Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

‘Can I get you a drink, King Jorg?’ Qalasadi said. ‘It’s a long climb up all those steps.’ The ivory wand he’d used to write in the dust of my grandfather’s courtyard lay in his hand now.

I came to the table, just its width between us, my knife skewering a sheath of papers, all covered with tight-packed symbology, and spoke in a calm voice, as reasonable men do. ‘Part of being in the business of prediction, a large part perhaps, must be the art of giving the impression that things are unfolding according to your expectations. A victim who believes himself anticipated at every turn is not only crippled by uncertainty but also easier to predict.’

All three men watched me without reply. No sign of nerves, save perhaps Qalasadi’s fingers rubbing at the short curls of his beard, and a faint sheen of sweat across Kalal’s brow. Yusuf had taken the combs from his hair and bound it all back, tight to the skull. He looked older now, more clever.

‘You must have known I would decide to hit the table with that throw or you would have tried to stop me … unless you didn’t know I would throw the knife at all?’ I found myself digging into the crippling uncertainty I’d just spoken of.

‘And the drink?’ Qalasadi said.

I did have a thirst on me, but that was too predictable. Besides, you don’t cross nations to hunt down a poisoner and then drink what he gives you. ‘Why did you try to kill my mother’s kin, Qalasadi? A friend told me the mathmagicians have their own purposes. Was it just to please Ibn Fayed? To keep his good will and stop him turfing you out of this rather fine oasis?’

Qalasadi rubbed his chin across the top of his palm, closing his fingers about his jaw in consideration. He had the same even pace to him that he showed in Castle Morrow. I had liked him from the start. Perhaps that’s why I showed off for him, maybe gave him the information he needed to deduce my story. Even now, with vengeance a sword thrust away, I had no hatred for him.

‘It’s an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war,’ he said. ‘You know it yourself, Jorg. The Hundred War must be won if it is to stop. Won on the battlefield, won on the floor of Congression. These things are of a piece.’

‘And Ibn Fayed is the man to win it?’ I asked.

‘In five years Ibn Fayed will vote for Orrin of Arrow at Congression. The Earl Hansa would not. The vote will be close. The Prince of Arrow will bring peace. Millions will prosper. Hundreds of thousands will live instead of dying in war. Our order chose the many over the few.’

‘That was a mistake. They were my few.’ A heat rose in me.

‘Mistakes can be made.’ He nodded, thoughtful. ‘Even with enchantment to tame the variables the sum of the world is a complex one.’

‘So you still intend to gift the realm of Morrow to Ibn Fayed? To let the Moorish tide back yet again into the Horse Coast?’ I watched Qalasadi, his eyes, his mouth, the motion of his hands, everything, just to try and read something of the man. It maddened me to have them stand there so calm, as if they knew at each moment what was on my tongue to speak, in my mind to do. And yet did they? Was it part of their show of smokes and mirrors?

‘We intend that the Prince of Arrow win the empire throne at Congression in the 104th year of Interregnum.’ Yusuf spoke for the first time, his voice edged with just a touch of strain. ‘The Congression of year 100 will be a stalemate: that cannot be changed.’

‘It may be that the caliph’s domains can more easily be expanded in other directions.’ Kalal spoke, his high voice at odds with a serious mouth. ‘Maroc may fall more easily than Morrow or Kordoba.’

The amount of relief that suggestion brought surprised me. ‘I came to kill you, Qalasadi. To lay waste to your domain and leave behind ruination.’

He had the grace or commonsense not to smirk at my apocalyptic turn of phrase. Most likely they knew of Gelleth even in Afrique. Perhaps they saw the glare of it, rising above the horizon. Lord knows it burned bright enough, and high? It scorched heaven!

‘I hope that you will not,’ said Qalasadi.

‘Hope?’ I drew my robe aside, setting hand to hilt. ‘You don’t know?’

‘All men need hope, Jorg. Even men of numbers.’ Yusuf pressed a smile onto his lips, his voice soft, the voice of a man ready to die.

‘And what do your equations say of me, poisoner?’ My sword stood between us now. I had no recollection of drawing it. The rage I needed flared and died, flared again. I saw my grandfather and grandmother laid out pale on the deathbed, Uncle Robert in a warrior’s tomb, hands folded across the blade upon his chest. I saw Qalasadi’s smile in a sunlit courtyard. Yusuf wiping the sea from his face. ‘Salty!’ he had said. ‘Let’s hope the world has better to offer than that, no?’ Words spoken at sea.

I slammed my sword hilt onto the table’s polished wood. ‘What do your calculations say?’ A roar that made them flinch.

‘Two,’ Qalasadi said.

‘Two?’ A laugh tore out of me, sharp-edged, full of hurting.

He bowed his head. ‘Two.’