by Anthony Ryan
• • •
The Electress had been quick to take possession of the offices once occupied by the colonel who had commanded this station. After securing the town and its precious supplies she convened a council of the army’s captains where Jarkiv related what he knew of the momentous event. Atalina reclined behind the fallen officer’s desk, a contented grin on her broad lips as cigarillo smoke leaked from her mouth and nostrils.
“A Blood Cadre agent brought the news ten days ago,” Jarkiv said. “Apparently, the Emperor suffered a fit and drowned in his bath.”
Lizanne exchanged glances with Arberus, finding his sceptical frown a mirror of her own. “If he drowned, it wasn’t due to a fit,” she said, experiencing an unexpected pang of regret for the passing of poor mad Emperor Caranis Vol Lek Akiv Arakelin. His delusions had been entertaining, if nothing else. “Has an heir been named?”
“The Emperor died without issue,” Jarkiv replied. “The Cadre agent told our major that Countess Sefka Vol Nazarias has convened a Regency Council to exercise power pending a decision on the succession.”
“Sefka . . .” Lizanne whispered. To think I persuaded Caranis to let her live. The Blood Imperial won’t be happy about her elevation, if she hasn’t had him killed yet. “It was a coup,” she said, raising her voice to address the room. “I expect in a few days this Regency Council will find a convenient puppet to place on the throne or the countess herself will miraculously discover a blood line linking her to the Imperial family. Which doesn’t bode well for anyone with a legitimate claim.”
“Prince Reshnik is Caranis’s closest living relative,” Arberus said. “But he’s seventy years old and, reputedly, a simpleton.”
“Countesses, emperors, princes,” Korian said, voice rich in scorn and an excited gleam in his eye. “The great aristocratic circus doesn’t matter now. The nobility has always been a pestilential snake coiling itself around the heart of this empire, and now it’s headless. We have never had a better opportunity.”
“To do whad?” Varkash enquired. He stood at the Electress’s left, arms crossed and a stern frown on his brow.
“To win of course,” Korian replied, turning about to address them all, voice trembling a little. “Think of it, brothers and citizens. The road to true freedom lies open, we need only take it.”
“My men didn’t join up for a revolution,” Varkash pointed out. “They were promised ships and passage off dis blighted land. As for myself, I have bidness in Varestia and couldn’t give a sea-dog’s cock for your freedom.”
“Your homeland will be freed from the perennial threat of invasion once we are victorious,” Korian insisted then turned to point at Jarkiv. “This man and his fellows have shown how fragile the Regnarchy’s grip has become. They will not be the only soldiers to rise against their officers. This will not be the only town to wrest itself free of its chains. There were riots in Corvus before the Emperor’s death. Now the city must be in ferment. We should strike north in the morning, begin a march on the capital that will capture the hearts of thousands . . .”
“We come up against one decent-sized and well-organised force and we’re done,” the Electress broke in, speaking quietly but firmly as she stubbed out her cigarillo and immediately reached for another. “Right, General?” she added, raising an eyebrow at Arberus.
“In all probability,” Arberus said, face set in hard contemplation. “But that presupposes such a force exists to oppose us. If Citizen Korian is correct, the road to Corvus would be open.”
Lizanne found she didn’t like what she heard in Arberus’s voice, the echo of that revolutionary zeal that had birthed so many arguments. “And what would we do when we got there?” she enquired.
“What many of us have dedicated our lives to,” he replied, turning to meet her gaze. “We put an end to the tyranny that has been the bane of this empire for centuries.”
I thought you had progressed beyond this, she wanted to say. I thought I had made you . . . more. Instead she hid her disappointment with a shrug and turned her attention to the Electress. “There are too many unknown factors here,” she said. “Clearly there will be a measure of chaos, but to imagine that we could march all the way to Corvus unopposed is lunacy.”
The Electress glanced at her before clasping her hands together in a familiar contemplative gesture. After a long moment of calculation she turned again to Arberus. “What’re our numbers like now?”
“With the addition of Captain Jarkiv’s men, close on six thousand,” he replied.
The Electress nodded, face expressionless as she pointed a stubby finger at the door. “Everyone out, I need to think about this for a bit. Not you, dear,” she added, as Lizanne made to follow the others from the room. “We’re overdue for a proper chat.”
• • •
“The last woman to betray me begged for death.” Atalina had ordered a bottle of wine brought to her rooms and sipped at it as they sat opposite each other beside the fire-place. Lizanne noted that the tray holding the bottle held only one glass. “The last man who betrayed me couldn’t,” the Electress went on, “on account of how I’d stuffed his balls in his mouth.”
“Yes, you’re a very frightening person,” Lizanne said, offering a bland smile. “Consider me suitably intimidated.”
“’Cept you’re not, are you? Faced worse than me in your time, I’d guess. I’d also guess they’re all dead now. Am I right?”
Lizanne’s mind flashed to Madame Bondersil’s last moments, the helpless fluttering of her arms before the Blue drake jerked its head and swallowed her whole. “Is this relevant?” she asked.
“We need to properly understand each other, if we’re to forge a common purpose.”
“I thought we had already done that.”
“Hah.” The Electress gave a brief chuckle. “You think I don’t know that the moment you get a chance to sneak off with Tinkerer you won’t take it? You do a pretty good job of hiding your thoughts, but the mask slips a little when our radical friends start talking. Got no stomach for their babble, have you?”
“Wilful naïvety is irksome.”
“And General Arberus? He irksome too?”
“He has his ideas, I have mine.”
“Then I’m sorry to say I can’t see much’ve a future for you two. It’s how it was with my old man, before I killed him. We ran a profitable smuggling operation together in northern Kestria. We were young in those days, but we’d been brought up in the smuggling trade and knew the ropes well enough to get by. The purges after the First Revolution had killed off the older breed and much of the competition, so we had a pretty clear run for a few years and got very rich in the process. By the time I was twenty we lived in the finest house in town and had all the ornamentations to go with it. You should always be wary of wealth, my dear, for it’ll make you soft and brave at the same time.
“Came the day the Emperor saw fit to appoint a new Provincial Governor who had a mind to triple the annual bribe we’d paid his predecessor. My husband wasn’t having any of it, grown brave in his wealth, like I said, but arrogance is its own brand of weakness.” She paused to breathe out a nostalgic sigh. “If ever I actually loved someone, it was him. Broke my heart when I slipped the mandrake into his supper. Had no choice, y’see? We could fight another gang, but not the empire. So, I did what needed doing and paid up.”
“And yet you still ended up in Scorazin,” Lizanne noted.
“Things rolled along pretty well for everyone for a good few years. With my husband gone I was able to bring a certain efficiency to the business, doubled our profits soon enough. Then the old governor died of gout. His replacement was some cousin of the Emperor’s, a real stickler with a rod up his arse who thought accepting a bribe was beneath one who bore the Divine Blood. He set his constables to seizing our shipments, after hanging a few who’d been a bit too free with their bribe money. Even then we
might have survived, kept things at a low level and waited for the bastard to sod off back to Corvus, but it turned out he had the favour of the Blood Imperial. Once that old fucker sent his agents into Kestria, it was only a matter of time before I found myself at the end of a rope or in Scorazin. Spent a good deal of my life behind those walls. Not saying I didn’t deserve at least some of what I suffered there, but by no means all.”
She raised her eyes to Lizanne’s, holding her gaze for a long moment of silence.
“Oh dear,” Lizanne groaned in realisation as the woman’s intent became clear. It was odd, but her disappointment in the Electress was almost as great as her disappointment in Arberus. Although as dreadful an example of the criminal class as Lizanne had ever expected to meet, she nevertheless had nurtured a deep respect for the woman’s pragmatism. “You actually intend to march on Corvus.”
The Electress shrugged her broad shoulders. “We’ve all got scores to settle. Besides which, with this empire in chaos, who knows what opportunities might happen along? Sailing away to some corporate holding has a certain appeal, if you’d’ve actually kept your side of the deal, which I have my doubts about. But I don’t know the corporate world like I know this empire and its people. Like you said, I could do great things here.”
“Arrogance is its own brand of weakness,” Lizanne reminded her, expecting to arouse the woman’s anger and so was disappointed when she only laughed.
“I’ve never been arrogant in my life,” she said. “But I’ve also never been one to turn my back on an opportunity, or an unpaid debt.”
It took a moment for Lizanne to understand her meaning, and when she did she voiced a brief laugh of her own. “The Blood Imperial. You want revenge for what he did to you.”
“Seems like the only occasion in this lifetime I’m likely to get the chance. But it takes a Blood-blessed to kill a Blood-blessed.”
“Meaning me, I assume.”
“Meaning I’m renegotiating our arrangement. You want Tinkerer, I want that old bastard dead when we get to Corvus.”
“There’s a fair chance he’s dead already.”
The Electress shook her head. “Done my research over the years, gathered every scrap of knowledge I can about the Blood Cadre. I think we both know the Blood Imperial will have survived this coup. Perhaps he even had a hand in bringing it about.”
Lizanne thought back to her meeting with the Blood Imperial, the old man’s deep-set cynicism and ingrained facility for intrigue certainly indicated a soul capable of engineering Caranis’s downfall. But she also recalled his attachment to the established order. It’s an absurd and ancient pantomime, and it works. “I find that unlikely,” she said. “It’s probable that he will be paying lip-service to Countess Sefka’s authority for now, but they’ve been enemies for years. Conflict between the Blood Cadre and the new order is most likely inevitable, meaning he will be more use as an ally than an enemy.”
“You talk like someone who knows him.”
“I do, although our acquaintance was brief. It was thanks to his intelligence I came to Scorazin.”
“Suffering a great deal of privation and risk just so you could bring out Tinkerer. I think it’s time I knew why he’s so important.”
“Suffice to say, if you don’t permit me to take him to an Ironship holding nothing that occurs in this empire will matter a jot.”
“Yes, I gather plenty has happened since I went away. A lot of wild tales to be heard in this town, about how the empire and the corporates got kicked out of Arradsia by a bunch’ve drakes and deformed savages.”
“Sadly all true.”
“Which means no more product for you and your kind. If we wait long enough the Blood Cadre will have exhausted its stocks and won’t be able to oppose us.”
“By which time you’ll be facing something far worse than the Cadre.”
“Then it’s in your interest to ensure our victory is a swift one, my dear.” The Electress paused, eyes narrowing. “You really think the Blood Imperial will throw in with us?”
“Only in extremis. It’s more likely he’ll do everything he can to crush us. You can expect to face his Blood-blessed children before long.”
“How fortunate then that I have you, and that Brotherhood boy, whatsisname.”
“Hyran. He’s far too inexperienced to face combat with a Cadre agent, Blessed or not.”
“Best get to training him then.”
“This is madness,” Lizanne told her simply. “Countess Sefka can still muster enough loyal troops to defeat us, even without the Blood Imperial’s help. You can’t expect this rabble to stand against regular, veteran soldiers.”
“You should have more faith in our general. I’m expecting great things of him.”
The Electress levered herself out of her chair and nodded at the door. “Think that gets it said, don’t you? You could take yourself off of course, can hardly stop you. But this is the deal now, you get the Tinkerer the day you lay the Blood Imperial’s head at my feet on the steps of the Sanctum. In the meantime, go within a dozen feet of the Tinkerer and I’ll have Anatol slit his throat.”
• • •
The army moved out after a three-day halt at Hervus during which time Arberus did everything he could to transform his rabble into soldiers. To Lizanne’s surprise there had been no sudden upturn in desertions following the Electress’s announcement that their ultimate objective was now Corvus instead of Vorstek. The ease with which Hervus had fallen seemed to embolden the recruits, even attracting a few more volunteers from the surrounding towns and villages as word spread. Recruitment increased further after the Brotherhood began proclaiming Arberus’s true lineage. They sent riders from town to town spreading the news that the grandson of Morila Akiv Bidrosin herself had emerged from the shadows to lead the march to freedom. By the time they began the march the army’s ranks had swollen to almost ten thousand people, although to Lizanne’s eyes they still displayed only a vague semblance of military order.
“At least we have something like a decent artillery train now,” Arberus commented as the army assembled itself for departure. In addition to Jarkiv and his somewhat grandiosely titled Free Brigade, the fortified town had yielded a dozen cannon and substantial stocks of ammunition. Fortunately, the garrison’s gunners had been amongst the most enthusiastic mutineers, meaning each gun was fully crewed by experienced hands.
“It won’t be enough,” Lizanne said. “One regiment of Household troops will put this lot to flight in a matter of minutes.”
“That supposes Countess Sefka will be able to spare a regiment. Our new recruits brought news of rioting in Corvus, more mutinies in the northern garrison towns. Korian is right, we’ll never have a better opportunity.”
Lizanne watched him survey his army, seeing the zealous gleam in his eye. She knew her disdain was unfair. Arberus had been steeped in revolutionary dogma since birth and this unexpected turn in events could be said to be the culmination of his life. Even so, the swiftness with which he appeared to have abandoned their mission stung more than she cared to admit.
“Come with me tonight and we’ll take the Tinkerer,” she said. “We’ll be far away by morning and safely aboard an Ironship vessel within ten days. Leave these fools to their mad endeavour.”
He didn’t look at her, though she took a crumb of comfort from seeing his zealousness subside into a regretful frown. “I can’t,” he said. “Not now. Not when we’re so close.”
“Is this my fault?” she wondered aloud, addressing herself more than him. “If I had been . . . less myself would you be so quick to throw away what we shared?”
“Did we ever really share more than a purpose?” he enquired, turning to her with a sad smile. “Was I ever more than a useful convenience?”
Lizanne began to answer then stopped, appalled to find the words halted by a catch in her throat. This thing has
weakened me, she decided, turning away. And I can no longer afford weakness.
“I see.” Arberus swallowed a sigh and extended a hand to point out the slight form of Tinkerer amongst the busy throng. The artificer stood directing Anatol and his brace of guards as they placed a collection of tubular devices in the back of a wagon.
“The Electress let me put him to use,” Arberus said. “There’s a foundry here, I thought he might be able to produce a thumper or a growler if I gave him the designs. He said it was impossible in the time available, but he did come up with another less complex device that might prove equally effective.”
Lizanne straightened a little at his tone and the note of intent it held. She paused to swallow away the catch in her throat, straightening her back and draining all emotion from her response. “So, I assume you wouldn’t want him to go suddenly missing.”
“Or you. We need you both. We have a chance here to do something great . . .”
“Spare me. You know what we face, you saw it with your own eyes at Carvenport. This trivia”—she waved a hand at the untidy ranks of the sluggishly assembling regiments—“is a distraction.”
“Sefka and the Blood Imperial have no interest in anything beyond their own power,” Arberus countered. “An empire freed from the corruption and incompetence of the ruling nobility will be far better placed to resist the White’s onslaught.”
“Such inventive rationalisation does you credit, General.” Lizanne turned her mare about and trotted away, knowing she would pitch her tent far from his come the evening and that he would make no effort to seek her out.
• • •
“Beautiful,” Makario said as Hyran fell silent, clasping his hands together and a small tear rising in his eye. “Simply beautiful.”
The youth flushed a little and gave a modest shrug. “Just an old choral piece Ma and Pa taught me,” he said. “Music was a big part of their faith. Said it gave voice to the soul.”
“So you know others?”