Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Read online

  ‘I admit to a bit of string-pulling on that one. I am an old woman, and it will not be so very long before Enkedri calls me back to his bosom. I had hoped, since I was a young girl, to see the magnificence of the Roost, and took the opportunity of our embassy to do so.’

  ‘Then your presence here is that of a traveller? You have no public role to play?’

  ‘Think of me as but a simple tourist, hoping only to see the wonders of Those Above before I shuffle off into the night. Of course, any assistance I might give in counselling the peoples of our lands towards peace would be a glory almost too much for my aged heart to bear.’

  ‘Let us hope you prove capable of handling the strain,’ Calla said smoothly

  As engaging a diversion as she was, Eudokia felt, with characteristic grace, that the seneschal’s time might more profitably be used flirting with her nephew. She excused herself and found another drink, sipped it and spent some time staring at the Aubade, or the Lord of the Red Manor, or the Prime, as he was now known, trying to determine if there was something that set him apart distinctly from the handful of other Eternal in attendance, or if it was only her knowledge that he had recently been made whatever passed for leader among the Four-Fingered that was giving him such weight. She decided ultimately that it was the former. Of course, all of Those Above were physically ideal, but there was something about the Aubade, some indefinable quality of excellence, notable in the way he sat casually on his seat, and the way he stared off into the darkness, as if there were things there that he alone could properly observe.

  Even among the Others, it seemed there were gradations of nobility.

  Eudokia had practised the Eternal greeting until she could have performed it with a bottle of liquor inside her, until she could have done it with an arrow sticking out of her chest. Absent either of those handicaps she performed the series of gestures as naturally as if she was sitting down to toilet. ‘My Lord Prime, may the moon bathe you in its rays.’

  ‘Revered Mother,’ he said, ‘may tomorrow’s sun find you well.’

  ‘It flatters me to suppose the Prime has had time to familiarise himself with our delegation.’

  ‘The Sentinel of the Southern Reach has written of you,’ he said, rolling over her pleasantry as if she had not offered it. ‘She indicates that you are the one to speak with from your nation, that this other man you sent is an ignoramus and a lecher, your puppet and nothing more.’

  It seemed that, for all their superiority in various other regards, the Eternal had no very keen grasp of subtlety. Of course, no one in the world had so sharp an understanding of that quality as the Revered Mother, but still … ‘I’m afraid she rather overstates the case. My position is purely a ceremonial one. Senator Gratian, to whom I must politely insist your Sentinel does an injustice, is the only official representative of the Empty Throne. Any concerns or questions you might have would be best raised with him.’

  She was coming swiftly to realise that whatever physical tics Those Above used to indicate mood or change of emotion, assuming they had any, were too delicate for her to grasp clearly. For a woman such as Eudokia, who had long been used to reading the minds of her interlocutors from their blinks and intakes of breath and fidgeting fingers, it was like having to navigate blind. It also gave her a swift little jolt of excitement, a rare enough emotion for one so used to easy victory.

  ‘Then the senator is the individual whom I ought to be speaking to, if I wish to understand the cause of Aeleria’s recent belligerence, bellicosity and intransigence?’

  ‘There is, perhaps, no need to distract him at the moment. I cannot answer you in any sort of official capacity, but perhaps I might be allowed to offer you some insight into the mind of an Aelerian patriot. For twenty-five years, the Salucians have held the city of Oscan, the very heartland of Aeleria, within their palm, held it and mistreated its people. Two and a half years ago we called for a conference to discuss the issue, a conference that was attended by our beloved Senator Andronikos, a man who loved peace above all other things, a man who wished for nothing more than to see the differences between our nations amicably resolved. A man who was as close to me as a brother,’ this added with a hiccup of emotion, hinting at a wellspring of despair beneath. ‘I am sure my Lord has heard of the … atrocity that befell him, his brutal murder at the hands of the Salucian population. Surely the Regent would not ask that Aeleria remain supine before this injustice? What would the Roost do, if their representative, invited freely into a foreign land, were butchered? What vengeance would they pursue, in reckoning for such an evil?’

  It was a very fine speech, Eudokia thought. Certainly those in earshot, humans and High-born alike, turned to look at her, and she made sure to take advantage of the moment, displaying a facade that was at once contrite and stern, saddened and stoical.

  ‘We had heard,’ the Prime said, ‘of this unexpected and unfortunate development, one which the Salucians seem willing and more than willing to make good upon. And yet we have heard also that their pleas for peace find no purchase in the minds of the Aelerian Senate, that they will not consider the recompense offered, nor engage in negotiations of any kind.’

  ‘If you will forgive me, my Lord Prime – there are issues of honour at stake, which cannot be casually ignored, not even in the interests of continued peace.’

  ‘What would a Dayspan know of honour?’ a voice from behind her asked. ‘What would a locust know of law or rule, or dignity?’

  Eudokia turned slowly to gaze at this new participant. He looked much the same as they all did, beautiful and cruel. ‘Whom exactly am I addressing?’

  ‘You may call me the Lord of the Ebony Towers, should you find the need to speak to me directly, occasions that I trust will be rare as a double moon.’

  Better known as the Shrike, according to her spies, an unprepossessing sobriquet had she ever heard one. ‘Then tomorrow I shall light a joss stick to Enkedri, for seeing fit to bless me with such striking good fortune. In answer to your question then, my Lord of the Ebony Towers, the definition of honour is not always so easy a thing to provide, may show itself differently in different times and at different places. For instance; in Aeleria it is considered the very height of shame to treat a guest disrespectfully – though it appears this is an attitude which has not yet come to nest within the Roost.’

  It took the Lord of the Ebony Towers a long time to realise that this was an insult. ‘Be assured, you would not soon forget the welcome offered to you at the Ebony Towers.’

  Eudokia tilted her head off-kilter. ‘How strange a thing it is, but to my aged eyes, the construction surrounding us is rather more of a crimson colour than black.’

  ‘Your eyes are not at fault,’ the Aubade replied. ‘We are within the walls of the Red Keep, the seat of my line since the Founding. And whatever may be the case in Aeleria or elsewhere in the city, those I have made welcome may rest comfortably in the full certainty of my hospitality, entitled to all the dignity due them.’ It did not take a woman of Eudokia’s subtlety to recognise to whom this last had been addressed.

  Nor was the Lord of the Ebony Towers confused on the issue. ‘And the Red Keep is within the Roost, and the Roost has been the home of the Eternal for a dozen generations before the coming of this … woman, and in none of them has the Prime ever lowered themselves to welcome a locust with such courtesy.’

  ‘It is no surprise to me, sibling, that you demonstrate confusion as to the essential quality of magnanimity. The dictates of honour are not to be cast aside according to whim, nor is it a treasure to be reserved for the deserving – it is a kindness one does oneself, a reminder and a demonstration of one’s own personal worth. That you have not yet grasped this fact I can only attribute to youthful folly.’

  ‘Well spoken, my Lord Prime,’ Eudokia said fondly. ‘Epigrammatic, dare I say.’

  ‘Does one offer hospitality to the rats in one’s pantry? Or the lice on those rats?’

  ‘Is that such a problem f
or my Lord of the Ebony Towers?’ Eudokia asked. ‘In Aeleria we use a certain sort of a poison; it’s very effective against rodents of all sorts. Perhaps I might be so bold as to send my Lord a bottle?’

  ‘In the Ebony Towers, we know well how to deal with pests. And I assure you none are so fortunate as to expire via poison. There are entire chambers within my house which are dedicated to nothing but the slow extermination of those creatures which I find unwanted.’

  ‘It seems an awful lot of trouble to go through just to rid your pantries of vermin, but then the Lord of the Ebony Towers may arrange his eponymous domicile as he sees fit. Are there iron maidens for the cockroaches? Have you constructed very tiny racks for the mice?’

  The Lord of the Ebony Towers loomed over her as an adult does a child, and his eyes were the colour of his home. His face was white as broken bone, and each of his four fingers would have run from Eudokia’s wrist to her elbow. Jahan tensed ever so slightly beside her, though for once she did not suppose even the savage Parthan would be much help should the Shrike choose to give vent to his hate.

  If Eudokia had not been Eudokia, she might even have been frightened.

  She could hear the Aubade rise from behind her, feel him at her back like the noonday sun. He hissed something in their strange tongue, sounding more like the rustling of the leaves than human speech. The Lord of the Ebony Towers responded in kind, and in truth had she not been witness to the conversation prior, indeed if she had not directed it, then Eudokia would not have supposed them in the midst of dispute. But then, conflict is the universal constant, evident in all sentient creatures, many-branched stags bullying each other in the fields, alley cats in the trash heaps of the capital, and Eudokia knew it as well as anything that had ever lived. When it was over the Lord of the Ebony Towers had such hate in his eyes as would kindle a bonfire, but it was the sort of rage that would never pass beyond them.

  He turned his loathing on Eudokia full-bore for a moment, then stomped away without farewell.

  Eudokia turned slowly to the Prime, smiled her ineffable smile. ‘Has the Lord of the Ebony Towers retired for the evening? Pity – I was so enjoying our conversation.’

  7

  There had been a time before the Roost – before the mountain was hollowed, before the first drop of water blessed the summit. Before the towers and citadels of the Eternal caressed the sun and scraped the full belly of the moon. Before the Source, before the canals. Before the slopes were graded into Rungs, before the walls were erected to separate them. Before the slurp. A time when Those Above roamed across the continent, unhindered, unfettered by home or the obligations of power. While humans in animal furs huddled round peat fires, fearing the night, the Eternal wandered the length of the coast and far beyond, as free as anything that had ever lived, bound only by sentience. And then the crime, the sin that could never be expunged, and the terrible punishment that followed – a culling without number, and those humans that survived scattering to the distant corners of the land, centuries before they would begin to eke out some semblance of civilisation, or marched to the coast to spend generations carving out the mountain and building the foundations of the Roost.

  Or perhaps none of these things had ever happened. There were no Eternal alive who could remember it, and they had no books, no written records or documents. What was the difference between history and myth, Calla wondered? Both purported to explain the circumstances of the moment, but only the latter did so to any useful degree. Sentiment, theme, these are in the end more important than fact, because fact cannot be changed, fact can be only weathered. The punishment was reality, the punishment was fact, and thus the crime must have been true as well. A man will accept anything, if he is convinced he deserves it.

  The Anamnesis was, regardless, the celebration of this punishment, the yoke that had fallen and now would forever lie on the humans of the continent. In the docks far below, the true balance of the slave nations’ tribute had already been delivered – vast weight of ore, caravels filled with cotton and silk and silver, unfathomable quantities of foodstuffs, the raw materials with which the Roost operated. Across the First and the Second the Anamnesis was considered an occasion for great merriment, any concern about the origin of the holiday forgotten in frivolity. In the past it had been the same on the lower Rungs as well, though with the mood downslope so grim these days, Calla did not suppose there would be many bold enough to drink a toast to their continued subjugation.

  Here in the Conclave the Source spilled sweet water high and bright into the open air. Waiting to be called in by the master of protocol were the representatives of the surrounding nations, ambassadors leading five pairs of slaves, males and females, the annual tithe of flesh to be paid as it had been paid for millennia. It was a motley if elegant assortment. Salucians in bright silk, high-collared, smooth-tongued and obsequious even by the standards of the slave states, though they could hardly afford to be otherwise with the Aelerians occupying half their kingdom. Their national enemies stood somewhat further back in line, the senator who had so nakedly stared at Calla’s backside during the party at the Red Keep, and a number of curious-looking slaves who did not resemble him in physiognomy or dress. The Dycian contingent were all nearly as tall as the Well-born and dark as charred firewood, and they stared wide-eyed at the Source with undisguised wonder. Behind them stood the grandees of Vryngia and Gardariki, minor kingdoms far to the north, where rimefrost gripped the earth for nine months of the year, whale blubber was their chief source of sustenance and the Eternal were barely even myth. At the moment, pride of place belonged to the ambassador from the Baleferic Isles. A short man but well-formed, skin the colour of summer honey, and offering his pronouncement in the human speech of the Roost with an accent that was just scarcely detectable. He held a pomegranate branch, three fat fruits dangling from the end, and behind him were five paired couples, slaves hand-picked for their beauty and grace.

  Across the First the Eternal prepared for the evening festivities, which were, even by the standards of the Roost, quite elaborate, and to receive this great parade of tribute there were only the Prime and the Lord of the Sidereal Citadel, seated a short distance above the dais, engaged in a not particularly quiet conversation, unrelated entirely to the proceedings. Protocol only demanded that the Prime be present during the submission of the Dayspans, not that he actually pay attention to it.

  ‘The Sentinel says they receive reinforcements daily,’ the Prime said. His robes were samite and sterling silver, the long stalks of his hair were pleated and particoloured, pavonine and glorious. The great diamond that was the sole evidence of his office shimmered and dazzled from its place in his headdress. ‘That by spring they will have more than made up any losses they have suffered thus far during the campaign.’

  The Lord of the Sidereal Citadel was known more widely among the humans of the Roost as the Wright, and esteemed for his brilliance as an inventor and craftsman. It was he who had been responsible for the aerocraft that had lately come to bloom in the skies above the Roost, as well as innumerable other wonders during the long centuries of his life. He was also the confidant and the closest friend of the Prime, though there were times when Calla was not certain this was a useful term to apply to Those Above. ‘And?’

  ‘It is a very large sword not to bother unsheathing.’

  ‘The Dayspans kill one another,’ the Wright explained. He held an empty flute, though after two quick tics of his second finger a house-slave came forward with a pitcher and then he held a full one. ‘They have always, and ever will.’

  ‘How strong will we allow Aeleria to grow without responding? Once they have added the great wealth of Salucia to the vast riches they have obtained from the Marches and Dycia? When they have used this wealth to further consolidate their supremacy?’

  ‘Supremacy among the humans, you mean. Is not the Aelerian ambassador here today with his gifts? Have they not delivered their tithe? What concern is it whether one or the other flag wa
ves over one or other city? We receive our due, as was ever the case.’

  The Baleferic ambassador consummated his devotions by dropping to his knees and setting the branch at the foot of the Prime’s seat. Moving past him with hurried dancer’s steps came the slaves, naked to the waist, caramel-coloured, the women high-breasted, the men broad-shouldered and tight-muscled. Watching them, a flush gathered across Calla’s cheeks.

  ‘The Aelerians are late immigrants to the continent,’ the Prime said, by all appearances unaware of the spectacle being performed in his honour. ‘Scarcely half a millennium since their ancestors came to our shores, and only three centuries since we proscribed their king and his line.’

  ‘I am not incognisant of recent history. What is your point, exactly?’

  ‘They have never accepted their role, as have the other, older nations. They do not appreciate the blessings our rule provides. They are more than fractious, and their aims go beyond amassing the balance of power against their neighbors. They aim for dominance, supremacy. They would devour us, if they could.’

  ‘So would the ants,’ the Wright answered. ‘It is not intent but capacity with which we ought to concern ourselves. By the Founders, surely you cannot have forgotten the last war. It was barely ten turns ago.’

  The Baleferic ambassador struggled to keep himself level, an awkward pose and the strain growing on his face. His accompanying slaves remained still and silent, as is the way of slaves generally. Calla was about to make some small signal but it proved unnecessary, the Prime finally deigning to play his end of the charade. He stood in one swift motion, in the curious and abrupt fashion with which they moved, and announced in a sonorous version of human speech, ‘Your crime was beyond forgiving, and law and honour enjoin us to proscribe you entire. But we are a merciful people, kinder than we are just, and your punishment shall be set back another year.’

  The Prime sat back down again. The ambassador executed the final part of the ceremony, an elaborate bow of contrition, then departed. The master of protocol moved swiftly to gather up his leavings. The slaves would be parcelled off to one of the Eternal houses, more trouble than they were worth, in truth, beautiful but ignorant and unhelpful. Three years ago Calla had been stuck with a girl from Dycia, eyes rich as chocolate, heavy-breasted, not a word of Roost Speech to her and not much thought apart from that, so far as Calla had been able to discern. After three months as the worst seamstress Calla had ever encountered she had managed to marry the girl off to a cook from the Sidereal Citadel with more lust than sense. It had been long millennia since the Roost had required any further human labour, and the annual addition to the populace was simply one of those antiquated customs that could never be repealed.