The Outcast Blade

orbitbooks.net

orbitshortfiction.com

Begin Reading

Table of Contents

A Preview of
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Copyright Page

For Jams, who got lost in the Venetian backstreets for four hours and passed the same building five times because the city kept remaking itself around him; and Eun-jeong, who took me round a palace in Seoul. Thank you…

Tycho
, a seventeen-year-old boy with strange hungers

Marco IV
, known as Marco the Simpleton, duke of Venice and Prince of Serenissima

Lady Giulietta di Millioni
, his seventeen-year-old cousin, widow of Prince Leopold, mother of Leo. Ran away from Venice and is now returning

Duchess Alexa
, the late duke’s widow, mother to Marco IV. A Mongol princess in her own right. She hates…

Prince Alonzo
, Regent of Venice, who wants the throne

Lady Eleanor
, Giulietta’s young cousin and lady-in-waiting

Marco III
, known as Marco the Just. The late lamented duke of Venice, elder brother of Alonzo, godfather of Lady Giulietta and the ghost at every feast

Atilo il Mauros
, once adviser to the late Marco III, and head of Venice’s secret assassins. Alexa’s lover and long-term supporter. Engaged to Lady Desdaio, daughter of…

Lord Bribanzo
, member of the Council of Ten, the inner council that rules Venice. One of the richest men in the city, Bribanzo sides with Alonzo

Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland
. Now dead. Until lately leader of the
krieghund
, Emperor Sigismund’s werewolf shock troops. (His brother Frederick is the German emperor’s only remaining son)

Dr Hightown Crow
, alchemist, astrologer and anatomist to the duke. Using a goose quill he inseminated Giulietta with Alonzo’s seed, leaving her with child

A’rial
, the Duchess Alexa’s
stregoi
(her pet witch)

Iacopo
, Atilo’s servant and member of the Assassini

Amelia
, a Nubian slave and member of the Assassini

Pietro
, an ex-street child, Assassini apprentice and sister to Rosalyn (now dead and buried on Pauper Island)

Lord Roderigo
, Captain of the Dogana, Alonzo’s ally

Temujin
, his half-Mongol sergeant

Sigismund
, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, Hungary and Croatia. Wants to add Lombardy and Venice to that list

John V Palaiologos
, the Basilius, ruler of the Byzantine Empire (known as the Eastern Roman Empire), also wants Venice. He barely admits Sigismund is an emperor at all

Tamburlaine
, Khan of Khans, ruler of the Mongols and newly created emperor of China. The most powerful man in the world and a distant cousin to Duchess Alexa. He regards Europe as a minor irritation

Incense filled the air inside Hagia Sophia, the largest and most famous cathedral in the world. Beneath its huge dome, small boys scattered rose petals on thousand-year-old marble mosaics, which would need scrubbing before nightfall to remove the stain.

Ahead of the shambling figure of John V Palaiologos – God’s ruler on Earth, Basilius of the Byzantine Empire – walked his cross bearer, carrying a huge crucifix with an icon of Christ in its centre. Had the crucifix been solid it would have been impossible to lift. But it was made from beaten silver, chased and fretted and hammered into shape over a light wooden frame.

Under the icon was a piece of the True Cross. There were a thousand such relics but the patriarch of Constantinople had judged this one real.

As the emperor approached, his courtiers fell to their knees.

The mind of the Basilius was old and as tired as his body; and his body ached on waking and hurt worse in the approach to sleep. He might claim his growing hatred of his empire came from a simple wish to find himself in the company of God. In his heart the Basilius knew he was tired of life.

He’d inherited the throne at nine, his German mother having pawned the imperial crown for 300,000 Venetian ducats two years before he was born. It was a miracle he survived his childhood. That only happened because he was more valuable alive than dead. At the age of seventeen – exhausted by uncertainty – he ordered the slaughter of both Regents, their staff and households. The coup was quick, brutal and performed by a tiny group of the imperial guard who’d grown disgusted by the empire’s chaos.

A revolt by the cousin of a Regent ended brutally. The army was purged of untrustworthy generals and the civil service reordered. Wealth found in the strongrooms of the Regents and the treasury master was returned to the treasury and taxes lowered. An action that brought John V Palaiologos the loyalty of Constantinople’s merchants. It was the first time taxes had been lowered in fifty years.

The new emperor watched and learnt. He identified his friends and his enemies, and those who pretended for whatever reason to be one when they were really the other. At the age of twenty-two, he slaughtered the son of the Seljuk king at Cinbi, after Prince Suleyman and thirty-nine of his father’s knights crossed the Hellespont in boats hired from Genoese merchants.

Having ordered the massacre of every family from Genoa in Constantinople, the Basilius led an attack on Sulyman’s father. The loss of lands, his sons and most of his army rendered King Orthan so desolate he sued for peace.

In the years that followed, the Byzantine emperor reconquered provinces thought lost for ever. Of course, if the Mamluks had not hated the Seljuks the outcome might have been different. Those were thoughts wise historians kept to themselves.

And so courtiers wearing armour whose design was a thousand years old knelt on mosaics even older and averted their eyes.

“Andronikos…”

The emperor’s mage stepped forward.

He was tall and thin, wearing simple robes that managed to look more striking than the gold-embroidered tunics of the governors, independent princes and courtiers around him. Many men in the East claimed to be mages. A few were charlatans, most could do simple magic, produce fire, read minds, rid houses of troublesome spirits. A handful could see the future as it would happen. Andronikos could see all futures, weigh them and make fate’s dice fall one way rather than another. The man had ridden at the emperor’s right hand the night they killed Suleyman Pasha and changed the tides of history.

“Majesty.” Bowing low, Andronikos adjusted his robe and struggled to stand. His bones were old and enough of them had been broken in battle to carry their ache into later life.

“What have you learnt?”

The mage ran through the city’s rumours, the assassinations and assignations, secret raptures and rapines. The Mithraic cult was gaining in strength. A slaughtered white bull had been found by the river. A Seljuk princeling had arrived in the city planning the Basilius’s death. There was always a Seljuk princeling planning the emperor’s death and the emperor suspected the Seljuk king used it as a cynical way to rid himself of troublesome younger sons.

“And Venice?”

Andronikos drew together his fingers.

“No need for masking spells. No one will hear us.” The emperor was right, of course. The chanting of plainsong and rustle of robes, the squeak of fans swinging overhead and the gasps of the slaves who dragged the ropes that worked the fans created their own masking spell.

“Good news and bad news…”

The emperor waited. He was used to men starting sentences and then hesitating to check if he wished to listen to the rest. Andronikos should be above such behaviour; but the emperor had once jailed him for speaking out of turn. Jailed him,
confiscated his estates, co-opted his eldest son into the army and sent the boy south to die. The mage had been more cautious in his opinions since.

After a life of simplifying politics and hardening his empire’s boundaries, increasing trade, securing alliances and forging treaties that would last – all the while pretending to be interested only in God – John V Palaiologos had let the Mamluks transport a caged demon through his lands a year ago in return for the renewal of a minor treaty.

Wolf-grey-haired and white-skinned, the demon was kept captive in a cage with silver bars. That it could travel only at night should have warned him this was a bad idea. And though the emperor wouldn’t dream of admitting it, Andronikos had been right to advise against the Mamluk plan.