‘This is Merva,’ Marent said, while making a hurried round of introductions. ‘She’s been sent by her husband, the governor of Solarno, to deal on his behalf.’
‘Solarno still has a governor? I thought the Spiders had taken it,’ Tynan grunted.
‘The Spiders also have it, sir,’ Merva said carefully. ‘We are in a unique position there.’ She kept her eyes lowered, but Tynan had the impression that she was adhering to protocol only out of reluctant necessity. Must be an interesting posting for a woman, that close to the Spiderlands.
‘Did Edvic not have any subordinates he could send?’ Colonel Nessen demanded. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘He sent me, sir.’ This time she did look up, with a brief flash of fire. ‘I have his full authority to deal—’
‘Don’t be stupid, woman—’
‘Quiet, Nessen,’ Tynan snapped. ‘So she speaks for Solarno – another city heard from. Who’s the slaver?’
Nessen blinked, surprised and angry, but the Slave Corps man beside him saluted and said, ‘Major Vorken, sir.’
Tynan glanced at Marent. ‘Why do we need him?’ He had no love for the slavers, and nor did just about anyone in the regular army. They were notorious as a mob of undisciplined, slipshod profiteers, holding lower standards than real soldiers and at the same time making more money.
Marent’s expression was oddly pensive. ‘Because I want you to hear what he has to say. Major, your report?’
‘Sir.’ Vorken stood, shoulders back, head high, giving his best impression of a good soldier. Tynan listened somewhat idly to his talk of camps, the Empress’s orders for the mass acquisition of slaves. He had heard something of the practice before now, and it had seemed a small enough eccentricity of the crown. He had not quite appreciated the scale of the endeavour, he now realized, as Vorken went on to give numbers of camps, estimates of slaves per camp. Tynan thought through the mathematics of it. How can anyone keep that many slaves fed? But next Vorken was reporting just that: his own corps’ essential inability to manage so many slaves in such concentrations. He told it straight, staring at the inside of the tent, unapologetic and hiding nothing. He gave a concise outline of the conditions in the camps. Tynan had assumed that was it – wasteful and unpleasant, but hardly unprecedented, for he had heard of similar excesses during the Twelve-year War.
But then Vorken began to recount the night that his own prison camp had come to an end. He kept his voice as steady as he could, but it shook a little even so, and this from a man who had made a living out of trading in flesh and misery. He got through it, though, until the slightly raw sound of his voice became almost impossible to listen to as it sawed manfully though the massacre of thousands.
‘One man?’ demanded Nessen. ‘It’s not possible.’
Vorken met his gaze. ‘With my own eyes, sir. And I have heard similar from other officers. At least one other camp has been emptied by the same means. By the same man. And others . . .’
Varsec coughed. ‘I think I can reveal that the Engineers have had orders regarding some of these camps. Involving the installation of certain machinery, to await the Empress’s command.’
The image that news conjured up silenced everyone for a moment.
‘I won’t go into the technical details,’ Varsec’s voice had sunk to a hollow whisper, ‘but there can be only one purpose for it all, I’m afraid. More efficient than what Major Vorken has just described, but with the same end result.’
Nessen was staring. ‘You mean the Bee-killer?’
Varsec twitched slightly, then nodded. ‘Of course, you were in Helleron. We had you brewing it up. And in Sonn . . . and elsewhere. Once we got the formula, she did seem to need an awful lot of it.’ He sounded somewhat sick. This was a long way from the clash of orthopters that he had made his speciality.
‘Enough.’ Tynan clapped his hands together, to capture their attention and break the tension. ‘Marent, you knew most of this ahead of time, I’m sure, for you to gather us together like this.’ Tell me how far you intend to go.
The general of the Third nodded unhappily. ‘It’s this simple. You and I have already made the decision. There is a rot at the heart of the Empire, and it is her.’
‘Be very careful what you say, Marent,’ Tynan warned him.
‘While she holds the throne—’
But Tynan lifted a hand immediately to silence him. ‘No more.’
‘Tynan, you’ve just heard—’
‘No.’ Tynan shook his head. ‘Because where you’re going . . . we’ve already seen that. You won your general’s rank badge in the war against the traitor governors. Do you think a war against the traitor generals will be any better? That way lies the end of the Empire.’
‘Tynan—’
‘If for only one reason: who takes her place, Marent? Even were she just to die right now, of no unnatural cause at all, what would we do? How many would step forward to put a hand on the throne and tear off a piece? How many would rally a city or two behind them, and demand the recognition of the rest? It would be the end of it all, Marent. The Empire would shatter. She is our Empress, however mad, however flawed, because at least, whilst everyone is agreed on that, the Empire still exists.’
Marent took a long, deep breath. ‘I would pledge my sword and my soldiers to you, General Tynan. All the Empire knows you.’
The silence within the tent was keen and brittle, the others studying Tynan, waiting for the first stones of history’s landslide. Nessen looked horrified, Varsec thoughtful, the slaver was almost expressionless, his major’s rank shielding him from the burden of having a say. Tynan found himself looking to Merva and seeing such a calculating expression there that he wondered how much time she had really spent with the Spiders in Solarno.
‘No,’ he said simply. ‘I am a soldier, therefore I will defend the Empire and throw the Lowlanders back where they came from. When our borders are secure, when the war is done, I will submit to the judgment of the throne. If you ask me to defy the Empress to save the Empire, I will, but the same logic compels you afterwards. If we love the Empire so much, we must bow the knee to it when the danger is past, and accept the consequences of our defiance. And she is the Empire – all the Empire we have.’
‘But what about Vorken’s report – the camps, what she’s doing there?’ Marent demanded. ‘It’s gone beyond madness. She’s gutting the Empire, herself.’
And he’s right, and yet . . . anarchy. Cast down the Empress – the very thought sent a cold shudder through him – and we will fall apart. The deaths of thousands of slaves, yes, but . . . He glanced at Vorken, met the man’s stare – reading there not a demand for help but something closer to defiance. Has he . . .? Surely not the Slave Corps taking a stand, after all this time? For a moment he was desperately spinning the wheels of his mind, trying to find some way out of the maze that would leave him with an intact Empire and an intact conscience at the same time, but there was nothing. He was no great statesman, no philosopher. So where’s Stenwold Maker when you need him? A dry thought. If I’d caught him in Collegium, would I have him with me now, in chains, to advise me? Would he see a way clear that I cannot?
But I cannot. That is all there is to it.
‘I am a soldier,’ he repeated. ‘I will fight this war, and no further. Because the moment we try to seize the Empire, we will lose it, all of it. And then the Lowlanders will just pick over our bones when we’ve finished killing each other.’