There were a series of meeting – formal
and informal. The Emperor revealed himself to his half-citizens and there was a
ceremony during which Arnon was given the title of ‘governor by lineage’ and
the praefecture of Amansk and Angmaroya made into a full province. This had
been Marthian’s idea. She had pointed out that what had happened in Ortia might
be considered a failure of ‘local politics’ and that, perhaps, empires had to
be ruled at a number of different scales. By now Pallatian was fairly convinced
of her infallibility – when Emperors change their minds it tends to be on a
grand scale – and so he missed the fairly obvious fact that his new advisor now
loved the new governor’s family almost as much as her own. This was her gift to
them – Arnon could remain as governor and Toby would inherit, and so on, until
the blood line failed.
As is the way with
these things, once Marthian knew that she was going part of her wanted to stay.
Life had been simple and her surrogate family had treated her very well,
although right at the beginning there had been periods of intense loneliness,
which she had somehow shaken off. Arnon had been delighted to discuss politics
with her, Natasha had wrapped her up in a cosy cod-Ethian cocoon of high tea,
comfortable living rooms and long nature walks, while Toby had been very
gallant, in a rather attractively awkward way. But most of all she was going to
miss Lily, who had spent most of her time hanging around her, because she was
‘a bit more interesting than all the dull people in this excruciatingly dull
town’. So, she had had a go at being a favourite auntie – something which, as
an only child, she had never thought to be. She had been eccentric Auntie M,
mad about her garden. For the first time in her life she had just done the
things that she wanted to do, and now it had come to an end. In elven terms it
had just been a lovely lazy Saturday afternoon.
They came to see her off, but they
pretended they were there to give their respects to their re-established liege
lord. Arnon and she had agreed to find time to visit each other’s provinces. Lily
was cross, because her playmate was going away, but Marthian knew that she
would also be gone soon, on to Eth and witchcraft. There were no tears –
everyone had convinced themselves that now the two cities would just be a day
away on the Emperor’s new fast road, and that they would see each other again
soon. Marthian doubted that very much, and, in particular, she sensed that it
would be a long time before she saw her new-found niece again.
Then they were away
in the coach that Lord Arnon had lent them, with an honour guard of two hundred
human Amanskian troops. Marthian had given one friendly wave and then had
turned her gaze towards Ortia and a return to duty. She felt guilty that she
hadn’t really missed her beautiful white city and that she wasn’t really
looking forward to returning. But there was one big consolation – at least she
was going back to the one that she loved.
Once they had passed
over the mountains and back into her own province the Emperor began to grill
her on everything about Ortia: its recent history, its culture, the Lady, the
other eastern provinces, all things she assumed he must already know. She was
amused that his response to everything she told him was now one of great
concentration and, above all else, praise for her contribution to the defence
and rebuilding of the city. Six months ago he could not have been less
interested and he had dismissed her with no more than a curt acknowledgement
that she ‘had done her duty adequately’. Now she could do no wrong; she was the
font of all wisdom. It gave her a perverse pleasure to know that she was
probably the first female that had ever impressed him. She had no intention of
letting any of this to go to her head, however – she knew all about the
properties of pendulums.
***
It was a day later when they saw the
edges of the army that was now surrounding Ortia. At first Pallatian had
assumed that it was Titanius’s troops, but then he had sent some scouts out and
they had reported that the soldiers were not travelling under the imperial
banner, but instead under the banners of the Grachii, the Neonoi and the
Cicerii: whose insignia were the red lion, the white panther, and the brown bear. The Emperor’s banner, a grey eagle owl on a
dark blue background, was only flying over the city. The general imperial banner,
a purple eagle, was, of course, flying indiscriminately on both sides.
They found a safe
place in the lee of a small hill, still several miles from the city. There were
no patrols here – the senatorial army was not expecting any trouble from the
north. There were only barbarians up there.
The considered their
position.
‘My lord’ said
Marthian, ‘I can think of no way to enter the city through the encircling army’
Pallatian frowned at
her. Perhaps, after all, his sudden high opinion of her was at risk already.
His voice was edged with disappointment.
‘Do you have no way
of entering the city unseen? Visnea has a network of secret tunnels that
criss-cross the city and its environs...’
She wracked her brains,
trying to remember if her father had mentioned any underground entrances. In
her mind’s eye she tried to recall the multitude of maps of underground pipes,
sewers and access ways. She simply could not remember.
‘I don’t know’ she
said, shrugging and smiling wanly, ‘but I should...’
They stood in gloomy
silence while she tried to formulate some sort of plan. She knew that the
Emperor’s pride would not allow him to turn round, and a direct parley with the
enemy would be far too dangerous. The minutes dragged on. Marthian slipped her hands into the pockets
of her cloak, despondently; her fingers brushed against something. She hooked
out the paper in idle curiosity. It was a mail paper from Aurelian, sent several
days before.
Her mind kept coming
back to the idea of a secret entrance – if Visnea had several, wasn’t it likely
that Ortia had at least one? If in doubt, ask she thought to herself.
She searched inside her backpack and pulled out a clean sheet of mail paper.
She wrote her general a hurried note. All that they could do then was to wait
patiently for a reply. She just hoped that there was someone living in the city
who still knew the answers to her questions.
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