The Instruments of Control (5 page)

Emperor Theodosius was pushing seventy years, but he felt like a young boy on Winter Solstice morning. There was a spring in his step as he strolled down the white marble halls of Rhothmere Keep, trailing his ermine robes behind him and seeing his smile reflected in every mirror-polished surface. Servants stopped in their tracks and fell to their knees as he passed, heads bowed before the master of the Holy Murgardt Empire, but he barely noticed them. His imagination was a thousand miles away. In the desert.

The Sand Clock was a relic of that desert, a treasure captured by his father’s troops at the pinnacle of the Second Crusade. It dangled by thick iron chains from the vaulted ceiling of the emperor’s council chamber, hanging fifteen feet above a round redwood table inlaid with a bas-relief map of the Empire. The clock was an impossible nest of brass gears and glass bulbs and funnels, and streams of ivory-white sand flowed through the mechanism in an endless loop like a self-sustaining hourglass.

A broad metal disk, painted in bright lacquers, faced downward at an angle from the bottom of the clock and depicted the endless journey of one lonely nomad riding through the desert. As the sand flowed and the gears turned, the outer layers of the disk slowly revolved to count the hours and turn day into night.

Theodosius remembered, as a boy, the look on his father’s face the day a team of laborers hoisted it above the council table.

“I want all of my ministers to gaze upon it,” his father said over the rattling of the chains. “It’s a reminder and a warning: the Oerrans may be heathens, but they aren’t
savages
. Savages couldn’t create something this majestic. No, they’re backwards in their beliefs, but as cunning as we are when it comes to the art of war. The day we fool ourselves into thinking otherwise is the day they’ll beat us.”

They’d been cunning enough, in the aftermath of the sacking of al-Saresu and the caliph’s winter palace, to maneuver the Empire into a stalemate and sue for peace. Decade after decade since, Theodosius had waited for some provocation, some excuse to surpass his father’s victory.

Every single day, the Sand Clock silently mocked him.
I am the trophy of your father’s greatest conquest. Where is YOUR trophy?

“What do we know?” Theodosius asked the twenty ministers ringing the table. Papers slapped the wood and men jumped to their feet, everyone shouting at once. The emperor winced, rubbed his forehead, and waved them down, waiting until one voice cowed the others into silence.

“Al-Tali,” said his advisor Zellweger, a heavyset man with dangling jowls. “It’s a trading post inside the no-man’s-land east of Carcanna. Utterly destroyed. The few witnesses to escape all told the same story: the attack was carried out by Caliphate men riding from the direction of al-Badra.”

“Our spies report no change from the Caliphate borders,” Minister Wruck said, shaking his narrow face and rattling a sheaf of parchment. “No massing of troops, no increase in war readiness at all. It doesn’t make sense. Your Excellency, I suggest we send a diplomatic envoy to al-Badra.”

General Baum sat like a coiled spring, arms crossed tight over his chest. “And get our diplomats killed? No,
they
need to explain themselves to
us
. I say we close the borders, recall all settlers to our side of the no-man’s-land, and wait for them to make the first move.”

“They already made the first move,” Zellweger grumbled out of the side of his mouth, “when they slaughtered everyone in al-Tali.”

“We don’t know enough to risk—”

“Gentlemen,” Theodosius said, holding up one hand for silence. “Are we strengthening our border presence, as I asked?”

Baum nodded. “We drew down numbers at forts throughout Belle Terre and the western Empire to buffer our holdings in Carcanna. And again, Your Excellency, I must object. Belle Terre is still a volatile—”

Theodosius narrowed his eyes. “The war is
won
, General Baum. The Terrai are
broken
. I won that war.
Me
. And the wags and peasants in the streets, do you know what they still call me?”

“A great man,” Zellweger said.

“Our glorious leader,” Wruck added.

“
Theodosius the Lesser
,” the emperor hissed, spitting out the words. “My father, of course, being Theodosius the Greater. And do you know why he’s remembered that way? Look above your heads, gentlemen. Look at that marvel of the world, the Sand Clock, seized from the caliph’s own bedchambers. My father crushed the heathen hordes, drove them before the armies of the light, and forced them to crawl to the treaty table like the dogs they are.”

The ministers shot nervous glances around the table as if they were passing folded notes, and every note had the same warning written inside.

“They’ve played at peace all these years,” Theodosius said, prowling back and forth across the marble floor, “but this is more than a provocation: it’s a sign. No, this is no time for timidity, no time for meekness. We
attack
.”

One of the treasury men swallowed hard and sank low in his seat. “Y-your Excellency, we spent almost three decades in open war with the Terrai, and we didn’t declare a decisive victory until two years ago. Credit-wise, we’re pushed to the brink. Our markers with the Bank of the Rhone, not even counting interest, are over—”

“So raise taxes,” Theodosius snapped.

“We’ve already
done
that, Your Excellency. Three times in the last decade. We can only squeeze so much before we risk open revolt.”

The emperor shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The
people
will help us win this sacred war. Think on it, gentlemen: the Third Crusade. Pope Carlo will put out the call. We can levy peasant troops from every arm of the Empire, and the Church’s reach will bring support from nations outside our borders. Even Itresca and Vel Hult will be obliged to send tribute to keep good relations with Carlo. We can
get
the men. All we have to pay for is arming and feeding them.”

General Baum gripped the arms of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “It’s…not that simple, Your Excellency. There are countless other factors. Besides that, you can’t win against a force like the Oerrans with untrained troops, no matter how many you bring to bear. We would need veteran regiments backing them up. Knights, cavalry, siege engines. That’s how your father did it.”

Theodosius held up a finger, eyes going wide. “That’s it. We’ve raised taxes too much? So be it. Once the call to crusade goes out, we extend our hand to the minor gentry. Especially the ones in the outer provinces that spend all their time squawking. Tell them that if they lend veteran troops to the cause, we’ll grant them tax amnesty for the duration of the crusade.”

The treasury man’s jaw dropped. “But, but, Your Excellency, we need
those
funds to pay the loans we’ve already—”

“I’ll be in my rooms, dictating a letter to Carlo. The rest of you put your heads together. I want a workable battle strategy by tomorrow morning.”

The emperor strode out of the council chamber, leaving a dead silence in his wake.

“I’m going to say it just once, so no one else has to,” Baum finally grumbled. “That lunatic is going to run straight off a cliff and drag us all down with him. Fettel, where do we really stand with the Bank of the Rhone?”

The treasury man gave a helpless shrug. “Conquering the Terrai gutted us. Once we pushed deep enough in-country, the cost of running the supply lines alone was crippling. We’re on the mend now, but that doesn’t mean a thing if we go right back to pouring money into another war.”

“So that’s a dead end?”

“Not…not necessarily. Unlike the Terrai, the Oerrans actually have valuable resources. If we’ll put certain guarantees in writing—promising a percentage of the plunder if we’re able to seize the Caliphate’s gold mines, for instance—the bank may extend us enough credit to arm and feed a peasant levy.”

Baum slouched back in his chair. “And if we make that guarantee and can’t pay up when the bill comes due?”

“They’ll want collateral against such an event. Steep collateral.”

“What about other sources?” Minister Zellweger asked. “We can find other creditors, spread the pain out a bit. Who does the Holy Father use? The Banco Marchetti, isn’t it? If this is to be a genuine crusade, I’m sure Pope Serafini can provide us with an introduction.”

Minister Wruck squinted at him. “Take coin from a Mirenzei moneylender? Best count your fingers afterward.”

“Under any other circumstances, I’d agree, but this is a special case. The involvement of the Holy Father ought to keep any man honest, even a banker. I say we approach the Marchettis for partial funding and the Bank of the Rhone for the remainder.”

There were more arguments—there always were—but eventually the meeting disbanded for the night. The emperor’s advisors, grim-faced and tired, went their separate ways. For Zellweger, that meant making a beeline for his office deep inside the bowels of the keep, pausing only to tug at the shoulder of a page’s tunic.

“I’m going to need a courier,” he told the boy, “and quickly. Someone who knows the road to Mirenze.”

His office was more of a cell, cold and musty behind a heavy oak door banded in iron. Zellweger lit a slender white candle, cursing as he singed his fingertips, and sat down at his cramped writing desk to draft a letter.

“Lodovico,”
he wrote, “
I have done as you asked. You will be approached by an emissary of the treasury, seeking credit from the Banco Marchetti for the war effort.”

A tiny bead of black ink clung to the tip of Zellweger’s quill, hovering above the parchment as he considered his words.

“I do not know what schemes you have made me a party to, but let this be the end of it. I know the folly of begging a blackmailer for mercy, but I beg it nonetheless: no more. This has the stink of treason. I cannot bear it.”

He left the letter unsigned.

Folding the parchment, he took a stick of red beeswax from his desk and held its tip over the candle’s flame until it dripped down like bloody tears to spatter the letter’s flap. Instead of his formal seal, he pressed the wax firmly into place with the flat bottom of the candlestick.

The courier was waiting. Zellweger took a deep breath as he shoved himself to his feet and trudged out of his office with the letter in hand.

May the Gardener have mercy on my soul
, he thought.

“Do some magic,” the giant said.

Renata and Hedy knelt on a finely woven rug, staring up at the mountain of a bandit. His tent was the biggest in the camp and crammed full of stolen finery, from a handcrafted riverwood desk to a gilded parakeet cage. The bandit, the one who had led the attack on their wagon, squatted on a finely carved bench inlaid with mother-of-pearl scallops.

“It’s…it’s not that easy,” Renata said.

“Fine,” the giant said, waving at the one-eyed man behind them. “They’re useless. Get rid of them.”

Renata shook her head wildly. “Wait! I mean, I just…I’m a witch. I need…things, like…”

“Herbs,” Hedy offered.

“Herbs. From the forest.”

The giant curled his lips in a cruel smile. “I should let you go and trust you’ll come right back, is that it?”

Renata gritted her teeth. Hedy trembled beside her, pale.

“No,” Renata said, “just her. I’ll stay here while she fetches the things I need.”

The giant shrugged. He nodded to the one-eyed bandit, and Renata’s shoulders tensed as she heard the slither of a knife whipping from a belt sheath. Without a word, he sliced through the ropes binding Hedy’s wrists.

Two hourglasses sat on the giant’s desk, exquisite showpieces with brass rods caging elaborate twists of glass and two fistfuls of purple-black sand. He flipped them both over and pressed one into Hedy’s hands.

“You know what was gonna happen to you if your mistress here didn’t speak up for you, right?” he grunted.

She gave a meek nod.

“You got until the sand runs out. If you’re not back by then, I toss
her
to the boys, and she gets it twice as bad as you would’ve. Understand?”

She nodded again.

“Get gone, then.”

Hedy half ran out of the tent, clutching her hourglass to her chest. The giant dropped back down on his bench and rested his elbows on his knees. He leaned toward Renata, looming over her as he looked her up and down.

“You know who we are?”

“Bandits who murder and kidnap innocent travelers.”

He snorted. “No such thing as innocent. And we ain’t thieves, least not by nature. We’re the Seven-Fingered Men, a company of hired steel. Times’ve been rough since the Empire got done whipping the Terrai. Contracts drying up. Gotta do what you can to make ends meet.”

“My mistake. You’re sell-swords
playing
at banditry, then.” Her gaze flicked to his hands. “You have all ten fingers.”

“I wasn’t the original captain. Name’s Marco. What’s yours?”

“Renata.” She didn’t see any good reason to lie. Not about that, anyway.

“And you’re a witch.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Hope you’re telling the truth,” Marco rumbled. “See, we had us an old man, a fortuneteller. He had the second sight. Kept us ahead of the thief-takers, helped us win some tough fights.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got cute. One of his ‘predictions’ almost led us right into an ambush. He said it was a mistake. I got a low tolerance for mistakes. So I scalped him, nailed him to a tree, and left him for the wolves. That’s okay, though, because now we got you.
You
aren’t gonna make any mistakes, right?”

Renata watched the purple-black sand flow through the hourglass on Marco’s desk, spinning in spirals to the time of her beating heart.

*     *     *

Hedy stumbled blind through the forest, the raucous sounds and dwindling firelight from the bandit camp receding at her back. The main road wasn’t far. All she had to do was run parallel to it, run until the sun came up or she found some sign of civilization. She was a good runner.

The hourglass barely weighed a pound, but dragged like an anchor in her grip. She turned to throw it into the underbrush—and froze.

I can’t
.

Dampness clung to the forest, the air laden with the smell of peat and pine in the wake of a recent rain. It didn’t take Hedy much time to find a stagnant mud puddle. The black water reflected her panicked face and the silver curve of the moon rising over her shoulder. Finding something to cut with was harder. She grabbed a small branch and snapped it over her knee, leaving one half with a serviceable jagged edge. It wasn’t a knife, but it would draw blood.

This is going to hurt
. She pushed the thought away as she got down on her knees in the mud. She slid up the sleeve of her dress, letting the familiar words of a familiar spell burble up from her throat. The magic soothed her, winding a silver leash around her heart, tying her to a greater purpose. As she poured her energy out, searching, seeking, she ripped the broken branch across her forearm.

Her skin tore, the splintered wood leaving an ugly cut. She sucked in air through gritted teeth as blood dripped from the wound, blossoming like the petals of a black rose in the mud puddle.

“Master,” she whispered, hoping against hope that he had heard her call.

She pressed the hem of her skirt to the wound and squeezed her eyes shut against the stinging pain. Night birds warbled from the branches around her, but nothing else stirred in the forest.

“
Please
,” she hissed.

The water shimmered, and a face loomed out of the bloody dark. A thin man with greased-back silver hair and the bone mask of a fox.

“Mouse? You can’t already be in Lerautia. Why are you bothering me?”

“M-master, listen, there’s trouble—” The story spilled from her lips on a gust of pent-up breath. The fox mask bobbed ever so slightly, taking it in.

“Good escape, well done. You’ll want to navigate parallel to the road, but close enough to the underbrush that you can slip out of sight. If you hike about eight hours west—”

“
No!
You don’t understand. I can’t leave Renata behind.”

“Of course you can,” Fox said. “She’s not one of us. She’s cattle. The entire point of traveling with cattle is so you can throw them to the wolves and slip away. What’s the problem?”

“She saved me! She didn’t have to, but she did.”

Fox brought up his opera-gloved hands, clapping sarcastically.

“Good for her. She’s just fulfilled her entire purpose in life, and she should take pride in that as she dies. They exist to serve us, Mouse. That’s what cattle are
for
. Listen, this information the Owl wanted, this ‘L.S.’ woman, it’s more important than I originally thought. I am ordering you to get to Lerautia and start your hunt.
Immediately
.”

Hedy pursed her lips and glared at the reflection.

“No.”

The fox mask tilted to one side. “
No?
”

“I’ll go to Lerautia, and I promise, I’ll work extra hard and do anything you tell me to. But first I have to help Renata. She’s my friend.”

“Stupid little girl,” Fox spat. “You are a stupid, disobedient, willful, worthless excuse for an apprentice, and if you think I’m going to tolerate this behavior—”

“And I’ll accept whatever punishment I have coming and I’m truly very sorry, but I have to go now,” Hedy said quickly, slapping her palm against the puddle to break the image into a burst of rippling light. The sands in the hourglass were running low, too low, and she still had a spell to cast. It was a simple one, one of the first and only real bits of magic she’d learned so far, but it would have to do.

*     *     *

“Think she’s comin’ back?” Marco said, looking at the hourglass as it wound down to the last dregs of sand. “I don’t think she’s comin’ back.”

I don’t either
, Renata thought, her heart sinking.

The bandit chief sat on his bench, gripping a roasted mutton-leg in his massive fist. He tore off a ragged strip of meat, leaving his lips smeared with grease as he chewed.

The tent flap whipped aside and Hedy burst through, breathless and clutching a bundle of freshly plucked herbs along with her hourglass. She slammed both against the rug as she crashed to her knees, panting.

“Made it,” she gasped.

“All right,” Marco mumbled through a mouthful of mutton. “Now prove you’re a witch. Let’s see it.”

Hedy untied Renata’s bonds, her tiny fingers working at the bristly rope. As Renata rubbed her aching wrists, Hedy laid the little piles of herbs out before her.

“Mistress,” Hedy said, looking Renata in the eye, “you should show him that hex you were teaching me the other day. It’s a
very quick spell
. In fact, it should take effect
almost immediately
.”

Renata got the message. Heart pounding, she waved her hands over the herbs, cleared her throat, and whispered gibberish that she hoped sounded like magic words. She swayed her hands as she babbled, as if weaving an invisible tapestry.

Hedy nudged her with her knee. She followed Hedy’s gaze, flicking from her to Marco. No, not Marco. The plate of roasted meat on his lap. Renata tried to hide her horror as a plump, glistening maggot shoved its way out of a chunk of meat. Another followed, poking out its eyeless white head and squirming free, and then another. As Marco put the mutton leg to his greedy lips, another maggot burrowed out the other side and tumbled onto the plate.

“I curse thee!” Renata snapped, pointing her fingers at him. Now the meal was a river of rot, fistfuls of maggots squirming out of blackened and greening meat. Marco looked down, yelped, and leaped to his feet, dumping the entire tray onto the floor. He hurled the mutton leg, leaving a smear of gristle as it bounced off the wall of the tent, and he spat a half-chewed mouthful onto the rug. He turned on Renata, his face contorted in fury.

“Well?” Renata squeezed her nails against her palms, forcing herself to breathe deeply and look him in the eye.

“Oughta bust your skull for that.” He shook his head. “But you made your point. You’re the real thing. Welcome to the Seven-Fingered Men.”

“You’re…hiring us?” Hedy asked.

Marco wiped his greasy hands on his leathers and gave her a scornful laugh. “Hiring you? We
own
you two now. Talent like that’s gonna make us filthy rich. I can think of all kinds of things to do with my own pet witch.”

“I can’t—I can’t always bring the magic right away,” Renata stumbled over her words. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Marco loomed over her, lips spreading in a broken-toothed grin.

“You’d better hope it works how I want it, when I want it. Or maybe I’ll let you watch while the  boys go to work on your little helper, here. Or maybe I’ll just skin you alive, starting with your feet and working my way up, until your attitude improves. Like I said, I can think of
all kinds
of things to do with you.”

He put his fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle. The one-eyed man poked his head into the tent.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Take these two,” Marco said, “chain ’em up for the night, and post a guard. We just struck gold.”