Those Above: The Empty Throne Book 1 (40 page)

‘Are you sure you would not do better as a porter?’ Calla asked. ‘I could arrange something for you, if you’d like.’

‘That was three,’ the Aubade said, uninterested in Calla’s attempt at humour, if he was aware of it.

‘Then one sunny afternoon in mid-autumn, when I am growing very worried that perhaps this year the One God has forgotten my piety, and the sacrifices I have made to him, and will not even allow me my two ships safe – on that afternoon a boy will appear at the front door of my office, excited near to death, and I will give him a silver without even letting him speak, and bet him another that I’ll be the first to reach the docks.’ He closed his hand and slammed it against the table. ‘And though my feet touch wharf stone ahead of his, I’ll pay up all the same. And with that one ship,
Fortune’s
Smile
, perhaps, or the
Lover’s Breath
, with the goods in her belly – fistfuls of black pepper from Dycia, furs from the Marches, metalwork from Aeleria – with these I will have enough to recoup my losses in their entirety. To pay off my men, to refurbish my ships and replenish my stocks.’

‘And the fifth ship?’ Calla asked.

Bulan leaned towards Calla, took her hand with the one he had been using to count imaginary caravels. ‘With what I make on the fifth ship, dearest, I will buy a sixth ship. And next spring, when the great harbour at Atil is filled with our vast merchant fleet, and the high priest of the One God comes to bless our fortunes, and the scions of the great merchant families – the Slate Bank and Blackrose and Ieseph’s Sons, and the Chazarian branches of the Dycian counting houses – when they tour along the wharves they will see what I have built, from one rickety dhow that my father nearly sold for drink. And they will nod to me, and comment on the weather, and I will return their pleasantries in kind, and pretend I have forgotten all the insults they did me when I was too small and weak to return them. And they will pretend that they have forgotten offering them as well, and vie with each other to compliment my business acumen, though my fleet of six will yet be nothing compared to their vast resources, and my income barely a trickle against their river. And do you know why?’

‘No,’ the Aubade said.

‘Because I hunger. Because their appetites were sated before ever they were born, by their father or grandfather before them, while I sprang from the womb ravenous, a cannibal, with no thought for anything but my own fortune. And in the year after that I will send out eight ships, and the year after that twelve, and then fifteen. And soon I’ll have enough capital to give bond on the voyages of others, and to trade in hard currency. To build a mansion in the western hills, and to marry my daughters off to foreign princelings.’ For a moment Bulan was lost in dreams of wealth uncounted, of thick golden ingots and eagle-headed coins. He shook that away and turned back towards the Aubade. ‘But first,’ he said, ‘comes the fifth ship.’

‘And will that be enough?’ the Aubade asked. ‘When you have your fifth ship, and your sixth ship after that, and your trading house, and your mansion in the western hills, will that be enough for you?’

‘Nothing will ever be enough for Bulan, son of Busir,’ Bulan said, and whether it was the drink or the conversation, he seemed to be enjoying himself a great deal. ‘I will heap stone atop stone until the end, I will build until I can draw breath no longer. And if the One God is good, I will pass it on to my sons, who will be fierce and bright as Bulan, though as beautiful as their mother.’ He shot a sidelong glance at Calla that made her heart skip, but then continued. ‘And they will go forth full of fire to make a mockery of my efforts, that they may say to themselves, as all men wish, that their father was no better man than they. And the house of Bulan will grow and grow and grow, until it is a byword, in every port in every country in the world, for wealth and for style and for excellence.’ Then he smiled, shrugged, finished off what was in his goblet. ‘Or perhaps they will squander my fortune on women and strong liquor. I will be dead by then, and not likely to care much either way.’

The Aubade did not say anything for a long time. The Aubade did not say anything for such a long time, in fact, that had he not been the Aubade one might have interrupted his thoughts, or at least fidgeted in one’s seat. Calla kept absolutely still, of course.

‘I would give you something, Bulan, son of Busir,’ the Aubade said finally. ‘For your story.’ From inside one of the pockets of his robe he pulled out a brooch. The outside was pure gold, which would have made it valuable enough on its own, but the crux of the thing was the elaborate clockwork centrepiece, which showed a ship sailing across the waves. The background changed gradually, noon to night-time, and the waters went from turbulent to calm, but still the ship moved forward. It was clearly Eternal craftsmanship; no human could have hoped to create such a masterpiece.

Calla had seen enough of their like not to gasp at its beauty, but she did not blame Bulan for his lack of similar composure. ‘I assure you, my Lord, that neither thanks nor reward is necessary. It was an honour to have shown you more of your domain.’

‘That was not a request,’ the Aubade said.

Bulan needed no further persuasion. He ducked his head low, took the brooch from the Lord’s hand. ‘Thank you, my Lord,’ he said, staring at the clockwork ship as it struggled its way through the waves. ‘I will treasure it always.’

‘It is no less than your services merit,’ the Aubade said. But despite the gift, the Lord’s good humour seemed to have evaporated, and it was not long afterwards that he stood abruptly and walked out of the bar.

Calla still had half a glass of wine to finish, but of course she stood up also and went to follow after the Lord. ‘Speak soon,’ she said to Bulan.

Bulan had not yet bothered to affix the brooch, which he stared at for a moment before answering. ‘Until then, Calla of the Red Keep.’

Despite having been run in rings for the last few hours in a territory he had never before seen, the Aubade knew exactly where his ship lay. They did not speak, not until they were both seated beneath the back awning, their rowers marking time ceaselessly upstream. ‘Was the afternoon a success, my Lord?’ Calla asked.

‘It taught me much about your species,’ the Aubade said. He turned back to watch the Exchange for a moment. The coming of evening had slowed the place only very slightly; no one was yet bothering to break down their stands, and the press of the crowds seemed almost as mad as ever. Young boys carried trays of tea and sweet pastries, moving through the mob deftly and with speed. Men yelled and thrust their chests forward into each other until violence seemed certain, and then one would shrug and they would shake hands in agreement. Everything seeking to eat or be eaten, ever moving, ever changing, at once unsure of itself and certain of its future.

‘Much indeed,’ the Aubade said.

E
udokia had been late at work, as she was most nights, and like most nights she hadn’t got to her chambers until the moon was past its zenith. Alone, as usual. There were two activities best enjoyed in bed, and Heraclius was only a competent partner at one of them. She had too much to do the next morning to spend the hours preceding it with a pillow over her ears trying to block out his snoring, or being poked awake by his elbows, or quietly contemplating whether, if she were to murder the man with her fingernail scissors, she’d be able to hide the body before the servants came awake. Yes, was the answer she had come to some weeks earlier when he had last managed to plead his way into her bed, and since then she had thought it better for everyone if she was never again offered the opportunity.

Eudokia had changed into her shift and turned off the lantern and fallen swiftly asleep. She made it a point not to toss and turn, not to eat up the few hours she was able to allot each day towards unconsciousness. Sleep was like any other activity, in so far as Eudokia saw no point in doing it half competently.

She woke dazedly some hours later from a heavy slumber. There had been something in her dream, something she was worried about or needed to do, but it was gone now and trying to recall it only made it dissipate more swiftly. Eudokia yawned, stretched, peered her head out of the window next to her bed. Spring had been slow to arrive, but these last weeks the first buds had started to form, and the soft breeze tapping at the window frame wasn’t at all unpleasant.

The mansion was three lines of a square overlooking gardens that became fields if you walked through them for long enough, though Eudokia rarely did. Her suite of rooms was on the top floor of the main building, offering the crowning view of the estate. A view that, as Eudokia took a moment to indulge in it, seemed too clear for so early in the morning, as if illuminated by some source other than the moon.

‘Fire,’ Eudokia realised, and at that exact instant she heard the clanging of the bell that was meant to warn the staff of just this state of affairs. Excellent, Eudokia thought. Now I don’t need to waste my voice with screaming.

Eudokia walked over to her wardrobe, pulled on a cotton robe and a heavy wool one over that, spent a few seconds wondering if she should take anything else but decided against it. What few papers she hadn’t destroyed on principle were locked tight in a safe below the desk in her study, an iron monstrosity that should survive the inferno. Or perhaps it would all burn up together, Eudokia had no idea really, and there was nothing for it regardless. Her jewellery was worth a small fortune, as were her clothes, but she owned too many to go picking through them in the dark.

The door leading to Heraclius’s quarters swung open and the man himself came sprinting into the bedroom naked, penis flapping back and forth like a caught fish. He leaned in close enough for her to smell his sleep-breath and screamed, ‘Fire! There’s a fire!’

She pushed him back to an appropriate distance with one hand. ‘That would seem to be the case,’ she said, then sat back down on the bed and pulled on her shoes.

‘What are you doing?’ Heraclius asked, still yelling.

‘I’m not going to sprint outside barefoot,’ she said. ‘And speaking of which, you might want to put on some trousers.’

Heraclius looked down at his nudity, up at her, down at his nudity. Then he ran back into his room.

‘I’m not waiting,’ she informed his back.

Theodora was just about to knock on her door as Eudokia opened it to leave, which Eudokia found to be a touching bit of loyalty, if pointless. ‘Mistress, there’s—’

‘A fire, yes, thank you Theodora. Where is Jahan?’

Jahan had a small suite of rooms some distance from her own, though he seemed rarely to use them. Thinking about it now, Eudokia realised this was the first time in years that she had opened her door and not seen him standing outside it.

‘I’m not sure, mistress. I haven’t seen him.’

Eudokia took note of that. ‘Make sure the rest of the servants’ quarters have been alerted, and assemble in the back gardens. Hopefully someone will have done something about bringing us water by that point.’

Theodora nodded and sprinted down the hall. Eudokia herself headed down the main stairs, and her steps were light as a child’s and she had to stop herself from smiling. ‘Enkedri the Self-Created, whose eyes are the sun and moon, whose hands shape the star fields, whose heartbeat anchors the world,’ she prayed silently, ‘please destroy the east wing. If you destroy the east wing and leave the rest of the house undisturbed, I’ll sacrifice ten red heifers in your honour, and I’ll wield the blade myself.’ She thought about it for a moment, weighing the theoretical. ‘If you destroy the whole lot of it, however, you’ll only get five.’ That seemed a more than reasonable agreement, though it did assume that Enkedri had a particular love of heifer corpses, which was a sentiment as popular as it was unproven.

Reaching the ground floor she noticed a smell of smoke and a faint uptick in temperature, though that last might have been just her imagination. The fire bell echoing loudly throughout the grounds was very much reality, however. Eudokia felt – and there was no other word for it – giddy. Hers was a realm of long-laid plans and silent traps, of slow strategy and delayed gratification. She found it rather thrilling to be in the midst of an immediately dangerous situation, one that required speed and surety. She had always thought she’d be good at it, was pleased to have the opportunity to test herself. Then again, Eudokia had always thought she’d be good at everything.

She was making for the back gardens when a house slave she had never noticed before came running towards her, flapping his arms. ‘We can’t go out that way, mistress,’ he said. ‘The fire has spread.’

Eudokia could see a faint glow further down the corridor, and she knew the man was not lying. ‘What do you propose?’

‘We can cut through the servants’ quarters and come out through the front – won’t take but a moment,’ he assured her.

Eudokia nodded and waved her hand at the man, and after waiting a second to make sure that she was following he took her round the back of the staircase and into a small corridor leading towards the kitchens. He was tall, with a long scar running down his cheek, too ugly to be serving as one of the front help, though he was dressed in her livery rather than as a groundskeeper.

The back kitchen was set up for the slaves’ breakfast, the big round table taking up the centre of the room covered with half-eaten plates of food. They’d even left a pot of what Eudokia took to be porridge bubbling away on the stove nearby.

‘It’s just through this way,’ her guide was saying, ‘we’re almost there.’

The pot was a heavy thing and, needless to say, quite hot, so Eudokia made sure she had a firm grip on its handle before calling the attention of the house slave and tossing the contents into his face. He dropped as soon as it hit him, his screams deafening, then curled up into a ball on the floor, rubbing his melting face with melting hands.

Eudokia could understand now why it had become traditional to drop vats of boiling things on people during sieges. She could also understand why the gods, in their infinite wisdom, had provided human beings with skin. Absent it and she could see the pink of raw flesh and something white that she could only assume was bone. ‘I certainly hope I got that right,’ Eudokia thought to herself, though she took some comfort in the knowledge that if she had just thrown a pot of boiling porridge in the face of an innocent servant, his body would be consumed in the coming blaze, and she wouldn’t hear any more of it.