CHAPTER 8

Two Weeks Earlier in the Emperor’s Palace in Taela

“My Septs, We thank you for your patience in hearing out this trial over the past weeks.” The Emperor’s voice rang in the huge chamber where most of the Septs of the Empire gathered.

Phoran had practiced this moment in the privacy of his own rooms. He had gone over the reasons for doing it this way with his closest advisors. Phoran had played out all the scenarios, and this one worked the best.

“We have acted upon Our Own powers to grant pardon to all the young men known formerly as the Passerines of the Path. First because of their defense of Our Own Person, and second, so We could use their eyewitness accounts to bring to an end the era of the Secret Path, a clandestine group that has been plotting the destruction of the Empire from within.”

He paused, giving the Septs a chance to whisper with their advisors and colleagues. Some of the Passerines were sons of the Septs, mostly third or fourth sons who had caused their families no end of misery. Surely some of the Septs were glad Phoran had taken on the task of making useful men of their miscreants.

He’d offered each of the young men a place in the newly created Emperor’s Own, his own personal guard. Most of them had accepted. He wasn’t certain if that was a good thing or not—they had been chosen by the Path, after all, as the most amoral and corruptible young nobles of their generation.

“You have heard the testimony of these men, now Our Own, and also that of Avar, who is Sept of Leheigh and Our Own trusted counselor. We have also told you those things We observed Ourselves.”

Phoran secretly loved speaking of himself in the first-person royal. It struck him as an absurd but utterly effective way to remind them all that he—however unsuited for the job they thought him—was emperor. He glanced casually at the Septs, who had been sitting in their seats off and on for the better part of a week and were doubtless looking forward to getting the whole business over with. Of course, they only thought they knew what was going to happen.

“These testimonies,” Phoran continued, “were given to you to bring secret things out into the light where they might fade away and die, a threat no more. They were, moreover, given over for your judgment.” They waited now, he knew, for him to call for a verdict, a vote of guilt or innocence.

He had practice in showmanship, Phoran thought, though most of the men sitting in their exalted seats would not have noticed the way he’d orchestrated his drunken revels, manipulating the attendees for his own jaded amusement.

“But these, Our enemy, will find their justice from Us.” He gave the Septs no chance to murmur, but glanced down at the parchment that lay on his podium and began to read the long list of names aloud—merchants, guardsmen, generals, and minor nobles for the most part, but some few were royal servants. “These men all We find guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder—” and a dozen lesser charges that he recited with slow precision.

“These men We sentence to hanging. This shall be forthwith accomplished in the main market square, five each day until all be dead.”

He could have left this judgment to the Septs. Then all those deaths would be on their shoulders, not his. He had no doubt that the Septs would have found each of those men guilty.

“But these are not the only men who stand accused.” And this next group, no doubt, would have escaped justice if it had depended upon the Council of Septs. “Bring forth the Septs who stand accused.”

During this trial, he had succeeded in proving at least one emperor—Phoran’s own father—had been murdered. If he allowed the Council to set those murderers free, it would set a precedent he preferred to avoid.

He set the parchment down upon his podium and waited as his guardsmen brought in the thirteen Septs he’d been able to bring to trial. There were others who should have stood trial, guilty men who were too powerful for the evidence he could have brought against them. He was careful to keep his eyes off those men—among them Gorrish, the Council head.

The Septs came in, each man gagged and his hands bound behind his back. Each was escorted by two young men in green and grey, the colors of Phoran’s personal Sept, hastily resurrected for a uniform for the Emperor’s Own, a gold songbird in flight embroidered on the left shoulder.

Phoran thought it was the prisoners’ gags that were responsible for the murmurs he heard echoing in the cavernous chamber. Gorrish, he saw, was not among those talking. A Sept’s honor was considered above the need for bindings. Practicality, however, would have excused the tied wrists—the gag was an insult. Phoran didn’t mean the insult, but he needed those men silenced to complete his task.

The Emperor’s Own led their prisoners to the center of the floor, facing the ranks of seats where their peers watched them. Once they were in, Phoran stepped down from his podium and walked to the accused Septs.

The murmurs in the room quieted as the Septs waited to see what Phoran had planned.

“The Sept of Jenne,” Phoran said, standing in front of the accused and meeting his eye before stepping to the next. “Sept of Seal Hold.” There were thirteen of them in all. “Sept of Vertess.” Some of them were old men, men who had known Phoran’s father as he had not. Had known him and seen him assassinated as they’d assassinated also the uncle who had raised Phoran. Some of them were young men who had drunk his wine and eaten his food, thinking him a fat dupe—as he had been.

One by one he named them all.

This day, Phoran knew, he’d have to pay for the years he had allowed himself to be made into a fat capon. Phoran hoped the final cost of his sins would be something less than the price these men would pay for theirs.

“Your hands are bound,” he said, “because this day you are powerless before Us. Your tongues are stilled because you have had the chance to defend yourselves and We no longer hear your words.”

He turned to the rest of his Septs, letting his eyes roam the chamber. “We find these men, Septs all, guilty of murder and treason. We find this crime is more heinous than the crimes of lesser men, because the trust they betrayed was greater. We find their crimes dictate that the inheritance of their Septs will be Ours to do with as We choose.”

That caused rustles among his audience. Oh, there had been emperors who had interfered with inheritances before—but not in the last two centuries, not even in cases of treason. He would allow most of the heirs to keep their Sept, but that wasn’t the point. He wanted all the Septs to remember the power of the Emperor and set aside the memory of the fool they had believed him to be. He had to make them understand, viscerally, that their power came from him, and not the other way around.

“For their crimes We find that these former Septs shall be condemned to death.”

There was, on the floor of the Council of Septs, a raised stone, where a statue of a rearing stallion, the symbol of the Empire resided. Phoran rather thought that most of the Septs had forgotten the raised stone had originally been something other than a base for the statue.

He held out his hand and Toarsen, First Captain of the Emperor’s Own and former Passerine, stepped away from his honor guard position. Held at chest height and balanced upon his gloved hands was a rather large sword they’d tucked out of sight against the Emperor’s podium.

It was not Phoran’s own sword. They’d had to go into the storeroom and sort through dozens of weapons until they’d found something suitable.

Phoran took it from Toarsen and raised it, almost five feet of newly sharpened steel jutting out from a magnificently ornate two-handed grip. It was an awesome weapon—though not something he’d have cared to carry into a real battle against lighter, quicker blades.