by J B Lucas
“Cousin Ferran,” began Satrus. “I . . .”
“Don’t give me that shit,” said Ferran. “You’re cousin to a cousin to a spouse or something. I took you in out of fake loyalty and a gambling debt. You’ve messed up and possibly started a nasty fight with Claisan. What’s worse is that you’ve embarrassed me in front of my friend. So, I’d advise you to shut up until I tell you otherwise.” He and Loreticus sat down, keeping their eyes on the boy as he stood. “Now you can talk. Tell it all. No omissions.”
“Amle is to blame,” he began. “She left me for an old man, cousin. Can you imagine? It was obviously a bad match from the beginning.”
“I think that we can all agree on that point,” snapped Ferran. “I didn’t ask for your broken heart, I asked for the reason why I’m here.” He poured then passed an overfull glass of wine to Loreticus.
“I have a person on Amle’s staff. My father was giving me so much grief about being a cuckold before I was even married, and my friends were laughing at me. She made me the joke of the town for the sake of shacking up with some old man. So, when my informer told me where she and Gholan were hiding out, I came to tell her to come back.”
“That went well, I gather?” asked Loreticus.
“I couldn’t even get in to see her. My man told me that the house was ready for my arrival, and that I would be killed if I showed my face. So, I pretended to be a veteran looking for a farm or something and asked for help to look around.”
“You hired Deciman, our marshal?” asked Loreticus.
“Yes,” replied Satrus. “He showed me the woods and the mountainside. I realized that I might be able to get into the house from the woodlands behind when I was walking with him. But then, when I went back that evening, I saw them in the window. I heard what she said about me, and I lost my temper. I was justified to be angry. They had treated me like a fool, completely disrespecting our family.” He gestured towards Ferran.
“Different families,” stated Ferran laconically. “Both royal, just one much more so than the other. Move on.”
“I figured out that I wouldn’t be able to change her mind. At least, I could do something to lessen the hurt she had inflicted on me.”
“So, you killed him,” stated Loreticus.
“Yes. A clean shot, a brilliant shot. If I could boast to the world about that shot I would.”
“Gods, you’re worse than I am,” said Ferran and slumped in his chair. He prodded his forehead with his long fingers. “I don’t know what to do with you. Definitely somewhere far away, probably somewhere with a high risk of getting your damned head cut off.”
“Claisan wants him, Ferran,” said Loreticus.
“Claisan wants everything, Loreticus. Tell him to come see me and I’ll talk to him about recompense.”
“I don’t think that is what he’s after. He can pay the widow himself. He wants satisfaction for Gholan.”
“He wants to execute a royal,” stated Ferran and lifted a finger to underscore his rival’s true intent.
“But my head will do instead?” asked Loreticus.
“I can’t send him this fool,” stated Ferran, and Loreticus saw that it hurt him to deny his friend. “Satrus is, after all, royal blood. We have to deal with our own. I’ll let Claisan know that you’re under my personal protection.”
“He’s not going to be happy that I brought you first,” stated Loreticus.
“You had a choice to make between the two of us,” said Ferran. “He will be upset that he lost the chance to punish someone he’d never even met, and I would have been upset that you had betrayed me.”
“I will be in deep trouble,” said Loreticus. “I promised. It was my chance to smooth over our differences.”
“I’ll make sure that you live,” said Ferran. “It’s not as if you weren’t already on his hit list anyway.” There was a finality to the comment, and a tone which was a rebuke to Loreticus’s efforts. They looked at each other, neither wanting to ruin the nostalgia of a childhood friendship.
Loreticus stood and nodded. “Another time then, Ferran.” He left with Selban, leaving the general and his minion to show themselves out.
*
“I think I have failed, Selban,” he said to his friend as they watched the servants pack their stuff for their return to the capital. “What kind of person am I to have let down someone like Amle?”
“You didn’t let her down,” Selban said quietly. “Ferran could never have handed over a royal to be judged and executed by zealots. Could you imagine the political mayhem? Claisan wanted that more than anything else. He would have had his rebellion.”
“Then what are we to do?” asked Loreticus. Selban knew when his master was like this, Loreticus was comfortable simply to give up on logic.
“Ferran will need to send Satrus away. He’s a liability and a fool. I’ll find out where he was sent and you can give Claisan his location,” replied Selban. “It’s a sign of goodwill.”
“It’s an undignified compromise,” said Loreticus.
“You’re the spymaster,” replied Selban. “You only dislike compromise when you’re on the losing side.”
BOOK II
THE POISONED ORPHAN
J.B. LUCAS
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by J.B. Lucas
Copyright © 2018 J.B. Lucas
The moral right of J.B. Lucas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Chapter 1
Thin, but robust, crystal clear, the fascinating jewelled string dipped precariously but confidently from its rough overhang. When sunlight touched it, it sparkled, and when the inevitable lopsided breeze rode it, it swung, ever daring to drop.
Loreticus stared at it. In his superstitious mind, everything bad happened in threes. Selban had a productive cold, and he’d never been a highly tidy man. His mucus scared Loreticus. Antron had a leak in the communication to the Emperor; he’d tasked Loreticus to find the culprits. The third great bird dropping was yet to find his head.
Selban looked more sickly than usual. The bags under his eyes were inflamed like frog’s throat sacs, and he breathed laboriously through open, dry lips.
“I’m sorry,” Loreticus said, rubbing his temple with the tips of his fingers. “I wasn’t listening to you.”
“Gods’ sakes, Loreticus,” croaked Selban. “I was explaining why we should arrest Claisan’s snooper immediately. It solves all problems. It wins us favour, it undermines Claisan and his cause, and it gets this case off our desks. It’s going to be a beautiful week, with a festival just outside of town.” He narrowed his heavy eyes at his master. “Why weren’t you listening? What are you thinking about? Have you cracked it already?”
“No. You honestly want to know what I was thinking about?”
“Of course!”
“You have -” Loreticus gestured with a finger and a grimace “- snot.”
“Oh,” said Selban, surprised, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Better?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Selban had suffered through a summer cold for the entire heat wave, or rather Loreticus had suffered through his cold. Every now and then a breeze came to the city, carrying hotter than normal air from somewhere distant. On this air were curses and spices which turned a man’s stomach or sank him into a winter’s illness in the depths of the roasting heat. Now, with a highly political case sitting on their laps, he was forced to have this mucus-ridden beast staggering around the office which Loreticus neurotically organised, or had his servants organise neurotically, and he was forced to be a spectator to Selban’s ginormous, frequent, open-mouthed, hands-free sneezes. They were always productive. Loreticus was convinced that he was going to die this month or next from an infection launched from the depths of Selban’s fungal lungs.
“But the idea – to sling Claisan’s spy under someone’s hooves. Goo
d, right?”
“No, not good,” replied Loreticus. “Do you think that the leaker will stop because we framed some poor soul?”
“Ah,” mused Selban. He hummed. “Likely he would be scared off, having seen what happens if you’re even suspected of being the bad guy?”
“No.”
They sat, pushing wine goblets around the desk, nominally enjoying the silent arc of the sun to its place behind the mountains. The heat was both glorious and fiendish. At this moment, it came through the windows of Loreticus’s elevated study, untouched by the city below with its stink of human intrigue, and it landed on his face like the first wash of a fresh bath. It softened his cheeks, whitened his eyes, shrank the pupils so that he was forced not to read or think. A brief moment of subordination to the world after a protracted day and before a long night.
Loreticus’s rooms were in a tall, thin private tower, the one he’d inherited from his own mentor, which stood in the middle of the great Red Palace, the seat of the imperial family and the gossiping mouth of the empire. For the vast majority of the year, this ensured privacy and quiet, but tonight there was a wedding of one of the friends or clients of the family. The emperor’s ceremonial gardens were adjacent to the spymaster’s own walled garden. Even without the walls, it was easy to see where his garden stopped and the other’s started.
The grand gardens for ceremonies were designed and tended with genius and love. It was said that there was a hidden code in the weave of the paths, and the positions of the trees and shrubs which made up the structure. But Loreticus had sat on his balcony, ignoring his own desolate patch of brown, unloved earth, and had stared at the plan of the emperor’s mind. All he could see was that if he wanted to walk alone, he would lead the entourage along one path which was narrower than others. Experienced bureaucrats understood from his choices the mood he was in with the visitors and would act accordingly. It was a humorous game of prediction that Loreticus played whenever he saw the old man out there.
The emperor had berated him at the state of his own soil. Allegedly, it had once been an oasis of calm and fresh air, but Loreticus found no solace in trying to tame things whose sole aim in life was the effort to be wild. Where was the completion in that?
And so tonight, the emperor would have drunken merry-makers in his gardens and Loreticus would be forced to watch people having fun, or he would be obliged to go out to have fun himself. Selban had incredibly persuaded him to the latter, and whilst he didn’t regret the commitment, he was unsure about his level of enthusiasm for the people he was going to meet. All noteworthy, he was sure, but he doubted that anyone could be satisfactorily interesting or funny on the first encounter to make him feel optimistic about mingling.
Nevertheless, Loreticus brought out his best tunic for second-tier social occasions, and called to his servant to bring the razor, strigil and strop. If he was to go, he would go forgetful of his stress and professional complications. He was determined to prove that the rule of three curses at once was invalid if he stopped looking for the final rock to drop.
There was something inherently tranquil about the walk through the market in the early morning. Loreticus had been forced to leave the bed he was in more promptly than expected when a spouse arrived a few days early from his military exercise, and he now found himself feeling hungry, carefree and pleasantly young.
The bakers were churning out thick, delicious smells whilst stall owners cleaned the scraps of yesterday’s fruit and meat which hadn’t been consumed by nocturnal scavengers. Five large brown buns of seeded breads, spiced honey for dipping them in, and watery breakfast wine would be breakfast. What he didn’t eat, Selban would inevitably devour upon his arrival.
The cool of the dawn breeze hadn’t quite been lost and the air was a delightful defence against a refreshed sun, so when Loreticus arrived at the bottom of his tower, he skipped a few of the steps on the way up to his rooms.
A servant had been in and had left a more meagre breakfast under a white cloth on the terrace. He peaked and let the cloth fall back. More for Selban. With a heavy thump, he dropped his backside into a padded chair and laid out his freshly purchased breakfast as if it were a strategy game. He calculated with glee the generous amount of honey he would allow for each scoop of broken bread, presuming that he’d not eat more than two. Should he leave some for later in the morning? It was a nice thought, but that beast Selban had the nose of a bloodhound and his honey would not be safe. No, better he feast now and glow in its memory.
Whichever petty god was in charge of rooting out complacency in man, he or she had a personal vendetta against the spymaster Loreticus. As he broke through the elegant crust of the first bap, a pitiful wail rose from almost directly below his feet. It was a loud, bestial, uncomfortable emission which rose out of the core of some distressed soul. Loreticus paused, the bread hovering close to his gaping mouth, extending his tongue slightly to prevent a drip of honey from falling on to his best tunic as his eyes remained unfocussed and his ears opened wide.
There it was again, a dire cry of mourning.
“Bugger,” he said and thrust the bread into his mouth. He ran to the stone balustrade and peered down into his garden. Nothing. Then he saw – a figure huddled over the prostrate body of a man in the emperor’s gardens. “Bugger.”
He turned and bolted towards the door to the stairs. That curse of threes! An imperial assassination was going to make his other trials look frivolous and could upset the whole empire into civil war. He could see that the victim was dark-haired, but no more from five storeys up. Who was it? One of the generals? One of the imperial cousins? Suddenly, his morning turned from gloating and comfort to heat and sweat. The bread stuck painfully in his chest, refusing to move down to his belly as he galloped down the stairs.
To have an imperial assassinated during his early tenure as spymaster would be a terrific blow to any hope of his to advance. To have said assassination happen almost under his balcony, well, that bordered on febrile negligence.
He raced from the tower’s exit, through his garden and swung open the hefty door through his private wall. At once he collided with Selban, who fell backwards, grabbing Loreticus as he fell. As one, they crashed against the floor, Loreticus’s forehead bouncing hard against Selban’s wet face.
“Oh for . . . . . .” Loreticus began, wiping the mucus from his skin.
“What the devil is in your belly?” choked Selban, pushing him off.
The spymaster frowned at him, the closest to a growl an expression might muster, and then tugged at Selban’s tunic as he dashed around the curved wall of his garden. He dragged his heels to a stop, staring as he did so. Selban skidded to alongside him.
There, crouching before them, was a bride, young, still in her dress, her hair dishevelled from wear rather than action. She was beautiful, her hair dark, her eyes vivid blue, surprising despite her circumstances. Loreticus and Selban held their breath, watching her as she moved forward towards them, holding back small, hysterical sobs. Then, with a lunge, she wrapped her arms around Loreticus’s neck and buried her face into his shoulder. He held her tight, looking past her, seeing the crumpled form of a man on the ground. He looked to be dressed for a wedding as well, with an expensive large flower pinned to his toga.
Loreticus unwrapped her from around him, covered once again in someone else’s fluids, then stooped and kneeled to look at the corpse.
There was no question he was dead; he had the posture and expression of a poor actor captured in one of the old murals on the palace walls, with his soft cheeks loose and his pitiful eyes rolled upwards to the skies above. Selban knelt next to him.
“Who is he?” whispered Selban.
“No idea.” Loreticus moved his head around, hoping to see something which might offer an indication of the man’s origin or family. Obviously well-maintained, but not rich. Well bred, but without the usual magna nasus of the royal brood. He touched the skin, which was cool despite the su
n, and slightly slippery. He looked at the figure again, and saw dried sweat rings in the man’s toga, deep scoops where the heavy perspiration had washed the chalk down the material.
“Excuse me, madam, but what is his name?” asked Selban, turning back to the bride. “Oh dear.”
Loreticus spun around, panicked by Selban’s expletive. But there was nothing, no-one there. The woman had disappeared.
Then a figure came through the far wall, the entrance and exit from the emperor’s gardens on to the road. He was a louche individual, dressed in urban military attire, and he sauntered over to the spymaster. He looked at Loreticus, then the body, then at Selban.
“Who are you?” asked the spymaster slowly.
“Well, I couldn’t have found you in a more defining moment,” said the caller. “Is he dead?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“How did you kill him? Poison or fright, I’d guess.”
“No-one dies of fright.” Loreticus ran his eyes over the visitor, taking in his fashion and his arrogance. There were white scars on his sun-tanned arms, from this year but not very recent. He was alert but not bright, and from a good background judging by his teeth and his accent. “You’re from Antron’s mob?”
“Yes,” said the man. “Here to pass on a message. The common sentiment in the tent is that you’ve got a spy in our ranks, and he got flushed out by one of the emperor’s men. So . . . . . .”
“You’re wrong,” croaked Selban, and sniffed. “Your traitor, not ours.”
Loreticus corrected him. “He’s telling us, my friend, that we need to deliver a mole from within Antron’s own cohort, who will testify that we are innocent. If not, we’re the ones who’ll be for the chopping block.”