Chapter Thirty-Six The Cobra and the Last Duchess #2
Eric shook his head. “What is wrong with you? Don’t talk like this. Don’t… don’t do it. Don’t die.”
Marius believed in Eric’s clever mind, but even cleverness could not produce a miracle.
“I have no other choice. Do you see another Valerius here?”
“Certainly, dear boy,” answered his mother.
The duchess walked across the dust of the training grounds, the hem of her gown dragging, a large enchanted sword from the Valerius armoury in her small hands.
Marius was astonished to recognize the orichal blade Keeping the Faith, and wondered when his mother had stolen it.
Two others came in her wake. Ink the stable girl walked in her shadow.
Caracalla’s teacher wheeled his chair behind.
“Let me go with you, Eumenida,” begged Engus.
In this moment of extremity, even a servant using his mother’s first name only sent a distant echo of shock through Marius. The duchess didn’t seem displeased. She touched his hand. Marius supposed Engus was a faithful servant.
“No, dear. I would rather do this alone.” The duchess lifted her face, ice-grey eyes filling with reflected flames.
“I should have burned it all down years ago. Burned the house with him inside, so my children would grow up without a father. Far better than growing up with their father. Monsters are always hungry. The worst monsters are hungry enough to eat their children. I knew poison seeped through the manor walls. I knew my lord husband would raise my boy up to be a beast. With any other boy, he would have succeeded. I knew the day would come when my husband came for my Caracalla. I was a coward.”
Marius would not tolerate anyone insulting his mother, even herself. “Anyone would have been frightened of him!”
“But frightened of you?” asked his mother softly. “My good boy, my kind boy, who came to save us? I shut us up in the tower. I wouldn’t open the door to see your face when you begged. I never liked to see your face. You look so much like him. I deserve to burn.”
Marius shook his head. The distressing circumstances had made his mother temporarily lose her mind.
“You did right. We were two beasts, and I the younger and stronger. I left him in agony. If you had opened the door, I might have killed either one of you. You were both right to hide, and right to fear me. I know very well what I am. Would you leave Caracalla alone in the world with a monster? It must be me.”
“We’re all monsters here, sweet boy.” The duchess shook her head. “A family of monsters, raised in a tomb.”
Caracalla said, “No!” His sister whirled in between them like a wind of change. “Marius, when you came that day, I knew you would. I prayed you would save us and you did. You aren’t a monster. You’re a knight.”
Helplessly, Marius turned to the duchess. She would tell Caracalla to stop raving. His lady mother always knew what to do.
His mother told him, “Caracalla tried to fight free and go to you that day. I held my hand over her mouth to stop her calling for you. I had to hold her down with all my strength. Your sister never feared you for a moment. You were always her hero.”
That couldn’t be right, but Caracalla was nodding violently, tears pouring down her cheeks. He didn’t know why she would lie to him, but it couldn’t be true.
The roof of the west wing caved in with a crash and a great, seething plume of smoke. The windows of the rest of the manor were shining red now, too. Whatever flames these were, from above or abyss, they were growing. Whatever shadow grew at the heart of the fire, it was coming.
“Engus, this is a frightful scene. Take the children away,” commanded the duchess. She turned and showed Ink a startling mark of favour by kissing the stable girl on the cheek. “Good girl. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Why would you bring her here?” Caracalla shouted at Ink.
“Don’t raise your voice, my love. Be a lady,” admonished the duchess, and kissed Caracalla on her brow. “Your life has been the great dream of my heart. Go quickly.”
“Both of you must go!” exclaimed Marius.
Couldn’t they understand? This was his task, to fight for them.
When his mother looked at him, he did not know how to fight her. But he would have to, if she did not stand aside. “Let me shield you once, dear heart, as a mother should.”
“Mother, I cannot let you. Ask me for anything else!”
His mother gave a little disappointed “hm” as if informed by one of her lady friends that they were out of scones for tea. “My lord the Marquis, I have been glad to have you as my guest. I know you care for my children. Will you do me a last great favour, as your hostess?”
An abyss of dread yawned within Marius. Terror choked him, worse than smoke, at the thought he might get what he wanted. Eric would finally do what Marius had desperately wished, and invoke the oath of blood and gold.
“Eric, do not! I beg you.”
Eric was already nodding.
“Marius,” he ordered, and his words spun enchantment, spun a web, forged new chains. “I command you not to go into the manor. Marius Valerius, I command you to let her go.”
That was when Marius truly understood why Eric recoiled from using the oath, why he kept telling Marius to do what he wanted.
Because this time, Marius could not do as he willed.
This time, Marius strained against invisible ropes of scarlet and gold as his mother walked, ever graceful, ever quietly dignified, through the door of the manor.
The house of their ancient line, the tomb of their ancestors. She passed inside into its fiery mouth.
Caracalla gave an anguished scream, burrowing her head into Marius’s chest.
For once, the Cobra was not kind.
“We have to go and find the others,” Eric commanded. “Or what she’s done is for nothing. We have to go now!”
Marius and Eric gathered up their people. Refugees from the city and bandits, soldiers and farmers alike. They made haste and got clear of the manor, then halted in the dark realizing they did not know where their flight should lead.
“This is where it all goes wrong, in every tragedy,” Eric murmured. “When the manor burns, and the gods show up.”
“My mother is dying to buy us time. How shall we use it?”
The fire of those words burned Marius’s throat, smoke choking him so he could scarcely breathe. But she had made a soldier’s sacrifice, which should be honoured with a battle plan.
Eric raked his hands through his hair.
“I’ll write a letter to warn Rae. I don’t know how long she can hold him in there, but we have to assume when the Great God emerges, he will march for the capital and his son.
I don’t know what will happen when he reaches the city, but Themesvar may need a shield.
Themesvar may need an army. You have been training one. ”
“I have not been arming one,” Marius said, appalled.
Marius turned and looked at all the people standing in the distant firelight. He had not realized there were so many.
The young bandit Sparrow hoisted an enchanted spear in the air. “Er. Is this a bad time to mention we’ve been rifling the armoury?”
The leader of the band, her red kerchief now singed, shrugged. “We are bandits, my lord.”
“So it will be as Lucius said. You will lead an army back to the capital,” said the Cobra. “Just not the army he thought. There’s just one more thing.”
Marius knew where he and his mother had found comfort in his childhood. He knew how battles were won.
“We need an ally as strong as our enemy. We need the Great Goddess.”
As soon as he said it, the path was clear. He just hadn’t wanted to see it before. Someone needed to seek the Oracle, and someone needed to lead a force on the capital. But Marius had sought the Oracle before, and already asked the one question each mortal was allowed.
There was only one man clever enough to ask the Oracle just the right question, to get the answer they needed, and that was the wicked marquis.
“I will go ask the Oracle,” volunteered Eric.
At least if Eric went to the Oracle, he would not be caught up in a battle. Marius didn’t want to be parted from him, but if something rose from the flames, surely it would follow the larger force.
Marius hated it, but he bowed his head. “Take Caracalla with you. Take her teacher, take that girl she’s struck up a friendship with. Go. Be safe.”
His sister met his eyes, cold certainty flying between them. When ice struck ice, there were sparks, as from a white abyss. She did not argue. She knew as well as he that their mother’s sacrifice must not be in vain.
An objection came from an unexpected source.
“Oh, Lord Marius! Please let me stay with you,” Ink implored, clutching at his sleeve. “I can be useful, I swear it. I have something I must tell you!”
“What is it?” Marius snapped.
Ink’s dreamy gaze darted towards the Cobra, turning suddenly sharp as her gaze stabbed him. She told Marius desperately, “I love you.”
Her dark gaze was very beautiful, and it was very plain she could not see him clearly at all.
“Then you’re a fool.” Marius shook off the girl’s clinging hands, turning away from her beseeching eyes.
The others were making ready, his army to go with him, the Cobra’s little party headed for the mountain. That foolish girl was lucky to go in safety and in such company.
Loving Marius was as nonsensical as loving an avalanche, or the idea of your own death. He turned back to the Cobra for one last look.
“I really thought I could stop the manor from burning,” murmured the Cobra, soft as smoke. “Doom always comes. The manor always burns.”
“But this time, Caracalla was not inside,” said Marius.
It should have been Marius. But for his sister’s whole precious, fragile life he had known, and known his lady mother would agree, that Caracalla must be saved.
They watched the building burn together for a flickering moment in time, thinking of who was inside. Firelight swept over the field of poppies before the manor, dyeing the flowers red twice over.
“I want you to know something,” Eric said.
Marius felt almost afraid, though he knew not why. “What?”
A shadow of doubt crossed Eric’s face, even under the glaring red wash of the fire, then hardened with resolve. “I will never command you again. Not after tonight.”
He could give the one command Marius would not wish to obey, and then stop?
“Why not?” raged Marius. “Are you scared? They always called you the coward of the court, and it’s true.
You keep secrets from me. You talk in riddles – ‘do you like like me’ – when you know perfectly well how to make yourself understood.
You don’t want to be understood. You’re too scared. Speak plainly for once.”
“I am a coward,” said Eric. “I don’t want this epic bullshit.
I don’t want battle scenes or last words, I don’t want to fight a dragon, I don’t want power over you.
I’m too scared to be part of the story. So let’s end this here.
I command you to live as if I was dead. Marius Valerius, I lay upon you my last command.
Be a hero. Do only what you truly believe is right. ”
He turned and walked away as Marius and the fire raged at his back.
Marius called after him, “If you were dead, why would I care about what was right? Why should I care about anything?”
Eric did not look back. He never did.
At the top of the stairs, wreathed in smoke and sparks, stood the silhouette of a woman wielding a great sword. At the sight of her, the shape that was still half a man stilled. The mouth opened, tongue a lick of flame within, and shaped a name.
A god’s words are all thunder. “I expected someone else.”
“As the lady of the house, it is my duty to welcome a guest. I heard you call for my child, but I sent my children away. I have nothing left but this sword.” The duchess smiled. “I’ll give it to you gladly.”
“Cease this pointless defiance or I will cut you down where you stand.”
Eumineda said, “Try. I am not afraid of you any longer, my lord husband.”
The lady descended the grand staircase towards the Great God, stepping lightly as if going down to her first ball.
“Do you truly believe you still address your husband?”
“I see little difference. My lord husband always believed himself a god.”
The god’s voice roared with the flames consuming the manor. “Low creature of a lesser line. There is barely a spark of the divine in you. If the spark offends me, I will put it out.”
“Do you imagine you control the cursed bloodline because you began it?” asked Eumineda. “No helpless woman is trapped in here with you. You are trapped in here with the last Duchess of Valerius.”
She was a small, frail woman, but with one hand she brought the great sword over her head in a shining, deadly arc. Amid fire and darkness, the woman’s eyes were ice.
“Honour in my heart, death in my hand!” The duchess gave her war cry. “For Caracalla. For Marius.”
The lady charged.
The blaze of Ancilley Manor rose in a red tower to the broken moon. So passed the last duchess.
The manor always burns, but this time the children escaped.
Excerpt from the Once and Forever Emperor series, latest version, ANONYMOUS