Those Below: The Empty Throne Book 2 Read Free Page A

allow for incorporation within the Commonwealth, provided we give sufficient guarantees that our expansion will cease thereafter.’
    ‘Honeyed words hide false promises. Weakened and tottering on the precipice, they offer something that is ours by right and soon in fact. In a few years, when they have rebuilt their walls and replenished their stocks, when they have hired mercenary armies from the east, we will see how firm their commitment to amity. We have not come to wound the Salucians, we have come to cripple them. To ensure that never again will the children of Aeleria fear the machinations of the bitch-Queen of Hyrcania.’
    ‘Every peace is temporary,’ Konstantinos said, and for a long moment he would not look at her. ‘And I sometimes wonder if the children of Aeleria would not be better served if their lives were frittered away less casually. At Bod’s Wake there were so many corpses that you could walk from one end of the field to the next without ever taking your boot off flesh. At night I dream of them, and I dream of Enkedri beyond them, and he asks me what was my purpose in leading so many to death, why my gain needed to be bought with their blood, and I have no answer for him, Mother, I have no answer—’
    The sharp slap echoed loudly within the tent. ‘Revered Mother,’ Eudokia hissed, ‘and by the gods you seem suddenly so fond of, do not again forget it.’
    It had been a calculated provocation, as was virtually everything that Eudokia did. And, like virtually everything Eudokia did, it had the intended effect. Konstantinos blinked twice, and the colour began to return to his face. He looked angry and ashamed, but at least he no longer looked like he was going to vomit on his trousers, or turn his knife against himself.
    ‘Men die,’ Eudokia said simply, ‘such is the purpose of men – or did you suppose mortality some recent invention of your own? The themas are blessed to expire in service of their beloved Aeleria, in service of her national destiny. To die is their burden. To lead them into battle is yours, as it was your father’s, and it shames me to watch you quiver beneath it. The world is filled with men, the world shakes them off, daily, hourly, every moment, unmourned and unconsidered, as a mutt does fleas. Would you be more than just a man? Would you be great? This is the price asked of you, the price demanded. It is no small thing. It is too much for most.’ Eudokia laid her hand along the high cheekbones of her nephew, let it rest there a moment, for one does not rule by the lash alone. ‘Be at peace, my beloved child. A great task has Aeleria asked of you, and she will offer the tools to complete it. The Senate, in recognition of the importance of your duty, has voted you three more themas.’ And what arm-bending had that taken; two of them had come from the Marches and she had been forced to pay a call on every senator with an estate in the hinterlands, offering assurances that the Marchers had been well and truly obliterated. Which of course had been her purpose in provoking them into revolt some years earlier, making certain of her western flank before moving east.
    The news of his reinforcements spread across Konstantinos’s face like a shot of fine liquor, steadied his eyes and brought fresh bloom to his face. ‘Three themas?’
    ‘March-hardened veterans to a man,’ she said soothingly. ‘We’ll show these Salucians what it is to quibble with the might of the Commonwealth. Aelerian boots will echo on the cobblestone streets of Oscan, and you will be first among the throng. Your name will be sung centuries after your death, future generations of children will play beneath the shadow of the great statues they erect in your honour.’ Eudokia stretched her arm out, as if pointing to this vision in the distance. ‘All that a man would wish to possess, wealth and fame and fortune nation, all of it, yes, all of it, will be yours.’ Excepting power, of course – power