Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3) (42 page)

The closer door opened and an acreage of purple silk, strained across wobbling flesh, began to emerge. The bearers reached in and retrieved short arms, pudgy hands overburdened with gemmed rings. They pulled. The fifth man pushed. The mountain grunted and a head appeared, bowed forward, sweat making straggles of thin dark hair across a crimson scalp. A crucifix of gold hung below the wattles and folds of her neck, a hefty thing half an inch thick, a foot in length, a ruby at the crossing point for the blood of Christ. It must have weighed more than a baby.

And out she came, the supreme pontiff, shepherdess of many sheep, a slug teased from her nest. The flowered reek of perfumes and oils couldn’t hide the rankness that emerged with her.

They sat her on the stool, overflowing. The guard from the line stayed at my side. He had the look to him, pale eyes, watchful, scarred hands. I didn’t let the pantaloons distract me. Watchful men are to be watched.

‘Your holiness.’ Pius XXV if I were to call her by name.

‘King Jorg. I thought you would look older.’ She couldn’t be shy of seventy but hadn’t a wrinkle on her, all stretched away by her bulk.

‘All alone,’ I asked. ‘No cardinals, no bishops dancing attendance? Not so much as a priest to carry your bible?’

‘My retinue are the guests of Lord Congrieve at his country estate, investigating reports of irregularities at the Sisters of Mercy, a nunnery with a chequered history.’ She deployed a purple kerchief to wipe spittle from the corner of her mouth. ‘I will rejoin them in due course, but I felt a private meeting between us would be more … conducive. The words we exchange here will appear on no records.’ She smiled. ‘Even for a Pope, speaking for God himself, it is no simple matter to thwart the will of the Vatican archivists. To them there are few sins greater than allowing a Pope’s utterances to be lost.’ Another smile and the folding of many chins.

I pursed my lips. ‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘Shall I have Tobias bring wine? You look thirsty, Jorg.’

‘No.’

She paused for the pleasantry or explanation. I offered none.

‘You’re building a cathedral in Hodd Town.’ Dark eyes watched me, currants sunk in the pale pudding of her face.

‘News travels fast.’

‘You’re not the only one that speaks to
Deus in machina
, Jorg.’

The Builder-ghosts spoke to her – Fexler had told me as much. He’d told me that they steered the church against magic in all its flavours, as much to blind the priests to their own potential for wielding the power of the masses as to have them quell its use by others. Any kind of faith stacked up behind a creed or title could amplify the will of the relevant figurehead to a frightening degree. It pleased me to see her hamstrung by what she thought of as secret and sacred knowledge.

‘Why build the cathedral now?’ she asked.

‘The cathedral has been under construction for twenty years and more,’ I said. ‘My entire life.’

‘But soon it will be finished, and people will expect me to come to bless it before the first mass.’ She shifted her bulk on the stool. ‘I heard this news on my tour of Scorron, and came here to speak with you. You must know why.’

‘You feel safer here,’ I said.

‘I am the Vicar of Christ, I walk in safety anywhere in Christendom!’ Anger in her tone now, but more bluster than true indignation.

‘Walk?’

She let that pass, cold eyes on me. ‘I will hear your confession, Jorg. And offer forgiveness to the penitent.’

‘
I
will confess to
you
?’ I rolled my head, vertebrae popping in my neck. ‘Me to you?’

Her guardsman took half a step closer. I wondered what other roles he held. Executioner? Assassin? Perhaps he trained with the white-skinned dream-smith who visited the Haunt on Vatican business.

‘You sent an assassin after my wife and unborn child.’ In some inner darkness cold winds stirred and the ember of an old rage glowed once more.

‘We walk in a vale of tears, Jorg, the only matter of consequence is how we place our steps.’

‘What does that mean?’ Was I supposed to nod wisely? To assume her wisdom surpassed the need for meaning?

‘Your father’s funeral will be held soon, no doubt. To have the Pope herself usher him into paradise at the ceremony would do your standing at Congression untold good. Not to mention the small matter of papal sanction on the inheritance.’

‘He’s truly dead?’ I saw his face, without emotion gazing over his court. He would look no different, laid in the tomb. No less human.

‘You didn’t know?’ She raised a heavy brow.

‘I knew.’ I saw him at the battlement on the highest tower, sunset lighting him in crimson and shadow, hair streaming in the wind. I saw him with Mother, laughing, too far away to hear.

‘Four days. That’s how long Ancrath’s defences held without him. The Dead King’s creatures are on the march now.’ She watched me for some reaction. ‘Hard upon your heels.’

‘And how will you stop them, Holiness?’ The dead wouldn’t seek out and lay siege to castles, they wouldn’t claim lands, levy taxes. The Dead King wouldn’t rule, only ruin.

‘We will pray.’ She shifted her bulk. ‘These are the end of days, my son. All we can do is pray.’

‘Your son?’ I tilted my head, seeing the pale-eyed killer beside me without looking. Road-eyes that’s called. Seeing without looking. I drew the deepest breath and that hidden ember grew white-hot.

Tobias moved his right foot, just a fraction. He knew. Pius would depend only on the best. She thought her guards a mere formality. Like so many before her, despite the evidence writ plain in the trail of bodies behind me, she thought to bind me with nothing more than convention. Tobias, though, he knew my heart, shared my instinct.

‘You’re not my mother, old woman.’

Fat people are hard to kill with your bare hands. They carry their own padded armour. I tried to throttle Fat Burlow a time or two, even Rike found that a challenge. Tobias would let his polearm fall in the moment he moved to act, a prop, nothing more, another piece of papal foolishness, convention. He would go for his knife, hidden somewhere. And I for mine, no time for swords. And for all of Brother Grumlow’s teachings, I would be in a chair with my back to him, he would be standing, and I’d die before the fat bitch got her squeal out, before I so much as scratched her.

‘Play nice, boy.’ She didn’t stir to anger. You don’t win the cardinals over with roaring. The thickest skin, patience, time, inexorable pressure, these will move even the most weighty backside into the papal throne if the owner is sufficiently shrewd.

I blinked. ‘Did they not tell you about me? Was Murillo not enough of a hint?’ Quick hands, that’s what a knife fight is all about. But quick hands are wasted if you’re hunting your weapon while the other man’s fingers are wrapped around his. Don’t waste your speed at the start of the first move. All that does is advertise that it
is
a move. ‘You sent an assassin to kill—’

‘A king rules by the will of his people.’ Just a hint of irritation now. ‘The people look to Roma for their eternal salvation. You’re old enough to know where your interests lie. And those of your son. The cathedral—’

I leaned forward in my seat, unhurried, the intent listener, then reached out, slow enough, but sure: hesitation is the killer. Then fast. Ripping the crucifix from about her neck. I threw it, hard as hard, tearing it through a flat arc and releasing it to fly straight and true. Tobias caught it. A neat catch between the eyes, one soft, heavy arm of the cross punching through his forehead so that the whole thing hung there as he toppled. Now my knife.
To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven.
Memories of Bishop Murillo’s priests sprang up as I dragged the blade through the folds of fat about Pius’s neck. ‘A time to die.’

Pius hit the ground first, then Tobias, then the polearm. Then for the longest time those of us not on the ground dying just stood there looking at each other.

‘Captain Devers, I believe I’m about to be attacked on your watch!’ I hollered it at him, thinking it best to pre-empt the matter rather than bring it up as forty or more papal guards started trying to perforate me.

I saw motion among the gold helms back by our carriage. It would take a moment or three for Devers to come to grips with the situation.

‘Oh come on, I just killed the fecking Pope. You
are
going to attack me, aren’t you?’ I drew Gog and smiled invitingly at the nearest guards. Pantaloons or not, they would prove deadly enough. Multiple polearms against a single sword in open space is not a contest. I started to back around the sedan chair. The bearers scattered. Not pious men it seemed.

Still half-dazed the five guards closest to me levelled their weapons. All along the line the polearms fell in a wave, aiming at me.

‘That man is under my protection!’ Devers found his voice and urged his stallion forward.

Somehow that galvanized the Pope’s men and they surged forward, screaming incoherent rage. Even the bearers thought to join in, reaching for me with over-long, over-muscled arms, though you’d have thought they’d be grateful not to have to carry her any more.

The Gilden Guard rushed in from behind, and I played ‘find the Jorg’, skipping in and out of the sedan chair, threading my way through the bearers, whilst we had ourselves a good old-fashioned slaughter.

It ended too soon. Polearms outreach swords, but if they’re pointed the wrong way the fight will be a short one. They’d been pointed at me. They should have watched the guard.

Gog caught in a man’s spine and had to be hauled out with both hands on the hilt and a foot to the fellow’s chest. Fortunately he was the last of the bearers. I got the blade free, turning just in time for Makin to grab me by the breastplate and slam me into the Pope’s chair.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Devers came up beside him, sword dripping. ‘You killed the Pope!’ As if I hadn’t noticed.

‘She killed herself when she went after my son.’ I lay back against the sedan’s wooden wall, relaxing in Makin’s grip.

‘You killed the Pope,’ Devers said again, staring down at the blood-soaked mess of her, an armless bearer sprawled across her holy legs.

‘What you need to do, Captain Devers, is have your men load her carcass into this handy box behind me. And whilst they’re doing that, and carting all the other bodies away, you need to get the Lord Commander of the Guard out here.

‘I suspect that when Lord Commander Hemmet considers the fire that will spread from the flame I set burning here, he will wish that it never happened. He will wish that the Gilden Guard had not slaughtered the Pope’s personal detachment of papal soldiers. And he will be very interested to hear that there are no surviving witnesses from Rome. Anything that happens without witnesses never really happened at all.

‘In three days I expect to be crowned emperor and those who have failed to support me will live to regret their lack of discernment. But not for very long.

‘If it turns out that I am not crowned then I’ll be too busy to let it worry me overmuch – I’ll be raising a nine-nation army to march on Roma so that I can burn that den of corruption to the ground. So all in all, if your Lord Commander wants to avoid rivers of blood and making a personal enemy of the next emperor, for the sake of a
Pope
… he will say that Pius and her guards fell foul of a lichkin. Ship her remains back to Vatican City and be done with it. I can even suggest a replacement …’

Makin let go, allowing me to slide a couple of inches down the wall of the sedan chair, from tiptoes to heel and toe. I hadn’t realized I was nearly off the ground. ‘It will never work. You can’t hush up something like this.’

‘Look around you, Makin.’ I swept an arm. ‘It’s a wasteland. Anyone who counts is in the palace, and none of them will be looking out, I can tell you that for fact. And their servants will be hard at work way over there.’ I waved to the distant mansions. ‘And the good folk of Vyene are hiding in their homes. To some degree because they’re not invited to the party. But mostly because the Gilden Guard are deployed to escort duties leaving no one to protect them, and the dead are on the move.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Someone will know. Someone will talk. There’ll be rumours—’

‘Rumours are fine. Rumours just put an edge on things – add some weight to what I have to say. Accusations … not so good. Charges? Then it’s time to march on Roma. And don’t forget, your average Gilden Guard affords the church far less respect than they do the women in Onsa’s wheel-house.’

That gave him pause. The guard really did despise anything that smacked of Roma’s influence in the empire’s business. To have the Pope herself in Vyene itself, waylaying members of the Hundred under guard escort, must have burned them no end.

‘It can’t work.’ Makin shook his head.

‘Either way, the bitch is dead.’ I shrugged him off. ‘Devers!’ I clicked my fingers in front of his face. ‘Wake up, man! Can you remember what I’ve said? The Lord Commander – cover-up or bloodbath. Yes? Sort it out or so help me I’ll ride to Roma with her head on my spear.’

Captain Devers gave the nod of a man not convinced he isn’t dreaming. I walked past him, stepping around the corpses. It’s never a good idea to step over a fallen man. You might get a knife between the legs.

‘I’ll be in the palace if I’m wanted.’

Rike and Marten stood cleaning their swords. Kent’s axe hung loose in his grip, still crimson. He looked lost.

‘If God talks to anyone, Kent, it’s not that evil old woman back there. That faith you’ve found – you didn’t find it in church, now did you? You found it in pain and blood. Whatever reached out to touch you, it wasn’t a priest in robes.’

‘The holy spirit found me, Jorg. Christ Jesu, risen, led me out of darkness and cooled my burns.’ No ‘king’ today, no ‘sire’.

I don’t respect many men and Kent was never sharp enough of wit, never wise enough, never virtuous enough to inspire me. And his new credo, since the fire, seemed borrowed, other men’s dogma worn as a shield. But I respected his instincts as a killer and I liked the honesty of the man. And who was I to judge? I’d fucked a necromancer and killed a Pope within the space of a week.