Empire of Avarice (35 page)

“High Priest, I have written to Kastan for help. Our
funds here are extremely low and we are but a poor region at present. Efforts
are being made to change things even as we speak, but my hands are tied. I do
not have the resources to repair even one temple.”

“Then, tell me, governor, how it is that a new temple is
being constructed in Niake?” and the High Priest threw the now well-worn
leaflet onto the desk.

Evas read it and shrugged helplessly. “Not with any help
from us, I can tell you, High Priest. I have no idea who these people are. Do
you? These are clerics, after all.”

“Even I do not know every cleric in the empire,” Burnas
growled. “What I know of these wouldn’t take long in the retelling. In fact I
know nothing.”

“So this meeting wasn’t your idea?”

“No,” Burnas admitted sourly, “but it should have been
approved by me in the first place. Whoever this is, they are independent of you
or me.”

Evas looked at the High Priest shrewdly. “Maybe we ought
to work together to find out more about this mysterious group?”

Burnas paused, thought, then nodded curtly. “I certainly
do not wish for independent sects causing trouble here. They called for me to
run this city, what an outrage! I have no intention of running Niake! I am a
priest, I care for the souls of the people of the empire. I leave the
administration of the cities to those better versed in it – and it is high time
you started showing that to me. If we are to work together then you will have
to impress me with your organisational abilities.”

Evas nodded. He also knew why Burnas didn’t want the
difficult post of governing a province; governors were the first to go if civil
unrest broke out. Burnas was happier manipulating things behind the scenes. “What
of our mutual friend Demtro?”

“Him?” Burnas snorted. “A chancer, that’s what he is. Untrustworthy.
Let him concentrate on his merchant business and leave this sort of thing to
the likes of us. He’s far too nosey for my liking.”

“Just dangle pretty young females under his nose and
he’ll be happy enough,” the governor said dryly. “Very well, High Priest, I’ll
use my spy network to find out more of these people and what they are doing
here. What of you?”

Burnas thought for a moment. “This address they have
left; I shall send a cleric to them to find out what deity they serve. That’s a
start. You can learn plenty from what god someone serves.”

“Very well. We shall meet again in three days to
exchange information on what we’ve learned, and then perhaps we can plan a
course of action.”

“In three days, governor,” Burnas nodded and turned to
go. He stopped. “If you have not found out anything then I may find someone
else who can, and if that’s the case, it won’t be long before you will no
longer be the governor of this province. You may find that you are indeed the
first casualty of this unrest.” He left, leaving Evas with his thoughts alone.

____

The High Priest arrived back at his residence, the
harassed young cleric in tow, to find Demtro still there, entertaining the two
young initiates the High Priest had accepted the previous sevenday. These young
women were marked to serve in the rebuilt temple as attendants and servants of
the gods, something similar to the Venerated Virgins of times gone by, before
the empire had fallen from grace. One important feature of women who served in
the temples thus was that they should remain virgins.

“Demtro!” Burnas roared, “what are you doing with these
women?”

The two girls shrieked and fled the room, their wispy
white robes flying in the air. Their female forms were clearly visible to all
underneath their garments which to be honest didn’t hide much. Demtro looked
nonplussed, sat on the couch he had been sharing with the two.

“Well?” Burnas demanded, looming over the merchant.

“Nothing,” Demtro lamely explained. “Just discussing the
merits of the gods.”

“And I’m an emperor’s concubine!” Burnas snapped, his
eyes blazing. “If they have been…..touched…. in any way, then I’ll have your
innards fed to the avians!” He gestured to the young cleric to go to the women.

Demtro stood up, straightening his clothing. “Now, now,
High Priest, there’s no call to get all touchy with me for entertaining these
lovely young maidens. I swear I haven’t done anything to them I shouldn’t
have.”

Burnas blocked the way out. “I do not trust you,
merchant. You are becoming an irritation; I would be pleased if you did not
come here anymore. In fact I would be pleased if you quit Niake altogether.”

“Oh, High Priest, and spoil our beautiful friendship? You
can’t really mean that! After all, I bring such joy to your otherwise dull life
when I come here.”

“Get out, you disrespectful cur!” Burnas shouted,
brandishing his priestly staff close to Demtro’s head. “Any more and I shall
have you sacrificed on the steps of the new temple when it’s built!”

“Alright, I’m going, I’m going!” Demtro waved his arms
in the air, warding off the stout staff that was dangerously close to his head.
“Don’t have an apoplexy; we need entertaining people like you in Niake.”

“Demtro!” Burnas roared.

The merchant grinned at the doorway and sprang out and
down the steps to the street. He stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled as
he strode away. He made his way, past the groups of people talking and beasts
pulling wagons, towards the address that had been on the leaflet. This was a
poorer area but still not as bad as some of the districts away from the main
streets. The building was an abandoned shop, one of many that had closed down
recently due to the lack of money around. He peered through the small windows
at the front but could see little.

There was a side alley and he sauntered down this and
examined the side of the building. There was a door that was locked, so he
continued and at the rear there was a low wooden plank fence which he climbed
over, landing lightly in an overgrown yard, full of weeds and abandoned pots
and containers.

The rear of the premises had two windows and a door. The
door was locked but one of the windows had a broken latch and he forced this open,
peering inside. The room beyond was empty and bare, and he climbed in with a
little difficulty. Brushing down his clothes, he made his way to the door and
pulled it open. Standing there was an angry looking man armed with a club. Before
Demtro could say anything, the club descended onto his head and everything went
black.

Argan’s crying brought Isbel once again to his room. The
boy was crying out that the monster was going to eat him. Another nightmare. There
had been plenty since the incidence with the kivok in his room, and the boy
often woke screaming in the night. It could be very wearing and Rousa and the
empress had agreed to take turns on alternate nights to go to the boy.

A cuddle, a few words in his ear and a glass of water
soon soothed him, and Argan was happy to be allowed to go back to sleep. He
often couldn’t remember what he was afraid of, and the oil lamp in the corner
of his room meant the room was not in total darkness. It had to be lit all
night. The guard outside his room assured the empress that all was well, and
Isbel returned to her room two doors down the corridor reassured. It nearly
always happened at the same time, which was strange.

She often couldn’t go back to sleep all that quickly
after attending her son, and she would sit in bed going over the various
reports and letters from around the empire, getting a feel on how things were
going and what might be necessary to bring up in the next committee meeting.

Zipria was settled and calm; they were proceeding well
with the land clearance and replanting crops. There was one cause for concern, which
was recently the ships sailing between the island and Kastan had reported
increased pirate activity. Some ships had narrowly escaped capture while a
couple had vanished, all seemingly in a narrow stretch of water close to the
former imperial island of Romos.

Prince Jorqel had sent in an update on the siege of
Slenna. There was still no sign of an end to the stalemate but supplies in the
town must be getting low. Jorqel was confident that before long Slenna would
capitulate. The rest of Lodria was sending in tithes and taxes to Jorqel and so
far the province was behaving itself. It was virtually an imperial province
once more.

Niake was a headache. Evas constantly sent letters
asking permission for this and that, and the issue with the temples was
becoming a joke. Isbel and the committee had ordered the governor to deal with
the situation as he saw fit, but what this appeared to have done was to make
Evas do nothing. Demtro had sent in his own report and it differed somewhat
from Evas’ bland update. Additionally Demtro had identified two troublesome
groups operating in Niake that would need rooting out before long, neither of
whom had been mentioned by Evas. Was the fool blind? The rest of Bathenia was
calm enough, but there were voices of dissent here and there and that was where
trouble may raise its ugly head if it did come.

Frasia was fine; being the ‘home’ province the presence
of the capital there made things that more loyal. Crops were growing, people
were happy – at least on the surface – and no bandit groups reported. It seemed
at least here things didn’t need much work. The roads were being paved over
rapidly and should be finished by the end of summer.

Makenia and its city Turslenka was also no problem at
present. The governor Thetos Olskan seemed reliable enough and businesslike. The
mines had been re-opened and workforces were there to ensure the white building
stone and sulphur were coming out of the ground in their respective locations. Again
there were no reports of unrest, nor border incidents, which was important.

In Kornith and the province of Pelponia things were
proceeding reasonably well. The initial uprising against the Koros had been
crushed and now there seemed to be no voices of dissent. How tough the acting
governor had been in suppressing the reaction was unknown, but his reports
stated all was well and the roads had been repaired, and now the funds received
from the treasury were going to repair the port facilities in the far north of
the province. Pelponia seemed fine.

So to Bragal. Isbel sighed. This was to where her
attention often wandered. Somewhere within its boundaries was Amne. There had
been no word at all, but then she didn’t expect one for a while yet. The not
knowing gnawed at her insides. If only someone had seen her. Her husband hadn’t
mentioned her in his letters, and they were a mixture of affection towards her
and a more formal report on what was going on in front of the walls of Zofela. Reports
had come to her of the brutal suppressing of the revolt, and it seemed Bragal
was trembling, awaiting the outcome of the siege. If Astiras prevailed, Bragal
would probably submit and once again become just another imperial province. If
he failed, the war might drag on indefinitely, something they could ill afford.
Isbel so badly wanted it all to end so that she could have her man back.

That left the ‘home’ front. She smiled at the old word
she used in her mind. The domestic situation, then. No, that sounded too much
like a threatened marriage. The planned rebellion from the nobility had been
quashed, but other plots would no doubt come in time. The finances were looking
healthier, but so far only because they had deliberately kept the size of the
army down. Once a foreign entity decided Kastania was ripe for the taking they
would have to increase the armed forces and that would severely curtail what
they had available to put right on the internal structure of the empire. No
further armed uprising had come after the defeat of Nikos Duras, but he was
still at large, either in Frasia or Makenia. Nobody else had dared raise arms
against the new regime, despite repeated warnings from her advisors and
repeated threats from their enemies. Roads were being repaired, ports cleared
of rubble and silt, ships repaired, businesses nudged back into life. The veins
were once again pumping the lifeblood of the empire and in time, given time,
the ‘corpse’ would arise and be ready to face the world once more.

Time.

Isbel sighed. Time was a luxury they probably didn’t
possess. She threw back her bedclothes. Her mind was too busy to be able to go
back to sleep. Her handmaiden would be fast asleep and she didn’t want to
disturb her, so she slipped on a dress herself. After all, before she had
become an empress she used to dress herself. Some noble women in the past had
had servants to do everything for them, but these days it was decidedly modern
to do these things yourself. Most nobles had fewer servants than before, partly
because of cost and partly through a perceived feeling that it was vulgar to
have too many. Only the New Rich, those who had made money through business
ventures, went down that route and that was because they wanted to show
everyone how rich they were. The nobility had nothing to do with those rude
people. Crass, brash and without many social graces, their dinner parties were
embarrassing. So the Old Money excused themselves and said no. This upset the
New Money and the nobility were accused of snobbery and wanting to stay apart,
which was true insofar as it went, but it was for good reason. Isbel had no
wish to sit next to a man who wanted to talk about how much he made last sevenday
on this deal or that deal, spitting food as he talked, his elbow on the table,
peering down her cleavage and not making eye contact.

She shuddered at the memory. She’d always had a
voluptuous figure, and she’d used it to snare Astiras, and, on occasion, to
influence a decision in her favour from some man or another, but she wouldn’t
describe herself as a woman who flaunted her body. Even in her mid-thirties she
still turned heads and caught admiring glances. It pleased her but Astiras was
her man and no other. There had been those before who had fully used their
beauty and sated their desires, but she was not one. Besides, society was
terribly bitchy and once whispers started they would never stop and in the end
people would believe them no matter how many times they were denied.

Amne was not built like her. She was slimmer and fair
haired rather than the darker haired empress and was hot tempered like her
father. Some men may like that but if Amne was to be a proper princess who
would have to bite her tongue and think before opening her mouth. Amne’s mother
had been fair like her and it had been tragic that she had died so young, but
it had opened the opportunity for Isbel. She had been a close friend of the
woman, Mara, and had been around for Astiras while he mourned her death. It was
a few years afterwards that she and Astiras got close and that was when Isbel
decided she would like to be his new wife.

Astiras was a complex man. Hot headed and physical, he
was always marked down for a life as a warrior. His fiery personality had drawn
her like an insect to a flame and she knew he was going to be hard work, but
she couldn’t stop herself. He, too, was drawn to her, perhaps for more physical
reasons, although she wasn’t entirely sure. He could be gentle and humorous, or
stubborn and unforgiving. Sometimes she could scream at him. He was a
frustrated man, always believing he was destined for greater things, railing at
the stupidity of those above him and crying out for common sense against the
tide. It seemed at times he had been the only man to voice his fears about the
future while all those around them ignored the perils and did all they could to
enrich themselves before the collapse came.

That had given him the drive to get to the top. Killing
an emperor was a terrible thing, but Astiras had been driven to it for he saw
only ruin and despair if things had been allowed to continue. In that one act
he had leapt on the top of the collapsing pile and forced it to stop by sheer
will-power, taking on the entire establishment and terrorising it into
compliance. It was no good reasoning with them, for they were not interested in
reason. Their only ‘reason’ had been to get rich and to the blazes with
everyone else. So Astiras had taken them all on, and so far had succeeded in
cowing them.

How long that remained so was anyone’s guess, and Isbel
knew she had to be the one to watch his back, looking after the ‘home’ front. Astiras
wouldn’t be any good at that; he was a fighter, a man of action. He needed it
to get rid of his energy. Isbel smiled to herself. He certainly did have energy.
Shaking the thought from her mind, she left her chamber and glided out onto the
corridor outside. The guard there snapped to attention but Isbel waved him to
relax. She softly asked him if anything had taken place apart from Argan’s
nightmare and the guard replied that nothing had. Isbel thanked him and went
along the passageway. It didn’t cost anything to be polite and friendly, and
the guards were human after all, putting themselves in the way of danger should
it rear its head. She felt it bonded the guards to her family if they were
treated in a friendly manner – not too close of course, but friendly
nonetheless.

Ever since the incident with Argan and the reptile,
Isbel had made strenuous efforts to check on the guards’ backgrounds, with
Vosgaris’ help. Any who had problematic pasts were closely questioned and if
they were not satisfactory, told to leave. This had only happened to one, a man
who had served in the Fokis household and was currently in debt – to a Fokis
moneylender. He was too much of a risk and had gone. The rest seemed fine, but
Vosgaris had been told to keep an eye on things, as it was his responsibility
to ensure the Palace Guard remained loyal.

She found herself outside the great council chamber, the
one with the map of the empire and the surrounding lands in it. She slowly
entered the silent space and found it to be completely dark. A guard was
patrolling the corridor and she asked him to fetch a light for the chamber, and
he soon produced a flickering torch which the empress took and entered the
room, closing the door behind her. Placing the torch in a handy wall bracket,
she leaned on the table and peered at the beautifully carved map set within the
table.

The extent of the empire on the map astounded her. It
encompassed so much, lands that now were distinct kingdoms in their own right. They
had lost so much, lands that now obeyed different rulers in different
languages, prayed to different gods, used different ways of doing things. What
would Astiras want, she asked herself? Would he be content with securing
Bragal, Lodria and those areas still in revolt against the rule of the
Kastanian emperors? Or, would he now look beyond and seek to regain that which
had been imperial territory in the past? If so, how far back would he look? Ten
years? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? More?

She ran a finger along the line of what had once been
the frontier. So many people, so much to rule. Would it be possible to do so
these days? The world was full of competing kingdoms and empires, each intent
that none should dominate the rest. If one looked like it was becoming too big,
the rest ganged up to teach it a lesson, only to fall out between themselves if
one or the other took too much territory for the others’ liking.

It would be a tough task to go beyond that for which they
were fighting at the moment. Venn had laid claim to Epros and its main
settlement Drazino. Imperial objections would be brushed aside, even though
Epros was regarded as Kastanian territory. Venn would no doubt argue that
Kastania had not been in control of Epros for a decade and the rulers there
were independent and Kastania had made no effort to regain it. Therefore Epros
was ripe for the taking and Venn had already begun to move troops into the
region. Kastania could do nothing to stop it. Similarly, way to the west, news
was filtering in that the Tybar were moving against Tobralus, another former
imperial province which had thrown off Kastanian rule and gone their own way. Astiras
would regard both provinces as his and would most likely make moves against
them at some time, but Isbel doubted the empire had the military strength to
take on either.