As the men marched slowly over the clogging earth, even Josar had to admit that Esric’s speech had done its job perfectly, diffusing the men’s consternation and turning it into cold anger at the waiting foe. He watched the banners approach the enemy in near-perfect coordination, the serpent of Emeric, his own bear, Spalforth’s all green, Calvannen’s red and blue, as well as the banners of the lesser barons – the pike, the river crab, a black-and-white quartered banner and even a plain green sheet recently converted to a banner because Spalforth had allowed the Marsh Men to join his army in return for land. Some fifty miles to the north he could see the green rolling Marassan Hills, a range of low bluffs that marked the formal boundary between the baronetcies of north and south. This land was Calvannen’s and Tanaren’s and they would all die to make sure it remained that way.
As for the battle itself, the chroniclers would write that it took until late afternoon. Josar loved hearing the florid accounts they wrote with their exaggerations that enhanced the bravery of the barons and commanders, emphasising their correct tactical decisions while burying their mistakes. The implication was that the doughty warriors involved had spent the entire day fighting their implacable foe. The truth, of course, was another matter entirely. Deployment itself took an age. Then there were the prayers and blessings of the Gods to receive. Then, of course, everyone involved had to drum up the battle lust – no one wanted to face the prospect of death, maiming or having agonising wounds inflicted on their person while in a cold, sober frame of mind. Some needed a drink, others needed to scream their lungs out at the enemy, and others united their voices in the battle songs of the Gods. Once the collective determination to face the enemy had been achieved, then the attack could begin in earnest.
The clash of arms itself lasted less than an hour. It turned out that the Arshuman contingent had the yellow banners and the armour of their country but not the fighting spirit. They were obviously raw recruits who had undertaken a long march to get here and had no intention of laying down their lives when faced with any degree of adversity. Once the light cavalry had withdrawn after loosing a couple of volleys of arrows at the Calvannen lines, most of which fell short of their targets, Emeric’s serpent knights and Spalforth’s battle-hardened regulars moved forward, seeing the nervous Arshuman line as the soft underbelly to target with their first charge. To their credit, the Arshumans stood their ground as Spalforth’s men engaged them face on though their losses were heavy. Emeric however moved his cavalry out wide and charged. Their first target was the protective screen of light cavalry stationed on the right flank. This however dissolved like smoke at the sight of a hundred fully plate, armoured warriors bearing down on them, the green serpent hissing its venom from the pennants on their lances. As the defenders, horse scattered, Emeric’s charge continued into the Arshumans exposed flank crumpling the entire line like paper.
And that basically was that. Garal’s archers never had a chance to properly use their skills so they quit the field as soon as they could. The rest of the hour was spent whittling down Garal’s own troops and the mercenaries who in fairness were fierce, capable men. Ultimately though, seeing the way things were going, they put up the white banner of surrender and, with their last allies gone, Garal and his men turned tail, too – back to Garal City, though they already knew its ditch and stockade would be barely adequate in holding out against a force of determined men.
Esric did not bother pursuing the enemy to their deaths. Rather, they disarmed the mercenaries and consolidated their gains that day. Nearly three hundred enemy dead for the loss of a mere dozen of their own men. The Battle of Pendle Stream and the suppression of the Garal Revolt had been a spectacular success.
As the sun took on the red tinge of the late afternoon, Esric sat on his charger close to the gates of Garal City. It was dominated by the baronial estate perched on the low hill at its centre. Both it and the clusters of cottages surrounding it were timber-framed and thatched, their walls pristine and whitewashed. The barracks of the soldiers were located in a fort of wooden logs protected by hides and sealed by pitch, located close to the gates, which themselves sported two low watchtowers crawling with men.
Against the advice of his generals. Esric rode right up to the gates. Not twenty feet from him he could see at least a dozen men poised with crossbows, all with quarrels fitted and aimed directly at him. At this range each bolt could punch through his armour as if it didn’t even exist. In a voice as loud and clear as he could make it he called to them.
‘I am not here for revenge. I am not here for slaughter. I want nothing more than to welcome Garal City back under my wing where they can fight the true enemy, those wearing the yellow. All I want is the Baron who turned you against me to stand before me, unarmed, at this gate. Him and his family. If he does not come to have justice dispensed upon him, then I have no other choice than to assume you are all willingly harbouring him. Your city will be besieged and burned and any refugees will be denied food and shelter on the lands I command. I will retire now to pray that you choose the only sensible path open to you. I will return in one hour. May Artorus guide you to follow the course of wisdom.’
With that he spurred his horse and rode back to his own men, leaving the garrison talking furiously among themselves.
True to his word one hour later he returned. Returned to find Garal standing there, his armour replaced by a loose black cotton shirt and leather breeches. The garrison had bound his wrists and a couple of them stood either side of him, brandishing pole arms. Behind him, leaning against the gate or standing nervously fidgeting with hands and feet, were his family: a pretty dark-haired girl about half Garal’s age who Esric knew to be his wife; a nurse holding their child, a mere babe in arms; an older lady, and two young boys in their early teens, Garal’s nephews. This time supported by Josar and their men-at-arms, Esric dismounted and came up to the traitor baron.
‘I am glad you have given yourself up and prevented further bloodshed.’ Esric spoke authoritatively but with a certain reticence, too, as though he was not going to enjoy what was about to unfold. ‘I hope you can see the irony here. You betrayed me and the Arshumans betrayed you by sending you poor, inexperienced troops.’
Garal grinned, his face twisted by bitterness. ‘I could see that as soon as they arrived, but what could I do? I had to fight you. Neither you nor Spalforth would accept my surrender.’
‘I would have,’ said Esric. ‘And Spalforth is pragmatic. I am sure a redrawing of the boundaries between your lands would have satisfied him. It is too late now, though – executing Andrean was a bad move.’
‘I had to do something to fire the boys up.’ Garal kept his voice even. ‘They all knew in their hearts it was a hopeless fight. Also, after what you did to Eburg, do you really think I believe you when you say you would have forgiven me?’
Esric did not reply, so Garal continued. ‘So I assume you are going to kill me now?’
Esric looked around him. Just behind him, through the ditch surrounding the town, the Pendle chittered away in its narrow bed. He was getting cold.
‘Yes, I am, but I will give you a choice as to the way you die.’
Garal nodded slowly. ‘Go on.’
‘After what you did to Andrean, my men want the revenge I promised them. You can have a quick death, a beheading, but before that happens your family will be brought before you and killed one by one.’
‘What? Even the little one?’
‘Maggots grow into flies, Garal.’
Garal’s grimace became even more pronounced. ‘You are enjoying this, I see. What is the alternative?’
Esric started to walk around the captured man. ‘If you think I am enjoying this, you are more deluded than I thought. You were a trusted ally, Garal, damn you. We drove the Arshumans back further than ever before not a few months back. When I heard you were allied with Fenchard, it stung me more than you can imagine.’
Garal sneered at him. ‘Many of us thought you not up to the
job. When we drove the Arshumans back, plans were already well in advance. I was to have the south and Fenchard the north. Eburg’s mother was supposed to get her son to turn, but as far as I know she never mentioned the idea to him. Fenchard told me to declare for Arshuma anyway. They would send me men, I was told. Instead, I got five hundred boys, most of whom will spend winter freezing to death in the wilderness here.’ He spat into the dirt. ‘Enough of this, daylight is going and I have no desire to tarry any longer. What is the alternative?’
Esric pursed his lips slightly. ‘Your family will live. I will probably marry your widow, to solidify the alliance between our houses. I will send them all to Sketta as hostages for now and the boys can join Emeric’s knights when they are old enough. You, however, will die by having your limbs severed from your body one by one, with your head being the last to be removed. What remains of you will be burnt and sent to Xhenafa, where I hope you will be judged fairly.’
They spoke a little longer, then Esric left him, walked up to the waiting Spalforth and said, ‘You know what he said. See it done and avenge your father. I am going to the estate to get out of this damned cold.’
The following morning Esric returned to the now-opened gate and walked out of the town towards the stream. He was one of the few sober men left in the town, having eschewed any alcohol during the previous night’s celebrations. Garal had been executed immediately before the sun went down, without any ceremony or fuss, partly at the man’s own request. He had spoken to Eva, Garal’s widow, that very night, outlining his plans for her.
‘He was really torn over whom to side with,’ she had said. ‘He always felt you to be too indecisive to lead the war down here and felt his cousins in Arshuma would back him. Betrayal wasn’t really part of the man he was, but his ambition came to control his every action. When he saw that neither Fenchard nor the Arshuman king were really interested in backing him, he became violent, depressed and resigned to his fate. He determined to die like a man, to go out fighting. I am not sure his death quite met his expectations.’
‘I had to do it,’ Esric had replied. ‘Whatever his motivations, his actions were of the most egregious nature; my army would not have stood for anything less.’
‘And would you have killed all of us like you threatened to do?’
‘It was a bluff. He would never have seen you all die.’
‘And if he had called it?’
‘I would not have killed you.’ Esric walked off at this point; the second part of his answer, that he would have found someone else to kill them, remained unsaid.
He now stood on the other side of the ditch opposite the gate, having crossed the bridge over the stream. There, stuck on a spear ready to welcome any visitors to the town, was Garal’s head. Esric had disturbed the crows feeding on it as he drew closer and now saw that they had been there for a while. The eyes had gone and a lot of the flesh had been stripped from the cheeks and what was left of the neck. Lying in the grass next to him was the sturdy wooden board on which Garal had been tied while the execution had been performed. Dark blood had soaked into its entirety; shock and blood loss had mercifully killed him quite quickly. As he looked, he saw bits of sinew and gristle stuck to its surface and realised that the two dogs fighting each other at the gates were in dispute over some tasty morsel gleaned from this very board. He walked away, trying to inhale some cleaner air.
‘What in Camille’s name have I become?’ he said aloud, though only to himself.
‘I thought Camille was not fashionable in Tanaren?’ Esric spun round to see Mikel standing close by. Where had he come from?
‘She is a lover of the arts; poets often invoke her name, even bad ones. Have you been here all along?’
‘Yes, I have been sitting over there by the ditch for a while; and no, I did not use magic to hide myself. You were too deep in thought to see me, I imagine, and with my head the way it is using my power is something I won’t be doing for a while.’ His head above his eyes was completely enclosed with a blood-spattered bandage.
Esric nodded quietly and continued to walk next to the ditch and stream, Mikel following closely. ‘You know,’ Esric said after a little while, ‘in my youth I used to write love poems, imagining the way I would woo my bride, the gifts I would give her, the honeyed words I would whisper in her ear. I never thought it would work out that I would win her by dismembering her husband and sending his limbs to each border of his land to deter any further would-be traitors. I have become little more than just another butcher in a land full of them. In fact, I have become rather good at it.’
Mikel shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have not been here long but from what I have seen you have done no more or no less than you needed to do to quiet a rebellious land. Most other generals would be ecstatic at the success you have achieved. There is no one left here to challenge you now.’
‘Well, at least there is one thing – while I winter here, get married and pacify the land, you are free to go north and see that little dark-haired mage you are so fond of. Emeric will send some knights with you as an escort along with the Knights of the Thorn, whom, I see, you have given the slip yet again.’
Mikel seemed pleased with himself. ‘What can I say? They do seem terribly naive.’
‘Tell Morgan that the south is clear of enemies west of the Broken River and that few remain even west of the Helkus. We can stand with him if he calls upon us.’
‘That I will,’ Mikel replied. ‘Now stop this pointless brooding and go back to your men. From what I can see most of them worship the very ground you tread upon, so they should at least see you from time to time.’
Mikel walked off towards the town gates, leaving Esric alone again. He looked west towards Sketta, his power base many miles away. Then he looked east towards the occupied lands. Just over the river Helkus lay Calvannen itself; maybe a concerted campaign in the spring could yield his ancestral lands to him for the first time since the war began. For Esric the Poet Baron, it was just a wistful dream; for Esric the Butcher, though, it was a tangible reality. He crossed the bridge and followed Mikel back into the town, not looking once at Garal’s ruined head nor at the crows who had returned to feast there.
22
Morgan did not consider himself a religious man. Even before battle he rarely attended services and, as far as the ceremonies of Mytha the warrior god, with their anointings of herb-infused bear blood, were concerned, he considered himself way too old to be involved with such things.
Today, though, was different. Today he felt it incumbent on him to pray and for more than one reason. On the side table in his room he picked up his icon of Artorus; it was a simple wooden carving; every soldier had one and it was completely unlike the icons of the moneyed and influential which usually featured lacquered wood, lapis lazuli, silver, gold and finest porcelain. Mathilde collected the things. She had told him she had over a hundred; she kept her favourites next to her bed and prayed to them morning and night. Morgan smiled at the thought; she was quite a pious lady.
He placed the icon on his table and lit a small candle next to it.
‘To all the Gods,’ he said, ‘ – if you are listening, that is – watch over my wife and child, if they are not already at your side. If you can, let Lisbeth know that I think of her daily and will continue to do so no matter what recent events have occurred. Also guide me with what I am about to do, give me the wisdom to do the right thing, for, if I am wrong, if I am not the judge of character that I think I am, then I may be brought to your side this very day. If that happens, then I would ask you judge me on both the good and bad things I have done in my life and consider that everything I have done has been done with a reason. As it must be. For ever.’
He stopped, stared blankly into space for a while then stood, placing a dagger into a scabbard in his belt. ‘Let’s get on with this,’ he said as he left the room.
The cell door swung open and Morgan strode in flanked by a guard and the smiling jailor. Syalin was sitting in e
xactly the same place as he had last seen her – on the chair, apparently lost in her own thoughts, calm and serene.
‘Bind her hands and bring her with us,’ he said in a voice as neutral as it was business-like. Her eyes met his for a second. ‘Time for a reckoning,’ he said to her.
She did not flinch. Rather she stood and let the jailor tie her as ordered.
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘I will not try to escape.’
She was led all the way out of the prison, down to the gates of the keep. There, Dominic was waiting on his steed with Cheris sitting right behind him, gingerly clinging to him, looking just like what she was – someone who had never ridden a horse in her life. Syalin was bundled into a wagon, with a soldier sitting either side of her and the jailor opposite. Two other knights were mounted ready to ride with them and there were also two spare horses, one of which Morgan managed to climb on to without assistance.
They rode through the castle gates, over the drawbridge, down the hill and over the river. Making no real haste they rode through the town, watched by only a couple of the idle and curious. Leaving Felmere behind, they took the same route as Morgan had recently taken with Itheya. It was colder than that day had been, though, the low grey clouds carrying a threat of snow. The river was as noisy and cheerful as ever, but today it just looked bitterly cold, a black ribbon crossing a grey, bleak land.
Finally, they reached the trees again. Dominic rode over to Morgan.
‘Up the hill to the plateau next to the waterfall. I will be back in an hour or so.’
‘That is what the lady requested.’ Morgan looked at Cheris who had looked less and less comfortable as the journey had unfolded.
‘Yes, Sir Knight, up the hill,’ Cheris groaned. ‘Please have a care; I feel I might topple off at any moment.’
The Forgotten War Page 105