“I know that you would have done better than I ever could have. And no one is more sorry than I am that I am here and you are not. But I’d like you to believe me when I say that even though I know myself to be not half the man you would have been, I’m going to do the best I can in your place.”
Michael’s shoulders were quivering, and he closed his eyes as he took a few deep, calming breaths. “You might ask what brings all this on, and I suppose its because of Amy coming back like this, it brings it all home to me. It reminds me just how much it should have been you, and not me. It ought to be you and her, Felix, you know that and so do I. Something about the two of you, it was right... perfect. She still thinks about you; she has made it plain without words. So I suppose I just wanted you to know that...you are not forgotten.”
Michael cast a glance back at Amy, and tried to imagine what Felix would look like had he lived to sit by her side. It was surprisingly easy, even now, to picture the two of them together.
That was how things were meant to be. That they are not is another crime to lay at the feet of the Crimson Rose.
"Forgive me, Felix," Michael murmured, and turned away.
VII
The Prince in Shreds and Patches
Michael rubbed his eyes as rosy-fingered dawn shone upon Davidheyr. He wanted to sleep, apart from anything else he hoped to be able to thank Lady Silwa for her wonderful gift, but Amy had needed to rest more. And they could not both sleep; who knows who might have taken the opportunity to sneak up on them. Still, as he yawned like a lion Michael wondered to himself how Lord Gideon could manage to stand watch all night and still look so fresh.
Lord Gideon chose that precise moment to saunter down the street towards him. "Did you have a good night, Michael?" He looked over Michael's head at the slumbering Amy. "What happened?"
Michael shrugged. "We talked, my lord. Then she fell asleep and I kept watch over her."
Gideon blinked. "Is that all?"
"What did you expect, my lord?"
"I rather thought that you were going to, ahem, you know," Gideon said.
Michael felt his face beginning to burn. "Shame on you my lord. Whatever possessed you to think of such a thing?"
"I don't know really," Gideon said. "But Ameliora is what people consider aesthetically pleasing, if I have it right. I confess I've no experience in this sort of thing; never felt inclined myself, and so I always rather assumed it was something people got on with when the opportunity arose."
Michael harrumphed. "Some people perhaps, but not I. My mother raised me right, my lord and though I am but your servant I beg you to remember that. Besides, it would be a betrayal of my brother, who loved her well. What kind of man would I be, to take advantage of his death? Amy is a good friend my lord, and that is all there is too it."
Gideon looked as if he might laugh. "I meant no offence Michael, as amusing it as is listening to you wax dramatic thus. Almost as amusing as trying to reconcile this proud and upright man with the exuberant child on display yesterday."
Michael coughed quietly, so as not to wake Amy, and lowered his head a little. "I swear I will not disgrace you in public again, my lord."
"Oh don't worry about that, Michael," Gideon said airily. "They call me the Butcher of Oretar and say I murdered my own brother in cold blood; compared to that the behaviour of my servant is hardly likely to make an impression. Be as frivolous as you like Michael, as long as it makes you content."
"To be your man makes me content, my lord."
At that moment Amy woke up. She did not yawn, or moan or hesitate, she was simply asleep one moment and awake the next, sitting up and looking around brightly.
"Morning all," she said. Amy blinked in the sunlight, shielding her eyes with one hand. "God under water, spend seven years at the bottom of the sea and you forget how bright the days are up here."
"Morning Amy," Michael said through another yawn.
Amy said, "Did you stay up all night sitting there?"
"Someone had to keep watch," Michael said.
"That was sweet of you, but you didn't have to. I can wake up at the slightest hostile sound or movement," Amy said, as she started to put her armour back on, with a little help from Michael where it was required. "I can sleep whenever I want to, and wake up whenever I need to."
"A useful skill, for a soldier," Gideon said. "One all our troops want, but only the most experienced veterans acquire. Personally I had to settle for being able to make do without sleep." Michael thought it was considerably more than making do, but said nothing to contradict his lord.
"It's saved my life a few times," Amy said. "There was this one time, we were chasing undine raiders down the Scar - that's this big ravine that's the only route between the Whalewatch and undine territory - and we'd been pursuing them for three days as we measure them. We made camp: me, Ser Viola and some of her household. And I went to sleep, out just like that. But then, for no apparent reason, I woke up. Again, just like that. I opened my eyes and even for naiads it was so dark down there it was like a moonless night up here, but anyway. I opened my eyes, and there's this bloody great leviathan with a head the size of an orca about a foot or two away from me, staring at me with this look on its face like I was breakfast. Nobody else had noticed a thing. If I hadn't woken up when I did it would have eaten me!"
"What did you do?" Michael asked.
"I punched it in the face what do you think?" Amy said. "Then I yelled as hard as I could and woke everyone else up to help me out. The brute killed three riders but we brought it down. Ser Viola let me deal the final blow. I've got its teeth on a string here somewhere in my pack. What are we doing today?"
"I fear that, with the bridge closed, we must consider taking our leave of this city and find another place to cross the Iskalon," Gideon said. "Our best choice, geographically, would be to head north, where the river narrows. We would be at risk from the Crimson Rose, but the same is true if we headed south, and we cannot stay here."
"I don't much like the idea of running away and leaving all these folk here to face the fury of the rebels," Amy said.
"It is unfortunate," Gideon said. "But we must have larger concerns."
"For a knight, there are no larger concerns but the defence of the peasantry," Amy said.
"Perhaps not, but I am not a knight," Gideon replied.
"No," Amy said. "You aren't, are you?"
Michael said nothing, not precisley for want of anything to say but for want of ability to express the conflicting thoughts colliding in his mind, his heart, his soul. He understood Gideon's intentions, and the part of his heart that loved Miranda above all else and cared not for the plight, not even for the lives, of all these cattle in Davidheyr, desired to do as Gideon suggested and abandon Davidheyr to pursue their quest. But the other part of him, the part of him that revered Gabriel and Simon, Jonathan and David, that wished to behave as nobly and as honourably as a Firstborn of Old Corona, the part of him that hated the Crimson Rose and wept for their victims, inclined to Amy's point and felt deep shame at the thought of tucking his tail between his legs and leaving the town to the potential of a terrible fate.
Someone has to help these people. Without a defender how will they survive? We cannot just leave, and abandon all these people to the cruelty of the Crimson Rose, not when so little stands between them and Davidheyr. They will be picked off and hunted down and no one will stop it. We cannot leave. All of us cannot, anyway.
He did not want to stay, not by any means. None of these people meant half so much to him as Lord Gideon or Amy; they barely meant anything to him at all, and to stay would mean losing Lord Gideon, losing Amy - Gabriel's wounds, to lose Amy after so brief a reunion - losing his chance at seeing Miranda again. And yet when he looked at these people, poor and bedraggled, weary and downtrodden, he felt the pull of honour like a mighty river sweeping him away in its inexorable current.
Chivalry dictated that the helpless be protected from harm and evil by a man wi
th the strength to protect them. Not 'when he felt like it' or 'if he was fond of the helpless concerned' but always, whenever or wherever he found them. These people, homeless and hungry as they were, were they not the very definition of helplessness? Did not then his honour dictate that he remain? But he had given his word to Lord Gideon that he would follow him until Quirian was defeated and the Empire was saved, so was he not honour bound to keep his oath? Or did he think that merely because he would not part with Gideon?
Michael glanced sideways at Gideon. If asked, he was certain that Gideon would merely tell him to do his duty, but that was no help either for duty had so many hooks in him it felt like being torn apart. What duty was he to follow: his duty to his lord, to his friend, to his family, to God, to the Empire, to Corona?
Almighty Turo, I asked you for a sign of what I should do, and you sent me one of Amy's return. Does that mean I should stay with her, or does it mean that she is to take over my part in the quest while I remain? Can you not just speak with a voice of thunder and the trembling earth and tell me plain which path to take?
Turo did not reply. Michael sighed. He had tried all his life to be a good man, to be the first-born son his mother had wanted. He had not always succeeded, God knew, but he had tried. But now? What would mother say of him abandoning Miranda to fight on behalf of strangers? What would she say of him abandoning the people of this land to follow Amy and Lord Gideon?
"You look troubled, Michael," Gideon said.
Michael realised that his brows had become knotted together without him noticing. "My lord, have you ever been in a situation where your duty was unclear? Or, where you were duty bound to several contradictory people or concepts?"
"No," Gideon said flatly. "My first and only duty has been and always will be to the Empire, there is nothing else. Why, what is the matter Michael?"
"Nothing my lord," Michael said. "I am quite content, though I thank you for your concern."
For a moment, Michael thought that Gideon knew the lie, and feared his lord might press the matter. But he just nodded and said, "Very well."
"I can't just walk away," Amy said stubbornly. "Do you know what the first thing my father told me when he first took me down to Seafire Peak?"
"That you were descended from Turo?" Michael guessed.
Amy shook her head. She stood up, full attired in her splendid armour once more. "That was the second thing." She grinned briefly, before her face subsided back into seriousness. "No, the first thing was how many people lived under our rule; not how much territory, or how many lords swore to Seafire, but how many people: how many merfolk, how many naiads, how many hen'tai enclaves, how many caedans. Because it's the people that make the land great, that support the great lords and the knights. The moment a lord forgets that he is lord of a people not a place it is time for him to surrender lordship."
Gideon's gaze was cold, as was his voice. "You are not their lord, Ameliora, nor even their knight. The plight of these people is not your concern."
"I am a naiad," Amy said. "The plight of the Turonim is always our concern."
"Then where are Turo's armies, come to set the province aright?" Gideon asked.
"My lord, please," Michael said. "Let us have no blasphemy."
Gideon hesitated for a moment. "I apologise Michael, I meant no offence."
Amy might have said something else, but that moment a dolorous horn sounded beyond the town walls, a long low call that filled Michael's ears with buzzing. It went on for an age, and when it finally ceased it was quiet for a mere second before it sounded again. And then there were more of them, the air was filled with those droning, buzzing horns, and soon after by the cries of people from within the walls.
"What's going on?" Michael asked.
"Pray, let us find out," Gideon said. He led the way towards the walls, and Michael and Amy followed as quickly as they could. As they passed through the streets they found people cowering in fear, weeping in terror, prostrating themselves and beseeching God to save them.
"No, no not here, not again," an old woman howled. "Will they give us no respite?"
Naboth cried and clung to Ruth in terror, while Joshua had gone pale. The young lady in the torn dress wept into her hands.
There was only one thing Michael could think of would make them all so afraid.
Turo defend your chosen people.
The three of them ran for the walls. Through streets of terrified refugees, past a man crying out their imminent deaths, they ran to the earthen walls that ringed round David's city. There were few guards upon the ramparts, and none of them provincial guard, just a handful of the green-cloaked limitanei staring outwards. Gideon led the way, bounding up the wooden steps and up onto the mudbrick wall. Michael followed, with Amy close behind, and when Michael reached the top he had to stop and stare.
"Turo protect us," he murmured.
He had thought that the host which had assailed Lover's Rock had been large, but looking out at what met his eyes on the grasslands around the city was enough to make that force seem small. Companies of the rebels had ringed Davidheyr, enclosing it all the way to the river on both sides, and yet there was still a great column of the enemy yet to arrive; the dust cloud from their advancing forces hovered above them like a swarm of locusts.
They seemed a varied assortment of fighting troops to Michael's eyes, but better organised than they had been before for certain. Some of their companies were made up of gladiators, recognisable even at a distance by the gaudy assortment of their armour: argonians, prolixines, naiads and deucalians. The gladiators were deployed here and there amongst the line, Michael would have expected them all to be placed in one mass, but realised they were probably spread out to stiffen the levies. There looked, Michael could hardly believe it, to be some provincial limitanei and rusticani companies in the mix, still wearing their Imperial uniforms and bearing the weapons the Emperor had given them against the Empire. There were some of the ill armed mobs Michael had seen at Lover's Rock: men with short swords and knives and clubs, with no order or discipline. But there were also some of the Crimson Rose's elite, men in hoplite gear and tight ranks grimly arrayed. The bulk of their army though, Michael thought must be the freed slaves and debtors they had been raising: men with spears and unadorned shields who formed loose ranks with an attempt at discipline. And more of them filed onto the field every moment, while those that had arrived already began to make camp around the city. Everywhere the banners flew: the old Royal Standard of a black bull in shattered chains, wearing a garland of roses around his neck, the Crimson Rose flag of a white rose stained with blood, the colours of the limitanei and rustcani cohorts, and some standards which, once he recognised them, made Michael laugh aloud at the audacity of it. For once he saw them he understood the battle order of the Crimson Rose precisely.
"The arrogance of it," Michael muttered. "The unspeakable arrogance."
"Something you're seeing that I'm not, Michael?" Gideon asked.
Michael's brow knitted. "See the tall banners, larger than the Crimson Rose flags, larger than most of the Royal Standards. They are the flags of the Nine Tribes of the Coronim, arrayed in the traditional order of an army of Old Corona. See there, the ban Jonathon holds the right flank, the place of honour. Then ban Tiralon, then Matthew, Samuel, Levi, Ezekiel and then finally ban Nathan upon the left. 'Array your men according to their tribes, that ties of blood may make them steadfast.'"
"So they are staking a claim upon the heritage of Old Corona," Gideon said softly. "Very clever of them. And in the centre?"
"The troops of the ban David," Michael replied. "The Royal Guard."
"Is that so? But who do they guard in absence of royalty," Gideon mused. He hesitated. "Tiralon? Hardly seems a Coronan name."
"Coronim, my lord, please. Only ignorant gentiles call us Coronans," Michael replied. "And no, Tiralon was no Coronim. He was an elf, or so the stories say, who befriended David and Jonathon and made cause with them against his own peo
ple. He rose to high honour in their company."
"Fascinating."
Amy leaned upon the rampart. "They don't look as though they plan to attack. Looks more like they're settling down for a siege to me."
"I agree with your assessment, much as it makes no sense for them to take such a course," Gideon said. "We've seen no evidence of any siege equipment, and it will not take long for the Thirty Fifth to turn back from Ameliorahem and fall upon them."
"Unless they took the Thirty Fifth upon the road and destroyed it before reaching the city," Michael said.
"Don't be absurd Michael," Gideon said in tones of injured pride. "In the first place, they're coming from the wrong direction to have already encountered our troops. The Thirty Fifth marched north, and these people are moving in from the west. In the second place, if they'd met the Thirty Fifth on the way then whatever the outcome they'd be looking a good deal worse for wear. And in the third but most important place it will take more than an untrained mob of dissolutes and degenerates to destroy one of Her Majesty's Legions."
"There is a simpler explanation," Amy said. "Your legion has been on their side this entire time and they marched when they did to let the Crimson Rose walk in unopposed. You can see plain men in the Empire's uniform under the rebel standards."
"Your suggestion is even more ridiculous than Michael's," Gideon said harshly. "Rusticani may betray their colours, legionaries do not. I knew the legate of the Thirty Fifth in Oretar, he is a good man who would never turn traitor. As for the men, they would never stand by and watch as the Crimson Rose massacred Imperial citizens. Bardas once told me that the men have more scruples than the officers in the Imperial army. I didn't understand at the time why he thought that was a good thing. Now I do."
"You have to admit the convenience of it," Amy said.
"Not when it flies in the face of over twenty years experience," Gideon said. "The legions will remain true to their salt, you have my word upon it; now let us hear no more of illusory traitors in the ranks."
Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) Page 22