Chapter 5
In the absence of the emperor—and, some said, even in his presence—Proconsul Zuberi was the most powerful man in Karystos. Nobles and senators alike vied for his attention. At least a dozen invitations arrived every day, offering everything from lavish spectacles to select gatherings of the elite. His numerous clients were also eager to offer their hospitality, as a sign of their loyalty. Should he choose to host his own party, any guests would be flattered by his invitation. But instead he chose to dine alone, in the suite set aside for his use at the imperial palace.
He was not a solitary man by nature, but tonight his thoughts were too private to be shared with another. He had allies, of course, but no one with whom he could speak candidly.
Not when he was contemplating treason.
Even as the word crossed his mind, he shook his head, shying away from it. It was not treason. He had put Lucius on the throne, and if he had the right to order a man crowned, surely he had the same right to strip him of that crown.
He would never have a better opportunity.
Once Lucius had announced his intentions to retire to the countryside, the courtiers had begun making their own preparations to visit their long-neglected estates. Even Lady Ysobel had left the city, if his spies in the Seddonian embassy were to be believed.
Lucius would have to die, of course, but that could easily be arranged. It would be easy for Zuberi to seize the reins of power, and with Karystos in his grasp, the rest of the empire would fall in line.
The legions preferred order. They would back whoever held Karystos as long as he did not jeopardize their privileges. Admiral Septimus, who commanded the imperial navy, was a trickier matter. He was of the old blood, and had reason to be loyal to Lucius. But he was also a pragmatic man and could be bargained with.
As for the rest—Zuberi already controlled the ministries. The senate was split into factions—some looked to him for leadership, others looked to his fellow councilor Senator Demetrios. Once the council had been made up of four men, but Simon had been murdered, and Brother Nikos had fled ahead of the emperor's justice. Paradoxically, reducing the council to just two men had made it more difficult, not less, to reach agreement.
And Demetrios had his own ambitions. His elder brother Prokopios had been the victim of a mysterious attack last year, and after lingering for several months, he had recently succumbed to his wounds.
Or poison. It was impossible to know for certain.
Demetrios had professed himself grief-stricken; but even if his grief were genuine, he must have realized that his brother's death now made him a candidate for the imperial throne.
Zuberi chuckled mirthlessly. Last year there had been too few candidates for the throne. Now there were too many.
It had been desperation that led them to choose Prince Lucius to fill the role of emperor. Lucius had proven himself surprisingly competent—far exceeding the role that Zuberi had intended for him. And while Zuberi did not like him, even he had to admit that it was Lucius's arcane knowledge that had put an end to Seddonian predations, inspiring their enemies to sue for peace.
But that did not mean that Lucius deserved to be emperor. Any man could read books. It took skill to lead an empire. Without Zuberi's guidance, Lucius was nothing.
Zuberi could have been emperor himself. Should have been the one to carry on Nerissa's legacy. But at the time he'd been dying of a tumor in his bowels. And with only months to live, he'd known that if he took the throne, he'd merely be condemning his son Bakari to death. A boy emperor would never be tolerated.
Ironically it was Lucius's magic that had cured Zuberi, though the memory of that day still caused him to shudder. His stomach clenched in remembrance of that violation. He'd been as repulsed by Lucius's magic as he'd been by the bloody tumor that had been literally pulled from his bowels.
Even now he felt unclean, though the physicians assured him he was cured.
The emperor had healed him not out of kindness, but to convince Zuberi to spare his life. And Zuberi had done so—but surely Lucius had known that any such alliance would only be fleeting.
It was time for Zuberi to make a choice. He could take the throne that should have been his all along, or he could allow Lucius to continue to rule. But for how long? Was he prepared to see Lucius married, and to one day pass the crown on to his son? A man who would bear the same taint of magic in his blood as the emperor?
The longer Zuberi waited, the more time he gave Lucius to build alliances and secure his grasp upon the throne. In time, Lucius might be strong enough to challenge him.
Even if Zuberi did not claim the throne for himself, there was nothing to prevent another from launching his own bid. He wondered if Demetrios, too, was contemplating treason on this fine summer night.
Whatever choice he made was fraught with peril. He considered the problem from all angles but had reached no decision by the time he retired.
It seemed he had barely fallen asleep when he was rudely shaken awake.
“A thousand apologies,” a voice said. “But he will not take no for an answer.”
Zuberi opened his eyes and saw his servant Melfi standing next to his bed. The dim lamplight illuminated Melfi's features, revealing a man who looked as bleary-eyed as Zuberi felt.
“What is it?” Zuberi asked, pushing himself up into a seated position.
If the proconsul had been required, he would have been awoken by one of the palace functionaries. The fact that it was Melfi at his bedside indicated that this was not imperial business. And he knew Melfi would not disturb him lightly.
Terror gripped his heart.
“My son, my wife?”
Melfi shook his head frantically. “All well, at last report. But your nephew . . .”
“Needs to speak with you. Alone.” Captain Chenzira loomed out of the darkness.
Zuberi stood up, absently accepting the robe that Melfi handed him. He waited as Melfi lit the lamps in his bedroom before bowing himself out of the chamber.
“I came here as swiftly as I could,” Chenzira began, and his very appearance proved the truth of his words; his uniform was speckled with sea spray. He smelled of the salt ocean and the sour sweat of a day spent under the hot sun. “I tried your residence first, and they directed me here.”
“The emperor, he is well?” Zuberi asked.
Chenzira glanced around, confirming that they were alone. “I do not know,” he said.
“What? How?”
Chenzira reached inside his tunic and withdrew a scroll, which he handed to Zuberi.
“The emperor left word that he wished to pass his journey in sleep. When Green Dragon reached Eluktiri, I anchored in the bay and waited until the second hour after dawn before sending a servant to rouse him. The servant found a drugged man sleeping in the emperor's place, and two scrolls. The first scroll directed me to return and to give you this.”
Zuberi's sleep-clumsy fingers could not undo the knotted ribbon. He tugged at it in frustration until Chenzira produced a knife and slit through it.
Zuberi, Proconsul of Ikaria, the missive began. Zuberi skipped through the formal salutations, noting not for the first time that the emperor's handwriting was as regular as any scribe's.
I would not lightly abandon my duties, but I am compelled to journey, traveling swiftly and in secret, Lucius had written. I will return as soon as I may. I know I may safely leave the empire in your care. Do what you will to preserve her.
“The thrice-damned fool,” Zuberi raged, throwing the scroll on the floor.
Chenzira, greatly overstepping his place, picked up the scroll and read it, but there was nothing there for him to discover. The emperor's words made no sense.
If, indeed, the emperor had even written this.
“What did your letter say?” Zuberi asked.
“Merely that the monk should not be punished, and urged me to return to speak with you.”
“The monk?” Did he see Brother Nikos's hand in this?
“I beg forgiveness, I thought I had told you already. Yesterday, or rather, two days ago, the emperor and his escort boarded my ship. He summoned a monk from the collegium and spoke with him at length. Shortly before sailing a man dressed as a monk left the ship, and I thought no more of it until I discovered that the emperor was missing, and the drugged man in his quarters called himself Brother Mensah.”
Had Lucius suspected that Zuberi was plotting to seize the throne? Was that why he had fled? But if so, why send word of what he had done?
If Lucius had even written the letter at all. Whatever message he had intended could easily have been replaced.
Yet if there were another hand at work here, how had he persuaded the emperor to leave the safety of Chenzira's ship? If Lucius had felt threatened, surely he would have turned to Chenzira, who was far too close to the emperor for Zuberi's tastes.
Unless, of course, Chenzira was part of the scheme. Zuberi stared at him, searching for some sign of guilt, but Chenzira returned his gaze steadily.
Still, illegitimate nephew or not, he could not afford to spare Chenzira. He had only Chenzira's word that the emperor had boarded the ship, then apparently left it of his own volition.
“Your men will need to be questioned,” Zuberi announced. “Discreetly, so we do not cause a panic.”
Chenzira nodded. “I gave orders that no man leave the ship,” he said. “I knew you would want to speak with them.”
“Not me. Nizam,” Zuberi said. It was too important to trust to anyone else. He could not afford to let his fondness for Chenzira blind him.
At the mention of the chief torturer, Chenzira swallowed hard. “And he will start with you,” Zuberi added.
“I should have been told at once,” Demetrios said. He rose to his feet and began to pace around the perimeter of the sunken bath.
Zuberi had chosen the private imperial baths as neutral territory for this meeting. With the emperor absent there was no risk that they would be disturbed, and the cascading fountains would make it difficult for any spies to overhear what was said.
But neither Zuberi's consideration nor the soothing elegance of their surroundings had served to mollify Demetrios.
“I thought it best to have the facts, first,” Zuberi said. He remained lounging on a wicker couch, the casualness of his posture belying the seriousness of the situation.
“Time to decide how to twist this to your own advantage,” Demetrios said, pausing in his circuit to turn to face Zuberi. “Be careful, you are not emperor. Yet.”
Zuberi returned Demetrios's glare.
“As proconsul, I—”
“You oversee the ministries and implement the emperor's commands,” Demetrios interjected. “But you are not the emperor, nor even his heir.”
This was ridiculous. Demetrios raised points of precedence, ignoring the very real problems they faced.
Though it would have been easier if Lucius had named an heir. It had been tacitly assumed that Zuberi was that heir, but a formal confirmation would require the approval of the imperial senate—and that would require Demetrios to renounce his own ambitions. The balance between them had been too delicate for Zuberi to force the issue, but then he'd never expected this situation.
Still, all was not lost. Should Zuberi seize power, he could always discover that Lucius had left a private will, naming Zuberi as his heir.
If Lucius were dead, which was a distinct possibility. It was now three days since he had walked off Green Dragon and seemingly vanished. Dead, fled, taken prisoner—anything could have happened.
“I did not bring you here to quarrel,” Zuberi said. “We need to decide what we will do.”
Demetrios gave a short nod and made his way back to his chair. His face was flushed, from anger or perhaps merely the heat of the baths.
“Do you believe Chenzira?” he asked.
It was not an easy question. “I believe Captain Chenzira had told us the truth as he perceives it. But it is entirely possible that he himself was deceived.”
“Though not by his crew. Nor the monk.”
“No. Nizam made certain of that.”
Nizam had questioned all those who had come in contact with both the monk and the emperor. If, indeed, it had been Lucius who had boarded the ship.
Perhaps the emperor had disappeared even earlier in the day, and the functionaries had been tricked by an actor playing his role. Though if so, the likeness had been good enough to fool even the palace functionary who had accompanied him.
“Why would he leave? What is this journey he spoke of? He mentioned nothing to me,” Demetrios said.
“Nor to me,” Zuberi said. Though, if Lucius had seen fit to confide in either of them, he would have picked Demetrios for his confidences. Demetrios had been the first on the council to support him, unlike Zuberi, who'd only been reluctantly persuaded that the emperor's suggestions occasionally had merit.
“He's been ill . . .” Demetrios's voice trailed off.
“Fatigued,” Zuberi insisted. He'd heard the palace servants gossiping that the emperor was God-touched, but such superstitions were for the weak-minded. Lucius was merely fatigued, afflicted by nothing more than the relentless summer heat. Even the imperial physician had agreed that the emperor simply needed a restoring stay in the countryside.
“But if he did not write that letter, then who did? And why?”
“To draw us off the scent,” Zuberi said. “As for who—Lady Ysobel left Karystos the very same day that the emperor disappeared.”
According to his spies, she'd left in secret, not even informing the federation ambassador of her plans. At the time, he'd thought the deception meant to disguise her intent to follow the emperor to his estate in Sarna, in violation of the unwritten rules of the court. He'd amused himself by imagining her dismay when she realized that the emperor was on Eluktiri instead.
Now he wondered.
“He would not have gone with her willingly. But would she be bold enough to kidnap him? In daylight, from amidst men sworn to defend him with their lives?”
“She was once bold enough to plot to overthrow Empress Nerissa,” Zuberi argued. But privately he agreed that it was unlikely that she had kidnapped Lucius off Green Dragon. Still, she could have tricked him into leaving the ship, then taken him.
“What could she hope to accomplish?”
“His death gains her nothing,” Zuberi said. Emperors could be replaced, and there was no guarantee that Lucius's successor would be any more favorably inclined toward the federation. “Alive, he can be brought to the federation in chains, to force us to agree to their terms.”
And if they had kidnapped Empress Nerissa, Ikaria would have beggared itself to ransom her. But there were few who would shed a tear for Emperor Lucius, and fewer still who would risk their lives or treasure to recover him.
“Too risky to transport him so far,” Demetrios said. “She may have taken him looking for the secrets of the Burning Terror, and will kill him once she learns what she needs to.”
“A half dozen men know the same secrets, Captain Chenzira among them,” Zuberi countered. “Far easier to take one of them than an emperor.”
Though Chenzira and the others had sworn to take their own lives rather than risk giving such a deadly weapon to their enemies. So Ysobel might have rightly judged Lucius as a man more open to persuasion.
“Admiral Septimus has sent messages to his fleet, with the names and descriptions of all ships that sailed before we began searching them, and Petrelis's men are scouring the city,” Zuberi said. “We will find him.”
Hopefully before they had to make a public announcement that the emperor was missing. They could keep this quiet only so long. Eventually someone would talk.
“For now, we act as if nothing has changed. The emperor is resting on Eluktiri, and we are governing in his absence,” Demetrios said.
“Agreed.”
It was ironic. Mere days ago Zuberi had been contemplating treason and now he was fervently hoping for the emperor's safe return.
If Zuberi seized the throne and Lucius was later found to have been taken by the federation, everyone would believe that Zuberi had plotted with Lady Ysobel to bring about Lucius's demise. Even his own clients would distance themselves from a man they viewed as a traitor.
No, until he knew what had happened to Lucius, he could do nothing except play the role of the emperor's most loyal servant.
And Demetrios would do the same. Their alliance was preserved. For now.
Ysobel shivered in the chill dawn air, sipping the weak tea the crew had provided with breakfast. Passengers milled around her as those who were leaving the ship gathered up their possessions. Only a single set of sails had been raised as the ship maneuvered its way into the harbor. There was no dock space available, but the deck officer Maurizio had announced that lighters would ferry passengers to shore—for two coppers a head. Some grumbled, but most appeared to have expected this indignity.
Ysobel suspected a portion of those coppers would wind up in Maurizio's purse—a minor corruption that a good captain would have taken care to stamp out.
Any could disembark here if they chose, but those who were continuing on with Tylenda needed to return by midafternoon, or risk being left behind.
As the ship dropped anchor, a group of passengers surged to the port side of the ship, shoving to be first in line, though no lighters had yet arrived to bear them off. Guided by Maurizio's curses, the sailors began lowering Tylenda's gig, in preparation for the captain's journey ashore.
She frowned as her eyes swept over the deck. There was still no sign of Burrell, who had not made an appearance for breakfast. Neither had the monk, which perhaps explained Burrell's absence. If anything untoward had happened, she surely would have heard. She'd found the sailors to be as free with their gossip as they were stingy with their provisions.
Still, she ought to see for herself and hope the confusion of coming into a new port meant that there would be no one belowdecks to witness her entering the forbidden male quarters.
She drained the last of her tea and tucked the empty cup into the bag she'd tied to her belt. Pushing away from the deck rail, she started to walk to the hatchway, only to pause as Burrell came into view.
Since they both followed the custom of carrying their belongings with them, it would be simple for them to depart once the lighters began to arrive. There would be no need to jostle for a place in line. A few coins slipped into Maurizio's hand would ensure that she and Burrell left first.
“What kept you?” she asked. “I want to leave as soon as we are able.”
It had taken her a long, sleepless night, but she'd made her decision. Burrell had convinced her; the man aboard Tylenda was not the emperor, merely someone who had the misfortune to bear an uncanny resemblance to the imperial family. Perhaps even a double, as Burrell had conjectured, fleeing once his usefulness was at an end.
Burrell shook his head. “Our friend was unwell,” he said in a soft voice.
“Unwell?”
Burrell shrugged, his features revealing his confusion. “I do not know what else to call it. He woke last night in a fit. I tried to calm him, but I would swear he didn't know me, nor where he was.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Not that I could tell. Nor feverish,” he added, anticipating her next question.
“Is he still sick?”
Two sailors bearing a chest between them tried to shove past her, and after fixing them with a glare, Ysobel belatedly remembered her assumed role. She retreated back to the rail as Burrell followed. These sailors had no reason to pay her any deference; nor could she afford to rouse their suspicions.
“He was quiet for some time, after he calmed,” Burrell said. “His eyes were closed, but I could tell he was not sleeping. When dawn came, he opened his eyes and asked if we were in Samos harbor. But he has not moved from his pallet. I don't know if he can.”
The elderly were known to have such fits of confusion and paralysis, but the monk was still a young man. Nor had he asked for help, which meant that he, at least, knew what afflicted him.
“We know the emperor was suffering from fits . . .”
“If that was the emperor,” Burrell added. “This may still be the same man—perhaps he's too ill to play the part of the emperor any longer, which is why they are getting rid of him.”
“Or it could be Lucius himself,” Ysobel countered. “Journeying in search of a cure.”
Burrell threw up his hands in frustration. “What would you have us do?”
“You will stay here to keep watch over the monk. If he tries to leave the ship, then you will follow him. I'll go ashore and send word back to the ambassador, and to the federation. Let them know that Lucius is not resting in the countryside but rather sailed to an unknown destination, and we are following a man who may lead us to him.”
“Let us hope the warning reaches them in time,” Burrell said. “I still think Lucius sailed aboard Green Dragon.”
He disagreed with her, but she did not mind. She appreciated his candor, as much as she valued his honesty. Once she'd announced her intention to leave this ship, he could easily have kept quiet about the monk's strange illness. Instead he'd shared the news with her, knowing that she might see it as proof that her suspicions were right.
“Even if we sailed on the fastest of ships, we could not hope to catch Green Dragon,” Ysobel said. “Not without knowing her destination.”
It was a peace offering, of a sort. There was nothing they could do except send word and urge others to prepare.
“And if Lucius leads his fleet to war while we are ferrying ducks and peasants along the coast?”
“The mistake will be mine, as will the consequences,” she said.
“I stand by you, whatever you decide,” Burrell said, refusing to accept her generosity.
He would question her to her face, but resolutely defend her before all others. Such loyalty was rare, and she strove to be worthy of his trust.
If she was wrong—well, she would deserve whatever befell her. As for Burrell—if she thought with her heart, she'd be tempted to send him away so that he would not suffer for his loyalty. Which would have been foolish, since she needed him. Needed him to go to places where she could not, needed to know that if anything happened to her, there was someone who would carry on. Which only served to remind her of all the reasons why she had not taken him as a lover.
He trusted her judgment, and she needed to trust it as well. To know that she charted the course that had the best chance of success rather than giving in to her own desires. He was a friend, yes, and already that friendship had tempted her to put personal considerations first, ahead of her duty. Which was the surest path to a failure that would doom them both.
She must not forget that they were in enemy territory, where a single mistake could get them both killed.
Burrell would stay with her, as aide and confidant. And she would trust in her instincts to keep them both safe.