by Vox Day
“Do you think us fools, Tribune?” Siculo was irritated. “Of course we sent out patrols. Two came back without finding any sign of them. Two didn’t come back at all. The two we sent north, toward Gorignia. We couldn’t risk losing any more riders.”
Nolens waved a dismissive hand. “They’ve obviously marched north, but where can they go? The goblin lands? They haven’t entered Larinum, or we would already know. They can’t winter in Gorignia either—the Gorignii have raised ten thousand men, and we sent riders to both Acerrae and Berdicum. We warned them to keep an eye on their castras and to let us know if a legion tries to settle on their lands.”
“Have you heard back from either city?”
“No one has seen them near Acerrae. We won’t hear from Berdicum until tomorrow at the soonest.” Siculo shook his head.
“And you didn’t send one to us?”
“The weather was bad, and then, we thought we might as well wait to hear from Berdicum first. We were expecting to send him tomorrow or shortly thereafter. Besides, they weren’t marching your way.”
Aulan sighed, disgusted but not surprised. It was always difficult dealing with auxiliaries and provincials, and clearly it wasn’t going to get any easier now that the empire was devouring itself.
“Tell Magnus we’ll keep him informed as soon as we figure out where they’ve gone,” Siculo said. “But he needn’t be in a hurry to hunt his nephew down.”
“No? And why not.”
“He can just let General Winter do the work for him. They cleaned out everything and took it with them, including the hundreds of cattle they stole from Solacte. Unless they’re going to winter near Berdicum, they’ll be sleeping in their tents without much in the way of supplies. By spring, they’ll be sick and hungry, and willing to surrender without a fight.”
Siculo pushed the scroll across the desk.
Aulan picked it up and saw that it bore the seal of House Valerius, as well as “M.V. Magnus” written on it in black ink.
“You can give that to him too,” Siculo said. “We found it in here, on this very desk.” The elderly man raised an eyebrow as Aulan cracked the seal open and began to unroll it. “It is to Magnus!”
“I know,” Aulan said absently as he read its contents.
To M. Valerius Magnus
Aviglianus (Ianuarius)
By the time you read this, I will have gone where you cannot follow. But know that I rebuke your actions, as they are not worthy of our House or your late son’s memory. Fortex would be ashamed of you. Nor will I surrender a loyal Amorran legion to your command. I urge you to repent of your rebellion, go to Amorr, and make amends with the Senate and with my father, who by now will have been elected Consul in his own right.
You defeated me once. Do not think you will do so again. And if you are not reconciled with those whose faith in you has been so sorely abused by the time we meet again, then rest assured I will show you precisely the same mercy you intended to show me.
M. Valerius Clericus, tribunus militum, legatus Legio XVII
At Montmila
Aulan leaned back in his chair and stared at the mosaic on the wall behind Siculo’s head, ignoring the anticipatory looks the two Larinii leaders were giving him. Magnus was not going to be happy with this. Not at all. And where could the younger Valerian go that his elder could not follow? It made no sense! An entire legion could not simply disappear. He must be headed for the goblin lands, gambling that Magnus wouldn’t dare to follow him there, not with a massive civil war in the offing.
He shrugged. At least the tribune had not betrayed Aulan’s indiscretion in warning him about Magnus’s intentions. No good deed goes unpunished, it was said. Aulan had regretted that warning almost as soon as the warning left his mouth. It could even be that his foolish words had influenced the younger Valerian’s decision to run, which would make this debacle his fault. But whether the blame lay with him or not, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now. Then a thought struck him and he laughed.
“What is it?” demanded Siculo.
“What’s in the letter?” the other Larini asked.
“Oh, nothing of much interest to anyone outside of House Valerius,” Aulan lied easily. “It just struck me that, if Magnus’s nephew ever learns to fight as well as he runs, we may all be in for one devil of a time.”
SEVERA
Amorr grieved. It grieved for the Sanctified Father, the second to die in less than six months. It grieved for the Consul Aquilae, the second to die in a year. It grieved for the devastation wrought by the mysterious fire at the Holy Palace, even as they marveled at the miraculous salvation of the Sedes Ossus. Somehow the throne of bones had remained immaculate and untouched by the flames. But most of all, the people of Amorr grieved for the loss of their empire.
It seemed as if God had abandoned them. Every day seemed to bring worse news than the next. Severa had finally asked Sextus to stop telling her of the latest uprising, the most recent defeat, the most unthinkable betrayal. There were too many of them. Had the whole world gone mad?
Falconius Aquila had returned to Amorr with only two legions, since Legios V and IX had joined with the rebels in Larinum. House Cassianus’s two legions remained loyal, but Longinus was defeated outside of Aeternum by a Marruvian army led by Herius Obsidius that outnumbered him three-to-one.
Fear and grief filled the city. But it wasn’t until rumors began circulating that Sextus’s own father, four times consul and acclaimed Magnus by the will of the People and the vote of the Senate, had turned traitor and was openly ruling over Vallyria and Larinum, that Severa truly understood what it meant to feel despair.
“It can’t be true,” she told herself as she sat and stared in her mirror. “Magnus would never do that. Aulan is one of his senior tribunes! He would never let Magnus turn traitor!”
Her reflection didn’t speak. It stared at her, unconvinced.
She reminded herself how easily the crowd got things wrong. Even now that Cassianus Longinus’s fears had been proven correct, there were still some who believed that he was right, that her father could have been a traitor too.
“My lady?” She hadn’t noticed Quinta Jul enter the room. “Sextus Valerius is here.”
“He is?” Severa leaped to her feet and straightened her gown. “Am I presentable?”
The servant woman reached out and brushed a few stray hairs out of her face. “Always, my lady.”
She ran from the room and down the stairs.
Sextus was standing at the foot of the stairs, wearing his full tribune’s armor, with his helm under his arm. He was as handsome as ever, although these days, on the rare evenings when he was able to visit her, he was usually exhausted. It seemed the centurions training the thousands of new recruits, both voluntary and conscripted, were nearly as hard on the new officers as they were on the former slaves. Today, his eyes didn’t light up when he saw her. Instead, he flushed and looked away, as if he was ashamed of her.
She stopped on the landing above him. Something was wrong. She could see it in his face. Something was dreadfully wrong.
“Sextus, what is it?”
He looked up at her. His lips were tightly pressed together. He looked almost in pain.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“Can we step outside, my lady?”
My lady? He was never so formal with her. Her heart was racing, and she was too upset to say anything, so she only nodded and allowed him to hold the door open for her.
They walked in silence along the brick path toward the hill that led down to the city. Sextus didn’t offer her his arm or attempt to take her hand. Only when they reached the wooden benches that offered a grand view of the Sanctal Palace, still sitting proudly atop its own hill in the distance, did he turn to her and gesture toward one of the benches.
“Will you sit down?”
It was right here that her father had waited for her in the darkness, she thought. That night, my life changed. Is my life about
to change again now?
She sat down. She waited.
He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was staring at the city, the frightened, desperate, grieving city.
“I wish to release you, my lady Severa,” he said, still looking away.
“Release me? From what?” She was so confused by how strangely he was acting that she didn’t even understand what he was saying. “What is wrong, Sextus?”
He finally looked at her, and she saw he was silently crying, tears tricking slowly down his cheeks. She wanted to go to him, to hold him and wipe his tears away, but something in his eyes held her back. Pain? Fear?
He cleared his throat and raised his chin, and this time he looked her directly in the eyes. “I wish to release you from our betrothal, my lady Severa.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “But…but why?”
“Because the daughter of Aulus Severus Patronus cannot marry a traitor’s son.”
“No!” The cry ripped itself from her throat. She jumped to her feet and pushed him hard, with both hands, in the stomach. The breastplate was hard and cold beneath her hands. She pushed him again, almost hitting him, and he did not resist her. “No!”
“Severa,” he protested, and now she could hear the shame and despair in his voice. “It’s true. The whispers, the rumors, they’re all true! Father betrayed the Senate and People! He’s calling himself the Duke of Vallyria or some other nonsense like that. He even fought a battle against Marcus and won!”
“Marcus?” She had no idea Andronicus Aquila had even left the city. “I thought he was your legate?”
“Not Marcus Aquila—my cousin Marcus. The tribune. The cousin I got Marcipor from.”
“Oh, of course.” She paused, still confused. “Your cousin has an army?”
“Yes. Well, he had one, I guess, until my father’s legion beat his. But that’s not the point!”
“So what is the point?”
He glared at her, infuriated. “The point is that you can’t marry me! My father’s a cursed traitor. So I’m releasing you. I’m breaking the betrothal!”
She breathed a sigh of relief. God, he was such an idiot. Noble, of course, and she admired his determination to do the right thing by her, but an idiot nonetheless.
“You’re doing nothing of the kind, Sextus Valerius,” she told him in a tone that brooked no argument.
“I’m not?” He stared at her, confused.
“Of course not. Sextus, everything is falling apart. The empire, the Houses, the Church, everything. My father was murdered. Your father is a traitor, and only God knows what happened to your uncle. No one’s heard from him since the fire. Maybe he and the Sanctiff were murdered too. In three months, both of those damned rebel leagues could be at our walls, and you’re going to have to fight them.”
He eyed her warily. “I don’t understand how that is supposed to make me feel any better.”
“It’s not, you idiot! It’s supposed to remind you that all we have is each other!” She glared at him. “Sextus, do you love me?”
“Well, yes,” he said.
“Are you going to betray the Senate and People? Are you thinking of running off to join Magnus?”
“Hell no! I’ll kill him myself if I get the chance.”
“Good.” She pulled him down to her and kissed him, hard, on the lips. “Then it’s settled.”
He pulled back, looking alarmed. “What’s settled?”
“We’re getting married next week.”
He sputtered. “But that’s…I mean, if I…Severa, we can’t do that!”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course we can.” She pointed back to the city. “Amorr needs some good news. Do you remember what you told me the war declaration meant? It meant the Houses are united. So it must be. You and me, Sextus. House Valerius and House Severus. United.”
She looked up at him expectantly.
He was staring out over the city again, but the pain and the shame were gone. Then he turned back to her and smiled.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She kissed him again. “I do. I think it was extremely brave and noble and self-sacrificing of you. And I don’t ever want to hear anything like that again.”
He pressed her close to him, crushing her against his inflexible breastplate. And yet, for the first time since she’d seen him standing before the stairs, she felt she could breathe again.
Opta Jul watched with amusement as her beautiful young charge gamefully but incompetently attempted to put together a meal for her betrothed. She took pleasure in the mutual affection between Severa and Sextus. Young love was so clumsy, and yet that very clumsiness was part of its charm. Finally, she shooed Severa out of the kitchen with two goblets of wine and took over the task of slicing up some bread and cheese for the tall Valerian.
“Opta!” Severa called from the nearest triclinium.
“Yes, love?” she called back.
“Sextus likes grapes. Green ones. Do we have any?”
“If we do, I’ll bring them.”
A sharp pain unexpectedly struck her hand. For a moment, Opta Jul thought she’d been bitten by one of Regulus’s hounds that lounged about the residence. Then she looked down and realized she’d accidentally cut off the tip of her left index finger.
How annoying. She picked it up and regarded it thoughtfully for a moment.
Dust and water. That was all they really were, in the end. As short-lived as flies. And yet, endlessly intriguing nevertheless. That was what her brothers so often failed to see, why they so often found themselves beheaded or dismembered or burned to ashes blown on the wind.
She wondered if the brother she’d been hunting all these years had been the consul or His Holiness. Probably the latter, she reflected, though the former would have been more apropos. She would have to watch for his reappearance, of course, but in the meantime, there were others she must find. They were not in Amorr, but then, the Empire was not the only power on Selenoth.
She slipped the fingertip into a pocket in her dress. The finger had already stopped bleeding, but she would have to be careful to hide it from sight for the next few hours, she realized.
Until it grew back again.
THEUDERIC
It was springtime in southwestern Savondir. The rain had stopped three days ago and the morning sun was dawning over the hills of Bassas Vidence, a bucolic place Theuderic had never thought to see, much less visit in the august company with whom he now rode. Beside him, on a delicate grey mare, was the royal chancelier. Ahead of them both, riding a giant roan stallion that dwarfed both du Moulin’s mare and his own gelding, was de Beaumille, the elderly Marechal de Savonne. The two members of the Haut Conseil were accompanied by an honor guard of sixty royal men-at-arms, led by Sier Janequin de Recheusoir. The grandmagicien had also graciously permitted four of Theuderic’s colleagues from L’Academie to accompany the expedition. They were all inexperienced young battlemages, but under the circumstances, Theuderic considered they were potentially worth more than all the fighting men combined.
And neither the men-at-arms nor the battlemages were as important as the twenty wagons full of barrels containing meat, flour, and wine that followed them.
The winter had passed pleasantly enough once he was able to explain to the royal council why he was back in Lutece nearly five months before his return was expected. However, any suspicions about his unlikely story disappeared once word of the violent convulsions of the Amorran Empire began to make its way north and rumors of a vast army of orcs began to frighten peasants and nobles alike living on the edge of the great forest of the Grimmwalde. Lithriel was gone now, having departed with Caitlys to be sure the dwarf’s warning had been taken seriously in both Merithaim and Elebrion. But he had reason to hope that she would be back soon, although he was more certain that Lady Shadowsong would return.
Which, from the point of view of L’Academie, would arguably be preferable. The immortels we
re still attempting to refine the elven bird spell, but still hadn’t managed to make it work yet on so much as a little lizard. It would be years, he guessed, before anyone was bold enough, or stupid enough, to try it on another dragon. And when they did, Theuderic was determined to be as far away as possible.
“I couldn’t help but notice that your long absence prevented you from being with your colleagues when they swore their vows of loyalty to the new heir to the throne,” du Moulin remarked, as innocently as if he were merely commenting on the weather.
“Alas, I was otherwise occupied,” Theuderic felt rather like a mouse being stalked by a cat. “No doubt I shall have to rectify that upon my return to Lutece. I am, of course, a loyal subject of His Royal Majesty and delight in the happy news of His Royal Highness’s recent betrothal.”
“Are not we all?” The chancelier cleared his throat. “Naturally, the Marechal and I both bitterly regret the manner with which our responsibilities similarly stood in the way of our being able to do the same.”
Theuderic’s eyebrows seemed to rise of their own accord, and he couldn’t resist glancing at du Moulin, whose expression didn’t betray the least sign of a guilty conscience. Then again, from what Theuderic had observed in working for the man, he didn’t appear to have a conscience at all. Still, it was good to know he was not the only one with doubts about Etienne-Henri’s fitness for the throne.
“I trust the Haut Conseil always has the interests of crown and throne close to its collective heart.”
A flicker of a smile barely appeared on du Moulin’s lips before it vanished. “Well spoken, Sieur Theuderic. We do indeed.”
The crown and the throne, thought Theuderic. Which was not necessarily the king who wore the one and sat upon the other. “I am, of course, always delighted to be of service to the council.”
“I rejoice to hear it.” The chancelier adroitly changed the subject. “I can’t help but notice, Sieur Theuderic, that there does not appear to be anyone, let alone an invading army, anywhere in the vicinity. Are you certain we are in the location appointed?”