Aeskepiles cleared his throat. ‘We are months behind our schedule, and we need to move.’
Andronicus raised his eyebrows. ‘Schedule? Master sorcerer, I do not have a schedule. I intend to save my country from a usurper and from a long reign of bad government. That will take years.’
Aeskepiles was very still for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice sounded unctuous. ‘Of course, my lord. I only spoke in the most general of fashions. Please forgive me.’ He leaned forward. ‘I am still surprised at the ease of his unmaking.’
‘Ease?’ Demetrius spat. ‘Three botched attempts and then he was killed when an amulet exploded?’
Aeskepiles smiled. ‘I could not have hoped for better,’ he said.
Andronicus looked at both of them as if they were children. ‘You imagine she will invite us back,’ he said.
‘If she does not, we can simply tell the people that she betrayed her own father,’ Demetrius said.
Andronicus raised his head from his fist. ‘And everyone will believe us, of course. Listen, you two fools. What you have done is to win this stalemate – and for her. She has the army, now – this Red Knight saw to that. She has her own fleet and it has been paid. The Etruscans, may they be damned to hell, will now pay her a tax.’ He sat back and rested both arms on the arms of his huge chair. ‘In a way – in a strange way – I admire this Red Knight. He did many of the things I’d have liked to do myself.’ He looked at Demetrius. ‘I suspect that when she is ready, she will offer you marriage, my son. And you will accept it. My titles will be restored, and you will be her consort. If you are lucky, you will be allowed to lead armies. At some point, some impious man will put a knife in her father’s throat or wrap a bowstring around it.’
Aeskepiles looked at the old Duke as if he were a pile of dung. ‘What foolishness is this? And no man living calls me a fool to my face.’
The old Duke sneered. ‘You are a fool. An arrogant, power-mad fool, just as the Patriarch warned me. Arrest him.’ He waved at two soldiers. ‘Never fear, Magister – I was never going to make you Patriarch anyway.’ He turned to his son. ‘But what am I going to do with you?’ he asked.
Liviapolis – The Red Knight
The company marched out of Liviapolis at the break of day, and it was clear from the moment that they cleared the palace gate that the princess was not going to trust them even in the streets of the city. The Vardariotes took post all along their line of the march, and all the city stradiotes followed at their heels. Two hundred Nordikans rode along behind their baggage train, threatening instant retribution for any misdeed.
Ser Jehan led the column, with Ser Milus at his side carrying the furled black banner. Men wore their scarlet surcoats with an air of surly defiance. Most of the archers glared at the bystanders who came to gape – most of the men-at-arms rode with their eyes down. The company’s women rode palfreys, now, and most wore short swords and scarlet cot-hardies too, but uniformity couldn’t hide their air of desperation.
The word was that the mercenaries were being evicted unpaid.
Near the gate, a pair of Nordikans saluted Ser Jehan, and Wilful Murder spat.
Just behind him, Nell giggled. As they rode through the great Gate of Ares, she poked Wilful in the ribs. ‘You’re over-acting,’ she said.
‘Shut up, hussy,’ he hissed. ‘You’ll wreck it all, and the spies’ll hear you and we’ll all be killed. Mark my words.’
When the company passed under the Gate of Ares for the last time, the two Nordikans on duty saluted with their axes until the last woman had passed under the iron portcullis. And then they mounted horses already saddled, and joined the company of Nordikans and the stradiotes shadowing the company.
They marched west on the road to Alba. After the crossroads, the pace picked up. A mile past the crossroads, a hundred Vardariotes galloped past them, spraying dust from the newly hardened ground. The snow was already melted in the valleys, although the rivers were full, and there were flowers in the lowest ground. And the sun was rising earlier.
The man-at-arms behind Ser Milus – the only man in the whole column with his helmet laced on – raised his visor and took a deep breath. Toby leaned over and helped him unlace the great helm he wore, and Father Arnaud helped him with the catches.
When it came off his head, he smiled, his black beard framed in the mail of his aventail, and he swept his great horse out of the column and galloped along.
If there had been watchers in the hills, they’d have heard three ringing cheers.
But the scouts and the Vardariotes had seen to that. The Nordikans joined the company columns, and the city stradiotes fell in as well. And six leagues north of the city, Mag waited with Ser Giorgios and forty more wagons, smuggled out of the city two at a time over the last two weeks.
The Red Knight formed his army in two ranks on either side of the road. He rode all the way along their front, so that they could all see him with his helmet off.
‘Listen, my friends,’ he shouted. They were perfectly silent. ‘I’m a devious bastard, and I don’t always share my plans. But here’s the word – we’ve slipped out of the city, the roads are hard, and in the next few days we’re going to rescue the Emperor.’
For the Nordikans and the stradiotes, the promise of heaven wouldn’t have been better. A cheer belted out to the sky.
He waited until they were done.
‘And then Andronicus will have to come for us,’ he said. ‘We’ll have the better men. He’ll have the numbers.’ He turned his horse in a circle. ‘Every man here, whether a Morean or a mercenary, wants this over with. I intend to force him to commit to a battle. And then I intend that we win it.’ He grinned. ‘We don’t want him to hole up in a fortress. We want him to find us and attack. So follow orders, be alert, and remember – we’re going to have the Emperor with us.’
They cheered again.
Gabriel Muriens wondered what it would be like to exert such power over men’s minds that they would cheer like that for him.
‘March,’ he called. And the army swung onto the road by sections, and followed him.
At Kilkis they turned north. Lord Phokus joined them with another hundred stradiotes, and as many archers mounted on ponies, and they didn’t march north – they dashed north, into Thrake. On the first day they managed almost forty miles. They made a hasty camp where the scouts led them. Before dawn, a barely recovered Gelfred, still white around his own edges, dashed away, and the army rose in the chilly dark, donned armour, cursed the darkness and did not light a single candle. The ground of their fireless camp was littered with forgotten items – but the army passed over the Thrakian hills that day. They had another day of sun, and the roads stayed hard. They were on the ancient Imperial road and the bridges were stone-built.
On the third hard day they made a camp and surrounded it with felled trees in a long criss-crossed abattis like a temporary cattle fence, and they slept with fires lit. They were only fifty leagues from Lonika, and forty from the coast, through the steepest mountains many of them had ever seen.
That day, the flying column detached from the main army – sixty Vardariotes, a dozen lances, and as many Scholae and Nordikans, all with multiple horses. They crossed a tall bridge of ancient stones that towered over a river rushing black beneath its three arches. Chunks of ice were piled against the bridge, and it shuddered as further ice floes struck it, but the bridge was a thousand years old and an early spring was not a serious threat to it.
They rode east, the Red Knight and Gelfred and Count Zac at their head. With them rode Jules Kronmir. He wore a sword and armour like the rest of them.
After an hour of cantering over winter grass, the column halted and every man changed horses.
Ser Michael was with the priest. He knelt briefly in prayer, and then rose to check his girth. He looked at Ser Michael and raised an eyebrow. ‘Why is it that I’m guessing I’m going to hate every minute of the next few days?’ the priest asked.