Heria translated the brief sentence and the two Merduks looked away. Shahr Baraz produced a leather bag with dun coloured clothing poking out of its neck.
“Wear these,” he said in Normannic. “They are clothes of a Merduk mullah. A holy man. May-may the God of Victories watch over you.” Then he looked at Heria, nodded and left. Mehr Jirah followed without another word.
“I can still preach here too, lady,” Albrec said gently.
“No. Go back to him. Give him this.” She handed the little monk a despatch scroll with a military seal. “They are plans for the forthcoming campaign. But do not tell who gave them to you, Father.”
Albrec took the scroll gingerly. “I seem to make a habit of bearing fateful documents. Was there no other way you could get this to Torunn? I am not much of a courier.”
“Two men we have sent out already,” Heria said in a low voice. “Merduk soldiers with Ramusian blood in them-Shahr Baraz’s retainers. But we do not know if they got through.”
Albrec looked at her wonderingly. “So he is in on it too? How did you persuade him?”
“He said his father would have done it. The Shahr Baraz who took Aekir would not have condoned a war fought in the way Aurungzeb fights it today. And besides, my Shahr Baraz is a pious man. He thinks the war should stop, since the Ramusians are brothers in faith. Mehr Jirah and many of the mullahs think likewise.”
“Come with me, Heria,” Albrec said impulsively. “Come back to your people-to your husband.”
She shook her head, the grey eyes bright with tears above the veil. “It is too late for me. And besides, they would miss me within the hour. We would be hunted down. No, Father, go back alone. Help him save my people.”
“Then at least let me tell him you are alive.”
“No! I am dead now, do you hear? I am not fit to be Corfe’s wife any more. This is my world now, here. I must make the best of it I can.”
Albrec took her hand and kissed it. “The Merduks have a worthy Queen then.”
She turned away. “I must go now. Take the stairs at the bottom of the passage outside. They lead out to the west court-yard. Your escort awaits you there. You will have several hours start-they won’t miss you until after dawn. Go now, Father. Get the scroll to Corfe.”
Albrec bowed, his eyes stinging with pity for her, and then did as he was bidden.
EIGHTEEN
All day they had been trooping into the city, a motley procession of armed men in livery all the colours of the rainbow. Some were armed with nothing more than halberds and scythes on long poles, others were splendidly equipped with arquebuses and sabres. Most were on foot, but several hundred rode prancing warhorses in half-armour and had silk pennons whipping from their lance heads.
Corfe, General Rusio and Quartermaster Passifal stood on the battlements of the southern barbican and watched them troop in. As the long serried column trailed to an end a compact group of five hundred Cathedraller cavalry came up behind them, Andruw at their head. As the tribesmen passed through the gateway below Andruw saluted and winked, then was lost to view in a cavernous clatter of hooves as he and his men entered the city.
“That’s the last contingent will make it this week, General,” Passifal said. He was consulting a damp sheaf of papers. “Gavriar of Rone has promised three hundred men, but they’ll be a long time on the road, and the Duke of Gebrar, old Saranfyr, he’s put his name down for four hundred more, but it’s a hundred and forty leagues from Gebrar if it’s a mile. We’ll be lucky to see them inside a month.”
“How many do we have then?” Corfe asked.
“Some six thousand retainers, plus another five thousand conscripts-most of them folk from Aekir.”
“Not as many as we had hoped,” Rusio grumbled.
“No,” Corfe told him. “But it’s a damn sight better than nothing. I can leave six or seven thousand men to garrison the city and still march out with-what? Thirty-six or seven thousand.”
“Some of these retainers the lords sent are nothing more than unschooled peasants,” Rusio said, leaning on a merlon. “In many cases they’ve sent us squads of village idiots and petty criminals, the dregs of their demesnes.”
“All they have to do is stand on the battlements and wave a pike,” Corfe said. “Rusio, I want you to take five hundred veterans and start training the more incapable. Some of the contingents, though, can be draughted straight into the regular army.”
“What about their fancy dress?” Passifal asked, mouth twitching.
Many of the lords had clad their retainers in all manner of garish heraldry.
“It won’t look so fancy after a few days in the mud, I’ll warrant.”
“And the lords themselves?” Rusio inquired. “We’ve half a dozen keen young noblemen who are set on leading their father’s pet army into battle.”
“Rate them as ensigns, and put capable sergeants under them.”
“Their daddies may not like that, nor the young scrubs themselves.”
“I don’t give a stuff what they like. I won’t hand men over to untried officers to be squandered. This is war, not some kind of parlour game. If there are any complaints, have them forwarded to the Queen.”
“Yes, General.”
Feet on the catwalk behind them, and Andruw appeared, his helm swinging from one hand. “Well, that’s the last of them,” he said. “The rest are hiding in the woods or the foothills.”
“Did you have any trouble?” Corfe asked him.
“Are you serious? Once they saw the dreaded scarlet horsemen they’d have handed over their daughters if we’d asked. And I very nearly did, mark you. Poor stuff, though, most of ’em. They might be all right standing atop a wall, Corfe, but I wouldn’t march them out of here. They’d go to pieces in the field.”
“What about the retainers?”
“Oh, they’re better equipped than the regulars are, but they’ve no notion of drill at any level higher than a tercio. I’d rate them baggage guards or suchlike.”
“My thoughts exactly. Thanks, Andruw. Now, what about these horses?”
“I have a hundred of the men under Marsch and Ebro escorting the herd. They’ll be here in three or four days.”
“How many did you manage to scrape up?”
“Fifteen hundred, but only a third of those are true destriers. Some of them are no better than carthorses, others are three-year-olds, barely broken.”
“They’ll have to do. The Cathedrallers are the only heavy cavalry we have. If we mount every man, we can muster up some…”
“I make it a little over two thousand,” Passifal said, consulting his papers again. “Another batch of tribesmen arrived this morning. Felimbri I think, nearly two hundred of them on little scrub ponies.”
“Thanks, Colonel.”
“If this goes on half the damn Torunnan army will be savages or Fimbrians,” Rusio said tartly.
“And it would be none the worse for that, General,” Corfe retorted. “Very well. Now, how are the work gangs proceeding on the Western Road…?”
The small knot of men stood on the windswept battlements and went through the headings on Passifal’s lists one by one. The lists were endless, and the days too short to tackle half their concerns, but little by little the army was being prepared for the campaign ahead. The last campaign, perhaps. That was what they hoped. In the meantime billets had to be found for the new recruits, willing and unwilling; horses had to be broken in and trained in addition to men; the baggage train had to be inventoried and stocked with anything thirty-odd thousand soldiers might need for a protracted stay in a veritable wilderness; and the road itself, which would bear their feet in so few days’ time, had to be repaired lest they find themselves bogged down in mud within sight of the city. Nothing could be left to chance, not this time. It was the last throw of the dice for the Torunnans. If it failed, then there was nothing left to stand between the kingdom and the horror of a Merduk occupation.