Ships from the West

much food for thought. The Torunnans were now the most renowned soldiers in the world - at least as long as they were led by their present king. And they were now part of this Grand Alliance which encompassed Hebrion, Astarac, Gabrion, and even Ostrabar. Set against this confederation was the might of the Second Empire. At the court of the Electors it had long been decided that Fimbria would swallow her pride, bide her time and await the collision of these two titans. After the dust had cleared, then that would be the time for Fimbria to reassert her old claims on the continent, and not before - no matter how this neutrality might frustrate and even anger the common soldiers of the army, who were burning to reclaim their reputation as the conquerors of the west. But times were changing with a rapidity bewildering to those who had grown up with the twin certainties of the indivisible Holy Church and the menace of the heathen east, and Fimbria had decided to review her policies, and take stock of the new order of the world.

'I make it at least thirty thousands of infantry, and ten of cavalry,' Grail said, consulting the varicoloured counters which littered the table.

Justus turned from the window and his view of Charibon's faithful streaming out of the cathedral into the square below. Almost all the clerics he saw were in black. One or two in Antillian brown here and there, but for the most part the Inceptines seemed to have virtually subsumed every other religious order in the world. In this half of the continent, at any rate.

'There are other camps,' he told his companion. 'Further to the east, towards the gap. They have fortresses there in the foothills of the Thurians. Their entire strength may be half as much again.'

'And that's not counting their garrisons,' a third raven-clad Fimbrian put in from his post by the fire. 'Our intelligence indicates that they have large contingents in Vol Ephrir and Alstadt, and even as far west as Fulk.'

'Hardly surprising,' Grail said. They have the resources of half the continent to draw upon, and then there are these others . . .' With an impatient gesture, he began scooping the counters into a leather pouch, scowling.

'It is mainly these others that we are here to find out about,' Justus told him. 'Armies of men, we can prepare for. But if half the rumours are true—'

Tf half the rumours are true then the Second Empire has both God and the devil on its side.' Grail chuckled. 'I daresay it is mostly a case of tall tales and skilful rumour-handling.'

The Fimbrian at the fire was shorter, and older than the other two. His hair was a cropped silver, and his face was as hard and seamed as wood. Only his eyes gave him away. They flashed now like two cerulean gemstones. 'There is more to it than that. There are strange things happening in Char-ibon; there have been ever since this Aruan appeared out of nowhere five, six years go and waltzed into the Vicar-Generalship as though it had been specially set aside for him.'

'Do you think the stories about him are true then, Brian-non?' Grail asked. There was a mocking edge to his voice.

'The world is full of strange things. This man has opened the doors of the Himerian Church to all the sorcerers and witches of the Five Kingdoms, reversing the ecclesiastical policies of generations, and they have come flocking to him as though he were Ramusio himself. Why would he do this? Where has he come from? And what manner of man is he? That is what we are here to find out. Now, before the stormclouds break and it is too late.'

A knock on the door of the chamber, and a man who might have been brother to any of those within peered inside and said, 'It's time, sir. They're expecting us in a few moments.'

'Very well,' Briannon answered. He repaired to a side chamber for a few minutes, and when he returned some of the worst of the grime had been slapped off his uniform, and he wore a scarlet sash about his middle.

'No circlet?' Grail asked wryly. He and Justus had buckled on short swords of iron and wiped some of the mud off their boots, but aside from that they looked much as they had when they had marched into Charibon the night before.

'No. As we agreed, I am Marshal Briannon here - no relation to the Elector who happens to share my name.'

The Pontifical Reception Hall had been built to overawe. It resembled the nave of a cathedral. Every supplicant who sought an audience with the High Pontiff must needs tramp a long, intimidating path down its length towards the high dais at the end, his every move flanked by alcoves in the massive walls - every one of which held the figure of a Knight Militant in full armour, standing like a graven statue, but following everything with his eyes.

At the far end, Himerius sat on a tall throne, and on either side of him stood his Vicar-General, and the Presbyter of the Knights. Other monks were black shadows in the background, murmuring and scraping quills across parchment. Although it was a bright spring day outside, and sunlight flooded in through the tall windows that butted the vaulted roof of the building, braziers were burning around the dais, and elabor­ately carved wooden screens had been drawn around, so it seemed that Himerius and his advisors were cloaked in shadow and flame light, and difficult to make out after the dazzling length of the hall.

The twelve Fimbrians marched sombrely towards this darkness. Their swords had been left in the antechamber and their hands were empty but they somehow seemed more formidable than the heavily armoured Knights whom they passed by.

They came to a cadenced halt before the dais, and were enveloped in the shadow that surrounded Himerius.

Grail was listening to the opening exchanges with one part of his mind, but more of it was studying the men he saw before him. Himerius was old - in his seventies now - and his frame seemed withered and lost in the rich robes which clad it. But his eyes were bright as a raptor's, his ivory face still retaining a haggard vitality.

To his right stood a tall man in Inceptine black, with the chain of the Vicariate around his neck. He was monk-bald, but had the air about him of a great nobleman. He had a hawk nose that put even Himerius's to shame, and thick, sprawling eye­brows over deep orbits within which the eyes were mere glints. He looked somehow foreign, as though he came from the east. It was the high cruelty of the cheekbones, perhaps. There was about him an air of command that impressed even Grail.

This was Aruan of Garmidalan, the Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order, and, some said, the true head of the Hime-rian Church. The power behind the throne at any rate, and an object of mystery and speculation throughout all the Norman-nic kingdoms.

To Himerius's left stood a different pot of fish entirely. A broad-shouldered, shaven-headed soldier in half armour with a broken nose and the scar of long helm-wearing on his forehead. In his sixties, perhaps, he looked as hale and formidable as any Fimbrian drill sergeant Grail had ever known. But there was intelligence in his eyes, and when Grail met them he felt was being gauged and, as the eyes moved on, dismissed again. This man had seen battle, spilled blood. The violence in him could almost be smelled. Bardolin of Carreir-ida, Presbyter of the Knights Militant - another enigma. He had been a mage, apprentice to the great Golophin of Hebrion, but had turned against his master and now completed the triumvirate of powers here in Charibon.

'—Always a pleasure to see the representatives of the Electorates here in Charibon. We trust that your quarters agree with you, and that there will be time during your visit to discuss the many and varied subjects of importance which now concern both our fiefdoms. The Grand Alliance, as it styles itself, has been for years a warlike and threatening presence on our shared continent, and it borders both our states, yet of late its posturing has become more substantial, and we must needs consult together, I believe, as to how its ambitions may be curtailed.' This was Himerius, his old voice surprisingly clear and resonant under the massive beams of the hall.

'The restraint shown by the Electorates has been admirable, considering the many hostile acts committed against it by the alliance, but we feel here at Charibon, the seat of the True Faith, that it is perhaps time that Fimbria and the Empire made common cause against these aggressors. The world is divided irrevocably. To our sorrow, our advisors tell us that war may not be long in coming, despite all our efforts to prevent it. The anti- Pontiff Albrec the Faceless and his bene­factor, the murderous usurper Corfe of Torunna, not to mention the despicable despoilers of the holy city of Aekir, are all massing troops on our eastern borders. While in the west, Hebrion, Gabrion and Astarac - also in league with the Merduk - blockade our coasts and strangle trade. We pray therefore, Marshal Briannon, that your embassy is come here today to make common cause with us in this approaching struggle - one that will, with God's blessing, wipe the heresy of Albrec from our shores for ever, and bring to an end the disgusting spectacle of Merduk and Ramusian worshipping together - in the same temple, at the same altar! - as it is said they do in the iniquitous sink that is Torunn.'