Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2)

by Frances Smith

  Michael could barely bring himself to speak in her presence, but managed to stumble out a few words. "I have had the honour, Your Highness."

  "Please, give me your name, sir," the princess asked.

  Michael swallowed. "Michael Sebastian Callistus Dolabella ban Ezekiel, of Corona province, at Your Highness' service." And with every reserve of audacity that remained to him he kissed her delicate hand.

  The princess chuckled. "And I am the Princess Romana of the line of Aegea and Panthus, and your service is accepted, courteous sir. Do you serve the Divine Empress?"

  "As best I can, Highness," Michael said. "She gave me a gift I can never repay."

  "All those who have stood in the Empress' presence are of great interest to me," Princess Romana said. "We shall speak of this, I promise. But not here, not now..." she sighed. "Now I must take you to the palace, the streets would no longer be safe for you, I think." She walked back to Gideon. "Lord Gideon, are your services to the Empire complete?"

  Gideon glanced at Michael. His voice was choked as he said, "Almost, Highness, but not quite yet."

  "Then you must rise, and complete your quest," Romana said. "Arise, son of the Empire, for the battle is not yet won."

  Gideon pushed himself to his feet as best he could, but his dog-assailed leg faltered beneath him.

  "Will someone help the Empire's First Sword on his march?" Romana asked, not naming names but looking at Michael.

  Michael sprang forward, taking Gideon's arm over his shoulder and his weight upon himself. "I have you, Gideon. Fear not. Fear nothing at all, I am beside you now."

  Gideon smiled fondly, but said nothing.

  "Follow, follow on," Romana said. "For the Empress Divine has yet some destiny for you to fulfil."

  XII

  With A Glad Smile And a High Heart

  Miranda heard the footsteps pounding on the stairs, then jumped a little as Ascanius flung the door open and burst inside, Julian following after him.

  "You might want to come quick, sir," Ascanius said. "We've got trouble."

  Miranda stood up, concern making her deaf to the pain in her leg. "What's going on? Did you meet with Major Skleros?"

  Julian nodded. "We met him yesterday. And he took the bait."

  "Then what's wrong?" Miranda asked.

  "Your brother drew swords against the Lord Commenae and his men," Ascanius said. "They hauled him off alongside Gideon and the Emperor's little bastard boy."

  "Oh gods no," Miranda moaned, turning away and stumping towards the window. "I'm such an idiot! Idiot!"

  "You didn't know what would happen," Octavia murmured.

  "I bloody well should have done," Miranda shouted. "Who knows that fool better than I?" How stupid of me. How could I possibly have imagined that this would not turn out badly. What else was Michael going to do? She sighed. "I'm sorry, Octavia."

  "It doesn't matter," Octavia said, leaping up from the bed and taking Miranda in a half embrace, her head resting on Miranda's shoulder. "All that matters is what you do now."

  Miranda smiled. "Thank you." She looked at Ascanius and Julian. "Where is he now?"

  "They're at the palace," Ascanius said.

  Miranda frowned. "The palace?"

  "Princess Romana took them into her custody," Julian explained. "She has them confined, for now. I don't know how long that will last though, the word is that the Lord Commenae is petitioning to have Gideon Commenae released into his charge pending his execution."

  "How can there be an execution when there hasn't been a trial yet?" Miranda asked.

  "He was tried in his absence, ten years ago," Ascanius explained. "Found guilty and sentenced to death. Same with the bastard."

  "And Michael?" Miranda said. "What will become of him?"

  Julian's face assumed a pensive expression. "Threatening violence, taking up arms against the Empire's representatives, attempting to pervert the course of justice, aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice, aiding and abetting a man under a death sentence...it doesn't look good. He'll hang, like as not."

  "I'd say more not than like," Ascanius said. "After all, he still has you in his corner."

  "Me," Miranda murmured. "What can I-"

  "What can you do?" Ascanius smirked. "Gods save us all, love, what can't you do for him?"

  "The law-"

  "The Emperor's law," Ascanius said. "You are the Emperor's friend. You're closer to the Empress than any person in the city except her husband. Prince Antiochus and Princess Romana both favour you. And you're the Commander of the Army, whether the likes of the Lord Commenae like it or not. If you can't get your brother out of a scrape with the law, then who can?"

  Miranda was silent for a moment, and once again she cursed herself for her stupidity. She had mishandled this whole business from the first, and might have mishandled it further still, her concern for Michael robbing her of all the knowledge she had acquired while in this city. She had gone about this wrong from the beginning, ignoring the power she had as Commander of the Army in favour of employing Ascanius and Julian to engage in cloak and dagger shenanigans. She ought to have had Michael summoned to her presence, taken into her custody by loyal troops, if she could find any. It would, at least, have been a safer course than trying to manipulate the Lord Commenae and Major Skleros.

  She would not make that mistake again. She would use her power, her influence, as everyone else in the city and the court used every scrap of both that they possessed.

  What is a vote, Quirian had asked her, compared to a Prince's ear? Miranda was about to find out.

  "Does Felix know?" she asked. "About Michael?"

  "I don't know," Ascanius said.

  "Julian, will you go tell him? Then fetch my litter, we're going to the palace."

  "What will you do when we get there?" Octavia asked.

  "Everything in my power," Miranda replied.

  Michael had been separated from the others, for the moment, and taken to a small room with empty shelves that he guessed might have been a dungeon pantry once, and manacled to the floor while Princess Romana's guards, lining the walls like the produce which might once have filled this storeroom, watched him keenly.

  The Princess herself stood before him, looking down upon him curiously. Michael could still not quite believe how fair she was, how iron her eyes and yet at the same time how warm, how she gave light even in this dark place.

  This is true nobility. Even if even the noble line of House Commenae has fallen into darkness, she stays true. Upon this lady do all the hopes of the Empire rest for its salvation.

  "I assure you that your friends are quite safe, for now," the princess said. "I have sent for fresh clothes for the First Sword. You are all under my protection, for as long as my name has power in this place."

  "You have my gratitude, your highness, beyond my power to repay," Michael murmured.

  "Oh, I'm sure we'll find some way for you to repay, not me perhaps, but the Empire certainly. You may sit, if you wish," Romana offered, gesturing to a chair which she had had placed behind him.

  "In the presence of a lady I would prefer to stand," Michael replied.

  "The famous Coronim gallantry?"

  Michael's eyebrows rose. "Most people in this city call us Coronans."

  "Most people are not princesses of the line of Aegea," Romana replied. "A princess should know - must know - every detail of her realm. I know that they grow rice in the Iba valley, I know that they mine tin outside of Thesos, I know that in rural Tarquinia young girls braid their hair once they are engaged to be wed, and I know that the ban Ezekiel of the Coronim is famous for its steadfast loyalty; when the Firstborn of all the bans were assembled for battle then the ban Ezekiel strength would form the centre, fighting dismounted while the cavalry of the ban Jonathon turned the enemy flank."

  Michael smiled. "Your highness' knowledge of my people is quite prodigious."

  "For a gentile," Romana said lightly.

  Michael shook his head
. "Even for one of the Coronim in these days...far too much of our history and tradition has been lost."

  "You are not alone in that," Romana murmured. "The old traditions die out everywhere. Did you know that the Empress Aegea had a Coronim swordbearer? His valour was considered prodigious, and when Aeneas compiled the first code of Imperial laws the law establishing the Aegean Faith made explicit exception for his mother's Coronan servant to continue worshipping Turo."

  "I had no idea," Michael murmured. "And yet, now that I know, it seems rather fitting."

  "It does, doesn't it? Michael Sebastian Callistus Dolabella ban Ezekiel," Romana smiled. "A freedman then? Once slave to a master by the name of Dolabella?"

  "Indeed, Highness," Michael said. "Jonathon Dolabella, owner of the finest gladiators in all Corona province."

  "You are a gladiator then," Romana said. "I suppose that is why the First Sword took an interest in you."

  "I should like to think so, Your Highness, for I was a very good gladiator indeed if you will forgive the lack of modesty."

  "And you have the touch of Aegea upon you," Romana whispered. "How I envy you, Filius Michael. You cannot conceive of how desperately I have longed to stand in my ancestor's shadow. Tell me of her, all that you recall. How did you come to meet her?"

  Michael smiled wryly. "I died, Your Highness."

  Romana looked genuinely surprised. "You died?"

  "Of foolishness, highness, and prideful despair. She brought me to her, to a memory of the field of Eudora where she holds court."

  "What was she like?"

  Michael thought for a moment. "Majestic. Regal. Strong. Powerful. She was the ideal of a warrior prince, the perfect monarch, the very model of a leader of men."

  "A history could have told me so much," Romana said.

  "Whatever has been written of her I am sure it does he great discredit, for no words could capture the feelings that she inspired by her very presence. I have no doubt that on the battlefield her presence was worth ten thousand swords for the extra spirit she put into the hearts of her legionaries without having to speak a word," Michael frowned. "In many ways, Highness, you have her look almost exactly, making allowances for your youth."

  Romana blinked, hesitating for a moment, trying to hide the blush upon her cheeks. "You flatter me, Filius."

  "True gentlemen never flatter falsely, highness, they merely dress the truth in the best possible terms."

  Romana chuckled. "What did the Empress want with you?"

  "To enumerate long list of my sins, highness," Michael said with another wry smile. "She pointed out to me what I should have recognised for myself had I not been so blinded to my own vices: how my pretences of selflessness and humility concealed a monstrous vanity and arrogance. How I had harmed my dear friends and comrades. How I had neglected the wellbeing of my kin. How I had disobeyed the strictures I claimed to hold dear. And yet, even though she saw me more clearly than any living man, she nevertheless saw in me something worth saving."

  Romana nodded. "The Divine Empress was far famed for her ability to draw out the best from all those who served her: to turn immoral dissolutes into heroes, to turn enemies into friends, to turn wretched beggars into proud and upright citizens."

  "She has been aided greatly with me by Gideon," Michael pointed out. "But, by being blunt, she helped me more than a thousand considerate councillors might have done. And, having extracted from me my word of honour that I would defend Gideon and our other allies to the best of my ability, she sent me back into the world of the living to rejoin the battle."

  "The battle," Romana murmured. "And who is the enemy against whom you strive?"

  "Quirian of Aureliana, Highness," Michael said. "A foe from the Empire's earlier days who has lived for his revenge through brutal magic."

  "Quirian," Romana said. "Lord Quirian, my brother's councillor?"

  Michael nodded. "The very same, your Highness."

  "I always knew that there was something not quite right about that man," Romana said. "I thought he was merely shamming nobility but this...an Aurelian? What does he want? To use your sister's golems against us?"

  “No, your highness,” Michael confessed. “Quirian has a grander design by far, one involving my sister’s magic, I fear. He claims that he means to give her a free choice in the matter, but…”

  "I would believe much of Pater Quirian, but I do not believe he would ever countenance giving up with his designs unfulfilled," Romana murmured. "Whatever choice he has placed before Filia Miranda he means to make her decision for her, I am certain of it. Filius Michael, your sister and I have had many interesting conversations, and I must confess she is a headstrong woman who refuses to heed any voice that does not match her own exactly. At any rate she has not heeded mine. Will you speak to her, and turn her from this reckless course of collaboration with an enemy of the Empire?"

  Michael looked down at his feet. "I will do my best, Your Highness, but I fear that Miranda will not heed my words. The only advice that I can give you, ma'am, is this: keep careful watch upon Miranda and Quirian, and be wary of how she sees this country, for Quirian seeks to poison her thoughts against the Empire's existence, and see if you cannot obtain the Novar blade Semper Fidelis, which Quirian took from the ruins of Aureliana and has in his possession. With it, he could kill Miranda if he chose and take her power for himself to use against the Empire."

  Romana did not question, she nodded, looking away from him as she spoke to herself. "I will give some thought to how the blade may be acquired. My own servants are ill-suited for such a task, but perhaps Helen Manzikes might be induced to participate in the venture." Romana returned her gaze to Michael. This time, there was pity in her eyes. "I believe you when you say that Quirian is dangerous. I believe you when you say that something must be done. Yet I do not have the power to strike him down, or put him in chains where he should be in place of you. I must work in the shadows for now, with discretion and care. Soon even that may be denied to me. I told you that you were under my protection, yet such is the ire my brothers' bear me that I may soon be without the power to protect anyone. It is not within my authority to release you back onto the streets, and it may be that I will not be able to protect you from the Lord Commenae's wrath and the penalties he wishes to impose upon you."

  "Penalties, highness?" Michael asked.

  Princess Romana's expression was grave. "Jason is condemned to death by burning, for heresy against the Novar Church. Gideon Commenae was tried in absence and found guilty of fratricide. The penalty for such is to be sewn into a sack with a dog, a snake and a monkey and thrown into the nearest river."

  "Such punishment would be barbaric when practiced on a guilty man," Michael protested. "Is there no mercy? Has the quality of compassion boiled away in the heat of the sun till only shrivelled hate remains?"

  "Often those who are most in need of compassion are those who display the least," Romana murmured. "I fear that is true for the Empire as well, now. It is not in my power to mitigate the sentences."

  "Then there is nothing that can be done?" Michael asked softly.

  Romana began inspecting her nails. "Neither of my brothers, the man who sits upon the throne or the one who wishes that he did, bothered to read the reports of the unrest in Corona in any great detail. I did, I found them fascinating. In particular, a report of the abortive siege of Davidheyr by the Crimson Rose. The commanding officer of the Thirty Fifth legion, along with various witnesses great and small, reported that a naiad knight, a servant of the sea-god Turo, took a leading part in the defence, alongside a retired army officer, a sorcerer, and a gladiator who fought off the Voice of Corona single-handedly." Romana smiled. "Excellent work, by the way, you saved a great many of the Empress' children."

  Michael bowed. "It was an honour to be of service, Highness."

  "Be still and patient," Romana advised. "Wait for your naiad knight, your warrior up from the ocean's depths. If she keeps faith with you, I have no doubt you wil
l avoid the noose. Though you may wish to consider a gift for putting her to the trouble."

  "I shall obtain something suitably grateful at my earliest convenience, ma'am," Michael said.

  "I have no doubt," Princess Romana said, her smile rendering her whole face radiant. "After all, the famous Coronim gallantry will not allow you to do otherwise, will it?"

  Michael could not help but chuckle. "Indeed not, ma'am."

  Princess Romana stepped closer to him, until they were almost touching. "If you did defeat Quirian, Michael Callistus, what would you do then?"

  Michael hesitated, hoping she would not think him over-foolish. "Lord Gideon believes I shall succeed him as First Sword of the Empire, ma'am."

  Something sparkled in Princess Romana's eyes. Hope? Surprise? He could not make it out. She said, "And what would you do, as First Sword?"

  As she was practically whispering, so Michael whispered back, "If it seems not a boast over-proud, Highness, I would restore the greatness of the Empire as best as any one man can."

  Princess Romana stepped back. "The Empire's greatness stands in dire need of restoration, that is true. But there are many paths, and as many people to propose their own way in which the Empire might be made glorious once again. Which is yours?"

  "I would obey the will of the Empress Aegea, ma'am, as is a servant's place and duty," Michael said.

  The princess smiled. "Quite right, Filius Michael."

  She took a step back from him, and turned to her guards. "I shall wait outside," Romana declared. "When you have finished speaking with your sister I shall take you to rejoin the First Sword and our brother Jason."

  Michael frowned. "How do you know Miranda is coming to see me, Highness?"

  "Doubtless she has heard the news of your arrest by now," Romana said blithely. "If I know her at all, I think she will be along at any moment."

  Miranda barely waited for the palanquin to touch the ground before she tried to clamber out of it, too impatient for Octavia's helping hands, so worried that she nearly tripped over her own feet and fell flat on her face.