S. Turney - Interregnum

Sabian frowned and, biting back a retort, walked back out into the brightly-lit Ibis Courtyard. The bird carvings that adorned the stone seats and fountains were now long gone, but someone had evidently mastered the science of hydraulics. Two of the four fountains poured their sapphire blue water into the wide, alabaster bowls and the yard filled with splashes. The commander was never sure whether he should relax on one of these visits but every time the palace was a little more revived, a little less shabby. There seemed to have been serious work going on this past half year, though, beyond the level achieved in previous years. The two sergeants stood at attention by the pallet of supplies. Sabian returned the salute and then gestured back through the gate with his thumb.

“Off duty unless I need you” he said easily.

The two men fell into a more relaxed pose and sauntered off down the path towards the dock. Sabian gestured at a middle aged man reading a scroll on a stone bench. The man raised his head and wandered unhurriedly over to the commander. Sabian tried to contain his frustration at the obvious tutting sound that had issued from the man when he stood. As the cleric stood before him rolling the scroll back tight, Sabian reached down into the pallet of goods and pulled his pack from the pile, shouldering it.

“Everything else there is for your community” he commented. “Be real careful, though. There’s some glassware and a few books.”

The man blinked and looked up at the commander.

“Books?” he said uncertainly.

Sabian smiled. “Last time I was here I was led to believe that the one thing the island truly lacked was books. There are around a dozen. Mostly treatises; scientific, philosophical, that kind of thing. Hope they’re what you want.”

The man nodded greedily and reached into the centre of the mass, withdrawing a thick, heavy volume. “Deratius’s ‘On Aqueducts’!” the exclaimed. “Astounding!”

Sabian opened his mouth to speak, but the man reached out and grasped his hand firmly, shaking it hard enough to cause pain in the commander’s shoulder and repeating “perfect” and “thank you”.

The commander grinned and answered “Thank you” to the man’s back as he hurtled off through a door to give the good news. He sighed again and his shoulders sagged. At least somebody here was going to treat him as something other than a jailor.

Walking through the now empty courtyard, he made his way through the decorative Arch of the Four Seasons with its three remaining carvings and its trellis of creepers and out into the great court. The neat grass had been recently tended and, despite being punctuated with vegetable gardens and ploughed areas, it still retained its feel of spacious beauty. Ahead and to the right stood the doorway that led to the Peacock Palace. The commander nodded absently to a few of the inhabitants fulfilling the roles of farmers and gardeners as he disappeared into the Hall of the Swans.

The long vestibule had once been the passageway between the Peacock Palace containing the Emperor’s private apartments and the main bulk of the Imperial Palace. The arcades with their thick windows looked out across the gentle slope, with the palace walls at the lowest reach towards the sea and the waves with their white horses leaping over the sharp rocks surrounding the island and dashing themselves against the shore. The slope had once been a lawn decorated with statues and gazebos but these days it was the province of the farmers and goats roamed the slope, grazing. The corridor itself had once been lined with busts and statues of the Emperors and Empresses and the great statesmen of the old republic. These days, its star-painted ceiling was green with mould and the bright white walls were stained and crumbling. Along the full length of the hall, old wooden cupboards and shelves had been employed for vegetable and fruit storage.

The commander shifted the weight of his pack and walked purposefully down the length of the vast corridor, trying not to think about how many Emperors had walked this very route so many times a day. He’d seen the crumbling wreckage of the curiously oval Peacock Palace from the apartments of the elders and was interested to see what they’d done with it. It was not hard to see how the Empire had functioned so well under the kind of men that had turned a crumbling palace into a fully-functioning farming and scholarly community in so few years.

Exiting the corridor, he found himself in a circular stair hall with a beautiful enclosed broad marble staircase. He vaguely remembered being told about this by one of the elders a few years back. One of the Emperors who’d no love for his wife had had the stairs devised. There were two entrances to the circular stairwell on each floor, but they ran independently of each other, and people who took different doors could not meet on the stairs and could only see each other through windows across the central well. Ingenious. Wasted on the last dynasty, though. He made for one of the entrances and began to trot up the stairs. At the first landing, he was puzzled for a moment until he realised that he’d only come halfway round the circle in one floor and there was no door. This floor would be reachable only from the other staircase. He grinned. The Emperors may have been mad, but they had an interesting sense of humour. Trotting up the rest of the steps to the third floor, he wandered out into the hallway.

The floor had been recently repaired, new oak beams in place of the rotten ones and a good coat of varnish over the lot. The carpet was still very threadbare. They perhaps had not yet managed to start weaving on this scale. He made a mental note to come back before the next six months were up and to bring a few carpets with him.

Strolling along the curved hallway that surrounded the staircase, he peered into some of the rooms. This was obviously the floor they were currently working on. Several of the rooms were totally empty apart from plastering and painting gear. He continued on round the edge until he found one of the finished rooms. It was far from the glorious majesty of an Imperial apartment, but as comfortable as an army officer could ever expect. He dropped his pack gratefully onto an old chest near the door and flung himself onto the bed, not bothering to shut the door behind him. He lay for long moments before sighing and sitting up; too much to do to lounge around lazily. He stood and wandered over to the window, glancing down across the complex. The view from this side looked out over the Temples of the Divine Triad, the Imperial Shrines and in the distance the ruin of the Golden House, the last palace of the Emperors, built by the ill-fated Quintus the Golden. His eyes settled on the burned hulk of stone and rubble and a flash caught his eye. As he watched, it came again and again. Long years in the army left Sabian in no doubt as to the source of the twinkle. A blade.

Removing his helmet and cloak he dropped them on the bed, searched for a key and, finding it, closed and locked the door. Walking steadily round the hall, he jogged quickly down the steps and back out into the Great Court. Across the intervening space with the gravelled path was an archway, blocked with a badly-constructed timber fence. As he approached, he saw the gap at the side where the obstruction had been shifted to allow access. Last time he’d examined this ruin was on his very first visit here, more than ten years ago and there’d been no such obstruction then. Nothing had been organised then on the scale it was now.

Lifting the wood aside, he scraped past it, fretting at the sound of his cuirass grating on the archway’s stone. Once past, he walked carefully down the dark corridor and trod gingerly among the fallen stones and puddles until he emerged, blinking, into the light. The ruins of the grand scheme that had been the Golden House lay sad and mouldering in the midday sun. As he pondered where to start, there came the sound of sword ringing on metal. He carefully made his way through a crumbling passageway, treading carefully among the uneven blocks of fallen masonry. Reaching out to steady himself, his hand rested on a support from a vaulted roof and the stone came away loose in his hand, crashing to the floor. Regaining his balance, he examined his hand and wiped the unpleasant reddish-brown slime from his skin with disgust.