Emperor of Thorns

47

With the Pope’s corpse lying out amid the slaughter, we advanced on the emperor’s palace, a vast dome fashioned from thousands of huge sandstone blocks, fitted one to another without mortar and only gravity to hold them in place. A hundred guards from my retinue remained to stand watch over the dead whilst Captain Devers pondered his options.

‘It’s big.’ Makin’s eloquence, vanished at the city gates, had yet to return.

‘What it would be to have ridden here at the head of an army. To have a hundred thousand spears at my back. To just take it rather than to seek approval.’

None of them answered: there was only the cold tugging of the wind and the clatter of hooves on stone.

On that long slow ride across Vyene’s great square my father’s death at last caught up with me. It had been given out in dribs and drabs. A ghost displayed by the lichkin, a dream of the Tall Castle invaded, the commiserations of a cleric. Nothing as solid or as sudden as seeing him fall, looking down upon his corpse. Nothing so final or so damning as striking the blow to end him, wiping at the blood on my hands as if it might never come off.

I felt … hollow. His death had struck me as a hammer strikes a bell, and I rang with it, a broken tone speaking of broken days.

‘Nothing can be made right, Brother Makin.’

Makin looked across. Said nothing. The wisest words.

I could have fixed my hands around that old man’s throat. Choked and watched the light die from his eyes. Shouted my complaints, railed against old injustice. And it would have rung me just as hollow. Nothing would be right of it.

I ran a fingertip across the hand that held the reins, down to the scars across my wrist. ‘I could take the all-throne. The priests would write my name for the ages. But what the thorns wrote here — that’s my story — what was taken, what can’t be changed.’

Makin frowned, and still he had no answer. What answer is there?

My name for the ages? What ages? Marco Onstantos Evenaline of the House Gold had been a test, not the start, not the beginning. A test to learn from. For years Michael and those of his order had been positioning their weapons. The fires of the Builders, the poisons and the plagues. And here we were, the new men, born from ashes and cracking the world open as we played with our magic, with the toys Fexler’s kind had left us. Crack it but a little further and it would tip Michael’s hand: the ghosts of our past would rise again, bearing a final solution to all problems. And what followed me? What dogged my heels? An army of the dead, a wedge of necromancy driven after me and aimed at Vyene. A wedge big enough to split us all open. No wonder Father Merrin was blind. Our future was too bright for him. Rain fell, a cold autumn drizzle, lacking challenge. It filled my eyes. I had let the thorns hold me, taken what they offered, and lost the first of my brothers. Flesh of my flesh, his care the first duty I had set upon myself. I betrayed him and left him to die alone. And though there was no price I’d not pay to undo that wrong, even an emperor hadn’t the coin to set it right.

The palace dome, once so distant, engulfed us in its shadow. I shook off those memories, left mother, father, brother behind me in the rain.

Around the dome’s perimeter a dozen and more low entrances, slots high enough for a man on horseback, wide enough for thirty. The guards stationed themselves there as each of the Hundred arrived, their escorts breaking off to occupy the halls behind those slots. If any enemy threatened — me perhaps with my hundred thousand spears — they would sally forth to defend Congression.

Marten tapped my shoulder and pointed off west. A column of smoke rose, slanting with the wind, black smoke.

‘There are a lot of chimneys in Vyene,’ I said.

Marten swung his arm to a second column, further off, rising to join the louring cloud. I wondered if there were dead gathering at the city gates already, fresh-woken perhaps ahead of the Dead King’s advance. Even the swiftest of his main force must be a day or more away. And yet an uncommon pall of smoke hung above those distant roofs. Were the outer parts of the city aflame?

‘Maybe somebody has beaten me to it and come with an army,’ I said.

The guard stations around the palace are filled in order, the furthest from the grand entrance first. Our hundreds filed into the closest to the royal gates. It might be that the Drowned Isles delegation behind us would be the last of all the Hundred to arrive. Some have it that to be first through the Gilden Gate at Congression is to win the favour of dead emperors. The more practical suggest that it gives additional days in which to sway your fellow rulers and strengthen your faction. I say it just gives them time to grow heartily sick of the sight of you. On my previous attendance I had had to wait outside the throne room, too tainted to be admitted, and the only glimpse the Hundred had of me was of the occasional dire looks I slotted in at them through the Gilden Gate.

We dismounted. Osser Gant emerged from the carriage, then Gomst and Katherine climbed down, and Miana with William wrapped in furs against the wind. Dwarfed by the cavernous mouth of the Royal Gate we marched inside, just an honour guard of ten men in gold to guide us through. Captain Allan led them, Devers having remained outside to keep the Pope’s carcass under consideration.

The ceremonial gates stood open, monstrous things of age-blackened timbers bound with brass. It would take a hundred men to close them — if the hinges had been kept oiled. We passed through and walked the Hall of Emperors where each man stood remembered in stone, fathers, sons and grandfathers, usurpers, bastards-reclaimed-to-greatness, murderers and warlords, peace-makers, empire-builders, scientists, scholars, madmen and degenerates, all rendered as heroes, armoured, clutching the symbols of their rule. Builder-lights, a hundred bright spots on the ceiling, leading into the distance, made each statue an island in its own pool of illumination.

‘And you want to stand at the end of this line?’ Katherine spoke at my side. I hadn’t heard her draw close.

‘Orrin of Arrow wanted to,’ I said. ‘Is my ambition less worthy?’

She didn’t need to answer that.

‘Perhaps the empire requires me. Maybe I’m the only man who can save it from drowning in horror, or from burning on the bonfire of its past. Did you ever think of that? Set a thief to catch a thief, I said that to you once. Now I say set a murderer to stop black murder. Fight a fire with fire.’

‘That’s not your reason,’ she said.

‘No.’

And we came to the end of the statues, past Emperor Adam the Third, past Honorous in his steward’s chair, serious, watching infinity. Up ahead an antechamber with more guards and, by the look of it, other travellers.

‘Your weapons will be taken from you and stored in safe keeping with the utmost respect.’ Captain Allan’s glance fell to Gog at my side then made a nervous flicker toward Rike. ‘You will be subject to various searches, necessary for entry into the throne room during Congression. If you don’t return through the Gilden Gate before the final vote then the searches will not need to be repeated. You will of course appreciate that these precautions ensure your safety as well as the safety of the other delegates.’

‘Would you feel safe, unarmed, next to Rike here?’ I nodded Allan in Rike’s direction.

‘Y-your weapons will-’

‘Yes, we understand.’ I stared past him. ‘By God, is that? Is that? Taproot! Get over here, you old trickster!’

And breaking away from the party ahead came Dr Taproot, his quick, erratic walk unmistakable, arms flying up, broad grin on a narrow face. ‘Watch me! If it isn’t King Jorg himself! Lord of nine nations! My condolences on your father, dear boy.’

‘Your condo-’

‘I assumed you would have wanted to kill him yourself, but time has its own way with us, we burn in time’s fire. Look at me.’ Hands flitted to his temples. ‘Going grey. Ashes, I tell you. Burning in time’s fire. Watch me.’

‘I am watching you, old man.’

‘Old? I’ll show you old! I’ll-’

‘And why is it that you’re here, good doctor?’ I asked.

‘Is the circus in town?’ Rike loomed over us, huge and hopeful. We both ignored him.

‘It’s Congression, Jorg. Every fourth year a man who knows things finds himself in great demand. Yes he does. Lucrative demand. Watch me! I’m paid to whisper. Whisper this duke likes boys, that lord has a sister married there, this king thinks his line sprung from Adam the First. Little golden whispers for eager ears. Watch me! If only it could be that way each year, all year.’

‘You’d grow bored without your circus, Taproot. Bored men wither and die. Fuel for the fire.’

‘Still, it’s nice to be wanted, even now and again. Nice to be in the know.’ His hands shaped abstracts, as if he could sketch his knowledge in the air.

I reached out, quick — you have to be quick with Taproot — and caught his shoulder. ‘Let’s see just how much you know, shall we?’

Taproot met my gaze, still for once, not a tremble in him.

‘Be my advisor. One of father’s delegates had an accident. You can replace him.’

A fat man in slashed velvets, black with crimson lining, approached us, his gold chain swinging to match his hurry. ‘Taproot! What’s the meaning of this?’

‘This man wishes to acquire my services, Duke Bonne.’ Taproot didn’t look away. Quick, dark eyes he had, as if they were too busy for colour, drinking in the world.

‘He may wish all he likes.’ Duke Bonne cradled his stomach. A short man but shrewd if looks could be believed. ‘What’s his name, what’s your advice? Earn your keep, man. Let him see what he’s missed out on.’

Makin and Marten came to stand at my shoulder now. Rike off to one side. The rest of my party watching beside the steward’s statue.

‘His name is King Honorous Jorg Renar, King of Ancrath, King of Gelleth, King of the Highlands, of Kennick, Arrow, Belpan, Conaught, Normardy, and Orlanth. You should know that he is not a good man, but neither is he a man that can be turned, and should all hell wash against these walls, as I believe it might very well do, and sooner than any of us desire, King Jorg will stand against that tide.

‘My advice to you, Duke Bonne, is to put yourself in his service as I am about to do. If any man is capable of releasing the lion of empire to roar once more, it is the man you see before you.’

I grinned at the ‘lion of empire’. Taproot hadn’t forgotten his tawny bag of bones and fleas that I let loose from its cage.

And so we let our blades be taken. They took the view-ring too, my daggers, a bodkin in my hair, a garrotte in my sleeve. Miana’s iron-wood rod they tried to take but I clicked my fingers and Father Gomst — Bishop Gomst — came forward with the heavy tome I had entrusted to him in Holland’s carriage. We perused Ecthelion’s record of Court Judgments, Adam II and Artur IV, Year of Empire 340–346 together, Gate Captain Helstrom and I, with Dr Taproot all eyes at my shoulder. And after a modicum of sharp debate I won the day — I could, as Lord of Orlanth, carry my rod of office (wooden) wheresoever I damn well pleased! By imperial order.

The Duke of Bonne harrumphed and snorted and favoured me with dark looks, but he waited for our party so I sent Makin his way with a nod and a wink, knowing there aren’t many who won’t fall to his charms.

And within the hour we were once again before the Gilden Gate, the ancient frame of wood that had kept me from my rightful place at the last Congression. My taint of course was burned out of me at the breaking of the siege at the Haunt. Even so, I didn’t relish approaching that gateway. A hand that’s been scorched won’t want to return to the iron, even when every sense but memory is telling you the heat has gone from it.

‘After you, my dear.’ And I ushered Miana through with the baby. It turned out that another ruling, recorded by the dutiful Ecthelion in YE 345, provided that although children were not permitted to be designated as advisors they may be brought to Congression if accompanied by both parents. Handy things, books. And by-laws. If applied selectively.

‘I’d advise against it, advisor,’ I said as Katherine moved to follow my wife.

‘And when did I start taking your advice, Jorg?’ Katherine turned those eyes on me, and that foolish notion I might be a better man, that I could change, swept over me once again.

‘The gate will reject you, lady. And its rejections are not gentle.’ No rejection is gentle.

She frowned. ‘Why?’

‘My father didn’t know you as well as I do, as well as the gate will know you should you try to pass. You’re dream-sworn. Tainted. It will reject you and it will hurt.’ I tapped my temples.

‘I–I should try.’ She believed me. I don’t think I’d ever lied to her.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

And she moved away, shaking her head in confusion.

‘Rike,’ I said, and one after the other the brothers entered Congression. Marten, Sir Kent, Osser, and Gomst followed. Lord Makin with Duke Bonne.

Katherine sat on a marble bench, hands folded in her dark skirts, watching the last of us, Gorgoth, Taproot, and me.

‘I don’t know what will happen,’ I told the leucrota. ‘The gate might reject you, it might not. If it does, then you’ll be in good company.’ I nodded toward Katherine.

Gorgoth flexed his massive shoulders, muscle heaped beneath red hide. He bowed his head and moved forward. As he reached the gate arch he slowed, as if stepping into the teeth of a gale. He moved one step at a time, gathering himself before each. The effort trembled across him. I thought he must fail but he kept on. The strain drew a groan from him, very deep. He moved into the arch. I could imagine the set of his face from the taut line of his shoulders. And as he stepped through the Gilden Gate it creaked and flexed, resisting him but in the end admitting his right. He slumped when he crossed into the throne hall, almost falling.

‘I should try.’ Katherine stood, uncertain.

‘Gorgoth has dipped his toes in the river. You swim in it.’ I shook my head.

Over her shoulder I saw three figures entering the far end of the antechamber, preceded by a pair of guards. They drew the eye, this trio. Three more different delegates it would be hard to imagine. I kept my gaze on them and let it turn Katherine.

‘The Queen of Red, Luntar of Thar, and the Silent Sister.’ Taproot whispered it from behind me, using my body to shield himself from their view. Katherine drew a sharp breath.

Luntar and the sister flanked the Queen of Red, a tall woman, raw-boned but handsome once. She had maybe fifty years on her, more perhaps. Time had scorched rather than withered, her skin tight across sharp cheeks, hair of the darkest red scraped back beneath diamond clasps.

‘King Jorg!’ she hailed me still twenty yards away, a fierce grin on her. The black swirl of her skirts flashed gem-light as she strode toward us, her collar rose behind her, whalebone spars fanning out a crimson crest that spread above her head.

I waited without comment. Luntar I had met but held no recollection of. He boxed my memories in the cinders of Thar. Next to the queen’s splendour he looked dour in a grey tunic and white cloak, but few would remark on his clothing: his burns demanded the eye. I imagined that Leesha might have looked this way before the hurts done to her in the Iberico Hills closed over with ugly scar. Luntar’s wounds lay wet. Thin burn-skins parted with each movement to reveal the rawness beneath.

‘The Silent Sister is the one,’ Taproot hissed. ‘Watch her! She slips the mind.’

And true enough, I had forgotten her already, as if it had been just the two of them, Luntar and his queen, approaching. With an effort, the kind you use when confronting an unpleasant duty, I forced myself to see her. An old woman, truly old, like the wood of the Gilden Gate, a grey cloak rippling around her, almost fog, the cowl hiding most of her face: just wrinkles and a gleam of eyes, one pearly blind.

‘King Jorg,’ the Queen of Red said once more as she stood before me, my equal in height. She rolled my name on her tongue — unsettling. ‘And a princess I’m thinking. A Teuton from the look of her.’ She glanced at the Silent Sister, the briefest flicker. ‘But her name can’t be taken. Mind-sworn? A dream-smith perhaps.’

‘Katherine Ap Scorron,’ Katherine said. ‘My father is Isen Ap Scorron, Lord of the Eisenschlo?.’

‘And Dr Taproot. Why are you cowering back there, Elias? Is that any way to greet an old friend?’

‘Elias?’ I stepped aside to expose Taproot.

‘Alica.’ Taproot made a deep bow.

‘Had you been hoping to slip through the gate without seeing me, Elias?’ The queen smiled at his discomfort.

‘Why no, I …’ Taproot lost for words. That was a new one.

‘And you’ll be staying outside with us, Katherine dear.’ The queen left Taproot searching for his reply. ‘With the “tainted” as the Lord Commander likes to call us.’

I caught myself thinking ‘us’ was the two of them, slipping into the conviction then jerking back as you do when sleep is trying to snare you. Focusing on the Silent Sister was hard, but I fixed my eyes on her and set a wall about my thoughts, remembering Corion and the power of his will.

‘I’ve heard of you, Sister,’ I told her. ‘Sageous spoke of you. Corion and Chella knew of you. Jane too. All of them wondering when you would show your hand. Are you showing it now perhaps?’

No reply, just a small, tight smile on those dry old lips.

‘I guess the clue is in the name?’

Again the smile. Those eyes had a draw on them, like a rip-tide. ‘Keep at it old woman and I’ll let you pull me in — then we’ll see what happens, won’t we?’

She didn’t like that. Looked away sharpish, smile gone.

‘And Luntar. I don’t remember you. And that seems to me to be your fault, no? Perhaps you did me a favour with your little box, perhaps you didn’t. I’m not decided yet.’

His face cracked as he opened his mouth to speak, clear fluid leaking over burn-skin. The echoes of old agony rang in my cheek, just as the Gilden Gate had woken them years ago when I first tried it. The fire still scared me, no two ways about that.

‘Would you like to remember me, Jorg?’ Luntar asked.

I really didn’t want to. Would I like to burn again? ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Take my hand.’ He held it out, wet and weeping.

I had to bite down, to swallow back bile, but I met his grip, closed my fingers around the hurt of his, felt the broken skin shift.

And there it was, a glittering string of recollection, the madness, the long journey tied to Brath’s saddle, raving whilst Makin led us south into the scarred land they call Thar.

Schnick. I’m staring at a box, a copper box, thorn-patterned. It has just closed and the hand that closed it is burned.

‘What?’ I say. Not the most intelligent query but it seems to cover all bases.

‘My name is Luntar. You’ve been sick.’ A smack of lips after each word.

I lift my head from the box, my hair falls to either side and I see him, a horror of a man, a mass of open sores so dense that it is one sore.

‘How do you stand the pain?’ I ask.

‘It’s just pain.’ He shrugs. His white cloak, smeared with dust, sticks to him as though he is wet beneath it.

‘Who are you?’ I ask, although he has said his name.

‘A man who sees the future.’

‘I knew a girl like that once,’ I say, glancing around for my brothers. There’s only dust and sand.

‘Jane,’ he says. ‘She didn’t see far. Her own light blinded her. To see in the dark you need to be dark.’

‘And how far can you see?’ I ask.

‘All the way,’ he says. ‘Until we meet again. Years off. That’s all that ever stops me. When I see myself on the path ahead.’

‘What’s in the box?’ Something about that box makes it seem more important than all the years ahead.

‘A bad deed you did,’ he says.

‘I’ve done lots of bad things.’

‘This one is worse,’ he says. ‘At least in your eyes. And it’s mixed with Sageous’s venom. It needs to ferment in there a while, lose a little of its sting, before it’s safe to come out.’

‘Safe?’

‘Safer,’ he says.

‘So tell me about the future,’ I say.

‘Well here’s the thing.’ He smacks those burned lips, strings of melted flesh between them. ‘Telling someone about their future can change their future.’

‘Can?’

‘Choose a number between one and ten,’ he says.

‘You know what I’ll choose?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘But you can’t prove it.’

‘Today I can, but not always. You’re going to choose three. Go on, choose.’

‘Three,’ I say, and smile.

I take the box from him. It’s much heavier than I thought it would be.

‘You put my memory in here?’

‘Yes,’ he says. Patient. Like Tutor Lundist.

‘And you see my future all the way until we meet again in many years time?’

‘Six years.’

‘But if you tell me then it won’t be my future any more, and if you tell me that new future, that too will change?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘So tell me anyway. Then take that memory too. And when we meet, give it back. And then I’ll know that the man who stands before me truly can see across the years.’

‘An interesting suggestion, Jorg,’ he says.

‘You knew I was going to suggest it, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But if you’d told me then I might not have.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you see yourself saying to the suggestion?’

‘Yes.’

So I nod. And he tells me. Everything that would happen. All of it.

‘Jorg?’ Katherine pulled at my shoulder. ‘Jorg!’

I looked down at my empty hand, wet, pieces of burned skin adhering to mine. Lifting my gaze I met Luntar’s stare. ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘About all of it.’ Even Chella. I had laughed at that and cursed him for a liar.

‘So now you know a man who sees the future,’ he said.