Empire of Avarice (5 page)

High Cleric Burnas opened his mouth a few times, but
made no sound. Finally he managed to speak. “But-but the arrangement between
Temple and throne is clear…”

“What is clear to me, High Cleric,” Astiras growled,
taking a couple of steps closer to the stunned cleric, swinging his sword
lazily but with a clear threat, “is that in the past previous emperors have
taken bribes from you in order to grant you and your temples a tax exemption. Take
it from me that this arrangement is over. From now on you will pay that bribe
in the form of tax to Frendicus here, plus whatever extra Mr Frendicus and his
associates work out is owed by the priesthood to the Empire.”

“This is intolerable! It is a direct attack on the
Temple! You run the risk of divine wrath! Your position on the throne is not
yet secure, Astiras Koros, and to rouse the wrath of the Temple is to invite
disaster!”

Astiras’ face went a deeper red. The veins stood out in
his neck and on his temples. Isbel caught her breath; she’d rarely seen her husband
lose his temper but when he did it was time to steer well clear of him. She
looked briefly at Amne, but her daughter was only looking at her father, as
amazed by the spectacle as her mother.

“Don’t talk to me of divine wrath, you scheming blood
sucker!” Astiras thundered. “All the time you pocketed money that should have
gone towards recruiting soldiers that may have kept the Tybar tribes back, or
enabled us to garrison those towns and cities in the east we lost to Venn and
Zilcia because there was nobody there to stop them! From now on you will do
your duty to the empire and pay for the upkeep of the army.”

High Cleric Burnas’ mouth worked in frustration. “I
shall preach from the Temple, and instruct my clerics to do the same from
theirs, that you are an evil and should be cast out from this realm.”

Astiras lost his temper. Nobody could have expected,
least of all Burnas, the swinging backhand from the emperor that blurred
through the air and crashed into the cleric’s jaw, knocking him off his feet and
sending his high hat flying through the air. The muffled thud of Burnas landing
on the ground was drowned out by the clatter of his staff as it bounced down
the steps to the chamber below.

Gasps and hushed exclamations skittered through the air,
then were gone. Only silence could be heard, and it was heavy and menacing. Astiras
loomed over the wide-eyed priest, his eyes two points of hot anger boring into
the cringing man. “You are no longer welcome in my palace, High Cleric. You
have assumed too much from your privileged position that you can challenge the
authority of the emperor. I believe there may be districts other than Kastan
that need your – divine inspiration. You will leave Kastan and take up whatever
post I decide is appropriate to you in the next few days. You will never – and
I make this perfectly clear – you will never return to Kastan again!”

Burnas’ eyes switched to the assembly staring
open-mouthed at the scene. He saw Vacan Fokis, one of the powerful Fokis
family, and senior lawyer in the empire, standing at the front, and pleaded
silently with him.

Vacan, a slim, neat man with oiled hair and clean shaven
face, was acknowledged as the best lawyer in the empire, and he had the backing
of the Fokis family, a family that in the past had provided the empire with
emperors. But these days they preferred to manipulate behind the scenes rather
than take the hot seat at the top. Better to run the empire through puppets
than take the heat directly themselves. You could always throw away a broken
puppet and get another. No matter that one of their own had recently led the
revolt in Lodria and had set up his own self-declared kingship in the town of
Slenna.

“I’m not sure legally you can depose the High Cleric,
your majesty,” he began, his controlled baritone voice oozing that correct
mixture of arrogance and contempt lawyers who believed they were right the
known world over seemed to display.

Astiras swung round. He was glad the man had spoken for
it now gave him the perfect pretext to launch his attack on the class of people
he saw as the root of the problems in the empire. “Don’t you speak to me of the
law,” he growled. “You are a lawyer; I am emperor. Tell me, lawyer – who makes
the laws in the Kastanian Empire?”

 Vacan was aware of everyone’s eyes on him. He cleared
his throat. “Technically, your majesty, the emperor, but as we all know your
duties are far too onerous and the trivial matter of the law should be left to
those who are best qualified to administer it and carry out its functions.”

“Trivial matter, Fokis? I’m glad you used that term to
describe your calling.” Astiras smiled emptily for a moment, something which
un-nerved Vacan somewhat. “Technically I am the law maker,” he mocked the lawyer’s
words. “You are correct! I am the law maker, not you,” he pointed at Vacan, “or
you,” he swung his finger on another lawyer standing to Vacan’s left, “or you!”
he jabbed the air in the direction of a third. “You merely administer what laws
I make. You do not take it into your own hands! You are not head of state; you
do not lead this empire, so do not presume to create laws that divert money
from the people into your pockets at the expense of the imperial treasury!”

“Sire, I assure you….”

“Silence, you blood sucking pimp!” Astiras roared. Silence
descended again on the chamber as the echoes of the emperor’s outburst faded
high up in the beams of the chamber. “I repeal all the laws that have been made
in connection with rents and fees over the past five years. The people cannot
afford to live, let alone create the wealth this city and empire needs in order
to survive. You are too greedy and selfish to understand that you are
strangling the empire for your own gratification.”

“The Fokis family are very powerful, you majesty,” Vacan
said evenly, but there was a hint of a threat behind it.

Astiras slowly walked down the steps. People to left and
right stepped back, intimidated. Astiras walked right up to Vacan and stopped,
a matter of a hand-span from him. “A Fokis has declared Lodria independent, has
it not? Are your family traitors? If they refuse to acknowledge my rule then
they will be driven out of my realm and anyone who resists will be put to the
sword. What have you got to stop my soldiers coming to your estates and taking
what I demand? You have no soldiers. What will you use, the law? What good is
the law,” he asked, as he stepped back and placed the tip of his sword against
Vacan’s throat, “when the sword is against your throats? What good is your
money when the tribes of Tybar come and take your possessions because there are
no soldiers there to stop them? What good is your privileged position when your
daughters and wives are forced to lie down and satisfy a company of Tybar
soldiers and you are forced to kneel and watch with your hands bound behind your
back?” he shouted to the audience, but staring at the swallowing Vacan.

“You think I exaggerate?” he went on, removing the sword
from the lawyer’s throat. “Well I can tell you that’s what happened to the
inhabitants of Imakum when it fell five years ago. I was there, and was lucky
to get out alive! Some of my men here saw the same. We were unable to hold onto
the city because we were outnumbered and had little in the way of supplies. And
why?” he swung round and returned to the dais. “Why? Because the nobility and
priests and lawyers had stolen the money from the treasury! And what happened
after the defeat? We had the High Cleric here…” he corrected himself. “The
former High Cleric of Kastan here, I apologise, preaching from his Temple that
the army was at fault for being godless and degenerate!” He stared at the
flinching priest. “I ought to have you hanged from the eastern gatehouse you
back stabbing thief!”

He reached down and pulled Burnas up with one hand,
clenched in his robes. “You say I am evil? You hypocrite. You sanctimonious
two-faced lying, stealing hypocrite!” He threw the man off the dais and he
tumbled down to lie at the bottom, staring up in fear at the emperor. “There is
evil!” he pointed at Burnas. “And I banish evil from Kastan as of today! Take
him away, and hold him under arrest until I decide what to do with him!”

Two of the palace guards advanced and pulled the stunned
priest up and dragged him off. Astiras placed the tip of his sword back on the
ground. “Now, lawyers, you will once more work for the empire instead of
against it. We are in a state of war, against the rebellions in Bragal and
Lodria. The disadvantageous peace treaties of the last five years are a
disgrace to Kastania and we must work together to overturn these. Anyone who
disagrees is a traitor and will be dealt with accordingly.”

The assembly, suitably cowed, didn’t raise as much as a
mutter of protest.

____

As night fell Astiras walked into the family room, a
place of refuge from the official chambers and rooms of functionality. It was
small but nicely decorated and had a rich rug that lay from wall to wall and
nicely cushioned chairs with wormspun covers. He threw himself into one of
these chairs and nodded to the servant hovering close by with a drinks tray. He
took a glass of spring water and sipped it appreciatively. All that talking and
shouting had dried his throat. Isbel and Amne were there, seated, having been
in deep discussion when he’d come in, and Argan and Istan were playing with
some cloth puppets in a corner, watched carefully by Rousa.

“Well?” Astiras asked, throwing a leg over the arm of
his chair and slumping deeply into the cushions.

“Well, what?” Isbel answered.

“Did you think I did a reasonably good job of putting
them in their place?”

“Oh, yes, and you made an army of enemies at the same
time. What were you thinking of, Astiras? We’ll have to watch our backs now!”

“Of course; but emperors and their families always have
to, didn’t you know, Isbel? And you, Amne, is being a princess what you hoped
it to be?”

Amne shook her head. “Why do we have to antagonise those
people? Couldn’t you be nice to them, father? We do need them, don’t we?”

“We need people in their positions, but not necessarily
those particular people,” Astiras replied. “We need civil servants to collect
taxes and run the palace, to maintain the roads and buildings, to oversee the
supplies to the army, to supply diplomats and run our spy networks. The list of
tasks goes on but they’re the most important ones I can think of at the moment.
We need priests.”

“So why turn on that man Burnas? He’s the High Cleric!”
Amne was still shocked at his treatment in the throne room. “Who will oversee
the imperial marriages if he’s banned and no other High Cleric is appointed in
his place?”

“Thinking of getting married already, Amne?” her father
said teasingly.

“Astiras!” Isbel scolded him. “There’s no need for
that!”

“Alright, I apologise Amne. Good question. Any priest
can conduct the marriage; it’s just that in the past because it’s an imperial
wedding the senior priest does it, and that’s always happened to be the High
Cleric. It’s a tradition, not a law.”

“I think your father wanted to show everyone he was
nobody’s puppet.” Isbel held Amne’s hand. “He better not get the same ideas
here.” She gave her husband a level stare. Astiras inclined his head, smiling
in a half mocking manner.

“Jorqel should be here,” Amne said, wanting to change
the subject. She never liked the undercurrents between her parents. She still
didn’t quite know what attracted them to one another.

“Jorqel is busy doing my business,” Astiras said
heavily. “As will you, my dear, in a few sevendays.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Astiras,”
Isbel said. “Whatever possessed you to think of sending our daughter to Mazag
alone!”

“She’s not going alone,” Astiras growled testily. “She’ll
have members of the diplomatic corps and bodyguards as well as a maidservant or
two to go with her. She’ll have ambassadorial status and so will be respected
where she goes, even in Mazag.”

“But journeying through Bragal? That’s lawless country
full of bandits!”

“Oh for goodness sake, Isbel. She’ll travel with my army
as far as Zofela and go on to Mazag afterwards while I put the fortress under
siege. The Bragalese rebels will be too busy trying to sting me at Zofela to
worry about her. Anyway, from what I hear the Mazag are busy patrolling the
south of Bragal already; they’re clearly planning to incorporate it into their
kingdom before long. So I’ll have to train up a new army and go within a season
before the winter sets in. Travelling through Bragal in winter’s no joke with
an army and its supplies.”

“I say it’s too dangerous, Astiras. I want you to
reconsider the decision. Send one of the palace diplomats instead.”

“Negotiations by a beautiful young princess are more
likely to succeed than if you use one of the palace ogres. Have you seen the
diplomats here? A line-up of chargers’ backsides.”

Amne put her hand to her mouth but the crinkling of her
eyes betrayed her amusement. Astiras winked at her. Isbel threw her hands up in
exasperation. “Well why don’t you send Argan or Istan as well? I’m sure a small
child will melt those stone-hearted Mazagians.”

“Istan could be sent and we would threaten to keep him
there with them unless they gave in to our demands,” Astiras said lightly.

“Astiras!” Isbel shouted.

The emperor grinned and drained the rest of his water. “Sorry,
dear. You haven’t got your humorous head on tonight.”