The rams from fourteen Astaran galleys were set in the stone near the ceiling like the trophy heads of a hunter; they testified to the years of naval rivalry with Astarac. The curved scimitars of corsairs and Sea-Merduks crisscrossed the walls in patterns of flickering steel, and immensely detailed models of ships stood on stone pedestals below them. On the walls also, vellum maps of the Hebrian coast, the Malacar Straits and the Levangore hung like pale tapestries between the weapons. The room was a lesson in Hebrian naval history.
Another man stood with his back to the fire so that the flames threw his shadow across the flagged floor like a cape. He turned his head as Admiral Rovero and the old mage entered and Golophin saw the familiar shine of silver from the battered face.
“Good to see you again, General,” he said.
General Mercado bowed. His visage was something of a marvel, created by Golophin himself. As a colonel in the bodyguard of Bleyn the Pious, he had taken a scimitar blow in the face. The blade had slashed away his nose, his cheekbone and part of his temple. Golophin had been on hand to save his sight and his life, and he had grafted a mask of silver on the injury. One half of Mercado’s face was thus the bearded countenance of a veteran soldier, the other was an inhuman façade of glittering metal from which a bloodshot eye glared, lidless and tearless, but sustained by pure theurgy, a spell of permanence whose casting had cost Golophin the last of the scanty hair on his scalp. That had been twenty years ago.
“Have a seat, Golophin,” the General said. The metal half of his face made his voice resound oddly, as though he were speaking from out of a tin cup.
“You’ve heard the rumours, I suppose,” the old mage said, seating himself comfortably not far from the fire and rummaging through his robes for his tobacco pouch.
“Not rumours, not any more. The Papal bull of excommunication arrived two days ago. Rovero and I have been summoned to the palace tomorrow to view it and reconsider our positions.”
“So the pair of you will walk tamely into the palace.”
The human part of Mercado’s face quirked upwards in a smile. “Not tamely, no. I intend to take an honour guard of two hundred arquebusiers, and Rovero will have a hundred marines. It will be public, no chance of a dagger in the back.”
Golophin thumbed leaf into the bowl of his long-stemmed pipe. “It is not my place to preach to you about security,” he conceded. “What will you do if you are satisfied the bull is genuine?”
Mercado paused. He and Rovero looked at one another. “First tell us what you have to say on the matter.”
“Then your minds are not made up?”
“Damn it, Golophin, stop playing games!” Admiral Rovero burst out. “What of Abeleyn? Where is he and how does he fare?”
The old wizard lit his pipe with a spill caught from the flames of the fire. He puffed in silence for a few seconds, filling the room with the scents of Calmar and Ridawan.
“Abeleyn has just fought a battle,” he said calmly at last.
“What?” Mercado cried, horrified. “Where? With whom?”
“Two squadrons of corsairs ambushed his ships as they were sailing south through the Fimbrian Gulf. He beat them off, but lost three-quarters of his men and two of his own vessels. He had to beach his remaining ship on the coast of Imerdon. He is intending to march overland the rest of the way to Hebrion.”
Rovero was grinding one fist into a palm, striding back and forth restlessly and spitting words out of the corner of his mouth as though he were unwilling to let them go.
“Corsairs that far north. In the gulf! Two squadrons, you say. Now there’s a happy chance, a synchronicity of fate. Someone tried to take the King, that’s clear. But who? Who hired them?”
“Why Admiral,” Golophin said with mild surprise, “you almost sound as though you care about the fate of our heretical ex-monarch.”
Rovero stopped his pacing and glared at Golophin. “Beat them off, eh? Then at least he hasn’t forgotten all I’ve taught him. Ex-monarch, my arse! Assault the person of the King, would they, the Goddamned heathen piratical dastards . . .”
“He sank three of them,” Golophin went on. “They were in galleasses, the older sort with no broadsides, only chasers.”
“How were the King’s vessels armed?” Rovero demanded, his face alight with professional interest.
“Culverins, sakers. But that was only on the carrack. The two nefs had falcons alone. The corsairs sank one and burned the other to the waterline.”
“Abeleyn’s bodyguard?” Mercado asked abruptly.
“Almost all lost. Most were in the nefs. They gave a good account of themselves, though. Abeleyn has barely a hundred men left to him.”
“They were good men,” Mercado murmured. “The best of the Abrusio garrison.”
“Where has he beached? How long will he take to get here?” Admiral Rovero asked, his eyes as narrow as the edge of a blade.
“That I don’t know for sure, alas, and neither did the King when . . . when I communicated with him last. He is in the coastal marshes, close to the border with Imerdon, south-west of the mouth of the Habrir river. That is all I know.”
The admiral and the general were silent, conflicting emotions flitting across their faces. “Is Abeleyn still your liege-lord, gentlemen?” Golophin asked. “He needs you now as he never has before.”
Rovero grimaced as though he had bitten into a lemon. “God forgive me if I do wrong, but I am the King’s man, Golophin. The lad is a fighter, always has been. He is a worthy successor to his father, whatever the Ravens might say.”
Only someone watching Golophin with particular care could have seen the tiny whistle of breath that escaped his lips, the imperceptible sag of relief which relaxed his hitherto rigid shoulder blades.
“General,” he said quietly to Mercado, “it would seem that Admiral Rovero still has a king. What say you in this matter?”
Mercado turned his face from Golophin so that the mage could see only the expressionless metal side.
“Abeleyn is my king too, Golophin, God knows. But can a king rule if his soul is damned? Who would gainsay the word of the Pontiff, the successor to Ramusio? Maybe the Inceptines are right. The Merduk War is God’s punishment. We all have a penance to do before the world can be set to rights.”
“The innocent are burning, Albio,” Golophin said, using the general’s first name. “A heretic sits on the throne of the Pontiff whilst its true occupant is in the east. Macrobius lives, and he is aiding the Torunnans in their battles to maintain the frontier. He helped them save Ormann Dyke when the world thought it irredeemably lost. The faith is with him. He is our spiritual head, not this usurper who sits in Charibon.”
Mercado twisted to meet Golophin’s eyes. “Are you so sure?”
Golophin raised an eyebrow. “I have my ways. How else do you think I stay abreast of Abeleyn’s adventures?”
The fire cracked and spat. A gun began to boom out the evening salute somewhere on the battlements beyond. They would be lighting the ship beacons along the harbours of the city. The men of the ships would be changing watch, half of them trooping into the messes for the evening meal.
Faint and far-off amid the nearer noises, Golophin thought he could hear the cathedral bells tolling Vespers up on Abrusio Hill, nearly two miles away. He knew that if he stepped outside and looked that way he would be able to make out the dying glow of the pyres, finally fading. The dwindling reminder of another day’s genocide. He stifled the bitter fury which always arose when he thought of it.
“We must play for time,” Mercado said at last. “Rovero and I must not see this bull of theirs. We must hold them off as long as we are able, and get Abeleyn into the city safely. Once he is back in Abrusio, the task is simpler.”