Interregnum

by S. J. A. Turney

A few minutes later, he slowed to a walk and came to stand beside his liege. Velutio was staring off into the distance across the sea while Crosus stood on his other side, glaring at Sabian. Velutio cleared his throat and addressed Sabian without a glance.

  “The graves are likely empty commander,” he said with cold conviction. “If there is anyone in there, my physician will check them and I’m absolutely certain you will find that they are not who they are supposed to be.”

  Sabian frowned.

  “How can you be so sure sir?” he asked.

  Velutio folded his arms and nodded toward the graves.

  “You don’t know the histories of these people, commander” the older man said in a matter-of-fact manner,” but I know every single one. Apart from Quintillian, these three were Tomas Castus and Enarion Stavo. Castus was harbourmaster for the imperial island and Stavo was Quintus’ personal courier. I don’t know how they managed to find a way to get off this island without using the channel to Velutio. It’s theoretically impossible, but if anyone could do it, it would be those two.”

  Sabian frowned and scanned the walls with frustration. At most places on the island the turf met the water and the walls were far enough down to afford a good view of the sea from the palaces, but here were cliffs and the walls were too high to see the water beyond.

  “Sir,” he began, “I’ve spoken to people who used to sail the passage in the days when the Imperial engineers kept it safe; I’ve spoken to architects who’ve done studies of the palaces; I’ve read a number of books on the place since I took on this jailor’s job, and never anywhere have I found a sign that there is any other navigable route to Isera than through the narrow.”

  Velutio turned once more towards the commander. He looked a little tired now.

  “Sabian,” he sighed, “just because no one has ever documented a thing doesn’t mean it’s not there. Someone knows a way through the reefs; a safe channel. Never assume you know everything. If I’d thought for a minute that this island was completely secure, would I ever have assigned you to keep an eye on the place?”

  He provided his own answer before Sabian could speak.

  “No, commander. Though I don’t want you to think that I hold you in any way responsible for any of this. It had to happen eventually.”

  Sabian blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him that blame might land with him anyway. He was guiltless. Gritting his teeth at the unpleasant smile Crosus was giving him from behind Velutio, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the exhumation party and the doctor making their way to the graves.

  Stepping back beneath the cherry trees, he leaned heavily against the bole of one of them while he watched his men digging. If they found nothing, he’d have to take charge of the situation pretty damn quick. Praying to fortune for all to be in order, he cleared his throat and addressed his Lordship again.

  “Sir, unless you really need me right now, I ought to go and address my men. They’ll be draped around the Ibis courtyard waiting for orders.”

  “Do that Sabian,” Velutio nodded and raised his hand, “but be back here in ten minutes and have some of your men bring the elders down here with you.”

  “Yessir.”

  Sabian trotted off once more toward the main palace and the Ibis courtyard. His two senior sergeants stood by the Arch of the Four Seasons, deep in conversation. They came to attention as Sabian jogged into the yard and slowed to a halt. He glanced around.

  “Where are the men?” he asked. “I told you to fall them out for now.”

  The sergeants nodded and the younger of the two addressed his commander in a clear, sure voice.

  “Yes sir” he replied efficiently. “Four companies are fallen out and are relaxing on the grass outside the gate, two of mine and two of Cialo’s. The other two have been set on guard at strategic points as best as we can manage; none of us know the layout of the place very well sir.”

  “Nice job lads,” Sabian smiled. “Now Cialo, go get your two resting companies and bring them back here.” He pointed to a set of windows high up on one side of the courtyard. “I’m going to fetch the elders.”

  The sergeant saluted and ran off through the great gate toward the sloping lawn. Sabian sighed; he had a really bad feeling about today. Entering through a decorative archway, he pushed open a heavy oak door and slowly climbed the stairs. This had once been the Raven Palace; the administrative centre where the senior Imperial officials had lived and worked. Minister Sarios had spent most of his free life here, controlling the intricacies of Empire, and had continued in the same building for a further two decades of captivity. With a sense of foreboding, Sabian climbed the stairs, trying to gather his thoughts and formulating his words before he reached the huge wooden double doors to the dining hall and pushed them open.

  “Good morning” he addressed the assembly. “His Lordship wants the elders to join us at the graveyard, so please gather yourselves and make your way down to the courtyard. The rest of you’ll have to wait here for the moment.”

  He turned on his heel and started back through the doors to the stairs as the room behind him erupted with muttered conversation. He stopped at the head of the stairs and sighed. Without turning, he cut through the murmur with a loud clear voice.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  As he started down the beautifully crafted marble staircase, he heard the inhabitants shuffling toward the door in confusion. Pausing a second at the bottom with his hand resting on a slightly damaged ivory carving of an elephant, Sabian waited for the elders to catch up a little. He stepped to one side of the door, noting with satisfaction the companies forming in the Ibis Courtyard. Gesturing to the small crowd to continue on into the open, he made a mental count as they shuffled past. All the elders he could think of seemed to be present, as well as a few people he only vaguely recognised. Toward the rear of the group came Darius. For a moment Sabian considered hauling the lad out of the line and telling him to go back, but the realisation of the importance of the boy both in intrinsic terms and to this particular situation got the better of him. If he didn’t take Darius, he was fairly sure his Lordship would ask why he hadn’t. The group assembled in a small knot in front of the two companies of soldiers and Sabian took one last glance up the stairs before he ventured out into the sunlight.

  The companies of men were at attention and the islanders stood silently, their intent eyes locked on the commander. Sabian gestured toward the arch with one arm and the courtyard began to empty. The commander fell in alongside the rear company of soldiers, side by side with the sergeant. He walked with his back straight and his arms by his sides, every inch the military commander on a mission. Within, however, he was still hoping that the graves would contain the bodies of those they declared and that the island could be left to its own devices while he went back to his house in Velutio. Hope, but not belief. He shaded his eyes and saw the small group standing around the graves. His Lordship turned and looked in their direction, his attention presumably drawn by the racket the companies of men and the group of muttering elders made.

  He picked up a little speed and bypassed the group, coming to the front just as they arrived at the burial site. Sabian noted with some distaste the twisted forms of three bodies that lay on the grass, surrounded by fragments of burial gear and small piles of earth. They were not pleasant to look at, damaged as they had been by falling masonry and then eaten by worms for many months. He realised that while he had his hands clasped behind his back, his fingers were crossed. Shaking his head a little, he uncrossed them and addressed the men with him.

  “Fall into formation, four deep!” he barked, turning back to Velutio. The Lord glanced around at Sabian while his physician continued to examine the bodies he knelt beside. He shook his head barely perceptibly and the commander’s heart fell.

  The physician stood, brushing dust, earth and much worse from his hands, and addressed Velutio.

  “You say these men died some time in the last six months?”

&nb
sp; With a brief look at Sabian, who had been here half a year earlier, the lord nodded.

  “They were alive at the last head count here, yes” he said.

  The physician shook his head. “These three have been dead much longer than that,” he pronounced confidently. “I would estimate two or three years ago. They do have reasonably fresh damage, however. There have been a number of wounds inflicted on them with blunt objects, possibly masonry, within the time-frame of which you speak, my Lord.”

  Sabian stood still as a statue. He daren’t move. Velutio was almost always a calm man, but like all tightly controlled individuals, when something got past that implacable exterior, an explosion was bound to follow and the commander was determined to avoid being the target of the blast. Instead, his Lordship merely shrugged.

  “Then these were the three who drowned two and a half years ago whilst fishing among the reefs” Velutio said. “I remember it clearly; as I’m sure do you, Sabian.”

  The commander nodded; said nothing. Waiting for the explosion still.

  Velutio turned and sought out Minister Sarios in the crowd. Locating him, he strode forward. “Sarios, I would ask you to explain yourself, but I think I see your mind clearly enough. Useful for you that you’d had three deaths of people roughly the same ages as Quintillian, Castus and Stavo eh? I’d never realised that you were capable of such calculated callousness.”

  With no warning, Velutio swept his hand up and across Sarios’ face with a resounding slap. The minister staggered and almost fell, his nose fractured and blood running in rivulets down around his mouth. Sabian lurched forward for a moment, intending to intervene, but remembered the likely consequences of such an action and forced himself to stand, impassive. Crosus craned his neck and grinned at the commander.

  Sarios grimaced at the steely grey lord. “I am a prisoner for no crime” he announced loudly and defiantly. “Do what you will.”

  Velutio sneered. “Where are they now?”

  The minister continued to glare at him. “I have no idea” he declared with deep determination.

  Reaching down to his belt, Velutio drew out his gauntlets; leather gloves protected by interlocking bronze plates after the fashion of the East. Not taking his eyes off the minister, he drew the glove onto his right hand and flexed his fingers.

  “I say again only once: Where is Quintillian?”

  The minister held his head high and spat a large gobbet of clotted blood onto the lord’s boot. Velutio clicked his tongue and then brought his right hand round in another back-handed slap. This time the sound of breaking bones was audible even where Sabian stood. The commander closed his eyes, but not quick enough to miss the minister falling to the floor and the spray of blood that dampened the grass.

  Velutio reached down and wrenched a length of cloth from Sarios’ mantle, wiping the blood from his gauntlet. He looked up at the assembled group, as Crosus leaned across and whispered something into his ear that Sabian would have killed to have been able to hear.

  “Doctor?” the lord addressed his physician without looking around.

  “My Lord?” the man replied.

  “Take this old fool away and make sure he doesn’t die” Velutio said coldly. “I will have need of him yet.”

  He then finally looked around at Sabian. The commander couldn’t read his master’s expression and that was a bad sign. Sabian drew a sigh inwardly but kept his back rigidly straight and his features deadpan.

  “Commander.”

  “Sir?” he responded. He knew he wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

  “Take the rest of this rabble back to the dining hall and lock them in” Velutio commanded. Sabian sighed in relief as he turned to his men, but too soon.

  “And Sabian?”

  The commander froze.

  “Pick three of the young ones at random and have them crucified on the lawns” the older man said calmly as he turned on his heel and strode off in the direction of the palace. Crosus stood still a long moment savouring the look of distaste on Sabian’s face before giving a brief heartless laugh and striding off after his master.

  Sabian winced. Again he’d contemplated intervening but there will little chance of Velutio’s mind changing and somehow, though the reason escaped him, he seemed to be slipping from Velutio’s favour at a rate of knots. Instead, he walked over to the minister who lay on the grass, barely conscious, with the physician fussing around him. The commander craned his neck to see what it was the doctor was actually doing and regretted it as he saw the man pop an eyeball back into its socket. The old cleric strained to look up at him, but the pain of his damaged eye was too much and the lids closed. Sabian sighed.

  “Minister,” he said very quietly,”you know me as a fair man, yes?”

  There was no response from Sarios, not that he’d expected one.

  “I beg of you,” he went on, “tell his Lordship what he wants to know. The boy’s probably in great danger wherever he is. There are dangerous wars and feuds in almost every corner of the Empire and this place is at least safe, for all its nature.” He sighed. “Or it was anyway.”

  Sarios opened his better eye painfully and the orb swivelled up to Sabian.

  “You know I cannot do that” he replied. “You know who he is and you know who I am. Can you imagine I ever stopped serving?”

  Sabian nodded. He could understand commitment and loyalty, particularly between this man and that boy, but the whole thing was foolish and with no worthwhile goal. He realised the physician was looking back and forth between them in curiosity. He growled at the man “this is not your concern. Just tend his wounds.”

  “Sarios,” he continued turning back to the old man. “I sympathise, but his Lordship is going to have me crucify the young men of your island if you don’t tell him and I’ve no wish to be a part of that. I’m a soldier not an executioner.”

  The minister actually smiled through the blood and bruises.

  “Then you serve the wrong man, commander.”

  Sabian continued to crouch silently for a long moment as the old man collapsed back to the grass, his eyes closing and his breathing erratic. With a sigh of resignation, the commander stood and turned to his men.

  “Sergeant Cialo,” he commanded. “Have a detail produce the timber and set up three crosses on the lawn. Find some rope.”

  The sergeant, a long-standing member of Sabian’s command and a man that could only be described as a ‘grizzled veteran’, nodded and turned, barking orders at his men. Sabian returned his attention to the crowd.

  “Everyone back to the Raven Palace.”

  The elders shuffled onwards, silent now with despair settling over them. Sabian walked behind them all the way, the rest of his unit with him, barring those left to re-bury the dead. Once they entered the Ibis Courtyard, he pointed to the door leading to the dining room and, needing no verbal command the group of islanders made their way inside. Had he been less preoccupied, Sabian might have noted the absence of young Darius from the group.

  As the commander contemplated how to deal with this most onerous of jobs, his sergeant and four men marched past, carrying lengths of rope and bags that clinked with a metallic sound. Sabian waved at Cialo to get his attention.

  “No nails!” he ordered.

  The sergeant nodded and Sabian thought the man looked a little relieved. As the five soldiers exited the courtyard through the great Gorgon Gate, they stepped respectfully aside and Velutio once more entered the courtyard, two of his private guard at his shoulders. He spotted Sabian and made directly for him. Sabian noted the absence of Crosus with trepidation. What was the wily bastard up to now?

  “Commander,” Velutio announced, “I am returning to the city. I have many resources at my disposal and I intend to find the boy. I’m very much afraid he will have to be killed now. I’m leaving my physician to tend the minister and I want you to crucify the three you select tonight and then ask Sarios each morning from then on where the boy is. If he actually ans
wers you, though I can’t imagine that he would, you may take down the children. If not they stay up there until they rot. I don’t care who’s chosen with the exceptions young Darius. He is not to be harmed. Is that clear?”

  “That’s clear sir,” Sabian replied through gritted teeth. “When will we be returning to garrison my Lord?”

  Velutio shook his head. “I’ve not decided yet. Certainly not for a while.” he declared. “For the foreseeable future you are the garrison commander here! I want you to be hard. Fear is the most useful weapon you can have here.”

  As Sabian glared, anger and disgust rising in him he saw Crosus standing in the archway watching him. Something was going on here that he didn’t like and being away from the rest of the army for any length of time would just tighten that bastard’s hold on things. He growled.

  “My Lord,” he said, stressing the word unnecessarily, “I’m not a prison warden. You hired me for my skills as a commander and you’re wasting them. What happens if one of the other lords launches an attack while I’m playing nursemaid here? Crosus may look like a bear, but he’s not got anywhere near enough experience on the field of battle to lead your army. This is ridiculous!” He realised that he was doing exactly what he’d vowed not to earlier, but the situation was becoming increasingly untenable.

  Velutio glared back at him. “I am the one who gives the orders commander” he growled, “and you will do what I say when I say it or by the hells I’ll have you on a cross before I leave here. Do I make myself understood?”

  Sabian stood at attention, shaking slightly with anger and gritted his teeth to bite back every retort that came naturally and unbidden. “Yes sir” he uttered, again stressing the word. Still shaking, he watched the lord turn on his heel, the two guards at his shoulders, and make for the dock. Waiting just long enough for Velutio to be out of earshot, he ran to the gatehouse and looked out over the grass to where his sergeant was erecting a ‘T’-shaped structure.

  “Cialo!” he called as loudly as he dare, and the sergeant turned at the sound of his name and jogged up the slope toward his commander.