Through the Judgement of Our Peers
They gathered on the dais, with Erastus at their centre, pacing about him in circles too precise to be anything but ritual. The room had grown quiet of murmurs and whispers, and was instead filled with the steady rhythmic pounding of boots. Of fists against breastplates and steel against steel.
Slowly, the leaders of the dynasties began to speak. Each taking up their place in the almost dance-like flow of the movements, each lending their voice to the emergent chorus.
‘By the many, may the few be judged,’ Katla whispered.
‘By our kin is power checked,’ Gunther hissed.
‘By His will are we guided,’ Absalom intoned.
‘And by His grace, kept free.’
‘We submit to His judgement, through the judgement of our peers.’
‘And in that judgement, are we bound and sanctified.’ Delvetar finished the words, like the culmination of a prayer or an invocation. They smiled thinly. ‘Who stands in judgement?’
‘Helvintr, Radrexxus and Norastye.’ The answer came as one from the three gathered.
‘And Torvander?’
‘Fled,’ Gunther tittered. ‘Demigods walking anew seems to have terrified them. A pity. I do so enjoy sport with the shepherds.’
‘Be silent,’ Delvetar hissed.
Gunther shrugged, grinned and stepped back.
‘And whom do we judge?’
‘Erastus, second-born of Davos Lamertine,’ intoned Katla. ‘Heir apparent only through the malice of chance.’
‘And what is his declaration? What is his oath?’
All eyes turned to Erastus as Delvetar spoke. Erastus felt like a specimen under glass, pinned by the attention of so many. Yet it was the ring of eyes and voices that cut the deepest. He was unprepared for this battleground, in a way his father or sister never would have been. His mouth was dry, his forehead sheened with sweat. He took a long moment, swallowing before he spoke.
‘I have much to learn, but I have watched my father work.’ He stepped forward, head held high. ‘I am not my sister, and I am not my father.’ He went down on one knee, head bowed. ‘I will strive to honour the legacy of my house and the spirit of the Compact. My father taught me many things.’ He bit back bile, keeping his voice measured. ‘He taught me the worth of this institution. That we are the pathfinders in the darkness, an example for others to look to. We are nobility stripped of pretence. We are honest implements, in an unkind galaxy. He never lost sight of that, and neither shall I.’
There was a long moment of silence. Even the drumming of hands and feet had fallen quiet. All eyes were locked upon him, knelt in obeisance, in shame and in desperation.
There was a tapping at the edge of his awareness, silver against the gold and stone of the dais. He looked up. A shadow seemed to drift behind the circle of figures. All that marked its passing was the tapping of its cane against the floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. The same sound that had coloured his adult life.
‘Pitiful,’ the shade said, and shook the indistinct umbra that formed its head. ‘No son of the Lamertine name should grovel in the dust. You ought, my son, to have killed them all. Evelyne would have had their heads, and let others rise, to serve in fear.’
Erastus bit his tongue, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, it was gone. As though it had never been. Perhaps it had not. Perhaps he had simply imagined it; the racing of a stressed and suffering mind.
‘The Astraneus say no,’ Delvetar stated simply. ‘We hold no faith in Erastus Lamertine or his ability to command the Davamir Compact.’
Erastus almost smiled. This was the most obvious of the detractors, of course, but all of them had reason to hate his family. To envy and fear his father’s reputation, and the threat of vengeance. The Astraneus, rightly or wrongly, had been slighted. Or at least, felt as such.
The others, though…
Erastus cast his mind back across the years of service under his father’s eye. The rivalries he had stoked, the febrile alliances he had struggled to maintain. His father had ruled by right, and by fear, and the edge of the blade. Not all had enjoyed such a dichotomy of service and rule. Though they had thrived and prospered, and the name of the Davamir Compact had carried its weight across the stars, there were still some who would have named his father tyrant.
‘We have wracked our minds for the most logical of paths.’ Absalom Norastye was a blunt creature. This close his inhumanity seemed utterly plain. His augmetic eyes whirred and clicked with avarice, emotionless save for those beaten into their construction. He was a grasping thing, Erastus realised suddenly. The long centuries of service to Mars had changed him into a being as fundamentally yoked to the hunt as any of the Helvintrs, or the most dedicated of Martian explorators. ‘What is clear to us is that the current state of affairs is an unsustainable one. We support the Astraneus call for no confidence in Erastus Lamertine.’
Two against him. Erastus sighed, and rose from his prone position. He looked at them both, eyes fixed, jaw set. He did not display any weakness, he simply nodded. There was a titter off to one side, and Erastus turned to face Gunther Radrexxus. The man’s eyes danced with amusement, as he reached up with his heavy, glittering hand to adjust his wig again.
‘I am a simple soul,’ he offered politely. There was a ripple of laughter even amidst the solemnity at that. ‘I knew Davos Lamertine of old – our covenants and clashes went back a long way. I did not necessarily like the man, but I respected him. He may have judged me for my vices, and who amongst you would not?’ Even Erastus smiled at that. ‘Nevertheless, he respected my abilities, and the trade which ran through my enterprises into the veins of this station and the heart of our Compact.’
He turned to the others and threw his arms wide, stepping inside the circle till he was face to face with Erastus.
‘Now, I do not know the worth of this young pup. I cannot claim that I have some secret insight into his heart or soul.’ He waved a hand idly, twirling it in the air as though stirring it through water. ‘What I will say is this. I care nothing for whosoever sits on this throne. My place is amongst the stars, in the void. Seeking the next horizon. That is what we were made and bred for, is it not? Those are the core of the words we hold to, in the First King’s oath.’ He turned from Erastus and regarded his kindred. ‘I hold my confidence in Erastus and his family. I want to see the caged bird fly.’
Erastus breathed a sigh of relief as Gunther moved back to his place, then felt it curdle in his throat as Katla Helvintr stalked forward. Never before had he felt so much like prey. She smiled without warmth, a wolf’s smile. She did not reach for her spear but that did not render her any less lethal. He had not been this close to her for some time. The scents drifted from her: old leather, void-chill, and the spice of whatever caustic ichor had remade so much of her. When her smile vanished, the tattoos creased and flexed, and the beast returned to the fore.
‘You all know me. I am Katla Helvintr, and my line stretches back to the ice of Fenris. Even that cage of sea and fire could not hold us, nor did its storms tame us. It was to the stars that we looked, and to the stars that the Allfather of Man called us.’ She drew the spear from its sheath upon her back. Low, muted gasps filled the chamber, though no one moved to stop her. The dissenting voices smiled, imagining that his defeat and disgrace were now complete. Gunther hunched forward with eager glee, desperate to see what would happen.
Erastus braced himself for a killing blow, to join his father and sister in death. Perhaps the Helvintrs had been the architects of this ruin, all along. He had left himself exposed, and would pay the price. He looked down, closed his eyes, for the last time.
And felt the cold metal of the blade touch beneath his chin, and tilt it upwards.
‘Our families have never been… friendly,’ Katla allowed, with a tilt of her head. ‘But the lessons of loyalty have long since been carved into us. The seasons change, from peace to war. Profit becomes ruin. Davos Lamertine, for all his failings, for all he did not respect us… He was king. Jarl of jarls.’ She rounded on the others, spear up. The blade passed mere inches from their faces. Absalom held firm, barely even blinking, but Delvetar flinched back.
‘You dare–’
‘I dare nothing. It is you who dares. To pile sanctimony upon calamity. Our king is dead,’ she snarled. ‘Murdered in the heart of his power, by one who may yet walk these halls! Who wheedles for power and influence! Who tries to seize the chains of command!’
Gunther chuckled dryly as she spoke, and clucked his tongue. He moved round to stand beside Erastus and Katla. ‘Friends from the oddest of quarters, little bird,’ he said. ‘It seems you command more respect than you know.’
‘There would be no honour,’ Katla continued, as much to them as to their opposition, ‘in tearing down the boy in this way. I would happily see my family’s fortunes eclipse his, but I would do it honestly.’ She turned to Erastus, her gaze languid. ‘If I come for you, boy, it will be clear for all to see. Not a blade in the dark, but eye to eye on the open plain.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and finally began to breathe again. ‘You do me a great honour, Jarl Helvintr, as does Lord Admiral Radrexxus. I will make sure your faith is not misplaced.’ Erastus looked to Delvetar, and smiled coldly. ‘A tie, I’m afraid, is not your victory.’
Their face clouded into an ugly sneer, pale skin rippling as they turned away in a flutter of black robes. Absalom looked after them, and then shrugged gently, deigning not to follow.
‘Hold,’ Erastus said. His voice was clear and focused.
Delvetar stopped, spun on their heel and glared back at Erastus.
‘Arch-Lecter,’ Erastus said. His voice boomed in the still of the hall. ‘Whether or not you killed my father, you have wronged me.’ His hands clenched, and he stalked forward. The other lords parted before his wrath, like avians before the onslaught of a storm.
‘You have borne discontent into the heart of this gathering, and tried to break us at our lowest ebb. Had there been men or women such as you, of low character and lower cunning, at its inception, then this Compact would never have risen from the muck to claim the stars. We would have been forsaken, and forgotten by the march of history. We would have proven unworthy of the trust He put in us. I banish you, Delvetar Astraneus, and all your brood and all your works. I cleave you from the Compact, and cast you into the Outer Dark. If His light finds you there, may it lead you to forgiveness. May you find redemption.’
Delvetar looked back for a long moment. Not a single soul spoke. He imagined that the Arch-Lecter might hurl themselves at him, shrieking of vengeance and reprisal. That a digi-weapon-bedecked hand might rise and strike him down.
Instead, the Arch-Lecter merely muttered a prayer, or perhaps a curse, and stormed from the hall, followed by their retainers.