“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.
“Shrive me of my sins, Marat. Send me on my way,” he whispered, and as the Prelate gave him the final blessing the Privy Minister turned to the scribbling clerk and hissed in an undertone: “Did you get all that?”
The clerk nodded, still scribbling. Marat ended his blessing and then paused.
“Goodnight, brother,” he said softly. He closed the staring eyes and laid the hands over the silent chest.
“The King is dead,” he said.
“Are you sure?” the Privy Minister asked.
“Of course I’m sure! I’ve seen dead men before! Now get that fool to make a copy of the revised will. I want other copies of it made and posted in the market place. And set out the black flags. You know what to do.”
The Privy Minister stared at the cleric for a second, some indefinable tension fizzling in the air between them. Then he got down on one knee and kissed the Prelate’s ring. “I salute the new regent of Almark.”
“And send me a courier, and another clerk. I must get a dispatch off to Charibon at once.”
“The snows—” the Privy Minister began.
“Damn the snows, just do as you’re told. And get this inky-fingered idiot out of here. I will meet the nobles and the garrison commander in the audience chamber in one hour.”
“As you wish,” the Privy Minister said tonelessly.
They exited, and the Prelate was left alone with the dead King. Already he could hear the murmuring in the chambers below which the appearance of the pair had produced among the notables gathered there.
Marat bent his head and prayed in silence for a second, the gulls still calling in their savage forlornness beyond the shuttered windows of the chamber. Then he rose, went to one of the windows and opened the shutters so that the keen sea air might rush in and freshen the death-smelling room.
Alstadt: broad, crude, thriving port-capital of the north. It opened out before him misted in drizzle, hazed by woodsmoke fires, alive with humanity in its tens of thousands. And beyond it, the wide kingdom of Almark with its horse-rich plains, its armies of cuirassiers. Himerius would be pleased: things could not have worked out better. And others would be pleased also.
Marat turned from the cold window to gaze down on the corpse of the King, and his eyes shone with a saffron light that had nothing human in it at all.
TWENTY
T HEY were an unlikely looking crowd, Corfe had to admit to himself. They had never been taught to form ranks, present arms or stand at attention and they milled about in an amorphous mob, as unmilitary a formation as could be imagined.
They were clad in bruised, holed and rusty Merduk armour of every shape and type, but mostly they had picked out the war harness of the Ferinai, the heavy cuirassiers of the east, as it was the best quality. And perhaps it appealed to some savage sensibility within them, for it was the armour of horsemen and these men had once been horsemen. Their fathers and grandfathers had raided the coastal settlements of the Torunnans time out of mind, swooping out of the Cimbric foothills on their rangy black horses—horses which were the product of secret studs high in isolated valleys. Cavalry was what these men ought to be. Horse-soldiers. But Corfe could no more provide them with horses than he could with wings, so they must fight afoot in their outlandish armour.
Armour which had been rendered even more strange-looking by the liberal addition of red paint. The tribesmen seemed as happy as finger-painting children as they splashed it over their armour and hurled it at each other in gore-like gobbets. A crowd had gathered to watch, black-clad Torunnan soldiers lounging in the Quartermaster’s yard and laughing fit to split their sides at the dressing up of the savages from the mountains, the ex-galley slaves.
As soon as the first Torunnan laughs were heard, however, the tribesmen went as silent as crags. A tulwar was scraped out of its threadbare scabbard and Corfe had to step in to prevent a fight which would quickly have turned into a full-scale battle. He called upon Marsch to calm his fellow tribesmen down and the hulking savage harangued his comrades in their own tongue. He was a frightening figure: somehow he had found a Merduk officer’s helm which was decorated with a pair of back-sweeping horns and a beak-like nose-guard. Lathered with red paint, he looked like the apotheosis of some primitive god of slaughter come looking for acolytes.
“Someone to see you, sir,” Ensign Ebro told Corfe as the latter doffed his heavy Merduk helm and wiped the sweat from his face. Ebro also wore the foreign harness, and he looked acutely uncomfortable in it.
“Who is it?” Corfe snapped, squeezing the acrid sweat from his eyes.
“Someone who has tasted gunsmoke with you, Colonel,” another, familiar voice said. Corfe spun to find Andruw there, holding out a hand and grinning. He shouted aloud and pumped the proffered hand up and down. “Andruw! What in the hell are you doing here?”
“I ask myself the same question: what have I done to deserve this? But be that as it may, it would seem that I am to be your adjutant. For what misdeed I know not.”
The pair of them laughed together while Ebro stood stiff and forgotten. Corfe mustered his manners.
“Ensign Ebro, permit me to introduce . . . what rank have they showered upon you, Andruw?”
“Haptman, for my sins.”
“There you are. Haptman Andruw Cear-Adurhal, late of the artillery, who commanded the Barbican Batteries of Ormann Dyke.”
Ebro glanced at Andruw with rather more respect, and bowed. “I am honoured.”
“Likewise.”
“But what are you doing away from the Dyke?” Corfe asked Andruw. “I thought they’d need every gunner they could lay their hands on up there.”
“I was sent to Torunn with dispatches. You have been seeking officers, I hear, driving the muster clerks mad with your enquiries. Apparently they decided that by seconding me to your command they could shut you up.”
“And how goes it at the Dyke? Can they spare you?”
Andruw’s bright humour faded a little. “They are short of everything, Corfe. Martellus is half out of his mind with worry, though as always he hides it well. We have had no reinforcements to replace our losses, no resupply for weeks. We are a forgotten army.”
Andruw’s gaze flicked to the weirdly garbed savages of Corfe’s command as he spoke. Corfe noticed the look and said wryly: “And we are the army they would like to forget.”
There was a pause. Finally Andruw asked: “Have you had your orders yet? Whither are we bound with our garish warrior band?”
“South,” Corfe told him, disgust seeping into his voice. “I had best warn you now, Andruw, that the King expects us to end in some kind of debacle, fighting these rebels in the south. We are of small account in his plans.”
“Hence the quaint war harness.”