between this most loathsome day and the glorious one of your accession. I beseech you, sir; believe me that whatever I do in your name, my lord, will be for you and the people of Sarl, and always in the name of the WorldGod. Your father would expect no less, and in this cause, so great to us, I might begin to start some small repayment of the honour he did me. I honour you as I honoured him, sir — utterly, with all my being, with my every thought and every action, now and for as long as it is my duty so to do.
“I have today lost the best friend a man ever had, sir; a true light, a constant star whose fixity outshone, outstared any mere celestial lamp. The Sarl have lost the greatest commander they have ever known, a name fit to be clamoured down the aeons till time’s end and echo loud as that of any hero of the distant ancients amongst the unseen stars. We can never hope to be a tenth as great as he, but I take respite in only this: the truly great are strong beyond death itself, my lord, and, like the fading streak of light and heat a great star leaves behind it once its own true brilliance has been obscured, a legacy of power and wisdom remains from which we may draw strength, by its focus magnifying our own small allotment of fortitude and will.
“Sir, if I seem to express myself inelegantly, or without the due respect I would give your station and your self, forgive me. My eyes are blinded, my ears stopped and my mouth made numb by all that’s taken place today. To gain more than we thought possible, then lose an infinity more than even that, would have shattered any man, save only the one unmatched soul it is our sad, abhorrent duty to bring before you here.”
Tyl Loesp fell silent. Oramen knew he was expected to say something in return. He’d been doing his best to ignore the prattling dukes around him for the last half-hour, after Fanthile had briefly made it through the press of bodies, animal and human, surrounding him, to warn him he might need to give a speech. The palace secretary had barely had time to impart even this morsel of advice before he and his mount were nudged and jostled out of the way, back to what the more splendid nobles obviously regarded as his proper place amongst the minor nobility, the dutifully wailing priests and dour-looking parliamentarians. Since then Oramen had been trying to come up with something suitable. But what was he supposed to say, or do?
He glanced at the various resplendent nobles around him, all of whom, from their grave, almost exaggerated nods and mutterings, seemed to approve quite mightily of Mertis tyl Loesp’s speech. Oramen twisted briefly in his saddle to glimpse Fanthile — now still further back in the crush of junior nobles, priests and representatives — signalling, with jerks of his head and jagged flaps of his hand that he ought to dismount.
He did so. Already a small crowd of dismounted men and people presumably from the nearby town and countryside had gathered around them, filling the broad way and jostling for position on the roadside banks. The growing forelight, pre-dawn under a sky of scattered clouds, silhouetted some folk climbing nearby trees for a better view. He still had no idea what to say in return, though he suddenly thought what a fine subject for a painting such a scene might make. Oramen took tyl Loesp by one hand and got him to stand before him.
“Thank you for all you’ve said and done, dear tyl Loesp,” he told the older man. He was very aware of the contrast between the two of them; he the slight prince, barely out of childish clothes and dressed beneath his thrown-back cloak as though preparing for bed, the other the all-powerful conquering warrior, still in his battle armour — flecked here and there with all the marks of war — three times his age and barely any younger or less impressive than the lately killed king.
Harsh-breathing, stern-faced, still stinking of blood and smoke, bearing all the signs of mortal combat and unbearable grief, tyl Loesp towered over him. The drama of the scene was not lost on Oramen. This
Not from a painting, of course, but from a play. There were enough old tragedies with like scenes and suitable speeches for him to welcome back a dozen dead dads and doughty combateers; the choice was more daunting than the task it might relieve. He’d recall, pick, edit, join and extemporise his way through the moment.
“This is indeed our saddest day,” Oramen said, raising his voice, and his head. “If any energies of yours could bring our father back, I know you’d devote them to that cause without stint. That vigour instead will be turned to the good interest of all our people. You bring us sorrow and joy at once, my good tyl Loesp, but for all the misery we feel now, and for all the time we must rightly hence devote to the mourning of our incomparable fallen, the satisfaction of this great victory will still shine brightly when that rite has been most fully observed, and my father would surely want it so.
“The sum of his most glorious life was cause for fervent celebration well before the great triumph of this day, and the weight of that result has grown only more majestic with the exploits of all who fought for him before the Xiliskine Tower.” Oramen looked round the gathered people for a moment at this point, and attempted to raise his voice still further. “My father took one son to war today, and left one, myself, at home. I have lost both a father and a brother, as well as my king and his loved and rightful heir. They outshine me in death as they did in life, and Mertis tyl Loesp, though having no lack of other responsibilities, must stand in place of both for me. I tell you, I can think of no one more fitted to the task.” Oramen nodded towards the grim-faced warrior in front of him, then he took a breath, and, still addressing the assembled mass, said, “I know I have no share of this day’s glory — I think my boyish shoulders would fail beneath the smallest part of such a load — but I am proud to stand with all the Sarl people, to celebrate and to honour the great deeds done and pay the fullest respect to one who taught us celebration, encouraged us to honour and exemplified respect.”
This fetched a cheer, which rose raggedly then with increasing strength from the congregation of people gathered around them. Oramen heard shields being struck by swords, mailed fists beating on armoured chests and, like a modern comment on such flowery antiquity, the loud crack of small arms fire, rounds spent into the air like some inverted hail.
Mertis tyl Loesp, who had kept a stony face during Oramen’s reply, looked very briefly surprised — even alarmed — at its end, but that briefest of impressions — which might so easily have been the result of the uncertain light cast by the carried travel lanterns and the wan glow of a still unrisen minor star — was close to uncapturably short-lived, and easily dismissible.
“May I see my father, sir?” Oramen asked. He found that his heart was beating hard and his breath was quick; still he did his best to maintain a calm and dignified demeanour, as he gathered was expected. Nevertheless, if he was expected to wail and scream and tear out his hair when he saw the body, this impromptu audience was going to be disappointed.
“He is here, sir,” tyl Loesp said, indicating the long carriage pulled by hefters behind him.
They walked to the carriage, the crowd of men, mostly armed, many with all the appearance of great distress, parting for them. Oramen saw the tall, spare frame of General Werreber, who’d briefed them at the palace about the battle just the night before, and the Exaltine Chasque, the chief of priests. Both nodded to him. Werreber looked old and tired and somehow — despite his height — shrunken inside his crumpled uniform. He nodded, then cast his gaze downwards. Chasque, resplendent in rich vestments over gleaming armour, formed the sort of clenched, encouraging half-smile people sometimes did when they wanted to tell you to be brave or strong.
They climbed on to the platform where Oramen’s father lay. The body was attended by a couple of priests in appropriately torn vestments and lit from above by a single hissing, sputtering travel lamp casting a white, caustic light over the bier. His father’s face looked grey and still and drawn-down somehow, as though he was pondering — eyes shut, jaws set — some overwhelmingly demanding problem. A silvery sheet embroidered with gold covered his body from the neck down.
Oramen stood looking at him for a while. In time he said, “In life, by choice, his deeds spoke for him. In death, I must be as mute as all his undone undertakings.” He clapped tyl Loesp on the arm. “I’ll sit with him while we return to the city.” He looked behind the gun carriage. A mersicor, a great charger, dis-armoured though in full regalia, was tied to its rear, saddle empty. “Is that…?” he began, then made a show of clearing his throat. “That’s my father’s mount,” he said.
“It is,” tyl Loesp confirmed.
“And my brother’s?”
“Unfound, sir.”
“Let my mount be tied to the end of the carriage too, behind my father’s.”
He went to sit at his father’s head, then, imagining Fanthile’s face, thought that might be held inappropriate, and repositioned himself at the foot of the bier.
He sat there at the trailing edge of the carriage, cross-legged, looking down, while the two mersicors loped
