“You know, Andruw, there is a new cemetrey outside the South Gate. The Aekirians, they created it. There are over six thousand graves already. Many of them starved to death, the folk who rot in those graves. While we banqueted in the palace. So don’t talk to me of diplomacy, not now—not ever again. Just see that those orders are posted all over the city. I’m off to have a look at the men.”
Andruw watched him go without another word.
L ATE that night in the capital a group of men met in the discreet upper room of a prosperous tavern. They wore nondescript riding clothes: high boots and long cloaks muddy with the filth of the streets. Some were armed with military sabres. They sat around a long candlelit tavern table marked with the rings of past carouses. A fire smoked and cracked in a grate behind them.
“It’s intolerable, absolutely intolerable,” one of the men said, a red-faced, grey-bearded fellow in his fifties: Colonel Rusio of the city garrison.
“They say he is the son of a peasant from down in Staed,” another put in. “Aras, you were there. Is it true, you think?”
Colonel Aras, a good twenty years younger than anyone else in the room, looked uncomfortable and willing to please at the same time.
“I can’t say for sure. All I know is he handles those daemon tribesmen of his with definite ability. Sirs, you know he had the southern rebels crushed before I even arrived. I’m willing to admit that. Five hundred men! And Narfintyr had over three thousand, yet he stood not a chance.”
“You almost sound as though you admire him, Colonel.” A silken purr of a voice. Count Fournier, head of the Torunnan Military Intelligence, such as it was. He stroked his neat beard, as pointed as a spearhead, and watched his younger colleague intently.
“Perhaps—perhaps I do,” Aras said, stumbling over the words. “In the King’s Battle he stopped my position from being overrun when he sent me his Fimbrians. And then he threw back the Nalbeni horse-archers on the left, twenty thousand of them.”
“
“I hope you are not prey to conflicting emotions in this matter, my dear Aras,” Fournier said. “If so, you should not be here.”
“I know where my loyalties lie,” Aras said quickly. “To my own class, to the social order of the realm. To the ultimate welfare of the kingdom. I merely point out facts, is all.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” Fournier’s voice rose. “Gentlemen, we are gathered here, as you well know, to discuss this—this phoenix which has appeared in our midst. He has military ability, yes. He has the patronage of our noble Queen, yes. But he is a commoner who prefers commanding savages and Fimbrians to his own countrymen and who is utterly lacking in any vestige of respect for the traditional values of this kingdom. Am I not right, Don Venuzzi?”
The palace steward nodded, his handsome face flushed with anger. “You’ve read the notices—they’re all over the city. He is distributing the Royal reserves at this very moment, breaking open the warehouses and handing the contents out to every beggar in the street who has a hand to lift.”
“Such largesse will win him many friends amongst the humbler elements of the population,” one of the group said. A short, stocky individual this, with a black patch over one eye and a shaven pate. Colonel Willem, who had been commander of the troops left to garrison the capital when the army marched out to the King’s Battle. “A shrewd move, indeed. He has brains, this fellow Corfe.”
“Didn’t you go to the Queen?” Fournier demanded of Venuzzi. “After all, it’s her property he’s giving away.”
“Of course I did. But she is besotted with him, I tell you. I was told not to cross him.”
“He must wield a mighty weapon besides that sword of Mogen’s she gave him,” Rusio grunted, and the men at the table sniggered, except for Fournier and Venuzzi, who both looked pained.
“She has what she has been hankering after for years,” Fournier said icily. “Power in name as well as in fact. She is Torunna’s ruler now, no longer the string-puller behind the throne but the occupant of the throne itself. And this Cear-Inaf fellow, he is the fist of the new regime. Mark my words, gentlemen, there are several of us at this table whose heads are about to roll.”
“Perhaps literally,” Rusio muttered. “Fournier, tell me, will they reopen the investigation into that assassination attempt?”
Fournier coloured. “I think not.”
“It was you and the King, wasn’t it?”
“What a monstrous accusation! Do you think I would stoop to—?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Willem interjected testily, “enough. We are allies here. There are to be no accusations or recriminations. We must answer this stark question: how do we rid Torunna of this parvenu?”
“Do we want to be rid of him at the moment?” Aras asked nervously. “After all, he is doing a good job of winning the war.”
“Good Lord, Colonel!” Rusio snapped. “I do believe you’ve fallen under this fellow’s spell. What are you thinking? Winning the war? We left eight thousand dead on the field a few days ago, including our King. Winning the war indeed!”
Aras did not reply. His face was white as bone.
“It must be legal, whatever else it is,” Fournier said smoothly, gliding over the awkward little silence that followed. “And it must not jeopardise the security of the kingdom. We are, after all, in a fight for our very survival at the moment. It may be that Aras is right. This fellow Corfe has his uses—that cannot be denied. And if truth be told, I am not sure the troops would follow anyone else at the moment.”
Rusio stirred at this but said nothing.
“So it behoves us to work with him for now. As long as he has the confidence of the Queen he is well-nigh untouchable, but no man is without his weak spots. Aras, you told us he lost his wife in Aekir.”
“Yes. He never talks about it, but I have heard his friend Andruw mention it.”
“Indeed. That is an avenue worth exploring. There is guilt there, obviously, hence his largesse to the scum of Aekir that we harbour in the capital. And you, Aras, you must work to get closer to him. You obviously admire him, so that is a start. Remember, we are not out to destroy this fellow—we simply feel that he has been elevated beyond his station.”
Aras nodded.
“And make sure you recall whose side you are on,” Rusio growled. “It’s one thing to admire the man, another to let him ride roughshod over the very institutions which bind this kingdom together.” A murmur of agreement ran down the table. Willem spoke up.
“Another six hundred tribesmen from the Cimbrics arrived outside the city this evening, wanting to fight under him. Quartermaster Passifal is equipping them as we speak. I tell you, gentlemen, if we do not curb this young fellow he will set himself up as some form of military dictator. He does not even have to rely on the support of his countrymen. What with those savages and his tame Fimbrians at his back, he has a power base completely outside the normal chain of command. They won’t serve under anyone else—we saw that at the last planning conference the King chaired, here in the capital. And now he’s stirring up the rabble who fled from Aekir when he should be shipping them south, dispersing them. There’s a pattern to it all. It’s my belief he aims at the throne itself.”
“It is disturbing,” Fournier agreed. “Perhaps—and this is only a vague suggestion, nothing more—perhaps we should be looking for allies of our own outside the kingdom, a counterweight to this growing army of mercenaries he leads.”
“Who?” Rusio asked bluntly.
Fournier paused and looked intently at the faces of the men around the table. Below them they could hear the buzz and hubbub of the tavern proper, but in this room the loudest sound was the crackling of the fire.
“I have received in the last sennight a message brought by courier from Almark, gentlemen. That kingdom is, as you know, now on the frontier. The Merduks have sent exploratory columns to the Torrin Gap. Reconnaissances, nothing more, but Almark is understandably alarmed.”
