Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [110]
At the foot of the stairs was a wheeled catafalque bearing a wooden casket.
Her father’s body.
Although she knew she should, she didn’t really feel all that much for him any more, but why was that? Had she spent so long alienating herself from the more basic human emotions that now she didn’t know what to think, or was it a relief at the passing of this man who had been so cruel to her mother, a man who had loved no one but himself?
Standing in a row immediately behind the casket was the Night Guard, what was left of it, just eleven members currently. Commander Lathraea stood to attention at the front of them, a vision of darkness in his black uniform, his pale face shining like some ghostly beacon.
Councilors loitered behind him, and then various nobles, in bright robes, further back. Ordinary citizens from the city had been allowed access to this privileged level, so crammed themselves, shoulder to shoulder, into any adjoining street that provided a decent view. All around the city she could see people watching from balconies, standing on walls, leaning from the windows of countless towers. Many of them were waving to her, and there was an element of excitement about the entire city. There would be narrations tonight, as there always were—they would linger on Emperor Johynn’s life until the red sun rose. There would be wine, beer, dancing. A few late-night walks where people would be saying how lovely she looked or what a sad time for her to follow in her father’s footsteps.
Rika strode down the steps to join her sister by her father’s casket. Some part of her wanted to lift the coffin lid, to see what his face looked like one more time, to wonder if her anger would be rekindled, or if she would open up her heart to him only to be met with a cold silence.
Commander Lathraea stepped forward with a nod and some whispered instructions.
The procession journeyed along the twisted streets of the city, Rika the only one on horseback, elevated so all could see their new ruler. Her mount towing the deceased was somehow vaguely symbolic. Despite the freezing weather, the crowds cheered. Old women threw tundra flowers across the passing carriage. For nearly two hours they progressed, a sad trail of sodden flowers marking their passage toward the underground crypt.
Anyone who was anyone in the Jamur Empire made themselves present there in the darkness of crypt. Every Emperor of the Jamur lineage was buried here, four thousand years of blood kin. It had begun with Jamur Joll, who had first led his people into the ancient town of Vilhallan, as it was known then, after a legendary battle, there proclaiming himself Emperor and ordering the three encircling walls of Villjamur to be built. Johynn would be buried alongside his father, Emperor Gulion, the one who drowned twenty-six years previously with more than a little rumor surrounding the incident. Rika looked on with a strange realization that this is where she herself would be buried, among these hundred of candles, in an eternal stone prison.
“War?” Rika gasped. She leaned back in her chair, stared into space. The word echoed in her mind, summoned up feelings of guilt, of shame. War meant death, and she would be complicit in causing it. It didn’t even seem her decision to make—the Empire would do what it needed to without her say in the matter.
Two lanterns burned in the room, and a candle on the table and a fire. Animal-head trophies hung on the wooden-paneled walls, which bore the carving of ancient runes. The sense of history here was humbling.
“It’s an essential, I assure you,” Chancellor Urtica said. With one upturned hand, he gestured at the maps spread out before them, then moved the candle to cast a light over the Empire’s islands of the western Boreal Archipelago. “Our armies have gathered here on Folke, near the garrison town of Ule. It’s our largest fortified area in the east. I’ll admit that initially my concerns about war were as yours