The Emperor's Court - Part One

Photo by Rafik Wahba on Unsplash

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The enormous wooden doors creaked open. Paulanus clutched his enchiridion, a small leather bound book with a few silk page markers. The Truth was eminently compact. His breath bloomed in the cold winter air and he felt the eyes of the soldiers around him watching. Waiting. Their spears glistened in the light of the low sun. The soldiers wore armour made of strips of metal tied together with toughened cattle gut and wearing wide, flat, helms of hammered bronze.

Paulanus gazed out across the city. He had arrived only yesterday, a journey of more moons than he could remember. His cassock still coated in dust from the road. He had sailed over seas and down rivers. Climbed mountains and trekked through jungle. Seen animals and heard birds he could not dream of. The languages had changed so many times he had ceased trying to learn them.

The doors slammed against stone pillars taller than the temple spires of Syrac. From the gloom of the…