The Burden of the Crown
When they gathered anew, it was not with joy or in celebration. Suspicion reigned, and what had before seemed gatherings of loyalty and blood were now reduced to little more than armed camps.
No one had yet brandished a weapon, but that they carried them at all was a sign. Spears, swords and axes were strapped across the backs of Helvintr warriors. Katla’s and Astrid’s own ornate spears sat idle across their backs: bronze and gold, masterworked exemplars of the weaponsmith’s craft. Lamertine armsmen tried to hem in the savage crews, but the leather-brown ranks contracted and pushed against them. It was like watching the tide war with the land on a habitable world.
Gunther Radrexxus sat upon the edge of one of the tables, a booted foot perched against a chair. He rocked it back and forth dreamily, lost in his own world. As his coat shifted, it became clear that he had pistols at his belt, alongside an ornate sabre. Occasionally his hand would stray, lovingly caressing the pommel before he resumed his idle motions.
All across the hall they filed into their rows, jostling for space, pushing at each other as kindred were rendered unkind.
Erastus watched, pressing a hand to his temple as he sat in the throne. Watching every one of them, considering each in their turn, from the bombast of the more aggressive and cocksure dynasties, to the reserved spiritualists of the Astraneus – each head bowed solemnly, murmuring under their breaths.
Praying, he thought. Even now, they have the audacity to pray.
He had dressed in a crisp uniform, very much his father’s style. The high collar was lined with gold, shining against his dark skin. His father’s plasma pistol sat in its holster, ready to be unleashed – to burn his enemies to ashes. A power sabre sat at his hip, its hilt carved with rampant lions and flaming eagle wings.
He needed no cane, and so he brought the flat of his hand down against the arm of the throne. Around the chamber his guards clattered weapons against their breastplates or pounded them against the floor. When the din finally broke and silence returned, only then did he begin to speak.
‘You are summoned here,’ he said, ‘in answer to a crime. My father, Davos Lamertine, is dead. Your king is dead.’
There were murmurs of discontent rippling through the crowd. Even upon the dais, Erastus could hear someone beginning to wail. His father would have quashed such a display.
He slammed his fist against the throne again. ‘Be silent!’
All looked to him. Some with fear and surprise, others with simple sadness; the pity for a son robbed of his father. A dynasty whose future had been stolen. Even Gunther managed to rally, swaying to his feet. He had plucked a flask of something from his voluminous coat, and raised it to his lips.
‘In honour of the valiant dead, eh?’
‘This was no valiant death,’ Erastus snarled. There was vigour in him that he had never known, a fire within his soul. Incandescent rage pulsed through every fibre of his being, and he glared down upon the assembly like the wrath of the God-Emperor Himself. This, he realised, was what it meant to be king. What had animated his father through the long centuries of his life, and carried the generations long since passed forward. From the maelstrom of lightless Strife, and the dream of the Great Crusade, through millennia of ruin and loss. The Compact had endured, annealing together the ambitions of mortal men; making them components of something greater than themselves, just as the Imperium did.
Had I sat at your side, would I have known this sooner?
Erastus bit back the sudden rush of pride and understanding. ‘My father died in his sanctum, butchered like an animal. There was no glory in this. Ours was the honour of service, and the joy of unity. That has ended, in betrayal.’
‘Betrayal?’ Katla Helvintr’s eyes went wide, not with shock or surprise, but with a predator’s enthusiasm. ‘You think one of us has done this thing? Slaughtered a man, like an ailing grox?’
‘I do,’ Erastus said, his disdain writ across his tight features. ‘The ritual of the scene has much in common with the rites observed by the disciples of the Astraneus Dynasty and their adherence to their Cult of the Shrouded Emperor.’ Erastus stood, and pointed across the open floor of the chamber. ‘I name them as suspects in my father’s death, as usurpers who would take from us all that we have striven to build. Who crave in cowardice what others would gain when my father stepped aside as king.’ He gestured broadly with his free hand. ‘What say you to the charges?’
‘We reject these accusations,’ Delvetar said in their quiet whisper, amplified as it was by vox-emitter. ‘As we reject you. You, the least of the House of Lamertine. You are not your sister, Erastus, to threaten us, or cajole us by feat of arms. All here know you, as your father knew you.’ They smiled their cold smile, dripping with insincerity and zealot’s poison. ‘Too long have your kind ruled by fear and threat. No longer. By the rights of the Compact, and the bond of blood oath, I renounce the Lamertine Kingship. I invoke the First King’s Charter, and I declare that we have no confidence in our lord – who comes to us not in formal ascension, but as a lesser son handed a boon of which he is unworthy.’
‘Unworthy?’ Erastus could not help himself as he rushed down off of the dais, across the floor to face Delvetar. ‘You dare! In this place, with my father barely even cold.’
‘It is not a matter of daring, Erastus.’ Delvetar smiled, cruelty in place of the usual angelic bliss. Their pale, androgynous features had barely the hint of ruddy choler as they leant forward. ‘The Emperor is with us, in every thought and deed. He has blessed our lineage for generations. When we act, it is by His will. So do not think to threaten us, while you strut and fuss in your father’s borrowed raiment.’
They sniffed haughtily, as though the entire affair were beneath their concern.
‘We state again,’ they said. ‘We call for a vote. The dynasties must choose whether we languish with this boy king, or gift the throne to a firmer hand. One that will set this matter to rest, and find the truth amidst these dark deeds.’
Erastus looked around the chamber. Already the lords of the dynasties were stepping forward. Katla, Gunther and Absalom closed in about them. Delvetar took a step back, smiling simply.
‘The masters of the great houses here represented shall vote, and determine the fate of the Lamertine Dynasty’s rule upon this Compact. In the Emperor’s light, and in His shadow. What say you, cousins?’