Guns of the Temple (The Polaris Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

“But what if she’s all like: ‘
Jawohl! Zen it is death by peelink zee potatoes,’
hm?” Hadassah asked. She poked him in the ribs with a finger, making him swat back at her hand.

“Then it wouldn’t be any different from what I’m doing now, and I’d be in much sexier company.”

“Go stick it in a goat.”

“Compared to you, a goat is more personable and possibly comelier.”

“Then what are you waiting for? No human woman deserves the burden of rearing your pus-faced, lazy-eyed, smegma-haired children. Not even the prince, who literally tried to jam one of her eastern pigstickers up my stinkstar and twist it.”

“That sounds beautiful. Tell me more.”

“Ugh!”

“Emreis, you may jape about death, but do realize that we’ve been sentenced to
hang?
” Lotte asked, rolling her eyes at him. Both corporals stood bolt upright.

“What?”

“You heard me. We’re supposed to hang, but since there’s no one to do the job, the punishment’s been suspended indefinitely.”

“How is that allowed?” Draco asked, grimacing. “I mean, I actually don’t want to be hanged, but it makes no sense. Why are we still here? Aren’t we entitled to a
speedy
execution?”

“We’re losing. Kosovo wasn’t the only province to go over. Everyone but us is holding a fort on the northern border or dying of fever and distemper. There’s no wood to spare for a gallows, nor anyone to build them.”

“So, basically, we have to keep screwing up, and we’ll live forever,” Hadassah said.

“A fate worse than death. Just my rotting luck,” Draco sighed. “Also, why is
she
here?”

He pointed a bulbous tuber at Hecaton. The major reclined alone on a bench, resting her head on an outstretched palm. She smoked a pungent cigarillo which she languidly ashed into a nearby tin cup. For his impertinence, she flicked a dried bean at Draco’s forehead. Inexplicably, it stung as badly as being shot. At least, that was how he imagined being shot in the face would feel. Draco reeled, his eyes tearing.

“I requested her help, now that Natalis is away and Gillette is not so used to our regular job,” Lotte said.

Karma glowered miserably. Compared with the others, he was a neophyte with a peeling knife. Innumerable small cuts on his fingers smeared red on the wet starch of his conquests.

“I think I might prefer dogs eating my balls,” he muttered. For this, Karma earned a bean to the lip. He gasped in pain, covering the swelling on his mouth.

“Don’t forget, the ‘H’ is for ‘Annihilation!’” Hadassah’s spite was rewarded with a bean to the cheek.

“Just where the hell
is
Natalis, anyway?” Draco huffed. “He never showed up here after turning his gun in.”

“Off at Athenaeum, visiting family. He has a grandmother who’s on the verge of death.”

“Wait, so all I have to do to get out of this is go and beat the shit out of one of my grandparents? Why didn’t anyone tell me sooner? Why is this world so unfair?”

“And you call
me
twisted?” Karma asked, crushing a bloodstained piece of raw potato in his jaws for emphasis.

“
Ew, gross!
Major, flick a bean at him!” Hadassah whined.

“I’d rather she actually helped
peel!
” Draco said, wagging a potato at Hecaton again. “It’s her fault we ended up doing this.”

“You kids are abominably ungrateful these days,” Hecaton drawled, swinging her legs over the edge of the table and sitting upright. “Anyway, you’re not peeling these because of the Tirefire thing anymore. The exarch finally requested I change it to something more suitable to the dignity of the Temple. I couldn’t refuse him in light of your recent failures.”

“
Our
recent failures? We only lost Vergina because of that oriental twit who showed up at the last minute! Who
is
that guy, anyway?”

“Calling us ‘oriental’ is quite rude. That earns
two
beans.”

One lodged in Draco’s ear canal and the other knocked him over.

“Aha! So you
do
know him!” Lotte said, clapping her hands together in hard-bitten triumph.

“Yeah, Major, you owe us an explanation!” Hadassah said. “Is he your ex-husband?”

“He would have to be both incomprehensibly strong and incomprehensibly stupid to bed her,” Karma muttered. His words earned him a bean in each nostril, plus one between the legs. He joined Draco in rolling around on the dirty floor in undignified panic.

“It’s complicated, our situation,” Hecaton said, uncharacteristically wistful for a second. “I certainly didn’t think I’d ever see him again, or that I’d be slightly pleased to see him alive. But he is dangerous, that is an absolute certainty. As the blond idiot over there pointed out so indelicately, we’re of the same extraction, and thus different from the rest of you. I can’t guarantee that any of you would live if he fights seriously, but what I can promise is that none of his disciples will live if I do the same. Anyway, you all need to think of a new unit name. Or a number, I don’t care either way.”

Taki sneezed into the crook of his arm just in time. For some reason, he was allergic to the down stuffing in Niketas Palaiologos’s bedding, and thus got the sniffles whenever he made the man’s bed. This made him wonder about nobles and other rich men who regularly used snuff to provoke the ostensibly pleasurable sensation of sneezing. It really wasn’t that pleasant.

He had not expected, at any point in his career, to end up making the basileus’s bed, cleaning the man’s floors, and bringing the ruler of the Dominion his nightly cup of warmed aniseed wine to serve as a sleep aid. In Taki’s wildest dreams, he had imagined himself defending the man against Imperial assassins as a praetorian guard, not maintaining his home as a manservant. Yet a manservant he now was, thanks to Amilia Gillette.

In actuality, he was the minister’s new steward. The transfer had gone over Hecaton’s head and straight to the exarch’s desk, where one of the triada had signed it in the man’s stead. Taki was to serve and protect Amilia Gillette, and would be paid the equivalent of three rounds of old Nayto Standard per fortnight: a major’s regular salary. However, from the start, his day-to-day duty had been to fill in for the missing servants at the basileus’s palace.

A short time ago, hundreds of thousands of high-quality reloaded rounds suddenly hit the ordnance depots. The results were as Taki had predicted. Anyone who wished to do business in the Dominion immediately dumped their supplies of unsafe, ugly, and dirty rounds in favor of the new ones, which were practically milligrad save for the smoke. Reports of the new rounds’ increased and consistent lethality versus human and beast alike further bolstered their value. Even the value of milligrad itself took a dive, and the nobles panicked when their hoards lost most of their value overnight. The legion of servants who once cleaned the basileus’s toenails for him deserted en-masse when he could no longer afford to pay them, and even his own steward left soon after. The cartridges simply weren’t forthcoming. Amilia, however, would not let the last scion of the Palaiologoi go unattended.

Niketas had come into power a decade ago, and had already been targeted for assassination over a dozen times. Mainly by his family members, the whispers said. The Palaiologoi were an ancient lineage, more sacrosanct than any others, and prolific to boot. As the fourth son of the old basileus, Niketas stood little chance of inheriting the throne at the outset. Yet from an early age he had shown a knack for being indispensable to those smarter than he. It had only taken five years to eliminate his three older brothers, and five more years to dispose of his mother. The next to go were his aunt who was also his father’s concubine, and finally four younger brothers. The men fell to poison and knives, and the women were sent to convents. In this time, he had accumulated many skilled companions, all of whom had expected a payout once he assumed the proper position.
And then I went and helped kill one of them,
Taki mused.

The small palace where the basileus lived was in constant need of repair and cleaning. Dust seemed to seep out of the walls and into every crevice possible, and it was a constant battle to keep the place presentable. One lone servant, even aided by prana, could not do a satisfactory job. And yet for all of his bluster in public, the basileus was a surprisingly lenient, though not social master. He never once berated Taki for lapses in cleaning or cooking, though Taki was far from experienced in those fields. Surprisingly, Niketas Palaiologos himself was virtually mute in private, mostly preferring to sit in an ancient ornate couch nursing a glass of cordial while staring into a fire. The limited conversations between Taki and Niketas were related to a direct expression of want or need. Wine, blankets, and sometimes a chaste massage. Taki had thought that the man would try to bed him, but nothing of the sort ever came to pass. The basileus did not even entertain courtesans, though he could likely afford them. The days had settled into contemplative silence, enough to make Taki sometimes forget what he had pledged to do for Amilia Gillette.

Today, Taki accompanied his master-by-default to a meeting of the diacheiristes: the inner circle. All of them had been hand-picked by the basileus, and were nobility of old families, some of whom had existed and ruled before Armageddon. It was the first time he had set foot in the Mitripoli, the seat of Argead power. Though it was a surprisingly cramped place to convene the leadership of a sprawling kingdom, it nevertheless made up for its small size with elaborate carvings, frescoes, and ornaments on every surface. Rather than excite the passions, however, the weight of such opulence usually seemed to stifle emotion. Yet, the basileus seemed at his most emotional today. With Taki standing uncomfortably at attention behind him, Niketas had been screaming at his inner circle practically all morning. It was easy to see why: things were rapidly falling apart from without and within.

“And who’s next to turn traitor? Who’s going to be the next one to whore himself out to the padishah? Is it going to be
you
, Manuel Comnenus?”

“I assure you, Your Grace, I have no loyalty but to your esteemed self! I am a disl—” the Judge of the Realm began to trip over his tongue.

“Oh, save me the
flattery!
” the basileus whined.

The human mind could become desensitized to anything, and that even included constant screaming. Taki felt his eyes grow heavy-lidded and he struggled to maintain his rigid posture. The high-ranking servant’s outfit he wore helped in this regard with brace-like fittings that kept his back in perfect lordosis. Still, it was difficult, and he slipped into pleasant doldrums metered by fists pounding on mahogany.

“Exarch General Constantin Choniates, Supreme Commander of the Polaris, Lord Protector of the Cloud Temple, and Major Hecaton Kheiris Mezeta,” a herald announced in a loud monotone. Taki’s eyes flew open to hear the names. So surprised was he to hear of Hecaton’s arrival that he forgot to feel embarrassed for falling asleep in the midst of the greatest concentration of power in the land.

The herald continued: “Know that you are in the presence of Basileus Niketas Palaiologos, Ethnomartyr of the Dominion, Protector of the Theotokos, Primate of Athenaeum, Supreme Commander of the Argead Military, and King in Exile of Constantinople, Alexandria, Libya, Adrianople, and All Egypt.”

Oh shit, she sees me,
Taki realized, as his gaze met Hecaton’s. Her expression seemed neutral, however, as if she had forgotten who he was. For going over her head, Taki had half-expected Hecaton to zap him in public.

“Your Grace,” Constantin said, “the Cloud Temple has come as bidden. We apologize for not arriving in a timelier fashion, as we were forced to ride the entire way.”

“Bless the Trinity! At least I still have loyal subjects,” Niketas growled. “Constantin! You’re the only one who’ll tell me the truth. What is really going on in the north? I want to hear it from your mouth, not the rasping, sucking orifices of these leeches!”

“Your Grace.” Constantin exhaled, steeling himself. “We have taken significant setbacks in most of the realm. However, we are working on-”

“Did you take Kosovo back?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“And Macedon?”

“The baron has turned traitor and sold his allegiance to the Imperium.”

“And the Imperial army? Where does it camp now?”

“North, in Thessaloniki. If they succeed in pushing past the Hot Gates, Athenaeum will fall within a month.”

“Do you see what I mean?” the basileus shouted to the diacheiristes around him. “Of all of you, why is it that
the mutant
tells me the truth and you all don’t?”

If Constantin bristled at the label of mutant, he did not show it. Neither did Hecaton. The others remained silent, some cowed, some simply distracted.

“And that’s why I called him here today,” the basileus continued. “Because I won’t let my nation be overrun by shit-monsters and heretics! Make note, Logothete! Constantin is the final member of the diacheiristes, and now that we are all assembled, I am invoking the final protocol of the Argead Dominion.”