Emperor of Thorns

43

‘Captain Devers, I believe I’m about to be attacked on your watch!’ I hollered it at him, thinking it best to pre-empt the matter rather than bring it up as forty or more papal guards started trying to perforate me.

I saw motion among the gold helms back by our carriage. It would take a moment or three for Devers to come to grips with the situation.

‘Oh come on, I just killed the fecking Pope. You are going to attack me, aren’t you?’ I drew Gog and smiled invitingly at the nearest guards. Pantaloons or not, they would prove deadly enough. Multiple polearms against a single sword in open space is not a contest. I started to back around the sedan chair. The bearers scattered. Not pious men it seemed.

Still half-dazed the five guards closest to me levelled their weapons. All along the line the polearms fell in a wave, aiming at me.

‘That man is under my protection!’ Devers found his voice and urged his stallion forward.

Somehow that galvanized the Pope’s men and they surged forward, screaming incoherent rage. Even the bearers thought to join in, reaching for me with over-long, over-muscled arms, though you’d have thought they’d be grateful not to have to carry her any more.

The Gilden Guard rushed in from behind, and I played ‘find the Jorg’, skipping in and out of the sedan chair, threading my way through the bearers, whilst we had ourselves a good old-fashioned slaughter.

It ended too soon. Polearms outreach swords, but if they’re pointed the wrong way the fight will be a short one. They’d been pointed at me. They should have watched the guard.

Gog caught in a man’s spine and had to be hauled out with both hands on the hilt and a foot to the fellow’s chest. Fortunately he was the last of the bearers. I got the blade free, turning just in time for Makin to grab me by the breastplate and slam me into the Pope’s chair.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Devers came up beside him, sword dripping. ‘You killed the Pope!’ As if I hadn’t noticed.

‘She killed herself when she went after my son.’ I lay back against the sedan’s wooden wall, relaxing in Makin’s grip.

‘You killed the Pope,’ Devers said again, staring down at the blood-soaked mess of her, an armless bearer sprawled across her holy legs.

‘What you need to do, Captain Devers, is have your men load her carcass into this handy box behind me. And whilst they’re doing that, and carting all the other bodies away, you need to get the Lord Commander of the Guard out here.

‘I suspect that when Lord Commander Hemmet considers the fire that will spread from the flame I set burning here, he will wish that it never happened. He will wish that the Gilden Guard had not slaughtered the Pope’s personal detachment of papal soldiers. And he will be very interested to hear that there are no surviving witnesses from Rome. Anything that happens without witnesses never really happened at all.

‘In three days I expect to be crowned emperor and those who have failed to support me will live to regret their lack of discernment. But not for very long.

‘If it turns out that I am not crowned then I’ll be too busy to let it worry me overmuch — I’ll be raising a nine-nation army to march on Roma so that I can burn that den of corruption to the ground. So all in all, if your Lord Commander wants to avoid rivers of blood and making a personal enemy of the next emperor, for the sake of a Pope … he will say that Pius and her guards fell foul of a lichkin. Ship her remains back to Vatican City and be done with it. I can even suggest a replacement …’

Makin let go, allowing me to slide a couple of inches down the wall of the sedan chair, from tiptoes to heel and toe. I hadn’t realized I was nearly off the ground. ‘It will never work. You can’t hush up something like this.’

‘Look around you, Makin.’ I swept an arm. ‘It’s a wasteland. Anyone who counts is in the palace, and none of them will be looking out, I can tell you that for fact. And their servants will be hard at work way over there.’ I waved to the distant mansions. ‘And the good folk of Vyene are hiding in their homes. To some degree because they’re not invited to the party. But mostly because the Gilden Guard are deployed to escort duties leaving no one to protect them, and the dead are on the move.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Someone will know. Someone will talk. There’ll be rumours-’

‘Rumours are fine. Rumours just put an edge on things — add some weight to what I have to say. Accusations … not so good. Charges? Then it’s time to march on Roma. And don’t forget, your average Gilden Guard affords the church far less respect than they do the women in Onsa’s wheel-house.’

That gave him pause. The guard really did despise anything that smacked of Roma’s influence in the empire’s business. To have the Pope herself in Vyene itself, waylaying members of the Hundred under guard escort, must have burned them no end.

‘It can’t work.’ Makin shook his head.

‘Either way, the bitch is dead.’ I shrugged him off. ‘Devers!’ I clicked my fingers in front of his face. ‘Wake up, man! Can you remember what I’ve said? The Lord Commander — cover-up or bloodbath. Yes? Sort it out or so help me I’ll ride to Roma with her head on my spear.’

Captain Devers gave the nod of a man not convinced he isn’t dreaming. I walked past him, stepping around the corpses. It’s never a good idea to step over a fallen man. You might get a knife between the legs.

‘I’ll be in the palace if I’m wanted.’

Rike and Marten stood cleaning their swords. Kent’s axe hung loose in his grip, still crimson. He looked lost.

‘If God talks to anyone, Kent, it’s not that evil old woman back there. That faith you’ve found — you didn’t find it in church, now did you? You found it in pain and blood. Whatever reached out to touch you, it wasn’t a priest in robes.’

‘The holy spirit found me, Jorg. Christ Jesu, risen, led me out of darkness and cooled my burns.’ No ‘king’ today, no ‘sire’.

I don’t respect many men and Kent was never sharp enough of wit, never wise enough, never virtuous enough to inspire me. And his new credo, since the fire, seemed borrowed, other men’s dogma worn as a shield. But I respected his instincts as a killer and I liked the honesty of the man. And who was I to judge? I’d fucked a necromancer and killed a Pope within the space of a week.

‘I need to trust you, Kent.’ I spread my arms. ‘I need some of that faith. So listen to that spirit. Listen hard. And if I need to die for my crimes — be the one to strike me down.’

The cold wind blew between us. And I discovered I meant every word. I dared him, as I dared the storm long ago. Strike me down. I saw Gretcha slide from my blade, faint surprise in her eyes, and crumple to a small heap, bones and skin in a little girl’s clothes.

‘If someone had done this for me when I was a child it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.’ I’d said it to her. I said it to the storm on a wild night atop the Tall Castle. I said it to Red Kent, his hands white on that Norse axe of his. ‘Do it!’

Kent dropped the axe. Shook his head. ‘We’re in this to the end, Jorg.’

I came back to the carriage. Miana, with babe in arms, Katherine, Gomst, and Osser were all outside, huddled in furs and cloaks against the wind’s icy fingers. They watched my approach through the guard as if the stench of my misdeed had already reached them, a cold mix of horror and disgust upon those pale faces.

‘Jorg? We heard fighting … there’s blood on you.’ Miana stepped toward me.

‘I made it right, my lady. As you asked me to.’

‘You killed her.’ Katherine spoke the words not in accusation but to hear them out loud, to see if they could be true.

‘She died. The how of it is a matter for discussion, for theological debate. And what of it? Has the hand of Roma supported the people of this empire or choked them? And hasn’t that grip grown tighter over the years that Pius spent spreading across the papal throne? The time has come for fresh blood, I say, for someone who actually believes in God to wear the silliest hat in Christendom.’

I looped an arm around Bishop Gomst’s shoulders. ‘Time for someone who doesn’t want to be pope to be pope. What do you say, Father?’

He looked up at me. I hadn’t realized how short he was, bent prematurely under years and cares, or perhaps how tall I’d grown. ‘You really killed her?’

I made a smile though it tasted bitter and said, ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’

And old Gomsty, though he was stiff from the carriage, and sore in heart, bowed his head to hear my confession.