by Tim Stead
“What do you want me to do?”
“If Queen Annalise were to suddenly turn up in Golt…”
“No.”
“Why not? They’ve broken one of the oldest rules of war. It’s something that should be put right.”
“Not by magic. It’s bad enough that you have taken sides.”
“If Degoran dies, his son will be king until Alwain catches him. Then it will be Cain. We must draw a line somewhere, Pascha.”
“The line is drawn at the gods walk, as it always was. What happens in the kingdoms of men is the business of men,” she said, but she did not meet his eyes.
“Are we not men? We started out that way. Am I not still Narak Brash the hunter’s son? Are you not Pascha Lammeling the shopkeeper’s daughter?”
“We are gods, Narak.”
“I have never believed that.”
Pascha frowned again. “How can you deny it?”
“Because a stone is cut and polished and set in a crown does not make it any less a stone, no matter how many times you call it a diamond.”
Pascha’s mouth quirked into a smile. “You’ve been listening to Sheyani. That sounds like something she’d say.”
“Would she be wrong?”
“No, and yes. We cannot pretend that we haven’t changed, Narak.”
It was true. He could not pretend that he was that eager boy of sixteen centuries past, and he was still changing. He was no longer even that man who had won the battle of Finchbeak Road a mere century ago.
“If the queen dies things will get worse,” he said. “Can you at least protect her until I can reach her? I do not doubt they will kill her if it looks bad for them.”
“I promise nothing, but I will watch her. If there is something subtle, then maybe I will act, but it cannot be known, Narak. I will not rule south of the gods walk.”
“Neither will I. Degoran still ignores my advice more often than he should.”
Pascha smiled. “You still believe he is a good man, then?”
“He is not evil. He loves his people in the abstract way that kings do. That is enough. There is one other thing I would ask of you. Tell Kirrith that I would speak to him.”
“I can do that,” she said. Pascha stepped close and put a tender hand to the side of his face. “Be strong. Come back to me soon.” And she was gone, a swirl of scented air the only sign that she was ever there.
Well, he’d done what he could. He wasn’t looking forward to speaking with Kirrith, but it had to be done. There were other things, too, that had to be done in the remaining noble houses of Golt. Narak peered over the battlements to make certain that nobody was directly below him and, seeing that all was clear, slipped over the edge.
47 Fetherhill
“It’s the best news possible,” Fane said.
“How can that be? The queen has been seized by Alwain’s men. It is a terrible thing.” Bram looked almost angry, so Fane smiled and leaned back in his chair.
“It justifies what we’re about to do,” he said.
“Surely it is a blow to our cause?”
They were sitting in a tavern in Beckton waiting for the mayor to join them. This was the day that Fane was going to present his plan to the two mayors. He expected an argument, especially from Catamel. The Mayor of Beckton had yet to grasp that in war there can be only one leader and that Fane was it. Nobody would follow a plump, thirtyish woman into battle, but a Farheim Lord, a man who’d led other armies to victory? Of course they would. He thought that Bram Calpot had already grasped this essential truth.
“War is different from peace, Mayor Calpot,” he said. “Things that are bad may also be good. Alwain’s men have opened a door which they now cannot close. The wives and children of the southern lords are now fair game. Alwain’s followers will quickly realise this when we take Fetherhill, but they cannot cry foul.”
“But it is wrong to make war on women and children,” Bram protested.
“Wrong is another word that struggles to find its footing in war,” Fane said. “When everything else has failed we have war, so really what rules can there be? The goal is absolute and two-fold. We win the war and we do not make what follows impossible. It is that simple.”
“You say that everything is simple.”
“So many things are. It’s the bits that join them up that are complicated. A general should always keep those goals in mind when making a decision.”
The door of the tavern banged open and Mayor Catamel stepped in, stamping her feet and flapping her arms.
“Cold out there, eh?” Bram asked.
“Winter’s tapping on the shoulder, aye,” she said. She took her seat opposite Fane and looked at him. “Plans, then?”
“Simple plan,” Fane said, smiling at Bram. “We take Fetherhill.”
“How?”
“Well, the regiment’s away fighting for Alwain, so there’ll be no more than fifty men inside the castle walls. We go in. We fight them. We win.” He paused. “But you want more detail.”
Catamel nodded. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Do you ask a blacksmith how he makes a sword?”
“No, but this is different. Lives are at stake.”
“People will die, I told you that. Trust me. I am good at this.”
“These are my people,” Catamel said.
“No. They are mine now. They are soldiers and I am their general. Their lives are my coin to spend, but do not worry. I am a miser in that respect. I will give you a victory that will shake Avilian, but you must trust me. You have given me a task and I will do what you ask, but the plan is mine and not up for discussion.”
Catamel looked at Bram, but the Berrit nodded. “I understand,” he said. “You can’t have two men holding a horse’s reins.”
Fane smiled. “Exactly so,” he said.
“This is wrong,” Catamel said. “You work for us.”
Fane leaned back in his chair, but now he wasn’t smiling. “Do I? Do you pay me? Is there a paper that I’ve signed to say that I work for you?”
Catamel looked at Bram, who shrugged. “He asked if we wanted to fight. I said yes. He said he’d help.”
“I don’t like it,” Catamel said.
“I’ll consult you,” Fane assured her. “I’ll report to you after every action, but once a decision is made – that we take Fetherhill, for example – the how and the when are mine to decide.”
“That seems fair,” Bram Calpot said.
Faced with Bram’s acceptance, Catamel could hardly object without seeming unreasonable. “So we take Fetherhill,” she said. “What then?”
“Then we see how that went, how many men we lost, and discuss our next step.”
She looked at Bram who was looking at her.
“All right,” she said. “When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning, and I’d appreciate it if the word Fetherhill was remarkably absent from any discussions tonight. I don’t want them expecting us.”
Fane watched her react to that. For a moment it seemed that she would rise to the apparent slight – that somebody in her town would betray them – but she nodded. She was sensible enough, Fane thought, to realise that in a town of this size there were people who’d stoop to any low deed for sufficient gold.
“In the morning then,” she said, and rose to leave.
“Thank you for your trust, Mayor Catamel,” Fane said. “You will not regret it.” Trust, of course, was the last thing she would give him. But Fane would earn it, just as he had earned the trust of a million Seth Yarra who hated foreigners, just as he had earned the respect of his enemies.
*
The morning was overcast and cool, but Fane wasn’t in a hurry. The war wasn’t going anywhere.
He’d spent the last two weeks training his men. It wasn’t enough, but he’d got a fair idea of those who were useful and those who would serve as window dressing. He’d formed them into four units and appointed four o
fficers, the best of which – the commander of Berrit Bay’s militia – led what he chose to think of as his elite group, though in truth they were barely competent.
It was mid-morning by the time he had his amateur regiment assembled in marching order. They looked soldierly enough. He had them lined up a column four wide with the supplies on three wagons in the middle of the column. The mayors sat together on one of the wagons. Bram had assured him that he was a proficient waggoner so he, as least, was making a contribution.
They marched out of town to the cheers of their people, which was a good thing. A soldier always fights better when he knows his people desire it of him. It lifts the spirits, but the effect rarely lasts beyond the first bloody conflict.
Fetherhill was two day’s march to the west. If they had been mounted it would have been half a day, but Beckton didn’t possess that many horses, so they walked. Fane didn’t mind. It gave him time to think.
His problem was simple. If he assaulted the castle at Fetherhill with these four hundred men they’d be slaughtered. They had no idea how to take a wall. Even fifty men could hold off his best. He needed a trick. He needed to get inside the castle.
Fane could probably take the castle on his own once he was inside, but that wouldn’t serve his purpose. He wanted this to be a victory for his new army. There had to be some fighting, a belief that they’d faced danger and won through. That meant that at least a few of them had to die.
By the time they made camp on the second night his plan was formed. He knew that plans were only starting points. He had to get his people into position, try to guess what his enemy would do and then play it by ear.
He waited until dusk and then took two men with him into the woods that looked down on Fetherhill. He chose the men carefully. The first was Melis Wenban, the commander of his elite unit, a man loyal to Mayor Bram Calpot. Fane had judged him to be a proper soldier, a man who obeyed orders and understood why that was important. The other man, Kirin Pace, was there on talent alone. He was the best archer out of all the men Fane had seen, and he was a Beckton man. Fane would have to rely on him to play his part.
They crouched in a ditch at the edge of the wood and looked at Fetherhill.
Pace swore. Wenban stayed politely silent. It was a fortress designed for defence. The walls were high, the gate looked solid, and there were alert men on the walls above it.
Fane looked at other things. He looked at the woodwork on the gate, on the keep, and anywhere else he could see it. What he saw pleased him. From high ground he could see quite a lot and it was all pretty shabby. This place might have been built for war, but it had seen so little of it that anything that could rot had rotted, and all the ironwork was stained rust red. Unfortunately, that meant that the hinges on the main gate were rusted on one side. That would limit how many men he could get through it in a short time.
He waved his companions back and they returned to their camp. Wenban followed him to his tent.
“Well?”
“I need a hand cart and a carpenter’s tools,” Fane said.
The soldier looked more than puzzled. “A carpenter’s tools? Where would we get those, and… why?”
“There was a village five miles back. They should have something, and I can build a hand cart if you can’t find one. As to why – we need it to take Fetherhill.”
“Some trick, then,” Wenban said.
“Of course. How do you think our men would fare against those walls?”
“Badly,” the soldier said with a straight face.
“Much better if they can march through an open gate, don’t you think?”
“Of course. But… never mind. I’ll send riders back to that village. You’ll have what you need by dawn.”
“And tell Pace I want him dressed as a peasant and to bring his bow. A couple of hours after dawn should do it.”
Wenban nodded. “He’ll be there.”
Fane retreated into his tent, and was not surprised to find the cramped space already crowded by the two mayors. Bram was drinking wine and seemed thoroughly relaxed, but Catamel was wringing her hands and looked anything but.
“We need to rethink this,” she said as soon as he stepped inside.
“No,” Fane said. “You need to trust me. I know that’s difficult. Pace will have told you that Fetherhill is a formidable fortress, but I knew that. Did you think Elan Damarco, Earl of Fetherhill would live in a cottage?”
“How can I trust you?” Catamel asked. “I barely know you. You won’t tell us anything.”
“You want to go back to Beckton?”
“You could get us all killed. The risk is too great.”
Fane had seen this before. This was the point of no return. Tomorrow they would be at war, but today they were not and it seemed as though they could just turn around and everything would be as it was. Were those taxes perhaps not as bad as this? They could live with them, couldn’t they?
She was wrong, of course. The four hundred men of Fane’s army were prepared. They were committed. If they turned around and went home now, they would forever be cowards in their own hearts. It would be a sickness that would poison Beckton as certainly as plague.
“I will not assault the walls,” Fane told her. “We will take Fetherhill by stealth.”
“But how can you know that?” she asked. “Anything could go wrong.”
“There is a risk,” Fane conceded.
“We must turn back,” she said.
“If you try you will fail,” Fane told her. “The men will not listen to you. All that will happen is that they will despise your cowardice. Some dozen or so may go with you if you leave, and frankly I’d be glad to see them go, but they will always hate you for it. Stay. Stay and be part of victory. This time in two days you will laugh at how you feel tonight. You will thank me.”
“He’s right,” Bram Calpot said. “I’ve talked to the men. I’ve listened to them. They’re ready. More than that, they’re keen. They’ll follow Fane. He’s their general now.”
She turned on Bram. “How can you be so calm? He’s about to start a war.”
“I’ve lived most of my life on or by the sea,” Bram said. “After a time, you learn not to fight it. The sea always wins. The wave is rolling, Mayor Catamel. You can ride it or you can drown. You can’t stop it. And this is our war, no mistake.”
Fane poured a cup of wine and handed it to her. “There’s really nothing you can do,” he said, picking up Bram’s theme. “You don’t have to fight. Just hold your nerve for a day and all will be well.”
She took the glass and swallowed a mouthful of wine. “This is a mistake,” she said. “I’ll do what you say, but I think it’ll end in disaster.”
Fane was pretty sure she would do as she said. Catamel was a subtle enough woman under normal circumstances to dissemble, but she was panicked, and panic stripped people bare. He poured himself a glass of wine and took the last seat.
“Tomorrow will be a good day,” he said, and he wondered if that would be true.
*
Jerac Fane reckoned he’d seen and done just about anything that was possible in war. Even so, the idea of walking unarmed into his enemy’s stronghold still gave him a buzz. He wasn’t especially worried for himself. He’d already had too long a life – two lives – but the man beside him was mortal and afraid.
He’d talked to Kirin Pace for a long time, making sure that he understood what was expected of him, but the man was untried, and if there was a risk in the plan it was Pace.
Fane walked with the weary steps of a man who’d been on the road too long. Pace, ten feet behind him, wheeled the cart. There were just the two of them plodding slowly up the dirt track that led to the gates of Fetherhill.
They were fifty feet shy of the gate when the postern opened and an armed man stepped out. He eyed them before he spoke.
“Who are you and what’s your business?” he demanded.
Fane stopped and squinted at the man. “Name’s Alos,”
he said. “Carpenter, looking for work.”
The man studied him and Pace for a moment. “Wait there,” he said and vanished back inside. Fane heard the bolts on the postern slide home again.
He waited.
“What are they doing?” Pace asked, looking apprehensively up at the walls.
“Guards have no authority,” Fane said. “He’ll speak to his officer. The officer will speak to the steward. The steward will decide if he wants a carpenter. He does.”
“How do you know?”
“The place is in dire need of one. You think castles are made of stone, but most of it is wood. I’ll wager his floors are rotten, the stairs to the keep need remaking and the walkways behind the walls are as much a danger as any attacker.”
“And if he asks you to do some work?”
“Then I will. I was a carpenter for fifty years. I can fix anything, though I could have used better tools.” He looked at the cart. The tools they’d managed to unearth in the village suggested that they’d not seen a professional wood worker for a decade or more. Perhaps that explained the poor state of the castle, too.
The guard reappeared and with considerable creaking one side of the gate was slowly opened.
“Come,” the guard called.
Fane walked forwards, with Pace and the cart squeaking along behind him. They stopped just inside the gate. The steward was there, and the guard’s officer. The steward was dressed in red and blue, all silks and satins. He was a fat man, and tall, with thinning hair. He cast an eye over Fane.
“You’re a carpenter?” he asked.
“Master craftsman, sir,” Fane replied. “Trained in Bas Erinor.”
The steward raised an eyebrow. “You’re young,” he said. “Why’d you leave?”
“Wanted to travel,” Fane said. “’bout had enough of that, though.”
“There’s no bed for you here,” the steward said. “But I’ve got work. You’ll sleep in the yard.”
“Fair enough,” Fane looked around him. It was a fairly big, open space, but there was a hay barn by the stables and that suited him just fine. It would be easy enough to climb onto the barn roof and from there up to the walkway. “What’s the job?”