by Vox Day
“Damn it all, as if we didn’t have enough on our hands,” Corvus muttered to himself as Nicenus joined in the doorway. “Nicenus, give this young man 10 sesterces, will you? Then find Caius Vecellius and tell him that he and his men need to be armed and axed immediately. We’re off for the Volsian Gate, and we need to hurry.”
Leaving the young man to the majordomus, Corvus ran back into the domus. “Romilia? Where did I put my armor?”
“It’s hung up on its stand in the bedroom,” she called back. “Your sword is in the chest behind it. What’s going on? Why do need your armor?”
“It seems some damned fool of an archbishop has decided this is the perfect opportunity to take exception to the two bloody elves in our midst.” He began slipping on the stained leather vest he wore under his lorica. “Half the empire is baring their teeth at us, so naturally the Most Holy Mother Church is beside herself with worry about the danger posed by one wretched elven sorcerer. Well, if this doesn’t convince the high and mighty elf lord that he’s wasting his time on us idiot mortals and ought to take the first ship back to Kir Donas, I don’t know what will.”
Romilia entered the room. “Will you please bring your guards with you?”
“There is no need. Vecellius and his men will do. This sort of thing requires a show of authority, not force, and I don’t have enough guards to manage a show of force anyhow.”
Her face darkened, but this time she managed to hold her tongue. “Just be careful, love. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
He leaned forward to kiss her, hard, then drew the segmented armor over his head. “I’m a Valerian, Romilia. We’re dashing and handsome and brave, and we don’t have the sense to be careful. You know it, that’s why you married me.”
“Oh, shut up, you idiot!” She rolled her eyes and reached into the chest. “Here’s your helmet, not that you’ve got any brains for it to protect. Will you be home for dinner?”
“I don’t see why not. This won’t take long.”
She put on a brave face and did her best to smile. “Try not to get too upset with anyone and ruin your appetite.”
He nodded and kissed her again, knowing that she’d probably spend the next few hours alternating between praying for him and lamenting the day she’d met him.
Caius Vecellius and his seven men were already waiting for him by the time he left the house. They were staying in the servant’s wing, which was severely overcrowded now. If he won the election, he would have to give serious thought to buying a larger domus, which he couldn’t really afford. Normally, one of the benefits of a consulship was the easy credit that was extended in the knowledge of the post-consular governorship to come. But, he realized, that might not be the case anymore, given the present circumstances.
They half-ran, half-walked in legionary double-time, and Corvus was breathing very hard indeed by the time they reached the quarter in which the elven embassy was located. He must have spent too much time on horseback on the last campaign, he thought to himself in between painful gasps for air. What a ridiculous sight he would make, arriving on the scene looking like some sort of bloated, panting, red-faced parody of a general come straight from the theater.
“St…stop,” he wheezed with some difficulty. “We…should…we should walk…from here.”
“Do you want some water?” Vecellius asked him in an irritatingly unlabored voice.
“No,” he said instinctively. “No, wait—give me that!”
He need not have feared looking undignified and unsuitable for his office. Were it not for the branch-wrapped axes he and his personal guard wore, which caused the crowd to part as if by magic before them, no one would have even noticed him.
There might have been five hundred people gathered when the young man had come for him, but there were at least a thousand now, and it seemed as if all of them were trying to talk at once. He had known battlefields that were quieter and less stressful. It was little wonder that soldiers ordered to play urban guard so readily resorted to massacre. The mere press of the many bodies pushing up against them made him want to draw his sword and lay about him simply to create some space, and no one was even paying them any attention, much less shouting or throwing things at them.
“Where shall we go, consul?” Vecellius shouted at him.
“That way!” He pointed in the direction of the ambassidor’s residence.
It took them some time to work their way through the boisterous crowd, but when Corvus caught sight of red cloaks and white armor, he knew they had arrived in time.
“There, there,” he directed his fascitors. Once they were close enough, he pushed past Vecellius and grabbed the arm of one of the Curian guardsmen.
The guard raised his armored elbow and nearly smashed him in the face with it before seeing the purple consul’s cloak and recoiling so violently that one might have thought Corvus had struck him.
“My Lord Consul,” he stammered, his face almost as pale as his armor as he awkwardly tried to bow despite the pressure of the crowd around them. “I’m so sorry, I did not know!”
“Never mind that,” Corvus waved away the near laesa maiestas. “Where is your captain? What is his name?”
“Sulpicius Deodatus, Lord Consul. He’s over there, but you probably can’t see him past all the others. I’ll take you to him.”
But it wasn’t only Deodatus to whom he was led. Standing in front of the guard captain, bound in silver chains wrapped around their wrists and with their arms held fast by a pair of Michaelines, were the elven ambassador and a Savondese nobleman. Behind them, if he was not mistaken, was a tall, beautiful woman who looked very much like a female elf, which a moment ago he would have thought impossible. Lord Silvertree looked shaken, the Savondese resigned, and the elfess’s ethereal beauty was contorted into a mask of inhuman rage as she railed at Deodatus in a completely incomprehensible farrago of Elven and Savondese.
Corvus stepped in front of the guard captain and leaned down so he was nearly nose to nose with the man. “What in the clean and consecrated name of Amorr do you think you are doing here, Captain?” He laid a particular stress on the man’s rank.
“Who are you?” the captain snarled back, unintimidated. Then he took in the legate’s helm, the purple cloak, and the axe-bearing men standing behind Corvus. “My Lord Consul! I do apologize. I had no idea!”
“I asked you a question, Captain!” Corvus had no intention of letting Deodatus off as easily as his subordinate. He addressed the captain in much the same voice he reserved for chewing out arrogant young tribunes for the first time. “What demon, what devil, what complete and utter madness could possibly possess you to arrest a credentialed plenipotentiary representing the High King of Elebrion? Do you have even the faintest, most fractional idea of what you have done here? Does Amorr have so few enemies now that you think we should war against the elves too?”
The guard captain was made of strong stuff, Corvus had to admit. Although his eyes were wide and he too had blanched at the realization he was facing one of the three most powerful men in all the empire, he did not back down.
“My Lord Consul, forgive me, but I am only following my orders. The Sanctiff requires the two elves and the sorcerer to come before him. It is not for me to decide—I merely obey.”
Corvus folded his arms. “Very well, I understand and will not hold you responsible for obeying them. Now, Sulpicious Deodatus, I am giving you a new order. Tell your men to release your prisoners to my custody. Then return to the White Palace, and inform the Sanctiff that, while I am second to none in my respect and regard for Holy Mother Church, his jurisdiction does not extend to the embassies of foreign powers or their representatives who are not baptized members of the Church.” Corvus glanced at Lord Silvertree, whose equanimity had returned and was watching the exchange with what looked to be some amusement. “Lord Silvertree, am I correct in assuming you have not been baptized or received the Holy Sacraments?”
“I regret to say that I have not
,” said the elf without so much as cracking a smile.
“You see, Captain? Now, release your prisoners, and I shall do you the good service of forgetting that you ever did anything so asinine as to attack a foreign embassy and molest the person of the ambassador!”
“My Lord Consul…” The looked at his feet, took a deep breath, and then stared directly into Corvus’s face. “I cannot accept that order, my lord. I am sorry. I am not a legionary. I am an officer in the Curian Guard, and my commander-in-chief is the Sanctified Father.”
Dammit, dammit, dammit! Corvus hadn’t thought that the young fool—and the captain couldn’t have been more than halfway into his twenties—would be stupid enough to try to pull rank on him. Had he done anything else, they might have worked out some sort of arrangement, however transparent. But now, with such a public audience, he had no choice but to face him down. His only hope was that if he spelled everything out clearly enough for the thick-headed young officer, Deodatus would grasp the lifeline Corvus was throwing him.
“You are an Amorran citizen, are you not?”
“Yes, my lord consul.”
“Then let me be absolutely certain about this, Captain Sulpicious. You are an Amorran citizen who has received a lawful order from the Consul Aquilae Suffectus in a time of war, and you are declaring that you will not accept that order. Do I have that correctly?”
The captain swallowed hard, then looked back at his men. The sight of them, some thirty strong, seemed to stiffen his spine. “I would accept it if I could, my lord consul. But I cannot.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Captain.” He glanced back at Caius Vecellius, who was watching the exchange without any visible emotion. “You heard the man, did you not, Vecellius?”
“Yes, my lord consul. I most certainly did.” The head fascitor pointed to the guard captain. “Seize that man in the name of the Senate and People!”
His men were quick to obey. Deodatus was so taken aback that he didn’t offer even a token resistance, nor did any of his men, who fell back before the potent symbols of consular authority. In a matter of moments, Deodatus had been forced to his knees by four of the fascitors, one behind him, two on either side, and the fourth holding his head down and pulling it forward by his ears, exposing his unarmored neck. Another of the fascitors, with the forearms and biceps of a blacksmith, had already stripped the branches from his axe.
Screams of horror and wordless protests erupted from the crowd, but no one, not even one of the Curian guards, dared to step forward and interfere. The axe rose quickly and fell even faster. Deodatus was dead without offering so much as a word in his own defense.
“So die the enemies of Amorr!” called out Vecellius.
“So die the enemies of Amorr!” shouted back the fascitors in ritual response, along with the few members of the crowd who were not shocked into silence.
Corvus put his hands on his hips and struck what he thought of as his lordly general’s pose, ignoring what he suspected were some stray flecks of Deodatus’s blood on his face. His fascitors abandoned the body and fell in behind him as he stood before the captives and the warrior-priests still holding them. All of them were stained with the blood of the guard captain. Silvertree was wearing an uncharacteristically pained expression, but Corvus assumed the elf was more upset about his ruined silks than the sudden death of his late captor.
“Is there anyone else here who intends to interfere with a consul engaged in the affairs of the city?” Corvus asked the crowd. No one answered him, and if the Michaelines did not looked cowed, neither did they appear defiant. “Release these men!”
“At once, Lord Consul,” the warrior-priest to the left of Silvertree said. He nodded to the priests holding the Savondese man, and after some fumbling with the iron locks holding the chains, both man and elf were released. “May we have the lord consul’s permission to withdraw?”
“Granted,” Corvus answered with a slight nod. He had fought with too many of these warrior-priests’ brothers to treat their order with any disrespect. “Please convey my regards to Grand Master Arnaudus and let him know I am at his disposal if he would question me on this matter.”
“Thank you, Lord Consul. I will do so.” Visibly relieved, the Michaeline banged his chest in a military salute that Corvus promptly returned, then he led his brothers in the direction of their priory near Saint Marcellus cathedral.
That left the Curian guardsmen, who were standing in shocked silence, waiting for him to address them. Instead, he simply stood there, staring at them in contemptuous silence. Finally, one of them, bolder than the rest, cleared his throat nervously and approached him.
“My lord consul, may we have your leave to take the captain’s body and return to the palace?”
“You may. But first, I would have you clear the streets of the crowd your captain’s reckless antics have attracted.”
“As you command, Lord Consul!” The guardsman saluted.
But this time Corvus didn’t deign to return it. Instead, he went to Silvertree and his two companions, who were talking quietly among themselves.
The nonplussed guard hesitated for a moment, then began bawling out orders to his fellow guardsmen, who were soon pushing against the nearest of the bystanders and shouting at them, telling everyone to return to their homes.
“I am deeply sorry for this, Ambassador,” Corvus said to the high elf. “I don’t know how this happened, but you can rest assured that I will look into it immediately and see that all of the responsible parties are held accountable and make any restitution necessary.”
“I fear that may well be beyond your power, my lord consul.” Lord Silvertree said grimly. “If you recall our conversation upon your previous visit, there is some reason to believe that the murderer of the celestines is also behind this attempt to eliminate anyone with sufficient familiarity with the esoteric arts to reveal his presence.”
Corvus tilted his head. “You think the Sanctiff did not order those men to come here? You think this ‘murderer of the celestines’ did so? Or that the Sanctiff himself is possessed by this creature?”
“I do not know,” Silvertree said. “But I am coming to suspect that there is a master of sorcery somewhere inside the Sanctal palace. I have some reason to believe he may even be stronger than I am.”
“That would mean he’s not human, then, would it not?” Corvus turned to the female elf. She was simply remarkable and, despite the situation, he found it hard to take his eyes off her. “Who is she? Another sorceress?”
“No, she is merely a Merithaimi elf under the protection of the Comte de Thoneaux. I’m expecting your son’s elven friend to arrive tonight, and I plan to send them away with her.”
Corvus blinked at the unexpected news. “Lady Shadowsong is coming here? Tonight? The elf to whom my son is always writing?”
“The same,” Silvertree confirmed. “I will take the opportunity to give her your letter to Marcus. Do you have any further message for him? This may be the last opportunity, as I think it unlikely that she will be able to return here.”
Corvus sighed unhappily. “Well, I…” There was so much more he wanted to tell Marcus, but everything was so fluid that he was reluctant to give him any further instructions. “I suppose…tell him he is to trust no one—no Amorran, ally, or provincial—until he hears from me. Tell him to trust his intuition and his training.”
“I will see that he is so informed. Do I correctly glean from your message that you have received some unwanted news? Is it something you feel able to share?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, I expect. It’s not just the provinces any longer. Two of the allied peoples are in revolt, and there may well be more. It’s an unprecedented situation. If you can arrange to leave soon as well, I recommend you do so. I’m going to be fully occupied with the election and raising the new legions, so I may not be in a position to intercede if this powerful creature you say is living in the Coviria makes a second attempt on you.”
“
My companion and I will depart tonight,” the elf assured him. “I have already made the arrangements. There is no need for you to offer us an escort. I will assure the High King of your good offices, so you need not concern yourself about this unfortunate affair. I am afraid you face some very serious challenges, Valerius Corvus, and not all of them will come from outside the walls.”
“I appreciate your warning, Ambassador. Were it not for you, we would have no idea there was anything amiss inside the Coviria. Apart from the dead bodies, that is.”
The elf showed his white teeth in an uncharacteristic smile. “They do tend to be informative, do they not—bodies? Be very careful, Lord Consul. It is never wise to stand between a sorcerer and his aim.”
“Says the sorcerer.” Corvus laughed. “May God bring you safely to Elebrion, Ambassador. I wish we could have hosted you longer, but for your sake, I’m glad to hear you are leaving now.”
There was a commotion behind him, and Corvus turned around to see what was the matter. He saw a slave he vaguely recognized as belonging to Manlius Torquatus speaking to Caius Vecellius. Corvus closed his eyes, knowing that whatever the news was, it was unlikely to be good. He gestured at the head fascitor, who immediately came over to him.
“Well?” he demanded. “What is it now?”
Vecellius glanced at the high elf, then back at him, and shrugged. “The south and west.”
“The allies? Which ones. We already knew about the Maruvii.”
“All of them.”
“What? That’s not possible!”
“Torquatus’s man says a rider arrived from Falera. Marruvium, Aeternum, Caelignus, Larinum, Silarea and Telinus have all declared their independence from the Empire. Yesterday they formed a league vowing mutual defense against any Amorran attempts to force them back into the fold.”
Corvus’s heart sank. Even if all the provinces rebelled at once, they were too diverse and geographically separated to successfully join together. Many of them would have difficulties even speaking to one another. But among all the allied peoples, there were only the Utruccan and Faliscan tongues dividing them, and every city was filled with men who spoke both. Corvus himself was fluent in Utruccan, thanks to his childhood summers in Vallyrium.