The Trials of Empire, page 29
Once my heart might have ruptured at the very thought of this conversation. Now, I simply accepted it with weariness. “I read your letter, you know. The one you wrote me in Südenburg.”
Vonvalt looked briefly, genuinely surprised by this. “You were not supposed to see that letter.”
“I know. But I did. Severina showed it to me. She thought I should see it. And she was right, I should have.”
“I thought I was going to die. I did die.”
“Would you have not written it otherwise?”
“No,” Vonvalt said simply. “But the letter’s contents were true. Everything I told you in Südenburg was true. You know why I have not made a clean breast of my feelings in the past.”
“You were ‘protecting’ me.”
“I was. And for good reason.”
I toyed with my goblet. “You know, once I would have been furious at the thought of that. The idea of you taking the choice away from me. But actually, I think I am grateful. For us to form a relationship… I think it would have been a mistake.”
Vonvalt opened his mouth briefly and then closed it again. I had never seen him pull that expression before; one of sudden, profound pain. I could tell immediately that I had wounded him as surely as if I had thrust a sword into his gut.
“I think it would have been many things, Helena, but I do not think it would have been a mistake.”
“Your heart belongs to Resi. It always has. Your affection for me is born of circumstance.”
“Resi is gone,” Vonvalt said. “She lingers in the spirit realm, aye, but she and I will never be reunited in any meaningful way. Though it pains me greatly to say so.”
“Do you know what I think?” I took a long draw of wine. “I think I loved the idea of you. I loved the man I thought you were.”
Again, that sad smile. “Sir Konrad the paragon.”
I nodded. “But you aren’t. I think that speaks more to my naïveté than anything else, but—” I shrugged. “There it is.”
“I am not a bad person.” There was something in Vonvalt’s voice, an edge to it. It was almost desperate. I had never heard him sound like this. Vonvalt was many things, but he had never suffered from a lack of conviction. I realised then how much he valued my opinion of him – which probably spoke more to his feelings of me personally, rather than my opinions in and of themselves.
“I know that,” I said gently. “But you have done bad things. And I know that it sounds ridiculous to say that, in these times of appalling upheaval. But it is how I feel. And I cannot help myself feeling that way. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many philosophical arguments I bring to bear, no matter how I rationalise it – and believe me, I have spent many hours trying – I still feel that way.” I realised I was close to crying. My voice was beginning to break. “The Templar on the Hauner Road. Fischer. The hanging of Westenholtz. The murder of Arnulf in Rekaburg. I saw you in Port Talaka, unmoved by the plight of those ghastly hybrids, and in limbo, when you examined Westenholtz without any hint of revulsion. Sometimes I fear you are… impressed by the resourcefulness of our enemies, rather than appalled. And now the slaughter of the commonfolk on the Veleurian Road. Why did you have to—”
“Helena, what on earth was I supposed to—”
“I told you! All of these things can be rationalised. The ‘exigencies of warfare’. Consequentialism. Realpolitik. Whatever clever arguments you want to use. But I cannot help how I feel. I wish we could win this war without ever having crossed the line between good and bad. I wish we could kill off Claver and his Templars and leave our morality entirely intact. And I am not stupid. I know that our focus must be the preservation of life. And I know what you are going to ask me to do, and what that will entail.”
Vonvalt looked briefly confused. “What do you mean?”
“You said yourself that you wanted me to contact Resi. What else could that mean except travelling to the spirit realm?”
Vonvalt lapsed to silence, smoking and ruminating. I found him difficult to read in that moment; certainly a part of him wanted to engage and grapple with what I had accused him of and debate me on it – that was an ingrained part of his personality and nothing would ever change that. Another part of him was crushed that I had given voice to what we both knew: that whatever form our love had taken, it had withered irreparably on the vine, and the temptation to argue about that, too, would have been a strong one. And still a third part of him knew the truth of everything I had said, even though all of it brought him great pain.
I felt guilty for turning his mind to these matters, for realistically there were few options facing him that did not involve the wholesale slaughter of Sova’s political enemies. I detest those who seek to impress with their affected nonchalance, and shrug, and say the world is a terrible place, as though that is something we should all simply accept and that to not do so is an intellectual failing. But at the same time I was perfectly aware of the difficulties facing Vonvalt. My own idealism was not a fault – indeed, in times of upheaval it takes great courage and effort to stand by one’s principles, knowing that they might not be enough. And yet, sometimes, standing by one’s principles is objective folly, if the consequence is that a greater evil triumphs.
Eventually, Vonvalt said, “I am.” He looked at me, a hint of uncertainty about him. It did not suit his features. “Are you about to refuse me?”
I shook my head. “No. I will not be so churlish as to turn away from you and my duties now. But I think I have finally made my feelings clear. And I am glad that I did. Especially this close to the end.”
Vonvalt snorted. “Helena, you are an open book. Your feelings on these matters have been clear for many months. I am just grateful that in spite of your misgivings you have decided to stand with me.”
“My loyalty to you is beyond question,” I said. “I just wish there was a way we could do this… better. To be better.”
“My dear Helena,” Vonvalt said. He looked out across the dark turrets and spires of Sova, examining the city. “You think I do not?”
And so it was that at half an hour past the second bell, with the city still dark and cold and our soldiers still half asleep, that Vonvalt ordered the day begun.
Sir Gerold and his city watch, along with a large number of volunteer constables who had been called up per some ancient city ordinance, moved through the streets by torchlight, clearing them of corpses and debris and barricades, pulling the wounded from smashed and charred buildings, handing out water and marsh ale and bread, and a hundred other things besides. The people of Sova could not be locked in place indefinitely; many needed victuals; more still needed to simply leave. Bulletins were placed in public squares, criers were roused from their beds and set to work, and slowly the capital prepared for the arrival of Claver.
Captain Rainer and Sir Radomir were given several hours to prepare a cohort of surviving and capable Guardsmen for a dawn raid on the College of Prognosticators. Senator Jansen, who had, in spite of his impressive record of combat in Galen’s Vale, declined to take part in the fighting in Sova, was tasked with tracking down as many Mlyanars, Templars and traitor Guardsmen in the city as possible. They would be arrested by teams of loyalists and city watchmen that afternoon and thrown in gaol.
With these wheels put in motion, Vonvalt turned his mind to the task of husbanding political allies. One did not unilaterally assume the role of Imperial Regent without having friends in high places. And Sova being what it was, there would be plenty of ambitious Haugenates who would see this as an opportunity to claim some power for themselves – and who would happily do so even as the city burned itself to the ground. Haugenates and Justices had been murdered, dragged from their beds in front of their families and stabbed to death or burned at the stake. The reassertion of loyalist control would bring with it a tidal wave of retribution and grubby clamouring for fresh governmental vacancies.
I realised, as I watched Vonvalt argue for the third consecutive hour with a gaggle of pre-eminent Haugenates, that the raid on the College was going to be delayed. Dawn came and went, and I rattled about the Hall of Solitude listlessly and with a growing sense of unspent energy and frustration. It was not until the temples were tolling the eleventh bell that Vonvalt inspected the force that Rainer had scraped together. To my dismay, he quickly declared it much too incoherent and battle-weary to launch an effective operation. But he did not provide further instruction; instead, he bade her wait, and then disappeared for the balance of the day.
For my own part, mindful of the need to make contact with Resi, I spent the day trying to fall asleep and so precipitate a visitation. But I could not. Even in my quiet, dark chamber, guarded by Heinrich, as calm as I could make myself and in any event genuinely tired, I was much too agitated. I was plagued by thoughts of the City of Sleep, of the afterlife, of Ghessis and Claver and his demonic patron. A concoction provided by the Royal Physician did not induce sleep so much as an unsatisfactory night of unconsciousness. There was no dawn raid on the College that morning, either.
And our enemies gathered, and made plans.
Two mornings after my meeting with Vonvalt in the strategium, Senator Jansen caught me walking Heinrich down the Petran High-Way. In the absence of Vonvalt’s counsel – to say nothing of his person – I had turned my efforts to soldiering with Sir Radomir. My attempts to confer with Resi had been a failure; it seemed that, as we approached the endgame, both my allies and enemies in the afterlife had entered a period of caution.
“Helena,” Jansen said, jogging to catch up with me. It had been a long and exhausting day rebuilding the garrison and assisting with the training and drilling of city defenders on the Nastjan Fields, and Heinrich and I were making our way down to the banks of the Sauber. This far south there was no steep embankment like there was in the centre of the city; rather, it was a long shallow slope, at this time of year formed of dry, hard mud. The city rose enormously to the north, bathed in evening light, but here, at a lower section of wall west of the Victory Gate and staging area, it didn’t feel quite so claustrophobic.
“Senator,” I said, offering him a tired, insincere smile. The man was wearing senatorial robes, the hem at his ankles fouled from the dusty streets of Sova. A spatter of what could have been blood, but which I decided was mud, marked the white around his left leg. He was sweating slightly, but otherwise there was nothing remarkable about his appearance.
“Another productive day, I trust?” he asked me.
“Hm,” I grunted.
He patted about himself and pulled a flask out. “Only marsh ale, I’m afraid, but it is cool.”
I accepted it and took a drink, for I was still parched, despite having slaked my thirst from the water barrels in the staging area. Then I handed it back and stretched. My shoulders and arms and back were aching after a long day of training, and my spine popped in several places.
“How are the recruits?” Jansen asked.
“Fine. Though I am no authority on the matter.” With my armour safely racked in the barracks storehouses, I was wearing little more than a blouse and breeches. I removed my shoes and waded into the water up to my calves, and Heinrich splashed about me enthusiastically. I found the dichotomy of Heinrich fascinating; at all times a ferocious beast of war and a playful puppy, with only circumstances dictating which came to the fore.
Jansen reached into his pocket and casually offered the hound a morsel, which he ate greedily. “He has taken quite a shining to you,” he said, ruffling Heinrich’s fur. “You are fortunate to have such a dedicated protector.”
I relished the cold water against my feet, and played the silt between my toes. I looked over to the barracks, but from where I was standing I was concealed by a natural hill where the Petran High-Way rose up into the city. In fact we were quite hidden from view.
“I agree,” I said. “How go your prosecutions? I know that Sir Konrad was especially keen to locate the traitor Guard forces.”
“They go well,” Jansen said, his eyes on the river, nodding to himself. “There are rosters of Guardsmen, after all, and we can account for those who remain loyal to the Crown – to the Lord Regent, I should say.” I frowned. The addendum was spoken with not a little bitterness. “The families and addresses of those who betrayed Sova are known quantities. We have started there.”
Emboldened by the presence of Heinrich, I gave voice to something which had been bothering me for a while. “Did you envisage such a position for yourself? The Regency.”
Jansen had clearly not expected the confrontation. His eyes darted over to Heinrich, who was still frolicking in the water. “No, no,” he said, smiling. “No sane man would seek out such power. I am just happy to assist where I can.”
The afternoon was fading to dusk, and I did not like to be alone here, for this was a part of the city that was not well populated and I was not armed.
“I had thought to seek you out and assist you,” I said, walking back to the bank and calling Heinrich over. But the hound did not obey my command. Instead, he remained standing in the water, looking back up towards the city. “Our enemies are planning something monstrous, and Sir Konrad believes that these scattered groupings of traitor Guardsmen are integral to its orchestration.”
Jansen offered me the flask again as I approached him, but I waved him off. “Yes, well. We are moving as fast as we can. Sova is a very large place, as you know.”
I paused as my stomach clenched. It was only a brief spasm, and I quickly righted myself. “You must know many of them personally, given your… machinations…” I paused again. My stomach cramped a second time.
“Is something the matter?” Jansen asked me atonally.
I was about to say something when a third cramp seized my abdomen, so sharp and painful that I was forced down to one knee.
And then I realised. I looked up sharply at Jansen. He was watching me with complete impassivity.
“Heinrich!” I shouted feebly, looking over to where he was; but I watched helplessly as he gagged and slumped on to his side.
“Stop screaming, it’s just a fucking dog,” Jansen muttered, glancing around us. He gestured subtly, and I looked over to see that other people were now approaching, a collection of men and women who were obviously unarmoured traitors.
“No,” I breathed as my strength left me and my vision blurred.
“Don’t worry, Helena,” Jansen said absently, watching as his accomplices approached. “It will all be over soon.”
XXI
The Souls of the Things that Make Up the World
“I do not know whether I take comfort or horror from the fact that any person can affect the course of earthly events.”
PROGNOSTICATOR TERESA PAULAUSKAS
I had no sense of where I was being carried. The poison did not render me unconscious, though it did incapacitate me. The stomach cramps were unbearable, and when I was not clenched into a ball, every muscle in my body burning in protest, I was struggling simply to breathe.
They took me east past the barracks. They kept to the side streets and shadows, but we would not have aroused much in the way of suspicion anyway; a group of soldiers helping a wounded or exhausted – or even blind drunk – comrade, attended upon by a Haugenate senator.
I tried to use my mind, to map out the route in my head around eye-watering bouts of pain. It gave me something to focus on. I guessed a short trip down the Petran High-Way, and then into the tangled housing district that straddled the Klaran Road and sat in the lee of the Guelan Wall. But after that I quickly lost the thread. This was a high-density tangle of apartment blocks and houses, and our route was a random, circuitous one.
My captors encountered no trouble from anybody here either. The sight of people being plucked off the streets did not arouse any suspicion from the citizens of Sova. They had seen and endured so much in the past weeks that they were unlikely to bestir themselves to help –and that was even if they had considered something was wrong at all. Arrests and abductions had not stopped under Vonvalt’s regency; if anything, they had multiplied.
Eventually, I was taken into a building. I had long given up on anything except enduring the pain of the poison and quietly weeping for Heinrich, who by now must have succumbed. I assumed, once we were inside, that we were nearing the end of our journey, but to my surprise we were barely halfway. A succession of downward staircases gave way to long, warm and damp tunnels. I wondered what a cross-section of the soil and bedrock beneath Sova looked like, honeycombed as it must have been with these secret passageways.
I felt myself become more panicked the longer this subterranean part of the journey continued. Whereas before I might have had a fighting chance at escape, it seemed absolutely impossible that I would manage to find my way out of this labyrinth. Robbed of all sense of location, I found myself giving in to a profound feeling of despair. Death on the battlefield was one thing; this quiet murder was another entirely.
Eventually, I was deposited in a cell, and bound and blindfolded.
“Do not gag her,” I heard Jansen say coldly. “If she vomits, she will drown.”
I was left alone for what must have been at least an hour, over the course of which the cramps subsided but my world span nauseatingly and I sweated half my body’s water away. Then, the moment I had begun to relax just slightly, I stiffened again as I heard the rattling of keys in locks, bolts being withdrawn, and the door being opened. I was picked up and carried out by at least two people, and, judging by the shift in acoustics, taken into a large chamber.
I was sat roughly into a hard wooden chair, and the blindfold was pulled off. I was sitting in the centre of a large, circular and domed chamber. There was no natural light; only that provided by flickering torches in brackets on the walls. On the ground was an intricate mosaic, a large star pattern with constellations and other heavenly bodies. On closer inspection, I saw that many of these were inlaid with gems, and I wondered what manner of place this was that could afford to set the floor with precious stones.
