A richly dressed man with an ebony staff of office had been admitted to the room by the footmen with all the pomp of an eastern potentate. He was very tall, very slim, and as dark as a Merduk. A native of Kardikia or perhaps southern Astarac, Corfe guessed.
“Gabriel Venuzzi?”
The man bowed slightly, a mere nod of the head. “Indeed. You, I believe, are General Cear-Inaf.”
“The very same. Now listen here Gabriel, we have a problem on our hands and I believe you may be able to help me solve it.”
“Indeed? I am glad to hear it. And what might be the nature of this problem, General? Her Majesty has requested me to give you any assistance in my power, and I of course must obey her commands to the letter.”
“There’s your problem, Gabriel. Down there.” Corfe gestured at the view from the balcony. Venuzzi stepped over to the open doors, wincing slightly at the cold air coursing through them, and glanced out at the murmuring crowds below.
“I am afraid I don’t quite understand you, General. I am not an officer of militia, merely the head administrator of the household. If you want the crowd cleared you should perhaps be addressing some of your junior officers. I do not deal with commoners.”
His hauteur was almost impressive. Corfe smiled. “You do now.”
“Forgive me my ignorance. I still do not follow you.”
“That’s all right, Gabriel. I don’t mind explaining.” Corfe lifted the sheaf of papers Andruw had brought in with him. The two of them had spent the early hours of the morning, before they had done their ceremonial duty in the cathedrals, hunting them up in the storehouse of Palace Housekeeping Records, a musty tomb-like warren dedicated to the storage of statistics.
“I have here records of all the foodstuffs kept in the palace. Not only the palace, in fact, but in Royal warehouses across the entire city and indeed the kingdom. Gabriel, my dear fellow, the household has squirrelled away hundreds of tons of wheat and corn and smoked meat and—and—”
“And stock-fish and hardtack and olive oil and wine,” Andruw added. “Don’t forget the wine. Eight hundred tuns of it, General.”
“And I won’t even mention the brandy and salt pork and figs,” Corfe finished, still smiling. “Now explain to me, Gabriel, why it is necessary to hoard these stupendous amounts of goods.”
“I’d have thought it was obvious, General, even to you,” Venuzzi drawled, not turning a hair. “They are Royal reserves, destined to supply the palace on an everyday basis, and also put aside in case of siege.”
“All this, to keep the inhabitants of the palace well fed?” Corfe asked quietly.
“Why yes. Certain proprieties must be observed, even in times of war. We cannot”—and here Venuzzi’s lean face broke into a knowing smirk—“we cannot expect the nobility to go hungry, after all. Think how it would look to the world.”
“It is not a question of going hungry. It is a question of hoarding the means to feed tens of thousands when one has in fact only to supply the wants of a few hundred.” There was a tone in Corfe’s voice which made everyone in the room pause. His smile had disappeared.
Venuzzi retreated a step from that terrible stare. “General, I—”
“Hold your tongue. In case it had escaped your attention, we are at war, Venuzzi. I am issuing orders for the collection of these hoarded stocks of food and their redistribution to the refugees from Aekir, and anyone else in Torunn who has need of them. The orders will be posted up in public places later today. These scribes have already made out fifty copies. I need your signature, I am told, before I can start the process.”
“You shall not have it! This is outrageous!”
Corfe stepped closer to the steward. “You will sign,” he said in a voice so soft no-one else in the room heard, “or I will make a private soldier out of you, Venuzzi. I can do that, you know. I can conscript anyone I please.”
“You’re bluffing! You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
A silence crackled in the room. Venuzzi’s knuckles were bone white around his black staff of office. Finally he turned, bent over the desk, and seized a quill. His signature, long and scrawling, was scratched across the topmost set of orders.
“Thank you,” Corfe said quietly.
The steward shot him a look of pure vitriol. “The Queen shall know of this. You think I am friendless in this place? You know nothing. What are you but a backwoods upstart with mud still under your nails? You fool.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the room in a cloud of footmen. The doors boomed shut behind him.
Andruw sighed. “Corfe, a diplomat you are not.”
The general bent his head. “I know. I’m just a soldier. Nothing more.” Then he caught his subordinate’s eye. “You know, Andruw, there is a new cemetrey outside the South Gate. The Aekirians, they created it. There are over six thousand graves already. Many of them starved to death, the folk who rot in those graves. While we banqueted in the palace. So don’t talk to me of diplomacy, not now—not ever again. Just see that those orders are posted all over the city. I’m off to have a look at the men.”
Andruw watched him go without another word.
L ATE that night in the capital a group of men met in the discreet upper room of a prosperous tavern. They wore nondescript riding clothes: high boots and long cloaks muddy with the filth of the streets. Some were armed with military sabres. They sat around a long candlelit tavern table marked with the rings of past carouses. A fire smoked and cracked in a grate behind them.
“It’s intolerable, absolutely intolerable,” one of the men said, a red-faced, grey-bearded fellow in his fifties: Colonel Rusio of the city garrison.
“They say he is the son of a peasant from down in Staed,” another put in. “Aras, you were there. Is it true, you think?”
Colonel Aras, a good twenty years younger than anyone else in the room, looked uncomfortable and willing to please at the same time.
“I can’t say for sure. All I know is he handles those daemon tribesmen of his with definite ability. Sirs, you know he had the southern rebels crushed before I even arrived. I’m willing to admit that. Five hundred men! And Narfintyr had over three thousand, yet he stood not a chance.”
“You almost sound as though you admire him, Colonel.” A silken purr of a voice. Count Fournier, head of the Torunnan Military Intelligence, such as it was. He stroked his neat beard, as pointed as a spearhead, and watched his younger colleague intently.
“Perhaps—perhaps I do,” Aras said, stumbling over the words. “In the King’s Battle he stopped my position from being overrun when he sent me his Fimbrians. And then he threw back the Nalbeni horse-archers on the left, twenty thousand of them.”
“His Fimbrians,” Rusio muttered. “Lord above! He also sent you my guns, Aras, or had you forgotten?”
“I hope you are not prey to conflicting emotions in this matter, my dear Aras,” Fournier said. “If so, you should not be here.”
“I know where my loyalties lie,” Aras said quickly. “To my own class, to the social order of the realm. To the ultimate welfare of the kingdom. I merely point out facts, is all.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” Fournier’s voice rose. “Gentlemen, we are gathered here, as you well know, to discuss this—this phoenix which has appeared in our midst. He has military ability, yes. He has the patronage of our noble Queen, yes. But he is a commoner who prefers commanding savages and Fimbrians to his own countrymen and who is utterly lacking in any vestige of respect for the traditional values of this kingdom. Am I not right, Don Venuzzi?”
The palace steward nodded, his handsome face flushed with anger. “You’ve read the notices—they’re all over the city. He is distributing the Royal reserves at this very moment, breaking open the warehouses and handing the contents out to every beggar in the street who has a hand to lift.”