Those Above: The Empty Throne Book 1 (16 page)

Apart from his choice of wardrobe, there was little enough in the man of interest. He was a fine speaker, if you liked them loud and easy to understand – which for most people was the very height of genius. He had never taken a bribe in his life, or at least never been caught doing so. He ate simply, abstained from drink, eschewed luxuries of all kinds. The common folk considered his abstemiousness evidence of the most rigorous sort of morality, but Eudokia knew it to be nothing more than a fetish. That a man preferred sackcloth to silk was no evidence of moral genius, and if Manuel’s vices weren’t quite as obviously on display as his virtues, still they were clear enough if you looked.

Like everyone else, Eudokia had heard the rumour that beneath his robe of homespun cloth, he wore undergarments of the sort frowned on by the more decent type of whores. Eudokia had trouble imagining someone so boring could have such an interesting secret, though she liked believing it anyway.

‘I was just warning your son on his latest victories,’ Manuel said.

‘Congratulating, I think you mean.’

‘I choose my words with care,’ Manuel said, eager to find offence in anything.

By Enkedri, it was like having a conversation with a rabid dog. ‘Your eloquence, of course, is renowned throughout the furthest reaches of the Commonwealth,’ Eudokia said, hoping to placate him.

Manuel swallowed the encomium smoothly and continued. ‘Warned because victory is the bread of tyrants, as it is of fools. The people gorge themselves on easy successes – on the celebrations thrown in our honour, on the trains of foreign captives, on cheap wars of choice. They begin to think that all conflict is so inexpensive, and so fruitful, and they grow loud in their demands that it continue. Continue endlessly, without regard for the wisdom of the contest or the justness of the cause. A republic cannot be an empire.’

‘The pirate-lords of the Baleferic Isles were a threat to all of our commerce in the south seas,’ Konstantinos said. Manuel had snapped his gaze back onto the boy as soon as he had begun to speak, Eudokia forgotten entirely. ‘We had no choice but to go to war against them.’

The war against the pirates had been nothing of the sort, but a punitive expedition against a weak and scattered force of bandits and renegades, leaderless, each island-despot leaping at the chance to avoid being executed by the vastly superior forces she had arranged for her stepson to command. That it was being touted as a victory of such importance by the common folk and even a few of the more foolish senators could be attributed to some combination of Eudokia’s own machinations and the inherent gullibility of all people. More the latter than the former, most likely, but a fair deal of the former as well. She found the realisation that her propaganda had apparently been so effective as to seduce Konstantinos himself to be more disturbing than surprising. He had his father’s shoulders, and eyes, and skill with a blade, and easy way with people. But the savage genius that had made her husband, even in the short time he had lived, one of the dominant men in the Commonwealth – that, sad to say, young Konstantinos would never possess.

That was fine, though. That was what Eudokia was there for, after all.

‘We have been paying off the pirates since before I was sworn to office,’ Manuel was saying. ‘A thousand gold solidus each spring, and our merchants left free to ply their trade. Do you know what your little expedition cost? Thirty thousand solidus, and that’s not including the upkeep on the garrisons. It’s a strange victory that costs thirty times that of defeat. One wonders at the bargain.’

‘No bargain at all, Senator,’ Konstantinos began, gradually speaking louder in an attempt to be noticed without giving notice of it. ‘The dignity of the Empty Throne is not for bargaining, not to be sold for twelve months of peace, not to be bartered away that we might save a few gold. Are we a nation of bookkeepers, to prize riches above honour? Have we truly decayed so far from the nobility of our ancestors?’

Disadvantageous comparisons to the ancients were Manuel’s stock-in-trade, and you could see that he did not appreciate being on the other side of the cliché. ‘The dignity of the Empty Throne rests on the happiness of its people, on their commerce and on their labour. It took two thousand men to break the back of the pirates, two thousand souls who will never till a field or bring their crops to market, who will never dig foundations or erect a wall. The Empty Throne counts her children dearly, does not fritter them away for war’s transient glory.’

‘These dead men you speak of,’ Konstantinos began, and one would have been hard pressed to argue that he had not broken into outright oratory by this point, ‘they are not abstractions to me, not numbers to be charted on an abacus. These were my comrades, brothers in arms. If you think I take the loss of a single one of them lightly, Senator, than you have gravely mistaken me. The men who have fallen in my service, in the service of the Commonwealth, to keep her free and safe – they were no strangers. Nikephoros and Romanos who were lost when their ship went down with all hands, Basil of the laughing eyes, who stormed the last redoubt before being caught with an arrow. Their names are written on the innermost fold of my heart, and I can assure you – not a one of them would wish to be back amidst the living, if being so meant tarnishing the honour of their beloved motherland.’

Konstantinos could add necromancy to his list of other talents, apparently, though Manuel was taken back by the sheer force of his personality. ‘Forgive me, if my words have given offence.’

‘No apology is necessary, Senator. You speak what you believe to be in the best interests of the Empty Throne – no one can fault you for your patriotism, though I believe in this particular regard, you are mistaken.’ He gave an appropriately decorous bow. ‘If you would excuse me, I’m afraid I need a word with my dear mother.’ He took her by the arm and walked her casually away from the scene of his victory.

‘Basil of the laughing eyes?’ Eudokia asked, bringing her glass up to cover her lips. ‘I’m afraid I never had the opportunity to meet the man. Who were his people, do remind me?’

‘Not my best work,’ Konstantinos admitted. ‘But he seemed to lap it up easily enough.’

‘You’re halfway to a convert,’ Eudokia agreed. ‘I imagine if you were to allow him to see you without your trousers, he’d throw his hand in with us completely.’

‘We aren’t that desperate, are we?’

‘Not quite yet.’

Irene had managed to position herself in the corner of their view and, was laughing with one of her less handsome friends, making good use of the long neck the gods had given her. She was there to be looked at, and Konstantinos did not fail to take the opportunity.

‘Surely there must be someone at this party you can take home that isn’t my handmaiden?’

Konstantinos laughed. ‘You miss nothing, Revered Mother. Truly you miss nothing.’

‘And don’t forget it,’ she said, only half kidding. ‘She’s not for you, child. Find a nice little lamb to play with, and leave off mating with lions.’

‘You think me so easily overcome?’

‘I think you’ve a better head for war than you do for women,’ she said. ‘If you so desire a dalliance, forge one with someone too low-born to have any notions of holding on to you permanently.’

‘Surely you don’t imagine Irene to be so ambitious?’

‘Never underestimate the pretensions of a woman.’

‘With your long example to draw upon? Believe me, I have no illusions as to the weakness of the weaker sex.’

Eudokia saw Galerius approaching from the corner of her eye, gave her stepson a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Be good now,’ she said, moving to intercept the man.

‘One of us ought to,’ Konstantinos offered by way of a parting shot.

‘Revered Mother,’ Galerius said, dropping so low to kiss her hand that his knees nearly touched the ground. It was clear what Prisca saw in him – the striking eyes, the high cheekbones, the sense of certainty that both had given him. It was equally clear, to Eudokia at least, that this represented the sum total of his quality.

‘Galerius,’ she said. ‘Walk with me to the garden, I fancy a moment spent in the air.’

‘An honour, a joy,’ he said smoothly, taking her hand and walking out onto the verandah.

In fact the evening was chill and wet and altogether less than pleasant, and Eudokia supposed if she spent much time in it without a cover then she was apt to catch a cold. But this wouldn’t take long – behind that sweet face was a mind as mercenary as a Chazar money-counter. ‘You seem to have made quite an impression on our dear Prisca,’ she said.

Galerius’s smile contained more naked avarice than is traditionally found attractive. ‘She’s a magnificent creature,’ he said. ‘Alas …’

‘Alas, without position at court she seems rather beyond your reach.’

‘As always, Mother, you cut to the heart of it.’

‘A problem easily solved. You will stand for Second Consul next month. I am confident with my assistance that the gentlemen of the Brewers’ Association will recognise the good service you can provide for them.’

Galerius did a reasonable job of pretending that he hadn’t known this was coming. Not excellent, but reasonable. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, Mother,’ he said. ‘I wish only that there were some way I could repay you.’

‘Nothing, nothing, nothing,’ Eudokia said, waving away his thanks. ‘To midwife so true a love, to watch it flower and grow unto a second generation, what more happiness could an old woman desire?’

Galerius would begin to cheat on Prisca almost immediately of course. One could hardly blame him for it – there was nothing else to him but his body and his fatuous charm; without it he was hollow as a gourd. And quickly enough his bride would discover her passion sated, because for all its intensity lust is a sentiment that never rests with one individual for any great length of time. Lying in bed afterwards, sticky with him, Prisca might come to wish she had chosen someone who could entertain her for longer than seven minutes at a stretch. She would turn to her children, or if she proved barren, to drink.

Everyone would get exactly what they wanted, and be miserable as salt in three years. Well – we dig our holes and then fall into them. All Eudokia had done was provide the shovel. ‘Prisca is a special creature,’ Eudokia said.

‘Unique.’

‘A woman like that deserves a lifestyle equal to her quality, and a dowry capable of maintaining it.’

Galerius licked his lips. ‘No doubt.’

‘Senator Andronikos is the most tight-fisted man in the Senate,’ Eudokia said. ‘And that’s a post that merits competition. Remember to stand firm with him – this is the good of his daughter we are speaking of, after all.’

‘Her needs must come first.’

Eudokia took him in a shallow embrace, held his wrists with her fingers and brought him close. ‘Five thousand solidus,’ she whispered into his ear, ‘and not a penny less.’

Galerius kissed her hand and went off to find his soon-to-be-betrothed, all but walking on gold dust.

When he was gone Eudokia sat down in one of the outside chairs, though the weather hardly suited it. But she needed a moment on her own, to rest, free of interruption. There had been a time when she could dance until morning and rise the next day on three hours of sleep, when she could plot the movement of the Commonwealth between glasses of wine and sharp witticisms. But age is as resolute as stone, and Eudokia found herself considering the lateness of the hour, and gauging whether she might not slip away from her own party to her own bed. By the gods, there was nothing so exhausting as play.

She rejected the notion, of course. After a moment sitting peacefully in the gardens – and not a very long moment, either – she stood and returned to face the tumult, red lips smiling, eyes calm and cold and clear as ice.

I
t was the natural way of humankind to give priority of rank to one’s own nations, cities, families, persons. To perceive virtues that an unbiased eye would fail to notice, to see excellence where a neutral party would observe nothing but mediocrity. To imagine your home a palace and your neighbourhood paradise. In Calla’s case, it was not hyperbole. The Roost was the most beautiful city in the world, and the First Rung the most beautiful place in the Roost. These were the simple facts of the matter.

The First Rung was beautiful throughout the year, in every season and at every time of day. It was beautiful in the late afternoon in high summer, when the trees bowed beneath their blossoms and the Eternal drifted past lazily on their pleasure crafts, through the canals and estuaries stemming out from the Source. It was beautiful in the midwinter evening, at the Nightjar’s hour, when frost gathered along the path, and claws of ice spiralled down from beneath the great arched bridges, and the street lamps sparkled in the heavy mist. But it was most beautiful – again, not a feeling, not an opinion but an unbiased statement of fact – on that day in mid-autumn called the Anamnesis, when the inhabitants of the Roost celebrate the Founding.

Those lucky people, those happy people, those blessed people who called themselves Roostborn and who resided on the upper Rungs, had no holidays, claimed no sacred rituals, prayed to no gods. Like the Eternal they concerned themselves with the moment, with the smell of wood rot and the feel of the soft breeze on their skin. Calla was in one of the many public gardens that dotted the city, sitting in a red wicker chair and wearing a dress that showed her off to the sun and anyone else who cared to look. She was thinking seriously of getting up and finding a drink – though, as with any such momentous decision, she wanted to give it some consideration before committing.

It had been a long morning. The Eternal would spend the day congregated around the Source, receiving obeisances from the representatives of the surrounding human nations, recalling, in ritual, when their ancestors had first spread protection over the inferior species that dotted the land. Five men and five women from Salucia, Aeleria and all the other lands south and east would present themselves as offerings, along with the vast spoils of raw ore and foodstuffs that represented the subject land’s true tithing. Preparing the Aubade for such an important occasion was a stressful and laborious task. Today more than any other was a day for Those Above to preen and primp, to ornament and garnish. For what seemed the first time in decades the Lord’s tailor had proven less than competent, or at least less than exceptional, and they were forced to scuttle about the Lord’s closet – needless to say, the size of a large house – for a headdress that matched the rest of his costume. But it was completed now, the Lord had left on his skiff, and she had the rest of the day to devote to merriment.