In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“Perhaps there is something left in the barracks, if the rats haven’t eaten it all up,” said Antonia. “Go carefully, see what you can find. Seek grain and water for the beast, and provisions for ourselves. Also, a place to shelter for one night.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. I’ll go, and Focas will stay and attend you.”

“Nay, best you go together. I will attempt the skopos’ palace and meet you here by this fountain.”

“If there are dogs, or madmen …?”

She nodded. “Do as I command.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

Impertinent man! She crossed under the shadow of a vast arch and found, in the usual niche, a brace of lanterns that, amazingly, had not been tampered with, together with flint and scraps of linen. These she carried as she walked quietly along the old familiar corridors. It was utterly silent. In here, she could not even hear the wind. Now and again she glimpsed withered gardens through open windows and doors. The fountains, of course, had all stopped running. Dust scraped under her feet.

She almost did not recognize the double doors that led into the audience chamber. The gold leaf that had once covered the relief carved into those doors had been pried off and taken away by thieves or by faithful servants. Who could know? One door sat askew, having lost two hinges. She did not touch it but tugged on the other, which opened with a groan into the empty hall.

Her footfalls echoed softly as she walked. The ceiling arched high above, dimly perceived. The mural washed across the far wall, depicting the Translatus of the blessed Daisan, had splintered with a thousand cracks, and the Earth beneath his feet had vanished into a pile of fragments on the floor. Up on the dais, the skopos’ chair was broken into pieces and all the gems pried out. A single amethyst had been left behind, dropped in haste, no doubt. She picked it up, turned it, but there wasn’t light enough to catch the glints within. Still, in a pinch, it might serve her. She tucked it into the pocket sewn into her sleeve, then pushed past the curtain at the far right and came into the private sanctum of the skopos.

A room, whitewashed, with paintings of noble saints gracing the ceiling. There was a single table, a battered chest whose lock had been broken, and a shattered ceramic bowl at the foot of the bare pallet where, once, the skopos had rested. Anne had not scorned luxury, but neither had she coveted it.

o scratched his nose, then sneezed. “I wish we’d stayed with the empress. No telling if she lives, or is dead.”

Close by, a dog growled, and both soldiers whirled, raising their spears, to be greeted by a heavier silence.

“Come,” said Antonia. “It will be dark soon. Let’s find shelter.”

They made their way up the ramp past broken-down wagons abandoned in haste and in one case with the remains of a horse scattered around the traces where dogs had ripped it apart. Focas counted swords, and had reached the astounding total of fifty-five before they reached the top.

“Who would throw down their good iron swords like that?” he muttered to Pietro. The two men stood a stone’s throw away from Antonia, but she overheard them nevertheless.

“Dead men. We’ll be dead, too, if we don’t get out of here. This is a fool’s errand.”

“Hush!”

From the top of the ramp they surveyed the city. Nothing moved but for a tumbling scrap, hard to say what it was but probably a bit of cloth, rolling down a distant avenue. The fog obscured even the towering walls and distant gates. Of church towers, she saw none. Perhaps they had all fallen. Off to the west in the hills bordering the sea, streaks of fire that marked red flowing rivers pierced the sullen haze despite the distance.

Surely even the Pit smelled sweeter and nourished more life!

Surely not. This was the Enemy’s handiwork.

“Come,” she said.

They ventured into the broad courtyard that fronted the twin palaces. The imperial palace had burned. It still stank of charred wood, a sharp scent overlying the reek of brimstone and decay. The skopos’ palace had many more sections built entirely of stone, and these had survived with less damage.

“I had thought to examine the regnant’s schola and library,” said Antonia thoughtfully as they stood in the courtyard that separated the two palaces. “But it appears too dangerous to walk there.”

She advanced nevertheless into an alcove where a sooty face peered at her out of the stone: a woman’s visage wreathed with snakes that were also her hair. A viscous green puddle had collected in the basin below her open mouth, once a fountain where travelers might splash water on dusty faces before entering the great hall to meet the regnant. The mule strained toward the water. Pietro hauled it back.

“Perhaps there is something left in the barracks, if the rats haven’t eaten it all up,” said Antonia. “Go carefully, see what you can find. Seek grain and water for the beast, and provisions for ourselves. Also, a place to shelter for one night.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. I’ll go, and Focas will stay and attend you.”

“Nay, best you go together. I will attempt the skopos’ palace and meet you here by this fountain.”

“If there are dogs, or madmen …?”

She nodded. “Do as I command.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”