Those Above: The Empty Throne Book 1 by Daniel Polansky Read Free Book Online Page A

to take his spot shortly thereafter. ‘What did the senator want?’
    ‘To wet his dick, like every other member of his sex. Sometimes, dear, I despair over the fate of the Commonwealth, with such … tiny little men running it.’
    ‘But they don’t run it,’ Irene said, smiling sweetly. ‘You do.’
    ‘Now, now,’ Eudokia said, though she did not bother to contradict the girl.

3
    C alla woke just past the hour of the Crake, as the night gave gradually before the dawn. She shifted aside the curtain of the window that hung above her bed, stared out at the water below. The descendant moon denuded the scene of pigment, grey waves breaking against grey rocks, the grey tower scraping the surface of a grey sky. Of course, Calla had been staring out of the window for her entire life, could repaint the panorama with the colours daylight would soon provide. She spent a moment toying with the luxurious blasphemy that she might not get up at all, sink back into her feather bed and return to sleep, rocked by the sounds of the waves she could hear far below, or imagine she could hear.
    But only for a moment. Then the sheets were cast aside and she was up, moving smoothly but with speed through the dark. There was a steam chamber attached to her bedroom and here, more so than beneath her covers, she had to be careful not to allow five minutes to become ten, ten to become twenty, twenty to become a short eternity. Calla towelled herself free of damp and returned to her darkened bedroom, kindling the beeswax candles by her bed more from custom than necessity.
    A timid knock at the door signalled the arrival of the day’s troubles.
    ‘Enter,’ Calla said.
    ‘I’ve come to wake you, mistress,’ Tourmaline said. Tourmaline was twenty but looked five years younger, the product of having no chest to speak of and the haircut of a prepubescent boy. At half their size her eyes might have been fetching, but their current diameter overawed the rest of her features, gave one the unpleasant impression of staring at a giant insect.
    In the three years since she had assumed the position of seneschal, Calla had never once required a wake-up call. It was a small source of pride to her, the discipline and self-control she maintained over her mind even while lost in the realm of slumber. Still, better certain than sorry, and it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that one morning the aid of a human alarm would be needed. Knowing Tourmaline as she did, Calla felt that would be the one day the poor, stupid little thing would muck it up, falling asleep herself, or tripping down a staircase and breaking both legs.
    ‘You’re not here delivering dinner?’
    Two blinks of blue eyes not far from idiocy. ‘No, mistress. It’s barely morning.’
    Calla gave no outward sign of annoyance. ‘Not everyone has your advantages,’ her father used to tell her, after she had left one of the other children of the Keep in tears. ‘And you ought not be so proud over something you had no hand in creating. You owe your mind to an accident of birth. As soon praise yourself for growing tall.’ A wise man, her father, a good deal wiser than Calla knew herself to be.
    Though she tried to follow the example he had left her. ‘Thank you for your service, Tourmaline – you may return to your quarters now.’
    ‘Thank you, mistress,’ Tourmaline said, bowing and bowing and then bowing again, as if Calla had saved her from the gibbet rather than sent her off to bed.
    With the girl gone, Calla turned her full attention to her mirror. She had never taken any great pride in her beauty, though she couldn’t help but recognise it. She had long legs and a flat stomach and a nose that mostly didn’t even bother her any more. Strawberry-blonde locks curled down below her shoulders, shoulders that led into a round bosom. Starting at her wrist and ending just below her neck was her brand, a cast of hawks shadowing the noonday sun. All human residents of the Roost,