“There is hope,” Corfe said heavily. “But as I say, he is betting everything on this last assault. We could be facing as many as a hundred and fifty thousand enemy in the field.”
“Should we not then stay behind these walls and stand siege? We could hold out for months-well past harvest.”
“If we did that he could send the Minhraib home and contain us with a smaller force. No. We need to make him commit every man he has. We have to push him to the limit. To do that, we will have to take to the field and challenge him openly.”
“Corfe,” Macrobius said gently, “the odds you speak of seem almost hopeless.”
“I know, I know. But victory for us is a different thing from the kind of victory the Merduks need. If we can smash up their army somewhat-blunt this last assault-and yet keep Torunn from undergoing a siege, then we will have won. I believe we can do that, but I need some advantage, some chance to even things up a little. I haven’t found it yet, but I will.”
“I pray to God you do,” Macrobius said. His eyeless face was sunken and gaunt, vivid testimony to what Merduks would do in the hour of their victory.
“If this happens, if you manage to halt this juggernaut of theirs, what then?” Odelia asked. “How much can we expect to regain, or lose by a negotiated peace?”
“Ormann Dyke is gone for ever,” Corfe said flatly. “That is something we must get used to. So is Aekir. If the kingdom can be partitioned down the line of the Searil, then we will have to count ourselves fortunate. It all depends on how well the army does in the field. We’ll be buying back our country with Torunnan blood, literally. But my job is to kill Merduks, not to bargain with them. I leave that to Fournier and his ilk. I have no taste or aptitude for it.”
You will acquire one though. I will see to that, Odelia thought. And out loud she said: “When, then, will the army take to the field?”
Corfe sat silently for what seemed a long time, until the Queen began to chafe with impatience. Macrobius appeared serene.
“I need upwards of nine hundred warhorses, to replace our losses and mount the new recruits that are still coming in,” Corfe said finally. “Then there are the logistical details to work out with Passifal and the quartermaster’s department. This will be no mere raid. When we leave Torunn this time we must be prepared to stay out for weeks, if not months. To that end the Western Road must be repaired and cleared, depots set up. And I mean to conscript every able-bodied man in the kingdom, whatever his station in life.”
Odelia’s mouth opened in shock. “You cannot do that!”
“Why not? The laws are on the statute books. Theoretically they are in force already, except for the fact that they have never actually been enforced.”
“Even John Mogen did not try to enforce them-wisely. He knew the nobles would have his head on a spear if he ever even contemplated such a thing.”
“He did not have to do it at Aekir. Every man in the city willingly lent a hand in the defence, even if it was only to carry ammunition and plug breaches.”
“That was different. That was a siege.”
Corfe’s fist came hurtling down on to the table beside him with a crash that astonished both the Queen and the Pontiff. “There will be no exceptions. If I conscript them, then I can leave an appropriate garrison in the city and still take out a sizeable field army. The nobles in the south of the kingdom all have private armies-I know that only too well. It is time these privately raised forces shared in the defence of the kingdom as a whole. Today I had orders written up commanding these blue-bloods to bring their armed retainers in person to the capital. If my calculations are correct, the local lords alone could add another fifteen thousand men to the defence.”
“You do not have the authority-” Odelia began heatedly.
“Don’t I? I am commander-in-chief of Torunna’s military. Lawyers may quibble over it, but I see every armed man in the kingdom as part of that military. They can issue writs against me as much as they like once the war is over, but for now I will have their men, and if they refuse, by God I’ll hang them.”
There was naked murder on his face. Odelia looked away. She had never believed she could be afraid of any man, but the savagery that scoured his spirit occasionally leapt out of his eyes like some eldritch fire. It unnerved her. For how many men had those eyes been their last sight on earth? She sometimes thought she had no idea what he was truly capable of, for all that she loved him.
“All right then,” she said. “You shall have your conscription. I will put my name to your orders, but I warn you, Corfe, you are making powerful enemies.”
“The only enemies I am concerned with are those encamped to the east. I piss on the rest of them. Sorry, Father.”
Macrobius smiled weakly. “Her Majesty is right, Corfe. Even John Mogen did not take on the nobility.”
“I need men, Father. Their precious titles will not be worth much if there is no kingdom left for them to lord about in. Let it be on my head alone.”
“Don’t say such things,” Odelia said with a shiver. “It’s bad luck.”
Corfe shrugged. “I don’t much believe in luck any more, lady. Men make their own, if it exists. I intend to take an army of forty thousand men out of this city in less than two sennights, and it will be tactics and logistics which decide their fate, not luck.”
“Let us hope,” Macrobius said, touching Corfe lightly on the wrist, “that faith has something to do with it also.”
“When men have faith in themselves, Father,” Corfe said doggedly, “they do not need to have faith in anything else.”
Albrec and Mehr Jirah met in a room within Ormann Dyke’s great tower, not far from the Queen’s apartments. It was the third hour of the night and no-one was abroad in the vast building except a few yawning sentries. But below the tower thousands of men worked through the night by the light of bonfires. On both banks of the Searil river they swarmed like ants, demolishing in the west and rebuilding in the east. The night-black river was crowded with heavy barges and lighters full to the gunwale with lumber, stone and weary working parties, and at the makeshift docks which had been constructed on both sides of the river scores of elephants waited patiently in harness, their mahouts dozing on their necks. The Sultan had decreed that the reconstruction of Ormann Dyke would be complete before the summer, and at its completion it would be renamed Khedi Anwar, the Fortress of the River.
The chamber in which Albrec and Mehr Jirah sat was windowless, a dusty store-room which was half full of all manner of junk. Fragments of chain mail, the links rusted into an orange mass. Broken sabre blades, rotting Torunnan uniforms, even a box of moldy hardtack much gnawed by mice. The two clerics, having nodded to each other, stood waiting, neither able to speak the other’s tongue. At last they were startled by the swift entry of Queen Ahara and Shahr Baraz. The Queen was got up like a veiled Merduk maid, and Shahr Baraz was dressed as a common soldier.
“We do not have much time,” the Queen said. “The eunuchs will miss me in another quarter-hour or less. Albrec, you are leaving for Torunn tonight. Shahr Baraz has horses and two of his own retainers waiting below. They will escort you to within sight of the capital.”
“Lady,” Albrec said, “I am not sure-”
“There is no time for discussion. Shahr Baraz has procured you a pass that will see you past the pickets. You must preach your message in Torunna as you have here. Mehr Jirah agrees with us in this. Your life is in danger as long as you remain at Ormann Dyke.”
Albrec bowed wordlessly. When he straightened he shook the hands of Mehr Jirah and Shahr Baraz. “Whatever else I have found amongst the Merduks,” he said thickly, “I have found two good men.”