Chapter 15 – Last of His Blood
It was unpardonably late when Bastin arrived at Duke Ereguil’s estate in Segoile.
If there was anyone in the world he could trust, it was Laud Ereguil.
Bastin’s father had chosen many blue-blooded sons to be his companion when he was a child, and over the last twenty years, every single one of those early friends had come to him for some favor, to capitalize on that relationship. To Bastin, it was inevitable.
If Laud was ever going to collect, it would be now.
The famous mimosa trees lined the long avenue to the manor, all pink flowers and lacy leaves, ending in a grand courtyard before the ancient house. It was one of the finest estates in the city.
“Divinity?” Duke Ereguil descended the steps in a hurry, looking as if he had dressed hastily in the dark. “Is something amiss?”
“Yes. I must speak with you now,” said Bastin, with a pointed look at the servants. He had dismissed all his own servants and ordered his guards to remain outside. He could not trust them.
“Yes, Divinity. My office,” Laud replied, recovering quickly. “Nencion, bring us a bite from the kitchen. See that we are not otherwise disturbed.”
“Thank you.” Bastin followed the other man down a long corridor with moonlight streaming through wide windows on either side. “I know it is very late.”
That was as near as an Emperor could come to an apology.
“I heard you were unwell,” Laud replied, glancing back at him. “I hope it was nothing serious.”
“I am well enough.” The doors of the office closed behind them and for a moment Bastin hesitated, the words hovering on the tip of his tongue as he looked at the other man. It was Laud. Bluff, brawling Laud was honest as few noblemen were, and shrewd enough to arrange matters so that he could be.
Was Laud truly his friend? Could he really confide in him, and trust that it would not be repeated?
“Divinity?”
“What I say must go no further than this room.” Bastin selected a chair and sat in it.
“Of course,” Laud said in surprise, sitting with obvious disquiet. “Do you require an oath of secrecy?”
He was joking. Bastin was not.
“Yes.”
Laud gave it, with all the ceremony and careful phrasing that one might wish. But even as he spoke the ritual words, it just reminded Bastin of all the other oaths that had been sworn to him, even sworn on him. Bastin Agnephus, the Divinity, was an object upon which to hang an oath.
“…until death takes me, or the Divinity himself should free me to speak,” Laud concluded, and looked at him expectantly.
“I hate my wife.”
This was not a secret. Everyone in the Empire knew it.
“I want to divorce her,” Bastin went on, gripping the arms of his chair. “I will divorce her, no matter what it takes.”
“Radiance,” Laud began sympathetically. “There is no such thing as divorce under heaven. You exchanged sacred, eternal oaths. The Temple sanctified your union. In the eyes of the stars—”
“I am their Beloved,” Bastin snapped. “I am sacred. I am their son, the Divinity, if anyone may speak for them, it is I. The stars know that I was forced—forced to make those oaths. I was never joined to her willingly, never, not once. It cannot be this way. This cannot be acceptable, I cannot—”
His voice was rising, and he cut himself off.
“You have seen how my Temple regards me,” he said, trying to be calm.
“If I am sacred, how can it be the will of the stars for their son to be bound again and again against his will? How could it be the will of the stars for their scions, the rulers of the Empire, to be made slaves to the Temple and House Melun?”
“I cannot fathom the will of the stars,” Laud said carefully, troubled. “I agree that it cannot be good for the Empire for our Emperor to be…treated that way. Whether by Melun or anyone else. I do believe that.”
How pathetic, that Bastin must argue for that position. That so many of his lords would disagree.
His chest was tight.
“I have never truly…felt that I was sacred,” Bastin replied, low.
“I do not know what I am…supposed to feel. They said my father was sacred. The clerics prayed in his name and collected money in his name and trotted him out to the crowds and when they had squeezed all the blood from him, they sold what was left to Melun. How could they do that, if they really believed he was sacred?”
They had sold Bastin himself to House Melun, too.
He had made it his business to discover what had happened to his father.
Emperor Onsetin Agnephus’s priests had taken money to leave him on his sickbed with Duke Dardot Melun.
For three days, servants and priests had ignored the shouting from the Emperor’s chambers, leaving the sick man trapped until he agreed to betroth his son to Esmene Melun. He had died shortly after.
Had he too heard the bells of the Eternal Vigil?
And had Bastin’s own clerics sold him again? he wondered suddenly. Had Esmene paid them to allow her into his palace?
“Maybe that is the trouble,” he whispered, more to himself than to Laud. “I have not believed myself sacred. Why should anyone else?”
“Radiance?”
“I will undo this marriage.” Bastin drew himself up in his chair. “To do that, my Temple must be brought to heel. If I am sacred, I will be sacred. I will make them bow their necks to me. If I have the strength to do that, that will be enough. Will you help me?”
“Of course,” Laud said slowly, and rose at a knock at the door without taking his eyes from Bastin. He had the Ereguil eyes, cinnamon-brown and sharp as a raptor’s. “That will be the wine. I feel we will need it.”
Bastin would never drink wine again without a moment’s misgiving, but he sipped from his glass and felt it burn in his gut, a manifestation of the fury that would be with him for the rest of his life.
“Melun has the support of Pomeret, Sangevin, and Norgrede.” Laud set a tray of fruit and cheese between them, beginning in the place where they were both most comfortable, like laying out game pieces.
“They will not cross Melun’s will in any matter.
Firkane and Tries will support you, as always.
Old Duke Lein is ineffectual, but you may have better luck with his son.
Berebet never saw a fence they didn’t want to sit on, though they would back you if you showed enough strength. ”
“If I could persuade House _______, that might be enough,” Bastin said, seizing gratefully on the problem. “When was the last time Benetot was in the capital? I swear I have not seen him since I confirmed his title.”
“The Eastern Empire suffered greatly in the war,” Laud reminded him.
The last war with Valleth had claimed many members of the high nobility, including both Benetot’s and Laud’s fathers, elevating young men who otherwise would have waited decades to inherit their Houses.
It was one of the reasons why Bastin had had so much trouble building his power.
Right now, the castles of the capital were slippery as sand.
“I need him here. They cling to the old ways in the East,” Bastin remembered. “It may incline him to sympathy. Why has he been avoiding the capital?”
“It is more that a great deal of attention is needed at home,” Laud replied diplomatically. “Benetot is just married, with a child on the way. That may make it difficult to persuade him in this matter. The people of the East revere the old ways, but that also means they take their oaths seriously.”
“My marriage oath was not made in good faith,” Bastin countered. “It cannot be good in the sight of the stars to compel someone to make an oath against their will. As a principle. I always said that Melun must have bribed the Temple—”
“Re-litigating your betrothal is unlikely to sway anyone to your side, Radiance,” Laud pointed out. “That is settled business. There must be some other reason to justify such a measure.”
That was an opportunity to tell him what the Empress had done, but even with wine bubbling faintly in his veins, Bastin could not make himself do it.
The despised vision of his father was too present in his mind, that quavering, apologetic voice, praying to the stars to have mercy on his son.
Weak. A man so weak deserved his fate. He could not call himself a man at all.
“She cannot give me an heir,” he said instead.
“It helps that she has not,” Laud agreed. “And that in all the years of the Agnephus dynasty, there has never been an infertile Emperor.”
For a moment, Bastin imagined all of his predecessors, eight hundred years of Agnephus sons, and wondered if any others had been unwilling sires. Their beloved subjects would not allow them to be infertile.
“There will be no choice but to accept a divorce if the alternative is the extinction of the House of Agnephus,” Laud was saying. “But Divinity, if the Empress were to conceive...”
“She will not,” Bastin replied. He would die first.
“Is there really no way you can be reconciled?” Laud was watching him carefully.
“We can work to separate the Empress from her House, and keep Melun in check. Even Pomeret and Sangevin might be persuaded to stay their hands, if we were merely seeking to restrain Melun. But if you could just accept the Empress—”
“No.”
“I know how you feel,” Laud said sympathetically, leaning nearer. “I do. My own wife was not to my liking, at first. But there are few noblemen who marry for love. If you viewed it as a partnership, an alliance—”
“No,” Bastin repeated violently. Allow that bitch to go to banquet with him and smile at his side?
Dance with her? The thought of her hand on him sickened him, let alone—but stars, that was going to happen again, wasn’t it?
It was going to be years before he could secure a divorce, and in the meantime…
He was going to have to go back to her bed. Not once. Many times. Regularly. To prove that she could not give him a child.
“I will not. Ever,” he said, and was dismayed to find his eyes were hot. He gulped down his wine.