“Now, where were we?” interrupted the headmaster. They both fell silent as the headmaster shuffled back to his perch atop his desk. “Ah, punishment! That is what you both need. Five lashes a piece!”
Emethius gasped in horror.
Meriatis didn’t flinch. “But I am the Prince of Merridia,” he whined.
“That you are,” answered the headmaster matter-of-factly.
Meriatis turned about in his chair and lifted his shirt over his head, exposing his bare back. “A lash could leave a scar. Are you truly so bold as to mar my beautiful and perfect royal flesh?” challenged the prince.
At this the headmaster wavered. “You are right, my little lord. But you’re not getting away unpunished. Kitchen duty for a fortnight.”
“A week.”
“This isn’t a negotiation. Ten days.”
Meriatis grinned triumphantly and settled back in his chair.
The thought of this spoiled brat avoiding a lashing while he took the brunt of the punishment filled Emethius with a sudden rage. He built up his courage to interject, but never got the chance.
“But...,” continued Meriatis. “You cannot leave me unmarked and strike the boy who is far less responsible for the fight. I threw the first punch, after all.” Emethius gawked at Meriatis, shocked that he would lie to protect him. “If you’re not willing to lash me, it would be unjust for you to lash...” He paused. “What was your name again?”
“Emethius.”
Meriatis nodded. “You cannot lay a hand on Emethius.”
The headmaster scowled. “Your father would be impressed by your sense of fairness, Prince Meriatis.” He did nothing to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Now get out of here, both of you. If I find you fighting again your sweet tongue will do nothing to fend off my lash.” He pointed toward the door.
Meriatis jumped to his feet and performed a low bow. “Good day, headmaster.” He grabbed Emethius’s good hand and pulled him from the room.
As they bounded around the corner, Brother Cenna’s voice called after them. “Emethius, see Brother Morgant about that broken bone, then return to your dormitories and tend to your studies. You’re both grounded for the night.”
They did not do as they were told.
Meriatis led Emethius outside, laughing with relief as he bounded down the stairs.
“Why did you lie about my shoulder?” pressed Emethius, as soon as they were alone.
“A good prince is supposed to protect the defenseless.” His back stiffened and he stood at attention. He gave Emethius a mock salute.
“I’m not defenseless.”
“You are against whoever did that.” Meriatis nodded toward Emethius’s collarbone.
“It was an accident.”
“Uh huh.” Meriatis shrugged with indifference. “If that’s the story that works for you, so be it. Who am I to judge?” He tugged on Emethius’s hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Emethius was suspicious, but he let himself be led onward. The academy was located within the walls of the palace. It was a sprawling complex full of temples, legal courts, meeting halls, libraries, residences, dormitories, barracks, and religious and scholarly academies. It was easy for a child to disappear in the mass of people that walked its grounds. They circled around the academy building, skirting the packed courtyard that was still full of students and instructors, and then ducked behind a manicured hedge that grew parallel to the rear wall of the royal residence.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Emethius. He was not sure if he should trust someone who had been pummeling him a few minutes earlier.
“Be patient,” replied Meriatis. He peered left and right through the tangle of brush, guaranteeing the coast was clear, then darted to a small metal grate covering a dark ventilation shaft set in the side of the building. Outwardly, the grate appeared to be held down by four heavy iron bolts, but when Meriatis gave the grate a gentle tug, it popped free. He motioned for Emethius to follow, then slid down the ventilation shaft.
Without time to second guess his actions, Emethius charged after Meriatis, diving head first into the shaft. The shaft ran at a much sharper angle then Emethius had guessed, and he slid on his belly the entire way down. Suddenly the shaft opened into a large room, and he fell the last few feet, landing with a thud. A shooting pain tore through his shoulder and neck, and tears involuntarily came to his eyes. Thankfully, the dark interior hid his pain.
“Oh yeah. There’s a bit of a drop at the end. Sorry,” called Meriatis from the gloom. “Come on. This way.”
Rubbing his tender shoulder, Emethius chased after the prince. He could stand upright, but an adult would have to hunch over to move around in the space — the ceiling was quite low. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim interior. The floor was natural rock, and the space was humid and cold. Dozens of stone columns sprung from floor to ceiling. The smell of mold was too strong to ignore. Crates and casks were stacked everywhere.
“This is the kitchen cellar,” said Meriatis. Overhead, the wooden floorboards creaked as the kitchen staff went about their daily tasks. “You didn’t get lunch yet, did you?”
“No. Actually, I’m starving,” said Emethius, realizing that his stomach felt hollow.
Meriatis reached into a box and pulled out a green apple. He tossed it to Emethius and grinned. “I think lunch can be seen to.”
Emethius took a bite and followed the young prince deeper into the cellar. Meriatis gestured to the far corner, where a collection of items had been assembled to emulate a high-backed chair. “My Throne of Roses,” said Meriatis proudly.
Emethius had never seen the actual Throne of Roses, but he imagined it looked nothing like the makeshift chair before him. The base was made from a small barrel, the armrests were wooden pallets, and the back was an upturned crate.
“A lord is always gracious in defeat, and today you have earned the high seat,” said Meriatis with a grand sweep of his hand. He lowered his head and dropped to one knee in mock obeisance.
Emethius smiled wryly and hopped atop the throne, for a moment supplanting his prince.
The two sat and gorged themselves on fresh watermelon, smoked pork belly, and cheese. Meriatis even produced a bottle of wine from the Estero Vale to quench their thirst. They laughed and joked. Meriatis told Emethius about the current intrigues of the court, while Emethius shared stories about his home in the southlands, a region the prince had yet to visit. It was the most fun Emethius had experienced in months. Had anyone happened across this scene they would have never guessed that an hour earlier the two boys were fighting in the yard. But that was the way it was with Meriatis, or so Emethius would soon learn; Meriatis was quick to forgive, quick to feel sympathy, and quick to love. When the feast was through, Emethius was stuffed. Meriatis wallowed on the floor, painfully pleased with himself.
“I like you,” said the prince, quite out of the blue.
“Oh, you do?” challenged Emethius. He sat sideways with his legs dangling over the side of the throne. ”If I remember correctly, you were trying to knock my head off a bit earlier.” He pinched the goose egg on the back of his head to emphasize his point.
“That happens,” said Meriatis. “But of all the boys I’ve ever fought, you are actually the only one to hit me back.”
Emethius laughed. “They just let you smack them around?”
“Yes, they often do. Or they run, or they cry out for help. But they never try to hit me! I often hear them whisper when I pass, there goes the son of High Lord Valerius, there goes the heir to the throne,” he croaked in a mocking voice. “They are all my friends in the end, because who wouldn’t be? I’ll be the High Lord of Merridia one day.” Meriatis rolled his eyes at this. “But you’re different, Emethius. It’s like you don’t know your station in life. You hit me, I like that about you. It makes me feel like we’re equals.”
Emethius smiled at the thought. He knew his father would gnash his teeth at such a foolish claim. You will never b
e equals with the Prince of Merridia, he could hear his father saying. Men of such high birth look down their noses at men such as us. But his father was far away, and for the first time in ages Emethius felt free to speak his own mind. “Equals, huh, you and I?”
Meriatis nodded and held out his hand. “Equals it is!”
Emethius grasped Meriatis’s hand firmly and gave it a hearty shake. The duo spent the rest of the afternoon working their way through every crate in the cellar, neither of them having a care in the world save what they would eat next.
• • •
“Meriatis..., is he alive?” groaned Emethius through blood-caked lips. It took all of his strength to speak, yet no one seemed to hear. His voice was barely a whisper.
A hand was pressed firmly against the small of Emethius’s back, putting pressure on the stab wound Meriatis had inflicted. Emethius was lying face down on a stretcher. The coarse fabric scratched at his face, and for some reason that irritant seemed more pressing than the wound in his back. Everything felt oddly distant. The world passed by as if he was floating. “No. I’m being carried,” he corrected himself. Soldiers of the Faith sprinted past, heading in the opposite direction. “Someone needs to rescue the high lord,” he heard himself murmur. “Coffin... he’s in the coffin.”
On the periphery of his vision he detected an amber glow. There was a fire, great and severe. Belching columns of smoke blotted out the sun. Emethius would have laughed if he had any strength left in his body. Praetor Maxentius got his wish — Imel Katan was burning.
The stretcher bearers set Emethius down in an open-sided pavilion. Groans and wails of dying men filled the air. In the distance he thought he heard Praetor Maxentius barking out wild orders. Nearby a Tiber Brother was giving someone their last rights. Anointing water splashed across Emethius’s forehead. He opened his eyes, realizing that he was the one receiving the final sacrament.
“Fly spirit, and be free of all pain,” said the Tiber Brother.
Emethius tried to shove the Tiber Brother away, but his hands felt like lead weights.
“This is the one who stabbed the prince,” whispered a soldier into the Tiber Brother’s ear. “It would be best for Merridia if he died. Take pressure off the wound. Let him bleed.”
The Tiber Brother nodded knowingly and pierced Emethius’s forehead with a rose thorn. “Blessed be the gods of Calaban.”
I’m not dead, Emethius tried to reply, but his words were unintelligible.
A mailed hand clasped across Emethius’s nose and mouth. It took Emethius a second to realize the man was trying to suffocate him. He bit at his attacker’s mailed fingers, getting a mouthful of steel.
“Hey, what are you doing to him?”
His attacker suddenly howled in pain and stumbled backward, grabbing at the side of his head. Blood gushed between his mailed fingers.
“If I ever see you again, I’ll take your other ear, you halfwit bastard!” It was Malrich. He threw the man’s bloody ear off into the distance and then rolled Emethius onto his side, pressing a rag against the wound. “Hang in there, mate.”
“Mal...,” managed Emethius through parched lips. He felt cold.
There was a scuffle nearby. Emethius heard other familiar voices and the hiss of blades drawing from sheaths. The Red Company had arrived.
“Brother Seius, get your ass over here and help the captain!” barked Malrich.
Then all fell silent. The painful cries, the undulating voices, the Tiber Brothers granting last rights; everyone drew quiet for a moment that seemed to last forever. It was as if some dark revelation had simultaneously been made by all. Finally, a lamenting cry broke the silence.
Emethius realized why.
Meriatis was carried by on a stretcher, but in Emethius’s hazy mind he appeared to be floating on a sea of crimson flames. A woman in white walked beside the stretcher, her arms red to the elbows as she frantically tried to save Meriatis’s life. His olive skin had turned the color of ash. The prince’s gaze shifted to Emethius as he went past, or so he first thought. There is no life in those hazel eyes, Emethius realized. Meriatis was still, lifeless. Dead.
CHAPTER
V
THINGS PRESENT
Emethius awoke to the ringing of a bell.
Gong, gong, gong.
He was lying on his back in a bed. His shirt was missing, and oddly enough, an older woman was standing at his bedside with both of her hands resting on his bare chest. She was talking softly to herself with her eyes closed.
“Don’t move,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“Huh?”
“Are you keen on having your left lung on the outside of your body?”
“No.”
“Then don’t move. Don’t even talk. Try not to breathe if you can help it.”
Emethius still wasn’t sure what was going on, but he decided that following the woman’s advice was the best course of action. He took slow shallow breaths.
Gong, tolled the bell in the distance.
“I’m performing a transfusion,” said the woman after a few moments. Her eyes were still closed, her face strained with concentration. “My vitality can be a bit fickle at times. It’s best not to complicate matters by squirming about. This is your seventh transfusion. It took two treatments to patch up your lung and ribs. Another three to get your intestines to stop leaking. The infection was pretty bad. We had to bring in a master healer for that. These final two treatments have been to heal your muscles and flesh.”
I’m lucky to be alive, realized Emethius. There were very few healers who possessed the ability to perform a transfusion. Transfusers almost exclusively provided their services to the rich and powerful. He felt a dull tingling in the small of his back, and the muscles in the region began to spasm. That was likely the woman working her craft.
Gong. Gong. Gong.
“It’s hard to concentrate with all that racket.” The woman finally opened her eyes and lifted her hands from Emethius’s chest. She removed a piece of cotton from each of her ears. “That damn bell has been ringing all morning, once for every soul lost in Prince Meriatis’s war of treason. It will probably still be ringing come dusk.”
Emethius decided it was all right to move a little bit, and he peered out his bedside window. In the distance he could spy the pink dome of the Court of Bariil looming over the surrounding rooftops. The bell atop its dome swung back and forth like a pendulum. He was in Mayal, the capital of Merridia, although he had no memory of how he had gotten here. The last thing he remembered was bleeding to death in a field hospital outside of Imel Katan.
“Lean forward,” instructed the woman, as she pulled him into a seated position. Emethius’s back screamed in protest, but the woman didn’t give him much option to resist. “I’m Sister Beli,” said the woman as she removed the bandage covering the wound in his back. Sister Beli was a squat woman, nearly as round as she was tall. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun. The wrinkles on her face implied she frowned more often than not.
“By the time you arrived the wound in your back had already festered. Your whole body was on fire and I thought you were destined for the hereafter. But the gods are good. Vacia has watched over you.” Sister Beli held the bloodstained bandage up to her nose and gave it a strong sniff. She seemed satisfied with the results. “That was your last transfusion. The wound is closed, and should stay that way as long as you don’t move around too much. In a few days I’ll have you on your feet and walking circuits about the grounds. You’re one of the lucky ones. It’s rare for a Soldier of the Faith to receive a transfusion. You must know someone important.”
I once did, thought Emethius glumly. Outside his window, the bell continued its solemn count, a stark reminder that the gods had failed to protect so many others. “What of Prince Meriatis? Did he survive?”
Sister Beli ignored his question, instead granting him a smile that was full of pity and perhaps even a bit of sadness. “You should try to rest,” said
the sister, as she helped him lie back down. “You will need your strength in the coming days.”
She brought him a bowl of brown gruel. Emethius shoveled a few spoonfuls into his mouth before he slid the bland paste aside. He listened to the mournful knell of the dirge bell, thinking about what each toll represented.
Gong. Perin. Gong. Quintus. Gong. Meriatis.
He wondered how many Merridians died during the failed assault on the gate. Or worse still, how many members of the Red Company fell after he abandoned them to chase after the prince.
Too many, answered the bell with its incessant gong. The bell chimed on and on, until it became numbing to the senses and ceased to do the fallen any honor.
There was a low cough at the door.
Emethius smiled when he saw his unexpected visitor. “Malrich!” exclaimed Emethius. It was good to see anyone who wasn’t going to poke and prod him, but even better to see a true friend.
“How do you fare?” asked Malrich as he entered the room and moved a bench alongside Emethius’s bed.
“Well enough,” replied Emethius. “I’m alive, and that may be better than I deserve.”
“So it would seem,” said Malrich. “Some at Imel Katan wanted to let you die after they saw what you did. The prince was loved by many.” Malrich’s breath stunk of hard liquor, and his eyelids bore a telltale droop. Even Malrich, friend that he was, needed a few drinks to build up the courage to visit the man responsible for killing the prince.
“I loved Prince Meriatis as much as anyone,” said Emethius, feeling he had to defend himself. “I guessed Meriatis’s fate, but you are the first to confirm it. He is dead.”
Malrich nodded. “The prince was unconscious when I found you two atop the pinnacle of Imel Katan. At first I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Then I heard a knock coming from inside that coffin. I pried off the lid and out crawled High Lord Valerius. Damn near gave me a heart attack.”
Fractured Throne Box Set 1 Page 6
