by Paul Kearney
“Sire,” he said thickly, “I am your loyal subject—I always have been. I am yours to command.” Lofantyr began to beam. “But I have a responsibility to my men also. They have followed me faithfully, faced fearful odds, and seen their comrades fall around them whilst they did my bidding. Sire, I cannot betray their trust.”
“Obey my orders,” Lofantyr whispered. His face had gone pale as bone.
“No.”
Audible gasps around the table. Old Passifal, who had helped Corfe equip his men when no one else would, covered his face with his hands. Andruw, Formio and Morin were as rigid as statues, but Andruw’s foot was tap-tap-tapping under the table as though it did not belong to him.
“No? You dare to say that word to your King?” Lofantyr seemed torn between outrage and something akin to puzzlement. “General, do you understand me aright? Do you comprehend what I am saying?”
“I do, sire. And I cannot comply.”
“General Menin, explain to Cear-Inaf the meaning of the words ‘duty’ and ‘fealty,’ if you will.” The King’s voice was shaking. Menin looked as though he would rather have been left out of it. The colour was leaking from his cheeks.
“General, you have been given a direct order by your King,” he said, his gruff voice almost soft. “Come now. Remember your duty.”
His duty.
Duty had robbed him of his wife, his home, anything he had ever valued—even his honour. In return, he had been given the ability to inspire men, and lead them to victory. More than that: he had earned their trust. And he would not give that up. He would die first, because there was nothing else left for him in life.
“They are my men,” he said. “And by God, no one but me will command them.” And as he spoke, he realized that he had uttered a kind of inalienable truth. Something he would never compromise to the least degree.
“You are hereby stripped of your rank,” the King said in a strangled voice. His eyes gleamed with outrage and a wild kind of triumph. “We formally expel you from the ranks of our officers. As a private soldier, you will be placed under arrest for high treason and await court martial at our pleasure.”
Corfe made no answer. He could not speak.
“I think not,” a voice said. The King spluttered.
“What? Who—?”
Andruw grinned madly. “Arrest him, sire, and you must arrest us all. The men won’t stand for it, and I won’t be able to answer for their actions.”
“You pitiful barbarian rabble!” Lofantyr shouted, outraged. “We’ll slap them in irons and send them back to the galleys whence they came!”
“If you do, you will have two thousand Fimbrians storming this palace within the hour,” Formio said calmly.
The men at the King’s end of the table were stunned. “I—I don’t believe you,” Lofantyr managed.
“My race has never been known for idle boasting, my lord King. You have my word on it.”
“By God,” the King hissed, “I’ll have your heads on pikes before the day is out, you treacherous dogs. Guards! Guards!”
Admiral Berza leaned across his neighbour and grasped the King’s wrist. “Sire,” he said earnestly, “do not do this thing.”
The doors of the chamber burst open and a dozen Torunnan troopers rushed in, swords drawn.
“Arrest these men!” the King screamed, tugging his hand free of Berza’s grip and gesturing wildly with it.
The guards paused. Around the table were the highest ranking officers and officials in the kingdom. They were all silent. At last General Menin said: “Return to your posts. The King is taken poorly.” And when they stood, unsure, he barked like a parade-ground sergeant-major. “Obey my orders, damn it!”
They left. The doors closed.
“Sweet blood of the Blessed Saint!” the King exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “A conspiracy!”
“Shut up and sit down!” Menin yelled in the same voice. He might have been addressing a wayward recruit. Beside him, Colonel Aras was aghast, though the others present seemed more embarrassed than anything else.
Lofantyr sat down. He looked as though he might burst into tears.
“Forgive me, sire,” Menin said in a lower voice. His once ruddy face was the colour of parchment, as if he was realizing what he had just done. “This has gone quite far enough. I do not want the rank-and-file privy to our . . . disagreements. I am thinking of your dignity, the standing of the crown itself, and the good of the army. We cannot precipitate a war amongst ourselves, not at this time.” Sweat set his bald pate gleaming. “I am sure General Cear-Inaf will agree.” He looked at Corfe, and his eyes were pleading.
“I agree, yes,” Corfe said. His heart was thumping as though he were in the midst of battle. “Men say things in the heat of the moment which they would never otherwise contemplate. I must apologize, sire, for both myself and my officers.”
There was a long unbearable silence. The King’s breathing steadied. He cleared his throat. “Your apologies are accepted.” He sounded as hoarse as a crow. “We are unwell, and will retire. General Menin, you will conduct the meeting in our absence.”
He rose, and staggered like a drunken man. They all stood, and bowed as he wove his way to the door.
“Guards!” Menin called. “See the King to his chamber, and fetch the Royal physician to him. He is—he is unwell.”
The door closed, and they resumed their seats. None of them could meet one another’s eyes. They were like children who have caught their father in adultery.
“Thank you, General,” Corfe said finally.
Menin glared at his subordinate. “What else was I to do? Condone a civil war? The lad is young, unsure of himself. And we shamed him.”
The lad was scarcely younger than Corfe, but no one pointed this out.
“Been hidden behind his mother’s skirts too long,” Admiral Berza said bluntly. “You did right, Menin. It’s common knowledge that General Cear-Inaf’s troops could wipe the floor with the rest of the army combined.”
Menin cleared his throat thunderously. “Gentlemen, we have business still to attend to here, matters which cannot be postponed. The deployment of the army—”
“Hold on a moment, Martin,” Berza said, addressing General Menin by his rarely heard first name. “First I suggest we take advantage of His Majesty’s . . . indisposition to air a few things. There’s too much damned intrigue and bad feeling around this fucking table, and I’m well-nigh sick of it.”
“Admiral!” Count Fournier exclaimed, shocked. “Remember where you are.”
“Where I am? I’m in a meeting convened to discuss our response to a military invasion of our country, and for hours I’ve been forced to listen to a stream of administrative piddle and procedural horseshit. According to the King, all we have to do is sit with our thumbs up our arses and the enemy will obediently march into the muzzles of our guns. That, gentlemen, is a surrender of the initiative which could prove fatal to our cause.”
“For a foreigner and a commoner, you are remarkably patriotic, Admiral,” Fournier sneered.
Berza turned in his seat. His broad whiskered face was suffused with blood but he spoke casually. “Why you insignificant blue-veined son of a bitch, I’ve bled for Torunna more times than you’ve taken it up the arse from that painted pansy you call an aide.”
Fournier’s face went chalk-white.
“Call me out if you dare, you self-important little prick.” The Admiral grinned maliciously. Corfe had to nudge Andruw, who was trying desperately not to let his mirth become audible.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” General Menin said. “Enough of this. Admiral Berza, you will apologize to the count.”
“In hell I will.”
“You will ask his pardon or you will be expelled from this meeting and suspended from command.”
“For what? Telling the truth?”
“Johann—” Menin growled.
“All right, all right. I apologize to the worthy gentleman for calling him a prick, and f
or insinuating that he is an unnatural bugger with a taste for pretty young men. Will that suffice?”
“It’ll have to, I suppose. Count Fournier?”
“The good of my country comes before any personal antipathies,” Fournier said, with a definite emphasis on the “my.”
“Indeed. Now, gentlemen, the army,” Menin went on. “We are, it seems, committed to a . . . defensive posture, but that does not mean we cannot sortie out in force. It would be a pity to let the foe entrench and camp in peace before the walls. General Cear-Inaf, according to the battle plan the King and I have drawn up, your command—it was to have gone to Colonel Aras, of course, but circumstances change—will be our chief sortie force, since it has a significant proportion of heavy cavalry. Your men will be re-billeted within easy distance of the North Gate and will hold themselves in a state of readiness should a sortie be called for. In the general engagement that will no doubt follow the Merduk repulse from the walls, your men will form the centre reserve of the army, and as such will remain to the rear until called upon. I hope that is clear.”
Exceedingly clear. Corfe and Andruw glanced at one another. They would bleed before the walls, wear the Merduks down; and if the decisive battle were finally fought, they would be safely in the rear. “All the work and none of the glory,” Andruw muttered. “Things don’t change.”
“Perfectly clear, sir,” Corfe said aloud.
“Is this strategy yours or the King’s, Martin?” the irrepressible Berza asked.
“It—it originated with His Majesty, but I have had my hand in it as well.”
“In other words he thought it up, and you had to make the best of it.”
“Admiral. . .” Menin glowered warningly. Berza held up a hand.
“No, no, I quite understand. He is our King, but the poor fellow doesn’t know one end of a pike from the other. We are outnumbered—what? Five, six to one?—it makes sense that we rely on walls to equal the odds. But no army ever won a war by letting itself become besieged, Martin, you know that as well as I. We cannot win that way. It will be Aekir over again.”
A gloom hung over the chamber, oppressing everyone. It was Formio who broke the silence. “Numbers mean nothing,” he said. “It is the quality of the men that counts. And the leadership which directs them.”
“Fimbrian wisdom has always come cheap,” Fournier retorted. “If platitudes won wars there would never be any losers.” Formio shrugged.
Finally, reluctantly, Menin cleared his throat and in an oddly savage tone of voice he said, “General Cear-Inaf, you were at Aekir, and again at Ormann Dyke. Perhaps,”—it evidently pained Menin to say it—“perhaps you could give us the benefit of your—ah, unique, experience.”
All eyes were on him again, but there was not so much of hostility in them now. They are afraid, Corfe thought. They are finally facing the truth of things.
“Aekir was stronger than Torunn, and we had John Mogen—but Aekir fell,” he said harshly. “Ormann Dyke was stronger than Aekir, and we had Martellus—but the dyke fell also. If Torunn is besieged, it will fall, and with it the rest of the kingdom. And if Torunna goes under, then so will Perigraine and Almark. That is reality, not speculation.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Menin asked quietly.
“Take to the field with the men we have. It is the last thing the enemy expects. And we must do it at once, try to defeat the foe piecemeal before the two Merduk armies have fully integrated. Shahr Baraz lost many of his best men before the dyke and much of the remaining enemy strength will be the peasant levy, the Minhraib. We seek them out, hit them hard, and the odds will be substantially reduced. The Merduk always encamp the Minhraib separately from the Ferinai and the Hraibadar—the elite troops. I would undertake to lead out two thirds of the garrison and take on the Minhraib. At the same time, Admiral Berza should assault this coastal supply base of theirs and destroy it, then put the fleet to patrolling the Kardian so that there will be no more amphibious flanking manoeuvres such as the one which lost us the dyke. With the bulk of his levies destroyed or scattered, his supply lines threatened and the weather worsening, I think Aurungzeb will be forced to withdraw.”
“There is almost a foot of snow out there,” Colonel Aras pointed out. “Would you have us seek battle in a blizzard?”
“Yes. It will help hide our numbers, and increase confusion. And the foe will not be expecting it.”
Silence again. General Menin was studying Corfe’s face as if he thought he might read the future from it. “You take a lot upon yourself, General,” he said.
“You asked me for my opinion. I gave it.”
“Foolhardy madness,” Count Fournier decided.
“I agree,” Aras said. “Attack a foe many times our strength in the middle of a snowstorm? It is a recipe for disaster. And the King will never consent to it.”
“His mother would,” Berza rumbled. “But she has more balls than most of us here.”
“It may have escaped your notice, General Cear-Inaf,” Menin said, “but I am the senior officer here, not you. If this strategy were agreed upon, I would command.” Corfe said nothing.
“Enough then,” Menin continued. “I must speak to the King. Gentlemen, this meeting is at an end. We will reconvene when His Majesty is . . . recovered and I have put this new strategy to him. I am sure you all have a lot to do.”
“Shall I leave off work on the river booms?” Berza demanded.
“For the moment, yes. We may as well keep our options open. Gentlemen, good day.” Menin rose, and everyone else with him. The assembled officers collected their papers and made for the door. Corfe and his group of subordinates remained behind whilst their superiors exited.
Admiral Berza came over and clapped Corfe on the shoulder.
“You spoke up well. I’d have done the same, had they tried to take me away from my ships. But they hate you now, you know. They can’t stand having the error of their ways pointed out to them. Even Martin Menin, and he’s a good friend.”
Corfe managed a smile. “I know.”
“Aye. In some ways, palace corridors are the deadliest battlefields of all. But from what I hear, you’re quite the hero to the common soldiers. Keep their loyalty, and you may just survive.” Berza winked, and then left in his turn.
EIGHTEEN
A LL morning the brightly liveried cavalcades had been trekking into the city. Crowds of commoners turned out to cheer them as they trotted and trundled across the blackened Lower City and began following the paved expanse of the Royal way into Upper Abrusio and the twin towering edifices of the palace and the monastery.
They were magnificently turned out, the horses richly caparisoned, the closed carriages gay with paint and banners, the gonfalons and fanions of the noble houses of the kingdom snapping and flaming out overhead like brilliantly plumaged birds. Their procession stretched for the better part of a mile, from the Eastern Gate clear across to the foot of Abrusio Hill. Above them, the abbey and the monastery of the Inceptines were hung with flags in welcome, patches of newly mortared stone bright against their weathered old walls. In the courtyard before the abbey ranks of servitors waited and a dozen trumpeters stood ready to blare out a salute when the nobles drew near.
Jemilla sat watching from an open carriage, well wrapped up against the flurries of sleet that were rattling in from the Hebros. Beside her sat her steward, Antonio Feramond. He was red-nosed and sniffling and had his collar turned up against the raw wind.
“There—there, do you see? That bloodless, pompous old fool. There he sits, the very picture of the gracious host, looking like the cat who caught the mouse.”
Jemilla spat. She was talking of Urbino, Duke of Imerdon, who sat on a patient white destrier at the entrance to the great courtyard, ready to welcome his fellow nobles to the council.
Well, one could not have everything. Those with an inkling of intelligence would know who had brought this about. But it galled Jemilla that she was to have no part in the proce
edings until Urbino produced her and the child she bore like a cony from a conjuror’s hat. She would act the dutiful noble-woman, grieving for the King who had been her lover, whilst behind the scenes she would pull the strings that made Urbino dance.
“The venison was brought in this morning, was it not?” she demanded of the miserable Antonio.
“Yes, madam. A score of plump does, well hung, too. But had I known these blue-bloods were going to flood the city with their retainers I’d have ordered a dozen more.”
“Don’t worry about the hangers-on. Bread, beer and cheese is good enough for them.”
“At least we did not pay for the wine. That saved us a pretty penny,” Antonio said smugly. Though the monastery and abbey had been looted in the aftermath of the late war, the Inceptine cellars had escaped damage. There was enough wine in them to float a fleet of carracks. Antonio had also made himself a pretty penny by selling a few tuns of it to an enterprising Macassian ship’s captain. He thought this was his secret, and Jemilla did not intend to disabuse him of the fact until she deemed it useful to do so.
“How stand our funds at the moment?” she asked him.
“We have fifteen hundred and twelve gold crowns left over, madam. The duke was very generous. We’ll make a profit from the affair, never fear.”
Short-sighted fool. He thought in terms of profit and loss, while Jemilla’s eye was set much higher. One day soon she’d have the entire Hebrian treasury at her disposal. Let them have their pomp and panoply, for now.
A commotion at the western side of the courtyard drew her attention. A knot of riders trotting into view.
“Who in the world—?”
Foremost among them was a noble lady riding side-saddle. She was hooded and cloaked against the inclement weather, but Jemilla knew her at once. That Astaran bitch, Isolla. What did she think she was doing here? And beside her a man in a broad-brimmed hat that buckled and tugged in the wind. He wore a patch over one eye and seemed a mere skeleton under his fur-trimmed riding robes. Jemilla’s mouth opened as she recognized Golophin. Behind the pair were four heavily armed knights bearing the livery of Astarac, and then four more in the colours of Hebrion. The group of riders joined Duke Urbino in the centre of the square. Even from this distance, Jemilla could see that the duke was taken aback. Golophin swept off his hat and bowed in the saddle, his head as bald as an eggshell. Isolla offered the bemused duke her hand to kiss.
