The Trials of Empire, page 22
I had heard that name before, when Bressinger and I had visited the Senate house and watched a debate in progress. Bartoš was the Legionary Prefect, the political chief of the Sovan Legions and the Imperial Guard. She was a well-known Mlyanar lackey.
Jansen slid the piece of paper across the desk to Vonvalt. Vonvalt picked it up and held it between us so that I could read it too. Jansen continued to talk as though nothing had happened. It read:
I am still with you. I will explain when there is time. I am certain they are eavesdropping. You have many friends in the capital still.
Thereafter was listed an address, which I committed to memory. Then Vonvalt handed the note back to Jansen, who gave Vonvalt a meaningful look and then set the paper aflame on a nearby candle and dropped it to the floor.
Vonvalt did not miss a beat. “I never expected to see you wearing the white star. You always seemed as though you would land on the right side of history.”
Jansen snorted derisively. “Do you not see, Sir Konrad? I am going to fall on the right side of history. Because it will be Claver that writes it.”
“You gutless cunt,” Vonvalt said with profound rancour.
Jansen chortled. “There is nothing gutless about what I have achieved – and endured.” For the briefest of moments the mask slipped. He winced slightly, lost in a fleeting reverie. I wondered what he had done to be here, in this chamber, now. “You need not worry. In a few short days we will have mustered enough manpower to storm the Imperial Palace. No doubt you harbour fond memories of the place.”
“The Emperor is alive?” Vonvalt asked.
“Oh yes,” Jansen said, not breaking eye contact with Vonvalt. “I think we’d all like to crack open his skull and find out what he is thinking.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “I for one am interested to see how he plans to tunnel his way out of this one.” One last meaningful glance before Jansen came to a stop next to the back wall. He continued to talk about the rebellion as though he had not moved from his chair at the desk, and pressed the section of wood panelling in. It popped back out to reveal a hidden staircase. He motioned for Vonvalt and I to leave by it, but not before giving Vonvalt a dagger.
“They will kill you,” Vonvalt mouthed as we passed the senator, but he shook his head in admonition, continuing to talk as though he were on the Senate floor giving a speech. Even after we passed into that dank secret passageway and the door was quietly closed behind us, I could hear him continuing on as though none of us had left the desk.
Although I still had not overcome my initial confusion as to why Jansen was apparently at the head of an armed rebellion in the first place, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. We moved down the damp, cold steps. It was pitch black, and we could only move quickly thanks to an iron railing bolted to the side of the staircase. Eventually, we reached the bottom and found ourselves in a low, stooped tunnel. We followed the line of it until the faintest glow of firelight began to reveal some of its detail.
We reached the end of the tunnel, where a ladder led up through a trapdoor, which itself was set in the floor of an unremarkable back room. We pulled ourselves up, closed the trapdoor, and made our way through the chamber door into an empty house. We stood quietly for a few minutes, waiting to see if anyone stirred, but on closer inspection it seemed like the house was… fake, like a stage set. There was some furniture near the front windows – themselves made of cloudy, translucent glass – but other than that, the place was bare. Outside, street lanterns cast a wan orange glow.
We made our way to the door and slid the bolts back. Vonvalt opened it a crack and peered out. That warm, familiar smell of the Sovan streets bled through the door.
“It is clear. Come on,” Vonvalt said in a low voice.
We walked out into a narrow, cobbled street sandwiched between two towering and unstable-looking blocks of apartments. A quick look around revealed a glance of the Sovan arena to the south, which meant we had come out in and amongst a large residential area that took up much of the westernmost quarter of the city, running from the Creus Gate, down the Guelan Wall, all the way to the Victory Gate. It seemed to me that we were unlikely to run into any Imperial Guard here, for it was a large and tangled area of little strategic significance.
The address that Jansen had given us was in another residential district, albeit a more central one, near the Philosopher’s Palace. It was not a short journey – half the length of the city – but although it would take a long time, Vonvalt was still careful about our route. It was a tense, at times frightening, and always excruciatingly slow journey, but one that we made without incident.
About halfway through the journey, we stopped on the western bank of the Sauber in view of a small pedestrian bridge that had been built for the convenience of the residents of the Summit of the Prefects. I looked up at that natural plateau, the southern edifice of it a rocky cliff face from which an array of palatial homes seemed to sprout.
“I wonder who lives in your house now,” I murmured. I thought of the peach orchard in the back of the old residence, and the awkward, halting moment he and I had spent there, so close to speaking on our feelings towards one another.
“It is probably empty,” Vonvalt said. He sighed, taking up a small loose stone from the ground and flicking it towards the river. “I do not know what to think of Tymoteusz.”
“It was a pretence, was it not? His treachery.”
“Aye. Or another kind of betrayal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he may be sending us into another trap.”
I thought about this for a moment. “Funny way of going about it.”
“I agree. But Jansen thinks differently. He thinks like Claver. He is able to consider many different possibilities and outcomes at once and lay many different threads of a plan accordingly. He has released us, yes, but I would not be surprised if this was part of some other scheme.”
“I just do not know how he managed to get to where he is,” I said, tracing the line of what I thought was the Lord Prefect’s Palace. “If he truly is a Haugenate, then I imagine he must have had to endure some rather brutal tests of loyalty to the Savarans.”
“Oh I do not doubt you are right,” Vonvalt said. He squinted through the darkness, and I followed his gaze, but there was nothing there.
“Did I pick up his hints correctly? He means for you to speak to the Emperor?”
“Yes. And achieve the palace through that tunnel. The one that goes under the Creus Road. The one we used to escape from the dungeon,” he added, as though I had personal knowledge of several tunnels running from the Imperial Palace under the Creus Road.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. It was a warm, dry night, and the air of the capital smelt of dust and rebellion. We had been planning for the battle with Claver and his Templars in the capital for so long, we had not even considered that a fight for the capital would be required as well. The Imperial Guard was a corrupt institution, that was well known throughout Sova, but corrupt for money, not for religion – though often there was little to distinguish the two given the riches the members of the Neman Church seemed to enjoy.
“It seems our message to Kimathi was fortuitous in more ways than one. Sova is no stranger to armed rebellion – any student of history will tell you that. But those that were successful were successful quickly. The longer this drags on, the more the rebels will lose momentum. Traitors will begin to desert as their position becomes more precarious. Coups thrive on speed. If Jansen is secretly working against the interests of the Savarans, then I expect he will have counselled caution. Holding the bridges and building up strongpoints sounds on its face like sound military strategy, but…” He shook his head, sucking his teeth. “Every day that passes that Sova ultimately remains in Haugenate hands is a day closer to failure. They had one decent chance of taking the Imperial Palace, and that was on the first day.”
“You think they are just waiting for Claver to arrive?” I asked.
Vonvalt nodded. “I expect so. All they really need to do is control one of the city’s gates. Outside the walls, ten thousand men is nothing. You would need a hundred thousand to besiege Sova. But ten thousand men in the streets is…” He sighed. “Well, that’s another matter entirely.”
We set off again, eventually reaching the address Jansen had given us an hour before dawn. It was a robust townhouse of brick and timber with a pleasant view of the Sauber, the kind of place a wealthy merchant – but not a man of exorbitant means – would own.
We made sure it was safe before approaching. There was nothing to be discerned from the outside of the building, no light from the windows, no sign of activity. I had an uneasy feeling as we approached.
“If something happens, if this goes wrong, or you have the slightest whiff of danger, I want you to just run, do you understand? You remember what I told you about that money that I set aside for you, yes? The name of the account, and the secret password?”
I swallowed, and nodded.
Vonvalt knocked on the door.
For the longest time, nothing happened. The silence was unbroken – indeed, Sova felt unnaturally quiet, as though the whole city were holding its breath. Then Vonvalt knocked again, and this time we heard some movement.
My heart thumped as footsteps approached the door. Our attention was stolen by the rattle of a small glass peephole being opened. Then came the sound of bolts being un-shot, and finally the door opened – not a crack, but wide.
“Fuck me, am I glad to see you,” a familiar voice said.
It was Sir Radomir.
XVI
An Unexpected Reunion
“Stability breeds complacency.”
SOVAN SENATORIAL APHORISM
I felt as though my brain were about to burst open. But whilst my need for answers was great, my human needs were even greater.
The sheriff led us inside and closed and bolted the door, and we immediately sought out and drank great quantities of marsh ale. Sir Radomir found some food, mostly old and cold pie, but I would have happily eaten just about anything.
“There is water upstairs, if you want to wash. There are clothes, too, though I do not know how well they will fit,” Sir Radomir said. Unlike Jansen, he wore no Savaran disguise, simply breeches and a doublet. He looked very, very tired.
“Later,” Vonvalt said through his mouthful.
“Not too much later, I hope,” Sir Radomir mumbled quietly.
“What are you doing here?” Vonvalt asked. “I am glad to see you, but your presence can only herald bad news. Please tell me our pagan host is not destroyed.”
Sir Radomir, mercifully, blessedly, shook his head. “No, they are fine. Indeed, the ranks swell. Your plan, at least in that regard, is working; a few hundred from Oldenburg, another hundred from Espa. Baron Hangmar has promised half a thousand, armed and armoured. We might even be able to pluck some Legionaries from Kolstadt, though it seems unlikely. They are all moving on Wolfenshut as you directed, but it will take some time. A fortnight, at least, and then another week to get here.”
Vonvalt breathed a huge, shaky sigh of relief. “Blessed Nema. Well done, Sir Radomir. Well done!” He clapped him on the shoulder. “I am so deeply indebted to you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. There is still plenty of scope for matters to turn sour. The pagans are an unruly mob and this alliance of convenience is proceeding on faith for now. But I would not be surprised if word reached us that it had all collapsed.” He waved a hand as if to banish his own pessimism. “It has all been overtaken by events anyway,” he said, gesturing about Sova generally. “How did you come to be here?”
Vonvalt gave the sheriff the full account, including the disaster that had befallen us in the Spiritsraad, the unfortunate massacre on the Southern Plains, von Osterlen’s mission to destroy Claver’s stockpile of blackpowder before it could reach Sova, and the news we had heard that Claver was already moving on Saxanfelde.
“Aye,” Sir Radomir said thoughtfully, taking a long draw of wine. “He will move to slay the Prince Luka. Cut off the Haugenate line.”
“Tell me what happened here. You have clearly been in contact with Senator Jansen. What is he doing? What plans has he put in motion? Start from the beginning, tell me everything.”
“I know not all of it—”
“Just tell me what you do know,” Vonvalt said irritably. “Nema, I have never felt so ill informed in my life.”
Sir Radomir closed his eyes and pursed his lips as he weathered Vonvalt’s irritation. “The news I did hear was that there had been a spate of attacks along the Kova. Coordinated, it seemed, so that they all happened at a certain time on a certain day. The Legions are in disarray; some are besieged, others are routed. I have even heard that some are destroyed entirely. If you ask me, ’tis clearly a ploy by the Lady Iliyana to stop the Emperor from reinforcing Sova.”
Vonvalt grimaced. “Go on.”
“I was in Weisbaum at the time. With things in hand, I figured to make my way south to the capital and seek out your allies here. I know you are close with the senator, among others. I wanted to prepare the way for the arrival of the pagans, since the last thing we needed was some Imperial Guard force to sally north and crush us on the field.” Vonvalt nodded along at this piece of good wisdom, his decision to leave the sheriff behind completely vindicated. “Well, no sooner had I arrived then some sort of fucking rebellion happened. To hear tell of it now, some piece of news made its way to the Emperor that the Templars were striking north, intending to eviscerate Südenburg and then invade the capital. The Warden had a fucking seizure or some shit like that – it sounds to me as though you know what happened judging from your own account.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, matters moved very quickly afterwards. The Savarans and about half the Imperial Guard, led by Milena Bartoš, as well as – Nema – a fucking great mob whipped up by the patricians baying all sorts of nonsense…” he took another draw of wine and refilled his goblet “… tried to storm the palace and got a good spanking out of it. As half-baked a revolt as you ever saw. That was nearly the end of it, too, but the rebels ran all the way back to the Temple of Savare to regroup. They attacked again the following day and took some ground. Imposed a curfew.” He shrugged. “They’ve been turfing out Haugenates and what Justices remain – and they are few in number – and burning them since then.”
“But you spoke to Senator Jansen,” Vonvalt said.
“Aye, I spoke to your fancy man. I told him what you were doing, what we have been doing in the north. It was his plan, after all, as he’d relayed in Osterlen, though he seemed surprised that any of it had worked. Next fucking day I saw him in Guardsman armour with a white star over his heart. I thought I had killed us all with my big mouth. I was all set to get out of the city while the getting was good, but about three nights ago he sent someone to find me, and he and I met over on Victory Square, near the tavern there, the one with the picture of the bloke in the robes above it.”
“The Philosopher,” Vonvalt said immediately.
“Right. Well we met in there and spoke. Told me they had come for him early doors. Something he had expected, him being who he is. I confess I thought he would be murdered early too, but he is a snake. He has had irons in the fire for a long time – in every fire going. Apparently he has seen all of this coming: ‘a question of when, not if’. Polishing his Savaran credentials in secret, playing both sides. He would not tell me the precise nature of how he achieved it, but I think he has been responsible for the deaths of some of his own people to gild his subterfuge. He is a ruthless man.”
“He is,” Vonvalt agreed.
“Fuck me, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but for what it is worth, I do think he is still working in the Emperor’s interests. He let you go, after all.”
“He did.” There was a pause as we all thought for a moment. “And what are your standing instructions?” Vonvalt asked after a while. “What was the last thing Jansen told you to do?”
“There is something else, first,” Sir Radomir said darkly. “I have wanted to dismiss it for the longest time, to put it from my mind as silly pagan nonsense—”
“Out with it, man.”
Sir Radomir cleared his throat. “Lady Frost, she is a difficult woman. Her and that shaman bloke, Ulrich, all the way south they have been conducting rituals, ‘taking the health of the afterlife’. Lady Frost thinks that Claver is up to something nefarious – more so than usual. Since his setback at Keraq.”
“Go on,” Vonvalt said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“She says Claver is creating… vessels. Automata. Not quite in the same way she was doing in Seaguard… more like what Claver was doing in Keraq. Those spooky fucking sentries.”
I immediately thought of my nightmarish encounter with the demented, possessed nun in the latrine underneath the fortress keep.
“He’s using them as sentries, you mean?” Vonvalt asked.
“No. As in, he is using the same process, the same binding – or whatever it is – but taking the corpses of the slain and turning them into soldiers. I know not the nature of them,” he added, hastily, “but if they are anything like Helena’s encounter…”
“Nema,” I breathed. “One was bad enough. It was like fighting off a rabid wolf.”
Vonvalt contemplated this for a moment. “The page of the Codex Elementa that you left with him,” Vonvalt said. I didn’t realise he was talking to me for a moment. “That contained the instructions to create these vessels.”
