Corvus

by Paul Kearney

  “I don’t doubt it. But Hal Goshen is not alone in this thing, Rictus. What of Machran, and the League? Karnos himself almost had you in his employ at the end of the summer, and you walked away. But the League will come to our aid.”

  “The League is too late. They’ve spent the last two years debating what to do about Corvus and have ended up chasing their own tail. There is no army coming to your rescue, Phaestus, so put that out of your mind. He has moved too fast for them. I tell you now in friendship: accept his terms.”

  Phaestus’s face was as livid as his hair. “What are the terms?” he said.

  “The same as those he has given to a dozen cities in the east. You must give up your independence and join him, accept him as absolute ruler. You must pay a tithe of all your wealth and income to his treasury, and you must send him five hundred spearmen every year to fight in his wars.

  “You do these things, and Hal Goshen will not be touched - he will not even enter the city, but will appoint a governor.” Rictus took Phaestus by the arm again, squeezing flesh down upon bone. “I have spoken to him of this. You will be the governor, Phaestus. You have my word on it. And if you prove loyal, then your son Philemos will follow you.”

  “He’s establishing dynasties now, is he?” Phaestus snapped. “Petty little kings, to serve under him, the Great King of all. What are we now, Rictus, no better than Kufr? A free man bears his spear and has his voice heard among his peers - that is how the Macht have always lived.”

  “Times are changing,” Rictus said, angry now, though not with Phaestus. “I warn you, as a friend, if you do not submit to him, he will take Hal Goshen, and he will destroy it, to make an example. You and your son will die and your womenfolk will be enslaved. Hal Goshen will disappear as Isca did. He will do it, Phaestus, believe me.”

  Phaestus looked at him with a mixture of wonder and contempt.

  “The great leader of the Ten Thousand, whom I termed my friend. Rictus of Isca, reduced to the errand boy of a barbarian. Run back to him, Rictus, and tell him -”

  “For Antimone’s sake, Phaestus, don’t come all high and mighty on me now. We stand in a cold hard world, and honour is something we leave for the stories. You are being offered something priceless here. There can yet be honour in what you accept, and you will save your city a nightmare.”

  Phaestus looked like a man in doubt as to whether he was about to sob or shout. He shook his head.

  “I never yet truly understood the nature of a mercenary. You redcloaks are a dying breed, and we have made you into a kind of legend. But in the end, all that matters is the weight of the purse you are offered. What you consider honour, I spit upon, Rictus.”

  Rictus seized him by the throat, his grey eyes blazing. “Watch what you say, old man. You do not know of what you speak. Have you ever watched a city burn? I have. I have seen my people led off to the slave market, my family butchered. If your pride seeks to consign your own folk to the same fate then I swear to you I will make special effort, when your walls are breached. I will find you and kill you myself, and your precious son. And your last sight on this earth will be that of my men raping your wife and daughters.” He tossed Phaestus aside as a dog will discard a dead rat.

  “I came to you out of friendship. I advanced your name with Corvus because I knew you to be a just and honourable man, one who would rule wisely. You love this city, as do I. Its fate is in your hands now.”

  Phaestus rubbed his throat, eyes hot and white. “You think I would enjoy setting myself up as a tyrant, the slave of a greater tyrant? You do not know me as well as I thought you did, Rictus. And it seems I do not know you at all.”

  “Take his terms to the Kerusia, then - see what the other elders have to say, and put it to the assembly.”

  Phaestus’s lip curled. “How did he buy you? Are you to have the pickings of his conquests? Antimone watches us, Rictus. Her black wings beat over our heads all our lives. You and Corvus will answer for what you are doing.”

  “I’ll take my chances with the gods. You think on the offer I have made, and ask whether your ideals are worth the death of a city. Corvus expects answer before nightfall. If there is none, the army will assault your walls at dawn.”

  Rictus turned on his heel and walked away. Neither Phaestus nor the men on the walls could see the agony written across his face.

  HAL GOSHEN CAPITULATED that evening. A leading elder of the Kerusia, Sarmenian, was proclaimed governor by Corvus. The city accepted a small staff of clerks from the conqueror’s entourage, and agreed to forward provisions to the army for the remainder of the present campaign. Five hundred glum-faced youths wearing their fathers’ armour marched out to join the army on the plain below, and were folded into Demetrius’s command.

  Of Phaestus there was no sign. He had relayed the terms of the city’s surrender to the Kerusia, and then disappeared, fleeing Hal Goshen with his family, making for the hills. In his absence, and on Corvus’s insistence, he was declared ostrakr by the Kerusia, before that body disbanded itself. Like Rictus, he no longer had a city to call his own.

  It was perhaps the most efficient example of conquest Rictus had ever seen. Not a drop of blood had been spilled, and yet a great city had fallen. And with the fall of Hal Goshen, the way was open to the western heartlands of the Harukush. The cork was out of the bottle.

  The army of Corvus shook out into march column next morning, a river of men that blackened the face of the lowlands. The great camp in which they had passed the preceding days was dismantled and abandoned - the leather tents, the field-forges, the barrelled provisions all packed up and loaded onto the waggons of the baggage train. Then the thing began to move. The clouds broke open and yellow sunlight made of their passage an immense, barbed snake slithering west, the endless companies passing by the walls they had not been called upon to breach.

  In their midst, Rictus trudged silently at the head of his men, and his black armour reflected not a gleam of the autumn sun. He did not look back.

  PART TWO

  GRINDING THE CORN

  SEVEN

  SPEAKER OF MACHRAN

  KARNOS RAN HIS fingertip down the spine of the girl from her nape to the silky crease of her buttocks. She was wet there, and she shifted slightly under his touch, her white body arching up like a cat being stroked. His fingertip moved upward again, traced the geometry of her ribs, touched the side-swell of one breast. He brushed her ear-lobe where the dark tresses of shining hair fell over it.

  “I don’t care what Polio said, you were worth every obol,” he murmured.

  A knock on the door.

  The girl smiled as Karnos kissed her delicate ear. His hand ran down her body again, more urgent this time. A flare of base delight as she lifted her rump up in invitation.

  Again, the knock - not so discreet this time. A rapping of knuckles.

  “Fuck you, Polio!” Karnos shouted. “I was not to be disturbed!” The girl stiffened beside him, and her eyes took on the blank slave-look. Duty had replaced arousal in a moment, though she remained stock still with her white buttocks up in the air.

  “Master, my profound apologies, but there is news here that cannot wait. Kassander himself is here, and awaits you in the court.”

  “Kassander? Ah, shit,” Karnos said. He rose to his knees in the bed, pushed the slight pale-skinned girl to one side and reached for his chiton.

  “Get him some wine - have Grania bring it.”

  “I have already done so, master. He demands to see you at once.”

  “Of course he does,” Karnos snarled, pulling his chiton over his head. To the girl he said, “Get out and clean yourself up.” She scampered naked from the bed, leaving by a side-door. The hanging that half-hid it was still twitching as Karnos rose barefoot and said, “Tell him I’m on my way. And it had better be important - Phobos’s arse, it’s the middle of the night.”

  Polio came in bearing a bronze lamp, shielding the wick with his long fingers. “Shall I call for the cook?”<
br />
  “No, let’s see what we have first. Light the way for me, Polio. Kassander is an impatient son of a bitch, but even he doesn’t turn out at this hour on a whim.”

  The two men walked along the passageway in a fluttering globe of yellow lamplight while their shadows capered around them. Polio was a spare, elderly man with a broad grey beard. He wore a slave-collar, but it was chased with gold, and from his shoulders hung a himation of fine white linen.

  Karnos wore a food-stained chiton of plain undyed wool. He was a broad, beefy man with a round paunch and a close-cropped black beard. His hair, worn long, was dressed with oil and he bore several rings on each hand. His bare feet slapped on the stone floor.

  “Was he alone?”

  “He came with an escort of spearmen, master, but they remained outside.”

  “Fuck - then it’s official. Rouse the household and lay out my council robes, and a good cloak.”

  “Some food, perhaps -”

  “Wine - lots of it. The good stuff. It must be bad news; no-one ever brings good tidings in the dark. We’ll have it in the study. And have some sent out to the escort.”

  A wide space surrounded by pale-pillared colonnades, open to the sky. Karnos gritted his teeth against the cold. There was the rill of water from the courtyard fountain, the glow of the solitary lamp kept burning by the gate-shrine, and a brazier for the doorman, the coals dull and almost dead. Beside it stood a large shadow, red-lit by the charcoal, and to one side the slim shape of a shivering slave-girl, a glass jug in her fists.

  “Leave us, Crania,” Karnos said crisply. The girl fled, feet pattering on the chill stone.

  “Kassander?”

  The shadow resolved itself into a massive cloaked figure, as broad as Karnos but taller.

  “You keep buying up all the pretty girls, Karnos. How many do you have stashed away here now?”

  “If you want one, I’ll lend her to you - now what’s the news that has me shivering like a spent horse here in the night with Phobos leering down at me?”

  Kassander drained his cup. “Word from the east. Hal Goshen has surrendered to him.”

  Karnos leant against a marble pillar, the last of the bedroom’s warmth sucked out of him. “Ah, hell.” He rubbed one hairy-knuckled hand over his face, and seemed to feel the weight of his years and the loom of the winter weigh down his very bones.

  “I told them, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” Kassander said. “You have been proved right at every turn. There’s good in that - it means they may pay heed to you now.”

  Karnos raised his head sharply, a sneer splitting his beard. “You think so? Brother, you have a faith in the rationality of men that makes me wonder whether to laugh or weep.”

  “If this does not unite the League, nothing will. This could be good news, Karnos - it may be the turning point.”

  “Ever the optimist, eh? Who else knows this?”

  “It’ll be all over the city by dawn. I’ve already sent couriers to the hinterland, and the Kerusia is being waked as we speak.”

  “Come inside with me. My prick has shrivelled up like a raisin in this cold - or maybe it’s your news has done it.” Kassander followed him like an obedient bear, tossing his cup into the courtyard pool with a silver splash.

  “Light, light!” Karnos roared. “Am I to stagger around in the dark in my own home? Bring a lamp there!”

  Polio appeared again. He bowed to Kassander, who nodded curtly in reply. “Master, your study fire has been lit, and -”

  “Have my clothes laid out there, Polio, and rouse out the stables. I want the black gelding warmed up and shining, my best harness. I’ll be going to the Empirion with the dawn.”

  Polio bowed again, handed his lamp to Karnos, and glided away.

  The household was coming to life, slaves scurrying everywhere with lamps in their hands, unintelligible shouts emanating from the kitchens at the back of the house. Karnos and Kassander strode along the corridors, oblivious, until a heavy door was swung back to reveal a firelit room, littered with scrolls and papers, and a wide-eyed slave who bowed deeply, placed a tumble of clothing on the desk and fled, mumbling inanities.

  “You’ve too many slaves,” Kassander said, unlooping the end of his cloak from his arm. “They’re underfoot like damned cockroaches. Can’t you hire some free-men to light your fires and groom your horses?”

  “Free men have loyalties and families and worries of their own,” Karnos said, sweeping the piled papers from two iron-framed chairs. “Slaves only have to worry about their job. They do that well, and they have no other worries in the world.” He threw off his woollen chiton and stood naked in the firelight, then began to dress in the clothing the slave had abandoned.

  “You’d have been Speaker far sooner if the world did not look askance at the harem you have here. There’s jokes about you and your insatiable prick scrawled across every wineshop wall in the Mithannon.”

  “Insatiable, eh?” Karnos said with a grin. His head emerged from the neck of a black linen chiton. “I like that. The people love a politician whose vices are out in the open, Kassander - they know he has less to hide. Me, I love women -”

  “Then marry one.”

  “Are you insane? No, no. I flirt with power and I fuck slaves. Good decent women are too dangerous for a man like me. And I’m near forty now - too old to be learning the ways of a wife. Have a seat. No, you make my blood run cold merely by mentioning it - and you know the regard I have for your sister -”

  “She thinks the sun rises and sets on you, Haukos knows why.”

  “She is the very picture of a virtuous lady, a credit to your family. If I married her, she’d - well, you know what would happen. No, one day soon she will see sense and marry some other worthy fellow who will come home sober every night and plant her with babies. Enough.” He patted down his fine chiton and stepped into a pair of beaten sandals. “Now where is the fucking wine? Polio!”

  The wine arrived, borne by an absurdly pretty girl whose tunic barely reached her thighs. Polio stood over her like a stern father.

  “Master, will that be all?”

  “For now. We’ll eat later - have the cook run up some of that good broth we had yesterday. And make sure no-one comes near this door, Polio.”

  Polio bowed and withdrew, as stately as a grey-bearded king.

  Karnos sat down and poured two clay cups of wine. He stuck his fingers into his own glass and flicked a few drops into the fire. “For Phobos, the rotten bastard - a libation.”

  Kassander did the same with a big man’s slow smile. “For Haukos, who has not turned his face from us yet.”

  “Your sunny disposition makes me want to puke,” Karnos said. “What are the details of the thing, or don’t we know them yet?”

  Kassander leaned back in his chair with a sigh, making the ironwork creak under his bulk.

  “The same story we’ve seen before. Scare the little people with the size of his army, offer them easy terms, and move on.”

  “He had only just arrived before their walls,” Karnos said, punching his knee. “I thought we had time - Phaestus assured us he would hold out.”

  “Phaestus was overruled, and declared ostrakr. Sarmenian was installed as governor.”

  “Sarmenian! That rat-faced prick. I had him to dinner last month and he was full of shit about how Hal Goshen would halt the invader in his tracks. Bastard. He has a tiny cock, too; Grania told me.”

  “Whatever the size of his instrument, he now rules Hal Goshen as tyrant, under Corvus. But there’s more, Karnos.”

  “I see it in your face. You’re saving the best for last, you big fuck. Well, toss it at me if you must.”

  “Rictus of Isca was at Hal Goshen. He has thrown in his lot with the invader.”

  Karnos stood up. He set his wine cup on the desk, spilling some of the berry-dark liquid on the papers there. He stood before the fire and stared blindly into the flames whilst Kassander wiped up the spill doggedly with
the hem of his cloak.

  “Rictus,” he said dully. “I would not have thought it of him.”

  “Who is the optimist now? Rictus is a mercenary,” Kassander said, irritably. “He goes where the money is; and this Corvus must have a fortune in his treasury by now.”

  “No.” Karnos turned round. “Rictus is one of the old-fashioned Macht. He believes in things. I thought I had him, Kassander. This summer, we spoke, and I thought I had him. Imagine, if we had lured him here to lead the army!”

  “My imagination runs riot,” Kassander said. “It’s unfortunate you’ll have to make do with Kassander of Arienus instead.”

  Karnos waved a hand at him. “Don’t be a girl about it. You know damn well what it would have meant to have the leader of the Ten Thousand on these walls. Phobos! I never would have thought it of him.”

  “You’re repeating yourself.”

  “A politician’s habit - it keeps the mouth working until there’s something new to say. Kassander, we must push this issue now, while the shock of the news is getting around the streets. If we argue it out in the Kerusia, Corvus will he at our walls before we’ve even managed to convene the assembly.”

  “Something tells me I have a role in this.”

  “You’re polemarch of the army. For God’s sake, he’s ten good day’s march from these walls - we don’t have time to fuck around!”

  Kassander sighed heavily. “You want me to call out the army on my own initiative.”

  “By dawn. We must have the streets full of men -we must wake up the people to the danger, and force the Kerusia’s hand.”

  “I can do that - I can have the host called out, but it’ll mean the end of your political career, you know that. You by-pass the Kerusia and they’ll vote you down. They hate you anyway.”

  Karnos flapped a hand in dismissal. “I was voted onto the Kerusia by popular acclaim. If they throw me out of it they’ll have the people to answer to.”