Still holding Lord Utterback’s hand, I sat by the body and tried to think what to do. The army was beyond control and would continue their riot all night. In the morning, a reveille might be possible.
In the meantime, the body might as well stay where it was.
Then I remembered Lipton’s battery, left behind on its knoll, and thought that we might fetch Lord Utterback back to the camp on a caisson. I told Purefoy of my intention, and then I took the heavy royal flag from over my shoulder, unrolled it, and placed it on the body. I mounted again my horse, and began the long ride through the night.
I had ridden only a few minutes before I heard the pounding of advancing horses, and drew up to see a column of demilances riding in by moonlight. Our relief had come at last, exhausted men on weary horses. As they approached, I saw at the head of the column the Count of Wenlock. As he halted the column, I rode up and saluted.
His eyes glittered with what might have been anger, what might have been fierce anxiety. “Where is my son?” he asked.
“He fell as he led the last charge that broke Clayborne’s army,” I said. “He lies yonder, at the foot of the cliff.”
“Bring me to him,” said Wenlock.
I brought Wenlock to where his son lay, and we dismounted. The count looked down at the body, then bent to draw the flag away from the corpse.
“It is the royal banner,” said I, “taken from the Carrociro. I thought it a fitting shroud for so brave a man.”
I watched as lines of grief carved deep into Wenlock’s hawk-like profile. He seemed lost for a moment in his own sorrow, and then he gave a start, as if he recollected where he was. He looked up at me, eyes glittering.
“My son needs you no longer,” he said. “You are dismissed from the troop. And if I find that you have stolen aught from the troop’s funds, I will slit your throat myself.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I had failed to gather any loot for myself, and now would get none.
By next morning, the principal rebels were in our hands. The Knight Marshal had received our message just as he was about to launch his attack on Peckside, and he saw no sense in wasting his dispositions—he smashed his way through the entrenchments, and broke the enemy there in a single grand assault. Wenlock, the cavalry, and the reserves were turned about and sent to Exton Scales, but arrived far too late. So, when Clayborne’s army fled from us, they ran right into the Knight Marshal’s hands.
Clayborne; his stepfather, the Duke of Andrian; Lord Rufus Glanford; and the other leaders were executed as soon as the Marshal could call for a headsman. Queen Berlauda, who had no intention of forgiving her half brother or his supporters, had signed the death warrants in advance. The only chief rebel to escape was Clayborne’s mother, the Countess of Tern, who we later learned had fled to Thurnmark.
Those not named in the warrants were made prisoner, except for the mercenaries Clayborne had employed. The mercenaries of both sides had insisted on their standard contract, which stated that any mercenaries on the losing side—whichever that was—were to be given their liberty, and so those who had fought for Clayborne were allowed to march back to Howel with our army, carrying their weapons and such gear as had survived the looting.
Even professional soldiers, it seemed, were obliged to follow the rules of their guild. All the sell-swords stood to lose was whatever monies Clayborne owed them.
I stayed with the army, but as Lord Utterback no longer provided a means of entry to the higher class of officer, I rode for the most part with Captain Lipton and the Cannoneers. These were good company, and as the April skies had ceased to spit rain at us, it was a pleasant journey, descending the Cordillerie now into the high, watery plateau that sheltered the winter capital.
A delegation from Howel offered the Knight Marshal the submission of the city several days before he arrived, which provided Lipton and me with an idea. We knew the names of the proscribed rebels, and so he and I and a few Cannoneers rode ahead of the army, past the famous water-gardens of the palace, to the capital, where we marched into the house of Baron Havre-le-Creag, told the servants that we were now billeted in the home, and ordered them to bring us dinner and wine.
The Baron, who had been executed for treason following the battle, could scarcely object.
Water-girdled Howel is a beautiful city, with its canals, fountains, bridges, and its stately, well-proportioned buildings of golden sandstone, and for a few days, that city belonged to us. There had been a great fire sixty years before, and most of the old city burned. It had been rebuilt on a more spacious plan, with wide streets, plane trees set along boulevards, and green lawns that went down to the river.
The royal palace at Ings Magna is three leagues northwest of the city, across the lake, and the high nobility have lined the road along the lake with their homes, one imposing structure after another, each with a lawn along the river and a structure to house a grand galley, so that they could be rowed to the palace by a crew of oarsmen in livery. The house of Baron Havre-le-Creag was one of these.
From our billets we went wherever we pleased with our list of the proscribed, demanded entry to the great houses, and carried off whatever we liked—coin, plate, silken hangings, jewels. If we found a strongbox, we broke it open and took what we found. I was the only one of us interested in the papers we unearthed, and I discovered myself the owner of several deeds and a number of loans and mortgages.
Officers may fight for glory or advancement, but ordinary soldiers fight for money. Wenlock had demoted me to the status of an ordinary soldier, and I felt a perfect right, indeed a duty, to fill my pockets.
We left alone the Duke of Roundsilver’s fine house a short distance from Havre-le-Creag’s residence. It was easy to discover his grace’s house, for it had been faced with brilliant Ethlebight brick in a rainbow of colors. I wanted to go into the duke’s cabinet and discover what curiosities he might keep there, but I decided it might be best to wait for an invitation.
When the Knight Marshal entered the city, the official and organized looting began. Military patrols marched up and down the street, homes of the proscribed were put under guard, and clerks began inventories of the possessions of the proscribed. Some of the loot would be awarded to the Knight Marshal, and the properties to Berlauda’s supporters, but most of it would go to the Crown, to help pay for the war. Our own goods were carefully hidden from the confiscating officers.
Our house now became the headquarters of the artillery, and we put a placard on the door to that effect. When other soldiers were assigned to our house by the billeting officers, we told them the house was ours, and they should find another. No one challenged us. We ate and drank well on the late baron’s largesse.
The heads of Clayborne, Andrian, and the rest were set up on pikes before the Hall of Justice, and my travels took me there one day. I looked up at Clayborne’s handsome head, its glossy dark hair falling about its ears, and wondered about ambition and its limits, whether Clayborne or his supporters had ever concerned themselves with the human coin they spent, the men whose lives they were to throw away on Exton Scales in their last wager against Berlauda’s army.