by Boykin, Alma
“How old is your son?”
“He has four summers, Imperial Master.”
The same as little Pjtor, the same as my son. Pjtor almost turned his horse and rode over the dead priest’s body, trampling it into the dirt. Instead he took a deep breath. “I hold this woman innocent of any crime against Godown or against the law of men. She is under my protection.”
The crowd seemed to shiver. “Go.” They scattered like shahma when dardogs attacked.
Pjtor camped out that night, unwilling to stay within the walls of the village in case their stupidity and foolishness were contagious.
Anderson and his men rode in the second day after Pjtor reached Three Rivers. The delay proved useful, because what Pjtor and the others found in the church and priest’s residence . . . Pjtor stared at the campfire, wishing he had ridden over the body, or had shoved the corrupt, evil bastard into the bonfire and held him there until he turned into a damned torch himself, like some commentaries claimed the Great Fires did. Two more women and a boy had approached Pjtor or his men in the night, whispering what the so-called priest had done to them. Pjtor did not want to believe. But he could, and he wondered what other corruptions had crept into the church in his absence. Godown gives us free choice, he reminded himself, and taking vows does not keep us from giving in to error. After all, he’d vowed not to stray from Tamsin and he had. Several times. For good reason and with good results, but he’d still gone astray. And he was Godown’s chosen, appointed to watch over Godown’s people, to protect them, to be a model for them. The church also came under that duty, something that bothered Pjtor far more than it had before.
The day after his arrival in Three Rivers, for the first time ever Pjtor used his right as emperor to lead the liturgy. Without the elements, to be certain, and he had not opened the Gate of Grace, such as it was in the little church in the village, but he’d presided at a service of worship and thanks. The villagers had stumbled over some of the responses, warning Pjtor that they needed a true priest and fast. But he’d led them and had called Godown’s grace and mercy down for the innocent and the weak. The church felt cleaner inside after that, at least to Pjtor, and several people had kissed the hem of his coat in thanks, a ritual he’d not endured since his coronation. But they needed to do it and so he put up with it. Now he broke a stick and threw it into the fire before looking up through the trees at the starry highway and wondering how Godown kept track of everything that happened on each world in His creation.
Anderson and the men arrived a few hours after sunrise the next day. “Well met, Imperial Majesty,” Capt. Anderson called, bowing and removing his hat to reveal more grey than black in his hair. A stranger ride with him and bowed as well.
“Greetings. Why the delay?”
Anderson and the other man straightened up. “Because the former Chosen Guards were idiots as well as too ambitious and decided to impale themselves on your spear, for lack of a better word.”
Pjtor blinked. “They what?”
Anderson smiled, flashing crooked yellow teeth. “They attacked us first, last full moon. The few survivors and some of the lords are in your cells, waiting your judgment.”
I like this, I think. Pjtor waved his had at the chairs across from his. “Sit, and tell me what happened. You too, Geert, Michael. And someone bring— Thank you.” Beer and food appeared on the table beside him, and servants soon had a smaller table for Anderson and the stranger. “And who is this?”
“Allow me to present Franklin Green, formerly of New Herbstadt, in the Eastern Empire. How he got here is a bit complicated” The man nodded his agreement. “But he’s a good soldier, fought as a mercenary under Duchess von Sarmas when he was younger, and is excellent at reading terrain. Better than I am. You need him, Imperial Majesty. Oh, and he likes big gonnes.” The stranger smiled and nodded again, more vigorously.
“I’ll take your word, and you may call me Pjtor Adamson or my lord,” Pjtor reminded him.
“Thank you, my lord. So, to begin at the beginning, late in the spring about two holy days after your departure, maybe a little longer. Things grew quiet in Muskava and the surrounding area, and there were rumors that the Harriers might not come north because of drought in the south after a hard winter. And then Lord Karlov disappeared. He left Muskava without permission, took his household with him. Bribed the guards on the gate to let them out before dawn, as we learned later. With him gone, the council settled down a little, as much as it can with Lord Tabor being, well, Lord Tabor, my lord.”
Everyone who knew the man nodded and smiled a little. Anderson drank some tea and continued. “So your honored sister Lady Strella went to St. Alice’s for two weeks. As she returned, she heard rumors that she’d declared herself regent, which she denied. The peasants said they’d heard it from soldiers who were going to Muskava to get rid of her and to put the true emperor back on the throne.” Adamson frowned. “They did not mean you, my lord.”
Sara had no children and she never married Grigory, who was dead, so who could they mean? Pjtor frowned, trying to think.
“There is a story, a market whisper, that Isaac did not die, Imperial Majesty,” Green said, speaking for the first time. “One version has it that he snuck away under cover of a storm when you attacked the citadel and defeated Sara. Another has it that the man on the throne was not Isaac but a pretender and that the true Isaac is a healthy man who was raised in hiding to protect him from someone.”
Anywhere else it would sound silly. But after what he’d just seen and heard, Pjtor could not discount the rumors, and he cursed inside his head. “Go on, Anderson.”
“Well, my lord, I got a little suspicious even before a courier came racing into the foreign district, scaring the yard fowl, scattering children and making a mess of my garden. The idiot let his horse eat my orange root plants,” Anderson growled before continuing, “The courier came from Lady Strella, who had turned around and had gone to St. Landis instead of returning to Muskava. I gathered some loyal men and went to meet her. As we were coming back, we got word of the Chosen Guard marching on Muskava.
“Remember those men you had ordered to stay south instead of coming back to Muskava for the winter? The ones on the frontier, supposed to help Tabor and Arkmandii? They refused, said they had every right to come back when the season ended and to be with their families and run their businesses. Karlov and a few other minor nobles had gone south, met them, and agreed to lead them back and put the proper Emperor on the throne and restore all the Chosen Guard’s rights and throw us, the foreigners, out and get rid of the gonnes and other things. Lady Strella was right to worry. We learned about their advance when they were still a week at least away from Muskava.” He snorted. “Actually, they hid worse than a war horse in a herd of pfiggies, my lord. They were eating their way north, raiding every farm they could, claiming ration rights as if they were at war.”
Pjtor ground his teeth. “You intercepted them?”
“Aye, my lord. Lord Tabor had come back from his lands and went wide of them, brought his horsemen, and your regiment was not going to budge. Several of the nobles, Arkmandii, a few others, gave more troops from their household men, and we had a peasant levy although Green sent them home for being underfoot since we didn’t need trenches or other digging. We hurried south and met them a little west of Shelton River, and took position on the west side. It was a risk, but gave us the high ground and concealment. They stopped across the river, and I went and asked them to down their weapons and go back. Asked them twice, they refused, and the lords said that was enough. So we waited.”
He sat back. Pjtor made a swirling, churning motion with his hand. “And?”
“They attacked just after dawn the next day. We fell back a little, a few meters, just enough to look as if we were spooked and they charged, right into angled fire. Green here had tucked some cannon behind two little rises, and we’d anticipated a head-on attack. The Chosen Guard may have been brave, my lord, and determined, and devout, but not smart. T
hey came straight in and when the center fell back, they didn’t think, just pushed harder. Then the left and right wings fired by rank, as did the center, and the gonnes opened up. After that it was a blood bath. I think half lived to down their weapons?” He turned to Green, who nodded.
“Half that we could find, Imperial Majesty. A few may have run far and fast enough to get away or die in the fields, but I’d loaded two of the gonnes with scrap and chain bits.” Pjtor winced, imagining the damage that had done to the ranks of men, based on what he’d read. “We rounded up two thousand. Including Lord Karlov, who led from the rear.”
Several snorts of derision and under-the-breath comments followed that, and Pjtor smiled. It was not a nice smile, he knew. “I trust he awaits my judgment?”
“Unless your honored lady sister has executed him already, yes my lord. The farmers won’t be using that field for a while, but the priests did give the men death grace if they asked for it. None of us had or have the rank to deny them that. The bodies were buried where they fell, in trench graves.”
Pjtor nodded. To not lie in consecrated soil was, well, the church did not say it would keep a man from reaching Godown’s paradise but many people believed that it would. Pjtor did not care where the bodies were as long as they remained outside of city and town walls, but the trench graves would serve as a warning. “And you say the leaders are waiting for me?”
“Yes, my lord. Your sister has been most generous in allowing space to be set aside for their, um, shall we say care and housing? Yes, their care and housing until your return.”
“What he means, Imperial Majesty, is that she wouldn’t let him line the road with gallows or use them as dardog bait. According to what I heard, she said it would be a waste of good trees.”
“No, she said there was not yet enough cut timber was what she said. The gonnes have made you deaf,” Anderson protested. Pjtor laughed, quietly. Anderson continued, “They wait for your judgment and justice, my lord.”
“And they shall have it.”
The ride back to Muskava gave Pjtor time to think, something he did not enjoy doing, and to make his plans for the prisoners. No more mercy, that much he’d decided the first time he heard of the rebellion, or mootany as Anderson called it. “They took a military oath, they broke it. That’s a mutiny, punishable by death in most armies.” So Pjtor agreed, but what would make the most lasting impression, without incurring the wrath of the church and Godown both? Not burning alive, that much he knew, and not putting them in the river to drown, since that might ruin the fish forever as well as making the water nasty. He’d seen stream water downstream of a dead shahma once. No. And if the water picked up their disloyalty and spread it, Godown would probably blame him.
Pjtor rode into Muskava with the soldiers behind him. He left the foreigners outside the gate, waiting while he and a few chosen troops from his personal regiment and Lord Tabor’s men made their way into the citadel. The people stared, cheering, pointing, some weeping and kneeling as they held up wooden copies of Godown’s symbol as he rode through. He made a point to stop and bow to each church as he passed them, then dismounted at the gate of the citadel. Tamsin and Strella met him, Tamsin carrying an enormous loaf of bread and Strella bearing a beautifully carved stone dish holding fine white salt. The women wore simple, modest, but rich dresses, and they bowed as they held out the gifts of welcome. Pjtor broke the bread, tore off a piece, touched it to the salt, and ate. He was home.
After the service in the Church of Godown’s Mercy, Pjtor met with the lords of council. Strella sat off to the side, behind a small carved wooden and cloth screen, listening but not speaking. She’d asked to attend, only as an observer and behind a modesty screen, much as women testified in certain courts. Tamsin had welcomed her husband in her own fashion, but insisted on remaining in the homefold. Pjtor sensed a coolness around her, but he had other things to deal with, and his gifts for her would arrive soon. Now he sat in his father’s throne. “You may rise.”
The old men straightened up. Lord Tabor stood a little to the side, as if the others feared contracting heresy if they stood too close. Pjtor didn’t care where Tabor’s soul was going at that moment, so long as his body remained loyal. “The rumors of my death have been exaggerated.”
“Thanks be to Godown.” Pjtor imagined the men’s sour breath as a sickly green miasma in the room. Their long coats, long beards, and old ways irritated him, but he needed them for now.
“The remaining Chosen Guard and their leaders have betrayed my mercy. The men, those still living, will be flogged with the five-tailed whip, four times each, then hanged on gallows outside the walls as a warning. Their families may bury the bodies after four days. Their names will be removed from the benefits rosters and all Rolls of Honor, and their families must leave any granted properties at once. I do not care that planting has just finished,” he stated, forestalling a possible plea for mercy from Archpriest Tan. The aged man stroked his long grey beard and frowned but held his tongue. Good. Pjtor did not want to fight with the church right now.
“And their lords, Imperial Majesty?” Nilgal’s voice slid through the air, reminding Pjtor of rotten fat with a blue-green shimmer to it. “What example is to be made of them?”
“A stern one.” He’d already sent couriers out with soldiers to evict the families from their houses and from Muskava. They could take one wagon of supplies per family. Anyone unable to travel for physical reasons would go to a convent or monastery of Pjtor’s choice and stay there forever. “Their lands and rights are forfeit, their titles erased. They will be flogged ten times, then hung. Lord Kovak will be beheaded as well.” He stopped and let the words find listeners.
It was Lord Stavro Karlinov who first understood. “Imperial Master, chosen of Godown, do you mean,” he hesitated, clutching the tip of his red beard, “do you mean that he will be both hung and beheaded?”
“Yes, he will.” Pjtor had heard about the punishment from one of the patricians of A’asterdee, who had described the results of an attempt to kill the Lord Governor of New Elbmouth. The part about ripping the man’s guts out first seemed a touch excessive after the flogging, so Pjtor decided to skip that. He wondered if the Lord Governor had really gone through with it, or had just scared everyone, or if he had gutted the dead body for some reason. Pjtor thought the latter a waste of time since dead bodies could not feel, but people did stranger things.
“Imperial Majesty, that is excessive.” Archpriest Tan spoke up at last. “It does not behoove one of Godown’s men to cause pain without need.”
“There is need, Father. The fear of Godown has not deterred Kovak or his followers from their foolishness, nor has my mercy to the men of the Chosen Guard. So there will be no more Chosen Guard, no more special rights for serving here, no grants of land-for-service based on the old ways.”
Tan pointed a fat finger at Pjtor and shook it. “You do not show mercy, nor did you, Pjtor Adamson. You labor for revenge. Let them go with a promise of obedience and truly be Godown’s tool for the redemption of NovRodi.”
Before the finger shook again, Pjtor had grabbed it. He’d launched from the throne before Tan even finished speaking and now he gripped the old man’s cold, fleshy hand, pressing the offending finger back enough to cause pain but not enough to break it, yet. “No,” Pjtor growled, low in his throat and chest, feeling anger giving him even more strength. “No, there is a time for mercy and a time for justice, a time for sowing and a time for harvest, a time for joy and a time for mourning,” he quoted. “Now is the season of Godown’s justice and mine. The nameless ones knew the results of their actions if they failed to kill my family, and now they will harvest what they have sown. Mercy out of season is cruel. What of those who died at the hands of the Harriers, or worse, because Sara and her lover failed to do their duty at its proper time, Father? I will not answer for the like.” He released the priest and turned. The lords had scattered away from the center of the room and knelt, heads to the floor.
Except Lord Tabor, who knelt on one knee only, head still bowed low. They had ridden together and Pjtor allowed Tabor the right. “What say you?” He had to ask, but he did not have to listen.
“You have decided, Imperial Master, so let it be,” one voice said from behind the beards and hair, and the others joined in agreement.
The next morning, just before the sun rose over the mist-hidden horizon, Pjtor watched as soldiers dragged the beast that had been Kovak out of the execution cart. He had endured four rounds with the five-tailed whip and could barely walk, but he could snarl and stare, and he spat on one of the guards. The man did not strike him, but did toss him up to Pjtor with considerable force. Pjtor caught the body, dragging the former noble up by the beard. “Why did you betray me?”
“Because you are not the emperor. A true emperor would not punish honest men for wanting what is theirs by right and by Godown’s gift,” the beast hissed. “The emperors granted the Chosen Guard their lands and rights before the Harriers ever came, and no man has the right to deny them.” He inhaled to say more but Pjtor stopped him.
Pjtor dragged the skinny, scab and cut marked body around, dropping the noose and snugging it himself. “Go to Godown and may He have mercy on your soul,” Pjtor intoned, reaching back for the rope. He heaved, dropping Kovak as the door under the pole opened. He heard a snap and nodded. He’d done it right. As soon as the body quit moving, Pjtor had it lowered and he removed the head himself with his saber. “Hang this by the main gate, that all may see and remember.” Once that happened, the others would also hang, but more slowly. The carts had rolled out before dawn.
Some of the bodies remained in place until the scavengers or the weather tore them apart, a dance of death for all to see. Pjtor ignored the corpses, especially after they dried to the point that they no longer stank. The cold winds of autumn could tan almost anything. Instead he focused on plans and on beginning the re-creation of NovRodi.
But first came the delayed summer ritual of the gold. Always, in early summer the men of the western forests sent their representatives to Muskava with their harvest of furs and gold. Furs because they hunted in winter, when the black weasels, forest cats, dardogs, vulfs, and other pelt beasts sported their best, thickest coats. And gold because all gold had been given by Godown for the good of all people, even if some emperors had acted as if it were theirs alone. Gold and furs bought spices and weapons, especially weapons, the tools to protect the people of Godown. The men found the gold in rivers that flowed from the distant half-legendary western mountains, but more than that Pjtor knew not. And he cared not. He just wanted the ceremony over so he could see how many ships the wagon loads of furs and sacks of gold would buy him.
