\hypertarget{villainous-interlude-coulisse}{%
\chapter*{Villainous Interlude:
Coulisse}\label{villainous-interlude-coulisse}}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\nameref{villainous-interlude-coulisse}} \chaptermark{Villainous Interlude: Coulisse}

\epigraph{``Still waters are the hungriest.''}{Soninke saying}



There were so many defensive wards layered around his tent that even
insects trying to crawl through would be instantly fried.

It wasn't for his personal safety, of course. Amadeus knew better than
to rely on magic for that: there were ways to undo sorcery, if you had
the right tools at hand. Just the belief that he was ever safe would be
a dangerous liability -- heroes had a way of slipping through the
cracks, especially the grittier types. No, this was purely for the sake
of privacy. His contact with the Tower had been infrequent at best,
these last two decades: letters took months and could be intercepted,
two-way scrying could be detected and even listened on. But now and
then, it became a necessity to talk with Alaya face to face. For that
purpose Wekesa had crafted the both of them a highly specialized tool,
two halves of a mirror linked so deeply it took but a touch to have them
connect. The protections weaved into the spells were some of the
nastiest he'd ever seen, and as far as he knew no one trying to
eavesdrop on a conversation between the Empress and himself had ever
survived the attempt.

Unlike most people expecting a meeting with the Dread Empress of Praes,
Amadeus had not spent a great deal of effort making himself look
presentable. There was no stubble on his jaw, not that there should be:
he hadn't needed to shave since becoming the Black Knight, as he'd never
thought of himself as someone who had facial hair. He wore a simple
long-sleeved grey cotton shirt with some cleverly hidden metal plates,
which combined with his comfortable trousers of the same colouring lent
him a fairly casual appearance. His sword was within reaching distance,
but that was nothing unusual: he could count the number of times it
hadn't been on one hand, since he'd first become a Squire claimant. A
gentle touch of the finger had the mirror rippling, and after a
heartbeat the silhouette of Her Most Dreadful Majesty Malicia, First of
Her Name, Tyrant of Dominions High and Low, Holder of the Nine Gates and
Sovereign of All She Beheld appeared on the surface.

``Maddie,'' the ruler of Praes greeted him.

``Allie,'' he replied just as dryly.

Most people would have expected Alaya to wear some kind of sheer,
mind-bogglingly revealing nightdress at this time of the night. The
truth was a little different: the Dread Empress of Praes was adorned in
loose woollen pants and a conservative button-up shirt that covered her
up to her neck. For all that she played the part of the supremely
skilled seductress in public, the dark-skinned woman had never truly
left behind her very provincial views on propriety. Being part of the
Imperial seraglio under Nefarious -- may that hook-nosed wretch forever
scream in the deepest Hells -- had saddled her with a reputation,
though, and she'd elected to take advantage of it. It helped that she
was undeniably one of the most beautiful women in the Empire. Weaving a
few spells into her dresses allowed her to turn that attraction into
fascination, and so put everyone dealing with her at a disadvantage. Men
and women alike tended to think with their genitals around her, a
dangerous liability when trying to outmanoeuvre someone with a mind as
sharp as Alaya's. That she was widely known to be only interested in
women was, amusingly enough, not much of a hindrance when it came to
manipulating men. There was no shortage of prancing idiots in the
nobility of the Wasteland who believed the magic wand between their legs
would be the thing to change the Empress' preferences.

``You have such an unpleasant smile,'' the Empress sighed. ``It always
looks like it's at someone else's expense.''

``It usually is,'' Amadeus admitted shamelessly.

She rolled her eyes, drawing a grin out of him. He did enjoy the way she
acted when it was only the two of them. The woman she turned into when
keeping the pack of jackals that passed for the upper class of Praes in
line was sublimely entertaining, but she was also a carefully crafted
façade. The Alaya he'd met when they were both so young, the same girl
he'd spent so many nights with debating the Empire \emph{should be}
instead of the way it was, she only came out rarely nowadays. It had
been ages since Alaya had thrown a tankard at anyone, even, which was
definitely a shame. Amadeus was of the opinion that the behaviour of the
High Lords would improve considerably if the Empress threw things at
them every time they misbehaved. And considering the way some of the
Tyrants have acted in the past, that wouldn't even register as eccentric
by Praesi standards.

``And now you're smirking,'' Alaya noted. ``Spit it out.''

``Just remembering how terrible a waitress you were,'' he informed her.

``At least I never toppled a foreign government drunk,'' she replied,
arching a perfectly-manicured eyebrow.

``I was tipsy at best,'' he protested.

They shared a smile, but after a moment her face turned serious.

``I suppose we should get to business,'' she said. ``One of Ime's people
intercepted a diplomatic courier from Hasenbach.''

``Finally,'' he murmured. ``She found a way around the Augur's
abilities?''

``We think she can only foretell it if it's been planned,'' Alaya told
him. ``We're moving additional agents into place to create more
opportunities.''

He hummed thoughtfully. He'd have to pass the conclusion along to
Eudokia. She'd been getting frustrated at her own failures.

``The contents?''

``Nothing too surprising,'' the Empress grimaced. ``She's sounding out
the League for military readiness.''

``We've still got three of the seven aligned with us,'' Amadeus grunted.
``The others won't move with a majority vote that slim, they'd be
leaving their own city-states undefended against our allies.''

``She's just angling to keep Helike off her back,'' Alaya replied. ``If
she pushes an official truce with the Principate through vote, she'll
have the border secure for a few years.''

``Having the Tyrant take the throne there was an unexpected surprise,''
the Knight shrugged. ``I won't complain if it helps, but it was never
something we planned to rely on. I'd rather she spent time on the Free
Cities than dealing with the Dominion.''

``Levant will fold if she pushes back,'' the Empress said. ``They're not
looking for an actual war, just being opportunistic.''

It was a shame the Red Snake Wall made the Dominion's northern border
unassailable. Hasenbach was looking for a war abroad to consolidate her
position and Levant would have made an easier target than the Empire
without it. It wouldn't even be the first time Procer turned their eyes
in that direction: the territory now making up the Dominion had spent
two centuries as part of the Principate, before seceding with Ashuran
help.

``Regardless,'' Alaya continued, ``I have other concerns.''

Amadeus raised an eyebrow.

``I'm listening.''

``This rebellion. You could have put this whole matter to rest months
ago,'' Alaya said. ``Peeling a legion off of the Vales to flank them and
sending another across the Hwaerte would have crushed the insurrection
in its infancy.''

``True,'' the Knight admitted.

``I understand the need to groom your apprentice, Maddie, but this is
going too far. You're deliberately stretching out the lifespan of a
threat to the Empire so that she can prove herself on the field,'' the
Empress told him. ``This entire affair is an unnecessary risk.''

``It is a risk, I'll give you that much,'' the green-eyed man conceded.
``But unnecessary? Quite the opposite.''

Alaya's eyes narrowed. ``You're up to something.''

He shrugged. ``Aren't I always? In this case, the objective is fairly
straightforward: I am putting an end to the rise of heroic Names in
Callow.''

``I would argue that's impossible,'' the Empress frowned. ``The best
we've managed is to regulate the frequency they form at.''

Amadeus' lips quirked into a wry smile. ``The key word in that sentence
being \emph{we}.''

``Her managing to kill the Lone Swordsman would buy us a year or two at
best,'' Alaya scoffed. ``We've gone over this before. Wekesa putting
down the Wizard of the West didn't stop mage-Names from forming down the
line, nemesis or not.''

``You're still framing this in terms of Catherine being one of us,''
Amadeus said, leaning forward. ``She isn't. She is a Callowan using a
Praesi Name for purposes that ultimately serve the land of her birth.
This is no longer a story about the Empire maintaining dominion over its
conquest: it stopped being that the moment she became involved. This
narrative is about Callow's soul, which of two paths it should take in
the coming years: the Swordsman's revolution at all costs or the
Squire's appropriation of the system.''

Alaya drew a sharp breath. ``And if she wins-``

``When she wins,'' Amadeus corrected.

``Then heroes will stop rising to oppose her, until she succeeds or
loses her way,'' the Empress finished, face troubled. ``Maddie this
is\ldots{} Both of us have walked this line before, but that's something
else. You're trying to manipulate the forces driving a Role. Calling
this playing with fire wouldn't be doing it justice.''

``I imagine it is mildly blasphemous at best,'' Amadeus smiled.
``Amusing, if not of any great import.''

Alaya grimaced.

``Assuming your gambit is success,'' she said. ``Which is, for the
record, an assumption I am not yet ready to make. In the aftermath, she
would have to be allowed to implement some degree of reform. Otherwise
she'll end up having to oppose us as the next obstacle in her way.''

Amadeus blinked. ``Well, yes,'' he replied slowly.

``That could cost us Callow, in the long term,'' the Empress stated. ``I
do not want to have to put down a Legion-trained native army in thirty
years.''

``Our current methods won't work for much longer, you know this,'' the
Knight frowned. ``Rebellions will keep cropping up and it's a matter of
time until the Principate is able to mount an invasion again. We can't
win a war with them while putting down domestic unrest, both Grem and I
have run the scenarios.''

``Procer is being handled,'' the Soninke replied.

``You can only start fires in the First Prince's backyard so many times,
Allie,'' Amadeus told her frankly. ``She's already managed to cut you
out of their internal politics and now she's making making progress in
the Free Cities. As soon as the Dominion backs down she can turn all her
attention to us.''

``She won't be in a position to make a move for at least two years,''
the Empress informed him. ``As soon as I have additional agents in
position I can start funding her opposition regardless of those pesky
little laws she put in place.''

It had been a masterful stroke, when Hasenbach had passed the
legislation through the Highest Assembly. The origin of loans above a
certain sum to the rulers of all principalities now had to be disclosed
to the First Prince, which had put an end to the activities of the
Pravus Bank on Proceran soil. If Alaya propped up a political opponent
of the First Prince, the woman in question would know in a matter of
weeks. And if the loan went undeclared, she would have a pretext to move
against her enemy as soon as the information surfaced. Which it would,
there was no doubt about that: Hasenbach's spy network was nearly as
good as theirs and she had a Named future-teller on her side. There was
a reason Assassin hadn't already taken care of the First Prince -- both
attempts made had been anticipated and neatly countered before they
could get anywhere close to her. Still, there were ways around the laws.
Multiple smaller loans through proxies would achieve much the same
result, but putting said proxies into place would take \emph{time}. When
everything was finally in position, though, odds were that Hasenbach's
position in Procer would no longer be vulnerable.

``Two years won't be enough,'' he finally said. ``Even if we raised
another five legions tomorrow Procer would still outnumber us nearly two
to one in professional soldiers. We wouldn't be able to hold the Vales,
and it would all be downhill from there.''

``And what's your alternative, Maddie?'' the Empress replied tiredly.
``What does your Squire actually intend to do, if she gets her way? I've
yet to discern an actual plan of action from her. She just strolls from
one mess to the next.''

``She'll want official authority to curtail abuses of Imperial power on
Callowan soil, at the very least,'' the dark-haired man spoke. ``Not,
all in all, an unreasonable thing to ask.''

``You want me to give a sixteen year-old Callowan girl power of life and
death over Praesi high nobility,'' Alaya pointed out. ``I know you've
been staying out of Wasteland politics, but you should be able to guess
how well that will go over.''

The Knight smiled coldly. ``So let them grumble. Let them rebel, even.
There's a reason half the Legions are still in Praesi territory. The
moment they take arms they will be crushed underfoot, as they were when
we first took power.''

``We're not the underdog anymore, Maddie,'' the Empress replied in an
irritated tone. ``There's more to ruling than hanging whoever disagrees
with you. We already took the Empire, now we have to actually \emph{run}
it. Something you'd know, if you hadn't spent the last twenty years
playing soldier abroad.''

He let the comment pass, this once, though sharp replies were on the tip
of his tongue. There was nothing to win in allowing this to become a
personal argument instead of a political one.

``The Truebloods have been pressuring you,'' he guessed instead.

``They closed ranks behind High Lady Tasia,'' Alaya explained. ``Killing
Mazus and his father was too stark a reminder that we're keeping them on
a short leash. I'm going to have to make concessions to keep them under
control.''

Heiress' mother. Not unexpected, thought definitely unwelcome. It was to
be expected that the High Lady of Wolof would leverage her child's rise
into becoming the leader of that band of malcontents.

``What do they want?'' Amadeus asked. ``They should know better than to
ask for a lift on the Chancellor ban.''

``If she was that stupid she wouldn't be a threat,'' the Empress
replied. ``They stayed moderate. Reinstatement of goblin breeding
restrictions to pre-Conquest levels, the end of tribute reduction for
Clans who provide legionaries. They also want the tributes that went
unpaid under Nefarious to be collected retroactively, with interest.''

``Going for the Reforms, then,'' the Knight grunted. ``They're not even
being original anymore. How will you put them off?''

The Truebloods hadn't made a push for changes in the War College, which
was for the best. He'd have needed to take punitive action if they had,
and the current climate was already volatile enough. The nobility's
ongoing struggle to take back the changes made when Malicia had first
taken the Tower had been mostly fruitless so far, though they'd managed
a handful of victories. Mostly in the way they'd managed to stop any
other steps forward: his own attempt to have noble titles granted to
Clan chieftains had been tabled for at least the next decade. Met with
silence on the Empress' part, the green-eyed man frowned.

``Alaya?'' he said, then felt his blood run cold as the realization sunk
in. ``You can't be serious.''

``Valid arguments were made,'' the Empress replied flatly. ``The Tribes
already recovered all the losses they incurred when we took Callow.
Allowing them to accumulate more numbers would shift the balance of
power in the Empire to our disadvantage.''

``And the tributes?'' he asked.

``They broke the law by ignoring their obligations to the Tower, even if
Nefarious was unfit to rule,'' the Soninke noted. ``As for the rest,
incentives to enrol are hardly needed given the numbers of orcs we
already have under the banner.''

``If you implement both it will cripple enrolment in the Legions,'' the
Knight said. ``The Clans won't be able to part with even half as much of
their people under that kind of a financial burden.''

``Tasia's very objective, I imagine,'' the Empress replied. ``Not one I
entirely disagree with. Too large a portion of our armies is not
human.''

``Humans still make four legionaries out of ten,'' the Knight pointed
out. ``Only orcs come even close to that. The gap will only widen if
Callowans start joining in significant numbers.''

``That's still over half our legionaries born to loyalties other than
the Tower,'' Alaya retorted.

``The entire point of the Reforms is to give them a stake in the
Empire,'' Amadeus reminded her. ``Keeping them under our thumb is
counterproductive when we're trying to make a fist. Allie, they're
pushing now of all times because it's \emph{working}. Catherine's boy
proved as much: an unprecedented Role, bound to the Legions of Terror
and in the hands of an orc.''

``Yes,'' the Empress said quietly. ``To the Legions. Not the Tower.''

Amadeus felt the old calm settle on him. The clarity that came with
danger, the perfect awareness that had seen him survive one uphill
battle after another.

``We're better than this, Alaya,'' he said. ``\emph{You're} better than
this. If we begin to doubt each other now, all we built will come down
on our heads.''

The dark-skinned woman let out a long breath. The controlled façade
she's put on when the conversation had taken an unpleasant turn broke
for a moment, allowing a glimpse of very real dismay. Or was it? He'd
never been good at reading her. There was a time where that had hardly
mattered, but they were no longer the people they'd been when they were
young even if their faces had remained the same.

``You think I enjoy this, Maddie?'' she murmured. ``Gods, you're the
only person I've been able to trust since I was seventeen. You may well
be the only man in this entire Empire I can call a friend.''

``But,'' the Knight spoke quietly.

``But,'' she repeated in the same tone, ``in the end, there can only be
one person sitting on the throne.''

Amadeus closed his eyes. How had it come to this, he wondered? He'd
always known that the degree of trust between Alaya and himself was
unusual, by villainous standards. But it had needed to be, for what
they'd done. By outlawing the Name of Chancellor they'd shifted the
balance of the ruling class of the Empire. There was no buffer between
the Empress and the nobility, which meant she had to deal with their
intrigues herself. In some ways, Alaya had more direct power over Praes
than any other Empress or Emperor before her -- but that also meant that
dealing with internal matters had to take up most of her time. Which, in
turn, had meant that she'd had to delegate almost all authority over
Callow to him. He'd been King of Callow in fact, if not in name, for the
last twenty years. In and of itself that would not have been much of an
issue, but the fault line rand deeper than that. Out of the current
thirteen marshals and generals of the Empire, ten had started out as
officers under his command. Their loyalty went to him over Alaya, a
damning fact when the strongest pillar of the Dread Empress' power over
the Empire was the Legions of Terror. Could he really blame her for
crafting a power base independent from his own? No.~\emph{But blame
doesn't matter. Never has, never will. Villains must attend to reality
or be swallowed by it.} The Black Knight opened his eyes. In the back of
his head the machine woke up, a hundred thousand gears starting to turn
as his Name stirred awake.

``Forty years I have fought for this Empire,'' he spoke. ``I made myself
into a liar, a cheat and a murderer. I smothered infants in their cribs
and engineered the deaths of thousands. I watched the love of my life
walk away from me. And not once did I regret it. Do you know why?''

Silence.

``Because it \emph{worked},'' he hissed. ``Because we took the
laughingstock of this continent and turned it into a nation to rival any
other. And we did it without cutting deals, without taking shortcuts.
We've tried their way for a thousand years, Alaya. Built the flying
fortresses, bled the sacrifices. And it failed, every godsdamned time.''

He bared his teeth.

``We go back now and we're no better than those who came before us.
Praes is not special. It is not unique. It is not predestined for
greatness and \emph{neither are we}. The moment we forget that, we
deserve to lose.''

Malicia's face was blank of emotion.

``Are you done?''

``Am I?'' he asked tiredly. ``Gods, how I have wondered. If my Role
finally caught up with me, if I've become as mad as they say I am. If I
turned into just another raving fool with a Name, screaming at the
Heavens. But if I'm not\ldots{} Allie, all I can see down the path you'd
take us is failure. Trading short-term gains for long-term disasters. So
I implore you, think about this again.''

The Empress' face softened, after a moment.

``I forget, sometimes, that you are under just as much pressure as I
am,'' she replied. ``I'd say it's because you so rarely show weakness,
but it's not much of an excuse. I should know better. Get some sleep,
Amadeus. End the rebellion. We'll revisit this when the both of us are
in a better state.''

The mirror's surface dimmed, leaving only his reflection. The Black
Knight leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

The gears kept turning.
