This day was different. First came the soldiers with Blackfin and an army of servants who brought up a copper hip bath, and endless buckets of hot and cold water. I lay there as they stripped my filthy clothes off and told me to climb in. They poured water over me and it didn’t matter whether it was cold or hot–both felt the same to me. My hair was scrubbed, cut short on the neck and my nails tended to. Through it all, I remained passive even though the scent of their blood was intoxicating.
“Tobias,” the wizard said sharply and slowly, I turned to face him.
“What?”
“You are going to the Council Hall to greet the members so they can vote on a new declaration of war. Listen, this is what I want you to say.” He proceeded to tell me lies about how the Elassa had murdered my parents and I was to give an impassioned plea to beg them to declare war and avenge my family. If he was expecting passion, I was far from that when I recited it back.
My grandfather complained. “He sounds like a flat, drugged puppet.”
“Well, he is, Avril. Drugged and a puppet, poisoned with silver nitrate and warded with the most powerful spells I know. If you read the legends, you would know that these Dracule were the most fiendish, violent and nearly indestructible creatures the pre-cataclysm days had ever seen. We are lucky that we found those books that told us how to control one. Can you imagine such a monster loose in Ehrenberg?”
“Will he be ready to address the Council by Solstice? The Emperor’s fleet could leave on the high tide when approval is voted that day,” my grandfather questioned.
“If he’s the Emperor, why does he need their permission?” I asked and was slapped for it. Still, he answered me.
“Because he needs the backing of the Barons of the Southern Lands and to supply the men and arms,” I was told.
“So you’re an Emperor in name only,” I snorted and my grandfather hit me so hard I felt my head snap back and dropped to my knees. I saw stars and when next I was totally awake, I was looking up at their faces. I tasted blood. For an old man, he punched like a mule.
The water had long since gone cold when I was ordered out, dried with harsh linen towels and dressed like a dressmaker’s dummy in clothing so rich that they would have fed three Newlander families for a year. Silks, sateen and embroidered vest in fine wool. They had chosen a suit of deep violet color with a golden vest, white silk hose and high-heeled black leather dress shoes with diamonds on the buckles. My sleeves were gathered with long, lacy cuffs that dangled annoyingly and would get into everything. Until a valet pinned them back with diamond and amethyst cufflinks. He tried to paint my lips and pluck my eyebrows but I pushed him away before he could inflict such tortures on me. Last, a strange little man with a foppish air did my hair, brushed it up high and smiled happily at the profusion of curls. Powdered it so that it gleamed silvery and tried to put jewels in it and on my ears. That too, I declined and neither Lord Spencer nor Blackfin pressed the issue.
Finally, when my grandfather pronounced me fit and presentable, I was herded into the cage he called a ‘lift’ and it descended by means of a chain and windlass that raised and lowered it.
For the first time in months, I was allowed out of the Tower cell into what I learned was the Armory and Guard Barracks. Scores of armed men watched me from unblinking eyes as I was marched through their home turf.
From there I was escorted to an underground passage that housed the smithy, armorer’s forge, stores and a whole community whose sole purpose was to maintain the guards above. No wonder men were so eager to join the elite forces at my grandfather’s. They had every need provided for, even brothels.
No one stopped their work to watch me but stare they did as I shuffled along in my fine new suit marred only by the presence of the guards and my shackles. From their whispered comments, I heard only pity that my ordeals had driven me insane and I had to be restrained for my safety. My lips twisted sardonically, it was a good thing for them that I was not free to sample the smorgasbord I smelled just beneath their flimsy skin.
We emerged into a small courtyard concealed on three sides by a high wall guarded by the Earl’s soldiers who walked the ridgeline and maintained a stout bailey gate which was open.
Parked inside was a coach---one of those used to transport criminals and behind it, the Earl’s fancy regatta brougham. I knew which one I was bound for but they surprised me. I was thrown up onto the velvet lined seat, un-manacled at the hands but my ankle chains were run through a bolt in the floor. I could stand or sit but not fall or throw myself out.
Blackfin sat beside me and my grandfather opposite. Both were dressed in Court attire with jewels, medals and the glitz that Oldlanders favored and Newlanders sneered at.
“Will he speak as you prepped him?” he asked anxiously.
“Aldi needs the approval to sway the public opinion and force a draft.”
“Don’t worry, Avril, he will be brilliant,” the witch promised.
The coach and brougham exited the bailey onto back lanes bordered by huge elms and oak trees, heading back into the city. We entered by the East Gate and already, crowds had formed, lining the sides of the streets to catch a glimpse of the people’s royalty.
We were near the Merchant Lanes, where the shops of Candle makers, milliners and other skilled artisans plied their trade.
The Council Halls were sprawled along the river Tavon, a huge complex that housed the offices of the day to day working government. The Emperor’s Palace was the grand jewel in its center. Nearby were the Head Quarters of his army and the infamous Walcott Prison. All discretely hidden behind massive yew trees.
I turned my head and saw her. Those incredible silvery eyes that even changed to an icy blue I would recognize anywhere. She was on foot, dressed in working day clothes of a well-to-do middle class woman holding a purse in front of her.
I mouthed her name and shuttered both my eyes and my mouth lest the wizard catch me. Asked instead as I stood under the bright mid-morning sunshine. “How is it that I do not burn?”
“I found a formula of chemicals that block those rays from the sun that harm your skin. It prevents the sunlight from burning you. Taken internally it is stronger than if I just applied it to your skin. Plus, the suit was specially made to do the same. It also has tracer wires in the weave that allow me to track your whereabouts should you escape me,” Blackfin explained.
“So, I remove it,” I laughed.
“Try. You would peel your own skin off before you could remove the suit,” he sneered. “This is only a small iota of the technology I have translated and created from the past.”
“Then, how do I take it off to sleep, bathe, change for clean ones?”
“I will remove them, not you.”
I turned to my grandfather. “Will you let this…sodomite touch me? This unclean perverted creature of wizardry? Did you not kill your own son for such blasphemy?”
He stared straight ahead ignoring my words yet I saw his eyes flicker on the Wizard once and Blackfin’s own countenance stiffened. Today, he wore robes of gold and black, with loosed flowing trousers that were neither masculine nor feminine. He could be taken for a very effeminate man and I surmised he did not want to push the High Council against himself.
I tried not to stare at Arianell nor ask her anything with my eyes. Blackfin had said that my face told every thought I had yet I knew I had to keep these thoughts from him or both Arianell and I would perish.
I stared straight ahead and thought of the tortures he had inflicted on those poor children in an attempt to bind me. I thought of racing the stallion across the golden wheat fields of Cayden’s Valley and my mother’s laughter as she hugged me. When I was sure that I could look without exposing either of us to his curiosity, I searched the crowd for her only to find she was gone.
The imposing façade of parliamentary building filled my eyes. Six stories high with fluted marble columns, a covered portico and marbled steps, each tier guarded by soldiers in scarlet and black with lethal rifles and swords. They stood at attention, not moving a muscle until there was a threat or a perceived one.
The closed wagon stopped first and the armed, dress-uniformed force dismounted first. They surrounded the Emperor, the Warlord and escorted them inside. Blackfin and I were ushered in last and I was made to wait in a small ante-chamber set aside for convicted prisoners awaiting trial. There were no windows and the door led directly to a jail cell and the court chambers. On the walls, I saw scratched into the moldings the desperate words of others who had waited before me. Names and dates and each one told a story in one or two sentences. Idly, I scratched my own name, Toby Spencer and the date of my birth.
Blackfin called our names and my grandfather pulled me to my feet, hovering anxiously over me. “Blake, are you sure?” He started and the witch was calm and soothing.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Avril. I know what I’m doing, I’ve had lots of practice on the prison inmates. I can coerce them into doing anything–even kill their own children.”
He held out a goblet filled with red-tinged fluid, it smelled like blood but sweeter as if laced with honey. “Drink,” he commanded and I did so, savoring the exquisite flavor of honeyed blood and wine. My head whirled and I licked out the well with my fingers.
“Tobias, you will approach the postern, bow to the Emperor, all the Justices and the Lords. Face the Council when you speak. When you are done, you must bow and return to this room. Do not tarry, do not let them ask you questions. There will be an archer on you with a silver tipped arrow pointed at your heart. He will loose it if you deviate one word or one step. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Go then. Do this well and you will be rewarded. Fail and you will know the meaning of pain, torture and a longing for death,” he promised. He pushed me through the doorway minus my shackles and the chains on me now were magical, engraved on my heart and in my mind.
I looked towards the High Tiers where the Councilmembers sat in a half-moon shape with the Emperor on the side seated on his throne.
Thousands of faces spread out before me, all pale blobs but I could not pick out just one. As I reached the postern and stepped up on the single step, I paused. Felt someone else’s thoughts enter my brain and take over. I knew my mouth spoke words that made them cry, made them shout and made them demand vengeance. I marveled at the tears that ran down my face and if I was the only one to notice that they were blood-red, no one else said anything.
When I was done, I gripped the bottom of the postern rail and heaved for breath as if I were overcome with anguish. Roars broke out behind me as a multitude of voices screamed out for justice. I turned to bow and it was if the ground was moving out from under my feet. I grabbed for the wood to catch myself yet saw the postern tumble over and I hit the floor. Cracked my elbows and face on the step and lay there stunned as hundreds raced to help me from the chamber’s pit. The first to reach me was one of the Council Justices, he pulled me away and set me against his robes which he wadded under my head. He had a kind face, his eyes were dark brown and worried.
“Lord Spencer, what happened?”
Blackfin shouldered his way through the crowd and knelt at my side. “Justice Piedmont, Tobias has been infected by his travails with the Elassai that murdered his family. He is very ill. He insisted he rise from his sick bed to speak before the Council votes on the question of war. As you can see, he feels passionately about it but I fear the excitement has proven too great for him. We must get him to the Warlord’s townhouse and doctor him.”
“Whatever he needs, Sir Blake,” the Justice nodded. “Just ask. I knew his father and I too, want revenge on the bastards that killed him.”
Blackfin got me to my feet and I was shuffled swiftly back under armed guard to the carriage, thrown in and traveled inside the wagon with the soldiers, not the fancy brougham. Unable to move, speak or protest.