could do to one another. And to the innocents that got in the way.
Fornyx clapped him on the arm. ‘Who knows? We may sleep under a roof tonight, Rictus, with a cup of real wine in our hands instead of that army piss. Things are looking up!’
There was indeed a roof for them that night, and as grand a one as could be imagined. There were perhaps fifty thousand people in Irunshahr, but they were outnumbered by those who now camped outside the walls. All day the carts and waggons and pack animals had gone back and forth between the fortress city and the tented town below it. Irunshahr was feeding Corvus’s army with what remained in the city granaries at the end of spring, and it was a startling amount.
In an excess of relief, perhaps, at the unexpectedly civilised behaviour of the Macht troops, the governor of Irunshahr, Gosht, had bade his people raid their larders to placate the invaders. The Macht had not eaten so well since they had left the shores of the sea. Despite the time of year, Irunshahr’s hinterland had already seen one harvest gathered in, and if Bel were kind would see another before the summer was out. Such was the richness of the Middle Empire, and the Macht, used to the hardscrabble farming of their own country, marvelled at it.
The city was not part of any satrapy, but because of its strategic importance had been allotted a governor instead, and stood independent of the lowland provinces. From its gates the Imperial road ran all the way to the Magron Mountains in the far east, and from there through to Ashur itself, capital of the world.
The reason for the city’s sudden capitulation became clear as the Macht moved in to survey the place and establish a garrison. There were no more trained soldiers within the entire circuit of the walls than in the average town back home. Perhaps a centon of Gosht’s personal guard remained. The rest had been commandeered by Darios and taken west. They had died at the Haneikos and at Ashdod. Thus, for Irunshahr, surrender had been the only sensible option, for the levy of the Great King had by all accounts and rumours not yet crossed the Magron, and was still weeks away.
That night, the marshals of the army dined in the great hall of the governor, and somewhat to their astonishment, Gosht himself was invited by Corvus to attend. He sat at the King’s right hand, in the place of honour, an elderly Kefre with almost translucent, golden skin, and a long, pointed beard dyed deep red.
It was a stilted meal. Corvus and Ardashir tried to make conversation in the kindliest way with the old Kefre, but he replied in monosyllables and merely stared up and down the long table at the assembled Macht generals and their strange king, in a mixture of bafflement and fear. When his eye alighted upon Marcan, the Juthan, a light of real hatred crept into it. Finally he excused himself and rose, the King rising with him, as solicitous as if Gosht had been an elderly uncle. The old Kefre recoiled from Corvus’s touch instinctively, as a man will pull his hand back from a flame, and was seen out of the vast, echoing hall by two of his attendants, round-eyed hufsan almost as bewildered as he.
‘You may be pushing courtesy too far,’ Ardashir said to Corvus. ‘You scared the old fellow half to death — I think he expected to be poisoned, or stabbed to death where he sat.’
Corvus was buried in thought, tossing an empty wine cup hand to hand and catching it with that quicksilver grace unique to him. ‘We shall have to leave a sizeable garrison here,’ he said absently, and tossed the cup to Druze, who whipped it out of the air and commenced to fill it.
There were no pages attending the diners tonight; Corvus had given them all leave to roam the city as they might. Only a few hufsan slaves had attended the meal, and they had been dismissed when the governor left. The marshals could lean back in their high-backed chairs and stare at the ornate ceiling, finger the silver knives and plates thoughtfully, and generally gape their fill at the way in which a governor of the empire lived. Their chairs were upholstered in silk, which it seemed a crime to sit upon, and the carpet beneath them was circular, as brightly beautiful as a sunrise. All about the walls hung tapestries of the same calibre, and wonderfully made weapons too beautiful to ever take to war.
‘Ashdod was a pigsty compared to this,’ Teresian said, too taken aback even for avarice.
‘Don’t get over excited,’ Fornyx told him. ‘We’ve checked the treasury; Darios stripped it bare before he went west. What was left, we captured at the Haneikos in his paychests.’
‘I dare say there’s more secreted here and there,’ Teresian said, smirking.
The King slammed his cup down on the table, startling them. ‘This city is mine now, and everything in it. Anyone who steals within these walls steals from me, and will be dealt with accordingly.’ In a softer tone, he said, ‘Besides, you’re rich enough Teresian. What are you doing, saving up to be King?’
There was laughter up and down the table, though it had an uneasy edge.
‘As I said,’ he went on in a quieter tone, ‘This city will require a real garrison. It guards the road any reinforcements will have to take from the Harukush. And the mountain pass will have to be patrolled.’
‘With Irunshahr in your hands, you also guard the northern flank of Jutha,’ Marcan spoke up, his bass deep enough to tremble the cups. The men at the table looked at him. He did not speak much, but he was often there, at the corner of things. Corvus did not seem to mind that the Juthan sometimes joined them at table, even when they were discussing strategy. Rictus had tried to bring up the subject with Corvus, but the King had just laughed.
‘My father’s legions will be on the march by now. It is good that you have a secure base here in Pleninash. The news will travel fast.’
‘I look forward to the day when your people and mine fight together, Marcan,’ Corvus said, with that genuine smile which charmed so many. It was impossible to see if the yellow-eyed Juthan was seduced by it. One might as well have smiled at a stone.
‘Who do we leave here?’ Fornyx asked.
‘I’ll think of someone — not you, Fornyx — we all know you love the Kufr too much.’
‘Best make sure you can trust the beggar, whoever he is. The man who commands this city has his foot on our neck.’
‘I will think of someone,’ Corvus repeated, an edge in his voice. Fornyx was one of the few people he had never charmed.
‘Rictus, I want you to ride out with Ardashir in the morning. He’s taking a mounted patrol east along the Imperial Road, to get a feel for the route and look out for the enemy.’
‘Me? I can barely sit a horse,’ Rictus said, surprised.
‘You sit it better than you think,’ Corvus told him. ‘And I do not expect you to have to charge into battle, brother. I want someone with Ardashir who has seen this country before.’
‘But he’s Kefren — what does he need me for?’
Ardashir smiled. ‘Rictus, I may be Kefren, but this is my first foray east of the Korash. I know as much about the Land Between the Rivers as does Fornyx, or any of the rest of us.’
‘My knowledge is thirty years old.’
‘The empire does not change much from year to year.’ This was Marcan. ‘I can sit a mule, Corvus. May I join them? I know something of this country also.’
The King looked at the blank grey face of the yellow-eyed Juthan, his hostage.
‘A capital idea,’ he said at last, and raised his glass. He ignored the looks the Macht marshals darted up and down the table.
A haze rose over the land south of Irunshahr, a fug of woodsmoke, excrement, rising sweat, cooking smells, and snoring men. The miasma of an army. It was as familiar to Rictus as the smell of bread to a baker.
The patrol set off early, picking their way through the tented city beyond the walls with the sun rising in their faces, a squat disc of red smeared with cloud, whose rise could be tracked with the eye if one stood still for a few minutes to watch. The Juthan stared at it with his livid eyes as his mule followed the tall rump of the Niseian in front.
Rictus rode beside him, as they were equally uncomfortable on horseback. But if the tall Kefren on their mighty horses were amused by the sight of the odd pair, they did not show it. Rictus was something of a legend in the army, and it was well known that the King considered him his second in command. Also, he was a cursebearer, and anyone who bore one of the black cuirasses inspired a certain amount of awe in the ranks.
Marcan had dropped his reins and let the mule pick its way according to its own good sense. He raised his arms to the rising sun, closed his eyes, and said something in a hard, clicking language Rictus had never heard before.
