Gold Throne in Shadow Read online

  16

  BAR BRAWLS AND BETRAYALS

  He hadn’t held the innkeeper’s head in a chamber pot. Last night, the thick cut of beef had been hot, juicy, and heavily spiced. It had gone down easily enough.

  But today it lay in the pit of his stomach, causing unpleasant rumblings and eructations every time Royal changed his stride. The juices had turned to cold grease, the tenderness of the cut was probably due to its being on the edge of going rotten, and the spices had been there to hide that unsavory fact. Unfortunately, the spell that would neutralize any and all toxins was still out of his reach. When he complained about this to Lalania, she shook her head at him.

  “You could have purified the meal before you ate it, Christopher. It likely would not have given us away. Such a low-level blessing is in the power of an Acolyte, and in any case you could have disguised it as simple religious piety. Plenty of superstitious peasants say a prayer over their evening meal. The alternative is that you could develop a constitution hardier than a girl’s.” She belched unexpectedly, and a pained look crossed her face. “I take that back. Tonight I suggest you pray over our food, despite the risk. But discreetly, Christopher. We’ll be sleeping in a Dark county tonight, one almost certainly under the sway of the Shadow.”

  He frowned.

  “It can’t be helped. We’ll make Undaal town by noon. Then it’s either wait for morning or push on. I don’t counsel waiting. It just increases our risk of detection and gives any pursuit we might have a chance to catch up. But if we continue, nightfall will find us in Feldspar, and we absolutely will not camp in the open there. I know a village inn, near the Estvale border, that should be safe enough. The innkeeper is no cleaner than our last one but no more wicked either.”

  “If this one poisons me, I’m going to have to kill him.” A sour thing to say, and probably outside the bounds of strict honesty that his Church demanded. Before he could amend it to be more truthful, another roil of burning garlic-and-clove gas burbled through his belly. As of that moment, he decided his statement was adequately sincere.

  Undaal was even shabbier than West Undaal. At least the locals didn’t give them a hard time. One look at Christopher’s face, wound tight by discomfort and annoyance, a second look at his sword and his horse, and they kept their wisecracks to themselves. The deference was of a different character than back home. In Church lands, people were nice to him as long as he was nice to them. Here, people were only nice to him when he was mean enough to scare them. Christopher was pleased to see that he could tell the difference and was gratified that it still mattered so much to him. He had been impressed before at how the Church could rule without inspiring fear. He was being impressed all over again.

  Unfortunately he hadn’t memorized the spell needed for cleansing food, so he and Lalania had to risk the local standards for lunch. They settled on the blandest food they could find: fresh bread and a pale, soft cheese. Christopher managed to acquire a few stalks of celery by pretending it was for his horse. The roughage put some solidity into his gut, and he started to feel better.

  “Good,” Lalania said, “because I think we’ve dallied too long. We need to pick up the pace.”

  The so-called road was hardly more than a wagon-track, though wide enough to allow the horses to trot safely. The celery allowed his stomach to survive the bouncing gate. They would cover eight miles in the next few hours, without unduly tiring Royal. Christopher tried not to think about how their three-day journey would have been less than an hour, given a highway and an automobile.

  He could tell when they crossed the border into Feldspar. Mostly because there were a handful of ragged soldiers collecting a poll-tax of copper for people and silver for horses, but also because the quality of life went down another notch. The peasants in Church lands were often cheerful, or at least content at their labors. In the Undaals they had been disgruntled and sour. Here, in Feldspar, the few peasants he saw were depressed and skittish, afraid of even looking at him.

  “Peace, Christopher,” Lalania said, as he was opening his mouth. “Keep your opinions to yourself for now. I already know what you’re thinking, and talking about it won’t help.”

  He asked a question instead. “How do you . . . put up with it, Lala?”

  The look in her eyes might have been pity. Or disgust. “I’ve seen worse. Do you know what county lies due south of us now? Baria, once the domain of Bartholomew the Black. Due to Bart’s untimely demise at the hands of some white-flocked hooligan, the county has a new master. The Gold Throne has rewarded Prelate Gareth Boniface with the title. But a Prelate is not a peer. He needs another rank before the King will recognize his right. Do you know where the good Prelate can find the tael necessary to make Curate? No? Then I will tell you. The county has been sentenced to decimation.”

  Christopher didn’t have to ask what the term meant. His magical grasp of the language supplied the answer: one out of ten, in the original Roman sense of the word. When a legion had exhibited cowardice in the face of the enemy, it could be sentenced to decimation. The legion would line up, in rows of ten. Each man would draw from a bag of white and black stones. Every tenth stone was black. The man who drew the black stone would die, beaten to death by clubs wielded by the other nine.

  In all of Roman history only one legion had ever suffered this punishment. Even for the honor-obsessed Romans, the people who would fall on their own swords rather than face a court trial, the brutality of decimation was too savage to be used more than once every thousand years. Even for the Romans, decimation had really been no more than a legend, a terrifying story from the distant past. On this planet, it was an ordinary fact of life. It was only supposed to be invoked when the community was in serious danger, but, as usual, that determination was up to the lord.

  Bart had already liquidated two villages to raise new knights. It was hard to believe the county could survive further depredation. Christopher tried to set aside his revulsion and focus on a legal objection. “Wait a minute. The Prelate doesn’t have the title, so he can’t just take the tael out of the county. He’s got to be Baron first. So he can’t do that.”

  “Strictly speaking, you are correct. When that argument was presented to the Gold Throne, their response was simple. They would decimate one of their current counties to promote the Prelate. Then, once he took possession of Baria, he would decimate it to pay back the loan.”

  “Gods . . . that’s two decimations.” Twice as many dead peasants. Twice as many grandparents sent to the chopping block because they were too old to work. Twice as many unpopular people, oddballs who rubbed anyone the wrong way, even a little, sent to the ax. Every curmudgeon, whose only crime was not being disliked but merely lacking enough friends to speak up for them.

  And, of course, women. There were twice as many women as there were men, with half as much say in who got chosen. Any woman past childbearing age would be facing a death sentence.

  The sickness sank to the pit of his stomach, and Christopher struggled not to throw up.

  “We felt pretty much the same way. The objection was withdrawn, and Lord Boniface won his decimation. As I understand it, it won’t be quite enough. But the Prelate has graciously agreed to make up the difference out of his own pocket.”

  “It’s happening now?” The thought that such bloodshed should be occurring a few miles away, and due to Christopher’s own actions, however well-intentioned or justifiable, made him dizzy with hatred.

  “My news is weeks old, Christopher. By now the deed is done. We stalled it for as long as we could: Bart died seasons ago. We gave the peasants what respite we dared and a chance to build up some tael through more . . . natural processes. Now they have a priest who can cure disease. Their lot arguably has improved. But should some amateur paladin waltz in and kill this lord, before he’s even pretended to have a chance to save for his replacement, the Gods only know what burden would be dumped on those poor people next.”

  “Will he? Will he save for his repla
cement?” It seemed far more likely that a Black priest would pocket it all for his own advance, and the future be damned.

  “To suggest otherwise is to lay a charge of treason at his door. And surely no one would be so impertinent as to do that, without both a wealth of evidence and an army to back it up.”

  Christopher had an army. Lalania must have noticed the calculations writ across his face.

  “Do keep in mind that evidence of such a crime is yet impossible to assemble, insomuch as the lord has the right and expectation to advance his own cause, at least until the end of his career is reasonably in sight. Baron Boniface is not yet forty. Spending tael on his own advancement is not yet considered irresponsible. Very convenient for all of us, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Having a conversation with Fae was expensive. Having one with Lalania was actively painful. He was pretty sure that his social interactions with attractive young women back on Earth had been no worse than embarrassing.

  “Indeed, how lucky for the old codger. Out of pure speculation, motivated by no more than idle curiosity, what would be considered too old to advance one’s own rank?”

  “Legally, threescore-and-ten, of course.” Lalania announced that fact with a tone that marked it as common and obvious knowledge. Which it probably was, to anyone born and raised around tael. “Practically, it depends on how much you fear a knife in the back. If you’re still strong enough to paralyze your likely heirs with terror, you can get away with anything. If no one is certain it’s their inheritance you’re consuming, you can get away with more.”

  “How about if you’d just like to not offend people of good sense and high moral dudgeon?”

  “Then it depends on how much and how long those people can expect to get out of you. As a convenient example, consider Faren Califax, Cardinal of the Church of the Bright Lady. The old geezer is pushing seventy with something less than a ten-foot pole, though his exact age is as well hidden as can be expected by simpleminded doves with a self-righteous fetish for babbling truth, regardless of its effect on themselves or others.”

  He’d never heard his Church described in quite those terms. Other than the charge of simpleness, he wasn’t sure it was an illegitimate description. Lalania was using the necessity of maintaining a disguise to give him a taste of how other people might see his affiliation.

  “Were he to advance himself to Prophet, the mewling kittens of the Bright would be horrified. Not only is he old enough that they could expect only a relatively few years of service out of such a huge expense, but he wouldn’t gain any particular advantage, since he can already revive the dead. In their eyes a handful of extra spells does not seem worth the price.”

  “And it’s not like the man needs the rank,” she continued. “Despite their protestations of benevolence, when was the last time you saw a priest of the White put on armor and take his place at the front lines? No, they always fight from behind a line of low-rank or even unranked meat, brave men who have nothing but bits of metal to face the monsters of the wild.”

  Christopher almost protested, despite where they were having this conversation. He’d done his share of donning armor and taking hits. He’d seen Vicar Rana face down Black Bart with only two uncertain spells standing between her and his savage blade. And Disa had volunteered for the war, even when she was only first-ranked and completely unarmed. True, he couldn’t imagine the Saint or Cardinal Faren in armor, but it didn’t make any sense to do that. Their healing power was vastly more useful in the second row, where it could keep the first row standing long past any man’s ability to hold the line on his own.

  Before he could frame this argument in words, he understood that Lalania had already heard it. Being sensible, she would even agree with it. But not everyone in this world would find a claim of efficiency to be an adequate excuse for what appeared to be cowardice.

  “The worst of it is, the Cardinal himself would no doubt hew to these same arguments. Never mind that through personal courage and dedication he has won his way to a rank that befits him. Never mind that he has employed this power in almost selfless devotion to his social inferiors. Never mind all that: he is expected to live like a beggar in his own church, not even having the right to enjoy his own magic for his own purposes. The Saint, his alleged patron, won’t even regenerate the old man on a regular basis without charging him the same fee any wandering lickspittle with a fat purse is charged. A fee, mind you, that is out of reach for the Cardinal, since every penny he earns by healing goes straight to the Church’s pocket, and he has nothing to live on but a pathetic stipend barely more than a tradesman earns.”

  Christopher didn’t know how much they paid the Cardinal, but he knew it didn’t matter; the price of high rank dwarfed all other considerations. As a first-level priest, he had lived comfortably on a fistful of gold. As the master of a commercial empire, he knew his partners in the smithy were earning sacks of the stuff. As a freelance adventurer and head of his own chapter, he’d spent the equivalent of two hundred pounds of gold just for his last promotion.

  “And they call this brotherhood?” Lalania said with a polished sneer. “Better to call it hoodwinkery, that a man should do so much and yet profit so little. How wise can such a man be? How hard will he fight for a Church that takes and takes and takes but returns him nothing? Can you blame people for doubting the strength of this Church, when their priests have so little invested and are so far yet untested in battle?”

  She didn’t have to make her pretend case quite so convincingly.

  “No, there is only one explanation for such a man. Weakness, innate and incurable. We should not be surprised that he has only ever fathered daughters, save for one son who fell in his first year of draft, like any weakling.”

  Christopher hadn’t even known Faren had children. Or a wife.

  “The Iron Throne is hard, but it is strong. Those who sit in it may bleed, but they will not break. They will not shrink back from harsh deeds, and they will not be deceived. Instead, they will do the deceiving. They will not be beaten; they will administer the beatings. The world is a hard place. Only a fool would put his life in soft hands.”

  Lalania had a way of making everything she said sound like she believed it. Christopher knew she was only acting. It unnerved him all the same.

  “I never quite thought of it that way.”

  “I know,” she said in a softer voice. “We leave the road here. I’ll not chance Feldspar town if I don’t have to. It’s not the kind of place you would want to see, anyway.”

  No, it probably wasn’t.

  In the darkening twilight they picked their way through fields and hedgerows. Although he occasionally saw hovels with smoke rising from their chimneys, no one challenged them. Night finally arrived, and still Lalania led him down deer trails and backways through the cooling land. Royal was tired enough and familiar enough with her mare to follow it without argument, a feat he’d never seen before.

  The glittering, brilliant stars filled the sky, setting Christopher to wondering. Where was he, in absolute terms? He thought the center of the galaxy was supposed to be a gigantic black hole. But then, he had no reason to assume he was still in the Milky Way. He tried to think of a way to phrase the question so that Lalania’s College would understand it. In the absence of any concrete definition his imagination had expanded her College to something akin to Oxford, with orreries and old logbooks full of astronomical observations. Except this College, with access to magic, might well have made the trip to other planets by now.

  It was incongruous to be thinking about space travel from the back of a horse, so he stopped. Instead, he tried to pay attention to where he was, but he failed. He was as lost as he had ever been.

  Late in the night they finally came across a road. After following it for a few minutes they came to an inn, ramshackle and dirty even in the darkness, yet still promising more comfort than the gloomy night.

  Lalania slipped from her saddle and knocked on the front door. Eventua
lly a fat, surly man in a filthy apron opened the door and glared at her.

  “We’re closed.”

  “We have gold,” she replied. “Send a boy out to see to our horses.”

  The man wiped his hand on his apron before holding it out, palm up. “You won’t like the company. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I never like the company,” she said. A clink of metal and the man’s hand disappeared behind his apron.

  “Jiminy! We got guests! Get your arse out here!” The innkeeper disappeared. A moment later a tall, lanky man with a shock of orange hair stepped out into the night, holding a light-stone. He stared at Christopher.

  “One mare, one destrier. See that you feed it oats.” Lalania was talking directly to the man, who seemed to be ignoring her. When she was done, though, he ducked his head in acknowledgment and led them around to the barn.

  There were at least a dozen horses already stabled there. Royal perked up his ears and began issuing challenging snorts. Jiminy pointed to the last two empty stalls and started to leave the barn.

  “Hey,” Lalania called after him. “Leave the light.”

  Jiminy flipped it through the air at her without breaking stride, and then he was gone.

  “I thought you said you liked this inn.”

  “It appears to be under new management. I don’t recognize either of those men. Nonetheless, it’s the only choice we have.”

  “We could sleep in the barn.” The stench of horses was overwhelming, but it might be tolerable from the hayloft.

  “A right insult that would be to the innkeeper. In fact, so would blessing your food. Tonight, Christopher, we’ll just accept what they serve us. The less attention we attract, the better.” This time she stayed with him while he squared away Royal, brushing down where the saddle straps crossed his chest and combing the brambles out of his mane.