Those Above: The Empty Throne Book 1 (45 page)

Of course Eudokia made no show of worry, lounging back in her chair with her leg propped up on some pillows, adding slowly to the scarf she was knitting. Jahan’s hooded eyes drooped ever so slightly less than usual, quick to catch trouble.

Irene looked as stunningly beautiful as always, perhaps even more so. Her hair and her eyes were black as fresh coal, a length of green ribbon held up her tresses, a pearl the size of a finger-joint hung down into the cleft of her neck. She was trying, without success, to hide a glorious smile.

Heraclius, by contrast, seemed barely able to hold himself together. It was generally within even his meagre powers to dress himself, but today his sash was knotted incorrectly, there was mud on the cuff of his robes and his hands, normally manicured, were bitten to the quick.

‘Revered Mother,’ Irene said, leaning down to kiss Eudokia’s cheek.

‘Darling,’ Eudokia said.

‘Revered Mother,’ Heraclius half stuttered, bending over to do the same.

‘Dear,’ Eudokia replied.

For a time there was no sound but the soft rustle of thread on thread.

‘May we sit?’ Irene asked.

‘I’d think you’d be more comfortable offering the blow while upright – though of course it’s to your preference.’

But they were slow to deliver it, Irene looking long at Heraclius as if for support, though whatever the endeavour in which they were involved, she would find him a weak reed. ‘We’re worried about your health,’ Irene said eventually.

‘How thoughtful of you,’ Eudokia said. ‘I do have a bit of a tickle in my throat – you might fetch me a cup of tea.’

‘I think it more serious than that.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Serious enough that perhaps it would be wise for you to remove yourself from the whirlwind, as it were. I am told the springs at Elfi have wondrous recuperative powers.’

The springs at Elfi were three weeks by carriage from the capital. ‘From what sort of ailment do you think me suffering?’ Eudokia asked.

‘One that will prove fatal,’ Irene said flatly, ‘unless swift effort is made to correct it.’

Heraclius shuddered, began to stare at the courtyard outside with the sort of longing that suggested he would give a very great deal to be outside among the hedgerows, rather than in here with two she-wolves.

‘What have you told her?’ Eudokia asked, her voice carefree as a kite on a sunny day.

But Heraclius didn’t answer, just kept gazing out towards the gardens. Irene was happy to speak for him, however, which really was all to the good, otherwise they’d be waiting around for the rest of the afternoon. ‘Would you like to guess?’

‘I’d never dream of spoiling your fun.’

‘It would cause quite a scandal, were it ever to come out that Senator Andronikos had been taking money from the Salucians. I don’t imagine it would be much less of one if it ever came out that you were giving it to them.’

If this was intended to elicit a response, it was an abject failure. Eudokia’s eyes did not flutter, the even set of her mouth did not curl. Perhaps her heart beat a bit faster, but to know that you’d have needed to put your hand against her chest, and no one was doing that.

‘The game is up,’ Irene hissed, unable to maintain her pose of indifference any longer. ‘Heraclius told me about Phrattes, and I told Andronikos. The senator has been in touch with him, convinced him his interests lie in other directions.’ Irene shook her head. ‘You really ought to know better than to trust a Salucian,’ she said. ‘They’re an irredeemably dishonest people.’

‘They’ve no monopoly on betrayal,’ Eudokia said smoothly.

Heraclius flinched, opened his mouth, realised he hadn’t yet thought of anything to say, closed it again.

‘Surely you don’t think to take the high ground?’ Irene asked. ‘You’ve been skewered on the same lance you hoped to wield – it’s sheerest hypocrisy to pretend otherwise.’

‘I had not invited Andronikos to sit beside me at tea,’ she said, ‘nor to share my bed.’

Irene shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose I can expect you to be neutral on the matter, though if you made the attempt you’d see that we’re the better party. The Commonwealth gets peace, the senator gets out from beneath your thumb.’

‘And you?’

‘I?’ Irene shrugged. ‘I get to be you.’

‘Setting unattainable goals,’ Eudokia said, ‘is a sure path to misery.’

Irene laughed. ‘I’ll never have your wit,’ she agreed. ‘But I will have money, and status, and power. And I suppose I’ll have to settle for those.’

‘You’ll find that last leaves you little time to enjoy the first two. And you, Heraclius? What is it exactly that you’ve been promised, in exchange for listening at keyholes?’

Irene was enjoying herself immensely, seemed positively glowing. By contrast, Eudokia thought she had never seen Heraclius look so desperate – though she promised herself that she would not be able to say that for ever.

‘You were getting ready to leave me,’ he said finally, lamely, the first words he had ventured since his greeting.

‘She told you that?’

‘No,’ he said, than recanted. ‘Yes.’

‘She was right,’ Eudokia said, ‘but I’d have taken care of you, as an act of kindness.’

Irene spent a silent moment enthralled by Heraclius’s discomfort. How she must hate Eudokia, to have made such an effort to bring the poor fool over to her side! How much it must have galled her to seduce him, to stand his fumbling touch and inane flirtations! ‘I admit,’ Irene said finally, ‘I hadn’t thought you’d bend knee so easy. Won’t you raise your voice, even just a little? Call me a sluttish little whore, or break a nail on your stolen lover’s face? Remind me of all the things you’ve done for me, berate me for my betrayal?’

‘Is that what you imagine strength looks like?’ Eudokia shrugged. ‘I’m afraid you’ll leave disappointed. We’re past the point of recrimination. You’ve made your choice.’ The tenor of her voice remained as friendly as ever. ‘We’ll see what it gains you.’

Heraclius seemed to lose three links in height, and even Irene half shuddered at this last. But she caught herself and came back more forcefully, as if to erase the stain of her fear. ‘Empty threats from an old woman. All you’ve left is a graceful exit, and you’ve only that because of my kindness.’

‘How magnanimous.’

It was an exhausting thing, throwing punches at the Domina. Twenty minutes of beating on her and Irene was ready to go and lie down. ‘As always your composure is exemplary,’ she said. ‘It will be one of the many things that will be missed, after you retire from court. Which, by the way, Andronikos insists you do within the next few weeks. After that, I’m afraid, it will be necessary to force your hand.’

‘I see,’ Eudokia said.

‘Are there any questions?’

Eudokia looked back and forth between them, apparently unruffled, her face a mask of benign indifference. ‘One only. Did Senator Andronikos not wish to take part in this discussion? I’d think him loath to miss the opportunity to gloat.’

Irene smiled, happy to see that Eudokia’s last card wouldn’t ruin the game. ‘In fact, he was most unhappy to be deprived of the pleasure. But duty keeps him in Salucia. It’s no easy thing, stopping the war you’ve nearly started.’

Eudokia dropped her head slightly, acknowledging the information though not commenting on it. The sun eased in through the garden windows, along with the soft scent of things growing. A song bird trilled. The breeze blew. Time passed.

‘Well, then,’ Irene said, ‘I’ll take my leave of you.’

‘A pleasant day to you both,’ Eudokia said.

Irene fell into a mocking curtsy and headed out the way she had come. Heraclius followed her, stopping and turning to throw Eudokia one last look – regret or despair, she wasn’t sure which – but the door was fast shutting and he scurried out before it closed.

Eudokia picked up the ball of yarn she had put aside at the beginning of the conversation and turned back to her knitting. ‘Domina?’ Jahan asked, and was it her imagination or was there a bit of a tremor to his voice?

‘Instruct Orodes to push the event forward,’ she said. ‘Everything else remains in place.’

‘Yes, mistress,’ Jahan said, and this time his voice was settled as stone.

T
hings had got nasty in the Barrow, in the Barrow and up at the Straights and even out towards Seven Points, nasty all over the Fifth. You could feel it come in with the heat and the wet, this sense of fear and uncertainty, like everyone was holding their breath. Two months Rhythm and Pallor had been pricking each other to death, shallow wounds but painful, the two neighbourhood kingpins on a collision course. The normal pace of illicit work had slowed to a crawl, the whorehouses shuttered, gambling dens closed; even the usual constant shuffling of contraband had turned to a trickle. The Cuckoos had stayed out of it so far, but they wouldn’t for ever.

Thistle had gone back to sleeping on the roof, and not just because of the change in weather. He had a couple of bricks that he kept near the ledge, had the vague notion of dropping them if someone came by that he thought deserved it. Thistle didn’t think that he was important enough for Pallor to bother to send people after, and there was something of an unwritten rule about staying away from a man’s family. But then again the thing about unwritten rules is that they aren’t written down and there’s no one to enforce them, and so in the evening Thistle curled up in his coop, and kept his blade within easy reach.

It was from the roof that he saw Spindle, moving swiftly with two new men as a tail, hard-looking ex-dockers Rhythm had brought in as reinforcements. Spindle himself was wearing a full travelling cloak despite the heat, and beneath it Thistle knew were all sorts of nasty things, throwing-knives and brass knuckles and daggers so long that Thistle was not clear as to why they weren’t called swords. He had the hood of his cloak up round his head, but his scowl was visible from three streets away.

They’d caught Chalk coming out of his favourite whorehouse two weeks earlier, and it turned out he was made of flesh after all, as a few pokes with a shiv revealed. Credit due, he hadn’t gone easy, crawled for a long time before he died, trails of blood leading downslope a half-cable. It hadn’t meant fuck all to Thistle, one less rabid dog in the world, but Spindle had somehow got it mixed up that Chalk had been his friend and had taken the whole thing with uncharacteristic fury. The two of them had been at Isle’s when the news came in, and Thistle had grabbed one of the bar backs and sent him straight to find Rhythm, told him to get the boss-man down as soon as he could make it. It was a close thing, by the time Rhythm had shown up, Spindle had worked himself into such a fury that he was ready to march over and knock on Pallor’s door that very night, by his lonesome if necessary. It had taken everything Rhythm had to threaten, cajole and beg Spindle into composure, but in the weeks since the big man had lost that good humour which had once been his second most notable quality.

If Thistle didn’t lament the loss, nor was he so stupid as to miss what Chalk’s exsanguination meant. It had been ten years since there had been open war between the various tentacles of criminality that made up the Brotherhood Below, ten years of easy graft and constant corruption. Thistle wasn’t altogether sure what had broken the long period of fruitful malfeasance, or if maybe Rhythm wasn’t thinking whether he would have been better off letting Pallor get away with whatever scam he had been running. Not that it mattered now – it was blood for blood, there wasn’t any going back.

So Thistle watched Spindle make his way down the street, sitting on the end of the roof doing little tricks with his knife. Letting it tumble between his fingers and swivelling it in the palm of his hand, gimmicks that at first had made him proud as a flush rooster but which now he barely even realised he was doing. He didn’t see much of Felspar or Treble or any of the old boys these days, because he didn’t have anything to say to them and because he didn’t want to bring trouble down on their heads. If he’d saved more of what he’d been making he’d have moved out of his mother’s place, but he hadn’t and so was more or less stuck. And there was something about the idea of exiling himself from the homestead that secretly made Thistle miserable, perhaps even a little frightened, though he’d never have admitted it.

Spindle stopped in front of Thistle’s stairs, then cupped his hands and bellowed, ‘Thistle! You up there?’

The two men he’d brought with him stood around trying to look tough, and mostly succeeding. Thistle didn’t like either of them. He thought he saw something like water behind their eyes, and anyway if they were worth having around they’d have been worth having around full-time, right? Not just brought in after your first choice got himself dead.

Thistle leaned far enough over the ledge for Spindle to get a look at him, held up one finger. Spindle had never come out to see Thistle personal before, and he had certainly never come with a crew. This was it, Thistle felt with certainty; they were going to do what they should have done a month prior, snap the back of Pallor’s organisation. Or maybe Pallor would do the same to them. Thistle didn’t imagine Chalk was the only one without an honest claim to immortality.

Thistle had been waiting for this moment for months and months, before things had gone sour with Pallor, as soon as he’d joined up, before that even. The moment when he’d make his bones, prove to Rhythm and everyone else that he was a soldier in good standing, a two-fisted razor-fiend you’d best cross the street before offending. The moment when he’d see whether or not he was really any of those things, if the facade he’d been wearing these last months – hell, most of the last couple of years – went more than finger-deep. And now that it had finally come, what was it that Thistle felt? Excitement, certainly; his nerves jangled unevenly. Fear, some fear, though not as much as he had expected. Mostly what he felt, staring down at Spindle and what was coming for both of them, were mingled sensations of relief accompanied by a strange feeling of boredom – the story wasn’t any good, wasn’t interesting or special, but at least it was almost over, and anyway there was nothing to do but play it out to the end.