by David Hair
The other men nodded in agreement, while Basia tried to think it through. ‘Won’t Takwyth circle behind us?’
‘Neither Garod nor we can afford that, so Garod would be forced to attack immediately,’ Legate Darmonieu of Gravenhurst countered. ‘One day to converge with Garod, one day to fight and if we’re victorious, we’ll be back behind our defences before Takwyth can engage us in the open.’
Basia blinked: she hadn’t anticipated this proposal and Dirklan was out of reach on his own mission. ‘I would need to consult the queen,’ she said, stalling for time.
‘With respect, the queen does not have military expertise,’ a Pallacian mage-noble named Viron Bondeau replied tersely. ‘We need to decide, not her.’
They were right about that, but it was a Hel of a gamble. ‘One day’s delay and we’re stranded outside Pallas, leaving Takwyth to march in,’ she said, wondering if that was what Oryn wanted.
‘It’s no bigger a gamble than waiting inside the walls for two armies to arrive,’ Oryn replied. ‘Military history tells us that when you face two armies, the one thing you can’t afford to do is let them unite.’
Put like that, it sounded reasonable. ‘It’s your decision,’ Basia conceded. ‘The queen will back you. But how quickly can you march?’
‘We’ve been preparing to march for the last two days,’ Oryn said. ‘Just in case it became appropriate.’
Really? ‘So you could have mentioned it earlier,’ she complained.
‘It was a contingency only: it required confirmation that Takwyth and Garod would arrive on different days,’ Darmonieu told her. Leave the war to us, girl, his eyes added.
How does Dirklan cope with this responsibility? she wondered. Just a few days in charge and it was driving her mad.
Deciding she could brief the queen later, she headed for her next appointment at the Imperocracy, enjoying the feeling of breezing past the officials and guards without being stopped, now they all knew who she was. She joined Calan Dubrayle in a meeting with forty-odd richly dressed Pallacians – all male, all grey or balding, and all looking sceptical. They were bankers and traders whose assets were irrevocably tied to the city, which was why they had remained here when Jean Benoit and half the Merchants’ Guild fled to Dupenium.
Calan was holding up a coin: the first coin minted in the name of the new Republic of Rondelmar. It bore Lyra’s head in profile with the Dagger of Corineus on the reverse, and around the edge were the words Res Publica di Rondelmar, 936.
‘This will be the new coin of the realm, gentlemen,’ the Treasurer was saying as Basia slipped in through the side door. ‘My people are calling it a “lira”, thanks to the happy coincidence that the old Rimoni word for “pound” is libra, and of course it’s similar to the name of our queen. It’s worth the same as the imperial auros and will replace the auros in due course; it will be exchangeable one for one from the Crown Bank of Rondelmar. I urge you to take it up, as the Imperocracy will begin to make its use mandatory in payment of all duties and tolls within six months.’
This was greeted with consternation, and it was a few seconds before someone piped up and asked, ‘The Crown Bank of Rondelmar? Who are they?’
‘The Treasury have taken a controlling interest in Gravenhurst Stronghold Bank, whose governors are now Arch-Legates of the Treasury,’ Dubrayle replied evenly. ‘We are now, as of today, the largest bank in Rondelmar.’
His words were greeted with stunned silence – and then an angry babble broke out, before a red-faced banker stomped forward, snapping, ‘This is infamous. The statutes of empire prevent the Crown from banking – it’s explicit in the Deeds of Trust for our banks that the Crown will not interfere—’
‘Indeed, Magnus Jusst,’ the Treasurer said evenly, ‘but that was the empire. This is the Republic, which is under no such constraints. Consider your Deeds of Trust superseded.’
The bankers and merchants looked at each other with purpling faces as the racket rose, then another man, bald, austere Kaspar Ankargild, raised his voice. ‘This is criminal,’ he said in a querulous voice.
‘Only under Imperial Law,’ Dubrayle replied. ‘Not all of those were carried into the new republic.’
He knows he’ll hang if we lose in the field, Basia thought, admiring the Treasurer’s gumption. Perhaps he feels he’s got nothing to lose.
‘You can’t change the laws behind our backs,’ Ankargild railed. ‘You’re playing games in front of a forest fire, Dubrayle – and the wind is rising behind it.’
‘I have every confidence that the Republic will vanquish the Sacrecour army again,’ Dubrayle replied, with far more certainty than Basia felt. ‘Those who have backed Duke Garod’s revolt had best look to their assets.’
The threat hung in the momentarily silent hall and Basia saw the bankers suddenly remembering the storms Lyra had summoned the last time Garod marched.
They’ll have a bet either way, Calan had predicted at yesterday’s council meeting. They’ll squeal, then pretend to support us. It’ll all come down to whether we defeat Garod and Takwyth.
Then why do this now? Dominius had asked, once he’d recovered from his own apoplexy at the announcement of the new Crown Bank being set up behind his back and likely to throw the Church’s wealth into chaos. Why risk alienating them?
Because it gives us money now, Calan had replied. It makes us a player in the back-room deals again.
Basia couldn’t pretend to understand it all, but she could see that the Treasurer’s predictions were correct: the bankers might be grumbling, but they were also making a show of grudging acquiescence.
When Calan declared the meeting over, she approached him. ‘What happens to the bank if we lose?’ she asked, leading the way through a high-pillared marble hall.
‘Tens of thousands of people will have their life savings plundered to enrich Garod or Takwyth,’ he sniffed, ‘including Jusst and Ankargild and all those other silk purses back in that hall.’
‘I never knew you were such a gambler,’ Basia remarked.
‘Our lives are at stake, Mistress de Sirou. I’ll use every weapon, as will you. We’re not so different.’
‘Were they right about the legality?’
‘Of course – but they also know that it’s the winners who write the rules. Victory in the field will make us into saints; defeat will cast us as devils incarnate.’ He shrugged. ‘I shall enjoy the former and I won’t see the latter, so it’s really not such a gamble.’
‘And you have the money you need?’
‘I do finally have a war-chest worthy of the term. The game is on. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to explore ways to spend it . . .’
Pallas-Coraine Road, North Rondelmar
The camp was rising, but Solon had been awake for hours, although he was still on his back on the small pallet, with Brunelda on top, her hand planted on his chest to keep herself upright as she ground against him in wet, rhythmic intensity. Their ruddy skin was bathed in sweat and she was moaning through another climax as he built towards his own. When he closed his eyes, she was Lyra.
Then a metallic rattle came from outside the tent-flap and someone called, ‘My Lord?’ in a tentative voice.
It had to be fairly obvious what they were doing, which meant the matter was urgent. ‘One minute,’ Solon called, looking up at Brunelda’s bouncing breasts, her face contorted with the intensity of their coupling. He sat up, turned her over and finished her with a powerful series of hip-thrusts, then gazed down at her tear-stained, worshipful eyes.
‘You’re weeping,’ he noted.
‘Sometime when I climax, my eyes leak,’ she said apologetically.
‘So it’s a physical reaction, not emotion,’ he clarified, climbing off her and tipping a jug of water over his head.
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Good,’ he decided. ‘You’ve done well . . . um, you’re good at . . . erm . . .’
‘I’m a good whore,’ she said shamelessly.
‘Quite.
’ Her subservience pleased him. Maybe she can teach Lyra a few things . . .
But the day awaited: he put her from his mind and left the tent, barking orders for it to be dismantled within the hour. An aide was waiting outside – he should have known the youth’s name, but there had been too many new faces recently. ‘What is it?’
‘A messenger from the city,’ the aide replied.
Ah, Solon thought, his attention focusing, ‘from inside Pallas? Bring him.’
The messenger was a mage-pilot fresh from his skiff and flushed about the cheeks from the icy wind. His terse update was mostly good news: Pallas was rife with rumour over the impending arrival of House Dupeni and House Sacrecour and confused by the queen’s speech about a res publica – a foolish notion, it’d never work – and Oryn Levis was preparing to march out, which was predictable. But one thing did prick his attention.
‘You say Setallius has dropped from view?’ he clarified.
‘The man I met with says he’s vanished, and Basia de Sirou is acting in his stead.’
Solon was perturbed by this. When they were all working together, Setallius had only ever left court when something big was happening – and he’d always reappeared precisely where he was needed. Like the night we took the Celestium back from Ostevan. His disappearance left Solon uneasy.
But everything else was playing out the way he wanted. He dismissed the mage-pilot and looked around him; he was on a low rise above the road, as his men readied themselves for another day of marching. The weather was milder today, with spring in the air, no storms had been forecasted.
My lads are in good spirits. They believe we’re in the right. I wonder how those serving Lyra feel?
Endus Rykjard sauntered up, gnawing on a chicken leg. ‘They’re a quiet lot,’ he observed, glancing back at Takwyth’s aides, who’d been studiously ignoring him.
‘You know how magi get when they’ve known each other for years, Endus,’ Solon said. ‘It gets so nothing needs to be said aloud.’
They both knew the real reason was that mage-nobles held mercenaries in contempt.
Rykjard made an affable ‘it’s no matter’ gesture. ‘What did the messenger have to say? Is all well?’
‘Better than well, my friend. We have solid intelligence that Oryn Levis is going to march the bulk of his forces out of Pallas to meet the Sacrecours in battle. There’s a town called Finostarre, four miles east of Pallas, beneath a low ridge. It’s open ground, favourable for battle with an advantage to those who hold the high ground.’
‘Wasn’t that where you won a jousting tourney and regained your place at court?’
‘Aye,’ Solon said, ‘I vanquished the shit-smear Lyra married and engineered my return.’
‘Won’t Garod just sail right past Levis and dock in the city?’
Solon shook his head. ‘His barges would be sitting ducks: they’d be slaughtered. No, he’ll land his men east of Finostarre and give battle. Nine legions to five: he’ll believe his victory inevitable.’
‘There’s no such thing as inevitable,’ Rykjard observed.
Solon clapped his shoulder. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’
Finostarre, Rondelmar
‘I know this place,’ Brylion Fasterius grunted. ‘Finostarre.’
‘Finostarre,’ Cordan echoed. ‘Where the Grand Tourney was held?’ He’d been a prisoner of the Corani during that event, but he’d lapped up news of the tourney like milk.
‘Aye,’ Uncle Brylion growled, his swarthy features ugly with displeasure.
‘You were beaten in the semi-final by Sir Solon,’ Cordan went on blithely.
Brylion smacked him hard on the ear, making it ring. ‘Keep your shitty mouth closed.’
Tears stung his eyes but Cordan gritted his teeth through the pain. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a small, choked voice, railing silently, I’m going to be emperor one day. Brylion scared him: the man absolutely seethed with fury these days and was never far from lashing out.
Uncle Garod gave Cordan no support and everyone else always pretended they hadn’t noticed. Now Garod’s retinue, thirty mage-nobles of varying ages and kinship, studied the terrain before them from their position at the edge of a small wood. They could see a wide expanse of grass before Sancta Lucia’s Abbey, a small hamlet beyond that and a gentle rise where Corani and Pallacian banners fluttered in the gentle breeze, above lines of green-and-white-clad legionaries, half a mile away.
The Queen’s army, Cordan thought, and for a spiteful moment he hoped someone would kill Uncle Brylion, dead as dead. But he buried the thought and asked his uncle, ‘Is there any news of Coramore?’
‘She’s sequestered with the queen in the Royal Suite,’ Garod said quietly. ‘She’s a prisoner, of course. They’ll threaten to hang her if we don’t turn back,’ he added cruelly.
Cordan’s heart fluttered. ‘But . . . you wouldn’t let that happen, would you, Uncle?’
‘She ran away,’ Garod reminded Cordan, ‘straight to rukking Lyra Vereinen – and left our ally the Pontifex dead.’
Cordan looked away. I hate you all – and I’m glad creepy Ostevan is dead.
Lyra had been good to him – so had Ril, and Basia, and even Solon Takwyth. He didn’t understand why Solon was now at war with his queen. And he really didn’t know who he wanted to win.
I just want to live, and for Coramore to be safe.
Garod signalled a herald and trumpets began to blow on all sides as Sacrecour soldiers, men of Fauvion and Dupenium and the surrounding countryside, tramped out of the woods, freshly disembarked from the barges.
Nine legions – and they have only five. He set his jaw. ‘Dear Kore, protect my sister,’ he whispered. ‘Protect all those I care about.’
None of whom are with me now.
*
Exilium bowed his head in silent prayer. Around him, the chapel rang with the voices of monks and nuns, chanting hymns of praise, the familiar, comforting sound grounding him, salving his soul.
‘Great Kore, who gave the powers of life and death to the Blessed,’ he prayed, ‘forgive me for invoking your Holy name. I know that you are a loving God, for whom war is anathema. But this is a just war, to preserve the Church of your name and the Crown that unites your Chosen People. Look favourably on our endeavours.’
Except we’re all fighting in your name, he reflected uncomfortably. The House of Kore is at war with itself.
The rightness of the Queen’s cause was indisputable, though: he had seen her himself, alight with holy fire as she blasted the daemon from the body of Lef Yarle. The false Pontifex Ostevan was similarly destroyed. Lyra Vereinen was a Living Saint, that was clear. And Dominius Wurther, for all his faults, still backed her. Set against that divine mandate, Solon Takwyth and Garod Sacrecour were unholy traitors.
Heartened by his logic, he raised his voice for the final verses, leading his knights in a rousing chorus of the battle-hymn, ‘One with my Maker’.
He took a final look up at the imposing icon over the altar – ironically, Sancta Lucia, better known as Mater-Imperia Lucia Fasterius, grandmother of Cordan Sacrecour – then left the front pew and marched down the aisle, his knights falling in behind. Their mounts waited outside, but before they rode off, he addressed them.
‘Men of the Order of Misencourt, we are called to war. This will be our first battle as an order, so let us win glory in it. Let our names strike fear into the enemy hearts.’
He knew they thought him a rigid, pompous foreigner, but at least they respected his sword. He’d won that from them, beating them two or three at a time to show his prowess and right to lead.
He’d appropriated the war-cry of the legendary knight Sir Rynholt and now he shouted, ‘Rise up, rise up – bloody deeds await us, but we shall wash our hands in the sacred fountains of Kore. Misencourt for the Queen!’
‘We rise,’ they shouted back fervently, because they might doubt the will of Kore, or even His existence, but they could not deny that they were about to
fight for their lives.
They took up position in front of a small rise a hundred yards from where the queen, veiled and flanked by Volsai guards, was mounted on a white horse. The air about her crackled with half-seen webs of shielding and wards. She turned and raised a hand in blessing as the knights saluted her, hands on hearts, before facing the enemy.
Exilium muttered a prayer for her Majesty, but his eyes were drawn to Basia de Sirou, standing stiffly at the queen’s side. When she saw him staring, the bodyguard threw him an ironic salute.
If only Basia would embrace Kore as her Saviour, he thought sadly. She would be a fine woman if she exchanged her pride for piety. Then he coloured and gazed across the fields, because staring at enemy soldiers was easier than thinking about Basia’s unsettling charm.
The Sacrecour legions in imperial purple were arrayed just half a mile away across the old tournament grounds, in the lee of a long narrow piece of woodland. Farms dotted the landscape, but the fields were fallow and the herds had been relocated. The Sacrecour left was near the Bruin River, a distant gleam of dull silver. Their right stretched towards the hills, half a mile to the north.
Exilium joined Sir Iles Kraal, the veteran mage-knight he’d appointed his marshal; the man would stay clear of direct combat to ensure he was kept apprised of the battle’s tides. They trotted up to join Oryn Levis’ commanders, who were gathered around the Knight-Commander.
‘Sir Exilium,’ Levis greeted him. The Knight-Commander was sweating heavily, but he spoke firmly enough as he turned back to his commanders. ‘Today, we have the higher ground but we are fewer in number, so we must defend, and counter-attack if the opportunity presents itself,’ Oryn lectured them: textbook tactics and easily predicted, not that Exilium would have done anything different. The question was whether they could hold – and whether Oryn would know when to counter.
Once the legion commanders had confirmed their placements, Exilium asked, ‘Where shall my knights deploy?’
Oryn pointed to a flat piece of slope to their left, north of the centre, where a gentle rise climbed to an uneven low ridge, along which a double rank of pikemen were lined up, backed by crossbowmen. ‘Behind them. Bolster them if they break, and counter if the chance presents – once my permission is given.’