Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [97]
Finally a tall, rawboned man with his black hair scraped back in a warrior’s braid pushed to the forefront of the crowd. He wore old mail, and his surcoat was faded. His gauntlets were folded over his sword belt, and his spurs jingled as he walked. A long, white scar ran down one side of his neck, and he was missing his ear on that side. His thumbs were hooked casually in his belt, showing broad, callused hands scarred across the knuckles from fighting. His brown eyes held scorn, but they were wary, seasoned eyes that had looked on many battles. He was perhaps twenty years older than Caelan, and carried his age as a man in his full prime. Only the jewel in the hilt of his sword and the embroidered coat of arms on the breast of his surcoat proclaimed his high rank. Clearly this man had come for a war council.
He was exactly the ally Caelan needed. He was not someone to be made into an enemy.
“I am Pier,” the warlord said, introducing himself in the stark way of the aristocracy. “I have seen you fight, and I have won money on you. You did once belong to Prince Tirhin. Now it seems you belong to the Empress Elandra.”
Another murmur ran through the crowd.
Caelan glared at him. “I belong to no one,” he said. “I was born free. I walk free again. I have been a soldier in the Crimson Guard. Now I fight to save the empire from her enemies.”
“Pretty speech for a gladiator,” Pier said coolly. Snickers spread out behind him. “You wear the armor of an imperial guardsman. Some of it anyway, but you do not carry a guardsman’s weapons. And you have no cloak to show your rank ... or lack of it.”
Caelan’s head lifted proudly. “I have been told the men of Gialta are among the best warriors in the empire. I did not know this was a lie.”
Angry voices rose up.
He lifted his own voice to carry over the buzz. “Or that the men of Gialta judge others by what they wear and how pretty they smell.”
Several men now had their hands on their weapons. Caelan met glare for glare, not caring if he insulted all of them.
“Take care, stranger,” General Handar warned him softly. “If the empress is all the protection you have, it will not be enough.”
His warning only goaded Caelan’s temper further. He let his contempt for them show plainly.
“The empress comes to you, having been attacked by demons and Madrun barbarians in the dead of night, within what should have been the safety of her own palace, her own apartments. She comes to you, having seen Imperia burn, having fled for her life from those trying to slaughter her. She comes to you, with the screams of dying men and women still ringing in her ears. She comes to you, with her husband dead, to find her father dying. Her own protector was slaughtered while saving her life. Her guardsmen were massacred in the palace. She has seen betrayal and evil from those whom she trusted. Yes, even from the son of the emperor, a man who drove her to her coronation in the processional and swore an oath of fealty to her that day.”
The room stood silent now. Their eyes were all on him. They listened, despite themselves, to his scorn and condemnation.
“She has come to you, people of Gialta, for help against the darkness that would take this empire and crush it. For days she has spoken of little except the bravery of her native province, of the valiant warriors who live here, of the continued loyalty she expected to find.”
Caelan paused, and a sneer curled his lip. “But because she did not come home riding on an elephant, dripping in jewels, and surrounded by an army of Imperia’s finest, you have looked at her as though she were an oddity. Those filthy, half-savage Thyzarenes who made it possible for her to get here swiftly, without walking the entire distance, have shown her more deference and respect than any finely garbed courtier in this room.
“Was there one bow given to her, your crowned sovereign? Yes, a single bow from a servant. Was there one curtsy? Yes, from a lady forced to speak to her. But what of the rest of you? Because the empress has come here in the manner of a