9 Squabbles

IN HIS HASTE to escape, Threadfin had become lost. He stumbled through a forest of birch and elm. Tarl Forest stretched across a vast territory, but he thought he’d been heading east and should’ve met the River Corb. He’d planned to follow it south to where it joined the Noy. A bit out of his way, but that second river would’ve guided him most of the way home.

There were villages and towns along the Noy. He might’ve acquired a mount along the way too. Instead, he’d found endless rows of trees. He trudged through layers of brown leaves and moss, the earth wet and slippery. There was little life save noisy crows in the canopy. A white-feathered lizard, two foot in length, raced across his path and disappeared into the undergrowth.

That shrivelled organ, which was his excuse for a heart, ached. At one point, he knelt in the mulch of leaves and earth, begging for Tezcat’s forgiveness. He’d failed her and as if further proof were needed that he was worthless, she’d given up her existence for his. It took time before he could gather himself enough to continue. If not for the danger to his sister, he might’ve lain there, and waited for his end.

His mind wandered with his feet, and distracted, he tripped and fell down a muddy slope. Now on his back, he spat out lumps of dirt and leaves to find six faces glaring down at him. Each was twenty foot tall and made of limestone. They had wings and held blades or staffs. Many were weather worn, pockmarked and moss covered. The sweeping wings suggested angels. For years, he’d wanted to see the Shathra, and then he went and fell on top of it. Perhaps it was a distortion of light, but the faces appeared deformed. They glared in judgement.

He fingered the misshapen crucifix about his neck as he stared up at them. There were also graves in the clearing. A soggy blanket of leaves covered most, amid clumps of tall ferns. The statues stood guard over the weathered green-tinged headstones, though to call them headstones was laughable. Many stood askew, but each was eight-foot tall and four wide. Odd markings, faded by weather and time, marred their surfaces, which were splodged with moss and discolouration.

A noise startled him and he froze.

Beneath the treeline, a figure emerged from the gloom.

‡

FACE HIDDEN WITHIN the cowl of her conclavist robes, Aiyana Todralan marched along an open arcade lined with marble columns. Two conclavists, also in the striped robes of office, walked ahead, whispering. Exemplars flanked the men, the soldiers behaving as though mere escorts, but they were more than that.

She was taking a tremendous risk, but no one would see past the robes. She hoped. Torches cast shadows across the ornate ceiling and she glanced upwards at the figures twisted in battle. The fresco was a record of Icarthian history, the imperial scenes echoed throughout the palace in silver, gold, jade, and vermillion.

At the end of the corridor, arched doors opened inward. She entered behind the others, passing between two red-cloaked guards in polished laminar armour. Conclavists and guards entered behind her. She hoped to blend in unnoticed. Imperial politics meant that not all conclavists got along so there was no need for her to speak to anyone. Still, even the most irascible of politicians had their little cliques. It was perhaps best not to announce her presence until the right moment. There was no sign of that heathen termagant just yet.

Beneath the rib-vaulted ceiling and high arched windows, white haired Polius Augustus had the floor. He strutted half bent at the waist, across the vast expanse of patterned tiles, interrupted by several tall torch stands he needed to manoeuvre around. Yellow tongues of flame flickered as he passed them by. His arms wide and uplifted, Polius’ voice echoed through the cavernous chamber. Bordered with pillars, the chamber was windowless and dim, with a seldom used upper balcony. Mounted on the pillars were more torches.

At one end was an apse covered by a semi-dome. Within the recess was a seat on a dais accessed by several broad marble steps. She thought of the conclave as a chamber, but it was more like the interior of a church. The walls swept back into shadow beyond pillars carved with the faces of the Todralan dynasty, or of angels with stone wings. Aiyana hated the Imperial Church and had done everything possible as a child to avoid attending those death-inducing sermons. Eyes on the Imperial Seat, she fiddled with the ring on her left hand, tracing the silver wings with her finger, as she pretended to mingle with other arrivals.

Polius’ peers sat on marble benches to one side, with each row higher than the next one. The lesser families of the minorum class sat on the uppermost tiers. There were numerous gaps, perhaps little over half of the usual one hundred and fifty present. Not that it mattered, their role merely to nominate the regent fulfilled. The final vote of the patriarchal families on the lower benches was what counted.

Guards stood hidden in the gloom. Since her father’s death, the Imperial Quarter was in lock down, soldiers everywhere and all wearing red. This was the first opportunity for the conclave to gather and discuss their predicament.

Polius continued speaking, while those seated shouted, hammered on their knees in agreement, or chatted among themselves. She felt both relieved and irritated that none noticed her. Several glanced in her direction as she took her seat, but Polius’ oration had the attention of most.

‘... and where is our presumptive leader, eh?’ sputtered Polius with hoarse gusto. His stick-thin arms waved about from voluminous striped sleeves, his robes of office oversized, or perhaps their occupant underfed. ‘Oh, don’t glare at me like that, Davard. You know what she plans. We all do, or why are we here? She demands attendance, soldiers dragging us from our homes, from our beds. Demands that we each support her ludicrous claim, and then she makes us wait upon her for two hours?’

‘And what would you have us do?’ demanded Davard Tystrus. He was a fat balding man of sixty-five years in damp robes, beads of sweat lining his large forehead. He attacked his face with a cloth as he spoke. There was always a space to either side of him. His reek was legendary. ‘Avitus hold ten seats and therefore ten votes. It is beholden on us to obey her summons. Avitus holds the majority.’

‘Perhaps it has to do with the high exemplar and his swords, rather than the number of seats,’ suggested Lucius Aidarius, a man with a long nose. One finger probed a nostril as though he’d lost something up there and was determined to root it out.

‘Ten seats,’ shouted Polius pacing, waving his arms as though scaring off an imaginary flock of crows. ‘Ten seats and is there one Avitus here in conclave this day? Is there?’ A handful looked about as though an Avitus might pop out of hiding. Aiyana bowed her shrouded head lower. Several others still had their hoods up too, she was glad to see.

‘The number of seats is irrelevant,’ Polius continued, ‘if they are not present. Shivar holds as many and my own family hold seven, giving us as much.’ He gestured his flailing arms towards his relatives who appeared either embarrassed or indifferent to his words. ‘What gives Avitus the right to treat us this way?’

‘I already pointed that out,’ said Lucius, ‘and tell me, since when does seven equal ten? Sit, you old fool. You’re making me dizzy with all your prancing and prattling.’

‘There are no Shivars present, anyhow,’ announced Markus Cipius. He was younger than most others with iron-grey hair and a square jaw, who once served in the legions. His family held but four seats. His sister Rylana and his aged father and uncle sat around him. ‘Sit down, Polius and rest your bones. You’ll give yourself heart failure and me a headache. Avitus will show and we will put this business to rest.’

‘No, no,’ protested another conclavist, standing up. It was Polius’ elderly father, Cicero, who had appeared asleep until that moment. The man must’ve been a hundred years old and scrawnier than his son. ‘Polius is right. Why have we been gathered here? We should send word to the imperial marshal. We need Sarscha Todralan.’

‘Shut up, you blubbering old fool,’ spat Davard, wiping his face. ‘Are you intent on giving us a civil war? Because that’s what will happen if you drag her into this.’

‘It’s them Plagueborn that’s behind it,’ shouted Cicero. ‘It was them that murdered the imperator, and Liviana Avitus is one of them I’ll vow. Viral scum, they’ll bring death upon us all.’

‘You’ll be headed for the crushing stone,’ snapped Eadricus Brutus, with his brother Eadan nodding beside him, ‘if you continue saying things like that.’

Further insults were exchanged and then the real shouting began. Aiyana sat there, elbow on her knee and hand to her forehead, eyes shut. None had noticed her, intent as they were upon their own fears. What hope of uniting these fools against Avitus? No, they weren’t fools. They were afraid. Avitus had brought them here by force, perhaps holding their relatives hostage, or maybe the threat was enough. Then she’d forced them to wait until their tempers frayed, all hope of a united stand gone. Now, she guessed, Liviana would use a combination of guile and fear to whip them into submission. Once the conclave was hers, they would vote her as the new imperatrix and imperial law be damned.

She opened her eyes, a throbbing in her skull as the bickering grew in pitch.

It was then the woman chose to enter, trailed by twenty guards. The bickering quieted, and Polius wasted no time in taking his seat. Davard mopped his jutting brow and face with enthusiasm, while it appeared that Polius’ father had gone back to sleep. A dull snore was the only sound as Liviana surveyed them with a predatory gaze.

When that gaze stopped on Aiyana, the princess shivered, and for a moment, wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.