“I had not thought of your horses,” Rictus conceded, throwing back his wine. “It is not something a Macht would usually take into account.” He looked the tall Kefren up and down.
“Tell me, Ardashir – tell me honestly – what-in hell are you doing here?”
Ardashir grinned. He had a kindly face, but so elongated and strange did it appear that it was easy to miss the humanity in his eyes.
“Corvus is my friend, the best I have. I would follow him anywhere.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s one answer.”
Then Ardashir inclined his head. “Very well. Then know this; my father was Satrap of the province of Askanon, maybe ten years after you and your Ten Thousand passed through it. He was a good man, an honourable man, but even good men can have worthless brothers.” The Kefren’s face changed. It was if the bones of it became more pronounced; a mask that was truly alien – like those of the Honai that Rictus had faced at Kunaksa.
“He killed my father, took my sister – his niece – to wife against her will, and proclaimed himself Satrap. I was a child, smuggled out of my father’s palace in Ashdod by our family steward. He took me to Sinon, where my uncle could not touch me, it being a Macht city. And there I spent much of my boyhood, in poverty. When Kurush our steward died, I was left alone. All that remained of the life before was this -” Here he unsheathed the curved sword which hung at his flank. It was a plain Kefren scimitar with an hourglass hilt, and set in the pommel was a small incised ruby. He rubbed his thumb across it. “Our family seal. This was my father’s sword. All I have of him.”
His face brightened. “And I met Corvus, playing on the shore outside Sinon one fine day some twelve years ago. He was an undersized child, half my height, but he was the leader of all the local boys, and he made me, a Kufr, part of his friends. I have never forgotten that.” He looked down at Rictus.
“Corvus does not care about Macht and Kufr. He cares about friendship. Once he gives it, he will never betray you.”
Rictus stared up at the tall creature who stood before him. He had learned how to judge men over the years, and to judge soundly. He knew that Ardashir was not lying. More, he found himself liking this quiet Kufr, this dispossessed prince who had followed his mad friend west in pursuit of an insane idea.
He looked down at the map table again, seeing writ across it the fate of his world, his people.
“There is Kufr blood in Corvus, isn’t there?” he said.
Ardashir nodded. “His mother was a hufsa, one of the mountain tribes. But she was an educated and refined woman. You and I can see it in him, as can all those who have known a little of both worlds; but most Macht have never met a Kufr; they think we are all horse-faced demons with glowing eyes.” He smiled.
“So who was his father?”
“I never knew him, and nor did Corvus. He had left or died before the boy was born.”
Rictus looked across the interior of the tent to where the Curse of God, the armour that Corvus would not wear, sat perched on its stand like some amputated statue. A sudden insight went like a shiver down his back.
Corvus’s father had been a Cursebearer.
He might have said something, but as if summoned by their talk, Corvus himself entered the tent, flapping the rain off his cloak and bantering with Teresian, who was with him. The leader of the army was as plastered with mud as if he had been rolling in it; his teeth and eyes gleamed out of a brown face. His smile widened as he saw Rictus and Ardashir at the table.
“Ha! Steering clear of the muck, are we? And winecups in your hands! Come, Ardashir, this is a disgrace; lend me a gulp, will you?” He drank deep out of the Kufr’s cup.
“Not Minerian, Rictus, sorry to say. But it all leaves us in the same way, whatever the vintage – Teresian, pour us more. I swear I have mud in my very gullet.”
Corvus’s spirits seemed undimmed by the rain and the morass his army found itself in. He threw off his cloak and one of the page boys came forward from the shadows to catch it – Rictus had not even known he was there.
“Thank you, Sasca,” Corvus murmured, and when he set a hand on the page’s shoulder the boy’s face lit up.
“What word of the Dogsheads?” Corvus asked Rictus, making for the banked red coals of the brazier and standing so close to it they could smell the singeing wool of his chiton.
“Fornyx and your man Druze report that the enemy camp is about as lively as ours – no coming or going. No-one can make a move in this weather.”
Corvus seemed profoundly satisfied by this news. “Excellent. Ardashir, the supply train?”
“It’s making slow progress some twenty pasangs up the road. The wagons are up to their axles and the oxen are dying on their feet. It will be at least another two days before it reaches us.”
“Ah.” Even this did not dim his high spirits. “Brothers, we must not let a little rain dampen our mood. There may be a way to have some fun out of this downpour. Teresian, the wine stands by you; pass it round, man.”
Fun? Rictus thought. He looked at Ardashir and the Kufr shrugged.
“I feel the urge to get to know my enemies better,” Corvus went on. “There they are over the hill by the thousand, and we have not so much as said hello to one another. This Karnos is a fascinating fellow, by all accounts – like you, Rictus, a self-made man of a certain age. I’m thinking I should get a better look at him.”
“I know Karnos – I’ve spoken to him many a time,” Rictus said. “He’s a braggart, an upstart slave-dealer with a silver tongue.”
“That tongue of his certainly has a way of getting things done,” Corvus replied, still in a good humour. “Look across the way and name me one other member of the Machran Kerusia who could have got their levies out on the road as quickly as Karnos did. No, he’s a man of some substance this fellow, not just a crowd-pleaser.” He paused. “I think I would like a look at him.” “What shall we set up – some kind of embassy?” Teresian asked, narrow-eyed.
“We could pitch a tent between the armies,” Ardashir suggested.
Corvus held up a hand. “I was thinking of something a little more personal. I want to get a look at him tonight.”
They were all foxed by his words, and then it dawned on Rictus. “You want to enter the enemy camp.”
Corvus cocked his head to one side, and flakes of mud fell off his face. He peeled off some more, held it in his hand. “Why not – covered in this, all men look alike.”
“Corvus, my brother -” Ardashir began.
“Not you, Ardashir – no amount of mud could cover your origins.” Corvus was smiling, but the humour had dimmed in him. He was in earnest.
“You, Rictus – will you come with me?”
A moment of silence, the rain drumming on the roof of the great tent.
“You think it wise?” Rictus asked evenly.
“I did not say it was wise. I said it was what I intended to do. And as you are one of my marshals, I should like your company.”
Another test. Rictus held the younger man’s eyes. Something like perfect understanding passed between them.
“Very well,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “Shall it be we two alone, then?”
“The fewer the better. But I wish Druze to join us – he has a gift for escapades.”
“And when shall we leave?”
Corvus stretched in front of the brazier so that its red glow underlit his face, making it seem less than ever like that of a normal man.
“We’ll wait for darkness,” he said. “And Rictus -”
“Yes?”
“We’ll travel light. Your cuirass will stay here, and that scarlet cloak with it.”
Rictus nodded. Both Teresian and Ardashir were protesting, claiming it was a hare-brained venture, unnecessary risk. They did not use the word madness, but it was in their thoughts all the same. Both Corvus and Rictus ignored them. The leader of the army and his newest marshal needed to find trust in one another, and they both knew it.