But he focused his will, took a deep mental breath, and there it was – a fish for Pisces, an eagle – for—
Saint Mark! And the gospel, and
In the beginning was the WORD,
And an owl—
Sweet Christ, the owl stands for wisdom, and . . .
MINERVA . . . ?
The man’s first dagger cut almost caught his outstretched hand. He bounced back, cut with his sword—
‘Athena!’ he spat.
Two Daggers immolated.
The force of the phantasm stunned Mortirmir and he stumbled back, as much in shock as from the force of the heat. The man screamed, terribly. He wasn’t dead, and three heartbeats later, he still wasn’t dead.
Mortirmir took a deep breath, made himself step forward, and cut the man’s head from his body.
The fire went out. The man was horribly burned, his skin almost melted, one of his eyeballs popped and the other—
The image of the ruined man would haunt Mortirmir for many nights. In the meantime, he spun, ready for another attacker, and they were gone – he saw them vanish around corners like roaches fleeing a night candle. He took a deep breath.
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
‘I did it,’ he muttered.
He stumbled a few steps, and decided, as if making the decision from a great distance, to continue his mission to the palace.
Two streets later, he realised that he still had a sword in his hand, and it was dripping blood. He stopped and expended one of his mother’s linen squares on the sword. Some of the blood was dried like lacquer. He spat on the blade, suddenly far too focused on cleaning it, and another hundred heartbeats later, he realised that he wasn’t thinking particularly well.
He got the blade clean enough, and sheathed it.
His right glove was soaked in blood, and there was blood running down his right leg from a hole in his thigh.
He kept going towards the palace.
He crossed the street of the lawyers, and it was empty. In the armourer’s streets, there were men with swords and half-pikes – workmen. He paused at the fountain.
A man in Etruscan half-armour came up to him. ‘What news, neighbour?’ the man asked courteously enough.
Mortirmir bowed. ‘I’m a student at the University,’ he said. ‘Men attacked me in the square of the jewellers.’ His saliva suddenly tasted of salt – he flashed on the burned man.
The other man nodded. ‘You don’t look like a looter to me,’ he said. But he pointed at the sword. ‘Are you a barbarian?’
Mortirmir nodded. ‘From Alba,’ he said, ignoring his automatic resentment at the term.
‘Ah. Harndon?’ the man asked.
‘I have that honour,’ Mortirmir said. His voice sounded a little wild inside his head.
‘There are fine armourers in Harndon,’ the man said. ‘Can you name one?’
Mortirmir saw that there were a dozen apprentices around him, armed to the teeth.
‘Master Pye lives in my mother’s street,’ he said. ‘I’ve been fishing with his daughters.’
The atmosphere lightened immediately. ‘Ah! Master Pye!’ cried the armoured man. He bowed. ‘These are difficult times, ser. I had to be sure. May I ask why you are out? The watch has called a curfew and we are all supposed to be in our beds.’
Mortirmir had to struggle with his own somewhat unruly mind to come up with an answer. ‘I’m going to the palace.’ He shrugged. ‘For a girl.’
Luckily for Mortirmir, the armourer had known a few young men, and a few girls. He smiled. ‘The palace is in turmoil,’ he said. ‘But I will take you there for Master Pye’s sake.’
An hour later, with four armed apprentices at his back, Mortirmir stood at the postern gate of the Outer Court and knocked. It was the fourth gate he had tried – his armourers were enjoying the adventure, but all five of them were tired of failure.
However, here the grate was opened – the first sign of life they’d seen in the palace. ‘State your business,’ said a voice.
Mortirmir had had an hour to practise his speech and calm himself from the fight in the square. ‘Kyrios,’ he said, ‘I have come to find my friend Harald Derkensun of the Nordikan Guard. And to ascertain if the palace is in need of any food or drink that the city taverns might supply in this emergency. I have at my back members of the City Guild of Smiths, who would like to know—’
The postern opened, and revealed half a dozen ill-kept-looking Scholae guardsmen.
‘Fresh bread wouldn’t be amiss,’ said the tallest of them, a man in magnificent, if somewhat tattered, satin and samnite clothes, with a breastplate of scales and three days growth of beard. ‘As for Master Derkensun, he’s with the Empress. And I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d walk a note to my bride. If she’ll still have me.’ He looked at the armourer’s apprentices. ‘She lives in your quarter.’
‘I’d like to see Master Derkensun,’ Mortirmir insisted. He felt empowered. Literally. He had never felt so full of spirit, and his hands and chest felt as if they might catch fire.
The well-dressed man shrugged. ‘If you’ll leave your weapon and promise to take my message, I’ll escort you to him,’ he said. ‘But if he’s with the – er – Empress – you won’t be allowed in.’
The palace was as empty as the streets. The Ordinaries were locked down in their barracks – a bare minimum of them walked the corridors, and those few flattened themselves against the walls when the soldiers approached.
They crossed the Outer Court and entered the Inner Court. The Scholae barracks were full, and the handsome young man took Mortirmir to the duty clerk and entered his name on a roster. Then they crossed the yard. A pair of Nordikans stood like statues in full hauberks, with great axes as tall as Mortirmir’s shoulders.
‘Is Master Derkensun at liberty?’ asked the Scholiast.
‘DERKENSUN,’ bellowed the nearer of the two blond giants. He nodded. ‘Just off duty after a murder. In the prison.’
A sleepy giant came to the door. As soon as he saw Mortirmir, he grasped both of his hands. ‘You!’ he said. ‘The witch woman said we were to be bound together.’
Mortirmir might, under other circumstances, have had to proclaim his total disdain for anyone who went by the title ‘witch woman’, but an hour before he had caused a man to die by fire, and the universe was suddenly very strange.
‘Anna sent me,’ he said. It seemed a silly thing to say.
But Derkensun’s smile burst over his face like sunrise after a long, dark night. ‘By the gods!’ he said. ‘You are a true friend. Is it chaos out there?’ He turned and bellowed something – the sound, to Mortirmir, very much like two dogs fighting.
‘By our gracious Lord, is that what Nordikan sounds like?’ he asked.
His Scholae guard grinned. ‘That’s what we say.’
Derkensun took the two men aside. ‘I’ve called for my corporal. Listen. The Emperor is taken—’
‘That much is all over the city,’ Mortirmir said.
‘But too many of the officers fell with him – or have gone over to the Duke.’ The Nordikan shrugged. ‘This palace is a dark place, and no mistake.’
‘This man offered to bring food,’ the Scholae knight said. He offered an arm. ‘Giorgios Comnenos at your service, ser barbarian. You, I take it, are a student?’
‘Is Maria Ekaterina Comnena your sister?’ Mortirmir asked.
‘First cousin,’ the man smiled. ‘You know her at University, I suppose?’
Mortirmir looked away, and didn’t say ‘she coined my nickname’. Instead he said, ‘Oh, we’ve met. Pardon my rudeness, kyrios – I am Morgan Mortirmir, of Harndon.’
‘You speak our tongue so well I’d never have taken you for a barbarian,’ Comnenos said.
Derkensun put a hand on both men’s shoulders. ‘Listen, friends, enough pleasantries. We’re all good men here – let’s act the part. Morgan, can you fetch food? Do either of you know what it would take to get de
liveries moving again?’
‘My father’s steward would probably know,’ Comnenos said. ‘But if I leave the palace, half of the Scholae will leave and never return.’
The only black-haired giant that Mortirmir had ever seen came out of the barracks and bows were exchanged. He was introduced as Durn Blackhair, acting Spatharios. It was a strange title – Mortirmir’s pedantic young brain tended to translate every scrap of Archaic, and that one seemed to mean ‘sword bearer’. Not really a title at all.
Blackhair drank off a pint of unwatered wine. ‘The Duke wants a fight,’ he said. ‘I just had word that he’s moving his camp closer to the walls, and he has threatened to bombard the city with his siege machines. We need access to the farms – without them, I guess there’s no food.’
Mortirmir felt odd, speaking up when all the men around him were – well, twenty-five. Which seemed like a great age to him. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, and they all looked at him. ‘It seems to me that the taverns and inns have food – they lay in stores.’
Blackhair nodded. ‘That’s good sense,’ he said. ‘But it won’t feed the city.’
‘It would feed the palace for another day,’ Derkensun said.
‘Long enough for . . .’ The knight of the Schola shrugged. ‘You know.’ He exchanged a look with Derkensun.
‘Three days without markets,’ Comnenos said. ‘By tonight, there’ll be hungry people offering to open a gate.’
Blackhair took a deep breath. ‘Right. Young master, if you can find us two cartloads of food, we won’t waste it. I’d like to say the Empress will be grateful, but I’d say the odds aren’t too good she’ll still wear the purple.’
Mortirmir nodded. ‘Can she pay for it?’ he asked.
‘If she wins,’ Comnenos said. ‘She’s thrown her dice.’
Mortirmir laughed, caught up in it. ‘Well, I can pay,’ he said. ‘It beats going to school, anyway.’
Blackhair slapped him on the shoulder, which almost drove him to his knees. ‘I won’t forget this,’ he said. ‘Get it done and you’ll have the thanks of the Guard.’
‘Those that are left,’ said Derkensun.
‘Let me write a note for my bride,’ said the officer. He pulled a beautiful red leather cased wax tablet from his belt pouch and wrote hurriedly. Then he turned the tablet over and wrote again, and pressed the ring on his finger into the wax. ‘Green side for Despoina Helena Dukas. Red side for Kyrios Demetrios Comnenos, my father.’
As it proved, delivering the tablets was as easy as returning to the square of the smiths; the Comnenoses’ palace dominated the square, with four tall marble towers glistening wetly in the late afternoon rain. And the Dukas palace stood across the square. Of course, a damp and exhausted Mortirmir was not at first invited to meet the lovely despoina in person, but he heard a shriek of delight from above him, and a beautiful girl of seventeen or so with bright gold hair came down the stairs, sprinting like a professional messenger, and he had to endure her thanks, her offers of money, and a hundred questions – was he all right? Had he taken a wound? Was he a hero? What was the Empress doing?
He survived, downed a cup of wine, and suggested to the girl’s father that if any supplies could be spared for the palace, they would be most welcome.
Lord Andronicus Dukas gave his bedraggled visitor a somewhat sketchy bow. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But until there is a legitimate Emperor, we would hesitate to act.’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Ah, kyrios, I am only a poor ignorant barbarian, but it seems to me that the Empress is even now restoring order. I gather that she is victorious.’
It didn’t seem to have any effect, but Mortirmir hoped it made the bastard squirm. He crossed the square, bid farewell to his escort, and passed the other note to the lord of House Comnenos. This old patriarch met him in person, and bowed politely – more than the lord of House Dukas had done.
‘How is my young scapegrace?’ he asked. ‘Staying in trouble? Humiliating his family properly?’ But he read the note, and grinned.
‘I gather you are a student, and not just a messenger. I will prepare a cart and a dozen men-at-arms to escort it. May I offer you any further assistance?’
Mortirmir bowed. ‘If you could provide me a shirt of mail and a horse, I’d appreciate it,’ he said.
Despoina Stella filled a cart with food and wine in two hours. He spent four semesters’ worth of fees on hams, sausages, fresh baked bread and lentils. Stella and her husband, who emerged with a spear in his hand, scoured the tavernas of the neighbourhood and found a wagon, a team, and an escort of spearmen raised from their own ranks. No one challenged them on their way to rendezvous with the cart provided by the Comnenos clan; they had an escort of mounted and armoured stradiotes and ten Smith’s Guild crossbowmen when they crossed the Great Square and stood outside the Outer Court. Mortirmir, now utterly exhausted, had a moment of panic as the great gates remained resolutely closed.
He could hear hoof beats. They were far away – ten or twenty blocks – but there were an awful lot of them. The city was dark, there was no watch out in the streets, and all lights were extinguished. The sound of hooves was frightening.
The Comnenos men-at-arms drew together and took their lances from the leather sockets by their stirrups.
Mortirmir knocked on the gates again. His leather-clad knuckles made little noise against bronze-clad oak gates that were fifteen feet tall. Finally he drew his dagger and used the hilt to rap on the gate.
‘Who goes there?’ answered the sentry.
‘Food!’ Mortirmir replied.
The hoof beats were coming closer in the darkness, and sounded like thunder.
Above his head, Harald Derkensun leaned out. ‘Morgan!’ he called.
‘Here!’ Mortirmir called back.
‘I can’t open up. There’s armed men in the streets – hundreds of them. If they caught the gates open—’ Derkensun sounded unhappy.
‘Christ on the cross!’ Mortirmir shouted. ‘We have two carts and twenty men. Open the gates, for the love of God. We’ll be in before you can say “Ave Maria”.’
Derkensun sighed audibly. ‘I can’t take the risk. I’m sorry, Morgan. I take my oath to the Emperor very seriously.’
From the lead cart, a voice called, ‘Jesus and all the saints! Open the gate, Harald!’
The sound of horse’s hooves was filling the night.
‘Anna!’ Derkensun said. He sounded utterly wretched.
There was a low thump, and the Nordikan landed on his feet by Mortirmir. ‘I cannot open the gate,’ he said. ‘So I’ll die by you, here.’
The Great Square of the city was itself larger than many Alban towns. It stood between the ancient arena, where chariot races were still held, and the palace, and the entire square was lined in oak trees and paved in marble slabs cunningly worked with deep grooves to run rainwater off into gutters. Seen from above, the grooves spelled out whole chapters of the gospels. In the centre of the Great Square stood a mixed group of statuary, much of it impossibly ancient; there was the great Empress Livia, in brightly gilt bronze, driving her war-chariot against the western irks; there was Saint Aetius, standing like a young David, with his sword against his thigh, apparently contemplating his conquests – the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora; and even more ancient men and women. Mortirmir knew them all. They had been part of one of the entrance exams.
The horsemen entered the darkened square from the south-east. They were at least three hundred strong, and as they came on the stradiotes prepared themselves like brave men. Derkensun kissed Anna.
She slapped him lightly. ‘You could have just opened the gate,’ she said. ‘You great oaf. And I came all this way for you.’
Derkensun grinned. It was visible because Mortirmir had just cast his second ever successful phantasm – the first working any student ever learned. He made light, and set it on the peak of his borrowed helmet, so that it illuminated the group by him with a reddish light.
He wa
s grinning uncontrollably.
‘Perhaps you should not have made us quite so obvious?’ Derkensun murmured. The professional soldiers seemed to agree.
In a rustle of hooves and harness, the house guards rode away, and the guild crossbowman cursed them.
Across the square, the horsemen came on. Mortirmir’s light glinted redly off horses and harness studded in gold or brass, and their tunics were scarlet – surely that couldn’t just be the light—
‘Vardariotes!’ said Derkensun.
They didn’t form for battle. They were moving at a fast trot, and they crossed the square in a column of fours, with a small pennon at their head made of silk, with a horse’s tail attached to it. The leader held a mace of what appeared to be solid gold, and he used it to salute the palace gate. The men – and a few women – were barbarians, Easterners, with black hair and slanted eyes and scraggly beards or clean-shaven, and every one of them wore a heavy horn bow in a scabbard at their waists, and a long, curved sword.
They entered the main road to the Gate of Ares, and the long column vanished into the arched gate of the Great Square as if it were being devoured by a dragon. In two hundred heartbeats, only the sound of their passage remained, echoing around the square, and floating on the night air from their new route.
When they were gone, voices inside ordered the Outer Court’s gate opened, and the wagons went into the yard. Mortirmir was too fatigued to be afraid, but he could see relief on every face.
An older woman in court clothes came into the yard from the palace end – the courtyard was fully illuminated with cressets and torches – and called softly for Blackhair. The Nordikan turned the carts over to Ordinaries – he’d inspected them personally – and Mortirmir was standing to hand.
‘My lady,’ he said, with a bow.
The older woman nodded. ‘Who were they?’ she asked. Her voice betrayed nothing.
‘My lady, they were the Vardariotes. They passed away to the Gate of Ares.’ He spat. ‘The traitors.’
‘Judge them not until they are proved,’ said Lady Maria.
The Court of Galle – The King, his Horse and Lady Clarissa