The music ceased abruptly. As the last of the confetti settled over the plaza, the emperor’s Samarol bodyguard began moving down the gangplank. Blind to a man, each of the twenty assassin slaves clutched Unmer seeing knives in their mailed fists, using these uncanny weapons to find their way. Some claimed those blades could see intent and give their owners unnatural reflexes, but Briana had never been able to verify this. No Haurstaf had been able to wield one without lapsing into madness.
When the Samarol had formed a semi-circle around the gangplank, the emperor himself appeared.
Hu was dressed in golden battle-armour. Upon his head he wore a crown of crystallized dragon eyes set in copper. His long red cape was Unmer-made, woven from the silk of Mare Regis spiders, and it fluttered strangely behind his shoulders in the dead air, lifted by a breeze that did not seem to be present. At his side he wore the Transient Sword, a Valcinder copy of the legendary lost Unmer weapon, but striking nonetheless. Its lacquered steel blade was tangerine in colour and festooned with holes supposedly made by void flies, although Briana suspected that particular flaw was merely an affectation engineered by the smiths.
The emperor strolled down the gangplank. ‘Sister Marks,’ he said brightly. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
She smiled flatly. ‘I’ve been a guest of the Administration for the last three days,’ she said, ‘I want to see Tom Granger.’
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you’ll see him at the trial.’
‘I want to see him before the trial.’
‘Quite impossible,’ the emperor replied. ‘Colonel Granger is a dangerous man. I could never allow myself to put one of the Haurstaf at risk.’
Briana looked at him coolly. ‘If you do not wish to use our services, there are simpler ways of letting us know.’
Hu made a dismissive gesture. ‘Come now, there’s no need for unpleasantness on such a beautiful day. If it’s really so important to you, I’ll grant you an audience.’ He even managed to look magnanimous. ‘May I ask what the interview is about?’
‘No,’ Briana said. ‘You may not.’ She had all but lost patience with him. Hu had pushed her as far as he could, but even a fool such as him could not risk endangering his campaigns or his empire by removing Haurstaf psychics from his armies and cities. Nevertheless she felt inclined to end his contract with the Guild there and then. But she stopped herself from speaking. Hu’s pride might irk her, but it was still better to have him as a client than a foe.
Administrator Grech chose this moment to slide forward. He gave a low bow. ‘Your Majesty,’ he said in his sing-song voice. ‘We are so deeply, deeply honoured.’ He beckoned towards the waiting crowds of his peers. ‘You will be pleased to know that the, eh, corral has been constructed to your specifications. Might I presume that the… eh
…’
‘Aboard the Excelsior.’ Emperor Hu followed him without so much as another glance at Briana.
Granger watched the celebrations from his cell window. The Haurstaf vessel had been in port for three days now, and yet, for all his pacing and hand-wringing, the visit he’d been hoping for had not materialized. What exactly was the Guild playing at?
The emperor’s ship had arrived with all the pomp and ceremony typical of Hu, although Granger had not been able to see their glorious leader himself from this vantage point. The flags in the rigging blocked his view. However, it seemed that the crowds down there were finally dissipating. Silver and gold sparkles floated in the harbour, slowly turning brown. Would the emperor come to his cell to gloat?
Granger hoped so. Hu was notorious for underestimating his enemies.
When he heard footsteps in the corridor outside, he stood up, his heart thumping.
A man’s voice came from outside the cell. ‘The corridor door is locked, Colonel, and I don’t have the key to it. It ain’t opening for nobody who they can’t see first. And it certainly ain’t opening to save my old skin, or hers. You stand well back now.’
A key clinked in the lock. The door opened.
Sister Briana Marks stood there, accompanied by an old jailer Granger had not seen before.
‘Five minutes,’ the jailer said.
She glared at him. ‘I’ll take as long as I please.’
The old man sighed. ‘Aye, I suppose you will.’ He let her into the cell and closed the door behind her, muttering to himself all the while.
Sister Marks had aged noticeably in the six years since Granger had last seen her. Her face and hair had lost their youthful shine, and frown lines now etched her brow. She regarded him with weary, cynical eyes. ‘The jailer wasn’t lying, Colonel,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good hostage. The emperor would love nothing more than to see me killed, especially by you.’
Granger grunted. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
The witch glanced around the cell. ‘My men checked your home,’ she said. ‘We didn’t find anyone alive.’
‘She was taken.’
‘Taken? By whom? Where?’
Granger said nothing.
‘Gilders aren’t going to be much use to you now, Mr Granger,’ she said. ‘But I might be able to get you out of here, if you help me find this woman.’
Granger shook his head. ‘Get me out first.’
‘You’re not in a position to make demands. I’ll find her eventually, even without your help.’
‘No you won’t.’
‘A sensitive can’t go undetected forever. She’s bound to give herself away.’
He wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. Too much might risk Ianthe’s life. Too little, and he didn’t have much to bargain with. The witch was right – any normal psychic would eventually give herself away. But he didn’t trust this woman. If she found out what she needed to know, she’d leave him to the emperor. Politics.
‘She’s in danger,’ he said.
The witch raised her eyebrows. ‘Then your silence is risking her life. That doesn’t sound like the man I’ve heard so much about.’ Her expression softened. ‘You embarrassed Emperor Hu in his own court, Mr Granger – in front of his enemies’ representatives, in front of me. You made him look like a blundering fool.’
‘He is a blundering fool.’
‘Of course he is, but he’s also the pettiest and most vindictive man I’ve ever met. You must have known that. How did you think he was going to respond to your comments?’
Granger shook his head. He’d been angry, irritated and suffering from brine burns, but that was no excuse. He’d acted rashly.
‘Hu took it all personally,’ Marks said. ‘Now he plans to execute you in front of the whole city tomorrow morning. A trial by combat, if you can believe it.’ She walked over to the window and peered out at the preparations. ‘The Guild cannot intervene to save you, of course. We must maintain a position of neutrality.’ Now she turned around and smiled. ‘But if it turns out that you have discovered a sensitive, and I can verify her existence, I’ll see to it that you’re charged with her imprisonment and with attempted extortion.’
‘Charged?’
Her smiled broadened. ‘The trial would take place at the Guild Palace in Awl. Not even Hu would dare to interfere with our justice. We’d be compelled to take you out of the empire to await your hearing, Mr Granger.’
Granger thought about this. ‘You’d simply move me from one hangman’s noose to another.’
‘Not necessarily. The Guild would decide a fitting punishment after we have deliberated. I can’t promise anything except that you will still be alive tomorrow evening, and for several weeks afterwards. Much depends on what the woman you imprisoned has to say in your defence.’
‘Girl,’ Granger muttered. ‘She’s fifteen. Her name is Ianthe.’
‘And who has her now?’
Granger didn’t sleep that night, and when dawn came he watched the red sun rise through rags of cloud as brown as brine until it stood fuming above the Ethugran rooftops like a dragon’s eye. He looked down at the plaza for a long time. A dragon-bone corral had been erected on the wharf side. Three walls of teeth and bone formed an enclosure abutting the water’s edge. They had even moved the emperor’s steam yacht back to allow a man – him, to allow him – to leap from the corral down into the poisonous brine if he so chose. But that way lay a more lingering and painful death. Hookmen would soon drag him back from those depths to fight again.