‘I have done such a terrible thing,’ Tull said softly.
‘Hush. Do not dwell on it.’
‘I do not sleep.’
‘Heavy are the burdens of power,’ said Anastay.
Tears welled from Tull’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. ‘I failed in my responsibility. I overreached. I have embarrassed my adeptus, and caused the loss of millions of lives. All so that ork could laugh at us, and that horrible face in orbit…’ She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Anastay set the brush down on the table and came around Tull’s front. She grabbed Tull’s wrists gently and pulled them away from her face. Anastay was very old.
‘Do not be sad, you have much to live for. You shall recover. You are strong, and beautiful.’
Tull smiled through her tears. ‘Not now.’
‘You could be old like me. Better to stay beautiful forever.’
‘That is impossible.’
‘Then enjoy it now, before it fades. In time, you will be old and wrinkled as I.’ Anastay gently pushed Tull around so that she faced the mirror above her dressing table. ‘See, such fine hair, not grey. Such perfect skin and bone structure.’
Tull looked into the mirror. The contrast between the lady and her servant was striking, horribly so. She imagined becoming that repulsive. The truth was that Tull was almost certainly many years older than Anastay, but anti-gerontic drugs and rejuvenat therapies could not stave off age forever.
‘My father was a remembrancer, did you know that?’ said Anastay.
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Tull.
‘He was very fond of ancient history. Really ancient history, the cultures of Roma and Nihon from the first and second millennia. Do you know, in ancient times, when a warrior or official failed, they would kill themselves? They would take their gun, or their sword, poison, or a razor and they would end their lives, just like that. They must have been very brave to do that, I always thought, to banish dishonour with their own sacrifice.’
‘Yes, they must.’ Her eyes strayed to a drawer in her table. Inside was her pistol, unworn for many years since she had left active service. The drawer was open a crack. She didn’t remember taking out her gun. She had not for a long time.
‘My lady,’ said Anastay, putting her hands on Tull’s shoulders. ‘It is better to be strong, to face your failures and overcome them, to rise to the challenge that disgrace presents us, and prove ourselves better.’
‘But I am not strong,’ said Tull. ‘I was, but I am not any more.’ She put her hand over Anastay’s. It was hot and soft.
‘Then you must be brave,’ said Anastay. She squeezed Tull’s hand. ‘I shall draw your bath, my lady.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tull. ‘You have always been a great comfort to me.’
Anastay departed, leaving Tull alone below the shifting, hololithic skies.
Thane, the Lord Guilliman, had accused her directly of incompetence. She had had faith in the Emperor, she had trusted He would aid her in her crusade. He had not. Mesring had had no faith either, and that had dismayed her. But Thane was no follower of the Imperial Creed. The Adeptus Astartes were gross deformations of the human form, but they were made by the Emperor Himself. How stupid she had been. Thane was right, he was closer than she could ever be to the Emperor. Gods could not help them, mankind should help itself. Where she had thought she had faith, she had exhibited a child’s belief in the infallibility of her parents, nothing more.
She looked at the drawer. She was naive, foolish. She had nothing more to offer. Perhaps she had enough strength left in her to be brave.
The drawer slid out easily. Her pistol lay in a cavity fitted perfectly to its form. It was nothing exotic, a simple laspistol, but of great value to her. It had been a present from her father when she took command of her first ship. The gun was expensive, of course, chased with iridescent gold etched with looping patterns.
Her trembling fingers brushed it. Dishonour, that was the word Anastay had used. She pulled the gun from the drawer. The feel of its weight in her hand and the smoothness of the rosewood butt brought back memories. Most were good, proud moments. All they did was make the shame of the present seem sharper.
She thumbed on the power. The battery indicator ticked up from red through to green. Funny. Her father always bought the best, but she would have thought the battery would have run flat during its time in the drawer.
Many guilty lives had been claimed by the pistol. Mutinous crewmen, pirates, xenos raiders. What was one more? The muzzle was cool on her temple. Anastay would not hear the shot over the thundering of the bath water. Tull hoped someone else found her. The handmaid had been the closest thing she had to a friend.
The stars shifted above. Once more she took pleasure in their beauty. She smiled before she squeezed the trigger.
Her skull muffled the discharge.
In the ablutorial down the hall, the bath ran and ran until it overtopped, spilling water and flower petals upon the floor.
Anastay had returned to her temple, her mission complete.
The Tower of Autumn was inconspicuous as the spires of Terra went. A bastion swallowed by the rebuilding of the city a thousand years ago, it no longer served a defensive purpose. Being too hallowed to be given over to other uses, it remained as a dusty monument to the siege of the Imperial Palace.
Verreault grimly looked up from its loopholes. Not far away was the Widdershins Tower, and the Cerebrium at its summit.
‘Come away from the window,’ said Lansung.
‘No one will see me.’
‘I don’t like it. I don’t like you staring up there. Vangorich has been using it as his personal lair, I hear. Skulking in there when he thinks no one is watching. He has been for some time. I’ll bet it is crowded with listening devices and vid-capture units.’
‘Probably. Certainly,’ said Verreault. ‘Does it matter? Did you ever use it?’
‘No. Mesring did, I think. Do I look so foolish?’
‘We have all been foolish to let that snake slither into our company,’ said Verreault. ‘He sat among us as if he were a member of the High Twelve until he was actually made one. He’s always been there, poking and prodding.’
‘Imagine if we’d have given Rosarind, Mendem, Hardiman or any of the other lesser High Lords the same access.’
‘We wouldn’t,’ said Verreault. The Cerebrium was featureless through the ever-present smog of Terra. Faceless as an assassin, he thought.
‘Abel, come away from the window, please!’ said Lansung.
Verreault sighed but relented. He limped over to the table where Lansung sat. It was made of iron, circled by nine seats to represent the nine loyalist primarchs of the Heresy war. None were designed to be sat in. They were oversized and bolted to the ground too close to the table. He lowered himself into one anyway, wincing as he bent his bad knee.
‘Neither of us are getting any younger,’ said Verreault. ‘I should retire.’
‘I am more concerned with neither of us getting any older,’ said Lansung irritably. ‘Retiring won’t save you from Vangorich’s killers. In making him Lord Protector, Thane might as well have handed him a license for our executions.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Don’t maybe me, Abel. You wouldn’t be here if you thought your head safe.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘This is not the Senatorum. We have no room for equivocation. Stop the maybes and the perhapses. You must commit. Are you with me or are you not?’
‘Yes, yes. Of course I am.’ Verreault gave his ally — friend was too much of a stretch for Lansung — a reassuring nod. ‘Keep your head, man.’
‘Damn it!’ Lansung slapped his hat upon the table; it was an artisan’s cap. Both of them were disguised as commoners, though they bore arms no common man could possibly possess. A cloud of dust rose to sparkle in the dirty sunlight. ‘All this, all these years of service to be accused of treachery. What do the Adeptus Astartes know of governance? They are killers. It is all they know.’