Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  They were giving him his chance to back off. He’d tried. If he left now, and Fergho reported what had happened, whoever had sent Fergho would think only that Raphael was acting on his own initiative, questionable perhaps, but not inherently wrong.

  Glaucio would be tortured and, eventually, executed. He might, perhaps, deserve that, but not the prolonged torture which would precede it.

  If he intervened, all six of these men would have to disappear. Or die. There could be no witnesses. And he was alone. They knew they were working under strict time conditions, they’d have to get their captive somewhere safe as quickly as possible, so there was no point trying to draw them out. They’d have gone before any of his meagre reinforcements could arrive.

  ‘Your operation. Next time I’ll make sure we’re not working at cross-purposes.’ Raphael did his best to sound slightly irritated. ‘I’ve spent the whole day trailing him, and all for nothing, since you’ll get far more out of him.’

  Fergho seemed to relax, and Raphael gave him a conspiratorial look.

  ‘Just a tip, if you’re working him over?’

  Fergho smiled nastily, and walked closer, the other man a step behind him. Glaucio looked at Raphael with eyes of utter loathing and contempt, which Raphael forced himself to endure. ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you break bones and then set them so the broken ends rub together . . .’ Raphael said, and mimed, as if with his arm. Fergho’s grin grew even broader.

  Raphael whipped the stiletto out of its sheath in his sleeve and sliced across Fergho’s chest, then up to slice the second man’s wrist. Fergho shrieked in pain, and the men guarding Glaucio started, giving the Ice Runner a chance to leap to his feet, hammer one arm into the stomach of the nearest man and draw a dagger which he sank into the chest of a second.

  ‘Traitor!’ Fergho said, blood dripping from the open wound on his chest. ‘Pity you didn’t aim better. Now we’ll take you in as well. I think that trick with the bones is a winner, and since you suggested it . . .’

  The two thugs walked slowly forward, gradually backing Raphael closer to the wall, two staves more than a match for the stiletto now he lacked the advantage of mobility. Fergho frowned.

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t?’ Raphael said. To his right, Glaucio had despatched two of his opponents. The third was holding his own until a slim figure dashed behind him, sliced through the muscles of his back with a dagger, and kicked him hard in the back of the knee. Glaucio finished the process with an uppercut.

  ‘You . . .’ Fergho suddenly stiffened, eyes bulging forward. The second man stared at him and began to back away, staring in horror at the cut on his hand.

  ‘Too late,’ Raphael said, as Fergho’s eyes rolled upwards and he fell like a board onto the stones of the street, stunned by the drug on Raphael’s blade. The second man followed suit a moment later.

  Glaucio and Flavia watched in horror as Raphael wiped his stiletto clean on Fergho’s clothes and sheathed it again, making very sure not to nick himself.

  ‘Poisoned blade?’ Glaucio said.

  ‘Not this time,’ said Raphael, more dispassionately than he felt. ‘They’ll live, but we have to get all of them somewhere safe.’

  ‘One’s dead,’ said Flavia. The one Glaucio had stabbed in the chest, no doubt.

  Raphael looked round sharply as running footsteps sounded, but the two men who appeared at the end of the passageway both wore Ice Runner black. They looked from Raphael to Glaucio to Flavia, and then down at the unconscious bodies.

  Raphael tried not to feel sick, either at who these men were or that one of them was dead. He hadn’t intended to take a life, but they would have taken Glaucio’s, and after a great deal of pain and suffering.

  ‘You have somewhere you can hide these men? Better still, smuggle them out of the City?’ Raphael asked curtly.

  ‘We can take care of it,’ Glaucio said.

  ‘Mind you do,’ Raphael said, and strode back to join Flavia by the road back to Catalc’s temple. ‘Understand this: if you want your people, your families, to be safe, say nothing of this. I was not here.’

  ‘Understood,’ Glaucio said, seeming more than a little puzzled. Raphael said nothing more, made his way back into the Ralentic district as quickly as possible, away from the death and the finality of what had just happened.

  None of them saw another man slip away into the shadows at the top of the hill.

  CHAPTER X

  ‘The Emperor Quartet,’ Leonata said, catching the familiar notes from the musicians’ gallery. ‘Our guest of honour will be here shortly.’

  She was too short to see through the crowds of extravagantly robed and masked revellers – her own headdress with its elaborate plume of feathers made her more than six feet tall, and some of the men present topped her by its height again.

  Ulithi Palace had been transformed, the austere splendour of its golden stone garlanded and wreathed, transformed by cloth and boards into a palace of the Heroic Age, far in Thetia’s past. The curtains of the Hall had been overhung with blue gauze, and mock columns added between them painted in shades of cobalt, sienna and orichal. Painted bull’s heads and tridents were everywhere, and over the entrance arch through which Valentine would, even now, be making his entrance, someone had dug out and found an actual bull’s head, complete with a magnificent pair of horns. The servants wore short belted tunics and archaic bronze greaves, and the Master of Ceremonies was resplendent in bronze armour and a horsehair-plumed helm.

  It was an astonishing feat for the Ulithi and Valentine’s entourage on such short notice, she could hardly have done better herself with months to prepare, and it spoke volumes about the Empire’s resources and efficiency. She’d never expected a theme, only a state masked ball with clan flags and Imperial blue hung everywhere.

  Of course there was Imperial blue everywhere, since the cobalt blue of the Empire was a direct claim to the glory of the Heroic Age. It was the most difficult and costly colour to manufacture even now, and she didn’t want to think what dyeing all these hangings and finding the paint must have cost. But it was subtly done, ominpresent but only noticeable if one were looking. Aesonia’s doing, no doubt.

  ‘Surely not,’ said her companion. Vaedros Xelestis, leader of the Council more by virtue of his equable temperament and knack of getting on with people than for any political nous or strength of will, was garbed as a tribal shaman. It was a bizarre ensemble, with its wooden mask, shark’s teeth necklace and carved staff, but impressive – he had the physique for it.

  ‘They’re playing the whole thing,’ she said. ‘See who notices.’

  Vaedros shrugged. ‘I have a tin ear, you know that. But thank you for the warning. What do you think he’ll be coming as?’

  ‘Pandolfo Vournia is running a pool, over by the loggia.’

  She saw Vaedros’s eyes narrow through the masks’s large eye-holes. ‘Hmm, might be worth a punt. What did you bet on?’

  ‘You think I’d tell you?’ Leonata teased. ‘Think for yourself.’

  ‘A hero who didn’t come to a sticky end . . . a Thetian hero, too, not a Tehaman.’

  ‘Not a long list.’

  ‘Excuse me, I should place my bet before time runs out,’ Vaedros said, and made his way off into the throng. She liked Vaedros, but she had no illusions about his strength, and if Valentine were to make a move on the City, she would engineer his removal from the Leader’s seat herself.

  Leonata paused, absently waving her fan. The windows on both sides of the hall were wide-open, allowing a breeze to blow straight through, as well as access out to the loggia and the sparkling, lamp-hung Fountain Court, but it was still a Vesperan night, and she was masked.

  ‘Odd of them to play the whole quartet,’ said a familiar voice from behind an imperious eagle-mask, coming up to her left. ‘Normally they only bother with the second movement.’

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ Leonata asked.

  ‘Oh, come now. Who else would have the
whimsy to choose such a ridiculous bird?’

  ‘Are you calling me whimsical, Petroz?’ she said lightly.

  ‘Now that you come to mention it . . .’

  She hadn’t seen him since his visit, and she couldn’t see his expression now, but his voice was sombre.

  ‘Have you given any thought to the matter I mentioned?’ he asked, as conscious as she that every word could be overheard.

  ‘Yes, and it seems to have more relevance than we thought,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you when we next have a chance.’

  The eagle looked up, eyes wandering along the vaulted ceiling far above, now hung with flamewood chandeliers. The Hall was enormous, one of the finest buildings in Vespera both inside and out, stately without being ostentatious, and now echoing with music and conversation.

  ‘It’s changed so little,’ Petroz said. ‘It always surprises me.’

  She had been too young and too unimportant ever to have been invited here in its previous incarnation, but she knew what Petroz meant – and, because he’d shown her the ring, she knew how raw this was for him.

  His sister had been married in this room, long ago when it was Azrian Palace, in the first brightness of Palatine’s reign. Had lived almost ten years with Ruthelo, one of the most glittering political marriages in Vesperan history, and all the more so because it had been a love match – Claudia had renounced her oaths as a priestess of Sarthes to marry Ruthelo, her companion-in-arms in the resistance against Aetius the Tyrant.

  The seven-year-old Leonata had been captivated by the romance and the affection of their partnership as she’d seen it from afar. She could still remember throwing flowers over their wedding procession as it wound its way to a lavish reception given by Palatine in the Imperial Palace.

  ‘The worst part,’ said Petroz, ‘is that we can’t blame anyone else for it. Not even the Domain, because we beat them.’

  ‘Those who are unwilling to accept their own responsibility can always find a scapegoat,’ said Leonata. ‘If it weren’t for Ruthelo, the Empire would probably still be blaming the Domain for our misfortunes.’

  She’d been overheard, she saw, from the reactions of two people passing in front of them. Most probably Imperial naval officers, by their bearing. What did it matter if they overheard? She didn’t go out of her way to offend the Empire, but nor would she conceal the thoughts and opinions she had every right to, as a citizen of Vespera.

  ‘I haven’t seen our young Quiridion friend yet,’ Petroz remarked, changing the subject.

  ‘That’s because you’re not looking for the right thing,’ said Leonata.

  Raphael was quite pleased with his disguise, as a matter of fact. His face was known in Vespera, as a younger version of Silvanos’s; his manner, bearing and voice were not, as yet. All it took was a calculated modulation of his voice, a little deeper and gruffer, and he was essentially invisible. Even at a masked ball, people saw what they expected to see. And most guests obliged them with a disguise which nevertheless bore the imprint of its owner’s personality, albeit in more splendid form.

  Leonata, with her almost comical toucan costume, was a notable exception, but then the Estarrin Thalassarch had a gift for laughing at herself. And, unlike most others of her station who insisted on dressing their entourage to match, thus making them laughably easy to identify, Leonata had imposed no such dictate, and the people she’d brought with her could move without their loyalty being instantly obvious.

  He heard a burst of laughter from the knot around Pandolfo Vournia, a fixture almost since the Vournia Thalassarch had walked into the room and started a book on the Emperor’s costume. There were two or three other pools going, but at the moment Pandolfo’s was commanding all the attention. Raphael would have placed a bet himself, knowing it would bring lucrative returns, but it would attract attention when he proved to be right, so he let Leonata reap that particular reward.

  Instead, he drifted through the hall, attracting more than a few interested looks for his costume, and allowing himself to be occasionally snared in conversation by people he wanted to identify. As far as he could tell, none had guessed yet, but then he was still a relative unknown here.

  He accepted a glass of Gorgano white from a ravishingly pretty servant, her hair done in black ringlets and her dress cut away at the front to reveal most of her breasts. Hardly the image of morality Valentine wanted to project, but very authentic, the image of the dancers in the frescoes. And the male servants had the physique and bearing of ancient warriors – where had Gian found enough of them?

  The first movement of the Emperor Quartet was winding to its close now; the second movement was the distinctive one, which meant Valentine would be entering the room soon. The noise over by Pandolfo grew, if anything, more frenzied.

  Were Iolani and her people here yet? He hadn’t seen any trace of them, and he was certain they wouldn’t come as anyething low-key. Silvanos’s spies would be here in force, since this was effectively an Imperial event – among the servants, or with masks and costumes designed not to stand out. There was an unwritten hierarchy of how magnificent and imposing costumes might be, one Raphael and Leonata were both flouting – in very different ways.

  The notes of the first movement died away, and a moment later the quartet commenced the familiar melody of the Emperor Quartet, the movement everyone knew. Eyes turned to the door, and the buzz of conversation subsided a little. Valentine would make a grand entrance, there was no question of that, but Raphael was almost certain he’d wait until the end of this movement.

  He moved over to the outside wall to stand still as the guests slowly drifted towards the south end of the hall, and the doors with the bull’s head above them. Virtually all of them would be here by now, and Iolani’s absence was worrying. It meant she intended to upstage the Emperor by arriving later than him, which wasn’t a good sign. The slight nagging feeling he’d had all day intensified. This was too big an occasion for something not to happen, and when that took place, someone, and quite possibly a number of innocent bystanders, would die.

  Silvanos’s people knew this as well as he did – Plautius had summoned him this morning for a briefing, sounding more than usually frustrated. They had deployed every available agent to watch the guests and the masked ball, and there were armed men in Ulithi and Imperial colours waiting in launches in the boathouse, in case of attack. Valentine had apparently wanted to station searays in the Marmora, but the Council wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that security on the water was their affair, and they wouldn’t hear of having armed foreign ships in the Deep or the Marmora.

  The Council, Silvanos had said a little later, has been compromised.

  Had the Empire ever set much store by it?

  The movement towards the arch was now almost complete, the guests arranged in a rough crescent in front of the archway, roughly by order of rank, yet still managing to give the impression that this was where their paths and conversations had led them. Even the great of Vespera and the Empire could behave like excited children, as he’d seen two days ago with the Estarrin. Servants moved around the edges, collecting abandoned glasses and restocking trays.

  Watching the crowd rather than the archway, Raphael was one of the few who saw a black-clad figure appear in one of the windows leading out onto the courtyard, a magnificent black panther in a priceless sable mask and cloak, his robe like spun night. Silvanos, of course, very much in character. He was too recognisable to try disguising himself as something inconspicuous, so he aimed for sinister and impressive instead.

  Ironic, that without even conferring Raphael and his uncle had come so close.

  When the melody died away, it was no figure from the pages of Ethelos who stepped into the Hall. Valentine wore armour, but it was the armour of two centuries gone, splendid in Imperial cobalt but devoid of ornamentation. His helmet was a plain soldier’s helmet of the same period, unplumed but crowned with a silver victory wreath. And his mask, also silver, had been moulded from a st
atue of Aetius the Great, victor of the Tuonetar War.

  Exactly as Raphael had predicted, and Leonata had wagered. Raphael could almost hear the silent groans of all those who’d wagered on an ancient hero. They should have known better – glamorous as the heroes of the ancient epics and tragedies were, they were flawed avatars for a world out of balance, relics of a more violent age. Aetius IV was a true Thetian hero, with the added benefit for Valentine that he had been innocent of the last crime of the Great War, the obliteration of Tuonetar civilization. That had been the work of his twin brother and Marshal Tanais, after his death.

  The crescent broke up again, as some moved away and others – a great many, more than Raphael had expected – moved into a rough avenue down the centre to pay their respects for Valentine. Aesonia, garbed as a sea-goddess, Tethys or Thalassa, in shimmering, shifting blue-greens and patterns which had to be kept in place by water-magic, walked behind him. So did Gian, less extravagantly disguised as a hawk.

  The servants were adding more incense to the burners on the walls, and heavy wafts of it began dirfting over to Raphael. He sniffed, wondering if Gian would try anything so obvious, but there was no intoxicant he recognised. It was simply to add to the atmosphere.

  Almost everyone who mattered in Thetia was here in this room tonight. A dangerous place to be, yes, but such a place! This was where he should have been all his life, where he wanted to be – at the centre of power, in the heart of civilization. Where minds, not bodies, were what truly mattered, where the webs and the intrigues were spun by the very best amidst music and art and laughter.

  He had a great deal of catching up to do.

  ‘Why aren’t they here?’ Vaedros said anxiously. He would have been wringing his hands, they they were taken up with his shaman’s staff.

  ‘Afraid they’ll be found out,’ said Correlio Rozzini, masked as a Magus from an ancient story. Nothing could have been more inappropriate, Leonata thought, trying to ignore the smell of too much wine on Correlio’s breath. There were men and women she respected on the Council who tended towards supporting the Emperor, Gian for instance, but Correlio did Valentine’s cause little but harm.