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

by Frances Smith

  Michael looked up into his father's eyes. "Gideon..."

  Gideon smiled. "Damn well done, my son."

  And then Michael opened his eyes to see sunlight streaming in through the window.

  "Good morning," Metella murmured. "Everyone will be overjoyed that you are awake."

  "Filia?" Michael murmured, sitting up. He was lying on a plump featherbed, a blanket draped across his body which fell down to his waist as he sat. Metella was sitting near the bed on a stuffed stool, staring at him. Michael started to smile. "Filia Metella, you have not saved my life again, I hope.”

  Metella’s expression was melancholy, like a blanket of snow engulfing a field once bright and beautiful. “I…I am not responsible. You were, as far as I know, never in any great danger. I merely volunteered to watch over you, while your comrades were summoned into the presence of Princess Imperial Romana.”

  “I see,” Michael said softly. “You have my thanks, for that.” He hesitated, wondering what he could say, and whether he ought to say anything. “Filia-“

  “I could have stopped you,” Metella murmured. “I could have intervened in the fight; alone my spirit magic would probably have proven weaker than your own, but joined with Lord Quirian…”

  “On behalf of the Empire Filia I am most grateful that you did not,” Michael whispered.

  Metella looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them, as though she were wishing for a blade to grasp between her fingers. “When you charged, for the last time…I considered throwing myself between the two of you, taking your stroke instead of my lord. I…I thought that it would allow me to fulfil my duty without fighting you.”

  “Speaking for myself, Filia, I am very glad that you did not do that either,” Michael said. “Victory would have been very bitter if it had been accompanied by your passing.”

  Metella blinked, and did not look at him. "He was not a wicked man. Hard, yes, but a good lord in the main."

  "He was a man, take all in all, as we all are in the end be we ever so grand or glorious," Michael said.

  Metella nodded forlornly. "Yes. Yes, he was a man. He exceeded Aulia in tenacity if nothing else, and that was not the least amongst his virtues, for all that he had vices too. He was...he was a man, possessed of much to be admired in bearing and in conduct. Yet, in the end, deserving of the death you gave him.”

  “For the sake of the Empire,” Michael said. “For the sake of my sister…I could grant him no other fate.”

  “Would that you had granted me the same,” Metella said.

  “Filia?”

  “I was Lord Quirian’s servant,” Metella said. “His guardian, his defender, his guard, his shield. Yet for your sake I have consistently betrayed and disobeyed my lord, the man who saved my life, the man who raised me. For the sake of you, for my own conscience, I did not act to protect my lord when he needed me the most. Now he is dead and I yet live. What kind of guard am I, who can say such a thing? I should have died last night, with duty done and my integrity intact.”

  “No, Filia, no, please, I beseech you say not such a thing again,” Michael said, pushing himself off the bed and to his feet, letting the bed sheet fall away from him to crumple in a pile on the floor around his feet. “Please…Metella, you are the kindest woman I have ever met, and one of the bravest without a doubt. You saved my life when I was but a stranger to you, and then again when I was an enemy. If you have failed your lord then he failed you first in being a worse lord then you deserved to serve, and there is no shame in abandoning the service of one unworthy of it. For you to die, so young, either in hopeless battle or, gods forbid, by your own hand…it would be a travesty to make the heavens weep. Please…say not such a thing again. Promise me, I beg you, it will not even be thought of any more.”

  Metella looked up at him, her eyes watery, surprise etched upon her face. “I pray you, do not mock me now.”

  “I would never dare, nor dream of sinking so low,” Michael said. “In this my manner conveys my earnest feeling.”

  “Yet what can I do now?” Metella asked. “My lord is gone, I have no other. What purpose have I now? What shall I do?”

  Michael dropped to his knees, and reached out tentatively to take her pale hands in his own. "Filia, it is not my place to tell you how to live, but as one who sought death himself not too long ago, allow me to implore you to at least attempt to live. As for purpose, again that is something only you may decide, but again if you will permit I will say that I would be honoured to fight alongside you."

  Metella looked down at him, her thoughts concealed. "I think the best man won, last night.”

  Michael bowed his head. "I am honoured to hear you say so, ma'am."

  He heard the door opening behind him half a moment before Amy yelled, "You're awake!"

  Michael turned just in time to be pulled into a tight hug.

  "We did it!" Amy said. "We really did it!" She seemed to notice Metella. "I mean, um..."

  "Oh, don't let me stop you," Metella said. "It is only natural, after all. You could be making me endure much worse."

  Michael pulled away from the hug. "I'm glad to see you're all right, our Amy."

  “Oh, I’ve been knocked down by things much stronger than him, don’t worry,” Amy said breezily. “Remind me to tell you about the melee on my grandfather’s birthday some time. Now, there's someone else who wants to see you."

  She stood to one side, to reveal Felix standing in the mount of the tent, his hand trembling.

  "Michael," he said quietly.

  Michael strode forward. "Our Felix."

  Felix didn't meet his older brother's eyes. "I just want to say that I'm sorry about-"

  Michael grabbed him by the metal arm and pulled him into an embrace. "We're family, our Felix," Michael whispered. "You don't need to apologise, or explain yourself to me. Not ever."

  Felix tightened his grip on Michael. "Thank you, big brother."

  Michael grinned. He had waited years to hear that again.

  "You should get dressed," Amy said. "We don't have much time."

  "Time for what?" Michael asked, as Felix let go of him.

  "Oh, right, you don't know," Amy said. "Quick version: you killed Quirian, then fainted. The army arrived, took the Lost prisoner, were going to take Miranda prisoner as well except Princess Romana also turned up and pointed out that we had lots of wounded people in the city who could use her help. That's what Miranda's been doing all night. She's done her best, but there are still a fair few dead. But now it's morning, everyone who can be saved has been saved and you are summoned into the presence of Romana, Princess Imperial of the Divine Empire of All Pelarius, Lavissar, Triazica and all the rest of that ludicrously long name. So come on, put your clothes on, and I’ll take you to get the thanks of the Empire.”

  Michael hastily pulled on his tunic and put his sandals on quickly, and followed Amy out of his cloistered room and out into the corridors through which they had so recently fled as fugitives. Now he strode through them as a hero, and the guards maintaining their positions gave him and Amy respectful nods as they passed by.

  “Where are we going, our Amy?” Michael said, as she led him down a corridor decorated with friezes of battle, of captives kneeling before some Prince Imperial or other, and legionaries marching in triumph through the streets of Eternal Pantheia. “Where did she see you?”

  “In the throne room,” Amy said. “But that’s not where your going. Her Majesty is decamping somewhere else to talk to you, I’m not sure why. She said she had something to show you, though I’m not sure what it is.”

  There was a guard upon the door, a sergeant with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, and he bowed his head to Amy as he opened the purple portal over which he stood sentinel. “Your Highness, the First Sword is here.”

  The First Sword is here. It was a terrible vanity, he knew, but Michael felt absurdly proud to hear himself addressed that way, and so soon.

  “Send him in,” P
rincess Romana – Princess Imperial Romana, rather – called out. “And see that we are not disturbed.”

  “In you go,” Amy said. “And good luck.”

  “You think I shall require it?” Michael asked.

  “No,” Amy said. “But you’ve got it anyway.”

  Michael smiled, and strode past Amy and the sergeant of the guard through the doorway and into the room.

  It was unusually narrow, with just enough room for two people to have stood abreast, with walls a light blue colour, save for a single line of white running down the middle of the walls. On his right, the wall was entirely concealed behind a magnificent painting, showing what looked to be a battle between cavalry. Two groups of heroes, both in ornate armour, both mounted upon fine horses, both carrying glittering, rich weapons, clashed in a confused melee in the foreground, while behind them a far greater battle between two mighty hosts developed on the plains. Michael recognised the Imperial flag raised up above one of the lines of infantry battling in the background, so many Imperial standards raised over the heads of such a mass of distant footmen. He did not recognise the standards of the enemy, a white horse prancing upon a red field; but the man beneath the standard, wearing a kingly crown upon his head, rode no ordinary horse at all, but a black stallion with the tail of a peacock and flames leaping from its nostrils. Nor, Michael saw when he looked more closely, was its rider an ordinary man at all: he had golden horns like a ram growning from the sides of his head, for all that they were half-obscured by his equally golden hair.

  Princess Romana stood facing the grand painting, her hands clasped behind her back, her black dress seeming darker by comparison to the light of the room and the vibrant colours of the art before her.

  “Come in, Lord Callistus,” she said, not taking her eyes from the painting. “I am very glad to see you well.”

  Lord Callistus? Michael blinked. “Your majesty appears to have confused me with someone else.”

  “It is customary for every First Sword, upon his anointing by the Divine Empress, to be admitted into the college of patricians,” Romana declared, quite calmly, still not looking at Michael. “It is a precedent I intend to observe, and furthermore I mean to grant you the lands and incomes of the Imperial estate at Selame, in Saba Province, to support you in a manner fitting to your station.” She looked at him, and smiled. “Whether your heirs will maintain this rank I have bestowed upon you depends solely on them, but for now you are Lord Michael Callistus. Congratulations.”

  Michael bowed his head. “Your Majesty does not great honour…and yet I must confess, majesty, that noble styling means less to me than to be the son of Gideon Commenae, and the lands that you gift to me mean less than the trust that Aegea Divine bestowed on me with her anointing oils.”

  “It should,” Romana said. “Were it otherwise you would not be fit to be First Sword.”

  “I am glad, but a little surprised, Majesty, that you are recognising me as First Sword so readily,” Michael admitted. “Gideon was never acknowledged thus.”

  “Gideon did not have me as his princess imperial,” Romana said. “I have already spoken with your sister, and discussed what shall become of her following last night’s incident.”

  Michael felt the icy touch of fear upon his soul. “What will become of her, Majesty?”

  “Nothing,” Romana said. “I mean to send her away to the countryside, under guard. She will be watched, but not imprisoned; confined, but not uncomfortably so. There I will keep her…until I have need of her again. There remains now the issue of your brother, and the rest of Quirian’s household.”

  “I would ask for mercy also on their behalf, Majesty.”

  “They served an enemy of the Empire,” Romana said.

  “A fact of which most were unaware, Majesty,” Michael said. “They could have resisted upon his behalf far more than they did. They, for the most part, offered no resistance to me or my comrades.”

  “They offered more than resistance to the Imperial Guard within the palace,” Romana said. “If they then thought better of their conduct they did so rather late.” She was silent for a moment. “Do you trust them?”

  “Majesty?”

  “It is a simple question, my lord, do you trust Quirian’s followers, these Lost of his.”

  Michael said, “For the most part I know them not, Majesty, but I trust my brother with my life.”

  Romana nodded. “Very well then. Their lives shall be spared, but they shall belong to the Empire for ten years, until their penance for these treasons is concluded. Until that time they shall serve you, our First Sword, in whatever offices you assign to them. Let them earn the Empire’s forgiveness by fighting the Empire’s battles.”

  “Your Majesty is most generous.”

  “I hope to be,” Romana said. She turned her attention back to the painting. “Do you know what this scene shows, Lord Callistus?”

  Michael took a few steps closer to the princess, glancing at the scene before them. “I fear, Your Majesty, that I do not.”

  “It depicts the Second Battle of Irenicus,” Romana said. “And the battle of the Fourteen Gallants who slew King Agesilaus of Turma. Do you know the story?”

  “No, Majesty.”

  “By the mid third century from the founding of the Empire, this nation had conquered most of the west of Pelarius,” Romana said. “But in the east we faced a grave threat from Agesilaus of Turma, who had been building a mighty empire of his own. He was, without a doubt, the greatest man of his age: he had subdued one of the bucephali, the horses of the gods, and made it his mount; his army was a masterpiece in military design; gryphons had pledged themselves to his service, and they were known to carry him up into the sky in a cage of iron, while a thousand tharils danced upon the spearpoints of his phalanx.

  “The war did not go well, and the Empire’s armies were defeated at Pella and Gusiris; at Gusiris three legions were encircled and nearly wiped out, the colours of the Eighth and Twenty First legions were lost to the enemy, and only the brave stand of the Ninth Legion saved the rest of the army from being caught by the Turmeian pursuit.

  “Cities fell, Agesilaus’ scouts reached as far as Umbarina in Daricium, and the Empire’s counterattack was defeated at Austeris, with more heavy casualties. In the year 245 Agesilaus’ main force crossed the border into Daricium Province. The Imperial Army, under Prince Imperial Romanus the Second, made its stand at Irenicus, sight of a great victory in Aegea’s time. You can see in the background there the main clash of armies, the Imperial legions versus the Turmeian phalanx. But the Empire was saved that day not by the discipline of its legionaries nor by the cunning strategy of its generals but by the personal courage of fourteen men. For on the night before the battle a group of young officers had gathered together and sworn sacred oaths in the sight of the Empress that they would slay Agesilaus or perish in the attempt. They included some of the scions of the Empire’s noblest families: Andronicus and Alexius Commenae, sons of the then Lord Commenae, and their close fried Tydeus Manzikes; Cornelius Lacus, the first Lacus to possess patrician rank; Coelius Quadrigarius, Battiatus Triars; Marcus Livius, third son of the then Lord Livius; Titus Rutulus, the youngest grandson of Lord Rutulus; Julius Mnestheus, the polymath, Phobos Palaeologus the poet; Quintus Maro, fifth son of Lord Maro; Caius Auruncus, also the founder of his noble line, and whose wife had just given him a son.”

  Michael’s brow furrowed slightly. “Forgive me, Majesty, that is only thirteen.”

  “Yes,” Romana said. “The last of them was Secundus Segestus, the only man amongst their company who was neither patrician nor equestrian by birth. He was the son of a farrier, but you can see him there in the centre of things, riding the winged unicorn Perditan, while his wolf, Redtooth, lies slain there near the bottom of the painting, by the bodies of those Turmeians.”

  Michael looked, and he could indeed see the body of a great white wolf, impaled upon a pair of lances, blood staining its fur, eyes closed as though it ha
d laid down to sleep between the bodies of a pair of horses gutted and slain, with the bodies of two riders barely visible. His gaze travelled upwards, to the warrior on the winged unicorn, close by the Turmeian king, his mouth open as though he was shouting as he raised his sword.

  “Who was he, Majesty, this farrier’s son that he should ride on such a sacred creature and with a wolf by his side, and ride in the midst of such a lofty company?”

  Romana looked at Michael, and smiled. “He was the apprentice of the First Sword of his day, Aelius Uiscius, and training to succeed him as First Sword one day. That is why I wanted you to see this: you are not the first, but that is a thing to take heart from, for you need never doubt that you belong in this sacred office you possess, and your name has as much right to place amongst the annals of our First Swords as any other.

  “There will be those, I have no doubt, who will look down upon you for your humble birth and Coronim upbringing,” Romana said. “Pay them no heed. Always the low have been as welcome in the service of the Empire as the high. You are as worthy as any of them.”

  Michael bowed his head. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  Romana turned away. “This will be a great nation, Michael. I will make it so. I have vowed that before the Empress, I will make it so. I shall curb the pride of the patricians and the ambitions of the publicani, I shall bring the legions under my control, I shall bring the Novar church to heel. And I will make this nation great again. This will be an Empire that walks hand in hand with the Divine Empress who begat it, an Empire that once more holds its head highest amongst all nation for it knows that it is an honourable nation, a land that walks the path of destiny and bestows gifts upon all men by its very presence. Once more we shall be admired by our friends, feared by our enemies, and looked upon with amazement by all who bear witness to our deeds. The condition of the people shall be raised to its highest point in the history of the world, the spoils of our triumphs shall adorn our cities, fresh water will flow and the slums of wood and crude brick shall be rebuilt in marble. We shall be great again. Will you, Lord Callistus, by Aegea’s grace First Sword of the Divine Empire, help me in this great endeavour on which I have embarked?”