Alam sighed deeply, looking at the girl. ‘You see? Certainly quicker than his.’ His fierce gaze turned back to Brann. ‘Go, fool.’
Brann went.
****
She stepped from the balcony into view as soon as the servant had led the boy from the room.
‘You did not even have to persuade him.’
‘I almost had to restrain his eagerness.’
‘Then he is as reckless with his life as you are.’
‘And yet he survives each trial.’
‘He is knocked down, he gets back up. Every time. He knows no other way.’
‘You like him, don’t you?’
He gave no answer. Which was the answer.
****
The Lord Chamberlain was as pompous as Alam had suggested, if not more so, but he was nothing if not effective at his job. Within minutes of receiving the message from the girl – and she herself had a knack of presenting the message with just the right tone on the right words to convey that if Brann was not presented to the Emperor at the earliest opportunity, the Lord Chamberlain’s head was liable to be requested in his stead – Brann handed his knife to the man and, in moments, found himself being led by the man and accompanied by two fully armoured guards along a passage for which sumptuous would seem an inadequate description of the décor.
It would seem that an overabundance actually achieves less, Brann thought, as he found himself unable to take in any more than a fraction of what he passed: feet sinking into soft floor coverings; eyes caught by statues large and small; gilt in precious metals and lacquered in colours vivid beyond the reality of what they represented, bathed in the light of lamps in shapes and designs beyond the skill of any metalworker he had ever known, casting shapes of light and shadow in patterns both intricate and inventive. And this is just the corridor.
He was ushered into an antechamber that made the passageway seem austere, and then a room of assorted but equally ostentatious furniture for reclining and sitting, with a large circular bathing pool set before a window from floor to ceiling allowing a vista of the city. Brann felt relief that, at least, the Emperor was not in the pool.
Instead, Kalos reclined on a divan, clad simply in a blue tunic of fine silk, regalia elsewhere but with the regal bearing naturally displayed only by those born to the role. His relaxation was in stark contrast to the large guards and their bared blades who stood everywhere he looked.
‘Ah,’ the Emperor said, his tone genial and his smile matching, ‘if it isn’t our own little indestructible assassin. I take it that you are not, in actual fact, an emissary from my Source of Information’s network of gatherers. Rather, you would appear to be somewhat weary of fruitless running and accepting of their decreed fate.’
Brann looked at the floor, unable to resist being intimidated by the man’s position. He forced his eyes to rise. ‘It is about your Source of Information that I come, Imperial Majesty. There is a great danger within your realm. One that is more important than any risk to my life.’
The man smiled. ‘Of course, you are right. Any matter relating to the Empire is more important than your life.’ He waved a hand flippantly as if to dismiss such an obvious and insignificant matter. ‘However, it does surprise me that you would seek death to tell me that my esteemed advisor has missed some important news, despite his expertise and the resources at his disposal.’
Brann shook his head. ‘It is not an omission of the man that I come to you to relate, Imperial Majesty, but a warning I must deliver that there is a dire threat to a resource beyond value – a threat posed by that very same man.’
The Emperor’s smile remained, but puzzlement crossed his face. ‘Now, you must admit, this seems strange to me.’
‘It is true, Imperial Majesty, I assure you.’
Again the dismissive wave. ‘No, no, no. I speak of our last official meeting, when your Northern lord, Einarr, similarly levelled a charge of treason and treacherous plotting against the very same man. And here you are, willingly walking your neck towards the headsman’s block, and you cannot manage to be imaginative enough to bring me anything new. You could have at least attempted to offer me a little entertainment in the process, doomed as it would have been.’
‘Imperial Majesty, perhaps you could agree, then, that if I had any motive other than the truth, I would indeed have brought something new, or made a more extravagant attempt at a tale. But my lack of doing so, helpless in the face of such danger to me, surely indicates the truth in my message. An army has been raised, and only your millens can face it and destroy it.’
Kalos laughed delightedly. ‘Now that is better! You see, if you could have tried that from the start rather than lazily directing old insults towards a respected official of the Empire, we would have begun this conversation on a far more positive footing, although you must realise that the outcome would have been the same.’ He sighed. ‘The two closest millens are already in the North, attempting to restore order and the adequate flow of trade where your own rulers are failing so pitifully to do so, and the millen on garrison rotation here in Sagia just weeks ago left to assist them in accelerating their progress.’ He smiled benevolently. ‘You should be delighted. You sought before to weaken my forces by luring my millens north, and yet here it has taken place. The only beetle in your wine is that my commanders, and Taraloku-Bana himself, have been able to assure me that there is no culture currently capable of mounting a threat to Sagia, and that the Palace Guard is more than capable of ensuring the safety of those within the keep; so I am, after all, able to attend to the matter of free-flowing trade. But it is now done for the Empire’s sake, not to your ends.’
Brann felt horror creep through him. The very reason Einarr’s party had travelled here in the first place had indeed been to warn of the unrest in the North and, if they were to achieve their most desired aim, to gain military assistance from the Empire in quelling it before it grew further. But now it seemed that this had been Loku’s intention from the start. The man had only delayed the Emperor’s implementation of it until he himself was ready to act. He had been several steps ahead of them throughout. More than that, he had orchestrated everything, leading them along a path as if he were dropping a trail of bread always a half-dozen paces ahead of a gaggle of geese hungry for every morsel and never lifting their heads to see who had given it.
Kalos spoke again. ‘Now, I know not your intention here, but to be honest this interruption to a long and tedious day is now becoming tiresome in itself. Perhaps you may have intended to get close enough to me to attempt a killing blow, or maybe this is just an inept effort to discredit a man of trust and influence, but it is time for this nonsense to be brought to a halt.’ He looked at the Lord Chamberlain, who fell to his knees at the glance. ‘Dungeons overnight and take his head in the morning.’
‘So it shall be, Your Imperial Majesty,’ the man’s obsequious voiced whined. ‘Shall I arrange a spectacle for the execution?’
The Emperor reclined with a languid smile. ‘Oh, no need for all that fuss. There is a block in the dungeons. That will suffice.’ His hand waved airily.
The Lord Chamberlain bowed in acknowledgement, and Brann felt the unyielding grip of two guards on his arms as he was wrenched towards the door.
‘You don’t understand,’ he shouted in panic, though less for his own safety than for the consequences of doing nothing in the face of Loku’s action. He had avoided mentioning in front of the others in the room the name of the city kept in secret from all but a scant and carefully selected few. But he knew that the secret was passed to each Emperor on accession to ensure their assistance in protection, on pain of inevitable assassination by agents of the gods should they seek to abuse that knowledge, and he had no option now but to make a desperate last attempt. ‘He is seeking to plunder the knowledge of Khard—’
The Emperor leapt to his feet. Two swords flashing to rest against Brann’s chest and one pricking his throat cut off his words.
Kalos’s
face was grim and, though his voice was as even as ever, it carried a menace that could only stem from deep-burning anger. ‘If he utters another noise – coherent word or grunt I care not – cut out his tongue. And put him in a cell only long enough for the headsman to be summoned.’
The haste of the guards to take him redoubled and the trip to the dungeons was rough and rapid, attracting many a startled stare from passing servants, but Brann took care to stay silent. There was nothing possible to gain now from words other than mutilation.
He was flung into a cell with one other occupant, a dishevelled and broken old man of little physical substance and fewer words. Brann looked at the cowering figure in the corner picking at his deep-red hair to remove rotting straw gained, presumably, from sleeping on the floor where more of the lank straw lay on the damp stone, and dismissed him from his attention.
He pressed against the thick wooden door, peering through the small barred window and seeing only a short way along the dimly lit passage of similar doors that he had seen on the way in. His fingers grasped the bars and he shook the door, more in despair and frustration than in any expectation it would move. It rattled slightly.
The man Brann had dismissed spoke with a voice sounding considerably younger than he would have anticipated, had he expected any speech at all. ‘You are wasting your time, of course.’
Brann recovered from his surprise and rested his back against the door, his body and his voice weak with despondent helplessness. ‘I have made a terrible mistake,’ he said.
****
‘I have made a terrible mistake,’ he said.
He sat on the edge of his bed, body sagging and heavy, as if the weight of the task he had created for himself were only now bearing down upon him. He felt like an old man, and he knew from her face he appeared so. He looked at his hands twitching and fiddling in his lap, unable to meet her eyes.
‘I have killed him as surely as if I had put a dagger in his chest when he stood here before me.’
‘This is not you. All plans have setbacks, most of them unforeseen. You must have known this was possible; you must have planned alternative measures, other routes to the goal.’
‘I have nothing. I could feel he was the one, the chance we had. All I have planned has been built on him, and now I have let that foundation be pulverised. Dust cannot support walls above. The Three were alerted I may need their assistance, but it is now too late to call in their assistance – they would need to have been in position already. I listened not to you and you were right. And now all of it was for nothing. Is for nothing.’
Her voice was soft again. ‘You can plan again. It is your way. You do not fail until you stop.’
‘It is more than that.’
She waited long moments before speaking, nervous of the emotion behind it.
‘You like him, don’t you?’
This time he answered.
‘Yes.’
A tear ran a wet trail down his dry old cheek.
****
‘We all make mistakes.’ The voice was not only young, but vibrant with strength.
Brann looked in the man’s direction properly for the first time. He was a small figure, insubstantial, with a shock of hair that hadn’t seen a comb or even been run through with fingers for as long as it had been growing. His clothes had turned to rags, more missing than remaining, and the skin under the discolouration of dirt was marked by marks that were equally liable to be bruises or the evidence of disease. Brann almost expected him to die in front of him.
But when the eyes lifted to his, he saw bright life and intelligence.
‘I shouldn’t have ended up in here,’ Brann said. ‘There are things I must do.’
The narrow shoulders shrugged. ‘I think you will find those words on the lips of every resident in these parts.’
‘But I never intended this!’
‘Again, that’s what everyone says.’ A grin, exposing teeth remarkably healthy and at odds with the rest of his appearance. ‘Well, everyone except me.’
A door of metal clanged open along the corridor. The man stood and stretched his back. ‘That will be the headsman. It is our time.’
Brann’s stomach lurched. ‘Our time?’ He pressed his face against the barred aperture once more, straining to see who approached. ‘And why in the gods’ names are you so cheerful about it?’ His legs wanted to run but barely had the strength to stand and he had to fight not to wet himself. He thought with scorn of the way he had walked so willingly into the Emperor’s presence. Dire consequences were so much easier to dismiss when they had yet to move from the realms of possibility to those of reality.
A huge angular face with a gap-toothed grin appeared in front of him with a roaring laugh. Brann fell backwards with a yell and felt pain as he tensed instead of relaxing into the impact on the hard floor. Relaxing would have relaxed his bladder as well, and if he was to die he would do so with dignity; bruises wouldn’t matter in a few minutes.
As keys sounded in the door, he mocked his thoughts made stupid by fear: he had yet to see a dignified death; he doubted there was such a thing.
The door opened wide to reveal a gangling man the height of Hakon but without his broadness, instead with limbs thick with strength and seeming too long for his body. Hanging loosely in his right hand, he held an axe with a huge blade. Of course he would, Brann thought. He scrambled back, feeling the dread evaporate as the fighting coldness started to fill him. He moved back further, not now from fear but to give him space to evaluate his opponent. The axe was the first danger – if he moved to his left, the man’s right, the first swing could only be away from him and that entire side of the man would be exposed before the axe could swing back. The man’s weight would be on his right leg as he pushed into the swing, so a stamp to the side of the knee could cripple it. The axe, too, was designed for slicing through a neck in a single cut, and was too heavy to be moved quickly in a fight. All this he read in his first glance but, as his legs tensed to spring, he noticed more.
There were no guards. Nor was the jailer present. Only one man to take two out for execution, and he also to swing the axe, with no assistance in either task. Strange.
And his cellmate strolling past Brann with a nod to the giant, slapping the man approvingly on the shoulder as he moved to the door and coolly inspected the scene outside.
The headsman ignored Brann and turned. ‘Was that what you wanted, sir?’
The scruffy man gave a pale smile as Brann – the tension easing from his muscles and the cold from his brain – slid around the headsman in as wide an arc as possible and slipped from the cell. The jailer lay in a large pool of blood a short distance beyond the metal door that was the only exit from the area, a great cleft from the left side of his neck down almost to the right side of his ribs. Brann thought of the power involved in such a wound and looked with even greater appreciation at the man behind him, moving to where he could see both men at once.
The other prisoner nodded absently, his mind clearly partially engaged elsewhere. ‘A little messy, but undoubtedly effective.’
The big man beamed, and the prisoner turned to Brann, his smile faint again. ‘You see, it always helps when a principal character – in this situation, our headsman here – can be bought, and even more so when he is already in one’s employ.’ His voice was cool, measured, in keeping with the bearing he now adopted. ‘My friend, Happy, has not only been the palace headsman, and a particularly proficient one, as I’m sure you can imagine; beheadings are not an everyday occurrence, and a selection of unfortunate incidents in drinking houses, combined with a certain potential I saw in him, led me to believe that a second job would prove beneficial to him. That second job will now become his primary employment as he will henceforth be resigning from his position of headsman.’
Happy looked across. ‘Should I inform them, sir?’
The man looked at their empty cell and the dead jailer. ‘I think they will be aware, Happy.’
Brann looked at the big man, then back at his erstwhile cellmate. ‘His name is Happy?’
The young man frowned through the grime on his face. ‘Does he look unhappy to you?’
The giant beamed at him.
‘No,’ Brann said, ‘I’ll grant you that, but—’
‘Well,’ the man cut in, ‘in a situation where he had no memory of ever having a name prior to being appointed headsman, and only referred to by his title thereafter, it seemed natural to find him a name, although it seemed only polite to determine if he wanted one. When I asked: “Would a name make you happy?” he seemed to misunderstand and replied: “Yes, it would. So I am now Happy?” It seemed simpler to let it stick, and he has been Happy ever since, so to speak.’
The big man nodded. ‘I am happy to be Happy,’ he confirmed.
Brann looked at the door anxiously. ‘It is a nice story,’ he acknowledged to Happy, ‘but should we really be wasting time if we have a chance to escape?’
The young man cocked his head to one side. ‘The guard should change shortly. That will allow us to negotiate the planned route unmolested.’ He saw Brann’s questioning look. ‘I have a highly acute sense of the precise passage of time. I have no idea why but even were I to understand it, doing so would not improve the asset in any way, so it would be time wasted in coming to that understanding. Talking of which, we may as well use this pause in our activity to our advantage.’
He looked at the faces, seven in all, peering through the small windows in their cell doors. ‘Who do we have here?’
He moved from cell to cell, looking in to inspect the occupants. He stopped beside one, beckoning Happy to join him. ‘This one can come with us – he will prove useful in our daily business. Fortunately, he is currently sleeping, so knock him out or put a bag over his head or something.’ He glanced around the other cells. ‘Kill the rest.’
He nodded Brann’s attention towards the doorway and sauntered out. Brann followed as the screaming began, stepping over the corpse of the jailer as the young man perched on a desk, selecting an apple from a small basket of food – presumably the jailer’s meal – and offering it to Brann. When Brann shook his head, he took a satisfied bite from the fruit.
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 39