Chapter 1338: The rat and the mice (1)

All men must serve.

Now, wasn’t that a miserable truth?He certainly could find pleasure in his line of servitude.

It tended after all of getting him shot through the arse or beheading corpses of emperors. Still, it held some funny bits that makes you fogot how sour it was.

The court of Scidna was every bit as august and towering as the rumors promised. The architects had done their best to hide the gloomy, sad gray stone of the palace behind heavy silk veils of vibrant red and blue, but the fabric couldn’t mask the chill of the place. It was nice enough, Marcus supposed, but he harbored a remarkably low amount of interest in design.

He could not, however, miss the ringed tree of Shaza. That bloody plant was everywhere Marcus laid his eyes. It was carved atop the heavy iron gates; it was stamped onto the shimmering breastplates of the palace guards; it was practically woven into the carpets. Walking through the place, Marcus had half a mind to drop his breeches just to check if he’d find a tree sprouting down there, too.

Behind him, outside the palace perimeter, he had left the rowdy, chaotic preparations for the upcoming celebrations. Carts pulled by straining mules were clogging the roads by the hundreds, hauling luxury goods and supplies inside and outside the city walls. A single step outside the main gates was enough to behold the sprawling, newly erected wooden stands of the grand tournament that Shaza, Prince of Sharjaan, had decided to commemorate. Within a month or two, the greatest tournament the south had seen in years would find its home in Scidna, attracting lords and knights from every corner of the realm to celebrate the birth of Prince Shaza’s impending child, be it a son or a daughter.

Still, despite Marcus’s current, highly unorthodox employment, he possessed a soldier’s heart. Consequently, his attention immediately gravitated toward the structural defenses surrounding the court rather than its festive decorations. Two massive, imposing towers flanked the entrance of the main gate, and smaller bastions defended every vulnerable angle of the curtain wall.

It was a very good thing for an attacker that the towers were square, though. Half-moon towers were notoriously prone to deflecting catapult stones, a piece of architectural wisdom the original builders had clearly lacked. Marcus knew it wasn’t entirely probable that the King’s iron legions would venture all the way out to this blighted sector, but it never hurt to be prepared. And besides, a good scout always looked for a clean way out if things turned sour.And things would, indeed turn sour soon.

Why the hell do I do this to myself? he wondered for the thousandth time.

He thought, not for the first time, that he would have been a sight happier if he had simply stuck with the regular cohort, a dashing warrior clad in the two proud colors that displayed the royal power of Yarzat. Shield and sword in hand, marching in a tight, unyielding shield-wall with his brothers-in-arms, before heading into a noisy tavern or a warm brothel at the end of the night to aggressively blow through their savings.

It was a hell of a lot more glamorous than the ridiculous costume he was currently forcing himself to wear. Iron looked spectacularly well on his frame; cheap linen and rough wool did not. Still, draped in a sleeveless, white-wooled tunic that awkwardly reached down to his knees, he forced his way forward.

He must have looked the part of a pathetic palace servant well enough, because none of the sentries stood in his way. From the outer gate to the inner sanctum, it had been free ground.

The inner courtyard was a completely different world from the streets outside. The air here was heavy and thick with the cloying scent of lavender, centered around a grand marble fountain featuring a small, sculpted babe violently pissing glittering water from its mouth.

Or was it puking?

Marcus honestly couldn’t tell the difference. It was a manicured paradise cut by neatly rolled lawns and walls of bright flowers nestled atop bushes of vibrant green. It was just a pity that the sour-faced guardsmen with the ringed trees on their chests ruined the view at every bloody turn.

Marcus considered himself an expert at his trade, but damn if his heart didn’t give a slight, jumpy twitch whenever a sentry’s eyes trailed over his face. Still, noticing a servant and actually paying him any real attention were two vastly different things , and he finally reached the specific solar door he was looking for with ridiculous ease.

The hard part was over. Now came the part he thoroughly preferred: bullying and intimidation.

With a wolfish smile, Marcus pushed the heavy door open without a single knock.

Two pairs of eyes immediately snapped to his face. The first pair belonged to a woman, and they were wide with a mixture of profound confusion and swelling irritation at the sudden, unannounced interruption. The second pair of eyes, however, was much more to Marcus’s tastes. There was a sudden, sharp flash of naked fear and anxiety in Sevar’s gaze. Marcus smiled inwardly; he could work with fear beautifully.

A chilly silence hung over the room. The woman remained mute for a moment, completely lacking the words to address such insolence, while Sevar didn’t dare speak, likely unsure of what the sudden appearance meant for his throat. Marcus stood perfectly still. The first rule of a good shakedown was to take things calmly if you could; rushing a mark usually worked against you.

"What is the meaning of this?!’’

The silence didn’t last long, breaking the moment the woman, a sour-faced, thick-waisted hag with a permanent scowl, finally found her breath. She bristled like an angry hen, her face turning an aggressive shade of purple as she barked, ’’Who gave a cur like you the right to barge into a master’s office without a proper announcement? Have you lost your mind, boy, or just your manners?"

She was a rude creature, likely the high matron for the palace maids. Marcus knew Sevar’s role in the household was elevated enough that only those with some degree of petty power over others would report directly to him. And, of course, that small taste of authority invariably got to their miserable heads.

Marcus let his eyes trail lazily over to Sevar for a fraction of a second, catching the man’s subtle, panicked nod, before he instantly dropped his gaze to the floor. He hunched his shoulders, instantly morphing back into a frightened, clumsy servant as he offered a deep, exaggerated bow.

"Forgive me, mistress! Forgive me, Master Sevar!" Marcus stammered, his voice trembling with a perfectly fabricated panic. "I... I have only just come back after finishing the task you set me, sir. I was in such a terrible hurry to deliver the account, and the business is so pressing, that my foolish head forgot all about the knocking! Pray, do not have me beaten!"

Sevar caught the subtext immediately. The master of the house cleared his throat, his face hardening into a somber, rigid mask as he smoothly shut the conversation down.

"It is good you did it fast, but knock , or there won’t be a next time.’’ Marcus would have clapped if he could, the man had delivered well enough to hide he was shitting himself ’’Leave us, Marta," Sevar then commanded, his tone dropping into a low, grave register that brooked no argument.

The matron blinked, her mouth opening to protest the sheer lack of punishment for the boy, but Sevar raised a sharp hand. "We shall finish our discussion regarding the pantry linens later. This matter takes priority. Out."

Realizing she had lost her audience, the thick-waisted woman let out a loud, indignant huff, threw a vicious, parting scowl at Marcus’s head, and swept out of the solar, slamming the heavy oak door firmly behind her. Marcus waited until the echo of her footsteps faded down the stone corridor before he slowly straightened his spine, the pathetic servant vanishing in an instant to reveal the cold, predatory soldier underneath.

And he was supposed to be matching wits with people like her? Gods, at the very least in the legions your officers possessed the raw strength to knock you flat on the ground or whip you until your back was bloody. They earned their terror. These palace bitches here, instead, demanded absolute respect and obsequious obedience simply because they held a shred of petty power over some low-born girls bred to flatten cloth, get fucked by a noble, and broom the stone floors.

Still, this was to be his line of work for... well, the five gods only knew how long. Though he prayed to the Weaver it would be short.

He had to prepare his mind well enough not to make a total shit of the assignment. Proud scowls and sharp replies were entirely forbidden in this game, he knew. He had to take the insults lying down, bowing his head like a dog avoiding a kick. Just like when he had been a slave...

There. That made him sour and angry.

Marcus cracked his neck with a sharp, sickening *pop* as he casually regarded the master of the house. Perhaps now was the perfect time to collect a little debt for his foul mood?

He offered Sevar a slow, toothless smile. The palace official had long since dropped his proud, aristocratic demeanor, deflating so rapidly that even a barnyard chicken could realize how the balance of power was.

Now, wasn’t that the cure for Marcus’s irritation? He could very well work with a man’s fear.