“He was a pupil of mine for a time.”
A pageboy knocked and poked his head around the door. “The mule is saddled and ready, sir.”
“Thank you.” Golophin slung his packed leather bag over one thin shoulder, clapped his broad-brimmed hat on his pate, and kissed Isolla hurriedly. “Watch over the King while I’m away, lady.”
“Yes, of course. But Golophin-”
And he was gone. Isolla could have stamped her foot with frustration and curiosity. Then again, why not indulge herself? Much though she liked Golophin, she sometimes found his air of world-weary superiority infuriating.
She would miss the levee and the explorer’s tales, but something told her that Golophin’s urgent errand was tied into the arrivall of this ship from the west.
Isolla strode off to her chambers. She needed to change into clothes more suitable for riding.
ELEVEN
The army woke up in the black hour before the dawn, and in the frigid darkness men stumbled and cursed and blew on numbed fingers as they strapped on their armour and gnawed dry biscuit. Corfe shared a mug of wine with Marsch and Andruw while the trio stood and watched the host of men about them come to life.
“Remember to keep sending back couriers,” Corfe said through teeth clenched against the cold. “I don’t care if there’s nothing to report; at least they’ll keep me updated on your location. And don’t for God’s sake pitch into anything large before the main body comes up.”
“No problem,” Andruw said. “And I won’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, either.”
“Fair enough.” The truth was that Corfe hated to send the Cathedrallers off under someone else’s command-even if it were Andruw. He was beginning to realise that his elevated rank entailed sacrifice as well as opportunity. He shook the hands of Marsch and Andruw and then watched them disappear into the pre-dawn gloom towards the horse-lines. A few minutes later the Cathedrallers began to saddle up, and within half an hour they were riding out in a long, silent column, the sunrise just beginning to lighten up the lowering cloud on the horizon before them.
By midmorning the remainder of the army, some six and a half thousand men in all, was strung out in a column half a league long whose head pointed almost due east. In the van rode Corfe, surrounded by the fifteen or so cuirassiers who were all that remained of Ormann Dyke’s cavalry regiment. His trumpeter, Cerne, had insisted on remaining with him, and Andruw had ceremoniously left behind a further half-dozen of the tribesmen as a kind of bodyguard. Behind this little band of horsemen marched five hundred Torunnan arquebusiers followed by Formio’s two thousand Fimbrians, and then another group of some three thousand arquebusiers under Ranafast. After them came the mule train of some six hundred plodding, bad-tempered, heavily laden animals, and finally a rearguard of almost a thousand more Torunnans.
For the first few miles of their advance they could actually glimpse the Cathedrallers off close to the horizon: a black smudge in an otherwise grey and drear landscape. But towards noon the country began to rise in long, stony ridges across the line of march which slowed their progress and obscured their view of the terrain to the east. By early afternoon the cloud had broken up and there were wide swathes of sunlight come rushing across the land, let slip by fast-moving mare’s-tails high above their heads. At the eastern limit of sight, they could see black bars rising straight into the air and then leaning over as they were taken by the high altitude winds. The smoke from the towns aflame along the River Searil. The infantry stared at the smoke as they marched, and the winding column of men toiled along in simmering silence.
Camp was made that night in the shelter of a tall ridge. Sentries paced its summit and Corfe allowed the men to light fires, since the high ground hid them from the east and south. It was bitterly cold, and the sky had cleared entirely so that above their heads was a vast blaze of stars, the larger winking red and blue.
A courier came in from Andruw at midnight, having been five hours on the road. The Cathedrallers were bivouacked in a fireless camp some four leagues south-west of the river. They had destroyed three roving bands of Merduk scavengers at no loss to themselves, and were now turning south-east, parallel with the Searil. There was a large town named Berrona there which seemed not to have been sacked yet, but from the increasing numbers of the enemy that Andruw was encountering, he thought that their main body must not be too far away and Berrona would be too plump a target for the Merduks to pass by.
Corfe sat by his campfire for a few minutes whilst the courier snatched a hasty meal and some of the cuirassiers rubbed down his horse for him and saddled up another to take him back.
Squinting in the firelight, Corfe scrawled a reply. Andruw was to scout out the environs of Berrona with one or two squadrons only, keeping the rest of his men out of sight. The main body would force-march to his location in the morning. Corfe estimated it was some thirty-five miles away, which would be a hard day’s going, but his men would manage it. Then they would await the turn of events.
If the army was to return to Torunn in any kind of fighting condition, then this was the only chance Corfe had to bring a large Merduk force to battle. Another two days, three at most, and they would have to head for home, or start cutting rations even past the meagre amount they were subsisting on at present. And that would almost certainly mean that the horses would start to fail, something which Corfe could not afford to let happen.
The weary courier was sent on his way again. He would reach Andruw just before dawn, with luck, having ridden seventy miles in a single night. How he found his way in a region wholly unknown to him, over rough ground, in the dark, was a mystery to Corfe. He and Andruw had taken a series of maps north with them, only to discover that they were years out of date. Northern Torunna, in the shadow of the Thurians, had always been a wilder place than the south of the kingdom. It had few roads and fewer towns, but strategically it was as vital as the lines of the Searil and Torrin rivers. One day, when he had the time, Corfe would do something about that. He would make of the Torrin Gap a fortress and build good roads clear down to the capital for the passage of armies. The Torunnans hitherto had relied too much on what the Fimbrians had left behind them. Ormann Dyke, Aekir, Torunn itself and the roads which connected them-they were all legacies of the long-vanished empire. It was time the Torunnans built a few things of their own.
The army was on the march again before dawn. Corfe and his Cathedraller bodyguards rode ahead of the main body, leaving old Ranafast in charge behind them. They passed isolated farmsteads that had been burnt out by Merduk marauders and once came across a lonely church which had inexplicably been spared the flames, but within which the enemy had obviously stabled their horses for some considerable time. The charred remains of two men were bound to a stake in the churchyard, the blackened stumps of their legs ending in a mound of dead embers and ash. Corfe had them buried and then rode on.
They halted at noon to rest the horses and wait for the infantry to come up. Corfe gnawed salt beef and bit off chunks of hard army biscuit while ceaselessly searching the eastern horizon for signs of life. Around him the tribesmen talked quietly in their own tongue to each other and their horses.
A solitary horseman appeared in the distance and the talk ceased. He was riding at full, reckless gallop, yanking up his mount’s head when it stumbled on loose rock, bent low in the saddle to extract every ounce of speed out of the beast. A Cathedraller, his armour winking like freshly spilt gore. Corfe waved at him and he changed course. A few minutes later he had come to a staggering halt in front of them, his horse spraying foam from its mouth, nostrils flared and pink, sides heaving. He leapt off his steed and proffered a despatch case.