"The upshot was that, during the retreat, the general himself was wounded—so severely that, I fear, he is no longer able to command. Fortunately for us, the rebel leader Conan also perished. So to return to you, my dear Count— “
“To me?" munnured Ascalante, affecting an air of infinite modesty.
"To yourself,” said the sorcerer with a sliver of a smile. "Your service on the Ophirean and Nemedian frontiers, I find, qualifies you to take command of the Border Legion, which has fallen from the failing hands of General Procas—or shortly will, once he receives this document.”
The sorcerer paused and withdrew from the deep sleeve of his garment a scroll, richly embellished with azure and topaz ribbons, upon which the royal seal blazed like a clot of freshly shed blood.
"I begin to understand,” said Ascalante. And eagerness welled up within his heart, like a bubbling spring beneath a stone.
"Thou have long awaited the call of opportunity to ascend to high office in the realm and earn the preferment of your king. That opportunity approaches. But, ”and here Thulandra raised a warning finger and continued in a voice sibilant with emphasis: "You must fully understand me, Count Ascalante.”
"My lord?”
“I am aware that the Herald’s Court has not as yet approved your assumption of the Countship of Thune, and that certain—ah—irregularities surround the demise of your elder brother, the late lamented count, who perished in a limiting accident.”
Flushing, Ascalante opened his lips to make an impassioned protest; but the sorcerer silenced him with lifted hand and a bland, uncaring smile.
"These are but minor disagreements, which shall be swept away in the acclaim that greets the laureled victor, I will see you well rewarded for your service to the crown,” Thulandra Thuu continued craftily. "But you must obey my orders to the letter, or the County of Thune will never fall to you.
"I am aware that you have little actual experience in border warfare, or in commanding more men than constitute a regiment. The actual command of the Border Legion, then, I shall place in the hands of a certain senior officer, Gromel the Bossonian by name, who has been well blooded in our recent warfare against the Picts. I have long had Gromel under observation, and I plan to bind him to me with hopes of recompense. Therefore, while he shall deploy and order the actual battle lines, you will retain the nominal command. Is this quite understood?”
"It is, my lord,” hissed Ascalante between clenched teeth.
“Good. Now that Conan lies dead, you and Gromel between you can easily immobilize the remaining rebels south of the Alimane until the fractious horde disintegrates from hunger and lack of accomplishment.”
Thulandra Thuu proffered the scroll, saying: "Here are your orders. An escort awaits you at the South Gate. Ride for the ford of Nogara on the Alimane with all dispatch."
“And what, lord, if Amulius Procas refuses to accept my bona fides?” inquired Ascalante, who liked to make certain that he held all the winning pieces in any game of fortune.
"A tragic accident may befall our gallant general before your arrival to assume command,” smiled Thulandra Thuu. "An accident which—when you officially report it—will be termed a suicide due to despondency over cowardice in the face of insubstantial foemen and repentance for provoking hostilities against a neighboring realm. When this occurs, be sure to send the body home to Tarantia. Alive, Procas would not have been altogether welcome here; dead, he will play the leading role in a magnificent funeral.
“Now be on your way, good sir, and forget not to obey orders to be given to you from time to time by one Alcina, a trusted green-eyed woman in my service.”
Grasping the embossed scroll, Ascalante bowed deeply and departed from the Chamber of Sphinxes.
Watching his departure, Thulandra Thuu smiled a slow and mirthless smile. The instruments that served his will were all weak and flawed, he knew; but a flawed instrument is all the more dispensable should it need to be discarded after use.
DEATH IN THE DARK
For many days, the presence of the army of Amuhus Procas on the far side of the Alimane deterred the rebels from attempts to ford the river. Although Procas himself, injured and unable to walk or ride, remained secluded in his tent, his seasoned officers kept a vigilant eye alert for any movement of the rebel forces. Conan’s men marched daily up and down the river’s southern shore, feinting at crossing one or another ford; but Procas’s scouts remarked every move, and naught occurred to give pleasure to the Cimmerian or his cohorts.
“Stalemate!” groaned the restive Prospero. “I feared that it might come to this!”
“What we require for our success,” suggested Dexitheus, “is a diversion of some kind, but on a colossal scale—some sudden intervention of the gods, perchance.”
“In a lifetime devoted to the arts of war,” responded the Count of Poitain, “I have learned to rely less upon the deities than on my own poor wits. Excuse me. Your Reverence, but methinks if any diversion were to deter Amulius Procas, it would be one of our own making. And I believe I know what that diversion well may be; for our spies report that the pot of my native county is coming to the boil.”
That night, with the approval of the general, a man clad all in black swam the deeper reaches of the Alimane, crept dripping into the underbrush, and vanished. The night was heavily overcast, dark and moonless; and a clammy drizzle herded the royalist sentries beneath the cover of the trees and shut out the small night sounds that might otherwise have alarmed them.
The swimmer in dark raiment was a Poitanian, a yeoman of Count Trocero's desmesne. He bore against his breast an envelope of oiled silk, carefully folded, in which lay a letter penned in the count’s own hand and addressed to the leaders of the simmering Poitanian revolt
Amulius Procas did not sleep that night. The rain, sluiced against the fabric of his tent, depressed his fallen spirits and inflamed his aching wound. Growling barbarous oaths recalled from years spent as a junior officer along the frontiers of Aquilonia, the old general sipped hot spiced wine to ward off chills and fever and distracted his melancholy with a board game played against one of his aides, a sergeant. His wounded leg, swathed in bandages, rested uneasily on a rude footstool.
The grumble of thunder caused the army veteran to lift his grizzled head.
“ ‘TIS only thunder, sir,” said the sergeant "The night’s a stormy one.”
“A perfect night for Conan’s rebels to attempt a crossing of the fords,” said Procas. “I trust the sentries have received instruction to walk their rounds, instead of lurking under trees?”
"They have been so instructed, sir,” the sergeant assured him. "Your play, sir; observe that my queen has you in check.”
“So she has; so she has,” muttered Procas, frowning at the board. Uneasily he wondered why a cold chill pierced his heart at hearing those harmless words, "my queen has you in check.” Then he scoffed at these womanish night fears and downed a swallow of wine. It was not for old soldiers like Amulius Procas to flinch from frivolous omens! But still, would that he had been in better personally to inspect the sentries, who inevitably grew slack in the absence of a vigilant commander.…