The Crown of blood

I

Ullsaard ducked under the deck beams and moved to the front of the hold where the ailurs were being kept. Bred from cavedwelling cats, reared by the Brotherhood beneath their precinct buildings, the war beasts didn't mind the dark. The three of them — Blackfang, Render and Noran's ailur, Thunderbolt — stirred restlessly at Ullsaard's approach, rolling to their bellies. Blackfang raised her blinkered head, catching the scent of her master. He reached through the wooden bars and patted her shoulder.

"Perhaps I need one of those hoods," Ullsaard whispered to her. "Stop me looking at things I shouldn't look at."

He stroked her mane, checking the fastenings on the armoured hood as he did so. He did the same for the other two. Assured that all three cats were secure, he reached into the bucket of bloody meat beside the door and proffered a chunk through the bars. Blackfang took it gently, lifting it from his fingers with her teeth with the delicate touch of a mother lifting a newborn. A few chews and a long gulp and it was gone. Ullsaard allowed her to lick the blood from his fingers, her thick tongue rasping at the flesh.

"Your turn," he said, grabbing another hunk and offering it to Thunderbolt. She was a bit snappier, snatching the meat from his grasp and retreating to the far corner of the cage. Ullsaard tossed a third hunk of meat to Render.

The meat was laced with special drugs made by the Brotherhood and Ullsaard waited for the cats to show the signs of their effects. Ullsaard felt mean every time he had to drug an ailur, it didn't seem fair or honest. On the other hand, it was a wise precaution. Though they were mature and trained, it was best not to take chances. He had never seen an unmasked ailur, but apparently it was not good for anyone that had.

The ailurs settled down, heads swaying. Ullsaard waited a while longer before opening the door. He took a chain hanging from the bars and attached it to Blackfang's collar, gently tugging at the rein so that she rose groggily to her feet. He whispered encouragement as he led her out of the cage, closing the gate with his heel.

The ailur's paws thudded heavily on the boards as Ullsaard led her to the ramp placed at the hatch. She followed passively up onto the deck, stupefied by the Brotherhood's concoction. With gentle coaxing, Ullsaard took her to the gangplank while Noran headed below to fetch Thunderbolt.

The sailors shrank back from the plodding beast as Ullsaard took her down to the quayside. They had their dumb superstitions about women on board ship and seemed to think that a female ailur was just as bad. Ullsaard ignored them. All trained ailurs were female, so there wasn't any way to avoid having them on board ship. As far as he knew, the males were kept in the Brotherhood's Grand Precincts as studs.

The docks at Geria were well-established, stretching along both sides of the Greenwater for some distance. The river had been widened and deepened here in the reign of the previous king, to provide a better anchorage for ships moving up and down the empire's greatest river. Most of the ships were singledeck galleys; trading vessels that kept the lifeblood of Greater Askhor moving along the arteries of its waterways. A couple of warships stood out in the centre of the river, patrolling back and forth with sweeps of their oars. An impressive trireme stood proud at the next dock, whitened hull gleaming, obviously newly commissioned. The banks of oars were stowed and her twin sails furled, but the rows of torsion-armed spear throwers on her upper deck leant her an air of ready menace.

Beyond the grey stone wharfs rose the low warehouses of Geria, made of thick wood planks, roofed with tiles of naked fired clay. Cloth banners hung over the doors, displaying the colourful emblems of their owners — more ship captains were illiterate than could read so it was a simple system of identification to make sure goods ended up where they were supposed to. Wood was in much evidence elsewhere, in the chests and barrels, crates and pallets stacked along the dockside.

Further coldwards were the dockyards, where the skeletal beams of two new galleys were being laid down, towered over by complex cranes of wood and rope. Ullsaard watched the construction as he sat down at the quayside, pulling Blackfang down next to him while he waited for her to recover enough to continue.

Shouts echoed from the shipyard as teams of tanned, loincloth-clad dockworkers pulled at ropes, swinging a long deck timber down onto the struts holding the ship carcass beneath it. The workers made fast their cables and returned to lounging along the riverbank while carpenters milled over the ship with mallets and wooden wedges. There seemed to be little sense of urgency or discipline.

A shadow crossed Ullsaard and he glanced over his shoulder to see Noran leading Thunderbolt. The pair sat down next to him.

"Told you they were lazy bastards," said Noran, picking an errant tuft of hemp from Thunderbolt's fur.

"Right enough," replied Ullsaard. "Look at them! While the carpenters are fixing the decking, those others could be getting the next beam ready."

"Maybe they're worried about dropping it onto their friends," suggested Noran.

"Meh, only if they don't organise themselves properly." Ullsaard shook his head and looked at Noran. "This is what I mean. There's no urgency any more. Everyone's happy just to dawdle along; everything's fine, like we've already got what we're after. It's comfortable contentment, people happy with what they've already got. Where's the hunger for more? What happened to Askhos's pledge to rule over all the land between the seas?" "Why stop there? Why not rule the seas as well?"

"Why not?" exclaimed Ullsaard with a laugh. "It's only water, no reason it should get away with running around doing its own thing."

Blackfang purred and flicked her ears.

"They'll be back with us soon, we might as well start walking to the villa," said Noran, standing up. Ullsaard fell in beside him and the pair made their way up the cobbled road, heading for the centre of the town.

The large warehouses gave way to smaller wooden buildings, long terraces of one-storey houses for the hundreds of dockworkers. Children ran about in the street and stopped to stare at the ailurs as they passed; mothers shouted out of narrow windows and fell silent when they saw the pair, eying the general and his noble companion with more than just passing interest, expressions coloured by lust and awe.

The road led straight to the central plaza, at the foot of the hill upon which stood the palace of Nemtun, governor of Okhar. The grey building loomed over the town, its shadow cast across the roofs of the town's centre. From this direction the palace presented a narrow front, its columned portico painted white. The hall itself stretched directly away from the square and could not be seen.

"Going to pay him a visit?" asked Noran.

"Not if I can avoid it. I'd rather he didn't know I was even here."

"Me too. He might start asking awkward questions, like why you've been called back to Askh and he hasn't, when it's his nephew that is ailing."

"Were messages sent to any of the governors?"

"Not that I know of, none had been sent when I left," said Noran with a shake of the head. "It was Prince Aalun that sent for you, not the king. I don't think King Lutaar wants anyone to know about Kalmud's condition just yet. He is the heir after all."

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Ullsaard.

"Best keep it to yourself for now," suggested Noran, casting a meaningful glance at the troop of legionnaires standing guard by the large gilded gate that barred the road up to the palace.

The activity in the plaza was winding down for the evening; market stalls being wheeled away; wares being loaded back onto abada carts; customers drifting down the side streets. A few desperate merchants continued to hawk their perishable wares, offering fruits and vegetables at prices so ridiculous it couldn't be true, if their patter was to be believed.

The ailurs were lively enough to mount by the time the pair had crossed the plaza. There were more stone buildings further from the river; homes of the wealthiest merchants and offices of the governor's small army of sychophants and moneylenders. Only the ground storeys were of stone, the upper levels made of the same pale wood as the warehouses. The buildings had high, narrow windows covered with colourful awnings, and stepped porches up to their slender doors. Here and there a servant or maid swept dust onto the cobbled streets, while workmen laboured on tiled roofs or repainted the stones with thick coats of white. Of the owners, there was no sign.

Slightly apart from them was the three-tiered precinct of the Brotherhood. Atop the precinct a huge golden disc depicting Askhos's face glared down at passers-by, flanked by two limply hanging flags. None of the bureaucrat-priests could be seen, though Ullsaard had no doubt that his arrival and progress would be noted from within the narrow windows.

The cobbled road gave way to a packed dirt track a short way from the plaza, and the houses were again made solely of wood, roofed with grasses and leaves. They had no windows and smoke drifted lazily from chimney-holes. Children ran through the narrow alleys between the commoners' huts, chasing goats and chickens, shrieking and giggling. Knots of women sat in scattered groups grinding flour, kneading dough, scraping roots and sorting through baskets of vegetables and fruit bought at the market or foraged from the hills around the harbour town.

They seemed happy enough to Ullsaard, chattering away in their odd, guttural Okharan dialect. Just like the fishermen, he thought, content with what they have. No dreams, no grand desires. Perhaps is it better to have low expectations fulfilled than loftier goals thwarted.

Now and then one of the women would see the pair riding past and look up with broad, broken-toothed smiles. A few waved. Ullsaard hesitantly waved back, while Noran ignored them.

"What are you doing?" Noran asked.

"Saying hello," replied Ullsaard.

"Why?"

The question caused Ullsaard to pause. He glanced at the women and looked at Noran.

"Why not?"

"You shouldn't encourage them. They'll become over-familiar. First it's a wave and a smile. Next time, you stop and ask how they are, what they're doing, if the harvest has been good or if their man has come back from his voyage upriver. The next thing you know, there's a bunch of them at your villa asking you to represent their complaints to the governor…"

"Speaking from experience?"

Noran nodded sourly.

"Not here, but up in Parmia. I spent a summer on my farms around there and thought it would be good to get to know a few of the locals living on my land. They wouldn't go away until I'd promised to speak to Adral about drainage ditches being blocked on Crown land, drowning their crops."

"What did Adral have to say about that? Did you get the problem sorted out?"

"Never mentioned it to him. Would have been a bit churlish, considering I was trying to negotiate for that land at the time."

"You said you promised your tenants…"

"It's not a real promise though, is it? Not like I'd promised you something, or my father, or a prince."

Ullsaard grunted with disappointment and shook his head.

"And what do your tenants think of you now?"

"No different, I guess. They don't know I didn't say anything to Adral. For all they care, he heard their case and then told me to piss off; which is what he probably would have done if I had spoken to him. Anyway, all got sorted. I bought the land from him and those whingers ended up clearing it themselves. Problem solved. For all I know, they're eternally grateful to me for buying the land and resolving the situation." "So you haven't been back since?"

"Yes, a couple of times. But, like I say, I don't talk to underlings any more, it just causes trouble."

The path forked ahead, the right-hand trail leading up towards the hills that heaped upon each other until they stopped abruptly at the coast of the Nemurian Strait. The other fork continued ahead, with rutted branches leading off to the farm buildings dotted about the fields and pastures. Goats were everywhere, freely wandering the heathery slopes, the young boys responsible for them following their charges aimlessly dragging their long switches along the ground.

"There it is!" declared Noran. He pointed to the right, at a low white building on a hotward-facing slope half-hidden amongst the vine terraces. The pair split from the main road onto a narrower path that wound up the hill through half a dozen switchbacks, until they came to a walled courtyard. The wooden gates were open, a handful of Noran's servants waiting for them just inside.

"You can see down to the bottom from the kitchens," explained Noran, nodding towards a long, narrow wing of the villa that ran along the outer wall to the right. "Gives them plenty of warning when someone is coming."

Ullsaard looked around and nodded appreciatively.

"Pretty defensible position. Not bad." Ullsaard swung off Blackfang and a young stableman trotted across the courtyard, head bowed, and took the chain from him. Noran laughed as he dismounted and handed Thunderbolt's reins to a waiting attendant.

"Doesn't count for much these days, nobody's wanted to attack the Astaans for at least three generations. But yes, you're right. This place started out as a marching fort when my greatgrandfather Asoniu was a general subjugating the Okharans. He didn't bother pulling it down when they capitulated and instead it grew into this lovely place."

The whole front of the villa was open, a semicircle of ten pillars holding up the front of a domed stone roof in the shade of which lay storerooms and stabling on one side and reception chambers on the other. Noran led Ullsaard between them into a grassed garden, also circular, in the middle of which there was a square pool. Colourful waterfowl floated casually on the pond, bobbing their heads to feed on fronds of weed just below the surface. Wooden benches surrounded the pool and white gravel paths cut across the lawn to the three main parts of the villa.

"Dining and entertaining over there," said Noran, pointing to the right-hand stretch of the arcing building. "Next to the kitchens, obviously. On the left are the bedrooms and lounges. I suggest we head to the baths, get rid of this travel-dust."

"I live in the king's palaces and I don't have my own baths!" complained Ullsaard. "How do you get your own all the way out here?"

"I told you, this used to be a marching fort… My great-grandfather was a clever fellow, built the whole villa around the baths the legionnaires dug! Actually, they aren't as good as the real thing, wood-heated you see; the Brotherhood refuses to sell us lava."

"It's a pain in the arse to transport, anyway," said Ullsaard. "Well, not just a pain in the arse; it's dangerous stuff. You'd be better off having one of the Brotherhood on hand to keep an eye on it, and I'm sure you would love that."

Noran's lip wrinkled in distaste at the suggestion. Servants waited to take their clothes as they entered the steam-filled bathrooms. There were only two baths, in fact; one cold, one warm. Despite Noran's modesty it was a rare civility to find in a private house outside Askh. Ullsaard lowered himself into the water with a groan of pleasure. He splashed around for a while before he noticed Noran had not joined him.

"Better than washing in river water, eh?" he said.

There was no reply and he turned to see that Noran had left. A blank-faced functionary stood by the door, holding a fresh robe for Ullsaard.

"Where did he go?" Ullsaard demanded. The servant looked towards the doorway pointedly and returned his gaze to impassively staring ahead. Ullsaard pulled himself from the bath with a snarl at the mute orderly. "Fucking Maasrites."

As Ullsaard was pulling on the robe, Noran reappeared, a concerned look on his face.

"Shit!" he said. "It seems that you can't ride a couple of ailurs through the centre of a town without someone running off to tell the governor. Probably someone from the Brotherhood. Nemtun's invited us to his palace for a feast tonight."

"Tell him we're very sorry but we're in a hurry and are setting off at first light. It's not really a lie, after all."

"It's Nemtun, he won't take no for an answer, and if we don't go to him he's bound to come to us, with all of the fucking about that will entail. Shit, I really could do without this."

Ullsaard tied the belt of the robe tight and smirked.

"I'm not sure why it's such a problem. We'll go to the palace, have a few drinks, eat some of his food and then be back here before midnight."

"It's Nemtun! How many times do I have to say it? Aalun was very explicit that he didn't want any of the governors, least of all the king's brother, coming to Askh at the moment. I've no idea why, but he only wanted you."

"Then why in Askhos's name did you have us stop off here? We could have sailed on to Paalun in another two days and Nemtun would have been none the wiser."

"Because I'm a fucking idiot, sometimes." Noran strode back and forth across the bathroom cursing inaudibly. He rounded on Ullsaard with a gleam in his eye. "I've got it! You can go and see Nemtun and I'll stay here. That way Aalun can't blame me if Nemtun finds out about Kalmud's illness."

"Not a chance," growled Ullsaard, crossing his arms. "If you think I'm going to be the one to tell Nemtun his nephew might be dying, you can think again."

"No, think about it. You can just tell Nemtun you've been summoned to Askh, and don't know why. Nemtun doesn't have to find out anything."

"I'm not lying to Nemtun just because you wanted to show off your fancy villa. He may be an arsehole, but he was a commander of the legions and is still a Prince of the Blood. That deserves some respect."

Noran paced some more while Ullsaard watched with wry amusement. The general quickly grew bored and threw off the robe, slipping back into the relaxing bath. A thought occurred to him.

"Wait a moment," he said. Noran fixed a hopeful stare on Ullsaard. "Don't get excited, it's just something that doesn't fit. Kalmud would have come back along the Greenwater from where he was campaigning. How is it that Nemtun doesn't know already that the prince is ill?"

"Well, clearly…" began Noran. He scratched his chin as he sought an answer. "You're right. Word gets around, no matter how clever you are. The ship carrying him back to Askh would have to put in somewhere along the Greenwater, and it's only a sailor's tongue away from becoming common knowledge."

"That still doesn't help you out of the shit you're in."

"Maybe it does, maybe it does," Noran said slowly, wagging a finger at Ullsaard. His gaze drifted away as he fell into thought. "Yes, that might work."

"What might?"

Noran looked down at Ullsaard lounging in the bath, startled from his contemplation.

"Oh, nothing. Just let me do the talking when we first see Nemtun."

"Is this going to be political?" asked Ullsaard with a wary sigh.

"Oh yes. The heir to the empire doesn't fall dangerously ill without a whole shitheap of politics falling on the rest of us…"