Seven times it said Mighty Lelex should live;
That his soul should not yet walk the Winter Road.
Finally, Mighty Lelex killed an Ephor
With his own hands, nailing his flesh to a tree.
The Almighty felt the nails hammered into place.
Once more, Cleocharia threw the blessed coin,
And now, it came down on the side of vengeance.
“At last!” she said. “The Almighty delayed
The consent of chance so that now my soldiers
Are fully trained and cannot fail in their task.”
Word went out to her warriors: that night,
Mighty Lelex would die. Three suffused his house,
Their route unperceived and their footsteps unheard.
When dawn broke, Mighty Lelex did not awake.
He was found where he slept, life strangled from him
And the cuckoo burnt into his troubled brow.
“My men disquieted his sleep,” said Cleocharia,
“As they shall for each tyrant from now, until
The overturning of the earth.” It was she
Who took the throne, ruling with grace for four years
Until her son by Mighty Lelex, young Rurik,
Had learned to use seasoned eye and studied ear.
The Ephors saw the wisdom of Cleocharia’s
Deeds, and that she had acted in full deference
To Almighty will. They blessed those who worked
Beneath the cuckoo, and decreed that if the pull
Of tyranny once more gripped a Black Lord,
Then retribution would be dealt between them
And the Almighty. So formed the Kryptea,
To protect these lands when the Ephors could not.
By the cuckoo shall their dusky work be known.
For the final two lines, the peripheral historians had fallen silent and it was only the senior cell member who kept chanting. It finished, leaving only a fading echo off the cold stone. Keturah beamed at them in gratitude.
“That was wonderful,” she said.
“A sad one to sing,” said the middle historian, clearing her throat.
“Why so?”
“I believe it to detail the greatest mistake our country has ever made. Forming a band of killers with unlimited power was a drastic overreaction to the reign of Lelex. And who has killed more people since? Black Lords who felt ‘the pull of tyranny,’ or the Kryptea? It is the Kryptea, I tell you. The Ephors were frightened; they felt reverence for their office had been lost when two of their number were killed. They acted out of un-Anakim vengeance and nobody has questioned their ruling since.”
“That is a novel take to me,” said Keturah. “And though I have been in the Academy only a few hours, it is not the first time I have heard it.”
“That’s because we’re the people who know,” said the old historian. “Go and tell your husband what you’ve learned here. Tell him the Kryptea have proved again and again that they have no code. Whether they still use that silver token to gain Almighty approval for their killing is doubtful. Tell the Black Lord to watch his back.”
The plague had finally surrendered, providing Roper with the response he needed to placate the Kryptea, albeit temporarily. But he had to do more. In an effort to consolidate his power and prevent the captain from making trouble, he sent Uvoren north to “act as an inspiration” to the young lads of the haskoli and berjasti. It was a nothing job and all knew it, but he no longer had the voice to resist.
Keturah, her strength returning and her hair regrowing steadily, was spending more and more time at the Academy, trying to discern a pattern in what had caused the Kryptea to act in the past and therefore how Roper might avoid its wrath. She was besotted with the ancient sisterhood and spent so much time there that Roper had had to visit twice to ask for her, only to be told she was witnessing a chant and he would have to wait. There were no further sinister warnings from the Kryptea and Roper assumed that stamping out the plague had placated Jokul. That, and Uvoren’s declining influence.
To be sure of their favour, Roper needed to rebuild his popularity with the subjects. To that end, he took another loan from Tekoa and used it to purchase livestock. Twice a month, he held a feast on the streets just as Uvoren had done, staying for long enough to ensure he was connected with the genuine pleasure which this gesture created. He was gratified to discover that, when he returned to the fortress from observing an early spring exercise for the Skiritai, his reception had been almost as positive as that which greeted Uvoren whenever he walked the streets.
Though it remained a lonely post, Roper was becoming used to the responsibility he had for these people and even developing a deep satisfaction at their growing relationship. He found that leadership suited him well. He had always known about people: how to read them and how to motivate them. Now he learned the importance of small gestures and self-sacrifice in cultivating a willing populace. He was absorbing some of Uvoren’s most effective techniques and began to understand what Gray had meant about hatred clouding his ability to fight the captain.
It was during one of the feasts that a ranger came to find Roper. He was engaged in handing out rye bread at the time and had been reluctant to follow the legionary, but something in his manner told Roper that he should obey. They were in the courtyard before the Central Keep and he followed the man up its broad stone steps and inside, heading for the Chamber of State. There, they found Tekoa, Gray, several Skiritai officers and Sturla Karson, legate of Ramnea’s Own. A forest-floor of maps had been laid out on the ancient oak table and the men were engaged in heated discussion. Tekoa looked up as he entered the room. “How do you feel about another test, Lord Roper?” he asked.
“What’s happened?”
“Bellamus has happened.”
A party of Dunoon legionaries had been ambushed as they undertook a spring exercise near the bank of the Abus. “It was Bellamus. He’s got the whole army this time. A bunch of knights rode our men down and cut them to pieces. They weren’t armed, they
