Oathbreaker: The Knight's Tale (4 page)
I am constantly amazed that mere humans would dare stand against the knights and their weapons. The knightly initiation, under the aegis of the Archmagus and his apprentices, trades a portion of their humanity for the blessings of strength and speed. After their three-day initiation, they emerge from their cloister wrapped in bloodstained bandages, and they have become inhuman. Though their training takes them far down the roads of experience all men know, it is the secret of their initiation that puts them beyond the boundaries of ordinary human knowledge.
It is this flaw that keeps them from the command of our armies. They are weapons themselves, and one does not trust a weapon to wage war, for it is a weapon’s nature to seek blood and give no quarter. They are under the direct command of the king, whom they are trained to adore, whose life they guard with their own, the living embodiment of the Empire they serve. When on campaign, they are under the direct command of the senior general and exist side by side with the ordinary chain of rule, but they are strong-minded individuals, and if they were not so valuable in combat, they would have been disestablished long ago. In fact, they report mainly to their direct leaders, the commander and his captains, taking no order from any but him or me. They act as cavalry, as scouts, as infantry—in any warlike function possible. It takes a strong general to keep them in line, for they are willful and cruel.
It is good, then, that many of our generals are willful and cruel as well. They have to be, in order to prosecute the endless minor wars of the Empire. The Empire looks always outward, and it does so not only for its own glory but also to keep itself from looking inward. Should the populace turn away from its external enemies long enough to watch its own functioning, it is my belief that we would be torn apart from the rebellion that would surely follow in the next decade. I believe that it is my duty to press slowly on our enemies, though it benefits our nobles to move more quickly on their pet villains.
This is, of course, only my view, but it seems to fit. Why else would we not press aggressively on every tyrant we vilify? Why else would we allow them to grow in power? Our spies are skilled enough and our intelligence network swift enough that we can identify potential threats. The other nations of the world could, I suppose, unite against us at once, but even now I question whether they could overcome us. Possibly they could. Possibly their scattered magi have developed some sort of secret weapon. They could inflict grievous damage on us, but in return, they would suffer losses their lands could not sustain. In short, if we die, they die as well. That, at least, is how it falls out in my mind. It would take our beloved Empire to turn in upon itself for them to stand a chance of succeeding.
The signs are everywhere that this is about to happen.
The time is six in the evening. Night draws near. The storm is breaking out over the city, and the wind has a hold of my curtains.
Thirty-five years ago, I was in a good position to advance myself in the army. Because of my deeds in the Siullan affair, I had risen swiftly and fraternized with the sons of other nobles, including some of those in the High Houses. I do not know if you have kept current with the political maneuverings of the High Houses, though as children of the Lesser Houses it behooves you to understand them so that you can anticipate their moves and be prepared when they call upon your services.
The Empire balances their influences against each other, but each has its particular whims, goals, and strengths. All of them, of course, help to fund the military, help to patrol the borders, and pay to maintain the infrastructure that supports their takings. They maintain their private armies, with soldiers picked from our academies, but when their soldiers must muster under my command, they cast off their allegiances and their commanders to become soldiers of the Empire.
As the great families of the Empire, the descendants of King Martyn’s supporters, they guard their prerogatives fiercely. They intermingle with one another, marrying each other for political gain, casting each other aside, and using the peasants to fight their battles with each other. Riots in the cities, food shortages, plagues—I have seen the High Houses use all of these to drive home a point to their momentary rivals, and sometimes even to their allies. By sowing unrest with their foes, they show their own control. The Empire holds these fractious and arrogant Houses at arm's length but doesn't dare to let them go any farther than that. They do not care about the populace except as a means to count the score against each other.
And now that I am no longer to be part of their society, I may say this openly: they parade their honor, but their influence runs deep beneath respectable society. I do not say that they are responsible for the criminal underworld, but they absolutely profit from it.
For instance, the Westkitt, those noted humanitarians and most charitable of the Houses, the strongest pillar of Father Church, carry on a brisk slave trade, sometimes even with our most vicious enemies, the Sjuri. Perhaps they are trying to buy their absolution with their tithes. Or take the Cronen: they provide most of the diplomats and ambassadors to our neutral neighbors and our enemies, but they also train assassins and malcontents to keep their enemies off-balance. They sell our secrets when the price is right. The House of Bhumar, one of the great shipping concerns and trade houses, does a brisk business in narcotics and other contraband. The Vukovi, our king's House, send traveling justices across the Empire to serve in places where knowledge of the law is sparse, preaching respect before the throne, and they simultaneously collect a portion of every bought ruling that their lackeys provide the wealthy. And let us not forget our mercantile masters, the House of Deng, whose largesse helps support the Imperial Bank, and who suck dry the lesser craftsmen and merchants.
The Lesser Houses like ours are still nobility to one degree or another, but our collective pedigree is not nearly as impressive. Perhaps these Houses were late converts to the growing empire, like the Micolli. They might have fallen from grace through the years, like the Torvalds who lost the East for a century. They simply lack the requisite ferocity to prove themselves and thus watch their holdings seep away to their competitors—like the House of Glasyin, regrettably, who became vassals to the Stoyan. They might have been rewarded for later services, as were the Huldens, who helped the Deng establish the banking system in these last three hundred years.
We might still provide certain services to the Church or the Council of Magi, and our children fill the ranks of the knighthood, but we simply cannot break the stranglehold the High Houses have on the court. I do not say this to belittle you or your potential accomplishments, but to tell you what the situation looks like from Terona. We must realize that the High Houses see us as pawns in their games, useful tools or fading glories but ultimately no more than occasional breeding stock when they don't need to secure alliances with their competitors.
Most of the nobles with whom I met were useless militarily and served mainly as a way to distinguish themselves before they moved on to fill the court with their plots and gossip. I dismissed them as foppish dandies then, though I realized the necessity of keeping them, if not friendly, at least tolerant toward me and my designs.
I am, in hindsight, aware of the irony of judging them for their plots while I engaged in mine. In my defense, allow me to argue that I worked for the good of the country as I saw it, struggling to prevent its inevitable downfall, to slow the slide into anarchy. Their plots were for personal aggrandizement. Mine was to serve something that was worthy of my service. That is what I told myself then. Perhaps the lies we tell ourselves become truer the more strongly we believe them.
I had just begun to earn the friendship of Prince Fannon, nephew of the king, when word came that Fannon III had passed, succumbing at last to the inevitable stroke of age. Though it was expected that he would die, no one was prepared for it so soon. No sooner had we heard of his death than the hyenas were upon the corpse and ambition began to tear the army apart. The death of the king brought us to the Birdsnest Wars, in which the High Houses sought to position themselves to take advantage of the chaos. They took themselves to the Birdsnest, King Martyn’s old summer mansion on the hills outside of Terona, and pressed their claims to the throne, describing the deeds they had done for the Empire and the blessings they had secured for the many. They outlined their lineage, and described why their lines were closer to the bloodline of Martyn. They presented their presumptive heirs. The highest officers of the forces turned away from their sworn service to defend the country and brought their strength to bear for their chosen House. Whole divisions went to fight for the Westkitts and the Dengs and the Bhumari, and companies and battalions split for the Lesser Houses.
A few remained standing with Prince Fannon. Fannon III had died childless, and though his decree should have rendered his nephew the legitimate heir, questions of legality and the prince’s legitimacy made what should have been an orderly succession a time of blood. I supported the prince, as did a number of the nobles who were unconvinced that their Houses deserved the throne. We had the Vukovi, whose judges and heralds outlined Fannon's right, but who listens to the niceties of the law when such power is at stake? We believed that Fannon had shown the qualities necessary to lead us, and this was more than belief in his lineage. Men and women alike believed that the Empire deserved existence more than their own House did, and though I suspected at least three of our compatriots of passing information to their superiors, my suspicions were entirely unfounded. I was grateful to be proven wrong.
“I will see you all rewarded,” Prince Fannon told us. We believed in his confidence, and we believed in his right to rule.
“Seek others loyal to me,” he said. “Turn them against their brethren if you must. Remind them of their duty.” And so we did. We traveled among the House armies, speaking to the lesser officers, to the enlisted men, promising them riches, rank, forgiveness. Some came with us. Some denied us. Some sought to betray us, and these we slew. Slowly our numbers swelled, even as the High Houses tore one another apart with their vicious battles and assassins and poisons.
The prince, for his part, went to the Knights Elite. They remained above it, guarding the Imperial Palace, watching, impassive. When the prince, muffled and disguised, managed at last to win through to their commander, his answer was brief: “Show us that you can command men, and we shall be yours to command.”
“Watch me,” Prince Fannon said, “and you shall see.”
When the prince returned to us, his inexperienced general staff, his command to us was to pick a battle that we might win. Our numbers were less than half those of any of the Lesser Houses—as far as we could tell, none of the High Houses even knew we existed. I realize now that of course they did; their spy networks covered and still cover the spheres of influence that the Houses think matter. They were watching us as a matter of keeping their eyes on the prince during this rite of fire. I just don’t think they believed he could manage it. After all, who did he have on his side? A handful of officers, each with a small troop of men, some minor House backing (purely as a political gambit), and the royal name. Fannon, who grew up in the intrigues of the Houses, knew their capabilities, and he guided our hands as we laid the groundwork for his assumption of the throne. We faced three assassins, and we were surprised we did not see more.
The apparatus of Empire turned ever onward as our drama played out.
Prince Fannon saw something in me. Perhaps it was the kinship born of arms. Whatever the reason, he and I plotted and planned his resumption of the throne most intently. We laid traps for the High Houses, building their suspicions and their enmities, setting snares for them from their old histories. We played on the insults and slights they had dealt one another for centuries, and through our few contacts in the court, we amplified their grievances. We fought them in the words of aristocrats, through propaganda, through small acts of generosity to the common man—and most of all, through their rivals.
The details are unimportant now, though our small victories were glorious. I still admire our scheme to turn the proud Cronens against the money-loving Dengs. With a little coin and the hint of more to come to the DeTrellzis (one of the Cronen's Lesser Houses), a few judiciously placed words to the knight-aspirants of their House, and some careful research into their past histories, we set off a feud between the two that lasted for a week and took the hottest of their heads to the grave. By the time it and half a dozen other feuds like it had ended, we had made our move for the throne.
These feuds were not without cost to us. My father, that ambitious and naïve soul, tried to play peacemaker in the middle of one of them. His involvement was not our doing. I don’t think he knew he was being played by one of our enemies. I am sure they told him the truth before they slit his throat and left his body in the street for the dogs. Though he and I had had our differences, I burned to take revenge. The prince had different ideas.