the teeth and half the tongue gone, a hand neatly split leaving only thumb and forefinger, a punctured belly leaking piss. One man had been cut across the back of the neck and could not move, only lie on his face, breath softly wheezing. His eyes followed her as she passed and the look in them made her cold all over. Bodies skinned, burned, ripped open at strange angles, their secret insides laid open to the world in awful violation. Wounds that would ruin men as long as they lived. Ruin those who loved them.
She tried to keep her eyes on her work, such as it was, chewing her tongue, trembling fingers fumbling with knots and pins. Trying not to listen to the whispers for help that she did not know how to give. That no one could give. Red spots appearing on the new bandages even before she finished, and growing, and growing, and she was forcing down tears, and forcing down sick, and on to the next, who was missing his left arm above the elbow, the left side of his face covered by bandages, and…
‘Finree.’
She looked up and realised, to her cold horror, that it was Colonel Brint. They stared at each other for what felt like for ever, in awful silence, in that awful place.
‘I didn’t know …’ There was so much she did not know she hardly knew how to continue.
‘Yesterday,’ he said, simply.
‘Are you …’ She almost asked him if he was all right, but managed to bite the words off. The answer was horribly obvious. ‘Do you need…’
‘Have you heard anything? About Aliz?’ The name alone was enough to make her guts cramp up even further. She shook her head. ‘You were with her. Where were you held?’
‘I don’t know. I was hooded. They took me away and sent me back.’ And oh, how glad she was that Aliz had been left behind in the dark, and not her. ‘I don’t know where she’ll be now …’ Though she could guess. Perhaps Brint could too. Perhaps he was spending all his time guessing.
‘Did she say anything?’
‘She was … very brave.’ Finree managed to force her face into the sickly semblance of a smile. That was what you were supposed to do, wasn’t it? Lie? ‘She said she loved you.’ She put a halting hand on his arm. The one he still had. ‘She said … not to worry.’
‘Not to worry,’ he muttered, staring at her with one bloodshot eye. Whether he was comforted, or outraged, or simply did not believe a word of her blame-shirking platitudes she could not tell. ‘If I could just
Finree did not think it would help him to know. It was not helping her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, unable even to look at him any longer. ‘I tried … I did everything I could, but …’ That, at least, was true. Wasn’t it? She gave Brint’s limp arm one last squeeze. ‘I have to … get some more bandages…’
‘Will you come back?’
‘Yes,’ she said, lurching up, not sure if she was still lying, ‘of course I will.’ And she almost tripped over her feet in her haste to escape that nightmare, thanking the Fates over and over and over that they had chosen her for saving.
Sick of penance, she wandered up the hillside path towards her father’s headquarters. Past a pair of corporals dancing a drunken jig to the music of a squeaky fiddle. Past a row of women washing shirts in a brook. Past a row of soldiers queuing eagerly for the king’s gold, gleaming metal in the paymaster’s fingers glimpsed through the press of bodies. A small crowd of yammering salesmen, conmen and pimps had already gathered about the far end of the line like gulls about a patch of crumbs, realising, no doubt, that peace would soon put them out of business and give honest men the chance to thrive.
Not far from the barn she passed General Mitterick, chaperoned by a few of his staff, and he gave her a solemn nod. Right away she felt something was wrong. Usually his intolerable smugness was reliable as the dawn. Then she saw Bayaz step from the low doorway, and the feeling grew worse. He stood aside to let her pass with all the smugness Mitterick had been missing.
‘Fin.’ Her father stood alone in the middle of the dim room. He gave her a puzzled smile. ‘Well, there it is.’ Then he sat down in a chair, gave a shuddering sigh and undid his top button. She had not seen him do that during the day in twenty years.
She strode back into the open air. Bayaz had made it no more than a few dozen strides, speaking softly to his curly-headed henchman.
‘You! I want to speak to you!’
‘And I to you, in fact. What a happy chance.’ The Magus turned to his servant. ‘Take him the money, then, as we agreed, and … send for the plumbers.’ The servant bowed and backed respectfully away. ‘Now, what can I…’
‘You cannot replace him.’
‘And we are speaking of?’
‘My father!’ she snapped. ‘As you well know!’
‘I did not replace him.’ Bayaz looked almost amused. ‘Your father had the good grace, and the good sense, to resign.’
‘He is the best man for the task!’ It was an effort to stop herself from grabbing the Magus’ bald head and biting it. ‘The one man who did a thing to limit this pointless bloody slaughter! That puffed-up fool Mitterick? He charged half his division to their deaths yesterday! The king needs men who…’
‘The king needs men who obey.’
‘You do not have the authority!’ Her voice was cracking. ‘My father is a lord marshal with a chair on the Closed Council, only the king himself can remove him!’
‘Oh, the shame! Undone by the very rules of government I myself drafted!’ Bayaz stuck out his bottom lip as he reached into his coat pocket and slid out a scroll with a heavy red seal. ‘Then I suppose this carries no weight either.’ He gently unrolled it, thick parchment crackling faintly. Finree found herself suddenly breathless as the Magus cleared his throat.
‘By royal decree, Harod dan Brock is to be restored to his father’s seat on the Open Council. Some of the family estates near Keln will be returned, along with lands near Ostenhorm from which, it will be hoped, your husband will attend to his new responsibilities as lord governor of Angland.’ Bayaz turned the paper around and brought it closer, her eyes darting over the blocks of masterful calligraphy like a miser’s over a chest of jewels.
‘How could the king not be moved by such loyalty, such bravery, such sacrifice as the young
For the first time since it had been produced, Finree shifted her eyes from the scroll. She was close enough to see each grey hair of Bayaz’ beard, each brown liver spot on his bald pate, each deep, hard crease in his skin. ‘It would take a week for the despatch to reach him and another week for the edict to return. It has only been a day since…’
‘Call it magic. His Majesty’s carcass may be a week away in Adua, but his right hand?’ Bayaz held his own up between them. ‘His right hand is a little closer by. But none of that matters now.’ He stepped back, sighing, and started to roll the parchment up. ‘Since you say I have not the authority. I shall burn this worthless paper, shall I?’
‘No!’ She had to stop herself snatching it from his hand. ‘No.’
‘You no longer object to your father’s replacement?’
She bit her lip for a moment. War is hell, and all that, but it presents opportunities. ‘He resigned.’
‘Did he?’ Bayaz smiled wide, but his green eyes stayed glittering hard. ‘You impress me once again. My earnest congratulations on your husband’s meteoric rise to power. And your own, of course … Lady Governess.’ He held out the scroll by one handle. She took it by the other. He did not let go.
‘Remember this, though. People love heroes, but new ones can always be found. With one finger of one hand I make you. With one finger of one hand …’ He put his finger under her chin and pushed it up, sending a stab of pain
