Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (56 page)

The Voice's mouth moved in a grotesque parody of life. "Quirian told me you feared to use spirit magic."

"Quirian spoke true," Gideon replied. "But fear is not the same as inability. For sufficient reason I will suffer the perils." He drove the Voice hard, dealing a dozen wounds any one of which would have been the finish of a lesser man. "For the Empire, for Michael, I will end your wretched half-life!" He thrust Piety straight for the Voice's heart.

The Voice caught the black blade in his right hand, the sword driving through the palm and out the other side.

"Though I cannot defeat you," the Voice said. "The time has not yet come for this rose to wither." He thrust his skeletal hand towards the ground and was concealed by a vast explosion of spirit magic. When the magic faded, the Voice was gone.

Gideon stood still, wobbling a little upon his feet, his swords lowered to point down at the ground. When he spoke, he sounded unutterably weary. "Damn, I couldn't get him. Ten years ago he would not have escaped. Either I am old or else my powers are fading. Or perhaps it is both." His eyes, which Michael saw had turned rich purple, returned to their natural green before they closed. Gideon began to topple forwards.

Michael caught him in his arms. "Gideon? Gideon, what's wrong?"

Gideon opened his eyes minutely to give Michael a half-smile. "I will be all right. I am simply very weary. I am afraid that I must rest awhile." His eyes closed again, his breathing becoming tranquil.

Michael's brow furrowed. "It's all right, Gideon. I've got you." Pain lanced through him, and he nearly fell himself. "Although perhaps someone had better get me as well."
Poison. Curse the Crimson Rose.

It seemed he was about to die, just when he had found a reason to live.
Death, I hope that, now we have reached the end of our chase, you do not expect me to greet you as warmly now as I might have done when the hunt was begun. Lord God almighty, I pray you will permit a sinner some small measure of regret, undeserved though it is, at a passing too early from a life too full of joy.

Lady Ellyria, I pray you will forgive a poor man the inconstancy that has always been the way of a mortal heart. I could not be true to you in the end.

He felt as though he ought to say something: some grand speech, a touching goodbye, a heroic farewell. But he didn't want to. He didn't want to go.

He knelt, still bearing Gideon in his arms, grimacing against the pain. It had moved past his side and was now throbbing in his head now, like blows with a dull axe, or a knife piercing his eyeballs.

He would not flinch. He would not cry out. Gladiators knew how to die: steadfast and without complaint, showing all the common people what it was to die with courage.

"Save Miranda, our Amy," Michael whispered.

"Michael!" Amy was shouting, but her voice was growing faint in Michael's ears as she ran to him. "Michael, can you hear me?"

A young woman ran into the firelight. Michael thought his vision must be worse than he thought, because through the blur and the gathering dark around the edges of his eyes he could have sworn she had green skin and golden hair. She had a bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows slung across her back.

That would explain that...if I were not seeing things,
Michael thought.

"Come with me, all of you, and bring them," the woman said. "We don't have much time."

XIII

Love and Politics

As the litter swayed down the road towards the palace, Miranda tried to work out just why Princess Romana had invited her to lunch. They had spoken courteously to one another, but it hardly made them friends.

Probably she wants to manipulate me somehow. Certainly she was brazen enough about trying to poach me for her party the last two times we met. And everyone in this city seems to be trying either to use me, manipulate me or just kill me.

The last one in particular rankled a fair amount, although not as much as the fact that she had no idea who her real enemy was in this city.

The fact that she had a lot of people to choose from - anyone who held high rank in the Imperial army - didn't do a lot for Miranda's temper either.

Still, although it had occurred to Miranda that it might have been Princess Romana who had hired Catulla to kill her - she was certainly strident enough in her beliefs that Miranda could beleive she would kill for them - she was unlikely to try again while Miranda was her guest for lunch. Eternal Pantheia, Miranda was quickly learning, was the sort of city where what mattered was not the morality of what you did but whether you lost any face for doing it. That was why people killed their enemies in the dark, through hired knives, while smiling to their faces in public.

It was not right, but it did mean that she would get a good meal and a couple of hours off work which she rather felt she needed. Lord Quirian had departed for Corona the day before, with Metella and Lucifer and fifty other members of the Lost, and Miranda had been departed not to use his absence as an excuse to slack in the production of golems - there were nearly two hundred of them by now - but she could deny she was looking forward to a rest. Matching wits with the princess would be much less arduous than standing all day vomiting magic into enormous statues to make them come alive.

The litter stopped.

"We're here, love," Ascanius said from outside.

"Thank you," Miranda said, refusing Julian's offer of help as she climbed out of the palanquin. The Imperial Palace was surrounded by a large garden, rock-beds and flowerbeds, shrubs and trees, ornamental statues and ponds full of rare and exotic fish from all over Pelarius. Song birds sat in cages suspended from iron poles stuck here and there, filling the afternoon air with their melodies. Mosaics of peaceful, pastoral life made up the weaving paths throughout the grounds. Miranda's eyes widened as she saw a unicorn, its whole body shining with ethereal light, walked through some trees and looked right at her before disappearing around a corner.

"Did I..." Miranda murmured. "Did I really see that?"

"You did," Ascanius said. "And it wanted to see you, as well."

"What do you mean?" Miranda asked.

"He means they wouldn't show themselves for the likes of us," Julian said. "My grandfather told me that they used to have wings. And then they lost them."

Ascanius nodded. "They only exist on the flag now, same as the wolves."

A section of a dozen guards marched out to greet her in two files. Their shields bore the same design as Antiochus' men, the silver wolf on purple, but their cloaks were white, marking them as Princess Romana's men. They were led by a young lieutenant, with a goatee and a moustache that was so thin it was obviously quite new.

"Filia Miranda Callistus?"

"I am," Miranda said.

The lieutenant bowed. "Lieutenant Acilius Glaborus, ma'am, Third Company, First Cohort, Household Foot. Her Highness is waiting for you in the gardens. If you will leave your attendants here and follow me."

He led her around the side of the palace, past the purple walls, between statues of ancient emperors and generals, down the paved paths of the palace gardens, until they must have been on the far side of the giant structure, so much did Miranda's leg ache. The soldiers set a pace, she hardly had any time to admire the colours of the flowers, the singing of the birds, or any of it at all really.

Miranda was led to a clear space, a circle covered with gravel, where she found Princess Romana training in arms. Her highness was armoured in a legionaries' mail shirt, her purple hair tied up in a messy bun atop her head, her slender legs bare beneath a leather skirt peppered with iron studs. Silver greaves protected her legs, and silver bracers her wrists. In her hands she held a spatha, such as Michael had used to use in the arena, but a little longer and more finely worked by the look of it.

The Princess was facing off against one of her guards, a sergeant, who held a tower shield before him and a short sword warily poised to strike.

A captain, Miranda assumed he was the captain of the Princess' guard, watched over them keenly. He had a heavyset build and a surprisingly thuggish face, and did not look especially happy. Still, he nodded and said, "Begin!"

The Princess leapt to the attack, swinging her sword wildly. It did not take Miranda long to realise that Princess Romana was not actually very good. For all her disdain for those who practiced violence, years of anxiously watching the matches in the arena had given her some insight into the swordsman's art, and she could instantly tell that the princess had neither the strength nor the speed to make a first rate fighter. She had obviously been taught well, and she knew the technical points of using her weapon, but she did not have the physicallity she needed to go toe to toe with her larger, stronger and more experienced guardsman, who very swiftly got past her guard and put his sword to her neck.

Princess Romana exhaled heavily as she let her sword fall to her side. "Blast. Well done, Sergeant Mallius. You are a credit to the company."

"You improve every session, Highness," the sergeant said loyally.

"I do not require sycophancy, thank you Gaius," the princess said sternly. "Your task is to protect my person, not my ego."

Sergeant Mallius bowed his head. "My apologies, highness."

"Oh, never apologies for trying to do a lady a kindness, sergeant." Romana chuckled, accepting a damp towel from a waiting attendant and dabbing her face with it. It was only then that she caught sight of Miranda. "Ah, Filia Miranda, how nice of you to come. I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

"Not at all," Miranda said. "Watching you fight was very...unexpected."

Romana laughed. "Did my little display entertain you?"

"Honestly, I was more surprised by the grace with which you accepted your defeat," Miranda said. "You don't give the impression of liking to lose."

"Filia Miranda," Romana said in a tone of mock indignation. "Are you accusing me of being a sore loser. I confess that it might flatter my vanity to be a second Aegea in all things, but I hope I am mature enough to accept that I will never be a great or even middling warrior. Nor do I need to be, for there are hundreds of thousands of brave men who can fight on my behalf, but only I can lead them to great triumphs and to greater glories.

"After all, though Aegea was a great warrior she was an even greater general, and won the best part of her acclaim as a commander and a leader. So I shall let my soldiers do the fighting, and I shall content myself with giving them their orders and then watching from a safe distance."

"You would like to command armies in the field?" Miranda asked.

"Of course. I am Aegea's daughter after all. Just because I have no winged unicorn to ride nor wolf to walk besides me does not mean I am immune to the call of martial glory." Princess Romana walked briskly over to where Miranda stood. "I sometimes think that some noble ladies might make better officers than their husbands or fathers."

"Really? Would you have them lead women legionaries, too?" Miranda asked.

"That far I would not go," Princess Romana said. "Loathe though I am to deny any citizen who wishes with all their heart to serve the Empire the opportunity, if all our brave and dutiful women march off to the frontier to fight then where shall the next generation of legionaries come from? We must maintain our strength lest we should fall behind in the race."

"The race?"

"The race for greatness, obviously," Romana said. "We are the masters of Pelarius, and in Lavissar and Mavenor the barbarian tribes are too fragmented to mount a serious challenge to our supremacy, but we must not delude ourselves into thinking that we are safe. In Xarzia, the Shah of Shahs commands a territory greater by five times than all the span of our dominions, and his armies number beyond counting. The wealth of Qart-Hadasht is sprung from trade, not land; their ships reach shores our sailors have never heard of, and it was only in the last twenty years that our coinage became as pure as theirs in silver content. And our traders returning from Xiang-li and Ambhi report that the rulers there control such vast spaces as would dwarf even Xarzia, have command of as many soldiers as there are grains of sand on the south coast, as many war elephants as there are stars in the sky.

"We are a wolf in a den of lions, and if we are to avoid being eaten alive then we must keep ourselves strong and resolute."

"I had no idea," Miranda said. "I always thought that the Empire was so large, so permanent..."

"We do like to give that impression," Princess Romana said with a sly smile.

"If I may say, though, it sounds like the Empire has even more need for my golems than I thought."

"Your golems may be a threat to the Empire more disturbing than Qart-Hadasht," the princess declared. "An Empire defended by such means would not be the Empire that we have known. Do you really think that your stone statues will be a better bulwark of our nation's safety than brave men?"

"I believe that they are stronger than men, and sturdier, and when they are destroyed nothing of value is lost," Miranda said.

"Really? I understood that you had started naming them," Romana said.

That was true. Recently she had brought to life her greatest golem yet, a thirty foot tower of strength which she had named Golgomath, and lately she and the Lost had started to give names to the other golems, scribbling them on the stone chests alongside all manner of other drawings. But that meant nothing. "They are not alive."

"You feel nothing for them?"

"There is nothing to feel anything for," Miranda replied.

"Then they are abominations, and cannot be trusted with the Empire's destiny," Romana said sharply.

"Why does the idea of an end to death in battle distress you so?" Miranda asked.

"The potential fall of the Empire distresses me," Romana shot back heatedly. "While the legions are strong, the Empire is strong, history teaches this. If the legions fade away... what will become of the Empire then, with only a stone army to sustain it, an army that will obey any order no matter how treasonable? The Empire will never fulfil it's destiny with such stone sentinels." Romana stopped. "I will not convince you with such arguments, will I?"

"I fear not, no, your highness," Miranda said.

"Then I suppose there is no good in standing here retreading that old ground. Especially since I hardly have time to stand here giving speeches. The truth is, it was not on my own behalf I asked you here, but that of the Princess Consort Portia."

Miranda blinked. "The... the Empress wishes to see me. Um, I have no..."

"Oh, don't worry about formality. Her Majesty never does," Romana said. "You may even get the chance to meet my eldest brother, Demodocus."

"The Emperor," Miranda's voice rose in tone a little. "You could have let me know all of this when you invited me."

"I never took you to be one for excessive fawning on people," Romana said with a smile.

"I'm not, but this is the Emperor," Miranda said, squawking ever so slightly.

Romana chuckled. "Fear not, he's really very nice. To most people."

Miranda didn't find that terribly reassuring. Her leg started to ache again as Princess Romana started leading her down yet another sent of pathways, this time trailed by even more guards, to come to a secluded grove of fragrant lemon trees, bordered all around by bushes flowering in red and violet, with a round stone table set under the shade of the trees.

At the table sat a beautiful young woman. Her long, luscious golden hair fell down to her shoulders, practically shining in the sunlight passing through the leaves of the trees. Her eyes were bluer than the oceans itself. Her skin was more fair than ivory and looked more smooth than silk. A necklace of large pearls hung from her graceful neck. Her dress was white, with a blue sash tied about her waist into a bow behind her. Her neckline was high enough to be modest even as it practically fell off her shoulders. The skirt extended down to her ankles, revealing delicate silver sandals. It was a pretty dress, but Miranda found it a little provincial for the Empress, unlike anything she had seen any of the other noble ladies wearing before. In spite of her beauty, she looked more a country equestrian's daughter than the wife of the Emperor of All Pelarius.

"Your Imperial Majesty, allow me to present the Filia Miranda Callistus of Corona Province. Filia, Her Imperial Majesty Portia, Princess Consort."

Portia beamed, even her smile was beautiful, and leapt to her feet and ran across the grove. "Miranda! I'm so delighted to meet you." She took Miranda's hands in her own, perfect grasp. Upon her wrists, Miranda noticed, she wore bracelets: a single string of pearls on her right arm, and two gold bands upon her left. A diamond ring adorned the middle finger of her right hand. "I've wanted for so long to see you, but I hate to bother Romana or Demodocus with silly things like this, they're so very busy."