Chapter 1368: Stricken cowards(1)

I got the right of it, it seemed, Tiberius thought, his sweaty back pressed against the smooth, warm stone of the imperial bath.

He twirled the scrap of parchment between his fingers, rolling it from one knuckle to the next, reading and re-reading the black ink as if the words might somehow alter themselves under his glare.

That was it. He knew it.

He had taken the first step onto a narrow, precarious ledge, a road that admitted no turning back. Forward he would go, or down into the abyss; in either case, he would walk it to the absolute end. Either his own, or that of his mission.

It was treason, pure and simple. He knew the name for it well enough. His very birth was one, was it not?

It was in his very blood, as the high-born priests loved to preach from their gilded pulpits: bastards were begotten in deceit and lust, cursed from the womb to be treacherous, devious creatures.

Perhaps the gods were truthful about that much. Here he was, preparing to repay the very man who had plucked him from the gutter, fed him, nurtured him, and taught him the bloody art of rule, with the exact same poisoned coin the old lord lent to everyone else.

There was some poetry in that, he supposed.

Tiberius had assumed he would feel some sharp pang of remorse, some lingering ghost of affection or gratitude for the old monster. But there was nothing. No warmth, no hesitation. They were dealing with the War Emperor’s ultimate ghost and he truly was his pupil, after all.

Lord Julian was not a man who found himself betrayed often. Or perhaps he was simply so accustomed to the scent of treason that he smothered it in its cradle before anyone else even heard the whisper.

Still, a knife meant nothing if it didn’t strike from the dark.

Denouncing the patriarch who had forged him, extending an open, inviting hand to Julian’s bitterest enemies... who knew? Perhaps he truly was mad.

The old man was handing him the throne of Romelia on a silver platter, and here Tiberius sat, quietly spurning the crown, for no other reason than scorn. The hilariously absurd part of it all was that Tiberius had virtually nothing to gain from the act; he was the absolute last person anyone would expect to oppose Julian.

Perhaps that is the very essence of deceit, Tiberius mused. Doing something that yields no obvious profit to yourself, purely to shatter the board. To make the other players scramble, twisting their eyes toward shadows that aren’t even there.

Perhaps he was learning from Julian far more than he had ever feared or hoped.

"Your Imperial Majesty..." a low voice called out, muffled by the dense, fragrant steam swirling through the bathhouse.

The base-born emperor shifted his gaze toward the man who had made the forge work. It had been agonizingly difficult to pull off, but Tiberius understood the system. Say what you would about the deceitful old lord, but Julian knew his craft. Every letter he sent was shuttled through a labyrinth of unwitting messengers, sealed at every leg with a specific, intricately carved signet ring. If the wax looked even slightly altered upon arrival, the last poor bastard to hold the scroll lost his head, for failing to notice the tamper.

The plan only fell apart when someone else managed to slip that exact ring off the old man’s finger.

It was no mystery how the Old Ghost of Arlania had survived so many decades of knives and poison: he slept like a corpse, ate sparingly and well, and almost never touched wine. But on those rare occasions when he did indulge, usually when a long-running scheme finally bore bloody fruit, he drank deeply. And recently, something very good had indeed happened. Something involving Romelia. Something the old lord had not bothered to share with his puppet emperor.

Julian had drunk enough to drown a ox. So much so that it had fallen upon Tiberius to drag his bloated, heavy body up to his bedchambers. And during those quiet, unguarded minutes in the dark, Tiberius had taken his time.

Only a fool acted out of panic. A true player was patient: observing, assessing, planning, and then striking with surgical precision.

The agent stepped closer through the mist, his head bowed, his hands trembling faintly beneath his wet linen robe. "Your Majesty... I beg of you, might we cease this work while the night still favors us? We have pushed our luck to the razor’s edge. This time, the altered seal went unnoticed. Next time, it will not. The impression of the ring... it is not entirely identical. If his scribes look closely, we are dead men."

Tiberius didn’t even turn his head. "We were not found out."

"We were not found out today, Sire!" the man hissed, his voice squeaking with genuine terror. "Lord Julian is not a lord one simply opposes for sport! And you have no bloody reason to do it! He cares for you, he built you! I beg you, keep the peace. If he discovers this betrayal, he will not let it pass. He never lets anything pass.He is not someone to be made an enemy of. Not him!"

Regardless of the nature of the work, the key ingredient was always preparation. A man could fail even after months of meticulous planning, just as he could succeed through a stroke of blind, spontaneous luck. But there was a very fine reason why the latter were called miracles, and Tiberius certainly did not feel beloved by the gods.

All through his life, as far back as his memory served, the gods had done little more than spit upon him. Favor was a currency they spent on legitimate sons, not bastards.

Still, a man had to do what a man could do with the hand he was dealt.

The hard fact of the matter was that the agent wanted out. That much was glaringly clear.

He did not wish to die, nor did he care to live with the terrifying knowledge that a sharpened blade hung suspended over his neck by a single thread at all times. It was understandable; the old lord was a terrifying son of a whore. Tiberius himself would sooner fight a starveling bear than have Julian for an enemy.

But the dice had already been cast. The iron was in the fire, and Tiberius had to work with what he had.

"Kneel," the Emperor ordered, his voice flat, cutting through the heavy steam of the bathhouse.

"Your Imperial Majesty...?" the man stammered, squinting through the mist, uncertain if he had heard correctly.

"Kneel," Tiberius repeated.

The agent looked down at the hot stone and obeyed, sinking his knees onto the wet, tiles and wincing from the heat.

The slap Tiberius dealt him carried every ounce of strength the young Emperor could muster. And beneath his lean frame, Tiberius was far stronger than he looked. The crack of palm against cheek echoed off the stone vaulting, and a dark trail of blood immediately welled from the man’s split lip, dripping down his chin into the bathwater.

The man wanted out. Tiberius could stand here for hours attempting to convince him that they wouldn’t be discovered, but it wouldn’t be worth the breath, and Tiberius did not possess those hours to waste.

He stepped forward and struck him a second time, this time he managed to send the agent sprawling onto his side. Before the man could scramble away, Tiberius drove the bare sole of his foot squarely onto his chest, pinning him flat against the hot stone floor.

The tiles were searingly hot near the furnace vents. The agent let out a shrill, muffled scream as the heat bit into his bare back, his fingers clawing uselessly at Tiberius’s ankle drawing blood as he did. Tiberius kept the weight of his body pressed down for several long seconds before finally lifting his foot.

"It was not I alone who committed treachery here, nor was it you," Tiberius growled, leaning down, his wet face inches from the trembling man’s. "We both did. We are both his enemies now. If I fall, you fall. If you fall, I come down right beside you. We are bound together in the middle of a storm, tied to the same sinking mast. Whichever way the wind blows, our fate is the same."

"We will die... we will all die..." the man whimpered, rolling onto his elbow, his back flushed a deep, painful red from the stone.

"You wish for an exit," Tiberius said, wiping a fleck of the man’s blood from his own knuckles. "I do not. You are the only soul capable of feeding me the intelligence I require. You were happy enough to take my silver when the waters were calm, weren’t you? Now that your purse is full, you suddenly wish to stop risking your skin. Is that it?"

"Your Imperial Majesty... I beg of you... we can still stop..." the agent wept, pressing his forehead to the wet floor. "We can burn the papers..."

Tiberius didn’t bother arguing. He simply drew back his fist and punched the man squarely in the jaw, following it with a kick to his ribs that left the agent curling into a gasping ball.

I must choose my servants better next time, Tiberius thought bitterly, shaking out his bruised hand. This one is far too stupid. He actually believes a man can step into a snake’s den, take what he wants, and simply walk out because he changed his mind.

Tiberius stood over the groaning figure for a moment longer, watching the steam curl around them both. He reached down, snatched his dry linen tunic from the marble bench, and threw it over his shoulders.

"Get up, wipe your mouth, and fix yourself," the Emperor said, "You will deliver the next letter precisely as you were instructed. If the wax is flawed, I will have another made. If the guard asks questions, you will lie with a smile."

He stepped toward the heavy bronze doors of the imperial bath, pausing at the threshold without looking back.

"We will speak no further of quitting," Tiberius declared, his voice echoing off the stone walls like a final decree. "Or I will hand Lord Julian your head myself, just to watch him figure out what you did with his ring and then of course beg him for his mercy and understanding.I have more chance to live through this than you were if you went to convince him of the same. I am lord Julian’s only hope to unify the state since he does not wish to hold hand with the Red Bitch’s spawn. And as you said, he cares for me....since he built me. You are a piece there are a thousand of one that he has to replace you with. Can you say the same of me?