Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1)

by Frances Smith

  "You two, who talk so grandly of the past of Corona or the Empire; who read of an age when men made the greatest sacrifices to preserve their country, or willingly went to their deaths for the public good and then wonder at the degeneracy of your contemporaries; you simply fail to understand that no man may be inspired by the thought of a land far away from his home. No one will feel as strongly about a battle thousands of leagues away where ten thousand men have fallen as he will of a war that has left his neighbours dead, just as no one will feel so strongly about the ravaging of a province on the other side of the world as about the burning of his own fields. States, once they grow large, are simply too large to elicit any emotion from their citizens."

  "It elicits one from me," Gideon said.

  Jason did not comment on that, but rather continued. "And all of this is to ignore the fact that patriotism is responsible for one of the basest evils to inflict humankind: the tyranny of nations over nations. People must be free from obligations to thrones or cities, free to live their lives as they see fit. Once we give freedom back to the people, then all mankind's difficulties will be resolved, for what problem can withstand the ingenuity of man unfettered?"

  "I think it more likely that people would simply ignore their problems if they had freedom to do so," Michael said. "There is a tale called the Wanderings of Simon and Miranda, which details the journeys that the two undertook after the defeat of the Eldest One. They did not return home to Corona until they had had many adventures and encounters with many strange and unfamiliar peoples.

  "In the wilds of Lavissar they came across a tribe called the Sybarites, who dwelled in the ruins of an ancient city that they had found and occupied. The city was decrepit, falling apart, rubble lying everywhere, and yet nothing was done about it. Not only did the Sybarites lack the skill to repair the homes they had stolen, but they also lacked any inclination to do so. For the Sybarites valued nothing but pleasure: they did nothing that did not bring them joy. They only possessed food because those amongst them who loved violence and pain went out and stole it from neighbouring peoples, doing great slaughter as they went. For the rest, they frolicked in the city and paid no heed to the filth in its streets, the bodies crushed by falling masonry, the hatred that their neighbours had for them. They gave no attention to anything but their own pleasure. Their children ran naked, wailing in hunger, for their women did not find caring for their children to be sufficiently enjoyable to warrant doing. Some of the children were kidnapped when other tribes, seeking vengeance, attacked the Sybarites, killed some and carried off others. Once the raid was over the celebrations resumed and the surviving Sybarites danced over the bodies of their fellows. When Simon and Miranda went to try and rescue the kidnapped children they found them happy in the care of loving parents, who cared for them and saw to their needs. The Sybarites, who thought of nothing but their own selfish interests, died out; it is said that the very last of them still danced as he died of hunger.

  "And yet Simon and Miranda also visited a people called the Severians, who devoted themselves wholly to the arts of war. All their people trained constantly for battle, exercising their muscles and practicing with spear and sword and shield. They lived in barracks made of wood and earth, and raised no greater buildings. They worked no stone, told no tales, sang no songs and created nothing that would outlast them save the memory of their victories. Nothing mattered but war, and the preparations for war, and when they were overthrown there was nothing to show that they had ever been, for what manner of nation concerns itself wholly with the wall and not at all with what the wall defends?

  "To set all people free to fulfil their most base desires is an invitation for unbridled license and all the horrors that accompany. But a state in which no one does anything but serve the state is not a state deserving to be served or defended. If everyone fights, then what is being fought for? In Corona of old all firstborn sons fought to defend the principality, but they fought so well because they fought on behalf of their younger brothers and sisters, who in the meantime made Corona a land worthy of being defended to the utmost by her valiant elder sons. Some must serve or society will collapse, but if all serve then there will be no society in the first place."

  "I think you underestimate the virtue of the people," Jason said.

  "And I believe Your Highness overestimates it," Michael said softly. "And I dare say I have seen more of life than you have in your father's palace."

  "Were the palace the only life that I had known I would have despaired of the race of man," Jason said sharply. "But I have known people in Eternal Pantheia who had nothing and yet have built a community more vibrant than all the great houses of the rich. They survive, and thrive, without the need for the Empire's law, its armies, its stifling social structures. They are without society, and yet they prove that there is no need for it."

  "And I have seen folk murdered for daring to speak out against evil, terrorised by criminals hiding in the shadows while others hail those selfsame criminals as heroes. I have seen the outcasts you praise attacked and abused by those with power over them. The best is not the whole, Your Highness," Michael replied.

  "No more than is the worst," Jason said.

  "And yet the worst will dominate if there is not law and state power to suppress them," Michael said. "Your friends may not avail themselves of Imperial law, but they are under the protection of the Empire's army whether they would be or not. We all fought as hard as we could at Davidheyr, yet it was the Thirty Fifth that saved the city as much, more, than our own efforts. Even in the age of heroes, when men were greater and more noble than today, none were as free as you would have the inferior descendants of today become. People cannot survive without chains to tie them to community and state, to bridle their behaviour and bind them to virtue."

  Jason frowned. At times he seems naive, and at others cynical. He shrugged. "It hardly matters, since all of these ideas are only so much wasted air. We will never be afforded opportunity to put them into practice."

  Michael shook his head. "High heritage and an inheritance of virtue old as the Empire itself will out, Your Highness, especially when it is the inheritance of Emperors of which we speak. I believe you will do great things in any sphere you choose to make your own."

  Tullia nodded, as if Michael had just said something sage and profound.

  And there's the naivety again. From him and Tullia both. He has been a bad influence upon her. Jason chuckled. "You yourself have a grand inheritance in that regard. Do you predict greatness for yourself?"

  Michael shook his head. "I inherited the sins and weaknesses of my sire, Highness, that Miranda and Felix might gain our gentle mother's virtue untainted by that dog's vile blood. Such deeds as I do here will be wholly thanks to the influence of my comrades."

  "And what of my mother," Jason said. "What have I inherited from her?"

  Tullia said. "Your mother placed you where you might be raised in comfort, Your Highness; she did what was best for you even if it was hard for her. That speaks well of her, as I see it."

  "She abandoned me," Jason reminded her; although he greatly desired to find out who she was and meet her, he would not forget why a search was necessary, and an explanation would be the first thing he would demand of her.

  Tullia's eyes flashed. "There is no shame in admitting that you cannot care for the one you love as they deserve, or that others can better provide for their needs. The true crime is in making the one you care for suffer from your own selfishness."

  "Have I given you offence?"

  "I am Your Highness's servant, it is impossible for you to offend me," Tullia said in a prim voice.

  "Yet a gentleman would consider his words all the more carefully because of that," Michael said.

  Jason eyed him suspiciously. "You are not both going to try and civilise me are you?"

  "Would you object so much to it, Your Highness?" Michael said.

  "As it happens I would," Jason said sourly. "Tullia, I tho
ught I had made my feelings clear on this."

  "I have said nothing, Your Highness," Tullia said.

  "I know," Jason said. "That is what concerns me."

  "Prince Jason, may I see if I understand your situation right?" Wyrrin asked as they made camp that night.

  Jason rolled his eyes at someone else calling him a prince, but nodded nonetheless. "If you wish."

  "Your father lied when he said that he was not your father, and your mother gave birth in a private place so none could know who she was."

  Jason sighed. "Yes, that is broadly it, albeit in a slightly reductive sense."

  "And for that reason, because your father said that he was not your father, you are called this name: Nemon Filius."

  Jason nodded, wondering where Wyrrin was going with this.

  Wyrrin blinked once or twice. "I do not understand. That is your name, the way that Michael's name is Callistus or Gideon's name is Commenae. Yet it is a name you have because you do not have a name from your father. But then, if you were to have sons, would they be Nemon Filius as well?"

  Jason frowned. "Almost certainly not. If I married I would take my wife or husband's name, and if I had a child out of wedlock then they would take their mother's name, if she were known. It would only become an issue if I adopted a child, at which point I could, if I ever get my inheritance back, petition a praetor to take a surname of my own choosing."

  Wyrrin said, "Marriages and adoptions and names, it is all quite complicated. In Arko all children belong to Arko. I envy you, Prince Jason."

  "You envy me not knowing my mother?" Jason asked.

  "I envy that your father denied you, and thus freed you to find your own path," Wyrrin said. "In my city, all male fire drakes are divided into seven castes: ruler, priest, keeper, artisan, warrior, farmer, slave. From the moment your egg hatches you are a part of the same caste from which your father came. There is no escaping it. My father was a slave, and so I was born into chains and destined for the fetters from the moment I left the nest."

  "What about your women?" Amy asked. "Don't they have castes? I don't know that much about fire drakes, the lands of Niccolo's line lie too far east to have anything to do with them."

  "Our females have but one role," Wyrrin said. "To breed, to lay eggs, to spawn the next generation of the Arunim."

  "And you think you've got problems," Amy muttered.

  "What has this to do with His Highness?" Tullia asked. "We have no castes."

  "No, but as I understand it is still the case that if a man is what we could call of the ruling caste, your Emperors and your lords, his sons are still expected to follow in his steps, is that not so?"

  "Is it not the best way to acquire experience of governance, to watch one's father at his work?" Gideon asked.

  "Only if you are more concerned with governance than with free will," Wyrrin replied. "The best way for me to do slave work was to be raised to be a slave, but that was not my wish. Why could I not be free to live as I desired?"

  Jason frowned. "Are you saying that you agree with me?"

  Wyrrin blinked. "Yes."

  Jason opened his mouth, and then closed it. "You agree with me?"

  "I agree with you," Wyrrin repeated.

  "You, Wyrrin, agree with me about how awful our system is?"

  Wyrrin blinked. "Perhaps I have not yet mastered your language." He leaned in. "I agree with you."

  "I'm not sure that I quite believe it," Jason said. "Of all of you here, why is it that the only person who is not seemingly in love with hereditary privilege and who believes in the inherent rights and dignity of man, is the only one who is not in the least bit human?"

  "Mayhap because we know our fellow men better than he does," Michael murmured. "Filius Wyrrin, your life was hard no doubt, but we have no castes in this land."

  "No, we have ranks of citizens, determined by wealth and decreasing in rights and powers to practically nothing," Jason said sharply.

  "That is not the same, Highness, as being born into a station and bound to it for life," Michael said. "My mother was of the seventh rank, she scraped a living taking in laundry and suchlike. Now Miranda is of the fourth rank, and I hope she may climb higher still."

  "How high would she have climbed without Aurelian magic?" Jason asked.

  "I know not, Your Highness, but the opportunity would have been there still," Michael said.

  "What I want to know is how a slave caste fire drake learned how to fight so well," Amy asked. "You didn't just pick up a pair of swords and start swinging them around. You've trained, and not in the arena either."

  Wyrrin made an expression that might, upon his reptilian face, have been a smile. "For a few years I was able to lie my way into one of the skirmishing companies. It worked until I became too well known, then I was recognised as a slave."

  "And that's when you left?" Amy said.

  "That's when I had to flee my home or be put to death," Wyrrin said.

  "I can see why you are less than enamoured of caste systems," Jason said softly.

  Michael took the middle watch himself that night, walking over the grassy field to where Tullia sat, her back to an old dead tree, watching for enemies. He nearly fell into a molehill on the way, but managed to make it through the darkness unscathed.

  "I know not how you and Gideon manage to move so gracefully in the dark, not to mention quietly," Michael hissed. "If there are any foemen abroad they will have heard me for sure."

  Tullia smiled. "A mage with lead feet will not remain in the Corps for long. I don't think it matters so much for gladiators, or leaders."

  "I lead only until Gideon tires of watching me," Michael said. "Though your assistance has so far been invaluable."

  "It was the least I could do."

  "No, it was far more," Michael said. "And I still do not know why you troubled yourself."

  Tullia's smile lessened a little. "Sit down. Please."

  Michael did so, squatting on his ankles beside her tree. She did not look at him, her blue eyes gazing outwards into the night. Her voice was a caress more gentle than the night breeze.

  "You and I have a great deal in common. Most obviously a younger sister. Mine much younger than yours."

  "How old?"

  "Lucilia is eleven, seven years younger than I myself," Tullia said.

  "The age where she still admires you, then?" Michael said. "She has not yet begun to make study of your flaws?"

  Tullia chuckled quietly. "Fortunately not. But I would be happy if I knew that Lucilia would live to be old enough to rebel against me. Right now, I do not have that certainty.

  "I come from Eternal Pantheia, from a district called the Subura. It is...not a clean or healthy place. My mother died not long after Lucilia was born, and my sister was always very sick. She is so frail that she cannot walk and she coughs so badly sometimes I am afraid she will split apart.

  "It isn't easy, growing up a girl in the slums. A boy can join the army to escape the desparate poverty, but for girls...there are only so many ways that you can get out of poverty. And those I was not willing to consider." Tullia's whole body shuddered. "There's a reason I couldn't tell you this in front of His Highness. If he saw me like this..."

  Michael placed his hand on top of Tullia's. "He would pity you."

  "It is not my place to be an object for his pity or concern," Tullia said. "I am his protector, I must be unwavering in his eyes."

  "No one will hear of this from me," Michael said. "Though, if the pity of a slave does not repulse you, you have mine. Raising a family was hard enough in Lover's Rock, I cannot imagine how much harder it was for you in Eternal Pantheia."

  "I was not completely alone. There were three girls who would help me when they could, but even then...I had to steal to feed us," Tullia said. "One day I got caught, but not before I had used lightning magic to lash out at the guards. While I was being held, a kindly old man came to see me and offered a position in the Corps of Mages. When I told him abou
t Lucilia, he smiled and told me that the Empire rewarded faithful service. When I pledged myself to him, he had my sister found and placed in an infirmary run by the devotees of Aulo. They cannot make her well, but they can keep her alive, for now."

  Tullia looked to face Michael, her eyes wide. "They say that your sister, your Miranda, is a miracle worker whose magic is of a kind not seen in centuries. His Highness says that her power can cure any illness, is that true?"

  "Illness of the body," Michael said. "She cannot cure madness, or any sickness of the mind. Not that I know of anyway."

  "And... if I stand with you when you rescue her..." Tullia's voice was a plea now. "Do you think she will consent to heal Lucilia?"

  "You do not need to fear that she will only do so as payment for service." Michael hoped not, anyway. He hoped he still knew Miranda that well. "As long as I have known her, she has only charged what others can afford to pay. I think she would heal your sister for nothing at all."

  "Gods be praised," Tullia closed her eyes for a moment as tears welled in them. "To see her well. That would be-" She turned, leaping up, lightning sparking in her palm. "Someone is out there."

  Michael rose, hands closing upon the hilts of his swords. He saw it, a winged silhouette creeping - or trying to creep in a clumsy fashion - through the darkness.

  "Stay here and keep your eye on them," Michael said. He himself began to advance upon the intruder, closing almost as clumsily as they were approaching the camp. When he guessed that fifteen paces separated them, he drew forth Duty with a ring and shouted, "That's close enough! Who goes there, friend or foeman?"

  The person before him squeaked in alarm, and behind him Michael heard Amy curse loudly amongst the sounds of stirring and movement.

  "Are you Michael Callistus?" the intruder asked in a high pitched girl's voice.

  "A lot of people seem to have my name despite I've never met them," Michael said. "Who are you?"

  "My name's Octavia, I'm here to talk to you," Octavia said. Michael could not make out much more than her silhouette, but she seemed tall and ungainly, not to mention he was absolutely certain she had wings on her back. "It's about Miranda."