The soldiers of the Empire stepped between Gideon and his nephew, swords drawn and shields locked. Major Skleros pushed past them to stand before Gideon, looking up into his eyes.
"Oh, shut your bloody trap for once you arrogant bastard," the major snarled. "I'll not have the Butcher of Oretar lecturing me on morals and conduct."
Gideon smiled mockingly. "In recent times, believe it or not, I have undergone something of a reformation of my character. I met a young man upon the road who has reminded me of what it is to be truly noble in one's bearing and behaviour."
"He doesn't seem to have made you any less full of it, or full of yourself for that matter," Major Skleros said. "Now, will you come quietly or do I get to fillet you while resisting arrest?"
"I had no idea you disliked me so much, Major."
"What possessed the Empress to choose such as you?" Major Skleros shook his head. "If she did choose you."
Gideon's eyes flashed dangerously. "I will surrender myself to spare harm to the denizens of this place, but I will not tolerate any insults to Her Majesty."
Narses moved like lightning, driving an armoured fist into Gideon's stomach with enough force to send him doubling over.
"I don't give a fuck what you'll tolerate, you treasonous piece of shit," Major Skleros snarled.
Michael growled wordlessly. "Do that again and every arrow in your archers' quivers will not save you."
"Michael," Gideon's voice was firm, clear and calm. "Put up your swords."
For a moment, Michael said nothing at all. His surprise was so complete he could not comprehend it. He thought he must have misheard. "Gideon..."
"These men are not our enemies," Gideon said.
"They are certainly not your friends," Michael murmured.
"I will not have the servants of the Empire slaying one another," Gideon snapped. "Not while I can prevent it. Put up your blades."
Every eye in the brothel was turned upon him, the soldiers watching him warily, and the prostitutes watching him with fear and alarm. Dido looked as though she expected mass bloodshed to break out at any moment.
Michael bowed his head. "As you command, Lord Gideon." He dropped his swords, they hit the stairs with a clattering sound.
Legionaries were upon him at once, beating him into the ground and pummelling him with their fists so that he felt as though he were caught up in some great wave which tossed and turned him, beat at and battered him, turning him every which way like a piece of meat in want of tenderising.
I would prefer a nobler end, if truth be told, Michael thought as they spewed forth their anger upon him. Do they not have the decency to slit my throat and be done with it?
"For pity's sake, don't hurt him," Gideon shouted, a touch of fear entering his voice.
The Lord Commenae's voice was loaded with scorn. "You murdered my father when he was alone and unarmed and now you ask for mercy? What right by gods or men have you to make such a request?"
Gideon said, "I deserve none from you, but no more does Michael deserve your enmity. He has not wronged you or our family."
"Our family?" the Lord Commenae snarled. "You lost all right to claim yourself a part of the Commenae family when you drove your sword into my father's chest. Still, for the honour of my house, and if only to show that I am a better man than you, I will restrain myself. Hold it, men!"
The beating stopped. Michael took a deep breath, and tried shake some of the blood out of his eye as they hauled him halfway to his feet.
"We will take them both into custody," the Lord Commenae declared. "Gideon Commenae will be executed for his crimes. The gladiator, well, he has threatened officers and soldiers with violence, and will answer for it in his turn. What is your name, Coronim?"
"Michael Sebastian Callistus Dolabella ban Ezekiel," Michael declared proudly.
"Indeed?" the Lord Commenae said. "Search the rest of this place. We did not know about the Coronim, who knows how many other conspirators may yet be in hiding."
Some of the soldiers hustled Michael down the stairs, while others dashed upstairs and started crashing through the rooms. Michael prayed that he would not find his friends or, if they did, would take no note of them, but his hopes were dashed when Jason was dragged from his room and hurled down the staircase beside Michael.
The Lord Commenae frowned. "You...you're the Emperor's bastard, aren't you?"
"I prefer to answer to my given name," Jason said, before the sergeant cuffed him around the back of the head.
"What are you going to do to Jason?" Sophoniba demanded.
"I expect he shall be put to death, as the Novar church decreed before he fled the city," the Lord Commenae replied.
"You can't do that," Sophoniba said. "He hasn't done anything wrong, let him go!"
"He has broken the law," the Lord Commenae replied. "That is not for such as you to question."
"You can't just take him away to die!"
"And are you going to stop me?" the Lord Commenae asked.
Sophoniba looked as though she would like to try, as did many of the others crowded around. But the Lord Commenae had near a hundred and fifty armed and armoured soldiers with him, and he had the wealth and authority of House Commenae hovering invisibly about his shoulders. They knew how untenable, how futile, how bloody any resistance would be. The disparity in power between them was as a lion and a mouse.
"Have you found anyone else?" Major Skleros demanded.
"No sir," one of the soldiers said. "There was a lizard thing in one of the rooms, but it is a whore house. Some people like all sorts."
"A small lizard?" the major asked.
"No sir, he was about man size."
A flicker of distaste crossed Major Skleros face. "All right then. Gather up their things and strip this bastard to the skin. We're moving out."
"Aye sir!"
"Please, my lord," Michael protested. "Please, good lord, I beseech you. Gideon is innocent of any crime. It was Quirian who killed your father and then─"
"Silence!" the Lord Commenae snarled. "Do you think I have gone ten years ignorant of the truth? The facts were plain, my father left his home having vouchsafed to my late mother and his steward that he went to confront this man here upon his treachery. Come morning my father was dead and my uncle fled the city. What else could have happened but that one brother killed the other."
Michael shook his head. "Please, upon your honour as a gentleman, let me prove his innocence."
The Lord Commenae scoffed. "And how do you propose to do that?"
"Single combat," Michael said, drawing himself up proudly as he could while his arms were pinioned behind his back. "I will champion my lord Gideon's honour and meet any chosen champion of yours with blade in hand, let the gods defend the right."
There was a moment of silence, before the Pleasure House erupted in mocking laughter.
"My dear fool," the Lord Commenae said, shaking his head as though the idea were beyond ridiculous. "Where precisely do you suppose we are? Or should I perhaps ask when? Do you suppose this is some poor barbarian climb, where such benighted, savage practices still see the light of day? This is Eternal Pantheia, and we are civilised men. Certainly the progress of justice shall not be allowed to rest upon such low foundations." The young lord smirked. "Take them away."
They stripped Gideon of all his clothes, of all his dignity, and then they bundled all their prisoners outside and began to chivvy them through the capital.
The sun was hot as it shone down upon the streets of Eternal Pantheia, but it was not half so warm to Michael's mind as the burning shame and humiliation which he felt as he was driven through the streets towards the palace.
This is Eternal Pantheia, and we are civilised men, so said the young lord as he threw Michael's honour in his face, so said the men who had mocked him and who now were beating Gideon naked through the streets.
If this is civilisation then I say barbarism would be preferable. He had made an offer in good faith, an offer
based upon ancient custom sanctified by venerable antiquity, and they had laughed. They had not even refused. They had not even considered that he had been in earnest. In this place, chivalry was nothing more than a bad joke.
At that moment, the treatment Gideon was suffering at their hands was enough to make Michael wish for the triumph of Quirian.
Gideon was entirely bare. He had not even been allowed to retain the little dignity of his smallclothes. Everything was exposed to the gaze of the world: his sinewy arms, his lean, muscular chest, his back with the wolf and the winged unicorn banner tattooed upon it, his slender ankles, and his small and purple-headed cock. Stripped of his weapons, of his sable cloak, of his garments of grey, Gideon seemed a small, diminished figure, and yet he bore himself still with a dignity that was nowhere to be seen in his tormentors. Whenever they struck him, he would pick himself up again straight backed and proud. He flinched from no blow offered. He did not cry out for mercy. His one concession to his condition was an attempt to cover his genitals with his hands. He seemed deaf to the way they laughed at him.
"For God's sake have pity," Michael shouted. "An enemy would not deserve such treatment!"
"This enemy does," Lord Commenae growled as his sergeant struck Michael on the back with the flat of his blade.
"Behold!" the short, ill-favoured major yelled to the crowds who had come to gawk at their progress. "Behold the mighty Gideon Commenae, First Sword of the Empire!"
"Make way for the First Sword!" some of the soldiers jeered, the faces of the defenders of the Empire transforming before Michael's eyes into monstrous caricature.
"Please my lord," Michael pleaded. "I beg you as a gentleman, have mercy. Allow him his dignity."
This time the Lord Commenae did not even answer him, merely looked away as his man struck Michael about the head.
The common people of the city were laughing too, now, pointing and laughing, whooping and catcalling as Gideon was driven past them with a flurry of whips and blows. And it was that, to be laughed at and degraded by those he had tried to serve, guard and defend, that seemed to break something inside of Gideon. His back bent, his shoulders slumping forwards, his head bowing to the ground. Michael's heart chilled at the sight. To watch so great a man, the man he loved so dear, his Gideon Commenae, broken not by mortal wounds, by the cunning and skill of a worthy foe, by the wear of battle or the malice of Quirian, but by the laughter of these plebeian pygmies who were as far beneath him as molluscs were beneath the majesty of Turo, it was a sight brought a tear to his eye.
Michael bared his teeth, and would have flung himself upon the Lord Commenae had his captors not held him back. "This is not honour! This is not nobility and you are no true gentleman! You are nothing but another wealthy pleb who has confused gold with class! You say your father died at Gideon's hands, but you cannot be the scion of House Commenae, rather your mother cuckolded the last lord with some greasy publican while her husband─" he was silenced by a winding blow to the stomach that had him doubled over. Jason had to grab his arm to help him keep walking.
"Will you shut up before they decided to kill you?" Jason hissed.
"They cannot get away with treating Gideon this way," Michael said.
"Each man must reap what he sows," Jason replied.
They were pelting Gideon with objects now. Rotten fruit, small stones, mud, horse manure, dog turd. Gideon tried to endure it without flinching, yet the tokens of the mob's disdain were harder for his pride to bear than his martial skill had borne the slings and arrows of barbarian foemen, and with each tomato, rock or dropping to strike him Michael saw Gideon's heart shatter into ever smaller pieces, saw his pride shrink, saw him become a smaller man. They might not hurt him, but they were killing Gideon before Michael's very eyes.
"Stop it," Michael implored them, trying to reach Gideon against the opposition of his captors. "Please, all of you. For the love of God, for the Empress' sake, take pity on him. Please, stop it!"
Someone loosed a dog on Gideon, a small, brown, yapping creature who bit at Gideon's leg again and again. Gideon did not cry out, he tried to keep walking as though he did not notice, but the little beast would not leave him be, kept biting and biting, Michael was too far away to stop it, and eventually Gideon collapsed onto his knees, his leg bleeding. He sat there in the middle of the street, while the little dog barked and laughter hurled around him, looking like a mighty warship dragged up onto the beach to lie there unused, unwanted, while her beams rotted and her mast fell down and all her glories and her greatness were devoured by rapacious insects.
They cuffed at Gideon's head, he did not rise. They cursed him and beat at him, he did not rise. They tried to pull him up, he did not rise. He remained where he was, while the soldiers struck him and the dog worried him.
Until the little beast was shot in the eye and died instantly.
"Thank you very much, Guardsman Memmio. Please shoot the next person to throw something."
The voice was that of a young lady, high and melodious; yet it was filled with an imperious coldness that Michael associated with the Empress Aegea. He looked to see where both voice and arrow had come from.
Another company of armed men had blocked the street, barring the way of the Lord Commenae's men. These men wore purple uniforms, not blue, and they carried spears as well as swords. In their midst, mounted upon a white horse, was a beautiful young lady. If he had tried to imagine what the Empress Aegea had looked like as a young girl, Michel would have imagined the lady before him. Her face was fair and soft, her skin pale, her eyes a brilliant purple. Purple too her hair, which was partly pinned in a bun above her head before being allowed to fall in a long, cascading ponytail down her back. A silver diadem rested lightly on top of her purple locks. Her gown was black, with a white sash tied around her waist, and a black cloak lay about her shoulders. A pair of white gloves concealed her hands from view.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. "Lord Commenae? Major Skleros?"
The Lord Commenae dismounted from his horse and bowed. "Your Highness, this is─"
"I know who this is," Her Highness cut him off, her voice chill as the frosts of winter. "My question is why you have exposed him to humiliation in such a manner. Are you celebrating your triumph in some fashion I am not aware of?"
Major Skleros growled, "Your Highness, this man is a traitor─"
"He is the First Sword of the Empire, anointed by Divine Aegea herself, my ancestor, your Empress in case you have forgotten," Her Highness shouted. "If you truly believe you have the right to treat my mother's foremost servant so, then perhaps the church of the Novar would be a better place for you, Major Skleros, as you seem to have little regard for the will of Aegea the divine. I am very disappointed in both of you. In all of you. You are dismissed, my own guardsmen will see these prisoners the rest of the way to the palace."
Major Skleros looked both confused and crestfallen. "Highness, I don't─"
"I was not asking your permission, Major Skleros, nor that of the Lord Commenae," Her Highness snarled. "I am a princess of the line of Aegea and Panthus, which means that when I command, you obey! Or have you forgotten obedience completely in the flush of your victory over three men?"
Major Skleros bowed his head. "Forgive me, Your Highness."
"Forgiveness must be earned," Her Highness said with a voice like an icy blade. "Now get out of my sight."
They beat a hasty retreat with all their soldiery as the princess' guards moved to surround the three prisoners, shielding them from any further malice of the crowd.
The princess dismounted smoothly, landing gracefully and making her way towards them with such grace and elegance she did not seem to be walking so much as gliding along the stone like a stately vessel upon the water. Majesty, authority, dignity, strength, compassion, all of these things radiated from the princess like the sun giving light upon the world. Indeed she seemed to give off light too, to be the sun inside that little stretch of road that becam
e the whole world through force of the princess' will.
Michael dropped to one knee, not merely from courtesy, but because attempting to deny her right to his obeisance would have been like trying to deny the rising sun at dawn.
"Have the children of the Empire truly sunk so low?" Her Highness demanded of the mob. "Shame upon you all, your ancestors would weep to see what their descendants have become."
The princess stood before Gideon, whose head was still bowed before her. The crowds had fallen silent, the people dropping to their knees in the presence of royalty. In a single motion, the princess took off her cloak and draped it around Gideon's shoulders. He looked up at her, his green eyes moist. The princess took off the glove from her right hand and brushed her fingers against his cheek.
"Well met, most faithful son of the Empire," the princess murmured. "You have the touch of Aegea upon you so strongly. You cannot imagine how I envy you that. They call you traitor, but I believe that you serve my mother still."
"To my last breath, your highness," Gideon murmured.
"Well said," the princess said. "I am sorry for your suffering. Rest now a moment, and do not be afraid." She walked past him, smiling fondly at Jason. "Brother, I am glad to see you again."
Jason seemed to be in some part unaffected by the princess' spell, yet even he was on one knee and looking a little awestruck. "Sister, I wish the circumstances were less unhappy."
"So do I. Do you still deny the Divine Empress, and practice the religion of the dead gods?"
"I do."
"It is nice to see you are still a man of principle, however misguided those principles may be," the princess said. "I shall do what I can to stand between you and Antiochus, for father's sake." She turned to Michael, her purple eyes widening and her brow furrowing a little. She placed her hand delicately upon his forehead. "You have been touched by the Empress as well."
Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2) Page 26