A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) by Freda Warrington Read Free Book Online Page A

XIV, had been Emperor of this vast, darkly shining realm. He was an extraordinary man, Ashurek remembered, as brilliant, fierce and unapproachable as a leopard, yet also wise and fair, and a loving father to his children. He had ruled the Empire well, consolidating many tentative conquests without causing much unnecessary bloodshed, and improving communications across the continent. Under him the Empire was stable.
    Ashurek could not think of his father without bitter sadness. Ordek, the last Gorethrian worthy of admiration and respect. Then the vultures had come, in the form of his own children, to tear everything he had built up into bloody pieces.
    Ashurek also remembered his mother, the Empress Melkish, with love and sorrow. True, she had been in some ways eccentric and cruel – was she not a Gorethrian? – but it was a loving, gracious woman that he remembered.
    She and Ordek had three children. Ashurek and Meshurek were twins, but Meshurek, being the first-born, was heir to the throne. Their younger sister was named Orkesh.
    How innocent can a Gorethrian be? Only in so far as he is ignorant of his own guilt – of the part his inborn sense of superiority and cleverness has played, or will play, in the cruel subjugation of other races. Yet Ashurek could remember a time – it had seemed infinite, stretching from horizon to horizon – when he had been, or at least had felt, innocent.
    His earliest memories were of colour and brilliance. Courtiers moving through the marble halls of the palace, their dark skins like satin and perfumed with sandalwood and amber, dressed in reds and greens and golds, as jewel-like as tropical fish. The porcelain-white spires of the palace glittering under the burning sun as endless processions marched past – war-horses dancing like living fire in their purple, white and gold trappings. Soldiers, seeming to Ashurek alive with some dark, invincible strength, whose jet armour was as full of scintillating colour as black opal. Banners of silk, the cheering of dazzlingly-dressed crowds, and above all the majesty of his parents, who seemed brighter than the sun on such occasions.
    Growing up amid the excitement and beauty of life in Gorethria’s greatest city, Shalekahh, and being trained from birth to fit naturally into his role as one of the country’s foremost statesmen, the palace lifestyle seemed to Ashurek as easy and invigorating as breathing. The army represented something desirable, wondrous in its mystery. If someone had explained to him the reality of their work – the fear, pain and misery they inflicted – it would have meant nothing to him. He had seen pain. It was a royal pastime to hunt a human – say an insubordinate slave – through the woods like a fox, and as soon as he and his brother and sister were old enough to ride, they were allowed to follow the chase. Pain was something to be inflicted on lesser beings to make them understand Gorethria’s supremacy.
    And his parents – his mother, she who had personally stabbed a bringer of bad news and caused the floor to be inlaid with gold where his blood had fallen, and his father, he who had brought the ‘King’ of a distant country, who had begged for independence, back to Shalekahh and had him tortured to death in public – they were to be emulated, not feared. It was for lesser mortals to fear them. Their splendour – Gorethria’s splendour – eclipsed all else, justified every act.
    Ashurek remembered being happy. He was certainly not unaware, as he reached adolescence, of how lucky he was to have been born into a life so full of glory, excitement and power. He recalled feeling actual pleasure when his father found time to speak to him. He remembered the dark elegance of his mother, the secret smiles she kept only for him, and how he used to talk and laugh with his sister, Orkesh, as they strolled through the vast palace gardens. What did we find to smile and laugh about? he sometimes thought bitterly. How