Those Above: The Empty Throne Book 1

by Daniel Polansky

  ‘You’re halfway to a convert,’ Eudokia agreed. ‘I imagine if you were to allow him to see you without your trousers, he’d throw his hand in with us completely.’

  ‘We aren’t that desperate, are we?’

  ‘Not quite yet.’

  Irene had managed to position herself in the corner of their view and, was laughing with one of her less handsome friends, making good use of the long neck the gods had given her. She was there to be looked at, and Konstantinos did not fail to take the opportunity.

  ‘Surely there must be someone at this party you can take home that isn’t my handmaiden?’

  Konstantinos laughed. ‘You miss nothing, Revered Mother. Truly you miss nothing.’

  ‘And don’t forget it,’ she said, only half kidding. ‘She’s not for you, child. Find a nice little lamb to play with, and leave off mating with lions.’

  ‘You think me so easily overcome?’

  ‘I think you’ve a better head for war than you do for women,’ she said. ‘If you so desire a dalliance, forge one with someone too low-born to have any notions of holding on to you permanently.’

  ‘Surely you don’t imagine Irene to be so ambitious?’

  ‘Never underestimate the pretensions of a woman.’

  ‘With your long example to draw upon? Believe me, I have no illusions as to the weakness of the weaker sex.’

  Eudokia saw Galerius approaching from the corner of her eye, gave her stepson a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Be good now,’ she said, moving to intercept the man.

  ‘One of us ought to,’ Konstantinos offered by way of a parting shot.

  ‘Revered Mother,’ Galerius said, dropping so low to kiss her hand that his knees nearly touched the ground. It was clear what Prisca saw in him – the striking eyes, the high cheekbones, the sense of certainty that both had given him. It was equally clear, to Eudokia at least, that this represented the sum total of his quality.

  ‘Galerius,’ she said. ‘Walk with me to the garden, I fancy a moment spent in the air.’

  ‘An honour, a joy,’ he said smoothly, taking her hand and walking out onto the verandah.

  In fact the evening was chill and wet and altogether less than pleasant, and Eudokia supposed if she spent much time in it without a cover then she was apt to catch a cold. But this wouldn’t take long – behind that sweet face was a mind as mercenary as a Chazar money-counter. ‘You seem to have made quite an impression on our dear Prisca,’ she said.

  Galerius’s smile contained more naked avarice than is traditionally found attractive. ‘She’s a magnificent creature,’ he said. ‘Alas …’

  ‘Alas, without position at court she seems rather beyond your reach.’

  ‘As always, Mother, you cut to the heart of it.’

  ‘A problem easily solved. You will stand for Second Consul next month. I am confident with my assistance that the gentlemen of the Brewers’ Association will recognise the good service you can provide for them.’

  Galerius did a reasonable job of pretending that he hadn’t known this was coming. Not excellent, but reasonable. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, Mother,’ he said. ‘I wish only that there were some way I could repay you.’

  ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing,’ Eudokia said, waving away his thanks. ‘To midwife so true a love, to watch it flower and grow unto a second generation, what more happiness could an old woman desire?’

  Galerius would begin to cheat on Prisca almost immediately of course. One could hardly blame him for it – there was nothing else to him but his body and his fatuous charm; without it he was hollow as a gourd. And quickly enough his bride would discover her passion sated, because for all its intensity lust is a sentiment that never rests with one individual for any great length of time. Lying in bed afterwards, sticky with him, Prisca might come to wish she had chosen someone who could entertain her for longer than seven minutes at a stretch. She would turn to her children, or if she proved barren, to drink.

  Everyone would get exactly what they wanted, and be miserable as salt in three years. Well – we dig our holes and then fall into them. All Eudokia had done was provide the shovel. ‘Prisca is a special creature,’ Eudokia said.

  ‘Unique.’

  ‘A woman like that deserves a lifestyle equal to her quality, and a dowry capable of maintaining it.’

  Galerius licked his lips. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Senator Andronikos is the most tight-fisted man in the Senate,’ Eudokia said. ‘And that’s a post that merits competition. Remember to stand firm with him – this is the good of his daughter we are speaking of, after all.’

  ‘Her needs must come first.’

  Eudokia took him in a shallow embrace, held his wrists with her fingers and brought him close. ‘Five thousand solidus,’ she whispered into his ear, ‘and not a penny less.’

  Galerius kissed her hand and went off to find his soon-to-be-betrothed, all but walking on gold dust.

  When he was gone Eudokia sat down in one of the outside chairs, though the weather hardly suited it. But she needed a moment on her own, to rest, free of interruption. There had been a time when she could dance until morning and rise the next day on three hours of sleep, when she could plot the movement of the Commonwealth between glasses of wine and sharp witticisms. But age is as resolute as stone, and Eudokia found herself considering the lateness of the hour, and gauging whether she might not slip away from her own party to her own bed. By the gods, there was nothing so exhausting as play.

  She rejected the notion, of course. After a moment sitting peacefully in the gardens – and not a very long moment, either – she stood and returned to face the tumult, red lips smiling, eyes calm and cold and clear as ice.

  10

  It was the natural way of humankind to give priority of rank to one’s own nations, cities, families, persons. To perceive virtues that an unbiased eye would fail to notice, to see excellence where a neutral party would observe nothing but mediocrity. To imagine your home a palace and your neighbourhood paradise. In Calla’s case, it was not hyperbole. The Roost was the most beautiful city in the world, and the First Rung the most beautiful place in the Roost. These were the simple facts of the matter.

  The First Rung was beautiful throughout the year, in every season and at every time of day. It was beautiful in the late afternoon in high summer, when the trees bowed beneath their blossoms and the Eternal drifted past lazily on their pleasure crafts, through the canals and estuaries stemming out from the Source. It was beautiful in the midwinter evening, at the Nightjar’s hour, when frost gathered along the path, and claws of ice spiralled down from beneath the great arched bridges, and the street lamps sparkled in the heavy mist. But it was most beautiful – again, not a feeling, not an opinion but an unbiased statement of fact – on that day in mid-autumn called the Anamnesis, when the inhabitants of the Roost celebrate the Founding.

  Those lucky people, those happy people, those blessed people who called themselves Roostborn and who resided on the upper Rungs, had no holidays, claimed no sacred rituals, prayed to no gods. Like the Eternal they concerned themselves with the moment, with the smell of wood rot and the feel of the soft breeze on their skin. Calla was in one of the many public gardens that dotted the city, sitting in a red wicker chair and wearing a dress that showed her off to the sun and anyone else who cared to look. She was thinking seriously of getting up and finding a drink – though, as with any such momentous decision, she wanted to give it some consideration before committing.

  It had been a long morning. The Eternal would spend the day congregated around the Source, receiving obeisances from the representatives of the surrounding human nations, recalling, in ritual, when their ancestors had first spread protection over the inferior species that dotted the land. Five men and five women from Salucia, Aeleria and all the other lands south and east would present themselves as offerings, along with the vast spoils of raw ore and foodstuffs that represented the subject land’s true tithing. Preparing the Aubade for such
an important occasion was a stressful and laborious task. Today more than any other was a day for Those Above to preen and primp, to ornament and garnish. For what seemed the first time in decades the Lord’s tailor had proven less than competent, or at least less than exceptional, and they were forced to scuttle about the Lord’s closet – needless to say, the size of a large house – for a headdress that matched the rest of his costume. But it was completed now, the Lord had left on his skiff, and she had the rest of the day to devote to merriment.

  There would be a grand ball held outside the Source once evening fell, everyone from the First Rung and everyone who was anyone from the Second in attendance, dressed in pale imitation of their masters but beautifully none the less. There they would laugh and dance and drink and very likely find themselves walking home with someone they hadn’t known before the evening had begun. In nine months a great many children would be born, a belated autumnal blossom.

  But for the moment Calla was perfectly content to sit quietly and enjoy doing very little. The Jade Terraces were not one of the larger gardens on the First Rung, but they were Calla’s favourite all the same. Nestled where the Canal of Bowed Branches split off from the East Isthmus, overlooking the House of Indefinite Solace and the Mansion of the Gilded Stars, ringed by the towers of more distant estates. The First Rung was made up of the great castles of the Eternal, one for each of the lines and a fair number that had fallen out of use, their owners having died without heirs.

  A group of children from the neighbouring manors were laughing and playing loudly in the small copse of trees nearby. For a child the Anamnesis was a special and extraordinary delight, a time for tasting fine things and being allowed up past one’s bedtime. Calla could vividly recall the first time she had been allowed to attend the evening’s ball, dressed in beautiful if childlike finery, holding her mother’s hand and wondering at all there was to see. It was the only strong memory she had of the woman who had birthed her. The next winter she had fallen asleep one evening and never woken up.

  Calla’s reverie was broken by the pack of children, who had been gradually edging closer to her and now had deigned to involve her directly in their play. The eldest, or at least the tallest, a dark-haired girl with thick shoulders and an imposing mien, stopped in front of her for a moment, making sure she had Calla’s attention before speaking.

  ‘I am the Prime,’ she volunteered.

  ‘How very lovely to see you again, my Lady,’ Calla returned neatly.

  The children all but collapsed in a fit of giggles, the less courageous retreating to the shelter of the trees.

  ‘I am the Prime,’ the girl repeated.

  ‘Quite so,’ Calla agreed.

  ‘Because she is the most beautiful of all the High, and also the wisest. And everyone has to do what I say, because I am so very wise.’ This last seemed to be aimed at the rest of the children first and foremost, and she stayed silent a moment for it to sink in. Pleased with her work, she turned back to Calla. ‘Also I am the strongest and most fierce.’

  A second child, tow-headed and short of a front tooth, shook his head vigorously. ‘The Aubade is the strongest of the Eldest, everyone knows that. And I am the Aubade!’ He had a stick in one hand and he wagged it at Calla. ‘I am the best fighter in the whole world! And I have a horse that is tall as an oak tree, and my sword is as big as … a second oak tree!’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘’tis,’ the young Lord insisted, confident on the point.

  ‘Well then,’ Calla said, rising up from her perch and performing the bow of greeting with a grace and solemnity that few with five fingers on their hand could hope to match. ‘May the sun shine on the both of you this morning, my Lord and Lady.’

  The Prime did her best to return the gesture, though her enthusiasm did not translate to success. Belying the qualities of his namesake, the false Aubade, made nervous by Calla’s movement, turned and ran back to the safety of the trees.

  A hand pulled at Calla’s skirt and she looked down to notice a third child, brown-haired and dark-eyed and a bit plump. ‘I am the Wright,’ he said to her quietly, as if it remained something of a secret. ‘He is the greatest of all of the smiths, and the most clever with his hands, and also, they say, a great musician. I am also clever with my hands, and my mother says that we look alike, the Wright and I. And she works in his kitchens, so she would know.’

  ‘The resemblance,’ Calla acknowledged, ‘is as plain as the beak on a bird.’

  The child nodded and smiled, then turned without saying anything and returned to making piles with dirt.

  ‘I do not think that Tallow looks very much like the Wright at all,’ the child Prime said, with a touch of her namesake’s imperiousness.

  ‘Have you seen the Wright, then?’

  ‘No,’ the girl admitted, ‘but Tallow does not look like what I imagine the Wright looks like.’

  ‘And who is he?’ Calla asked, pointing at a child who had taken up residence in the lower branches of one of the trees and was scowling fiercely down at the rest.

  ‘I am the Shrike,’ he snapped, happy to be noticed, ‘bloody-handed and cruel, and if you are smart you will be very afraid of me. Every night I sup on the eyes of naughty children, and I will do so to you, if you do not eat everything on your plate, and speak respectfully to your parents.’

  ‘I shall take care and do both,’ Calla assured him quickly. But this seemed insufficient assurance to the Shrike, who began to roar from his spot in the tree, as well as making fierce gestures with his hands.

  ‘Ignore him,’ the Prime said. ‘He is not really the Shrike at all, but in fact my little brother, Cinnabar. Mother told him that story last week to try and get him to eat all his peas. But he did not eat his peas,’ the girl lamented, ‘and now he insists that everyone must call him the Shrike, and refuses otherwise to answer. It is getting quite embarrassing.’

  ‘Little brothers can be embarrassing, I have been told with great confidence.’

  ‘Whoever told you so spoke truthfully,’ the Prime said, before running off to engage the rest of the troop in some new diversion.

  Soon Calla left her red wicker chair and strolled towards a wine stall in the west corner of the park. It was little more than a counter beneath a silk awning, but it was perched on a small hill and gave a lovely if understated view of the canal and the southern portion of the First Rung. On other days she had sat there and watched the Eternal float by on their skiffs, intricate things of glass and silver and white wood that looked more like waterfowl than boats. The water was empty now, of course, with all of the Eldest at the Source, but still it was a far from unpleasant vantage point.

  Calla was vaguely friendly with the girl running the stand, knew her by face but not name, and they chatted pleasantly, about what Calla would be wearing to that night’s ball, and what sorts of food might be served to the humans, and what sorts of food might be served to the Wellborn. And then Calla decided to give her full attention to the wine, which was red and strong and a little bit sweet.

  The man at the other end of the counter was olive-skinned, with kinked black hair tied into a knot atop his head. He was not quite handsome – his waistline bulged more than was absolutely necessary, and his cheeks were a bit too close to jowls for Calla’s taste. But his eyes were a very rich brown, and his lips were full as a woman’s and covered a line of even, smiling teeth. He was dressed in the robes of a Chazar, overlapping bands of coloured silk. Gold weighed down his earlobes, and a jewelled chain hung from his neck. At his wrist was an elaborate interlocking bracelet, an expensive passkey that allowed non-natives to ascend above the lowest Rung of the Roost. Calla watched him watching her from the corner of her eye, stretched her neck sideways to show off her profile. How fine a thing it was, she thought then, as she thought often, to be young and handsome enough to call the attention of a stranger.

  She didn’t need to wait very long. When she turned back to look at him he was nearly upon her, but he stopp
ed short and executed a bow of greeting with skill, something even most Roostborn could only accomplish indifferently. ‘May the sun shine long on you this day.’

  ‘And you as well.’

  ‘I am Bulan of Atil, child of Busir the poet.’ He had a rich, deep voice, and his accent was slight and not at all unpleasant.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m unacquainted with the man,’ Calla said, sipping from her flute.

  ‘You’ve missed little,’ Bulan acknowledged. ‘He was a sot, and his rhymes far from noteworthy. His son, however, is a gentleman of distinction and renown.’

  ‘Your brother sounds indeed like a person worth meeting. Is he about somewhere?’

  Bulan smiled, took a seat on the stool next to Calla. ‘Weep for Bulan, as he has no siblings – no brother with whom to take refuge against the rain, no sister to give him succour from the cold.’

  ‘Bulan seems to have done well enough for himself,’ Calla said. Up close he smelled faintly of vetiver.

  ‘Appearances can be deceiving. At the moment, Bulan lies skewered, a broken, hopeless man, who will remain so until he is redeemed from his fate.’

  ‘And whatever could be done to redeem the good man from such misfortune?’

  ‘You might offer him your name.’

  ‘Calla, of the Red Keep.’

  Bulan brought one hand swiftly to his chest, as if overtaken by the moment. ‘Calla of the Red Keep,’ he repeated, ‘how shall I repay your kindness?’

  Calla made as if she were thinking this over. ‘Perhaps another glass?’

  Bulan smiled and signalled towards the bar girl. ‘If you are a member of the Red Keep, then you would serve the Aubade himself.’

  ‘You’re well informed, for a foreigner.’

  ‘It is my business to know things – though in truth, one barely needs ears to have heard of the Aubade. The Roost rings with stories of his accomplishments, with the tales of his great deeds.’

  ‘When you put it that way,’ Calla agreed, ‘it’s not really so impressive at all.’