“A lady’s maid with a yen for a mariner? He’s well enough, I suppose. Like me, he survived. There is not much more to be said.”
“I see.” She became her assured self again, and bent forward to kiss Murad’s scarred forehead. “Think on my offer. I am staying in the West Wing-the guest apartments. You can visit me when you like. Come and talk to me. I am lonely there.” She brushed one delicate finger along the scar that convulsed the skin of his temple, then turned and walked away across the garden towards the lights of the palace, her fan fluttering all the way.
Murad watched her go. A peculiar hunger arose within him. There was something about the lady Jemilla which challenged his pride. He liked that. Her schemes were dangerous daydreams-but he would visit her, of that he was sure. He would make her squeal, by God.
He left the shadow of the tree and looked up at the first stars come gleaming in the spring sky. Abrusio. He was home at last. And that murderous nightmare he had left behind him could be forgotten. His venture had been a failure, but it had taught him many things. He had information now that could one day prove useful.
Tomorrow he would visit the city barracks and see about getting back his old command. And he needed a new horse, something bad-tempered and spirited from the Feramuno studs. Something he would enjoy breaking down.
There were many things he was going to enjoy breaking down. Murad lifted his face and laughed aloud into the starlit sky. It was good to be alive.
EPILOGUE
Spring, it seemed, had come at last. There was a freshness to the air, and primroses had come out in bright lines about the margins of the Western Road. Corfe stood on the summit of the tower and watched the light tumble cloud patterns over the hills. If he turned his head, he could see the sea glimmering on the world’s horizon. A world at peace.
“I thought I would find you here,” a woman’s voice said. She touched him lightly on the arm, her long skirts whispering around her. She wore a crown.
An aged woman. She looked old enough to be his grandmother, and yet she was about to become his wife.
“It looks so quiet,” he said, still staring out at the empty hills beyond the city walls. “As if it had all been a dream.”
“Or a nightmare,” Odelia retorted.
He said nothing. The great burial mounds of Armagedir were too far away for him to see, but he knew he would always feel them there, somewhere at his shoulder. Andruw lay in one of them, and Morin and Cerne and Ebro and Ranafast and Rusio-and ten thousand other faceless men who had died at his bidding. They were one monument he would never be able to forget.
“It’s time, Corfe,” the Queen said gently.
“I know.”
If he looked east, towards the sea, he would find a large, ornate encampment pitched there, gay with the silk pennons and horsetail standards of the Merduks. The enemy had come calling in the aftermath of defeat, not exactly cap in hand but with a certain strained humility all the same. Corfe had given leave for the Merduk Sultan and a suitable escort to pitch their tents within sight of the city walls. His representatives had been permitted into the city this very morning, entering in peace the place they had squandered so much blood to take. They wanted to witness the crowning of Torunna’s new King, the man with whom they would be treating in the days to come. It was too bizarre for words. Andruw would have found it so immensely funny.
Corfe blinked away the heat in his eyes. It was hard, harder than he could have imagined.
“He died well,” Odelia said gently, “the way he would have wished. They all did.”
Corfe nodded. He, too, would have been happy to die that day, knowing the battle was won.
“There is still the peace,” Odelia said with that disquieting prescience of hers. “It remains to be achieved. What you do today is part of that.”
“I know. I’m not sure it is the way I would have chosen, though.”
“It is the best way,” she said, pressing his arm. “Trust me, Corfe.”
He limped away from the parapet with her hand still on his arm and turned back towards the city below. From this height, Torunn looked like some fairy-tale metropolis. The streets were packed with people-it was said a quarter of a million had gathered in City Square-and every house seemed to be flying some flag or banner. The citizens crowded upper-floor windows like tiers of house martins in their nests, and Torunnan regulars in full dress were stationed at every corner.
“Let’s get it over with,” Corfe said.
Formio had drawn up an honour guard of pike-stiff Fimbrians in the court-yard of the palace, and as Corfe and Odelia appeared they snapped to attention like automatons. The Fimbrian adjutant saluted his commander with a rare smile, one arm still in a sling. He looked pale and somewhat ethereal, but had insisted on leaving his sickbed for this day. The chill in Corfe warmed a little. Aras was there too, the huge scar in his face nearly healed. The Queen had worked tyrelessly in the aftermath of Armagedir, saving countless lives and wearing herself down to a shadow in the process. “Give you joy, sir,” Aras ventured.
“Thank you, General.”
Corfe and Odelia climbed into the open barouche that awaited them, and set off out of the palace flanked by fifty mounted Cathedrallers-all that had survived. As soon as they appeared at the palace gates a great roar went up from the waiting crowds. They trundled through the cobbled streets with the Cathedrallers raising a clattering din of hooves about them and the people cheering madly. The air was full of blossoms that spectators were scattering from the windows overhead.
“Wave, Corfe,” Odelia said out of the corner of her mouth. “They’re your people. They are what you won the war for.”
The cavalcade halted before the steps of the city cathedral and there they got out in a cloud of footmen, dignitaries and whirling blossom. There was a salute of massed trumpets. They paused on the stone steps, Odelia smiling and nodding graciously at the Merduk ambassador, one Mehr Jirah, Corfe giving him a cold glance before they walked on, pageboys lifting the Queen’s train and the hem of Corfe’s long cloak.
And into the cathedral, its pews stuffed to overflowing with what nobility the kingdom still possessed, their numbers augmented by the great and the good of Torunna. Corfe’s eye was caught by Admiral Berza, near the aisle. The old admiral winked at him as he passed by, his face as stiff as wood. There was Passifal’s white head amongst the assembled military. Corfe recognised no-one else. He limped up the aisle staring straight ahead, expressionless.
Up at the altar Macrobius stood ready, smiling his blind smile. He was flanked by Bishops Albrec and Avila, who each bore velvet cushions. On one rested the crown of Torunna. On the other was a pair of plain gold wedding rings. One led to the other: both were deemed necessary for the well-being of the country.
Corfe and the Queen came to a halt before the Pontiff. As they did, Albrec caught Corfe’s eye-he seemed strangely troubled. For a moment Corfe wondered if the little cleric was about to speak, but had thought better of it. The moment passed.
Another blare of trumpets. Incense, heady as powder-smoke, writhing in ribbons within the shafted sunlight of the high windows. The stained glass threw down a maelstrom of colour upon the flagstones, dimming the serried candle flames, raising painful glitters off the gold and gems that sparkled everywhere, even on Corfe’s clothing.
Pictures pelting through his mind like rain. His first marriage, in a small chapel near Aekir’s South Gate. Heria had held a posy of primroses. It had been spring, as it was today. They had been married two years when the siege began.
Sitting in the mud under a wrecked ox waggon on the Western Road with this same man who was about to crown him, gnawing on a half-raw turnip and wiping the rain out of his eyes.