Emperor of Thorns

44

Five years earlier

‘Vyene is the greatest city on earth.’ The guardsman sniffed again and wrinkled his nose. I probably did stink. It had been a long journey from the coast of Liba. ‘We don’t let just anyone in.’

The greatness or otherwise of the city was still up for debate. So far I’d ridden through a sprawl of industry and town houses, taverns and markets, strung out for miles along the Danoob. None of it particularly great or grand, but certainly well-to-do. The real Vyene lay hidden behind the high walls that had once enclosed the whole city. And the guard before me had his doubts about whether such a road-stained youth had any right seeing it.

‘I expect you let travellers in if they have coin to spend.’ I opened my hand to reveal five battered coppers from as many nations. A tilt of my palm had them slipping, and he caught them as they fell.

‘Don’t break any laws, or expect to get broken yourself.’ And he stepped aside.

I led my horse on through. Ten or more guards were performing the same sort of quality control on other hopefuls, most of the exchanges punctuated with loud and prolonged haggling.

‘Get along.’ I tugged on the reins. The mare — Hosana the seller had called her — ambled along. It’s not until you’ve ridden a camel, then a sway-backed mare, that you start to realize how very much you miss your own horse. Brath had always been a temporary replacement for Gerrod, but now I found myself hoping Yusuf lived up to his promise and had arranged for him to be taken back to Castle Morrow.

A heavy shower began to rattle down around me as I set off into the old city of Vyene, water vomiting in torrents from high gutters. Summer had started to head south. In the cold bays of the jarls winter would be honing his weapons, putting an edge on the north wind and preparing his advance.

Hosana and I found shelter from the downpour in the stables of the first inn we reached. That at least saved the bother of selecting a place to stay. I passed her reins to a lad with straw in his hair, and set off into the ale-room to secure a bed upstairs and a tub to wash off some of the road. ‘She’ll be dry before she reaches the stalls or I’ll want to know why.’ I flicked him a coin.

The ale-room stank of hops and sweat. A dozen travellers dotted among the tables and chairs, perhaps a few day-drinkers among them. I caught the inn-keep’s arm as he passed with a plate of steaming meat and gravy. I couldn’t tell you what meat, gristle in the main, and sinews, but it made my stomach growl.

‘I’ll have a room. Send up a plate of that if you can find any more dogs. An ale too.’

He nodded. ‘Take Seven. End of the hall. Throw Elbert out, he don’t pay no-how.’

And so I ended up in Seven on straw pallet, crawling no doubt, with the patter and drip of the rain outside and Elbert’s moaning from the other side of the door as he picked up whatever came loose when he hit the wall. Eat, drink, shit, sleep. In the morning I’d clean up and spend a little gold to dress something closer to my part. It would take more than velvets and suede to get me into the palace though. Nobody there would believe King Jorg of Renar had come alone to the Gilden Gates, without herald or retinue.

The cut on my cheekbone still ached. A careless moment in Mazeno Port, drunken sailor with a knife. With my head down on the straw I could hear the bloodsuckers moving, tiny dry feet tickling over the bedding. The ceiling boards held my attention, eyes searching the patterns for meaning, until sleep took me.

The comfort of shaving with your knife is in the knowing that it is honed to perfection. Aside from that it’s a chore and leaves you scratchy however sharp the blade. I went down to break fast with a brick of the local dark bread and a flagon of small beer. Outside, the street lay bright but the sunshine lied and the air carried the scent of frost.

I walked on further into the great city, leaving Hosana stabled at the inn. The Olidan Arms to give it its full title — I’d not noted it in the downpour that drove me there. Named not for Father of course but for one of the more famous stewards who kept Vyene in the name of Emperor Callin in the years he spent on campaign to expand our borders east.

Beggar children followed me, though I hardly looked moneyed. Even here in the richest of cities. Little blond children, remote descendants of past emperors’ by-blows quite possibly, starving in the streets.

I pressed on into more exclusive neighbourhoods where town-laws chased away the urchins and gave me looks that said they’d do as much for me if I were a touch less scary. By two turns and a bridge, past ever more impressive homes, I came to one of the four great roads that lead into the heart of Vyene: West Street. Here, still a mile from the palace, trading houses lined the margins. Not market stalls, or merchant shacks, but grand houses of stone, slate-tiled, opening to the road with wares set out for display and rooms within for negotiating the sale.

I came to one such house, a tailor’s, with the proprietor’s name laid out upon a board fully ten yards long between the first and second storey windows. ‘Jameous of the House Revel’, no allusion to his trade, not even a pair of cloth shears marked out. Except for a man going toward the rear door with two bolts of taffeta over his shoulders, and another coming out the front with a fancy house-cloak on some kind of hanger, I wouldn’t have know what business occurred there. Unlike the leatherworkers next door, and the silversmiths further along, Jameous had his shutters folded against the chill, or perhaps just against curious eyes. There is, after all, nothing like a sense of exclusivity to draw in foolish money. And yes, I too was drawn in, though I would claim it was my need that drew me. The need to adopt the same plumage as the local strutting cocks so I might start to play the role of king once more.

The door, a heavy oak affair, had closed behind the man leaving with his cloak, or rather with his master’s cloak since he wore servant garb, albeit of finer cut and better repair than my own garments. I walked up and gave a rap.

The door opened a hand’s breadth. ‘This is the House of Revel.’ The creature addressing me appeared to straddle both genders, doe-eyed, fine-boned, and soft-voiced, but with close-cropped hair and flat in the chest. A hand moved to close the door, as if simply identifying the place should be enough to see me on my way.

I put my foot in the door. ‘I know that. It’s written in letters larger than your head just above us.’

‘Oh,’ said the woman. I’d decided on woman. ‘Who told you that?’

I gave the door a shove and walked on in.

A well-appointed room, stuffed chairs that you could drown in, a single soft, thick rug covering the floor from wall to wall, crystal lanterns burning smokeless oils. A large man, balding, tending to fat, stood with his arms raised whilst a second man moved around him wielding a measure tape. A third fellow stood with a ledger, noting vital statistics. All of them looked my way.

The measuring man straightened up. ‘And who might this be, Kevin?’

Kevin picked himself off the rug. ‘Sir, I’m sorry, sir — this … gentleman-’

‘I forced an entry, shall we say?’ I shone them my most winning smile. ‘I need some suitable clothing, and in a hurry.’

‘Suitable for what? Labouring?’ the big man scoffed. Kevin covered his mouth to hide a smirk. ‘Get on with it, Jameous, throw him out and let’s have this finished. I’m to be at Lord Kellermin’s within the hour.’

I resolved to be at least half-civilized. I was after all in the empire’s capital city, a place where one’s deeds are apt to resonate, where one’s words can spread. I fished out a gold coin and played it from finger to finger over the back of each knuckle. ‘There’s no need or possibility of throwing me out. I merely require clothing. Perhaps something Lord Kellermin might approve of.’

‘Get him out. The villain’s mad, crawling, and Lord knows who he’s just robbed to get that coin.’ Red patches appeared high on the beefy fellow’s cheeks.

‘Of course, Councilman Hetmon.’ A quick bow to the councilman and Jameous clapped his hands, a summoning if ever I saw one. He turned back to me. ‘We’re very choosy about our clientele, young man, and I can assure you that a full set of clothes suitable for Lord Kellermin’s receptions would cost rather more than a ducet in any event.’

The coin flickered, gold across knuckles. In Hodd town I could empty a tailor’s with a single uncut ducet.

A pair of men emerged from the back of the shop, journeymen tailors by the looks of them, in neat black tunics. One held crimping shears, the other a yard rule. I took a deep breath, the kind we pretend will calm us down. Quality costs. Manners cost nothing.

‘Will this suffice?’ I drew out a handful of gold: ten, maybe fifteen coins. There’s a weight to that many gold pieces that lets you know what you’re holding is worth something.

‘Call the town-law on this one, he’s clearly murdered someone of consequence, or left them bleeding in an alley.’ Councilman Hetmon took half a step my way before realizing there was no one ready to hold him back.

Calm.

I took another of those deep breaths. The two tailors, with the shears and the rule, advanced, each trying to be the slower one, neither keen to arrive first.

Since Hetmon’s half-step did little to close the gap between us I closed it myself. Be calm, I told myself. Four quick strides and I had him by belt and shoulder. A hefty man but I managed to propel him with enough speed that he put a Hetmon-shaped hole through the shutters. I turned to find the shorter of the two journeymen swinging his rule my way. I let it break across the breastplate beneath my cloak. Behind me the remainder of the shuttering came free and fell with a crash. It turns out I don’t listen to good advice even when I’m the one offering it.

‘The choosing of good clientele is of course a priority,’ I told Jameous. ‘But since you appear to have no other calls on your time, perhaps you can schedule me in for an immediate fitting?’

The master tailor backed away, glancing at the hanging fragments of shutter. The journeyman with the shears promptly dropped them; the other seemed fixated by the splintered end of his broken rule.

‘Clothes!’ I clapped to summon a little attention, but Jameous kept glancing to the road.

I took a look myself, wondering if the town-law had turned up to lend the councilman a hand and try my patience. In place of the padded armour and iron-banded clubs of the town-law rank upon rank of bearded Norsemen marched past, the weak sun glinting on ring-mail, garish colours on their wide, round shields, helms set with ceremonial horns to either side. I made it to the window in time to see the centre of the parade approaching. Four figures on horseback, the warriors ahead of them encircled by the coils of serpent horns.

‘Damn me!’ I stepped out through the splintered wood. Councilman Hetmon crawled away at a good lick, but I’d lost interest in him, and indeed in all my sartorial ambitions. ‘Sindri!’ Riding high on that white gelding of his, a robe of white fur, hair now unbraided and confined instead by a gold band, but Sindri even so.

‘SINDRI!’ I bellowed it at him. Just in time as the two warriors marching before his horse winded their serpents and drowned out all other noise.

For a moment it seemed he hadn’t heard, and then he turned his horse, shouldering through the ranks, setting the marchers in disarray.

‘-ell are you doing here?’ His words reached me as the howl of the serpent horns died away.

‘I’ve come to see my throne.’ My cheeks ached with a smile that hadn’t needed me to put it there. It felt good to see a familiar face.

‘You look like hell.’ He swung down from the saddle, furs swishing, some kind of arctic fox by the look of them. ‘I took you for a Saracen at first. A sell-sword, and not one finding much luck.’

I glanced down at myself. ‘Heh. Well I guess I picked up a few things in Afrique. A pretty good tan for one.’ I set my dark wrist to his pale one.

‘Afrique? Are you never still?’ He glanced back at the column halted in the street. ‘Anyhow, you must come with us. You can ride beside Elin. You remember my sister Elin?’

Oh I did. Visit us in winter, she had said. ‘My horse is back at the inn,’ I told him. ‘And where are you bound? And for what? Has it grown too cold in the north?’

‘Getting married.’ He grinned. ‘Walk with me, if it’s not beneath a king’s dignity.’

‘Dignity?’ I matched his grin and flicked a splinter from my shoulder.

Sindri rejoined his column on foot and I took the place of the warrior beside him. ‘My lady.’ I nodded up at Elin, pale in black velvets, white-blonde hair cascading behind her.

‘You’ve not met my uncle Thorgard, and Norv the Raw, our bannerman from Hake Vale?’ Sindri indicated the other riders, older men, grim, helmed, scarred.

I smacked a fist to my breastplate and inclined my head, remembering the low opinion such men held of the courtesies traded in Vyene. ‘And your father?’

‘His duties keep him in Maladon. Dead things rising from the barrowlands. Also his health is-’

‘A chill, nothing more.’ Duke Maladon’s brother leaned across his nephew.

The column restarted with a blast of serpent horns. We marched on into the silence left in their wake. ‘Married?’ I asked. ‘To a southerner?’

‘A lass from the Hagenfast, good Viking stock. One of Father’s alliances, but she’s a pretty thing. A hellcat in the furs.’

Elin snorted on the other side of him.

‘So you’ve all trooped down to Vyene …?’

Sindri reached up and flicked one of the bull’s horns on his helm. ‘We’re traditionalists. Frozen in our ways. We’ve barely let go of the old gods three thousand years after the Christ came. In the north any marriage of great consequence must be witnessed by the emperor, and that means coming to court. Even if there’s no emperor. Or steward. So here we are.’

‘Well it’s good to see you.’ And I meant it.