Nights of Villjamur

FOUR

They rode past hundreds of refugees camped alongside the Sanctuary Road. The numbers grew daily, conditions worsened. Filthy children ran between tents on either side of the road, where grassy banks had become mud baths. Livestock had been brought, too, and makeshift pens had been constructed. The previous evening’s fires had been reduced to ashes overnight. This morning faces were glum, and they looked at him with a sense of embarrassed pleading – these were people, unused to poverty, who had never dreamed that this might be where they’d end up.

Another city was growing outside the city.

People had come here in hope. Hope that they wouldn’t be left to freeze in the wild when the ice came. Hope that the Empire’s main city would be able to house them in its labyrinth. Hope that there would be enough food and warmth. They’d come from Kullrún, Southfjords, Folke, Y’iren, Tineag’l, Blortath – heard in their accents. They had gathered whatever belongings they had and set off for the Sanctuary City. But the city could only accommodate a limited number during the estimated fifty years of ice to come – that was the official line. The very government that ruled over them did not want to offer them shelter. Had they been landowners, there might be an open door, such was the way of things here.

Brynd felt pangs of sympathy as he moved past, a desire to help.

Behind him, on the cart, Apium was still half asleep.

‘Captain,’ Brynd said sharply, and the man jolted awake.

‘Eh? What? We’re here, then, commander?’

The horses approached the main gate, a towering granite structure framing huge iron doors.

‘Sele of Jamur,’ Brynd addressed a city guard dressed in a blood-coloured tunic, who straightened his fur hat and saluted.

‘Commander Lathraea, the Sele of Jamur to you. Everything well?’

‘Been better,’ Brynd said sourly.

‘Commander, we’re obliged to ask you about the contents of the cart.’

Brynd nodded, knowing the security procedures. The guard walked over to the cart, greeted Apium, pulled back the blanket covering their wounded passenger.

‘Spot of bother at Dalúk Point,’ Apium said. ‘And he was one of the lucky ones.’

‘What happened to him?’ the guard asked, covering Fyir up again.

‘We’d like to know that, too,’ Brynd confessed.

The guard gave him that knowing smile between soldiers. ‘Right, in you go.’

He signalled for the gates to open. As they groaned apart, twenty more city soldiers advanced towards and around them, to prevent any of the refugees from attempting to get into the city. Not that they could, because there were two more gates to get past. And both were firmly closed to them.

So the Night Guard soldiers entered Villjamur.

Today was Priests’ Day in the city. Twice a year, otherwise forbidden religions were allowed such an airing. The streets were filled with priests from the outlying tribes, allowed in on a one-day permit, but watched closely by soldiers from the Regiment of Foot. Sulists gathered around their shell-reading priests. Noonists were standing semi-naked in a circle, smeared in fish oils, holding hands and singing a melisma while a bunch of city cats tried to lick the oil off their legs. Ovinists were holding up pigs’ hearts, as was their custom, allowing the blood to drip from them slowly into their mouths. Apparently this brought them closer to nature, but Brynd could think of less disgusting ways.

Aside from the devotees of the official two gods – Bohr and Astrid, worshipped under the umbrella of the Jorsalir Church – no priests were normally allowed to practise in the streets. Tradition allowed only these two days of the year for citizens to be exposed to other religions. Brynd thought it all rather pointless, since even if you did decide to follow some other creed, you would be forced to leave the city to pursue your new persuasion.

Brynd led the surviving Night Guardsmen along the main thoroughfares that would take them up on the next level where the streets and passageways became quieter.

Brynd leapt off his horse as a flicker of purple light caught his attention.

‘What?’ Apium demanded, puzzled.

‘Back in a moment.’ Brynd headed off down the narrow passage, till he spotted a cultist slumped against a wall. The man was clutching a slim cylinder to his chest, from which purple sparks flew onto his bare skin. The device itself was somehow fixed to his hand, a web of skin keeping it in place. The man’s face was contorted into a mixture of bliss and pain. Brynd turned away in disgust.

‘What was it?’ Apium enquired, as he returned.

‘Magic junkie,’ Brynd muttered, mounting his horse again.

‘What?’ Jamur Johynn demanded, looking up from his dining table.

The Emperor was chewing on a fish platter, now and then examining his food for stray bones. His distant gaze suggested he might as well have been eating a plate of lemons. At times, Johynn refused to eat at all and sometimes he would assure servants that he’d eaten everything, only for them to find remains of his plate on the rocks directly below the window, or maybe stuffed into one of the ornamental jugs. Whether it was because he suffered from anorexia or was paranoid about being poisoned was anybody’s guess. No explanations were offered, and no one dared to ask.

The dining chamber was a narrow room, but the numerous mirrors everywhere made the palace seem larger that it was. Early Jamur murals depicting grid-like astrological phenomena were painted between a myriad of identical arches. No one knew what they really meant. A row of plinths held the smoke-stained busts of previous Emperors, all Johynn’s ancestors, like silent guests, while a handful of servants looked on, as always, from behind the pillars, neither wanting nor required to be seen. There was always a hint of fear in them as Brynd walked past, an inhalation of breath, a straightening of the back. Maybe they just feared this military intrusion because Brynd himself usually felt relaxed and informal in the Emperor’s presence. They had developed over the years a relationship of intimacy, till Johynn could trust few people apart from the albino. Maybe that was because as Johynn had once hinted, it looked as if Brynd had some secrets to conceal himself.

‘Killed to the last man, my Emperor. All apart from those of us you’re now looking at.’

‘So this means…?’ Johynn made a steeple of his hands.

‘No firegrain, Majesty, so the only resource there will be now is wood.’ Brynd stood to attention alongside Apium, but Fyir had been allowed a chair, a rare concession in the Emperor’s presence.

‘So, commander…?’

‘Our heat sources are therefore questionable,’ Brynd continued. ‘But let’s not overlook the fact that half your personal guard has been slaughtered.’

‘No heat, no heat…’ Johynn moaned, as if reciting some destructive mantra.

Brynd glanced across at Apium. The captain merely shrugged.

Jamur Johynn walked over to the window. ‘And how, how am I now going to keep the people of my city – of my Empire – warm?’

Brynd thought, As if you give a shit about anyone who’s not Empire-issued nobility or a landowner.

‘How can I look after them now the moons are in place? Everyone depends on me, Commander Lathraea. Everyone needs me.’

‘Perhaps we’ll manage OK without-’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Johynn snapped. ‘This failure makes it even worse for everyone. They’re going to rebel and have me killed now, aren’t they?’

‘Who?’ Brynd said.

Johynn turned to face him again. ‘Them.’ He tilted his head towards the window, and the city beyond. ‘My people.’

‘But it’s not your fault an ice age is starting. There’ve been hundreds of years of accurate predictions, you were merely the Emperor to face the challenge. There’s always stocks of wood-’

‘But I have to look after them. It means four hundred thousand responsibilities. You wouldn’t have a clue what that’s like.’

‘They know you try to look after them,’ Brynd insisted. ‘Your Imperial lineage has always been popular.’

‘The ones already living here, perhaps. But any other idiot arriving from whatever benighted corner of this Empire they inhabit will be surprised when we can’t let them enter. Then they’ll hardly love me, will they?’

Johynn’s voice started to falter. His fingers were drumming the sill as he stared out of the window again. Every movement suggested an increasing sense of panic.

Johynn said, ‘But I’m their saviour, oh yes. It is my right, before the Dawnir, before the movements of Bohr and Astrid. I’m their saviour.’

‘My Emperor, perhaps this isn’t the best time to ask, but do you know who else was aware of our mission?’

‘What mission?’

‘The one from which we’ve only just returned,’ Brynd said patiently, looking to Apium, who raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and mouthed the word ‘nuts’.

‘Only a few of our Council members – Ghuda, Boll and Mewún. Chancellor Urtica, too. Only those four, no one else. No one else. No, absolutely nobody.’

‘Is it possible that any of them could’ve informed an enemy? Is it possible one of them didn’t want us to succeed?’

Johynn spun around, approached Brynd. ‘Are you saying we’ve a traitor within our own halls now? For the love of Bohr, what next? Are you quite sure, Commander Lathraea, that such accusations have good foundation?’

‘Our force was almost wiped out. You say no one outside the Council knew of our mission, yet we were ambushed. Sire, I’m only trying to find out who might threaten the Empire.’

‘You’re a good man, Commander Lathraea. A good man. You were all good men, you Night Guards.’ He leaned close to Brynd, then whispered, ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’

Brynd straightened up, bowing fractionally. ‘Beyond my life, your Majesty.’

Johynn came closer still, the smell of alcohol on his breath now as intense as a bad perfume. ‘It’s over.’

‘I’m not sure I follow,’ Brynd said.

‘I’ve had increasing suspicions that someone in here is after me. They all are, maybe. They want to take my life, my existence. They want this.’ Johynn indicated the halls, the furnishings. ‘They want it all before the ice comes. I’ve heard them whispering in their chambers, making decisions for me. Doing my job for me.’

‘My lord,’ Brynd said, ‘they’re your Council. That’s what they’re supposed to do. No one is out to get you.’

Brynd considered his own words, because perhaps that wasn’t altogether the case. There was usually something devious going on. This was government, after all.

Jamur Johynn took a step away from Brynd and looked him up and down as if judging his character in one simple gesture. A childlike gesture. Brynd began to feel self-conscious again. Johynn opened his mouth, but the door opened just then.

A welcome break as the Emperor’s daughter walked into the room.

When he had first joined the Night Guard, he remembered seeing her, in her younger days, when she seemed confined in this building like a butterfly in a net. Hers seemed a delicate energy waiting to be restrained. Serious meetings would be interrupted by her childish conversations with her older sister, Rika, the heir to the Imperial seat, and their joyful shrieks filled the corridors with warmth. But those days were soon gone, departed at about the same time their mother was killed. Johynn had tried to replace parental love with treats and indulgences, something the little girl never seemed to desire, but altering her in some remote way.

Eir possessed a certain natural grace, a distinctive quality of manner. With short-cropped black hair, and tall for her age, her attitude to dress was cavalier, wearing items from any number of eras without caring how they matched. Her eyes were intense, her eyebrows two thin lines, and her face lacked the symmetry necessary to appeal to Villjamur convention. She liked to dress a little bit different. Despite her non-traditional looks, a queue of eligible suitors waited to claim her hand, and maybe decisions had already been made for her by her father over who she would be betrothed to. Maybe that was why she was rude to almost every boy she ever spoke to. For all her privileges, Brynd guessed it was no real existence for a woman in Villjamur.

‘I apologize for disturbing you, father, but the Dawnir wishes to speak to the commander.’

The Emperor stared at her as if he did not recognize who she was.

Brynd intervened. ‘We were just discussing what our Dawnir could want-’

‘Some more plots against me, no doubt,’ Johynn muttered.

‘Should we see him now, my Emperor, if you’ve finished with our business?’ Brynd asked.

‘Yes, yes. Why not.’ He waved Brynd away, walked to the window. This time he opened it, allowing the icy air to enter the room, stepped aside, his fists clenched, then suddenly burst past them, out of the room, leaving the three men and his daughter behind with the echo of a slammed door.

‘Hello, commander,’ she said.

There was always a slight informality between her and the Night Guard soldiers, engendered by their close proximity over the years. ‘Lady Eir, I fear your father’s been drinking.’

‘And you think that’s my fault?’ Anger dissolved into disappointment on her face. He knew she had been trying her best to stop her father from drinking excessively, taking away half-empty bottles once he’d fallen asleep, had stared at him reproachfully with those big green eyes every time he refilled a glass. Now she just gazed at the wall as if some comfort could be found there, but there were too many mirrors to encourage her to look for long.

‘Yes, I didn’t mean to be harsh, but your father has islands and cities to help run. There’s enough bad judgement being made in this city without our ruler drinking as well.’

‘I know, I know,’ Eir said. Her tone was confident, though her posture suggested it wasn’t natural, that she had something to prove to herself. ‘Anyway, what happened to you all?’

‘Ambush, and massacre. We’re the remaining survivors from… from where we were sent last.’

Eir said, ‘The firegrain trip? Who were you fighting?’

Brynd couldn’t believe it. ‘Even you know about it. Is nothing sacred in these halls?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Eir said. ‘Fyir, will you be all right?’ She lay a hand on him kindly, a gesture that other men might envy.

‘Suffice to say,’ Fyir squirmed in his chair, ‘that my soldiering days are over, Jamur Eir.’

‘Girls’ talk,’ Apium snorted. Then, to Eir, he murmured, ‘No offence.’

‘None taken.’

‘He’ll be up and about in no time,’ Apium continued. ‘We’ll strap a decent bit of wood on that leg and he’ll be back on horseback ready for training-’

Brynd gestured Apium to be silent.

There was a disturbance outside.

He hurried over to the window. Shit!

A scene was developing down below in the drizzle.

Emperor Jamur Johynn could be seen retreating to the outer edge of the balcony below, almost as if he was being backed into a corner. In his own mind he had probably reached such a position long ago.

Several guardsmen edged tentatively towards him, uncertain of how to act. A move forwards suggested a threat to him. A move back might mean they would be too late.

Brynd fled the room to go and help.

‘Stand back,’ he shouted, pushing his way through the growing crowd. From this stone platform you could view the whole front section of the city, the spires, the bridges, the sweeping dark hills in the distance, even the sea in the other direction. Only a knee-high granite wall separated you from a vertiginous drop. Servants and administrative staff were here to witness the drama unfolding, and even some councillors had come to watch, too. The Emperor was still positioned as before, but he now faced the sky as if experiencing a purely religious moment. And maybe he was – in these moments you could never tell what was really going on. Brynd knew he had to stop him doing something stupid, had to bring the Emperor back safely into the hall. With the ice age setting in, Johynn would be needed as a national figurehead. People required his guidance, support, because in times of crisis you wanted someone to reassure you it would be OK, even when it wouldn’t be.

They needed someone to lie to them clearly and loudly.

‘My Emperor, what’re you doing?’ Brynd called out, icy sleet gusting against his cheeks.

‘It’s easier this way,’ Johynn said. ‘As I said before, it’s over.’

His motions were awkward, like those of someone who had been drinking heavily. He regained his footing, shuffled further along the low parapets.

‘I have no great words, commander,’ Johynn said. ‘Nothing profound to say, at the end.’

‘Please, I think you should step back a bit,’ Brynd argued. ‘Think about what you’re doing.’

‘Think is all I damn well do, Commander Lathraea. All I do is think about things. All the time thinking.’

‘But the people of Villjamur need you,’ Brynd said desperately. ‘That’s what you said earlier. That they need you!’

‘Father!’ Eir appeared, running onto the scene.

Whether it was because he lost his footing, or he genuinely intended to step off the edge, Brynd would never know, but just then the Emperor collapsed ungracefully off the wall, a flurry of his robes the last thing to be seen.

Everyone gasped…

Surged forwards in disbelief.

Eir had to be held back, launching muffled screams into Brynd’s chest.

A moment later they were greeted by the keening of the banshee.