Emperor of Thorns

50

‘This has to be fast.’

‘It’s been a hundred and twenty-eight years so far, King Jorg,’ Taproot said. ‘And we’ve not come close to selecting an emperor. Whatever this Congression throws up, fast is the one thing you can count on it not being.’

‘We’ve no time. Can’t you feel it?’ It beat in me like a drum, the threat, the danger, drawing closer.

Taproot offered only wide eyes and blank incomprehension. ‘The guard surround us …’

‘It has to be done fast.’ I ran my eye over the throng, the high and the mighty. ‘Who leads the biggest faction?’

‘I would say you do,’ Taproot said. ‘Watch me.’ An afterthought.

‘Well that’s good. And then?’

‘Czar Moljon, the Queen of Red, and Costos of the Port Kingdoms. Your father also commanded considerable support.’

I spotted my grandfather amongst the crowd, Miana at his side. ‘Moljon is broken — his followers will be looking for new alliances. The queen is outside … Costos it is then. Point him out for me.’

For some reason I had expected a peacock but Costos stood taller than me, with a warrior’s build, clad neck to toe in burnished steel mail, enamelled across the breastplate with a sunburst behind a black ship, the detail exquisite.

‘Are there laws about approaching the throne?’ I asked.

‘What? Yes — no, I don’t think so. Any fool knows not to.’ Taproot’s unease lived in his fingertips, pulling at hair, buttons, ties.

I walked over to the dais, slow enough, with Taproot flustering behind. Up the steps in two skips and I stood before the throne. ‘I hope you can hear me, Fexler. I want to know if you can work the doors and the lights for me. If you can’t, well I’ve no idea what the point of my last visit was.’ I spoke in a low voice that might be mistaken for a prayer.

For a moment the illumination grew around me, just a fraction and just for a heartbeat, as if far above me the ceiling lights aimed at the throne shone a little brighter. It called to mind the time beneath my grandfather’s castle when Fexler had moved me along his path with failing glow-bulbs. I’m sure Fexler had more important reasons four years before for needing to be brought here, physically, rather than swimming through his hidden ocean. Maybe I helped him past walls I couldn’t see. And perhaps we owed the fact that Vyene was not yet poisoned dust to his residence — but whatever his motivation it was lights and doors that mattered to me most in this moment.

‘And will you hear me wherever I speak?’ Again the glow.

‘You, boy!’ Costos striding my way, bristling, indignant, and gleaming.

‘Boy?’ I had hoped it would be him. It fell to Costos to rebuke me now. The pecking order among royals is as strict as that among chickens.

‘This boy has twenty-six votes behind him, Costos Portico. Perhaps you would do better to call me King Jorg and see what inducements might persuade me to make you emperor.’

That made Costos look again, and hard. Outrage at my trampling of convention warred with his lust for those twenty-six votes. He approached the foot of the dais. I knew what picture that put in the minds of the Hundred. Costos at my feet. A supplicant.

‘We should speak, King Jorg.’ He lowered his voice to a deep whisper. ‘But not where idle ears might hear us. The Roman room should afford us some privacy. Come with whichever of your bannermen will show their hands.’

I nodded, liege to subject, and waited for him to move away before stepping down from the dais.

‘A tricksy one is Costos, watch me!’ Taproot at my shoulder once again. ‘Violent temper, won the Port Kingdom tourney three years in a row when he was young. He was a third son and not expecting to inherit. Watch his second, King Peren of Ugal, a shrewd negotiator and cold as ice. The short man with the scar, there! See him?’

Costos moved around the hall, touching a man here, a man there, assembling his entourage. Too slow for my liking. Beyond him, Gorgoth towered above the crowd, ignoring everyone, head cocked as if listening.

‘Which is the Roman room?’ Taproot nodded to one of the doorways, suppressing a smile. It was the chamber Elin once showed me. She might well be in there now, showing it to her husband. Was there nothing the good doctor didn’t know?

I counted fifteen men into the Roman room, Costos the last to enter.

‘I should gather your supporters,’ Taproot prompted. It would take more than his word to bring my disparate collection of nobles before Costos.

‘I’ll go alone.’ I left him standing.

The Hundred watched me go, some puzzled, some curious, some with the name ‘Pius’ on their lips.

I halted in the doorway. Costos’s supporters stood before me in a loose arc, confident, knowing exactly how these matters worked.

‘You’ve come alone?’ Costos made his displeasure clear and loud.

‘I felt it best,’ I said. ‘Close the door.’ And a hand span behind me the steel door slid down without a sound.

It took several seconds for any of them to find their voice. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ King Peren of Ugal recovered first, shock still muting the others.

‘You wanted privacy? No?’ I walked toward them. Several backed away, without knowing why — the instinct that removes the sheep from the wolf’s path.

‘But how …?’ Costos waved a meaty fist at the sheet of steel behind me.

I let the Orlanth rod of office slide from my sleeve, catching it around the end before it escaped me. In the same motion I swung at Costos. To say his head exploded would be no exaggeration. I have seen close up, frozen in time, the damage that a bullet does in passing through a man’s skull. In the bright arc of blood behind the sweep of my rod the same pieces glistened. I had killed King Peren before the first drop of Costos’s blood hit the floor.

Two more men went down with cracked heads before the others scattered out of reach. Old men both, and slow. I had started with Costos as the greatest danger, but others amongst the eleven remaining had their health about them, and many of the Hundred have taken what they hold by strength of arm.

‘This is madness!’

‘He’s crazed.’

‘Pull together. He’s trapped in here with us.’ This from Onnal, one of Costos’s advisors and a warrior born.

So much in life is a matter of perspective. ‘I rather think you’re trapped in here with me,’ I told them.

Tutor Lundist taught me to fight with a stick. He had several good arguments for pursuing the study. Firstly there are many times when you may find yourself without a sword, but a good stick is rarely hard to find. Secondly he proved to be extraordinarily good at it. I don’t normally ascribe the old man base motives, but everyone likes to show off, and how many people who’ve known me a while wouldn’t relish giving me a good beating with a piece of timber?

‘The last and main reason,’ he had said, ‘is to instil discipline. Your sword lessons may come to that in time, but for now I see few signs. To be a Ling stick-fighter requires a harmony of mind and body.’

I lay back at the side of the Lectern Courtyard, finding my breath and nursing my bruises. ‘Who taught you, Tutor? How did you get to be so good?’

‘Again!’ And he advanced, his ash rod a blur in the air.

I rolled one way then the other, failing to avoid either blow. ‘Ow!’ Tried to block and got my fingers mashed. ‘Ouch!’ Tried to rise and found the blunt end of his stick below my Adam’s apple.

‘I learned from masters in Ling, in the court where my father tutored princelings. My brother Luntar and I trained together for many years. These are the teachings of Lee, saved from before the Thousand Suns in vaults beneath Pekin City.

I took the stance, folded the iron-wood rod beneath my elbow, and beckoned Onnal forward, just a flexing of the fingers, as Lundist had beckoned me so many times.