Foreign Devils Read Online Free PDF

fear, I couldn’t tell. ‘A public shaming. I would rather he just crucify me.’
    ‘I think you might be reading too much into this, Father,’ Secundus said.
    ‘I wish you were right, son,’ Cornelius said. ‘Tamberlaine revels in mixed messages. He pulls me home, but tells me it’s because he values my advice. He gives congratulations to Livia and Fisk, yet he separates them. He’s a venomous old shit,’ he spat, and then waved Lupina over to refill his glass.
    No one else had noticed, but Livia and Fisk had locked gazes the moment that Secundus had read the name Fiscelion. There was a sadness there now.
    ‘Can you defy him?’ Fisk asked, softly.
    ‘No, love. All I can hope to do is fulfil his orders as best I may,’ Livia said.
    Cornelius, seeming to realize that others than himself might be affected by the Imperial missive, said, ‘Tamberlaine’s a shit, but he will keep his word. When we return to Rume, you must get him to agree to allow you to return to Fisk after you complete your task.’ He looked at Fisk, pointedly. ‘Your reunion with your wife—’
    ‘And child,’ Livia said, touching her stomach.
    ‘Your reunion will be hastened if you can present Tamberlaine with Beleth. Or his head.’
    ‘So that’s it, then? Shoe and I hunt down the Engineer and the rest of you are back to Rume? And then—’ Fisk stopped. His voice remained calm but underneath I could tell fierce currents of emotion churned. ‘And then Livia and Secundus are to voyage halfway around the world to treat with the Autumn Lords. With my child! Why should we not refuse?’
    Cornelius shook his head, sadly. He gestured at Livia’s midriff with his cigar. ‘You’d doom that lad.’ He thought for a moment, his lips pursed. ‘You’re a good man, Fisk. We know it. Tamberlaine doesn’t and whatever his complexities, he won’t be thwarted. Should he send me a missive to take you in chains—’
    ‘You’d do it,’ Fisk said. ‘And if he ordered you to crucify Livia? What then?’
    ‘Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.’ Cornelius stood and stumped around the table bearing the maps, to stand between Fisk and Livia. ‘In one sense, it’s a great honour to our family – Tamberlaine wouldn’t trust just anyone to the task of journeying to Kithai. On the other hand, he knows you’re pregnant and the rigors you’ll endure. Long sea voyage, strange land, all that.’
    ‘I don’t like being forced into anything,’ Fisk said, staring at the maps before him.
    ‘Welcome to the service of the greatest empire known to mankind,’ Cornelius said.
    ‘Neither do I, my love,’ Livia said, touching Fisk’s hand. Her neck was straight, and firm, but her eyes bore the pain of coming separation. ‘I swore never to return there. The mark on my name—’ Her voice grew thick and she stopped speaking.
    ‘Secundus will take care of that, darling—’ Cornelius said.
    ‘So we jump to this fiddler’s tune, is that it?’ Fisk asked.
    ‘That’s the shape of things,’ Cornelius said.
    ‘Damnation.’
    ‘Exactly.’

THREE
    6 Nones, Quintilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
    The next night Cornelius uncrated cases of whiskey, rum, and claret. He had Lupina, as quickly as she might, pilfer the last stores of sugar and create what sweet dainties she might while Cornelius plied us all with booze and speech-making in the praetorium tent. On the next day we’d reach the Dvergar Spur and, the senator assured us, the Valdrossos – a daemon- fired steam engine – would be waiting there to take Livia and the rest of the Cornelian clan to Fort Brust and further points east, away from us, if not forever, then for a long while. Carnelia wept and embraced Fisk, calling him brother, not through any overt sentimentality on her part, but because, I imagine, she thought she should. Cornelius gave gifts.
    ‘As I mentioned, you will collect these as you rise through life,’ he said to Livia and Fisk, motioning for Rubus to come forward