by A K Fedeau
“Oh, gods.” Livia sank to her knees at Marcus’ side. “Marcus, I’m so sorry.”
Marcus didn’t respond.
“How long will you be gone?”
Marcus shrugged. “Another eight months. Maybe more.”
“He wants to push north? In the fall?”
“I know.” Marcus draped his forearms over his thighs. “Another winter. Another six months of them starving us out. We lose more to delirium and gangrene than we do to combat.”
“And there’s no diplomacy, no way to…?”
“I wish.” Marcus laced his fingers across his lap. “King Torvald and I are barely on speaking terms anymore.”
Livia’s gut churned as she held onto the side of the pew.
“How am I supposed to look fifteen thousand more troops in the eye and tell them what they’re going there to do?” Marcus spoke in a slow, lifeless tone. “To occupy towns? To kill civilians, and waste their time, and die? I can’t do it.” He chewed his lip. “I can’t keep sending them into that.”
“Maybe when you get there, you can convince Ciacco,” Livia began…
“You don’t understand.” Marcus covered his mouth. “I can’t do it. I can’t go. Not again.”
For a minute, Livia sat with him and waited for him to regain himself, and Marcus squeezed his eyes shut as he breathed through his nose. Then Livia reached over and smoothed the hair above his ear - and in the heavy silence, her hand slid down to his cheek.
“What if I said… you didn’t have to?”
Marcus made a queasy face. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Marcus raised his chin. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. What if you could end the war and bring them home?”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Livia, you…”
“I found Artemisia.”
Marcus straightened his back and looked Livia in the eye, and his morbid, heavy-browed expression implored her to go on.
“I followed up on some clues this morning and rode out to the countryside.” Livia dropped her voice so low, she could barely hear herself. “I found a convent…”
“Wait, clues? What are you talking about?”
“Do you remember that name?”
“Of course I do.”
“Good.” Livia moved close enough to smell the vetiver oil on Marcus’ neck. “It’s a long story, but I found her at this convent in the woods. Delphinia mentioned it in a letter.”
“Delphinia?”
“Yes.”
“Recently?”
“It can’t have been too long ago.”
“Livia…” Marcus breathed - “you’ve been in contact with her all this time?”
“I have.”
“I thought she was dead.”
“She is now, but not from the coup. She survived.” Livia clutched the gold-trimmed straps over Marcus’ tunic sleeves. “She said she couldn’t let this secret die with her, and now I see why.”
“Why?”
“Artemisia was her parting gift. It’s Princess Sabina.”
The color drained from Marcus’ face until his skin matched his hair.
“Delphinia fooled us into thinking that the whole family died that night. But they didn’t. She escaped with Sabina and left her in safe hands.” Livia ushered Marcus up and led him toward the wall. “The mother cleric is Delphinia’s friend. They had the whole thing planned. Raise her. Keep her safe. Teach her everything a queen should know.”
“Until what?”
Livia took him by the shoulders again. “What do you think?”
“She’s only eighteen.”
“There’s no way she could be worse than what we have now.”
Marcus scowled.
Livia asked, “What?”
“Why are you even entertaining this?” Marcus stopped in front of the alcove. “He’ll never give up that throne.”
Livia leaned in and whispered, “I didn’t say he’d give it up.”
Marcus shivered as her breath brushed his ear, and he studied her with wide, disturbed eyes.
“Livia, do you realize what you’re getting at here?”
“I know exactly what I’m implying, and I’m saying I need your help.”
“We’re committing treason just by talking about it. I’m deserting if I don’t go back to the front.” Marcus glanced back and forth, and murmured faster and faster through his teeth. “Have you lost your mind?”
Livia glowered at him. “No, but you will if someone doesn’t end this war.”
Marcus fumed.
“Hector murdered a family and broke every treaty from the last hundred years,” Livia spat. “And you’re worried about this being treason?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Is it treason to betray a traitor?”
“It’s…!” Marcus opened his mouth to refute her, then interrupted himself. “All right. Say we go through with this and kill him. What does that make us? Avengers? Murderers? Who’s keeping us accountable?”
“When did I say we’d kill him?”
Marcus hesitated. “What?”
“I have ways to ruin people that they’ve never even dreamed of. Poverty. Disrespect. Shame.” Livia laid her hand on Marcus’ waist. “The only reason Hector is still in power is because he has powerful friends. We pull them out from under him, and he’ll have nowhere to run.”
As Marcus heard her explain, his face changed in the candlelight - from doubt to curiosity to a wolf at the smell of blood.
“This court is sitting on enough secrets to bring the entire province down. Trust me, we don’t need to kill them.” Livia dragged her hand up. “But we can make them wish we had.”
Marcus’ eyelashes fluttered as Livia stared into his eyes, and her hand stopped on the lion emblem in the middle of his chest. Marcus picked up his letter, then held it out to the candle rack, and the edge of the parchment caught fire and crumbled into ash below.
CHAPTER 6
Livia herded Marcus upstairs and into their room, and they bumped into each other as they stumbled through the dark.
“What are we doing?” Marcus asked.
Livia squeezed past him. “Shh!”
Marcus lowered his voice. “I just asked you…”
Livia flew across the room. “Shut the door.”
Marcus’ eyes darted back and forth as he did what she asked.
“Now.” Livia stopped in front of her dresser. “Lock it. There’s a spare key under the rug.”
Marcus lifted the edge of the Kadithan rug and pulled a brass key out.
Livia pushed her dresser chair aside. “What are you waiting for?”
Marcus shoved the key in the lock, turned it, and pulled it out.
“All right.” Livia drew the curtains. “Take that blanket off the armchair.”
“Why?”
Livia grabbed the oil lamp on her dresser. “Just do it!”
Marcus pulled the heavy woolen throw off the armchair in the corner. “All right.”
“Good.” Livia struck one of the matches that lay beside the lamp. “Roll it up and block the crack under the door.”
“Why are we blocking people from coming into our room?”
“You’ll see.” Livia lit the lamp, then shook the match out and set it aside. “Now, get that door covered, and then barricade it with my dresser chair.”
Marcus rolled the blanket up and shoved it into the crack, then picked up the dresser chair and positioned it under the doorknob. Livia hurried over to her bookcases and groped around the right-hand side, until she found a button, pushed it, yanked her hand away.
“All right, it’s done.” Marcus murmured.
“Hush!”
Something mechanical snapped behind the bookcase, and with a grunt and a scraping noise, Livia heaved it out from the wall.
“Mira’s grace.” Marcus gaped. “Has that always been there?”
“I’ll tell y
ou more soon. Follow me.”
“Shit.” Marcus scooted away from the door. “I think I hear footsteps.”
Livia waved him over. “Go!”
Marcus squeezed around the bedposts, then into the space behind the books, and maneuvered himself toward the passageway an inch at a time. Once he’d passed, Livia slapped the side of the bookcase in rhythmic time - then covered her mouth and moaned.
Marcus wrinkled his nose. “What was that?”
“If anyone asks about the noise, just act embarrassed. Come on!”
•••
The two of them tiptoed down a narrow, winding staircase, with Marcus minding his head and Livia holding the lamp aloft. The flame flickered with the drafts that crept through the rough stone walls, and cobwebs floated in the smothering darkness around their feet.
“How did you find this?” Marcus asked, his hushed voice echoing over his head.
“Delphinia told me about them when I started spying for her.”
“‘Them?’ There are more?”
“There are doors in the dovecote, the armory, and the servants’ halls. And most of the bedrooms, last time I checked.” Livia’s slippers clacked on the uneven steps. “There’s one in the library, and one I swear leads to the throne room. But I can’t test that one. It’s too dangerous.”
Marcus dodged a cobweb. “No, I guess not.”
Livia raised the lamp again and inspected a glyph carved into the wall, deliberated over it, and took Marcus to the left.
“I don’t believe it,” Marcus breathed. “These must’ve been drawn into the palace’s plans.”
“It was a paranoid time.”
“I see that now.” Marcus flinched and swatted another cobweb aside. “Are these the only way to break in?”
“No. Just the safest.” Livia came to a fork in the passageway, and turned right. “You can take the sewers, but there are bandits and Syndicate goons skulking around.”
Marcus followed her down the fork, then stopped. “Mira’s grace.”
Livia glanced over her shoulder. “What?”
“Hector has no idea these are here, does he?”
“I don’t think so.” Livia kicked up a puff of dust as she skirted down the next flight of stairs. “When his men infiltrated the palace, they came in disguised as guards. If he knew, I think he would’ve used them - and walled them up when he was done.”
Marcus shot her a quick, paranoid look. “We’d better get going, then.”
Livia nodded. “This way.”
•••
Finally, Livia led Marcus down one more staircase, and they stopped in a tiny, octagonal space, thick with stale air.
Livia fumbled for a lantern and lit it with the oil lamp, and Marcus stared in awe as the hidden room came to life. A pair of dark wooden stools. Bookcases on every wall. A jewelry box, a candle, and an onyx skull on the shelves. And a round table in the center with a sixteen-point compass rose, on which lay a map of the palace and the surrounding grounds.
Livia brushed a cobweb away and headed to the other side, and lit the other lantern before she rolled up the faded map. Everything from the books to the table lay under a thick layer of dust - like the room had served its last purpose many years ago.
“So.” Marcus examined the shelves. “This is where you keep all your secrets.”
“Some of them, anyway.” Livia blew the dust off the tabletop. “I feel safer when I hide things from people. But I, well…” she paused - “If I’m going to get you into this, I guess you should know.”
“You’re right.” Marcus lowered his voice. “Now, slow down and explain it to me one more time.”
“If I tell you…”
Marcus slowly - carefully - nodded once. “I know.”
Livia settled across the table from him and opened the table drawer.
“Hector Portinari has four pillars holding him up. Money, the military, the Church, and the nobles at court.” Livia pulled a chessboard out and laid it on the tabletop. “We can ruin them, we can humiliate them, we can take away their resources, or we can turn Hector against them - but whatever we do, they need to go.”
Marcus perched his elbows on the table. “What exactly are we talking here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lying? Stealing?”
“Whatever it’ll take to bring them down.”
Marcus drew back a little. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this.”
Livia’s face soured. “Are you comfortable with Hector being on the throne?”
“Isn’t there anyone you could hire? Aren’t you friends with that…?”
“It’s too delicate. If you want something like this done right, you have to do it yourself.”
Marcus squirmed in his tunic and glanced over his shoulder.
“Marcus, I know how badly you want to stay within the lines. It got you where you are. I respect it.” With a grave stare, Livia reached in the drawer again. “But you’ll have to step away from that to serve something bigger. Do you understand?”
“Yes…”
“Do you think you can do that?”
Marcus swallowed the lump in his throat. “All right.”
“Good.” Livia produced a purple velvet bag, then shut the drawer. “Now, like I said, we’re not going to kill them. We just want them useless to his cause.”
“With nothing that points to us as the ones behind it.” Marcus stroked his chin. “Of course.”
“So I think we should start with one that doesn’t look like a hit on the throne.” Livia pulled the black king from the bag, then placed it on her end of the chessboard. “That means…”
“Who?”
Livia pulled out the black pontifex piece. “Pontifex Florian.”
Marcus immediately frowned. “Him?”
Livia rolled the piece between her fingers. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why not? He wrote the declaration that gave Hector divine right.”
“I thought that was just a formality.”
Livia scoffed. “After a coup?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Marcus asked. “I thought the Church couldn’t get involved in things like that.”
“If there were ever a time for a pontifex to not confirm a ruler, that was it.” Livia scowled. “The fact that he did wasn’t apolitical. That was as political as it comes.”
“Listen, I’m not naive enough to believe that Florian’s hands are clean,” Marcus said. “But why are we worried about him now? He confirmed Hector eight years ago.”
“You tell me.” Livia waved the piece over the board. “What happens when people feel like they can’t trust the Church?”
“They rebel?”
Livia set the piece down in front of the king. “They feel like they can’t trust anyone.”
Marcus fidgeted with his tunic collar as she explained.
“Now.” Livia stood up, paced around the table, and fished in the bag again. “Once we’ve started to unravel him there, we need to hit him where it hurts.”
“Where’s that? The war?”
“His money.” Livia pulled out the black rook. “Something doesn’t add up with his lifestyle. Does it to you?”
“Should it not?”
“No one’s coffers are that big.”
“Don’t tell me he lives like that all the time.”
“Trust me, I go to his dinners. He should’ve burned through his inheritance years ago. Someone’s funding him. The question is, who?” Livia set the black rook beside the pontifex. “The clothes? The parties? The way he gambles? You’d think he’d be drowning in debt. But the palace keeps running. Where’s it coming from?”
“I don’t know.”
“We have to find out.” Livia stuck her hand in the bag a third time. “Next…”
“Wait.” Marcus leaned across the table and touched Livia’s wrist. “If we cut him off from one rich noble, can’t he just find someone else?”
Livia held up the
black queen. “That’s why we have this.”
Marcus’ eyes widened, and he waited for her to go on.
“Do you remember when Hector first came?”
“The courtiers thought he was an idiot.”
“And then they didn’t.” Livia put the queen down next to the rook. “People who hated him eight years ago are throwing their reputations at his feet. Who do you think is behind all that?”
Marcus wrinkled his nose. “Lady Camilla?”
“Don’t underestimate her.” Livia wagged her finger at him. “Camilla could talk a fish out of water if she put her mind to it. She’s been putting his fires out for years. With her gone, he’ll have to fend for himself.”
“He’ll make the nobles look bad.”
“Exactly.” Livia jabbed the middle of the board. “If the people rise up against him, the gentry won’t want to be on his side.”
Marcus shifted his weight forward and folded his hands in front of his face, and he studied the pieces in front of him like a player planning his next move.
“So that leaves Hector broke, uncensored, and unprotected by the Church. What’s next?”
Livia took out the black knight. “I think you know who’s left.”
“Tiberius Ciacco.” Marcus curled his lip. “Of course.”
“You have to help me with this one.” Livia set the knight down. “How do you get rid of a general?”
“We can’t do it from here.”
“There has to be something.”
“There isn’t,” Marcus said. “Not unless he comes home.”
“Damn.” Livia held her temple. “Plautius? Ligari? Can we get to them?”
“No.” Marcus shook his head. “Ligari’s all right. Leave her alone.”
Livia’s shoulders sank. “Well, I don’t know what else to do.”
“You leave Ciacco to me. I’ll handle him when the time comes.”
“All right.” Livia’s eyes fell. “Just tell me what you have planned. I don’t want you running off by yourself.”
“I won’t.”
They both went quiet, and Livia gazed at the board.
“So that’s it, then.”
Marcus did, too, with a sober expression. “I suppose so.”
“It all looks so simple laid out like that.”