“These slaves must be taught their place,” Lord Zell raised his voice and his hands, each to the barest fraction below the level at which the guards might strike him. With Ta-Sann gone that level lay lower than before, the surviving sword-sons on edge, haunted by their failure to be at his side that day.
“And how should such lessons be taught?” Satrap Honnecka from his seat on the third step.
“In blood!” Lord Zell jerked his hands down, and Ta-Marn flinched a hand towards his knife. “In blood. Hang them from their guts in the streets, boil them in the squares. Would we not break a knife that turned against us? Strangle a dog that bit its master? Can any Cerani tolerate defiance among his properties?” Spittle flew from Zell’s thin lips. Sarmin wondered how it felt to be such a man’s property.
Away, across the crowds of lesser nobles, Old Mothers come to court, concubines, entertainers lined and ready for their turn, the great doors of the throne room opened a crack to admit a single figure, clad in black. Sarmin let Zell’s ranting flow around him, robbed of meaning, as he watch his Knife draw closer. For the longest moment he thought Eyul approached, so grim and lined the face above that black collar. Dark circles surrounded Grada’s eyes, the whites red with broken veins. She walked with that brittle step that speaks of warrior’s tension, held herself taut, her whole body a simple threat to cut away any hand that might be set upon her. Where she walked people fell silent, stepped back. On the dais Zell held forth, facing Sarmin, head raised to stare at his emperor, his mouth wide and red and full of complaint.
“A slave is property, no more. I can use my property as I will, and do so. If I blind a girl for missing a discard garment on the floor, if I cut out a man’s tongue when I find it too sharp… what then remains for punishment of crimes like treason? I say horror. We must show them true horror and—”
Grada came up behind Zell and slit his throat, pushing him aside to sprawl down the dais steps. She held the Knife dripping before her and all held silent.
“I was wrong, Sarmin. You were wrong.”
Ta-Marn and his three brothers drew their blades. The lords leapt to their feet, clamouring, the spell of silence broken.
Grada barked a harsh laugh at them. “I stand Knife-Sworn, it is not given to you to interfere with my purpose.”
Sarmin stood from his throne. “Let her approach.” He waved the swordsons away.
Grada climbed the last two steps. “We were wrong. This Knife cuts just as all the others. I am just as damned.”
Sarmin blinked back tears. He took a step towards her. Reached out and set his hand to her shoulder. “I had hoped we could remake it, forge a new path…”
Grada lowered her head. “This Knife cuts.” She glanced back towards Zell in the spreading pool of his blood. “But it cuts both ways.” She pointed at the dying lord with the Knife, its ugly blade hung with his lifeblood.
Sarmin looked out at the sea of still faces, outrage on the high and the mighty, curiosity here, surprise there, each turned his way. He had laid the burden of the Knife on Grada, misused her as badly as Helmar before him, damned her. He sat lord of an empire so wide a year might turn before a man could walk from border to border, heir to an unbroken chain of emperors, blood of the Reclaimer… and even so, she stood before him, untouchable, blooded, and showed him truth, showed him the path.
“The Knife-Sworn protect the emperor from whatever threats may come,” he told his court, lifting a voice unused to speech and finding in it the same power of command that had run through Beyon’s. “The emperor is the empire. And as ever, even with the threats of Yrkmir and the desert, our greatest enemies lie within.” He let that settle with them and swept his gaze across the dais steps. “I wanted peace and Arigu gave me war. I wanted reconciliation and a traitor within murdered envoy Kavic. I wanted security and yet my own lords lead such poisonous lives that our people turn to a foreign god and our slaves turn traitor.
“I have tried to be Sarmin the Saviour, tried to be Sarmin the Kind, the Peacemaker, but Cerana doesn’t need such emperors. The weakness of this empire is born of the strength of my convictions, its cruelty of my kindness, its war of my peace.
“From this day I will be a new emperor, the emperor Cerana does not deserve but needs. I will gather my power to me. My Knife will cut, cut, and cut again until my word is law, my will imposed, my desire your only concern. Cerana shall be united under one will, focused to one goal, obedient to one man.”
Mesema entered through a side door, her hair piled into a complex arrangement of curls and butterfly pins. He held out a hand to her and she walked towards him, high shoes slowing her path up the dais steps. Only one glance for Zell and his blood. He thought of Pelar, stronger with each passing hour since the sealing of the first wound. Their son, Sarmin’s and Mesema’s. Together they would find Daveed. Together they would …
We will make a better world.
Mesema arrived at his side and gripped his hand for the briefest moment before stepping back, taking her place at his side. Sarmin let his gaze return to the steps below him, the old men in their jewels and silks, wrapped in their plans and ambitions. None of it mattered. He had lived a lifetime with this cancer and if Cerana were to stand against the future the sickness must be cut out. Let them gaze upon his fierce empress and his blunt, honest Knife. He leaned forward and set a kiss upon Grada’s forehead.
“Go to it, Knife-Sworn”
Knife Sworn Page 34
