Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

The Borelgai had been having their own civil war at the same time, with opposite results. Their king had lost his head for heresy at the hands of an ecclesiastical court sent from Elysium, and since then the interests of the Borelgai throne and the Sworn Church had been tightly entwined. Fifteen decades had served to cool the hatred enough that the Sworn were no longer officially banned from Vordan, but they had never been allowed to preach in the streets, much less with an official Armsmen escort.

After the war. That would have been just about the time Marcus was leaving for Khandar, at the conclusion of the War of the Princes. He’d gone straight from the disastrous Vansfeldt campaign back to the War College in Grent, two hundred miles from the capital, and he hadn’t paid much attention to politics in those days in any case.

“He didn’t look like he was having much success,” Marcus said.

“There’s always a few Sworn around. Foreigners, mostly, and some of the very poorest.” Again, Giforte gave him an evaluating glance, deciding how much he should say. “All I know is it’s a headache for us. They’re always stirring up trouble.”

Marcus nodded. What Janus had told him about fighting in the streets seemed a bit more plausible now. The Crown’s debt to the Borels was one thing; only merchants cared about that. But foreign priests by the side of the road, with Armsmen protecting them. .

“It’s getting worse, too, now that this Danton is telling everyone the Borelgai are the source of all their problems.”

“Danton?” Marcus said. That name had come up a few times in the reports.

Giforte waved a hand. “Just a rabble-rouser. He’s been making waves since last week, but he isn’t saying anything we haven’t heard before. We keep an eye on that sort to make sure they don’t try anything stupid.”

“What does he want?”

“The usual. Down with the Last Duke, Vordan for the Vordanai, that sort of thing.” Giforte, watching Marcus’ expression, carefully did not express his own opinion. Marcus suppressed a smile. He really does have this down to a science, doesn’t he?

Glancing out the window again, Marcus saw they had left the towers of Newtown behind and entered Oldtown, the most ancient of Vordan City’s districts. The architect Gerhardt Alcor’s grand project to rebuild the city along rational lines had ended with his death, leaving a stark divide in the middle of what had once been a uniform rat’s warren of mazy, twisting streets and tumbledown half-timber houses. Nowadays the boundary was called the Cut, a street running south from the Old Ford as straight as a knife wound. On the Newtown side, Alcor’s perfect grid of cobbled roads stretched out until it met the Docks; across the way, there were only medieval cowpaths and meandering lanes. Here and there a stone-walled church loomed amid the sea of flaking plaster and whitewash like a bastion.

Farus V had sponsored Alcor on the theory that a rational city would breed a better class of citizen, but Marcus could see no evidence of this. The residents of Oldtown were hard to distinguish from those of Newtown, perhaps a little bit more frayed in their attire and more desperate in their poverty. When the Armsmen carriage turned off the River Road and began threading its way into the depths of the maze, the streets cleared as if by magic, and every window was covered by a curtain. Here and there a group of young men made a point of not moving, glaring at the vehicle and its escort with undisguised hostility.

“They’re not fond of us, are they?” Marcus murmured.

“Don’t take it personally, sir,” Giforte said. “Take it from someone who’s been at this for a long time. Whenever times get bad, we become very unpopular.” He pointed up the street. “There’s your address, sir.”

It was a two-story house in the old style, plaster rotting and flaking from around the timber frame. The narrow windows were boarded up, but a small curl of smoke rising from the chimney indicated that someone was in residence.

“Did His Excellency indicate what we were likely to find here?” Giforte said. “Anything dangerous?”

“I’m not sure.” If they had someone like Jen in there, a dozen men weren’t going to be nearly enough. Janus wouldn’t have sent me here if he thought that likely, though. “Get someone around the back. I don’t want anyone sneaking out.”

Giforte nodded. As the carriage came to a halt, he opened the door and stepped out, already shouting orders. Their escort fanned out, two men slipping around either side of the house. Eisen hopped down from the carriage roof and hurried over, eager to impress.

“Want me to go in first, sir?” he said.

“I’ll go first,” Marcus said. “Eisen, take five men and follow me. The rest of you, make sure nobody gets past us.”

“I’ll join you,” Giforte said.

“Vice Captain-”

“No offense intended, sir, but it would be an embarrassment to lose my new commanding officer on his first day on the job.” Giforte’s expression told Marcus it would be pointless to argue.

The small contingent of Armsmen edged up to the door, a slab of ancient, scarred pine with several peeling layers of whitewash. The latch was broken, and the door hung a half inch open, so Marcus simply prodded it with his foot. It swung inward, creaking, revealing a single shadowy room with a table, a few chairs, and a fire barely glowing in the hearth. Rickety-looking steps in the rear led up to the second story.

“Hello?” Marcus said, stepping over the threshold. Giforte was close behind him, followed by Eisen and another Staff. “I’d like to have a word.”

A wooden groan and clatter gave him a half second’s warning. He caught something huge in motion to his left, and reflex drove him into a dive, pulling Giforte with him. The thing-a wardrobe, one of the ancient oak constructions that was taller than Marcus and weighed as much as four men-toppled across the doorway, catching the door and pushing it closed as it came down. Eisen had the presence of mind to dive forward alongside his superiors, but the second Staff tried to jump the other way and didn’t make it before the door slammed. The wardrobe hammered him to the floor, his surprised shout ending in a nasty crunch.

Marcus pushed himself up at once, clawing for his sword. By the light of the dying fire, he could see a man standing on a wooden crate, recovering from the shove he’d given the wardrobe. He was tall, and impressively bearded, dressed in crude homespun and rags, with a cutlass and a pistol thrust into the scrap of rope he used as a belt. Marcus didn’t want to give the man time to use either, so he rushed him, dragging the heavy cavalry saber out of its scabbard.

The bearded man drew his pistol, but Marcus thrust at his face as he pulled the trigger, making him jerk back. The weapon went off with an earsplitting crack and splinters rained down from the ceiling. Before his opponent could draw his cutlass, Marcus aimed a kick at the corner of the crate he was standing on, rocking it backward and spilling the man to the floor.

“Sir!” Giforte said. “Down!”

Marcus spun. Giforte was standing beside the dresser, trying to shift it, while Eisen had retrieved his staff and moved to help Marcus. Another man had appeared on the stairs, bare-chested and hairy, holding a pistol in each hand. Marcus dove for the rickety table, catching Eisen around the knees and dragging him down as well. The first shot caught the young Staff in the forearm, spraying blood against the dresser, and the attacker dropped the empty weapon and shifted the other to his right hand. Giforte grabbed Eisen’s staff dropped by the dead Armsman, moving surprisingly quickly for a man of his age, and ducked as the second pistol went off. The ball pinged off the dresser and ricocheted up to punch into the ceiling, producing a shower of plaster.