“Sit, lady. You are exhausted.”
“How can I sit?” Odelia exploded. “I do not even know if he is alive or dead!” She passed a hand over her face. “Pardon me. I am tyred. I was blind: I should have foreseen this.”
“No-one else did,” Grania said bluntly. “Do not torment yourself because you are no soothsayer.”
The Queen sank back down upon her chair. “He cannot be dead, Grania. He must not be dead.” And she buried her face in her hands and wept.
I T was a long, weary way from the waterfront to the Pontifical palace, and it took Corfe and Albrec most of the remainder of the night to traverse it. Fournier’s patrols were easy to dodge. They spent as much time gawking at the wonders of the great city as they did keeping an eye out for curfew-breakers. They were, when it came down to it, untutored men of the country awed by the size and sprawl of the capital. Eavesdropping on their conversations as they trooped past, Corfe realised that some of them did not even know why they were here, except that it was some kind of emergency engendered by the Merduk war.
Halted at the gates of the abbey by watchful Knights Militant, Corfe and Albrec were eyed with astonished disbelief when they demanded to see Macrobius. They were still fettered, and liberally plastered with mud and sewer filth. But something in Corfe’s eye made one of the gate guards dash off at once to fetch Monsignor Alembord. The portly Inceptine looked none too pleased to be dragged out of his bed, but there was no denying that he recognised the bedraggled pair straight away. They were ushered inside the gates amid much whispering and brought to a little reception chamber where Corfe demanded a blacksmith or armourer to cut off their manacles. Alembord waddled away, looking thoroughly confused. He was almost entirely unaware of the coup that had taken place: Fournier’s men had left the abbey alone, as Corfe had suspected they would.
The yawning armourer arrived soon after with a wooden box full of the tools of his trade. The fetters were cut from the two prisoners’ wrists, and Corfe had to clench his teeth against the agony of returning circulation in his hands. They were swollen to twice their normal size and where the iron had encircled his wrists, deep slices had been carved out of the puffed flesh. He let them bleed freely, hoping it would wash some of the filth out of them.
Basins of clean, hot water, and fresh clothes were found for the two men. The clothes turned out to be spare Inceptine habits, and thus it was dressed as a monk that Corfe finally found himself ushered into Macrobius’s private suite. It still wanted an hour until dawn.
Private though the suite might nominally be, it was crowded with anxious clerics and alarmed Knights Militant. They and Macrobius listened in grim silence as Corfe related the events of the past thirty-six hours, Albrec narrating his own part in the storey. As he and Corfe had agreed, however, no mention was made of the spy at the Merduk court.
When they had finished, Macrobius, who had listened without a word, said simply: “What would you have me do?”
“How many armed men can the abbey muster?” Corfe asked.
“Monsignor Alembord?”
“Some sixty to seventy, Holiness.”
“Good,” Corfe said. “Then you must sally out at dawn with all of them, and go to City Square. Call a meeting, raise the rooftops—create a commotion that will get people out on to the streets. Fournier does not have enough men to clamp down on the entire city, and he will not be able to cow the population if they can be raised against him. Get the people on to the streets, Holiness.”
“And you, Corfe, what will you do?”
“I’m going to try and get through to my men. If you can make enough of a commotion, Fournier will have to take troops away from their containment and then there will be a good chance I can break them out. After that, he will be defeated, I promise you.”
“What of the Merduks?” Alembord asked with round eyes.
“I am assuming they are on the move even as we speak. If they force march, they can be here in four or five days at most. That does not give us much time. This thing must be crushed by tomorrow at the latest if we are to take the field in time.”
“Very well,” Macrobius said, his chin out-thrust. “It shall be as you say. Monsignor Alembord, rouse the entire abbey. I want everyone in their best habits, the Knights in full armour and mounted, with every flag and pennon they can find. We shall make a spectacle of it, give Fournier something to distract his mind. See to it at once.”
As the unfortunate Alembord hurried away, Macrobius turned back to Corfe. “How do you intend to get through to your men?”
“With your permission, Holiness, I will retain the disguise I’ve been given. I will be a cleric desiring only to offer spiritual succour to the beleaguered soldiers. For that reason, I will go to Formio’s Fimbrians first. The idea of a priest offering comfort to my Cathedrallers would not stand up.”
“And will you go alone?”
“Yes. Albrec here is too easily recognizable, even by these bumpkins from the south. He will have to remain here in the abbey.”
“And what about the Queen, Corfe?”
“She, also, will have to be left to her own devices for a while. For now it is soldiers I need, not monarchs.”
C OUNT Fournier’s beard had been tugged from its usual fine point into a bristling mess. He paced the room like a restless cat while his senior officers stared woodenly at him.
“Escaped? Escaped? How can you be telling me this? The one man above all who must be contained, and you tell me he is at large. Exactly how could this have happened?”
Gabriel Venuzzi’s handsome face was sallow as a whitewashed wall. “It seems he managed to lever up a grating and make his way into the sewers, Count. He and that nose-less monk who was incarcerated with him.”
“That is another thing. I specifically said that the prisoners were to be confined separately.”
“There are not enough cells in the waterfront dungeons. By my last estimate, we have almost four-score prisoners down there. Some of them are even three to a cell now. Every officer above the rank of ensign is being picked up. Perhaps we could relax the rules a little.”
“No! We must cut off the head if the body is not to crush us. Every man on the lists must be arrested. Start using the common jails if you have to, but take every name on the list!”
“It shall be as you say.”
“What of the Queen?”
“Still confined to her chambers.”
“Have the guards look in on her every few minutes.”
“Count Fournier!” Venuzzi was shocked. “She is the Queen. Do you expect common soldiers to tramp in and out of her chambers like gawking sightseers?”
“Do as I say, damn it. I don’t have time for your lace-edged court niceties, Venuzzi. Our heads will all be on the block if this does not come off. How in the world could he have got away? Where would he go? To his men, obviously. But how to get through the lines? By subterfuge, naturally. Venuzzi, inform our officers that no-one— no-one—is to be allowed through the lines to the Fimbrians or the Cathedrallers. Do you understand me, Venuzzi? Not so much as a damned mouse.”
“I am not an imbecile, Count.”
“I thought that also until you let Cear-Inaf slip away. Now get out and set about your errands.”
Venuzzi left, his formerly pale face flushed and furious. Fournier turned to a beefy figure who lounged by the door. “Sardinac, get some more men up here in the palace, and some artillery pieces.”