“ That’s the problem with Emperors” he said without looking back. “Power curses you, or drives you mad or something like that. Look around you. The other Lords are all going the same way. They all want to rule and look at what it does to them. Better we stay as we are: mercenaries, and wait for the day the Lords have all killed each other. Then we can have some peace.”
Quintillian stood stock still, his eyes on the hilt of the sword by his side, still shuddering with the force with which it had struck the tree.
“But you were his friend ” he cried. “You still helped him. You saved him.”
Kiva stopped abruptly. He turned and walked very slowly back toward the boy. Once he reached him, he put his hand on the lad’s shoulder, almost comforting. To Quintillian’s astonishment, there really were tears in the captain’s eyes. Kiva pushed hard and, as the lad dropped to his backside on the grass, he drew the sword from the tree.
“I was more than his friend, Quintillian. He was like my brother.”
Sheathing his sword, he stood, looking down at the boy.
“But it was me who locked him in his palace” he said, his voice cracking slightly with raw emotion. “ Me who dismissed his guard.” His voice sounded choked; clotted, his face bleak and more open than Quintillian had seen since they’d met. The captain cleared his throat.
“ Me who set the fire and killed him.”
Kiva turned his back on the boy, who had blanched and was gasping for breath. As the captain reached the edge of the hollow, he turned back one last time.
“It had to be done Quintillian. For the good of the Empire.”
And with that the captain vanished from sight over the lip of the hollow.
The boy sat stunned in the grass, shaking uncontrollably until suddenly a large hand appeared beneath his chin, holding a Wolves flask that contained something that smelled revolting. Athas crouched next to him.
“Drink lad” he said comfortingly. “You’ve never needed it more than now.”
Quintillian took a grateful pull on the spirit and coughed repeatedly. His throat spasmed and he leaned to one side, towards the bushes and vomited until he was dry retching. The face of his uncle stared up at him from the grass. Still shivering, he looked up at Athas, his face streaked with the tracks of his sorrow.
“It can’t be true” he begged of the big sergeant.
The hulking, coloured man placed a blanket around the boy’s shoulders and sat beside him. He took a swig from the flask and then passed it back to the lad.
“Quintillian,” he said, “there are some things you have to understand.”
“About him?” the lad said, his voice beginning to harden again. “A regicide? The man who murdered my uncle? I feel like such an idiot. Why should I need to understand?”
Athas shook the boy by the shoulders.
“It’s not that simple” the sergeant said quietly. “Your uncle had lost his wits. We were the last to see it and the last to believe it. There were other officers, even Generals who had wanted to execute your uncle in public. The nobles were calling for it in the city, but no one could decide what to do. You can’t kill a God without repercussions and who the hell would do the deed? It was Kiva who stopped them all. He tried to reason with Quintus, but there was no reason left in the Emperor; none at all. It had to be done, otherwise Quintus would have ruined the Empire or a mob would have got to him and torn him to pieces.”
Athas sighed.
“In the end, history remembers that he died in a fire in his palace. He went to the Gods deified and pure and died a hero, albeit a lunatic. People don’t talk about it. Most people are frightened to speak ill of a divine figure, so his name goes unsullied and that’s the way it should be. He’d been a great man for a lot of years before he started to slip. And when the time came and there was no other choice left to us, Kiva did it all, from dismissing the guard to locking the door, starting the fire and watching until it was over. He had to, don’t you see? He wouldn’t let anyone else do it. Couldn’t let them. To kill the Emperor was to kill a God. He would be cursed for the rest of his miserable life.”
“Cursed?” the boy queried.
“Can’t you see that in him?” Athas sighed. “A curse? Whether he actually is cursed or just believes it to be so, it’s affected his life ever since. Personally I don’t believe in curses; those of us from the desert lands never really held with the Emperor being a God anyway.”
The burly sergeant grasped the boy’s shoulder.
“Kiva did what he had to” he said. “He brought down the Empire with his own hands, but he had to do it; there really was no other way. Hate him now if you must, but try to remember this: you never even knew your uncle. Kiva treated him like a brother. He’s had to live for twenty years with the knowledge that he personally brought down the Empire, destroying the dynasty and executing a friend. You might begin to understand why he sleeps so badly.”
Quintillian had stopped shaking and, to his great surprise, had also stopped crying. Athas grasped him once more by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet.
“Perhaps now at least the two of you can talk as men, without all this carry-on” the sergeant said. “And now you need to stand up and straighten out. You’re one of the Grey Company and you need to act like one, or I’ll have to have Marco lash you.”
The lad managed a weak smile.
“I wonder if he knows how much damage he just did?” he said quietly.
Athas sighed.
“I wonder if you realise how much pain it causes him just to look at you?”
Chapter VI.
The sun beat down heavily on the baker’s dozen as they trudged along the road toward the coast. Now that late morning had arrived the heat was becoming unbearable and the dust from the mud and shale road was churned into throat-clogging clouds. The men sweated under their leather and steel armour, grateful only that the cart followed at the rear with the rest of the pack and gear aboard.
Quintillian plodded, his feet and his heart heavy as lead. He’d have refused to climb aboard the cart if they’d asked him, but no one had spoken to him as they’d set off once again on their route. Once in a while he’d raise his face and see the unit stretched out in front of him on the gravel road, chattering inanities as they marched. He’d tried hard to fall behind and bring up the rear of the column, but Marco had taken the position of rearguard with the cart and maintained a steady pace at the back of the unit. Quintillian occasionally turned to make sure that Marco was still there and the man winked at him every time. Far from being in a social frame of mind, Quintillian returned each wink with a scowl and faced front again. He shrugged and the leather tunic settled into place, distributing the weight better. He was starting to yearn for the days of simplicity on the island. Nothing had perturbed him there. People were learned; deferential to each other; calm.
On the island it’d been him and Darius. There had been no one else the same rough age, mostly ageing ex senators or bureaucrats or their young children or grandchildren, teaching and learning and farming to eke out a living. The island had once been a complex of palaces where the central power of the world was wielded. Now some of the palatial buildings had been converted into living, teaching and working areas and the once-proud gardens of the Imperial Palace were vegetable plots and pig pens. He and Darius had spent much of their time since reaching an age of truly conscious thought exploring the island and their own skills, interrupted by sessions of teaching and training and of hard, gruelling physical labour when the masters could actually find them. A horrible thought crossed his mind that the shattered and charred ruin where the two of them hid so often from the elders would have been the last place his uncle and the General had seen each other. Quintillian reflected that he’d never really grown up until he’d left the place, though Darius had seemed older and worldlier than he even when they were together and playing. When had the world…?