Mordraud, Book One

by Fabio Scalini

“No, can’t do that, chief! THE PARTY’S READY TO START!”

  Thousands of arms dragged him out of the tent, and Mordraud found himself in front of Eldain’s entire army. No silence now. The camp was in tremendous bedlam. Roasting on spits over fires were succulent pigs, dozens of barrels were scattered about, and people crammed round to drink directly from the uncorked holes, flooding their faces and hair with mature wine. Others were playing a popular jig on the bugles. The section captains were rowdier than their men. They all, with the exception of none, howled his name into the night when he was trawled out of the tent. His name, followed by that appalling nickname.

  “Here’s Mordraud! Spring is back!”

  “But... who told you...? How do you know...?” Mordraud asked, deafened by the cheers and the general din.

  “When we saw the sun again, we realised at once you’d managed it!” Hammer answered, slapping his back so enthusiastically Mordraud nearly flew to the floor. He pulled his trousers up in embarrassment.

  “And who told you I did it?! It might not have been...”

  “It could only have been you!” Hammer broke in.

  “But, well, I...”

  “Come on, cut out the modesty. You only ended the Long Winter!”

  Hammer’s exclamation was followed by a roar that soared up from the troops revelling in celebration.

  “I have to report... I have to speak to Adraman!” Mordraud yelled over the howls.

  “He’s not here! He’s gone home!”

  Mordraud found himself with a flask in front of his face. Then someone poured, down his throat. An excellent wine, much better than the usual vinegar they drank at the camp.

  “And this? Have you learnt to make good wine while I’ve been away?” he inquired, wiping his mouth on his tunic sleeve.

  “A gift from the Cambrian swines! Their tents were full of it, those fattened hogs!” replied one of the soldiers. For an instant, Mordraud thought Red was standing before him, in flesh and blood. But it was just a lad who looked very much like him.

  “Did Adraman go back to inform Eldain about the end of the winter?” he bawled to Hammer, as the crowd broke up to carry on the debauchery.

  “No! Dear little wifey’s with child!”

  Mordraud failed to catch his words properly. Or perhaps he’d understood them but preferred not to.

  “What?!”

  “SHE’S GOING TO HAVE A BABY!” yelled Hammer, before glugging his share of the wine from the flask. “HE’S GOING TO HAVE AN HEIR!”

  Mordraud felt his legs give way beneath him. If his companions hadn’t been there propping him up, he’d have slumped to the ground without a sound.

  “Hey, boss, we’ve only just begun! The night’s still young!”

  Wine seemed to rain from the sky, in bucketfuls. He could only guzzle and guzzle, without refrain. A whirl of hands squeezed, pummelled and pawed him with affection. The music grew louder, and many were already dancing, pickled in wine. Five or six harlots were making busy near a tent. The aroma of roast pork mingled with the sweetish smell of herbs cooked over the coals. Herbs that fogged the vision and made the men cockeyed.

  “Deanna’s going to have a baby...” he murmured, during a merciful pause between one bottle and the next. They led him in a riotous dance, but he stumbled at every step. And each time, someone scooped him up, flinging him back into the scrum.

  “Mordraud! Spring!”

  Deanna was pregnant. Impossible, because he, and he alone, knew how often Adraman had tried for an heir. For years. Tens and scores of times.

  Unless.

  “Mordraud! Spring!”

  Deanna was going to have a baby.

  ‘My baby,’ he thought, dying inside.

  “Mordraud! Mordraud!”

  ‘And nobody must ever find out.’

  The wine rose with the violence of a punch in the face. But it was a good thing. The soldiers held him up, they stuck his head in a bucket of water, and then made him drink again. And dance again. Mordraud no longer understood anything. The camp seemed to plummet into a raging battle. Yells, cries, and flashes of crimson light licking up from the fires. Clouds of sparks at each fresh log tossed onto the coals. “How did you manage it?!” they all asked him. “How did you manage it?!” was the only thing he was still able to pick up in that crazy storm of voices. He found himself, he knew not how, in the arms of a whore, his trousers down and all the men cheering around him. They seemed like wild beasts.

  ‘How did I manage it?’ he mused.

  ‘Easy. I screwed her.’

  And Mordraud burst out crying miserably.

  ***

  “We lost the back lines.”

  Dunwich was expecting nothing but those sweet, melodious words. When he heard the army was withdrawing from the Rampart, his doubts met their answer. The rains had stopped a few days before, swept away by the eagerly-awaited sun. The plants in Cambria’s large gardens had begun blooming again. The whole city seemed restored to its splendour, no longer oppressed by grey skies swollen with storms. It could be no coincidence.

  The chanters had failed. The rebels were still alive and kicking and, above all, rabid with hunger.

  A general meeting was called, and Dunwich had never felt so glad to take part. He wanted to hear the latest developments, see Loralon’s face strain in anger, feel the shame flow in torrents in the audience chamber. That bunch of incompetents deserved it, and badly. And his expectations weren’t disappointed.

  The Emperor seemed to be on the brink of bursting. Ash white, with cheeks grotesquely injected with blood, he’d listened to accounts of the hasty flight, of the brazen defeat on the battleground, inflicted on the continent’s most mighty army by a handful of starving ragged rebels, and he hadn’t opened his mouth. The great Arcane masters had shrunk into their fitted dark shirts, and listened in silence. Asaeld had left to the battalion commanders the appealing task of reporting on everything, while he sat comfortably in his armchair, without revealing any particular fear or pleasure. After all, Dunwich knew Asaeld was on his side. They’d both always believed the Long Winter was a colossal stupidity. Loralon had undoubtedly forced Asaeld to support the Arcane, but his friend couldn’t afford to confide this. A matter of position, of course.

  “How did they manage it?”

  The army’s spokesmen remained silent, gripped by utter embarrassment. They’d already given a detailed account of how such an unexpected failure had been reached. The soldiers weren’t ready to protect their position, since they were now trained merely to taunt the enemy and then retreat. All attempts to secure high ground and defend the field had been carried out in an inconsequential fashion. The cavalry was useless on that swampy putrid terrain. The Alliance’s infantry was determined and had grown most vicious after months of indescribable suffering. Their motivation was Eldain’s winning weapon. But the Emperor appeared not to want to hear excuses. For him, only results existed. It was a blistering, unexpected and shameful defeat.

  “You assured me the choir would be capable of upholding the Long Winter for as long as we wished. Why did it stop?”

  “We’re not fully certain...” the Arcane’s delegate endeavoured to explain. He was a young chanter, intentionally sent to the slaughter by the old maestros, who wanted anything but to frazzle their careers through that failure. “The Lances sent to investigate report of a battle. Eldain’s men found a way to pinpoint our haven, probably due to some absconder passing too near the mansion. Commander Asaeld, do you confirm that?”

  “Confirmed, sir,” he replied promptly. “A tragic misfortune.”

  “Yet you informed me the rebels do not have chanters and are unaware of how harmonies may be used...”

  “Well... you see...” stammered the young Arcane delegate.

  “WHO HAD THE IDEA?! I WANT TO KNOW WHO IT WAS!”

  The chanters congregated behind him all instantly threw up the same answer.

  “Dunwich, in the Lances! It was his idea!”

&nbs
p; Asaeld jumped, along with all the other Lances attending the assembly. Instead, Dunwich let out a bored sigh. It was all so obvious. He’d been expecting that conclusion since the first day of the Long Winter.

  “I ask to speak, sir!” he said, getting to his feet. But many beat him to it.

  “YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!” shouted a Lance behind him. “YOU MISERABLE RATS! COWARDS!” yelled another. Asaeld turned to his men, trying to placate the mood, but nobody heeded his words. A very sensitive – too sensitive – note had been touched.

  “Let me speak, men! Calm down!”

  “Captain, you mustn’t give in to them!”

  One of the elder chanters emerged from the group and approached the Emperor. Dunwich recognised him at once. It was Raelin, the Arcane’s dean in person. He rubbed his hands with a mournful expression, servile beyond any dignity. The chamber was in turmoil. The entire army was with the Lances, as always. The chanters had the backing of Loralon’s councillors, strategists and officials. Asaeld stood amidst this tumult of insults hailing down on all sides, waving his arms at his men. He and Dunwich seemed the only ones who’d retained a scrap of composure.

  “SILENCE! SILENCE!” the commander demanded in a booming voice, without effect. Raelin was in confab with Loralon, alone. The chanters had moved up in front of the throne and had formed a wall against the army’s representatives. The Lances had shifted dangerously close to the masters, some with their hands on their sword hilts. Dunwich tried to reach the throne to say his part, before Raelin could ruin it all, but his path was hindered. Seneo, his first teacher, the man who’d brought him to Cambria as a child, was exiting the room in all haste. Dunwich couldn’t work out if he should be glad or not. Was he ashamed of his people, or was he afraid the blame would fall on him, the tutor to the young accused Lance? He left the doubt there, too pressed by other more dire problems.

  Precisely then he saw Asaeld whisper something with half-closed eyes.

  Merely an instant, but enough for Dunwich to understand. Asaeld had found and seized the opportunity of a resonance. Which one though, Dunwich couldn’t say. The tense situation was slowly melting away around them. Raelin had moved off, together with his chanters. The Lances were crowding the foot of the throne, yelling and proclaiming their captain’s innocence, while Dunwich was stunned by that display of affection for him. He was aware his men considered him highly, but not to that degree. He remained shocked at a few unexpected declarations by the youngest Lances, who were also the most fervent. The Chosen One, The Immortal, The True Lance – these were just some of the titles the soldiers had labelled him with.

  ‘Perhaps because of that time they nearly poisoned me to death...’ he wondered, astounded. ‘But some accounts of how it all went must have been inflated...’

  “Back to your seats!” Loralon thundered, frantically banging the floor with his long wood and iron sceptre. Asaeld succeeded in curbing his men, and likewise Raelin his. Peace was restored to the hall, but the air was still exceedingly strained. Dunwich stood waiting for a verdict, ready to pull out any old excuse.

  “The Grand Maestro has explained everything. The idea was his, and he too is the person directly responsible for developing and implementing the Long Winter. The other guilty party involved was called Nector, but he died at the hands of the rebel regiment that wiped out the choir.”

  Dunwich was about to reject this, utterly convinced he’d heard a very different version come from the Emperor’s mouth. Raelin taking the blame. Impossible, unbelievable. It didn’t make sense.

  “I will discuss it with him and Asaeld in private after this assembly, to decide whether and how to relieve the Grand Maestro of his position.”

  Loralon seemed calmer, and spoke in a more confident tone. Finding a culprit was all he cared about. If it had been up to him, the meeting could have finished there, after a nice exemplary punishment had been awarded to whom deserved it. Nevertheless, there were many more issues – and all thorny ones – requiring attention.

  “We’ll move on now. We must ready plans for the next attacks on the front,” he cried out emphatically, with a devious smile. The typical look the Emperor of Cambria unveiled when he believed he had orchestrated far-sighted action.

  It was Asaeld’s turn to speak. His slightly heavier breathing didn’t go unnoticed by Dunwich. A rhythm typical of a harmony effort masked as best as its creator could. Asaeld must have done something pretty bad. He was struck by the hair-brained idea the general might have spoken with Raelin’s mind, but he dropped it at once. Even if he had – and Dunwich doubted a Lance could possess a similar ability – why ever would the Grand Maestro have put his shining career in jeopardy? What could Asaeld have proposed to convince him? A theory that made no sense.

  “I want the front to come under attack as soon as possible. We mustn’t give the rebels time to reposition!” Loralon ordered.

  “We decided to retreat from the Rampart for various reasons, Your Majesty... not only to avoid further assaults.”

  Loralon’s complacent expression suddenly lost its lustre, and Dunwich understood the reason with clarity: he’d given no order other than attack, attack, attack.

  “And... what would those reasons be?!”

  “Firstly...” Asaeld approached the tall chair, amplifying his voice, “our men needed to get their energy back.”

  “We have many soldiers. We can use them in turn... Something Eldain doesn’t have the option to choose.”

  “Well... our problem resides exactly in this...”

  Loralon leant forward off his throne, raising an eyebrow. “Do you mean to say we’re finishing our reserves of men?!”

  Many in the chamber muttered in dismay. Finishing the reserves really was a nasty expression when Cambria’s honest men were involved. Dunwich shook his head in dejection. Loralon was an unfortunately poor speaker.

  “No, but the trouble spots to keep under check have multiplied before our very eyes.”

  “I don’t quite understand...”

  Asaeld went on, revealing not the slightest unease at the Emperor’s lack of perspicacity. “Skirmishes between the population and the gendarmes have broken out in the protectorates of Essar in the South and Nelaria in the North. As you know, Cambria has demanded, and goes on demanding, large quantities of food to send to the troops fighting at the front...”

  “I don’t see where the problem is. We’ve always exacted a percentage of the harvest!”

  “Well... the harvest... Let’s say it’s been a bit leaner than expected... and someone ordered the debt collectors to clean out the protectorates’ storehouses, reserves included.”

  “Bah!” Loralon waved his hand in annoyance. “The peasants always complain, and pocket what they can... If the collectors were to believe all their cock-and-bull every time...”

  Asaeld spoke so loudly that the whole hall could hear his every word perfectly.

  “Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough, sir... There hasn’t been a harvest this year.”

  “WHAT?! IMPOSSIBLE!” bellowed Loralon. A ripple of comment swept through the chamber, in a crescendo of shared dismay.

  “Don’t you remember? We armed the farm-hands to clamp down on the wild and stray animals. Then the refugees came from Eld... Furthermore, it’s rained endlessly for months. The fields have rotted, what with the excess water and no tending.”

  “WHY WASN’T I INFORMED?!”

  It was as if a stone slab had fallen from the ceiling among the court councillors. Not even they were aware of such an alarming situation. The exactors were military and as such they reported directly to the army’s commander. Asaeld.

  “I saw to sending regular notification, as ever. It seems apparent some bureaucrats have been doing their jobs carelessly.”

  “My lord, I can say with all certainty I never received any news of this kind...” attempted the chancellor, a tall wiry old man named Parro. A well-respected official, who’d occupied that position for over thirty years. It was his dut
y to handle the missives sent in from all four corners of the Empire. Dunwich had worked with him on several occasions and the chancellor had always struck him as a good man, committed to the cause and persevering.

  “I’d have rather not talked about it during the assembly, but...” Asaeld pulled from the inside pocket of his cloak a roll of parchments tied up in a leather lace. He uncurled one and placed it in Loralon’s lap. The Emperor seized it and read it slowly. The chancellor, who was standing at his side, turned frighteningly pale.

  “Is this not your signature, Parro?!”

  “Sir, I’ve never set eyes on these documents before! You have to believe me!” stammered the old chancellor. Asaeld turned towards the room and showed another parchment to the front rows.

  “I took the liberty of sending a few men to sift through Parro’s registry office. They found these...” Asaeld thumbed the documents one by one. Dozens of scrolls written in Parro’s hand, marked with the Lance stamp and signed by the chancellor himself. And as if that weren’t enough, each one bore the Imperial wax seal, that only he and the Emperor possessed and could use.

  “Asaeld, are you very sure you found all these in the chancellor’s office? The accusation you advance is most serious...”

  “Your Majesty, I am certain. Just as I am certain that within the court lurk the traitors who wove the web of attacks on my Lances.”

  The hum in the hall became a gibbering and angry roar. Parro had been accused of treason, by Asaeld in person.

  Dunwich couldn’t believe what was happening. The commander of the Lances was above all suspicion, naturally. But even the most unfaltering faith could waver.

  ‘Parro... a traitor? The Emperor’s closest advisor, who was so old he’d also worked alongside Loralon’s father?’

  If it hadn’t been Asaeld to utter the words, perhaps nobody at all would have listened to such an absurd accusation.

  “Loralon, I’m innocent! You can’t really believe a story of this kind, can you?!” barked the old chancellor, as his terrified eyes darted around the whole room. “I’VE KNOWN YOU SINCE YOU WERE A BABY!”

  Asaeld lowered his gaze dolefully, clasping his hands behind his back. “My lord, it’s a nasty shock, I am aware... but the proof is indisputable.”