Traitors' Gate (Crossroads) Read Online Free PDF Page B

eat. Not even the smell of blood and the memory of the little boy’s headless corpse could put him off a good meal like this one. Anyway, ten days from now, or tomorrow, he might be dead, and it seemed a cursed waste not to enjoy such pleasures when offered.
    The captain sighed. “I wish I had your stomach, eh? I admit, that’s the first battle I’ve been in. We missed all the action before.”
    “You’ve never killed a man before?”
    He waved a hand. “I’ve had to kill disobedient slaves on my estate. But that’s more like killing animals.”
    “Ah.” Kesh swallowed bile. A man in a position as precarious as his must not risk offending his jailkeeper. “How is it you come to this duty? Your house was an ally of the new emperor?”
    “That’s right. My grandfather went to the palace school with the younger brother of Farutanihosh for two seasons. They never cut that bond, the two men, even through all the years that followed. And of course the Emperor Farutanihosh never had his younger brother killed, as he ought to have done. It’s always a disruption of God’s order to raise the flags of war, but everyone knows that a woman who has birthed a son born of the emperor’s seed will rouse her relatives to war on that son’s behalf even though war is evil. That Farutanihosh did not foresee and prevent this by killing his younger brother was a sign of moral weakness, one that would be passed into his sons. Therefore, his sons must be corrupted by his failure and unworthy for the throne.”
    “Yet now Farutanihosh’s son Farazadihosh is dead, and it is his nephew, the son of the brother he left alive, who will become emperor.”
    “That’s right. Ujarihosh will be seated on the gold throne in the eight-gated palace, and the priests of Beltak will anoint him as Farujarihosh, he who has gained the favor of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Shining One who rules alone.”
    “How far are we riding?” Kesh asked, wanting to lick his fingers but taking a fine linen cloth from a slave to wipe his hands instead.
    “I’m not sure.” Jushahosh glanced toward the road, not visible from here, although they could hear the talk of men at the grisly task of clearing the road and the singsong chant of the priest. “Until we meet the one who has summoned you.”
    “Who is that?”
    The captain sipped at his wine. “I’m only a messenger. The truth is, I don’t know any more than you do.”
     
    W ITH EACH DAY they rode deeper into the heart of the empire, traveling south through countryside so densely populated there was always at least one village within view, and more commonly three or four. Farmers laboring in their fields paused in their work, bent with hands on knees, heads bowed, as the company passed. Kesh wasn’t sure if they were showing obedience, or praying that the beast would ignore them rather than ravage them. But the captain and his soldiers took no notice of the common folk. Life went on unmolested. Whatever war had been fought between the noble heirs of the imperial house did not affect those who must bring in the crops. Not like in the Hundred, where the strife had precisely ripped through the houses and fields of the humblest.
    “We’ll never see home again,” said Eliar every morning as they made ready to mount and go on their way.
    “Speak of your own end, not mine,” replied Kesh every day, and every day he found a way to fall in beside Captain Jushahosh, because Eliar’s morose company had become unbearable. To risk so much and then grouse about it! Death was a small price, compared with his betrayal of his sister!
    But Jushahosh was a man like Eliar in many ways: son of a wealthy house, one of many such sons accustomed to a life of sumptuous clothing and platters piled high with food, who in his life had seen little enough hardship and so craved the excitement he kept missing out on. A civil war! How exciting! Yet his company, backing the eventual winner, had seen no action