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

by Frances Smith

  "I know my sister, and though we rarely agree I know she is no killer, no wrathful destroyer to cast down nations on a whim, to shovel men into the flames with a merry smile and a twinkle in her eye. She is my better, blessed by God with a kind heart and a gentle spirit, and if we can once remove Quirian from the game for good then she will see his plots and intrigues for the crimes they are."

  Jason was silent for a moment. "You ask a great deal of faith from us."

  "Have we not always been sustained by faith?" Michael replied. "Have we not always gone forward buoyed up by nought but belief? Did we not choose in Davidheyr, to have faith in God to gird up our arms and lift our hearts that we might defy the malice and the massed power of the Crimson Rose? Did we not choose to have faith in Gideon when we followed him to Aureliana? Did he not choose to put his faith in me, when he ended his life that I might succeed him in his offices?

  "Compared with that, is putting your faith in me and in my sister such a trial?"

  "No," Amy said firmly. "I've spoken to Miranda myself, and she didn't seem the sort to blithely commit massacres. Whatever Quirian's plan, I believe it is his plan still, and not Miranda's."

  Michael nodded. "Then we are decided?"

  "Then we are decided," Amy said.

  "Then we are decided," Jason murmured. "We will kill Quirian."

  "Once we have made Michael First Sword," Amy said.

  "Once we have interred Gideon beneath the earth," Michael said.

  "You mean to bury him?" Jason asked. "Why not cremate him?"

  "Cremation is the Novarian way, Highness, but Gideon was not a Novarian," Michael said. "He followed Aegea and Aegea alone. I do not know how their rites are conducted, but I think would wish to lie within the earth of the Empire he loved so well he gave his life for it. I had thought to bury him upon one of the hills overlooking the city, so that he might forever gaze upon Eternal Pantheia and see his home is safe and prosperous."

  Jason was silent for a moment. "That actually sounds quite appropriate."

  "I thought he would like it," Michael said.

  "Most like you're right," Amy said. "But how to get him there, that's the question."

  The door to the warehouse opened, and Miranda walked in, followed swiftly by Octavia and a slightly unhappy looking Wyrrin.

  Miranda looked around, seeming small and a little uncertain. His sister was dressed in shimmering white, with a skirt that dropped to the ground and a blue sash wrapped tightly around her waist. A flowing white cloak hung down behind her, held in pace by an emerald clasp at her throat. She looked lovely, the fine lady he had always hoped for her to become, though far too grand and highly risen to be in this low, commercial place.

  "I'm glad you're here, safe," she murmured, dragging her stick a little across the warehouse floor. "I know that you had some trouble."

  "More than some, I think," Michael said quietly, walking to the centre of the warehouse. He stood facing his sister with his back straight and his hands clasped behind his back. "Still, I thank you, Miranda, for the assistance you have rendered us. And for taking care of Wyrrin, it is good to see you well."

  Wyrrin bowed his head for a moment as he strode past Miranda to stand in front of Michael.

  "I grieve with you," he growled. "To lose one's master is an ill thing. I hear he had prepared your own master's accredits before his death?"

  "In a sense, yes," Michael replied.

  Wyrrin nodded again. "Then you will do great things, and I will assist you as I may."

  "Then your part will be as great, I am sure," Michael said. He returned his attention to his sister. "Miranda, since Amy and Wyrrin are known to you, allow me to present the last but far from least of my companions: Jason Nemon Filius, natural son of the late Emperor Demetrius the Fifth."

  Jason stared at Miranda for a while before climbing slowly to his feet. He sauntered over to Amy and placed his hand upon her back for a moment before he deigned to speak. "Charmed, Filia, I'm sure."

  Miranda regarded him curiously. "You are the half brother of the Emperor, aren't you?"

  Jason licked his lips. "I have that...distinction."

  "Your brothers hate you," Miranda said.

  "Many people hate many things," His Highness said. "That does not make them hateful in themselves."

  "No, it does not," Miranda said. "Especially since Princess Romana holds you in some regard. Are you the sensible one?"

  Jason blinked. "Excuse me?"

  "Amy told me there was a sensible man among your party, to whom no one listened. Clearly it is not Wyrrin, who is as glory mad as the rest of you. So it must be you, I suppose.

  Jason snorted. "Sensible but unheard, yes I suppose that would sum up my role."

  Miranda smiled. "Take care of them, won't you?"

  "I'll do my best," Jason said, though he did not smile.

  Miranda looked away, fixing Michael with her gaze. "I'm going to get you out of here, but until then you should all remain where you are. No one will find you here, so you are safer than anywhere else in the city. Soon I will have you smuggled out beyond the walls, and then you can go where you will."

  Michael's lips twitched. "We were just discussing how it was we were to bury Gideon, and you have provided the solution. Thank you."

  "Yes, well, I was actually thinking more along the lines of fleeing," Miranda muttered. "When I said you could go where you will I meant somewhere far away."

  "While the danger to the Empire is here, I must remain here," Michael said. "And, since my friends have been good enough to volunteer their aid, here must we all stay a little while longer."

  Miranda sighed. "I know you think you know the truth. Perhaps you know what Lord Quirian is, where he has come from. But why do you persist in acting as though some great evil is afoot that you must stop?"

  "Because there is," Michael said. "Do you really believe a man with such cause for vengeance as Quirian will be satisfied with the dissolution of the Empire when he has the power to burn it to the ground?"

  "I have the power to burn this realm and that I shall not do," Miranda replied. "Or have you come to think so poorly of me that you think me capable of such an act?"

  "I would never think you capable of that in your right mind, Miranda," Michael said. "But in your right mind you would have already denounced Quirian for the villain he is."

  "Assuming for the moment that I am right," Miranda said. "Assuming that there is nothing sinister in Quirian's plots but the restitution of the old world and collapse of the Empire into its various principalities, each free to govern themselves, would that be so terrible? Do you think so little of freedom that you would kill for tyranny?"

  "I would strike down the Empire's enemies, as I have promised Gideon I would," Michael said firmly. "I gave my word that I would follow in his footsteps, and I shall begin with Quirian, you may depend upon it. As for freedom, I think that those who cheered it loudest would soon fall silent when the Lavissari burned the western lands and Xarzians overran the east."

  Miranda shook her head sadly. "And so, for the sake of a promise to a fratricide you will defend the most cruel and rapacious land that ever lived. What has the Empire done to earn your love?"

  "What has the Empire done to earn your hatred?" Michael asked.

  "Scorned me, kicked me, mocked me, belittled me," Miranda said. "In this whole city I have found only a handful of people worth a damn. In all the court there is only one woman whom I might call my friend, and though I love her dearly I must question if the sweetest woman in all Pelarius is enough to set against so foul a place as this city. In the rest of Eternal Pantheia I have seen nothing but grasping, venal ambition and self-centred wickedness."

  "Then you have seen the worst of this country, and true enough that so many things that ought to be the pillars of our state - the nobility, the army, the fine old families of the Empire - have fallen into ruin," Michael said. "Yet if you have seen the worst it seems to me that I have seen the best: there is g
reat virtue in the Empire still, and courage too, amongst the poorest and the provinces. And what of the minotaurs? What will become of them in this new world that you and Quirian will make?"

  "What about them?" Miranda said.

  "In days of old they were hunted from pillar to post," Michael said. "Treated as vermin, assaulted wherever they went. Only the Empress Aegea took pity on them, brought them under her protection, and made them citizens of her Empire. If you dismantle the Empire, will they return to scum and vagabonds?"

  "Don't be ridiculous," Miranda said.

  "The minotaurs, who were preyed upon by the wicked," Michael said. "The centaurs, who preyed on the weak. The peace that we enforce in all our lands, and the allies that we protect from the barbarians that surround them. The thousands upon thousands who live their whole lives under Aegea's protection. When Aegea's dream dies who will stand for the minotaurs? Who will check the barbarism of the centaurs and make them fit for civilised company? Who will defend our clients, and impose the custom of peace upon them? Who will protect the people when the Empress has been stripped of all her power?"

  "I will," Miranda declared. "My magic is sufficient for the task."

  "And when you are gone?" Michael demanded. "Who, then, will keep the peace?"

  "Peace is not worth slavery," Miranda said.

  "It was I who wore the chains, not you, so I do believe that I know more of slavery than you, sister," Michael said heatedly. He sighed. "Forgive me, but I have been a slave, and to call the common plebeians slaves simply because they are not patricians is...it is no less than ignorant Miranda, I am sorry. Did you think yourself a slave before you came to this city?"

  "No, but..." Miranda scowled. "What are you suggesting?"

  "I am suggesting that you are not seeing clearly," Michael said.

  "I see enough," Miranda spat. "Tell me something; is it really the Empire's peace that you love? Is it the justice of the Empress' cause? Or is it the pageantry, the massed ranks of soldiers, the bright banners, the...what did the princess call it, the steel and swagger? If the Empire was a drab, dull place, full of scribes dutifully scribbling away, with no armies, no armour for the sun to glint off, would you fight for it with the same enthusiasm?"

  Michael smiled. "If the Empire had no pageantry, no armies so colourful, no sense of occasion, no bombast, no indestructible pride; then it would not be the Empire. And not being the Empire it could not do all those things that make the Empire worthy of protection. 'This is your destiny, my faithful children, to rule all peoples by command, to impose the customs of peace upon them, to lift up the humble and war down the proud.' Aegea's words, a clarion call to better things than the race of man had yet achieved in ages past. And yet you cannot say such words if you have not a touch of pomp within you."

  "No," Miranda said flatly. "You cannot."

  Michael's smile died. "So, you have decided then?"

  "No," Miranda said. "I...am still considering. But you have not convinced me, any more than Romana did."

  "Is there anything that would convince you?" Jason asked.

  "I doubt it," Miranda said. "I must make up my own mind in this; I cannot be swayed by the opinions of outsiders."

  "I see," Jason said. He strolled forward casually, his arms hanging loosely by his sides. "Then I suppose that this is goodbye for the moment, isn't it? Farewell, Filia Miranda. It was a pleasure to meet you."

  He held out one hand. Miranda, after a moment's hesitation, took it.

  Jason grabbed hold of Miranda tightly, and when he shook his sleeve then Amy's bone knife - which he must have stolen when he briefly touched her back - fell into his free hand. With surprising swiftness, he placed it at Miranda's throat.

  "I want to kill you," Jason said coldly. "I want to cut your throat right here and watch the light leave your eyes. I want to kill you because it is the only way I can know that my friends will be safe from you, from your magic, from your madness, from Quirian.

  "I've told Michael that you're too dangerous to be allowed to live, but he doesn't want to listen. He has faith in you. He thinks that you will do the right thing. He wants me to have faith in him having faith in you. Put like that, it seems ridiculous, doesn't it?"

  Jason took the knife away from her neck and threw it away. "And yet I find I can't refuse him." He laughed. "I suppose that makes me as big a fool as the rest, doesn't it?"

  Miranda took a few steps back - Octavia advanced protectively before her, sword drawn - and rubbed at her neck. "Probably. And yet, at the moment, I'm very glad that is true."

  On her way home, Miranda discovered the disadvantages of spending months being carried everywhere: when you needed to walk somewhere you found it was a lot harder than it used to be.

  She could not have taken the litter to the warehouse, it would have drawn too much attention, but at the same time she was finding it very hard going on the city streets, and her breath was starting to form a ragged counterpoint to the tapping of her stick.

  "Would you like me to carry you?" Octavia asked.

  "No, I'm fine," Miranda said. I remember when I used to be self-reliant. She leaned against the wall of one of the houses lining the road, her cloak crumpling beneath her, and took a few deep breaths. The sun streamed down right into her face, forcing her to look down as the sunbeams sparkled in her hair.

  "You should have let me hurt him," Octavia murmured.

  "You would have regretted it later," Miranda replied. Octavia had thrown Jason across the room with her air magic, and it had nearly come to swords with Amy before Miranda had calmed things down. "It wasn't as if he did anything to me."

  "He could have," Octavia said. "I don't trust him, he's too cold."

  "People said the same of me, once," Miranda said. "I've found that when people dislike someone cleverer than they are, they attack their lack of emotions."

  "But that isn't true with you at all," Octavia said. "I wouldn't love a person who didn't have any emotions."

  "You're very sweet," Miranda said. She was silent for a moment. "And very kind. I, by contrast, am very selfish."

  "No you're not," Octavia said.

  "But I am," Miranda said. "All that I do is take from you, and you give everything to me. That will change, it has to...or I won't deserve you any more."

  Octavia frowned. "I don't understand. Are you saying you don't want to be with me any more?"

  "No. God no," Miranda said. "I want you more than words can say. I want you now that I am young, and I will want you still when I am old and so devoured by age that you will not want me. I want you when I wake, and I want you before I go to sleep. I want you...but I also want to be worthy of you, and I haven't been for a while. I'm saying...I'm saying let's not go back to Quirian's house. Do you want to go back?"

  Octavia shrugged. "Don't you?"

  "If we go back, then I am sure that Lord Quirian will have questions for me about all this, and I don't want tonight to be about Lord Quirian or Prince Antiochus or my brother or Ascanius and Julian or even the fate of the Empire. I want tonight to be about us. What would you like to do tonight?"

  Octavia's face assumed a thoughtful expression. She looked up; the gathering clouds were yet a little way off, above their heads was only blue. "I'd really love to take you flying again. That was...I haven't been so happy in forever."

  Miranda smiled. "If you like. Today is all about you."

  "Then let's go!" Octavia cried, sweeping Miranda up in her arms as she spread her gorgeous wings, wings that soon carried them up into the sunlit blue sky.

  XV

  Miranda's Decision

  Flames danced upon Miranda's fingertips as she descended the narrow steps into the dungeon hole into which Princess Romana had been thrown at the command of her two brothers.

  She found the princess, or former princess, sitting on the cold stone floor of her cavernous cell, her hands in manacles, squinting against the light of Miranda's magical fire.

  "Filia Miranda." Romana managed a
smile. "How good it is of you to pay me a visit."

  Miranda's stick tapped upon the floor. "How are you?"

  "The cell is cold, the floor is hard, the food is bad." Romana shrugged. "All things considered I have nothing to complain of."

  Miranda knelt down, though it pained her leg to do so. "And your back?"

  "It aches a little, I confess," Romana said. She twisted her body to look at Miranda better, but the movement caused her to wince in pain.

  Miranda pursed her lips. "I know bravado when I see it. You ought to know me well enough by now to realise that I won't think more of you for such, or think less of your for the truth. How many lashes did they give you?"

  "I lost count even before I passed out," Romana murmured. "I fear that Antiochus would not take kindly to you removing the scars."

  "You’re probably right," Miranda said. "I can ease the pain for you, if you'd like."

  Romana looked at her thoughtfully. "No. Thank you, Filia, but many of the Empress' children have endured far worse than this. I shall bear my sufferings, as so many people throughout this nation must bear their own."

  Miranda shook her head. "You... you were very brave, to take the punishment for Hyllia's sake."

  "Bravery had nothing to do with it, Filia," Romana said primly. "A mistress who does not protect her servants is unworthy of faithful service. I did what I had to do, nothing more."

  "That does not mean it was not brave," Miranda said. "I have seen floggings kill a man."

  Romana sighed. "Demodocus does not want me dead. Antiochus might, but I knew that His Majesty would not kill me. He simply wanted to put me in my place."

  "Did it work?" Miranda asked.

  Romana looked around, a slight smile playing across her face. "He has not yet managed to convince me that my place is in this cell, so on that basis, no. I have no regrets."