The Heretic Kings: Book Two of The Monarchies of God

by Paul Kearney

  Her face was surrounded by a deviously worked halo of hair that was stabbed through with pearl-headed pins and hung with jewels. Golden hair, shot through with silver. Earrings of the brightest lapis lazuli. Her face was fine-boned, but somehow drawn; it was possible to see that she had been a beautiful woman in her youth, and even now her charms were not to be lightly dismissed, but there was a fragility to the flesh which clothed those beautiful bones, a system of tiny lines which proclaimed her age despite the stunning green magnificence of her eyes.

  “You have won the battle, my lord King—the fight against time. Now you have a Pontiff to parade before the council and quell these murmurings of heresy.” She caught her tongue between her teeth for a second as the needle bored in a particularly fine stitch. “Unlike the other kings, you can show your people that Macrobius truly lives. That, and the storm which approaches from the east, should suffice to unite most of them under you.”

  She set aside her needle at last. “Enough for today. I am tired.”

  She stared keenly at Lofantyr. “You look tired also, son. The journey from Vol Ephrir was a hard one.”

  Lofantyr shrugged. “Snow and bandit tribesmen—the usual irritants. There is more to my tiredness than the aftermath of a journey, mother. Macrobius is here, yes; but beyond the city walls thousands upon thousands of Aekirians and northern Torunnans are screaming for succour, and I cannot give it to them. Martellus wants the city garrisons moved to the dyke, and the Knights Militant promised to me will now never arrive. I need every man I can spare across the country to hold down the nobles. They are straining at the leash despite the fact that I promised them the true Pontiff. Already there are reports of minor rebellions in Rone and Gebrar. I need trusted commanders who do not see opportunity in the monarch’s difficulties.”

  “Loyalty and ambition: those two irreconcilable qualities without which a man is nothing. It is a rare individual who can balance both of them in his breast,” the woman said.

  “John Mogen could.”

  “John Mogen is dead, may God keep him. You need another war leader, Lofantyr, someone who can lead men like Mogen did. Martellus may be a good general, but he does not inspire his men in the right way.”

  “And neither do I,” Lofantyr added with bitter humour.

  “No, you do not. You will never be a general, my son; but then you do not have to be. Being King is trial enough.”

  Lofantyr nodded, still with a sour smile upon his face. He was a young man like his fellow heretics, Abeleyn of Hebrion and Mark of Astarac. His wife, a Perigrainian princess and niece of King Cadamost, had already left for Vol Ephrir, vowing never to lie with a heretic. But then she was only thirteen years old. There were no children, and a severed dynastic tie meant little at the moment with the west struck asunder by religious schism.

  His mother, the Queen Dowager Odelia, pushed aside her embroidery board and rose to her feet, ignoring her son’s hurriedly proffered arm.

  “The day I cannot rise from a chair unaided you can bury me in it,” she snapped, and then: “Arach!”

  Lofantyr flinched as a black spider dropped from the rafters on a shining thread and landed on his mother’s shoulder. It was thickly furred, and bigger than his hand. Its ruby eyes glistened. Odelia petted it for a moment and it uttered a sound like a cat’s purr.

  “Be discreet, Arach. We go to meet a Pontiff,” the woman said.

  At once, the spider disappeared into the mass of lace that rose up at the back of Odelia’s neck. It could barely be glimpsed there, a dark hump nestled in the fabric which transformed her upright carriage into something of a stoop. The purring settled into a barely audible hum.

  “He is getting old,” the Queen Dowager said, smiling. “He likes the warmth.” She took her son’s arm now, and they proceeded to the doors in the rear of the chamber.

  “As well I became a heretic,” Lofantyr said.

  “Why is that, son?”

  “Because otherwise I’d have to burn my own mother as a witch.”

  T HE audience chambers were filling rapidly. In his eagerness to show the living Macrobius to the world, Lofantyr had allowed His Holiness only a few hours to recover from his journey before requesting humbly that he bestow his blessing upon a gathering of the foremost nobles of the kingdom. There were hundreds of people congregating in the palace, all clad in the brightest finery they possessed. The ladies of the court had emulated Perigrainian fashions with the King’s marriage to the young Balsia of Vol Ephrir, and they looked like a cloud of marvellous butterflies with wings of stiff lace and shimmering jewels, their faces painted and their fans fluttering—for the audience chambers were hot with the press of people and the huge logs blazing merrily in the fireplaces. It was a far cry from the austere days of Lofantyr’s father, Vanatyr, when the nobles wore only the black and scarlet of the military and the ladies simple, form-fitting gowns without headdresses.

  Corfe and his troop had quartered their mounts in the palace stables and tried to spruce themselves up as best they could, but they were muddy and worn from the travelling and many of them wore the armour they had spent weeks fighting in during the battles at the dyke. His men made a dismal showing, Corfe admitted to himself, but every one of them was a veteran, a survivor. That made a difference.

  The court chamberlain had hurriedly procured a set of purple robes for Macrobius, but the old man had refused them. He had also refused to be carried into the audience chamber in a sedan-chair, and to let anyone but Corfe take his arm and guide him up the long length of the crowded hall.

  “You have guided me on a harder road than this,” he said as they waited in an antechamber for the trumpet blasts that would announce their entry. “I would ask you one last time to be my eyes for me, Corfe.”

  The doors were swung open by liveried attendants, and the vast, gleaming length of marble that was the floor of the audience chamber shone before them, whilst on either side hundreds of people—nobles, retainers, courtiers, hangers-on—craned their necks to see the Pontiff they had thought dead. At the end of the hall, hundreds of yards away it seemed to Corfe, the thrones of Torunna glittered with silver and gilt. Lofantyr the King and his mother the Queen Dowager sat there. A third throne, that of the young Queen, was empty.

  The trumpet notes died away. Macrobius smiled. “Come, Corfe. Our audience awaits.”

  The tramp of his military boots and the slap of Macrobius’ sandals were the only sound. Perhaps there was a faint murmuring as the crowd took in the soldier in the battered armour and the hideously mutilated old man. Out of the corner of his eye, Corfe glimpsed some of the spectators looking hopefully back at the end of the hall, as if they expected the real Pontiff and his guide to come issuing out of the end doors in a sweep of state and ceremony.

  They walked on. Corfe was sweating. He took in the immense height of the building, the arched roof with its buttresses of stone and rafters of black cedar, the huge hanging lamps . . . then he saw the galleries there, packed with watching faces, brilliant with liveries of every rainbow hue. He cursed to himself. This was not his province, this august ceremonial, this painted game of politics and etiquette.

  Macrobius squeezed his arm. The old man seemed amused by something, which unsettled Corfe even more. His hand slithered round the hilt of his sabre, the one he had taken off a dead Torunnan trooper on the Western Road.

  And he remembered. He remembered the inferno of Aekir, a roaring chaos like the very end of the world. He remembered the long, vicious nights in the retreat west. He remembered the battles at Ormann Dyke, the desperate fury of the Merduk assaults, the ear-numbing roar of the enemy guns. He remembered the endless killing, the thousands of corpses which had clogged the Searil river.

  He remembered his wife’s face as she left him for the last time.

  They had reached the end of the hall. On the dais before them the King of Torunna regarded them with mild astonishment. His mother’s gaze was a calculating green appraisal. Corfe saluted them. Macrobius s
tood silent.

  There was a cough somewhere, and then the chamberlain banged his staff on the floor three times and called out in a practised, ringing voice which filled the entire hall.

  “His Holiness the High Pontiff of the Western Kingdoms and Prelate of Aekir, the head of the holy Church, Macrobius the Third . . .” The chamberlain looked at Corfe then with incipient panic. Obviously he had no idea who the Pontiff’s battered companion might be.

  “Corfe Cear-Inaf, colonel in the garrison at Ormann Dyke, formerly under the command of John Mogen at Aekir.” It was Macrobius, in a voice clearer and stronger than Corfe had ever heard him use before, even when he had preached at the dyke.

  “Greetings, my son.” This was to Lofantyr.

  The Torunnan King hesitated a moment, and then descended from the dais in a sweep of scarlet and sable, his circlet catching the light of the overhead lamps. He knelt before Macrobius, and kissed the old man’s ring—another gift from Martellus; the Pontifical ring had been lost long before.

  “You are welcome to Torunna, Holiness,” he said, a little stiffly, Corfe thought. Then he recalled his own manners, and as Lofantyr straightened he bowed. “Your majesty.”

  Lofantyr nodded briefly to him and then took Macrobius’ arm. He led the blind old man up to the dais and placed him on the vacant Queen’s throne. Corfe stood alone and uncertain until he caught the eye of the chamberlain, who was beckoning discreetly to him. He marched over into the whispering press of people who were gathered on either side of the dais.

  “Stay out of the way,” the chamberlain hissed into his ear, and he banged his staff on the floor again.

  Lofantyr had risen from his throne to speak. A hush fell on the hall once more. The King’s voice was less impressive than his chamberlain’s but it carried well enough.

  “We welcome here at our court today the living embodiment of the faith that sustains us all. The rightful High Pontiff of the world has been delivered by a miracle out of the cauldron of war in the east. Macrobius the Third lives and is well in Torunn, and with his presence here this city of ours has become the buckler of the Church—the true Church. With the Holy Father’s prayers to sustain us, and the knowledge that right is on our side and God watches over our ranks, we are sure that the armies of Torunna, greatest and most disciplined in the world, will continue the work begun in the past few weeks at Ormann Dyke. Other victories will be stitched upon the battle flags of our tercios, and it will not be long ere our standard is reared up once again on the battlements of Aekir and the heathen foe is flung back across the Ostian river into the wilderness of unbelief and savagery from whence he came . . .”

  There was more of this. It passed over Corfe’s head unheeded. He was tired, and the rush of adrenalin which had carried him up the hall had washed out of him, leaving him as drained as a flaccid wineskin. Why had Martellus insisted he come here?

  “So I say to the usurper in Charibon,” Lofantyr went on, “there is no heresy in recognizing the true spiritual head of the Church, in fighting to hold the eastern frontier safe for the kingdoms behind us. Torunna and Hebrion and Astarac represent the kingdoms of the True Faith, not the diocese of an imposter who must in his turn be branded heretic.”

  The speech ended at last, and the hall boiled with talk. The people within began to spread out across the bare central space in knots of conversation, whilst from side doors up and down the chamber attendants came bearing silver salvers upon which decanters of wine and spirits gleamed. The King poured for Macrobius, and the hall hushed again as the Pontiff stood up with the wineglass blood-full in his hand.

  “I am blind.”

  And the silence became absolute.

  “Yes, I am Macrobius. I escaped from the ruin of Aekir when so many did not. But I am not the man I once was. I stand before you—” He paused and looked sightlessly to one side, where the Queen Dowager had risen from her seat and taken his arm.

  “In our haste to welcome the Holy Father into the city, we did not take account of his weariness. He must rest. But before he leaves us for the chambers we have appointed for him, we would beg him for his blessing, the blessing of the true head of the Church.”

  Some of the people near the dais took up the cry.

  “A blessing! A blessing, Your Holiness!”

  Macrobius stood irresolute for a moment, and Corfe had the weirdest feeling that the old man was somehow in danger. He pushed through the clots of people towards the dais, but when he got to its foot he found his way blocked by a line of halberd-bearing guards. The chamberlain appeared at his elbow as if by magic. “No farther, soldier.”

  Corfe looked up at the figures on the dais. Macrobius stood stock still for several moments, whilst the smile on the Queen Dowager’s face grew ever thinner. Finally, he raised his hand in the well-known gesture, and everyone in the hall bowed their heads.

  Except for the flint-eyed guards facing Corfe.

  The blessing took a matter of seconds, and then attendants in scarlet doublets helped the Pontiff off the dais by a door at the rear of the thrones. Lofantyr and Odelia resumed their seats, and the room seemed to relax. Talk blossomed, punctuated by the clink of glasses. From the galleries floated the soft sounds of lutes and mandolins. A woman’s alto began singing a song of the Levangore, about tall ships and lost islands or some other romantic rubbish.

  A tray-bearing attendant offered Corfe wine, but he shook his head. The air was thick with perfume; it seemed to rise from the white throats of the ladies like incense. Everyone was talking with unusual animation; obviously Macrobius’ appearance had ramifications beyond Corfe’s guessing.

  “What am I to do?” he asked the chamberlain harshly. A red anger was building in him, and he was not sure as to its source.

  The chamberlain gazed at him as though surprised to see he was still there. He was a tall man, but thin as a reed. Corfe could have snapped him in two over his knee.

  “Drink some wine, talk to the ladies. Enjoy a taste of civilization, soldier.”

  “I am colonel, to you.”

  The chamberlain blinked, then smiled with no trace of humour. He looked Corfe in the eye, an unflinching stare which seemed to be memorizing his features. Then he turned away and became lost in the mingling crowd. Corfe swore under his breath.

  “Did you dress especially for the audience, or are you always so trim?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Corfe turned to find a foursome at his elbow. Two young men in dandified versions of Torunnan military dress, and two ladies on their arms. The men seemed a curious mixture of condescension and wariness; the women were merely amused.

  “We travelled in haste,” the remnants of politeness made Corfe say.

  “I think it made for a very touching scene.” The other woman giggled. “The ageing Pontiff in the garb of a beggar and his travelworn bodyguard, neither sure as to who should lean on whom.”

  “Or who was leading whom,” the first woman added, and the four of them laughed together.

  “But it is a relief to know our king is no longer a heretic,” the first woman went on. “I imagine the nobles of the kingdom are thanking God while we speak.” This also produced a tinkle of laughter.

  “We forget our manners,” one of the men said. He bowed. “I am Ensign Ebro of His Majesty’s guard, and this is Ensign Callan. Our fair companions are the ladies Moriale and Brienne of the court.”

  “Colonel Corfe Cear-Inaf,” Corfe grated. “You may call me ‘sir.’ ”

  Something in his tone cut short the mirth. The two young officers snapped to attention. “I beg pardon, sir,” Callan said. “We meant no offence. It is just that, within the court, one becomes rather informal.”

  “I am not of the court,” Corfe told him coldly.

  A sixth person joined the group, an older man with the sabres of a colonel on his cuirass and a huge moustache which fell past his chin. His scalp was as bald as a cannonball and he carried a staff officer’s baton under one arm.

  “Fresh from
Ormann Dyke, eh?” he barked in a voice better suited to a parade ground than a palace. “Rather stiff up there at times, was it not? Let’s hear of it, man. Don’t be shy. About time these palace heroes heard news of a real war.”

  “Colonel Menin, also of the palace,” Ebro said, jerking his head towards the newcomer.

  It seemed suddenly that there was a crowd of faces about Corfe, a horde of expectant eyes awaiting entertainment. The sweat was soaking his armpits, and he was absurdly conscious of the mud on his clothing, the dints and scrapes on his armour. The very toes of his boots were dark with old blood where he had splashed in it during the height of the fighting.

  “And you were at Aekir, too, it seems,” Menin went on. “How is that? I thought that none of Mogen’s men survived. Rather odd, wouldn’t you say?”

  They waited. Corfe could almost feel their gazes crawl up and down his face.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and he turned away, leaving them. He elbowed his way through the crowd feeling their stares shift, astonished, to his back, and then he left the hall.

  Kitchens, startled attendants with laden trays. A courtier who tried to redirect him and was brushed aside. And then the fresh air of an early evening, and the blue dark of a star-spattered twilit sky. Corfe found himself on one of the bewildering series of long balconies which circled the central towers of the palace. He could hear the clatter of the kitchens behind him, the humming din of a multitude. Below him all of Torunn fanned out in a carpet of lights to the north. To the east the unbroken darkness of the Kardian Sea. Somewhere far to the north Ormann Dyke with its weary garrison, and beyond that the sprawling winter camps of the enemy.

  The starlit world seemed vast and cold and somehow alien. The only home that Corfe had ever truly known was a blackened shell lost in that darkness. Utterly gone. Strangely enough, the only person he thought he might have spoken to of it was Macrobius. He, too, knew something of loss and shame.