The Fell Sword

Chapter Two

Liviapolis, the City – Aeskepiles and the Emperor

Aeskepiles, the Emperor’s magister, preceded him through the reception halls of the palace with two of the axe-bearing Nordikan Guard. Their scarlet surcoats heavily embroidered in real gold showed their rank, and their great axes and heavy full-length chain proclaimed their roles. The man on the left had a scar that ran from his right eye to the left edge of his mouth and made him look like a daemon from hell. The man on the right had tattoos that ran from his brow to his neck and vanished into the hem of his fine linen shirt, just visible at the collar of his hauberk. Pages followed with their helmets, aventails and heavy riding spears.

The Emperor himself was unarmoured. He wore a purple velvet jupon over scarlet hose, and on his feet were the scarlet shoes that only he could wear. Every buckle on his shoes and belt, every lace point, every button was solid gold. Double-headed eagles were embroidered on his jupon and his shoes in gold thread as well. A page, one of the palace Ordinaries, held his great robe of purple silk embroidered with eagles and lined in tawny-gold fur.

Behind the Emperor were two more Nordikans, each with their pages, and a dozen more Ordinaries. Two carried a saddle, one carried a sword, and a pair of secretaries followed the Emperor closely, writing down his comments on the matters of state and domestic economy as read from a leather bound agenda by the Mayor of the Palace and the Grand Chamberlain. The two men took turns to mention their issues. Behind them stood the Emperor’s daughter, Irene, walking with the Logothete of the Drum, a slight man with the ascetic look of a monk.

‘Item thirteen, Majesty. Arrears of pay among the palace staff and most especially the Guard.’ The Mayor cleared his throat.

Emperor Andronicus had the blood of the Paleologs in his veins. He was widely accounted the handsomest man in the Empire, and perhaps the world, with darkly tanned skin and smooth blue-black hair, piercing dark eyes under arched and expressive brows, and a long, strong beard that was the envy even of the Nordikans who served him. A thousand years of breeding the most beautiful princes and princesses from all over the known world had mixed his skin to a perfect tone, and given his features the look of near perfect beauty usually saved for idealised immortals. He appeared to have been carved from old gold, or bronze.

His beauty was reflected in his daughter, who put her hand on the Logothete’s arm, making the thin man flush and bow, and went to stand by her father. Irene resembled one of the pagan goddesses.

‘Pay them, then,’ he said, mildly.

The Mayor of the Palace bowed deeply. ‘Imperator – we have no money.’

The Emperor nodded.

His daughter raised an eyebrow. ‘Pater, we must find some,’ she said. ‘Unpaid soldiers are the bane of emperors and empires; they are to us as horseflies are to horses.’

The magister flicked a glance at the two killers who lead the procession. The Guard’s loyalty was legendary. But unpaid soldiers were the devil incarnate.

The magister had his own reasons to hate the Guard – not least of which was that they scared him. He schooled his features carefully, hiding his thoughts.

I am the greatest magister in the world, and I am trapped here in this fading, decadent court when I could be anywhere – I could be anything.

Hah! And I will be.

He caged his eyes and didn’t look at the Emperor. Or at his co-conspirators.

‘How many of this morning’s questions hinge on money?’ the Emperor asked.

The Grand Chamberlain chuckled. He was a large man – he looked like a bruiser, and his intellect was hidden behind his laughter. ‘All questions turn on money,’ he said. ‘Except those about God.’

Any laughter was chilled by the Emperor’s pained expression.

Irene turned her cold indifference on the Chamberlain. ‘You presume too much,’ she said.

They walked on in silence, their steps soft in the vast caverns of marble that were the outer halls of the Great Palace. Once, these halls had been packed with envoys and eager visitors. Above them, vast mosaics recorded the deeds of the Emperor’s ancestors. There was Saint Aetius defeating the Wild in a battle that covered almost fifty paces of perfect mosaic tesserae. The polished stones glittered far above them, and the solid gold in the hilt of Aetius’s sword gleamed like a rising sun in the near dark of early morning.

The Emperor paused and looked up at his distant ancestor, a thousand years before. The saint’s gladius was stuck to the hilt in Amohkhan’s breast, and the great daemon towered over him with a flint axe ready to fall. The torches of the Ordinaries at the back of their procession lit the scene fitfully, and the permanent breeze that passed through the halls of stone made the flames ripple and brought the scene to life.

‘He murdered all of the old Emperor’s family,’ the Emperor said. ‘Saint Aetius. He murdered Valens and his wife and all their children and grandchildren. He thought he would prevent civil war. Instead, he cut the head off the Empire.’ He looked around him. ‘He stopped the Wild at Galuns. But he destroyed the Empire. There’s a lesson there.’

The Grand Chamberlain nodded sagely. The Mayor waited patiently.

Irene looked at her father with a slightly horrified expression. Aeskepiles caught it.

As soon as the Emperor started walking again, the Mayor said, ‘So it seems to us, Majesty, that the solution is to implement some economies.’

The magister wanted to choke the life out of the Mayor. He glared at the man, who looked surprised – and hurt.

Why now? Today? Why not ten years ago – when we still controlled enough territory and enough taxes to rebuild? The magister’s eye caught high above him in the tesserae of history. The die is cast, indeed.

The Emperor’s eyes met the Mayor’s. He nodded ruefully. ‘I agree,’ he said.

The two scribes wrote quickly on their wax tablets.

The Emperor held up his hand as if he’d had enough of business, which he probably had. He strode through the main doors of the outer hall, and found two Easterner servants waiting with a dozen horses.

The horses were tethered to the columns of the great portico. They looked incongruous, to say the least, and their fretting emphasised the emptiness of the massive courtyard and the two columned stoas that ran away into the distance.

‘Perhaps we could invite the Etruscans to come and quarry our marble,’ the Emperor said. He raised his too-perfect eyebrows. ‘They own everything else.’

One of the scribes began to write. The other poked him.

An Easterner held the Emperor’s stirrup and he mounted with the trained elegance of a skilled horseman. As soon as the white gelding felt the man on his back he stilled, and the Emperor backed the horse a few steps and accepted his robe for riding from an Ordinary. The morning air held a chill.

The Grand Chamberlain handed the Emperor his sword. ‘Still time for me to get you a proper escort, Majesty.’

The Emperor shrugged. ‘The Duke asked me to come without one. Is it time to start distrusting my officers?’

Aeskepiles hated him just then. Hated his feckless, useless optimism and his endless trust and good will.

The Emperor turned to his magister. ‘You seem out of sorts this morning, scholar.’

‘Your concern is gratifying, Majesty,’ said the magister. ‘I’m sure it is simply something I am having trouble digesting.’

The Emperor nodded. ‘You have our permission to withdraw, if that seems best to you, my friend.’

The words ‘my friend’ struck Aeskepiles like a mace. He set his face. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said in a harsh croak.

The Emperor looked at his daughter. ‘And you, my child, seem bitten by the same fangs.’

The Princess Irene inclined her head in submission to her father. ‘I am out of sorts,’ she confessed. ‘Pater, I am disturbed by a report-’ She paused and the Emperor smiled benignly.

‘My dear child,’ he said. ‘You are a princess of an ancient house and estate.’

She cast her eyes down.

At her movement, the Mayor and Chamberlain bowed deeply. Most of the servants fell on their faces. The effect was a little ruined by the steward, who unrolled a sheet of linen canvas and threw it on the ground before throwing himself on top of it.

The Emperor’s daughter curtsied deep, so that her skirts spread about her like the blossoming of a silken flower.

‘My dear!’ the Emperor said. ‘I thought you were coming with me.’

The magister had thought so, too.

‘I’m most sorry, Majesty.’ She remained in her full curtsey.

The magister thought she must have magnificent legs to bear the strain. Why isn’t she going with him? Does she suspect?

The Emperor smiled beneficently at them all. ‘See you at dinner,’ he said, and put his heels to his mount.

Five miles away outside the walls of the city, Andronicus, the Duke of Thrake and the Emperor’s cousin, was also a handsome man. He was in his mid-forties, wore his age with dignity, and while he had grey in his beard and on his chest, he clearly came from the same stock as the Emperor. He was dressed in plain blue, his favourite colour. He wore the knight’s belt of an Alban – not an affectation, but the sign of his office as Megas Ducas, the commander of the Emperor’s armies.

He waited for his Emperor on the Field of Ares, an enormous grass arena where sixty thousand men could be mustered. Had, in fact, been mustered, many times. He loved to be on the field – to feel the grass where Aetius might have walked – where Livia certainly walked. Where Basil II, Hammer of the Irks, had formed his great armies up and reviewed them.

Today, despite the snappish late spring weather, the sun shone on armour and colourful banners. The Duke had an army on the field – almost three thousand men. The field dwarfed them. They didn’t make a brave display, but instead, seemed to suggest the opposite.

Andronicus reviewed them from habit. He always made sure the turnout was the best possible before his men were inspected by the Emperor. He rode along the front of the Latinikon – mostly Alban mercenaries, with a scattering of Galles and Etruscans.

He turned his horse and rode down a file. ‘What’s this man’s name?’ he asked in Archaic.

Ser Bescanon, an old and very tough Occitan from south of Alba who served as commander of the Latinikon, smiled. ‘Ah, m’lord Duke, I’ll see to this.’

The man in question had a mail hauberk and no more – no helmet, no body armour, and no shield. In fact, he had no saddle. He was sitting bareback on a warhorse.

The Duke leaned over and gave the animal a sharp poke. It backed a step.

‘That is a cart horse,’ he said.

‘I believe Ser Raoul has had a disagreement with his landlord. His armour and horse are not, I think, currently available. I’ll see to it he’s ready for the next muster.’

‘Dismiss him,’ said the Duke.

The mercenary shook his head. ‘Nah – m’lord, that would be hasty. We’re not fighting anyone today – no? No need to make an example, mmm?’

The Duke raised his eyebrows.

Bescanon flinched from his gaze. ‘As you wish. Ser Raoul, you are dismissed.’

Ser Raoul laughed. It was not a normal laugh. ‘Pay me and I’ll go, you useless sack of shit.’

The Duke backed his horse away from the man.

Bescanon nodded. ‘My friend Raoul has a point, messire. None of us have been paid.’ Bescanon smiled softly. ‘In a very long time, messire.’

The Duke’s son, Demetrius, Despot of the North, interposed his horse between the knight and his father. ‘You’ll be paid at the end of this parade. Ser Raoul, you are dismissed without pay. If you don’t like it, I will have the skin stripped from your back and I’ll sell your useless carcass into slavery.’ The younger man’s voice cut like a whip. He had the over-eager aggression of a young man who likes to throw his weight at obstacles.

Ser Raoul’s breathing came very fast. His hair was wild – he was missing teeth and his nose had been broken many times. It was the bulbous red nose of a heavy drinker which suggested where his pay would go if he were given any.

He reached for his sword.

‘Raoul!’ Bescanon snapped ‘Don’t do it!’

Behind the Despot, two blank-faced Easterners had their horn bows at full draw. The Despot never went anywhere without his bodyguard of blood-sworn foreigners.

Horses’ tails swished, and spring flies droned.

Raoul sighed. He reached behind himself and very carefully scratched his arse. Turned his horse. And rode off the grounds.

Half a mile to the east of Ser Raoul, Harald Derkensun stood tall in the sentry box at the gate of the city.

Nordikans almost never served as gate guards. They were far above such things. But the Logothete of the Drum had ordered that the gate guards be changed a week ago.

He had further ordered that the Nordikans stand guard in the plain tunics and cloaks of the City Militia.

Derkensun thought it was all foolishness. He was head and shoulders taller than almost any Morean and he suspected that every man passing the gate knew him for what he was, but that was the way with Morea. Wheels turned, sometimes inside wheels, and sometimes for no other reason than the turning. There were plots, and plots to cover plots, and some men, Derkensun had discovered, would plot merely to hear themselves talk.

This morning, however, the Logothete’s precautions showed some sense, as Derkensun had enough experience of the palace to know that the party riding towards him was led by the Emperor. He drew his sword, and held it before his shield.

The Emperor reined in his horse. Just past him, Garald Gurnnison, the most dangerous man in the Guard, met his eye and gave a very slight nod.

The Emperor knew him immediately, of course. He knew all his guard. His fingers moved. He said, ‘Good that you are on guard here. Be wary.’ Then the Emperor returned Derkensun’s salute. ‘Guardsman Derkensun! Are you being punished for some transgression?’

Behind the Emperor, Derkensun saw the Logothete. The slim man raised an eyebrow. Derkensun allowed himself to look embarrassed. If the Emperor hadn’t been told about the heightened security, it was not Guardsman Derkensun’s job to inform him.

The Emperor laughed. ‘Poor Nordikans. Too much discipline.’ He raised his riding whip in token of farewell, and rode through the gate.

Ser Raoul was still scratching – mooning the Duke – when he passed the Emperor riding well out of the city without an escort. Out of habit he stopped scratching and bowed in the saddle. The Emperor gave him a little wave.

Behind them, the Despot turned to his father. ‘Where are the Vardariotes?’

The pride of the household cavalry, the Vardariotes were Easterners from across the ocean, and further yet. They were a remnant of a bygone time, when the Empire ran from the steppes of Dacia across the sea all the way to the mountains of Alba and beyond. No Emperor had ridden the steppes in twenty generations, but young men and women still left their clans and came to the Emperor as their kin had done half a thousand years before. Like the Nordikans, they were loyal.

The Duke watched the Emperor approach. ‘The Vardariotes were not interested in my muster,’ he said mildly. ‘So I ordered them to stay in their barracks.’

The Despot turned to his father. ‘What are you doing?’

The Duke shrugged. ‘Something that should have been done a long time ago.’

‘Pater!’

The Duke whirled on his son as a tiger turns on wounded prey. ‘It is now, you little fool. Comport yourself like my son, or die here with anyone who will not support me.’

The Despot looked for his bodyguard, and saw them fifty horse lengths away, surrounded by his father’s household knights.

Father and son glared at each other.

‘I’m doing this for you,’ the Duke said softly.

The young despot met his father’s eye and held it. His own eyes narrowed. He loosed a long sigh – and grinned.

‘Then I want the Lady Irene. As my wife.’ The Despot looked at the Emperor.

‘Done,’ said his father. That would have complications, but he was happy – truly happy – to have his son beside him.

The Despot shook his head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

The Duke raised his hand. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. That’s how you keep a secret.’

The magister watched them carefully as they rode up to the Duke. His men were well arrayed in ranks, their armour polished, and their pennons flapping in the late spring breeze.

Duke Andronicus’s eyes met the magister’s.

The magister rose in his stirrups, extended his wand, and blew the heads off two of the Emperor’s guard. They continued to sit on their horses, headless, as he turned, pointed his wand at the two junior Nordikans and struck them – one with a massive kinetikos blow to the chest that shattered the man’s ribs through his breastplate, and the other with a neat cut that opened his neck. He was showing off for his new master, and wanted the man to remember exactly what he could do.

The skill he couldn’t display in the real was that every attack had to overcome the complex, layered, and in some cases quite brilliant artefactual defences that the Nordikans carried. The lead Spatharios, for example, had tattoos that should have defended him – which would have, against a lesser caster.

As far as Aeskepiles knew, no practitioner had ever succeeded in killing a member of the Guard by the art – much less four in ten heartbeats.

He allowed himself a moment of triumph, and took a dagger in the side as a result.

The Logothete.

The magister had never imagined him a man of blood. He produced a sword – quite a long one – from the air, and rode to the Emperor’s side.

Aeskepiles raised a series of shining shields – too late, as the dagger’s bite was deep and his side was growing cold. He could feel the poison on the blade.

It was like getting a test back in Academy and finding that he’d forgotten one small thing and, as a result, all his answers were invalid.

He knew counter-spells for poison. He just had to stop panicking for long enough to think of one . . .

The Despot saw the Logothete bury a slim dagger in the magister’s side and draw a sword from the air. In the same breath, the Duke’s household knights made for the Emperor’s reins, and an unarmoured man sitting on a fine Eastern horse behind his father raised a light crossbow. He took a shot – and it went right past the Emperor.

The Logothete seemed to flow under the crossbow bolt. It should have been impossible.

His slim sword cut through a knight’s vambrace – right through his wrist, so that the man’s reaching hand dropped into the grass. The Logothete’s back-cut took out another knight’s eyes. He screamed.

The Emperor backed his horse – obviously uncertain what to do.

The Guardsman whose chest had been shattered by the showy sorcery was not dead. Somehow, he got his axe up – one-handed. His blow cleaved the helmet of another of the Duke’s knights, spattering every man present with his brains.

The Logothete got his hand on the Emperor’s bridle. He made a parry with his sword, turned the Emperor’s horse-

– and the Despot’s sword beheaded him. He had leaned out, horse already at a canter, and swung as hard as he could, afraid that the man had phantasmal protections. But the sword struck as it should have, and the Logothete’s head, containing every scrap of every secret that the Emperor had, rolled away in the grass.

The Guardsman, drowning in his own blood, pitched from the saddle.

The Duke took the Emperor’s reins.

The Emperor was looking at his Logothete’s headless body. Tears welled in his eyes.

‘Majesty, you are my prisoner,’ said the Duke.

The Emperor’s eyes met his. The contempt there was absolute.

‘You have just killed the Empire,’ he said.

Ser Raoul watched the taking of the Emperor from the edge of the Field of Ares, where rowan and quince grew wild. He’d seen the violence in the magister and in the Duke.

He shook his head. ‘Son of God,’ he said, and turned his cart horse towards the city gates.

He wanted to think it all through. He owed the fucking Emperor nothing – the catamite never paid him.

But he’d made a decision. He couldn’t have said why, although a hankering to be more than a hedge knight with a placid cart horse might have played a role. By slamming his spurs into his mount he got it to something that might have been called a canter, and he rode for the gates.

At his back, he heard the Despot calling for his Easterners.

He turned to look back. Six of the little men on piebald horses had separated themselves from the mass and were coming after him. Their horses were no more than ponies, and they rode like centaurs.

He threw himself as low on his horse’s neck as he could manage; he was halfway to the gate when his pursuers began to shoot.

The third arrow struck him squarely in the back. It hurt like hell but the mail must have taken some of the power off it, because he wasn’t dead. The head had penetrated his back – he could feel it in every pace of his miserable horse.

A lifetime of tavern brawls had prepared him to bear pain, and he was an Iberian, and Iberians were famous for their ability to accept pain.

‘Mother of God!’ he spat.

Sometime in the next fifty paces, he was hit again.

Ser Raoul had not lived a good life. In fact, it was absolutely typical of his performance as a soldier and as a knight to appear at a routine muster without his horse or arms. He didn’t pray, he didn’t do penance, he scarcely ever practised at a pell or in a tiltyard. He was overweight, he drank too much, and he had an endless predilection for attractive young men that guaranteed that he could never hold on to a single copper coin.

Despite all this – or, just possibly, because of it – Raoul refused to fall off his horse despite being struck by a third arrow. It would be hard for anyone to explain how, exactly, he continued to ride for the gate, cursing all the way.

The Despot was laughing, watching his favourites track the man and hit him repeatedly. It was a lesson to every slovenly soldier, he hoped.

The tall, unarmoured man with the crossbow raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought we planned to surprise the gates?’ he said quietly. ‘And capture the Logothete?’

The bad knight and his six pursuers were riding flat out along a quiet, morning road raising dust. His pursuers were still shooting at him.

The Duke reined in his mount, speechless with rage. His fist shot out and caught his son, who reeled away and almost fell from his horse.

The Duke spat. ‘Idiot,’ he said. ‘Right. Attack.’

The unarmoured man shook his head. ‘Too soon. None of our people are in place for another half an hour.’

The Duke whirled on him. ‘You want to keep your place, spy?’

The unarmoured man met his master’s eyes. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said. ‘But if we make a premature attack, we expose our agents and we will fail.’

‘We will not,’ said the Duke.

His spurs were drawing blood from the cart horse, which continued to rumble towards the gate.

The six Easterners were twenty horse lengths behind him and gaining. They were all shooting.

And laughing.

The outer walls of Liviapolis were as ancient as the palaces and the stoa – and just as well built. They towered three storeys high, smooth yellow fire-baked brick with decorations in red brick marking every storey; magnificent mosaics rose over every gate, and each tower – there was one every fifty paces – was capped with a red tile roof. The walls appeared impregnable. There were, in fact, two complete lines of walls.

Of course the gates were open. Wide open.

Which was more than Ser Raoul could say for his eyes, which were closing. It was as if he was looking at the gate, and it was drawing away, further and further down a long tunnel-

When he hit the ground he was already dead, and his horse shuffled to a halt, just a few paces short of the great gate.

The Easterners whooped with delight.

Derkensun was watching a pretty woman walk past while waiting for a Yahadut scholar in his little cap to cough up a passport. Derkensun did not, himself, care one way or another – the man didn’t look dangerous – but while he was on the gate, rules were rules.

‘My daughter warned me that this would happen,’ said the scholar. He opened his leather bag and went through it. Again. ‘Please, lord. It is a day’s walk back to my village.’

Derkensun shook his head. ‘I uphold the law,’ he said.

The Yahadut nodded wearily. ‘As do I.’

Derkensun saw a man riding for the gate from the Field of Ares. He was on a bad horse and riding hard.

There were men behind him.

As a Guardsman, Derkensun had participated in his share of stupid soldier pranks, and he knew one when he saw one. His attention went back to the scholar.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, with a little warmth, ‘it is in your bedroll?’

The Yahadut were fanatics for cleanliness, and the scholar had a mattress stuffed with sheep’s wool, and two thick wool blankets rolled on his back.

His face went through one of those engaging transformations that let Derkensun know he’d scored a hit.

‘The blessings of the Lord be on your head!’ The man put his blanket roll on the table and unlaced the thongs.

Something was very wrong at the edge of Derkensun’s peripheral vision. He turned his head and took in the whole thing in one glance.

The man who fell from the horse was Ser Raoul Cadhut, an Iberian mercenary. They’d chewed on each other a few times in fights, but right now the Iberian knight had arrows in him, and half a dozen whooping Easterners were circling the corpse with arrows on the strings of their bows.

Knowing Raoul caused Derkensun to hesitate for one fleeting heartbeat, wondering if it was possible that the Iberian had got what was coming to him.

But even as he thought, he stepped back into his cupola and rang the alarm bell there. The shrill sound carried over the morning air.

He didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t reach for the great axe that leaned against the wall of his guard house inside the gate. Instead, he grabbed the scholar by the back of his gown and threw him into the city.

The Easterners were hesitating. One put an arrow into Ser Raoul’s corpse. Another drew and aimed at Derkensun. He grinned.

Derkensun took another step, back inside his guard box, and pulled the big handle that held the iron catch on the huge gears that held the portcullis even as the arrow thunked home in the oak of his box. The chains holding the drum shrieked and the portcullis crashed down onto the granite lintel. The falling iron teeth powered a second drum that moved across the gatehouse from left to right while rotating rapidly against a powerful spring, and the great iron-studded oak doors began to move from their recessed silos. Less than ten heartbeats after he slapped the handle, the two huge oak doors crashed together and the bar fell into place across them.

The Yahadut’s bedroll, and indeed the entire inspection table, were caught in the closing doors and crushed against the iron portcullis.

The pretty woman with the geese was frozen in shock and the scholar began to pick himself up.

Derkensun took his axe from the rack. He left his sentry box, noting half a dozen men – hard men – sitting under the olive tree in the Plataea, all staring at the gate.

He smiled. His axe rose and fell, and then he examined the edge, which was still sharp, despite having cut cleanly through the chain that would have allowed the porticullis to be raised.

The pretty goose girl was trying not to look at the soldiers.

When you are one of the Emperor’s chosen Guard, you are trained to read bodies the way scholars read books. Derkensun walked boldly out of his gate, the axe casually over his shoulder, and towards the huddle under the olive tree.

One of the pock-faced hard men raised his empty hands. ‘No trouble here, boss,’ he said.

Derkensun smiled and nodded a polite greeting. ‘I thought you’d want to know,’ he said.

‘Know what, Guardsman?’ asked Pock Face. He was ugly. The garlic on his breath stank across ten feet which separated them.

‘This gate is closed,’ Derkensun said. ‘I cut the chain. It will take a day to get it open.’

Pock Face looked at his companions thoughtfully. ‘Reckon we ain’t wanted here,’ he said.

Derkensun nodded. ‘I’ll know you again,’ he said. His Nordik grin said, quite clearly, next time I’ll just kill you.

The sound of alarm bells spread through the great city like a fire driven by a wind. The Duke heard them, and watched the great machines that slammed the city gates in his face. He was a hundred horse lengths away. He cursed.

The Emperor sat on his beautiful Hati horse a few paces away. He shook his head in genuine sorrow.

‘You! You brought us to this, you tragic abortion of a failure to rule!’ The Duke vented twenty years of pent-up frustration on God’s anointed representative. ‘And now we’ll have civil war! I should just kill you!’ He whirled, drawing his sabre.

Ser Christos, the Duke’s best knight, caught his lord’s sword. ‘We agreed not to kill him,’ he said, his voice hushed.

The magister, Aeskepiles, had pushed the poison from his bloodstream, and now he was weak but back in the game. He cleared his throat. ‘He should die. Now. Easier for us all,’ he said.

The Emperor looked at his magister in something like shock. His pale, watery eyes met his would-be killer’s eyes with a mild look, like that of a frustrated but benevolent parent watching a child. ‘Do as you must,’ he said. ‘God has shown his will. You have failed to take the city.’ He smiled. ‘Kill me, and take on yourself the curse of God.’

‘I have the whole of the rest of the country, thank you.’ The Duke was recovering from his moment of temper. He looked back at the gates. He could see three of them from here, and all three were closed and barred, and white light had begun to reflect from mailed figures high on the walls. ‘But I’ll have the palace in an hour.’

‘You have been foolish,’ the Emperor said. ‘Even now, all I require is your submission-’

Neither the Despot nor the Emperor saw the blow coming. The Duke was wearing a steel gauntlet and his fist struck the Emperor like a hammer and knocked him unconscious in a single blow.

Every man present flinched. Behind him, the magister heard a knight mutter, ‘He struck the Emperor.’

And in the cogs and wheels of the magister’s inner mind, he thought just do it. He projected his will-

Again, Ser Christos intervened. His horse seemed to slip out of his control. The stallion’s head collided with the Emperor’s mount, and both animals shied and the Emperor was trodden under the horse’s hooves, but Duke Andronicus’s face cleared and he shook himself.

Harald Derkensun watched the Duke strike the Emperor from the walls, fifty feet above the grass. He saw the Emperor collapse. He turned to his corporal, a giant with jet-black hair from Uighr, far to the north even of Nordika.

‘Durn Blackhair, they have taken the Emperor,’ he said. ‘We are his sworn men.’

Blackhair nodded. ‘If I send for horses-’

Derkensun shrugged. ‘Someone needs to tell the palace. I’m not sure such a thing has ever happened before.’ He looked again at the Emperor’s purple-clad form lying in the dust. ‘He may be dead. Then who is Emperor?’

Blackhair shook his head. ‘I have no idea. Should we not ride to him and die at his side?’

The Emperor was being raised by many hands, and put across his horse. There were hundreds of mailed stradiotes coming in from the Field of Ares, and Easterners, and a large block of uniformed infantry carrying spears and bows.

‘At least three thousand men there,’ Derkensun said.

Blackhair tucked a thumb into his beard and pulled. ‘Care to have a go?’ he asked.

Derkensun smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m no coward, but the two of us aren’t going to accomplish a fucking thing out there.’

Blackhair laughed. ‘I’m not as mad as that. Very well. Fine job at the gate. Get your arse to the palace and see if you can get to the Mayor. You say the Logothete of the Drum was with the Emperor? And both of the Spatharioi?’

‘He winked at me,’ said Derkensun. ‘And Spatharios Gurnnison nodded to me. I’d swear he knew which end was up.’

‘So now we’ll never be paid,’ Darkhair said. ‘Ja, Gurnnison put us on alert this morning, sure.’ He looked out over the wall. ‘You know I’m the senior corporal.’

Derkensun hadn’t known that. ‘So you are the new Spatharios,’ he said.

‘Fuck me,’ Blackhair said. ‘Get to the palace, now. And find someone to take rank over me. I’m too fond of wine and the song of the axe to give commands.’

Derkensun came down off the wall looking for a horse. Liviapolis was so big that a man needed a horse to cross it in a day; it was seven miles from the great gates to the gates to the palace, which was, of course, another fortress.

At the open, inner gate of the palace, the old Yahadut scholar sat, utterly disconsolate. Derkensun came to a stop by him and offered him a hand.

‘Sorry, old man. But I had to close the gate. You’d have been killed.’

‘I was almost killed anyway!’ He raised his hands. ‘Barbarian!’

Derkensun sighed. ‘You know,’ he began, and decided that the man was too shocked and too angry to argue with. He shouldered his axe and ran across the Plataea, looking for a horse.

He’d jogged across two neighbourhoods before he found a skinny mare between the poles of a knife-sharpener’s cart. He ran straight up to the knife-sharpener, who had a set of kitchen knives on his little bench and had the wheel going so that sparks flew.

‘I’m taking your horse,’ Derkensun said. He smiled. ‘In the name of the Emperor.’

The man rose from his spinning stone. ‘Wait! I pay my tax – you can’t-’

Derkensun had the horse out from between the poles in four buckles and two knots, one of which he cut through.

‘I’ll starve, you bastard!’ shouted the knife-sharpener.

Derkensun shrugged and got on the mare’s back. She was brisk enough – possibly not broken to riding. Her hooves clattered on the pavement, and the knife-sharpener was left behind, shouting imprecations.

He followed the ancient aqueducts over the hills that dominated the centre of the city – in fact, cresting the second hill, he rode past his own lodgings. The mare’s knife-sharp back squashed his manhood painfully and he wished he could stop and get his saddle, but that would take time. He had no idea whether he needed to hurry or not – the city looked absolutely normal.

But it stuck in his head that Ser Raoul had died trying to bring word of whatever had happened. And they’d captured the Emperor. And the Logothete and the Spatharios had put the Guard on high alert.

He came down the last hill, and the mare, who was really quite young, began to labour, but her hooves continued to throw sparks from the streets, and the sound of his passage proceeded him, so women flattened themselves against arched buildings, and pulled their children close; men cursed him when he was far enough away not to hear.

The palace gates were closed.

The men on guard were Scholae. The Guard’s inveterate rivals in brawls; and the household cavalry of native Moreans. He didn’t know either of the men on the gate – both young Moreans with trimmed beards, aristocratic, and worried.

Nor was he entirely sure what to say.

He settled for Archaic dignity. ‘I need to see the Mayor of the Palace. Failing that, your officer,’ he said.

The two men shifted back and forth. Like most of the aristocratic scions in the Scholae they had probably never stood guard before. He leaned forward. ‘Christos Pantokrator,’ he said quietly.

The smaller one glowered at him. ‘What?’

‘It’s today’s password,’ Derkensun said. He schooled himself not to roll his eyes or give away his contempt.

The two looked at each other.

‘You do know the passwords?’ Derkensun said. He dismounted, and in the process his axe switched hands, so that the head was under his right hand and the iron-shod butt was in his left.

‘Stay back,’ said the smaller one.

‘I’ll kill both of you if you don’t give me the countersign immediately,’ Derkensun said. He couldn’t tell if they were fools or conspirators.

‘Quarter guard!’ bellowed the small man. And then, in a strained voice, ‘Help!’

The taller of the two Scholae stood his ground and levelled his short, heavy spear. He looked intelligent. He was beautifully dressed in a fine Eastern kaftan and tall leather boots over his knees, tasseled in gold. Even for a courtier, he looked magnificent.

‘Damn me,’ he said, over his spear. ‘It is the password, Guardsman. We were just put on duty – damn. It’s – Caesar something. Caesar – Imperator.’ He paused.

Derkensun relaxed his guard. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

The taller man lowered his spear. ‘I’m supposed to be getting married today,’ he said. ‘We were summoned to the palace half an hour ago.’

The smaller man exhaled. ‘By our sweet saviour, I’ll never fail to listen to the password again.’ He looked behind him. ‘Where’s the fucking quarter guard?’

Derkensun stepped forward. ‘I have no time,’ he said. ‘I give my word that it is a matter of the most urgency.’

The two men looked at each other a moment and the bridegroom nodded. ‘He has the password,’ he said.

They parted.

The bridegroom bowed. ‘I’ll escort you, Guardsman.’

Derkensun didn’t pause to argue. He trotted through the gates and down the great courtyard, lined in marble stoas that stretched a long bowshot across the flagstones of the Emperor’s Yard. It was liberally studded with statues portraying men and women who had given their lives for the Empire. Derkensun imagined Ser Raoul joining them, his cruel mouth set in marble with his drinker’s nose above it.

He’d died well. Brilliantly, in fact.

They ran along the northern stoa and entered the palace through the little-used service gate which was closed but not locked, and there was no guard.

Bridegroom shook his head. ‘We stationed a man here when the Chamberlain summoned us,’ he said.

The gate led them into the palace over the main stable block, bypassing the Outer Court, where most of the business of running the palace was transacted – shipments of food and tradesmen and so on. Derkensun knew the palace blindfolded. Literally. Part of the Nordik Guard’s training was to move about the palace with blindfolds on.

Even as he jogged across the great store room that was the upper storey of the stable block – with its hundreds of bags of grain, onions, garlic, oregano, and vats of olive oil – he tried to decide where he was going. The Mayor’s office was off the stable block. Men referred to the Mayor as the Lord of the Outer Court, and it was more than a joke. But the Mayor of the Palace was not always a friend of the Guard.

He sighed and turned at the top of the storehouse steps.

‘I’m ruining my clothes,’ Bridegroom said.

‘I don’t need you,’ Derkensun said.

‘You’re welcome, I’m sure,’ said the panting man.

Derkensun leaped the last four steps and landed on the smooth flags of the stable floor, turned right, and ran past the Emperor’s own mounts – sixteen stalls hung in purple, including two of the best warhorses in the world – and turned right again when he’d passed Bucephalus, the Emperor’s favourite. The old horse raised its head as he ran by and out into the sun. The Mayor’s office door was open and the outer office was empty, where there should have been three very busy scribes.

Far away, on the breeze that blew constantly through the main buildings of the palace, he could hear the unmistakable sound of men fighting.

Derkensun’s eyes met the Scholae trooper’s and he fleetingly considered hacking the other man down. Just to be sure. He had no doubt he could take him.

But the bridegroom’s eyes were steady and without duplicity. ‘I don’t know either,’ he said. ‘But I’m for the Emperor and I know that something’s wrong. Whatever you do, I’ll back you.’ He drew himself up. ‘Unless you’re a rebel. If you are, then let’s get this over with.’

Derkensun grinned.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

It took them two long minutes to find the fighting.

By then, almost everyone was dead.

The Porphyrogenetrix, Irene, was curled in a corner, her long robes sodden with blood. She’d taken a blow at some point and two of her women stood over her with sharp scissors in hand, facing a dozen assailants.

The Mayor was dead. So was the Chamberlain. And so was the Scholae’s quarter guard.

The princess’s last defenders – besides the two women – were an unlikely pair. A monk and a bishop, one with a staff, the other with his crozier. Derkensun took them in instantly, as well as their assailants – who looked to him like palace Ordinaries with weapons.

They had more facial scars than real palace Ordinaries, though, who were selected for good looks among other qualities.

‘For the Emperor!’ he shouted, in Archaic, and began to kill.

His axe swept back and he cut down on a shocked assassin, shearing about a third of the man’s head from the rest with an economy of effort and turning the blade in the air to cut through the shoulder of a second man as he turned. The man screamed as his right arm fell to the floor.

The Morean bishop pointed his crozier’s tip and roared, ‘In the name of God the Father!’ and white light flashed. The monk brought his staff down on a swordsman’s outstretched arms, breaking both of them.

In the far doorway, a tall man in mail raised a long sword. ‘Take them, brothers!’ he called. ‘Kill the princess and the day is ours!’

Even as he spoke a hidden crossbowman put a bolt into the bishop’s groin, and he went down screaming. The monk fell back a step and swung his staff two-handed. A swordsman tried to slip past him, and a grey-haired woman in silk plunged her long-bladed scissors into the assassin’s unprotected back.

Derkensun cut twice, forward and back, and men fell back before him.

‘Now the Guardsman,’ said the mailed man, at the other side of the room. He raised his sword. ‘And the women. Kill them all.’

The bridegroom threw his spear. He did so with an odd, hopping cast, not at all the way men learned to throw spears in the City Watch or the military. His spear was a short, broad-headed weapon almost like a boar-spear, and it went through the mailed man’s armour like a hot knife through warm butter, dropping him. There was a flare of hermetical energy from the lead assassin and he got to one knee as the spear suddenly fell away from his body.

Derkensun killed another man and half-turned, having reached the monk. His axe turned a complicated pair of butterflies between his hands as he wove it in the complex pattern that the Guard learned to keep their wrists strong.

The assassins paused and the Bridegroom bellowed, ‘On me, Scholae!’

Every man in the room could hear the pounding feet of the oncoming Guard.

The assassins broke and ran. Derkensun got one as he turned, and a crossbow bolt took off the lower half of his right ear as he made his cut. The monk parried two sword thrusts and made a mighty swing, but his assailant turned his staff on his side sword, pinked the monk’s hand with a dagger in his off hand, and jumped back. He was as thin as a wraith and wore black, and Derkensun never saw his face – the man got through the gateway to the main audience chamber and ran in among the columns.

Bridegroom tackled another one, took a dagger in the side for it, and broke the man’s arm in a wrestling lock. The desperate attacker stabbed him three more times.

The Scholae trooper fell atop his captive, and slammed the man’s head into the tiles, knocking him unconscious.

The older woman – the one with blood on her shears – motioned the younger woman to stand behind her.

Derkensun met her eyes. ‘The princess?’ he asked.

The younger seamstress with the shears peeked out. Her face was a perfect oval, her lips full and red, her eyes an almost impossible blue.

The woman in the princess’s garments kicked and gave a stifled scream on the floor.

‘See to her,’ snapped the younger seamstress. She nodded to her rescuers and the monk. ‘Gentlemen, my thanks.’ She backed away a step. ‘Can anyone tell me what is happening?’

Derkensun recognised the older woman – one of the many minor members of the Imperial family who decorated the palace. The Lady Maria. Her son was one of Derkensun’s favourite drinking companions – and wrestling opponents.

He bowed. ‘Honoured Lady, the Duke of Thrake has captured or killed your father on the Field of Ares. The Logothete and the Spatharioi too.’

The young seamstress put her hand to her breast. ‘Killed?’ she said. Then she seemed to collect herself. ‘Very well,’ she said with determined calm. ‘Do we hold the palace?’ she asked.

Derkensun looked at the bridegroom, who was dusting himself off. He shrugged. ‘Lady Irene, when I went on duty an hour ago the Scholae held all the portals.’

Derkensun turned to the princess. ‘Who ordered the Scholae out, Honoured Lady?’

She pointed to the scarlet-clad corpse. ‘The Mayor. Something the Logothete said.’

‘Christ on the cross,’ Derkensun said. ‘We should ride clear, Honoured Lady.’

‘Do not blaspheme in my presence,’ Irene snapped. ‘If we leave the palace, we will never get it back.’ She glanced at Lady Maria, who nodded.

‘Throne room,’ she said. ‘At the very least the Imperial purple will make a superior burial shroud.’

Derkensun took a moment to look at the bridegroom. He was unwounded; under his wedding clothes, he was wearing scale as fine as the scales on a big fish.

Derkensun made a face.

‘I live in a tough neighbourhood,’ the young man said, kneeling by the bishop, who had stopped screaming. The man was dead.

Together they dragged the bridegroom’s unconscious prisoner with them as they made their way along the main audience hall and into the central throne room. There should have been six Nordik Guards on duty. Instead, there were the corpses of two Scholae.

The princess went straight to the throne. She paused, gathered her skirts, and sat.

Lady Maria gave her a slight nod.

Derkensun walked to the right-hand guard platform and stood at attention. It felt quite natural. The bridegroom went to the left platform.

The monk bowed and when Irene didn’t offer him a stool, he stood.

She looked around at them. ‘Thoughts?’ she asked.

Derkensun thought that she sounded composed, and a good deal sharper than the Emperor. In fact she sounded Imperial.

Maria looked at the two soldiers. ‘We have the city?’ asked the older lady.

Derkensun bowed his head. ‘Madame, I sounded the gate alarm myself. But any gate may have been betrayed.’

‘The army?’ asked the princess. Or was she now the Empress? Her hesitation showed, despite her deicisive air.

‘The Vardariotes are in their barracks. Many of the Nordika . . .’ Derkensun paused. ‘Are dead.’

The bridegroom bowed in turn. ‘I’ve seen the corpses of twenty Scholae,’ he admitted.

‘The Duke of Thrake has three thousand men, at least, outside the walls. Perhaps twice that.’ Derkensun spoke carefully. He had only addressed the Emperor two or three times. This was the longest conversation he had ever had with royalty.

‘And we have a few hundred,’ said the princess. ‘When it seems I need an army.’

The Lady Maria gave a curtsey. ‘My lady, I happen to know where one can be found.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘Indeed, my lady, your father had already hired one. He sent my son to fetch them, if you recall.’

The Porphyrogenetrix Irene leaned back and sighed. ‘More mercenaries? They’ve been the bane of our people for five hundred years,’ she said. ‘With what did my esteemed father intend to pay these sellswords?’ she asked Maria.

‘You,’ Lady Maria said, offering another curtsey. ‘Majesty,’ she added.

‘Ah,’ said the princess. ‘Yes, I remember.’