"Lady Commenae," she said, with cool courtesy. "What an unexpected pleasure."
The Lady Commenae advanced to within ten paces of where Miranda sat. "I am glad that you decided to recieve me, Filia Callistus."
She does not call me Commander. I wonder what that means. Miranda smiled. "Please, my lady, sit down. Would you like something to drink? Something to eat?"
"No refreshments, thank you, though I will take a seat," Lady Commenae said, seating herself down opposite Miranda and Octavia. "All of my retainers are waiting outside your gates, surely you do not think that you need guards to defend yourself from me?"
"Captain Posci and Captain Dalassena are my staff officers," Miranda replied. "They are here in case I have need of them."
Lady Commenae's eyebrows rose. "Indeed. I would say that I'm sure you know what you're doing, but that wouldn't be quite true."
Miranda gazed at her, but said nothing.
The Lady Commenae met her gaze. "Helen tells me you appreciate bluntness and honesty. Very well. I shall be blunt: the army will not have you, Filia."
"The army does not have a choice," Miranda replied. "The Emperor-"
"Is no more a soldier than you are," Lady Commenae said. "He has no right to appoint you to this position or to dispose of the legions as he will."
Miranda leaned back in her seat. "Is he not the ruler of this nation?"
"He is, and we are all his loyal subjects," the Lady Commenae replied smoothly. "But he is not of the army. He does not know the army. He has no claim upon the loyalty of the army save for the oaths which the men swear; and they do not swear to acknowledge his every foolish decision. And he has no power to compel the obedience of the legions against their will."
"Then why is he on the throne?" Miranda asked. "Why did your father not depose him and rule the Empire himself, if the Emperor is so powerless against the Commander?"
"Because the army is not the tool of any one man's ambition, not even a Commander so beloved as my father was," Lady Commenae said. "He would not have been so beloved if the men had thought that he was spending their blood to his own purposes. The Imperial Army answers to itself, and it will not have you."
"Because I am not a soldier?"
"Because you are not one of them," the Lady Commenae said.
Miranda was silent for a moment. "You are an odd messenger to be bearing this news, Lady Commenae."
"Had my husband borne this message, or any other officer, then it would have been an acknowledgement of your position, and that you will not have," she said. "I can speak to you without acknowledging anything."
Miranda nodded. "You say the army will not have me. Yet it seems to me that there has scarce been time for the whole army to respond, dispersed as it is."
"True enough, that at present it is only the legions currently encamped around the city that have spoken," Lady Commenae said. "But they have spoken loud and clear, and if you are imagining that the other brigades will see things differently then you are only betraying the ignorance that makes you unfit to lead these men.
"It is true that the various units of the army do not always see eye to eye. They each have their own traditions, traditions that only grow further apart when they are separated by great distance. The western legions favour Dux Nikephorus to succeed my father; the Ne'Arin army is for Dux Belisarius. But they will all unite against you if you try to impose yourself upon them. You have no allies in the army, you have no support. You have only a piece of paper and the Emperor's will, and it is not enough."
"If the army will not obey me or His Majesty then perhaps I will make a new army that will," Miranda said.
Lady Commenae smiled. "I understand that my sister already warned you of the likely consequences if you chose to corner us with no escape. I can only reiterate that warning to you, Filia."
Miranda held her gaze. "Why do you all fear me so much? Why do you all hate me so much? I am not proposing to take away your wealth, to strip from you your lives of luxury. I do not suggest that you be stripped of all your ancient titles."
"Yet who knows what will follow if the Empire should change so radically as you wish," Lady Commenae replied. "You would start us on a steep slope and even you cannot see the bottom. And without our connections to the army, without an army to lead, without new victories to burnish up the old triumphs that justify our wealth and status, then what would we be? We would be no better than the publicani; worse in fact, for we would not even have trades to occupy us. You would have us gleefully march through the doorway and into the dark with only your word there are no monsters waiting to eat us on the other side."
"It may be that I am right," Miranda murmured.
"That may be, but that is hardly the point, is it?" Lady Commenae said. "You cannot expect us to sit idle while you tie us up and sell us."
"You do not wish to be sold?" Miranda smiled. "How fortunate then that you were not born a slave, like the maid who had to spend Turo knows how many hours arranging your hair."
"My handmaidens are free."
"How enlightened of you," Miranda said flatly. "The fact remains that you owe everything to your birth and now you whine that that may not be worth as much as you thought it was."
Lady Commenae laughed. "You criticise us for owing everything to our birth? Gods in the heavenvault, if you were born without the magic of your ancestors you would be lucky to be scrubbing pots instead of receiving commissions from the Emperor!" She sighed. "All of this is irrelevant, Filia Callistus. The army will not follow you though you be born ever so high or ever so low. It does not know you, and the army must be led by one of its own. No outsider can hope to understand it, let alone master it. That, more than any dislike that Alexius or his friends may have for you, is why you cannot hold the office you have been given."
"Really?" Miranda said, her tone expressing her scepticism about that.
Lady Commenae nodded. "My husband commands the Seventh Legion Commena Eudora Valeria Victrix. Do you know what that name means?"
"I think you know that I do not."
"The Seventh Legion was, as the name suggests, the seventh legion to be raised by the Empire, during the time when the Empress Aegea yet lived and drove her first campaigns against the Daric and Tarquinian Leagues," the Lady Commenae said. "It was raised by the first Lord Commenae, and so it bears his name. At the battle of Eudora, when Aegea and the lords Commenae and Achates crushed the combined strength of the Daric League, the Tarquinians and the Argonians, the Seventh Legion engaged and destroyed the Argonian Epilektoi, their crack troops. For their part in that triumph, and for their many other acts of valour under the eyes of Aegea and her First Sword, the legion was given the title of Valeria Victrix, which means 'valiant and victorious' in old Ausonian. And each of the eighty legions of the army, those that have earned enough renown to take a name, has a similar story attached to their titles, though few have histories quite so old or storied as the Seventh. How can you command the army and not understand such things?
"What do you know of the legions and the alae? What do you know of the Desert Gates or the Ironlands or the Lavissar frontier? What do you know of our Triazican client states?"
"I can learn all those things," Miranda said.
"But you cannot suffer as the men have suffered," Lady Commenae said. "You have not endured forced marches through day and night, you have not stood sentry in the cold, you have not bled in battle."
"Nor have you," Miranda remarked.
Lady Commenae chuckled. "True enough. But I am not trying to become Commander of the Army. I urge you to resign now, quietly, before this quarrel between the palace and the camp becomes public knowledge."
"And I urge the army to bend the knee before it becomes irrelevant," Miranda said.
Lady Commenae stood up. "If that is your last word-"
"It is," Miranda said.
"Then it seems that I have wasted a journey," Lady Commenae said. "Good day, Filia."
"Good day, Lady Commenae,"
Miranda replied. "Give my regards to your husband, my subordinate."
"Does it really mean that much to you?" Octavia asked, as they sat once more in Miranda's tower room, the sun setting over Eternal Pantheia, batching the city in an orange glow.
"What?" Miranda asked.
"Being Commander of the Army," Octavia said. "You really didn't want to give in to Lady Commenae, did you?"
"I meant what I said," Miranda said. "I bear the patricians no ill will. But I won't walk away, I cannot. So many things are wrong with this country, to leave now would be...wrong."
Octavia nodded. "All the same, I think you want everyone have to take orders from you."
Miranda looked at her. "That is not true."
Octavia gave Miranda a knowing look. "You don't like it when people don't take you seriously, do you?"
"That...is not the same thing."
Octavia giggled.
"All right, maybe I do have a bit of a proud streak," Miranda said. "Actually, no I don't, it isn't pride if it's well founded. I simply know my own worth, and there isn't anything wrong with wanting other people to know it too. There's nothing good about being underestimated your whole life."
"No," Octavia agreed quietly. "No, there isn't."
"Exactly," Miranda said. "If she had come with better arguments, then perhaps I would have listened. But to tell me that I am not good enough to command the Imperial Army...who does she think she is?"
"She thinks she's the Lady Commenae," Octavia said, as if that explained everything. To the Lady Commenae it probably did. "So, how is being Commander of the Army so far?"
"Well, one good thing about their obstinate refusal to acknowledge me is that there isn't a lot of work to do yet in terms of moving soldiers around," Miranda said. "A lot of paperwork, though. Did you know that the Army owns three dozen warehouses up and down this city, for storing everything from garum to wine for any troops that might be in or near the city?"
"That might come in useful," Octavia said. "If you want somewhere to stash anything. Or anyone."
The door opened and Metella Kardia walked in, her face a dispassionate mask. "Lord Quirian summons you to his presence." Her icy eyes darted towards Octavia. "Alone."
Octavia glanced at Miranda. "Are you going to be okay?"
"I'm sure he isn't going to kill me." Miranda stood up. "I hope Lord Quirian does not expect me to be especially presentable."
"I doubt it," Metella said, her voice calm, quiet and just a little cold. "This shouldn't take long."
Metella led the way down the stairs, setting a slow pace that Miranda did not struggle to follow. When they were both down from the tower, and a couple of corridors away from it, Metella rounded on Miranda sharply, like a wild boar turning at bay during a hunt.
"May I ask what your intentions are regarding Octavia?" Metella demanded.
Miranda blinked as she backed away a few paces. "My intentions?"
"I cannot claim to be Octavia's friend," Metella said. "But she is of the Lost, my sister in Lord Father's service, and for that reason I would rather not see her hurt. Since hurt is inevitable now, however, I would learn what you intend to do. You had better be prepared to do all you can to mitigate her pain."
"Her pain?" Miranda demanded. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play coy with me," Metella's voice was sharp as a cold snap. "She is not your intellectual equal, she will not, cannot hold your interest forever. You have filled her head with thoughts of love and undying devotion, but it can not be long now before you cast her aside. I don't want to see her heart broken, so you are going to tell me how you intend to stop it."
Miranda scowled. "And what makes you think I am the kind of person who would abandon her lover simply for not being my intellectual equal?"
"You seem the type," Metella said.
Miranda hit her, the sound of the slap echoing down the corridors. The blow barely moved Metella's face, but it did cause those ice cold eyes to widen minutely with surprise.
"You do not know me," Miranda hissed. "How dare you? How...dare you? Do you imagine that I am the sort of person who routinely engages in affairs, leads on her partners, and then discards them? Do you imagine that I toy with the emotions of others as little girls toy with dolls? Do you think that I am such a monster?
"Octavia may not be as clever as I am. What does it matter? There is more to a person than their wits, there is more to life than knowledge, there is more to happiness than being intelligent. There is more to love than being able to match intellect with your lover. There is kindness and devotion and compassion and humour and...and feeling in your heart that you have found the better part of yourself. Octavia makes me happy. I hope that I make her happy. Compared to that, her intelligence means nothing to me. And shame on you for talking about her this way; you belittle her more than I ever have."
Metella was silent for a moment. "You are right. I apologise."
"Apology accepted," Miranda huffed. "And...thank you for taking care of Felix. He told me a little of what you did for him."
Metella nodded. "We should keep moving. It would not do to keep Lord Father waiting."
She led her through the glistening corridors into the darker parts of Quirian's grand home, until she had brought her to Quirian's private apartments, which were fronted by an iron door decorated with, if Miranda was not much mistaken, a frieze of Aurelia defeating the Eldest One.
"Filia Miranda, how delightful to see you again," Quirian called from inside, where he sat upon a reclining couch, dressed in a crisp white toga. "Thank you, Metella, for bringing her here. You never fail to do what is asked of you. Almost never."
Metella bowed. "Lord Father."
"Come in, my dear, come in." Quirian gestured imperiously. Metella stood aside as Miranda walked inside a room of spotless white, and seated herself upon a velvet couch. She did not recline, for she had never acquired the habit and found the posture uncomfortable, but sat upright, her stiffness a studied contrast to Lord Quirian's languor.
"Commander Callistus, my, my you have come up in the world. I remember when you came to me, a Coronim maid with no home and few possessions. And now look how exalted you are. I want you to know, Filia, how proud I am of you."
"Have you anything to be proud of?" Miranda said.
"Perhaps not," Quirian confessed. "But surely you would not deny me a moment's pleasure at how far you have come under my patronage. It is precisely what I have hoped for, and yet..."
"And yet?" Miranda asked.
"When you first came to me I told you that the Empire stood upon the precipice of a cataclysm. I also told you that I believe that you, and you alone, could save this country. I lied," Quirian said. "I did not bring you to Eternal Pantheia to be the Empire's salvation but to be its judge."
"Its judge?" Miranda murmured. "I don't understand."
"The time is near at hand, I think, when you will have to make a choice," Quirian continued. "Before you do, I want you to know everything, to understand everything. And so I must tell you everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything about me," Quirian said. "Everything about my motives, everything about why I brought you here, everything about the Empire. When I am done, you will have all the knowledge you require to reach an informed decision. I am comfortable that you will make the right one."
Miranda said, "I have for some time doubted that you would serve someone so stupid as Prince Antiochus. Do you seek the throne for yourself?"
"Perish the thought, even the idea is loathsome to me," Quirian said. "Even playing the part of an Imperial lord makes me want to wretch. To be Emperor would be worse than death."
"Playing the part?" Miranda said. "Then you are a charlatan, as Princess Romana believes?"
Quirian smiled. "When the Commenae first came to Eternal Pantheia they were beggars. They have tried very hard to bury their family history before they became patricians, but the truth for those who wish to see it is that the earliest recorded
Commenae was the elder son of a Coronim family who deserted the Firstborn out of cowardice and fled his home with nothing but the clothes on his back. From there, they became money lenders, and built their wealth upon usury. It was with that wealth that they purchased for one of their sons a commission in the Prince's Guard. And the rest is a history of blood and death. Tell me, Filia Miranda, what is the real difference between me calling myself a lord and Alexius Commenae doing exactly the same thing?"
"According to the law, he really is a lord," Miranda replied.
"The Empire's law," Quirian said derisively.
Miranda did not contest that. "If you are not a lord of the Empire, then who are you?"
Quirian leaned back, his voice lugubrious. "I have told you, Filia, that you are the descendant of Aurelia, the White Champion. Do you know how the High Queen fell, and the descendants of Aurelia became maligned and despised?"
Miranda nodded. "I am no great enthusiast for tales of old, but I remember enough."
"Good," Quirian murmured. "In time, the descendants of Aurelia multiplied, gathered together, and founded a city in Deucalia: Aureliana. A wondrous place, Filia, truly a marvel to behold. The whole city gleamed in white, a shining city of beauty unsurpassed in all the world. Gone for so long, yet it lives on still within my memory."
"Your memory," Miranda whispered. "You cannot be so old."
"Can I not?" Quirian said. "That comes as a great surprise to me, Filia. I am the last of the Aurelians, the last child born in that city who yet survives. I have purchased immortality as the great sages of Lavissar do, by consuming the hearts of lesser men, selling my soul to extend the life of my body."
Miranda frowned. "You have...killed men, to prolong your own life."
Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2) Page 18