It would take time for old men like them to move, but she’d said her piece.
There was a knock at the door of the suite. Few of her regular guests were courteous enough to knock. She dried her face and opened the door to find a frantic Chrysaora. Her normally calm exterior was gone, replaced by a manic intensity.
‘Quickly, let me in,’ she said. ‘He’s right behind me.’
‘Who is?’ Aurelia stepped aside as Chrysaora rushed past her.
‘Faibryn.’
‘What?’ She shut the door.
‘We don’t have much time,’ said Chrysaora. ‘He’s coming here.’
Aurelia frowned, shook her head. ‘So what? He’s my betrothed.’
‘You mustn’t trust him. I don’t have time to explain. I’ve seen enough to be very suspicious. Your sister may be on to something.’
Another knock. Chrysaora tensed, going for her sword.
‘What is wrong with you?’ asked Aurelia, placing her hand on Chrysaora’s arm. She reached for the door.
‘Don’t say anything,’ said Chrysaora. Her eyes implored Aurelia to listen.
When she pulled the door open a crack, it was Faibryn who stood outside. He looked splendid in his royal militia uniform, doused in sunlight from the diffusing windows in the halls of the palace. He smiled expectantly.
‘My beautiful dove. We have a date.’
Aurelia just stared at him. With the nightmare, her nosebleed and Chrysaora’s frantic entreaties, she had completely lost track.
‘Or had you forgotten?’ His smile slipped.
‘Not forgotten,’ she said, trying to recover her composure. ‘But I am late. I am still in my night things. Would you be a gentleman and wait just a few minutes?’
He sighed indulgently. ‘Whatever you need. I will be here.’
Aurelia nodded thanks and shut the door, turning back to Chrysaora, who had been listening next to her.
‘I wish you hadn’t said anything,’ Aurelia whispered.
‘Just don’t agree to anything. It’s better that you know and can be on guard.’
‘I know nothing. You haven’t told me anything.’ She rushed into the closet room and began to dress quickly. No time for subtly or elaborate hairstyles befitting an Empress. She found an elegant green piece that didn’t quite reach the floor and some boots that worked and called it good. She made sure her nose was clean and free from blood and tied her hair up on top in a tumble. When she emerged again Chrysaora was pacing the foyer. Aurelia huffed. ‘I don’t have time for this. What about Nepheli? I told you to follow her.’
Chrysaora somehow managed guilt and defiance at the same time. ‘I followed Faibryn.’
‘I gathered that. That’s about all I’ve gathered.’
‘He isn’t who you think he is.’
Aurelia held up a hand. ‘That was true before, but now he finally is. You on the other hand disobeyed my direct order. Overlords know what Nepheli has been up to while you were out following a respectable Marquis.’
‘Just don’t trust him.’
‘I don’t trust you right now.’ She saw she had hurt the thrall. But at that moment she didn’t care. ‘Don’t do anything rash, I will be back. We’ll talk about this then.’
She straightened her dress and left, shutting the door firmly behind her.
‘Trouble with your bodyguard?’ asked Faibryn. ‘I heard raised voices.’ For a moment Aurelia wondered what he’d heard, but she couldn’t read anything else on his face. Chrysaora was making her paranoid. She was so distrustful of authority.
She huffed a small laugh. ‘She’s just highly strung.’
‘Is it because of her Medusi? I know Crescen got very,’ he searched for the word, ‘flighty, once he returned thralled. He was never quite the same again.’
They walked down through the palace halls to the grand civic foyer; under its high ceiling, buttressed pillars in the walls looked like the trunks of trees in a forest and ornate fluted fountains paraded along its edges.
‘This is the main concourse,’ said Faibryn, ‘where courtiers arrive for the day, if they don’t live here already. It’s like the main artery through which the blood of politics runs in Argentor.’
Aurelia wasn’t much interested in the history of Argentor today. She had more current things she wanted to know. Lots of them.
He’d mentioned his brother. That was as good a place as any to start. As Faibryn helped her into a waiting palanquin she felt a little more like the Empress she used to be. She would need that today.
‘How do you feel about him being banished?’ she asked when she was comfortably sat across from him. The tiny space meant he was unable to escape her questions.
‘Who?’
‘Your brother Crescen?’
The palanquin lurched up and the bearers set off. Aurelia was in the dark about where they were headed; Faibryn had indicated a surprise the other day. She took a peek through the thick magenta drapes and could see they were heading north from the court.
‘No peeking,’ said Faibryn. She wondered if he was going to try to ignore the question, but he was simply collecting his thoughts. ‘He had become a thrall, Aurelia. No, in fact, he had become a spy for the Order of the Medousa.’ Aurelia opened her mouth to speak, but he raised a hand. ‘I know what you think of the Order. Father told me everything.’
She couldn’t quite believe her luck. That would make things easier, she hoped. No more of him stalling talk of the army until they were married. Or at least she could hope.
‘Let’s start small though,’ he continued. ‘You want to know about Crescen.’ He leant back. ‘He got what he deserved.’
Aurelia hadn’t expected Faibryn to show love and understanding, but she hadn’t expected that either. Possibly her own experience with Cassandra returning to the palace had coloured her vision of siblings returning as Cepheans. ‘Got what he deserved? How can you say that when Lepitern was the one who sold him off to the Order, and then cast him out when he was no longer needed?’
‘No longer tolerated,’ he corrected. Aurelia didn’t like to be corrected, but she let it go in the interests of keeping him talking. ‘I would have thought someone in your position would understand when difficult decisions have to be made. Sometimes even against your own family. It was for the greater good.’
‘The greater good?’
Faibryn sighed. ‘What did you do when Cassandra was returned to you?’
‘I did what any caring sister would do. I tried to welcome her back.’
‘But you had a spy in your inner sanctum.’
‘Cassandra had not been turned against me.’
He scoffed. ‘Well, Crescen had. What I was getting at is that you kept her around, you let her stay, while your citizens at first gossiped, then talked openly, then began to shout for her head. I heard you eventually faked her death.’ Aurelia thought back to that time and reasoned she would do it all the same again. Cassandra was her best friend as well as her sister and she trusted her implicitly. Some things were more important than politics or saving face. ‘Where you were happy to keep her indefinitely, jeopardizing your rule, father made good on an oath he’d taken. The moment Crescen no longer made a difference in the war effort, he would either be killed or banished. I respect that. He cut the rot out from the heart of our city as soon as you finished the war.’
It was amazing that only a few months on, she was being credited with finishing the war when all she had done was lose her city. The Order finished the war, I just finished Argentor’s. History changed depending on who was remembering it.
It was encouraging that he thought of the Order as rot.
The palanquin rocked as they were taken over the river on one of the beautiful terracotta bridges. She could hear the current lapping below, smell the spices being brought to market, wafting along with the barges. Still heading north then.
‘With him banished,’ she said, leading, ‘you are next in line.’
‘It’s not like t
hat. My brother Laigus is heir.’
Aurelia didn’t want to touch that. Laigus was dead in Theris somewhere, and that was also her fault. If Faibryn still thought he was alive, that was a conversation she didn’t want to have.
‘How is your father?’
‘He seems to get progressively worse. I don’t know what is wrong with him. I think he has given up on life. He is no longer fighting.’
Every question she tried Faibryn seemed to shoot down, with a dismissive remark that made it hard to continue the subject. He was different today. None of his usual swagger and confidence. He’d lost his playful edge. There would be no stolen kisses today. Had she traded the fun and happy Marcus for the stern Faibryn? The very political marriage he had professed not to want.
‘Is it what you would have done in his place? Banishing Crescen?’
‘I would never have allowed that situation to arise. But I would have acted in the same way to end it.’
‘Because of the Order.’
He nodded.
‘You know my city was taken, not by King Isingr but by the Order. The people who spied in your palace, spied in mine.’
‘Your sister.’
She tried to put on a brave face. ‘It was my brother actually. He worked against me.’
‘So, you do know what I mean about difficult decisions involving family. It is the noble’s lot.’
Aurelia continued. ‘I’m not sure he knew he was aiding the Order until they eventually decided to make their move. They took Theris in the moment it was its most vulnerable. Now my people are enslaved by the same cult that took your brother and manipulated your father.
‘The legendary Medousa they worship is real. She is a powerful sorceress called Noctiluca. She is intent on taking far more than just Theris. And she is coming here next.
‘You say you would not have allowed that situation to arise. Use the army you have, make the decision to fight them. Because if you leave it much longer they are going to be here and Argentor will be another casualty. Act, before it’s too late.’
She left it at that. She had argued the same entreaty a number of times now, to a number of people. It was practised and succinct. But once again she had no political capital to draw on for herself. She had to work through others.
Faibryn looked at her for a long moment as the palanquin came to a slow halt. He flicked a drape. ‘We’re here.’
Aurelia was helped to the ground by Faibryn’s hand. She was surprised to see how far they had come. They had stopped in a cleft in the ridge that bordered the Argentori valley to the north. In the cleft sat an imposing and rather impressive gatehouse, with a huge double door made of thick dark wood some twelve maybe fifteen feet high. It was framed by a fort-like building made of wood and stone, with battlements on top and two tiered roofs like a pagoda.
Faibryn led her to a side entrance and up a covered wooden stairway. At the top once again he turned and held out a hand, helping her up onto the open walkway behind the battlements. There was a slight breeze that tugged at her tumbled hair, but otherwise it was pleasant.
And the view was fantastic.
‘The last checkpoint on the silk road to Argentor,’ said Faibryn.
‘What a wonderful view,’ said Aurelia.
And it was. The city stretched out the south below them looking like a watercolour painting. The sparkling Sarpenti river glinting in the midday sun, ran through the centre. Argentor’s bridges made the famous twelve bridges of Theris seem quaint and peasant in their ornate architecture, some so thin and spindly she wasn’t sure how they stayed erect. The palace stuck upward into the sky at the centre, an array of minarets and pinnacles she hadn’t appreciated before. She could see the myriad terraces, the vines and trees that were seamlessly designed into the buildings throughout.
She could see the Citadel where the Premiers held their knowledge and deliberations closeted away. She doubted she would crack that hard exterior. She shuddered at the memory of Verismuss’ carved up body parts being flung across that huge stone table at her, and the mood the view created was soured.
‘But it could all be so easily destroyed,’ she said, almost without meaning to. ‘When those Medusi drifted in while we were in the fields, it took until they reached the city for them to be stopped. People died. You have no wall, you have no moat; you have a lake, but no moat. Your cannon are in disrepair, there is no Medusi net. Your city, despite the foreign war, has been at peace for too long, Argentor has grown soft. When the Medousa aims her army here, everything you love about the city is going to be destroyed.’
‘Theris had all the things you describe,’ he said without feeling, ‘and still Theris fell.’ Then he grew more passionate, more intense than she had ever seen him get. ‘Noctiluca is unstoppable, you say? She destroyed your city. She is a powerful sorceress. So what chance do we have even if I do as you say right now? Her swarms of Medusi will just roll over the city and thrall everyone. How on Arceth do you fight a power like that? Do you think I want that to happen? I don’t, but I don’t see how you can possibly stand up to her. Do you have plans for each of these insurmountable problems?’
Aurelia looked from the view back to Faibryn, and saw a wolf-like hunger in his eye that hadn’t been there until then. He wanted to know her plans? She suddenly didn’t want to tell him. Something didn’t feel right. Was it what he said? How he’d said it? It was a perfectly normal thing for a future husband in charge of a future army to want to know, so why did she suddenly feel suspicious? Chrysaora’s warning came back to her. Just don’t trust him, she’d said. Her bodyguard had followed Faibryn and found something. Something that had made her suspicious, and Aurelia had brazenly dismissed it.
Add to that Cassandra kept warning her there was someone not to trust.
We take the fight to them, Aurelia would have said. We get the army out on the open valleys to the south, between Noctiluca’s army and the city and we kill as many Medusi and thralled as possible. We keep them away from the people, because it’s people she wants.
Its thralls she wants.
Instead she demurred, sheepishly saying, ‘No I don’t. But I do know we have to fight.’
Faibryn looked away as if it were nought. ‘If you have nothing tangible to tell me, then I won’t make a move. I can’t.’
Again, the strange feeling came over her, but this time it felt right, like a confirmation. Don’t tell him anything, not yet. She didn’t owe this man anything, but Chrysaora? Chrysaora she trusted with her life.
The breeze was suddenly warm and uncomfortable. This had hardly been a date, just a political meeting, an entreaty to action on behalf of a foreign state. First, Faibryn had been distant, then intense, now nonchalant again. She felt like she didn’t know him anymore. She wanted off this roof as soon as she could make a plausible excuse.
Aurelia turned away from the city and caught sight of the view to the north. The verdant green of the valley gave way within a few miles to hard country, barren terrain that stretched as far as she could see. A dusty road twisted away from the gatehouse, winding into the distance. The expanse to the north looked like nothing more than she imagined the surface of the moon must look; ancient tributaries and canals long since dried up had left rocky overhangs and pillars of stone abandoned. And at the very furthest reaches of the horizon what seemed to be huge holes in the earth.
‘It may be the last one before Argentor, but surely it’s the first checkpoint going somewhere else?’ asked Aurelia, both looking for another subject and curious. His eyes lit up and she just let it happen. Faibryn just loved to explain something historical to her. He loved knowing something she didn’t, and he loved the sound of his own voice. She was strangely glad to see the Faibryn she knew reappear.
‘At the height of Theris’ power,’ said Faibryn, ‘Argentor was more than just the connection to the Far West via the Sarpenti River. Far more. This gate marks the beginning of the silk road that curls through the Northern drylands to the fabled lands of
Andromeda. I don’t know anyone who has been there, but fifty years ago there was common traffic through here, caravans bringing trade in silks of course, which is where it got the name, but also dark refined sugars and spices, flavours that have been described to me as mouth-watering, sorely missed now by the debauched of the city who sampled them. The Andromedans would demand hard silver in return.
‘Do you remember when we discussed globalisation? In those days it existed, the world was inter-connected, but we have been an isolationist state since, shutting the gate and closing our minds to new ways.’
‘The gate has been shut for fifty years?’ Aurelia asked, shocked. She tried to imagine having just completely shut off a part of Theris’ heritage or an entire trading route and couldn’t.
‘Yes, something like that.’
‘Does it still open?’
‘Oh I’m sure the mechanism’s still work. Argentori engineers build things to last, my lady.’
All she really wanted to know was, ‘Why was it shut? Who did it?’
‘My great uncle shut the gate after rumours of a great plague and pestilence travelled here. The disease never reached the city, and they say not a single soul ever ventured down the silk road again. We don’t know what happened to the Andromedans, but most think they died out entirely.’
‘And no one thought to help them?’
‘No one was going to venture into those lands just to die from a foreign disease,’ said Faibryn dismissively.
Aurelia gazed over the dusty road and the craters far in the distance. There were a people out there that she had never known existed, or at least there had been. Ennius had never spoken of them, and they hadn’t been mentioned in the histories or the legends she had been taught. She marvelled at the hard lives they must have lived adrift in that barren wilderness. Who were they? What were their lives like? Were any of them still alive?
I should like to go there one day, she thought, eyeing an adventure, but once again, she kept it to herself.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 38