Lorenzo did not come near her. She wanted to help him, but she was the last person he wanted to see, so she made Solinde her main concern. The princessa regained consciousness the day after her rescue, but she was sullen and refused to talk to anyone. Elena had taught Cera and Solinde mind-blanking to prevent magi from prying in their minds. Now Solinde used Elena’s own teaching against her, refusing to let her into her mind. She could not say how she had survived the Moon Tower’s fall. Perhaps she had just been extraordinarily lucky.
Mustaq and the other headmen managed to restrain the Jhafi population from assaulting the citadel, though some of the younger
men fired arrows at men on the walls. The word went round: ‘Wait. The Nesti are coming.’ But it was the Gorgio who moved first, a few days after Elena’s attack. Trumpets blared and a legion marched from the Inner City, down the Kingsway to Dom-al’Ahm Plaza. As row upon row of soldiers filled the square, the Jhafi silently encircled them. A cohort secured each flank, while the fifth cohort marched in the centre. The legion commander rode amidst a plethora of shields raised about him in a tortoise formation to the meat-hooks that had been hung in the centre of the plaza. Every Gorgio legionary looked at them once, reading the signs writ large and bold, and winced.
The headless corpse of Arno Dolman hung upside down, his intestines entwined about the hook. A huge nail tacked a sign to his flesh that read
The Man of Stone
. Beside him hung the grisly but unrecognisable remains of Benet and Terraux, with the legend
The Blasphemous Twins
pinned above them, referring to a well-known cautionary Amteh parable about homosexuality. Rutt Sordell’s head was on the top of a spike, the rest of his body impaled lower down. His sign read:
Slayer of the King
. Beside him, Vedya’s perfect body was similarly defiled, and her scroll read:
The Whore of Shaitan
.
The next day, the Gorgio fled the city.
The news of the enemy’s flight spread swiftly. Mustaq al’Madhi led his men cautiously into the Inner City the next day, surrounding Elena, who was shrouded in black and carried on a palanquin. The Jhafi warriors treated her with deference and fear. The drums and cymbals beat out the rhythm of vengeance and children danced in triumph as their elders sacked any Rimoni house not flying a Nesti pennant and butchered families who had publicly aligned themselves with the Gorgio usurpers. There were few of those, luckily, but they came across some grisly sights as they wound through the streets.
When they arrived at the palace, they stepped carefully through the wreckage of the fallen Moon Tower and circled towards the main gates, which stood invitingly open. ‘My men have scouted,
Lady Elena,’ Mustaq told her as he helped her down, ‘but we have found something strange. We need your assistance, if it pleases you.’
Her hands shook, but she could straighten herself again, and her sword hand and wrist had regained some of their old strength. She hobbled along using a rough staff to balance her while her mind searched ahead. There was refuse everywhere. One deserted courtyard was littered with discarded tack and harness; another held dozens of broached casks – whatever wine the Gorgio could not take with them, left to run into the drains in an act of spite. Cats crawled through the wreckage, mewling and hissing, and in one place squabbling violently over something: the right arm and leg of a man protruding from a shallow grave. His flesh was rotting in the midday sun.
At their approach, the cats backed away, yowling. Mustaq signalled and a couple of men wrapped cloth about their noses and mouths and began digging. It didn’t take them long to uncover a naked man, tall with long golden hair: Fernando Tolidi, Solinde’s Gorgio sweetheart.
Why would they kill Fernando?
Elena wondered, but she was distracted by more men running into the courtyard, shouting in agitation: there were more graves in the gardens. Elena put a hand to her mouth and hurried along with the crowd.
Hundreds of crows rose like a black cloud from a square in the shadow of the Royal Tower. The Jhafi stiffened, some fell to their knees, wailing, and Elena herself reeled at the dreadful smell. The last act of the fleeing Gorgio had been to butcher the palace’s Jhafi staff. Elena felt a terrible weight of guilt fall upon her as they walked across the bloodstained square.
None of this would have happened if I had not come
.
She looked down on the bodies of the women and men of the servants’ quarters, their eyes sightless, their faces locked in their final expressions of terror or resignation. There were forty-eight of them. She felt tears running down her cheeks, and closed her eyes. She let grief wash through her. It wasn’t cleansing at all.
After a time she sent her mind questing ahead, seeking life.
There – up, to the left!
She led the Jhafi men cautiously, but there were no hidden archers or ambushes. Each room looked partially ransacked, as if the Gorgio had seized anything they could carry of value as plunder in a hurried escape. But in one room, hidden amidst a pile of debris and fallen tapestries, she found a large locked chest. Mustaq sidled forward and gingerly prised it open with a crowbar. When the lock snapped with a crack, they all jumped.
Inside was a Jhafi girl, her dirty face tear-streaked. She shrank into the chest, whimpering pitifully.
‘Hush child,’ Mustaq murmured. ‘This is Lady Elena of the Nesti. She will not harm you.’
The girl looked unconvinced. She had a dark face, with a child’s upturned nose, and was skinny as a broom. Elena remembered her now:
Tarita
, one of the younger maids, fourteen or fifteen years old, and tiny, well short of five feet tall. She had been a sparkling, cheeky girl, prone to forgetfulness – once she had absentmindedly carried a pitcher of cold water up to Elena’s chambers for bathing, forgetting it was supposed to be heated. She had feared a tongue-lashing, or worse, but Elena had gently jested with her, and she had been quick to join the joke, telling Elena she could no doubt warm it with magic. She was in shock now. Elena wondered how she had escaped.
‘Tarita,’ she said softly, ‘will you heat some water for my bath?’
The girl almost smiled, then hid her face. It took time to coax the girl into her arms. As a Jhafi woman led the girl away to care for her, Elena told herself,
I must not forget her
.
We need to know what she saw
.
There were no other survivors, just rooms strewn with broken furniture and discarded non-essentials. The tower room where
Bastido
lay waiting hadn’t been touched. She’d primed
Bastido
to attack on
cinque
if anyone else came in, which might’ve had something to do with that. Her own room had been destroyed, of course. Someone, Vedya, she presumed, had taken the time and trouble to go through
her wardrobe and rip up every piece of clothing she owned, then she’d pissed on everything. It stank and it hurt a little, but she’d expected it.
At least I was wearing my gems
.
The Nesti retook Brochena in an atmosphere of carnival two weeks later. The hated Gorgio had come, and they had shown their true nature in murder and regicide, but they had fled without battle. Cera Nesti’s courage following the death of her family was already legendary, and the celebrations were spontaneous and genuine. Elena waited with Mustaq al’Madhi and his Jhafi on the main steps of the palace as Cera’s party wound through the streets. The cheering and singing grew closer while Elena sweated beneath her hooded robes.
The Queen-Regent didn’t keep them waiting too long. Elena dreaded assassins in the crowd, but Cera negotiated the throng safely, touching the hands of well-wishers, a heroine to the masses crowding the plaza. She was composed, her gestures controlled. The girl had gone; she was a woman.
She is born to this
. The thought made Elena both proud and apprehensive.
As Cera climbed the stairs, her eyes found Elena. She frowned at her shroud. Elena had written, but reading was not the same as witnessing. Elena’s healing-gnosis had softened most of the effects of Sordell’s necromancy, but she was not yet her old self. Her silver-blonde hair was half an inch long, her face was lined. She looked ten years older, by normal human standards.
Cera worked her way down the line, greeting the waiting nobles and heads of bureaucracy, until she reached Elena. At her first close sight of her protector, the Queen-Regent gasped and swallowed. Then she masked her features and embraced her. ‘Ella –
Deo!
What have they done to you?’ She ran her hand over Elena’s scalp. ‘I hardly recognise you.’
‘I heard short hair would be the look this winter.’ Elena winked.
Cera seized Elena’s hand and kissed it, then pulled her into a tight embrace. ‘You have won us back the kingdom, Ella.’ Her whisper was fervent. ‘You are a miracle-worker!’
‘Oh, it’s just my job,’ Elena replied drily.
‘I love you, Ella. You are Sol et Lune to me.’
‘Shhh! That’s blasphemy, Cera – it’ll annoy the drui.’ She patted her cheek and gave her a serious look. ‘Solinde refused to attend. I can’t get through to her – she’s shielding from me, and if I use gnostic force to break through, I’ll hurt her. The Jhafi want her executed for treason.’
Cera’s face clouded. ‘Later, Ella. Today I have to look happy.’ She leaned forward and whispered in her ear, ‘Mustaq’s people have slaughtered a thousand Gorgio sympathisers and he’s given me a list of three thousand more.’ Her eyes met Elena’s. ‘What do I do?’
Elena swallowed. ‘Say nothing. Talk to me later.’ She squeezed her hand, then stepped back and curtseyed. ‘Later.’
Cera looked at her for an instant longer, then she regained her composure and swept on to the next person, a smile once more on her lips.
Elena slipped backwards through the crowd, troubled, whilst all around her people rejoiced. She noticed Lorenzo following her with his eyes, but he looked away when he realised she had noticed.
Four of them made the decision: Cera, Elena, Comte Piero Inveglio and Mustaq al’Madhi, who had become indispensable with terrifying efficiency. After a measured beginning, the meeting became increasingly acrimonious. Finally Mustaq was on his feet, jabbing a finger at Inveglio. ‘When the Gorgio came, all manner of people in the Merchant and Crafts Guilds flocked about them, grubbing for money, shamelessly rolling over like dogs for their new masters – there must be a reckoning!’
Inveglio protested, ‘But most of those on this list – I know them! – had no choice but to comply. When a usurper places a knife to your throat, only a fool denies him!’
‘You are protecting your friends, your “business associates”,’ Mustaq spat. ‘These people got rich on Gorgio money; they suckled at the enemy teat, and now my people demand retribution.’ He redirected his demands to Cera. ‘The Gorgio slaughtered the palace
servants like
animals
! These people abetted that by their fawning upon the Gorgio. There must be a purge, sanctioned and run by the Nesti, or blood will flow without sanction, this I promise you!’
Cera turned to Elena, her tones a little pleading. ‘Ella, what should I do?’
Elena looked at her appraisingly, thinking,
This is what kingship is, Cera: not all parades and pretty speeches, but wielding the knife judiciously
. ‘There was a Rimoni poet, Nikos Mandelli, who advised the emperors of Rym before the coming of the magi. He wrote extensively about how to rule an empire. The Church banned his writings, but they have been recovered and distributed among the magi. In his book
Imperator
Mandelli said that a ruler must be both loved and feared. Sometimes this can be achieved with kindness and mercy, but sometimes harsher means must be utilised. Your goal is to secure the Nesti in power. You cannot permit those who supported the Gorgio coup to continue without sanction; that would weaken your standing with the majority of the people. Your path is clear.’
Mustaq stabbed his finger at Elena. ‘As the jadugara says!’ he exclaimed triumphantly while Comte Inveglio buried his head in his hands and Cera swallowed, her face white.
‘Prison and trials, not killings!’ she demanded as Mustaq bowed and strode from the room.
For a week Cera gave Mustaq his head, and Nesti soldiery carried out what was required. The streets were filled with squads of men making raids on the accused merchants and the dungeons beneath the Castel Regium filled up. Inevitably it got out of hand as the lists got longer and longer. Elena suspected the bureaucrats administering the lists were taking bribes from people to settle scores. There would be months of trials before anything could be done, and in the meantime the gaol was bursting at the seams. Worst of all, possible collaborators’ names were being leaked to the public and then targeted by lynch-mobs. Those scenes took Elena back to places like Knebb during the Revolt. They were not memories she wanted to revisit ever again.
It all took a toll on Cera. The waves of guilt and sickness at what she had unleashed gave way to a new coldness and remorselessness that was frightening to see in the eyes of one so young.
Elena was scared for her.
She reminds me of me, during the Revolt
…
After seven days Cera lifted martial law and the Nesti soldiers returned to keeping the peace. She ordered a city-wide clean-up to wash away all traces of that week, and it went ahead alongside the funerals. She ordered the reconstruction of buildings, which took time, while the dungeons beneath the palace overflowed. The people no longer cheered her unquestioningly, and she began to dread public appearances. ‘Half of them hate me now,’ she wept into Elena’s arms.
Despite this, she presided over the endless trials of the alleged collaborators, fining all but the most genuinely extreme cases. Some saw it as leniency and weakness, others as mercy and strength. She came to terms with one of life’s truths: you can’t please everyone.
By the last day of the year, Timori had recovered enough to sleep in his own room, as long as Borsa slept outside his door. Cera had moved into the royal suite, though she was visibly uncomfortable to be sleeping where her dead parents had once slept, and Elena had Rutt Sordell’s old chambers outside Cera’s doors, which she hated. The rescued Jhafi girl Tarita became Elena’s maid, revealing a gift of laughter that Elena badly needed, especially on mornings when she came back from her work-outs bent double with pain. The girl turned fifteen shortly after they’d found her, and she appeared to have put whatever horrors she had seen behind her quickly. She knew how to play tabula and to Elena’s embarrassment she usually won.
Some master strategist, whipped at the Game of Kings by a maid
.