Sins of Empire

Chapter 44

Styke tarried until dusk in a small town about seven miles due west of Landfall. The town was called Szada, and when he was a boy it had been distant and isolated from the Landfall Plateau, just a sleepy stopping point on the mail route to Redstone. Now it had tripled in size – though it still boasted a population of less than a thousand – and was practically a suburb of the Fatrastan capital.

He left town as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and headed north across the marshes, picking his way through the dangerous, soggy grounds, relying on the experience of old memories to guide him. He wore a dark, mottled cloak with the hood up, and had borrowed a knife from Ibana. He wondered not if, but rather how much use it would get before the night was over.

The sky was almost entirely black when he finally spotted lights in the distance. He knew their source even before he made out the dark, brooding silhouette of the brick manor standing guard over the marshes. As he drew closer the light became well-defined candles placed at regular intervals in the windows of the sprawling manor.

Willowhaven House.

The soil eventually firmed, marking the edge of the manicured lawns around Willowhaven. Styke crouched low, moving between the shadows of the eponymous willows and the border of hedgerows that surrounded the grounds. The bob of lanterns marked the path of the chancellorian guard. He waited and watched, counting out the rhythm of their patrol for more than an hour before finally making his final approach toward the manor.

Willowhaven was dark and foreboding. Even the candles in the windows seemed cold and distant, imbuing the house with a bleak loneliness. The lack of any movement inside, whether from servants or the Lady Chancellor herself, was disconcerting. Styke wondered if she’d chosen to spend this night in the city and decided it didn’t matter.

He needed to send a message regardless.

He entered through the side door of the carriage house, passing by the straw-filled stalls of the workhorses, running one hand absently along the warm noses that poked out to greet him. He patted the last one and stamped gently on the floor before reaching down and finding an iron ring by feel and memory.

Within moments he was ten feet below ground level, feeling his way through the dark, damp passageway that led toward the house. He emerged sometime later from behind a salt barrel in the manor’s pantry, and slipped past the snoring form of the on-call chef. Styke felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest and slid the borrowed knife from his pocket.

Few people kept a chef on call in the middle of the night, but a midnight snack was one of the few joys Lindet had ever allowed herself.

She was most definitely home.

Styke crept up the stairs, light on his feet, avoiding all the worst creaks. The candles in the windows cast small, flickering amounts of light on the ironwood floors and banister, illuminating the art-covered walls and the old-style pillars with busts of long-dead philosophers and saints. The decoration was as it always had been in Willowhaven – rich, but demure – and Styke felt nostalgia tightening his chest.

He reached the master bedroom at the end of the hall and paused. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed on it gently, grip tightening on his knife.

The room was as he remembered it – obscenely large, with ironwood-paneled walls, an enormous four-poster bed with mahogany curtains, flanked on either side by a nightstand. There was a wing-back chair by the window, a lantern burning low beside it, and Styke could see the ember tip of a lit cigarillo. A shadow moved within the wings of the chair, and a delicate hand reached out to turn up the lamp.

“Hello, Ben.”

Styke was immediately struck by how Lindet had lost the soft edges of her youth. She had grown gaunt over the years, and at thirty-three all the softness had been hammered out of her until only iron remained. She wore a pair of spectacles that cast shadows on her face. Her skin was naturally pale, her hair like strands of yellow silk. Her lips were thin, her chin strong, and even in her nightclothes she exuded a calm, dismissive air that gave Styke the urge to apologize for entering and back out of the room.

He stepped inside, slowly closing the door. “Lindet.”

People always commented, privately, on Lindet’s eyes. They were a steady blue like the sky on a clear day, and those who saw them often swore that an actual fire burned deep within. Some called it sorcery, some an embodiment of Lindet’s ambition. The reflection of the lamp on the lenses of her spectacles cast a double likeness, one that seemed to dance independent of the flame that cast it. Styke noted something hanging over one arm of her wing-back chair.

It was his faded yellow cavalry jacket. The one he’d handed to Fidelis Jes’s secretary before he’d fought the grand master. Lindet’s left hand clutched the jacket tightly, her knuckles white, the only break in her cool facade. Styke wanted to cross the distance between them. A single stroke, a splash of crimson for the ten years he spent alone in the labor camps after all he did to help her win Fatrasta’s freedom.

Instead, he did a slow circuit of the room, checking the bed and closets for hidden assassins until he was satisfied he and Lindet were alone. Lindet’s eyes followed him around the room, that perpetual flame beneath her spectacles her only movement save for the occasional rise and fall of her chest. The ash on her cigarillo grew long.

“You ordered my execution,” he finally said.

Lindet took several moments to answer. “Who told you that?”

“Who else would have ordered it?”

“The way I understand it,” Lindet replied, “you disobeyed a direct order. I didn’t have to order anything. My officers simply carried out protocol by having a mutinous colonel put in front of a firing squad.”

Styke’s memories of the day were hazy. He remembered a lot of shouting, a skillful disarmament of his Mad Lancers under false pretenses before he was separated from them and forced up against a stake and tied in place. He hadn’t fought back at first. Nobody expected to have to fight their own allies. When he finally realized what was happening, it was too late.

Fidelis Jes had been there, and he’d brought a lot of men.

“Nothing happens without your say-so,” Styke said. “Certainly not my execution.”

Lindet snorted. “I am not omnipotent. And you did disobey a direct order.”

“So you didn’t order me killed?”

“No.”

Styke fingered his borrowed knife. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s not my concern.”

“It should be.”

Lindet’s eyes dipped to the knife and she finally ashed her cigarillo over a pewter mug next to the lamp. She took a deep breath, as if this whole thing was quite troublesome, and said, “I received a message at two forty-seven that you had disobeyed a direct order and were to be shot. I dispatched a messenger at two fifty-six countermanding the order. My messenger arrived after the second volley. You were immediately taken down from in front of the firing squad and treated by the present physicians. They declared you dead and for three days you were left to rot.” Lindet spoke in a monotone, as if she were reciting from a journal.

“But I didn’t die.”

“No,” Lindet said. “I recovered what was left of you as soon as I was able –”

“Three days later,” Styke interjected.

“I’d just won a war. It was a busy time. As I said, I recovered your body three days later and was rather startled to discover you still alive. You were treated and sent to the Sweetwallow Labor Camp with orders that your name be struck from the record and Colonel Benjamin Styke declared dead.” Lindet’s forehead wrinkled, and she dropped the cold monotone. “But you were not dead. I made sure of that. I never wanted you dead, Ben.”

Styke turned away from Lindet, examining the room in the shadowing flicker of the lamplight. He remembered this room well. It still looked the same – it still smelled the same – and he wondered how she could bear to stay here.

“I believe,” Lindet said, “that I am incapable of having you killed.”

Styke heard the scoff escape his mouth. “I believe you’re capable of having the gods killed if it suits your purpose.”

“The gods have nothing to do with you and me,” Lindet responded. “You’ve always been a pain in the ass. You’ve always flaunted orders, ignored your superiors, protected my enemies, and killed my allies. Everyone in my inner circle hated you – they hated you so much – but I wouldn’t let them touch you. I protected you until Fidelis Jes realized the same thing I did, that I was incapable of having you killed, and took the initiative.”

“And you let him,” Styke accused. “Even if I didn’t die, you still killed me. No, I take that back. Sending me to Sweetwallow was worse than having me killed. You took everything away from me, even my name.” His fingers tightened on the knife again.

“Sometimes kindness can be cruel.”

“You like to think that, don’t you? You like to think that your unbending will is all that stands between this country and oblivion, and that only you can see the way through. It’s why you suppress the weak, marginalize the poor, crush the Palo, and crave control.”

“I’ve seen the future, Ben,” Lindet said quietly. “And I am the only one that can see the way through.”

Styke walked over to Lindet’s chair and put one hand on the wing-back, leaning close to look into her eyes. She stared back, coldly. The absence of even a tremble was more disconcerting than it would have been had she begged for her life. But that was Lindet. It always had been. It always would be. She believed every word she said.

“You could have had one of your Privileged heal me.”

“To what end? The war was over. The Mad Lancers were an immediate liability. It was time to bury our monsters and move on.”

“You didn’t bury Fidelis Jes.”

“I needed him. Same as I still need him. Had you remained free, you would have killed him for what he did to you.”

“I still plan on it.”

“And I find that incredibly inconvenient.” A note of peevishness entered her voice, and Styke almost laughed.

“But you still let me in here.” Lindet’s eyebrows rose, and Styke continued: “I could smell the wards coming in. I could sense your Privileged. You keep this place locked down tighter than a king’s asshole, and yet you still let me come here.”

“I felt we needed to talk.”

“You planning on having me killed on the way out?”

“As I said,” Lindet responded, “I don’t believe I’m capable of having you killed.”

“Bullshit,” Styke spat.

All this time he had remained leaning over her, their faces so close their noses almost touched. Lindet put out a finger and firmly but gently pushed him away. “Do you remember the night you killed our father?”

Styke turned away to hide his shock. He couldn’t remember the last time either of them had acknowledged their kinship. Probably more than twenty-five years. “I try not to,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “It’s not a happy memory.”

“It is for me,” Lindet shot back. “I was three and a half. You were what, twelve? Thirteen? I screamed when I found him standing over Mother’s body. He came for me, that bloody knife still in his hand.” Lindet’s voice became breathy and animated, her eyes looking over Styke’s shoulder as if she was witnessing a vision of the past. She gestured absently toward the door. “It was right down the hall. They’ve never been able to scrub all of Mother’s blood out of that rug.”

“You could have burned it.”

“I keep it as a reminder of what cruel men do with power. Anyway, you put yourself between me and Father. To this day he is still the strongest, evilest man I’ve ever met and when he came for me you broke him. That is why I cannot have you killed, brother of mine.”

Styke closed his eyes and forced himself to recall the past. They’d abandoned Willowhaven after their parents’ deaths. They’d disappeared and changed their names, and eventually Styke had risen to power in the army, Lindet in politics. She’d bought this horrid place – though he never understood why – and kept it as her home though few living souls knew the significance of its history.

They’d gone their separate ways, but had always remained intertwined.

“You never told me you remembered that night,” he whispered. “I thought you were too young.”

“You never asked.”

He could remember spotting the specter of his father standing over his mother’s fresh corpse, smelling of whiskey at twenty paces. Lindet stood in the doorway to her room, a stuffed bear clutched to her chest, screaming so loud it would have awoken the servants had Father not sent them all away. He remembered Father advancing on Lindet, bellowing for silence, and him running to put himself between them.

One teenage kid against the giant of a man he’d inherited his size from. Styke still had scars from that fight.

He put Ibana’s knife back in his pocket. “I’m not going back to Sweetwallow.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Lindet said, as if the possibility had most certainly crossed her mind.

“But you won’t call your dogs off.”

He waited for her to say that she couldn’t – that Fidelis Jes and the Blackhats were beyond her control, and that she could not bring them to heel if she wanted. Instead she shook her head and handed him his old cavalry jacket. For the first time he noticed that there was something else with the jacket – a bit of white cloth not much bigger than his palm. On it was a lance holding aloft a bare skull, flag swirling around them both; it was a scrap of flag, the emblem of the Mad Lancers.

“They found that flag in the remains of Sweetwallow Labor Camp. Jes is still trying to track down all the inmates that were released – including you – and he’s been sending me messengers all day demanding I bring in the army. This morning he tried to deputize Lady Flint and her mercenaries to help find you.”

The prospect gave Styke pause. He didn’t want to fight the Riflejacks. He wouldn’t win. “Did he?”

“Lady Flint’s last contract is over. She would not accept another one. But if you and your lancers cause enough trouble, I will call in the army.”

Styke suppressed a sigh of relief. Fatrastan soldiers he could deal with. “Where is my armor?”

Lindet lifted her chin. “I destroyed it.”

“Three hundred sets of enchanted medieval armor, and you destroyed it? That was art.”

“I believe you found it in a Kez art collection,” Lindet said. “But yes, I destroyed it. Your lancers ran down whole armies in that armor, and proved that relics like that are too dangerous to be left intact.”

Styke definitely didn’t believe her this time. Lindet was not in the habit of destroying art – and she didn’t destroy things that might still be of some use to her. For ten years he thought he was the exception to that rule, but if she was telling the truth about his execution, then there was no exception. He studied her face, considering pressing her further, but he knew her stubbornness reached even deeper than his.

“I could call off my dogs,” she suddenly said.

Styke’s eyes narrowed. “In exchange for…?”

“I could re-form the Lancers, make them my personal entourage. I’d restore all the personal property the Blackhats have destroyed this week and return your rank. You’d have uniforms, horses, pensions.”

Styke scowled. Lindet had always been cold and calculating, ten steps ahead of her opponents, but since she was a child she would occasionally be struck by some ill-conceived fancy. This sounded exactly like that. It was a practical, win-win situation. But it wouldn’t work. “Their lives have already been destroyed. You can’t undo the past, no matter how much you try. And I will kill Fidelis Jes.”

“It was just a thought,” Lindet said, dismissing it with the flip of a wrist as she ashed her cigarillo. “Despite what you may think, I do, from time to time, try to make everyone happy.”

“This doesn’t end happily. For anyone,” Styke warned.

“I know.”

Lindet suddenly stood up, crossing the few feet between them and putting her hand against Styke’s face, turning him first one way and then the other to examine the pitted scar where the firing squad bullet had bounced off his cheekbone. “In the morning,” she said, “I have a country to run. I exist to instill order and protect this country – even from itself. Fidelis Jes will ask me to permit your death. I will, reluctantly, agree.”

“I feel like this would go much more smoothly if you just had one of those Privileged hiding out in the bushes cut me apart with sorcery.”

“We’ve been over that. I cannot have you killed.”

“But Fidelis Jes…”

Lindet snatched the emblem of the Mad Lancers from his hand and thrust it in his face. She had nothing else to say, returning to her chair and gripping the armrests like a monarch on her throne. “Because I am weak, you and Fidelis Jes will destroy each other. Because I am weak, my Blackhats and the Mad Lancers will go to war. As I am weak, so shall this country be. You should go, before I find some inner strength.”

Styke suddenly understood. There was a long way from ordering a man’s death without his knowing – like what had been done to him ten years ago – and giving him the chance to fight back. She was allowing him that chance, even if the odds were stacked well against him. “One of us should finish this now and save Fatrasta the grief.”

“Can either of us?”

Styke considered the knife in his pocket, and the little girl he saved so many years ago. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. All I ask is that you consider that which remains unseen.” Lindet’s voice dropped to a mere whisper. “A storm is coming, Ben, the likes of which this world has never seen. I have tried to prepare for it, but for all my efforts I remain… fearful.”

Styke tried to imagine what could possibly scare the woman who’d faced down the Kez at the height of their empire. “The Dynize?” he asked.

“The Dynize. The Palo. Our enemies and our allies. Our very own machinations turned against us. I’ve tried to make Fatrasta strong enough to face what comes, but all our sins will be accounted for. I…” Lindet trailed off, shaking her head, and then treated Styke to one of her rare smiles. Despite her talk of fear, he could see the eagerness in her eyes. Whatever she saw in the future, she could not wait to face it. “I don’t know enough.”

“Well,” Styke said, hearing a creak on the floorboards somewhere in the house below them, “let me know when you do.” He wondered if it was a guard, or even the midnight chef. Regardless, he’d been here too long. “Good-bye, Lindet.”

“Good-bye, Ben. Whatever happens, keep an eye on the horizon.”