A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (8 page)

“I don’t know, your grace.” The lieutenant-colonel shrugged. “They were sent on manoeuvres earlier today.”

“And the Palace Artillery? Where might they be?”

Narry blinked, recognising that the answer was obvious. “They were sent on manoeuvres too.” He gave a nervous cough. “But they’re in the Palace now.”

“So—” Ahasz stopped and reined in his temper. “So, might we suppose the Cuirassiers are with them? In the Palace?”

Another shrug. “A reasonable assumption, your grace.”

“You—” The duke slammed a hand down on the battlefield-consultant. “I should have you hung, Narry,” he growled. “Instead, you will redeem yourself:

“At first light, you will take a pair of your companies and rush the entrance to the Palace. Try and keep as many of your men alive as possible. I need to know how sharp are the Artillery, and what it will take to pull the knights out of the mountain.”

“But your grace!” protested Narry, straightening in surprise, “My men will be wiped out!”

“Indeed they will.” Ahasz’s voice hardened. “And solely because you were too damned idiotish to mark the removal of the Artillery and the Cuirassiers from the garrison.”

“Your grace,” insisted Narry, “I protest!”

Ahasz closed his eyes and clenched his fists—the incompetence of this lieutenant-colonel! “You,” he said slowly and menacingly, “
will obey my orders
.”

Opening his eyes, Ahasz glanced once more about the pavilion. “Where is Buta?”

A regimental-major stepped sheepishly forward and gave an abbreviated nod.

“You, and any of your men that might have survived your foolish charge earlier, will join Narry.”

Buta chose wisely not to protest. Features wan and smiling apprehensively, he stepped back.

If only Ahasz hadn’t needed the Housecarls… But now, of course, given the cannon in the Palace, he needed them more than ever.

Ahasz took a moment to calm himself—lifted up his hands, stretched out his fingers until the muscles protested, then flexed them a number of times. “I will have every officer here,” he said, gazing at his splayed hands, “do their duty to the utmost of their ability.” He looked up, searched the faces arrayed before him, saw that their expressions had not changed. No matter: they would learn soon enough.

“Tayisa,” he said. “Progress report?”

The colonel stepped up to the battlefield-consultant. “All the trains have arrived as planned, your grace.”

“Good. And our casualties so far?”

“Two hundred and fifty-five.”

“Sword and Shield?”

“Commander Ashma has reported in: both are fully secured. He has two troops of knights prisoner.”

Ahasz frowned. Two troops? Up to six cohorts—one hundred and twenty-six knights and one thousand two hundred and sixty serjeants—were normally stationed in Shield; and the same in Sword—the two Orders’ only garrisons on Shuto. The Involute had told him that four cohorts each of knights stalwart and knights militant had been sent to assist the Admiral’s forces on Geneza. Four troops of fifty-five stood duty in the Imperial Palace, so… Where were the missing four cohorts?

There was only one possible answer: in the Palace.

“How many knights stalwart was that we fought?” someone asked, as if following Ahasz’s own train of thought.

“Close on two hundred, I’d wager,” put in a Housecarls officer.

Ahasz listened to the exchange, his mind still on the
reason
for the unexpectedly large contingent of knights. They had known of the attack…

The Involutes had lied to him.

A command car carried the duke beneath the Knot, shooting across the grass under its swooping roadways. The junction appeared even more other-worldly in the darkness, a tangled constellation of guide-lamps and scintillae of reflected light. Onto Exchequer Road, and past Glorina Park. Ahead, spotlights directed against the straight lines and sharp corners of the Exchequer’s frontage made the building seem composed of graceful curves and gentle angles. The mountain behind it loured menacingly, as if it squatted with enfolding arms. The vehicle drew to a halt at the Exchequer’s main entrance and bobbed lightly once, twice. Regimental-Major Urnagi undogged the rear-hatch and scrambled out. Ahasz joined him, and found himself looking up at a young regimental-lieutenant. A wide stair fronted the Exchequer and the young officer stood some three or four steps from its top.

“Well?” demanded the duke. “You insisted there was something I must see.”

The officer descended a step or two. “Your grace, yes,” he replied. “It is most… puzzling.” He turned to lead the way.

According to Colonel Tiyasi, the officer, Regimental-Lieutenant Sanduk, had been among the first to report in after the signal to attack had been given. His platoon had been on guard duty in the Imperial Exchequer, alongside a platoon of the Emperor’s Own Cuirassiers. His men had quickly subdued them.

Ahasz ascended to meet Sanduk. The young man was clearly eager—if not to prove his mettle to the duke, then to have this “puzzle” explained to him. As Ahasz drew near, Sanduk backed away, climbing the steps behind him, drawing the duke towards the building’s entrance. Pulled forward by the officer’s retreat, Ahasz followed him into the Exchequer. There, Sanduk turned about and led the way at a smart pace across the echoing lobby towards the gaping archways of four lift-shafts.

Unlike many nobles of his acquaintance, Ahasz had never worked within the civil or regnal governments. He held no sinecures nor directorships; he needed no patronage nor favours. The Vonshuan family had been among the first rank in wealth and influence for thousands of years. Family history claimed that Edkar I could not have formed his Empire some 1,200 years ago if the Vonshuans had not chosen to support him.

What few visits Ahasz had previously made to the Exchequer were to visit noble friends who held offices there. But he was not ignorant of the institution’s operations. The Exchequer managed the finances of the regnal government, of those offices, bureaux and agencies which were the responsibility of the Imperial Throne and not the Electorate. It administered the funds diverted from taxes as the Emperor’s Allocation; it supervised the collection and spending of Tithe.

Given the monies which flowed through the Exchequer, the lobby was surprisingly austere. The floor boasted a mosaic of the Imperial device, a “star” of five armoured gauntlets, each holding a different item and symbolising the five institutions which contributed to Imperial stability: a crown for the Imperial Throne, a grain-sack for the Order of Replenishers, a sword for the Imperial Regiments, a sextant for the Imperial Navy, and a quill for the Electorate. Great pillars to left and right, fashioned of the same pale stone as the walls, floor the building’s façade, stretched three storeys to a flat and unadorned ceiling. The atmosphere was heavy with the weight of the financial burden handled by the Exchequer. Ahasz had always found it oppressive.

The two stepped into a lift-shaft, and a shelf appeared beneath their feet. Ahasz expected to descend since the vaults were below. Regimental-Lieutenant Sanduk and his platoon had been charged with seizing them—and the Exchequer’s Accounting Mechanism. Control a man’s purse-strings, Ahasz knew, and his destiny was forfeit. Sanduk, however, passed a boot across a number by his feet and the shelf began to rise.

The lift drew to a halt on the third floor. The duke followed Sanduk into a foyer. To left and right, a gleaming white corridor stretched to the limits of the building. On these corridors were many doors, the size and design of which indicated the importance of the offices behind them.

The regimental-lieutenant led Ahasz at a smart clip along the corridor to the right. Some halfway along its length, Sanduk pushed open a narrow door of plain wood, revealing a large chamber containing five rows of five desks apiece, all facing a larger desk raised above them on a dais. The room was not empty.

At four of the desks in the first row, clerks bent to consoles built into the desk-tops. They ignored the duke’s entrance. He saw, standing at a dark window and limned by the glow from the spotlights outside, a pear-shaped woman in a loose-fitting plum-coloured dress. Ahasz knew her: Sofia demar Druzh, the head of his spy corps.

He smiled. He had wondered when she would make an appearance. Her intelligence had fed this campaign, a diet without which it would not have lived. He crossed to her and she turned to watch his approach.

Taken individually, Druzh’s features were not unattractive: liquid brown eyes, a straight and well-formed nose, wide plump-lipped mouth… but together on a wide-browed, square-jawed face, their arrangement was less pleasing. The effect was heightened by white-blonde hair in an ear-length bob.

“So,” Ahasz said. “Sofia. I had not expected to find you here.”

She nodded. “Your grace, I needed to confirm a persistent rumour I had heard. I’d sooner not bring tales to you, which is why I hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Some tales, Sofia, I’d rather you
had
brought. You’ve heard that the Cuirassiers and Artillery have holed up in the Palace? With several cohorts of knights stalwart and knights militant?”

“I’ve been apprised, yes. My sources had no information on the matter beforehand —”

Ahasz gestured dismissively. “Or you would have said. Yes, yes. But what brings you to the Exchequer? I don’t need to know how much money the Emperor can call upon, I need only to prevent him from doing so.”

Druzh moved away from the window, walking with a surprisingly sensuous gait towards the clerks. Ahasz followed.

“I have Jimun and the others hunting through the Accounting Mechanism and the Exchequer data-pool, trying to unravel the Throne’s finances.”

“Why?” asked Ahasz.

“Your army on Geneza, your grace,” Druzh replied, putting a hand on Jimun’s shoulder and stooping to read the glass of his console. “It is Princess Flavia who opposes you, not the Throne. I found that puzzling. If she’s known of your conspiring these six years, why has the Emperor never attempted to prevent you? He must have known of it.”

Ahasz shrugged. “He was blocked in the Electorate. I made sure of that. The Regimental General Staff refused him the troops he’d need.”

“True. But he had the Martial Orders. He could send cohorts of knights stalwart wherever he needed.” She straightened, and turned to the duke. “Your grace, the Electorate has always resented the regnal government, but they can do little to prevent its operations. The only group of people with influence in both civil and regnal governments are the Involutes. But even they could not prevent the Emperor from doing something that clearly needs to be done. There could only be one reason why he failed to act.”

“And that is?” Ahasz was intrigued. He had relied on the Electorate’s powers to prevent the Emperor. It had cost him—a great deal of money, and a great many favours and promises to be fulfilled once he took the Throne.

“Funds, your grace. The Imperial Throne has no funds. Or rather, it has no reserves. Each year, the amount raised by Tithe, the Emperor’s Allocation, Duchies Bank dividends, and other means only just covers the regnal government’s expenses. The Emperor could not afford to match your bribes to win influence in the Electorate, he could not afford to outfit an army of knights stalwart, and he could not afford to pay the bill the Imperial Navy would present him for doing his work.”

“The Throne is penniless?” Ahasz did not believe it. Evidence to the contrary was all about him: the Exchequer, the Imperial Palace, the Imperial Household District… Areas of the Palace were frequently remodelled and refurbished; Emperor Willim IX was as fond of spectacle as his forebears had been. The duke could not credit the entire edifice was founded on debt.

Druzh said: “This is what my clerks are trying to prove. The vault below contains little but a few ancient treasures. No huge piles of crowns, fit to be spent.”

Ahasz returned to the window and gazed out into the darkness. He saw past the Knot, the line of Palace Road and, to its right, the bunched clusters of lights that were his army’s camp. But for those lights, it could have been any night in the Imperial Household District. Just to his left, the pale stone façade of the Chancery shone spectrally under spotlights. The Imperial Palace itself could not be seen—blocked by the Chancery and the curve of the steep valley wall. As he watched, a bolt of brightness speared down at his camp. The Palace Artillery were firing again.

“No money…,” he said wonderingly. He looked back at Druzh. “How long has this been true?”

“It’s impossible to say for certain, but I suspect the Throne has been operating on credit since the Imperial Treasury was created.”

“That was during the Second Century!” Over one thousand years ago.
Incredible.

“It’s probably why they introduced Tithe shortly afterwards.”

“What of the Shutans themselves, the Imperial Family?”

“Their personal fortune is kept separate. They’re too canny to allow the Electorate to sequester it a second time.”

Ahasz clasped his hands behind his back, glanced down at the floor, and frowned in thought. “It changes nothing,” he said. “I still want the Throne. In fact —” He looked up—“it makes my task so much easier. Willim cannot buy himself help. I have the Imperial Navy’s purse-strings in my hands, so not even Edkar’s Promise will sway them.”

“The Promise has never been honoured, although it has been asked,” Druzh said. “Many times throughout the centuries.”

This surprised Ahasz. “It has? Not once?” The Imperial Navy had only gained its independence from the Throne on swearing it would come when called by the Promise.

He said, “What other surprises do you have for me, Sofia?”

She left her clerk’s side, strolling across to the duke with her hip-swaying walk. “None, your grace,” she admitted with a tight smile. “Although I believe we can use our knowledge of this conspiracy to hide the Throne’s indebtedness. Those who must already know of it could be perhaps ‘swayed’ to your cause.”

“True.” Ahasz nodded. “It would make us stronger in the Electorate.”

“But…”

He looked at her.