“Beer,” Andruw said with feeling. “A big, frothing mug of the stuff. And a wedge of cheese so big you could stop a door with it. And an apple.”
“And fresh-baked bread,” Marsch added. “With honey. Anything but meat. I will not eat meat again for a month. And I would sooner starve than eat another horse.”
Corfe thought of the Queen’s chambers, a bath full of steaming water and a roaring fire. He had not taken his boots off in a week and his feet felt swollen and sodden. The leather straps of his armour were green with mould and the steel itself was a rusted saffron wherever the red paint had chipped away. Only the blade of John Mogen’s sword was bright and untarnished. He had Merduk blood under his nails.
“The men need a rest,” he said. “The whole army needs to be refitted, and we’ll have to send south for more horses. I wonder how Rusio has been getting on while we’ve been away.”
“I’ll wager his backside has not been far from a fire the whole time,” Andruw retorted. “Send out some of those paper-collar garrison soldiers next time, Corfe. Remind them what it’s like to feel the rain in their face.”
“Maybe I will, Andruw. Maybe I will. For now, I want you three to go on inside the city. Make sure that the men are well bedded down—no bullshit from any quartermasters. I want to see them drunk by nightfall. They deserve it.”
“There’s an order easily obeyed.” Andruw grinned. “Marsch, Formio, you heard the man. We have work to do.”
“What about you, General?” Formio asked.
“I think I’ll stand here awhile and watch the army march in.”
“Come on, Corfe, get in and out of the rain,” Andruw cajoled. “They won’t march any faster with you standing here.”
“No, you three go on ahead. I want to think.”
Andruw clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t philosophize too long. You may find all the beer drunk by the time you walk through the gate.”
Andruw and Marsch mounted their emaciated horses and set off to join the column, but Formio lingered a moment.
“We did all we could, General,” he said quietly.
“I know. It’s just that it never feels as though it’s enough.”
The Fimbrian nodded. “For what it is worth, my men are content to serve under you. It seems that Torunna can produce soldiers too.”
Corfe found himself smiling. “Go on, see to your troops, Formio. And thank you.” He realised that he had just been given the greatest professional compliment of his life.
Formio set off in the wake of Marsch and Andruw without another word.
C ORFE stood alone until the rearguard came into sight almost an hour later, then he mounted his horse and trotted down to join them. Two hundred Cathedrallers under Ebro and Morin, their steeds’ noses drooping inches from the ground.
“What’s the storey, Haptman?” he asked.
Ebro saluted. The pompous young officer Corfe had first met the previous year was now an experienced leader of men with the eyes of a veteran. He had come a long way.
“Five more horses in the last two miles,” Ebro told him. “Another day and I reckon we’d all be afoot.”
“No sign of the enemy?”
Ebro shook his head. “General, I do believe they’re halfway back to Orkhan by now. We put the fear of God into them.”
“That was the idea. Good work, Ebro.”
The scarlet-armoured horsemen filed past in a muddy stream. Some of them looked up as they passed their commander and nodded or raised a hand. Many had shrivelled Merduk heads dangling from their pommels. Corfe wondered how few of his original galley slaves were left now. He sat his horse until they had all passed by and then finally entered the East Gate himself, the last man in the army to do so. The heavy wooden and iron doors boomed shut behind him.
I T was very late by the time he finally entered his chambers. He had visited the wounded in the military hospitals, racking his brains to try and address every man by his name, singling out those whom he had seen in battle and reminding them of their courage. He had gripped the bony fist of one wounded Cimbric tribesman as the man died then and there, in front of him. Those days in the open, eating horseflesh, rattling in agony in the back of a springless waggon, only to lose the fight when placed at last in a warm bed with clean blankets. The tribesman had died saying Corfe’s name, understanding no word of Normannic.
Then there had been the dwindling horse-lines, seeing to it that the surviving mounts were well looked after, and then a half-dozen meetings with various quartermasters to ensure that the freed prisoners Corfe had brought south were being looked after. Most of them had been billeted with the civilian population. And at the last there had been a beer with Andruw, Marsch, Formio, Ranafast and Ebro, standing in a rowdy barracks and gulping down the tepid stuff by the pint, the six of them clinking their jugs together like men at a party whilst around them the soldiers did the same, most of them naked, having cast off their filthy clothes and rusted armour. Corfe had left his officers to their drinking and had staggered off towards the palace, both glad and reluctant to leave the warmth and comradeship of the barracks.
It seemed a crowd of people was waiting for him when he arrived, all bobbing and bowing and eager to lay hands on him. For once he was happy to have a crowd of flunkeys around, unbuckling straps, pulling off his boots, bringing him a warm woollen robe. They had built a blazing fire in the hearth and closed the shutters on the pouring rain beyond the balcony. They brought in ewers of steaming water and trays of food and drink. They would have washed him too if he had let them. He ordered them out and performed that task himself, but he was too tyred to use the towells that had been left out and sat alone watching the flames with his bare feet stretched out to the hearth, a puddle of water on the flagged stone of the floor below him. His skin was white and wrinkled and there was still dead men’s blood under his nails, but he did not care. He was too weary even to pick at the tray of delicacies they had set out for him, though he poured himself some wine and gulped it down in order to warm his innards. So good to be alone, to have silence and no immediate decisions to make. To just feel the kindly wine warm him and hear the rain rattling at the window.
“Hail, the conquering hero,” a voice said. “So you are back.”
He did not turn round. “I’m back.”
The Torunnan Queen came into the firelight. He had not heard her enter the room.
“You look exhausted.”
Odelia was dressed in a simple linen gown, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders, shining in the firelight. She looked like a young woman ready for bed.
“I waited for you,” she said, “but they said you were somewhere in the city, with the army.”
“I had things to do.”
“I’m sure you had. You have been nearly six weeks away. Could you not have found time to visit your Queen and tell her about the campaign?”
“I was going to leave it until the morning. I’m meeting the High Command at dawn.”
Odelia pulled a chair up beside him. “So tell me now, plainly, without all the military technicalities.”
He stared at the flamelight which the wine had trapped scarlet in his glass. It was as though a little heart struggled to beat in there.