Forcing the Spring (Book 9 of the Colplatschki Chronicles)

by Boykin, Alma

  A slender book slid across the table and bumped into Pjtor’s hand. “Timofeev’s Urban Warfare guide,” the monk said. “Not all our books are from men of peace.” He retreated, leaving the four plotters staring from book to monk and back. Pjtor took it as an omen and very carefully opened the book. The words did not make much sense, but the pictures did.

  The next day, under low clouds and light, cold mist, Pjtor led his soldiers from the monastery to Muskava, via a back road. The damp and mist helped conceal their movement, but Pjtor hoped it would not turn into rain. Rain rendered muskets useless except as clubs. The infantry slowed them down and Pjtor wanted to race to the city. He reined in his temper—unless the horsemen wanted to try burning the walls down, they couldn’t fight the Chosen Guard without infantry support. I don’t want to fight the Chosen Guard at all, Pjtor sighed. He wanted them to lay down their weapons, acknowledge him as ruler, and go home. He wanted a modern army, and the Chosen Guard would not accept that. And they owed him for twelve years before, and for a hundred slights after that.

  The fighters camped cold five kilometers from the walls. Anderson forbade fires, in part because of the risk of them spreading through the stubble, in part because they would warn anyone that someone approached. Pjtor disliked being rained on, but he refused to toss anyone out of their home. “They’ll run to the city and tell.”

  “Will they, Pjtor Adamson?”

  “I would hope no, but they are servants and service-slaves. And these” he waved at the lands around them, “were given to Lord Grigory two years ago, for his great victories.”

  Capt. Anderson nodded. “Then we trust them not.”

  The sky cleared at some point during the night and took away what little heat remained along with the clouds. Looven woke Pjtor, not the easiest of tasks. Pjtor felt stiff, cold, and angry. The men around him felt the same, going by the grumbles and mutters. Pjtor smiled. Good. Angry men fought better.

  They reached the walls two hours before dawn. Now came the dangerous part and Pjtor shivered despite himself. Von Deiman handed him a flask, warning, “A small sip, Imperial Majesty.” Pjtor did as suggested. Even so the concoction burned all the way down and made his eyes bulge. “Double-distilled fruit spirits. For medicinal use only.”

  Pjtor shook all over and blinked. “Medicinal use. Agreed,” he managed to squeak before coughing. Wow.

  The horsemen drew their sabers and the infantry loaded their muskets. Pjtor rode to the front of the column. “Open the gates, your emperor commands,” Pjtor shouted up at the guard.

  “It is too early. Come back after dawn,” came the reply.

  Anger swept Pjtor. “I said open the gate. I am Emperor Pjtor and I command you to open the gate.”

  “The Reagent rules NovRodi and we hold the gate for h—” The man’s voice turned into a gurgling scream. A body pitched forward, then fell like a sack and landed with a clatter and thump. After a count of ten Pjtor heard the great bars inside the metal and wood gate sliding, chains rattling, and the gates swung outward.

  “Hurry. The next patrol will be here shortly,” a hoarse voice called. The men rode and marched in, then divided. Pjtor took five cavalrymen and half the infantry and raced to the citadel, while Capt. Anderson, Von Deiman, and the rest of the men secured the Chosen Guard’s barracks and the houses of the four major lords of the guards. Pjtor had worried about the citadel gate, but found it open and abandoned.

  “What’s going on?”

  A servant staggered up and bowed, blinking as if confused or drunk. He dropped to his knees and touched dirt when he recognized Pjtor. “Forgive your miserable slave, oh great Emperor. The Regent your sister, long may she rule, called all Chosen Guards in to celebrate her tenth year of reign, entrusting the gates to Godown.”

  Pjtor dismounted and reached down, pulling the man up by the back of his collar, making him stand. With his other hand he drew his sword. “What did you say about the Regent?” He whispered.

  “Long may she rule, oh great Emp—”

  Pjtor watched, cold, as the head rolled a meter or so away from the body. He turned to the men. “You know where the armory is?”

  “Yes, Imperial Majesty,” one of the lieutenants affirmed.

  “Seize it. Go.” Fifteen men disappeared into the darkness. “You, with me. Kill any Chosen Guard you see. Any servant who supports the former Regent dies as well.” Pjtor let the red mist sweep over him.

  The sound of screams, shouts, and shooting brought Sara out of her chamber in time to see Pjtor storming up the corridor, bloody sword in hand. She gasped and tried to back up, but moved too slowly. He crossed the distance in two strides and grabbed her by the long hair, dragging her to him and forcing her to the floor. “Your reign ends now,” he informed her. Even to his own ears he sounded cold, no tone or emotion in his voice. All color faded from her face and she quit trying to resist. He let go of her hair and grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her until she squealed with pain. “Secure her quarters. Find Grigory. Do not kill him. He must face justice.”

  “Secure her quarters, capture Grigory, yes Imperial Majesty.”

  Pjtor dragged Sara to the balcony. “Order the Chosen Guard to stand down.” She kept silent and he twisted harder, making her yelp. “Do. It.”

  “St— Stand down!” She gasped and screamed, “Stand down I tell you! All of you stand down!”

  “Stand down in the name of Emperor Pjtor,” came a new voice. Strella appeared at Pjtor’s elbow, holding a vicious-looking dagger in one hand and a turn-spit in the other. Pjtor saw blood and something else on the turn-spit and wondered. His sister looked like one of the Lander women of the paintings, ferocious and strong. “All hail Emperor Pjtor, chosen of Godown, lord of NovRodi!”

  Sara went limp and Pjtor let her drop as she fainted. “Stupid bitch,” Strella hissed. They heard gunfire in the distance. Then a second round, and what might have been yells. “Go, Imperial Master,” Strella said, bowing low as a servant might. “I will keep order here.” She poked Sara’s body with the toe of her slipper. “Stupid fool.”

  Pjtor left half his remaining soldiers with Strella, trusting her sense and Lt. Viejay’s judgement to keep order. He raced through the dawn-grey city toward the sound of muskets firing. It came from the market square at Water and Basket Streets, near Godown of Grace chapel. Pjtor smelled wood smoke and cursed. Damn, he did not want Muskava to burn down again! He stopped just short of the square to get a sense of what was going on. Then he drew his saber again and pointed at Andersons’ men, lined up in ranks and firing into a mass of Chosen Guard. “To them. Godown and Emperor Pjtor!”

  “Godown and His emperor!”

  Pjtor led the charge into the side of the Chosen Guard, catching them by surprise. It also kept him out of the line of fire. A few of the Guard recognized him, dropped their weapons, and fell on their faces. Others turned and attacked. Pjtor sabered two and his horse kicked a third in the head, shattering the man’s face. “Drop your weapons or die as traitors!” Pjtor bellowed.

  The red light of burning market stalls made the market into the opening of Godown’s hell. Bodies lay in a heap in front of Anderson’s men. Other men had staggered off to collapse in lumps here and there. “Imperial Majesty, the foreigners are killing us!” Lord Norly screamed, riding toward Pjtor.

  Pjtor rode to noble, dropping the reins for a moment so he could grab Norly’s collar before throwing him off his horse. “Because you refused to recognize me or to check the former Regent and her lover, parasite.” Pjtor spat on the noble, then rode to Anderson’s side. “We have the citadel, Sara, and Grigory. The homefold is secure, and I think my sister killed someone. Sister Strella,” he clarified.

  “The quiet ones can be like that.” Anderson kept his eyes on the Chosen Guard as they milled, watching, muttering. The fire did not seem to be spreading, thanks be.

  “Drop your weapons and disperse,” Pjtor roared.

  He heard clatters and curses, and saw men slipping off int
o the long shadows of early morning. The few became more until the market belonged to the emperor and the dead. He heard a few of the men vomiting or weeping, and sympathized. Killing his own people should never have happened, but Sara had forced his hand.

  “They tried to swarm us, Imperial Majesty,” Anderson said quietly. “I ordered them to disperse, but they refused once the warning call had come. Four waves they tried, but discipline will overcome so long as powder and shot hold out, and your flanks are anchored.”

  “Good to know.” Pjtor dismounted, walked to the closest body and wiped his saber on a clean corner of the man’s coat, then re-mounted. “To the citadel.” he raised his voice, calling to the watchers, “Leave the bodies until the second hour after dawn, that all may know what happens to those who defy Godown’s own emperor.”

  That evening Pjtor, washed, shaved, and refreshed by a nap, regarded the bound or chained men in the courtyard with cold distaste. Grigory’s head lay a meter away from his body. Pjtor wanted to take the sword still in his hand and chop that body to bits. He’d already had the man flogged with the five-tailed whip as Sara watched, twenty strokes laid on with a strong arm, until Grigory fainted twice and the soldier had to wait until he revived to continue. Pjtor allowed him to meet with a priest before cutting the bastard’s head off in front of Sara and the remaining Chosen Guard officers. A dozen of those officers swung from the gallows, along with two nobles. Pjtor had been very disappointed to find his father-in-law’s body in the pile from the market, but was not surprised. Now he looked at the remaining men, their faces and clothes stained red by the light of sunset.

  “I sentence you to exile on the Izbor River. If you raise a hand against me, your lives and those of your families are forfeit, and scribes will go through the Rolls of Honor, removing any that might be related to you, no matter how distantly.” Pjtor stopped so his words could sink in. A few men moaned, and one began to babble, pleading for mercy. To lose one’s place on the Rolls meant they could no longer claim any benefit from the crown, no matter how minor, that previous service permitted. The Rolls went back to just after the first Harrier attacks, carefully preserved and re-copied over the centuries. “If your children serve NovRodi and me well, the blood-taint may be lifted.” Not would be, but could be, Pjtor thought at the men. A few still glared at him, defiant. They could end up gallows fruit, or be stupid and desperate enough to try and join the Harriers. He no longer felt merciful.

  “Your exile begins tomorrow, at dawn, when the gates open. Your families will follow, a day behind.” With that Pjtor turned, accepted the cloth to clean the ancient straight sword, and slid it into the sheath with a click. He walked from the courtyard. The men were dead to him.

  Captain Anderson, Geert, Von Deiman, and a delegation from the foreigners’ district waited in the audience chamber. Pjtor ignored protocol and the gasps of the servants as he embraced Geert and Anderson. Geert had led a group that snuck into the gatehouse and killed the guard, then opened the portals. Von Deiman’s men had come in from the other side of Muskava after making a commotion that drew the citadel guards, the few still sober, away from the gate that Strella’s women had opened, once Strella realized who was coming in. Whispers claimed that a number of Sara’s personal servants had been found dead in the river, but no one had said anything official to Pjtor and he did not ask. Even service slaves resented being treated as animals and abused, and if no one spoke, he could ignore the whispers.

  “All honor Emperor Pjtor, Godown’s chosen ruler of NovRodi, king of the Sweet Sea, lord of the plains,” one of the men called, and all bowed to Pjtor.

  “Please, rise. I and my family owe you a great debt, and I plan to discharge that debt as soon as conditions allow.”

  “Thank you, Imperial Majesty,” Geert said. He broke into a huge grin. “My wife wants permission to lock the grocer in his cellar for a month with two barrels of those rotten onions he tried to sell her.”

  Pjtor shook his head but smiled back. “Please inform your lovely, gentle lady that even I cannot allow that kind of torture.” All the men laughed, as he’d hoped. There’d been enough blood and fury for one day. Pjtor climbed the dais and sat on the throne, alone. Someone had removed the double throne with Sara’s whisper holes in it, replacing it with the ancient Svendborg throne, carved in the shape of the great eagle and tree. Now he literally occupied his father’s seat. The men all bowed again, and again he raised them. Later they would feast, later he would reward them for their assistance, but not now. Godown and man both frowned on killing believers, and to kill his own people? Pjtor had a great deal to make amends for to the Most High, even if they were oathbreakers who had attacked him first.

  Tomorrow Sara, stripped of all her privileges, would go to the Convent of St. Molly, the traditional retreat of women of the royal family. But not as an honored sister, no, not with the customary privileges and luxuries. Sara would be no different from the ordinary women who lived there. She hated him, Pjtor knew. And he could not bring himself to care. If she plotted against him, there were other houses on the frontiers or in the northern forests that always needed more sisters to pray for Godown’s blessing on the community.

  As soon as Pjtor had heard of his father-in-law’s body being found, he went to the homefold and told Tamsin, then gave her and her female relatives his pardon, draping his coat over her to show to all that she remained under his shield and protection. If Nancy acted a bit too pleased with Sara’s departure, well, after her husband’s death she’d been supplanted by Sara’s mother and had endured a temporary exile in the northern marshes until Pjtor’s crowning as co-emperor and Lady Susan’s demise from an internal rupture. Strella refused to say anything about what or who had been on the turn-spit. Again, Pjtor decided that if he did not hear, he would not need to ask for more detail. His blood-kin should have been inviolate and no doubt the individual had thought Strella a typical woman of the homefold, sheltered and weak and obedient.

  Her actions had decided him on something, but it would take time to put his desires into place. Instead he thanked the men once more and reaffirmed all their rights and privileges before dismissing them to their families. Some of his personal guard would be keeping watch on the foreigners’ section in case someone tried to be foolish. Pjtor suspected the measure would not be necessary, but still. The men of the Emperor’s Own Regiment had reasons to guard the foreigners well.

  “I will have food in the lesser dining chamber,” Pjtor announced. Two servants bowed and vanished. He stood, held still until the world stopped swimming, and went to the tiny chapel near the homefold, where he prayed for forgiveness and mercy, and for wisdom. Then he ate with Strella, roast mutton and parched wheat, orange root and white root, hunter-fish in frost-berry sauce, and apples in spiced wine for the sweet.

  “What plans, Imperial Master?” She inquired after the apples arrived.

  “Don’t call me that, not when we are alone, Strella. And I need to sort out the nobles. I want Ivan Tabor on the council.”

  Clink clatter. Strella dropped her fork and stared at her brother.

  “While he is a heretic, or at least he refuses to arrest and punish the heretics, he’s loyal and I need a border lord on the council. The city lords are too focused on their own comfort and power. I need eyes elsewhere, and he’s old enough that people will listen to him.”

  Strella blinked, then recovered her aplomb. “He’s never tried to spread the heretical ideas, has he?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. Another reason to put him on the council.” Pjtor still had no doubt that the heretics would be in for a nasty surprise when they had to face Godown’s wrath, but he did not care to hear more stories about them drowning themselves in the hundreds as had occurred three years before.

  He took a deep breath. “And then I will need ships, fighting ships. And a modern army.”

  Strella raised one hand. “Stop, please. That is man’s business, for men to attend to. The homefold, and the greater homefold, are
women’s place. What you do outside the walls is yours, not mine.”

  Pjtor blinked, a little surprised at her heated words. Well, he realized, no, that made sense. She loathed Sara for acting like a man, even taking a lover. Which reminded him. “Strella, about our half sister. She has no children, does she?”

  Strella’s face turned crimson. “No.” She clenched her teeth. “Do not ask, brother. Why she does not is a woman’s matter.”

  “I won’t. I just wanted to confirm that I won’t have a surprise in twelve or fourteen years when a nephew appears and tries to claim the throne.”

  “You have no need to fear that.” She sighed a little. “She could have done such good with an alliance marriage over the sea. What a waste.”

  He had not even considered that possibility and Pjtor blinked. Two surprises from his sister in one evening, he mused, finishing his tea. A yawn threatened to attack, and he signaled for the servants to remove their empty dishes. “I bid you good evening, my sister. Godown bless and guard your sleeping.”

  “And grant you safe and healthy rising, my brother.”

  Pjtor slept well and deeply.

  He woke to heavy, warm snow fluttering down on Muskava. Noise from the second courtyard caught his ear and he opened the shutter and peered out as Boris set his shaving things out for him.

  A dozen wagons waited their turn to unload. Food, drink, chests of something, wood and coal, and bales of what might have been cloth came from the wagons, carried into the palace by servants. “Your winter supplies are being returned from those to whom the former Regent gave them, as they will no longer need them, Imperial Master,” a voice said from behind him. Pjtor started counting just the food crates and grain bags and quit after fifty. Instead he closed both sets of shutters and lowered the insulating cloth once more, then shaved before the water grew colder.