‘And what would you ask of an
Empress
Helrena?’
‘Only the opportunity to continue serving the imperium,’ said Apolleon, ‘as assuredly as I have served her father during his reign as emperor.’
Duncan knew there was more to the arrangement than that. Helrena had hinted as much to him when he’d been caring for Lady Cassandra following the last kidnap attempt on the house’s young heir. Duncan burned to know more, while fearing what he might discover. It must have something to do with Doctor Yair Horvak, the genius scientist whose work the house sponsored. What might the good doctor accomplish with the entire resources of the empire at his disposal? Why, whatever Apolleon ordered him to, of course. Given that the empire’s reach and influence already extended across the almost infinite leagues of Pellas, just how great were Apolleon’s ambitions, Duncan wondered? Perhaps almost as far-called as a world so large that a single message took millennia to pass around the relays of the Guild of Radiomen before making a single circumnavigation of the globe. A scale that was almost beyond comprehension. All Duncan wanted was to make something of his life that stretched beyond the shadow of his family’s name. That was far-called enough for him. No, whatever ambitions Apolleon harboured, they obviously required longer to fulfil than the dwindling lifespan of the current half-insane emperor. Apolleon needed a new patron, and it seemed that for better or worse, Princess Helrena was his choice in the race to fill the coming vacancy on the diamond throne.
Helrena strode over; her bout finished. She tossed Duncan the steel-mesh of her face guard and stood there a moment, observing Apolleon as the sweat dripped off her forehead and rolled down the padded white fencing suit. Paetro passed her a towel and she wiped her face before meeting Apolleon’s gaze again. ‘If you’re here, then the decision is the arena …’
Apolleon said nothing but bowed lightly, acknowledging the noblewoman’s words.
‘Better if you stalled for time, Highness,’ advised Paetro.
‘The punishment squadron being assembled won’t wait,’ said Helrena. ‘And my enemies certainly won’t.’
‘Your injury—’
‘Shit on my injury,’ said Helrena. ‘Do we have a ransom demand from the barbarians, yet? Assurances of good treatment for Lady Cassandra? Does my daughter have a year of me lying on my back with my leg tied into a muscle regeneration scaffold?’
‘We know she is held in the nation of Weyland, where most of your slaves were sourced from. Our local allies exert themselves,’ said Apolleon.
‘
I
exert myself,’ snarled Helrena. ‘To what end? Does my sweat help Cassandra? I want my daughter back safe, not platitudes about how hard the local barbarian war-chiefs are scrambling around in the mud to keep the imperial bribe money flowing.’
Apolleon chuckled. ‘It will be Baron Machus that opposes your commission in the squadron.’
Princess Helrena shook her head in bemusement. ‘Is Circae that transparent? Well then, she may choose among the fools to enter the arena.’ Helrena raised her sabre. ‘I shall select our weapons.’
‘You’d rely on your bad leg less if you chose pistol-and-paces instead,’ said Paetro.
‘True enough,’ said Helrena. ‘But my snake of a cousin is a passable shot, and I intend to give Circae a small parting gift before I travel to reclaim my child. A bloody parcel of filleted baron.’
‘What an empress you would make,’ marvelled Apolleon. ‘As fierce as a goddess. A light to burn so bright that few will dare gaze upon it.’
Helrena’s mood didn’t appear sweetened by his sugar. ‘Who would have ever thought that a poet lurked inside the soul of the imperium’s chief torturer?’
‘Poetry is about revelation,’ said Apolleon. ‘Much the same can be said about the intimacies extracted from the empire’s enemies when they are tied to our truth tables.’
‘Inform the court I still desire a command position in the punishment squadron,’ said Helrena to Paetro. ‘And I will accept trial-by-arms to clear my way to that commission. We shall see which of us is the prey and which of us hunts. Make sure the court records my choice of weapons … dagger and sabre.’
‘Capital,’ said Apolleon, rubbing his palms against each other as he watched the squat bodyguard stalk away. Paetro glanced back at Duncan and smiled thinly before he left the duelling hall, then Apolleon continued, ‘You have made the right decision. This is the first step to recovering your house’s name.’
‘I will recover more than that,’ said Helrena.
Apolleon smiled knowingly. ‘I trust so. It would hardly be the same in the fleet without you and your forces.’
‘You will be travelling to Weyland too?’ said Duncan, surprised.
‘Not to help the legion pull the wings off our errant flies,’ frowned Apolleon. ‘But the outlaw Sariel is lurking somewhere close to that land. The slaves could never have escaped home without his assistance. Sariel must be found and executed.’
Duncan tried to keep the disbelief from his face.
I doubt the elderly vagrant I saw before the escape is dangerous much beyond his malodour
. Apolleon seemed dangerously obsessed with capturing the rascal, almost blind to the fact that it was their precipitate pursuit last time that had ended in such disaster at the sky mines. Apolleon’s words sounded deranged. How in the world could some old tramp have helped the slaves escape home? The sky miners must have hijacked a Vandian ship, the way Carter had always talked about doing.
It was my home, once. And the errant flies will be half of Northhaven if Apolleon has his way
. Now Duncan had another reason to make sure that Helrena emerged victorious from the arena. He would travel home and do what he could to moderate the Vandian’s retribution. Ensure that the dogs who kidnapped Cassandra took the full weight of the punishment. They deserved all that and more if they had harmed one hair of the precious little girl’s head. And Duncan’s father deserved to see that his out-of-favour son had carved a future without his controlling, barking, overbearing plans for the heir to the Landor fortune. All the people in Northhaven who had only tolerated Duncan because of his father’s position, pretending to be his friend and searching for ways to help him: they would have a
real
reason to show a little respect and obsequiousness towards Duncan Landor when he turned up in Weyland with the forces of the imperium at his back. Yes, it would be quite a homecoming.
‘And perhaps my house is not the only one with a reputation that needs burnishing?’ said Helrena.
‘You may kill more than one bird with the appropriate stone,’ said Apolleon. ‘But first you must find the right projectile to eliminate your cousin.’
‘Killing Machus will be a rare pleasure in this business,’ said Helrena. She could barely speak the baron’s name without revealing the pain she felt about his betrayal, switching sides to join Circae and attempting to arrange the princess’s assassination.
‘I never saw the attraction of mixing the two,’ said Apolleon. He bowed and departed the hall.
Duncan hardly believed that. There was a man who enjoyed his work, if ever there was one. It was only the title
man
he was uncertain of.
‘You are not going to chide me like Paetro, I hope?’ asked Helrena, hanging up her weapons on the wall rack. ‘For accepting the challenge.’
‘I know you’re doing it for Cassandra.’
‘I’m doing it for the house, too. Hell’s teeth, I’m doing it because I have no other choice.’
‘You’ll get her back.
We’ll
get her back.’
‘I’ll be relying on you more than any of them when we arrive,’ said Helrena. ‘For your local knowledge of Weyland and the barbarians there; the damn slaves that stole my girl. Tell me again about the priest from Northhaven.’
‘Jacob Carnehan was a good man when I knew him. There was always a harsh edge to him, but he believed in what he preached. Forgiveness and peace and the love of the saints and the compassion of God. He helped people in the town when they were sick. He abhorred violence.’
‘Nothing like the imperial cult, then. Here, priests and priestesses of the Imperium Cosmocrator preach only loyalty, fealty and honouring our ancestors.’
‘He won’t harm Cassandra.’
I hope
.
‘Yet he snatched her up from the battlefield.’
‘I think he was afraid of the empire’s retaliation for inciting the sky mines to rebellion.’
‘Your priest isn’t stupid, then, for he has good cause in his concern. But I spared his son, didn’t I? I gave Carter Carnehan his life in the sky mines. That must count for something.’
You mean you only had him half-flogged to death for trying to escape
.
‘I wish I could have kept her safe,’ said Duncan.
I was there. I should have done more
.
‘As do I. As does Paetro. But Cassandra was trained to lead from the front, and she followed her duty during the slave revolt. I did not raise a daughter fit only to cower in safety while the soldiers of her house die on her behalf.’
‘But—’
Helrena reached out to him. ‘You were gunned down trying to protect her. Hesia died attempting to protect her. Paetro was lucky to live. It is no failure to survive to fight again. The only failure is in giving up.’
‘I’ll do whatever I can to help you.’
‘Then you will come to my bedroom now; rub oils on me to help my muscles relax and recover.’
Duncan knew how that would end, and it wouldn’t be
entirely
relaxing. Certainly not for him. There were a great many matters where it was Duncan who was still in training, and Helrena who was the master, or at least, the mistress. Slave or freeman of the imperium, his status now made very little difference between the sheets. Still, you had to be pragmatic about these things.
‘I will have Cassandra back at my side, soon. But that is only the first step. My daughter will be truly safe when I am empress,’ whispered Helrena as she gazed back at the training hall, leading Duncan out. ‘Only then.’
Perhaps she would. But how safe would the rest of them be when Helrena Skar sat on the diamond throne, with malevolent Apolleon hissing suggestions by its side?
Sheplar had only recently made sure that Cassandra Skar was bedded down for the night, secure in the storeroom with fresh gask sentries posted at either end of the pod’s corridor, when he saw Kerge heading towards him on the swaying walkway. Night had fallen and the freezing wind whistled in between the trees. It scoured his face, but was unable to penetrate his thick, warm flying jacket. To a layperson, the wind might have sounded like the gusts that roared through the mountainous crags of Rodal, creating twinges of homesickness; but Sheplar was not such a man. He knew each wind by the hundreds of titles his people gave them, and he could name their associated wind spirits, too. This one was
Thagyang
, the winter forest gusts of the gasks which spoke of iced needles and brittle leaves. Its soft song held few memories for Sheplar, even though the wind’s touch was as cold as those in Rodal.
Sheplar stopped on the walkway and bowed to Kerge. ‘No further messages from the council?’
‘In all likelihood, we will loiter here for the rest of the week before a decision is made,’ said Kerge. ‘But I carry more auspicious news. A party of riders has travelled down from Rodal and been billeted in the halls of Travellers’ Tree.’
‘Riders?’ said Sheplar, ‘We are long outside the trading season. Who rides through deep snow?’
‘They are not merchants. I believe they are a government party travelling to Arcadia through the Deep-heart Road.’
Now Sheplar was even more confused. The dignitaries described by Kerge shouldn’t be riding down from the heights and cutting through the forest at all. Why weren’t they flying to Weyland’s capital? ‘You are certain they are Rodalians? Remember Carter’s warning … the king’s agents are abroad, looking for the bumo.’
‘We recognize Rodalians down from the mountains well enough. These guests are most assuredly of your nation, not enemies masquerading as friends.’
They crossed the walkways between the trees, passing on to larger structures as they walked toward the heart of the gask city – ornate wooden bridges flanked by flickering orange lanterns and elaborately carved palisades. Every now and then they would come across scenes from gask history carved in the wood, but most of the bridges were covered with ornate mathematical script – seas of tightly nestled characters rendered abstract by their density. Sheplar knew the oil burning inside the lamps came from the forest’s flame trees; a slightly nutty scent to it that he would forever associate with the gasks. Even as the aerial streets grew crowded with gask families taking the evening air, there was a peace to the city which would have been entirely absent from even the smallest of Rodalian mountain villages. Gasks moved quietly and serenely at an even pace, never raising their voices, never jostling or running. No jabber, no songs, no shouting or raucous laughter. It was like living inside a wind temple where the monks had taken a collective vow of silence. Travellers’ Tree was one of the higher, ancient trees standing at the city’s centre, its length covered in hall-sized pods, a thick crown of branches at the top raised out to the sable star-lit sky above. Hundreds of windows glowed there in the dark, oblongs of luminescent green attracting swarms of glowing insects around its false, artificial light. They faced a long climb up spiral stairs to reach the chamber where the guests from the mountains were being entertained. Sheplar was accustomed to long climbs in the peaks, though, and his muscles ached only slightly by the time Kerge indicated they had reached the correct pod. Inside, a gaggle of human travellers stood around circular tables covered with dried fruit, vegetables and jugs of honeyed goat’s milk. Sheplar recognized some of the gasks’ council members among the mingling locals. The visitors had taken off their heavy, padded winter travelling coats and stood in familiar tunics and trousers. They certainly looked like Rodalians. Sheplar peered closer. There was a woman there, her back to him, but it looked like …
Then she turned around as though sensing his eyes on her spine. ‘Sheplar!’ she cried.