The Immortal Throne (2016)

by Stella Gemmell

  When she was a child, perhaps twelve, there had been a violent rainstorm one night, and from the window of the orphanage Mavalla had seen a small white dog cowering under a low wall, terrified by the fierce winds and the claps of thunder and flashing lightning. In her nightshift she had run from the building to rescue the beast. With the rain sheeting down around her she had picked it up, rewarded with a sharp nip for her pains. Splashing her way back across the mud, her feet bare, she had heard above the roar of the gale a loud thunk. She had stopped to see a large grey roof-tile standing upright in the ground, as if it had always been there, a pace to her right. She had looked up and realized it had been ripped from the roof by the wind, and had missed her by a fraction.

  The Shield reminded her of the roof-tile. It looked as if it had been plunged into the ground from high above, or perhaps thrust up from beneath by an earth tremor. She wondered if the palace of the empress was at the top – the new empress who was, according to whom you asked, goddess or shaman or witch.

  The light around her was changing. The sun was creeping above the horizon and she could hear the chirrup of early birds and the braying of donkeys. Sea birds squawked and cried. The square she was in, fronting the river, held a white temple on a high platform. It was dedicated to a god of healing. Even had she wanted to, Valla could not enter its walls. Her deity was Aduara, for good or ill, and she was a jealous god.

  As she passed the temple she heard, above the random sounds of the awakening City, a stealthy footfall. She turned, sword in hand. Emerging from an alley were three men dressed like street beggars. But beggars seldom wield swords, Valla had found. Swordsmen, she thought, with a spark of interest. My speciality.

  Then one flicked a glance to his left, and Valla saw two more appear, a big man armed with a club and a woman holding two daggers.

  ‘Well,’ she said calmly as she moved to her left so she could see them all, ‘are there more of you, or can this game begin?’ Excitement rose in her heart, though her mouth was dry. Victorious or dead, she thought. Either would be good.

  She risked a look behind her for more assailants, and as she moved the man with the club ran in. She saw the club was too heavy for even a big man, and he had to brace to swing it properly. As he paused and swung back she darted forward and stabbed him through the heart.

  She stepped lightly back, his falling body between her and the other assassins. They walked towards her, and one of them, a yellow-haired man, kicked the dying one contemptuously.

  ‘He was a fool,’ he said.

  ‘Then you are a greater fool to bring him,’ she replied.

  She leaped forward, arm at full stretch, her blade seeking the yellow-head’s heart. He swayed back, and a second man attacked. She twisted and parried and just managed to avoid a murderous riposte from the leader. Her blade flickered out again and she pierced the second man’s upper arm, drawing a spray of blood. She leaped back and a knife hissed past her ear. She backed away, circling, trying to keep the three men between her and the knifewoman. The woman circled too, trying to find her back. The only thing Valla could do was keep moving.

  She ducked and twisted, and in a blur of movement cut at the leader’s knee then on up at another man’s neck. She was well short, but the leader’s sword came down and the second man’s up. In a slashing reverse she nicked the shoulder of the second man and went for the leader’s neck. The leader blocked swiftly, and Valla darted between the men, another flying knife just missing her head. But the leader was fast and in a moment he turned and was on her again, the third man with him. She parried quickly, their swords clashing loud in the quiet morning. Valla surveyed the others. The injured man was bleeding heavily but was still in the game. The knifewoman was moving again, keeping her distance.

  The two uninjured men came at her in a practised ploy, going high and low. Instead of backing away she went forward into their space. Her sword flicked at the leader’s neck, then she leaped and rammed the hilt into the other man’s ear. He staggered and she was past. She turned like lightning but the leader was faster. She swayed to avoid a thrust to the heart, but she was too slow and he nearly caught her in the good shoulder, the blow deflected off her leather jerkin. She fell to one knee, gasping, and as she came to her feet she saw the woman with a dagger raised, her arm flicking forward.

  The woman’s throwing hand was chopped off in mid-throw and she screamed in agony as hand and dagger fell to the stones. A bloody sword hit the ground too, showering sparks, and Valla saw Thorum and Wren running towards them, Thorum drawing his second sword.

  The big man grinned at her. ‘Knife-fighters. Don’t you hate them?’ He stepped sideways and pierced the back of the knifewoman’s neck, severing the spine.

  The final encounter was brief, just three against three. When only the leader was left, Valla called a halt and stepped up to him. The swordsman was bleeding heavily from grievous wounds and was barely standing. Valla snatched up a discarded knife and thrust it under his chin.

  ‘Who sent you?’ she asked, for she was sure this was not some random attack.

  He worked his mouth feebly to spit at her and Thorum smashed him in the face with his elbow. The man’s head sank.

  Valla glared at her friend. ‘We wanted him to talk.’

  Thorum shrugged and grinned at Wren. The assassin slumped to the ground, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. Wren squatted down and felt the man’s neck, then stood up.

  ‘Dead. Good riddance.’

  Valla frowned. ‘Who sent them?’

  Wren shrugged. ‘You’re alive. Who cares?’

  ‘But why would five fighters attack a one-armed soldier? Do I look as though I carry coin?’ She looked down at her old, stained clothes. No one would mistake her for a rich woman.

  She became aware of early-morning spectators appearing from all around, lured by the sounds of the battle.

  Thorum had been searching the bodies. ‘Nothing,’ he said, standing up. ‘Time to go. I’m surprised the watch aren’t here already.’

  Leaving five dead on the stones, the three hurried back to the inn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  RUBIN DECIDED HE needed to put distance between himself and Arben Busch, a man he had last heard of in Marcellus’ custody facing interrogation and death. He had no wish to confront the Odrysian general, to have his true identity unpicked and see the light of revelation and contempt in the other man’s eyes. Rubin was not ashamed of his role as spy, indeed he was proud of it, but he understood why his former enemy might not feel the same.

  Early the next morning he departed the Bull and Bear. His knife at his side and a small pack on his back, he set out to find the man Barrabrick. He worked his way through his network of acquaintances – soldiers and sailors, merchants and pedlars, innkeepers and brothel-keepers – but it was not until late in the day that he met a mutilated veteran who told him he had heard Barrabrick spoken of as a gangmaster. The fact that few in the area had heard of him was likely because this Barrabrick plied his trade on the north side of the river.

  The north bank of the Menander was less damaged by the flood than the south and this made it a far more perilous place. Whereas in the south the palace, or the parts of it closest to the turbulent river, had collapsed, leaving only rubble and scoured streets, to the north much of the palace remained standing, though fatally undermined by the waters. The fabric was still giving way and each day there was news of some accident in which tens or scores of people, usually refugees and the poor and otherwise homeless, were killed by another building fall.

  Merely crossing the Menander was dangerous. The first new bridge would be open soon, but for now the only choice was to walk all the way round, a long trip in uncertain territory. Or to chance a ferry crossing. The boatmen who offered their craft as ferries in the aftermath of the Day of Summoning were those least able to provide a safe crossing – rowing boats, barges and rafts, leaky, unseaworthy, rotten, poured into the City from along the coasts. Hundreds of people had dro
wned as the new ferries went down in droves in the treacherous waters.

  Rubin remembered the architects. The renaissance of the palace buildings north and south was in the hands of two different teams of architects and engineers, but these men had to have some way of crossing on a regular basis. And they were important people who would not risk their lives in rotting hulks. After some thought he returned to the Bull and Bear and loitered outside as dusk drew on, finally waylaying one of the engineers. The man was drunk, drunk enough to have lost discretion, but not drunk enough to be incoherent. He was disgruntled with his employers and Rubin listened carefully, flattering the malcontent until he could buy the information he needed. The next morning he presented himself at a small but sturdy craft with papers which told the steersman he was entitled to make the crossing on the orders of the empress.

  By evening he had discovered an inn in a quiet street, paid for the room for three days and sent word to the good man Fenna of where he could be contacted. The next day he received a message from Fenna telling Rubin his room at the Bull and Bear had been invaded by cloaked and hooded men the night he left and its hapless new resident dragged away in darkness.

  At that Rubin decided to move each day to a new inn. He had passed a respectable place the previous day and resolved to rest there that night. He went there at first light and paid the innkeeper two copper pente in advance. That was a mistake, for when he returned after dark, at the end of another fruitless day searching for Barrabrick, he had been run to earth.

  He climbed the stairs in the back of the tavern. He could see little, for the narrow wooden staircase was lit only by starlight through a window in the roof. He walked down the creaking hallway to his room and opened the door. Then he stopped, aware of a new scent. He pulled out his knife and stepped across the threshold. Starlight bathed the bed and he smiled as he recognized the curled shape asleep on the blanket.

  Valla had found him first.

  ‘I thought,’ he said to her as she tucked into the bread and cheese he had brought, ‘that soldiers’ senses were so highly tuned they could react to a pin dropping, even in their sleep.’ In fact she slept like the dead and he’d found it next to impossible to rouse her.

  Valla did her one-shouldered shrug. ‘Warriors know when they are safe,’ she said a little haughtily.

  Rubin smiled. ‘How did you find me? I’ve been searching for you.’

  ‘I know you like your comfort,’ she said, chewing on a crust. ‘So I just went to every good inn I could find, asking for a tall, thin man with red hair.’

  ‘But why the north bank?’

  She shrugged again. ‘Because that’s where I was.’

  While he fought with his irritation – and dismay – at being tracked down so easily, she told him about her life since they’d parted: the Day of Summoning, her battle in the Red Palace and the death of her commander.

  ‘Did you encounter a red-haired warrior?’ he asked. ‘A woman, tall like me?’

  ‘Your sister?’

  He nodded.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. It seems so long ago now. So much has happened since then.’ He nodded. ‘But wait. Yes. I mean, I did see a woman like that. She fought like a goddess, like Aduara herself. But she was fighting for the other side.’ She spat contemptuously on the floor.

  ‘Did you see the emperor?’ he asked, curious, having heard whispered tales of the Immortal’s death at the hands of a woman.

  She shook her head again. ‘It was a bloodbath. I recognized many faces, men and women I’d served with, but most of them were dead or dying. It was a bloodbath,’ she repeated.

  Then she told him, a little shyly, about the gulon and how it had saved her life.

  ‘What happened to it?’ he asked, smiling uncertainly, not sure whether to believe her. He had never heard of a gulon protecting someone.

  ‘I didn’t see. It disappeared after the battle. Then I got out of the palace, found a place to rest up.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  She made no reply to that and her eyes became bleak. He knew it was her ambition to die fighting for the City, and he wondered that she hadn’t.

  ‘I was in the palace too,’ he offered. Casting his mind back, he told her about the fall of the Adamantine Wall, his last meeting with Marcellus, and about Fiorentina.

  ‘So I spent the day fighting while you chatted with the nobility,’ she said, amused.

  He nodded, smiling.

  She asked him, ‘What happened to Marcellus? I heard gossip that he was dead, but we both know that can’t be true. I’ve seen him in battle. Nothing can kill him. But if he’s not dead why is he not emperor now? It makes no sense.’

  ‘I don’t know. But he will return, I’m certain of it. He has a plan, Marcellus always has. And we will both be ready to fight for him, if it comes to that, when he returns.’

  He told her about Marcellus’ last warning to him.

  She looked troubled. ‘I had never heard of Archange until suddenly she was empress. If Marcellus doesn’t trust her then neither can we.’

  ‘Marcellus will return,’ he repeated.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I hear she plans to bar women from the military.’ She snorted. ‘What a nightmare that would be!’

  Privately Rubin thought it wrong for women to be fighting, even gallant soldiers like Indaro and Valla, but he would never say it to his friend.

  ‘I was starting to think you had gone north,’ he told her, ‘with the Khan army to fight the barbarians.’

  She shook her head sadly and he cursed his own crassness. She would never see service with a regular army, not with her injured arm. To change the subject he told her about his father’s disappearance.

  ‘I’m worried about him,’ he confessed. ‘Where would he go? And why? He’s just an old man who tends his garden. Or was,’ he added, thinking of the wild meadow where there had been crisp, green lawn.

  ‘You told me he was once a man of power.’

  ‘A long time ago. He’s no longer interested in politics.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Valla suggested, ‘politics is still interested in him.’

  Rubin thought about it. ‘You think he had business at the White Palace?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But power always seeks power. At least,’ she said, ‘that’s what Leona always used to say.’

  ‘A wise woman,’ he replied politely.

  Then she told him about her fight in the temple square.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if there’s a link to the ruffians who raided my room at the Bull and Bear. They were intent on kidnap, it seems, rather than robbery or murder. Perhaps your attackers are part of the same thing.’

  ‘But why?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve made enemies. Someone wants you dead.’

  ‘No one knows Valla exists. Except you. I use the name Mavalla now.’

  ‘But it wasn’t a random attack. You’ve clearly made enemies, even if it was about something everyday, like the work you do. But if it were just some fool you’ve slighted at work they’d tell you about it. Silent killers point to an assassination bid.’

  ‘I’m just a soldier,’ she argued. ‘I haven’t upset anyone.’

  She fell asleep then. She had not intended to, it seemed, but just drifted off halfway through what she was saying, a piece of bread in her hand. He pulled up a blanket and tucked it in then put his arm round her and she settled against his shoulder. He took a discreet look at the fingers of her bad arm. They were still pale and waxy, like bones dug up after a long time in the earth. But not rotten. Not yet. He was moved by pity for her, and by something like love. But everyone he had ever loved had died or walked away from him for something more important.

  The candles were guttering but he made no move to light more and he sat in darkness, Valla warm against him, waiting for dawn. Her body was a bag of bones; what were curves in other women were sharp corners in her. It seemed to him that her goddess demanded too much of her
, that Valla gave and gave and Aduara was unmoved. He thought it a paradox that she was tougher than him, yet at the same time more fragile. But they seemed to belong together and this meeting was as inevitable as the moon-tides.

  As Valla slept Rubin pondered his conversation with Thekla, the surgeon who was of the same Family as Marcellus and Archange, and he stretched his memory back to the day at the Salient when, as a twelve-year-old, he’d spoken with his father in his study while Indaro practised fencing in the garden below. He had asked Reeve why Archange was so dangerous and Reeve’s answer now seemed prescient.

  ‘Archange’s need for revenge is strong, boy, and she is very powerful. I fear a battle of wills between the three of them – Archange, Araeon and Marcellus – could end in the fall of the City.’

  ‘Are they mighty warriors?’ Rubin persisted.

  His father frowned. ‘Marcellus is. Why?’

  ‘You said they are powerful.’

  Reeve shook his head. ‘It is a different sort of power, not strength of arms.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Araeon can make life from … lifelessness. And Marcellus can destroy life. But both have weakened over the years, for they are very old, far older than I am.’

  ‘And Archange?’

  ‘Archange has the power to preserve, and to heal.’

  Rubin thought about a lot of things, lying with his arm around Valla, and by the morning he had made a decision.

  ‘We’re going to the Shield,’ he told her after waking her with the dawn.

  ‘We are?’ she replied blearily, finding the piece of bread she had dropped on the floor and blowing the dust off it.

  ‘We will seek news of my father and Indaro, and perhaps we will find out if someone’s hunting us and why.’

  ‘It’s a long way,’ she said, chewing, ‘and it’ll be perilous if someone wants us dead.’