Vos stared into the firepit. When he spoke, he did so haltingly. "Senrich and Renelle had been in custody for months. The plot against the Emperor had been disrupted almost a year before, and in that year the dissolution began. First the Imperial College, then the Maathinhold, then the other Academies, one by one. If the arcane brethren had been more scattered I suppose it would have looked like a civil war. But they had no supporters outside their walls, not once the stories of how they were planning to depose your father started to spread. Except for Senrich, all the conspirators had been beheaded or hanged long before. He was a special case, since he was Overseer of the Grand Curia, and arguably in line for the Malachite Throne himself."
"I never knew that," Carala murmured. "Ammas might have been Emperor?"
"It would have been only a regency until the Imperial Council decided which of your siblings would inherit the title, as deposing the Emperor would have voided his will." Vos smiled without much humor. "But the Mourthia brothers were very popular, especially Gratham, and there was little rivalry between them. Who's to say a Mourthia regent might not have become a Mourthia Emperor? The people feared Senrich, but they liked how he treated criminals. Begging your pardon, Carala, but the Curias after Senrich died remained just as harsh but not as fair."
"Criticize my father all you wish, Vos. Just speak plainly."
Carala might have claimed she would not order him to speak, but Vos knew a command when he heard one. With that humorless smile, he continued. "Such a high ranking conspirator had to be made an example of. So the Emperor ordered his arms and legs removed."
Denisius looked sickened. Barthim was very white. Carala's stomach did a slow flip, even the rousing wolf inside her seeming to blanch. "He was torn apart?"
"No," Vos said. "That was not the way of it. The Emperor employed a chiurgeon to sever each of his limbs carefully enough that he would survive each removal. It took months, and I have heard that several times he nearly died." Vos was staring at the firepit again, unable to meet any of their horrified gazes. "If so he was nursed back to health every time, only to lose another limb when he was well enough to survive the chiurgery. I have heard other rumors. That his tongue was cut out. That his -- his manhood was removed. That the chiurgeries did not remove an entire limb, but rather a portion at a time, so first he lost a hand, then his arm to the elbow and -- and so forth." Vos looked ill himself now. "I have even heard that Renelle was brought from her cell in the Chalcedony Palace to witness each amputation. I do not know if it's true."
"In the Palace?" Carala said, her voice hoarse. The back of her throat was as dry as a desert. She swallowed with an audible click. "They held Ammas's mother in the Palace?" While she was not clear on the timing of these terrible events, she knew she had been born in the waning months of the dissolution. The idea that Ammas's mother had been held prisoner in the Palace while Carala was swaddled in her own mother's arms roiled her stomach as though she were on a storm-tossed ship.
"They held them both there, milady," Vos said softly. "There are torture chambers and prison cells carved all through the Palace's foundations."
"I have never seen them." She nearly told Vos she wanted to hear no more. But something compelled her to listen. Whether it was out of mere morbid fascination or some deeper sense of obligation to the man who had sworn himself to her, she could not say.
"When it was done," Vos said in a low voice, "the Emperor ordered the nobility of Talinara to gather at the Silverlamp Theatre." Carala, already pale, turned ghostly white. The Silverlamp was an open-air arena, as suited for gladiatorial displays or sporting contests as it was for theatre and opera, and one of her favorite places in the capital. "He was in the high seat. The Empress-Consort was not there. She isn't one to deny the Emperor, but I don't think she approved. She was old friends with Renelle from the time before either of them were married."
"You were there?" Denisius asked in a whisper.
Vos nodded. "Quite a few soldiers were, as the nobility were not invited to attend. Most will not talk about it." Slowly he rose, pacing around the firepit as he spoke, his voice growing agitated. "The Emperor had a box beside him, a box with barred holes as one might use to carry a beast. One of his soldiers opened it and hauled out what was left of Senrich Mourthia. We didn't even realize he was still alive at first, even when we stared at him while the Emperor spoke of the virtues of loyalty and the pains of treason." Vos closed his eyes. "Then he called out to the stage, and Renelle was brought out. Then the dogs. And Senrich began to scream."
Barthim closed his eyes and muttered a soft prayer in Siraneshi. Denisius was staring into the fire himself, remembering what he had said about Ammas coming to terms with it and feeling as foolish as ever for speaking so hastily.
"The dogs -- " Carala whispered.
"Ripped her apart," Vos muttered. "In front of all of us, in front of Senrich as he raved, in front of your -- in front of the Emperor as he drank his wine. None of your siblings were there, milady. I heard stories of Perseun confronting your father afterward, telling him he had gone too far. It wasn't long after that Perseun was sent to the Straits of Twilight, where he stayed for years. When -- when Renelle had . . . died, the Emperor picked up Senrich by a collar that was around his neck and threw him into the box, then kicked the box to the stage below. He roared for the nobles to leave, to reflect on what would happen to any who raised arms against the Throne. I remember looking over my shoulder and seeing the dogs gnawing at the box to get to Senrich, who was still screaming. I remember the sounds of his screams, the sounds of the dogs snarling, as I led my group of nobles out of the theatre." He turned to Denisius now, his face drawn and white. "I left the Imperial army forever after that. I could never serve the Emperor, however well he treated his soldiers."
A silence fell among them. Barthim was the first to break it, his voice low and subdued. "Ammas saw these things, didn't he?"
Vos nodded. "I believe he did. There were rumors he was to be executed that day as well, but so far as I know he was never even taken into custody. I suppose if he was at the theatre someone must have helped him escape. But I don't really know the truth of it."
Carala could find no words at all. The stories of what had been done to the traitorous arcane brethren were things she had always accepted as due justice for their attempt on her father's life. But having come to know Ammas, having seen his compassion, having spent enough time with him to know he was not the greedy charlatan her father's histories made his fellowship out to be, she now could not even fathom justifying this atrocity. No longer did she feel insulted by Vos's astonishment that Ammas would swear himself to the Emperor's daughter. If anything, she now shared that surprise, however reluctantly. She recalled the sneering dismissal she had made of Ammas's father and felt shame coloring her cheeks.
Denisius looked almost as ill as she felt. But his question made little sense to her. "Did Briarcliff happen before or after this, Vos?"
Vos met his master's gaze evenly. "Two months after, milord."
Denisius nodded, mulling this over for a minute. "It was too much, far too much," he said at last, looking at Carala unhappily. "But -- well, would any other Emperor have done much better? What would the Sultan do to an attempted assassin?" He didn't know if he was trying to comfort Carala or excuse his own family's support of Somilius Deyn, or if he was just trying to make sense of this brutality.
"Erstan would never tell you this," Vos said softly, "and you must never repeat it outside these walls, anywhere inside the Anointed Realms." He looked askance at Carala. "I suppose I risk the hangman myself just saying it in your presence, milady. But there was no assassination attempt."
"That is not true," Carala said at once, her cheeks flushing. "My father raved of it, even years after the fact. Unless you are saying he is paranoid -- "
"That your father is paranoid is beyond argument, milady," Vos said. "But I speak a little too freely. I do not believe there was an assassination attempt. Erstan Gallis and I have had many conversations over rum and rieldo about those days, and we have both come to the conclusion that the bar of seer-magistrates sought not to murder your father, but to depose him."
"Why?" Carala asked, startled by this idea.
"The seer-magistrates were no killers. They would have been horrified by the notion of drowning the Malachite Throne in blood. I believe the only reason Senrich was even involved was the conspirators wanted a legal justification to remove him. So he wrote one for them, an argument he would have made to the Grand Curia after your father was safely imprisoned. Why he went along with it -- why the seer-magistrates as a whole thought they should do this -- who can say? Your father had done many things to upset the Realms by then. The uprising in Nythel he crushed with fire, the Heptarch of Vilais he had hanged from the Bridge of Saint Keledemos along with his family, the -- ah -- stories of his appetites, his concubines . . . . "
Carala scowled at Vos's sudden, blushing reticence and impatiently waved for him to continue.
Clearing his throat, Vos did so. "I only mean to say that no one knows what set the seer-magistrates on that path. When the Emperor caught wind of the plot, he somehow got hold of Senrich's writings, and it was for that he executed him. Simply because he argued Somilius Deyn was unfit to sit upon the Malachite Throne. Not for plotting to kill him, not for treason against your house. Just for that. Just for his words. Gratham Mourthia was part of the plot as well, and while he fell in battle, there was no public display for his death. But it was Senrich who put into words why your father should not be Emperor, and so it was Senrich who paid the dearest price."
A long silence fell among them. Carala stared into the flames, imagining the Silverlamp Theatre, its beautiful arches and statues bearing witness to the butchery of Ammas's parents, her father toasting the spectacle with his favorite Nythelian wine. She wondered if Perseun had felt the way she did right now, and wondered further if there might be a place for her with him in Q'Sivaris. At the moment she did not believe she could bear to be in her father's presence ever again, even if Ammas did cure her.
And if he did not, the she-wolf might have something to say about what had been done to Senrich and Renelle Mourthia.
*