‘Then shake your arses, major.’
‘I was about to,’ Rawne said, already rising to his feet. ‘Anything else I should know before I hang this up? Last chance.’
‘Be advised, there’s likely to be Inquisitorial interest in this, as well as forces from Section, and maybe even the PDF. If the balloon goes up, you could be looking at a five- or six-way free-for-all.’
‘Got it. Anything else?’
‘The Emperor protects, Eli.’
‘Thanks, Viktor. See you on the honour roll.’
‘Good fortune, major.’
‘Nalwood out.’
Rawne threw the switch that killed the vox, and tossed the mic-horn onto the desk.
‘Let’s move,’ he said, picking up his weapon.
‘If we’ve got to get there quickly, let me drive this time,’ said Meryn.
‘Oh feth off,’ said Daur. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my driving.’
‘You drive like an old woman,’ said Meryn.
‘And you will cry like a little girl if I have to shoot you somewhere semi-vital below the waist,’ said Rawne, ‘so do as Daur says and shut the feth up, Meryn.’
They entered the outer office. Varl and Csoni looked up.
‘Are you done?’ asked Csoni.
‘It pains me to say it, Mr Csoni,’ said Rawne, ‘but we must now bid you farewell, and cut you loose.’
Rawne looked down at the seated man, and sighed.
‘Mr Csoni, for you, I’m going to break the habit of a lifetime and keep my word. I’m not going to pop you to guarantee your silence. Throne, it would be so much neater and simpler if I could, but I made a promise. You get to live.’
‘Thank you, thank you!’ Csoni exclaimed, and then started to cry.
‘One thing, Csoni,’ said Rawne, bending down to look the man in the face, ‘you do not want to be the man who makes me regret a decision.’
‘I don’t?’ sobbed Csoni, looking up.
‘You don’t,’ nodded Rawne.
‘Oh, you really fething don’t,’ laughed Varl. ‘You screw him over, he will hunt you down like a rabid larisel, and feth you up so bad, you won’t be able to–’
‘Thanks, Varl,’ said Daur. ‘I think Csoni gets the picture.’
‘I do. I do!’ said Csoni.
The four of them thundered down the club’s back stairs to the rear yard, where they’d stowed the limo. Rawne brought Varl up to speed on what Hark had said.
‘Feth,’ said Varl. ‘Did he say anything else?’
‘He said, “The Emperor protects”,’ Daur said.
They came out into the snowy rear yard. The big maroon limo with its chrome furniture was parked beside the access gate. The figures standing around it jumped to attention as they saw the four men come into view.
‘You know the full version of that blessing is “The Emperor protects the virtuous”, don’t you?’ asked Varl as they ran for the car.
‘Yeah?’ said Meryn. ‘Well, we’re screwed then.’
The precincts of the High Palace, as its name suggested, sat at the summit of the gigantic, gently sloping peak, above the river on which Balopolis was built. The Oligarchy, a vast acreage of governmental structures and ancient colleges and chapels, formed the mantle, with the palace itself as the crown.
The fog had fled from the high places more quickly than it had from the deep, steep streets of Balopolis below. Up at the High Palace, the air was blue and as sharp as crystal. Snow iced the reconstructed battlements and rooflines of the noble palace, and frost skinned the lawns of the ornamental gardens inside the palisades. Windlarks, so high up they were invisible, sang clear, trilling notes in the cold air. Sentries of the PDF, in formal furs, stood watch, blowing on their hands.
The Oligarchy, and the High Palace that lay at its heart, were key destinations for any visit to Balhaut. The planet boasted some of the most infamous battle-sites in the sector, and had become a magnet for scholars, theorists, enthusiasts, tourists and, of course, those mourning the fallen and grieving old losses. The High Palace was the culmination of any mourning pilgrimage, an act that had become an industry of its own. The High Palace was where the war had been decided. It was where Slaydo had fallen. It was where they had raised the memorial chapels, especially the Honorarium, where Slaydo’s bones were interred.
They called it, perhaps harshly, the Widow Tour, for it was most often taken by wealthy widows from the scattered outworlds of the Khulan Group, travelling to Balhaut with long-suffering servant-staff and squabbling children, who had never known the deceased personally. Expert guides and escorts offered their services; the elaboration of the tour was usually decided by wealth and status. Various theatres and battlefields could be included, depending on the deceased’s career. One could attend the Raising of the Aquila ceremony at Zaebes City, or walk the elegant rows of simple white posts in the cemeteries overlooking Ascension Valley.
There were even authoritative books one could consult. Some were extensive, others could be obtained from any corner merchant for a few coins: encyclopaedias and tatty chapbooks, learned tomes and flimsy pamphlets. One of the most ubiquitous and affordable was a sixty-page booklet now in its forty-seventh impression, entitled Famous Battlefields of the Balhaut War. It was published by the Munitorum, and approved by the Society of Balhaut Veterans. It was a cheap and slightly worthy account of the war’s key phases and conflicts, complete with some astonishingly bad maps and pictprints.
Gaunt took a copy off the shelf outside the docent’s booth, and skimmed through it.
‘What’s that?’ asked Jaume.
‘A memento,’ Gaunt replied. He had a page open, and was reading.
‘What does it say?’ asked Jaume.
‘It says that on the ninth day of fighting, Slaydo drove his left flank against the Oligarchy Gate. The attack was nominally commanded by Captain Allentis of the Silver Guard, but his charge was devastated by the Heritor’s murderous machines. Thus, the first unit to reach the Gate was the Hyrkan Eighth, which famously managed to blow wide the Archenemy’s defences, and breach a position that had resisted nine days of assault.’
‘Is that correct?’ Jaume asked.
Gaunt looked over his shoulder. In the shadows of the colonnade, he could see Kolding and Maggs with the prisoner. The day was quiet. The fierce snowstorm had kept most tourist parties and widow tours out of the High Palace for a couple of days. The guards and the docents, the latter mostly history students from the Collegio Balopolis, were wandering about bored, or snoozing in their wooden booths.
‘Come with me,’ Gaunt said to Jaume.
He led the younger man out into the middle of the new stone quad. Some of the original stones from the Gate, mauled and smashed, had been placed on display in armour-glass boxes around the edge of the space, like trophies.
‘This is where the Gate stood,’ Gaunt said, extending his arms. ‘Right here. They’ve been good enough to mark its footprint on the new paving.’
Jaume looked down. The new quad had been laid with black stone, matt and flush-fitting. He saw that the outline of a vast structure had been marked out in thick silver wire, inlaid into the stone.
‘That’s where the Gate stood,’ said Gaunt.
‘And you brought it down,’ said Jaume. ‘Throne. It was huge.’
‘Allentis had done most of the work,’ said Gaunt. ‘He broke the back, not us. Throne, I was sorry when they told me he was gone.’
‘He was Silver Guard, this Allentis?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, an Astartes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was told that the Astartes are not like normal men. That they are other. More than human and still less too.’