FORUM SHONE BENEATH US, rosy and golden and so vast it filled half the universe. Through the porthole at my ear, I watched the ocean of clouds roil below. Already the Eternal City was lost to sight, its high towers and shining domes swallowed by the empyrean. Ahead, the lonely flames of stardrives flickered like candles against the Dark. When they imagine the black of space, the storytellers imagine starships crowded close enough for men to shout at one another from the rigging.

It isn’t so.

In the Eternal City it was often said that ten Martian legions orbited the gas giant, ever vigilant, boasting enough firepower to unmake a planet ten thousand times over. I never saw them. Once or twice I spied the glow of ion drives or the flash of a fusion rocket, but the red-gold orb of Forum hung quiet and proud in the night amid its archipelago of moons.

“There it is!” I pressed closer to the window and pointed out into the black to where a lonely arrowhead gleamed. At this distance, it was no bigger than my thumbnail, but it was growing fast.

Alexander craned his neck to look past me and asked, “The Tamerlane?”

“Home,” I said. The young man squinted, then reached across me and pressed his fingertips against the glass, made a spreading motion as if to magnify the image. Nothing happened, and laughing, I said, “Just alumglass. It’s a real window. No need for tactical displays in a passenger shuttle.” I leaned back against the slick upholstery, the better to allow the boy to see the ship that had been my home for many decades.

The Tamerlane.

The Eriel-class battleship had been a gift from the Emperor, granted to me in lieu of a planetary fief when he named me a knight and re-legitimized me as a lord of the blood palatine. From engines to bow-cluster she stood more than twelve miles long, pointed and flared like a knife blade from her prow to the convex arc of ion engines above the three huge fusion cones. The heavy armor on her dorsal side gleamed glossy and black in the sunlight, weapons clusters concealed beneath hatches outlined in gold, and beneath that armor the bays and fuel tanks and crew decks hung like an inverse city of towers or forest of trees swept back in a gale. More than fifteen thousand men lived aboard, and nearly seventy-five thousand slept the long and icy sleep of the soldier in great holds high above beneath the dorsal hull.

I could not hear the pilot officer through the bulkhead, though I guessed she must already be in communication with the deckmaster to clear our landing. Speaking to the two hoplites sitting across from us in their Red Company uniforms, I said, “I’m sorry to take you both away from the City so quickly.”

One of the men tugged on his restraints as he leaned in. “Truth be told, lordship, I’m happy to be away.” Only belatedly did he remember he was speaking in front of a prince of the Imperium. I could practically hear the fellow blush through his black visor. “Meaning no disrespect to the young master.”

“I’m your prince!” Alexander said sharply, taking the hoplite aback.

“I didn’t mean any disrespect, my prince.”

Sensing that this could get out of hand and quickly, I put a hand between Alexander and the soldier. “It’s Baro, isn’t it?”

The man puffed out his chest. “Aye, sir.” I’d recognized the peeling decal of the naked woman on his armor’s left thigh. It wasn’t regulation, but I’d encouraged my centurions to ignore such things unless it was for dress uniforms. She had a snake wrapped round one rounded thigh.

“Baro here has never met one of the Imperial House, Alexander. You must forgive him! He’s a good man.” I let my hand fall. “You made decurion recently, didn’t you? I thought I saw a notice . . .”

“After Aptucca. Thank you, sir.” He tapped the single red stripe running down the outside of his right arm to mark his rank. “I’m honored you remembered.”

Keeping my attention fixed on Alexander’s face, I said, “You’ve earned it.”

Outside the Tamerlane grew closer, black hull bright in the yellow sunlight. A fueling station still drifted to one side, connected to the ship’s reservoirs by an umbilical. Preparations for departure were still underway, it seemed. That was well. As we drew nearer our shuttle slid upward, accelerating to rise and catch up to the Tamerlane’s higher orbit.

“Is it always like this?” Alexander asked. His eyes were screwed shut, and he’d tucked his chin against his chest. It looked like he might be sick. I had grown so used to the zero-gravity environment aboard such shuttlecraft that I’d not even noticed it.

“You get used to it.”

We landed not long after, sliding into a smaller hold fore and high up, nearly at the level of the dorsal plate. I felt myself sink into my seat as the Tamerlane’s suppression field kicked in, artificial gravity pressing down on me like a damp blanket.

“It’s heavy,” the prince remarked.

“One-and-a-half standard gees,” I said in answer. “We run heavy. It keeps you strong, prevents loss of bone mass.” When Alexander did not look reassured, I summoned up what pity I could muster and said, “You get used to that, too.”

The Eternal City flew above the sea of liquid metal at the heart of the gas giant at an altitude where the atmosphere was at tolerable pressures and where the planet’s gravity was as close to Earth standard as could be found. The prince had lived his entire life in an environment tailored for human habitation, made as much like our lost and ruined homeworld as any place could be. He was in for a rude awakening.

A moment later, the docking booms magnetized and clamped onto the exterior of the shuttle, pulling us into a dock. I heard the hiss of pneumatics and the whine of atmospheric seals depressuring, and the door folded out and downward, becoming a ramp. Standing, I offered Alexander a hand. “Welcome aboard, Your Highness.”

---

The crew that waited to greet the prince on the gangway was as motley a collection of Imperial officers and mercenaries, of palatines and plebeians, of homunculi and other misfits as could be contrived this side of Jadd. Captain Otavia Corvo, a Norman mercenary herself, stood at the fore in her black deck uniform. Despite her low birth, Otavia was a giantess. Nearly seven feet tall, musclebound, broad-shouldered, and coffee-skinned, her curling blond hair floated about her head like a halo.

Behind her was her First Officer, Bastien Durand, wearing his wire-rimmed glasses and his usual, put-upon expression. At his shoulder was Tor Varro, the Chalcenterite scholiast in his green surcoat, bronze degrees glittering on his chest like a soldier’s medals. Behind them were gathered a smattering of the ship’s more senior officers. There was Crim—Karim Garone—a Lieutenant Commander now and ship’s Security Officer, and behind him was the dryad, Ilex, green-skinned and mossy-haired. Then there were my myrmidons, my armsmen. Pallino, Elara, and Siran stood near the back. The women each had been raised to patrician, standing when Pallino had been, and looked as hale and young—younger, even—than they had the day we’d met on Emesh centuries ago. Nearly four hundred years had passed on Earth since I’d left Delos, nearly a hundred of which I’d faced in the waking world.

Further down were a smattering of other officers: Luana Okoyo, our Chief Medical Officer; the navigator, Adric White; and Helmsman Koskinen, among others. And bringing up the rear was young Aristedes leaning on his cane.

Only Valka was absent, which was no surprise. What use had she for princes?

“We have our marching orders, boss?” Crim asked, hand waving in lazy salute.

“Off to Gododdin,” I said airily, seizing Crim by the forearm to shake his hand. Pivoting, I positioned myself to stand between Crim and Corvo and the prince following on my heels. “Otavia, Bastien, Crim—this is Prince Alexander of the House Avent. My prince, may I introduce Captain Otavia Corvo, Commander Bastien Durand.” I gestured to each in turn. “And this is Lieutenant Commander Karim Garone.”

“Call me Crim, Your . . .” he glanced sidelong at me, “Excellence?”

“Highness,” I corrected, then to Alexander said, “He’s Norman.”

I took Alexander down the line, introducing those present one at a time.

“The prince is with us at the Emperor’s personal request!” I said, raising my voice. The sound of it rebounded off the distant ceiling and the arches and pillars that held up the gangways that ran to the various shuttlecraft. “You are to treat him with every courtesy. He’s our guest.” I put a hand on Alexander’s shoulder for emphasis. “The Emperor has asked us to season him. He’ll be squiring for me and bunking with the junior officers.”

“What?” The prince flinched, turning to look at me. “You’re not serious.”

A piece of me had expected this from the young nobile, and I was ready. “Quite serious.”

“That’s . . . outrageous! It’s not fair!”

“Fair?” I repeated. “You’re my squire. A squire is a junior officer, so you will bunk with the junior officers.” The prince’s face had hardened, and he darted a glance at the officers, some part of him perhaps aware that he was making a spectacle of himself. I had suspected this, despite his assurances that he would not let me down.

Alexander set his teeth. “I am your prince!”

“You are my squire,” I said calmly. “You told me you wanted to be a knight. This is the first step. Did you think the road would be easy? Do you want it to be?”

A frown folded the corners of Alexander’s mouth, and almost I thought I could hear the sound of little gilded gears turning in his skull. “I suppose not.”

“We will talk about this later,” I said before rounding on Elara, who had taken up the role of Quartermaster when we’d been given the Tamerlane. “Would you get him sorted and see that his effects find his cabin?” As I spoke, those very effects were being unloaded from the shuttle: three heavy composite crates fronted in dark wood richly carved. They looked incongruous on the metal grating of the gangway and against the spare lines of the shuttle and the hold. Like their owner, they did not belong. Still looking at them where they stood at the end of the pier, I said, “Alexander, I will send for you as soon as I’ve seen to our departure. We’ve much to discuss.”

Mollified, the young man permitted himself to be led down the catwalk and through the heavy doors to the ship’s tramway beyond. The more junior officers went with them, leaving me, Corvo, Durand, Crim, and my myrmidons. I waited a few seconds, half-afraid the boy would come charging back in for a final word. When he did not appear, I let out my breath in one great rush and sagged against the railing. “Earth and Emperor,” I swore, staring down level by level toward the cargo storage at the base of the vast hold, “this is going to be harder than I thought.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” Crim said, and though I did not look back to face him I heard the smile encircling those words. “Valka could have been here.”

“That’s not funny,” I said, watching a trio of workers servicing another shuttle two levels down.

Crim barked a short laugh. “It’s extremely funny.” Despite myself, I pictured Valka slapping the prince for his behavior the moment before and almost laughed. Perhaps it would have been funny, after all.

Siran’s low voice slid into the silence. “The pup didn’t look like much.”

Turning to face my officers at last, I said, “Pups never do.” I undid two silver buttons on my greatcoat and let the garment swing free. Thinking of the Empress and of Emperor William, I added, “You should see the wolves.”

A high, aristocratic voice answered. “Do you think he’ll work?”

For a moment, absurdly, I thought it was Alexander returned, though I knew better. The speaker sat slumped against the wall of the hold, thin hands wrapped around the shaft of his crutch, serious face looking up at the rest of us. When I did not answer him at once, young Lorian Aristedes went on. “It would be good to have an Imperial prince in our camp.” All was quiet for a moment after, and the little commander realized that all eyes were on him. “That is the plan, isn’t it? The Emperor’s pawned one of his spares off on us, and we’re trying to win him over?” He grinned knowingly, pale eyes darting from my face to Corvo’s and the next.

“Are you all right, Aristedes?” I asked, indicating his place on the floor.

“Leg gave out, that’s all.” He slapped the offending limb with the flat of one hand. Young as he was—he was less than half my age—Lorian Aristedes had his problems. His father was the Grand Duke of Patmos, his mother a patrician knight. He had been born out of wedlock, and being the child of a palatine, into a cursed life. Lorian was an intus, the result of his parents’ encrypted genes mingling without the consent of the Imperial High College. By rights his mother should have killed him before he was born, but Lysandra Aristedes had refused. She had chosen life for her cursed little boy, and against all odds Lorian had survived. He was small—no more than five feet high—and frail. Even in his padded uniform jacket he seemed half a ghost, a wasted skeleton left to rot against the wall. His one leg was lame and at times whole limbs would paralyze and go numb for reasons no doctor had ever adequately explained. His mother had begged his lordly father to find a place for Lorian at his court, but the Grand Duke—mindful of the constant scandal his deformed son brought upon his name—pushed Lorian into the Legions instead, where despite his infirmity he had ridden one desk and another until he found his way into my service.

Lame Lorian might have been, but his mind was sharp as any sword, and three times as fast.

Standing over him, I said, “Who said anything about trying to win the prince over?”

“Well, you wouldn’t have scolded him, otherwise,” Lorian put in. “And you’d definitely not be quartering him. You’d have popped him right into fugue and not disturbed him until after work was done on Gododdin.” He grinned wolfishly. “Am I right?”

Matching his smile, I asked, “Did your leg really give out? Or were you looking for an excuse to ask that question?” Aristedes’s smile did not waver. Laughing, I shrugged off my greatcoat and tossed it over the rail. Thumbs tucked into my shield-belt, I leaned beside it. “You should have joined the scholiasts, Aristedes.”

“My father had a cruel sense of humor,” Lorian said. We had that in common.

“You think he’ll work with us?” asked First Officer Durand, giving up the game. “He seems a bit too . . .” Durand had the courage of a scribe, and so trailed off.

“Arrogant?” Crim suggested, stroking his pointed chin. “I don’t think he’s ever come down from heaven to walk with the rest of us mortals.”

I said nothing to this. I could sympathize with Alexander’s culture shock, for I too had been raised in a castle, and I knew all too well—as did Lorian—that the privilege of one’s birth is no privilege at all, only another kind of cage.

Alexander had some growing to do.

I prayed it would be less growing than I had been forced to endure, for his sake, and reassured myself that he at least would not be scraping a living from the underside of Borosevo’s streets.

How long ago that was! Years running and cowering in the wretched warrens of that awful city, the ziggurat castle of House Mataro staring down like the specter of some unearthly judge, daring me to rise up.

I had risen, and had not fallen again.

“He’ll be all right,” Pallino said. “A few weeks in the ring with me will knock some sense into him.”

“We’ll want that,” I said. “But he’ll be all right. He’s lived his whole life on Forum. He won’t know who he really is until he gets away from home.”

“No one ever does,” Corvo agreed. “I need to make the final preparations for departure.”

“And I need to see Valka!” I said, sensing the curtain closing on our impromptu meeting.

Ever the professionals, Corvo and Durand made to leave at once, bootheels rattling on the catwalk. Siran moved to let them pass before falling back into place.

“There is one thing I don’t understand, Marlowe,” Aristedes said. No preamble, no Pardon me, lordship. Straight to business. In truth, it was one of the things I liked most about young Lorian. He did not waste time. “What is this in aid of?”

“Alexander, you mean?” I took my coat up and folded it over one arm.

The young officer shook his head. “That’s part of it. I mean all this trouble with the court. Surely there must be those on Forum who think you look too ambitious. They must wonder what it’s all for.”

“I’m not hearing a question, Aristedes.”

“They’ll think you’ll make some play for the throne. Marry the prince, perhaps.”

“Marry the prince?” Pallino repeated, clearly surprised by this new wrinkle. But Lorian was right. I could imagine the logothetes and politicians spinning their fantasies about the upstart knight seducing the impressionable princeling, filling his head with lies so that he begged his royal parents to marry the knight, who would then have climbed from nothing to the role of prince-consort, and so advanced another step up the political ladder.

Lorian raised one bony hand. “It will have crossed their minds.” He turned his pale eyes—so blue they were almost white—on me. “They’re wondering what your game is—what our game is. What we’re going to do.”

I matched the young officer’s wolfish smile with a bemused one. “There is no game. We’re fighting to end this war. One way . . .” I paused, and once again the blood from Raine Smythe’s dismembered body splashed against my brain, “. . . or another. This isn’t about politics.”

“Try telling them that,” Crim drawled, looking down over the railing at the levels below.

“You’re right,” I said to Lorian, “that is what they’re expecting.” Unbidden, my mind raced back to Princess Selene, and past images of her unclad and lovely as the day to the vision I had seen of us seated together on the Solar Throne. “That is not what I want.” And certainly I did not want such a thing with Alexander, though it would have been the more convenient route, assuming I was the thing the Imperial socialites no doubt accused me of being.

The young officer bobbed his head and lay his cane across his knees. “It’s not me you have to convince.”