Rogue, Prisoner, Princess

  The king staggered back into his chair, falling there as heavily as if Thanos had shoved him. He reached for his wine cup, then threw it into the fire. Thanos heard it clatter against the coals, the wine hissing as it steamed.

  “What have you heard?” King Claudius demanded. “Where have you heard it?”

  Thanos thought of the midwife, then of the dead stable hand. He wasn’t going to bring trouble to anyone else. Even Cosmas might be in danger if Thanos explained too much about how he’d learned the truth.

  “Does that matter?” Thanos countered. “What matters is that I’m your son. Aren’t I?”

  King Claudius looked down at the remains of his game for what seemed like a long time before he finally answered.

  “Yes. Your mother… she was so beautiful. When I learned that she was pregnant, I was so happy, but I couldn’t admit it. Neither of us could. It would have torn things apart. Instead, we hid things.”

  Thanos thought of the references left in the book of genealogy. The king might have ordered it hidden, but his mother had clearly intended that it should come out at some point. That, or she simply wanted the comfort of being able to put the truth down somewhere.

  “So, I am your son,” Thanos said. “Your eldest son.”

  “And my finest,” King Claudius said. “You are all that I could have hoped you might be. You are clever, skilled in war, diligent, able to command those around you. You were victorious in the Stade when Lucious ran, and I couldn’t have been prouder of you then. When I thought you were lost in the war, something broke inside me. When you came back, it was like the sun returning after a long winter.”

  Thanos wasn’t sure what to say to that. He hadn’t heard the king speak that warmly of him in a long time, and King Claudius had been the one to send him to war in the first place. It meant a lot to be the king’s son, but he still wasn’t sure what it meant, because this man was still cruel, still a tyrant to his people.

  “I’m glad that I finally know the truth,” Thanos said. “I feel like I know who I am for the first time.”

  “You have always been my son,” the king said. “Even though you didn’t know it, you have always been a man I could have wished to be.”

  Thanos was more than that though, wasn’t he? “If I’m your son, am I your heir?”

  King Claudius nodded. “And that is one reason we couldn’t speak of it. It would have torn the Empire apart.”

  “The Empire is tearing itself apart,” Thanos pointed out, but this wasn’t the time for that argument. There was too much to think about before any of that. Too much to process all at once. Everything he’d thought about himself had changed. He didn’t even know where he fit into the Empire now.

  The king seemed to be having as much trouble with it all as Thanos was. He sat there, looking out around the room as though seeking an answer somewhere there.

  “I’m glad you know,” King Claudius said. “I didn’t think I would be. I’ve spent so long hiding this from you, but now that you know, it feels as though a weight has been lifted from me.”

  “It’s not the only thing I know,” Thanos replied. “I know who tried to have me killed.”

  That brought the king back to his feet again. “You do? Who? I’ll have them hanged. I’ll have them—”

  “Lucious,” Thanos said simply.

  He saw the change in the king’s expression at once. When he’d told King Claudius that he knew the secret of his birth, Thanos had seen pure shock. Now, the surprise was back, but this time it wasn’t anywhere near as great. Why would it be? They both knew that Lucious was more than capable of it.

  “No,” King Claudius said, but there wasn’t certainty there.

  “Yes,” Thanos insisted. “He sent a message to the Typhoon, and had him try to kill me. He followed the same clues that I did about my birth, and he wanted me dead because of it. He wants me dead.”

  “Lucious is a prince of the Empire too,” King Claudius said, as though that made it impossible that he would do something like this.

  “Which explains why he found it so easy to get the Typhoon to do the job,” Thanos insisted. “I found the boy he sent to carry the message. Lucious gave him an amulet to identify the message as coming from him.”

  “And you have this boy? He will swear to this?”

  Thanos gritted his teeth. “He was murdered shortly after I spoke with him.”

  And Thanos thought that the king would have heard of something like that happening in his own castle. Did he really not care what happened to the people who spent their lives serving him?

  “He found out what was happening,” Thanos insisted. “He sent the boy. Who else could? He should be executed for this!”

  “I will not execute Lucious,” King Claudius snapped back. “Do not even suggest it.”

  “Imprison him then,” Thanos said. “Put him where he can’t do any more harm. You must know what he’s like. I thought you were only keeping him around because of his status, but if I’m your son—”

  “Lucious has his uses,” King Claudius said. “He has a role to play, even if you don’t understand it right now.”

  “What’s to understand?” Thanos demanded. He could feel the anger rising in him, overwhelming the strange kind of rightness he’d felt on hearing the king admit who he was. “He tried to kill me. He did kill that boy. He needs to be stopped.”

  “He will do exactly what he needs to do,” King Claudius said.

  “And you won’t do anything to punish him?”

  Thanos saw him shake his head.

  “Come, Thanos,” King Claudius said. “This should be a happy moment. I have a son who knows who I am again. Sit with me, eat.”

  “Suddenly, I’ve lost my appetite. Please excuse me, your majesty.”

  “Thanos,” King Claudius said. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

  Foolish? Thanos wasn’t going to do anything foolish. He was going to do something he should have done a long time ago. If his newfound father wouldn’t do anything about Lucious, then he would.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  Lucious liked wine, so it seemed obvious to take a vineyard. When the king had given him license to take what he wanted to show the peasants their place, why shouldn’t he?

  Not just any vineyard, of course. There were more than enough around Delos producing slop he’d flog a servant for putting in front of him. The Cervin vineyard, though, was worth taking. Not only did it produce wine worth drinking, but its owners sold wine from across the world to every noble Lucious knew. The money from it would be a useful addition to the royal coffers. Lucious would certainly enjoy owning it.

  He and his men rode through the fields, probably looking like a band of noble knights out to slay some monster. He saw the workers scatter before them and run. Briefly, Lucious thought about chasing them down for the sport of it, but it was better to do what they’d come to do. They didn’t look like slaves, so maybe it was better if they ran, anyway. Lucious didn’t want to have to pay workers on his new vineyard.

  “Remember what we’re here to do,” Lucious said, looking around at the men with him. He’d picked them himself, selecting only the hardest, toughest members of the army for the job. He’d wanted men who wouldn’t shy away from what was needed. “Let’s show Delos the price of rebellion!”

  The men roared their response. There had been a couple who had expressed qualms in the last couple of raids. Lucious had ordered them to the front to fight against the rebels there. He had no time for weakness. The men who were left had proven themselves willing to follow any order. Most of them seemed to enjoy it.

  They approached the farmhouse at a full gallop, and Lucious casually kicked aside a boy who ran out too close to them, sending him sprawling in a tangle of broken bones. Lucious didn’t give him a second look.

  The farmhouse was bigger than most around Delos, probably thanks to the money from the wine. It was a hovel compared to the castle, of course, but it wouldn’t take much to remodel i
t for guests or hunting. Perhaps even as a place to keep a noble mistress. He’d had his eye on Stephania for a while now, but there were plenty of others.

  Wealthy or not, these people were still peasants, without a drop of noble blood. If anything they were the worst of the lower orders, thinking that the ability to make good wine made them somehow better than all the rest. Maybe even almost as good as those they should serve. Just the thought of that made Lucious glad he’d picked this place.

  They stopped outside the door, and Lucious handed his reins to one of the men. He didn’t bother knocking, but instead waited while another of his men kicked the thing back against the wall. The man stepped through and Lucious followed.

  Inside, he saw a high ceilinged hall, dominated by a long table with silverware set out on it, while a wide staircase stood at the side, hung with trophies the way a noble’s home might be. Lucious had been right about these wine makers getting ideas above their station.

  There was a fat peasant man with graying hair wearing enough velvet and silver that he could have been a noble. There was a woman the same age, dressed in just as foolish a fashion. A younger man was wearing rough work clothes, but Lucious could see the resemblance between him and his father. There were two younger women, one heavily pregnant and possibly the wife of the young man, the other probably his sister.

  The fat man was already rising from the table as Lucious entered.

  “What is this?” the wine merchant thundered. “What do you think you’re doing, bursting into my home like this? By what right do you—”

  Lucious drew his sword in one smooth movement and stabbed the fat man in his ample stomach. He was so huge that the blade didn’t even come out of the other side.

  “I think I am your prince,” Lucious snapped, then stepped back to let the man fall. “And this house is mine now.”

  “Father!” the younger man cried out. He drew a sickle from his belt, running at Lucious. The blade clattered from the steel of Lucious’s armor as he stepped back, then the prince swept his sword across at throat height. He was aiming for a neat beheading, worthy of the warrior he was, but instead, his sword only made it about halfway through the man’s throat. He felt it dragged from his hand as the young man collapsed.

  “Honestly, can’t you peasants even die properly?” Lucious demanded. He put a foot on the man’s chest and yanked at his sword, only getting angrier as he tried to pull it free. Finally, it came loose.

  “You saw them resist,” Lucious said to his men. “The families of traitors are forfeit. The young one goes to the slave pits. Hang the others when you’re done with them. Find any servants and get them ready to sell if they’re worth anything. Kill the others. Then I want this house stripped of anything of value. What are you waiting for? Go!”

  His men rushed forward, and the women screamed as they dragged them away. Lucious sat down at the table, enjoying the start of the violence. There was a bottle of wine on it, so he helped himself, drinking straight from it as around the house, more screams sounded. It wasn’t the best vintage, but it was more than passable.

  He looked around, imagining what he would do with the space as the looting began. The silverware would be worth a decent amount, while the space might be good for parties. Yes, he decided as the body of a servant came tumbling down the stairs, this was a good place to take.

  He stepped out into the sunlight, where his men were binding servants on their knees. Lucious strode along the line, silently picking out whether any were worth keeping. One was arguing with his men as they dragged him toward a noose.

  “You need me,” he said. “Now that the master vintner is dead, I’m the only one who knows all the details of his business.”

  Lucious stepped in. “Wait. He’s right. We do need to know these things.”

  He heard the servant sigh with relief. Lucious smiled at that.

  “So make sure you only kill him once you have beaten every detail out of him,” he finished.

  He walked on, finding the boy he’d knocked down before. Lucious watched him trying to crawl away, his leg obviously broken, then moved to crouch beside him.

  “You might as well stop,” he said. “I could catch you any time I wanted.”

  “Please,” the boy said. “Please don’t kill me.”

  “What’s your name, boy?” Lucious asked.

  “V-Vel.”

  “Do you know who I am, Vel?” Lucious asked.

  “You’re Prince Lucious,” the boy said.

  “And do you know what’s happened here?”

  “You… you killed them.”

  “Yes,” Lucious said. “Because they were traitors who wouldn’t give up what belonged to their betters. Because there is a price to pay for rebellion, and you’re all going to pay it until the rebellion stops. It’s their fault that this is happening. Do you think you can remember all that?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Good. I won’t have to kill you then. One of my men will splint your leg, and then you can hop your way to Delos. On the way, you will tell anyone you meet all of it, do you understand?”

  The boy nodded. “Y-yes.”

  “Yes what?” Lucious demanded, his voice sharp again.

  “Yes, your highness.”

  “That’s better,” Lucious said. At least one peasant had learned his proper place today.

  It was a start.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Sartes huddled in amongst the statues and mausoleums of the burial ground, listening to the leaders of the rebellion argue. They’d gathered around one of the slabs there, the map spread out upon it, with Anka at the heart of a cluster of the rebellion’s more senior figures. Sartes was that close only because Anka had insisted on it.

  “We don’t know that they’ll come through here, not for sure,” a large man who looked like a wharf hand insisted. “We could be committing all our people for no reason.”

  “Not for no reason, Edrin,” a younger man insisted. He looked like a fighter. “To stop the Empire from capturing, torturing, and slaughtering our people.”

  “You’re always taking Anka’s side,” Hannah said. She’d been at the meeting when they decided on this.

  Sartes was starting to get a better sense of who the rebels were. The younger man was Oreth. As Anka struggled to hold the rebellion together, he seemed to be serving as a kind of deputy. The big man, Edrin, was solid but obviously suspicious of whether Anka could do the job. Sartes didn’t like Hannah, because it seemed too much like she was more interested in her own place within the rebellion than anything else.

  “We’re in the right place,” Anka said, pointing to the map.

  “Then where are they?” another man asked. He was called Yeralt, and Sartes had heard that he was the son of a merchant, probably wealthier than the rest of the rebellion’s people. “I don’t want to argue, Anka, but our people are getting worried, just waiting like this. They think it’s going wrong.”

  “Then I’ll speak to them,” Anka said. She looked around, and to Sartes’s surprise, he saw her eyes settle on him. “Come with me, Sartes. Let’s show them what they’re fighting for.”

  Sartes followed as Anka stepped out onto the road that ran through the burial ground. Around them, rebels slipped out of hiding places in pits and behind statues to listen.

  “Listen to me,” Anka said. “I know you’re scared. I know there are some of you who think that we shouldn’t be doing this at all. That we should be running and evacuating our people. The truth is that we could do that.” She raised her voice. “We could do that, and the army would march straight through here. It would descend on towns and villages, looking for us, but that would be all right. We wouldn’t be there.”

  “Ordinary people would,” Anka went on. “We’ve all seen what the army can do. It will go into those towns and it will murder people. It will drag them out and torture them. It will conscript young men like Sartes here. It will enslave those who can’t fight for them. We could run away, but
we won’t. We won’t, because the people of Delos need us.”

  That got a cheer from the surrounding rebels, and Sartes couldn’t help joining in. Above it, he heard a rumble. Oreth ran up.

  “They’re coming!”

  Sartes saw Anka nod. “Everybody to your places! Remember the plan!”

  Sartes ran back to his spot by the statue, and saw the others take up their positions. They practically disappeared back into the landscape of the burial ground once they were there. Sartes watched the approach of the Empire’s soldiers from around the arm of a marble figure. His stomach knotted at the thought of what was about to happen, but he didn’t move. He didn’t run.

  Instead, he thought of how brave Ceres would have been if she’d been here. He clutched his sword tighter. His father had made it, and it fit his hand perfectly, in a way that the practice swords the army gave to conscripts never had. In his other hand, he held a horn ready to blow. He wore the uniform that they’d made him wear in the army, because they needed that for the plan.

  Around him, Sartes could see the other members of the rebellion. They waited in their hiding places, armed with the armor and weapons they’d started to produce under his father’s instructions, positioned exactly according to Anka’s instructions throughout the burial ground and the ancient ruins within it.

  She stood beside him, and Sartes could see the way she kept her features blank as she tried not to show any fear. She kept looking around, though, and Sartes guessed that she was going over and over the preparations they’d made.

  “You didn’t miss anything,” Sartes whispered. He’d never seen anyone so thorough. “You thought of everything.”

  “I hope so,” Anka whispered back.

  Sartes watched the column of soldiers as they got closer. He could see horsemen at the front, armed with swords and short bows, there to serve as scouts or rapidly moving archers. They carried chains on their saddles, and Sartes guessed that they were there to seize prisoners and slaves too. Behind them, he saw the conscripts, easy to recognize in their ragged armor. The regular soldiers followed them, as if to sandwich them in so that they couldn’t escape. Sartes could see officers and elite soldiers among them, resplendent in engraved or gilded armor, marked out by red or gold cloaks. At the back of the column came a group in darker colors: slavers and torturers, not there for whatever raid the army was going to conduct, but for its aftermath.