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i. i don’t want to rule or conquer anyone
When Regula Hydrus is eight years old, he is invited to meet the Emperor.
Raised a scion of a family who will see him stand in equality beside the throne, Regula knows that there is no such thing as denying an Imperial invitation, and attends with a gravity that he has been told is unbecoming of his tender age.
When he is called onto the balcony to see Solus, the Emperor is reclining comfortably upon a couch, bereft of the armor of office, reading a dispatch. A Centurio stands at attention before him, and he murmurs something while Regula stands beside the door to back into the Imperial apartments, the summer sun, as bright as it ever is in the capital, casting some little warmth onto his face. The Centurio salutes and leaves, the doors shutting behind them.
In the remaining silence, Regula is left alone, a lamb trapped between the lion and the wolf.
Beside the couch, the Legatus of the newly-levied XIVth stands at parade rest, speaking inaudibly to the Emperor, who has turned his head toward the other man just enough to indicate listening. Solus, now in middle age, is not what Regula had expected of him: he is used to portraits of the Emperor as a young Dictator, when his hair was still a rich royal hue, his cheeks unshaven. Now, his hair has grown in longer than is fashion, grey most of the way through. What little purple remains is scattered and mostly confined to his beard, cropped close to hide the weight he has lost, the sallow thinning of his skin. His eyes are fever-bright—as bright as Varis’ are, if not brighter—and in only a shirt and breeches, rings of office glinting heavy upon his fingers, he commands such attention it is as if the very sphere of the star itself is focused upon him.
When he speaks in response to van Baelsar, he turns his head up, and it is an intimate gesture, one of trust. Regula remembers, reminds himself, that Varis has said Regula will be to Varis as Gaius is to Solus, and he has a chance, now, to see what this means. To see how the Legatus stands as if the lode that pulls him north is the Emperor.
“Boy,” Solus says, and Regula snaps to attention. Salutes, with perfection drilled from practice, crosses to stand before him as if at audience.
The two men watch him, taking judge in accompaniment of worth and measure both. Neither of them speak, although they seem, with the ease of long practice, to communicate some silent understanding of his stature, slight though it may yet be. When the Emperor catches Regula’s gaze, he feels a shudder as if the cold of winter is seeping beneath the beds of his nails, as if he has been staked to the floor and forced to stand upright.
The weight of that gaze is searing.
“The Hydrus boy,” Solus says, at last. His accent, as Regula must remind himself time and time again, to not notice it, is rural. He is not as is Varis, born to rule. This is a man who took account of the world and, when he found it wanting, bent it to his will until the rules and laws which governed it snapped and built themselves anew in his image. “Regula, was it.”
“Yes, Your Radiance.”
“I did not ask a question,” Solus says, and the bite of his tongue is akin to a lash—Regula notices, too late, his reflexive flinch. “So you are the scion of that estimable tree who would place your roots beside my boy.” Regula does not flinch this time as their eyes meet: he remains steady and still.
He is no stranger to fear. To live in Garlemald, to travel as a satellite in the shade of a boy who would someday be Emperor, is to find fear within every shadow. But this—this is not fear. This is perterritus; a terror so great it cannot be named, a disquietude that makes his stomach roil.
“Tell me, Regula Hydrus. Do you know what it is to sate the need of the insatiable?” Solus presses his fingertips to his chin, beneath his full lower lip, his gaze flat and hideous. “Were you so asked, Regula Hydrus, how great a burden would you bear from his shoulders?”
“As great as asked, Your Radiance.”
Solus snorts, derision in the callous line of his mouth, and waves van Baelsar forward. “Kill him.”
For a heartbeat, Regula thinks Gaius will hesitate. He knows that the Legatus did but of a fortnight past put down Varis’ father, bloodstains upon his beloved’s atrium floor, but that was a man grown, vying for a crown for which he had no right, a first test of the new blade Midas nan Garlond made for the Legatus. He has a moment of hope, that this is a test of another sort, to test if the blade can be stilled.
Then Gaius steps forward. He towers over Regula, a tall man full-grown, made larger by his armor, the black mask unreadable and pitiless, the gaze of his visor empty and blank. He does not hesitate once—there is no reluctance in his step, no remorse, no second-guessing—as he grasps Regula’s collar in a single hand. He does not lift Regula, simply drags him the ten paces to the rail of the balcony, and each of those steps Regula feels—
He is cold and far away. He can hear his heartbeat and taste his own terror, an acrid tang upon the back of his tongue. He cannot breathe. His chest is tight. His lungs feel as if they are beneath deep water. He cannot blink. He cannot move. He cannot lift but a single finger, cannot unstick his tongue to speak. Gaius does not slow, an inexorable strength that reaches the railing, and then he lifts Regula by his collar, lifts him one-handed, the stitching of his jacket and shirt all that hangs between him and—
Regula looks down.
Regula looks down, and down, and down, from the top of the Imperial palace, to the ground, far below.
He will die before he hits it. He knows this. He has learned this. Varis has shared it with him.
“Heel!” Solus commands, and Gaius stops, as if a guard dog yanked back by the leash. His arm, extended at the elbow, does not even tremble beneath Regula’s weight. Regula, hanging impassive, too frightened to move or twist in the Legatus’ grip, looks toward the Emperor, where he remains reclining upon his couch, those slender fingers pressed to his lower lip.
Gaius does not turn. He does not need to see his lord and master; he is but an extension of that arm. Regula understands now. Gaius van Baelsar is a sword, and Solus zos Galvus is the hand which wields it. A sword has no needs and no wants.
A sword does what it is told to do.
A sword kills.
“Tell me, boy,” Solus says at last, when the cold wind up from below has made Regula shiver, teeth chattering, holding tight to Gaius’ wrist with both hands, his shirt riding up from where it was once tucked in, shaking all over. He has begun to slide down. His weight is a fulcrum that gravity is ready to flip. “Cor aut mors?”
Regula swallows, and says, as clear as he can, his voice not quavering, with a belief that before this moment he could scarce imagine had such vehemence, this moment, as he understands what will be asked of him if he is to be a weapon, a shield, a sword, a dog, he who will continue the attack when all is lost, when there is no surrender, no retreat, and, nay, no victory, either: “Unhand me, Sir, for if I must die for My Lord, then mors mihi lucrum.”
Solus zos Galvus smiles.
ii. to those who can hear me, i say: do not despair
When Regula pyr Hydus is sixteen, he is invited to meet the Wolf.
It is, of course, not their first introduction: half a lifetime ago, Gaius van Baelsar tested Regula and his loyalty in a crucible that had shattered his fragile childhood, brought him out the other side a man.
“Curious,” Gaius van Baelsar says, not turning from where he stands, arms folded behind his back, head bowed to stare down at the table before him, a map of western Ilsabard laden with troop formations upon it. “Your name upon my levy roster is curious. Your Lord and Master serves within the XIth. I had expected you to be with him. But here you are, hardly yet a boy, serving in my legion.” He straightens and turns, his helmet impassive and unreadable. “Permit me my idle curiosity as to why.”
“They say,” Regula says, in the careful way of a young man raised to speak in at a court who stands with a dagger at every throat, “That the Black Wolf is a dog more of loyalty than sense, and thus the Emperor leaves him unleashed, for he comes when called. So would I be taught to heel.”
Gaius, without Solus, through the eyes of an adult, is a very different man. With Solus, he is a secondary, paler refection of the Emperor’s burning presence; a shade of the sun upon the surface of Hydaelyn. With Solus, it could be possible to overlook him, for beside Solus all are but pale imitations. Alone, however, there is an intensity to him, something electric, of peril and threat and focus. This is a man who was made Legatus younger, even, than the Emperor; this is a man who has conquered already more lands than most will ever see.
This is a man who once held a child hundreds of fulms above thin air, and would have not blinked an eye to let him drop.
He is, Regula at last realizes, called the Black Wolf for reasons more than loyalty. A creature once-feral cannot ever be truly tamed.
“You are full of surprises,” there is humor warm in Gaius' voice, a laughter hidden beneath the modulation of his helmet. “And how would you have me do that, pyr Hydrus?”
“You are the smith, Sir,” Regula replies. “I would have you hone me however you see fit. Your blade beside mine is keen beyond reckoning.”
Gaius hesitates but a moment longer. “I believe we can make something of you yet, a boy so eager for glory. On your knees, Optio,” he says, and Regula nearly cries in relief, for he has never more wished to kneel.
iii. who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder
When Regula sas Hydrus is twenty-four, he is invited to meet the Legatus.
He is recalled from Ala Mhigo with a summons to the Capital that comes overnight, commanded for redeployment from the XIVth to the IInd, a promotion to Tribunus Laticlavius beneath a new Legatus. His orders stipulate his attendance be immediate. When he arrives in Garlemald, Regula is taken to the Legatus’ personal chambers, the hour late and his arrival delayed by foul weather. He is still in uniform, but removes his helmet before he is shown inside, holds it beneath his arm as he is announced.
The Legatus waiting for him is a man he has not seen in three years. Varis yae Galvus, who once stood to shoulder with him, now is another handspan taller, his sharp face rendered handsome and jagged with the maturity of command. Varis' firm mouth flickers but a momentary smile upon seeing him, one Regula finds himself hard-pressed to not return, his manners made mockery by affection.
“You look well, My Lord,” Regula says, his voice as still as he can make it. “Your newfound title suits you.”
“As does yours, Tribunus. I have heard from Lord van Baelsar many fine things about your standing in his esteem.” The years of letters they have exchanged from abroad can hold nothing to the sound of his voice, the timbre of it, the texture of the vowels upon his lips, deepened and smoothed by their years apart. “He is not a man given freely to praise. I can only hope that you perform as well at my command as you did at his.”
“You do me a disservice, My Lord,” Varis arches one sharp brow. “To believe I would treat as such with a king as I would with a dog.”
Varis’ eyes are very dark, very wide, and Regula is better-honed steel than he was when Gaius took him to the whetstone. He does not require either order or request. He is a weapon, his lord and master before him now to call him to account, to praise the keenness of his edge.
Regula kneels.
Varis tests his sharpness, and finds the blade to his liking.
iv. don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty
When Regula van Hydrus is forty, he is invited to meet a dying man.
The whole of Garlemald knows they are within the confines of a coming wake, and even from as far as Doma, Regula has been kept abreast of the situation by Varis in his letters. His hands rarely err from the truth, even if his handsome mouth must by necessity all-too-often bespeak lies, and Regula has little hope for the situation.
Solus zos Galvus is dying, and has summoned him hence.
Varis meets him at the palace upon his arrival, and there is an unusual cast to the other man’s face; some pall already hangs over him. When Regula asks if Varis knows the purpose for his summons, the askance look is perhaps more worrying than any single answer. It is less reassuring by magnitude to know naught than to know anything; Solus, even in his decrepitude, is far from senile.
He would not withdraw Regula from the far East were it not upon a purpose.
The Emperor’s rooms have their windows shut and shuttered against the autumn gales blowing down off of the Northern Empty, the fires are banked high and the lights are set low. The narrow-faced, feline grace that still cloaked Solus when he was yet in middle-age has long deserted the man sitting before Regula now. Hunched, one eye cloudy with cataracts, the right side of his face strangely still and his mouth a twisted crag after an attack of apoplexy the previous summer, Solus is now a predator one lean year from carrion.
Nothing, however, has reduced his presence, and Regula kneels and is almost joyful for it. “Your Radiance,” he says, facing the floor. He feels as if a child again, all that he has gained upon his own merit stripped away and left to prove himself once more worthy. “You asked to see me.”
“Boy. Get up,” Solus says, shortly, his impatient voice shattered with age. Regula rises, finds the man watching him: searing, now as then. “I had half expected to find your arrival attended by my demise. You long to see your master upon the throne, do you not?” The abrupt demand of his honesty has left him without sense, his mouth numb around unspoken words. “I have little time for prevarication and less for flattery. Either speak truth or leave my sight.”
Regula clears his throat at last, his voice cracking as he speaks. “I confess, Your Radiance, I had entertained such thoughts.” As Legatus, he has not had his arms searched. Regula could run Solus through. He’s in failing health and unarmed. It would be the work of but moments.
“Then what stays your hand?”
“I have no legion to defend my Lord’s claim, and Gaius van Baelsar yet lives.”
At this, Solus throws his head back and laughs; it is an ugly, raucous sound, dissonant enough to make Regula's hair stand on end beneath his helm. “An unexpected jest. Gaius is little beholden to me.” All Garlemald, too, knows this—the Emperor and his favorite are now as men apart, sitting on either side of the continent, at peace as allies and at war as lovers. “For all you know, he might thank you for robbing him of the responsibility.”
Wrong-footed in this strange audience, his childhood memories (hazy with more than a score of years passed) at war with his current situation, Regula’s better sense is deserting him, his tongue not curbed and his patience sapped. “Should you die before Gaius, Sir, all Garlemald knows he will pick who sits the throne. A well-trained dog seeks not betrayal, and I for one pray I live not to see the day where the Black Wolf finds it mete to turn upon its master, for I fear not even death itself would withstand the task of stopping it.”
Gaius van Baelsar may have little love lost with his liege-lord, but Heirsbane has whet its appetite upon the last nine who had clung too tightly to ultimate power. As long as Gaius lives, Gaius will decide the succession.
Sometimes, a fact is so simple it need not even be stated for all to know the truth at the heart of the matter.
Solus looks at Regula as if he is, for the first time, seeing him whole. “I fear,” he murmurs at last, “My grandson knows not what a boon is a confidante who would subsist on loyalty in lieu of bread.” The Emperor gives Regula an expression he is well-worn with from Varis; an identical cocked eyebrow, a half-smile. “And does my beloved grandson know what you would see done to see him crowned? Cor aut mors?”
“Morior invictus,” Regula replies, and means every word.
v. by the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power
When Regula van Hydrus is forty-two, he is invited to meet his Emperor.
Regula is blessed to bow at his feet, to pledge a loyalty he has held from the moment he knew how to speak the words, and watches Varis take the throne that Regula helped him win. Perhaps, were he a more loyal son of Garlemald, Regula would mourn the passing of her founder—just as a truly loyal son of Garlemald would mourn the loss of the Black Wolf who did once so fiercely defend her masthead, but Regula finds within him nothing for either.
His Varis, brilliant as sunlight upon the water, cruel as Garlean winter, sits now the throne that Regula cut for him, freed it from the grasp of bone and gore. What van Baelsar was to Solus zos Galvus, van Hydrus is and more to Varis zos Galvus, and the middle syllable of that name tastes like nectar on his tongue when he speaks it as a litany, a prayer, into Varis’ mouth.
Regula cuts down no heirs to the throne: he stands in the vacant grave that marks where Gaius van Baelsar fell and picks his own candidate from the ashes. Regula feels no remorse, for he has seen this justice done, and would again, and again, and again.
vi. dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!
When Regula van Hydrus is forty-four, he is invited to take his account, and is pleased to find his tally not unwanting.