by J B Lucas
"And a quick and safe route to take a large army to the middle of a rich neighbour?"
"Perhaps." The emperor cackled again. "Once we've settled our own capital into a routine again, perhaps I'll visit."
The only way that Augustus would visit Surran would be in metal with twenty thousand men and women behind him, armed and hungry. The spymaster examined the monarch as if the smirk on his creased face might offer a reason for his merry temper.
"It will take a while to build this route," said Loreticus. "Such a project might be a good way to soothe tensions here."
"There are no real tensions here," declared the emperor. "There is only gossip coming from bored generals and their troops, simply because they aren't used to sleeping in soft beds. I've sent Claisan's men off under Marcan and Iskandar to different ends of the country to recce our borders. I need another two thousand horses as well, something for which we are still pitifully dependent on the northern barbarians." He looked at the spymaster, and a trace of judgement changed his facial expression. "You don't approve of war, do you?"
"I don't. I approve of quiet, of stability, of eliminating problems one by one, as they create chaos."
"Ah, but Loreticus, don't be judgemental of chaos,” stated Augustus with a paternal tone that bordered on condescension. “Volcanoes explode; forests burn; lands flood. Your judgement implies that what comes after is inherently worse, and that is only because you don't know what comes next. Chaos is wrong, but change is right. Building a single empire is right. It will be the end of the war." They exchanged glances again. "No?"
"No, sir." Loreticus walked to the map and touched it with arched fingers. "We have enough on our desk at home, here in the city. We should fix that before we turn outwards."
“Oh, I intend to, my wise man,” retorted the emperor. His eyes appeared grey in the sunlight and his face dry as stone. Loreticus had long since given up dabbing the sweat on his neck, and now he turned, pinned down by the emperor’s direct look. A strange, intense moment passed, and then the giant smirked. “Since when did you become such a chiding housewife?” asked Augustus as if nothing abnormal had taken place.
“I don’t know, sir. Since you decided to become a despot?” replied the spymaster quietly, browbeaten.
"You, Loreticus, are quite a rebel."
Loreticus shrugged and looked up to meet the emperor’s serpentine judgement. "Perhaps. Remember, sir, that it doesn’t make me wrong."
Chapter 7
Loreticus sat on his balcony, watching the city wind down for the night. In the distance, mountains continued their fistfight with the glowing clouds, purple and yellow, purple and white. A barbarian lord had once visited his father, and he had heard him call the clouds "God's breath". Frightening to contemplate, but so easily forgotten when your back was turned.
Below his tower, twisted wisps of fragrant smoke rose from the grounds as keepers burned leaves and branches in the garden where he had stood with Augustus earlier. The fires perfumed the air, casting a homely spell.
Five stories high, and he still enjoyed it. Despite being forty miles from the mountains, he still shivered from the cold breezes that tumbled like drunks down the rocky slopes.
What had the emperor been trying to tell him? Yet another Surran connection, and they would have met more than the emperor on their visit. Was it in fact a Surranid plot to hamstring the generals? That in itself was unlikely as just one army from the empire would be enough to lay waste their city.
Loreticus watched the evening pedestrians, as they gathered near the taverns and in the squares. He felt very little enthusiasm to be anywhere near them as if they were the cause of all of his stress.
Perhaps Selban and Augustus were right. Perhaps he was becoming sensitive and grumpy. But the involvement with Claisan rubbed his conscience the wrong way. There was something unnatural about the resolution that they were coming to. He had no doubt that the emperor had implied that Loreticus should find Claisan guilty; he completely understood why and might have decided to remove the threat himself had he been in Augustus’s shoes. Were the religious community to rise up, Claisan would be at the front of the mob, as a living legend, a warrior who would make widows and orphans of Loreticus’ own family.
But the act was wrong. A good man would fall because of this manipulation of logic, a moral man with a family and a long history of service to the emperor. The choice that Loreticus had been given led to a quandary – to damn a loyal imperial general who was innocent of this act or to vindicate him and lose the emperor’s favour.
Claisan was unloved by Loreticus because he was paranoid about the spymaster. But whenever he dissected the problem, he found the involvement of Claisan in some form, so perhaps that paranoia was validated by guilt.
He let his weight sink back into his chair, and it, in turn, curled back on its rockers. The sun dropped with a vulgar speed, leaving long, ugly shadows of the palace's towers across the district of the wealthy and the smart.
Loreticus had been under one of those roofs last night. In someone else's bed, in someone else's life for a night. He had slept so well, impossible now in his own quarters.
To his right, a full carafe of black wine stood ready, and a pipe sat with grey wisps lifting from its bowl. Spiced finger foods decorated a pewter plate. He pulled a large cotton blanket over himself and settled in, ready to drink himself asleep.
"Why are you torturing yourself?" asked Selban again in a whisper.
"Because I owe the general something," replied Loreticus. "He's a good man."
"He's a future enemy," muttered Selban quietly. He was chewing on a cinnamon stick, occasionally using it to scratch something off his gums. “Saves us a headache tomorrow.”
They were waiting in Claisan's foyer, on the same sofa, with the same guards. This time the general was punctual, and as he arrived, he dismissed the soldiers with a curt gesture. He sat heavily, but something of his person was always in motion. There was an impatience, a need to finish the meeting.
"Tell me, Loreticus, what has changed between yesterday and today?" asked the general.
"General Claisan, I don't want you to be angry with me, but I need to see your face," said Loreticus. "I want to ask you a few things, and I need to see what your eyes say."
The general folded his bare arms, and deep muscles carved out.
"The notorious mind-reading of the spymaster," chuckled Claisan. "Your candour is remarkable, as is your disrespect."
"General, I am at heart an honest man. I like you, and I have no issue with your religion. I think that you are a champion of our empire. If anything, my motivation would be in your favour."
" Name a single friend you have amongst the entire religious community? Not an acquaintance but a friend. No, no one. You'll just say that it's because we keep to ourselves."
"You do!" roared Loreticus. Selban turned to him in surprise. “Damn you, Claisan. Eitan was my mentor. Eitan gave me my position here. Eitan was also one of your best friends.”
"Loreticus, you’re a fool,” hissed the general. “Look where I'm sitting. Does this look like we keep to ourselves? I'm the senior general of the imperial army."
"So all you want to do," asserted Loreticus, "is to refuse my offer of help. It might not be much, but it is an offer."
Claisan lifted his eyebrows and looked away.
"Did you have the banker killed?"
"No," said Claisan, looking back. His voice sounded stone cold.
"Did you have the Eduan girl killed?"
"No."
"Do you have Surranid assassins in your force?" asked Loreticus.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Not unless assassins nowadays are as large as I am, ride horses and carry axes. Assassination is a coward’s choice and poison a weakling's escape. Not me."
"But it worked out in your favour, didn't it?" Selban's question landed with the elegance of a dead fish in the middle of
the conversation.
Claisan stared at Selban, taking in his puffy skin, his red eyes, his fat, dry lips. Food was wedged between his crooked teeth, and his nails were dirty and untrimmed. Uncomfortable, the general coughed slightly, as he realised just how close the sullied specimen was.
"You're an ugly man," announced Claisan. "Perhaps that is what caused your illness."
He turned to some papers on the table, dismissing them with a small gesture.
*
"Well, you're a barbarian. Your comment was inappropriate."
"Sorry," apologised Selban. "It wasn't my finest moment."
They were retracing the path that they had taken from Claisan's rooms the day before, and again, the same scenario played out – a breathless messenger appeared, with a summons to the gardens.
"Bugger," muttered Loreticus.
"I don't mind so much," quipped Selban. "I get to sit and eat and ponder about my blunders in the emperor’s garden."
Augustus was talking to two of his administrators when Loreticus and Selban arrived. He glanced up, registered their arrival and returned to his conversation.
The spymaster and his agent waited, Selban taking his seat on the bench, whilst Loreticus stood, rocking on his heels and his toes, his long tunic swaying gently between his calves. After a few minutes, the red-robed administrators left via a passage at the far end of the garden, going back to their warren of thin walls and ubiquitous paper and identical clothing. Augustus folded a few documents, tucked them into his belt and came over to Loreticus.
"Well," he said and stood at an arm's length away from his spymaster.
"Good morning, your highness," said Loreticus.
"How was your meeting with Claisan? Conclusive, or are you still deliberating?"
"Um, it went well, sir, but it seems that you know as much as I could tell you."
"Of course, Loreticus," smiled the emperor. "This is my palace, my father's palace, and so on and so on. Not a lot happens within these chambers that I’m unaware of. But you didn't tell him what you saw in his face."
This wasn't about whether Loreticus had seen anything. It was about what fit the emperor's plans. Augustus had been close to Claisan, leading the vast imperial armies around the north and the west, years on the road together, years fighting the same enemy.
"Innocence," proclaimed Loreticus. "Dislike."
"Well," said Augustus again. He let out a punctuating sigh. "That's a shame." He waggled a finger at the spymaster. "Perhaps your legendary eye is failing you. Perhaps your heart is offering a greater sympathy than that mind of yours? I have conclusive proof that Claisan was involved, and I had it sent to Bethulia just now."
"Proof?" asked Loreticus, astonished.
"Yes, of course. It was sent anonymously, so please don't spoil my intrigue. I'm not as practised as you are."
"What was it?"
"A letter, Loreticus, requesting the use of a Surranid assassin. Written in Claisan's hand to one of the leading Surranid citizens in the capital. It was quite damning," stated Augustus.
"It must have been," Loreticus said and bowed his head. "So you'll leave the rest to Bethulia? Iskandar and Marcan are the new generals?"
The emperor nodded. He slapped Loreticus on the shoulder.
"I told you, too much time on our hands in the capital. It's not good for soldiers like us. We get up to mischief."
The spymaster turned to leave without offering a parting, his chest tightening. Selban deftly walked through the door after a clumsy bow, but then Loreticus stopped and turned to look at his emperor who was standing, watching him curiously.
"This letter in Claisan's handwriting? He didn't write it, did he?" asked Loreticus.
The emperor smiled and shook his head.
The old lady smelled of soap and powder but gone was the soft-throated grandmother from yesterday. In front of them sat a vengeful matriarch.
"Gentlemen, do you have anything that will let me regain some justice? My whole family is here tonight to mourn the death of Tilke, and they need answers.” She sucked something out of her back teeth and looked coldly at Loreticus and Selban. “Were it up to them, they would simply take the heads of a couple of ineffective spies. No one would miss those heads; no one would miss their contributions to the society. If I were to feel like those spies were not acting for my benefit and only my benefit, I might be absent just when my nephews find the door."
Selban shuffled nervously and pulled his tunic. It distracted Bethulia and Loreticus for a moment and broke the threatening spell.
"We know that the poison was from Surran, fresh, and it was the cause of death," asserted Loreticus quietly. "We can't be sure who it belonged to."
"Thank you, Loreticus," she replied. "You've now told me as much as I knew yesterday morning. Are you going to remind me that I sent you to Sammalid as well?" She stared at the two of them. "Who used my family as a prop?"
"We can't be sure."
"This is a matter of taking sides. Right now. This morning. While you discuss and count reasons on your fingers, my family goes out to find blood for blood. You are either loyal to those of us who have always been loyal to you, or you walk away."
"Bethulia, this isn't a matter of loyalty," Loreticus said, struggling to keep the pleading tone out of his voice.
"Yes, it is," she retorted and jabbed a crooked finger at him. "I can smell your conflict. We have been loyal to you. How many contracts do you think have been offered for your head?" Loreticus looked up sharply, and he felt Selban stiffen next to him. "My family is under my rule, but it won't be forever. I would suggest you consider your reputation with the wild young men who will inherit the business."
"Madam Bethulia," said Selban, "it is not that we don't suspect someone, but rather that we don't have clear proof that it is him."
"Trust me, Selban, absolute proof is a rare commodity when you want to avoid a decision."
"General Claisan," confirmed Loreticus firmly. "We believe that it was his doing. Somehow he knew of the attack, but let the banker be hit."
"Debts will do that to a man. Strip him of his friendship." She stood up. "That will be all, Loreticus. Thank you for your help in this matter. I'll tell my family tonight that you came to offer a head."
*
Loreticus had insisted that Selban join him that night. They sat in an apartment in one of the more affluent districts that were home to the majority of the city’s religious community, just under where the shadow of the palace fell each night. On the other side of the street was a large house, that sat alone in small gardens, the door and window frames painted in regimental colours. At the entrance stood six guards, half at ease, half at attention.
It was very late in the evening. The tavern at the end of the road had closed up, and the barmaid was cleaning the tables and swabbing down the dusty slabs outside. Occasionally, a merchant would come through with some large wagon that would have been impossible to pass through during the day. It was a safe part of town, a relaxed quarter. Who would be foolish enough to commit a crime in front of a general's house?
"This is what you were pushing for," said Loreticus as Selban yawned for the umpteenth time. "We need to pay our respects."
"It's emotional masochism," said Selban, stretching and then scratching his open chest. "Being a witness isn’t going to fill you with wonderful memories." He paused, leaned forward slightly and then pointed. "There," he said and indicated with his finger.
Amongst the dark bushes, there were small patches of mercurial light from the moon. A fox barked a cough, then suddenly bolted away, slithering down the side of the wall, glancing back. In between the shadows, silhouettes started flitting. Not single figures, but dozens. As the guards idled by the front gate, complacent and relaxed, the assassins ran and flattened themselves against the cream walls of the house. They scaled the bricks, small human shapes moving up the wall like spiders. The Eduans separated into four groups, pouring into
different windows like water into drains until abruptly, there were none.
"I can only imagine what is happening now," said Loreticus.
Selban raised his chin, tapping his badly shaved Adam's apple.
"This isn't a treachery, Loreticus," he said, his eyes pinned on the shape of the lightless house. "That would imply something could have been done differently. You and I were tools, levers in the emperor's game.” He drew in a noisy breath through his nose. “My recommendation is to stop feeling quite so heavy hearted and remorseful. You're truly not that important in this episode."
"You're wrong, Selban," replied the spymaster. "Tonight I am obliged to be the conscience of all of the people in this city."
“Rather dramatic,” muttered Selban. They sat for a moment; then the figures slowly started appearing at the windows again.
The spymaster stood, collected his cape, checked for evidence of his visit and left to go back to his tower.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading The Loreticus Intrigues. I hope that it offered some escape and some inspiration in its pages.
In all of the Loreticus books, I cheat and use an alternative historical setting, a fictional world based on Rome. Were I to have represented Rome in its true form, the details of how the characters interacted with their environment would have been of greater importance than the plot in my mind. I was keen to divorce from its historical legacy but keep its splendour. Better I focus on the exchanges of imperfect information between the characters in the book than the imperfect knowledge of real history by the author and/or the reader.
An older and more battered Loreticus is currently waging a war in the Lost Emperor Trilogy, which is available in eBook and paperback.
You can sign up for free pre-release orders via the mailing list at [email protected], as well as receive free exclusive content such as maps and character backgrounds. There’s a pretty active Facebook group as well (https://facebook.com/loreticus/), where you can vote on future covers and get free content and backgrounds.