The Night of the Swarm

about the lake’s periphery.’

‘Nine hundred?’ asked Isiq, his heart sinking to his shoes.

Bachari looked at him sharply. ‘That is twice the force we had a year ago. But I did not say that was all Her Majesty could call upon. Do you think I should tell you everything, Isiq? By what merit, pray? Thus far you have only proven your need of a refuge from the Secret Fist.’

His words stung — what words did not, from a man’s first drill sergeant? — but Isiq could not refute them. ‘Turachs?’ he asked dubiously.

Bachari was growing irritated. ‘Why ask such a question? You know as well as I do that the Turach Legion never splintered when Her Majesty fled. As it happens we have one Turach, a recent addition to our number. But I do not have full confidence in the man. He admits to having fled his unit on the eve of a deployment.’

Isiq sighed. ‘Just take me to the Empress,’ he said.

They passed through the rest of the meagre barracks, a gymnasium, a humble officers’ club. Isiq felt despair circling him like a tiger, hidden but inexorable, waiting for its moment to pounce. Nine hundred men at arms! Less than the complement on four Arquali warships! And the navy boasted some five hundred vessels. They’ll be mucking exterminated. Unless this man truly is hiding much from me. Gods, let it be so.

They came at last to a heavy wooden door, guarded by six more halberd-wielders, who stood aside for Bachari. As he opened the door the old man put a finger to his lips.

The room they entered was the largest he had yet seen in the complex. It was also profoundly elegant — but no, that word did not suffice. The walls were draped in rich red tapestries: Arquali tapestries, clearly of ancient workmanship, depicting hunts in primeval forests. The furnishings too were splendid relics. A table on doe’s legs, its surface a mosaic of ivory and rosewood and mother-of-pearl. A small golden harp on a marble pedestal. Twin bronze statues of the Martyrs of Etherhorde.¹⁰ Portraits in gilded frames, men whose faces swam up dimly from the murk of memory: the first kings, the heroes of Unification.

The word you’re seeking, Isiq told himself, is Imperial.

At the back of the chamber, an Arquali flag hung from the ceiling. It was huge: the golden fish was nearly man-sized, and the golden dagger pointed straight down at the one plain object in the room: a wooden chair. It stood alone upon a dais. Other chairs, far more sumptuous, were arranged beneath it in a semicircle.

Upon that simple chair sat Maisa, Empress of Arqual. She was straight and proud and bright of eye. And old, very old. Isiq felt stabbed to the heart. She was not yet thirty when you saw her last.

She had visitors seated before her, and did not glance up at Isiq. Bachari stabbed a finger at the spot where they stood: Do not move. He was to wait on her pleasure. Fair enough; he only wished that he’d bathed.

Bachari left without a sound. Isiq could hear Maisa’s voice but did not recognize it. How could he? Only once in his life had he stood this close to her, and on that occasion she had not said a word.

The image returned with arresting force: a hooded figure exiting the Keep of Five Domes, holding the hands of two small and frightened boys. The mass of soldiers around them, looking fearfully over their shoulders, urging them on. The harsh wind as they rounded the fountain, its spray blowing out over the Plaza of the Palmeries, striking the cobbles like a hard rain. Striking the dead bodies that lay at her feet.

There were four of them, slain at a distance by archers dispatched by Sandor Ott: the first casualties among Maisa’s loyalists. Isiq had watched her from the edge of the Plaza, standing with a group of astonished, off-duty navy men who had just wandered in from the port. He was nineteen, which meant he was a man — childhood ended when one left for the Junior Academy at thirteen. He came from wealth; he was officer material. He thought he knew something of the politics of the Imperial family. But he could make no show of comprehending this. Staring, abashed and mute, he wondered if his Empress would walk left or right around the bodies. She had done neither; she had stopped and knelt before each one, studying their faces, touching their hands. Then she had thrown back her hood and swept her eyes across the gawkers in the Plaza; and Isiq, thirty feet away, had marvelled at her striking intelligence, her magnificent calm.

Thundering hooves: a cortege of nine carriages swept into the Plaza, almost at a gallop, and Maisa and her sons climbed into one of them, and the cortege raced out of the square. Isiq had never seen the monarch again.

Until tonight. Look at her. Fifty years in the shadows. Fifty years hunted by the ones who stole her crown. And yet if anything she looked prouder than before.

The conversation at the dais concluded with a peal of laughter from the Empress. The guests stood and bowed, and the old woman rose to her feet and raised her voice: ‘You must dine with us, gentlemen, and forgive the menu’s shortcomings, this once. They will be amended when we receive you at Castle Maag.’

An escort appeared and led the visitors out by another door. Isiq studied them as they passed: two black men, young and lithe and wary, and behind them a much older man wearing a monk’s round travelling cap. Isiq straightened his jacket. Empress Maisa was descending the dais. Still she did not look at him, but walked instead to an ornate secretary desk near the statue of the martyrs, and scribbled something. Two servants approached her, and she glanced distractedly at the men.

‘White goose, I think. And the doors, Hectyr. That is all.’

The servants withdrew, and Maisa went on scribbling. Isiq glanced about the chamber and saw that they were entirely alone.

His eyes snapped forward, she was approaching quickly. Trying to hide his pain, he sank to one knee.

She slapped him, hard. ‘That is for your unwavering loyalty to the usurper, Admiral Isiq. Not as a young naval cadet half a century ago. As a decorated officer, a hero, who has surely known for the past several decades that his Empress was alive and well. Oh get up, will you, and look me in the eye.’

Isiq rose stiffly to his feet. And slapped her with equal force.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is for embroiling a young girl in your deadly plan without ever informing her father. I do not yet know how Thasha factors in your schemes, but I know that you have been elaborating them with Ramachni and Hercol Stanapeth since her infancy, if not her birth. As for my loyalties, of course I knew you were still alive. All Etherhorde knew it. Stanapeth himself spoke of you, as did Chadfallow. They praised you often — but they never breathed a word about your activities. Restoration! The idea never crossed my mind! I thought you’d found sanctuary in Tholjassa and would remain there until you died. If you wanted me to join this campaign, you might have started by letting me know it existed.’

Empress Maisa’s hand was on her cheek. She was gaping at him, speechless with rage. Isiq met her eyes, unflinching. There was no hope without perfect honesty. Not at this hour. Not in this life.

Then Maisa laughed. ‘I will benefit from this exchange. No one has dared lay a hand on me since my mother passed, when I was twelve. It is a very long time since I was twelve.’

‘I did not come here to serve you,’ said Isiq.

‘What then? To strangle me? You had better do it now, don’t you think? I have made it very easy for you.’

‘I will never be your pawn, Empress. Never your unthinking tool. I was long a tool for Magad the Fourth, and even longer for his son. I committed atrocities because I did not let myself think. My beloved wife was killed, murdered by Sandor Ott, because I could not imagine that I was merely a device, a puppet worked by unseen hands.’

‘Neither could they,’ she said. ‘I mean our enemies, yours and mine. That is the greater tragedy. Ott has been the unwitting tool of Arunis, and worked tirelessly to undermine the very Empire he thinks he defends. Magad agreed to a war conspiracy centred on the Shaggat Ness and your daughter, never dreaming that he too was dancing on a string. A failure of imagination, partly. And yes, you were guilty of the same.’

She laughed again, turned away, ran her fingers over the exquisite table. ‘So was I, Admiral. Fifty years ago. The barons and the warlords and the great men of Arqual — they were jackals, hyenas. Next to them you’re a cultured philosopher. They only let my father crown me because we were losing the war. That was still a great secret. We were going to lose, we were going to be routed, our children would all speak Mzithrini. But soon, they knew, it would burst out onto the streets of Etherhorde. And when it did the hyenas did not want the blame. Let the street think it was a woman’s incompetence. Let them hang her when the Black Rags