Despite its power at the time, this civilization had converted with little or no force. Lucidonius’s teachings had made sense to these people, as if his ideas filled in the gaps that had left them puzzled, and contradicted only those things in their own practices that had left them uneasy. They had already revered the number seven: not only did they see it in their colors, but they arranged the world into what they called the seven creations: man, mammal, fish, reptile, bird, insect, and plant.
But all the grandeur of the city now was tarnished, a mock. Starving people had not the energy to clean their homes and streets or even themselves. Rubbish heaps had been plundered and the detritus left scattered about, not least on the faces of these walking skeletons in their rags.
“The city wasn’t under siege that long,” Kip said. “It shouldn’t be this bad. Are those burn marks on the walls? Were there riots here?”
“My spies haven’t reported yet,” Tisis said. “I don’t know what happened.”
Kip looked back at his lackluster parade: men and women literally bloodied, the grime and sweat and soot of the battlefield still on them, some limping, some still bleeding after refusing medical care because they didn’t want to disappoint their leader or leave their friends… all marching to impress whom? A starving crowd? The city leaders?
These people didn’t need to be impressed. They needed to be fed.
“What are we doing?” Kip said. “A military procession to the heart of the city? Why? Because that’s what people do? None of the people here have ever done it or ever seen it. There’s a place for spectacle, but it’s not here.”
Kip threw a flare into the sky to signal a stop.
It takes some time for an entire army to stop, though, and while the appropriate people got in their places for further orders, Sibéal Siofra said, “I know what you’re going to do, and while I admire the heart behind it, Lord Guile, it’s not a good idea. Think about the logistics—”
“I’ve thought of them,” Kip said. But he didn’t explain.
“What’s he going to do?” Ferkudi tried to whisper.
“He’s going to give away our food,” Cruxer said.
“He’s not going to give our food away,” Ben-hadad said. “Because that would be idiotic.”
“I’m giving our food away,” Kip told Ferkudi.
“Kip,” Ben-hadad said, “if you give away our food, the army stops. Period. We go nowhere, we do nothing, people start leaving within a couple days. If the army stops, the Blood Robes can kill as many Foresters as they want, including everyone in this city. In the long run, it’s not a mercy to—”
“Give away the food!” Kip commanded. “All of it. Section commanders, carry out the original plan, but begin now, and take all of our food rather than what we’d apportioned before.”
Sibéal huffed and Ben-hadad lifted his heavy spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” Ben-hadad said. “Please.”
“Drafters, cavalry, and the Mighty with me,” Kip said. “I want our camp followers in here mending and washing clothes and cleaning streets. Anything that needs to be done and can be done in two days, do it. Looting or assault will earn hanging. Remind them to go in teams. Even killings in self-defense will be considered murder if there aren’t two corroborating witnesses.” Last thing Kip needed was some young assholes to antagonize the whole city.
The army didn’t dissolve at once, of course. But commanders began booming out orders, filling in their people on what they were about to do, and messengers exploded from the column like hornets from an upended nest.
Kip gave the signal, and the column began moving again, but now, as it got deeper into the city, sections broke off, each with its own wagons of provisions. It took a lot of work to give away something properly.
Gradually the signs of the city’s impoverishment cleared until they reached the great gate into the part of the city called the Sanctum of the Divines. Here there were undeniable scorch marks from at least one earlier riot. The great gate was now open, though.
Here, as at the wall, the posts of the gate were trees. But these weren’t sabino cypresses. They were atasifusta, though sadly no longer living. Kip hadn’t known that there were any left standing in the world. Atasifusta were the only known plant that converted sunlight into something a lot like red luxin. Except it was a more potent red luxin than man had ever drafted. A single stick of the stuff would burn for many days without being consumed. Its usefulness had doomed it to extinction. Families still passed down single sticks of the stuff. A few shavings made a perfect fire starter, or the whole stick could be set alight to help light damp wood, and then extinguished with no appreciable loss to its mass. It had found worse uses in war, the sawdust being a precursor to black powder.
Here, knot work had been carved into the entire surface of both trees, and the rest overlaid with some clear glaze so the designs stood out in black on bone-white wood. Clearly the designs were set alight for special occasions. Kip was somewhat sad that his arrival didn’t rate.
A dozen guards stood at the gate, but they said nothing. A single rider on a white charger in ceremonial white-and-gold armor and carrying the white-and-green triangular flag of the city nodded to them from his wolf helm and rode before them, leading them to the Palace of the Divines.
Here the buildings were older and grander by far. Living wood made the frames of these buildings, with a few supporting enormous stained glass windows between their branches, mostly hidden now by fresh green leaves, but no doubt glorious in autumn and winter.
“How the hell did they do that?” Ben-hadad said. “Do they will-cast the trees? How do you will-cast a tree? They don’t grow fast enough. How do the windows not shatter when the branches grow year by year? How do they keep the trees alive? It’s not possible.”
“It’s a great disgrace for any family to let their heartwood die,” Tisis said. “That said, perhaps we should focus on more immediate matters.”
“Such as?” Kip asked. He stopped. “Oh.”
A gallows had come into view. Ten ragged corpses bedecked with rags and carrion birds (rioters, no doubt) were hanged beside a familiar man whose trousers alone would have fed those rioters for a month.
“They hanged Conn Hill?” Cruxer asked. “But why?”
“Because he offended Kip,” Tisis said, shocked. “They’re that desperate.”
Kip felt a sudden wave of guilt, as when he’d not hidden the money well enough and his mother had found it and gone on another binge. After she sobered, she’d berate him for failing her.
Conn Hill had been an asshole. Kip had wanted the man out of his sight. He’d guessed the Council of Divines would strip him of his position as conn. But this?
What had Kip done?
They entered a glorious plaza nearly the size of a hippodrome. It was paved with flawless white granite cobbles, and stately buildings in green and marble embraced by living wood rose on each side of the square. The grandest was the Palace of the Divines, which lay at the top of thirty wine-red marble steps like a pale bloated dictator in his palanquin.
The Divines, septuagenarians all, stood at the top of the steps in a semicircle.
Kip was clearly expected to dismount and climb the steps.
He rode up the steps.
Don’t fall off the damn horse. Don’t fall off the damn horse.
The horse was sure-footed, though, and it deposited Kip at the top of the stairs in the midst of seven scandalized old men and their retinues. The Mighty had dismounted, and flowed up the steps like a black tide.
Having made a small point about how he might not do what they expected, Kip undercut it by striking a demure attitude.
“Greetings, my lords,” he said with only a tiny smile.
“Greetings, Lord Guile, Savior of Dúnbheo, Defender of Blood Forest, and loyal son of the Seven Satrapies,” an officious, nasally man at one end said. Kip thought it was Lord Aodán Appleton from Tisis’s briefings. He decided he didn’t like the little stuffed turd.
The others echoed him. Several looked openly hostile. Good, those he could trust. They also stood together, like amateurs, like cattle herding close to ward off harm. A faction, then.
After dealings at the Chromeria, it was actually refreshing to see one’s friends and enemies do something so kind as to line up so you could tell who was who.