Blood of Empire

Chapter 34

Styke lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling of Maetle’s infirmary, considering the thousands of hours he’d spent doing the same in the labor camps outside of Landfall. He’d come up with games to pass the time – sorting pebbles, thought experiments, even new war hymns to sing while fighting. He couldn’t recall any of it now; all flushed away in the flurry of excitement that followed his release. He wished he remembered. It might make being confined in one corner of Etzi’s Household compound a little easier to bear.

This was by far the most helpless he’d felt since leaving the labor camps. Well, second-most helpless, after his duel with Fidelis Jes. But this was worse than sitting in his cabin on the Seaward. At least there he could go up on deck and watch the waves. Here, however, he had to wait for days hiding in a tiny room in a foreign city at the mercy of a single man.

A tiny part of his brain wished for something to go wrong; that soldiers would suddenly fill the doorway, bayonets fixed, here to arrest or kill him. At least then he could draw his knife and do something.

A noise caught his ear and he twisted to look toward the door. There were a lot of noises around the compound – children playing, Household maintenance, men and women going about their trades inside the walls of the Household or heading out into the city for their work. It was a busy, thriving place that reminded him of his earliest memories of childhood on the plantation. Before the madness took his father.

This particular sound came from several voices, and it was getting closer. He rolled to his knees and stood up, facing the door when it opened to reveal five figures: Etzi, Maetle, the night watchman, and Ka-poel and Celine. The latter two had been living out in the open in the Household for the last few days. No one was looking for them, nor seemed to question their presence.

Etzi nodded seriously at Styke. “I’m sorry to keep you cooped up like this longer than expected.” He ran a hand through his hair. He looked tired, but pleased. “But we’ve finally made some progress. Follow me.”

Styke pulled on his boots, checked his knife, and followed Etzi out of the infirmary. It was midafternoon and he had to shade his eyes from the sun, squinting to try and see any of his surroundings. Three days being stuck inside and his legs felt cramped, his shoulders tight. Etzi led him down an immaculately kept series of gravel walks that connected and ran between the buildings of the compound until a narrow alley opened into a grass courtyard. The ground here was slightly depressed so as to create a sort of amphitheater, and it was filled with several hundred people.

Styke fought a moment of panic at all the Dynize faces looking at him. He felt foolish, like an ape in a zoo, and had to remind himself to stand tall, hands clasped behind his back, his face impassive. There was surprise written on most of the faces, and they stared at him with open curiosity as murmurs laced back and forth through the small crowd.

“I’ve assembled the Household,” Etzi told him, leading him to a spot at the head of the tiny amphitheater.

“You could have warned me.”

“Ah. I thought Maetle told you. My apologies.” Etzi scowled, giving Styke no time to consider the gathering. “You’ll have to excuse them. Kressians are rare enough, but I doubt any of them have ever seen anyone of your size. Now then…” He lifted one hand, and the amphitheater fell silent as quickly as Styke’s Lancers would responding to his orders.

“My friends,” Etzi addressed the Household, “for the last three days, we have been harboring a pair of fugitives. These fugitives were unjustly and illegally attacked in the same violence that ended my mother’s life.” Whispers of sympathy and anger tittered through the assembly. Etzi stilled them with a gesture. “One of those fugitives is my brother, Ji-Orz.” Gasps followed the announcement, and the ripple of excitement was harder to quiet. Styke gathered from the outburst that Orz was well known. Etzi continued over it. “Orz was released and pardoned by the Great Ka in Fatrasta. Why he was attacked, we do not know. But we will get to the bottom of it, even as he struggles for his life in our own infirmary.”

Many of the crowd glanced toward Maetle, nodding and whispering as they put together her mysterious sequestering with Orz’s presence. “Master!” someone called. “Who is the giant?”

A flicker of a smile caught the corner of Etzi’s mouth. Instead of rebuking the questioner, he gestured to Styke. “This man is named Ben. He is a warrior from Fatrasta, and he is an ally of my brother. In fact, he saved Orz’s life. He will be our guest while my brother recovers from his wounds, and I want you all to treat him as you would a member of this Household. Understood?”

Styke cleared his throat and eyed the group. The faces staring back at him looked as normal as any group he might find in a city or town – men, women, children; tradesmen, laborers, students; even a handful of soldiers. It reminded him again of the plantation when he was growing up, except that on the plantation there had been a very clear divide between his family and all of the “help.” Here, it seemed as if everyone was family. It felt odd, but not bad.

He spotted Celine and Ka-poel in the back corner and gave them a small nod. Celine waved back at him. No one seemed to notice.

Etzi said a few more words and then dismissed the Household. He turned to Styke and gave him a tight smile. “The Household is open to you now.”

“And it’s wise that they know I’m here?”

“Everyone knows you’re here,” Etzi said. “I’ve spent the last two days laying the groundwork for a suit against Ka-Sedial’s agents who attacked you and Orz. I took it to the Quorum Hall this morning.”

“And you’re sure they’re not going to come here asking questions?”

“It will take them weeks to get that far,” Etzi replied confidently. “A lone dragonman and a handful of foreign soldiers is a curiosity, to be sure. But they care far more about the murder of my mother – a retired Household head – and they care about the overreach of the Ka. I told you, things here are boiling over. No one is happy, and Sedial isn’t here in person to silence the debates.”

Styke opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by the approach of a child. It was a small boy, perhaps Celine’s age, with a mop of dark red hair, a broad face, and a stout, almost chubby body. He cleared his throat loudly, and both Styke and Etzi looked down.

“Sir,” the boy said, the slightest tremor in his voice. “Celine says that you are the head of her Household.”

Styke blinked back at the child, looked up toward the corner to find Celine watching him, and then over at Etzi, who shrugged. “I suppose that’s true.”

“May Celine and I play, sir?”

Etzi clearly and unsuccessfully tried to hide a smile. He took a step behind Styke’s shoulder and said in a low voice, “One of the boys tried to kiss her yesterday.”

“And I didn’t hear about this?”

“She knocked his front teeth out. Baby teeth – he’ll grow more – but the children are scared of her now.”

Styke cocked an eyebrow at Celine, then looked down at the boy in front of him. “And this one?”

“He doesn’t scare easily. His name is Jerio. A distant cousin of mine. Much more polite than the other boy. And much smarter.”

Styke cleared his throat. “That’s up to her,” he answered in his broken Dynize, kneeling down next to the boy and holding up one finger. “But I’d suggest not making her mad.”

“Thank you, sir!” Jerio said, turning and running toward Celine before the last word had left his mouth. He reached Celine, and the two had a quick exchange before they both ran down one of the corridors that left the amphitheater. Styke felt like he had just witnessed some sort of strange, childlike ritual. Celine had made it clear that she could not only fend for herself but that her guardian was bigger than anyone else in the city. She was now forging alliances. Celine, he realized, was going to be a terrifying teenager.

“Sir!” someone called. This time the word was directed toward Etzi. A young man approached in a hurried walk, his face pale, and whispered something in Etzi’s ear. Etzi looked up sharply at Styke.

“What is it?”

“That dragonman. He’s outside.”

“I thought you said it would be a couple of weeks before he came calling.”

Etzi swore under his breath and hurried after the young man. Styke followed, checking his knife as he went. They navigated the corridors of the compound and were soon at the front gate. This was the first time Styke had actually seen it since carrying Orz in here three nights ago. It looked smaller in the daytime, an open-air vestibule that led off in a half-dozen directions. The big doors were closed and a concerned-looking soldier stood on a raised platform that let him look over the wall. Etzi climbed up to join him.

Styke elected to remain on the ground, putting his back to the wall and keeping his eye on the gate, listening.

“Good morning, Servant of God,” Etzi said in a formal tone.

Styke couldn’t see the dragonman, but he could imagine the condescending sneer on his face. He seemed the type.

“Open the gate,” the dragonman called. “There are traitors I must arrest.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I am not. And I am not in the mood for games. Open the gate.”

Etzi, to his credit, did not seem as cowed as everyone else. Probably because his own brother was a dragonman. He shook his head. “You know the law, Servant. Take your henchmen and be gone. The men inside this compound are under the protection of myself and the Household Quorum.”

“This doesn’t have to go badly for you.”

“It won’t,” Etzi replied with a hard note in his voice. “I am doing my duty. Or do you forget what it’s like to have a mother and a brother?”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“If you force your way into this compound and lay a finger upon my brother or his friend, the Household Quorum will turn on your master with a fury he is not prepared to fight. Go ask him. Go speak to one of Sedial’s puppets and find out just how much he’s ready to risk for a single dragonman.”

“It’s not just about Orz.” The dragonman had the tone of someone trying to be reasonable with an unruly child. “It’s about that giant.”

“He’s also under my protection.”

“You have no idea what kind of snake you’re dealing with.”

“He strikes me as more of an ox,” Etzi said. “Now, go on back to one of your master’s puppets. Tell him he has to wait for the law to run its course just like everyone else.”

Styke heard the distinct sound of someone spitting at the base of the gate, then the tramp of a dozen pairs of feet receding down the causeway that led away from the compound. Etzi remained on the guard post, watching them go, before descending. His face was troubled. “That one is going to be trouble.”

“You knew that,” Styke pointed out.

“Yes, I did. What did he mean about you being a snake?”

Styke shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell him about the army that might be south of the city. “He still have that limp?”

“Ah, yes. I forgot that it may be personal for him. However, I had the sense that it was more than that. Something from Sedial.”

“I killed a few of Sedial’s dragonmen.”

“You don’t strike me as a boastful man, Ben,” Etzi said in a manner that very clearly told Styke that he didn’t believe him.

Styke shrugged again and deflected. “Orz said that the emperor is under Sedial’s influence.”

“It is a… rumor.” Etzi shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if Styke had just committed some blasphemy.

“What happens if the emperor himself orders you to open that gate and hand Orz and me over to the dragonman?”

“The emperor doesn’t get involved,” Etzi said. He cleared his throat, avoiding Styke’s eye, and turned toward the watchman at the gate. “Keep this door closed at all times. No strangers in or out.” He took a deep breath and nodded at Styke. “Again, thank you for your patience. I have a lot to do to prepare for the days ahead. Feel free to get to know the compound. If you want to leave, I’ll send you with an escort. Good day.” He strode away before Styke could respond.

The whole exchange had been hurried, a very obvious cover-up of the fact he hadn’t answered Styke’s question. Styke grit his teeth, unable to do much more than that. He tried to remember Celine’s advice: Don’t attract attention. That’s all he needed to do until Orz recovered.

But he also needed to be realistic. Etzi was using him for his own ends. The winds could shift at any moment and this safe haven would be upended. Styke needed to make sure he had his own plans in motion.

He hurried to catch up to Etzi, who’d already rounded a corner and was giving orders to a couple of his Household members. He looked up in expectation when Styke approached. “I’m sorry, Ben. I have a lot to do.”

“Just one request: I want to visit my soldiers in prison.”

Etzi considered this for a moment and gave a hesitant nod. “I’ll try to arrange it.”