The Trials of Empire, page 27
Much like the Imperial Palace, the temple was locked down like a fortress. The barricades in front of the entrance had been abandoned, and I suspected that the remaining traitors had holed themselves up deep inside, looking to prolong the fight, forcing Vonvalt to clear out pockets of them from chambers and corridors and chapels, robbing us of any advantage in tactics and numbers.
It was a huge construction, and some hours were spent surrounding, surveying, and blocking off exits. Sir Radomir and I, as well as Heinrich, ended up to the north of the building, sandwiched between the Sofijan High-Way and the Veleurian Road in a broad square filled with ranks of statues on large obsidian plinths. Here, more aid stations were set up, for the skirmishes along the Veleurian Road had claimed dozens more wounded.
It was cooler now as the afternoon gave way to evening. As the sun sank, the shadows lengthened and the Sovan streets darkened. We found food and water and traded stories of our experiences of the day’s fighting, all the while keeping an eye on the many windows and balustrades of the temple. Archery did not form a huge component of Sovan martial doctrine, but that was not to say that it was not practised, and the fear of being picked off by a surprise arrow shot from the rooftops did not fade. Yet although we were certain the traitor Guardsmen were inside – and Vonvalt was confident of this, thanks to what Jansen had told us – the place was eerily quiet.
There was nothing to do now, but wait.
In spite of the circumstances, my exhaustion was so great that I did manage some sleep. It was unnervingly dark when I awoke, for I noticed that although braziers had been lit in the various loyalist staging areas, none of the street lamps were alight. All of Sova was quiet.
I sat up, my muscles aching from the day’s fighting and cramped from lying on a bed of cold flagstones, to see that Sir Radomir was awake next to me. From where we sat, we could see in the distance the main entranceway to the temple. There, I watched as men and women were splashing great quantities of smoking hot pitch against the doors.
“They are going to burn the temple down?” I croaked, my mouth and throat as dry as paper. Heinrich, who had also been enjoying a spell of sleep, immediately leapt up at the sound of my voice. I absently patted him.
“The doors, at least,” Sir Radomir replied. “They are great thick timbers. It will take a while to eat through.”
I looked over to where the northern entrance was, a set of stout oak doors studded with iron bolts, tiny in comparison to the main gates. A cluster of at least a dozen Guardsmen stood directly outside it, waiting to engage anyone attempting to flee.
“Go back to sleep, Helena,” Sir Radomir said. “I’ll make sure you are roused when the time comes.”
To my surprise I actually did manage to sleep again, for when I was awoken a second time, having used Heinrich’s rump as a pillow, the sky was a washed-out dawn-grey, and a light haze of rain hung like curtains of damp between the buildings.
Sir Radomir himself had drifted off, and we were both jerked awake by the tremendous calamity of smashing wood. I immediately looked over to where the main entrance was, watching as the black, smouldering timbers of the gate crashed into the flagstones. Moments later, a party of two hundred Imperial Guard, led by Vonvalt and Serjeant Rainer, charged into the temple.
“They’re going in?” I asked, alarmed, pressing myself to my feet. I paused, briefly in agony as my cold muscles spasmed.
“Looks that way,” Sir Radomir murmured, casting about to see if anyone else was rousing themselves for an attack. But if orders to prepare had been issued, then they had not reached us here to the north.
We both listened intently for the sounds of steel against steel, but the city was as quiet as it had been in the dead of night.
“Come on,” I said to Sir Radomir, and the three of us walked slowly around to where the loyalists had made their entrance. There was no great sense of urgency amongst our fellow besiegers, and I became convinced we had missed something in the night, perhaps some negotiations for surrender or an infiltration mission that had revealed the temple to be empty. I could feel the heat radiating off the charred beams, and looked at the huge scorch marks blackening the stones above the gate. But still there came no sounds of battle from inside.
Eventually, a Guardsman ran back out, pausing in the entranceway.
“Pass word for a ‘Helena Sedanka’ to attend Sir Konrad,” he shouted out to us.
“I am Helena Sedanka,” I called back, my heart pounding. My first thought was that Vonvalt had been mortally wounded and wanted to speak to me before he died – indeed, judging from the grimace Sir Radomir wore, we were of one mind.
The messenger said, “Come then, and be quick. He wishes to speak with you.”
Before I could ask anything, the Guardsman had ducked back inside, and I could hear his retreating footsteps echoing against the marble.
“Go on,” Sir Radomir said. “I’ll follow you.”
XIX
A Fortress of Evil and Sedition
“For every wrong put right, for every misdeed punished, there is no shortage of fresh devils waiting in the wings.”
FROM CHUN PARSIFAL’S TREATISE, PENITENT EMPIRE
Beyond the threshold of the smashed, charred gates, I expected to see a scene of carnage; instead, one would not know that anything had come to pass here. The marble floor was unmarked, the Eternal Fire was still lit, merrily burning away in its brazier, and although the candles were all extinguished, giving the place a gloomy, despondent feel, there was no hint of the fortification I had expected.
We made our way through the temple quickly, following the Guardsman who had been dispatched to find me. He led us through a succession of corridors and chambers, until eventually we came to a small, concealed chapel.
Vonvalt was standing in the doorway, and looked up when he saw us approach. His face was grim.
“Steel yourselves,” he said. “Leave the hound out here.”
With a sense of anxiety and foreboding, I bade Heinrich stay with the Guardsman posted outside the door, and Sir Radomir and I followed Vonvalt inside.
Beyond the threshold was a small, low-ceilinged chamber. It was hot – almost unbearably so – and the walls, undressed stone, ran with moisture like sweating skin. But it was not this which drew the attention.
In the centre of the room was a man – or it certainly had been. All of his skin had been removed, but not with the patient strokes of a barber-surgeon’s blade; instead it looked as though it had exploded off him. Strips of it, like discarded bandages, were scattered about the chamber, including a clump which dangled from the ceiling. A huge splatter of blood coated the floor and ceiling and flecked the walls; and upon examining those walls, I saw for the first time a great many sigils and runes daubed there.
My reaction to seeing these signs was visceral. As soon as my eyes registered them I felt a penetrating wave of nausea, and the tattoo on my chest flared with pain as though I had been stabbed.
Vonvalt did not seem unduly concerned by my reaction. He turned to me briefly, saw that I was grimacing in pain, and nodded. “Yes. It is the marks on the walls,” he said, pointing at several of them.
“They do not bother you?” Sir Radomir asked, for I could barely speak. He himself sounded hoarse.
“They do,” Vonvalt said simply, though he showed no signs of being bothered. He stepped forward to where the body of the man hung. His wrists were manacled, and secured by chains to loops of iron bolted to the ceiling. A similar arrangement held his ankles fastened to the floor, the effect being that he was stretched between the two points. His face was a rictus of agony, jarringly white teeth amongst a mess of red tissue open in an eternal, silent scream. Battlefield enemies – animals in the abattoir – had better deaths.
“What were they doing to him?” I breathed.
Vonvalt shook his head. He approached the corpse and began to examine it – even poking and prodding at it with his gloved fingers.
“What are you searching for?” Sir Radomir asked. The sheriff was no stranger to examining corpses, but even he baulked at the horror before us.
Vonvalt did not immediately answer; instead, after a few moments of probing, he said to us both, “Come here. Look at this.”
We approached with trepidation. Vonvalt was examining what looked to be an incision on the man’s upper breastbone, in the same place where the mark of the Trickster was on my own body. My hand absentmindedly traced it.
“What do you see?” he asked us as he manipulated the flesh there.
“A mark,” I said. “Like those on the walls.”
And I was right. Someone had taken a blade and carved something into the man’s chest – a rune of some kind. It had the same stylings as those I had seen in the afterlife, those which seemed to glow with a sick pink light and which filled me with dread.
Vonvalt turned to Sir Radomir. “Have someone fetch paper and a quill,” he said. “I mean to take a copy of it.”
The sheriff seemed pleased to leave, and did so quickly. In the silence that followed, I reminded Vonvalt about the priests in Keraq, who had not yet mastered the Draedist arcana and who had subsequently become violently overstuffed with energies from the afterlife and detonated.
Vonvalt nodded absently. “This certainly bears the hallmarks of a similar failure,” he said. He took a few steps back and examined the body again. Then he began to pace the chamber, occasionally stopping to wipe away a piece of viscera or thick bloodstain from the walls. “Marks of containment…” he murmured to himself.
“Like those in the chambers beneath the Grand Lodge?” I asked.
Vonvalt looked over to me as though he had forgotten I was in the room. “Yes. Precisely.” He gestured more broadly at the marks on the walls. “Like a psychic cage. It is designed to confine any… escapees. And then collapse. We used to use them for the initiates attempting necromancy. But…” he looked at the chains holding the man in place “… there were no manacles involved. This person was an unwilling participant.”
Sir Radomir returned with a sheaf of papers and a few bits of charcoal peeled from the smouldering gate beams. Vonvalt snatched both out of his hands without a thank you and began to copy down the marks. Sir Radomir and I watched in silence until he was finished. Then he stuffed the papers into his pocket and tossed the charcoal on to the floor.
“Come on,” he muttered, and we fell into step behind him.
We moved back through the Temple of Savare. Loyalists milled about the main hall, whilst the sounds of a vigorous search clattered through the large, vaulted spaces. Of the bulk of the traitor forces, there was no sign.
“How can hundreds of men simply vanish?” Sir Radomir demanded angrily.
Vonvalt’s face was a mask of contempt. “I know not. But believe me, I intend to find out.”
The answer came several hours later. Vonvalt, Sir Radomir and I were discussing matters with Sir Gerold and Serjeant Rainer in the cold morning light, when a runner, ruddy-faced and breathless, found us.
“My Lord Regent,” he said. “A great cache of armour has been found. Four hundred suits of plate, all bearing the white star. We are looking for tunnels.”
Vonvalt endured a spasm of anger, and then dismissed the runner.
“So. They have stripped themselves of any identifying feature and dissipated into the city like vermin.”
“Doubtless to coalesce at a more favourable time,” Sir Gerold said.
“Aye,” Vonvalt said, nodding. “Well. We shall have to content ourselves with the neutralisation of the immediate threat. Fortunately, we have Senator Jansen and his network of spies. People like Radoslav Gautvin and Milena Bartoš cannot disappear, even in a city as vast as Sova. I shall have to make my promise of clemency to any defectors permanent. Let us see how loyal these rebels are to their agitators then.” He gestured to Rainer. “Come. You were about to give me the tallies.”
“Of the five hundred Guard we fielded, fifty are dead, double that wounded. Of the volunteer companies, double those numbers again.”
Vonvalt considered this. “The timing of this rebellion is most inopportune. We were not exactly flush with defenders before; now we have been forced to kill off or disavow half the remaining professional soldiery of the capital. We will need to arm and train more volunteer companies.”
“I will have my people see to it,” Serjeant Rainer said.
Vonvalt thought for a moment. “Senator Jansen was convinced something was taking place in the College of Prognosticators. I am now convinced of that too. I know not what that abomination was within the Temple of Savare, but clearly our enemies are attempting… something.”
“You think they were taking instructions again? From Claver?” I asked.
Vonvalt shook his head. “They won’t have needed to make that mess to speak to Claver. No. This spoke of something much more ambitious. And that is what concerns me.” He drew himself up. “Now that we have pacified the city, we shall have to do some research. Helena, I want you to go to the Law Library – after you have cleaned yourself up and taken on some victuals. Sir Radomir will accompany you. You remember what else you need to search for?”
“A volume of esoteric lore,” I said, swallowing.
Vonvalt nodded sternly. “We will talk about it properly later. Serjeant Rainer; assign Helena a detail of your men, too. A dozen should do it.”
The serjeant accepted this instruction with a nod, though I did not get the impression she considered me worth the dedicated attention of twelve of her people.
“What do you mean to do now?” Sir Gerold asked.
“Restore the city. The curfew must be lifted. Those who are inessential or itinerant should be encouraged to leave north. We must take stock of all our supplies, and start gathering together as much food and water as we can.”
“We will need to ration grain,” Sir Gerold said. “And secure our stocks. I will look into other matters.”
“Good. First, though, you must round up all of the Mlyanars you can find. I expect most, if not all of them, will have gone into hiding, but do your very best. The patricians have their moderates, though it is hard to believe; I expect they will be in the Senate house. Take them to the dungeons beneath the Imperial Palace. Once you have detained the moderates, arrest all of the others. Do not be subtle or gentle. If they resist, you may kill them as traitors to the Crown. Do you understand?”
Sir Gerold looked slightly taken aback by these sweeping measures, but agreed nonetheless.
Vonvalt then turned to Serjeant Rainer. “You are now the Captain of the Imperial Guard and Legionary Prefect. Milena Bartoš is an enemy of the state. Track her down. Arrest her if you can, kill her if you cannot.”
Rainer had no hesitation in accepting this promotion. In fact, she seemed positively pleased by it. The Imperial Guard had long been a corrupt institution, its loyalty bought and paid for by a succession of Emperors. It was a body that promoted ambition above all else, and such bodies were inevitably ruthless.
I had only ever seen Vonvalt act from a position of absolute authority, so I should not have been surprised by the ease with which he issued these instructions. But, even so, there was something about ordering the mass incarceration of one of the capital’s political classes, on a kill-or-capture basis no less, that stuck in my craw. Vonvalt had never enjoyed political manoeuvrings, mainly because he did not have the ruthless, selfish ambition required. And that had always spoken to his credit. That he did not have the duplicity required, the callousness, the cruelty, was a good thing.
Except, now he did. He certainly had the ruthlessness. I did not have the heart for it, nor the stomach. I was happy to pick up a sword and fight other soldiers, but I was glad I had not been in the vanguard to slaughter the commonfolk on the Veleurian Road.
“We must assume that no further help will be forthcoming,” Vonvalt continued.
“But you have sent for further help?”
I thought of Lady Frost heading south, and the Grasvlaktekraag heading north. They were still weeks away.
“I have. But it is all slow, much too slow.” He fished in his pockets and handed me the crumpled papers where he had documented the signs. Then he produced a second, much neater list. “Here is a list of books to look out for. Some of them will be in the Master’s Vaults. Some of them will have been burned in Keraq. None of them will be the books we truly want, for those have long gone. See what information you can find. When you are ready, meet me back in the Imperial Palace. The strategium will be my new chambers. Is that understood?”
I nodded.
“Good. Be about it, then.”
I made my way back to the Imperial Palace with Sir Radomir, a life guard of Imperial Guardsmen, and Heinrich, the only one of the group who seemed to want to be there. With all of the excitement over, a profound exhaustion overcame me, and by the time I got back to my chamber, I was able to do little more than strip off my armour – something that took much too long with all the buckles and clasps to contend with – and collapse on to the bed. Heinrich jumped up on to the bed, too, and slept in a huge ball at my feet.
I surfaced from a deep sleep many hours later to see Heinrich’s huge nose above mine. My face was wet with his saliva from where he had roused me, since – as was evident from the strength and frequency of the thumping – the pounding on my chamber door had not.
Still clothed, I rolled out of the bed and pulled open the door, to see Sir Radomir. He was washed and dressed, wearing a fine doublet and hose, with his sword buckled about his hips. His hair, as long as I had ever known it to be, was lank and combed back, and he was for the first time fragrant.
“What did you bathe in?” I asked, making a great show of smelling the air around him. I was in a surprisingly good mood; I had endured another battle and acquitted myself well; and I had survived a night’s sleep without horrifying visions. For the first time in weeks, I was feeling well rested.
