Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [66]
Spring came and brought with it a long caravan of Imperial refugees. They carried good news and bad. The good news was that the Empire’s longtime enemy, Molin’s people—the Nisibisi witches of the north—had been beaten, crushed, vanquished, shattered into a thousand pieces the previous summer. The bad news was that the Nisi hadn’t been humbled by Rankan might. A horde of demonworshipers from the far east had crushed the witches, then demanded tribute—or else—from the Empire.
The horde’s numbers were great beyond counting. They’d formed a solid ring around the Imperial city of Lirt and when it refused their demands they burnt it to the ground. Not one soul, the refugees insisted, had survived. They weren’t Lirters; they were from the city of Sihan, south of Lirt. When the horde hove across Sihan’s landward horizon, the pragmatic Sihanites had simply abandoned their port city. Their fleet had sailed south, expecting a warm welcome in the capital.
Instead, they learned that there’d been another coup in the capital and a new usurper was sitting on the emperor’s throne. He called himself Vengestis the Magnificent and swore that he’d lead the army to victory over the Dark Horde, but until then the refugees could fend for themselves, west of the capital. He sent his soldiers to the wharves and threatened the Sihanites with death if they set so much as one foot off their ships.
“Lord Serripines says the last month has been hell, and this place is truly Sanctuary to his eyes,” Hoxa said while slowly shaking his head. “He means to settle his whole clan outside the walls. They’re going to grow grain for export, same as they did in Sihan!”
Molin lowered his foot from the cushion. His toe had shrunk. He could think of riding again without leaking tears, but there was nowhere to go if Lirt was gone. Lirt and Walegrin and the rest. He shivered—not from cold—and considered that except for Hoxa, there was no one left who shared his memories, certainly not this Lord Serripines from Sihan.
“The man thinks this is Sanctuary?” Molin murmured. “And he thinks he’s going to grow grain here? The man’s either a fool or a green-thumb genius.”
“And us, Lord Torchholder? What do you make of this Vengestis the Magnificent?”
“Get your cloak, Hoxa. We’re leaving.” Molin stood up and immediately stubbed the wrong toe. He gritted his teeth against the pain, then stamped into his softest boots.
“For Ranke, Lord Torchholder?”
He sighed as he thumped one of the chests with his fist. “It’s time to forget Ranke, Hoxa.” The chest groaned and opened. Molin took a handful of soldats and coronations from the wealth of coins, gems, plate, and weaponry. He poured the coins into a plain leather scrip and let the chest lid slam.
“If we don’t go to Ranke, Lord Torchholder, where shall will go?” The little man glanced about the dingy room. “We can’t stay here.”
“I absolutely agree.” Molin tore a length of brick red cloth from one of his court robes. He wound it intricately around his head, covering his steel gray hair, and let the loose ends fall against his face. With his profile thus obscured he could pass for anything but an Imperial lord.
“Come, Hoxa. By sundown we shall be shopkeepers—”
“Lord Torchholder?”
“Forget ‘Lord,’ Hoxa—Forget Hoxa, too. Call yourself … call yourself Venges, for our new emperor. Call me Boss. By sundown we shall be the new proprietors of a respectable wine shop—or an apothecary. An apothecary would be best. I have some small knowledge of mixing potions, you know.”
And by sundown they were proprietors of a run-down apothecary that had been clinging barely to life in what, twenty years earlier, had been the jewelers’ quarter.
Compared to the ashes of Lirt or Sihan, or the convulsions of Ranke itself as the Imperial city digested Vengestis and his successor, life