Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Read online

  ‘That is abundantly clear.’

  ‘Such vigour does not come without a price.’

  ‘Nothing comes without a price, dear Edom,’ Eudokia said, though for the moment she gave no indication of being willing to pay it. In the growing silence Steadfast began to scratch the palms of his hands, but Edom remained imperturbable, and so did the boy, heavy dark eyes hard on Eudokia’s own.

  Eudokia made a gesture, and from somewhere within the folds of his overlapping robes Jahan removed a scroll, handed it to Eudokia, who took it and pressed it against her breast for a moment. ‘A thousand gold eagles,’ she said, ‘ready to be distributed by the branch of Ioseph’s Son’s Bank on the Fifth Rung. Take it with the blessings of Aeleria, and my own.’

  Steadfast bowed his head and deposited the draft into his robes.

  ‘You are very kind, Revered Mother.’ The boy had a smooth voice, and he spoke softly but Eudokia found that she heard him clearly – as did Steadfast and Edom.

  ‘Justice is not kindness, young Pyre. What I do is no act of charity, but the will of the Self-Created himself. All the world knows of the evils done to the humans of the Roost, and wishes to see it made right.’

  ‘I think you do yourself a disservice,’ Pyre said. ‘All the world knows of our misfortune, and yet you are the only foreigner who sees fit to help us?’

  ‘You are mistaken, my young friend – across the breadth of Aeleria, from the Senate Hall and the capital to the furthest flung settlement, your cousins know of your bondage, and yearn for your freedom. Indeed, this is to understate the case. Are not we Aelerians as much in bondage as you Roostborn? Does not Aeleria still, as all the nations of the continent, swear fealty to Those Above? Do we not send them our tithe, our grain, our ore and our slaves? I do not come as a simple citizen, but as the representative of that concern, for the nation and the species beyond, of the love and strength of the Aelerian people.’

  ‘Did you know, Revered Mother, that I grew up along the docks?’

  ‘I confess to being ignorant of the specifics of your biography, young Pyre.’

  ‘A short distance,’ he confirmed. ‘Men of all nations visit the Roost, Chazars and Salucians and Parthans and Aelerians. Never were the last renowned for their sentimentality, or kindness of spirit.’

  He had a rare self-possession, or perhaps he simply did not know enough to understand that, whatever he had faced in a life of violence both petty and grand, he had never met anyone as dangerous as the old woman from whom he sat across. ‘Speak your mind, Pyre. Whatever you may suppose, you are among friends.’ A lie in more ways than he yet suspected.

  ‘What does Aeleria hope to gain from their generosity? And their representative? What does she gain?’

  ‘Credit in the afterlife,’ Eudokia said, offering the boy her first flicker of tooth. ‘Kindness in the hopes that Enkedri might offer me the same. Of course, if my assistance – if our assistance, is unwelcome, if the people of the Roost imagine it an interference, I would certainly not think to force it upon them.’

  ‘The boy talks nonsense, Revered Mother,’ Steadfast interjected. ‘Pyre has spent more time with knife unsheathed than he has in council.’

  ‘It has been my experience that the knife speaks last, and so loudest,’ Eudokia said. ‘But in any case, Pyre is justified in his concern. Caution, wariness, for a man responsible for so precious a charge as the freedom of his people cannot be called anything but a virtue.’ How could eyes so dark shine so brightly, Eudokia wondered? ‘Tell me, Pyre, the First of His Line, what has my wealth bought for us, exactly? How has my largesse assisted the struggle for the freedom of our species?’

  A scant few seconds while he determined, not whether to lie – this was a certainty – but how to lie, if he ought to diminish or exaggerate their strength. ‘I can call with certainty upon the blades of five hundred hardened members, well-trained, certain of the righteousness of their cause, willing to die to advance it. When the cry goes up there will be many thousands more who answer, who will realise they have only been waiting to hear it.’

  Exaggerate, then. ‘Five hundred men,’ Eudokia repeated, as if the sum was beyond her calculations. ‘Truly, a vast number. And the custodians? How many of them walk the streets of the Roost?’

  ‘Difficult to say,’ Pyre admitted. ‘Perhaps five thousand. Perhaps more. It is of no matter.’

  ‘No? I would suppose the numbers of your enemies to be relevant to the outcome of a contest.’

  ‘Not if they will not fight,’ Pyre said. ‘The Cuckoos are not an army, nor even a militia. They neither create order nor enforce it, and they are not even trusted with steel, have to make do with cudgels and noisemakers. They will be of little account, in the final reckoning.’

  ‘And Those Above?’ Eudokia asked. ‘Have you forgotten them?’

  ‘I never forget the demons, Revered Mother. They are the first thing on my mind when I wake, and the image to which I fall asleep.’

  ‘Well spoken, Pyre, the First of His Line. Well spoken indeed. Your funds will be doubled. Two thousand golden eagles. I will make the proper arrangements’

  ‘It is not gold we need, but steel,’ Pyre said. ‘With five hundred Aelerian pikes we might build an army. We have men willing to fight, and we have men willing to train them, we lack only the weapons to place in their hands.’

  ‘Have you such control over the docks as to make sure that such a shipment would find its way to your own people, rather than be picked up by the custodians as evidence of our treason?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How curious,’ Eudokia admitted. ‘For it was my understanding that, for all the success you’ve had on the lower Rungs, the docks remain firmly in the control of Those Above. That what the custodians do not oversee is held tight in the grip of a criminal organisation which is their cat’s paw.’

  ‘Your information is outdated,’ he said simply. ‘The Brotherhood Below should be of no concern to you.’

  ‘But they’re of concern to you?’

  ‘Not for very much longer,’ Pyre said simply.

  Eudokia stared at the boy a long time, then at Edom, then back at the boy. ‘I find myself believing you, Pyre, the First of His Line,’ she said finally. ‘Pikes you shall have. Five hundred men you claim, but no doubt as word spreads of your deeds, your recruits will spread as well. I cannot imagine a thousand would long gather dust.’

  ‘Half-pikes,’ Pyre corrected. ‘And short swords. Anything longer would be of no use to us.’

  ‘I shall make a note of it.’

  That was the end, apart from the final pleasantries, which were of no particular interest to anyone. In fact the entirety of the transaction could have taken place without her presence, without the long ride down from the Second Rung, or the long ride back. But Eudokia wanted to put eyes on her agents old and new, and to remind them of who it was, in the end, to whom they answered.

  During the journey back upslope, a traverse that was no easier on Eudokia’s leg than had been the descent, she slipped her head quietly out of the corner of her palanquin and whispered to Jahan, ‘Well?’

  Jahan continued along for a moment, steps even and rhythmic, as if the weight on his shoulder was inconsequential entirely. He spat yellow into the moonlit dust. ‘The boy.’

  ‘The boy indeed,’ Eudokia answered. ‘The boy indeed.’

  13

  In an empty lot near the eastern walls they had set up a small training ground, and on a patch of sand in the middle of it Theophilus sparred with one of his new adjutants, practice staves in hand, the clatter of wood against wood ringing loudly in a quiet afternoon. Hamilcar and Isaac sat on an adjoining bench, passing a flagon back and forth. Bas stood steely-eyed beside them.

  ‘Up!’ Hamilcar said. ‘Keep your weapon up!’

  ‘Down!’ Isaac insisted, pulling the cork out of their shared jug and taking a long swig. ‘You won’t live to see the spring if you can’t remember that much.’

  The winter h
ad been brutal by local standards, hoarfrost on the windows and the occasional dusting of snow, but for men used to the frigid misery of the Marches there had never been a day worthy of sincere complaint. That morning Bas had woken and thought he detected the scent of early spring, of new life, and though it disappeared after a moment Bas knew it would not be long before it returned in fuller force. It could scarcely come soon enough, so far as he was concerned. The winter hadn’t been cold, but in every other regard it had to be held as unpleasant; dark and dull, nothing to do but drink and wait for the new themas to arrive, and to wonder what would happen once they did.

  Theophilus’s new adjutant was slim and dark and serious-looking, some distant aristocratic kinsman, one of the slate of patricians who had joined the army for the campaign against Salucia, the prospect of slaughter and plunder against their ancestral enemies more appealing than losing a toe from frostbite while garrisoning the Marches. He was competent enough with his practice stave, though not more than that, as Theophilus was making evident. Twenty minutes they’d been at it, and the boy had yet to score a touch. He thought he saw a chance for one just then, came forward incautiously and received a rap against his knuckles that echoed loudly and disarmed him.

  ‘You will win few battles with your sword on the ground,’ Hamilcar commented, the latest in a raft of useless criticisms.

  ‘Again,’ Theophilus said, pointing at the fallen stave, though the boy was slow to pick it up, sneering over at the Dycian. A second blow to the same hand brought his attention back to where it belonged.

  ‘Why are you listening to him?’ Theophilus asked.

  ‘Because he’s talking.’

  ‘That’s insufficient reason to offer a man your attention.’

  Isaac laughed. ‘It only took you three years to learn that?’

  Though proving true to his lesson, Theophilus ignored this as well. ‘A sword fight is not a Senate debate. The world will not quiet itself for your benefit. If you find the Dycian’s speech distracting, you’d find his arrows more so. Now pick up your sword.’

  The boy did so dutifully, set himself again in front of his adversary-cum-trainer. Another quick exchange of blows, wood struck against wood, and though the new boy came off the worst of it, off-balanced and in retreat, he at least remained unmarked.

  ‘Not bad,’ Theophilus remarked, ‘not bad.’

  They had set up their makeshift practice ground in a small park in what had once been, so far as Bas could tell, one of the wealthier quarters of the city. It was ringed by a number of small mansions, structures of white stone, the domiciles of the modestly wealthy, petty nobles and clever merchants. Once children had smiled out of the upper windows, and in the mornings the servingwomen strayed from their tasks to gossip till their mistresses called them to account. The houses stared back now like ruined teeth in a broken smile, the walls destroyed by the fires that had raged in the first days; stone will not burn easily but the supports were wood and wood is not nearly so difficult to incinerate, roofs collapsing into ceilings, ceilings falling on floors, and what hadn’t been destroyed with flame had been stolen by the rampaging Aelerian army or rotted during the winter. Bas watched a scraggly tomcat slink along a half-ruined roof in pursuit of a pigeon, or perhaps a dove, Bas was no expert nor his eyes so keen as they had once been. A pause, a leap, but the bird was too clever or too swift, scattering off into the sky, its pursuer left to hiss impotently.

  When Bas turned back to the fray it was over, Theophilus’s victim lying face-up on the ground, breathing hard.

  ‘Why are you dead right now?’ Theophilus asked the boy, pulling him upright with the hand that wasn’t holding his stave.

  ‘I was too aggressive.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as too aggressive,’ Theophilus corrected, ‘so long as it’s done effectively. You were foolishly aggressive, and you neglected your own defence. Why else are you dead?’

  ‘I stopped circling.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  The boy shrugged.

  ‘Stop moving once, and you’ll stop moving for ever,’ Theophilus intoned. ‘The Caracal taught me that.’

  If Bas had, he could not remember it. But it didn’t sound like him; too smooth, too well-formed, more like one of Hamilcar’s epigrams than Bas’s own halting speech. But it was essentially true, at least, which was just as well, since given the reputation Bas held within camp you could append his name to the most errant nonsense and still expect any average hoplitai to follow it unwavering. Spread the rumour that the Caracal preferred his meat raw and half the army would be vomiting up their insides by the morning.

  ‘Also, you are the wrong sort of pretty,’ Hamilcar called out from the sidelines. ‘A good soldier should be either ugly as Isaac or beautiful as I am. The first may cause your opponent to flee in fear, and the second may distract him with lust.’

  ‘I’m not ugly,’ Isaac said, rubbing a hand along the ruined flesh where his ears had once been, ‘I’m striking.’

  ‘Enough,’ Theophilus said. as much to the audience as to his student. ‘If you fought like that on the Marches, your scalp would be decorating an outrider’s spear, and your pretty steel sword swinging at his belt.’

  ‘On the Marches, he said.’ Hamilcar laughed loudly. ‘The boy grows a wisp of blond on his chin and he thinks himself Jon the Sanguine!’

  ‘Care to take a turn, Hamilcar?’ Theophilus asked, though smiling.

  Hamilcar knocked the long stem of his pipe against his boots, supple leather and well-worked. ‘Would you ask a whore for a free throw? A professional does not demonstrate his craft without expectation of reward.’

  ‘Practice makes perfect,’ Isaac disputed, though he made no effort to rise.

  ‘Hamilcar has no dream of perfection. Excellence, however, comes natural to him as breathing, and requires no rehearsal. Besides, you Aelerians are over-impressed with naked steel. If it came down to it, I’d feather you before you grew close enough to mark me.’

  ‘The most arrogant man that ever fought in another nation’s army, by the Sun God himself …’

  ‘And you, Caracal?’ Theophilus asked, turning towards him and smiling, knowing the answer even as he asked it. ‘Will you try your hand?’

  ‘Yes, God-Killer,’ she asked suddenly from behind, ‘why not bless the hatchlings with the benefit of your mastery?’

  How had she managed to arrive so silently, he wondered, without alerting anyone? Foolish to travel through the city without her lifeguard, though she seemed to do it with more and more frequency these days. True, it would take half a dozen or a dozen men to kill her, but Oscan teemed with soldiers, and after a long winter of drink and rot some not inconsiderable percentage of them would have attempted it simply to break the monotony.

  Bas found he was smiling. ‘It would hardly do for a Legatus to busy himself with a melee.’

  ‘That seemed of no concern to you outside the walls,’ she observed. Bas’s eyes were drawn to the single missing stalk of her hair, which had been removed and ritually burned when she had left the Roost to take up her post among men, a sign of sacrifice or shame. ‘But then again, there seems to be very little flavour with these long sticks.’

  ‘Do you not spar in the Roost, Sentinel?’ Theophilus asked. Perhaps it was because he was twenty years too young to have fought in the last war against the Others, perhaps simply because etiquette had been bred deep down into his bones, but Theophilus, almost alone among the camp, seemed to have no hate for Einnes.

  ‘In the Roost we practise with naked steel and full armour,’ she said. ‘It is the rare blow that will slip through.’

  ‘I’m afraid we have none of your Roost-forged plate to make use of.’

  ‘They would not fit you,’ Einnes observed, slow to get the joke as always. ‘Regardless, I am willing, in this at least, to abide by the customs of your land. Would you give me a match, Caracal?’

  Pointless, foolish, nothing but risk and downside. Either he would
lose and be humiliated or he would win and his name would grow louder, reinforcing that myth of invincibility that half the themas seemed to have fallen for. And he was old enough these days that he needed to pay for any serious physical activity; when he had been twenty he could have fought a battle every morning for a straight week and woken up at the end ready to wage another. He was nearly as strong as he had been as a youth, and perhaps only somewhat slower, but the ability of his body to recuperate from exertion had degraded dramatically, a misstep sufficient now to make his knee swell for a week, and a morning worth of vigorous movement was repaid with a sleepless and miserable evening.

  ‘As you like,’ Bas said, tossing his fur onto the ground, stretching out his broad shoulders.

  She did not smile, she never smiled, but still he could tell when she was happy, or thought he could. They each grabbed a stave from the barrel, made their way over to the practice ground that Theophilus and his adjutant had vacated.

  ‘We can provide a shield,’ Theophilus offered, ‘should you wish one.’

  ‘This will do well enough,’ Einnes answered.

  Bas grunted refusal, spent a moment getting a proper grasp on the stave. It was smaller than his own blade, the size of one of the cavalry swords, appropriate as Theophilus was now head of horse. He took a few aimless swings, got the weight of the thing in his hand, its reach. The practice ground was a matted circle of dead winter grass, and Einnes met him in the centre of it.

  Theophilus took up a spot just outside its circumference. ‘First to three touches,’ he announced. ‘Am I an acceptable arbiter, Sentinel?’

  ‘As well as any of your kind,’ Einnes said, little concerned. ‘Are you feeling limber, Caracal?’

  Bas grunted but didn’t answer. Even in the best of circumstances, his tongue had never been clever, nor he the type of person who needed to steady himself with talk. He dropped unthinkingly into position, the tip of his false blade stretching between them. Einnes brought her own horizontal to her body, which in a human Bas would have supposed a sign of complete ignorance, but in an Eternal he presumed was simply some curiosity of style.