The Immortal Throne

by Stella Gemmell

  ‘To no one but me,’ Archange often told him, ‘are you still a frightened boy running from wild dogs.’

  Gruach was dead now, Broglanh had learned. Killed by poison by her remaining daughter these ten years since. She must have been a very old woman by then, battle-scarred and battle-weary. The treacherous daughter had survived her for less than a year then she too had been murdered, along with her own seven children, by the last brother.

  When he thought of his mother, whom he barely remembered, Broglanh searched in his heart for feeling. But there was none to be found, just a mild and fading interest in a land which had been his home for his first four years. And when word reached him much later that his friends Fell and Indaro had found sanctuary on the isle, he commended them to the gods of ice and fire and kept the news to himself.

  His brother Conor’s death and the subsequent trial before the emperor had been turning-points in his young life. Afterwards Evan Quin was adopted by the Broglanhs – at the behest of Archange – and he was raised with four older brothers as Evan Quin Broglanh.

  The Broglanhs had no place, no palace, on the Shield. Instead they lived in a rambling, tumbledown stone house in the Wester quarter, close by the Seagate, far from the Red Palace and the Immortal’s gaze. The boy’s new father, a grizzled old bear of a man named Donal like the long-dead engineer, was seldom seen by the boy and seemed to be as indifferent to him as his own mother had been. There was no mother-figure in the house. The boys were raised by servants and tutors and later by the Family’s weapons masters. The older boys sometimes bullied little Evan and sometimes doted on him. They mostly ignored him. But he adored them all and when the eldest, Taric, was dragooned into the army and killed in action he thought his heart would break.

  One by one the Broglanh boys reached the age of sixteen and were sucked into the City’s war. Evan was fourteen when the last – Chancey – marched away. He thought he would never see them again, for hadn’t Taric died within a year, and for the second time in his young life he was bereft of brothers. He willed the next two years to pass quickly so he would be in the army too, fighting the City’s enemies. He dreamed of being reunited with his three Broglanh brothers, the four of them fighting shoulder to shoulder, earning commendation and promotion, the Immortal’s grateful thanks.

  The night before his sixteenth birthday he had been summoned to meet his father in the high hall of the ramshackle Family house. Donal Broglanh was an old man by then, old even in the City’s terms, and he seemed to have little interest in the issue of his ancient loins; he had sired many sons over the centuries, and daughters too, and some of them were given the Broglanh name but most were not.

  At night the old hall in the damp stone house was swathed in shadow. The great hearth held only ashes, for it was high summer, but the chamber was stifling with its dusty wall hangings and narrow windows. Thick rushes and bundles of herbs covered the floor where the master’s hounds lay with noses on paws, watchful and unmoving, among gnawed bones. It was well past midnight and the house echoed loudly with silence. Evan strode to meet his father who sat in a deep, carved chair, very much like a throne, at the far end of the hall.

  ‘Evan?’ The man grunted the question, his voice rusty. It seemed he had forgotten what his newest son looked like.

  ‘Yes,’ Evan said shortly. He was grateful to the old man, but he was not in awe of him. Besides, he would be leaving on the morrow, perhaps for good, and would probably never see him again.

  ‘You were always a skinny runt,’ Donal Broglanh said, ‘but you’ve grown like a weed.’

  Evan said nothing. There didn’t seem any point replying. The observation was self-evident.

  The old man stared at him, perhaps disconcerted by the boy’s self-possession. ‘I have two pieces of advice for you, now you’re a man grown.’

  ‘Sir?’ Evan tried to seem interested although he doubted this old man could tell him anything he needed to hear.

  Donal leaned forward confidentially. ‘Always eat and sleep when you can, boy. A soldier never knows when he’ll get his next food or rest.’

  Evan was unimpressed and probably showed it. These were words he’d heard all his life, and they didn’t only apply to soldiers. He wondered if the old campaigner gave the same advice to his servants.

  Donal watched him, frowning, and Evan nodded seriously, as if absorbing a complex piece of information. The old man’s face darkened; he knew he was being humoured. He snorted.

  ‘And get that damnable brand cut off, if you know what’s good for you.’ He nodded at Evan’s forearm where the S brand peeked out from the edge of his shirt-sleeve.

  Seeing the boy’s surprise, he grunted, ‘You think I’m an old fool, but I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know, young Evan.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Donal growled, ‘I know you think it’s a mark of honour, but it’s what’s in a man’s heart that matters, boy, not what he wears on his arm. They’ll kill you, the Vincerii, if they find out about it. You and your young friends. Easy as drowning pups. It’s a child’s fancy, and you’re a man now. I’m telling you . . .’ he leaned forward again, urgently. ‘I’m telling you, you’ll thank me one day. Get rid of it now and save your hide.’

  Evan was poised between annoyance and curiosity. How did this old man know the significance of the brand, suffered to honour his friend Sami and as a symbol of the vengeance Sami’s friends had sworn against the Immortal? Evan had spoken of it to no one since it had been seared into his flesh eight years before. The rest of Sami’s comrades, though emboldened by the boy’s hideous death by fire at the emperor’s whim, had chosen to be branded on chest or shoulder, for they were old enough to know it was something to keep secret. But Evan, the youngest, had been proud to wear the mark and at the age of eight had wanted to show it off. Later, if asked about it, he’d said it was burned by accident, in a bakery oven as he was trying to steal hot bread. Now he had taken to covering it, wearing long sleeves even in summer.

  Old Donal was still glaring at him, his mouth moving soundlessly, and Evan started to back away, thinking he’d done his duty. He had urgent business with one of the kitchen maids.

  ‘I’m not finished, you young fool. I said I have two pieces of advice!’

  The boy stepped forward again, sighing to himself.

  ‘Don’t trust her, boy,’ Donal told him, his deep voice falling to a growl. ‘I know you think she’s done well by you, and perhaps she has, saved you from wild dogs or some such. But you can’t trust her. Never trust her. She’s a powerful woman, ay, for good and bad, but like all the Serafim she has only her own interest in her heart, that and her get, those that are left.’ He squinted at Evan, his face angry. ‘Are you listening to me, boy?’

  Evan nodded. He had no idea who the old man was talking about. He wondered if Donal knew either.

  ‘I’m talking about Archange,’ the man said. ‘She’s stripped the heart of many a youngster before you. Stay clear of her. You’ll be safer against a horde of Blues than against her.’ He grinned at his own words, showing rotten teeth.

  Evan remembered the name Archange. She was the woman who had spoken for them at their trial eight years before. A tall old woman with white hair. Was that who Donal was warning him against? An old woman? Was she still alive even? He shrugged to himself. It didn’t matter. He had listened to enough of the old man’s ramblings.

  He nodded again and said, ‘Yes, I’ll remember. Thank you.’

  Donal stared at him, his mouth moving as if he had words to give but could not form them. His rheumy eyes were filled with frustration at the chasm which separated him from this boy, who bore his name but whom he scarcely knew. And in a moment of insight, Evan realized the old man was dying. His face under the scrubby grey beard was gaunt and waxy, his eyes were starting to film over and his breathing was fast and shallow.

  The boy looked around him then pulled over a three-legged stool and sat down. ‘Tell, me, father,’ he said. ‘Tell me abou
t Archange.’

  ‘Perilous, boy. Beautiful and perilous.’

  Donal closed his eyes and sat back and for a while he was quiet. Evan wondered if he had fallen asleep and he debated creeping away. But the old man opened his eyes at last and now they were sharper, more focused.

  ‘I was just a boy when I first met her, about the age you are now. And she was not young then, though she looked about thirteen, with long legs like a white colt. She was one of the First. She had travelled here – an extraordinary journey – and she was a light to them all, a beacon of beauty and bravery in the early days . . .’

  The old man rambled on comfortably into the depths of the night. He spoke with the voice of a bard, with the rhythms of stories well known and retold often over long years. He told first of Archange and then of the Serafim. Evan could not follow much of what he was saying for Donal mused on the oldest times, when the Serafim were gods and their world was golden. Evan had heard tales of the Serafim, told by his brothers and tutors, but Donal talked as if he knew them personally. His voice grew dark when he spoke of the emperor, or emperors – Evan could not make out if he was speaking of one man or many. The Vincerii strolled into the tales again and again, Marcellus and Rafael, names Evan knew well for they were the marshals of the war, defenders of the City. But there were other names, a surfeit of them, unknown to him. The Khans, Marcus and his sister Giulia, and Reeve Guillaume and the criminal Hammarskjald. And too many people called Kerr, both villains and heroes. And always Donal returned to Archange, pulled helpless as a moth to her bright beacon.

  Then the old man’s mood darkened and his words faltered. He told an age-old story of two daughters, sisters, seduced and violated. Of madness and death.

  ‘But what could Archange do?’ he asked the darkness, for surely he had forgotten Evan was there. ‘Araeon had saved her life that first winter, all their lives. She had sworn undying fealty to him then. She could be ruthless with the primitives, she showed that over and over. But another Serafim? She was bound hand, foot and elbow. She couldn’t raise her hand against him, though she wanted his death. Still wants it, I dare say.’

  ‘Why could she not act against him?’

  There was clarity in his father’s eyes now. ‘I am a very old man, but this all happened long before I was born.’ He shook his head. ‘But they are not like us, boy. They are as different as a dog is from the fleas on its back. And they have known each other for centuries. They have fought together and against each other, betrayed each other and conspired together. They are the last of their race as well as the first.

  ‘To Archange Araeon had been leader and teacher, ay, and saviour. But now she wanted him dead. And if she couldn’t have her way she couldn’t stay. So she vanished from the City for generations. We all thought her long dead. Came back forty years ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her again. She’d allowed herself to age, you see. Always a woman of swift and binding decisions. I expect she regrets it now. It’s a cruel thing being old . . .’

  At times Donal fell silent and dozed, and Evan probably slept a little too. But when the grey fingers of morning found their way through the high, dusty windows the old man was still going strong and the flagon of wine at his elbow was dry. At last he fell deeply asleep and his snores echoed round the walls. Evan stood and crept away, past the silent, motionless servants who had stood all night guarding their lord, to his narrow bed for a short nap before the emperor’s men came for him.

  Donal Broglanh died soon after, and for a while Evan tried to store up and make sense of all the tales and tall stories, for so they must have been, that the old man had told him. Most of them drifted away from him over time, but he always remembered the story of Archange Vincerus and her two daughters and when – four years later – he first met Thekla he thought he understood.

  ‘Have you taken lorassium, soldier?’

  Broglanh woke with a start and vomited down the sleeve of his jacket. Panting, he looked down and wanted to puke again. A lance-head was buried deep in his chest, lodged under the ribcage. Somehow the haft had been cut off and the end was ragged wood tinged with bright red. He vomited again weakly, but there was little left to come up.

  ‘Did you take lorassium?’ the woman’s voice repeated.

  He nodded, feeling like a brat caught in some misdeed.

  She wiped some of the vomit from his jacket and told him briskly, ‘That was the worst thing you could do. You’ll have to wait now.’ She stood and walked away from him. Mist rolled in and Broglanh’s dreams were of blood and terror.

  It had not been his first battle, far from it. But it was the longest and bloodiest in four years which had already seen too much blood and death. He was just twenty by then, his unit of the Second Celestine infantry fighting a defensive action against a force of Petrassi at Dead Man’s Folly in the southern mountains. They were well matched and the battle had gone on by day and night, neither side giving a pace. Finally, with the dawn, the enemy had brought up a company of lancers . . .

  When he woke again someone had put a shade over him to protect him from the hot sun, and there was a cool cloth on his brow. His nose detected the whiff of something medicinal under the smell of old clothes and vomit. He wondered when it would be his turn to be treated. There were so many injured. The battle had been a horror. He wondered if they’d won.

  A voice spoke. ‘Here, on his forearm.’ He felt a gentle touch and opened his eyes again. The same woman was kneeling beside him. ‘It’s the same brand,’ she said, her voice warm. ‘Which one is this?’

  ‘His name’s Broglanh. Evan Quin Broglanh,’ another voice said.

  ‘Evan Quin,’ the first said thoughtfully. ‘Archange told us that name.’

  ‘Will he live?’

  ‘Not without her help.’

  Then there were loud voices. It was almost dark, but he could see the woman had been joined by strong soldiers. They looked down at him as she talked of pulling out the lance-head. Now would be a good time to pass out, Broglanh thought.

  And, eventually, he did.

  The next time he surfaced he was lying in the bottom of a jolting cart. It was night and he could see little. His body was still in agony but he managed to raise his head. The lance-head was gone and his chest was swathed with blood-soaked bandages.

  ‘It was lodged under a rib but we managed to get it out,’ the woman told him. ‘I have given you something for the pain.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked her, struggling for consciousness. ‘It’ll rot anyway.’ He’d seen plenty of these wounds. They never ended well.

  ‘Here.’ Her warm hand cradled the back of his neck and supported it as he felt a cup of water at his lips. He gulped it down gratefully. At first he thought he was going to puke again, but the water stayed down and he felt his head clearing a little. He drank some more. The pain was easing a little too.

  ‘Thank you,’ he muttered. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the Adamantine Gate.’

  ‘Where’s my jacket?’ he asked.

  ‘One sleeve was covered with vomit and I cut the other one off to get it off you. The remainder’s under your head.’ The woman sounded amused. Her voice, he noticed, was warm and smoky.

  Broglanh relaxed, strangely reassured. The jacket had been with him through a lot. He slipped then into a deep sleep. He did not expect to wake again in this world.

  Afterwards he had wondered that a highly experienced battlefield surgeon, in the middle of a war, amid a sea of casualties, should pay so much attention to a lowly grunt. She sat with him in the jolting cart all the way back to the City, and when they reached the destination of the other casualty carts, the barracks of the Twenty-second, and Broglanh still lived, she stayed by him, seated in the floor of the cart, and the two continued their journey alone. Later he learned they had travelled for a covert audience with Archange, of which he remembered nothing. Then he was taken to an infirmary of the Thousand hard by the Red Palace.

  At first, dazed by
pain and shock, Broglanh concluded that it was his manly charms that kept the woman surgeon at his side. Then, as he recovered, common sense kicked in and he realized there was nothing very charming about an injured man puking over the sleeve of his own jacket.

  The surgeon’s name was Thekla. Her face was not pretty, but it had a stillness which was hard won dealing with frightened, injured men and women. Her eyes were grey and they spoke of long experience. She looked about the same age as him but he guessed early on she was older than that. Just how much older he would eventually find out.

  She wore baggy, shapeless clothes of grey and brown and as she visited the other injured soldiers each day, bending to check their wounds, to discriminate the healing from the rotting, he tried to see the lines of her body, but it was impossible. It was easy to see why. She had been a surgeon for a long time and the other medics deferred to her, but many of the soldiers, the men mostly, treated her like an orderly, to tease and joke with and sometimes to try to molest. She could be harsh, and occasionally cruel, he noticed, but she was always kind with him.

  Broglanh recovered from the chest wound so rapidly he wondered if the broken lance in his ribs was just a nightmare, and he kicked his heels in the infirmary until he received new orders. Meanwhile he followed his father’s advice. He ate the three meals a day he was given and noted that the Thousand were very well fed. He dozed away the time, luxuriating in the fresh straw mattresses and lack of bed bugs. He found it easy to screen out the screams and mewling of the gravely wounded. He had been doing it a long time.

  After Conor died little Evan had found it impossible to sleep, impossible to think without the hideous vision of his brother’s agonizing death stalking his every waking moment. Then, just days afterwards, Sami had died too – Sami who had been kind to him and carried him when the other boys were too weak or indifferent to help. His death was a horror and the vision of screaming flames was almost too much for the boy’s mind to tolerate. For self-protection he ran away from the memories and started building the walls which had protected him for the rest of his soldier’s life. Don’t think about the past. The past is gone and there is nothing you can do about it. Don’t worry about the future, for you can’t know what it will bring. Just stay strong and keep your sword sharp. And always be ready.