Oathbreaker: The Knight's Tale

by Colin McComb

  It is two in the afternoon already, and I cannot believe that I have had this long to write. You might ask why, if my time is limited, have I spent so much of my time writing about the past? It is a good question, and a fair one. My answer is this: we see the events of today being written in the pages of history. Small incidents unfold onto a massive scale. Loyalty in the past becomes the mechanism of betrayal.

  The knights saved us then. They could save us now, if they only knew where to strike, and if I trusted their captain enough to tell him of the plot against the king. But the engineer of this rot in Terona plays a subtle game, and deep. The knights see the hand of someone in the diplomatic service, which of course is the polite name for our spies. Yet their commander realizes that if he sees a spy’s work, surely it cannot be a spy—at least, not one of the spies we have trained, for ours are also subtle and deep. The captain has called for the executions of certain high-placed suspects. The king is not yet so addled that he’ll agree to this, and I don’t think the captain expects it to happen. I’m sure he and his second have assassins who are ready to strike at a word but have no idea where. Like all under his command, if he is not involved, I’m sure the captain longs for direct action and chafes when he is denied. The knights are full of powerful emotion, though they deny it to themselves, and that hidden passion drives them to excellence and fierce duty.

  I share their frustration. I believe it may be one of the few emotions we do share. The knights are either more than human, or less. They lack something that drives the rest of us. Perhaps it is beaten out of them in their merciless training. Perhaps it is inculcated in them in place of honest human feeling. I know that I have seen innocent boys turned into blank-faced but burning killers, trained to become masters of any weapon I might care to name—though they prefer the humming weapons made by the Archmagus for each individual on the occasion of his knighting, and I do not blame them, for those magical blades are the finest I have seen men or women carry.

  I am constantly amazed that mere humans would dare stand against the knights and their weapons. The knightly initiation, under the aegis of the Archmagus and his apprentices, trades a portion of their humanity for the blessings of strength and speed. After their three-day initiation, they emerge from their cloister wrapped in bloodstained bandages, and they have become inhuman. Though their training takes them far down the roads of experience all men know, it is the secret of their initiation that puts them beyond the boundaries of ordinary human knowledge.

  It is this flaw that keeps them from the command of our armies. They are weapons themselves, and one does not trust a weapon to wage war, for it is a weapon’s nature to seek blood and give no quarter. They are under the direct command of the king, whom they are trained to adore, whose life they guard with their own, the living embodiment of the Empire they serve. When on campaign, they are under the direct command of the senior general and exist side by side with the ordinary chain of rule, but they are strong-minded individuals, and if they were not so valuable in combat, they would have been disestablished long ago. In fact, they report mainly to their direct leaders, the commander and his captains, taking no order from any but him or me. They act as cavalry, as scouts, as infantry—in any warlike function possible. It takes a strong general to keep them in line, for they are willful and cruel.

  It is good, then, that many of our generals are willful and cruel as well. They have to be, in order to prosecute the endless minor wars of the Empire. The Empire looks always outward, and it does so not only for its own glory but also to keep itself from looking inward. Should the populace turn away from its external enemies long enough to watch its own functioning, it is my belief that we would be torn apart from the rebellion that would surely follow in the next decade. I believe that it is my duty to press slowly on our enemies, though it benefits our nobles to move more quickly on their pet villains.

  This is, of course, only my view, but it seems to fit. Why else would we not press aggressively on every tyrant we vilify? Why else would we allow them to grow in power? Our spies are skilled enough and our intelligence network swift enough that we can identify potential threats. The other nations of the world could, I suppose, unite against us at once, but even now I question whether they could overcome us. Possibly they could. Possibly their scattered magi have developed some sort of secret weapon. They could inflict grievous damage on us, but in return, they would suffer losses their lands could not sustain. In short, if we die, they die as well. That, at least, is how it falls out in my mind. It would take our beloved Empire to turn in upon itself for them to stand a chance of succeeding.

  The signs are everywhere that this is about to happen.

  The time is six in the evening. Night draws near. The storm is breaking out over the city, and the wind has a hold of my curtains.

  Thirty-five years ago, I was in a good position to advance myself in the army. Because of my deeds in the Siullan affair, I had risen swiftly and fraternized with the sons of other nobles, including some of those in the High Houses. I do not know if you have kept current with the political maneuverings of the High Houses, though as children of the Lesser Houses it behooves you to understand them so that you can anticipate their moves and be prepared when they call upon your services.

  The Empire balances their influences against each other, but each has its particular whims, goals, and strengths. All of them, of course, help to fund the military, help to patrol the borders, and pay to maintain the infrastructure that supports their takings. They maintain their private armies, with soldiers picked from our academies, but when their soldiers must muster under my command, they cast off their allegiances and their commanders to become soldiers of the Empire.

  As the great families of the Empire, the descendants of King Martyn’s supporters, they guard their prerogatives fiercely. They intermingle with one another, marrying each other for political gain, casting each other aside, and using the peasants to fight their battles with each other. Riots in the cities, food shortages, plagues—I have seen the High Houses use all of these to drive home a point to their momentary rivals, and sometimes even to their allies. By sowing unrest with their foes, they show their own control. The Empire holds these fractious and arrogant Houses at arm's length but doesn't dare to let them go any farther than that. They do not care about the populace except as a means to count the score against each other.

  And now that I am no longer to be part of their society, I may say this openly: they parade their honor, but their influence runs deep beneath respectable society. I do not say that they are responsible for the criminal underworld, but they absolutely profit from it.

  For instance, the Westkitt, those noted humanitarians and most charitable of the Houses, the strongest pillar of Father Church, carry on a brisk slave trade, sometimes even with our most vicious enemies, the Sjuri. Perhaps they are trying to buy their absolution with their tithes. Or take the Cronen: they provide most of the diplomats and ambassadors to our neutral neighbors and our enemies, but they also train assassins and malcontents to keep their enemies off-balance. They sell our secrets when the price is right. The House of Bhumar, one of the great shipping concerns and trade houses, does a brisk business in narcotics and other contraband. The Vukovi, our king's House, send traveling justices across the Empire to serve in places where knowledge of the law is sparse, preaching respect before the throne, and they simultaneously collect a portion of every bought ruling that their lackeys provide the wealthy. And let us not forget our mercantile masters, the House of Deng, whose largesse helps support the Imperial Bank, and who suck dry the lesser craftsmen and merchants.

  The Lesser Houses like ours are still nobility to one degree or another, but our collective pedigree is not nearly as impressive. Perhaps these Houses were late converts to the growing empire, like the Micolli. They might have fallen from grace through the years, like the Torvalds who lost the East for a century. They simply lack the requisite ferocity to prove themselves and thus watch their h
oldings seep away to their competitors—like the House of Glasyin, regrettably, who became vassals to the Stoyan. They might have been rewarded for later services, as were the Huldens, who helped the Deng establish the banking system in these last three hundred years.

  We might still provide certain services to the Church or the Council of Magi, and our children fill the ranks of the knighthood, but we simply cannot break the stranglehold the High Houses have on the court. I do not say this to belittle you or your potential accomplishments, but to tell you what the situation looks like from Terona. We must realize that the High Houses see us as pawns in their games, useful tools or fading glories but ultimately no more than occasional breeding stock when they don't need to secure alliances with their competitors.

  Most of the nobles with whom I met were useless militarily and served mainly as a way to distinguish themselves before they moved on to fill the court with their plots and gossip. I dismissed them as foppish dandies then, though I realized the necessity of keeping them, if not friendly, at least tolerant toward me and my designs.

  I am, in hindsight, aware of the irony of judging them for their plots while I engaged in mine. In my defense, allow me to argue that I worked for the good of the country as I saw it, struggling to prevent its inevitable downfall, to slow the slide into anarchy. Their plots were for personal aggrandizement. Mine was to serve something that was worthy of my service. That is what I told myself then. Perhaps the lies we tell ourselves become truer the more strongly we believe them.

  I had just begun to earn the friendship of Prince Fannon, nephew of the king, when word came that Fannon III had passed, succumbing at last to the inevitable stroke of age. Though it was expected that he would die, no one was prepared for it so soon. No sooner had we heard of his death than the hyenas were upon the corpse and ambition began to tear the army apart. The death of the king brought us to the Birdsnest Wars, in which the High Houses sought to position themselves to take advantage of the chaos. They took themselves to the Birdsnest, King Martyn’s old summer mansion on the hills outside of Terona, and pressed their claims to the throne, describing the deeds they had done for the Empire and the blessings they had secured for the many. They outlined their lineage, and described why their lines were closer to the bloodline of Martyn. They presented their presumptive heirs. The highest officers of the forces turned away from their sworn service to defend the country and brought their strength to bear for their chosen House. Whole divisions went to fight for the Westkitts and the Dengs and the Bhumari, and companies and battalions split for the Lesser Houses.

  A few remained standing with Prince Fannon. Fannon III had died childless, and though his decree should have rendered his nephew the legitimate heir, questions of legality and the prince’s legitimacy made what should have been an orderly succession a time of blood. I supported the prince, as did a number of the nobles who were unconvinced that their Houses deserved the throne. We had the Vukovi, whose judges and heralds outlined Fannon's right, but who listens to the niceties of the law when such power is at stake? We believed that Fannon had shown the qualities necessary to lead us, and this was more than belief in his lineage. Men and women alike believed that the Empire deserved existence more than their own House did, and though I suspected at least three of our compatriots of passing information to their superiors, my suspicions were entirely unfounded. I was grateful to be proven wrong.

  “I will see you all rewarded,” Prince Fannon told us. We believed in his confidence, and we believed in his right to rule.

  “Seek others loyal to me,” he said. “Turn them against their brethren if you must. Remind them of their duty.” And so we did. We traveled among the House armies, speaking to the lesser officers, to the enlisted men, promising them riches, rank, forgiveness. Some came with us. Some denied us. Some sought to betray us, and these we slew. Slowly our numbers swelled, even as the High Houses tore one another apart with their vicious battles and assassins and poisons.

  The prince, for his part, went to the Knights Elite. They remained above it, guarding the Imperial Palace, watching, impassive. When the prince, muffled and disguised, managed at last to win through to their commander, his answer was brief: “Show us that you can command men, and we shall be yours to command.”

  “Watch me,” Prince Fannon said, “and you shall see.”

  When the prince returned to us, his inexperienced general staff, his command to us was to pick a battle that we might win. Our numbers were less than half those of any of the Lesser Houses—as far as we could tell, none of the High Houses even knew we existed. I realize now that of course they did; their spy networks covered and still cover the spheres of influence that the Houses think matter. They were watching us as a matter of keeping their eyes on the prince during this rite of fire. I just don’t think they believed he could manage it. After all, who did he have on his side? A handful of officers, each with a small troop of men, some minor House backing (purely as a political gambit), and the royal name. Fannon, who grew up in the intrigues of the Houses, knew their capabilities, and he guided our hands as we laid the groundwork for his assumption of the throne. We faced three assassins, and we were surprised we did not see more.

  The apparatus of Empire turned ever onward as our drama played out.

  Prince Fannon saw something in me. Perhaps it was the kinship born of arms. Whatever the reason, he and I plotted and planned his resumption of the throne most intently. We laid traps for the High Houses, building their suspicions and their enmities, setting snares for them from their old histories. We played on the insults and slights they had dealt one another for centuries, and through our few contacts in the court, we amplified their grievances. We fought them in the words of aristocrats, through propaganda, through small acts of generosity to the common man—and most of all, through their rivals.

  The details are unimportant now, though our small victories were glorious. I still admire our scheme to turn the proud Cronens against the money-loving Dengs. With a little coin and the hint of more to come to the DeTrellzis (one of the Cronen's Lesser Houses), a few judiciously placed words to the knight-aspirants of their House, and some careful research into their past histories, we set off a feud between the two that lasted for a week and took the hottest of their heads to the grave. By the time it and half a dozen other feuds like it had ended, we had made our move for the throne.

  These feuds were not without cost to us. My father, that ambitious and naïve soul, tried to play peacemaker in the middle of one of them. His involvement was not our doing. I don’t think he knew he was being played by one of our enemies. I am sure they told him the truth before they slit his throat and left his body in the street for the dogs. Though he and I had had our differences, I burned to take revenge. The prince had different ideas.

  “Our plans are too close to fruition,” he said, “and I need your attention here.”

  “But my father—”

  “Your father was a pawn, in life and in death! They’re using him to distract you when I need you most, and if you pursue your revenge now, then everything we have done here will be for nothing. I ask you to reconsider.”

  “The blood of my family has been spilled. I will have my revenge.”

  “Then you will choose between the command of my armies and your revenge. I will not order your obedience in this.”

  Thirty-five years have passed since then, and I still have not had revenge. By the time we had taken the throne and gained the obedience of the knights, our energies were expended on keeping the Empire together and building a coalition of the Houses against the rioting populace, who had seen the chaos and feared for the safety of the Empire. I could not set aside my duty, and still cannot. Even now, when I believe that my silence serves no purpose, I will not take the risk of tearing our fragile alliances apart and turning to mob rule.

  It is now nine in the evening. The sun has left the sky, and the storm has opened over the city.

  Swiftly, then, swiftly! I have l
ittle more time to dote on the past.

  In the many years I have had the honor and the privilege of serving under His Majesty Fannon IV, I have watched the fortunes of the Empire increase. Yet even as the surface of the Imperial painting grew in luster, so did the canvas underneath it rot, falling apart under the pressing weight of time and the teeth of countless vermin, teeming with corruption and spite. The Empire is strong from without, but from within it awaits the slightest push to start it crumbling.

  The signs were there. What began as a proud land so many hundreds of years ago, rising from the chaos of the Great Uprising on the back of King Martyn the Strong, has lost its way, become adrift in the endless plots of the minor lords and nobles who scheme in Terona. Each High House maneuvers against the others. Each pursues its own vendettas at the cost of the Empire, each with its own vision of Martyn’s dream, each doing its level best to play kingmaker, and now I cannot think of anything that might hold them together. Except perhaps the traitors’ plot—but I shudder to think of what they intend should they succeed.

  How did I first become aware of the traitors? In the easiest way possible: they approached me. It wasn’t anything as simple as asking me to betray His Majesty, but to my eye, it may as well have been.

  It was a night about a week ago when they approached me. I was in the court, mingling among the courtiers with the three trusted lieutenants I mentioned previously: William “Wet” M'Cray of House Cronen, the son of the man who had died in the Utland Uprising, was the first. He was a tall, slim, and nervous man, but his mind was keen and fast, and with a rapier I knew none better among mortal men. The second was Ilocehr Hargrave, a captain lately of House Bhumar, a dark-skinned man of wild impetuosity, generosity of spirit, and a fierce grasp of small squad tactics. He was also, it was rumored, seeking the hand of Sofia DeTrellzi, and this led to no end of hardship for him among his peers. The third was Nansa Westkitt, who had been third in line to inherit the power of the Westkitts when the matriarch passed away, but this peaceable young woman had discovered a talent for supply that outshone the appeals of Father Church, and she renounced her family's calling for ours. All of them noble-born, and all of them well equipped to help me find the mood among the powerful.