Empire of Avarice

by Tony Roberts

  Demtro folded the leaflet and slid it into his pouch. He would look up the address later. He had other work to do. He made his way back through the crowd, all calling for the resignation of Evas, and broke free with some relief towards the rear of the square. He saw more members of the town militia nervously gathering at the exits and surmised there would be trouble unless someone began to talk sense back there – not a likely occurrence, judging by what he’d experienced.

  The residence of High Priest Burnas was inevitably in the most affluent part of town. Demtro strode briskly along the wide main street towards the Kastan Gate. Here, fronting the street, were the biggest and most expensive residences. Burnas lived in the third one from the gate on the right, a two storied red stone construction, which displayed three windows at the top and two at the bottom, a sign of wealth. Most people had shuttered openings with lattice work instead of glass. Being High Priest was clearly lucrative. Demtro rapped loudly on the stout wooden door and waited.

  After a pause it opened and a lesser cleric appeared. “Yes? Oh, it’s you,” he said, looking down at the merchant. Demtro had been there a few times already and was known to Burnas and his circle of intimates. Demtro took off his tall felt cap and brushed past the cleric.

  “Where’s the old man?” he asked irreverently.

  The cleric pulled a distasteful expression. Such disrespect! “High Priest Burnas is in his study,” he said stiffly. “Praying for inspiration. He is not to be disturbed.”

  “Rubbish,” Demtro scoffed. “The old man’s probably enjoying a drink or three. Go get him.”

  The cleric, outraged, shut the door. “I shall inform the High Priest of your presence, but I doubt he’ll see you.”

  Demtro produced the leaflet. “Show him this. I bet he’ll want to know more.”

  The cleric took the paper as if it were being offered by the demons of the inferno themselves. The entrance hallway was spacious but austere, as if Burnas was trying not to show he was wealthy. Demtro sniffed. If that was the case, why live in a mansion?

  The High Priest appeared fairly quickly, holding the paper. “What’s this all about?” he demanded.

  “You know nothing of this?” Demtro asked.

  “Of course not! What’s going on?”

  Demtro gave him the condensed version. Burnas uttered a non-priestly expression and grabbed his outer garments, hanging from a hook on the wall close to the door. “Whoever it is I have not authorised this, and I know not of him. What god or gods does he represent?”

  “Anarchy, from the sound of it,” Demtro said. “I doubt he’s interested in our gods.”

  “Damn the man,” Burnas said and dashed out, the cleric in his wake, leaving Demtro alone in the mansion hallway. A couple of other faces appeared on the upper floor, both female and young.

  “Well, hello,” Demtro beamed, “and who are you?”

  Evas watched from his window as High Priest Burnas defused the situation, appealing for calm when the crowd bayed for him to take over Niake. Evas winced. The situation was getting fairly desperate. Burnas was soon standing on the same stands the mystery cleric and his helpers had been on a few moments before, but they had vanished. Burnas looked round for them but they could not be seen. He couldn’t look any longer for them for the crowd was becoming restless again.

  Burnas called for patience. He would speak to the governor and request a release of funds to rebuild the temples. That was the will of the gods, he insisted. It mollified the crowd somewhat, but there was still a seething undercurrent of outrage. Burnas appealed for the good people of Niake to return to their daily tasks and pray for a peaceful resolution. He knew that more riots would end in disaster, and the authorities would clamp down even harder on the temples. If not Evas, then the Koros certainly would.

  As the crowd slowly broke up, Evas breathed a sigh of relief. He sent for the captain of the guard to stand the men down and waited for the inevitable appearance of the High Priest. He arrived fairly soon afterwards, declining the offer to sit. He stood before the governor, his face stern and severe. “Governor, you are not in control of this city. I can only see matters getting worse if you do not heed the warnings that are coming from the masses. Your lack of effort in repairing the temples is now coming back to haunt you, and your continued indifference to the state of this city’s places of prayer will no doubt cause your fall. I have tried to warn you but so far you have done nothing to change this appalling situation here.”

  “High Priest, I have written to Kastan for help. Our funds here are extremely low and we are but a poor region at present. Efforts are being made to change things even as we speak, but my hands are tied. I do not have the resources to repair even one temple.”

  “Then, tell me, governor, how it is that a new temple is being constructed in Niake?” and the High Priest threw the now well-worn leaflet onto the desk.

  Evas read it and shrugged helplessly. “Not with any help from us, I can tell you, High Priest. I have no idea who these people are. Do you? These are clerics, after all.”

  “Even I do not know every cleric in the empire,” Burnas growled. “What I know of these wouldn’t take long in the retelling. In fact I know nothing.”

  “So this meeting wasn’t your idea?”

  “No,” Burnas admitted sourly, “but it should have been approved by me in the first place. Whoever this is, they are independent of you or me.”

  Evas looked at the High Priest shrewdly. “Maybe we ought to work together to find out more about this mysterious group?”

  Burnas paused, thought, then nodded curtly. “I certainly do not wish for independent sects causing trouble here. They called for me to run this city, what an outrage! I have no intention of running Niake! I am a priest, I care for the souls of the people of the empire. I leave the administration of the cities to those better versed in it – and it is high time you started showing that to me. If we are to work together then you will have to impress me with your organisational abilities.”

  Evas nodded. He also knew why Burnas didn’t want the difficult post of governing a province; governors were the first to go if civil unrest broke out. Burnas was happier manipulating things behind the scenes. “What of our mutual friend Demtro?”

  “Him?” Burnas snorted. “A chancer, that’s what he is. Untrustworthy. Let him concentrate on his merchant business and leave this sort of thing to the likes of us. He’s far too nosey for my liking.”

  “Just dangle pretty young females under his nose and he’ll be happy enough,” the governor said dryly. “Very well, High Priest, I’ll use my spy network to find out more of these people and what they are doing here. What of you?”

  Burnas thought for a moment. “This address they have left; I shall send a cleric to them to find out what deity they serve. That’s a start. You can learn plenty from what god someone serves.”

  “Very well. We shall meet again in three days to exchange information on what we’ve learned, and then perhaps we can plan a course of action.”

  “In three days, governor,” Burnas nodded and turned to go. He stopped. “If you have not found out anything then I may find someone else who can, and if that’s the case, it won’t be long before you will no longer be the governor of this province. You may find that you are indeed the first casualty of this unrest.” He left, leaving Evas with his thoughts alone.

  ____

  The High Priest arrived back at his residence, the harassed young cleric in tow, to find Demtro still there, entertaining the two young initiates the High Priest had accepted the previous sevenday. These young women were marked to serve in the rebuilt temple as attendants and servants of the gods, something similar to the Venerated Virgins of times gone by, before the empire had fallen from grace. One important feature of women who served in the temples thus was that they should remain virgins.

  “Demtro!” Burnas roared, “what are you doing with these women?”

  The two girls shrieked and fled the room, their wispy whi
te robes flying in the air. Their female forms were clearly visible to all underneath their garments which to be honest didn’t hide much. Demtro looked nonplussed, sat on the couch he had been sharing with the two.

  “Well?” Burnas demanded, looming over the merchant.

  “Nothing,” Demtro lamely explained. “Just discussing the merits of the gods.”

  “And I’m an emperor’s concubine!” Burnas snapped, his eyes blazing. “If they have been…..touched…. in any way, then I’ll have your innards fed to the avians!” He gestured to the young cleric to go to the women.

  Demtro stood up, straightening his clothing. “Now, now, High Priest, there’s no call to get all touchy with me for entertaining these lovely young maidens. I swear I haven’t done anything to them I shouldn’t have.”

  Burnas blocked the way out. “I do not trust you, merchant. You are becoming an irritation; I would be pleased if you did not come here anymore. In fact I would be pleased if you quit Niake altogether.”

  “Oh, High Priest, and spoil our beautiful friendship? You can’t really mean that! After all, I bring such joy to your otherwise dull life when I come here.”

  “Get out, you disrespectful cur!” Burnas shouted, brandishing his priestly staff close to Demtro’s head. “Any more and I shall have you sacrificed on the steps of the new temple when it’s built!”

  “Alright, I’m going, I’m going!” Demtro waved his arms in the air, warding off the stout staff that was dangerously close to his head. “Don’t have an apoplexy; we need entertaining people like you in Niake.”

  “Demtro!” Burnas roared.

  The merchant grinned at the doorway and sprang out and down the steps to the street. He stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled as he strode away. He made his way, past the groups of people talking and beasts pulling wagons, towards the address that had been on the leaflet. This was a poorer area but still not as bad as some of the districts away from the main streets. The building was an abandoned shop, one of many that had closed down recently due to the lack of money around. He peered through the small windows at the front but could see little.

  There was a side alley and he sauntered down this and examined the side of the building. There was a door that was locked, so he continued and at the rear there was a low wooden plank fence which he climbed over, landing lightly in an overgrown yard, full of weeds and abandoned pots and containers.

  The rear of the premises had two windows and a door. The door was locked but one of the windows had a broken latch and he forced this open, peering inside. The room beyond was empty and bare, and he climbed in with a little difficulty. Brushing down his clothes, he made his way to the door and pulled it open. Standing there was an angry looking man armed with a club. Before Demtro could say anything, the club descended onto his head and everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Argan’s crying brought Isbel once again to his room. The boy was crying out that the monster was going to eat him. Another nightmare. There had been plenty since the incidence with the kivok in his room, and the boy often woke screaming in the night. It could be very wearing and Rousa and the empress had agreed to take turns on alternate nights to go to the boy.

  A cuddle, a few words in his ear and a glass of water soon soothed him, and Argan was happy to be allowed to go back to sleep. He often couldn’t remember what he was afraid of, and the oil lamp in the corner of his room meant the room was not in total darkness. It had to be lit all night. The guard outside his room assured the empress that all was well, and Isbel returned to her room two doors down the corridor reassured. It nearly always happened at the same time, which was strange.

  She often couldn’t go back to sleep all that quickly after attending her son, and she would sit in bed going over the various reports and letters from around the empire, getting a feel on how things were going and what might be necessary to bring up in the next committee meeting.

  Zipria was settled and calm; they were proceeding well with the land clearance and replanting crops. There was one cause for concern, which was recently the ships sailing between the island and Kastan had reported increased pirate activity. Some ships had narrowly escaped capture while a couple had vanished, all seemingly in a narrow stretch of water close to the former imperial island of Romos.

  Prince Jorqel had sent in an update on the siege of Slenna. There was still no sign of an end to the stalemate but supplies in the town must be getting low. Jorqel was confident that before long Slenna would capitulate. The rest of Lodria was sending in tithes and taxes to Jorqel and so far the province was behaving itself. It was virtually an imperial province once more.

  Niake was a headache. Evas constantly sent letters asking permission for this and that, and the issue with the temples was becoming a joke. Isbel and the committee had ordered the governor to deal with the situation as he saw fit, but what this appeared to have done was to make Evas do nothing. Demtro had sent in his own report and it differed somewhat from Evas’ bland update. Additionally Demtro had identified two troublesome groups operating in Niake that would need rooting out before long, neither of whom had been mentioned by Evas. Was the fool blind? The rest of Bathenia was calm enough, but there were voices of dissent here and there and that was where trouble may raise its ugly head if it did come.

  Frasia was fine; being the ‘home’ province the presence of the capital there made things that more loyal. Crops were growing, people were happy – at least on the surface – and no bandit groups reported. It seemed at least here things didn’t need much work. The roads were being paved over rapidly and should be finished by the end of summer.

  Makenia and its city Turslenka was also no problem at present. The governor Thetos Olskan seemed reliable enough and businesslike. The mines had been re-opened and workforces were there to ensure the white building stone and sulphur were coming out of the ground in their respective locations. Again there were no reports of unrest, nor border incidents, which was important.

  In Kornith and the province of Pelponia things were proceeding reasonably well. The initial uprising against the Koros had been crushed and now there seemed to be no voices of dissent. How tough the acting governor had been in suppressing the reaction was unknown, but his reports stated all was well and the roads had been repaired, and now the funds received from the treasury were going to repair the port facilities in the far north of the province. Pelponia seemed fine.

  So to Bragal. Isbel sighed. This was to where her attention often wandered. Somewhere within its boundaries was Amne. There had been no word at all, but then she didn’t expect one for a while yet. The not knowing gnawed at her insides. If only someone had seen her. Her husband hadn’t mentioned her in his letters, and they were a mixture of affection towards her and a more formal report on what was going on in front of the walls of Zofela. Reports had come to her of the brutal suppressing of the revolt, and it seemed Bragal was trembling, awaiting the outcome of the siege. If Astiras prevailed, Bragal would probably submit and once again become just another imperial province. If he failed, the war might drag on indefinitely, something they could ill afford. Isbel so badly wanted it all to end so that she could have her man back.

  That left the ‘home’ front. She smiled at the old word she used in her mind. The domestic situation, then. No, that sounded too much like a threatened marriage. The planned rebellion from the nobility had been quashed, but other plots would no doubt come in time. The finances were looking healthier, but so far only because they had deliberately kept the size of the army down. Once a foreign entity decided Kastania was ripe for the taking they would have to increase the armed forces and that would severely curtail what they had available to put right on the internal structure of the empire. No further armed uprising had come after the defeat of Nikos Duras, but he was still at large, either in Frasia or Makenia. Nobody else had dared raise arms against the new regime, despite repeated warnings from her advisors and repeated threats from their enemies. Roads were bei
ng repaired, ports cleared of rubble and silt, ships repaired, businesses nudged back into life. The veins were once again pumping the lifeblood of the empire and in time, given time, the ‘corpse’ would arise and be ready to face the world once more.

  Time.

  Isbel sighed. Time was a luxury they probably didn’t possess. She threw back her bedclothes. Her mind was too busy to be able to go back to sleep. Her handmaiden would be fast asleep and she didn’t want to disturb her, so she slipped on a dress herself. After all, before she had become an empress she used to dress herself. Some noble women in the past had had servants to do everything for them, but these days it was decidedly modern to do these things yourself. Most nobles had fewer servants than before, partly because of cost and partly through a perceived feeling that it was vulgar to have too many. Only the New Rich, those who had made money through business ventures, went down that route and that was because they wanted to show everyone how rich they were. The nobility had nothing to do with those rude people. Crass, brash and without many social graces, their dinner parties were embarrassing. So the Old Money excused themselves and said no. This upset the New Money and the nobility were accused of snobbery and wanting to stay apart, which was true insofar as it went, but it was for good reason. Isbel had no wish to sit next to a man who wanted to talk about how much he made last sevenday on this deal or that deal, spitting food as he talked, his elbow on the table, peering down her cleavage and not making eye contact.