Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  ‘What could I possibly be hiding, loyal servant that I am?’

  ‘You hate what happened, and you almost killed a man in cold blood.’

  ‘And you approve of this?’

  ‘If I thought you’d intended to kill him for the Emperor’s approval, I’d never have spoken to you again. But you didn’t.’ How could she know?

  ‘Zhubodai stopped me,’ he said.

  ‘As you knew would happen. You’ve seen enough of Valentine to know he wouldn’t order a summary execution, and you knew Zhubodai was close enough and fast enough to stop you.’

  ‘I thought Valentine was a better man than that.’

  ‘Valentine’s revenge is swift, and straightforward. You saw Aesonia’s . . .’

  ‘ . . . vicious, premeditated malice,’ Raphael finished. ‘Yes, when were you going to excuse that?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Thais said. ‘I can’t excuse her.’

  ‘How can you serve her?’

  ‘Because I have no choice!’

  ‘There’s always a choice. You’re not bound forever to the Exiles.’

  ‘And you could have refused Valentine’s offer and let him proscribe you last night,’ Thais said. ‘That was a choice, as well.’

  ‘You haven’t answered me. Why are you still an Exile?’

  ‘I swore an oath to Thetis and the Sarthien Rite that only the Abbess and Chapter of Sarthes can release me from, and until and unless they do, I obey, no matter the cost.’ He’d never seen her this angry, but her face was drawn and tense, an old pain of her own rather than a righteous anger at someone who questioned her principles. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but you could at least accept it.’

  He didn’t understand. Why hold to such a cause, if it brought only grief? There were other ways to serve Thetis, free of the malign influence of Sarthes and the Empress.

  Sovereign turned, and Raphael caught hold of a bulkhead for support, realising as he did just how fast the giant manta was going. He caught a brief glimpse of another ship astern of them, dimly visible through the kelp at the channel’s corner, and another one beyond that. How many warships had Valentine brought?

  ‘You can’t,’ Thais said bitterly, putting the flask and the sea-biscuits down and looking over the ruins of the cabin.

  ‘Would you have killed Hycano, if Aesonia had told you to do it?’ Raphael asked. He could see, in this cabin, part of what had driven Valentine’s ruthlessness last night. Barely a trace was left of the observatory deck where he’d stood for the entry into Vespera, the aether tables were twisted ruins, the floors and walls blackened and burned, the chairs were piled in smashed heaps at the aft end of the room. He didn’t even want to think how many men had died here.

  Thais looked away, but Raphael darted round a broken aether table and swung her round to face him. ‘Would you have killed him?’

  ‘No. No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You don’t seem very certain about it.’ He let go of her arm, realising how hard he’d gripped her, and that she hadn’t even protested. He was letting anger get the better of him, and that was dangerous.

  ‘Because I’ve had obedience trained into me for twenty years. Easy for you to be stiff-necked, you ran away.’

  ‘You’ve surrendered enough of your will to murder in cold blood?’

  ‘And you’d have killed Hycano if Zhubodai hadn’t stopped you!’ Now Thais grabbed Raphael’s arm, her face pale with fury. ‘You knew it was a test, you knew you could offer your life for Hycano’s, and you chose not to, because your freedom was more important to you than Hycano’s life. How dare you judge me?’

  But he’d taken that risk because, free, he could have his revenge on Valentine and Aesonia, and prevent a greater tragedy. But, of course, there was no way he could tell Thais that.

  He’d still gambled Hycano’s life. He’d still known that, if Valentine enslaved him, Petroz and the nameless traitor would still be able to oppose the Empire – but they might not have acted, or might not have had a chance against such power. How many more would die, if Valentine and Aesonia weren’t stopped?

  A part of his mind knew, deep down, that while he might justify it, he could never excuse it.

  He glanced down at his arm, and Thais let go as if stung.

  ‘I was a fool,’ Raphael admitted, and even the words bit. ‘I was a fool not to see what the Empire really was, but now I know.’

  ‘And you proved which way you’ll jump by obeying Valentine’s orders last night, and as long as he asks you to.’

  ‘Last night I’d have left his service in chains. When this is over I can leave Thetia and never come back.’

  ‘What a nice distinction. You wait until the best possible moment and quietly slip away, absolving your conscience with the comforting thought that you won’t be doing anything else distasteful for him. You did what was most convenient for you, and all it showed was that you’re a keen enough judge of character to have taken Valentine’s measure. You aren’t an Imperial servant, Raphael, and you never will be, but if you had courage to match your pride, as Iolani does, you’d be prisoner with the Ice Runners.’

  ‘Is that where you wish I was?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But then, and only then, will I let you lecture me on moral courage.’

  They stared at one another for a long moment, face to face in the wreckage.

  ‘If Aesonia had ordered you, last night, to join the prisoners, as a punishment of some kind, would you have obeyed?’ Raphael asked quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Thais said. ‘But it wouldn’t have taken any courage.’

  ‘Is this was the Empire does to us?’ Raphael said, after a moment, acknowledging her earlier point. ‘Tarnishes us until our souls are black, and there’s nothing left but to stay in its service?’

  ‘We see its dark side,’ Thais said. The anger was diminishing, seeping away into the cabin. It was a bright, sunlit Thetian day above them, but they were caught in Sovereign’s shadows.

  ‘There’s another side?’

  ‘There might be.’ She paused. ‘Gian and Rainardo wanted a figurehead Empire in Vespera, they tried to persuade Ruthelo it was for the best. They didn’t succeed, but I think they were right. As a symbol, a focus of loyalty and nothing more, it would be worth having.’

  ‘I thought you believed in the Empire,’ Raphael said. Could she be testing him, a provocateur to lead him into admitting his planned revenge? Her knowledge of his mind was uncanny, but even as he searched her face, he could only see sadness.

  ‘I did, once,’ Thais said. ‘But I’m not fit to be an Exile, certainly not a Sarthien one. A smaller order, less political, might have suited me. I swore the oath, and I keep it, and obey the Abbess and Chapter. And I wish they’d free me from it, or at least let me transfer to another order where I can serve Thetis, not the Empire.’

  ‘Why don’t they?’

  ‘Once a Sarthien, always a Sarthien,’ she said. ‘They only grant renunciation when they think it’s in their interests. To marry someone advantageous, as Aesonia and her sister did, to accept a position of power that can’t be held by an Exile, Thalassarch for example, or some of the court offices.’

  Her anger seemed to be gone now, and Raphael saw not Aesonia’s acolyte, or a servant of the Empire, but a grown-up version of the girl he’d known at Sarthes, a beacon of joy amid the Abbey’s stifling solemnity.

  ‘But surely Ruthelo wasn’t an advantageous match? His religion . . .’

  ‘They had no choice with . . . with Claudia,’ It seemed difficult for Thais to even say the word. ‘Ruthelo and Claudia were married before she’d even renounced her vows, and Empress Palatine forced the Abbey to forgive Claudia and let her go. Ruthelo and Palatine were still friends then.’

  Maybe they’d hoped Claudia would convert Ruthelo, or maybe she’d been trouble and they were happy to be rid of her.

  ‘So how were you planning to escape?’ Raphael asked, and felt Thais take his hand in hers.

  ‘Aesonia
promised a court office, after I’ve served a few more years. She knows I’ve been loyal and obeyed my oath, and she rewards loyalty.’

  ‘That’s why you serve her?’

  ‘In part. I wasn’t lying to you last time. It’s usually better to serve her than stay in the Abbey. Her discipline is less rigid, she lets us laugh at least once a week.’

  Thais’s faint stab at levity sounded as if she was clutching at straws, a scant compensation for what she was doing in the Empire’s service, and Raphael could believe her. She was touched by Aesonia, but perhaps not irrevocably.

  ‘Will you stay in Imperial service?’ Thais asked, and somehow the distance between them was decreasing.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Raphael said.

  ‘In Thetia?’

  ‘Where is there for me, in the New Empire’s Thetia?’ Raphael asked, and then realised that wasn’t, after all, what Thais wanted him to say. ‘Why should you care?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Thais asked, dropping the last of her defences.

  Raphael’s fell with them, and he took her other hand and pulled her close enough to kiss her. For one very long moment everything except his laughing, copper-haired Exile ceased to matter, and he let sensation carry him away, a moment of sheer joy and gladness.

  For one moment before the shadows returned, and the sentry’s voice called up that the Emperor had summoned a council in his cabin, to give orders for the capture of Vespera.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The Erythra was blowing in Vespera.

  Raphael felt it as he stepped out from the shelter of the Hub, a blast of the hot, dry wind from the west, saw the fine red dust that had settled over everything. Dust from the Orichal Islands of the western Sea of Stars, a stark landscape of bare rock, endless sand and orichal mines, a desert in the sea.

  It was the mad wind, the Erythra, and it could blow for days and days of unrelenting heat, a wind that chafed at the energy and the will and turned quarrels into feuds, fights into murders. A wind that led women to kill their husbands, men to kill their wives, in the stifling watches of the night when the mere presence of someone else in a room made the heat unbearable. A wind that whipped up the most violent and the darkest passions.

  The sun was a sullen shade of yellow in the late afternoon sky, and the light over the City had already turned gold. The tiny dust was everywhere, invisible in the air, but appearing where on walkways and walls and towers, spun into eddies over Star Deep. It even lay as a fine film on the surface of the water, staining the sea an uneasy mixture of copper and grey.

  A blessing, or a curse? In that instant, Raphael didn’t know, but he was certain there would be blood spilt before this was over.

  There were already columns of smoke rising from the Portanis.

  The Ulithi barge, waiting in the very berth Manatee had come into only a few days earlier, was an unearthly colour, its blue-grey livery covered by the dust. Gian, Plautius, Silvanos and half-a-dozen Ulithi marines piled into the Hub, and Plautius slammed the door behind them. The corridors were empty, and the slam echoed.

  ‘Trust Val to arrive back just when any sane man would flee the place,’ Gian said. ‘If he wants to take possession of Vespera now, I wish him joy of it.’

  But there was a spring in the High Thalassarch’s step, the sense of a great weight lifted from his mind. He had almost certainly been next on Iolani’s list for assassination.

  ‘What are you complaining about now?’ Valentine asked, appearing up the stairs in his immaculate white uniform, and stopping dead at the sight of his reception committee.

  Gian pulled his cloak off and shook it out, leaving a scattering of dust on the stones.

  ‘Ah,’ Valentine said. ‘The Erythra.’

  Valentine had ordered an entire section of the Hub cleared, reserved the southernmost ten gantries for his ships – even though there were only five – and stationed his men at every entrance and exit, to prevent anyone seizing the prisoners now. Not that there was anyone left in Vespera with force at their disposal to do so, now that Leonata and Iolani were captive.

  ‘What a ghastly time to come back,’ Gian said grumpily. ‘You have no idea what it’s like.’

  ‘The Navy has training camps in eastern Ilanmar, don’t forget,’ Valentine said. ‘They get the Erythra all the time.’

  ‘Why do you think nobody lives there?’ Gian remarked. ‘Welcome to Vespera.’

  ‘The arrangements have been made?’

  ‘Everything you asked for. When did you want to call the Council?’

  ‘Tonight, I was thinking.’

  ‘Too soon,’ Gian said. ‘If you want this to look like a promotion to Thetia’s capital, Vespera will need to surrender itself by treaty, and you’ll have to write one and let the Council read it first.’

  ‘The Council will do what I tell it,’ Valentine said.

  ‘Gian’s right,’ Aesonia said, swishing down the corridor behind Valentine in blue majesty, crowned and surrounded by acolytes. ‘We need a treaty, and we need one that makes the Vesperans feel as though they’re gaining the imperial dignity, not losing their independence. It’ll save us a great deal of trouble later on, and we can always change it once we’re secure.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then,’ Valentine said. ‘In Ulithi Palace, of course. When it’s ready we’ll summon them, give them an hour to read it and get them to sign.’

  Why should Valentine care about formalities, now he believed he’d won? Gian and Aesonia were wiser, from the sound of it, they knew a treaty would make it easier for the City to surrender without losing face.

  ‘I am,’ Gian said, ‘at my Emperor’s disposal.’

  ‘Then we should be away.’

  ‘I brought only the one barge,’ Gian said. ‘You might want to load the prisoners on first, it’s not very pleasant out there and we don’t want to have to wait half an hour in the wind. At least in here they have air filters.’

  ‘Raphael,’ Valentine said, catching sight of him. ‘Get all the prisoners on board, and tell me when you’re done. Plautius, go with him and take inventory.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Raphael said, bowed swiftly but deeply and hurried away, back down to the manta and the waiting prisoners. Plautius gave a despairing cry and hurried after him, almost running to catch up.

  On either side, the launches peeled away, cutting outside the biggest waves of the Ulithi barges’ wake to take up positions around the Ulithi watergate. There were six of them, armed with flamewood pulse throwers, more than sufficient to turn a xebec into a mass of flames, but no-one had even come close to the barge as it sped and unbelievable speed across the Deep. Raphael had expected the barge to be a lumbering, slow-moving thing, fit only for state occasions, but clearly the Ulithi ancestor who had ordered it, decades or centuries ago, had felt there might be circumstances in which speed would be useful.

  He had no doubt that all eyes were on them, telescopes trained from the houses and palace terraces, straining to see what the Emperor brought back. The Imperial flag fluttered above the barge’s stern, and anyone with a powerful telescope would be able to identify the clan prisoners, under guard at the prow, if not the bound and hooded Ice Runners who knelt in the waist of the barge, pinned down under a net.

  There was no need for that, of course, with thirty tribesmen to watch forty-two prisoners, but it was for show, it would proclaim to anyone with a less powerful glass that there were prisoners.

  At least they were clothed. Commander Merelos had managed to outfit all the prisoners from Sovereign’s stores. When Valentine found out, as the first prisoners were led up through Sovereign’s echoing well, he had very publicly promoted Merelos to captain, for his valour of the night before.

  For that, and for redeeming the Navy’s honour after what had been done at Saphir Island. Valentine wouldn’t countermand his own orders, but he made it very clear that he approved of what Merelos and the crew of Sovereign had done, and even in the depths of his own hate, Raphael could respect the Empero
r for it.

  Aesonia’s expression had given nothing away.

  Now they were almost at Ulithi Palace, and the watergate was packed with marines in Ulithi blue-and-grey, Canteni green, and the occasional Imperial uniform. Raphael caught sight of Palladios of the Unity, Valentine’s messenger, among them.

  Once the barge had finally docked, and the swell its wave had created had died away enough to put the gangplank down, Valentine summoned Raphael and gave him his instructions, before sweeping away with his entourage, leaving Raphael and Plautius surrounded by tribesmen and soldiers, to move the captive Ice Runners into the Palace.

  Not all Ice Runners, Raphael reminded himself. Corsina, Anthemia and the Aruwe prisoners were with them. No-one could have needed a clearer indication of the fate in store for the shipyard clans.

  And so Raphael entered Ulithi Palace again, herding a line of bound and hooded prisoners he respected, in the service of an Empire he was sworn to destroy, and he played his part as loyal Imperial official with all the cold, distant efficiency expected of the Quiridii.

  He only deviated from it once, when they reached the Fountain Court, and Plautius, muttering to his lists as ever, began herding the Ice Runners and Aruwe prisoners downstairs. Raphael had Leonata, Iolani and the clanspeople pulled aside – they would be given rooms in the Palace itself until the surrender was signed, when Leonata and the clan representatives would depart to freedom, Iolani to the living hell of Aesonia’s torment.

  He stopped for a moment, looking around the Fountain Court as if impressed by the arrays of troops there, but in fact to give him time to see who was within earshot. Nobody, he decided after a moment, with enough subtlety to catch what he was about to do.

  ‘Guardsman,’ he said, peremptorily, and the nearest tribesman turned to face him with an expression half-way between indifference and contempt. Raphael had hesitated too long before stabbing Hycano, he knew that.

  As to what the tribesmen thought of him, he didn’t care. If he won, they would be banished from Thetia. If he lost, they would despise him no more as they led him to torture than they did now.