as a dried leaf. This will be the last you hear from me in a while, Abeleyn. The old man needs his rest.”
“So does the King,” Abeleyn said, yawning again. “I’d best get some ere King Mark turns up on our doorstep.” He lay back on the cot and the falcon flapped and hopped, screaming softly, until it perched on the wooden frame at his feet.
Abeleyn stared at the roof of the heavy tent. The whole structure was swaying and creaking in the wind that was blasting down from the mountains.
“Do you remember the
The bird was silent. Abeleyn smiled, putting his hands behind his head.
“I remember the green depths of the Hebrian Sea, and the master pointing out over the ship’s rail to where the water turned deeper; that colour, as dark as an old wine. The Great Western Ocean that marks the end of the world.
“We were putting about to steer a course for the Fimbrian Gulf, back to the world of men. I remember the loom of the Hebros Mountains, like a thin line at the edge of sight. And the coast of Astarac with the shadows of the Malvennors. I remember the smell, Golophin. There is no other smell on earth like it. The smell of the open ocean, and the ship smells.
“Sometimes I wish I could have been a master mariner, carving my own road upon the surface of the world and leaving nothing but a wake of white water behind me. And nothing but a plank of Gabrionese oak between my soul and eternity . . .”
Abeleyn’s eyes were closed. His breathing slowed.
“I wonder if Murad has found his fabled land in the west . . .” he murmured. His head tilted to one side.
The King slept.
K ING Mark of Astarac and his entourage arrived just before dawn, having travelled through the night in the blinding snowstorm. When the Astaran monarch was shown into Abeleyn’s tent his face was grey beneath its mask of ice and frozen snow, and his young man’s beard had been frosted white.
Abeleyn had had to struggle up from a great depth, a lightless pit of slumber, but he shrugged off his tiredness and shouted commands at his retinue. Mark had barely two hundred men in his party, and they were taken into the Hebrian tents to save them the labour of erecting their own in the snow-thick gale that still howled about the peaks of the mountains. Servants ran to and fro like men possessed, lighting extra braziers and heaving around platters of food and drink for the cold-blasted men of Astarac. King Mark’s bodyguards joined Abeleyn’s at the tent entrance, the two groups eyeing each other somewhat askance until some enlightened soul produced a skin of barley spirit and passed it round.
Dressed in dry clothes and seated in front of a glaring brazier, King Mark’s face became slowly human again. There was little ceremony between him and Abeleyn; the two men had spent much time together as boys, skylarking at past conclaves whilst their fathers helped decide the fate of the world. Mark had a white gap in one eyebrow where Abeleyn had split his forehead open with a lead-bladed sword. They had shared wenches and wine and were much of an age. Now they sat in Abeleyn’s tent companionably enough, and sipped mulled ale and listened to the gradually dying hubbub that the arrival of the Astarans had produced in the Hebrian camp.
Mark nodded to the gyrfalcon that perched with closed eyes on the end of Abeleyn’s cot.
“That Golophin’s, is it?”
“Aye. Both he and his master are sleeping. He’ll be full of life later, no doubt.”
Mark grinned, showing strong, even teeth in his square face.
“Saffarac has an owl as his familiar. An owl—I ask you! And of course he has it flying in the daytime with never a thought, and the common folk who see it making the sign of the Saint at the bad omen.”
They laughed together, and Abeleyn poured out more of the steaming ale for them both.
“You and your men seem to be in a degree of haste, cousin,” he said. He and Mark were not related, but kings often used the term, implying that all royalty were somehow akin to each other.
“Indeed, and I’ll tell you why. Do you travel with any clerics in your entourage, Abeleyn?”
Abeleyn sipped his ale, grimacing at the heat of it. “Nary a one. I refused every Raven I was offered.”
“I thought as much. I’d best warn you then that I have one here clinging to my coattails. He was foisted on me by the College of Bishops, who were outraged at the thought of an Astaran king travelling without a priest to shrive him of his sins every so often.”
“An Inceptine?”
“Of course. Just because I was able to get Merion the Antillian elected Prelate doesn’t mean I get my way in all affairs ecclesiastical. No, he’s a spy, no doubt about it. It’s as well that Golophin is not with you, but I wouldn’t let anyone catch you talking to your bird if I were you, cousin. What used to be seen as honest thaumaturgy is being transformed into something entirely different in the eyes of the Church.”
“This doesn’t explain your haste.”
“Doesn’t it? We’ve been pushing as hard as this ever since we left Cartigella; the old crow is near to dropping. With a little luck he’ll lose himself in a snowdrift once we get into the mountains proper, and we’ll be well rid of his prying beak.”
They both roared with laughter.
“Has Saffarac’s owl brought you any word of what is going on in the east?” Abeleyn asked when the mirth had faded. Mark’s face grew sombre.
“Some word, yes. The Merduk army has stalled, it seems, bogged down by the weather, and Martellus has been sending out reconnaissances in force under the old cavalryman, Ranafast. There has been a good deal of skirmishing, but the Torunnans cannot commit themselves to any large-scale action beyond the Searil. They have not the men. Lofantyr has drawn off all but twelve thousand of the dyke’s garrison, the Saints know why.”
“He is afraid for his capital. Are there no generals left in Torunna to advise him?”
“The best one, Mogen, died at Aekir and Martellus commands the dyke. There is no one else at that level left in the country. Torunna is bled almost dry.”
“Aye, they’ve been the bulwark of the west for too long, perhaps. Have you heard anything of a rumour concerning Macrobius?”
“That he is alive? Yes, I’ve heard. My guess is it’s a tale set about by Martellus to put some heart into his men. As far as I know there’s nothing behind it, but I do know that an old blind man has been paraded before the garrison as the High Pontiff. What the worthies in Charibon will make of that I cannot say. Martellus may be running a fine line on one side of excommunication with his holy impostor.”
“Unless—” Abeleyn began.
Mark glanced at him. “No, I cannot believe it. Not one Ramusian of any rank escaped the wreck of Aekir. I cannot conceive that they somehow missed the most important man of all. He would have been the first they would have sought out.”
“Of course, of course. What a blessing it would be for the west, though . . .”
“I take it you’re not happy with your fellow Hebrian as High Pontiff.”
“He means to excommunicate me, I think, if he cannot geld me first. This is one of the reasons I have asked you to meet me here, cousin.”
Mark sat back on his camp chair looking satisfied.
“Aha! I wondered when you’d get round to it.”
Abeleyn stared into the steam-wreathed depths of his ale flagon, his dark brows drawn together.
“Golophin’s falcon was giving me the old man’s advice last night, and it concurred with what I was thinking myself. This is a bad time, Mark—like the chaos of the world when the empire of the Fimbrians began to fall apart, or when the Merduks first invaded, or in the Religious Wars when Ramusio’s faith was spread through the west with fire and sword. And I think this time may be the worst of the lot.
“It is not just the Merduks. Theirs is an outside threat, which I believe the west can see off if we cease our squabbling. No, it runs deeper than that. It is the very faith we all believe in, and the men who are the custodians of that faith. They have become princes in their own right, and they are hankering after kingdoms to rule. I tell you—I truly believe, and Golophin does too—that the Inceptines are intent on ruling, and if we let them they will make the monarchs of Normannia into mere ciphers, and they will write their rule in letters of fire and blood clear across the continent.”
