“And if the fire detonates the powder stores?”
“The main stores are thirty feet below ground in stone cellars. They have pipes in them which let out to the harbour. If the worst comes to the worst I can order the pipes opened and the powder magazines flooded. They would take half the city with them when they went up. Don’t worry, Golophin-I won’t let that happen. But it will mean destroying our powder and ammunition reserves, leaving only the naval stores here in the tower.”
“Do it,” Golophin said grimly. “Abrusio is hurt badly enough as it is. We must preserve something of her for Abeleyn to reclaim.”
“Agreed.” Mercado called an aide and began dictating the necessary orders.
“Rovero has taken a squadron to Pendero’s Landing,” the General went on when the aide had left. “Two carracks, some caravels and a trio of nefs in which are three thousand marines and arquebusiers of the garrison. He is going to try and convince the King that a land assault over the city walls will be more effective than attempting to carry the Great Harbour. If we can break the boom tonight, then in a couple of days we will be assaulting from both land and sea and another squadron can give supporting fire to the overland force if they attack the walls near the coast. That is Abeleyn’s best bet, in my opinion. They have us pinned down here, by the fire itself and the guns they can bring to bear on us from Abrusio Hill. Also they are thin on the ground, and will be hard put to it to see off two attacks at once.”
“Whatever seems best,” Golophin said. “I am no general or admiral. I’ll keep Abeleyn informed, though.”
“Can that bird of yours bear a burden, Golophin?”
“A light one, perhaps. What is it?”
Mercado produced a heavily sealed scroll from his doublet. The galley-prow emblem of Astarac could be clearly seen, melted into the crimson wax which fastened it shut.
“This came today by special courier from Cartigella. It bears King Mark’s personal seal and therefore can be opened only by another monarch. I think it may be urgent.”
Golophin took the scroll. He itched to open it himself. “Good news, let us hope.”
“I doubt it. Rumours have been coming in for days of an attempted coup in Cartigella, and of fighting through the streets of the city itself.”
“The world goes mad,” Golophin said quietly, stuffing the scroll into a pocket of his over-large robe.
“The world we knew is no more,” Mercado said crisply. “Nothing will ever bring it back again now. If we are to fashion a new one, then we must build it on blood and gunpowder. And on faith.”
“No,” Golophin snapped. “Faith can have nothing to do with it. If we rear up something new, then let it be built upon reason and keep the clerics and the Pontiffs out of it. They have meddled for far too long: that is what this war of ours is about.”
“A man must believe in something, Golophin.”
“Then let him believe in himself, and leave God out of it!”
In that winter of war and slaughter there were still a few kingdoms untouched by the chaos which was sweeping across Normannia. In Alstadt, capital of mighty Almark on the icy shores of the Hardic Sea, the trade and business of the city went on much as usual, with one difference: the banners of the Royal palace were at half-mast and wheeled traffic had been barred from the streets surrounding the palace. Alstadt was a sprawling, disorganized city, the youngest of the Ramusian capitals. It was unwalled save for the citadel which held the arsenals and the palace itself. Almark was a wide kingdom, a land of open steppes and rolling hills which extended from the Tulmian Gulf in the west to the River Saeroth which marked its border with Finnmark in the east. And to the south the kingdom extended to the snowy Narian Hills and the Sea of Tor, on whose shores nestled the monastery-city of Charibon. It was for this reason that Almark maintained a small garrison in Charibon to supplement the Knights Militant usually based there. Almark was a staunch ally of the Church which Charibon and its inhabitants represented, and its ailing monarch, Haukir VII, had always been a faithful son of that Church.
But Haukir was on his deathbed and he had no heir to succeed him, only a clutch of dissolute sister-sons whom the Almarkan people would not have trusted with the running of a baker’s shop, let alone the mightiest kingdom north of the Malvennors and the Cimbrics. So the banners flew at half-mast, and the streets around the palace were quiet but for the screams of the scavenging gulls which swooped inland from the grey Hardic. And the dying King lay breathing his last surrounded by his counsellors and the Inceptine Prelate of the kingdom, Marat, who would oversee his departure from the world and close his tired eyes when his spirit fled.
The bedchamber of the King was dark and stuffy, full of the reek of old flesh. The King lay in the middle of the canopied bed like a castaway thrown up on a pale-sanded shore, one voyage ended and another about to begin. The Prelate, whom some said was his natural brother on the father’s side, wiped the spittle which coursed in a line from one corner of Haukir’s mouth into his slush-white beard. Some said it had been the fever, caught whilst journeying back from the Conclave of Kings in Vol Ephrir. Some said in whispers it was a stroke brought on by the King’s outrage at the heresy of his fellow monarchs. Whatever had caused it, he lay withered and immobile in that wasteland of fine linen, his breath a stertorous whistle in his throat.
The King waved his hand at the assembled lawyers and courtiers and clerics, dismissing them from the room until all who remained were Prelate Marat, the Privy Minister and an inkwell- and parchment-laden Royal clerk, who looked distinctly uneasy at being alone in such august company.
The seagulls shrieked outside, and the hum of the living city was far off and distant, another world heard through a mirror. Haukir beckoned them closer.
“My end is here at last,” he croaked in a poor mockery of his bellowing voice. “And I am not afraid. I go to meet He who made me, and the company of the living Saints, with the Blessed Ramusio at their head. But there is something I must do ere I leave this world. I must provide for the future welfare of my kingdom, and must ensure that it endures within the protection of the One True Faith after I am gone. Almark must remain firm in this era of heresy and war. I wish to alter my will. .”
He closed his eyes and swallowed painfully. The clerk was nudged by the Privy Minister and hurriedly dipped his quill in the inkwell which dangled from one buttonhole.
“The main provisions I made prior to this date I set aside. Only the secondary provisions of my previous will shall be honoured. I name Prelate Marat, Privy Minister Erland and-” He stopped and glared at the clerk. “What’s your name, man?”
“F-Finnson of Glebir, if it please your majesty.”
“And Finnson of Glebir as my witnesses on this fifteenth day of Forgist, in the year of the Blessed Saint five hundred and fifty-one.”
The ragged breathing began to quicken. The King coughed up a mass of phlegm which Marat wiped away as tenderly as a nurse.
“Having no heirs of my blood which I consider suitable for bearing the burden of this crown, and seeing around me the world at this time falling ever farther into anarchy and heresy, I hereby leave the Almarkan crown to the stewardship of the Holy Church. I name my revered confessor, Prelate Marat, as regent of the realm until the High Pontiff, His Holiness Himerius of Hebrion, may see fit to make his own provisions for the ruling of the kingdom. As I entrust my soul to God, so I entrust my country to the bosom of God’s representatives on earth, and I trust they will watch over Almark as the Blessed Saint watches over my pilgrim spirit as it makes its way into the glories of heaven. .”
Haukir’s head seemed to sink heavily into the pillow. Sweat shone over his face and his lips were blue.