“How many?”
“We lost some six thousand of the
“And the—the enemy?”
“I doubt he lost more than a thousand.”
The Sultan’s voice, when it came again, had changed; the shock had gone and it was as hard as Thurian granite.
“You said the attack was ill-judged. Explain yourself.”
“Majesty, if you will remember, I did not want to make this assault. I asked you for more time, time to throw up siegeworks, to look over our options more thoroughly—”
“Time! You have had time. You dawdled in Aekir for weeks. You would have done the same here had I not enjoined you to hasten. This is a paltry place. You said yourself the garrison is less than twenty thousand strong. This is not Aekir, Shahr Baraz. The army should be able to roll over it like an elephant stepping on a frog.”
“It is the strongest fortification I have ever seen, including the walls of Aekir,” Shahr Baraz said. “I cannot throw my army at it as if it were the log hut of some bandit chieftain. This campaign could prove as difficult as the last—”
“It could if the famed Khedive of
Baraz’s face hardened. “I attacked on your orders, and against my own judgement. That mistake has cost us eleven thousand men dead or too maimed ever to fight again. I will not repeat that mistake.”
“How dare you speak to me thus? I am your Sultan, old man. You will obey me or I will find someone else who will.”
“So be it, my Sultan. But I will be a party to no more amateur strategy. You can either replace me or leave me to conduct this campaign unhindered. Yours is the choice, and the responsibility.”
A long silence. The homunculus’ eyes blinked in the shadow of its cage. Shahr Baraz was impassive. I am too old for diplomacy, he thought. I will end what I have always been—a soldier. But I will not see my men slaughtered in my name. Let them know who ordered the attack. Let them see how their Sultan values their lives.
“My friend,” Aurungzeb said finally, and his voice was as smooth as melted chocolate. “We have both spoken hastily. Our concern for the men and our country does us credit, but it leads us into passionate utterances which might later be re-gretted.”
“I agree, Majesty.”
“So I will give you another opportunity to prove your loyalty to my house, a loyalty which has never faltered since the days of my grandsire. You will renew the attack on Ormann Dyke at once, and with all the forces at your disposal. You will overwhelm the dyke and then push on south to the Torunnan capital.”
“I regret that I cannot comply with your wishes, Majesty.”
“Wishes? Who is talking about wishes? You will obey my
“I regret that I cannot.”
“And why not?”
“Because to do so would wreck this army from top to bottom, and I will not permit that.”
“Eyes of the Prophet! Will you defy me?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Consider yourself my Khedive no longer, then. As the Lord of Victories rules in Paradise, I have suffered your ancient insolence for the last time! Hand over your command to Mughal. He can expect orders from me in writing—and a new Khedive!”
“And I, Majesty?”
“You? Consider yourself under arrest, Shahr Baraz. You will await the arrival of my officers from Orkhan.”
“Is that all?”
“By the Lord of Battles, yes—that is all!”
“Fare thee well then, Majesty,” Shahr Baraz said calmly. He stood, lifted the cage with its monstrous occupant, and then dashed it to the ground. The homunculus screamed, and in its scream Shahr Baraz heard the agony of Orkh, its sorcerous master. Smiling grimly, he stamped his booted foot on the structure, crunching metal and bone in a morass of ichor and foul-stinking flesh. Then he clapped his hands for his attendants.
“Take this abomination away and burn it,” he said, and they flinched from the fire in his eyes.
TWENTY-ONE
I T was a scream that brought Murad bolt upright in his hanging cot. He remained stock-still, listening. Nothing but the creak of the ship’s timbers, the lap of the water against the hull, the tiny thumps and slaps that were part of being at sea. Nothing.
A dream. He relaxed, lying down again. The girl had disappeared as she always did, and she had left him with a hideous dream—as she always did. The same dream. He preferred to put it out of his mind.
But could not. She was a witch, that was clear—otherwise she would not be a passenger aboard this ship. Maybe she was the man Bardolin’s apprentice. He was a wizard of sorts. No doubt she was putting a black spell on him, perhaps ensnaring him with some kind of love magic.
But he doubted it. Their love-making was too real, too solid and genuine to be the product of any spell. It was almost as though she had been dry tinder waiting for a spark. She came to life in his arms, and their coupling was like a nightly battle, a duel for mastery. He had her mastered, he was sure of that. Smiling up at the deckhead he relived the satisfaction of plunging into her and feeling her body heave up in answer. She was a delightful little animal. He would find a position for her when the colony was established, keep her by him. He could never marry her—the idea was absurd enough to make him chuckle aloud—but he would see her decently provided for.
He must keep her. He needed her. He craved that nightly battle, and wondered sometimes if any other woman would interest him again.
Why did she always leave just before the dawn? And that old man—what was she to him? Not a lover, surely.
His mouth tightened and he clenched his fists on the coverlet.
She is mine, he thought. I will allow her to have no others.
But the dreams: they came every night, and every night they were the same. That suffocating heat, the weight and prickling fur of the beast on top of him. Those eyes regarding him with unblinking malevolence. What could it mean?
He was always tired these days, always weary. He had been a fool to put down the Inceptine like that—the man would have to die now. He was too powerful an enemy. Abeleyn would see the necessity of it.
He rubbed the dark orbits of his eyes, feeling as though he could never entirely grind the tiredness out of them. He wanted her here, warm and writhing in his arms. For a second the intensity of that desire unnerved him.
He sat up again. There was something strange about the ship, something he had to consider for a moment before realizing. Then it struck him.
The carrack was no longer moving.
He leapt from the hanging cot so that it swung and banged against the bulkhead, pulled on his clothes hurriedly and grabbed the rapier with its baldric. As he reached the door, it was knocked on loudly. He yanked it open to find the ship’s boy, Mateo, standing there with a white face.
“Captain Hawkwood’s compliments, sir, and he asks would you join him in the hold? There is something you ought to see.”
“What is it? Why have we stopped moving?”
“He said to . . . You have to see, sir.” The boy looked as though he was about to be sick.
“Lead on then, damn you. It had better be important.”
T HE whole ship was astir, the passengers milling on the gundeck and soldiers posted at
