David Drake - Tyrant

"No problem, laddie," Ion murmured to himself, as he rose and stepped forward into the center of the chamber. "You're about to see one of the world's champion liars put on a marvelous demonstration of the art."

He was rehearsing his speech even as he took the scroll and began unfolding it. Politely, Barrett stepped aside. Not so politely, Ion turned his back on him.

After I finish reading it — I know what it'll say, whatever the exact words — I'll be shocked and sorrowful, but have no choice but to agree with Tomsien that the Triumvirate failed of its purpose and must be dissolved. Due to the treachery and overweening ambition of Demansk, of course. I'll retire from public life, naturally. The shame and disgrace of it all. Blah blah blah. Tomorrow—

But it was time to read the scroll. Jeschonyk went right into it, not bothering to scan the contents ahead of time. He was as experienced and capable a public speaker as any in the Confederacy, after all.

Nor, once he got into it, were there any surprises.

— great distress when I learned — shocking stab in the back to the august Justiciar at Preble — the Triumvirate now clearly seen to be a mistake — will remain at my post — deal with the barbarians first — full confidence in Justiciar Albrecht as new Speaker—

Jeschonyk almost choked at that part. Not in disgust, simply in disbelief. Is Albrecht a complete idiot? Can't he see that Tomsien is just using him to remove Demansk — so that he can return with ten brigades at his back, after he defeats the Southrons? What good will your street thugs do you against them, you moron?

But he was just playing a part, and so he droned on.

— restore the true traditions of our fatherland — but not enough — must also root out all treason, hidden as well as overt — above all—

Finally, Ion understood. He stopped his recital abruptly, stared out at nothing, and uttered the words which would make him immortal — because the men who heard them never understood they were addressed to an absent twenty-year-old slave girl.

"See? I was right to stick with duty. An escort wouldn't—"

The ceremonial sword slammed into his back just above the kidney, and drove straight through. In that, at least, as well as the good steel and sharp edge of the blade, Barrett Demansk was true to the father he was betraying. The shock drove Jeschonyk to his knees.

For a moment, he stared down at the blood spilling off the tip of the blade protruding from his belly. He recognized a mortal wound, of course, but found that he didn't really care. There were words. .

A curse, rather. I've said what could be said to Kata.

He managed to fall on his side, so he would be looking up at his killer. Barrett was staring down at him, his murderer's hand still outstretched and his mouth half open. Like many men who nerve themselves to commit an unthinkable act, he was almost as much caught up in the shock of the moment as his victim.

Barrett swallowed; then, managed to get out his assigned words — though more in the way of a squeak than a bellow of indignant triumph. "Death to tyrants!"

"Cretin," said Jeschonyk. "The world's champion fool. Did you think—"

Albrecht's ax, hacking his throat, cut short the sentence as well as the life of the speaker. " Death to tyrants! "

Jeschonyk never felt the multitude of other blades which plunged into him, again and again, as Albrecht's partisans scrambled to pledge their new allegiance. Nor, thankfully, did he see the massacre perpetrated on the dozen or so other men in the chamber who had been, for years, his closest allies. Even, here and there, his friends.

The dullness of most of the ceremonial swords and axes which were being wielded in the massacre meant that men were being bludgeoned to death as much as being "cut down." When it was all over, the chamber resembled a charnel house — and of Ion Jeschonyk himself, there was less than a bad butcher would have left of a pig's carcass.

* * *

It would be said later, and grow into legend, that his entrails and ears and private parts were displayed throughout the city by Albrecht's street gangs. The legend was false, as it happens. Only the ears were so displayed, having been cut off for a trophy by one of Albrecht's toadies. The rest was simply cremated.

But it was hard to argue against such a legend. Especially when the man who spread it the most energetically would have printing presses at his disposal.

Those devices, also, were being constructed at Chalice at Verice Demansk's command. His son Trae had brought the design back with him, from Adrian Gellert, along with many others.

* * *

Hearing the tumult in the streets, followed by the bursting of the mansion's front door, the other girls cowered fearfully in a corner of their chambers. Kata did not. She knew, somehow, that the noise meant that Jeschonyk was dead. But—

She had come to trust the old man, as well as grow fond of him. So, when the soldiers came into the room and the other girls began screaming, she just hollered at them.

"Shut up, damn you!"

To the officer who seemed to be in charge:

"Where are we going?"

He seemed a bit startled. "Aren't you the cool one?" Then, with a smile: "Just keep 'em quiet, will you? It's a long way to Hagga, and I'd just as soon not be deaf when we get there."

* * *

The next few hours were as confusing as they were frightening. A hurried rush, under cover of nightfall, to a nearby villa — the richest mansion Kata had ever seen in her life. Followed by. . nothing. Just what seemed like an endless wait, hiding in a side house while their escort fidgeted outside on the grounds of the villa.

Kata was able to keep the other girls quiet, but it became more difficult as time passed. She herself simply couldn't make any rhyme or reason out of what was happening. It didn't help her state of mind any when she realized that the officer and soldiers who had taken her and the other girls and the servants out of Jeschonyk's villa couldn't make any sense of it either.

"What does that crazy bitch think she's doing?" she overheard one of the soldiers mutter to another. The response was a shrug of resignation.

"Don't ask me. The sergeant just says we're to keep everyone here tonight, and be ready to get out of the city sometime tomorrow. Seems the Lady wants to make a speech."

" What? In the capital? Albrecht's goons are crawling all over the place. Is she out of her mind?"

Another resigned shrug. "What else is new? Remember that time — you ought to, it was only a few months back — she suddenly had us hauling most of the statues out of this place? In the middle of the night, as if anybody cared what she did with the stupid things?" Glumly: "Heavy they were, too. Like hoisting so many rocks."

The ensuing conversation, what little of it Kata was able to understand, seemed to revolve around the endless insanities of the guards' employer. It was not, under the circumstances, the most reassuring thing she could have heard.

But. . there was nothing she could do, after all. So, after a time, she curled up on a couch and managed to get some sleep.

When she awoke, it was well into the morning. In itself, that was not unusual. Jeschonyk had often kept her up late into the night. What was unusual was being awakened by the sound of young men shouting orders instead of an old man's caress.

She bolted upright, startled and afraid. The other girls around her had their mouths open, ready to scream.

"Be quiet, you ninnies!" Thinking quickly: "Those are the guards. Listen! They're getting ready to leave — and in a hurry. Get up!"

She led by example, dragooning the others into what passed for an organized group waiting by the door. When the door was opened, by the same officer who had taken them out of Jeschonyk's villa, they were ready to go.