Crown: Chapter 3: IV: Marianus
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Chapter 3: Lora
Section IV
Marianus – Ledan: ek-Anout
“They will expect cedarwood. I asked for cedarwood.” The echo of Marianus’s voice was oddly hushed in the low-ceilinged, makeshift audience hall. It was as though someone had cast a shroud over his very breath.
“There is no cedarwood, Sese.”
“Heron.” The chore of correcting these rats was grating, but necessary. They hoped, of course, that he’d stop, and so he must continue. Show them what a Pater of Lorar was made of.
“There is no cedarwood, Heron. The cedars grow in Kemassen, not ek-Anout.” Saftan Andral ek-Ketenai bowed his head obsequiously. They were good at bowing here—too good. Would that they were as good at everything else.
Two dozen more hooded heads bowed before Marianus. The servants’ featureless black robes merged into the shallow alcoves set into the walls. To a man, the servants stood ensconced like statues, their hands clasped in front of them, all alike. All silent.
Before Lorar had come, these men must have been priests of the strange god whose house Marianus now occupied. How easily the Anouti had traded their temple for a palace.
A brazier’s light tickled along the ceiling, revealing stark ashlar stones stained black with soot.
This was no palace. It was a cave.
The only finery in this country seemed to be reserved for the temples, and the animalistic statues that loomed and lurked from beneath arches and along corridors. Yet here—here the only ornamentation was inked in ash. Whose home was this, and which god’s eye now turned Marianus’s way?
A sacrifice in the god’s honour before he sailed home, and a safe course would be assured. He’d return with the water and with new stories for his great history. Assuming this Mikipsi—his Inda spy—ever turned up as he was supposed to. The possibility of the man’s death gnawed at him—news out of the west suggested Hadrianus’s son had spared no one from his father’s court.
If Mikipsi failed, there was still Farnus. Farnus could be trusted to scour ek-Anout for the stuff all on his own, with no need for Marianus to abandon the senate to grasping hands.
Still, he must return with something. The naval defeat in Kemassen presented too much of an opportunity to his rivals for him to sail home with no bounty. The victory in Zimrida must be emphasized, the wealth ek-Anout had to offer impressed upon the factions—his own Redders most of all, roused to hunger by that upstart Baskius.
Andral coughed impatiently.
Good.
Marianus at last tapped the side of his throne. “This is a trading port―you should be drowning in cedars! I should be unable to breathe for cedarwood stacked ceiling high. In Lorar, our cedars always came from Ledan. Where are the cedars?”
“Pardon, Heron, but there’s been no trade with Kemassen since Lorar waged war on her, and since, Heron, the war was lost, there appears to be no plunder either. Quite remarkable, I know.”
So, the ugly little rat was insulting him, but what good was there in drawing attention to it? In the end, the man was right, and unfortunately, out of all the safeta, Andral was the best suited to rein in the others.
Marianus leaned back in his sandstone throne, ass aching like it hadn’t since his army days. A horse’s back was better padded than Anouti furniture. Even the beds were hard stone―nothing to sink into, nothing to soothe old bones. “We were led to believe the South was a land of excess, of luxury.”
Andral straightened, standing short on the steps leading up to Marianus’s seat. “A land of excessive pedants, I’m afraid, and luxurious book-keeping.”
Andral was grey-haired and bony, with a swinging belly that suggested too much drink, and not enough bread to soak it up. He had a grotesquely pock-marked face, with a lump of a nose, and beady little eyes set in a brown, squarish face. The only thing at all dignified about him was his uniform, and even that veered on the effeminate―belted, long-shirted tunic of orange cotton, with gold trim along sleeves and edges. Andral’s soft, flat, leather slippers poked out from beneath his dress, decorated with the sacred cow of one of his clumsy, foreign gods.
Marianus opened his mouth, about to suggest mahogany instead. He cut himself off with a smile. “You’re a rich man, Andral, aren’t you?”
Andral inclined his head in a sideways sort of motion that made Marianus cringe every time he had to watch it. “Modestly.”
“Modestly rich.”
“Yes, Sese.”
Marianus sighed. “Do you realize how absurd you sound? Very well. Modestly rich in cedarwood tables?”
Andral’s expression darkened, which was remarkable in the dim light. “My property is my own, Sese. Part of the agreement, you’ll recall, of our acceptance of Lora rule.”
Their surrender, he meant. Damned cowards, the lot of them. There’d never been a people so eager to roll over.
“Of course.” Marianus smiled, miming Andral. “But you’ve told me Ledan has no cedars, and what are we to do without them?”
Andral’s lips were pursed tight. “I don’t know, Sese. Perhaps the senators won’t notice the difference, being as they are from the north.”
“Heron,” Marianus corrected absently. “And of course they’ll notice―I’m from the North, and I would notice.” He closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. This had been supposed to be a short and easy war―one last, great conquest to sit as the capstone to his career. An excuse to travel south and personally vet this water Mikipsi had promised him.
These Southerners were more trouble than Hurtha the Hungry and his armies of wild savages. Would that Marianus were in his prime, to take up the sword and once again see Lorar’s enemies silenced.
Here, enemies were obscure. The Anouti hid every lie behind a bright smile and every kindness behind a barb. Land of the Backwards Way he’d called it in his notes this morning. Up was down and left right. It was a marvel anyone managed to dress himself!
“Heron?”
Marianus blinked his eyes clear. He’d been drifting. Time to work. Rest would come once he’d reasserted his authority back home. “Yes, Andral? What is it now?”
Andral turned to look at someone standing to his left―a slim figure whose sandstone-coloured robes had blended so well against the fires in one of the braziers that Marianus hadn’t noticed him enter.
“Saftan Rashid ek-Falkaloud, Heron. Saftan of the lower eastern quarter, and representative of the silk traders and purple farmers.”
Marianus frowned. Surely he’d met this man already? They were all alike, the Anouti. All with the same damn name and the same damn face. One of the safeta had a name that was so obscenely hard on the tongue―composed as it was mainly of kays―that Marianus had renamed him Kuiskitkuidius.
“Come forward, Saftan,” Marianus barked, loud enough that no one could call him tired.
The slender, effeminate man with a generous behind took a step toward Marianus’s seat, bowing not near so low as Andral. Was it a slight? No time to dwell on it, whatever the case.
“Thank you, Heron.” The saftan had a soft, melodious voice. Up close, his dark eyes and smooth, pleasant features, bespoke southern, Ajwati, blood. “I have come with a gift for you, sent in advance of the new ambassador from Ajwata. A prize in honour of your magnanimity, and courage―a token of appreciation for the liberation of ek-Anout.”
Marianus cracked a smile that was mostly teeth. “It’s not cedar, is it?”
The strange saftan hesitated, glancing at Andral, who provided no explanation.
“No, Heron. Something more precious.”
For an instant, fire burned bright in Marianus’s breast. He couldn’t mean the water, could he?
Marianus flicked his forefinger, as though disinterested. “Nothing is more precious to me just now than cedar. I’d be careful if I were you. I’d give both your balls for a cedarwood table.” Assuming Rashid had any balls worth taking. His effeminacy suggested he was a eunuch, despite his slight frame.
Rashid inclined his head, beckoning the shadows beneath a pillared doorway to the right of the throne. The rattle of chains broke the fire-whipped silence of the hall as a manacled slave emerged from the darkness.
Could this man—no, boy—be one of the immortals Farnus had spoken of? “I have plenty of slaves.” Despite his words, Marianus couldn’t help sitting straighter and taller on the throne, peering past the shadows cast by the flickering fires to catch a glimpse of the young man.
The slave stepped forward, head hung.
Rashid tipped the boy’s chin up, brushing a stray curl from in front of the slave’s eyes.
He was beautiful.
“A gift,” explained Rashid, “from Prince Dan ek-Orjul of Ajwata. The honoured prince sent word that I should select the most handsome slave we could find and purchase him for you in advance of the prince’s arrival. This one, Heron, was bought from one of your own soldiers―part of the spoils of your mighty victory at Zimrida. A local boy―a commoner and fatherless, though he claims to be the son of a prince.”
“I am,” the handsome youth bit back, holding his head high.
Curious.
Marianus leaned forward. “What’s your name, boy?”
The slave stared sullenly past his wild curls, deep brown eyes fixed defiantly on Marianus. He had the look of the Masseni about him, that much was clear.
“I don’t know his name,” the boy answered, “only that he was a prince. My mother said so; she wouldn’t lie.” He paused, as though reluctant to divulge anything further. “My name is Adeo ek-Afkad.”
Marianus laughed. “Son of no one, prince of nowhere. Where is this Nowhere, Andral? I haven’t heard of it.” The boy truly was a spectacle. The senator’s inclinations had never leaned toward such sports, and yet . . . . “A fine gift. Have him cut. It will do honour to my household to have him present.”
Back in Lorar, Marianus’s rivals had nothing approaching such a creature. He was certain to impress at Caenus Murinus’s next party. How Baskius would fume with envy. And if Marianus fancied it, he could even claim the boy was a captured Masseni prince. After all, why not?
Nuna would dote on such a prize. Something to cheer her while they awaited the water. A pet to ease her worries and her aches.
Marianus’s belly hitched, and he gripped the throne to ground himself. He met Rashid’s gaze. A trick of the flames in the braziers made it seem as though the saftan’s eyes were glowing with hunger. “Is there something further?” Marianus released the arm of the throne and tapped it pointedly. “Have him cut and return to your business. In thanks to Prince Dan, I’ll leave several of my finest northern slaves behind as a token of friendship between us. Hardy, Feislander stock. I’ll not have it said I’m ungenerous.”
Dan—the Ajwati ambassador—wasn’t due for another month. Marianus would be sailing home across the Helit by the time he arrived. Even so, a delight such as the boy in front of him necessitated a gift of like value.
“Most kind, Heron,” said Rashid, who had taken hold of the slave-boy by the upper arm, digging his fingers into the young man’s brown skin. The saftan smiled, the expression drawing attention to a narrow scar beneath his pretty mouth. “I’ve taken the liberty of having the slave cut beforehand. And I should note he retains the function of his pleasurable parts. Only his ability to produce children has been affected by the process. You’ll find our slavers are quite skilled here in the city.”
“Again, very thoughtful. Have him taken to the slave quarters for now.”
Rashid bowed once more and was gone, dragging the boy along with him.
With a sigh, Marianus stood up. “Anything further, Andral? Or are there more safeti waiting to crawl out of the woodwork?”
“Safeta. And no, I don’t believe so. Fadil ek-Hitankhy wanted to speak with you, but it wasn’t urgent, as far as I could tell.”
Marianus nodded, relief flooding over him and cleansing his body of its immediate aches and pains. “If that is all, I would retire for the evening. See that your cedar furniture is transported to the dockmaster. My ships will arrive soon. I want everything ready to be loaded. Any remaining pieces should be distributed amongst the public spaces in the palace, so my replacement has something interesting to look at while he’s here.”
Andral disguised any further annoyance he might have felt with yet another bow, skittering to the opposite end of the hall and out the large double doors of the audience chamber, no doubt to the cramped little sarcophagus of a room the safeta used for their shouting matches. Marianus had taken one look at the flat, plain building that served as the safeta’s seat of power and insisted on something finer.
The safeta had gifted him this temple.
As Marianus stepped down from the dais, he turned to look back at the statue that had been pushed out of the way to make room for Marianus’s uncomfortable seat. The god’s face was shrouded by a thick brown sheet, but Marianus could still make out the curves and bends of its unnatural features and the pointed tips of its great horns.
A god of wealth and strength. A bull.
Andral had insisted it was an incomparable honour to be positioned before the face of such a god.
Marianus grimaced, all the same.
As he descended the last of the three steps leading down from the dais, the black-robed priests swarmed from the alcoves lining the room and began to sweep each of the stairs. Little worker ants, with no minds of their own. Even Lorai slaves had more character.
Soon enough, Marianus would be back amongst his people.
He wasn’t as fast on his feet as he’d once been, but he managed a brisk walk to the doors that emptied into what in a Lorai temple would have been the portico.
The air here was sweeter, the natural light filtering from a skylight above and the temple exit ahead. It was busier, too. Petitioners to Marianus dotted the portico, while supplicants to the shrouded bull god placed votives in every corner that would accommodate them.
Marianus avoided them all with a speedy march toward the light.
By the Good Ones it was sweltering and smokey here. He needed to breathe.
Before he could reach the arch that separated the soothing air of the city from the stagnation of the temple, darkness eclipsed the teasing light beneath the archway.
Marianus stopped walking.
A great, lumpen shadow limned by sunlight fractured into myriad man-sized shapes. Several of the shapes stepped to the side, belted swords clinking against their armoured skirts as they formed two lines to either side of a procession.
Lorai soldiers. What were they doing here? And who—
Kordelia.
Marianus’s lips twitched.
Kordelia and her daughter Priscilla strolled past the assembly of Lorai soldiers, Priscilla near as swarthy as the Anouti themselves. Kordelia’s full mouth was drawn in a hard line, though a distasteful glee glowed in her green eyes. Not one red hair was out of place, and a troubling confidence thundered from the womens’ feet.
The senate couldn’t possibly have agreed to gift ek-Anout—Marianus’s conquest, his prize, to Yakovius’s bitch, and yet what other reason could they have for being here?
Andral shuffled past the women, in a hurry, seemingly, to reach Marianus. His hideous face was wracked with panic. “Sese, your replacement, she appears to have arrived earlier than expected.”
Kordelia smiled. “Not a replacement, Saftan, a messenger. My daughter and I have come all this way to deliver a message to our dear hero, Marianus. Given Marianus Rufus’s hunger to subdue the south, the senate felt it only fitting he be rewarded with its stewardship. Such an honour, to be made sole bastion of Lorai order on the southern shore. Only a man of Lorar, slayer of Hurtha the Hungry, could be trusted to keep our interests protected from the vipers both within, and without, ek-Anout. In recompense for the sacrifices he has made on behalf of his country, the senate of Lorar has relieved him of the burdens of both the Pater and the senate. The curia has transported his wife, sons, and household here, to our beautiful city of Ledan, to live out his years as governor of our new province, and arbiter of its affairs.”
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