“He had a right to know,” the commander replied, still watching the retreating riders. “What gets me though is how easily he took it.”
Ashar laughed. “He’s a Caerdin sure enough. I’d better get back to my men and tell them to stand down, and you’ve got enough to keep you occupied, Marshal of the western Provinces.” He laughed again and, wheeling his horse, rode back off toward the Imperial lines.
Sabian stood and watched him go for a moment before turning back with a curious smile to the lines of kneeling men. His grin widening, he tore his insignia from the sleeve of his tunic and dropped it to the floor.
“Alright! Form into units and prepare to move! If you don’t know the Imperial Oath, don’t worry. You can just repeat it after me. Anyone of noble rank here should come out front as the Emperor would like to see you personally. Now move!”
The grin on his face widened. “Oh, and somebody get me a medic…”
On the hill, Darius reined in with Balo close behind to find not only Tythias but all of the Wolves and several other commanders of the army watching the white walls collapse into rubble. There was a groan from the stressed beams as another section of wall gave way and fell inwards. Through the flames and smoke. Darius could just see a figure, torched and unidentifiable leaning out through one of the open windows, the charred shaft of an arrow protruding from the burned face. The lords had not met their end stoically apparently and Cialo’s men had been forced to contain them. For some reason the young Emperor was assailed by images of the ruined Golden House back on Isera that swam in and out of focus. The charred octagonal room where he used to go for sword practice. More than two decades ago Caerdin had sealed the doors, possibly of that very room and watched as his best friend burned inside. And here another villa on its way to becoming a ruin and he’d done the same again, only this time he’d locked the door from the inside
Mercurias wordlessly uncorked a wolf-embossed flask and took a swig of the neat spirit inside, before flinging the entire thing through a broken window and into the building. There was a brief flare as the liquor burned. “Rest well, you old bastard,” the medic sighed.
Next to him, Brendan uncorked his flask and did the same, followed by Athas and Marco. Balo slipped from his horse, unstoppered his own wolf flask and took a swig, handing the flask up to Darius. The young man, suddenly acutely aware of the long-term camaraderie of the men around him and the link he himself had to them, took a swig of something that tasted foul and then slung the flask into the dying fire.
“Goodbye father.”
The rest of them turned to face Darius. Only Mercurias betrayed no surprise, with merely a knowing smile. Brendan, his eyes wide with astonishment, strode over to the young Emperor. “Whaddya say?”
Mercurias grinned. “Don’t you mean ‘whaddya say,
“When did you find out?” the grizzled medic asked, turning to his Emperor.
“Sabian told me just now, down on the field. And you?”
Mercurias gave a sad smile. “I’ve known for a while. Pretty much since I met you, I’d say. I’m somewhat surprised no one else ever made the connection. You don’t quite look like him, but it’s mostly cos of the hair colour and that comes directly from your mother. She was raven black. If anyone looked at you and tried to combine what they saw in Kiva and Livilla, it’d have been pretty obvious.”
He laughed. “I’m a doctor. We notice these things.”
Brendan whistled through his teeth. “’E’s right though. Y’can see it clear as day if’n y’know what yer lookin’ fer.”
Darius nodded. “I know much the general meant to you all. I’m only really starting to come to terms with what it meant for me and I think I’ll have to sort that out later. It may seem a little unfeeling, but I don’t have time to deal with all this right now and I don’t have time for you to either. I need you back down in the valley. There’s a whole army to administer the oath to and deal with down there. Then there are a lot of lords to meet. The lords are going to be abolished entirely, though the deserving should get estates and public offices. I’m going to need so much help with this, I can’t even picture how enormous the task is. I’ve appointed Sabian as one of the new marshals. I want Athas and Tythias to join him if you’re amenable, and Sithis when I see him?”
Athas looked across at his young master and smiled in a sad way. “I’d be honoured, though I’m not sure how I’ll ever live up to the reputation of the old marshals. No one’ll ever match him. You know that? For all his faults, he may have been the best man I’ve ever known.”
Tythias laughed, again with an edge of tragedy to his voice. “Don’t be daft, Athas. Kiva was the best of the marshals, but don’t forget Avitus was his peer and look at
Marco looked across at them. A tear had run down his cheek and left a glittering trail in the grime caused by the smoke. “What of everyone else, Darius?”
The Emperor smiled. “In the old days, a man with your record and the wound you took in service to the Empire would be pensioned out and when everything settles down, I intend to revive most of the old traditions. A villa somewhere, or an inn or something, Marco. Time to calm down now there’s going to be peace. And you, Brendan, Balo, and all the others down there like Filus and Crucio. The army’s going to need Prefects and senior officers. We’ll need you all…”
Brendan smiled unhappily. “Don’t think my heart’s in it anymore, Darius. With no Kiva, I don’t really want to be a soldier. Hell, I’d have finished years ago if it weren’t for him.”
“There’s decades ahead of us to sort everything out, Brendan. We’re going to have peace, finally. We need to organise things in the valley and then the world will be what we make it. Time to mourn the dead when we’re at rest ourselves. For now…”
He turned his steed and looked down the hill and into the valley, where the two armies had met in the middle of the field with no blades and no blood and the world was being made whole again.
“For now? Let’s go and build an Empire.”
Epilogue
The Emperor Darius the Just struggled out of his bed and winced as his tired feet touched the cold floor. Every day it was getting harder and harder to get up in a morning. These old bones were not as light as they once were and the muscles not as strong. He sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what time it was. There was light outside, so it was clearly after dawn and his eldest son Kiva would be here before long no doubt, with a list of official duties for him. Kiva would never be a soldier; that was clear. He was quiet and gentle like his mother, but an extremely able administrator. The younger one, Quintillian, was the soldier and reminded Darius so much of himself in those old days of imprisonment that he couldn’t help but smile. Kiva would be Emperor soon and would do a good job of it in these days of peace, but Quintus would always be there looking after his older brother and there was virtually nothing the two of them couldn’t accomplish as long as they were so close.
He sighed, wondering whether to go and find his robes or just stay in his sleeping garments for now. ‘Who cares?’ he thought to himself and struggled to his feet. With slow and weary steps, he wandered over to the window. The sun must be over the horizon certainly, but most of the garden was in shadow from here. Various people in the past decades had tried to persuade the Emperor that an east-facing window would be better for him, but Darius liked to watch the sun set from his chair by the window and the view from Sarios’ old room was just too familiar for him.
A few years ago he’d had a long avenue cut through the western orchard so that the view from his window was unobstructed. For some reason it gave him great comfort to see the graveyard down there where so many friends lay buried. All the former marshals of the Empire lay there now, alongside his father, the great general Caerdin, whose body had been removed from the wrecked villa all that time ago. Marshals Tythias and Athas had both gone less than a decade into the new Emperor’s reign, within a month of each other, amidst memorial ceremonies that had taken place across the length and breadth of the Empire. They’d both been popular with both the army and the people. That had been a hard year for Darius; harder than Sithis going six years later, though Sithis went out the way he’d always intended, leading a charge against a small barbarian army that had crossed the
