The Fell Sword (4 page)

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.