“My thanks for their advice. Now run to the waterfront and hurry along those landing parties. I want the palace surrounded before the traitors can escape. Go!”
“Yes, your majesty.” And Abeleyn had disappeared into the midst of his jubilant, advancing troops.
“I T is over,” said Quirion.
Sastro’s face was as pale as snow. “What do you mean, ‘over’?”
They could hear the crackling of arquebus volleys as they stood in the high chambers of the palace’s topmost tower. It and the thunder of heavy guns mingled with the crash and rumble of lacerated masonry. Shells were falling closer. Men’s voices could be made out in individual screams rather than the far-off roar of battle which had been what they had heard from this eminence so far. A curtain of battle din was inexorably advancing towards them.
“Our lines are broken, Lord Carrera, and our forces—even my Knights—are in full retreat. The enemy ships have broken the boom and are in the Great Harbour trying the range for the palace. In a few minutes the bombardment of this very edifice will commence. We are defeated.”
“But how is that possible? Only this morning we were ready to discuss terms with an exhausted enemy.”
“You were ready. I never believed it would happen. Abeleyn is in the city as we speak, advancing on the palace. His men fight like fiends when he is at their head, and ours become discouraged. It may be we can draw together what troops of ours remain and make a stand here, perhaps sue for some terms other than those of unconditional surrender. I do not know. Your retainers are in utter rout, and even my people are much broken up. I have my senior officers in the streets trying to rally them, but I do not hold out much hope.”
“Then we must escape,” Sastro said in a strangled voice, his dreams and ambitions crumbling away before his eyes. But his life—it must be possible to survive. It was unthinkable that he would not.
“The palace is surrounded. There is no hope of escape, and especially not for you.” Here a note of some subtle satisfaction crept into Quirion’s voice. “If you are caught they will execute you out of hand for high treason. Myself and my men I believe they may let depart in peace—we are not Hebrionese, after all—but you and your men are traitors and will pay the ultimate penalty. I suggest, Lord Carrera, that to avoid public humiliation at the hands of Abeleyn’s soldiery, you use this—” And here Quirion held out a long, wicked-looking knife.
“Suicide?” Sastro squawked. “Is that the only end for me? Take my own life?”
“It would be a kinder end than the one Abeleyn will permit you.”
“And you—you will tamely submit to the dictates of a heretic king? What will the Pontiff think of that, Presbyter?”
“The Pontiff will not be pleased, naturally, but better that I bring him a thousand Knights out of this debacle than nothing. There is the future to think of. My men must live to fight again for the Church.”
“The future,” Sastro said bitterly. Tears were brimming in his eyes. “You must help me get away, Quirion. I am to be King of Hebrion. I am the only alternative to Abeleyn.”
“You bought your nomination with your men’s bodies,” Quirion said harshly. “There are others whose blood is better. Make a good end of it, Lord Carrera. Show them that you died a man.”
Sastro was weeping openly. “I cannot! How can I die, I, Sastro di Carrera? It cannot be. There must be something you can do.” He clutched at Quirion’s armoured shoulders as if he were a drowning man reaching for his rescuer. A spasm of disgust crossed the Presbyter’s face.
“Help me, Quirion! I am rich—I can give you anything.”
“You whining cur!” Quirion spat. “You would send a hundred thousand men to their deaths without a thought, and yet you cringe at the prospect of your own. Great Gods, what a king you would have made for this unhappy realm! So you will give me anything?”
“Anything, for God’s sake, man! Only name it.”
“I will take your life, then,” the Presbyter snarled, and he thrust the knife into the nobleman’s stomach.
Sastro’s eyes flared in disbelief. He staggered backwards.
“Sweet Saints,” he gasped. “You have killed me.”
“Aye,” Quirion said shortly, “I have. Now get about your dying like a man. I go to surrender Abrusio to the heretic.”
He turned on his heel and left the room without a backward glance.
Sastro fell to his knees, his face running with tears.
“Quirion!”
He gripped the hilt of the knife and tried to pull it out of his belly, but only yelped at the pain of it, his fingers slipping on the slick blood. He fell to his side on the stone floor.
“Oh, sweet Blessed Saint, help me,” he whispered. And then was silent. A bubble of blood formed over his open mouth, hovered, and finally popped as his spirit fled.
“T HERE are white flags all over the city, sire,” Sergeant Orsini told Abeleyn. “The enemy are throwing down their arms—even the Knights. Abrusio is ours!”
“Ours,” Abeleyn repeated. He was bloody, grimed and exhausted. He and Orsini walked up the steep street to where the abbey of the Inceptines glowered sombre and high-spired on the skyline ahead. His men were around him, weapons still at the shoulder, but the glee of victory was brightening their faces. Shells were falling, but they were being fired by the ships in the harbour. The enemy batteries had been silenced. Men sank into crouches as a shell demolished the side of a house barely fifty yards away. Streamers of oily smoke were rising from the abbey as it burned from a dozen direct hits.
“Courier,” Abeleyn croaked. His mouth felt as though someone had filled it full of gunpowder.
“Sire?”
“Run down to the waterfront. Get a message to Admiral Rovero. The bombardment of the Upper City is to cease at once. The enemy has surrendered.”
“Gladly, sire.” The courier sped off.
“I wish you joy of your victory, sire,” Orsini said, grinning.
Abeleyn found himself smiling, though he did not know why. He held out his hand, and after a moment’s surprise Orsini took it. They shook as though they had just sealed a bargain. The men cheered at the sight.
More Royal soldiers were congregating as the news spread. Soon there was a crowd of several hundred about Abeleyn, shaking their swords and arquebuses in the air and cheering, heedless of the cannonballs which were arcing down not far away. They picked up Abeleyn and carried him in crude triumphal procession towards the burning abbey and the shell-pocked palace which belonged to him again. Abrusio, broken and smouldering, had been restored to her rightful sovereign.
“Long live the King!” they shouted, a hoarse roar of triumph and delight, and Abeleyn, borne aloft by the shoulders and the approbation of the men who had fought with him and for him, thought that it was for this, this feeling, that men became conquerors. It was more precious than gold, more difficult to earn than any other form of love. It was the essence of kingship.
The shouting, parading troops were almost at the walls of the abbey, their numbers swelled to thousands, when the last salvo from the ships in the harbour came screaming down among them.
The street erupted around Abeleyn. One moment he was being borne along on the shoulders of a victorious army, and then the world became a heaving nightmare of bursting shells and screaming men. His bearers were scattered under him and he fell heavily to the cobbles, cracking his head on the stone. Someone—he thought it was Orsini—had thrown his body across him, but Abeleyn would have none of that. He would not cower behind other men like a frightened woman. He was a king.
Thus he was fighting to get to his feet in the panicked crush, pushing men aside to right and left, when the last shell in the salvo exploded not two yards away, and his world disappeared.
TWENTY-FIVE