming to take a step backward. Good, Pjtor thought. I won’t have to punish the rest of you.
Pjtor also drew his sword and rode around behind the idiot, leaning down and cutting his head and shoulders. The boy screamed and turned, daring to attack a mounted man. Pjtor struck again, almost beheading the man as the soldier tossed the second book into the flames. Another man tried to grab the third book and the soldiers wrestled him to the ground, restraining him. The third book flew into the fire’s maw, and another moan rose as the crowd watched the flames turning the cover and pages black. No one moved. The cold wind encouraged the fire and soon the books disappeared, joining the wood and ashes.
“Honors must be earned. The stories and images in the books have been preserved, recopied in a fair hand or cut out to be re-bound elsewhere, but the names are no more. The Chosen Guard no longer exists and will never exist again. Honors must be earned.” Pjtor glared at the crowd, daring them to challenge him. None did. You are right to fear me. I am anointed emperor of NovRodi, charged by Godown with the safety and protection of the land and the people.
“What about this one, imperial master?” the lieutenant in charge of the soldiers asked, pointing to the struggling young man, now trussed up and unable to fight.
“He will return here in two days to receive the payment for disobeying his emperor.”
“You can’t do this! My family served the emperors for generations, and my father stood by Lady Sara and Lord Nilgal!”
“Yes, and Nilgal the Traitor’s skull still hangs at the eastern gate as a warning. A warning that should have been heeded.”
Two days later, Pjtor watched from horseback once more as two strong men brought the five-tailed whips down on the young traitor’s back. He lasted for almost fifty blows before dying. “Leave the body on the frame until noon. Then hang it where the old traitor’s body hung.” The second fool’s body already decorated a gibbet, feeding the carrion birds.
Archbishop Adam had exploded at Pjtor when he learned of what happened, then threatened Pjtor with being cast out of the church for allowing the hand copies of the book to be reproduced on the foreigners printing press and made available to those who wished to buy copies. “I ordered you not to take those books! You destroyed priceless treasures of the church.” The cleric’s face had darkened to a deep reddish-brown that almost matched his eyebrows, Pjtor noticed. Huh. That’s interesting. Not sure I’ve ever seen that before. I wonder why his face does that. Does anyone else’s? Strella didn’t change color, so maybe it’s something only men do. Huh.
When Archbishop Adam paused for breath, Pjtor replied, “If anyone had looked at the books, truly looked at them, they would have been quite disappointed, Archbishop. The names had been written between the lines of older copies of texts. They were not Lander inside, although the bindings and the pictures might have been. The pictures had been taken from other works and added to these. My scribe had no difficulty removing the picture pages.”
“He what?”
Pjtor pushed a stack of loose pages across the smooth Lander-era tabletop to the archbishop. “These are the picture pages and some of the other pages from the second volume. Some of the images were only fastened to the page at the top.” And the images underneath . . . those women needed to eat more. I wonder if they were for a sort of bride show, or perhaps service-slaves willing to work for a brothel.
The archbishop found one of those pages and he looked through the stack. His face went from red to dead white. His mouth opened and closed. “These—” he looked at three more pages, one more with the hidden picture, before re-stacking the pile. “I am appalled that these were not found earlier and removed from the church’s collection, Lander or no. These are horrible.”
I don’t know, there’s a blond who looks like she’d be fun on a winter night. “You will be pleased to know that the majority of the pages, aside from the names and those inappropriate pictures, contained lists of church and royal properties and of tax reports. The truly vital historical material was less than anticipated. All the contents, including the lists and reports, have been recopied and preserved.” Because Master Looven has a point about the property lists. Those could be very useful to me.
“And they will be kept away from those who might be tempted by such knowledge.”
Pjtor shook his head. “No, Archbishop, printed copies will be made for sale to anyone who will pay for them. I believe ten orders have been placed already.” He drank his now cold tea before adding, “Three of those are from monasteries interested in filling gaps in their collections.”
Adam turned red again, almost matching the collar and trim on his robe of office. It was fascinating, really. “You cannot allow people access to such things without authority from the church. Without proper training and supervision, they will be led into temptation and away from the disciplines of Godown.”
&nb
sp; Pjtor rolled his eyes. “Archbishop, how many men in Muskava can read?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Enough. “I take it you are not interested in taking the image pages back into the church’s archives.”
“No I am not.” He hissed through clenched teeth. “Some evil Lander put those in the book to profane the work. I am going to have every volume in the archive searched for more such foul trash.”
I wonder what color he’d turn if I told him that the Lander women apparently read, because there are pictures of nearly naked men at the bottom of that pile? He’d probably faint. “That is most wise, Archbishop. And perhaps the good brothers will find works that have been overlooked for too long, like the ‘Life of St. Boris’ the abbot discovered at St. Landis-on-the-Shore two years ago.”
“Truly Godown guided his hand, indeed, Pjtor Adamson.” Distracted and perhaps mollified, Adam raised one hand in blessing. “Godown be with you and your household.”
“Godown guide your paths and protect your goings out and comings in.”
“Thanks be to Godown,” both men said in unison.
“My lord father, why were the books burned?”
Pjtor glanced up from his food to see his oldest son’s unhappy expression. You need to eat more. You are all leg and no shoulder, almost like a girl. “Because young fools who had been warned tried to use what was in the books to defy the law.”
