‘Sex?’ asked Guisarme. ‘We wouldn’t use women as spies, would we?’
There was the briefest pause, as there always is when a dozen men realise that one of their number is a fool.
‘Unchivalrous,’ muttered Guisarme, in the tone of a man who’s just discovered that his neighbours worship Satan.
De Marche cleared his throat. ‘If Your Grace will admit of the possibilities,’ he began carefully.
The King was mindful that one of his duties was not to leave his best servants blowing in the wind. He smiled and sat up. ‘What do we need to start our horse in this race?’ he asked.
De Marche smiled. ‘Your Grace, it was in my mind to send a trade expedition, well dowered with our goods – swords and armour, which the Outwallers value above all things; wool and linen, flashy, cheap jewels such as peasant women wear, and bronze and copper pots for cooking. I’m told, by our Etruscan source, that these sell well in the north.’ He nodded. ‘Those have to be well made. The Outwallers like shiny things, but they are not children nor yet fools. So the Etruscan tells me.’
The King pulled at his beard and looked at his Horse.
Abblemont nodded slowly. ‘I would do this thing,’ he said carefully. ‘But I would prime the pump first – with a mailed fist.’
That was the right kind of talk for the war council. De Ribeaumont – obviously bored and ill at ease talking to a merchant, even one who’d fought at sea and earned himself a knighthood – sat up and smiled. ‘A military expedition?’ he asked.
Abblemont smiled his simian smile. ‘Something a trifle subtler than a charge of knights, Marshal.’
‘Of course,’ the Marshal said.
‘Perhaps a sellsword,’ Abblemont said, almost as an afterthought.
It was the King’s turn to straighten up. ‘Not that arrogant boy and his company of thugs,’ he shot. The King had endured an unfortunate encounter with a company of lances the year before, when he tried to take Arles by subterfuge, and failed.
Abblemont smiled. If I could hire that company then I would, he thought, but they had apparently left for Nova Terra and vanished into its maw.
De Marche leaned forward. ‘Your Grace, I have a man in mind – a very successful adventurer, one of Your Grace’s own subjects. Ser Hartmut Li Orguelleus.’
‘The slaver knight?’ the King said, and he winced. ‘The Black Knight? The Knight of Ill Renown?’
De Marche shrugged. ‘They are just names, Your Grace. His loyalty is deep and entirely to Your Grace. He has sailed far to the south, landed in Ifriquy’a and come away the conqueror.’
‘In the Middle Sea, he’s served our purposes well,’ Abblemont said. ‘Though I confess I wouldn’t invite him home to dinner. Nor would I allow him to address my daughter, no matter how honourable his intentions.’
‘Tar sticks,’ said the King. ‘He has an evil name. He fought for the Necromancer in Ifriqu’ya!’
De Marche sighed. ‘Your Grace, it takes a remarkable man to go to a distant land at the head of a tiny company, and make war for us. To make decisions-’
‘Decisions that would bind us,’ the King said. He looked pensive.
‘The kind of decisions that the Outwallers would respect,’ Abblemont said cautiously.
‘He has been very successful taking slaves in Ifriquy’a,’ de Marche put in.
‘He almost started a war with Dar-as-Salaam that could have broken our Middle Sea trade,’ hissed the King.
Abblemont shrugged. ‘To be fair, he also defeated the Emir’s fleet at Na’dia.’
The men around the table shared a glance. A long one. The King looked from one to another.
‘Great plans require great risks, and I suspect that the employment of this terrible man is not the smallest risk we will incur to take Nova Terra,’ said the King. He swirled the wine in his golden cup and stood. ‘Let it be so,’ he said, and de Marche smiled.
‘Your Grace,’ he agreed, with a bow. ‘I have him waiting below.’
The King paled. He put a hand on his chest. ‘I don’t intend to meet him,’ the King snapped. ‘Send him to massacre heathens and bring me what I desire, but do not expect me to suffer his odious spirit in my chambers.’
The merchant recoiled. He bowed with proper ceremony. The King relented and gave him a hand to kiss, and de Marche bowed deeply.
‘I approve of what you are doing,’ the King said in a low voice.
Abblemont smiled very slightly – much as he had when the King had shown his pleasure to the Lady Clarissa.
If only people would simply believe me, he thought, this would all be so much easier. He had a strategy of campaign ready for Ser Hartmut. He had a strategy that would end in the subjugation of Alba and the Empire – and Arles and Etrusca as well. He doubted he’d see it all done in his own lifetime, but the recruitment of the Black Knight was a vital step.
‘He’ll need a siege train,’ Abblemont added.
‘Whatever for?’ asked the King. De Marche was already gone.
‘It would take us years to build a port in Nova Terra,’ Abblemont said. ‘So much easier to seize one instead.’
The King sighed. ‘I sense that you have already chosen your target,’ he said.
Abblemont smiled. ‘One of the foremost castles in the world,’ he said. ‘Ticondaga.’
‘I’ve never heard of it, Abblemont.’ The King shrugged, distancing himself from the idea. He leaned back. ‘May I send for the lady now, my Horse?’
Abblemont pursed his lips.
‘Why target such a powerful castle, then?’ asked the King.
‘It will save money in garrison. And it will send a strong message to Your Grace’s enemies. And rebound all the more to Your Grace’s glory.’ Abblemonte bowed.
‘And if the Black Knight fails, or commits some hideous crime instead?’ the King asked.
Abblemont shrugged. ‘Then we disown him and speak much of the rapaciousness of merchants and mercenaries.’ He rubbed the back of his thumb against a small hermetical instrument that looked like a stud on his sword belt. It would cause a low musical tone to play in Clarissa de Sartres’ ear, summoning her. It was the Horse’s method of ensuring that she always ‘happened’ upon the King.
The King gave his courtier a wry smile. ‘Let it be so,’ he said.
The Long Lakes – Squash Country – Nita Qwan
Peter – Nita Qwan – wouldn’t have gone back to Ifrquy’a if he’d been offered a winged ship and a company of houris.
He had this elaborate thought as he lay on his back under a magnificent maple tree, watching his wife’s round bottom as she hoed their squash, cutting weeds with the bronze-tipped hoe he’d made from a scrap of discarded armour.
She was probably pregnant, and that neither lessened her beauty nor made him feel that he should leap to his feet and hoe the ground for her. It was women’s work.
Behind him three great hides stretched on frames indicated that he had pulled his weight. And the shape of her buttocks and complete lack of any covering beyond a single layer of deerskin – their rhythmic movement-
She turned and looked at him under her lashes. She laughed. ‘I’m a shaman – I can read your mind.’
She went back to hoeing her way down the row. She reaped the weeds like a soldier killing boggles – efficient and ruthless. He had never imagined her to be such a good farmer, but then, when he killed her husband and took her, he’d known nothing about her but the softness between her thighs.
She was working her way back along the edge of the corn now – the head-high, ripe corn. The matrons had already harvested the first ears and all the maidens of the right age had run through the corn with young men chasing them. There had been a great deal of laughter and gallons of good cider, and Ota Qwan had taken a young wife.
His own wife stopped and pulled a ripe ear of corn from a stalk. Slowly she stripped back the husk and the silk. Her eyes met his. Her lips touched the end of the ear of corn-
He leaped to his feet and ran to her.
She stepped into the rows of corn and dropped her wrap skirt. ‘Mind the baby,’ she said. And laughed into his mouth.