“Ready your pieces!”
The arquebusiers cocked back the wheel-locks which held the glowing match.
“Front rank, kneel!”
The front rank did so.
“Wait!” the deacon shouted angrily. What did these men think they were doing? Behind him, his brother Knights looked on in alarm. One or two began kicking their tired horses into life.
“Front rank, give fire!”
“No!” the deacon yelled.
An eruption of flame and smoke, a furious rolling crackle. The deacon was blasted off his horse. His men staggered in the saddle. Horses were screaming as the balls ripped through their iron armour and into their flesh. The massive animals tumbled to the ground, crushing their riders beneath them. A fog of smoke toiled in the air, filling the breadth of the street.
In the powder-smoke, the surviving Knights heard the officer’s voice again.
“Rear rank, present your pieces.”
The surviving Knights turned as one to the enemy and savagely urged their terrified horses into a canter. Shrieking like fiends they charged down the street into the smoke, determined to avenge their fallen brethren.
They were met by a second storm of gunfire.
All of them went down. The momentum of the two lead riders carried them into the ranks of the arquebusiers, and the horses collapsed through the formation scattering the Hebrian soldiers like skittles. One of the Knights was flung clear, clanging across the cobbles. As he struggled to his feet in the heavy armour that the Knights wore, two Hebrian soldiers flipped him on his back again, as though he were a monstrous beetle. They stood on his wrists, pinioning him, then ripped off his casque and cut his throat.
A final shot as a moaning horse was put out of its pain. From the doors of the houses the people emerged. A ragged cheer went up as they saw the riddled corpses which littered the roadway, though some went to their knees in the clotted gore, cradling the head of a butchered friend or relative. The keening cries of women replaced the cheering.
The citizens of Abrusio rebuilt their barricades whilst the Hebrian soldiers methodically reloaded their weapons and resumed their hidden stations once more.
“I don’t believe it!” Presbyter Quirion said. Abrusio stretched out mist-shrouded and sun-gilded in the morning light. He blinked as the sound of arquebus fire came again, echoing over the packed rooftops to the monastery-tower wherein he stood.
“So far three of our patrols have been ambushed,” the Knight-Abbot said. “Skirmishing goes on even as we speak. Our casualties have been serious. We are cavalry, without firearms. We are not equipped to fight street battles with foes who possess arquebuses.”
“And you are sure it is the Hebrian soldiery who are involved, not civilians with guns?”
“Yes, your excellency. All our brothers report the same thing: when they try to force the barricades, they are met with disciplined gunnery. It has to be the garrison troops; there can be no other explanation.”
Quirion’s eyes were two blue fires.
“Recall our brethren. There is no profit in them throwing themselves under the guns of rebels and heretics.”
“Yes, your excellency.”
“And have all officers above the rank of deacon assemble in the speechhall at noon. I’ll address them myself.”
“At once, your excellency.” The Knight-Abbot made the Sign of the Saint on his armoured breast and left.
“What does this mean?” the Presbyter asked.
“Would you like me to find out for you?” Sastro di Carrera said, one hand fiddling with the ruby set in his earlobe.
Quirion turned to face his companion squarely. They were the only occupants of the high-ceilinged room.
“No.”
“You don’t like me, your excellency. Why is that?”
“You are a man without much faith, Lord Carrera. You care only for your own advantage.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Sastro asked smiling.
“Not everyone. Not my brothers . . . Do you know anything about these developments then?”
Sastro yawned, stretching out his long arms. “I can deduce as well or better than the next man. My bet is that Rovero and Mercado have somehow had a communication from our ex-King Abeleyn. They have come down on his side at last—another reason why they postponed the viewing of the Pontifical bull scheduled yesterday. The army and the fleet will hold the Lower City against us until Abeleyn arrives in person, then go over on to the offensive. It is also my guess that your Knights were not meant to be slain; they pressed too hard. Obviously the general and the admiral meant this to look like a popular uprising, but they had to use national troops to defend their perimeter when your brethren tested it.”
“Then we know where we stand,” Quirion snarled. His face looked as though invisible strings had pulled chin and forehead towards each other; fury had clenched it as it might a fist. “They will be excommunicated,” he went on. “I will see them burn. But first we must crush this uprising.”
“That may not be so easy.”
“What of your friend Freiss?” And when Sastro seemed genuinely surprised, Quirion’s bass gravelled out a harsh laugh. “You think I did not know of your meetings with him? I will not let you play a private game in this city, my Lord Carrera. You will pull alongside the rest of us, or you will not be a player at all.”
Sastro regained his composure, shrugging. His hand toyed now with the gleaming, scented point of his beard. He needed to toy with his features constantly, it seemed to Quirion. An irritating habit. The man was probably a pederast; he smelled like a sultan’s harem. But he was the most effective of the nobles, and a necessary ally.
“Very well,” Sastro said casually. “My friend Freiss, as you put it, says he has won over several hundred men of the garrison, men who cannot stomach heresy and who expect to be rewarded for their loyalty once the Church has assumed full control of Abrusio.”
“Where are they?”
“In barracks. Mercado has his suspicions and has segregated them from the other tercios. He is probably having them watched also.”
“Then they are of little use to us.”
“They could stage a diversion while your brethren assault these absurd barricades.”
“My brethren are not equipped for street fighting, as you have already heard. No, there must be another way.”
Sastro regarded the ornate plasterwork of the ceiling with some interest. “There are, of course, my personal retainers . . .”
“How many?”
“I could muster maybe eight hundred if I called out some of the lesser client houses as well.”
“Their arms?”
“Arquebuses and sword-and-buckler men. No pikes, but then pikes are no better at street fighting than cavalry.”
“That would be ideal. They could cover an assault by my brethren. How long would it take to muster them?”
“A few days.”
The two men looked at each other like a pair of prize-fighters weighing up each other’s strengths and weaknesses in the ring.
“You realize I would be risking my house, my followers, ultimately my fortune,” Sastro drawled.
“The Hebrian treasury is in the possession of the council. You would be amply compensated,” Quirion growled.
“That is not what I was thinking of,” Sastro said. “No, money is not my main concern. It is just that my men like to fight for the betterment of their lord’s situation as well as their own.”
“They would be defending the True Faith of the Ramusian kingdoms. Is that not reward enough?”
“It should be, I know, my dear Presbyter. But not all men are as . . . single-minded, you might say, as your brethren.”
“What do you want, Lord Carrera?” Quirion asked, though he thought he already knew.
“You are looking through the archives, are you not, trying to establish who should take the throne now that the Hibrusid line is finished?”