“Because otherwise I’d have to burn my own mother as a witch.”
T HE audience chambers were filling rapidly. In his eagerness to show the living Macrobius to the world, Lofantyr had allowed His Holiness only a few hours to recover from his journey before requesting humbly that he bestow his blessing upon a gathering of the foremost nobles of the kingdom. There were hundreds of people congregating in the palace, all clad in the brightest finery they possessed. The ladies of the court had emulated Perigrainian fashions with the King’s marriage to the young Balsia of Vol Ephrir, and they looked like a cloud of marvellous butterflies with wings of stiff lace and shimmering jewels, their faces painted and their fans fluttering —for the audience chambers were hot with the press of people and the huge logs blazing merrily in the fireplaces. It was a far cry from the austere days of Lofantyr’s father, Vanatyr, when the nobles wore only the black and scarlet of the military and the ladies simple, form-fitting gowns without headdresses.
Corfe and his troop had quartered their mounts in the palace stables and tried to spruce themselves up as best they could, but they were muddy and worn from the travelling and many of them wore the armour they had spent weeks fighting in during the battles at the dyke. His men made a dismal showing, Corfe admitted to himself, but every one of them was a veteran, a survivor. That made a difference.
The court chamberlain had hurriedly procured a set of purple robes for Macrobius, but the old man had refused them. He had also refused to be carried into the audience chamber in a sedan-chair, and to let anyone but Corfe take his arm and guide him up the long length of the crowded hall.
“You have guided me on a harder road than this,” he said as they waited in an antechamber for the trumpet blasts that would announce their entry. “I would ask you one last time to be my eyes for me, Corfe.”
The doors were swung open by liveried attendants, and the vast, gleaming length of marble that was the floor of the audience chamber shone before them, whilst on either side hundreds of people—nobles, retainers, courtiers, hangers-on—craned their necks to see the Pontiff they had thought dead. At the end of the hall, hundreds of yards away it seemed to Corfe, the thrones of Torunna glittered with silver and gilt. Lofantyr the King and his mother the Queen Dowager sat there. A third throne, that of the young Queen, was empty.
The trumpet notes died away. Macrobius smiled. “Come, Corfe. Our audience awaits.”
The tramp of his military boots and the slap of Macrobius’ sandals were the only sound. Perhaps there was a faint murmuring as the crowd took in the soldier in the battered armour and the hideously mutilated old man. Out of the corner of his eye, Corfe glimpsed some of the spectators looking hopefully back at the end of the hall, as if they expected the real Pontiff and his guide to come issuing out of the end doors in a sweep of state and ceremony.
They walked on. Corfe was sweating. He took in the immense height of the building, the arched roof with its buttresses of stone and rafters of black cedar, the huge hanging lamps . . . then he saw the galleries there, packed with watching faces, brilliant with liveries of every rainbow hue. He cursed to himself. This was not his province, this august ceremonial, this painted game of politics and etiquette.
Macrobius squeezed his arm. The old man seemed amused by something, which unsettled Corfe even more. His hand slithered round the hilt of his sabre, the one he had taken off a dead Torunnan trooper on the Western Road.
And he remembered. He remembered the inferno of Aekir, a roaring chaos like the very end of the world. He remembered the long, vicious nights in the retreat west. He remembered the battles at Ormann Dyke, the desperate fury of the Merduk assaults, the ear-numbing roar of the enemy guns. He remembered the endless killing, the thousands of corpses which had clogged the Searil river.
He remembered his wife’s face as she left him for the last time.
They had reached the end of the hall. On the dais before them the King of Torunna regarded them with mild astonishment. His mother’s gaze was a calculating green appraisal. Corfe saluted them. Macrobius stood silent.
There was a cough somewhere, and then the chamberlain banged his staff on the floor three times and called out in a practised, ringing voice which filled the entire hall.
“His Holiness the High Pontiff of the Western Kingdoms and Prelate of Aekir, the head of the holy Church, Macrobius the Third . . .” The chamberlain looked at Corfe then with incipient panic. Obviously he had no idea who the Pontiff’s battered companion might be.
“Corfe Cear-Inaf, colonel in the garrison at Ormann Dyke, formerly under the command of John Mogen at Aekir.” It was Macrobius, in a voice clearer and stronger than Corfe had ever heard him use before, even when he had preached at the dyke.
“Greetings, my son.” This was to Lofantyr.
The Torunnan King hesitated a moment, and then descended from the dais in a sweep of scarlet and sable, his circlet catching the light of the overhead lamps. He knelt before Macrobius, and kissed the old man’s ring— another gift from Martellus; the Pontifical ring had been lost long before.
“You are welcome to Torunna, Holiness,” he said, a little stiffly, Corfe thought. Then he recalled his own manners, and as Lofantyr straightened he bowed. “Your majesty.”
Lofantyr nodded briefly to him and then took Macrobius’ arm. He led the blind old man up to the dais and placed him on the vacant Queen’s throne. Corfe stood alone and uncertain until he caught the eye of the chamberlain, who was beckoning discreetly to him. He marched over into the whispering press of people who were gathered on either side of the dais.
“Stay out of the way,” the chamberlain hissed into his ear, and he banged his staff on the floor again.
Lofantyr had risen from his throne to speak. A hush fell on the hall once more. The King’s voice was less impressive than his chamberlain’s but it carried well enough.
“We welcome here at our court today the living embodiment of the faith that sustains us all. The rightful High Pontiff of the world has been delivered by a miracle out of the cauldron of war in the east. Macrobius the Third lives and is well in Torunn, and with his presence here this city of ours has become the buckler of the Church—the true Church. With the Holy Father’s prayers to sustain us, and the knowledge that right is on our side and God watches over our ranks, we are sure that the armies of Torunna, greatest and most disciplined in the world, will continue the work begun in the past few weeks at Ormann Dyke. Other victories will be stitched upon the battle flags of our tercios, and it will not be long ere our standard is reared up once again on the battlements of Aekir and the heathen foe is flung back across the Ostian river into the wilderness of unbelief and savagery from whence he came . . .”
There was more of this. It passed over Corfe’s head unheeded. He was tired, and the rush of adrenalin which had carried him up the hall had washed out of him, leaving him as drained as a flaccid wineskin. Why had Martellus insisted he come here?
“So I say to the usurper in Charibon,” Lofantyr went on, “there is no heresy in recognizing the true spiritual head of the Church, in fighting to hold the eastern frontier safe for the kingdoms behind us. Torunna and Hebrion and Astarac represent the kingdoms of the True Faith, not the diocese of an imposter who must in his turn be branded heretic.”
The speech ended at last, and the hall boiled with talk. The people within began to spread out across the bare central space in knots of conversation, whilst from side doors up and down the chamber attendants came bearing silver salvers upon which decanters of wine and spirits gleamed. The King poured for Macrobius, and the hall hushed again as the Pontiff stood up with the wineglass blood-full in his hand.
“I am blind.”
And the silence became absolute.
“Yes, I am Macrobius. I escaped from the ruin of Aekir when so many did not. But I am not the man I once was. I stand before you—” He paused and looked sightlessly to one side, where the Queen Dowager had risen from her seat and taken his arm.
“In our haste to welcome the Holy Father into the city, we did not take account of his weariness. He must rest. But before he leaves us for the chambers we have appointed for him, we would beg him for his blessing, the blessing of the true head of the Church.”
Some of the people near the dais took up the cry.
“A blessing! A blessing, Your Holiness!”
Macrobius stood irresolute for a moment, and Corfe had the weirdest feeling that the old man was somehow in danger. He pushed through the clots of people towards the dais, but when he got to its foot he found his way blocked by a line of halberd-bearing guards. The chamberlain appeared at his elbow as if by magic.
