Authors: Miles Cameron
Mortirmir raised his left hand to ward against the man’s dagger – by luck and training he caught the man’s wrist in the tangle, although the point of the dagger pinked his thigh.
The rogue screamed and dropped the dagger. He stumbled back, his cudgel waving between them.
Mortirmir knew the
phantasm
for fire. He knew it intimately, and yet, in that moment, in mortal combat, he couldn’t summon the words for it, not even when whole bright red fire played on his hand.
The man with two daggers started at his right side.
Mortirmir seized hold of his mind and summoned the mental construct that he had memorised so pointlessly. He put his left hand at Two Daggers and said ‘
Poieo!
’ in High Archaic.
His memory palace was a fledgling thing – well constructed, based on the temple of Minerva outside the city walls. The professors all agreed that it should be constructed of a place he loved.
The problem was that since none of his
phantasms
ever worked, his impetus to construct and improve the palace had withered. So the ancient pillar – flawless white marble – was indistinct, and he could not tell for sure how many facets it had, nor could he read the graffiti he’d so carefully inscribed.
But he focused his will, took a deep mental breath, and there it was – a fish for Pisces, an eagle – for—
Saint Mark! And the gospel, and
In the beginning was the WORD,
And an owl—
Sweet Christ, the owl stands for wisdom, and . . .
MINERVA . . . ?
The man’s first dagger cut almost caught his outstretched hand. He bounced back, cut with his sword—
‘Athena!’ he spat.
Two Daggers immolated.
The force of the
phantasm
stunned Mortirmir and he stumbled back, as much in shock as from the force of the heat. The man screamed, terribly. He wasn’t dead, and three heartbeats later, he
still wasn’t dead.
Mortirmir took a deep breath, made himself step forward, and cut the man’s head from his body.
The fire went out. The man was horribly burned, his skin almost melted, one of his eyeballs popped and the other—
The image of the ruined man would haunt Mortirmir for many nights. In the meantime, he spun, ready for another attacker, and they were gone – he saw them vanish around corners like roaches fleeing a night candle. He took a deep breath.
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
‘I did it,’ he muttered.
He stumbled a few steps, and decided, as if making the decision from a great distance, to continue his mission to the palace.
Two streets later, he realised that he still had a sword in his hand, and it was dripping blood. He stopped and expended one of his mother’s linen squares on the sword. Some of the blood was dried like lacquer. He spat on the blade, suddenly far too focused on cleaning it, and another hundred heartbeats later, he realised that he wasn’t thinking particularly well.
He got the blade clean enough, and sheathed it.
His right glove was soaked in blood, and there was blood running down his right leg from a hole in his thigh.
He kept going towards the palace.
He crossed the street of the lawyers, and it was empty. In the armourer’s streets, there were men with swords and half-pikes – workmen. He paused at the fountain.
A man in Etruscan half-armour came up to him. ‘What news, neighbour?’ the man asked courteously enough.
Mortirmir bowed. ‘I’m a student at the University,’ he said. ‘Men attacked me in the square of the jewellers.’ His saliva suddenly tasted of salt – he flashed on the burned man.
The other man nodded. ‘You don’t look like a looter to me,’ he said. But he pointed at the sword. ‘Are you a barbarian?’
Mortirmir nodded. ‘From Alba,’ he said, ignoring his automatic resentment at the term.
‘Ah. Harndon?’ the man asked.
‘I have that honour,’ Mortirmir said. His voice sounded a little wild inside his head.
‘There are fine armourers in Harndon,’ the man said. ‘Can you name one?’
Mortirmir saw that there were a dozen apprentices around him, armed to the teeth.
‘Master Pye lives in my mother’s street,’ he said. ‘I’ve been fishing with his daughters.’
The atmosphere lightened immediately. ‘Ah! Master Pye!’ cried the armoured man. He bowed. ‘These are difficult times, ser. I had to be sure. May I ask why you are out? The watch has called a curfew and we are all supposed to be in our beds.’
Mortirmir had to struggle with his own somewhat unruly mind to come up with an answer. ‘I’m going to the palace.’ He shrugged. ‘For a girl.’
Luckily for Mortirmir, the armourer had known a few young men, and a few girls. He smiled. ‘The palace is in turmoil,’ he said. ‘But I will take you there for Master Pye’s sake.’
An hour later, with four armed apprentices at his back, Mortirmir stood at the postern gate of the Outer Court and knocked. It was the fourth gate he had tried – his armourers were enjoying the adventure, but all five of them were tired of failure.
However, here the grate was opened – the first sign of life they’d seen in the palace. ‘State your business,’ said a voice.
Mortirmir had had an hour to practise his speech and calm himself from the fight in the square. ‘Kyrios,’ he said, ‘I have come to find my friend Harald Derkensun of the Nordikan Guard. And to ascertain if the palace is in need of any food or drink that the city taverns might supply in this emergency. I have at my back members of the City Guild of Smiths, who would like to know—’
The postern opened, and revealed half a dozen ill-kept-looking Scholae guardsmen.
‘Fresh bread wouldn’t be amiss,’ said the tallest of them, a man in magnificent, if somewhat tattered, satin and samnite clothes, with a breastplate of scales and three days growth of beard. ‘As for Master Derkensun, he’s with the Empress. And I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d walk a note to my bride. If she’ll still have me.’ He looked at the armourer’s apprentices. ‘She lives in your quarter.’
‘I’d like to see Master Derkensun,’ Mortirmir insisted. He felt empowered. Literally. He had never felt so full of spirit, and his hands and chest felt as if they might catch fire.
The well-dressed man shrugged. ‘If you’ll leave your weapon and promise to take my message, I’ll escort you to him,’ he said. ‘But if he’s with the – er – Empress – you won’t be allowed in.’
The palace was as empty as the streets. The Ordinaries were locked down in their barracks – a bare minimum of them walked the corridors, and those few flattened themselves against the walls when the soldiers approached.
They crossed the Outer Court and entered the Inner Court. The Scholae barracks were full, and the handsome young man took Mortirmir to the duty clerk and entered his name on a roster. Then they crossed the yard. A pair of Nordikans stood like statues in full hauberks, with great axes as tall as Mortirmir’s shoulders.
‘Is Master Derkensun at liberty?’ asked the Scholiast.
‘DERKENSUN,’ bellowed the nearer of the two blond giants. He nodded. ‘Just off duty after a murder. In the prison.’
A sleepy giant came to the door. As soon as he saw Mortirmir, he grasped both of his hands. ‘You!’ he said. ‘The witch woman said we were to be bound together.’
Mortirmir might, under other circumstances, have had to proclaim his total disdain for anyone who went by the title ‘witch woman’, but an hour before he had caused a man to die by fire, and the universe was suddenly very strange.
‘Anna sent me,’ he said. It seemed a silly thing to say.
But Derkensun’s smile burst over his face like sunrise after a long, dark night. ‘By the gods!’ he said. ‘You are a true friend. Is it chaos out there?’ He turned and bellowed something – the sound, to Mortirmir, very much like two dogs fighting.
‘By our gracious Lord, is that what Nordikan sounds like?’ he asked.
His Scholae guard grinned. ‘That’s what we say.’
Derkensun took the two men aside. ‘I’ve called for my corporal. Listen. The Emperor is taken—’
‘That much is all over the city,’ Mortirmir said.
‘But too many of the officers fell with him – or have gone over to the Duke.’ The Nordikan shrugged. ‘This palace is a dark place, and no mistake.’
‘This man offered to bring food,’ the Scholae knight said. He offered an arm. ‘Giorgios Comnenos at your service, ser barbarian. You, I take it, are a student?’
‘Is Maria Ekaterina Comnena your sister?’ Mortirmir asked.
‘First cousin,’ the man smiled. ‘You know her at University, I suppose?’
Mortirmir looked away, and didn’t say ‘she coined my nickname’. Instead he said, ‘Oh, we’ve met. Pardon my rudeness, kyrios – I am Morgan Mortirmir, of Harndon.’
‘You speak our tongue so well I’d never have taken you for a barbarian,’ Comnenos said.
Derkensun put a hand on both men’s shoulders. ‘Listen, friends, enough pleasantries. We’re all good men here – let’s act the part. Morgan, can you fetch food? Do either of you know what it would take to get deliveries moving again?’
‘My father’s steward would probably know,’ Comnenos said. ‘But if I leave the palace, half of the Scholae will leave and never return.’
The only black-haired giant that Mortirmir had ever seen came out of the barracks and bows were exchanged. He was introduced as Durn Blackhair, acting Spatharios. It was a strange title – Mortirmir’s pedantic young brain tended to translate every scrap of Archaic, and that one seemed to mean ‘sword bearer’. Not really a title at all.
Blackhair drank off a pint of unwatered wine. ‘The Duke wants a fight,’ he said. ‘I just had word that he’s moving his camp closer to the walls, and he has threatened to bombard the city with his siege machines. We need access to the farms – without them, I guess there’s no food.’
Mortirmir felt odd, speaking up when all the men around him were – well, twenty-five. Which seemed like a great age to him. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, and they all looked at him. ‘It seems to me that the taverns and inns have food – they lay in stores.’
Blackhair nodded. ‘That’s good sense,’ he said. ‘But it won’t feed the city.’
‘It would feed the palace for another day,’ Derkensun said.
‘Long enough for . . .’ The knight of the Schola shrugged. ‘You know.’ He exchanged a look with Derkensun.
‘Three days without markets,’ Comnenos said. ‘By tonight, there’ll be hungry people offering to open a gate.’
Blackhair took a deep breath. ‘Right. Young master, if you can find us two cartloads of food, we won’t waste it. I’d like to say the Empress will be grateful, but I’d say the odds aren’t too good she’ll still wear the purple.’
Mortirmir nodded. ‘Can she pay for it?’ he asked.
‘If she wins,’ Comnenos said. ‘She’s thrown her dice.’
Mortirmir laughed, caught up in it. ‘Well, I can pay,’ he said. ‘It beats going to school, anyway.’
Blackhair slapped him on the shoulder, which almost drove him to his knees. ‘I won’t forget this,’ he said. ‘Get it done and you’ll have the thanks of the Guard.’
‘Those that are left,’ said Derkensun.
‘Let me write a note for my bride,’ said the officer. He pulled a beautiful red leather cased wax tablet from his belt pouch and wrote hurriedly. Then he turned the tablet over and wrote again, and pressed the ring on his finger into the wax. ‘Green side for Despoina Helena Dukas. Red side for Kyrios Demetrios Comnenos, my father.’
As it proved, delivering the tablets was as easy as returning to the square of the smiths; the Comnenoses’ palace dominated the square, with four tall marble towers glistening wetly in the late afternoon rain. And the Dukas palace stood across the square. Of course, a damp and exhausted Mortirmir was not at first invited to meet the lovely despoina in person, but he heard a shriek of delight from above him, and a beautiful girl of seventeen or so with bright gold hair came down the stairs, sprinting like a professional messenger, and he had to endure her thanks, her offers of money, and a hundred questions – was he all right? Had he taken a wound? Was he a hero? What was the Empress doing?
He survived, downed a cup of wine, and suggested to the girl’s father that if any supplies could be spared for the palace, they would be most welcome.
Lord Andronicus Dukas gave his bedraggled visitor a somewhat sketchy bow. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But until there is a legitimate Emperor, we would hesitate to act.’
Mortirmir shrugged. ‘Ah, kyrios, I am only a poor ignorant barbarian, but it seems to me that the Empress is even now restoring order. I gather that she is victorious.’
It didn’t seem to have any effect, but Mortirmir hoped it made the bastard squirm. He crossed the square, bid farewell to his escort, and passed the other note to the lord of House Comnenos. This old patriarch met him in person, and bowed politely – more than the lord of House Dukas had done.
‘How is my young scapegrace?’ he asked. ‘Staying in trouble? Humiliating his family properly?’ But he read the note, and grinned.
‘I gather you are a student, and not just a messenger. I will prepare a cart and a dozen men-at-arms to escort it. May I offer you any further assistance?’
Mortirmir bowed. ‘If you could provide me a shirt of mail and a horse, I’d appreciate it,’ he said.
Despoina Stella filled a cart with food and wine in two hours. He spent four semesters’ worth of fees on hams, sausages, fresh baked bread and lentils. Stella and her husband, who emerged with a spear in his hand, scoured the tavernas of the neighbourhood and found a wagon, a team, and an escort of spearmen raised from their own ranks. No one challenged them on their way to rendezvous with the cart provided by the Comnenos clan; they had an escort of mounted and armoured stradiotes and ten Smith’s Guild crossbowmen when they crossed the Great Square and stood outside the Outer Court. Mortirmir, now utterly exhausted, had a moment of panic as the great gates remained resolutely closed.
He could hear hoof beats. They were far away – ten or twenty blocks – but there were an awful lot of them. The city was dark, there was no watch out in the streets, and all lights were extinguished. The sound of hooves was frightening.