by A K Fedeau
“All right, all right.” Hector chuckled. “I’m just here to make a toast.”
The courtiers piped down from the front of the room to the back, and Livia cringed at the lazy condescension in Hector’s eyes.
“So. Some of you may have heard…” Hector paused to clear his throat - “that three weeks ago, we beat the Jormunds back at Fort Svanhild.”
Another cheer echoed through the hall, and Livia’s shoulders sank.
“Late that night, General Incipio’s forces captured an outpost and ambushed the hill, with only two hundred strike troops against a thousand enemy Jormunds.” Hector’s silver-and-gold cuirass gleamed as he paced back and forth. “A thousand. Against two hundred of us. You know, I almost feel bad for the Jormunds. All those clans, against the might of Histria? It’s not even a fair fight.”
Livia thought, is this a toast, or is he just holding us hostage?
“The Severins, on the other hand, they’re a force to be reckoned with. They play a long game in the Three Continents, and they want us to be afraid of them.” Hector went on and on, indulging the sound of his own voice. “For years they’ve sat up there, taunting us with their fortresses and silver mines. Well, I promise, when we’re through with them, they’re not going to be laughing anymore!”
“That’s right!” Someone in the crowd yelled.
“Don’t be rude!” Someone yelled back.
“No, I like his spirit!” Hector chortled. “He’s the kind of man Histria needs right now.”
A few courtiers clapped and cheered, but Livia kept her mouth shut.
“I know what my critics say. ‘Hector, why has this war gone on so long? Why are we still at the Northern Front?’” Hector shook his head. “I mean, first of all, they’re traitors, so you shouldn’t listen to them.”
The guests tittered amongst themselves.
“But more importantly - eight years ago, we were something to be ashamed of.” Hector paused a moment too long for effect. “Before I took the throne, we were a province of drunken philosophers. Every time the others came to fuck us, we spread our legs and said, ‘How hard?!’”
The guests let out a bawdy laugh, and Livia stared into space.
“Did we want the Severin Trade Pact?”
The guests booed.
“The estate taxes?”
The guests said, “No!”
“So did we settle for it?”
Chairs and goblets clattered, and the guests roared, “No!”
“Of course we didn’t!” A wide, bloodthirsty grin spread across Hector’s face. “We decided to show the world what we’re capable of. What we can become when we don’t hold ourselves back. The glory that we had - that we have today!”
A buzz rose through the crowd.
“You and I - together - we can remind the other provinces how it’s done.” Hector shoved his goblet into the air, and drops of wine sloshed over its side. “To Histria - the true Histria!”
Across the room, a hundred goblets rose. “To Histria!”
With that, the guests erupted and the music began again, and it all washed over Livia like a flat blanket of noise. She sighed. Her back sank against the wainscoted wall. She took a sad sip of her wine, then grimaced and swilled the rest. And her mind drifted back to forging documents in the days of Hector’s coup - meeting in barns, making wax keys, and swearing to return the crown to Delphinia.
“Isn’t he handsome?” A woman beside her asked. “I wish he talked to me like that.”
“Hush!” Another whispered. “If Lady Camilla hears you, she’ll shave your head in your sleep.”
“She didn’t hear me.”
“She’s right there!”
Camilla curled her lip. “Oh, for Mira’s sake.”
And before Livia could move, the hall doors opened with a crash.
The musicians stopped playing as the courtiers froze in place, and an army messenger ran in on a pair of spindly legs. He stumbled to a halt as the ladies swept their skirts out of the way, and the whole room waited on tenterhooks as he gathered himself.
“Your Majesty!” He announced. “A guest of honor from the Northern Front.”
Livia held her breath.
“General Marcus Incipio!”
In strode a man in a red tunic, gilded cuirass, and fur-trimmed cloak, and Livia took in his features with a flush of joy and relief. The chiseled chin. The black eyes. The short hair - gone an early gray - that sat above his still-dark eyebrows with authoritative grace. He cut a line through the crowd with firm steps and a burning stare, and some of the officers among the guests bowed their heads as he passed.
“Your Majesty.” Marcus unsheathed a Jormund arming sword, then knelt and presented it. “I give you the sword of the commander of Fort Svanhild.”
The whole room hushed as Hector held the sword up to the light, and when he nodded with approval, the guests sprang back to life. Hector passed the sword off to one of his footmen as Marcus heaved himself up, but before he could go anywhere, Hector ambushed him and slapped him on the back.
“Marcus, you never let me down, do you? Your timing is incredible.” Hector squeezed Marcus’ shoulder, and Marcus looked uncomfortable. “Come on. Bring this man a drink. Someone else, get his cloak off!”
“Could you let me catch my breath first?”
“There we are.” Hector ushered a servant forth, set his empty goblet down on the tray, and handed Marcus another one. “Now, tell us all about it. Did you behead him?”
Marcus smiled awkwardly. “No.”
Some guests gathered around him. “Was it really a thousand?”
“A thousand? What?” Marcus blinked. “No.”
“His Majesty said there were a thousand Jormunds,” one said.
“Were there?” Another cut in.
“Please,” Marcus begged, “one at a time…”
Two servants snuck up behind Marcus and grabbed his cloak, and once they’d wrestled him out of it, the guests descended on him like hounds. Livia stayed in her lamplit corner and watched the crowd swallow him up, and she held her goblet over her mouth to hide her bemused smile.
•••
An hour later, Marcus wandered over to Livia’s corner, looking like he’d run a lap around the palace grounds.
Livia hiked her eyebrows at him. “Marcus.”
“Mira’s grace, you’re a sound for sore ears.”
“You missed me that much?”
“Don’t get me started.”
“Why not?”
“I’m serious. Don’t.” Marcus sank into the cushy armchair next to her. “I missed talking to someone who says what they mean and means what they say.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You can’t be good at everything.”
“What?”
“Let’s just say I’m glad you’re not interested in politics.”
Marcus grumbled, “Rub it in, will you?”
“I’m just teasing. It’s all right.” Livia propped her elbow on the chair arm and her cheek in her hand. “It’s fun to watch a powerful man like you trip over himself.”
“Glad to be entertaining, I guess.”
“Don’t worry. You always are.”
A couple of Hector’s hangers-on passed by Livia’s chair, muttering something about Severin timber and how it cost too much. Marcus fidgeted with the gold braid that hung over the shoulder of his red tunic sleeve, then left it alone and took one last, generous swill of his drink.
“All right, I’ll ask you once, and then I’ll leave it alone,” Livia began. “How’s the war really going?”
“Well…”
“Tell me the truth this time.”
“Actually, as ‘times to come home from the front’ go, this was a good one.”
“Finally.”
“I know. Things are looking up for once.” Marcus ran his thumb along his goblet when he couldn’t set it down. “Apart from Fort Svanhild, we’ve got some territory back. We flushed out some Jormund emplacem
ents in the mountains to the west.” He planted his cheek in his right hand the way Livia had done with her left. “On the way out, we found a supply line between the Lund and Solberg lands. We disrupted it and took it for ourselves.”
“I thought they didn’t like each other.”
“They don’t.” Marcus tipped his goblet toward her to acknowledge her point. “That’s the funny thing about Jormunthal. They’ll pit clan against clan for centuries, but as soon as you give them a bigger target, they’ll put it all aside.”
Livia spotted a server coming by with a tray of hors d'oeuvres, so she took two tiny sausages and waited for them to move on.
“And let me guess. That ‘bigger target’ is going to be there for a while.”
“Mira’s blood. At this rate, it’ll take decades to leave them alone.” Marcus turned up his eyebrows and gave his goblet a rueful look. “We win one. The Severins win one. Nobody gets the upper hand.”
“Then why are we still there? I mean, really.”
“Because the silver hasn’t dried up.” Marcus hushed. “As soon as we’ve spat Severin out, we’ll raid the Jormund mineral mines. It’s like a water wheel. Just add resources, and it keeps turning itself.”
Livia offered Marcus the other sausage in her outstretched hand.
“No, Hector can play it up as pre-empting foreign aggression all he likes.” Marcus gave her a skeptical look, but took the sausage anyway. “This is a message to the world: Don’t insult him. He’ll pillage your province to death.”
The cithara player joined the lutist and struck up another song, and Marcus finished off his sausage as Livia played with her goblet stem.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Enough business.”
“If you say so.” Livia smiled. “The trouble is that you think it bothers me.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Marcus. How long have you known me now?”
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Some people put up with their lovers for years.”
“Oh, come on.” Livia rolled her eyes and polished off her drink. “Putting up with men I don’t like is one of the few things I can’t do. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to accept that I think you’re handsome.”
Marcus rubbed his head. “Now, if I hadn’t gone gray at 39.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll always be attracted to power.”
“That makes two of us.”
Livia’s hand drifted out of the light and settled in Marcus’ lap, where it stroked slow, absent-minded circles on his thigh. Marcus glanced down and cocked his eyebrow as another servant rushed by, and he inched his knees apart and thought out loud in a sarcastic voice.
“You know, it’s a good thing you only manipulate your enemies, instead of the poor, helpless people who are fond of you.”
“I don’t know why I don’t.” Livia pretended not to notice her hand. “You’d make it so easy.”
“If you don’t take your hand off my thigh, you’re going to get me in trouble.”
“Marcus, please.”
“I’m not trying to be impertinent,” Marcus murmured, “but it’s been almost ten months.”
“All right.” Livia leaned in close to Marcus’ ear. “Tell you what. I’ll keep my hands off you, and you keep your eyes off me. We’ll see who lasts longer.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Only if you make it one.”
•••
That night, Livia threw open her bedroom door upstairs, and shoved Marcus into the pitch-black room and pinned him to the wall.
She kissed him with righteous fury as Marcus fumbled with the back of her dress, and she yanked open the leather straps on the sides of his cuirass. When she bit at his earlobe, Marcus’ hands clawed up her ribs. When she pecked down his throat, Marcus tipped his head back and fought for breath. He stumbled out of his boots as Livia kicked the door shut, and she wrestled with her petticoats as she pushed him toward the bed.
And they made love with the hunger of a couple who’d gone ten months without, kissing breathless kisses, cradling each other’s faces in their hands.
•••
A deep, humid midnight crept over the palace walls, and the rooms darkened one by one as the courtiers shuffled off to bed.
Livia lingered in a heady wasteland, unable to stay awake or sleep. Every time her eyelids grew heavy, some wayward sound woke her up. A draft against the window. A creak of the bed frame. Marcus tossing and turning under his side of the sheets. She had forgotten how it felt to have someone on the other side of the bed, and now that the haze of passion had lifted, she felt a strange unease.
Stop thinking about it. She clenched her eyes shut. You’re keeping yourself awake.
Until, a few moments later, she heard the covers rustle again.
This is worthless, Livia thought, and pinched the bridge of her nose. For all the effort I’m putting into this, I might as well stay up. She puffed the sides of her pillow and propped it up against the headboard, and scooted back on her elbows and peered at the bright spot in front of her.
She found Marcus at the foot of the bed between the canopy drapes, and in the blue moonlight, she sized up his familiar frame. His thick neck. His broad back. His solid arms. His narrow waist. Like one of the ancient warriors in the palace sculpture hall. She admired him, but bit her lip at the way he hung his head. He looked like he needed a hot bath and fifty years of sleep.
“Marcus?”
Marcus flinched.
Livia lowered her voice. “I’m sorry I startled you.”
“No, no.” Marcus smoothed the back of his hair down. “It’s all right.”
Livia repositioned the pillow behind her. “What are you still doing up?”
“Could ask you the same thing.”
“I know you could. But I asked you first.”
Marcus sighed. “Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep. I’m all right.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Do I?”
“Twice.”
“I thought it’d sound more convincing the second time.”
“All right.” Livia squirmed under the covers. “Out with it. What’s bothering you?”
Marcus averted his eyes. “I’m not dragging you into that.”
“You’re not dragging. I’m following.” Livia scowled. “Now cough it up.”
“I’m leading an immoral war for a tyrant with something to prove. I’m on the wrong side of history, and there’s not a damn thing I can do.” Marcus picked under his fingernails to give his hands something to do. “I mean, war is never good. Just necessary or unavoidable. But this is just…”
“What?”
“It’s not what I pictured for myself.”
“What did you picture?”
“What, when I joined the academy? My father’s career, I guess.” Marcus picked and picked. “Peacekeeping. A few incursions that he knew were right.”
Livia still didn’t respond.
“I’m not going to say anything.” Marcus left his fingers alone. “Not to anyone but you.”
“No.” Livia sulked. “Even I know it would make things worse.”
A silence passed between them, and a dog barked somewhere outside.
“You know who soldiers call for when they die?” Marcus asked.
“What brought that up?”
“Nothing. I just think about it once in a while.” Marcus swallowed the lump in his throat and murmured into his lap. “Not their wives or husbands. Not Titus or Mira, or their friends. It’s always their mother.” He scratched at his cheek. “It’s like trying to soothe a dying child.”
Livia’s stomach twisted with pity as she let him talk.
“It doesn’t matter how long a leave you take. That’s not the sort of thing you forget.” Marcus paused. “It stays with you. You still see them. Months, years after they’re gone.”
Livia crawled across the covers. “We agreed you were going to trust me with these things.”
“I am now.” Marcus fumbled behind himself and took Livia’s hand. “Those troops need a leader they can depend on at a time like this. I used to think if I could be that, I’d pull some of them through alive.” His fingernails dug into the meat of her palm. “But I have men dying on hills that their friends died taking three years ago. It just keeps going and going. It will as long as it feeds itself.”
Livia stared into space as she let his words sink in.
“Someone has to put an end to it.” Marcus’ face turned to stone. “I don’t know who - or how - or when. But something has to be done.”
CHAPTER 2
“So, do you think Hector was sober enough to find Camilla’s legs last night?”
Marcus let out a laugh so sudden, he nearly choked. “Keep your voice down!”
The next morning, Marcus and Livia dug into their breakfast in a southern garden filled with oleander and geraniums. Their forks clinked on their plates of grapes, herbs, and thin-sliced ham, and morning pie with egg and sharp cheese and roasted tomatoes.
“What’re you afraid of?”
“You know.” Marcus peeked over his right shoulder, then his left. “You saw what he did to the last courtier who joked that he was bad in bed. I’ll be an old man before they get that bloodstain off the wall.”
“Hector sleeps in ‘til nine every morning, and takes until ten to get dressed.” Livia reached for the silver pitcher in the center of the table. “He might meet with Camilla until ten-thirty, depending on how he feels, and then he goes and meets with his advisors and reads their report.” She tipped it over and filled her goblet with more orange juice. “He doesn’t even make a formal court appearance until noon, so…” she set the pitcher down and flashed Marcus big, innocent eyes - “I’ve got another three hours to talk about him however I want.”
“You’re a good spy, you know that?”
“I’d better be. It’s the only skill I have.”
A young couple giggled and paced through the hall across from them.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about that,” Livia said. “Sorry about the scratch marks, though.”