Then she turned away. Into the side corridor, down its dusty, gloomy length.
That onrushing wall of noise parted around him, left him untouched. It was, he well knew, a lie. Everything was a lie. The challenge, which had proved anything but. The triumph, which was in truth a failure. The words uttered by his Chancellor, by his bent and twisted Ceda-and every face turned his way was as this one below. A mask, a thing of death, an expression of hidden laughter, hidden mockery. For if it was not death that mocked him, then what?
When last did he see something genuine in a subject’s face? When you did not think of them as subjects. When they were not. When they were friends, brothers, fathers and mothers. I have my throne, 1 have my sword, I have an empire. But I have… no’one.
He so wanted
