“Managed well enough before you arrived,” growled Calder, shaking him off. “Though you haven’t left me much to look after things with.” And he glanced about the damp roof at the smattering of greybeards, bald-chinned boys and battle-maimed cripples who’d be guarding Skarling’s Hall while their king was off polishing his legend.
“Need the men. Fighting the Union’s never been easy.”
True enough. Bethod, Black Dow, Scale Ironhand, they’d all found it out the hard way. The Union had been getting the better of better men than Stour Nightfall for years.
Stour seemed to guess the way Clover was thinking and gave one of those sly sideways winks of his, like they were all caught up together in the same funny secret. “But we never had Angland on our side before.”
“We had the First of the Magi on our side,” grunted Calder, getting even sourer, if that was possible. “Tipping all the scales. Loading all the dice.”
“When I wanted his help, you said it wasn’t worth the price.”
“I said don’t land yourself in his debt. I didn’t say spit in his eye.” Calder shook his head grimly. “You don’t understand what he is.”
Understanding things was a problem for other folk, far as the Great Wolf was concerned. He gave a hiss, half-boredom, half-disgust. “When did you turn so bloody sour, Father? To hear you carping, no one would ever guess you won the North!”
Calder spoke soft. “With Bayaz’s help, I won it. Like the Bloody-Nine. Like my father. If Bayaz starts helping someone else—”
“Then I’ll fight ’em and I’ll win!” snarled Stour, showing his teeth. The sun came out then, peeping through a patch in the cloud, and brought a sparkle from the marching men. “Look at that!” There was a rainbow over the road south towards Ollensand. “A good omen, I reckon. An archway we’ll march through to victory!”
Cheers at that from some of the Named Men on the roof, and weapons shook, and calls of the Great Wolf. No one mentioned the one thing about rainbows that came at once to Clover—you can march at ’em for ever but you’ll never actually reach the bastards.
Calder gave a disgusted sigh as he watched the King of the Northmen swagger towards the steps. “The dead save me from the fucking young.”
“No getting away from ’em, sadly,” muttered Clover. “The older you get, the more of ’em there are.”
As so often, his wit was wasted. Calder was frowning down at his fists, bunched on the grey stones of the parapet. “This was the spot where the Bloody-Nine killed my father.”
“Mmmm.” Clover remembered it well enough. He’d held a shield in that duel, between the Bloody-Nine and the Feared, before his name was even Steepfield, let alone Clover, a mad young bastard full of fire.
“And his dream of the North united died with him.”
“Mmmm.” Clover remembered the crunching as Bethod’s skull was smashed to mush. The thud as his body dropped in the Circle.
“For thirty years I’ve been trying to coax it back to life. Tending to it with my every breath. We’re nearly there, Clover. One victory more.”
Clover had his doubts on that score. He’d seen victories enough, and they were like the false summits of a great fell. You struggle towards ’em, sure you’ve made the top, then the moment you get there you see another just beyond. No fight was ever the last. No victory was ever for good. But Black Calder was getting old. He wanted to see his great legacy secured before he went back to the mud. Then he could trick himself into believing it wouldn’t crumble a few moments after.
He gripped Clover by the arm. He had quite the grip, for a thin man. “You have to keep watch on him, you understand me?”
“Mmmm.”
“He’s the future.”
“Mmmm.”
“We might not like it. He might not deserve it.”
“Mmmm.”
“But he’s the future, and the future has to be protected.”
Clover thought of that cage in Skarling’s Hall. “How do you protect a man from himself?”
“He’ll learn better, in time.”
Clover had his doubts about that, too. Sooner or later, you have to stop expecting folk to bend around your plans and fit your plans to the folk you’ve got. But he reckoned Calder had laboured on his plans so long they’d turned hard, and brittle, and apt to shatter. So he stuck to, “Mmmm.” It was a contribution that worked for any circumstance. A listener could hear whatever they wanted in it.
“If things turn sour over there, do whatever you have to, you understand? Bring him back alive. Do that, I’ll see you rewarded.”
“Mmmm,” said Clover, one more time. “Well, I’ve always liked to be rewarded.”
And he set off towards the steps to join the great army of the North.
Orso’s command tent was, being generous, a shambles. In fact, since Hildi and a group of baffled soldiers were still scratching their heads over how to put half of it up, and Orso had known nothing about leading soldiers at Valbeck a year before and learned nothing since, one could have said it was a command tent featuring neither tent nor command.
Messengers, scouts and adjutants blundered through in confusion, trampling mud, tripping over guy-ropes and tearing down canvas. Orso hardly even knew what an adjutant was, yet he had about a dozen of the bastards. The babble reminded him of a wedding party held in too small a room, except the guests were panicking and almost all men.
General Forest barked out orders, trying to impose some sanity. Arch Lector Pike fingered his melted chin, trying to sift truth from conflicting reports. Corporal Tunny watched it all from a folding field chair, the Steadfast Standard propped beside him, with an air of knowing amusement which Orso found particularly aggravating.
“Your Majesty,” Hoff was wheedling, with his trademark wringing of the hands, “I wish you would consider returning to the Agriont where you can be protected—”
“Out of the question,” said Orso. “Believe me, Lord Chamberlain, I would much prefer to be in my bed than my saddle, but this rebellion is like a fire in a distillery. If it is not stamped out at once it will spread. And I have to be seen to stamp it out.”
“So this is all about appearances?” murmured Vick.
“Being king is all about appearances,” said Orso. “An endless performance with no chance for an encore and for damn sure no applause. Hildi, you do have my armour, don’t you?”
“’Course I do,” she grunted, without looking up from the confusion of ropes.
“You don’t plan…” Hoff looked pale. “To fight, Your Majesty?”
“Bloody hell, no. But I plan to damn well look like I might.”
There was a crash as a messenger tripped, reeled into a table and sent rolled-up maps bouncing about the tent.
“That is enough!” shouted Orso. “Forest, Pike, Tunny, Teufel and Hoff, stay. The rest of you out.” He would not have minded ejecting a couple of those named, but he supposed he needed all the help he could get. “Gorst, make sure we are not disturbed.”
“Buth—” muttered Hildi around a cord she was gripping in her teeth while she tried to tie two others together.
“You, too. Out!”
Hildi shrugged, let go of the ropes, and with a gentle flutter one wall of the tent billowed out and slowly collapsed to the ground. A fitting metaphor for Orso’s campaign so far, he rather thought. He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Let us take one thing at a time. Your Eminence, is there any sign of the rebels?”
“No reliable sightings so far, Your Majesty,” said Pike, “but we have eyes on every beach, bay and wharf. If Lord Heugen told us the truth, we expect them to land tomorrow.”
“Any trouble from the Breakers? Move now and they catch us with our trousers well and truly down.”
Pike glanced over at Vick, standing with arms tightly folded. She shook her head. “All quiet, Your Majesty,” said Pike. “We struck them a blow at Valbeck from which they have yet to recover.”
“I wish I believed it,” sa
id Orso, “but I have a feeling that blow only made them angrier. What about our own forces, Forest?”
“We have about nine thousand, including the resurrected Crown Prince’s Division.”
“An excellent decision to raise troops in secret, Your Majesty,” broke in Hoff. “It may have saved the Union!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Orso.
“There will be members of the Open Council who have stayed loyal, I’m sure of it! I have sent letters demanding their support.”
“I doubt they’ll be falling over each other to help.”
“I may have implied that the rebels’ estates would be redistributed to loyalists…”
Orso raised his brows. “Maybe they’ll fall over each other after all.”
“The King’s Own are converging from all across Midderland.” Forest retrieved one of the maps and spread it out upon the righted table. “We should link up with two regiments of foot tomorrow. Then Lord Marshal Rucksted is bringing four of horse from Keln, but there’s no saying whether they’ll reach us in time.”
“That cavalry could make all the difference…”
“We need to prepare, Your Majesty,” said Hoff. “Tread carefully. Play for time. Gather all the troops we can.”
“But the best moment to strike would be soonest,” growled Forest, tracing the wiggly line that was Midderland’s north coast with a thick fingertip. “Before they get a foothold. Best we can tell, they’ll be picking up allies of their own.”
“So we need to delay,” said Tunny, “but also move at once.”
There was a pause while they all considered that. Orso snorted. “Anything else?”
“The erstwhile Lord Marshal Brint,” said Pike in an emotionless drone. “He refuses to corporate.”
Orso shook his head. “It’s always the last one you expect. I thought the man was a rock! Imaginative as a rock, but reliable as one, too. He and my father were old friends.”
“Nonetheless, he is a traitor. It might be useful to demonstrate our resolve—”
“I bloody hate hangings,” snapped Orso. “Maybe we should demonstrate mercy for once.”
“He has been passing secrets to your enemies for months—”
“Then he should carry on,” said Vick.
Orso frowned at her. “He’s under lock and key in the House of Questions. Isn’t he?”
“Awaiting the king’s justice,” grated out Pike.
Vick shrugged. “Brock doesn’t know that. I could take him a message.”
“A message saying what?” asked Hoff.
“Saying the Closed Council have turned against each other. Saying the King’s Own are scattered and distracted and there’ll be no opposition. Saying His Majesty has fled for Gurkhul with only his standard bearer for company.”
“His standard bearer’s got better sense,” muttered Tunny.
“Saying whatever you please.”
Orso considered that idea, and a rare smile began to spread across his face. “You know, Inquisitor, I’m beginning to like you a great deal.”
Forest cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, if that’s all, we really should…” And he nodded towards the theoretical entrance to the tent, where Gorst was holding back a sweaty, panicky, impatient crush of messengers.
Orso sighed. “Very well. Open the floodgates.”
As the boat’s keel ground against gravel, Leo leaped into the surf. Sloshing through a few dozen strides of icy water probably wasn’t the best thing for his leg, but he was burning to be first ashore. He’d been kept a prisoner behind a desk far too long, caged in ballrooms and council chambers, chained by manners and rules. Now was the time for action. And what was the point of a leader, after all, if he didn’t actually lead? Directing things from a chair at the back was for King Orso and his like, not the Young Lion. Leo’s headquarters would be in the saddle. At the tip of the spear. Where the blood was shed and the glory won!
It wasn’t the most glorious stretch of shore, he had to admit, as his flooded boots finally crunched up onto the beach and he stood to rest his aching leg. A great grey curve of cold shingle, then a great yellow curve of wind-torn grass, then brown dunes and scrubby trees swept sideways, a few lonely birds hovering on the breeze the only sign of life. No cheering crowds waiting to celebrate their liberation from the tyranny of the Closed Council.
But Leo told himself that was a good thing. They were supposed to be landing in secret. No one in sight was a mark of success.
“Jin!” he called as the Northman jogged up onto the beach beside him. A solid presence, no one more reliable. “Set up some pickets while the men get ashore. Antaup?”
“Your Grace?” Antaup pushed that lock of hair from his face where the wind instantly flicked it back. A good friend, who Leo was absolutely sure liked women.
“Organise some scouting parties, fan out, see if you can make contact with Isher and the rest of the Open Council’s troops. Where’s Stour due to land?”
“If he has good luck with the weather, maybe a few miles that way?”
“And Rikke?”
Antaup puffed out his cheeks as though it was anyone’s guess. “The other way? Maybe?”
Jurand would’ve known exactly where and when they were all meant to arrive, would already have been snapping out orders, making sure everything was going to plan. But Jurand… that image floated up again, of him and Glaward, bent over the bed, their gasping faces pressed together—
Leo clenched his teeth. “We’ve got to link up with the others right away!” he snapped. “With numbers on our side we shouldn’t need to fight at all.”
“Right,” said Antaup. He took a step one way, froze, then turned back the other and hurried off up the beach.
Jin was grinning at Leo, red beard tugged by the wind. “By the dead, it’d be a shame to go home without a battle, though.”
Leo grinned back and clapped him on his mailed shoulder. “Maybe just a little one.”
Orders were being called now, boots splashing in the surf and scraping in the shingle, a reassuring clamour of activity as the men of Angland began to pour from the boats and onto the beach.
Leo’s standard was unfurled above him, the crossed hammers and the lion, holed and torn from victories in the North but never taken by an enemy. He smiled up as the sea wind made it flap and flutter, setting his doubts to rest and his heart leaping.
“At last,” he murmured.
PART VI
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
Helmuth von Moltke
Storms
The young lieutenant had looked on the point of tears when Savine refused the carriage, but it was far from the first time she had made a man cry. There was no way the damn thing was getting through the chaos on the beach, let alone the chaos getting off the beach, and she was determined to stick close to Leo and make sure her husband suffered no fatal attacks of recklessness in her absence. She had insisted on riding, and that was the end of it.
Then the rain came.
First a drizzle that beaded the weapons with dew as the first columns of Angland’s army marched between the dunes. Then a steady shower that turned the proud standards to sodden rags as they struggled inland. Finally, as if the weather was fanatically loyal to King Orso, a pissing deluge that churned the narrow roads to black glue as the unhappy soldiers toiled southwards.
“Heave!” an officer roared at a set of men trying vainly to haul a wagon from a quagmire, his wet sword raised as if he was ordering a charge, and the men strained at the filth-caked wheels as the premature darkness of the storm closed in.
Savine was so used to proving there was nothing she could not do, she rarely pondered whether there might be things better not attempted. Riding while heavily pregnant at the head of a military campaign mired by foul weather proved to be in that latter category.
Her thighs burned with the effort. Her clothes were soaked through and chafing. Her hands were so swollen, she had split one riding
glove and could hardly feel the reins. Her stomach was sending painful washes of acid up her throat with every jolt of her horse. If she hunched over against the rain, her great beer keg of a belly felt like it would make her aching ribs spring open. If she sat up, she got the storm full in her face and every step her horse took stabbed her in the spine. And then, in any and every position into which a heavily pregnant human body could be twisted, there was the endlessly throbbing focus of misery that was her bladder. Probably no one would have noticed had she pissed herself, she could hardly have been wetter. Probably she was pissing herself, an agonising slow leak with every in-breath. When she first became pregnant, she had been pathetically grateful to be free of the menses for a few months. Now it seemed she had traded the monthly agonies for constant ones.
As if to add insult to injury, her husband grinned into the elements, rain coursing down his face, never happier than when he had a simple physical obstacle to manfully wrestle with and heroically overcome. “Can’t let a bit of weather stop us!” he roared over the wind as he slapped a baffled messenger on the back and sent him to find formations that for all they knew had been washed away into the sea. “Used to Northern storms, aren’t we?” he called to a column of bedraggled Anglanders, raising a limp cheer. “We can manage a Midderland drizzle!”
“A drizzle,” snarled Savine over her shoulder at Zuri, wishing she had taken the carriage when it was offered.
“God punished old Sippot’s arrogance with a flood,” called Zuri, soaked to the perfect skin herself but facing the weather with her usual equanimity. “Perhaps He means to do the same to us.”
There was a flash on the horizon, claws of trees caught black against the brightness. A moment later thunder crackled, and a horse reared and dumped one of Leo’s aides face first into a hedge. Savine’s own mount trembled, shuffled fearfully sideways, and she shushed in its ear, patted its neck, stroked her belly, trying to calm her struggling horse and her kicking baby and the rampaging storm all at once and wondering who the hell would calm her.
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