Gloriana's Masque

by Eleanor Burns

  As if I was talking to him … Kasimir was almost certain that thought had not been his, but the priestess was now out of telepathy range, and he doubted that she would have satisfied his curiosity anyway. Merely stirring distrust, like as not … though it may still be sage advice. In any case, the officer was now addressing him, and Kasimir was very certain that this was not a man he wanted to upset.

  “I beg your pardon for that display, Lord Citizen,” the sealord apologised. “Some of the, err, more traditionalist Alvere have been a little conflicted about the regime change. Nevertheless, the High Archon has recognised Gloriana, thirteenth of her name, as Queen of Alvenheim, and the majority of the people are firmly behind her,” he added, in a smooth, not-quite-threatening tone. “The opinion of one … ‘venerable’ priestess is of little enough consequence, although I am certain that Her Highness would wish to apologise that you had to endure such a discourteous reception.”

  “Thank you … err …”

  “My pardon. I am Lord Lycon, Third Sealord of Brythenedd and effective commandant of this town. Also, Her Highness’s military adviser. You, I believe, are Lord Citizen Kasimir of the Republican Secretariat, and I’m afraid your charming companion now has the advantage of me.”

  “Delator Maradith, Republican Security Corps,” intoned Maradith, with a displeased note that Lycon either missed or chose to ignore.

  “Capital. Well then, I’d better show you to your quarters,” he declared, leading the way across the square in the direction of the least ruined section of the town. “Your guides, I’m afraid, will have to make do with field tents, unless they wish to quarter with the Alvere, which I doubt they will. There is very little spare accommodation … as you can see for yourselves.”

  “Indeed, Milord,” said Kasimir, his anxious eyes taking in the charred, empty husks of a row of tenements along the street they had commenced down. “These, err, new weapons, of yours … Obviously very effective.”

  “I hardly think this is the time or the place to discuss our military capabilities, Lord Citizen,” replied Lycon, suavely, but with a cautioning undertone. “There will be ample time for such talk when you have had a chance to rest, not forgetting your audience with Her Highness tomorrow morning. In any case, this damage was the fault of Prince Rowan’s men. When they realised that the outer defences were lost, those who could not make a break for the wilderness tried to set up entrenched positions within the town, and they demolished several buildings to clear room for their artillery … for all the good it did them.”

  “They did all of this damage themselves?” asked Maradith, with deep scepticism which reflected Kasimir’s own feelings on the subject, although he had been in two minds whether or not to express them.

  “When we knew they intended to make a last stand of it, we had no option but to flush them out,” said Lycon, casually. “Some collateral damage was inevitable. Her Highness was … reluctant, but she saw the necessity for it in the end, and her people, I am pleased to say, knew better than to blame her. They knew who their real enemies were. The prisoners we took in that assault soon wished that they had died in the bombardment. Their compatriots were not very forgiving …”

  Like they’d have dared to take out their feelings on you, thought Kasimir, but kept that one to himself. He now had some context for the grisly scenes he had witnessed in Saskia’s memory, and was not feeling morbid enough to probe Lycon, either verbally or telepathically, for a more detailed retelling. After a few minutes’ walking, their route took them through the partially melted remains of an ornate iron gate and into another wide, open square, paved with shattered flagstones. The ruins of a Lucinian-style palace stood to the front and left of them, its innumerable fluted columns now resembling giant, soot-stained, half-used candles; but to the right stood the east wing, still intact and bustling with activity. Brython troops and Shadow Guards stood sentinel at every entrance, although never in each other’s company. Teams of dirty, miserable-looking Alvere wearing the tattered remnants of Lucinian-style clothes were labouring under the harsh supervision of more guards, dragging unwanted furniture, books, and paintings out of the palace and dumping them in heaps. The theme seemed to be a purge of Lucinian culture, with ancient treatises and antique porcelain sharing garbage heaps with modern magazines and iron chandeliers fitted with fake galvanic ‘candles.’ In that case, why not just demolish the whole palace? thought Kasimir, but he decided the most likely answer was mere hypocrisy on the part of Gloriana. By all means, let’s eliminate every nasty sign of Lucinian progress, just as long as you leave Her Exalted Highness a nice suite of rooms while her subjects make do with their quaint little leafy shelters …

  Close to the walls of the intact east wing, they passed a labour gang of Alvere who were breaking marble statues down into fine rubble. Quite a few of the remaining stone heads depicted the late Prince Rowan, although there were also some of past Lucinian noblemen, from the days when Alvenheim had been a colony of the crown. From what little he knew of these potentates, Kasimir was certain that this posthumous punishment was letting them off lightly. A few of the labourers looked up with forlorn eyes as they passed, only to feel the sting of their overseers’ rope whips.

  “The lesser members of Prince Rowan’s court and household,” explained Lycon, as they put the sad scene behind them, save for some threats and whimpers that accompanied them through the main entrance and into a grand hallway. Pale, dust-free squares on its wool-panelled walls gave testimony to purged paintings. “Petty nobles, servants, mistresses … Those who were less guilty in the crimes of his regime, but benefited from it nonetheless, and did nothing to help the people. They will be set free when the work is completed. The Queen, as you see, is merciful,” he declared, leading them up an ornately-carved staircase.

  “So I see, Milord,” said Kasimir, with more conviction than he felt. “I, err, didn’t notice any children among them. Have they all been– ?”

  “Temporarily fostered to other families, yes,” interrupted Lycon, his voice still composed but now hard and icy. “Or did you mean to imply something else?”

  “Of course not, Milord. That was all I wanted to know,” though what just passed through your head was a lot more than I wanted to know, thought Kasimir, unhappily. Still, just as well to have all the gruesome details.

  “Glad to hear it,” said Lycon, curtly, leading them along a first floor corridor to a pair of guest bedchambers. Thankfully, this suite had been spared from the furniture purge, and was also supplied with hot water and clean sheets. “I’ll have your baggage sent up later. If you require anything else, just ask the guards. We have plenty of them to spare,” he added, with grave emphasis, as he departed. All veiled threats aside, Kasimir was just glad to see the back of him, and he collapsed gratefully onto his bed. Maradith did not immediately retire to her own room, however, but hovered around his with a troubled expression.

  “Something bothering you, Delator? Other than all of the obvious, that is,” he asked, as she paced the floorboards.

  “I saw that little business out there, Lord Citizen. You really tweaked his valves with that question about the prisoners’ kids. You don’t think– ?”

  “Oh, I believe him. Don’t worry about that. I wouldn’t want to be locked into a cell with him, mind you. He’d probably cannibalise my intestines to make his escape-rope and think nothing of it. He was telling the truth about the children, though. It was the things he wasn’t saying that troubled me. His reaction, when I so delicately insinuated that the Queen might be a child-murdering sadist … Well, he held it in, but for a moment there he was almost ready to hurl me back down the stairs head-first. He took it very personally. One might almost say chivalrously, although I doubt he’d thank you for it. Do the maths.” Maradith took a few moments to assimilate this information, before exhaling a long-drawn, suggestive whistle.

  “Well there’s a turn-up,” she said, half in disbelief. “He couldn’t just be feeling extreme loyalty to her though, cou
ld he?”

  “It would make it a remarkable first, for Brython mercenaries to show any loyalty at all to their employer … at least to a poor one, and this Gloriana is not the Autokrator, with unlimited wealth to throw at her pet maniacs … I hope.”

  “That’s true. The place sure doesn’t look like it’s booming, and that fellow didn’t exactly strike me as the charitable type. Oh well. I suppose he’s not a bad looker for a man of his years, but even so … I hardly know whether I ought to be offering the Queen my congratulations or my commiserations.”

  “I’d prefer neither,” declared Kasimir, sternly, “or have you already forgotten what we were saying about an alliance between the Alvere and the Brythons completely screwing up decades of peaceful progress? A bloody royal wedding would seal the deal, and if you end up making me best man and yourself maid of honour at it, then expect to be beaten to death with a bouquet.”

  “As you say, Lord Citizen,” said Maradith, respectfully, although understandably unimpressed at the colourful threat. “Like as not the Queen knows already, though. He may have already told her how he feels.”

  “I doubt that,” Kasimir replied, recalling the unique texture of Lycon’s mind: like some murky, overgrown forest full of brambles and pitfalls, mysterious and treacherous even to its rightful inhabitant. “No, this is Lord Lycon’s dirty secret, and I think that we ought to respect it. The Senate didn’t send us here to be matchmakers.” No, they sent us here to be spies and potential assassins, Abysm take them.

  “Guess you’re right, sir. It wouldn’t be very easy pinning her murder on the Brythons if she’s gone and hitched herself to one of their sealords, would it?”

  Way to rub it in, Delator, thought Kasimir, bitterly, as he closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX – THE REAPERMEN

  Possibly the second worst thing about diplomacy, thought Gloriana, irritably, after having to deal with all of the bickering idiots, are the clothes. Not for the first time during this insufferable fitting, her good eye drifted wistfully in the direction of the armoire, where her beloved military dress, her comfortable leather boots, and her empowering steel mask awaited her imminent return, but would tomorrow be unjustly imprisoned for the whole day in the name of public relations. She could understand, if hardly celebrate the logic of not wearing her Brython greys to greet the Lucinian envoys, but why these appalling shoes when no-one can even see the things?

  The Alvere possessed little in the way of elaborate clothing, but Lord Lycon, with an eye to detail if not comfort, had taken the trouble of importing some of his late wife’s apparel for the occasion. There was a dress, wide-sleeved and high-waisted, of thick silver lamé embroidered with swirling black motifs, most prominent of which was the sigil of Lycon’s house: a three-armed cross with hooked ends, each shaped like the head of a varg. A powerful sign, at least. A pity I can’t just have it on a badge. At least the dress could be adjusted for fit, which was more than could be said for the narrow, pointed, and decidedly pinching suede shoes she had also inherited, which were indeed completely hidden by her floor-length skirt and made her pain seem tragically wasted. Over the dress she wore a contrasting sleeveless surcoat in black ermine, with patterns woven in silver thread. Her best silversmith had, in fine Alvere tradition, quickly improvised a modest but elegant crown by melting down the late Prince Rowan’s collection of Lucinian snuff-boxes. Its design was sinuous and flowing, almost as if fine tendrils of silver had grown together organically, yet with perfect symmetry. She had no issues with that, anyway. This veil can fuck off all the way to the Abysm, though …

  A small veil of noctys silk, light but barely translucent, was currently being arranged slantwise across her face by her chambermaid, in an attempt to cover only the scarred area. Judging from the increasingly anxious look on the young Alvere’s face, this was not going well. Gloriana had been standing here mutely, like a statue, for what seemed an age, while the girl tried pinning the wretched thing to her crown, her hair, the high collar of her dress, and once or twice to her skin, with profound apologies. Nothing seemed to work, although Gloriana bore the girl herself no ill-will for it. A stupid idea in the first place, and it would help if we had some peace. Unfortunately, this seemed to be the last courtesy anyone wanted to extend to her.

  “Yes, by all means, let us make sure these Lucinian filth don’t see anything that might upset them,” said Hiercarch Saskia, with acidic irony, as she watched Gloriana’s preparations. “A shame we can’t also draw a veil over all of the ruin and poverty their kind have inflicted upon us, although I somehow doubt that offends them much. Will you persist in this folly?”

  “Sorry if I seem to be straying from the point, but I really can’t recall having given you leave to come in here,” replied Gloriana, her tone aloof and her eye averted from the priestess, who refused to take the hint:

  “‘Given me leave?’ I saved your life, girl. Remember that.”

  “I remember it well. It was over fifty years ago.”

  “A flash in the pan, at my age, and if you’ve any ambition to live even half as long as I have, you’d do well not to scorn my counsel.”

  “So what would you have me do with our guests? Torture and decapitation, and mail their heads to the Commissioner-General on the next post diligence?”

  “Send them away,” advised Saskia, earnestly, “and your pet savages too. Give them the plans to these vile weapons of yours if that will satisfy them, then let them try their might against the Lucinians, if it amuses them. The southern hordes will no doubt obliterate them, but perhaps not until they have exacted a fitting retribution for all of our humiliations, gods willing. At any rate, why should we care?”

  “You mean aside from the tens of thousands of Alvere citizens whom Lucinia will certainly conscript to fill out their ‘hordes’ if we sic the Brythons on them?” asked Gloriana, contemptuously. “An interesting notion of retribution: one that involves us shooting ourselves in our own feet, and with my pyronades, mark you.”

  “If you seriously mean to call yourself Queen of Alvenheim, it is your duty to protect and defend the true Alvere,” declared Saskia, forcefully. “Fifty years as a fugitive have made you no less naïve, I see, or is this wilful self-deception? You know very well that some Alvere have fled the south, even at risk of their lives, to join us. Even under the reign of your degenerate predecessor, there were those who preferred to starve here than to take any more of the Lucinians’ coin. As for those who still have no such qualms … either they are too weak, or they are apathetic to their slavery. Whatever it is, they have lost the spirit of their people, and they are Alvere in flesh alone. Even if you could force the Lucinians to surrender to us their entire supply of cheap labour, do you really think those pitiful wretches would thank you for freeing them to our life of honest hardship?”

  “Well, perhaps I have a slightly grander vision of our future potential than you seem to,” snapped Gloriana, and immediately regretted it, as her rational self had no desire whatsoever to confide any of her plans to Saskia. Unfortunately, the priestess did not miss the trick:

  “Oh really? Pray tell me, then, if you’ve some glorious plan to defeat the Lucinians that doesn’t involve giving your Brython dogs any more leash to play with. Because if they don’t bite the hand that feeds them sometime soon, I’ll be–”

  A short, hard rapping upon the chamber door cut Saskia off, much to her annoyance and to Gloriana’s relief, although it did distract the maid into pricking her neck again. By the time this is done, I shall look as if I’ve been attacked by some feeble-minded strykolak who couldn’t locate my jugular vein to save his un-life. Ignoring the pain, she called out:

  “Who is it?”

  “Only me, Your Highness,” said the voice of Lord Lycon. “Are you decent?”

  “Err, yes, but somewhat occupied,” she answered, while taking in Saskia’s expression of corrosive loathing, and deciding that she would rather not risk the combination of elements. “Could you come back in ten minu
tes or so?”

  “Of course. I just wanted to inform you that your guests are here and have been suitably accommodated. As suitably as possible, anyway, with most of the palace quarter in ruins.”

  “Very good. What did you make of them, Milord?”

  “Much as I expected to make. I think you’ll have the bureaucrat eating out of your hands by sundown tomorrow. The delator intrigues me somewhat. Not quite the hard-bitten thug I was imagining, although I’ll wager she’s tough enough when pushed. Mind you, long service in the most brutal organs of the state have not deprived her of her aesthetic senses, apparently. I hear she was admiring your subjects’ clothes.”

  “Really?” asked Gloriana, with a sudden, joyously malicious flash of inspiration. “In that case, we must not be remiss in our hospitality. Have my chatelaine choose a selection of suitably fetching Alvere garments, and deliver them to the diplomats with my compliments. Let them interpret that gesture as they please.” Then at least I might not be the only poor sod squirming in discomfort at this reception.

  “How ineffably cruel of you, Your Highness,” said Lycon, approvingly. “I’ll see to it at once. Speaking of fashion, are your own clothes suitable?”

  “Yes, they’re all very … impressive,” she declared, inwardly deciding that true warrior queens do not gripe about itchy petticoats and pinching shoes. “I only hope I do them justice.”

  “You couldn’t fail to, Your Highness. I’ll attend to our guests and return when it’s more convenient. Adieu.”

  As his matching steps began to recede into silence, Saskia spoke again, her tone so offended that Gloriana felt she might as well have just emptied her bladder over her grave:

  “So that’s the way of things: casting your old friends and mentors aside, so you can spend even more time fraternising with the vargs and the vultures. I am gratified to know where I stand.”