by Paul Kearney
Closer by a constellation of winking lights littered the earth for as far as a tired man might care to look. The campfires of a defeated army, and the multitude of refugees that clung to it. A teeming throng, enough to populate half a dozen minor cities, sat under the light of the first stars and the waning moon, cooking what food they had gleaned from the famished countryside, or sitting blank-eyed with their stares anchored in the flames.
As Corfe was sitting.
Perhaps a dozen of them squatted round the wind-ruffled campfire, their faces black with soot and filth and encrusted blood. Aekir was ten leagues back, but the red glimmer of its dying had followed them for the past five days. It would follow them for ever, Corfe thought, fastening on their minds like a succubus.
Heria.
He poked at the blackened turnips in the fire with a stick and finally managed to lever one out of the ashes. The others at the fire eyed it hungrily, but knew better than to ask for some. They knew enough not to cross this silent soldier of Mogen’s.
Corfe did not wince as the turnip burnt his fingers. He wiped off the ash and then ate mechanically. A sabre lay in its scabbard at his side. He had taken it off a dead trooper to replace the one he had lost in the flight from the city. It and his tattered uniform commanded respect from his fellow fugitives. There were men who went about the displaced horde in ragamuffin bands, killing for food and gold and horses, anything which would speed their journey west, to safety. Corfe had slain four of them, appropriating their meagre spoils for himself. Thus he was the richer by three turnips.
Merduk cavalry had shadowed the mass of moving people ever since they had left Aekir’s flaming gates, but had not closed. They were monitoring the progress of the fleeing hordes, channelling them along the Searil road like so many sheep. Leagues to the rear, it was said, Sibastion Lejer and eight thousand of the surviving garrison were fighting a hopeless rearguard battle against twelve times their number. The Merduk would let the noncombatants escape, it seemed, but not what was left of the Torunnan army.
Which makes me an absconder, a deserter, Corfe thought calmly. I should be back there dying with the others, making an end worth a song.
The thought raised a sneer on his face. He bit into the wood-hard turnip.
Children crying in the gathering darkness, a woman keening softly nearby. Corfe wondered what they would find when they got to the Searil line, and shook his head when he considered the enormity of the task awaiting its defenders. Like as not the Merduk would strike when the confusion of the refugee influx was at its height. That was why Lejer and his men were making their stand, to buy time for the Searil forces.
And what will I do when I reach the river? he wondered. Offer my services to the nearest tercio?
No. He would trek on west. Torunna was done for. Best to keep going, across the Cimbric Mountains, perhaps, and into Perigraine. Or even further west, to Fimbria. He could sell his services to the highest bidder. All the kingdoms were crying out for fighting men these days, even men who had run with their tails between their legs.
That would be giving up any dream of ever finding his wife again.
She is dead, Corfe, an empty-eyed corpse in a gutter of Aekir.
He prayed it was so.
There was a commotion in the firelit gloom, movement. His hand strayed to his sabre as a long line of mounted shapes came looming up. Cavalry, all light and shadow as they wound through the dotted campfires. People raised hands to them as they passed. It was a half-troop heading east, joining Lejer’s embattled command, no doubt. They would have a devil of a time fighting their way through the Merduk screen.
Something in Corfe stirred. He wanted momentarily to be riding east with them, seeking a hero’s oblivion. But the feeling passed as quickly as the shadowed horsemen. He gnawed on his turnip and glared at those who peered too closely at his tattered livery. Let the fools ride east. There was nothing there but death or slavery and the burning ruins of an empty city.
“T HERE is a rutter, a chart-book, that will confirm the man’s story,” Murad told the King.
“Rutters can be forged,” Abeleyn said.
“Not this one, Majesty. It is over a century old, and most of it details the everyday passages of an everyday oceangoer. It contains bearings and soundings, moon changes and tides for half a hundred ports from Rovenan of the corsairs to Skarma Sound in far Hardukh, or Ferdiac as it was known then. It is authentic.”
The King grunted noncommittally. They were seated on a wooden bench in his pleasure garden, but even this high above the city it was possible to catch the reek of the pyre. The sun beat down relentlessly, but they were in the dappled shade of a stand of mighty cypresses. Acacia and juniper made a curtain about them. The grass was green and short, a lawn tended by a small army of gardeners and nourished with a stupefying volume of water diverted from the city aqueducts.
Abeleyn popped an olive into his mouth, sipped his cold wine and turned the crackling pages of the old chart-book with delicate care.
“So this western voyage is authentic also, this landfall made in the uttermost west?”
“I believe so.”
“Let us say you are right, cousin. What would you have me do about it?”
Murad smiled. His smile was humourless, wry. It twisted his narrow face into an expression of knowing ruefulness.
“Why, help me outfit a voyage to test its veracity.”
Abeleyn slammed the ancient book shut, sending little flakes of powder-dry paper into the air. He set one long-fingered hand atop the salt-stained cover. Sweat beaded his temples, coiling his dark hair into tiny, dripping tails.
“Do you know, cousin, what kind of a week I’ve had?”
“I—”
“First I have this God-cursed—may the Saints forgive me—holy Prelate with his putrefactive intrigues in search of more authority; I have the worthy merchants of the city crying on my shoulder about his—no, our—edict’s resultant damage to trade; then I have old Golophin avoiding me—and who can blame him?—just at the time when I need his counsel most; I have this blasted burning every God-given hour of the day in the one month of the year when the trade wind has fallen, so that we wallow in it like peasants in a chimneyless hut; and finally I have the Torunnan king screaming for troops at the one time when I cannot afford to give them to him—so up in more smoke goes the Torunnan monopoly trade. And now you say I should outfit an expedition into the unknown, presumably so that I may rid myself of the burden of a few good ships and the crack-brained notions of a sunstruck kinsman.”
Murad sipped wine. “I did not say that you should provide the ships, Majesty.”
“Oh, they’ll spring out of the yards fully rigged, will they?”
“I could, with your authority, commandeer some civilian ships—four would suffice—and command them as your viceroy. A detachment of marines is all I would have to ask you for, and I would have volunteers aplenty from my own tercio.”
“And supplies, provisions, equipment?”
“There is any amount of that locked up in warehouses all along the wharves—the confiscated property of arrested merchants and captains. And I know for a fact that I could crew half a flotilla from the foreign seamen currently languishing in the palace catacombs.”
Abeleyn was silent. He stared at his kinsman closely.
“You come here with some interesting notions under your scalp along with the tomfoolery, cousin,” he said at last. “Maybe you will overreach yourself yet.”
Murad’s pale countenance became a shade whiter. He was a long, lean nobleman with lank dark hair and a nose any peregrine would have been proud of. The eyes suited the nose: grey as a fish’s flank, and with something of the same brightness when they caught the light. One cheek was ridged with a long scar, the legacy of a fight with one of the corsairs. It was a surpassingly ugly, even sinister face, and yet Murad had never lacked the companionship of the fairer sex. There was a magnetic quality about him that drew them like moths to a candle fla
me until, burnt, they limped away again. Several of their outraged husbands, fathers and brothers had challenged Murad to duels. None had survived.
“Tell me again how you came by this document,” Abeleyn said softly.
Murad sighed. “One of my new recruits was telling tall tales. His family were inshore fishermen, and his great-grandfather had a story of a crewless ship that came up out of the west one day when he and his father were out on the herrin run. His father boarded with three others, but a shifter was on board, the only thing living, and it killed them. The ship—it was a high-seas carrack bound out of Abrusio half a year before—was settling slowly and the yawlsmen drew off. But the shifter jumped overboard and swam for shore. They reboarded to collect their dead and the boy, as he was then, found the rutter in the stern cabin along with the corpse of the master and took it as a sort of were-gild for his father’s life.”
“How old is this man?” Abeleyn demanded.
Murad shifted uncomfortably. “He died some fifteen years ago. This is a tale kept by the family.”
“The mutterings of an old man garbled by the passage of time and the exaggerations of peasant storytelling.”
“The rutter bears the story out, Majesty,” Murad protested. “The Western Continent exists, and what is more the voyage there is practicable.”
Abeleyn bent his head in thought. His thick, curly hair was hardly touched by grey as yet. A young king fighting against encroachments on his authority from the Church, the guilds, other monarchs. His father had had no such problems, but then his father had not lived to see the fall of Aekir.
We live in trialling times, he thought, and smiled unpleasantly.
“I do not have the time to pore over an ancient rutter, Murad. I will take what you have told me on trust. How many ships did you say you would need?”
The scarred nobleman’s face blazed with triumph, but he kept his voice casual.
“As I said, four, maybe five. Enough men and stores to start a viable colony.”
Abeleyn’s head snapped up. “A colony, sanctioned by the Hebriate crown, must needs have someone of sufficient rank to be its governor. Who do you have in mind, cousin?”
Murad coloured. “I thought. . .it had occurred to me that—”
Abeleyn grinned and raised a hand. “You are the King’s cousin. That is rank enough.” His grin faded swiftly. “I cannot, however, let you commandeer the ships of those who have been caught up in these heresy trials. Men would say that I was profiting from them, and some of the odium that the Prelate is unfortunately collecting for himself would be dumped at my door. A king must not be seen to benefit from the misfortune of his subjects.”
Murad caught the slight emphasis and watched his monarch narrowly.
“However, what stores and cordage and spare yards and provisions and suchlike that are currently piling up in the warehouses might conceivably be moved elsewhere, for the sake of storage, you understand. These things, Murad, would not be missed. Ships are a different thing. We Hebrionese have a sentimental attachment to them. For their masters they are like wives. I know of your reputation in the wife-netting field, but if this is to be a crown-sponsored expedition it must start off on a wholesome note. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly, Majesty.”
“Excellent. No ships, then, will be confiscated, but I will give you a letter of Royal credit for the purpose of hiring out and outfitting two ships.”
“Two ships! But Majesty—”
“Kings do not relish being interrupted, Murad. As I have said, two ships, both out of Abrusio, and they must be ships whose masters have lately lost a large number of crewmen to the Inceptines. You will represent to their masters that they will regain their full crews for the voyage, which, if they undertake it, will be considered a form of amnesty. If they choose not to avail themselves of the crown’s generosity then you must make it clear that they are liable to be investigated for having so many heretics and foreigners in their complement in the first place.”
Murad began to grin.
“The letters of credit, I take it, Majesty, will be redeemed on the safe return of the ships to Abrusio.”
The King inclined his head. “Even so. I will also let you take a demi-tercio of marines from your own command and will confer on you the governorship—under certain conditions—of whatever colony you choose to set up in this Western Continent. But to set up a colony you will need colonists.”
Here the King looked so pleased with himself that Murad became wary.
“I will find you colonists, never fear,” the King continued. “I have a body of people in mind at this very moment. Is all this agreeable to you, cousin? Are you still willing to undertake the expedition?”
“I will, of course, be able to vet the potential colonists for myself.”
“You will not,” Abeleyn said sharply. And in a softer tone: “You will be far too busy to interview each and every passenger. My people will look after that end of things.”
Murad nodded. His wings had been well and truly clipped. Instead of a small fleet sailing out under his command to set up an almost independent fiefdom, he would be transporting a horde of undesirables into the unknown in two—two—crowded vessels.
“I beseech you, majesty, let me have more ships. If the colony is to succeed—”
“We do not yet know for sure if there is land for the colony to be founded upon,” the King said. “I will not hazard more than I have to on what is to all intents a doubtful scheme. It is only my affection for you and trust in your abilities, cousin, that prompts me to do anything.”
Murad bowed. That, he told himself, and the fact that my idea can be worked into your own plans.
But he had to admire Abeleyn. Only five years on the throne, and the Hebrian monarch had already established himself as one of the most formidable of the western rulers.
I must work with what I am given, Murad thought, and be grateful for it.
Abeleyn poured out more wine for them both. It was losing its chill, even in the shade of the cypresses.
“Come, cousin, you must see that we all act under certain constraints, even those of us who are kings. The world is a place of compromise. Unless, of course, you happen to be an Inceptine.”
They laughed together, and clinked glasses. Murad could see a trio of Royal secretaries hovering in the trees, their arms full of papers, inkwells hanging from their buttonholes. Abeleyn followed his gaze, and sighed.
“Damned paperwork follows me everywhere. You know, Murad, I almost wish I were coming with you, leaving the cares of a kingdom behind. I remember my voyage on the Blithe Spirit when I was a prince, a snotty-nosed youngster full of himself. The first time I felt the blow of a rope’s end I wanted the boatswain hung, drawn and quartered.” He took a gulp of wine. “Those were the days, following the coast round to the easternmost of the Hebrionese, and then across the Fimbrian Gulf to Narbosk. There is something about the sea that is in our blood, we Hebrians. Maybe we do not have veritable saltwater running in our veins like the Gabrionese, but the tilt of a deck under our feet is always in the manner of a homecoming.”
He stared into his wine.
“I will see this land the greatest seapower on the earth ere I die, Murad—if I am spared, and if grasping clerics do not finish me before my time.”
“Your reign will be a long and glorious one, Majesty. People will look back on it in later years and wonder what men were like who lived then, what giants they were.”
The king looked up and laughed, seeming like a boy as he threw back his head. “I put on my breeches one leg at a time the same as everyone else, kinsman. No, it is the glow of history, the mist of the intervening years that confers glory on a man. It may be that I will be remembered solely because the Holy City fell in my reign, and my troops stayed home chasing witches instead of joining the defence of the west. Posterity is a fickle thing. Look at my father.”
Murad said nothing. Bleyn II had been a tyrannical ruler and a fanatic
ally pious man. It was rumoured that the current purge had been first suggested by him a dozen years before, but the old Mage Golophin had talked him out of it. Now the Inceptines were portraying him as the ideal of a saintly king, and his son was described in a hundred pulpits as a wild young man, good-hearted but wayward and totally lacking in respect for the representatives of the Blessed Saint on earth. Relations between crown and Church did not seem destined to improve.
And yet the navy and the army worshipped Abeleyn, and in the pikes of the soldiers and the culverins of the ships rested the power behind the throne. So the Inceptines trod warily, and hastened to bring their own swords, the Knights Militant, into the city.
“I have heard that none of the Aekir garrison escaped,” Murad said sombrely, following his own train of thought. “Thirty-five thousand men.”
“You heard wrong,” the King told him. “Sibastion Lejer brought almost ten thousand men out of the city and is fighting a rearguard action on the Searil road.”
Murad wanted to ask his king how he knew, how news travelled so swiftly over seven hundred leagues, but stopped himself. Golophin would have his ways and means. But if Golophin was avoiding Abeleyn . . .
“Duty calls,” Abeleyn said. “I must meet another delegation from the guilds this afternoon. Thanks to you, Murad, I may have a crumb of comfort for the Thaumaturgists’ Guild. Golophin may even begin talking to me again. Just as well. There is the Conclave of Kings to prepare for in a month’s time.”
“Is it still going ahead?” Murad asked, surprised.
“Now more than ever. Lofantyr of Torunn will be shrieking for more troops, of course, and Skarpathin of Finnmark will be convinced that the next blow is to fall upon him. I foresee a trying time, especially as the Synod meets a short while before, so we will have their worthy resolutions to debate also. I tell you, Murad, you are lucky in only having to worry about a hazardous voyage into the unknown. The shoals between palaces are more difficult to navigate.”
Murad rose, and bowed deeply. “With your permission I will leave you to your navigating, Majesty.”