Emilia checked the spine. This was the twenty-third pamphlet of Erasmus’s writings. Why make that note? And why “infinite cruelty”? Strange words for an emperor to write.
Getting up, Emilia went to the shelves and searched. There was no twenty-fourth book. No matter how she looked, going up and down the ladder to read every spine available, the book did not appear. She hissed in frustration as Hyperia joined her.
“What does this mean?” Hyperia asked, clearly puzzled.
Emilia said the words she hated most. “I don’t know.”
Lucian sat in the guards’ mess, a room with wooden floors and bare stone walls one flight of stairs beneath the emperor’s domestic level. The palace of Dragonspire was something else: five solid levels of kitchens, bedrooms, gardens and balconies, of servants’ quarters and chambers fit for entertaining in imperial style. The emperor’s personal guard got to live directly below him. They had their own chambers, their own kitchens, and their own barrels of wine.
They’d been eager to show those off first.
“A toast!” Aidan, a recruit from the Hibrian Isles with a pale, triangular face, clunked a goblet against Rufus’s. “To the next emperor of Etrusia, Cap’n Lucian!”
Cheers from the men and women all around the room. They were soldiers gathered from every corner of the empire, from the Ardennes to the farthest reach of the Ikrayina. In this guards’ mess, where they came from mattered far less than where they were. These folk probably hadn’t seen their families in over a decade; this had become their true home, their real family. Lucian had known this kind of bond on campaign. Here, he saw scars much like his wrapped around biceps. After the toast came a loud song about a fish named Cyrus and his many naughty nautical adventures. Lucian rubbed his forehead, and Rufus snorted into his cup. Aidan, meanwhile, sat down on the table, pinched off a bit of bread, and held it up to his neck.
“Here, boy. Here, Mungo.”
A white ferret popped its head out of the guy’s collar, and nibbled the bread. While Aidan cooed at his pet, Lucian elbowed Rufus.
“I wondered why he smelled so…musky.”
“The ferret’s clean. Aidan’s the one who needs a bath.” Rufus drank and grabbed Lucian by the back of the neck. “I know it’s not up to the guard to decide these things, but most in this room’d be happy if you won the throne. Think there’s a chance?”
“Truthfully, not much.” Lucian cocked an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t want to follow me anyway, Rufus. I’m a reformed man.”
“Ah, that’s right. The kindly monk, yeah? Gardening?” Rufus screwed up his face and drank, wiped his mouth, slammed the cup to the table. “You always wanted to change things, Sabel, but you never went about it the right way.”
“How’s that?” Lucian smiled.
“You’ve always been ashamed of what you can do.”
“Killing is not something to be proud of.” Lucian’s smile died.
Rufus ran a hand down his face. “What do you know about gardening? Hmm? ’Bout medicine? How can you feed and heal the sick when you’re no good at it?”
“People learn new skills. I know I’m too old for it, wizened age of eighteen and all, but I could try.”
“You’re not just good with a sword, Sabel. You can make people like you. Eh? When you stop moping around, you can make people follow you.” The boy tsked. “Not right now, of course, right now you look like you’ve got a sign around your neck that says ‘Please punish me.’ ”
“You sound like you know my problem so well,” Lucian muttered.
“I do. The emperor was sort of the same, at the end.”
The rest of the noise around them seemed to dissipate. Lucian focused hard on Rufus.
“What do you mean?”
“Well.” Rufus scratched his tight curls. “I served here ’bout two years, yeah? Always seemed like the emperor was mad about something or sad about something else. Not just the regular pain of running the place. The old captain, Leonidas, he told me that the high priest and priestess would only visit the emperor a few times a year at his palace, as tradition. But by the time I got here, they were coming several times a month. Sometimes they’d stay one end of the month to the next.”
“Do you know why?” Something was cold against Lucian’s skin. He’d felt it in battle before, that instinct that a man with an ax was right behind him.
“Sometimes we’d all hear ’em. The emperor, mostly, yelling at the priests. Then he shut himself away and started writing. He’d always been a bookish sort, the old man, but now he wouldn’t come out. Started demanding that he prepare his own food. Remember a while when he’d only eat figs he’d picked himself from the garden. He started muttering to himself in the halls. Remember one night, there was a crash in his chambers. We ran in, and the priest, Petros, he was standing by the wall lookin’ scared. The emperor had thrown over his entire writing table, bottles of ink smashed, papers scattered. Took a while to clean up.”
“Why was he angry?”
“Who knows? Doctors said brain disease got him in the end.” Rufus drank again, but his eyes were sober. “One time, I helped him off his throne when he was too weak to make it up and down stairs by himself. Know what he said to me?”
“What?”
“ ‘You’re trapped, Rufus. Like the rest of us. We will be burned alive and set free by dragonfire.’ ” The captain shuddered. “That night I slept with a candle lit. The old man seemed so deadly serious.” Rufus sighed heavily. “He took to his bed, and a few days later he was gone. Brain disease.” Rufus raised a cup in salute and drank. “Pray I don’t go out that way.”
Lucian raised his cup as well. “You were there when he died?”
“Mmm. Went peaceful, at least. Had a nice parting line. He said, ‘Please. No more tears.’ ”
Rufus toasted again and chuckled.
Lucian did not.
“A future empress must be a bit plump.” The head cook, Hestia, grinned as she ladled more lobster soup into Vespir’s bowl. Curls of fragrant steam wafted upward. “Plumpness lets people know she’s got plenty of money for the best foods and lots of time to eat.”
“I really want this job now,” Vespir said.
“Oh, the whole kitchen staff hopes you’ll take the throne.” Hestia’s dark eyes gleamed with approval as she bustled to the stove and stirred a saucepan. “Emperor Erasmus wasn’t fond of Ikrayinan cooking, and I’d love to have excuses to make cheese fritters again. Maybe a sweet yoghurt as well!”
Vespir sipped at her soup, the creamy broth and the bite of tarragon warming her stomach. She grinned as Hestia turned back to slide more mutton dumplings onto her plate. A mint dipping sauce waited in a little golden bowl. Hestia had insisted on bringing out only the best.
Vespir appreciated the fine china, but she cared more about the mutton.
“My mother used to make them the same.” Vespir’s eyes rolled in her head as she took a bite, her teeth breaking the crisp fried skin and sinking into the juicy meat. She groaned and wiped the sauce from her chin, barely remembering her manners.
“Nothing’s more important than food.” Hestia sighed as she cracked an egg into a sizzling skillet. “Whenever I’m lonely or homesick, I make a dish of lamb and noodle stew, just as my mother taught me. A pinch of rosemary and a dash of cinnamon, that’s the secret. I always say you’re never alone so long as you’ve got a family recipe.”
“Mmm. Though even my family didn’t make anything like this.” Vespir surveyed the table. There were the dumplings, the soup, a glass of chocolate with salt and cinnamon crusted around the rim. Thin pancakes wrapped around raspberry jam waited at her elbow for dessert. Finding an eastern Ikrayinan cook in this kitchen, seeing Hestia’s long black hair tied in the traditional side braid, had been the tonic that Vespir needed.
She nearly forgot why she’d come.
Plucked fowls hung by their feet overhead, alongside bunches of dried herbs. The copper pots bubbled on the stovetop, while two brawny-armed boys grunted as they lifted a bit of roasted hippo from the oven. Kitchen girls with wrapped hair sang a chanting song as they plucked capons for the evening meal. Vespir ate at the long wooden table, with girls on either side of her chopping herbs and kneading dough. No one stood on ceremony with her here or acted as if she should be gone.
Vespir had asked everyone about the aerie, and every single person had shrugged and said that no one went in there much. The lead dragon handler, a woman named Sylvia, had said the aerie was far grander than most, but still a simple aerie.
Vespir sipped the salted chocolate, enjoying the tug of sleep. After a good meal, she’d love nothing more than a steaming bath and a bed. She shouldn’t be surprised that the servants hadn’t known anything. What did servants know of emperors, besides the way they liked their eggs, or the changing span of their waistline?
Vespir untied the basilisk vial from her belt and set it on the table. She’d showed it to everyone, from the steward to the second and fifth footmen. No one had known a thing about it, which made Vespir feel far less clever than when she’d gone back to Emilia’s room to retrieve the thing. Maybe she wanted to believe that she would find the connection that had escaped the likes of Hyperia and Emilia. The girls who’d spent their lives studying music and philosophy and epic poetry would then be astounded by Vespir’s keen mind.
“Oh, is that your medicine?” Hestia asked while Vespir took another mouthful of soup. The cook grinned, revealing deep dimples in her steam-reddened face.
“Oh no. It’s—”
“Erasmus used it.” The cook sighed, adding some sliced carrots to a boiling pot before wiping her hands on her apron. “Maybe it would have saved him, poor man, if the disease hadn’t been so far along.”
Vespir paused.
“The emperor was taking this…medicine…when he was sick?”
“Yes. Some newfound treatment discovered on one of those sacred islands down south. Her Grace Camilla brought it to me, asked that a drop or two be put in his food with supper. Supposed to be hard for his delicate stomach, so it needed to be introduced gradually. Their Graces took such care of the emperor in the end.” Hestia mopped her face. “I’m sure if anyone could’ve saved him, would’ve been those two.”
“You’re sure that the medicine came in this vial?” Vespir tried to keep herself from shouting. “This exact type?” She dug her nails into the table as Hestia picked up the vial, uncorked it, and sniffed. The cook made a face.
“Ooh, I’d never forget. The smell, especially. Smells like sulfur, doesn’t it? And vinegar. It was strong medicine. They tried, but in the end, he lasted only about a week more. Where did you get this, then?”
Vespir snatched the vial back.
“Thank you for the delicious meal.” Vespir stoppered the flask and ran from the kitchen. Pity there was no time for sweet things.
When Ajax was emperor he would change many things, but he would not change this throne. Not for all of the riches of the Karthagon spice trade, not even for the chance to force Lysander and Demetrius to compose poetry about his brilliance and recite it naked in the streets. No, this throne room had been built for him, and him alone. He strode up the dais and settled himself upon the velvet cushion. Left leg crossed over his right knee, he gripped the armrests and surveyed the room. His narrowed eyes darted from golden wall to golden wall. The incense tickled his nose.
If I were an emperor, what secrets would I have?
Ajax could live like many emperors before him. He could drink and dance and leave all the spiritual things to the priests, and the war things to the military, and spend his days doing whatever best pleased him.
But Ajax wanted to be worthy of the commemorative golden statues of emperors and empresses past, for his memory to be as revered as that of Ismene I or Commodus IV. He wanted to be Ajax the Great, the Ajax against whom all others would compare themselves.
Sometimes, a vein in his temple throbbed to picture that glory so clearly while remembering that he was not yet sixteen. In many ways, he was a kid wearing his father’s clothes, cuffs drooping well over the tips of his fingers. But Ajax would grow. If he were allowed to live, he would grow.
If I were an emperor, where would I hide things?
Likely, Erasmus’s everything had been monitored. His clothes checked, his wine tasted, his shits inspected. An emperor’s body belonged to the people, not to himself. Holding on to the things he cherished would be like trying to keep a mound of gold coins in well-oiled hands.
When I am an emperor, Ajax thought, slipping his dagger from the hidden sheath by his ankle and tapping it against his teeth, what will I want to keep close?
He turned his weapon to the throne. Delicately, he traced the tip along the golden claws and wings. He tapped the flat of his blade against the throne’s legs. He reached over and stuck his knife against each individual golden scale.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tick.
Ajax paused; he’d hit something hollow. Sheathing his dagger, he got to his knees on the cushion and bent over, his braid flopping as he gazed upside down at the fifth scale on the first row. Ajax touched it, tapped it again. Then, he tried flipping it upward. The hinges squeaked.
Success.
A little hidden compartment in the dragon throne. Glad for the first time that his hands were small, Ajax reached inside. His index finger traced something metal. Drawing in a breath, Ajax pulled out a small iron key. He flipped the scale closed, concealing the hiding place, and held the key overhead in triumph.
He stood and gave a showy bow. He imagined his father and all the bitter families as they were forced to bend their knees. He imagined a woman with his eyes standing somewhere in the back, watching with muted approval.
Ajax palmed the key.
“All hail the emperor,” he said.
Lucian arrived at the aerie to find Hyperia gone, and he paced while waiting on everyone’s return. Idly, his hand strayed to his side to grip a sword hilt that was no longer there. He sighed. Why did he reach for a weapon the way others clutched at a sentimental trinket?
Rufus’s words had set his teeth on edge. Lucian’s “gift” was warfare. Did talent decide a person’s fate? Was it wrong to focus your life around something you weren’t naturally good at? He tried turning his mind to more important matters. What had the priests been up to?
Footsteps. Two women. His ears had been well trained from long nights spent listening for an ambush. Emilia and Hyperia came through the door. Emilia carried a book, and her cheeks had high color.
“Did you find anything?” she asked breathlessly.
Hyperia moved to Aufidius’s stall, looking less excited than the Aurun girl.
“Gossip, mostly.” Everything Rufus had said about the priests had set Lucian’s teeth on edge, but suspicions were not proof. He looked at the book. “You?”
“Something interesting.” Her smile lit her eyes. It was the truest smile he’d seen from her since this nightmare began. “Erasmus left a note implying he’d written at least twenty-four books, but we only found twenty-three in the library.”
Normally, Lucian would suggest that the mysterious twenty-fourth volume must have been misplaced. But after the conversation with Rufus, everything about Erasmus seemed murkier than before.
Hyp
eria turned, skirts swirling as her hand gripped the dagger at her side. Lucian flinched. Just like me.
“Someone’s coming,” she said, but relaxed when Vespir raced into the aerie. The girl nearly crashed headlong into Emilia. Trembling, she held something over her head. The basilisk vial.
“They killed him.” Vespir coughed. “They murdered him!”
Lucian froze, as did Emilia and Hyperia. The air in the room seemed to grow thinner. He felt an invisible snare closing around his foot.
“Who?” he asked. Vespir checked over her shoulder.
“The priests,” she hissed. Hyperia snorted at that. “The cook recognized this vial. She thought it was my ‘medicine.’ Said that the priests had her put a drop of this into the emperor’s supper every night. He died a week later.” Hyperia’s skeptical expression flattened. Emilia’s hand went to her mouth. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes.” Lucian swallowed. All the separate elements merged seamlessly. “Rufus said the emperor’s last words were ‘Please. No more tears.’ ”
Hyperia made a noise like she’d been struck.
“So he knew what they were doing to him?” Emilia breathed.
“And could perhaps do nothing,” Hyperia grunted. “The high priest and priestess are the second-most powerful unit in the empire, and Erasmus had been raving for a while near the end. No one would have believed him, and few could have done anything even if they did.”
Lucian pressed his thumbs into his closed eyelids, trying to think. Rage and fear merged, and also a horrible giddiness. This empire was a festering boil, like he’d always said. It needed a good lancing to drain the disease.
What can we do?
More footsteps. Hyperia thrust her blade forward on instinct.
“Shit!” Ajax skidded to a halt, the tip of Hyperia’s sword steady at his throat. He knocked it away and shut the door with a kick. “I’m gone for an hour and you all fall apart.”
House of Dragons Page 27