‘I have had no life since our father died. What I have had since then is nothing more than a long descent, and every tenday the ground is moved one tenday further off, so that I drop and drop. But one day the ground will stay where it is, and I shall be dashed to pieces.’
‘Beautifully said,’ he told her. ‘Your education has not been wasted after all. Seeing the good use you have made of it, I decide that I shall broaden it.’
This was a change from the usual routine. ‘Your Imperial Majesty?’ she enquired cautiously.
‘A little trip to the dungeons, dear Seda,’ he said and, when she sighed, he added, ‘Not yet, dear sister. It is not your turn yet. Instead there is a most interesting prisoner that General Maxin has brought for me. I think you should see him. Furthermore, I think he is desirous of seeing you.’
The Wasp Empire was all about imposing order. Alvdan the Second’s grandfather Alvric had forced it on his own people, who were a turbulent and savage lot by nature. The original Alvdan, first of that name, had then turned his need for order on the wider world and his namesake son had followed his lead. The imposition of order became all. The multiplicity of ranks and stations within the army, the precise status of the more powerful families, the honours and titles that were the gift of the throne, even the station and privileges of individual slaves – everyone had a place, and those above, and those below.
The maxim applied even to prisoners. There had developed a whole imperial art to the treatment of prisoners – how often they were fed; whether they had a cell a man could stand in, or even lie straight in; whether they were kept damp, kept cold; whether they were dragged out to lie on the artificer-interrogator’s mechanical tables for no other reason than it was their turn, their lowly contribution to the Empire’s sense of order.
Such prisoners as had something to offer the Empire, they could do well for themselves. They could even make the leap, eventually, from prisoner to slave – just as the threat of becoming a prisoner kept the lowest slaves in line.
Judging by such exacting standards, this man her brother had found must have a great deal of potential, for his cell lay on the airiest level of Capitas’s most accommodating prison. He had two rooms to himself, and an antechamber, and the guards even rattled the barred door in advance to announce that he had visitors. In the antechamber there sat three young pages, two boys and a girl, presumably to run errands for the prisoner’s needs. As she considered that, Princess Seda noticed how pale and drawn they all were, and that one was visibly trembling.
She was not really a princess, of course. That was a Commonwealer title that one young officer, desperately gallant and politically naA?ve, had once given her. What fate had befallen him since she did not know, but he had been a brief ray of sun through the clouds that perpetually clogged her life.
The prisoner’s reception chamber was lit by great windows, latticed with metal bars, that extended across almost an entire wall, and opened up part of the ceiling as well. There were no curtains, she saw. The sun flooded unopposed across the floor until it met the doorway into the sleeping chamber. That room was quite dark, muffled in drapes, and impenetrable to her gaze.
‘Your Emperor is here,’ one of the guards announced. ‘Present yourself!’
For a moment it seemed that nothing would happen, and then Seda heard a shuffling from within the darkness, and at last a hooded figure in tattered robes came forward tentatively to the brink of the dazzling light. One hand, pale as death and thin as bone, was raised against the sun.
‘Come forward, we command it,’ Alvdan instructed, and Seda saw how he was enjoying himself, watching the wretch quail before the sunlight.
The guard began uncoiling a whip from his belt and, with a shudder, the slender creature crept forwards, head turned away from the windows. She could see nothing of him yet but those two delicate hands, long-fingered and sharp-nailed.
‘We have brought our sister to you, since we thought that you might be of interest to each other,’ Alvdan sounded pleased with himself no end. The cowl shifted and sought her out, and she imagined watery eyes within were trying to focus on her.
‘Introduce yourself, creature,’ Alvdan said. ‘Have your kinden no manners?’
The robed thing gave a long, tired hiss and crept closer, until it was almost within arm’s reach. There were blue veins prominent against the translucence of its arms, and something about the creature sent a deep shiver through Seda.
‘This is Seda, youngest of our father’s line, as we are oldest,’ Alvdan announced. ‘Name yourself.’
The voice was hoarse and low. ‘Uctebri the Sarcad, Your Imperial Majesty and honoured lady.’ It was a man’s voice, as accentless as though he had been born here in Capitas city.
‘And is it good-mannered to conceal yourself behind a cowl?’ Alvdan demanded. ‘Surely my sister deserves better than that? Come, unmask yourself, creature.’
The figure that called itself Uctebri shuddered again, one hand gesturing vaguely towards the windows. The voice murmured something that might have been a plea.
The crack of the guard’s whip made Seda start. Uctebri flinched back from it, though it had not touched him. She feared that, had the lash struck his wrist, it might have snapped his hand off.
Trembling, those hands now rose to draw back the cowl.
The sight was not so bad, at first. An old man, or an ill one. A pale veiny head with a little lank hair still clinging behind it. A thin, arched neck bagged with wrinkles. The lips were withered, his nose pointed, and there was a florid bruise on his forehead.
Shading them with both hands, he painfully opened his eyes to stare at her. They were protuberant, with irises of pure red, and they stared and stared at her face despite the glaring daylight. Seeing those, she saw also that the mark on his brow was not a bruise after all, but blood, a clot of blood constantly shifting beneath his waxy skin.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said to her brother. ‘Who is this old man?’
‘Do you hear her, Uctebri?’ Alvdan smirked, as though he and the withered thing were sharing some joke at her expense. ‘Well even we were unsure when first we looked upon you. Even with General Maxin’s urgings, we were slow to believe – and yet here you are.’
Uctebri’s head turned to squint at him, and then his crimson attention focused back to her. He would have been just some old man except for those eyes. They seemed to look through her. She could feel the force of that crimson stare as a queasiness in her stomach, an itch between her shoulder blades.
‘Touch her,’ Alvdan commanded. Seda drew back at once, but the guard, the man who had spent all morning at her shoulder, was now gripping her arms. Uctebri shuffled forwards, those unnatural eyes craning up at her, and she saw his tongue pierce between his lips, a sharp dart of red.
Something terrible was about to happen. She could not account for the premonition but she began to struggle as hard as she could, twisting and writhing in the soldier’s grip as the old man approached her.
And then he was before her and she saw his mouth open slightly, the teeth inside sharp and pointed like yellow needles. One of those slender hands reached out to pincer her wrist.
He was not strong, but stronger than his frailty suggested nonetheless. She wrenched her hand from that cool touch, and Uctebri said, ‘I must feel the blood, your great Majesty,’ in that same calm, low voice.
She heard the whisper of Alvdan unsheathing his dagger, and then the cold steel at her throat. The old man raised his hands urgently.
‘A point, the prick of a pin only, Lord Majesty. Just for the savour of it. No more, not yet. All in good time.’
They had surely all gone mad. If there was any fraternal feeling in Alvdan’s heart she would have pleaded with him. Instead she closed her eyes and turned her head away as he seized her hand and cut across a finger.