As she would soon be.
‘Lady, there is a woman!’ Alafair told her, whispering loudly into her ear.
‘What woman?’ Fiorentina had no interest and she wondered why the girl was bothering her. Then, in a flash of hope, she asked, ‘Is she a midwife?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Alafair told her, her face ashen. ‘She is very old and … terrible. She is outside the door trying to get in.’
Fiorentina sank back. Why was she being bothered with this?
The door rattled and the timbers creaked. Alafair stared fixedly at the door but she stayed by Fiorentina’s side, clutching tightly to her hand. Through her daze of pain Fiorentina realized the girl was petrified. She looked at the door but she could see nothing through the bars.
‘Nothing there,’ she muttered.
Alafair crept over to the door and nervously peered through. Then she jumped back. ‘She is there, lady.’ She was trembling. ‘Does she have a key?’
Fiorentina thought again of the malevolent old woman of her dream. Her heart shrivelled and she felt a wave of dread rolling over her, muffling her in its folds, stopping her breath. She tried to scream but all that emerged was a thin wail.
Then came the sound of running boots and the creak of armour. ‘Lady Fiorentina!’ a deep, male voice called. ‘Lady Fiorentina!’
Alafair ran back to the door. She called out. A moment later Fiorentina heard the sound of heavy armour hitting strong timber, and the door crashed in. Then the room was full of soldiers.
Crying with pain and relief, she looked up into the bearded face of Giulia’s captain.
‘Help me!’ she sobbed.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
THE DEFENCE OF the city was faltering. At the white palace there was bad news each day, each hour, then worse. A hundred times Valla had considered creeping away in the night, abandoning the empress and the frustrations of her duty, and making her way to the Adamantine Breach where defenders were desperately few and where the enemy horde were expected to march into sight at any time.
Since the departure of the Nighthawks, the palace was defended by only the Silver Bears and a company of infantry. Jona Lee Gaeta hovered constantly around the empress. He was privy to every conversation, every meeting, every plan made and remade. Even the old general Eufara, now Archange’s premier military adviser, was in the throne room less often. Thekla had left her grandmother to go down the mountain again, for what reason Valla knew not.
The only good news to reach Valla’s ears was that Rubin had somehow escaped his prison cell. Archange’s reaction, when the news was broken to her, had been to flick a look to Valla as if she suspected her bodyguard was responsible. Valla kept her face impassive, as ever, but inside she exulted. And when it transpired that an old soldier charged with guarding Rubin had also fled, then the empress’s suspicions of her faded.
This day the throne room was quiet. Apart from her personal guard, twelve men stationed round the walls and another dozen outside in the ante-chamber, Archange’s only companions were Jona and a dapper little man called Sully. This Sully had presented himself to the empress after the death of Dol Salida. He claimed to be a friend and colleague of the counsellor and had offered, perhaps in tribute to him, to apprise the empress of Dol Salida’s recent work. Gossip told Valla that before Dol Salida became Archange’s counsellor he had been a spymaster of renown in the Red Palace. Each day now the empress met the little man, sometimes in the public arena of the throne room, sometimes in the quiet of her parlour. Valla thought she detected some irritation in Jona Lee Gaeta’s manner when Sully’s name was mentioned. She smiled to herself. She trusted neither of them.
Now the empress and Jona, and two quartermasters, were discussing conveying rations to the beleaguered defenders at the Great Gates. The days of peace after the fall of the Red Palace and the ending of the blockade had allowed much-needed food to pour into the City from abroad, and the harvest in the farmlands to the northeast had promised to be bountiful. But when the new terror struck from the north most of the field workers had downed spades and fled with their families towards the south and west of the City, away from the threatened gates. Yet there was no help for them there, and the western quarters were soon bursting with refugees, the Seagate under siege by people desperate to get away. And now famine had broken out among the poorest.
Valla listened to the conversation with growing alarm. Families were dying of hunger in the west while in the farmlands fruit withered on trees and grain lay unharvested in fields. With all able-bodied defenders at the gates and the Adamantine Breach, no one was left to supply food.
Suddenly, in the distance, she heard a cry, then the sound of running boots in far corridors. Then more cries and shouts, coming closer. She looked at the captain of the guard and at his word soldiers sprang to close the gold-embossed doors into the ante-chamber, where warriors of the outer guard had already drawn their swords. There was no other way into the throne room, but her warriors lined up before the empress, who surveyed them with a frown of annoyance. Valla remained at her side, sword in hand.
‘Gaius!’ the empress cried. ‘What’s happening?’
The captain was listening, head cocked. ‘I fear an attack, lady.’ He gestured and four of his men slid the iron locking bar across the golden doors. ‘But you are safe here, empress.’ He ordered Jona Lee Gaeta to retreat behind the rank of soldiers.
Archange sniffed. She listened, brow furrowed, then she lifted her head as if scenting danger. Valla felt the air in the room crackle. A grey worm of dread coiled in her belly and the hairs stood up on her neck.
The screams were getting closer. The sound was chilling, the squeal and shriek of animals being slaughtered. Valla realized her fingers were trembling. This is what you’ve been hoping for, she told herself sternly. A chance of action! But her body betrayed her, shaking with fear, and it was all she could do to grip her sword.
Wild shrieking from the ante-chamber tore the air and Valla could feel blood gushing through her head, pounding in time with her heartbeat. There was a frenzied, irregular banging on the golden doors. Valla could see them shudder as blows rained upon them, the locking bar rocking. The screaming rose to a deafening peak, piercing her ears like knives.
The doors bowed inward then suddenly crashed open, cracking the locking bar like a dry branch, flinging its two halves across the room. Valla’s heart seemed to stop in her chest.
The ante-chamber was awash with blood. It fell like rain from the ceiling and ran down the walls and pooled on the floor and on the piles of rent flesh and sliding body parts which were all that remained of the twelve guards. A sick chill flushed through Valla and she felt her stomach rebel, the bile and fear rising in her gorge.
Out of the slaughterhouse stepped a solitary figure, clothed in blood.
Archange rose slowly to her feet. ‘Marcellus!’ she breathed.
He walked through the throne room, his boots squelching a bloody track across the pristine stone. He wore a gore-drenched uniform of the Thousand, and his face and hair and beard dripped blood. He carried no weapon. Valla watched him come towards her with horror. With each step he took she could feel the power building in the throne room. It crackled across her skin and sank deep into her bones. She heard herself moan with fear.
She had loyally kept the faith, repeating the words Rubin wanted to hear: Marcellus is our lodestar. He will return. But as his mysterious disappearance had drifted into the past, so her belief had failed. But now here he was, back from the dead, and her only reaction was terror.
Archange stood waiting, her eyes black as tar. She raised her hand to her remaining warriors. ‘Hold,’ she told them as Marcellus came on, though none had moved.
‘How dare you!’ she cried as he stopped a few paces from her, looking round balefully, challenging any to move against him. ‘How dare you slaughter my warriors in my palace!’
‘They dared to try and stop me,’ he told her and his voice was thick with anger and,
perhaps, blood-lust. ‘I built this palace, woman! I will not tolerate any man’s hand raised against me here!’
He glared at the soldiers in front of him, his eyes lighting on Valla for a heartbeat. There was silence except for the drip of blood. The stench of the charnel house filled the room. Then all of them heard the distant tread of marching boots, coming quickly closer.
‘Call them off, Archange!’ Marcellus warned, his voice taut. ‘You know well that I can kill every soldier in the palace!’
The empress nodded to Gaius. The captain of the guard strode past Marcellus, his eyes fixed to him, then he hesitated a moment before stepping through the piles of oozing flesh and hair and torn clothes and broken armour to the outside doors. Valla heard him bark out orders, then he returned. Archange’s eyes flicked to him then back to Marcellus.
He was watching her closely. ‘I could kill you where you stand, Archange. You have more than given me cause. Don’t tempt me.’
She laughed then, and her voice was full of contempt. ‘At one time, perhaps, little man. But I have conserved my power over the years while you wasted it on bloody spectacles like this.’ She waved her hand towards the gory ante-chamber. ‘Kill me? You couldn’t even bruise me.’ She seemed to grow taller until she dwarfed the soldiers guarding her. The air around her thickened and the illusion of wings appeared at her shoulders. Valla blinked, unsure what she was seeing. The room was vibrating with power and she dreaded what was about to happen.
The two glared at each other – blood-soaked demon and fierce angel – and the light around them wavered and crackled. The great dome above began to vibrate, resonating, sighing like a monstrous bell in a thunderstorm. Both looked up and Valla’s gaze followed. They could see the glass shimmering, its colours darting, flashing all around the great throne room. The sound grew, beating on their ears, the dome visibly flexing and stretching as if in a furnace. It seemed on the verge of falling and Valla fought the urge to flee.
Suddenly the power dropped away. Valla found she could breathe normally again. Archange reseated herself, pulling her shawl around her.
‘What took you so long, Marcellus?’ she snapped. ‘I’d thought you’d emerge from your bolthole sooner than this. We were told you were killed, though for myself I never believed it.’
He grunted. ‘Well, Archange,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry you missed my company. It must be thirty years.’
‘What do you want, Marcellus? Apart from killing warriors who have never been other than loyal to their City?’
‘I could not help but notice,’ he said in the old, affable way Valla remembered so well, ‘that the enemy is at your gates and you no longer have the troops to defend the City, thanks to your treacherous alliance with Hayden Weaver.’
She watched him, unblinking. ‘Say what you have to,’ she told him briskly, ‘then leave this place.’
He drew off his gauntlets and dropped them to the floor where they lay oozing blood. He wore a jewelled ring which threw out coloured splashes of light under the dome. He wiped one hand across his face then looked up again.
‘I’m surprised it’s still there,’ he said, his expression thoughtful. ‘I’d have thought it would have crashed long before this.’
She looked up too, then conceded, ‘It was well made.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we knew how to do things in those days.’
She nodded and suddenly the air in the chamber became calmer and warriors relaxed their stance. Valla had seen Marcellus’ moods change before, from friendly affability to savage brutality in a heartbeat. And back again. But still she was amazed that the two mortal enemies should speak together so casually. She wondered which of them was the more powerful, and whether the palace would be destroyed before anyone found out.
Marcellus sighed, ‘For all our past … differences, I have come to offer my help to defend the people of the City against this cruel and brutal army. I have two thousand heavy infantry even now crossing the Zarros. They are yours to command, if you wish it.’
Her eyes narrowed but she said nothing. Perhaps she was thinking, as Valla was, that until that moment she had suspected that Marcellus himself was behind the army.
‘I am informed they are less than two days’ march from the Adamantine Breach,’ he added. ‘Together with your motley crew of the old and the lame – and your new defensive ditch – we can hold off the part of the barbarian horde moving south. Your enemy here is my enemy. Even you are not too stiff-necked to recognize that.’
‘In return for what?’ she demanded.
‘Only your love and affection, Archange,’ he said, smiling for the first time. ‘As ever. And, of course, the Gulon Veil. Oh,’ he added, as if it were an afterthought, ‘and young Rubin Guillaume who is, I understand, languishing in the cells.’
‘You are welcome to the boy,’ she said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘I don’t want him. But you cannot have the veil. You know that. You knew that when you stepped into this place, when you left whatever fastness you have made your home.’
He shook his head, a look of sorrow on his face. ‘Even now the enemy’s cannon is pounding on the Great North Gate. Cannon, Archange! Whatever next? And they are within days of breaching the Paradise Gate. If you allow even a handful of them past the ruins of the Adamantine Wall they will merely stroll across the City and open all the gates from the inside. Is possession of the veil really so important to you?’
‘Is it so important to you that you will stand back and watch, without aiding the City you profess to love?’
He stepped forward and Valla raised her sword. He swung his gaze on her and searing agony sliced through her arm and she cried out. The blade clattered to the floor.
‘Valla,’ Marcellus snarled, and chill air rolled over her. ‘Warrior of the Warhounds. You have chosen the wrong side. What would our lost, loved Leona say about that, I wonder.’ His black gaze held her in its iron grip and she clearly heard Leona’s dying words, ‘Marcellus is our lodestar.’
She wrenched her eyes from his and looked to her empress, who nodded as if she knew what Valla would say.
‘I fought in the Hall of Emperors on the Day of Summoning,’ Valla told Marcellus and she was surprised to hear her voice was firm. ‘I fought for the Immortal then, and I will fight for her now. My side has never changed.’
Marcellus grunted in what could have been amusement, then turned back to Archange.
‘When we meet again, lady, we can sit and discuss the old days when you were free of this corrosive bitterness and the City was still a dream of liberty and splendour. And we can debate just who it was who fled the City and who perpetrated the worst crimes in her name. But now is the time to put away our squabbles and act together for the future of the City, to ensure it has a future. By the way,’ he added, ‘I heard reports of Marcus’ death. Is it true? I do hope not.’
She nodded. ‘It is. A great loss to the City.’
‘He was the best of us,’ Marcellus added formally.
She nodded, but her voice was frosty as she said, ‘You never cared for Marcus, or for anyone. You always thought you were the best of us. You still think it, for all your centuries of deception and treachery, of war and slaughter. I reject your offer today not because I don’t need warriors but because you cannot be trusted. You never could. I would not trust a cup of water from your hands.’
He lowered his head in a show of thought, then said, ‘As you wish. Despite your reckless decision, I will grant you one gift today. If you wish to hear it, I will tell you the name behind this northern army.’
Archange could not, it seemed, bring herself to say yes, but she did not refuse his offer.
He smiled and said one word. ‘Hammarskjald.’
Valla was watching the empress and saw her eyes darken. ‘Impossible!’ she hissed.
‘I have no reason to lie to you,’ Marcellus said, shrugging.
‘You have every reason,’ she retorted. ‘But he died,’ she added, though her voice held no convi
ction. ‘Araeon ensnared him and killed him with his own hands. Then burned the body. You were there.’
He smiled. ‘Now, Archange, we both know,’ he said jovially, ‘that being dead is no obstacle to ambitions of conquest.’
‘He despised us all, Marcellus, but he despised the City more. You will remember as well as I do his pious monologues about the corruption of power. And, just supposing Hammarskjald does still live, why would he want to take the City when he loathed it so?’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to take it. Perhaps he wants to destroy it, to sow the ground with salt. His grievances go back a thousand years, and old sins throw long shadows, as we both have reason to know.’
She thought for a while and Valla wondered if she believed him. There was silence in the chamber. Even the steady drip of blood from Marcellus’ clothes had stopped.
Then the empress raised her head and asked softly, ‘Why now?’
‘Because the City lies open for him like a bride on her wedding night.’
She shook her head. ‘If it is Hammarskjald, which I doubt, then he must want something besides conquest. What is it, Marcellus? What are you keeping to yourself?’
Jona Lee Gaeta stepped forward for the first time. ‘Marcellus, I have only heard the word Hammarskjald as a dark name from the past. But tell us all you know, if indeed you know anything, of his ambition.’
Marcellus swivelled to look at the man as if just now recognizing him. ‘Gaeta!’ he cried. ‘I wondered who was giving Archange such bad advice. Are you actually working for the enemy or were you just born a fool?’
Gaeta flushed. ‘I am proud to serve my empress and my City,’ he said.
‘And your mother, does she still live?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘I was always fond of Sciorra, though she never seemed to like me. Ask her about Hammarskjald. She knows as much about him as anyone.’
‘Marcellus,’ Archange said, and he turned to her courteously.
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