“Who could have done this thing?” Only Sarmin and his vizier stood upon the steps of the dais, and the throne room lay empty save for the ever-present guards. Lit in haste, only one in three of the many lamps sconced along the walls held a flame and the room ran with shadows. Sarmin paced, unable to sit, and Azeem followed, careful always to be a step lower. “Who?” Sarmin could think of a list a yard long, the person who brought the snake to Daveed at the head of it and himself close behind.
“Why is the question that may answer who, my emperor, and more importantly will give us the hand behind whatever knife was used.”
Sarmin found himself looking at his own hand, sore from tearing at the ropes that bound him in his sleep. The image of Kavic lying twisted in his blood on a patterned rug returned to him. How could he see it if he were not there? But then he had been absent witness to so much of late.
“There is a question still more pressing than that of guilt, my emperor,” Azeem said. The jewels on his robe of office caught the lamp light, returning it in deep reds. Had Tuvaini worn that robe? One like it but not that one-Tuvaini had been a much taller man.
“My emperor?” Azeem waited at his elbow.
“What question, Vizier?”
“The question of how to proceed. Can the peace be kept despite what has happened? What should be done with this Fryth austere? Can he speak in the envoy’s place? What line might he take? Austere Adam is said to be a zealot. He may prefer to see Fryth burn for the chance it might set Yrkmir against Cerana, and count every death in Mondrath a new martyr for his faith.”
Sarmin returned to the Petal Throne. “They will see that a peace can’t stand or fall on the death of one man.” He nodded, finding comfort in agreeing with himself. “This Iron Duke of theirs… Mala… Malast?”
“Malast Anteydies Griffon, my emperor.”
“This duke must be able to see that two cut throats don’t require ten thousand more to die in his streets, Fryth and Cerani both.”
“It’s not the death of one man, though I understand the Duke favoured his grandson Kavic. The envoy carried Fryth’s pride with him. To have him murdered abed in the imperial palace is to wound the pride of every man of Fryth. Wars have been fought for far smaller injuries to men’s pride.”
Sarmin remembered Kavic speaking of the man, of his humiliation at the hands of Yrkmir. He watched the shadows flicker and play. He wanted Mesema at his side. The throne was a lonely place. Even his mother would have had good council. “So we need to heal this wound.” And how can pride be repaired? Sarmin had no idea; his room had not armed him with such talents. “Shall I call priest Assar to work one of Mirra’s cures?”
“Master Herran seeks audience, my emperor!” The herald called out from the great doors, eased apart to admit his bulk.
“Let him come.” Sarmin raised a weary hand above his head and beckoned.
“Herran brings only Herzu’s cures,” Azeem said. He stepped aside and studied his patterned slippers.
“Master Herran.” Sarmin acknowledged the assassin as he walked the long path to the dais, his feet silent on the silk runner laying out his route.
Herran said nothing until he reached his allotted place, two yards before the lowest step. “My emperor.” And he slipped into the obeisance as if age had no finger on him. Indeed he looked more hale that he had at any point in the last year, his hair and eyebrows shaded away from their usual white to a new grey, though Sarmin would not have thought the man vain.
“Master Herran.” Sarmin scowled at the back of the old man’s head. “Your profession has done great harm this night.”
Herran said nothing.
“Rise.” Sarmin’s fingertips drummed his irritation out on the armrest. “Speak.”
Master Herran got to his knees, then showing at the last some sign of age, to his feet. “My emperor. It remains to be seen whether the envoy’s death is the work of skilled men or of amateurs with fortune on their side-I can assure you that the Grey Service were no part of this. The solution however may lie with the grey men in your service.”
“You will cut the throats of each and every Fryth in their bed and leave us none to war against? Is that your solution?” Some of that bitterness brewed in the long years of Sarmin’s imprisonment leaked into his voice.
“Only two more.” Herran inclined his head.
“Two? I don’t understand you. I won’t send you after the duke and his last remaining heir if that’s what you’re asking. I won’t have it.” Behind his eyes the pool of Kavic’s blood widened until it joined that which had spread around Sarmin’s brothers in the long ago.
Herran waited a moment, studying Sarmin as no servant should study his master. The assassin had pale eyes that together with the lines of his face spoke of a mixed ancestry, of blood from beyond Cerana’s borders. “If the envoy had never reached the palace, if ill luck had befallen him in the wild mountains where lawless tribes hold sway, then we would never have had this problem.”
“But ill luck didn’t befall them until they spent the night beneath my roofs!” Sarmin studied his fingers, looking for traces of blood.
Azeem coughed into his hand. “If we say they never reached us. If we send for word of their arrival… who will call us liars? Who will call the emperor of Cerana a liar?”
“Austere Adam, for one,” said Sarmin. “Besides, I am not a liar.”
Herran bowed his head. Azeem licked his lips and continued. “Would you lie to preserve the peace you seek, my emperor, to save the ten thousand lives you spoke of?”
Sarmin frowned. Mesema would know what to say to that. His mother would lie without pause for blinking, except that her pride would not incline her towards peace. “Austere Adam is not-”
“Austere Adam has not yet survived the night,” Herran said. “Ah.” Finally Sarmin understood. He did not count himself stupid, but his mind did not run so easily down the bloodier of paths. “No. I won’t order a priest slain.”
“We have places he might be held, along with that guardsman,” Azeem said. “Cells in the dungeon where men might be forgotten.” The oubliettes. Sarmin remembered the smoothness of that skull beneath his hands, the dry papery feel when he hooked his fingers through its eye sockets. “No! Not there. I commanded that every prisoner be brought out and the dungeons emptied.”
Azeem and Herran exchanged a look. The older man spoke. “Your royal father appointed Eyul son of Klemet to be the fifty-third Knife-Sworn. He found he needed such a man and that the Grey Service would not fill the need.”
“This I know. I watched the man slit my brothers’ throats. Your assassins are forbidden such blood. If he had been a true emperor my father would have killed his sons by his own hand, or let them live.”
“Emperor Tahal was dead by the time the deed was required.” A gentle reminder from Azeem.
“You need a Knife in your service, my emperor.” Herran’s pale eyes sought Sarmin’s.
“No.” Appointing a Knife was the penultimate step towards sacrificing his last brother. He might as well snatch Daveed from his mother’s arms and throttle him himself as put the emperor’s Knife into the hand of a new Knife-Sworn.
“It is not just for the spilling of royal blood that the Knife serves, Sarmin. The Knife serves the empire. The Knife dares what must be done, what needs be done, what honest men and good men cannot bring themselves to say or to command. The hand that wields the Knife is stained; the emperor’s remain clean.
“Your father appointed Eyul because he trusted him, with his own life, with the black judgements that taint a man and yet must be made. Your father sacrificed Eyul to the Knife that the empire might survive, that the people within her borders might live and thrive.”
The Many began their whispering, the hush and flow of their words reaching from the darkest corners of Sarmin’s mind, rippling like the shadows across the throne room floor. “Your search is over before it starts then, assassin,” he said. “I’ve grown between four walls, alone, forgotten. Who would I trust as my father trusted Eyul? Who would I trust to kill in my name and not to ask my permission or tell me the result?” And if I had such a person how could I sacrifice them?
Herran turned away, towards the doors, and clapped twice. A figure stepped through with no announcement. Hooded, the visitor walked towards the throne, avoiding the silk runner, taking careful steps as if favouring an injury.
“Who-” The herald would announce every visitor without exception; only the guards entered without remark. The guards and servants.
Halfway to the throne the figure stopped. Further back than noble supplicants, further back than merchants or low ranked officers would halt, further back than the lowest of servants.
“Grada!” And as he spoke she threw her hood back and watched him with dark eyes. The Many whispered, they lifted their voices so Sarmin could hear neither assassin nor vizier. He saw both men though their words didn’t reach him-saw them in their many parts, their bright fault-lines, the way they fit the pattern all around them. Grada however, stood unmoving and did not speak, and no lines crossed her, she stood dark and whole her purpose clear, she fit only a single pattern, a puzzle of two parts, his and hers.