Mordraud, Book One

by Fabio Scalini

  ‘So why is it I wish he were here, by my side?’ she interrogated herself, bitterly. Adraman was still asleep, undisturbed by her torment. He’d wake up only at his son’s whimpering, even the slightest. He was naturally ready to be a father, despite his sterility. The Gods had been over-cruel to him.

  Deanna got up, took a dressing gown from the trunk and sat before the mirror. Watery blue moonlight filtered in through the window’s half-open wooden shutters. Eld was swaddled in silence.

  “Deanna, you look awful... absolutely ghastly,” she murmured faintly at her face reflected in the pane of silver. Abetted by the night’s cold light, she was as pale as a spectre, her skin seemed like wax, and her eyes were sunken in wells of puffed sockets. Even her raven hair – her pride and joy – looked like straw dipped in ink. She’d put on weight and felt flabby. Annoyed, she grabbed a dark clay pencil and began putting on make-up. First a fine veil, but all she saw was greater ugliness. Her hands twitched nervously, in jolts and starts. She laid colour upon colour, nuances beneath her eyes and on her cheeks. She rubbed on a couple of different creams, yet only seemed to grow more slatternly and distorted.

  She seized her brush and, with violent yanks, attempted to tame her mass of tangled hair. Each new tug sparked a jab of pain to her scalp. A pleasant sensation. She stared at her effigy, trapped in the mirror, enjoying the infliction of hurt on herself. Her face was a frightening mask worn by acrobat performers during village pageants. The witch. The virgin ghoul. She felt her belly gurgle menacingly, as if something were growing inside her. Or perhaps it was purely the void her child had left in her bowels. A hole in her body. A gaping chasm that would never fill with new flesh.

  Mordraud stirred in his crib, and whined at the rough noise of her brushing. Deanna stood up and went over to him with feline paces. She didn’t want Adraman to wake. He shouldn’t see her in that state. She tucked the babe’s covers in, but he carried on whimpering. She stroked him, rocked him in her arms, walked to and fro, but Mordraud carried on crying weakly. So she placed him back down, anxiety crushing her skull. The whimper was a bellow drilling her ears.

  “Shh... be good now... shh,” she muttered tautly. “Be quiet...”

  “Is Mordraud hungry?”

  Deanna span round. Adraman was getting out of bed, yawning. Then she looked at the baby. He’d given up crying, at last.

  She had stoppered his mouth with a finger. Mordraud was no longer moving. His tiny hands were stiff, clenched on her palm in his last frantic effort.

  “Is everything alright? Are you okay, my love?”

  Deanna pulled her hand away and took a step backwards. Sweat was causing the make-up to run into her eyes. She gazed first at the crib, then at her husband. Adraman hadn’t noticed, or at least so it seemed.

  “Come back to bed, you look exhausted...” he told her as he took Mordraud in his arms. Deanna heard his whimper and saw him move, as if nothing had occurred.

  But had something actually happened? Or was she only dreaming? Deanna traipsed to the bed in silence, lay down and buried her head beneath the pillow. She wanted to sob, but couldn’t. She wanted to feel guilty, but failed to manage even that. Adraman was playing with Mordraud, she could hear them laughing together, even from under the blankets where she was hidden. She was quivering with shame, like a plague-carrier.

  When she’d seen her son with his little shut eyes, motionless and silent, she hadn’t been afraid. Quite the contrary.

  She hadn’t minded, not at all.

  ***

  “WHERE’S HE HOLED UP?!”

  Asaeld was a river flooding at full speed along the corridors of the great Imperial palace. A legion of Lances endeavoured to keep up with his quick angry strides. The echo of his voice resounded on walls hung with paintings and tapestries, it rang off the white marble statues commemorating the Loren family heroes, and it meandered through the labyrinth of polychrome stuccowork adorning the barrel-vault ceilings of the empty rooms.

  “DO SOMETHING, INSTEAD OF MAKING ME TRIP OVER MY OWN FEET!” he barked furiously at the men trailing him. Yet nobody knew what to do. Dunwich had left Cambria several months earlier, on a mission to the central front, upon Loralon’s orders. Asaeld had tried to object, but in vain. The truth was he’d have easily been able to dissuade the ruler, but he didn’t want to strain things. The business involving Parro, the chancellor, had been a hefty coup. He’d preferred to let things run their course, and behave normally. However, the missives he’d sent to the front had remained unanswered. It was the first time something of the kind had happened.

  An unprecedented affront to his authority.

  “Sir, we’ve asked all the soldiers returning from the Rampart... Dunwich is still there and hasn’t mentioned coming back...”

  “I know that, YOU FOOL! I want you to find the flea-brain I entrusted my messages to, to find out if he lost them or was unable to deliver them. Bring him to me! It won’t be hard to lace him with some nice little charge, to keep him in a cell for a few decades!”

  The time to act had finally come. It wasn’t exactly that perfect set-up Asaeld had been dreaming of for years, but he could make do. The Rinn family’s personal troops had moved north and south of the front, claiming lands under Cambria’s control. The war had switched face, from colonial expansion to relentless defence of the rights of the Empire’s people. The winter of that rain-clogged year was now at its last chilly gusts. The spring was on its way, already laden with defeats at the front. The population’s indignation was at its highest levels ever, if Asaeld was to believe reports from the myriad of informers he had wormed in all about. Tiny costly voices nibbling away at his money pouch every month, for years now. But the era of the silent waiting was over. The rebels’ Alliance had served him a precious pretext on a silver platter.

  The only blemish in his plan was Dunwich. His popularity among the troops was sky-high, due to both his swift ascent and the air of miracle permeating the events he had survived. The battle of the Night of Fire, the attempts on his life, the poison, and now command at the central front. The men adored him, and trusted him blindly. Asaeld had of course done all he could to ease things in that direction. He’d publically opposed the Long Winter, but had worked with Nector and Raelin at the Arcane to develop it in all haste. He’d rejoiced when the plan had failed, and had drawn on the opportunity to assail Loralon politically. He’d also covered up the fact that a group of insurgent Lances had been the choir’s slayers. He’d orchestrated the attacks by the Loren family loyalists, converting them into nefarious raids carried out by a violent fringe of the Empire’s dangerous foe. The most inconvenient of them he’d sullied, just like the Long Winter’s end. And he had made people believe that Parro, Loralon’s advisor, was part of this cluster plotting against the homeland.

  Everything, in order to keep control. Glory meant absolutely nothing to him. Dunwich was perfect in the role of bridgehead, just as Asaeld was in his. His problem was quite another.

  He needed the young man in the city. At any cost, and at full haste. His plan was still awaiting the last little coaxing shove, the final embellishment of a chant performed to perfection, with total patience and method. But Dunwich wasn’t in Cambria, precisely at the time when he’d begun to warm up all the other voices in the choir.

  The strife and rage had to be spurred on, and there was no better time than after the thrashing blow dealt by the Rinns to Loralon’s domination. The Lances had been alerted. The army captains were, unwittingly, already on their side.

  Only Dunwich was missing.

  “LORALON!” yelled Asaeld, hurling open the large brass door to the main audience hall. The Emperor was seated on his throne, curled up with his legs on the cushion and slouched over the broad arm of inlaid wood. Around him, his Imperial guard waited at the ready and in silence. Ten of the army’s best Lances, the youngest and strongest.

  Asaeld had hand-picked them all.

  Each one had his own entry on his payroll.

&
nbsp; “What’s going on, commander? The reason for this rashness?!” Loralon asked in a drained tone. The constant bad news had worn him down, changing him into a pathetic shadow of himself. Scrawny and angular as a robin, with eyes always half-closed and sunken into his skull, he was the living emblem of failure. The people and the entire army now understood this. Rallies and parades had not been staged for some time. The famine, the rains, the rotting fields, and now the plague and the defeats on the battleground – these had all smothered the lights on the Empire’s shining spectacle. An empire that had been born and died during some quick and insignificant spurt of history. In the end, the rebels had triumphed, Asaeld considered, smiling. Not the way they’d hoped, but their achievements went beyond even the rosiest forecasts.

  “I’m here for some explanations!”

  “Regarding what, may I ask?!” Loralon squeaked, huddling up tighter on his sumptuous throne.

  “Did you give Dunwich orders not to return to Cambria? I requested his presence here in the city with extreme urgency!”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Fine. Well... have him return IMMEDIATELY!”

  Asaeld took a pace forward, staring at him with the authority of a god.

  “No.”

  Asaeld’s eyes widened in surprise. It wasn’t the reply he was expecting.

  “Perhaps you fail to see the urgency... The Rinns are assailing us... We need to get organised, make plans...”

  “I am aware of what you are planning, Asaeld.”

  Loralon spoke in a very firm voice, contrasting distinctly with his scared expression. Asaeld stayed silent for a moment, puzzled by his attitude.

  “Surprised, commander? Did you really think I was that dumb?”

  “I don’t understand what you are trying to say...”

  The Emperor snapped forward, his fingers clawing the throne’s arms. He no longer seemed so desolate – quite the opposite. He seemed incensed, like he never had before.

  “CUT IT OUT WITH ALL THESE FRIGGING LIES, ASAELD!”

  The Imperial guards didn’t budge a hair’s breadth, mimicking statues of stone. Instead, the other Lances behind Asaeld took a step back, fearing the Emperor’s reaction.

  “What lies do you refer to, Your Majesty?” he burst out with half a strained smile.

  From his pocket Loralon pulled a mouldy parchment bearing the Loren family seal, and began reading in a shrill voice. “I, Loralon, heir of the Loren royal family, request the immediate deployment of troops in the Essar Valley, with the order to quell all revolts occurring to take possession of grain. AND MY SIGNATURE’S ON IT!”

  “I really don’t understand what you’re accusing me of...” Asaeld replied, stretching open his arms.

  “The soldiers quashed those rebellions with blood! Dozens of peasants massacred for a hunk of bread! Or this one: I, Loralon, heir of the Loren royal family, request three infantry divisions to be transferred from the central front to the Hann Creek camp. With the utmost urgency. Signed again by Loralon, naturally! Guess what happens next: two days after the move, our men assault the Rampart. The infantry numbers almost halved – a complete disaster!”

  “Are you complaining to me about your own orders, sir?!” Asaeld shouted, dejected and furious.

  “You got a little too into the swing of things, didn’t you? Commanding the army wasn’t enough for you: you also wanted power over all Cambria! And how could you do that, without being labelled a traitor? Hey, Asaeld? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!”

  Loralon was purple in the face, with spittle flying at every word, but he wasn’t as out of control as he usually was. Asaeld had soothed him a thousand and one times when he’d found the ruler in that state. He could manage it again.

  “Simple to say, tremendously hard to do,” Loralon went on. “Convert the legitimate Emperor into the most hated figure on the continent. Spur a revolt. Whisk up unconditional consensus to overturn the throne. Take a PUPPET and put him in my place! Turn treason into a necessary and somewhat bloody – for love of the Gods! – declaration of allegiance from the true custodians of the Empire, the LANCES, to halt the carnage that I, LORALON, had supposedly committed! Couldn’t possibly let me WIN the war, could you, Asaeld?! The people would have overly approved! I HAVE TO BE INEPT, AN IDIOT, ISN’T THAT RIGHT, ASAELD?!”

  From the dark depths of the hall came a man, his arms heaped with missives, packets and parchment scrolls. He was limping, and his face was pitted with scars and poorly tended broken bones. It was Parro, the old chancellor. A clumsy deformed smile brightened his pummelled face.

  “I have to say that the man who faked the documents for you was truly skilled – a master in his field. I would never have noticed, nobody would have, if you hadn’t gone so far. Too great a craving for power, my dear Asaeld! I’ve known Parro for decades, and I was aware he was not the type inclined to plot. Besides, he knows his job perfectly. These...” roared the Emperor, snatching a fistful of sheets from the chancellor, “these are all documents that precede and follow those you brought out by surprise, as proof of his guilt. I pored over them all, studied their tiniest details, and almost decided to give up. My friend, my family’s chancellor, really was a traitor! And then I remarked on something... Look here.”

  Loralon held out two parchments to Asaeld, who did not take them.

  “LOOK AT THEM!” he yelled in rage. “LOOK AT THEM, NOW!”

  “Two letters from the front, signed by myself and the chancellor,” Asaeld muttered darkly as he scanned down the parchments. “...In one, I notify of the request for horses for the front...”

  “I remember receiving that, and approving it,” Loralon broke in. “And the other?!”

  “Here I describe conditions in the fields and the devastating effect of the rains on the crops...”

  “...It’s one of the famous letters the chancellor supposedly concealed, according to your accusation. There’s a specific date on the bottom, below Parro’s name. Pity that on that precise day he was in the Hall of Silence at the Temple of the White Wing, praying for his brother, WHO’D DIED THE NIGHT BEFORE! AND HE WAS WITH ME! Parrican was a childhood friend of mine, just like Parro! He can’t have received and signed this letter!”

  “He... he might have signed it after the wake... or the next day...” Asaeld attempted an explanation. “This must be a joke. It’s a mere date... Since when has a date coincided with placing a signature? The chancellor must at least have forgotten he’d duly signed it... He went to the funerary ceremony, someone else came to collect the missive, and that person made a mistake when filling out the date. It can happen. In any case, that letter was signed by Parro. It’s evident. It’s irrefutable evidence.”

  Loralon burst out laughing coarsely.

  “Carry on lying, go on! You can no longer stop, can you?! Have you forgotten the procedure? If the chancellor can’t receive a missive, then it has to be delivered to the guard on duty at the entrance to the court, and a specific form is filled out. Which exists nowhere! I’ve interrogated everyone. Teeth have been knocked out from every guard in this palace in an effort to discover where this delivery form might have ended up, but it doesn’t exist, because nobody ever actually brought this letter to be signed by the chancellor. HE CAN’T HAVE SIGNED IT! IT WAS YOU!”

  “And so, just because something doesn’t add up in these documents, I must be at the heart of a perverse scheme to harm the Empire?! Loralon, are you accusing me of HIGH TREASON?!” Asaeld bellowed ferociously. “Prove your accusations! Otherwise nobody will ever believe you! The army’s with me, do you get that?! WITH ME!”

  “I don’t need proof! I am above all judgement, above the law and above all you poor fools! I’m the Emperor! You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Asaeld! I can do with you as I wish!”

  Asaeld had only two options, and little time to think. He assessed them both, and then made a decision.

  Declare his innocence. Leave in indignation, force Loralon to accuse him in public, and ruin him with his
own accusations. Without however absolute certainty he’d pull it off.

  Or end it all with no further ado, there and then, with that buffoon and his bunch of bunglers. Take control by force. Go from intrigue to action. With the certainty of managing it, since all in the room were loyal to him, his money and the Lances’ cause.

  “Loralon, given your clear inability to govern Cambria and the Empire with justice and foresight...” Asaeld approached slowly, step by step, “I ORDER you to relinquish your throne, retire to your apartments, and hand over the city...” On reaching the foot of the grandiose seat, Asaeld unsheathed his sword and raised it above his head, like a judge before a condemned man. “...To hand over the city to the glorious and noble brotherhood of the Lances! You’ve exploited us like cattle, you’ve sent us to slaughter, you’ve built a ruinous empire on our blood! MEN! ARREST LOREN’S FALLEN SON!”

  His moment had come, and Asaeld savoured every single word, like a fine liqueur on his lips. His speech had been a little improvised, but he nonetheless found it effective. His first undertaking would be to have it carved on the throne, as soon as he’d placed Dunwich there in the role he’d prepared for the young man.

  It was done. Sooner than planned, but it was done.

  “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, MEN?! CARRY OUT YOUR ORDERS!”

  Of Asaeld’s eight Lances, behind him, only three joined him in front of the Emperor, who was meanwhile staring at him with a taut and crooked smile. Four of Loralon’s ten personal guards stepped forward, but the others stayed motionless. “Get a move on, you lily-livered cowards!” Asaeld brayed.

  The Emperor slowly rose to his feet, unpleasantly tapping the commander’s chest with a finger.

  “I was sure you’d get a little carried away. Thank you, Asaeld. You made the right choice,” he breathed.

  “Proceed.”

  The guards who hadn’t moved drew their swords, seized the shoulders of the companions coming forward at Asaeld’s call, and slit their throats beneath the chin-plate, with a swift swipe of the blade. The reactionary Lances looked around in fear, turning to their fellow men who had not advanced. Too late. It was a lightning improvised slaying. Swords clashed for a mere moment, before ushering in a silence as weighted as a bale of sodden wool.