“This will mean civil war, Aras. The army will not stand for it. And the Merduks will be handed the kingdom on a plate. That is what he intends-to be governor of a Merduk province.”
Again, silence but for the rumbling of the iron-bound wheels and the horses’ hooves on the cobbles.
“For God’s sake, man, can’t you see where your duty lies?”
The carriage stopped. The door was unbolted and opened from without and Corfe was hauled outside. He could smell dead fish in the air, pitch and seaweed. They were down near the southern docks, on the edge of the estuary. Lightless buildings bulked up against the sky, and he could see the masts of ships outlined before the stars. He offered no resistance as they manhandled him. Willem wanted him dead at once, that was plain. Corfe would not give him an excuse to fire.
Swinging lanterns scattering broken light on the wet cobbles. Men in armour, arquebuses, pikes. The soldiers were all in strange liveries-part of the conscripted retainers that Corfe had brought into the capital. They had foxed him there. He had brought the enemy into the city himself. That was the reason for their confidence.
Inside. Someone boxing him on the ear for no reason. Down stone stairs with water running down the walls. Torchlight guttering here, a noisome stink that turned his stomach.
“Hold him,” Willem’s voice said, and men pinioned him. The one-eyed colonel sized him up in the unsteady torchlight.
“Caught you by surprise, didn’t we? You thought it was all signed, sealed and delivered. Well you thought wrong, you little guttersnipe-” and he brought the butt of his pistol down on Corfe’s temple.
Corfe staggered, and at the second blow the world darkened and his legs went out from under him. He struggled, but the men about him held him fast as Willem rained blow after blow down on his head. No pain, just a succession of explosions in his brain, like a battery of culverins going off one by one. Somehow he remained conscious. His blood dappled the flags of the floor, gummed shut his eyes and nose. He heard his own breathing as though from a great distance, as stertorous as that of a dying consumptive.
Keys clinking, and then he was flung into a black cell, and the door clanged shut behind him. The footsteps outside retreated, laughter retreating with them.
His head felt like it belonged to someone else. The lights were sparkling through it like a twilit battle, and the tight manacles were already puffing up his hands. The floor was sodden and stinking.
Corfe sat up, and the pain began to seep in under the shock of it all. His ears were ringing, his mouth full of blood. He retched, heaving out a mess of bile on to the filthy floor.
“Who is that?” a voice asked in the darkness, an odd voice, something wrong with it.
“Who wants to know?” he rasped.
“My name is Albrec. I’m a monk.”
He fought for breath. “We meet again, then. My name is Corfe. I’m a soldier.” And then the blackness of the cell folded over his mind, and his face hit the floor.
By dawn the arrests had begun. Willem and his men went around in squads. Andruw and Marsch were picked up first, along with Morin, Ebro and Ranafast. Then Quartermaster Passifal and General Rusio were roused out of their beds and led away in chains. The Cathedrallers’ barracks were surrounded by three thousand arquebusiers under Colonel Willem, while Colonel Aras led twenty more tercios to confine Formio’s Fimbrians. An order was issued to the army in general, directing it to stay in barracks, and a curfew was imposed upon the entire city. Lastly, Fournier himself took fifty men and marched them into the palace, demanding admittance to the Queen’s chambers. Odelia was placed under guard-for her own protection, naturally-and the palace was sealed off.
By noon the waterfront dungeons were crammed full with almost the entire Torunnan High Command, and the brightly clad retainers whom Andruw had mocked were in control of three quarters of the city. The Cathedrallers had made an abortive breakout attempt, but Willem’s arquebusiers had shot them down in scores. The Fimbrians had as yet made no move except to fortify their barracks with a series of makeshift barricades. They had little or no ammunition for their few arquebuses, however, and their pikes would be almost worthless in street fighting. They were contained, for the moment. Fournier was confident they would accept some form of terms and was content to leave them be. As the afternoon wore round, however, he had batteries of heavy artillery wheeled into position around both them and the Cathedrallers, and Colonel Willem took some twelve thousand of the Torunnan regulars out of the city to the north. They had been told that a Merduk raiding party was closing in on the city and their commander-in-chief had ordered them to intercept it. Once they had left Torunn, though, Willem led them off to the east, towards the coast where they would be safely out of the way. The rest of the regulars, leaderless and bewildered, remained in barracks, while around them the populace were kept off the streets by armed patrols and rumours of Merduk infiltrators were circulated to keep them cowed. Thus, with a judicious mixture of bluff, guile and armed force did Fournier tighten his grip upon the capital.
He took over the chambers Lofantyr had used for meetings of the High Command in a wing of the palace, and by the early evening the place was abuzz with couriers coming and going, officers receiving new appointments and confused soldiers standing guard. After a frugal meal he dismissed everyone from the room and sat at the long table in the chair which King Lofantyr had once occupied, toying with the oiled point of his beard. When the clap of wings sounded at the window he did not turn round, nor did he seem startled when a homunculus landed before him amid the papers and maps and inkwells. The little creature folded its wings and cocked its head to one side.
“I must congratulate you,” the beast said in a man’s voice. “The operation proceeded even more smoothly than we had hoped.”
“That was the easy part. Maintaining the facade for the next week will be harder. I trust you are keeping your master well informed.”
“Of course. And he is mightily pleased. He wants Cear-Inaf kept alive, so that he may dispose of him at his leisure when he enters the city.”
“And the Queen? What of her? She cannot live, you know that.”
“Indeed. But Aurungzeb has this strange aversion to the execution of Royalty. He feels that kind of thing puts odd ideas into men’s minds.”
“It may be that she will simply disappear, then. She may escape and never be heard of again.”
“I think that would be best.”
“When does your master’s army move?”
“It has begun to march already. In less than a week, my dear Count, you will be the new governor of Torunna, answerable only to the Sultan himself. The war will be over.”
“The war will be over,” Fournier repeated thoughtfully. “Cear-Inaf is an upstart and a fool. He has done well, but even his much-vaunted generalship could not prevail against a hundred and fifty thousand. What I have done is spare Torunna a catastrophic defeat. I have saved thousands of lives.”
“Indubitably.” Was it his imagination, or was there a sardonic sneer to the voice which issued out of the homunculus?
“Go now,” he said sharply. “Tell your master I will hold Torunn for him. When the army arrives the gates shall be thrown open, and I shall see to it that the regulars are deployed elsewhere. There will be no resistance.”
“What of Cear-Inaf’s personal troops? Those tribesmen and the Fimbrians, not to mention the veterans from the dyke?”
“They are contained. They will be entirely neutralised within the next few days.”
The homunculus gathered itself up for flight, spreading its bat-like wings. “I certainly hope so, my dear Count. For your sake.” Then the creature paused in the act of springing into the air. “By the way, we have heard rumours that there is an agent of yours at work in the court. Is this true?”