“Yes?”
“Do not be proud. They hoard memories of empire, even if they say they no longer hanker after it. You must make yourself into a supplicant, no matter if it galls your pride.”
“I must be a willow, eh, bending in the wind?”
Golophin grinned. “Exactly—but not, of course, seen to be bending. You are a king, after all.”
They clinked flagons like men sealing a bargain or toasting a birth. The King drank deeply, and then pinched foam from his upper lip.
“There is one last thing tonight, something near to your heart, perhaps.”
Golophin cocked an eyebrow.
“The list. The list we drew up of those of your own kind who might be saved from the pyre.” The King did not meet the old wizard’s eyes as he spoke. He seemed oddly abashed. “Murad tells me he will be ready to sail within two sennights. He takes a demi-tercio with him, fifty Hebrian arquebusiers and sword-and-buckler men. Counting the crews, that leaves space for some hundred and forty passengers.”
“Less than we had hoped,” Golophin said tersely.
“I know, but he is convinced he will need the soldiers once landfall is made.”
“To deal with the wild natives he may meet, or with the passengers he must travel with?”
Abeleyn shrugged helplessly. “I have hamstrung his scheme enough as it is, Golophin. If I prune away at it any further he may throw it all up, and then we are back where we started. A man like Murad needs some kind of incentive.”
“The viceroyship of a new colony.”
“Yes. He has few superstitious prejudices against the Dweomer-folk. He should treat them fairly. They could be said to be the backbone of his ambitions.”
“And your ambitions, sire. How do the Dweomer-folk fit into those?”
The King coloured. “Let us say that Murad’s expedition eases my conscience and—”
“So many fewer innocents consigned to the flames.”
“I do not relish being interrupted, Golophin, not even by you.”
The old mage bowed in his seat.
“As you have said, it is a means of putting these folk beyond the reach of the Church, but you know also that there are other motives involved.”
“As always.”
“If there is a Western Continent, it must be claimed by Hebrion—must be. We are the westernmost seafaring power in the world. It is our right to expand in that direction whilst Gabrion and Astarac look to the Levangore for trade and influence. Think of it, Golophin. A new world, an empty world free of monopolies or corsairs. A virgin continent waiting for us.”
“And if the continent is not virgin?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this fabled western land is inhabited?”
“I cannot imagine that it is, or at least that they have a civilization comparable to ours. And I am certain that they will not possess gunpowder. That is something we ourselves have had for only a century and a half.”
“So Murad will slaughter his way to a Hebrian hegemony on the shores of this primitive land, and the sorcerers who are his cargo will be the living artillery which backs him up?”
“Yes. It was the only way, Golophin. The colonists must be hardy, talented, able to defend themselves. What better way to ensure that they survive than to make every one a sorcerer, a herbalist, a weather-worker, or even a true thaumaturgist?”
Or a shifter, Golophin thought to himself, remembering Bardolin’s new ward. But he said nothing of that.
“A king’s motives are never simple,” he intoned at last. “I should have remembered that.”
“I do my best with what God sees fit to give me.”
“God, and Murad of Galiapeno. I would you had found another man to lead this expedition. He has a face I do not like. There is murder written in it and as for the ambition of which you spoke I do not think even he has yet plumbed the depths of it.”
“It was his discovery, his idea. I could not take it away from him without making an enemy.”
“Then tie him to you. Make sure he knows how long the arm of the Hebrian crown can be.”
“You are beginning to sound like an old woman, Golophin.”
“Maybe I am, but there is wisdom in the words of old women too, you know.”
Abeleyn grinned, looking boyish in the dim tavern light.
“Come, will you not return to the court and assume your rightful place?”
“What, crouching behind your throne and whispering in your ear?”
It was the popular Inceptine image of the King’s wizardly advisor.
“No, sire,” Golophin went on. “It is too early yet. Let us see how the Synod goes, and this conclave of yours. I have a feeling, like the ache in an old wound before a storm. I think the worst is yet to come; and not all of it is drawing in from the east.”
“You were ever free with prophecies of doom, despite the fact that you are no seer,” Abeleyn said. His good humour had thinned. The boy had disappeared. It was a man who stood up and held out a strong hand to the old mage. “I must go. Tongues wag in the court. They think I have a woman down near the waterfront.”
“An old woman?” Golophin asked, with one eye closed.
“A friend, Golophin. Even kings need those.”
“Kings most of all, my lord.”
T HE night was as close as ever. Abeleyn and his bodyguards strolled up the street as nonchalantly as if they were three night-watchmen. The closed carriage was in a courtyard at the top, the horses standing stock-still, patient as graven images. The bodyguards clambered up behind whilst Abeleyn let himself inside.
There was a scratch of steel, a shower of sparks, then a glow. As the candle lantern took the flame, the interior of the curtained coach flickered with glowing gold. The carriage lurched into motion, the hooves of the horses clicking on the cobbles.
“Well met, my lord,” the lady Jemilla said, her white face olive-coloured in the swaying candlelight.
“Indeed, my lady. I am sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.”
“The wait was no trouble. It sharpens the anticipation.”
“Indeed? Then I must make sure to keep you waiting more often.” The King’s tone seemed casual, but there was a tenseness about him that he had not evidenced whilst in the tavern with Golophin.
Jemilla threw off her dark, hooded cloak. Underneath she wore one of the tight-fitting dresses of the court. It emphasized the perfect lines of her collar-bones, the smoothness of the skin on her breastbone.
“I hope, my lord, that you have not been squandering yourself on one of the lower-city doxies. That would grieve me extremely.”
She was ten years older than the King. Abeleyn felt the difference now as he met the dancing darkness of her eyes. He was no longer the ruler of a kingdom, the commander of armies. He was a young man on the brink of some glorious dispensation. It had always been this way with her. He half resented it. And yet it was the reason he was here.
The lady Jemilla unfastened the laces of her bodice whilst Abeleyn watched, fascinated. He saw the high, dark-nippled breasts spring out, red-marked where the tight clothing had imprisoned them.
Their quiet noises were hidden by the creak of leather and wood, the rattle of the iron-bound wheels, the clatter of the horses’ progress. The carriage wound its leisurely way up Abrusio Hill towards the Noble quarter, whilst down on the waterfront the gaudy riot of the pothouses and brothels continued to paint the hot night in hues of flesh and scarlet, and in the harbour the quiet ships floated stark and silent at their moorings.
The high clouds shifted; the stars wheeled overhead in the nightly dance of heaven. Men sitting on the sea walls in the reek of fish and weed with bottles at their feet paused in their low talk to sniff the air and feel its sudden caress as it moved against their faces. Canvas flapped idly once, twice; then it bellied out as the moving air took it. The glassy sea, a mirror for the shining stars, broke up in swell on swell as the clouds rose higher out on the Western Ocean. Finally the men on the sea wall could feel it in their hair, and they looked at one another as if they had experienced some common revelation.