cannons frantically, charging their arquebuses, doctoring minor wounds. The dead were tossed off the parapet like sacks; time for the solemnities later.
Andruw’s sabre was bloody and his eyes startlingly white in a filthy face. “What about the gate?”
“It’s holding, for the moment. They’re persistent bastards. I’ll give them that. We sent half a hundred of them to join their prophet before they drew back.”
Andruw laughed heartily. “By sweet Ramusio’s blessed blood, they’ll not walk over us without a stumble or two. Was it as tight as this at Aekir, Corfe?”
Corfe turned away, face flat and ugly.
“It was different,” he said.
M ARTELLUS watched the failure of the assault from his station on the heights of the citadel. His officers were clustered about him, grave but somehow jubilant. The Merduk host was drawing back like a snarling dog that has been struck on the muzzle. All over the eastern barbican on the far side of the river a vast turmoil of rising smoke shifted and eddied, shot through with flame. Even here, over a mile away, it was possible to hear the hoarse roar of a multitude in extremity, a formless, surf-like sound that served as background to the rolling thunder of the guns.
“He’s lost thousands,” one of the senior officers was saying. “What is he thinking of, to throw troops bare- handed against prepared fortifications like that?”
A messenger arrived from the eastern bank, his face grimed and his chest heaving. Martellus read the dispatch with thin lips, then dismissed him.
“The gate is damaged. We would have lost it, were it not for the efforts of my new aide. Andruw puts his own casualties at less than three hundred.”
Some of the other officers grinned and stamped. Others looked merely thoughtful. They eyed the retreat of the attacking Merduk regiments—orderly despite the barrage that the Torunnan guns were laying down—then their gazes moved up the hillsides, to where the main host was encamped in its teeming thousands and the Merduk batteries squatted silent and ominous.
“He’s playing with us,” someone said. “He could have continued that attack all day, and not blinked an eye at the casualties.”
“Yes,” Martellus said. The early light filled his eyes with tawny fire and made a glitter out of the white lines in his hair. “This was an armed reconnaissance, no more, as I said it would be. He now knows the location of our guns and the dispositions of the eastern garrison. Tomorrow he will attack again, but this time it will not be a sudden rush, unsupported and ill-disciplined. Tomorrow we will see Shahr Baraz assault in earnest.”
H UNDREDS of miles away to the west. Follow the Terrin river northwards to where the gap between the Cimbric Mountains and the Thurians opens out. Pass over the glittering Sea of Tor with its dark fleets of fishing boats and its straggling coastal towns. There, in the foothills of the western Cimbrics, see the majestic profile of Charibon, where the bells of the cathedral are tolling for Vespers and the evening air is thickening into an early night in the shadow of the towering peaks.
In the apartments that had been made over to the new High Pontiff Himerius, the great man himself and Betanza, Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order sat alone, the attending clerics dismissed. The muddy, travel-worn man who had been with them minutes before had been led away to a well-earned bath and bed.
“Well?” Betanza asked.
Himerius’ eyes were hooded, his face a maze of crannied bone dominated by the eagle nose. As High Pontiff he wore robes of rich purple, the only man in the world entitled to do so unless the Fimbrian emperors were to come again.
“Absurd nonsense, all of it.”
“Are you so sure, Holiness?”
“Of course! Macrobius died in Aekir. Do you think the Merduks would have missed such a prize? This eyeless fellow is an impostor. The general at the dyke, this Martellus, he has obviously circulated this story in order to raise the morale of his troops. I cannot say I blame the man entirely—he must be under enormous pressure—but this really is inexcusable. If he survives the attack on the dyke I will see to it that he is brought before a religious court on charges of heresy.”
Betanza sat back in his thickly upholstered chair. They were both by the massive fireplace, and broad logs were burning merrily on the hearth, the only light in the tall-ceilinged room.
“According to this messenger,” Betanza said carefully, “Torunn was informed also. Eighteen days he says it took to get here, and four dead horses. Torunn will have had the news for nigh on a fortnight.”
“So? We will send our own messengers denying the validity of the man’s claim. It is too absurd, Betanza.”
The Vicar-General’s high-coloured face was dark as he leaned back out of the firelight.
“How can you be so sure that Macrobius is dead?” he asked.
Himerius’ eyes glittered. “
“What are you going to do?”
Himerius steepled his fingers together before his face.
“We will send out riders at once—tonight—to every court in Normannia—all the Five monarchies. They will bear a Pontifical bull in which I will denounce this impostor and the man who is behind him—this Martellus, the Lion of Ormann Dyke.”
Himerius smiled.
“I will also send a private letter to King Lofantyr of Torunna, expressing my outrage at this heretical occurrence and telling him of my reluctance to commit our Knights Militant to the defence of his kingdom whilst that same kingdom harbours a pretender to my own position, an affront against the Holy Office I occupy, a stink in the nostrils of God.”
“So you will withhold the troops you promised Brother Heyn,” Betanza said. He sounded tired.
“Yes. Until this thing is dealt with Torunna shall receive no material aid from the Church.”
“And Ormann Dyke?”
“What of it?”
“The dyke needs those men, Holiness. Without them it will surely fall.”
“Then so be it. Its commander should have thought of that before he started elevating blind old men to the position of High Pontiff.”
Betanza was silent. As the Knights Militant were quartered in Charibon they were nominally under the command of the head of the Inceptine Order. But never in living memory had a Vicar-General flouted the wishes of his Pontiff.
“The men are already on the march,” Betanza said. “They must be halfway to Torunna by now.”
“Then recall them,” Himerius snapped. “Torunna shall receive nothing from me until it extirpates this impostor.”
“I beg you to consider, Holiness . . . What if this man is who he says he is?”
“Impossible, I tell you. Are you questioning my judgement, Brother?”
“No. It is just that I do not want you to make a mistake.”
“I am directly inspired by the Blessed Saint, as his representative on earth. Trust me. I know.”
“By rights we should reassemble the Synod and put this to the convened Colleges and Prelates.”
“They’re happily trekking homewards by now. It would waste too much time. They will be informed in due course. What is the matter with you, Brother Betanza? Do you doubt the word of your Pontiff?”
One of the powers inherent in the Pontifical office was the nomination or removal of the Vicar-General of the Inceptines. Betanza looked his superior in the eye.
“Of course not, Holiness. I only seek to cover every contingency.”
“I am glad to hear it. It is always better when the Vicar-General and the Pontiff have a good working relationship. It can be disastrous if they do not. Think of old Baliaeus.”
