The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  Glancing round to ensure no one was within sight, Saroyan Rae Vincerus, Lord Lieutenant of the East, pulled a large iron key from a pocket and slid it into the rusty lock. It turned as if greased, which it had been. The door opened smoothly and the woman and the gulon stepped inside. She lit a half-used torch on a bracket inside the doorway and plunged into the labyrinth which led to the Red Palace.

  Saroyan had walked the lower levels of the palace all her life, for she had an affinity for the secret and the hidden. She would not descend to the Halls – in that place lay madness – but the palace dungeons and the dungeons of Gath and the myriad tunnels that connected them she knew intimately. She found serenity in the ancient stones and, although they were slowly sinking and each year that passed found fewer ways available to her, that in itself was also strangely satisfying.

  As she walked she looked down at the patchwork gulon. It had dogged her footsteps inside the palace for more than a decade and she did not know why. In her more paranoid moments she wondered if it were an agent of the emperor, for the only other gulon which walked the palace was the emperor’s pet Deidoro. The great beast had seen off the other gulons in its territory, and all the cats, and some of the imperial hounds too. But for some reason it tolerated the patchwork runt. Saroyan had once found herself idly wondering if it was Deidoro’s get, then she reminded herself that the great gulon was merely a reflection, an undead beast created by the emperor, no more capable of siring offspring than was a three-day-dead corpse.

  The lord lieutenant’s office was high in the east wing where rainwater trickled down the wood-panelled walls from window frames warped and tortured by the inexorable foundering of the building.

  Saroyan pulled off her wet cloak and hung it to dry, then crossed the room and gazed out through a cracked window looking east, seeing nothing but the perilous journey ahead of her. It had to be soon, well before the Day of Summoning, before the snows. The sooner she started for the Lion’s Palace the better, for it meant a hard seven-day ride, yet it would be awkward to leave the City without good reason.

  She had picked her six-man guard with care. She had ensured to her own satisfaction that they were scrupulously loyal – or treacherous, depending on which way you looked at it. Each soldier had more than one reason to hate the emperor and she did not doubt their intent. She just doubted their personal loyalty.

  Saroyan was nobody’s fool. She not only appreciated she was unpopular, she encouraged it. After all, a very long life offers a woman the opportunity for many changes of occupation and of personality and Saroyan, with her impatient, enquiring character, had tried them all. She had been martinet and coquette, harridan and mistress, floozy and fishwife, wife, dutiful granddaughter and doting mother.

  She had been a soldier, more than once, and in her present role of Lord Lieutenant of the East she had pared her public persona down to that of a spare, efficient and cold administrator of, among other things, the security of the City.

  And now she was a traitor.

  Seating herself at her leather-topped desk with its neat piles of paperwork, she reflected that being unpopular was an uphill struggle for some. Mere callous carelessness with other people’s lives was not sufficient. Marcellus, for example, cared only for himself and, perhaps, his emperor Araeon, and he proved it all the time with battle strategies which dazzled by their bravura and, sometimes, their success. But the waste of warriors’ lives in the carnage went constantly overlooked or, if commented upon at all, was considered an unfortunate but necessary cost. For Marcellus was a hero. Even the bloodbath in the Little Opera House, just two nights before, when the First Lord had despatched his mistress of more than twenty years to save his own skin, had not affected his popularity in the palace.

  Saroyan’s part in the ill-fated mutiny of the Leopard century had been key. She had no power over the deployment of the Thousand, the emperor’s elite, but she controlled the rotations of troops who guarded the walls and the daily security of the City. It had been a straightforward matter to raise a specious alert on the walls, pulling available manpower away from the palace. The emperor was nothing if not predictable, and in moments of danger he had always called on the Gulons, his favoured century of the Thousand, to safeguard him in the Keep, leaving the Leopards, the next in rotation, to be deployed to the Little Opera House to protect the brothers Marcellus and Rafael Vincerus. Tasker Mallet, leader of the Leopards, was eager to put into effect this mutiny, planned more than half a year before and only awaiting the right time, a time when the brothers were together and unarmed and effectively alone with the Leopards.

  Saroyan could guess what had gone wrong, although the only witnesses left to tell the tale were the Vincerii themselves. Everyone else in the opera house – soldiers, counsellors, players, the First Lord’s mistress Petalina and her young servant – had died hideously. Saroyan knew Marcellus had called on his Gift for destruction, a Gift which left only Serafim or their reflections unscathed. It was a desperate call, in the palace, in such a public place. Saroyan had been convinced Marcellus would not unleash carnage when his mistress was present. But she had woefully underestimated his self-interest.

  The lord lieutenant became aware that someone was waiting in the doorway, breathing. She said, ‘Yes?’ without turning, aware she was buttressing the rumour that she had eyes in the back of her head.

  ‘You wished to see me, lady?’

  Saroyan felt her hackles rise. She abhorred being called ‘lady’, as if she were one with the painted doxies who serviced the lords of the palace.

  ‘My name is Saroyan,’ she said, turning to glare at the little engineer with the large moustache. Dar Thakker teetered on the threshold as if he were about to take flight.

  ‘Yes . . . la— Saroyan,’ he said.

  Thakker was in charge of maintenance works in the palace and theoretically reported to the Lord Lieutenant of the North. As the holder of that title had not been seen in the City for over a year, having fled the wrath of the emperor over some real or imagined slight, by default Saroyan had taken on responsibility for the decrepit palace. With another hard winter facing them and no repair works completed this summer gone, she had ordered Thakker to report on the minimum works necessary to keep the building from falling around their ears.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, eyeing with dislike the untidy pile of papers under his arm. If the palace’s administrators and their minions could create paperwork they did so, usually in lieu of any real work. Yet it was part of Saroyan’s personality to act expeditiously to deal with any paper which landed on her desk. She resolved that the man would take the pile away with him. ‘Briefly,’ she added.

  ‘Well,’ he said, glancing nervously at the gulon. The beast yawned, baring yellow fangs. He shifted the armful of papers and looked around for somewhere to put them. He caught Saroyan’s forbidding expression and said, ‘If we start at the south wing, er . . . Saroyan . . .’

  ‘Is the water rising or is the palace sinking?’ she asked briskly.

  Thakker cleared his throat. ‘Both, um . . . both.’

  She stared at him until he ploughed on. ‘I went down into the sewers, with a team of my men, hand-picked, and soldiers, of course, for . . . ahem . . . protection . . .’

  She sat back in her chair and managed an encouraging nod. ‘And?’

  Thakker dumped the papers on the floor at his feet. It seemed to free his voice. ‘You must understand that the City is built on many levels of earlier cities. Often previous buildings were flattened before new buildings were erected, but not always. And there are layers of cellars and . . . well, dungeons which were covered over and forgotten. The sewers and storm drains are very deep and are a honeycomb. And the river Menander runs through it all. And the rainfall this autumn has been unusually high.’

  I know all this, she thought. ‘What can be done?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Thakker said simply.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘All we can do is what generations of
engineers have done before – try to keep the main riverways open and the great watergates working.’

  ‘The Magisterium Gate. The Saduccuss Gate.’

  ‘Yes, and others,’ he nodded, warming to his subject now she had shown some understanding of the problem. He fell to his knees and started rummaging among papers. He rose triumphantly with a sheet and showed it to her. It was old and mildewed, and some of the script was water-damaged. Saroyan peered at it.

  ‘Here,’ the man pointed, ‘and here, and here there are major blockages. They need to be cleared in order, the lowest first. This is very dangerous work. The workers would have to approach them from the lower side and it would be, frankly, suicide once the blockage shifts. We could, of course, use slaves or prisoners . . .’

  ‘And that will solve the problem?’

  ‘It will be a beginning. If the winter is not too wet, and the great watergates do not deteriorate further, this work should ensure the flooding does not get any worse.’

  Saroyan turned as her aide appeared at the office door.

  ‘Yes!’ she barked, annoyed at being interrupted again.

  ‘You are summoned,’ the aide retorted briskly.

  For a moment her heart missed a beat and her breathing stopped. Summoned. Only three people in the world had the authority to summon her. Not Araeon! she prayed. She had always feared and loathed the emperor, with good reason, but in recent years he had become more deranged and, yes, terrifying, and she could not be in his presence without her skin crawling with disgust.

  ‘Summoned?’ she repeated, forcing herself to breathe normally.

  ‘By the First Lord.’

  She nodded, relieved it was only Marcellus, and turned to Thakker. ‘Very well,’ she said, dismissing him. ‘We will speak again.’

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked the aide after the engineer had departed.

  ‘In the Black Room.’

  This told her a great deal. Marcellus used the Black Room to discuss imminent military matters with the chiefs. And often to intimidate and unbalance their opponents. Saroyan knew that, and Marcellus knew she knew. He certainly viewed her as an antagonist, a fact they both implicitly accepted, but this choice of venue suggested something must have happened which required action. Had he found out about her part in the mutiny? Had Mallet, leader of the Leopards, revealed her involvement before he died? Or was it something else? Her greater mission, one which she hardly even thought about in the precincts of the palace, sidled into the back of her mind but she expelled it again briskly. Even she, knowing him as well as she did, was sometimes prey to the fear that Marcellus could read her thoughts.

  ‘There is a message for you.’

  The aide stepped forward and placed a piece of folded paper on the edge of her desk. She could tell from his reticent demeanour that he knew it to be perilous. She looked at the writing. It said Lord Lieutenant of the East in bold script. It was her own hand. It could only be from Evan Broglanh. She nodded and the aide left. Inside the paper there were three symbols, cryptic to anyone but her and Broglanh. They indicated a meeting at the Shining Stars Inn today at sunset. If Saroyan could not attend today, they would meet tomorrow. If neither, then there would be no meeting.

  She put that too out of her mind and stood, readying herself. She wondered what the First Lord wanted. Marcellus would never move overtly against her, for he would never act against her grandmother Archange, a certainty that protected her also. The Black Room ploy was merely a nudge, not an open declaration of war. Nevertheless it was with heightened alertness that she set off for the meeting.

  Marcellus’ charm, a talent available to many Serafim, and which he used more than most, made him the most popular soldier in the City. It was a genetic trait, one he had honed and perfected over the centuries to the point where the slightest inflexion of his voice could make a listener bow to his will. Saroyan was largely immune to it, of course, but she still had to keep her wits about her in his presence.

  She looked down at the gulon. It would not do if the beast were at her heels when she met Marcellus. He would think her weak. She stared at the creature, willing it stay here in her mind. It looked back at her and she could detect no intelligence in those muddy eyes. Nevertheless it curled up and, placing its snout on a front paw, went to sleep.

  Trailed by her bodyguard she walked from her apartments in the far east wing to the Black Room. It was a long walk, and she took her time. She stopped in on Dashoul, the palace security chief and the only civilian she respected in the entire building, to discuss the plans for Petalina’s funeral, a grand occasion entirely inappropriate, she thought, to the woman’s status as Marcellus’ bed-warmer. She also took the chance to double-check the rotation of the two venerable regiments, the Second Adamantine and the Fourth Imperial, into the palace. Everyone had to be in the right place on the Day of Summoning.

  Both brothers were in the Black Room, plus a motley collection of senior advisers. She had obviously been pencilled in as an afterthought to a meeting of the chiefs. She wondered, as was her habit, if this was a deliberate snub. The commanders were drifting out in that casual way which Marcellus liked to promote, as though they were all mere grunts getting together for a chat in a fit of camaraderie. She knew that, however much the First Lord invited a bar-room atmosphere, the wrong word at the wrong time from any one of them would see him slit up the middle like a sack of beans. Him or her, she amended conscientiously, seeing Leona, commander of the Warhounds, was there too.

  Cousin Rafe was just leaving. He smiled and nodded to her, brushing by her as he went out. She nodded back. She had always been scrupulous to treat him with the courtesy his rank demanded, as Archange had decreed, but she could never forget that he was just a reflection, no more a living creature than the beast Deidoro. If Marcellus were to die, when he died – for even Marcellus Vincerus was not indestructible – then his ‘brother’ would expire on the instant.

  ‘Greetings, Marcellus. My condolences on your recent loss,’ she said formally.

  He was dressed in his usual nondescript garb and looked less like a lord than a palace blacksmith. ‘Hmm,’ he snorted. ‘It’s hard to see how you could have put less sincerity into those words, Saroyan.’

  They waited as the last of the warriors drifted out and the door snicked shut.

  She shrugged. ‘Whores die every day,’ she replied, ‘for far lesser cause than the life of their lord.’ Summon me to the Black Room, will you, she thought. She wondered if she had overstepped the mark, for two servants were still present, but he merely nodded thoughtfully as if she had made a valid point.

  ‘I have not seen you since your return,’ she went on. ‘How goes the eastern campaign?’

  ‘Stalemate,’ he told her. ‘But we will prevail. How are you, cousin? You seem out of temper. I can relieve you of some of your duties if they are proving too much for you.’

  ‘The lieutenancy is not in the gift of the First Lord,’ she snapped, irritated in spite of herself.

  ‘But I’m sure the emperor will agree with me. He has always held your interests close to his heart.’

  ‘You wished to see me?’ she asked, keen to get to the nub of the meeting.

  ‘Always the professional, Saroyan?’ He smiled and she felt the embrace of his words like a warm breeze, and returned a cool smile in acknowledgement of it.

  ‘I have some good news,’ he told her. ‘It affects all of us and since I’ve no doubt you are in touch with Archange I would ask you to pass it on.’

  Good news, she thought. Good news for whom? A goose as black as night ran over her grave.

  ‘The Gulon Veil has been found and is now back in our hands.’

  When she left Marcellus a brief time later Saroyan paused outside the door, distracted by the implications of the return of the veil, which had been stolen by an Odrysian assassin. She decided to think about it later. On a whim, she did not go back the way she had arrived, but walked instead through the anteroom where supplicants waited f
or audience with the First Lord. Mostly they were palace servants, courtiers or soldiers, for the exhaustive palace security processes weeded out all but the most persistent outsiders from seeking access to Marcellus and his brother.

  Among them Saroyan noticed two soldiers, both young, travel-stained and weary. The woman sat on a bench, head down, clearly dozing. Her ice-blonde hair was in unkempt braids and one arm was in filthy bandages. Saroyan stared at her with distaste, wondering if the soldier realized how unwise she was to come before Marcellus looking more like a beggar than a City warrior. The other was a young man who lay on the bench with his head on the woman’s thigh, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion. He was thin to the point of emaciation and as dirty as his companion. But it was his features which caught Saroyan’s eye, the prominent cheekbones, sharp as a blade, the high, delicate eyebrows. She frowned. She had seen those features before. His head had been shaved, but bright red hair was growing through again and in the shafts of light from the high windows it glowed in a halo of fire. His face was peaceful.

  Saroyan briefly considered finding out who they were, for she was sure they had a story to tell, but she was distracted by the news of the veil and, in a decision that sealed all their fates, she cast them from her mind.

  As she walked back to her office she suddenly thought of Indaro Kerr Guillaume. With luck, she should be dead by now. Saroyan was satisfied with her oblique interference in that matter. She had ordered her agents at the Lion’s Palace to ensure the woman was allowed to escape, knowing she would run towards the City. At the same time she had seen to it that the commander of the Gulon century, presently on some cryptic mission of the emperor’s in the eastern hills, was warned to watch out for Wildcat deserters after the Battle of Salaba. It was not a guarantee of the woman’s capture or death, but Indaro was in far more peril at the hands of the Gulons – the century the emperor favoured to execute black missions both in the City and without – than tucked away tidily in a cell at Old Mountain. The bright scarlet jacket Indaro persisted in wearing marked her as a target. It was a wonder she had not been killed long since.