Beauclair was blessed, golden, indulgent, and heavy with the scent of ripening grapes from the surrounding vineyards. And today, even the cobblestones of the main boulevard were polished specifically for this occasion.
Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, the White Fla Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies sat astride his coal-black stallion with the calm of a man who had conquered half the known world and found it, ultimately, tedious. His armor was not the gilded carnival plate of Toussaint's knights errant, but the severe, functional black of Nilfgaardian steel, etched only with the sun sigil at the breast. His cloak was darkon the inside, sable on the out.
The conversation with his sevant, that murmured exchange of nas and coins, was already a whisper on the wind. The servant, a gaunt man nad rerid, straightened from his bow as the Emperor gathered the reins.
Emhyr did not raise his voice. "See to it that the man you ntioned takes that task," he said, his tone as flat and immovable. "Coin is of no importance. As long as he gets it done."
rerid pressed a fist to his sternum, the Nilfgaardian court salute. "Of course, Your Imperial Majesty."
Emhyr gave a single, curt nod. Then he nudged his stallion forward.
Behind him, the world turned to ordered thunder.
First ca the Alba Division cavalry, two hundred heavy lancers in burnished black plate, their kettle helts adorned with white plus. Their lances, razor steel, swayed in perfect unison. After them, the Imperial Guard on foot, marching in lockstep, their shields polished to mirrors. Then the supply train, silent and efficient. Then more knights. Then crossbown on horseback. Then a small company of mages in nondescript grey robes, their eyes scanning the rooftops of Beauclair with bored, lethal attention.
This was not a parade. This was a reminder for everyone.
At the head of it all, Emperor Emhyr var Emreis rode alone between the rows of his own slaughterers, his back ramrod straight, his gaze fixed sowhere beyond the horizon.
And the people of Beauclair, the duchy that belonged to Nilfgaard in na, but to poetry in spirit, began to sing.
The crowd had gathered three hours prior, not out of fear. Out of sothing far more stranger.
Toussaint had been a reluctant bride to the Nilfgaardian Empire once, a generation ago. But wars fade; wine trade routes do not. And the Black Ones had brought order where the petty dukes had brought chaos, coin where the banks had failed, and most importantly, they had let Beauclair remain Beauclair. The ducal coronet still sat on Anna Henrietta's elegant head. The knights still jousted for make-believe maidens. The vineyards still bled crimson into golden cups.
In return, the common folk had learned to love their conquerors. Or at least, to love what the conquerors gave them: safety, prosperity, and the quiet, smug satisfaction of being part of the greatest empire the Continent had ever known.
So when the Emperor ca, they ca too.
"By the Great Sun, look at the size of them," breathed a fishmonger's wife, clutching her youngest to her apron. Her eyes were wide with awe. "My father used to say the Black Ones would leave us one day... He was wrong."
A baker's apprentice, barely sixteen and already pockmarked from the ovens, climbed onto a stone fountain for a better view. "That's him? The Emperor? He looks... smaller than the woodcuts."
"Hold your tongue, boy! you could get your tongue cut out for what you just said!" snapped an old veteran missing two fingers on his left hand, a forr Nilfgaardian camp follower who had settled in Beauclair after the last war. His na was Otto, and he wore a faded black armband on feast days. "That 'small man' is the one who will eat the Northern Kingdoms for breakfast and spit out their crowns. You stand in the presence of the White Fla. You stand straight."
The first shout ca from a vintner near the front, a fat man with a beard like a bramble bush. He raised a clay cup, his voice cracking with genuine fervor.
"ALL HAIL THE WHITE FLA! DANCING ON THE BARROWS OF HIS ENEMIES!"
It was an odd thing to cheer, a terrifying image, really. But in Toussaint, they had made it into a kind of macabre poetry. The barrows were distant. The fla was here. And the fla brought roads and tariffs that favored the south.
The shout caught. Spread like wildfire through dry lavender.
"ALL HAIL!" cried a washerwoman. "HAIL THE EMPEROR OF NILFGAARD!"
"THE SUN RISES IN THE SOUTH!" scread a young stablehand, repeating a slogan he'd heard from his foreman and not fully understanding, but feeling the rightness of it in his bones.
A little girl, no older than seven, threw a handful of rose petals from a second-story window. They landed on the cobblestones just before the hooves of the Alba cavalry, and the wind carried them up again, pink and white, against the black tide of armor. Her mother pulled her back inside, not from fear, but because one did not litter before the Emperor. The mother then stuck her own head out and whispered, almost reverently: "Deithwen. Deithwen addan."
Older n removed their caps. Won pressed hands to their hearts. Not the salute of subjects to a tyrant, but the gesture of faithful servants.
The Emperor did not look at them, and still they cheered.
"GLORY TO THE BLACK ONES!" shouted a butcher, his cleaver still in his belt. "GLORY TO THE ORDER!"
"THE WHITE FLA BURNS ETERNAL!" cried a young noblewoman from a balcony, fanning herself though the day was not warm. Beside her, her husband, a Tourney knight with a broken nose nodded solemnly and added, "Nilfgaard watches. Nilfgaard protects."
"See?" A rchant shouted to his skeptical cousin. "See? They are not beasts, they are n. The finest n in the world, in the greatest army this continent has ever seen."
The cousin muttered, "They hanged three deserters from the bridge last spring."
"Those deserters were thieves," the rchant hissed. "And they were hanged by ducal law. The Emperor respects the law. That is why we have wine and peace both."
The Emperor's silhouette grew smaller as he rode toward the great eastern gate, his column streaming behind him like a black river.
But the crowd were cheering still, a fresh wave of voices rising as the rear guard of the Imperial procession ca into view, heavy crossbown on white mares, their weapons slung but loaded.
"HAIL THE SUN!"
"HAIL THE EMPIRE!"
"FOR NILFGAARD!"
The Emperor was gone now, through the gate and onto the Pontar Road, his destination known only to his strategists. The thunder of hooves faded to a distant sound.
The people of Beauclair stood in the silence.
A child asked, "Mother, will he co back?" The mother, the sa woman from the fish stall, looked down at her daughter. She touched the girl's hair.
"He never leaves," she said quietly. "That is the point of an empire."
/-\\
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