Irene’s attention turned to her principal adviser. ‘Ah – then we have a basis for negotiation. What has he offered?’
‘It is not so much what my son has offered, as what the barbarian Captain has demanded, Majesty.’ She handed her Empress – opinion in the palace was deeply divided as to whether Irene was Empress or merely Regent, and the lady herself had been too astute to comment so far – the scroll tubes.
Imperial messengers were big birds, but their size was intended for speed and fighting strength against interceptors, not power in carrying heavy scrolls. The two tubes of birdbone held wisps of rice paper with only a few words on each.
‘I apologise for the barbarian’s insolence-’ Lady Maria said softly.
Irene’s face hardened. But her eyes twinkled – she turned to Maria and for the first time in three long days, she vouchsafed a slight smile.
‘Duke Andronicus would be incredibly angry,’ she said.
Lady Maria kept her eyes downcast. ‘It is a shocking idea, Majesty. Let me say-’
Irene put a beautiful hand against her beautiful throat. ‘I only wish I could be present when he hears. That son of a poxed heretical slut dares to raise his filthy hand against-’ She paused. ‘Against my father? I’ll show him hell and then, with the help of this good barbarian gentleman, I’ll send him there.’
As she spoke, her pale face gathered colour and her eyes glittered. Her cheeks went from the colour of old ivory to the colour of a new red rose. The Empress looked about her. ‘Has the Grand Chamberlain been found?’
Lady Maria allowed her eyes to meet those of the Nordikan, Blackhair. The man was handsome, in a tattooed, barbaric way, and she wondered idly how this bold new barbarian mercenary would look.
Blackhair met her eyes steadily and gave a very slight shake of his head.
‘Majesty, we have to add the Grand Chamberlain to the list of traitors. Treasonable correspondence was found in his rooms and he has abandoned his home, wife and children to flee.’ Lady Maria spoke softly, with inclined head. The crisis had reduced the amount of ceremony in the palace, but Lady Maria intended to keep up the standards of her father’s day.
Irene drew herself up. ‘Seize his goods and execute his family,’ she said. ‘Every child.’
Lady Maria nodded. ‘Of course, Majesty. And yet-’
Irene turned her head. ‘I dislike this phrase. You disagree with my righteous anger? Their deaths will serve to show what line we take with traitors. Did he take the Imperial seal with him?’
‘He must have it. If it is in the palace, none of us can find it.’ The Lady Maria shrugged. ‘Your mother had a duplicate.’
Irene stiffened. ‘There can be no duplicate of a sacred artefact!’
Maria bowed her head. ‘As Your Majesty says. And yet-’
‘Again that phrase!’ Irene spat.
Maria nodded. ‘My initial hesitation, Majesty, is because the Grand Chamberlain has openly kept a young mistress for a decade. He fathered children on her and bought her a house; this woman has gone, along with her brood. The Chamberlain chose to take her and abandon his wife. Her death, I would argue, will only please the Grand Chamberlain. In the second case, while I agree that there should not be a duplicate seal, I offer Your Majesty the evidence of her own senses.’ She held out a heavy gold chain with a great ruby-coloured garnet the size of a child’s fist, flat on one face, with the arms of the Empire carved into it. Red fire seemed to burn in the heart of the great crystal.
‘It is the Heart of Aetius!’ cried the young Empress.
‘I don’t think so. I think, in fact, that your mother of sainted name and spotless repute had a duplicate seal made so that, when she disagreed with your father’s edicts on the true religion, she could quietly alter them.’ Lady Maria kept her voice down.
Irene digested this, and for a moment, she appeared to be a sixteen-year-old girl and not an ageless pagan goddess.
‘I crave your pardon, Maria. Bring the Chamberlain’s wife and children to court but strip him of his titles. Purple parchment – gold ink. Make it public. And tell the barbarian we have a deal, and I will fulfil my part when the Duke’s forces are broken and driven from my walls.’
The Lady Maria had not had an easy life. She had by turns been a penniless child-aristocrat, a precocious child-courtier, a royal mistress, a discarded royal mistress, the mother of an unwanted bastard, and worst of all, the old Empress’s ageing rival.
And now, a train of events beyond her control had catapulted her and her son to more power than she had ever dreamed of wielding. So much power – so much influence – that instead of being concerned with enriching her relatives she had to seriously consider the good of the Empire. If she lived, and if her side won.
Her son had promised her that this barbarian mercenary was capable of working military miracles.
Her reverie was interrupted by the princess. ‘Lady Maria, I gather from the Acting Spatharios, Darkhair, that a prisoner was taken during the-’ she paused ‘-the unpleasantness in the palace.’
Lady Maria put a hand to her crucifix and curtsied. ‘I know this to be true,’ she said.
Princess Irene nodded several times. ‘Lady Maria, this man needs to die.’
Lady Maria had suspected the same. ‘Consider it done,’ she said.
She had the duration of the long walk from the Empress’s presence to the stables and mews to consider the ramifications of attainting the Duke of Thrake and declaring all his titles and offices forfeit. He was the most powerful warlord in the Empire. He was the Empire’s most successful soldier.
He was an old rival for whom she had nothing but contempt.
She found the assassin in his cell deep beneath the palace stables, and summoned a guard – a Nordikan. They and the Scholae had taken over every armed duty in the palace.
‘See that this man is served wine with dinner,’ she said. She handed an amphora of wine to one of the Ordinaries.
The Nordikan bowed. ‘Yes, Despoina.’
Then she walked up too many stairs to the offices of the messenger service – one of the prides of the decaying Empire. A combination of magnificent animal husbandry, a thousand years of faloncry, selective breeding and solid hermeticism combined to render the Emperor’s communications both safe and efficient.
She wrote out the young Empress’s answer, rolled it very small, and gave it to the master of the mews. She stood and watched as one of the great black and white birds was taken from the ready aviary, given a bone tube and instructions, and launched. A low-level adept cast a complex phantasm.
The bird rose in the air, its seven-foot wings blowing a fresh breeze over the Outer Court.
Ser Alcaeus bowed at the open door of the Captain’s pavilion. Toby was polishing a sabaton with a rag dipped in wood ash. He bowed to the Morean knight and nodded. ‘He’s drinking,’ Toby said.
The Captain was sitting with Ser Alison and Ser Thomas. On the table before them lay a second-rate piece of parchment, carefully marked up in white lead and covered with other scrawls in ink and in charcoal.
The Captain nodded to Ser Alcaeus. ‘Good evening. Alcaeus – don’t be angry.’
The Morean nodded his head. ‘I’m not, my lord. But I’d like to say that I don’t like having two sets of loyalties, with both of my masters tugging at my strings.’
Bad Tom stretched out his booted legs, filling the whole back room of the pavilion. ‘Then don’t have two masters,’ he said.
Alcaeus flung himself into a stool. ‘Every man has two masters – or three, or four. Or ten. Lords, mistresses, the church, parents, friends-’
The Captain nodded. ‘Would we have any chivalric literature at all without troubled and divided loyalties?’ He shrugged at Tom. ‘You evade the issue by killing anything that disagrees with you.’
Tom fingered his short black beard. ‘If I take the job as Drover,’ he allowed.
‘Just so,’ said the Captain. ‘Alcaeus?’