Unholy War (57 page)

Finally, they came for her, led by Sir Roland Heale. ‘Get up,’ he said gruffly, his deep-set piggy eyes glinting in his jowly face. Someone threw cold water over her and she was wrenched to her feet.

They took her, still dripping, to the bureaucratic chambers adjoining the palace, a court room for dispensing justice in capital cases. Gurvon Gyle sat in the senior seat, presiding. Three men sat with him on the judicial bench, two of whom she knew: Josip Yannos, the head of the Sollan Church in Javon, and Acmed al-Istan, the senior Godspeaker of the Amteh, had been part of her Regency Council. The third was the Kirkegarde Grandmaster, Etain Tullesque, clad sumptuously in black, white and gold. She wondered where the king was and if he knew what was being done to her.

The Kore Grandmaster spoke first. ‘Cera Nesti, you are accused of murdering your husband, the king. How do you plead? And before you respond, know this: you were seen entering his chambers prior to his body being discovered.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘But … No! He was alive when he left me! I never left the Blood-tower, except to …’ Her eyes went to Gyle’s face. ‘Tell them! Tell them!

His grey eyes were cold and remote. ‘You are also charged with having unnatural relations with your maidservant, Tarita. You will also answer that charge.’

‘No! No! You
know
that’s not true!’

Even as she spoke her denial, she knew that whatever she said didn’t matter.

I was seen leaving Francis’ rooms, and he’s dead. That must already be widely known, too credible to be denied. Francis is dead: the streets must be in uproar! I’d be seen as a heroine … so they need to break my reputation … With so many clergy locked up, deals could be cut around the one thing they can all agree on: that I need to die horribly, with my reputation destroyed.

Josip Yannos leaned forward. ‘How do you plead, child?’ His voice held just a trace of sympathy, as if he suspected this might be some ruse of Gyle’s. But he was still obviously intent on self-preservation, and likely to do whatever Gyle had told him to.

Godspeaker Acmed just stared at her, a look of pure loathing on his face. He’d been a hard man to deal with at the council table, pricklish at being forced to deal with a woman, but she’d thought she had won him round – but it was his clergy Gyle was locking up, because of her Beggars’ Court. If he was convinced she was safian, then any respect he might once have had for her would be gone, even without her apparent murder of Francis.

Francis is dead? Truly?

‘I deny all of your trumped-up lies. I didn’t kill the king! I’m not a safian! Sol et Lune, I’ve bedded the king more times than I can count!’

Gyle’s mental voice filled her mind.

He sounded disgusted, personally offended.

She felt her heart hammering madly, thought it would burst.
How could he know … ?

‘Confess, Cera,’ Gyle said aloud. ‘Tarita has.’

The clergymen glowered at her, their faces filled with disgust.

No no no no
. ‘These are lies! If Tarita has confessed, then it is for fear of torture, not because it’s true! What is it you really want? Tell me what concession you want and I’ll give it. Just let her alone.’

Gyle turned to the three clerics. ‘See how she thinks, my lords? It is as I told you: she is a devious, calculating creature. An unnatural being, barely female at all. What manner of true woman dares to sit upon a throne and call men to heel? Recall also that she consorted with Elena Anborn, a known safian.’

‘Elena was no— And I’m not! You’re lying! She was
your
lover, for years!’

Gyle curled his lip. ‘I don’t deny she had me fooled. But she revealed her true colours when she got her fingers into you.’ He turned to the clergyman. ‘You gentlemen will know what serpents women can be.’

‘We know you lie, girl,’ Tullesque purred. ‘Your denials mean nothing at all. We have signed confessions from your maid herself. The trial will be but a formality. Confess, and speed the process.’

The three clerics nodded in unison, their eyes as condemning as Gyle’s. ‘Cera Nesti once claimed before her council to have the nature of a man,’ Acmed noted. Cera remembered that meeting: she had humiliated the Godspeaker, forced him to back down on some issue. She’d thought the slight forgiven.

‘Is this how you serve the shihad?’ she asked him bitterly.

‘Beings like you cannot serve the greater good, Cera Nesti,’ the Godspeaker retorted, his iron face unflinching. ‘A snake is only ever a snake.’

‘On this we three are all agreed,’ Josip Yannos added. ‘A woman’s place is in the home. A man’s place is at the centre of affairs. The other proofs merely complete the picture.’

Mater Lune, spare me!
‘That’s the heart of it, isn’t it? You can’t stand the fact that I had the guts to stand up and fight for my family, and you’re going to put me in my place. From daring to claim the Regency, to daring to hold court: I got above myself! All your lies and accusations boil down to that.’

The three clergymen regarded her with narrowed eyes. ‘Perverse and wicked creatures cannot be permitted to live,’ the Grandmaster declared. ‘So says the
Book of Kore
, words echoed in every holy text.’

Acmed nodded in agreement. ‘The
Kalistham
condemns such women utterly. “Let the woman who closes her womb to her husband and debauches in wickedness be returned to the earth”,’ he quoted.

‘Confess, Cera,’ Gyle advised. ‘Or we will hand you over to the torturers to prove your guilt.’

Mater Lune, please! No
— She felt her legs began to shake. Her father had waged a long struggle to have torture removed as a weapon of the judiciary, something she’d been immensely proud of. ‘You’re barbarians,’ she spat. ‘Torture is illegal here.’

The Church of Kore is above your petty laws,’ Tullesque said. ‘We use whatever means we require.’

Tears were streaming down her face. She wiped at them furiously, ashamed at the terror and the weakness. ‘Please, mercy. People will confess to anything under duress,’ she babbled, then she began to scream, ‘
Tarita! TARITA!
’

‘She calls to her lover,’ Tullesque smirked.

‘The death of King Francis has cast a pall over the city,’ Gyle said, ‘but the new Regent’s Council, in the name of Francis Dorobon’s unborn heir and headed by the Imperial Legate – as is my right in such a time of crisis – has regained control. Your fate is the last important impediment to peace in Brochena.’

She wanted only to curl up and die, but she needed to know. ‘Where’s Timori? He’s just a boy—’

‘The young king is well. Your attempt to kidnap him failed and your associates are dead. He will remain as our guest, a deterrent to hostilities being raised by his family.’

‘Timi knew nothing of this. He’s an innocent.’

‘Of course he is,’ Gyle said condescendingly. ‘We don’t make war on children, Cera.’

She blinked away tears, tried one last plea. ‘Please, I have done nothing wrong. The country will rise if you kill me.’

‘No, not for a perverted safian. Every judgement you decreed in the Beggars’ Court is suspect. Civil law will be restored to a new Civil Justice authority, blending the clergy and the bureaucracy.’

Godspeaker Acmed nodded vindictively. ‘When your crimes were made known, the population rose to condemn you. Your name is cursed in every Dom-al’Ahm.’

Her heart sank as his words sunk in.
Sweet Mater Luna … he’s probably right …

Gyle added, ‘Rondian rule of Javon is here to stay, Cera. These clergymen recognise this. What is needed is a demonstration that most of our beliefs are akin: that Kore and Amteh and Sollan faiths alike recognise some truths as universal. One of those truths is that
frocio
, both male and female, are subhuman and must be exterminated.’

‘What does Staria Canestos think of that?’ Cera asked bitterly.
Where is my ‘friend’ now, anyway?

‘Staria knows which way the wind is blowing. Anyway, she is far away, at the Rift forts. So, I ask you again: how do you plead?’

She forced her eyes open, made herself look at him. ‘Guilty. Guilty, and I would not change a single moment.’

24

The ‘Grave Matter’ of Lineage

Gurvon Gyle grasped the relay stave and readied himself for what was almost certainly not going to be a pleasant experience. Clearing his mind, he awaited the tickling touch of other minds. Coordinating the timing of such contacts when the participants were spread over different continents could be problematic. For a long time he was left waiting.

He was in Elena’s training room in her tower, as high places were best for such Air-related gnosis as Clairvoyance. From it he could hear the incessant Jhafi chanting, through which the name of Cera Nesti ran through unmistakably, like a recurring note on a harp glissando. The level of devotion was unexpected, mostly by women, but not entirely. When soldiers drove them from the street, or even their own menfolk, many went to rooftops and continued their wailing. Not beatings, not even deaths had stopped them.

The clergy had lied to Cera Nesti when they told her she was universally condemned: in fact few believed the safian charges – even though they were true, and that was mortifying when Gurvon recalled how he’d once lusted for her himself. And now she was seen as a martyr-in-waiting. He’d lied to her about the maid too: Tarita had eluded capture and vanished.

For the first time in his life, he, Gurvon Gyle, Imperial Legate, was feeling out of his depth.

Until this mission in Javon, his forte had been small-scale plots, where the personalities of the key players were known and the variables relatively few. But here, cultural differences made the reactions of the people difficult to judge, and the scale of the operation meant that he didn’t even know the names of potential key players. Mobs were mobs, but he was beginning to discover – a little late – that Jhafi crowds behaved differently to Yuros ones; they had different touch-points and fault-lines. The clergy were self-deluded in their claims that the populace would follow them blindly. For every demonstration that burned the queen and her maid in effigy, there were a dozen singing hymns for her freedom. The energies that had been building through her Beggars’ Court were turning into something even more dangerous.

Once she’s been stoned, the fervour will die. She’ll be forgotten.

Tomas Betillon’s mental touch was like being slapped by a studded leather gauntlet. Simultaneously an image of the man’s coarse face appeared in the smoke above the brazier in front of him. The echoing effect of using the staves reverberated around the chamber with a strange timbre.

he replied tersely.

the Governor of Hebusalim growled.

not
kill Francis and nor did I order his death.>

He fell silent as the icy touch of Lucia Fasterius joined the link from the Summer Palace in Bres. Treasurer Calan Dubrayle and Arch-Prelate Wurther Dominius joined from Pallas, and then Kaltus Korion, from Kesh. Images of their faces formed in the air around him.

Terse greetings were exchanged, then Lucia turned to him and demanded,

Dominius Wurther put in,

The Dorobon family were also his best friends now, it appeared.

Gurvon put on his most humble mental voice.

He broke off as several of the listeners snorted openly.

Mater-Imperia Lucia observed in her icy mental voice.

He paused. This was the point where he had to make a decision on what to reveal. Should he maintain the fiction that was being presented as fact for the Javon court? Or should he reveal the true killer: one of his own agents (bad enough) – and Lucia’s estranged and freakish daughter (even worse)?

The trail of questions over how he could have lost control of an agent and the circumstances of the killing were likely enough to have his title of Imperial Legate revoked. But there were ways out of this, if he had the nerve …

– he took a deep breath –

Silence greeted this announcement, but not derision. He took heart at that.

He got a few more seconds’ respite as they took this in, then all the men spoke at once.

Kaltus Korion’s voice rose above the rest.

Gurvon quelled his temper, but let it inflect his reply.

Lucia’s voice cut across the angry babble that rose at his defiance.

He faced her image squarely.

he replied, with the slightest emphasis on the third word. Her eyes widened faintly.
Yes, your freak-child was involved, Mother of the Empire.

Lucia asked after a second in which she struggled to maintain her judgmental mask.

Silence fell over the link and Gurvon could feel the confusion of the four men, who’d clearly been expecting Lucia to eviscerate him. He could sense them going back over the brief conversation, trying to work out what had changed, but he doubted any would understand. While all knew she had a disowned child, most thought Yvette Sacrecour to be either confined or dead. He was pretty sure the codename ‘Coin’ had never been associated with Lucia, either publically or even in private circles. He only knew because he’d hired Yvette.
And I curse that day
.

Calan Dubrayle read Lucia’s mood-change faster than the others, whether he understood exactly what was going on here or not.

he said evenly, going for the voice of reason.

Tomas Betillon made a disgruntled sound.

Kaltus Korion reminded them all in a tight, angry voice.

He turned to face Mater-Imperia.

Mater-Imperia did not look best pleased to be addressed on such familiar terms. Her eyes hardened to chips of ice.

With that reminder of her authority hanging in the aether, she turned back to Gurvon.

He swallowed and hung his head.
Only the hint I gave of Coin’s role in this débâcle has given me this small chance
…

He wondered for a moment what would happen if he simply told them all to go to Hel. After all, he controlled four legions and had a strong hold over the Dorobon one as well, now that Heale and Margham were onside. They’d barely reacted when Francis was found dead – they’d clearly thought him responsible, regardless of the blame shovelled onto Cera Nesti. Lucia would need to despatch at least eight legions to be sure of retaking Javon, and frankly, the Crusade couldn’t afford that.

But there were other ways she could get to him: her own assassins, or trade sanctions, or simply outbidding him for the loyalty of Rykjard, Canestos, Frikter and the rest.
There will come a time for me to declare my autonomy, but that time is not yet
…

Betillon and Korion snarled disgustedly, while Wurther
tsked
softly.

For a few seconds silence reigned, then Dubrayle spoke again.

Betillon complained.

Arch-Prelate Wurther remarked amiably.

Korion snapped.

Dubrayle said tersely.

Betillon asked in a pointedly bored voice.

Gurvon asked. He’d done some counterfeiting in his time, but only coinage.

Dubrayle looked ready to spit.

Wurther tutted.

Kaltus Korion pulled a face.

Dubrayle replied.

Betillon grumbled.

Dubrayle’s gnostic image rolled its eyes.

That stunned them all into silence.

Lucia Fasterius said sharply.