Albrec mounted the dais, his face dark with some unknown worry. He bowed. “Your pardon, Majesties. I would count it an honour if you allowed me to be present at this time. I will stay out of the way.”
Odelia looked as though she was about to refuse, but Corfe waved him closer. “By all means, Father. After all, you’re better acquainted with the Merduk Sultan than we are.” Why did the little monk look so troubled? He was wiping sweat off his face with one sleeve.
“Albrec, are you all right?” Corfe asked him quietly.
“Corfe, I must—”
And here the damnable trumpets began sounding out again. A swaying line of palanquin-bearing elephants approached, painted and draped and bejewelled until they seemed like beasts out of some gaudy legend. Atop the lead animal, which had been painted white, Corfe could make out the broad, turbaned shape of the man who must be Aurungzeb, and beside him under the tasselled canopy the slighter shadow of his Queen.
The play-acting part of it was scheduled to last no more than a few minutes. In the audience hall of the palace two copies of the treaty waited to be signed—that was the real business of the day. Then there would be a banquet, and some entertainments or other which Odelia had dreamt up, and it would be done. Aurungzeb would not be staying in Torunn overnight, treaty or no treaty.
Formio and Aras appeared at the foot of the dais. Corfe had thought it only fair that they be here for this moment. The two had become fast friends despite the odds. The Aras Corfe knew now was a long way from the pompous young man he had first encountered at Staed. What was it Andruw had said? All piss and vinegar—yes, that was it. And Corfe smiled. I hope you can see this, Andruw. You made it happen, you and those damned tribesmen.
So many ghosts.
The lead elephant halted, and then went to its knees as smoothly as a well-trained lap-dog. Silk-clad attendants appeared and helped the Sultan and his Queen out of the high palanquin. A knot of people, as bright as silk butterflies, fussed around the couple. Corfe looked at Odelia. She nodded, and they both rose to their feet to greet their guests.
The Sultan was a tall man, topping Corfe by half a head. The fine breadth of his shoulders was marred somewhat by the paunch that had begun to develop under the sash which belted his middle. He had a huge beard, as broad as a besom, and his snow-white turban was set with a ruby brooch. The eyes under the turban’s brim were alight with intelligence and irritation. Clearly, he did not like the fact that, thanks to the dais, Corfe and Odelia were looking down on him.
Of Aurungzeb’s Queen, Corfe could make out little, except that she was heavily pregnant. She was clad in blue silk, the colour of which Corfe immediately liked. Her face above the veil had been garishly painted, the eye-brows drawn out with stibium, kohl smeared across the lids. She did not look up at the dais, but kept her gaze fixed resolutely on the ground. Directly behind her stood an old Merduk with a formidable face and direct glance. He looked like an over-protective father.
The Sultan’s chamberlain had appeared at one side to announce his master’s appearance, but Aurungzeb did not wait for the diplomatic niceties to begin. Instead he clambered up on to the dais itself, which caused Corfe’s Cathedraller bodyguard to half draw their swords. Corfe held up a hand, and they relaxed.
The Sultan loomed over him. “So you are the man I have been fighting,” he said, his Normannic surprisingly good.
“I am the man.”
They stared at one another in frank, mutual curiosity. Finally Aurungzeb grinned. “I thought you would be taller.”
They both laughed, and incredibly Corfe found himself liking the man.
“I see you have your mad little priest here as well—except that he is not mad, of course. Brother Albrec, you have turned our world upside-down. I hope you are pleased with yourself.”
Albrec bowed wordlessly. The Sultan nodded to Odelia. “Lady, I hope you are good… well. Yes, that is the word.” He took Odelia’s hand and kissed it, then scrutinized the nearest Cathedraller, who was watching him warily.
“I thought we had killed them all,” he said affably.
Corfe frowned. “Not all of them.”
“You must be running short of Ferinai armour for them. I can perhaps send you a few hundred sets.”
“There is no need,” Odelia said smoothly. “We captured several hundred more at Armagedir.”
It was the Sultan’s turn to frown. But not for long. “My manners have deserted me. Let me introduce Queen Ahara. Shahr Baraz, help her up here. That’s it.”
The old, severe-looking Merduk helped the Merduk Queen up on the dais. Around the little tableau of figures, the crowds had gone quiet and were watching events unfold as if it were some passion play laid on for their entertainment.
“Ahara was from Aekir,” the Sultan explained. “She will soon give me a son. The next Sultan of Ostrabar will have Ramusian blood in him. For that reason at least, it is good that this long war finally comes to an end.”
Albrec laid a hand on Corfe’s shoulder, surprising him. The little monk was staring intently at him. Half amused, half puzzled, he took the Merduk Queen’s hand to kiss, raised it to his lips. “Lady—”
Her eyes were full of tears. Corfe hesitated, wondering what was wrong, and in that instant, he knew her.
He knew her.
Albrec’s grip on his shoulder tightened bruisingly.
“It may be that one day our children will even play together,” Aurungzeb went on, oblivious. He seemed to enjoy showing off his command of Normannic. “Imagine how we will be able to improve our respective kingdoms, if there is no war to fight, no frontier to maintain. I foresee a new era with the signing of this treaty. Today is a famous day.”
So much, in one terrible moment. A whole host of impulses come roaring at him, only to be beaten back. His life shipwrecked beyond hope or happiness. Albrec’s grip on his shoulder anchoring him to reality in a world which had suddenly gone insane.
Her eyes had not changed, despite the paint that had been applied about them. Perhaps there was a wisdom in them now which had not been there before. Her fingers clasped his hand as they hovered below his lips, a gentle pressure, no more.
Something broke, deep within him.
Corfe shut his eyes, and kissed the hand of the woman who had been his wife. He held her fingers one moment more, and then released them and straightened.
“I hope I see you well, lady,” he said, his voice as harsh and thick as a raven’s croak.
“I am well enough, my lord,” she replied.
One second longer they had looking at one another, and then the madness of the world came flooding back in on them. The day must be seen through, and the thing they had come here for must be done. Had to be done.
“Are you all right?” Odelia whispered to Corfe as they led the Merduk Royal couple down from the dais to the carriages that awaited.
He nodded, grey in the face. Albrec had to help him into the carriage; he was as unsteady as an old man.
The crowds found their voices at last, and began to cheer as the carriages trundled the short distance to the open doors of the great audience hall, where rank after rank of Fimbrian pikemen were drawn up alongside Torunnan regulars and a small, vermilion line of Cathedrallers. Aras and Formio rode alongside the carriage.
“Wave, Corfe,” Odelia said to him. “This is supposed to be a glad day. The war is over, remember.”
But he did not wave. He stared out at that sea of cheering people, and thought he saw faces he knew in the crowd. Andruw and Marsch, Ebro, Cerne, Ranafast, Martellus. And at the last he saw Heria, the woman who had once been his wife, with that heartbreaking smile of hers, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards.
He closed his eyes. She had joined the faces of the dead at last.