by Paul Kearney
“Whatever seems best,” Golophin said. “I am no general or admiral. I’ll keep Abeleyn informed, though.”
“Can that bird of yours bear a burden, Golophin?”
“A light one, perhaps. What is it?”
Mercado produced a heavily sealed scroll from his doublet. The galley-prow emblem of Astarac could be clearly seen, melted into the crimson wax which fastened it shut.
“This came today by special courier from Cartigella. It bears King Mark’s personal seal and therefore can be opened only by another monarch. I think it may be urgent.”
Golophin took the scroll. He itched to open it himself. “Good news, let us hope.”
“I doubt it. Rumours have been coming in for days of an attempted coup in Cartigella, and of fighting through the streets of the city itself.”
“The world goes mad,” Golophin said quietly, stuffing the scroll into a pocket of his over-large robe.
“The world we knew is no more,” Mercado said crisply. “Nothing will ever bring it back again now. If we are to fashion a new one, then we must build it on blood and gunpowder. And on faith.”
“No,” Golophin snapped. “Faith can have nothing to do with it. If we rear up something new, then let it be built upon reason and keep the clerics and the Pontiffs out of it. They have meddled for far too long: that is what this war of ours is about.”
“A man must believe in something, Golophin.”
“Then let him believe in himself, and leave God out of it!”
I N that winter of war and slaughter there were still a few kingdoms untouched by the chaos which was sweeping across Normannia. In Alstadt, capital of mighty Almark on the icy shores of the Hardic Sea, the trade and business of the city went on much as usual, with one difference: the banners of the Royal palace were at half-mast and wheeled traffic had been barred from the streets surrounding the palace. Alstadt was a sprawling, disorganized city, the youngest of the Ramusian capitals. It was unwalled save for the citadel which held the arsenals and the palace itself. Almark was a wide kingdom, a land of open steppes and rolling hills which extended from the Tulmian Gulf in the west to the River Saeroth which marked its border with Finnmark in the east. And to the south the kingdom extended to the snowy Narian Hills and the Sea of Tor, on whose shores nestled the monastery-city of Charibon. It was for this reason that Almark maintained a small garrison in Charibon to supplement the Knights Militant usually based there. Almark was a staunch ally of the Church which Charibon and its inhabitants represented, and its ailing monarch, Haukir VII, had always been a faithful son of that Church.
But Haukir was on his deathbed and he had no heir to succeed him, only a clutch of dissolute sister-sons whom the Almarkan people would not have trusted with the running of a baker’s shop, let alone the mightiest kingdom north of the Malvennors and the Cimbrics. So the banners flew at half-mast, and the streets around the palace were quiet but for the screams of the scavenging gulls which swooped inland from the grey Hardic. And the dying King lay breathing his last surrounded by his counsellors and the Inceptine Prelate of the kingdom, Marat, who would oversee his departure from the world and close his tired eyes when his spirit fled.
The bedchamber of the King was dark and stuffy, full of the reek of old flesh. The King lay in the middle of the canopied bed like a castaway thrown up on a pale-sanded shore, one voyage ended and another about to begin. The Prelate, whom some said was his natural brother on the father’s side, wiped the spittle which coursed in a line from one corner of Haukir’s mouth into his slush-white beard. Some said it had been the fever, caught whilst journeying back from the Conclave of Kings in Vol Ephrir. Some said in whispers it was a stroke brought on by the King’s outrage at the heresy of his fellow monarchs. Whatever had caused it, he lay withered and immobile in that wasteland of fine linen, his breath a stertorous whistle in his throat.
The King waved his hand at the assembled lawyers and courtiers and clerics, dismissing them from the room until all who remained were Prelate Marat, the Privy Minister and an inkwell- and parchment-laden Royal clerk, who looked distinctly uneasy at being alone in such august company.
The seagulls shrieked outside, and the hum of the living city was far off and distant, another world heard through a mirror. Haukir beckoned them closer.
“My end is here at last,” he croaked in a poor mockery of his bellowing voice. “And I am not afraid. I go to meet He who made me, and the company of the living Saints, with the Blessed Ramusio at their head. But there is something I must do ere I leave this world. I must provide for the future welfare of my kingdom, and must ensure that it endures within the protection of the One True Faith after I am gone. Almark must remain firm in this era of heresy and war. I wish to alter my will . . .”
He closed his eyes and swallowed painfully. The clerk was nudged by the Privy Minister and hurriedly dipped his quill in the inkwell which dangled from one buttonhole.
“The main provisions I made prior to this date I set aside. Only the secondary provisions of my previous will shall be honoured. I name Prelate Marat, Privy Minister Erland and—” He stopped and glared at the clerk. “What’s your name, man?”
“F-Finnson of Glebir, if it please your majesty.”
“And Finnson of Glebir as my witnesses on this fifteenth day of Forgist, in the year of the Blessed Saint five hundred and fifty-one.”
The ragged breathing began to quicken. The King coughed up a mass of phlegm which Marat wiped away as tenderly as a nurse.
“Having no heirs of my blood which I consider suitable for bearing the burden of this crown, and seeing around me the world at this time falling ever farther into anarchy and heresy, I hereby leave the Almarkan crown to the stewardship of the Holy Church. I name my revered confessor, Prelate Marat, as regent of the realm until the High Pontiff, His Holiness Himerius of Hebrion, may see fit to make his own provisions for the ruling of the kingdom. As I entrust my soul to God, so I entrust my country to the bosom of God’s representatives on earth, and I trust they will watch over Almark as the Blessed Saint watches over my pilgrim spirit as it makes its way into the glories of heaven . . .”
Haukir’s head seemed to sink heavily into the pillow. Sweat shone over his face and his lips were blue.
“Shrive me of my sins, Marat. Send me on my way,” he whispered, and as the Prelate gave him the final blessing the Privy Minister turned to the scribbling clerk and hissed in an undertone: “Did you get all that?”
The clerk nodded, still scribbling. Marat ended his blessing and then paused.
“Goodnight, brother,” he said softly. He closed the staring eyes and laid the hands over the silent chest.
“The King is dead,” he said.
“Are you sure?” the Privy Minister asked.
“Of course I’m sure! I’ve seen dead men before! Now get that fool to make a copy of the revised will. I want other copies of it made and posted in the market place. And set out the black flags. You know what to do.”
The Privy Minister stared at the cleric for a second, some indefinable tension fizzling in the air between them. Then he got down on one knee and kissed the Prelate’s ring. “I salute the new regent of Almark.”
“And send me a courier, and another clerk. I must get a dispatch off to Charibon at once.”
“The snows—” the Privy Minister began.
“Damn the snows, just do as you’re told. And get this inky-fingered idiot out of here. I will meet the nobles and the garrison commander in the audience chamber in one hour.”
“As you wish,” the Privy Minister said tonelessly.
They exited, and the Prelate was left alone with the dead King. Already he could hear the murmuring in the chambers below which the appearance of the pair had produced among the notables gathered there.
Marat bent his head and prayed in silence for a second, the gulls still calling in their savage forlornness beyond the shuttered windows of the chamber. Then he rose, went to one of the windows and opened the shut
ters so that the keen sea air might rush in and freshen the death-smelling room.
Alstadt: broad, crude, thriving port-capital of the north. It opened out before him misted in drizzle, hazed by woodsmoke fires, alive with humanity in its tens of thousands. And beyond it, the wide kingdom of Almark with its horse-rich plains, its armies of cuirassiers. Himerius would be pleased: things could not have worked out better. And others would be pleased also.
Marat turned from the cold window to gaze down on the corpse of the King, and his eyes shone with a saffron light that had nothing human in it at all.
TWENTY
T HEY were an unlikely looking crowd, Corfe had to admit to himself. They had never been taught to form ranks, present arms or stand at attention and they milled about in an amorphous mob, as unmilitary a formation as could be imagined.
They were clad in bruised, holed and rusty Merduk armour of every shape and type, but mostly they had picked out the war harness of the Ferinai, the heavy cuirassiers of the east, as it was the best quality. And perhaps it appealed to some savage sensibility within them, for it was the armour of horsemen and these men had once been horsemen. Their fathers and grandfathers had raided the coastal settlements of the Torunnans time out of mind, swooping out of the Cimbric foothills on their rangy black horses—horses which were the product of secret studs high in isolated valleys. Cavalry was what these men ought to be. Horse-soldiers. But Corfe could no more provide them with horses than he could with wings, so they must fight afoot in their outlandish armour.
Armour which had been rendered even more strange-looking by the liberal addition of red paint. The tribesmen seemed as happy as finger-painting children as they splashed it over their armour and hurled it at each other in gore-like gobbets. A crowd had gathered to watch, black-clad Torunnan soldiers lounging in the Quartermaster’s yard and laughing fit to split their sides at the dressing up of the savages from the mountains, the ex-galley slaves.
As soon as the first Torunnan laughs were heard, however, the tribesmen went as silent as crags. A tulwar was scraped out of its threadbare scabbard and Corfe had to step in to prevent a fight which would quickly have turned into a full-scale battle. He called upon Marsch to calm his fellow tribesmen down and the hulking savage harangued his comrades in their own tongue. He was a frightening figure: somehow he had found a Merduk officer’s helm which was decorated with a pair of back-sweeping horns and a beak-like nose-guard. Lathered with red paint, he looked like the apotheosis of some primitive god of slaughter come looking for acolytes.
“Someone to see you, sir,” Ensign Ebro told Corfe as the latter doffed his heavy Merduk helm and wiped the sweat from his face. Ebro also wore the foreign harness, and he looked acutely uncomfortable in it.
“Who is it?” Corfe snapped, squeezing the acrid sweat from his eyes.
“Someone who has tasted gunsmoke with you, Colonel,” another, familiar voice said. Corfe spun to find Andruw there, holding out a hand and grinning. He shouted aloud and pumped the proffered hand up and down. “Andruw! What in the hell are you doing here?”
“I ask myself the same question: what have I done to deserve this? But be that as it may, it would seem that I am to be your adjutant. For what misdeed I know not.”
The pair of them laughed together while Ebro stood stiff and forgotten. Corfe mustered his manners.
“Ensign Ebro, permit me to introduce . . . what rank have they showered upon you, Andruw?”
“Haptman, for my sins.”
“There you are. Haptman Andruw Cear-Adurhal, late of the artillery, who commanded the Barbican Batteries of Ormann Dyke.”
Ebro glanced at Andruw with rather more respect, and bowed. “I am honoured.”
“Likewise.”
“But what are you doing away from the Dyke?” Corfe asked Andruw. “I thought they’d need every gunner they could lay their hands on up there.”
“I was sent to Torunn with dispatches. You have been seeking officers, I hear, driving the muster clerks mad with your enquiries. Apparently they decided that by seconding me to your command they could shut you up.”
“And how goes it at the Dyke? Can they spare you?”
Andruw’s bright humour faded a little. “They are short of everything, Corfe. Martellus is half out of his mind with worry, though as always he hides it well. We have had no reinforcements to replace our losses, no resupply for weeks. We are a forgotten army.”
Andruw’s gaze flicked to the weirdly garbed savages of Corfe’s command as he spoke. Corfe noticed the look and said wryly: “And we are the army they would like to forget.”
There was a pause. Finally Andruw asked: “Have you had your orders yet? Whither are we bound with our garish warrior band?”
“South,” Corfe told him, disgust seeping into his voice. “I had best warn you now, Andruw, that the King expects us to end in some kind of debacle, fighting these rebels in the south. We are of small account in his plans.”
“Hence the quaint war harness.”
“It’s all they would let me have.”
Andruw forced a grin. “What is it they say? The longer the odds, the greater the glory. We proved that at Ormann Dyke, Corfe. We’ll do it again, by Ramusio’s beard.”
L ATER that afternoon, Corfe reported to the Staff Headquarters for the detailed orders that were to send his command into its first battle. The place was busy with sashed officers and bustling aides. Couriers were coming and going and the King was closeted in conference with his senior advisors. No one seemed to recall any orders for Colonel Cear-Inaf and his command, and it was a maddening half-hour before a clerk finally found them. One unsealed roll of parchment with a scrawling, illegible signature at the bottom and a hasty impression of the Royal signet in a cracked blob of scarlet wax. It was in the stilted language of military orders not written in the field.
Y OU are hereby directed and obliged to take the troops under your command south to the town of Hedeby on the Kardian Sea, and there engage the retainers of the traitor Duke Ordinac in open battle, destroying them and restoring their master’s fiefs to their rightful allegiance. You will march with due haste and prudence, and on accomplishing your mission you will occupy the town of Hedeby and await further orders.
By command of the Torunnan war staff, for His Highness King Lofantyr.
T HAT was all. No mention of supporting troops, timings, supplies, the hundred and one pieces of information which any military enterprise needed to function smoothly. Not even an estimate of the enemy’s numbers or composition. Corfe crumpled the order into a ball and thrust it inside his breastplate. His look wiped the sniggers off the clerks’ faces. No doubt they had heard about his strange soldiers and their stranger armour.
“I acknowledge receipt of my orders,” he said, his voice as cold as a winter peak. “Please inform the staff that my command will march at daybreak.”
He turned to go, and one of the clerks let him get as far as the door before saying: “Sir—Colonel? Another message for you here. Not part of your orders, you understand. It was brought this afternoon by a lady-in-waiting.”
He collected this second message without a word and left with it bunched in his fist. As he closed the door he heard the buzz of the clerks’ talk and laughter, and his face gnarled into a grimace of fury.
The note was from the Queen Dowager requesting his presence in her chambers this evening at the eighth hour. So he must dance attendance upon a scheming woman whilst he was preparing to take an untried and ill-equipped command into the field. His first independent command. Dear God!
Better if I had died at Aekir, he thought. With honour and in comradeship with my countrymen. My Heria would have met me in the Saint’s company and we would have shared eternity together.
Oh, dear God.
On an impulse, he veered away from the path back to the barracks where his men were stationed. He felt worn and tired, as if every step was a fight against something. He was too weary of the struggle to continue.
&
nbsp; He wandered through the city for a while with no clear aim in mind, but something in him must have known whither he was bound for he found himself at the Abbey of the Orders as it was called, though once it had been the headquarters of the Inceptine Order alone. But that was before Macrobius had come into the city, and the black-clad Ravens had taken wing for Charibon rather than kiss the ring of a man they saw as an impostor, a heresiarch. This was now the palace of the High Pontiff, or one of them.
Corfe was admitted by a novice Antillian with white hood and dun habit. When asked his business he replied that he was here to see the Pontiff. The Antillian scurried away.
An older monk of the same order popped out of a nearby doorway soon after. He was a tall, lean man with a sharp little beard and dirty bare feet slapping under his habit.
“I am told you wish to see the Pontiff,” he said, politely enough. “Might I ask your business with him, soldier?”
Of course. Corfe could not expect to see the head of the Church on demand. Much water had flowed under many bridges since he and Macrobius had shared a turnip on the nightmarish retreat from Aekir. Macrobius had become one of the figureheads of the world since then.
“My name is Corfe,” he said. “If you tell His Holiness that Corfe is here, he will see me, I am sure.”
The monk looked both taken aback and amused. “I will see what I can do,” he said. “Wait here.” And off he went.
Corfe was left just within the gate of the abbey, kicking his heels like a beggar awaiting charity. A dull anger grew in him, a tired resentment that was becoming a familiar feeling.
The monk came back accompanied by an Inceptine, a plump, well-robed figure who must have stayed to take his chances with this new Pontiff when his fellows flew the coop. He had a mouth like a moist rose and his fleshy nose overhung it. His eyes were deep-set and dark-ringed. The face of a debauchee, Corfe thought sourly.
“His Holiness is too busy at the moment to see anyone,” the Inceptine said. “I am Monsignor Alembord, head of the Pontifical household. If you have any petitions you wish to place before the Holy Father then you can place them through me. Now, what is your business?”