by Alma Boykin
“By Saint Sabrina’s shimmy, did they pull a suicide strike, like the men of Sigurney did against the Turkowi?” one of the foreign churigons wondered.
“Damn if I know but what was that?” a different voice demanded.
“And is something going to come out of that cloud? What goes up does come down, after all.”
Pjtor turned away, striding, not running, most emphatically not running, to where his horse and guards waited. “To the ridge” he said. They trotted west and north, skirting the main part of camp. The closer he got to the ridge, the more men joined them, streaming toward the battlefield. Then he saw the first of those leaving the field, many holding their heads, seemingly unable to hear or to speak. They parted for him and he slowed his horse, walking up the ridge. The men with him whistled, gasped, and swore at the scene. He made Godown’s sign. “May the most holy Lord of all have mercy.”
A portion of the inner city, where the yellow spot had once stood, smoked. Black streaks and more smoke spread away from it. Pjtor hunted in his saddlebag until he found one of the distance glasses he’d gotten in New Dalfa and peered at the remains. It looked like, well, he had no good comparison unless it was like the cannon that had exploded when he was a boy, made a hundred times worse. “Imperial master, I wonder if that was the sanctuary of,” Landis hawked and spat. “Selkow.”
“They destroyed it so we couldn’t capture it?” It made as much sense as any idea. although Pjtor also wondered if Godown had smote it Himself. Perhaps He did, if they were storing weapons in there, like some of the fortified churches on the western frontier. As Pjtor swept the distance glass over the scene, he noted brown and grey figures beginning to push into the city, met by a few in yellow, but not as many as Pjtor would have thought. Why were they not fighting to protect their women and children, or to allow them time to escape? He looked past the city but saw no signs of people trying to escape the far side of the ring wall.
No. Surely not. No, not even the Harriers would have, would . . . Yes, they might if they assumed we would do to them as they have done to us. If they killed their own women and children rather than let us capture them and kill them as a sacrifice to Godown. The very idea of such a thing made Pjtor want to vomit. He hoped it had been an accident instead. The Harriers were dangerous vermin, but they were also men whose ancestors had crossed the stars, just like the men of NovRodi. He tried to imagine killing a woman to please Godown but his mind rebelled along with his stomach. What about that nasty priest in Three Rivers, hmm? He certainly was willing to make a living burnt offering to Godown. Pjtor shut off that thought, stowed the distance viewer, and urged his sturdy grey gelding forward down the front of the ridge to where he thought he saw Green’s standard.
The general could hear, barely. “Imperial majesty, I have no idea what happened. We received no messenger, no warning, no offer of surrender, nothing. At least the Turkowi will surrender if we let them leave, or warn us when they won’t. A messenger had just told me that the gate on the river side had been breached when,” he spread his hands as if he were holding a large ball of something. “Godown as my witness, it was none of our doing.”
That Pjtor believed easily. They had no cannon that could reach so far. He nodded. Green turned and scrawled the same thing on several strips of paper, handed them to waiting couriers, and pointed the men in the proper directions. “No looting and be careful, in case there are traps,” Green explained. “I don’t want to play the role of the Turkowi at Sigurney.” Pjtor nodded again. Even he’d read about that battle, in a book he’d brought back from the Sea Republics. The defenders had held on for far longer than anyone should have been able to, and then had sallied out of the small fortress, attacking the much larger Turkowi army. They died, all but a dozen, and the Turkowi rushed into the fort. A slow-burning match had been run into the powder magazine and the explosion killed thousands of Turkowi, including several major priests and generals. Disease killed the Turkowi king, or so the account claimed. The Turkowi had won the battle but lost the fort, the entire campaign season, and a lot of soldiers. Pjtor agreed with Green—that was not the kind of victory he wanted to duplicate.
“Where did they go?” was the question almost everyone asked by the time they finished scouring the city. Pjtor still had not seen the inside and champed at the bit, eager to claim the prize. Claim it for Godown, of course, he made himself add. Green had insisted that Pjtor wait until they had scoured the entire place, which took less time than anticipated.
“It’s the damnedest thing, imperial master, sirs,” Landis reported to the army’s leaders. “If I were to say anything, it would be that they camped within the walls and inside the buildings, but did not truly live here. We’re found where they kept lots of animals, and the butchers’ area, and what were garden plots of some kind, but nothing that looks really lived in, like people had slept within the walls and made things the way they like them.” He’d moved his face-wrap aside in order to drink and left it open, causing many men to look away from him, Pjtor noticed.
Lord Alicorn brushed his fingers over his mustache, then through his black hair. “Imperial master, generals, I, perhaps, well, that is, when I was named to the council I spent some time with Master Michael Looven, one of the foreigners, when he was in Muskava. He said that there are groups within the church that consider Lander remains cursed forever, because Godown smote them for using technology rather than trusting His will and following His word.”
“St. Mou’s followers, yes,” Green said.
“He also said that he’d heard from the believing horsemen, the Magwi? Yes, the Magwi, that some of the Turkowi also avoid Lander places and things, holding them cursed although for their own strange reasons.” Alicorn took a deep breath. “Imperial master, generals, what if the Harriers followed that path? That is to say, they made use of the city for whatever reason, shelter in the winter would be my guess, but stayed only when they had to, in case Godown smote them for coming too close to the Landers?”
Pjtor and the others considered the southern noble’s words. They did make sense, assuming the Harriers shared certain beliefs with the people of Godown. That was where Pjtor had difficulty, and he wasn’t the only one, if the men’s expressions matched their thoughts. “There is logic in what you suggest,” Pjtor allowed.
“Aye,” Green said, and Poliko nodded. “However, there are other possibilities. One, that the women and children did not come this far east this year, given the state of the grasslands and our pressure on the Harriers. We do not know how far to the west the grass and river continue. They could be a few days or weeks’ ride away, waiting for us to follow, or to strike when we relax our guard.
“Another possibility is that, for some reason, the city cannot be truly lived in.” He lifted his hands in an expansive shrug. “I know nothing about the Landers beyond what we all do, and it may be that without their technology, the cities cannot support people full time. The Book of Flame in the Holy Writ says that after the third visitation of the Great Fires, many left the cities and those who remained died as the machines failed.”
Alicorn nodded. “And it could be that like the Magwi, the Harriers do not want to live settled in one place. Trying to keep their herds and flocks alive in the city would be, ah, challenging at best?”
Pjtor stroked his mustache. “I suspect that there are elements of all these ideas. The fodder and pasture within two days’ ride is poor, although the army has been here longer, in larger numbers, than the Harrier herds.”
Landis made an odd motion with one hand. Pjtor acknowledged him. “Imperial master, they have five horses and ten sheep for each man, woman, and child, at a minimum, plus the great oxen that move their rolling tents. That’s a lot of livestock even for a few people.”
Now Pjtor shrugged. “That is so. Howsoever it happened, the Harriers seem to have left.”
“We did find out how, imperial master. At least how those without horses got out of the city.” Landis and Alicorn both wri
nkled their noses, or what Landis had left of a nose. “There are passage-ways from the buildings and streets that carry water and probably other things away from the city, to the river. We found lots of tracks leading away from the big tubes, going up onto the bank a kilometer upstream, at what may be a ford. Beyond that the tracks fade into the grass and I did not care to send troops after them.” Alicorn clasped his hands behind his back. “I recall the stories about what became of Kiron’s army.”
“It is too late in the season to be chasing them. The books say we should, that we should drive them into the Split Sea so that their horses stay exhausted and they have to surrender. But we are very far from home and supplies, winter strikes even down here, and I believe it best to stop where we are. It is defensible, sheltered, has water, and once the priests purify it of any trace of Selkow, safe for the soul. Not make the city a permanent place of residence,” Pjtor added quickly, before someone could raise the argument about the Landers, “but allow people to stay here in winter until a new city is built on the Sweetwater Sea, and a small fort upstream to control the ford, if that is a ford.”
Grumbles of assent followed his words, and Father Martin said, “I have sent word to have more priests come, especially those familiar with the Harriers and their evil.” That satisfied all present at the army council, although Pjtor suspected many in the army would prefer to stay very far from the city. Old beliefs about the Landers died hard, no matter what the priests might say.
The next morning, just as the sun rose, Pjtor rode into the city. Landis rode beside him, and guards followed. The morning light gave the buildings a faint pink glow that shifted to pale grey. Nothing was taller than three levels, and the roads ran straight. After a few road crossings, Pjtor noticed an open area, like a market. Some had plants and what might have been the remains of gardens, others were hard-surfaced. The horses’ hoofs made a dull thump-thump on the black material of the road. This must be what the wonderful road into Vindobona was made of that the trader in New Dalfa was talking about. Black, a little soft, smooth and even, and unworn despite hundreds of years of use. Pjtor smelled a little stink on the morning breeze but nothing truly foul. And he saw a few signs of fighting, and of fires, but no major damage, unless the open window openings and doorways of the buildings counted. Well, any wood would have been long gone, and glass shattered at a touch. And maybe these had been open from the beginning because of warm weather, like Landis said the southern kings’ palaces were.
A little of Pjtor wanted to explore the city, to look inside each building and peer around. Part of him wanted to run very far away, in case the popular whispers about Godown’s wrath for any who took after the Landers was true. Mostly he wanted to see the black spot in the middle of the city. The buildings seemed to be getting taller. “Imperial Master, I wonder if this was a church district,” Landis half-asked.
Pjtor shook his head. “It would make more sense to have a church in each district, as we still do, but . . . Hmm. Perhaps the entire city was a church district, like a very large monastery or place where priests were trained, with a great central church for the great feasts.”
Landis considered Pjtor’s words for several more rows of buildings before replying, “That would make sense from what I understand of the Landers, imperial master, but then my people have different traditions from yours.”
Anything Pjtor might have asked disappeared as they came onto the main market square of the city, or what had once been the market square and the yellow thing. Black soot and bits of building scattered the area, and Pjtor suddenly wondered if those broken windows had only happened recently, with the great explosion. Soldiers stood watch, and Father Martin had spent the previous day cleaning the area of any spiritual danger. Pjtor dismounted, sniffing. It stank a little like powder smoke, but also like rotten eggs and burned meat. As he walked closer to the blackened area, he noticed a charred, almost familiar looking something perched on the ledge of a window several levels up. He squinted and recognized a hand. He swallowed hard and looked at the market square again.
“Holy Godown and all the saints,” Pjtor breathed, making Godown’s sign as he looked at the charred remains of the yellow building. Part of it had been blown to powder, or so he guessed, and the hole in the ground in front of the remaining walls made his eyes bulge. What in Godown’s name had they done? It would take the entire army’s store of powder to make a boom that big. Did Godown smite them? Or did they have something else here, like the flour mill near New Dalfa that exploded and that Basil van Deiman said was from flour and a flame mixing. Whatever it was, Pjtor wanted nothing to do with it. Truly, some knowledge is cursed. Of course, if they had been careless with their flour supply, then they deserved the results. Or had it been both, or something else entirely, like what was making the earth shake and hot water leap from the ground in the far western mountains?
Pjtor looked away from the hole and the smashed ruins, studying the pattern of streaks and char. “Imperial master, if I ventured to guess, I’d say whatever happened went that way,” Landis pointed up a street at right-angles to the one they had ridden in by. “Like the door was open, or most of the explosion was directed like the mouth of a cannon.”
“The char and bits of building seem to agree with your guess.” Pjtor tried to imagine a cannon that could produce the kind of explosion that made the mess. How far would it shoot? How many oxen would it take to move? Too many and too far, probably. Barracks-room jokes aside, bigger was not always better. Pjtor looked around and got a little closer to the remains of the once yellow thing. He thought he could see melted and twisted metal, as if they had used metal for the timbers instead of wood. By St. Issa, how much metal and earth coal had it taken to make those?
Landis had crossed the market square and was poking at something on a wall, then crouched down to look at the ground. He pulled out his knife and pried at the surface. Pjtor came over to see what he’d found. “Glass, imperial master? Melted and then spattered like when a man has a mouth full of soup and sneezes?”
Pjtor hesitated. Father Martin blessed everything. It can’t hurt you, not after getting spattered like this. He reached out with one finger and touched the dark, shiny stuff. It felt smooth and cool, very smooth, and did look like spattered soup, or drops of water or paint on a wall. He also drew a knife and poked it. It chipped on the edge, like broken glass did. “Huh.” Had the yellow building been covered in glass? No, that made no sense. Maybe it had colored glass windows like the churches in A’Asterdee, which would fit his idea of this being a religious center, a sort of holy city for the church. If that had been the case, then the people of Godown had even more right to reclaim and make use of the place.
It took some work, but Landis pried two glass disks off the wall for Pjtor. He prayed over them, and when nothing happened, he stowed them in a belt pouch and returned to the horses. They rode out more quickly than they had ridden in. At one point they stopped and Landis pointed to something at the edge of the road. “That opening there, imperial master? It lets water flow into those tubes under the city that run to the river.”
“Huh.” Could he do something like that in Muskava, to carry away the rain so the streets didn’t turn to mud? No, because the mud would also wash away and then what would you have? A muddy river and canals instead of streets. What worked in A’Asterdee would not be so good for Muskava.
The feast of the harvest had passed before Pjtor and his men returned to Muskava. The city remained intact, aside from one section that had burned down after a baker’s assistant failed to completely douse ashes before pouring them in the bin for the soapmaker to collect. Little Adam had begun running and babbled non-stop, further proof that he was truly Pjtor’s son. Alsice rocked Klara and sighed. “That’s the good news, my lord husband. The not so good news is that the lords of council have decided that the time to root out the heretics is last summer, that the beard tax is too high, and that they all need enormous estates in the south.”
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�Of course.”
“And Lady Strella says the sausages are not curing as they should, the last batch of smoked fish was too bland, she wants to try to import sheep from the Sea Republics to improve ours but she won’t say ‘ram’ she says ‘noble sheep,’ and that there are rumors from St. Molly’s that Sara is, hmm, not as devoted to matters of the spirit as she should be.”
Pjtor’s blood went cold, then hot. “Indeed?”
Alsice gulped. “Yes, imperial master,” she whispered. “It is said that the sons of the Chosen Guard have spoken to her.”
Crunch tinkle tinkle. The beer glass in Pjtor’s hand shattered. Shards fell onto the top of the rear-feed brick stove, dancing and bouncing off the blue and white glazed bricks. A bit of blood dripped and hissed on the hot surface.
“I see.”
Pjtor watched the snow falling onto the ground of the palace’s courtyard and wondered why he had thought Sara would recognize her error and turn to Godown for forgiveness for her sins and the deaths she’d caused, her and her fool of a lover. No, her heart remained too hard, her ambitions too all-consuming. And the sons of the men who had risen up against him . . . His fists clenched and he saw in his memory the bearded faces and muskets and pikes, felt air under his little boots as Grigory held him out over the courtyard and the gathered Chosen Guard as Alyx’s body seeped blood into the carpets in Pjtor and Isaac’s chamber. “See, the little emperor lives!” Grigory had shouted to the foul mob.
No longer little, now emperor in truth, and I have had enough of this. No more mercy, no more forgiveness. He was Godown’s anointed, Sara was not. They shared their father’s blood but nothing more. Sara had been sent to St. Molly’s to pray and make penance for her errors—her pride and her abuse of power that had never truly been hers. No longer. He turned and looked at the map Fr. Andre had brought. Pjtor’s eyes roamed north, north and west, into the empty lands far from Muskava. A few religious houses dotted the landscape, home to the most devoted, the monks who sought solitude and the wilderness to live austere lives and to tame the wildlands for Godown, making the barren places bloom. Convents followed them, places for women who sought pure seclusion for their devotions. He closed his eyes, breathed a prayer, and opened them again. “St. Klara the Wise.”