Vespera Read online

  All of them had been properly educated, and all of them had read the accounts of the Republic’s fall four hundred and fifty years ago, the tragic events in the Chamber which had spilled out into war. The story of how the last Doge, Umbera, had been betrayed by her own brother Aetius, the first Emperor, and the Republic had foundered in fire and blood. And now that betrayal was about to be undone.

  Heraclian Morias Azrian saw Aesonia shake her head to her fellow priestesses as she entered the Chamber, and his last glimmer of hope died away. Ruthelo wouldn’t pull back.

  Of course he wouldn’t pull back. Why should he? He’d won, as he always did, as effortlessly as ever. He had brought down the Empress, the one figure who had always been out of the clan leaders’ reach. Azrian marines had flung themselves at the Imperial Guard because Ruthelo had asked them to do it, and because they loved him. Everybody loved Ruthelo Azrian.

  Everyone except Heraclian. Ruthelo’s shadow. Ruthelo’s short, undistinguished, ugly little brother, from whom almost every vestige of talent and ability had apparently been stripped away by some uncaring god so that Ruthelo could have all of it. Had there been other siblings who were never even conceived, because everything they might have become had been given to Ruthelo? Was Heraclian all that Ranthas could make out of the dross? A slight, unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errands.

  Heraclian was a captain in the Azrian fleet – because Ruthelo had arranged it. Had his own house – because Ruthelo had given it to him. He didn’t have a wife, and if he ever did she would doubltess pale into mediocrity beside Claudia with her brilliant copper hair and her temper and her beauty. Not to mention two children who were already showing signs of Ruthelo’s promise. Heraclian had hoped they would be sad failures, that they would disappoint Ruthelo and resent him, but, of course, that would make Ruthelo’s life less than perfect, and the gods wouldn’t allow that.

  And now Ruthelo was about to depose Palatine II, and his honeyed, golden words would have the Assembly falling over themselves to make the first Doge of the new Republic before they flung themselves at his feet to beg him for favours. And for the rest of Heraclian’s life, he would be an insignificant adjunct to Ruthelo, and nothing more. Like Prince Catiline, younger brother of Neptunia the Great, who was barely even a footnote to the history of his sister’s glorious reign.

  But he couldn’t say any of it, couldn’t let anyone see the bile that threatened to choke him. He was Ruthelo’s younger brother.

  And then Heraclian saw Aesonia’s face in an unguarded moment, as Ruthelo entered the Chamber, and realised he was not alone.

  The Chamber fell silent.

  Ruthelo heard every rustle of his robes as he walked across the worn marble floor, its compass rose pattern almost unrecognisable, and over to his curule chair in the centre, opposite the door, a plain white marble scissor chair, its arms worn smooth by generations of the men and women who had been Leader of the Assembly before Ruthelo.

  He stopped in front of the chair, looked around at the faces of his fellow Thalassarchs, leaders of the City’s clans, saw every emotion he could name, and many more he couldn’t, reflected in their faces. Some were injured, their wounds hastily bandaged; two were missing, too severely hurt to attend, but their deputies were here. So many were young; in a City where politics had always been a business for the old, less than a third of the Assembly were older than forty.

  The older generation were dead before their time.

  Aesonia had taken her place among her fellow Exiles, priests and priestesses in their various colours, uniformly apprehensive and trying to hide it. They had played almost no part tonight, but they were acutely aware how close to Palatine they’d been.

  The same could have been said for Palatine’s cousin Carausius, who stood on the opposite side of the floor with his wife. Ruthelo had never seen either of them look so calm, and there was relief in Carausius’s eyes as he nodded to Ruthelo in tacit assent for what was about to happen.

  The lights flickered slightly, and he uttered another silent prayer for the power not to fail.

  Ruthelo took his seat in complete silence. He nodded to the attendant standing by the doorway, below the packed tiers of steps, and the doors swung open. The noise from the vast crowd packed into the public spaces of the City redoubled.

  From an upper window of the Doge’s palace, along from where their father had met the others, Ithien and Chaula had seen the Empress walk along the bridge into the Praesidium, and they knew it was about to happen.

  They had been standing here for what seemed like hours, and even the attractions of trying to count the crowd and spot all the clan banners had worn off, but their tutor had strict orders not to let them run around or explore the Palace of the Seas, even though they’d never get a chance like this again. Ithien had tried to convince him, with cast-iron logic, that they ought to be allowed to explore, that their future success depended on it, but their tutor simply hadn’t understood.

  To add insult to injury, he’d seen through their scheme for escape before they’d even had time to launch it, and Chaula had sulked for five minutes solid. She’d then sat down defiantly on the floor and opened her book, and refused to be moved until Ithien had spotted the Empress.

  Ithien himself hadn’t brought a book, because it might slow him down if they needed to race to the Chamber and save their father from a last-minute plot by supporters of the Empress. On the other hand, Chaula had pointed out when he explained this, a carefully-thrown book might stun the arch-plotter just before he gave the signal to his dastardly confederates.

  His sister had tucked the book back into her bag now, and stood beside him, looking suitably grave. She was still blonde, which was unfair, because Ithien’s hair, which had been like Ruthelo’s, was beginning to darken. That, Chaula had informed him during their last argument, meant he would end up looking like Uncle Heraclian, and Ithien had punched her, and got into a great deal of trouble. Besides, he was eleven, and not that much shorter than Heraclian. If sons were always taller than their mothers, he had nothing to fear, because Mother was taller than Heraclian, and Ithien had years of growing left to do.

  He’d decided, later, that maybe he would take after Uncle Petroz, Mother’s brother, if he couldn’t look like either of his parents. Petroz was terribly old-fashioned, and already prone to go on about respect like some white-haired grandfather, but he was handsome, and good at things. Heraclian wasn’t, really.

  ‘She’s there!’ Chaula said, as the crowd roared, and he caught a split-second glimpse of the Empress in the hallway by the entrance to the Chamber, and his musings on how he would grow up were forgotten.

  Palatine walked through the door flanked by two Assembly Guards in white armour and plumes, who stopped at the edge of the floor and let the last Empress of Thetia walk out alone. She wore a surprisingly plain blue robe and nothing on her unruly brown hair, not even a wreath. The imperial regalia was gone – Ruthelo had made sure it hadn’t survived the destruction of the Palace.

  Ruthelo stood, though he didn’t bow, looking across at the Empress. Her fine-boned face was a mask, but she looked old, drained, as if she hadn’t come to terms with what had happened.

  Few people had, except Ruthelo, which was why he was moving now, while the memories were still fresh, the outrage too raw for voices like Aesonia’s to whisper appeasements, rewriting history to excuse the Empress her mistake.

  ‘Palatine Tar’Conantur,’ Ruthelo said formally, ‘the Assembly has passed judgement.’

  Palatine said nothing, but she fixed her eyes on Ruthelo, and Ruthelo alone. Her charisma was still there, the magnetism that had inspired her people through the long years of the Crusade, but it had dimmed.

  ‘It is our decree,’ Ruthelo said, ‘that from this moment forth, the Empire is no more.’

  ‘Their decree or yours, Ruthelo?’ Palatine said, looking across to where Gian sat, on another of the chairs at floor-level reserved for the most powerful Thalassarchs. Her politcal
instincts were still all there.

  ‘They wouldn’t have supported me if you hadn’t tried to dissolve the Assembly tonight,’ Ruthelo replied, side-stepping the question. He couldn’t let the Empress take control; for all that he was a far better orator than her, and this was his arena, she had still been Empress of Thetia for seven years. Thetis’s anointed Empress. ‘It’s done, Palatine. Your rule, and your family’s, is over.’

  ‘Will yours be any better?’

  ‘I won’t be ruling alone.’

  For a moment he thought Palatine would appeal to the Chamber, launch an impassioned defence of her rule which might enough doubt for the Assembly to reverse its deliberation. But as she looked towards her supporters, Ruthelo saw them shake their heads one by one – Rainardo, Gian, Ruthelo’s brother-in-law Petroz Salassa, aged Aurelian Tuthmon who had been Ruthelo’s predecessor as Leader.

  ‘Palatine Tar’Conantur,’ Ruthelo said again, ‘It is the Assembly’s will that you renounce all claims to the Crown and Shell for you, your family and your descendants in perpetuity, and that you and your family be stripped of Thetian citizenship and banished forthwith from the lands, territories, dependencies and possessions of Thetia for ever. And that you swear a solemn oath before Thetis and this Chamber never to make war against Thetia on your own behalf or that of any foreign power.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘We give you the choice to go freely.’

  ‘To go freely from my country for ever,’ Palatine said.

  ‘Your predecessors weren’t so lucky,’ Ruthelo said, more quietly now, looking straight into the Empress’s eyes. ‘You made war against the people you were sworn to protect, and you lost. We offer you a way to end this without further bloodshed.’

  Another silence, and finally Palatine nodded, looking suddenly tired and much older. It should never have come to this; it was a bitter irony that she, who had been a republican once, should be the one to stand here.

  Maybe there was, after all, something left of the brilliant woman who had been Ruthelo’s friend and companion in the resistance against Aetius the Tyrant.

  Two attendants carried a folding table out and put it in front of Ruthelo, laying on top two copies of the Act of Abdication which had been drafted in the last hour by Ruthelo’s legal experts. Beside the sheet of thick cream paper lay, a pen, wax and Palatine’s Great Seal, rescued from the Palace by Ormos Theleris before the blaze took hold.

  For a moment Palatine hesitated, looking across at the table and the seal as if she didn’t understand what they meant, clasping her hands in front of her in a gesture hardly befitting an Empress. Ruthelo waited, looking down at the documents. Two, because this was too important an occasion for there to be only one.

  Then she moved, as if she had to move fast before she changed her mind, walked over and picked up the pen to inscribe her signature at the bottom of each document, just as it appeared on every other decree of her reign. One of the attendants poured out two blobs of wax on each, large and small, the first for Palatine’s personal signet, the second for the Great Seal.

  Ruthelo watched the last Empress of Thetia sign the abdication document and stamp down her signet with a harsh, urgent gesture that almost went awry.

  He, Ruthelo Azrian, had brought the Empire to an end.

  Palatine picked up the cylindrical Great Seal and rolled it across each of the documents in turn before she laid it down again on the table, and as he caught her eyes Ruthelo saw relief in them. He hadn’t expected that.

  It was done.

  He bowed to her now, as one Thetian to another, and she turned and walked as far as the door before she stopped, looking round at the Assembly one last time. Carausius and his wife stepped out to stand beside her, as did Admiral Karao, the hero of Oromel, and perhaps half a dozen others, old friends or colleagues. Not one of the Thalassarchs joined her; no-one had expected them to.

  Ruthelo followed her out into the colonnade surrounding the Assembly Chamber and watched the small band of people walk down a line of clan marines, under the arched banners of every clan of Thetia, to where the manta was waiting to carry her away from Thetia for ever. The russet and amber of Azrian was the last banner, closest to the waterfront, though Ruthelo couldn’t see the colours from here.

  He could see the morning star low in the south, Azrian’s symbol, which was enough.

  Palatine didn’t look back once, but no-one in all that vast crowd spoke until the manta had dived and was gone from sight as the first rays of a new dawn, the dawn of the Thetian Republic restored, broke over the City.

  PART I

  A SONG WITHOUT MUSIC

  CHAPTER I

  Raphael saw the ripple form on the water far out to sea, a dark line cutting across the waves. For a moment or two it only grew longer, stretching out to either side as the air above it shimmered, distorting his view of the sea beyond.

  Then the waves began to move, twisting in their courses towards the line, heading into it and vanishing. The ripple was a mile long now, extending with every moment that passed and beginning to bend, its edges moving forward to curve into a long arc with the horns pointing in towards the coast. Now, finally, Raphael could see it gaining height, a wave seven or eight feet above the surface, rising further with every moment, although it would still be invisible to the lookouts in the harbour below.

  And then it began to move towards the shore, a shallow crescent of water growing in height with every second. Two hundred feet below him, just visible over the green-clad slopes, Raphael saw the water in the long, steep harbour sucked out into the wave, first dropping away from the stone surface quays and then falling more rapidly, exposing the spidery network of manta docking gantries below the surface.

  The lookouts knew something was wrong now, and even from up here, with the brisk onshore wind in his ears and his clothes flapping around him, Raphael could hear the shouts of panic and fear. The uppermost gantry began to buckle in the middle, unable to support its own weight out of the water. It would have broken long before if a manta had still been moored there, but the mantas were gone, drifting in pieces at the edge of the sargasso fields to the southwest.

  The water was still pouring out of the harbour, backing up to join the wave now racing in from the ocean, and the harbour defences at the narrow entrance were coming into view, a formidable array of cannon turrets, nets and mines, helpless now before the power deployed against them.

  Raphael had seen Exile mages alter currents and hold back streams before, but never anything on this scale. It was one thing to know it could be done, another to see it – and to know he had brought it about.

  The wave was only a mile from the harbour, gaining height as the sea drained away, a dreadful blue-green wall now thirty feet high. Its face rippled slightly, water rolling inside it in an attempt to escape and return to its natural form, but there was to be no escape either for the water or the men in the fortress-harbour in its path.

  He heard a low, thunderous rumble like a hundred waves breaking at once, drowning out the wind and the indignant shrieks of harbour gulls as they launched themselves upwards and out of its path.

  The wave reached the harbour entrance, and surged forward into the narrow gap, growing by ten, twenty feet in a matter of seconds, crushing the harbour defences, breaking the turrets and sweeping the heavy nets and booms away as if they were nothing. Mines ripped from their moorings detonated as it flung them against each other or the cliffs in a series of bright explosions.

  Only the deepest of the gantries was still intact. The rest had crumpled on top of each other as the water receded, and some of the men on the quayside were sprinting for higher ground.

  Far more stood transfixed in the wave’s path, apparently mesemerised by it, and Raphael wanted to shout at them to move, even though it was hopeless. At the last second, some even seemed to run forward, throwing themselves into the wave to vanish in its water.

  A bright blue light flashed around a small domed buildi
ng on the quayside as its aether shield came on, useless against such a force.

  Suddenly, Raphael saw the distortion in the air evaporate, as the willpower of the Exiles holding the wave together disspated. The wave held for a few more seconds, rushing over the quays, smashing warehouses and ammunition dumps like matchwood, and then it broke in a cascade on the walls of the fortress, hiding it from view as the bay became a whirling cauldron of water.

  Then it receded, draining out towards the ocean. The waters rushed back to their former equilibrium, secondary waves criss-crossing each other beyond the harbour entrances and radiating out back to sea, slowly fading as they collided and lost their impact.

  There was silence, and Raphael looked down at the devastation below, the shattered fortress and the ruined harbour, the broken bodies of men strewn on the quays or floating with the debris on the water.

  The dead men had been pirates and reavers, opportunists who had carved out a petty kingdom for themselves in the lawless years of the Anarchy, robbing ships and exacting tribute from nearby cities, holding merchants to ransom and killing those whose partners or families couldn’t pay the ransom.

  For ten years they had remained undetected, adding to the litany of Thetia’s woes, too minor a nuisance for any of the warring powers or princes to spend energy on crushing them. They might have remained free for as long again, but they’d overreached themselves when they raided the Exile abbey of Carmonde, sank it, tortured its chapter and its mages to death and sold the rest to remote Archipelagan tribes as slaves.

  But the Exiles were servants of the Goddess, men and women who had renounced the land forever, and they were sacred. And Carmonde had been a daughter house of the greatest of all Exile abbeys, Sarthes. When Sarthes demanded revenge, the powers of Thetia, no matter their allegiance or their current feuds, obeyed.

  It had been something of a coup for Raphael, an apparently inexperienced intelligencer of barely two years’ standing, to have picked up the trail and traced the pirates to their lair. Where he’d spent almost a month gathering information before making his way to the New Empire’s nearest naval base, and leading four war-mantas under the Imperial Navy’s finest admiral, accompanied by a group of mages from Sarthes itself, back to the island of Sertina to destroy the pirates.