Work Text:
Planning sessions with his Radiancy had grown increasingly fraught, from Cliopher’s perspective, in the weeks since he had seen the turn of a hand – heard the turn of a phrase – realised –
He closed his mind with the ease of long practice, schooled his face to its best amiable smile, and said, “Yes, my lord, the Ministers are amenable, even if the Princes are not. We can requisition the funds for the pilot from the central pot – they’re all willing to contribute a fraction, in the interests of reducing their outlay in the longer term – but we will have to revisit next year and get the Council’s approval for a small tax increase to support the wider scheme.” He stopped, waited for the Emperor to turn at the end of the room, waited for the chance to look into the man’s eyes and check that this point had landed.
His Radiancy was moving in a more staccato rhythm than usual, sweeping up the length of the room, then pausing suddenly in front of the gleaming jewelled nightingale in its golden cage. The layers of gauze around his hips rustled as the translucent yellow silk they supported settled.
The Cavalier an Vilius had confided in Cliopher that he was experimenting with shape and form, knowing how Himself enjoyed feeling some weight in the fabric. Cliopher had bitten his tongue before he could suggest that, perhaps, the gold-and-white-and-black wardrobe of the Emperor could be leavened with a flash of scarlet, or a flicker of sky blue.
The gleaming surface of his Radiancy’s smooth-shaven scalp shone briefly in the sunlight pouring in through the glass door to the small terrace outside the study as he turned back to Cliopher. Their eyes met; his Radiancy’s stare was a trifle brighter, a trifle less steady than usual.
It was no good wondering what new thing had happened to distress the Last Emperor of Astandalas and Lord of Zunidh. The power that wrapped around him – the awful threat of the taboos – created an impenetrable barrier. Not because they prevented speech, but because they were a threat, both in their direct magical impact, and in their cultural and political and legal enforcement, that even the Emperor himself could not fail to step softly around.
Cliopher had learned, slowly, of the terrible restrictions that the rites and ceremonies demanded of his Radiancy: he had not realised, until he discovered – he had not known how powerfully they had changed the man who had become (in the eyes of many) a living god. There were still many things he did not know, but at least he had come to recognise the pacing of the caged predator for what it was. His heart ached, again, and his hand trembled on his brush, but he kept his voice steady.
“Borrowing the funds would potentially be sufficient, but it would raise the government’s annual interest payments beyond the level we agreed last year, so it would also require the Princes to agree.”
A wry smile, shared. That felt more natural. Cliopher’s tension unwound, or rather wound again around an entirely different and less unsettling problem. Requiring the Princes to agree was a common conundrum, usually solvable, if not without great expenditure of time and effort and a certain amount of burning the midnight oil. They fell to strategising, as so often before: people, personalities, levers, and trades available.
That odd look crept back into his Radiancy’s expression as their session came to a close. Cliopher had a solid list of actions; his Radiancy had also agreed to various undertakings, which Cliopher customarily recorded in a second list that was most definitely not marked as actions assigned to the Emperor but which (for all practical purposes) amounted to the same thing. He had taken to leaving this on his desk, as if by accident, so that his Radiancy could keep it for reference.
Today, as Cliopher closed his inkpots and cleaned his brushes, he was more than usually aware of being observed. His Radiancy’s eyes were taboo, and Cliopher was one of the few familiar with their unusual warm amber colour, their magic-touched limpid shimmer. This intensity – this flicker towards him – this emotion that Cliopher could neither read nor name – this was new.
(How glad Cliopher was, on reflection, that his inability to observe correct etiquette had led him to look the man in the eyes on their first meeting; with hindsight, the fact that the Emperor had concealed – continued to conceal – that infraction ought to have been a clue.)
“Thank you, Cliopher.” His Radiancy had approached while he was packing his papers into his writing kit.
Cliopher stepped back, as gracefully as he could, moving his hands out of the way so that his Radiancy could take the summary sheet from the table.
His Radiancy’s eyes were fixed on him. Cliopher could not help staring back – there was some unspoken message in the contrast between the set serenity of the Imperial face, and the wide open and imploring look in the lion eyes. It was as though – as though the inner man were close to the surface, close to Cliopher, almost within arm’s reach and yet still so far away.
The Emperor turned away. The spell broke. Cliopher exhaled, shakily.
There was a new piece of paper on his desk, blank on this side, ragged down one edge where it had been torn away from – a book? The thought of his Radiancy ripping a page out of a book was ludicrous. (The thought of – someone else – doing so was alarmingly probable.)
Cliopher swept the new paper into his writing kit with the rest and closed the lid, his hands shaking as they clipped down the bronze clasps. He made his customary obeisances and left the Imperial Apartments in troubled confusion. Something was wrong. Something was more wrong than usual.
Cliopher knew, few better, the value of maintaining the facade of normality. He went, accordingly, back to the Private Offices. Back to his own office, where his cheerfully efficient deputy Kiri Kalikiri was waiting for a readout from the morning’s meeting, and to take up her part of the actions assigned to the Secretary in Chief.
He passed over most of his notes and papers without comment, pulling back that one irregular sheet of paper to look at himself. One side was, as he had seen, blank. The other side was –
Cliopher sat down, heavily.
“What is it?” Kiri asked, absently, her attention focused on the list in her hands. “Anything I need to know?”
“Not… yet,” he managed, though his lips felt numb.
The paper in his hands was covered with a short note in a beautiful sprawling hand; the flow of the letters almost as familiar as Cliopher’s own. He had a small collection of notes that came directly from his Radiancy’s hand in a hidden compartment at the back of his writing kit.
This… also belonged there.
It read:
My dear Cliopher –
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Your letters are not secure. Send nothing more, do nothing reckless, until we have a chance to speak in private.
– Olor
Cliopher was not aware of making a noise, but some helpless sound must have emerged because Kiri was suddenly by his side. “Cliopher? Is everything all right?”
Everything was not right. Everything was, everything was – he had no words –
His thoughts had scattered, fleeing like the brightly coloured fish into a reef at the approach of a shark. He did not think to hide the paper. He could only stare at it, taking in the thick flourishing lines of the ink, the watermark which suggested that it had been ripped out of a legal tome, the slight marks of discolouration, and the shape of them, which suggested some clear liquid had dropped onto the paper…
“What is it?” asked Kiri, stepping close enough to read over his shoulder.
As her eyes fell on it, the paper burst instantly into flame. Kiri yelped and jumped back. Cliopher could only stare, his hand gripping the brief fire as it crackled hot and yellow and then winked out. Then there was nothing but the burn in his hand, the thin sheet of soot crumbling between his fingers, and a strong smell of fireworks.
“What was that? Shall I call the guards?”
“No!” Cliopher shook himself. It was important – it was essential – not to draw any further attention. “No, sorry. That was a prank, I think. Nothing urgent.” She gave him a narrow-eyed look. He sighed. “I’ll mention it to them. Later. Did you see the note about the prince of Amboloyo?”
“Oh, yes, our new lad.” Kiri slipped back behind her desk. “How’s he doing?”
“Grumpy, arrogant, determined to mark his territory. The usual.” Cliopher brushed the sticky black mess from his hands as best he could and wiped them on one of the cloths he kept for his pens. He was amazed to find that the trembling had subsided.
Prince Rufus had attended his first Council meeting the previous month. His maiden speech had been a classic of the genre. Amboloyo controlled a significant part of the remaining landmass of Zunidh, was one of the largest economies on the planet, and had tended to take a back seat under Amboloyo’s uncle, a rather sad and retiring man whose faded roan hair had been brushed forlornly across the bare and rising dome of his head, in defiance of court fashions and nature’s edict. He had had to be endlessly chased for any contribution all. Rufus, to put it mildly, seemed unlikely to present the same problem.
It was during the debrief after that last meeting that his Radiancy had paused in his pacing, his robes swirling dramatically as he stopped moving, lifted a hand in a graceful and undeniably dramatic gesture, and declared that Prince Rufus was “a common and ordinary fool.”
There had been something in the words, in the way the narrow profile turned to the light, in the unusual animation in his lord’s golden eyes, and – Cliopher had known. The realisation had landed instantly, the knowledge unfolding as if it had been in his mind for – forever. Perhaps it had. On reflection, how could he have missed it?
He and Jullanar had discussed her oldest friends many times; she had so few people she could trust with those stories. Fewer, after that disastrous experiment in publishing Fitzroy’s lesser-known works had burned through most of her contacts on Alinor. It had always seemed possible that one or more of them might appear in the Palace. In the days of Astandalas she and Cliopher had spent hours planning what he would do – if the person was in disguise, was in unsafe company, was in chains…
It had never occurred to either of them to plan for the taboos. Jullanar had said that Fitzroy was the one most likely to show up near the heart of the Empire, one day. “He was obviously high born, from the start. His nose is entirely imperial; you could check coins by holding them up and comparing the profiles.”
Cliopher’s first dazzled thought had been that Fitzroy’s nose was, indeed, entirely Imperial. So was all the rest of him.
It was treason to think it. He wished he had Jullanar here. She was the expert on treason. He had always been her understudy. He had hoped – after the Fall, after they lost contact with Alinor, among all the rumours of disaster – he had dared to hope that she might be proud of his efforts.
That evening, Cliopher had excused himself from dinner with Conju and spent some hours lying on his bed considering the patterns of shadow and light in the plaster of the ceiling. He bitterly regretted the long years – long centuries – that it had taken for him to see what was right in front of his face.
Eventually he had sat up, gone to his desk, and written to Jullanar, and to Basil. He had never been able to stop writing to either of them. Neither had ever responded, although sometimes the letters had returned, opened or otherwise. He had sent other coded messages, sparingly, more to keep in practice than to share anything important.
This time he had taken several days to compose the letter, to perfect the code, to destroy the evidence, and to send it. He had imagined that was the end of it; he had not expected a reply.
That had left Cliopher to figure out what to do next by himself. He seldom had a chance to talk with his Radiancy without the ever-present guards in earshot; the list of political problems sensitive enough to require the Wall of Silence and simultaneously unsuitable for the ears of the Emperor’s inner guard was short. There seemed to be no immediate danger, just the terrible knowledge of his lord’s misery – a stone in his stomach, a weight on his throat, a stinging sensation at the corner of his eyes, every time he saw the terrible beauty of that controlled majesty.
Fitzroy, in Jullanar’s stories, had been fire, and laughter, and breezy confidence, and a frenzy of joy, and glorious kindness. What had happened to – to Artorin Damara – to make this sombre casket for the man? Cliopher recognised, now, the brightness that sparked in his eyes, but he had no context at all for the heavy distress.
The shame was a burning coal carried at the heart of him, so hot he could barely let his mind rest on it. As a young man, he had sworn that the Emperor would be his fanoa. And yet he had been standing in front of his Radiancy every day for hundreds of years, and he had not even recognised him.
His teenage vow that he would marry Jullanar of the Sea had, improbably, come to pass. He could picture her, freckled face bright, laughing at his folly. “Only you, Kip Thistlethwaite.” Or perhaps she would shrug and tell him such things were to be expected, under the influence of wild mage serendipity.
Jullanar had always been ruthlessly pragmatic about the strange twists and turns of her life, of their marriage. There had never been a romantic spark between them, but the friendship they had formed had been –
“Sir? Cliopher?” Kiri sounded worried again. Drat.
“Yes?”
She put down her sheaf of papers slightly more firmly than was strictly necessary. “How much sleep did you get last night? I know you took those budgets back to your room.”
Cliopher wanted to protest, but he needed the cover. And he had been working late. He tried not to look too sheepish as he shrugged.
“You,” she told him, “have been overdoing it. You need to take a break.”
“What? But I need to draft –”
“I can handle it.”
“There’s that meeting with the Treasury –”
“I’ll send Oash. He can take the juniors and we’ll make a test of it; they need to practise handling, anyway, and Loveless is a nice safe target. I’ll set up a chat for you and them tomorrow to compare notes on how the babies did.”
“I suppose I am a little…tired.” He didn’t feel tired, he felt full of nervous energy. His Radiancy – Fitzroy – had seen his letter. “I’ll – maybe I’ll go for a walk.”
“Speak to the guards about that prank,” she commanded. “You know they’ll want to hear it.”
“Of course,” he lied.
The walk down and out of the Palace gave Cliopher several opportunities to clatter down stairs and stride through quiet corridors. By the time he was out in the full flood of the sun, he had expiated some of the energy and steadied a little. He walked, unseeing, through the full flourishing of the early dry season. There were dozens of rare flowers in brief and spectacular bloom, and the air was full of heady fragrance, and the welcome heat sank into his black and red robes.
He had no idea what to do. Send nothing more, do nothing reckless… so much of his daily life was treason, or would be called treason by the court, and blasphemy if it were visible to the high priests. Cliopher had no viable metric, any longer, for what counted as reckless. It was in any sane reckoning foolhardy to stand before the Sun-on-Earth and meet his eyes, day after day.
(How had Cliopher missed it? How had all of them missed it? Jullanar had seen the state portraits – everyone had – and she had even said that it hurt to look at them, to be reminded of the eccentric highborn stranger who had fast become her friend.)
(Artorin Damara had not been known for any magical or musical ability whatsoever, and it was hard to say which thought was more painful.)
(At least Fitzroy had his magic now. But that raised another terrible question.)
There were no answers in the gardens. Cliopher did, reluctantly, stop by a guard station and report a minor prank in the Offices of the Lords of State. He implied that the paper had been blank, and that he had found it on his desk, and emphasised that Kiri was the one who had asked him to report it.
Nothing more happened. Kiri looked askance at him when he arrived and asked again whether he was feeling well. Cliopher could feel his patience fraying, but he did his best not to snap at her. It was hardly her fault that he was caught in this – in this nightmare.
He found it difficult to focus on work that afternoon for the first time in several hundred years. He kept looking through whatever paper was before his eyes and seeing that bold scribble, those marks of – he would not think, tears –
The next morning was worse. Cliopher slept badly, tossing and turning in front of the flickering flame – the guttering flame, so depleted – that he had seen in his Radiancy’s expression. He woke, abruptly, far too early, breathing hard and fast, shaking as though he had just landed on the bed. His mind had been working on the problem instead of sleeping, he found; there was a cascade of analysis floating across his consciousness. That ended any hope of going back to sleep, because he could not risk writing any of these thoughts down, but he had to commit them to memory.
By the time he entered the Imperial Apartments he was buzzing with a familiar combination of over-extension and fatigue. He wished that he had been able to attend more to the morning reports. He wished that coffee could be drunk faster. He wished that Kiri had not gone and made a separate report to the guard about the burning letter, because it was distracting having his desk scanned for magical residue while he tried to concentrate against these odds.
At least, he hoped, the only magic they would detect would be his Radiancy’s. Which tended to hang around the Palace, and around those most closely associated with the Sun-on-Earth, in however mundane a context.
His Radiancy was waiting. There was no sign – no tremor in the upright body, no twitch in the serene mask of his face – that he had been the author of that desperate message. But it was in his eyes, which Cliopher met: thank you, thank you, thank you.
Cliopher felt small, in the face of that tightly channelled plea. He was no Jullanar, to edit the greatest poetry of an age. He was no Pali Avramapul, to carve his way past the guards. He was no Masseo Umrit, to create beauty and use and power out of iron and hammer and coal. He was Cliopher Thistlethwaite, who had been in the right place at the right time to do a favour to a friend, who knew his wife’s past only in her nostalgia, and who was – wretchedly enough – the only lifeline the drowning Fitzroy Angursell had been thrown.
He could not look away. He could not deny his Radiancy anything: not his eyes, not his hands, not his help, not – the gods knew – his treason. But he did not know how to help him, either, not here in front of the guards in the heart of the Palace of Stars.
(The guards probably would not skewer him, if he overstepped; it was much more likely that a courtier’s thugs would find him in a back street, or the priest-wizards would send their enforcers in the night. If he overstepped badly enough, of course, the guards would be the agents of his arrest. He hoped, if that happened, that his lord would not feel bound to watch –)
“Our business today is correspondence,” said the Sun-on-Earth, with pure and perfect serenity, and Cliopher sat at his desk and drew out his pens and… took dictation.
The next day was the same, and the next. He did his best to work as he always had done, to allay Kiri’s concerns, to keep the business of his office ticking over. He didn’t know what else to do. His Radiancy greeted him every morning with the next tasks on their list, and every morning those golden eyes latched onto his and begged –
The guards could not find anything amiss in Cliopher’s office, and added the burning letter to the long list of nuisance mail that they kept for reference, in case it was repeated. Cliopher was admonished not to touch any item that appeared in his office if he did not know and trust the sender; much easier to say than to do, in the bustle.
Every night, in the privacy of his room, he tossed and turned and worked through decision trees and opportunities and consequences. The taboos. The government. The princes. The world.
Fitzroy.
Do nothing reckless, until we have a chance to speak in private.
The chance did not come, not that week. Not the next. His lord was planning the next expansion of the network of Lights, the great magic that would stabilise the flow of time across the world of Zunidh. Cliopher had been excited, once, to learn that it might be possible to transmit small items such as letters between the Lights. Each new node added to the network had an amplifying effect, and after this next expansion he would be able to pilot this revolution of the postal system for the first time. It was harder than it should be to muster enthusiasm, in the face of – and the postal system was not an easy subject to excuse his Radiancy raising the Wall of Silence.
In the third week of their painful mutual awareness, Cliopher had begun to relax into the strange new state of affairs. He had been asked – ordered – asked, Fitzroy was Jullanar’s friend, he was not the Emperor – not to do anything reckless. He would wait at least a month before disregarding that request.
The final set of notes on the pilot for sending letters through the Lights was due with the priest-wizards, who needed at least three months to pretend they had lost it, really lose it, find it again, pick holes in all the inessential aspects, and make perhaps one useful comment on the overall shape of the scheme before they would give their grudging approval. Cliopher ran through the scheme with his Radiancy, his mind on other things – on the way his lord’s hands clenched behind his back, when he paused in his pacing to look out the terrace door – on the awful question of just how, exactly, his Radiancy had come to see that letter to Jullanar, and to decipher it. Cliopher could not believe that the Sun-on-Earth had done the decoding himself, unless it was by magic, but an entirely mundane code should not have been susceptible to a wild flight of – and if the guards had intercepted it, then why hadn’t he been arrested?
“That will do,” his lord said, wearily, when both of them were too tired to keep pretending to attend to the plans. “Leave the paper with me, Sayo Mdang, and I will read it – tomorrow.” A hesitation. A dark hand rapping lightly on the corner of the desk. “There is one other matter that We would raise with you.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“It is a sensitive subject, to do with your personal security. I had wondered… would you join me for lunch?”
Cliopher’s heart lurched into his throat. “Yes, my lord,” he croaked. The Emperor nodded and turned to lead the way onto the terrace. Cliopher followed, aware as he seldom was these days of the presence of the guards at his back.
The guards took up their positions just outside the terrace door. His Radiancy sat, and gestured to Cliopher to do the same. “There have, unfortunately, been some threats.” His Radiancy fell quiet as an attendant arrived with food, and another with a tray of tea. As they left, he looked directly at Cliopher. “We judged it better to discuss this sensitive subject in privacy,” he said, and lifted his hand in the flourish that raised the Wall of Silence.
The Solaaran sun was pitiless in the sky, but the terrace awning kept the hammer of it from their heads. The air was hot and breathless. Cliopher was hot and breathless.
The guards were only a few feet away, their faces professionally blank. Any movement, any expression, any sudden shift would be instantly evident.
Very few people, however, looked the Sun-on-Earth in the eyes. Cliopher was rewarded – reprimanded – undone – by the sight of them shimmering with tears.
Hoarsely, his lord said, “You saw me.”
What was one more treason? “Yes,” Cliopher replied, steadily. “Fitzroy Angursell.”
He heard, in the quiet bubble of the spell, the tiny hitching sound of a swallowed sob. “You – you married Jullanar?”
There were tears in Cliopher’s eyes too, now. His vision was swimming. “Yes,” he whispered. “I – I had that honour. I haven’t heard from her since the Fall. I keep hoping, but –” he shook his head.
“Forgive me,” said Fitzroy, softly, “but… how? Where did you meet her? Did she have any news of…?”
Cliopher could not keep his face calm, telling this story, to this man, in this place. He turned to look out: the splendid vista across the Dwahaii river valley would not draw any conclusions from his fierce flush, from the tears on his cheeks. “It started when I was visiting my cousin Basil, who runs an inn on Alinor. The Bee at the Border, my lord.” Which Fitzroy Angursell had visited, with the Red Company, leaving behind shining memories. “We were out walking together, and we encountered a woman taking her temper out by stamping in every puddle she passed.”
He did his best to explain the circumstances: Jullanar’s predicament, the solution he had offered her, the fun they had had making the absurd performance work. The double wedding, with Basil and Sara. The bookshop. “Elderflower Books,” Fitzroy murmured, and the words were packed full of all the emotion the Emperor could never show.
“She stayed on Alinor,” he said. “She wanted to be near her family, and I – had ambitions. It wasn’t unusual, in the Service in Astandalas, for someone from the hinterlands to live alone and send their salary home. We – she had no idea where the rest of you were. The magic scattered them, all of them, sent them to different places – she went to Galderon, for a bit, and supported the rebels there –”
“I knew there was something eerily familiar in the wording of that petition.”
“– and then she decided to settle and start Elderflower Books and wait for one of you to find her. She said it made sense to stay in one place. She – she asked me to keep an eye out, in the Palace, gave me descriptions to memorise – but I never – we never thought – Fitzroy, I am so sorry.”
Cliopher trailed off, miserable. There was silence. After a moment, when he dared, he turned to look at –
Fitzroy’s eyes were shining like stars.
“What do you want to do, my lord?”
The flinch was more a flicker of the eye than a shift in Fitzroy’s face, but it struck Cliopher like a blow. He cleared his throat. He might not be the person who was needed, but he was the person Fitzroy had, and he would not fail him.
“What do you want to do, Fitzroy?”
Another pause and then a slight, a very slight, twitch at one corner of Fitzroy’s mouth. “I don’t suppose, Sayo Mdang, that you have prepared an options analysis?”
Cliopher sat up straighter. “I – I have some preliminary thoughts my – Fitzroy. I need a steer from you on several key choices, to inform a more thorough analysis. I had hoped that we might have – help, with this, but – Fitzroy – it seems we’ll have to make do without her.”
“For now,” said Fitzroy, fiercely. “Until she finds us.”
“She didn’t get my letter, did she?”
“No.”
“I can write another –”
“One of my spies intercepted and decoded it,” said Fitzroy, calmly enough.
Cliopher felt his blush redouble. “I’m sorry,” he said, helplessly.
“Fortunately, he came directly to me.” Fitzroy’s lips twitched again. “I was, with some effort, able to convince him that I was not an imposter.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cliopher again, in quite a different tone. “What?”
“And that he should bring any further intercepted messages to me directly. We were lucky, there. I’ll show you his notes on your technique, sometime. Complimentary, mostly. But still. Your next letter to Jullanar of the Sea had better be written in another hand. She’ll need to know to come here.”
There were far too many things in that set of declarations to worry about. Fitzroy delivered them with relish, and a sparkle in his eye, which was dizzyingly unlike his Radiancy’s usual address. Cliopher found himself pushing most of them aside to focus on the salient point. “We’ll still be here?”
The sparkle died at once. “You know what will happen if I leave.”
Cliopher did. That was the horrible truth of it. And yet… “I know what is happening to you because you stay.”
Fitzroy shook his head, slowly, as if trying to dislodge a thought – perhaps a desire. “I – I let the Empire Fall,” he said. “I owe it, to my people, to…”
“We never found out what triggered the Fall.” Cliopher said this on reflex; he had sponsored a great deal more work than his Radiancy knew about, on the side, looking for something (anything) that he could put in front of the Sun-on-Earth to assuage the guilt that rose now and then in his eyes. “Astandalas was over-stretched. It could have been anything.”
Fitzroy did not answer, just shook his head again.
Cliopher glared at him. “‘Duty honourably fulfilled’, then? It shouldn’t be this hard. But if we need to get you out of here without breaking the coronation oaths, we’ll do it.”
The expression on Fitzroy’s face was so full of – of wonder, of affection – he seemed to have forgotten the guards, forgotten the context – Cliopher gulped, and held the gaze, and returned it.
“Yes.” Fitzroy’s voice was very small.
“Good. Then I have my problem statement.” This was… well, no doubt any member of the Red Company would mount a better rescue, but this might actually be possible. To tackle, if not necessarily to win. He breathed out. “Do you want to remain Lord Magus of Zunidh? Or hand the role over to someone else?”
“I – I don’t know. There’s so much to be done.” A beat. Another. “I don’t… hate… the work. The magic.”
Cliopher nodded. “So. We need a new structure for the government of Zunidh, one which can make do without the Last Emperor of Astandalas, and which is not dependent on you as Lord Magus. It would be – satisfying – if we could replace the lingering tyranny with a more consultative approach… What?”
Fitzroy was still staring at him with that impossible warmth. “I have always adored your petty treasons, Cliopher. It had not occurred to me how ravishing I would find your great ones. Say on, please.”
That was – content aside, that was heartening. It was the most Fitzroyish thing he had said yet. Cliopher found himself grinning. If treason was was his lord desired… “Of course,” he said, coolly, “If you did wish to flee the Palace tonight, incognito, I have an alternative plan in mind that involves arson and indiscriminate destruction. After a precautionary evacuation.”
Fitzroy blinked, and Cliopher saw that his eyes were welling up again. “You would,” he said, hoarse with emotion, “you would burn this mausoleum to the ground for me?”
Cliopher had to blink hard himself, too. “Say the word, my lord, and I will incinerate it.”
He had thought this through, to himself, in the dead of night. He had thought through the current storage of the military supplies, in the deep corridors, and the way the doors could be held open with magic to turn the corridors into funnels for the flames, and the way the gold would run like water, and the walls would crack, and the priceless tapestries would shiver into ash and smoke. Given a couple of nights, given a mage’s help, Cliopher could lay a fire here that would blaze to the heavens.
Gods help him, looking at Fitzroy’s tears, he wanted to.
There was a long, tense silence. Then Fitzroy lifted his hands to cover his face and took a long shuddering breath. “No,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you. No. I can’t break Zunidh. Not again. The – the slow treason, Cliopher. The long plot.”
Cliopher sat back, reluctantly releasing the vision. “As you wish,” he said. “If you’re not willing to burn the government, I am afraid our only option will be to steal it.”
Fitzroy’s hands brushed back each side of his face, wiping the tears away, the gesture painfully like pushing back his long lost hair. He shot Cliopher a smile – exhilarated, energised, uplifted – and Cliopher felt his heart flip backwards in his chest. There. That was a Fitzroy Angursell smile. It was dashing. It was dazzling. He returned it, feeling utterly foolish.
“My dear Cliopher,” the great outlaw said, “I am entirely in your hands.”