how very clever I am will only cause him distress. Men, my dear Becca, are like that, and you will never attract a lover, not even a bespectacled merchant prince who adores your head for long columns of figures, if you wear wimples that hide your face and seek to prove to every lover that you are the smarter of the pair.’ The Queen knew perfectly well that her intellectual secretary had attracted the devotion of the strongest and most virile of the King’s Guardsmen – it had been something of a wonder at the court. Even the Queen was curious how it had happened.
Lady Almspend was perfectly still, and the Queen knew she was biting back a hot remark.
The Queen kissed her. ‘Be at peace, Becca. In some ways, I am far more learned than you.’ She laughed. ‘And I am the Queen.’
Even the staid Lady Almspend had to laugh at the truth of this. ‘You are the Queen.’
Later, when giving justice, the Queen summoned two of the king’s squires, and sent them with the letters – one was delighted to go to the army, if only for a day or two, and the other, rather more dejected, riding to a merchant town to deliver a letter to a retired knight.
The Queen allowed them both to kiss her hand.
North of Harndon – Harmodius
Harmodius was on his second night without sleep. He tried not to think about how easily he’d done such things forty years before. Tonight, riding very slowly down the road on an exhausted horse, he could only hope to keep his hands on the saddle, hope that the horse didn’t stumble, throw a shoe, or simply collapse beneath him.
He’d drained every reserve of energy. He’d set wards, thrown bolts, and built phantasmal dissuasions with the abandon of a much younger man. All his carefully hoarded powers were gone.
In a way, it had been marvellous.
Young magi have energy and old ones have skill. Somewhere in the continuum between young and old lies a practitioner’s greatest moment. Harmodius had assumed his had been twenty years ago, and yet last night he’d thrown a curtain of fire five furlongs long – and swept it ahead of his galloping horse like a daemonic plough blade.
‘Heh,’ he said aloud.
An hour after he’d extinguished the fiery blade, he’d met a foreigner on an exhausted horse, who had watched him with wary eyes.
Harmodius had reined in. ‘What news?’ he asked.
‘Albinkirk,’ the man breathed. He had a Morean accent. ‘Only the castle holds. I must tell the king. The Wild has struck.’
Harmodius had stroked his beard. ‘Dismount a moment, and allow me to send the king a message as well?’ he said. ‘I’m the King’s Magus,’ he added.
‘Ser Alcaeus Comnena,’ the dark-visaged man replied. He swung his leg over the horse’s rump.
Harmodius had given him some sweet wine. He was pleased to see the foreign knight attend his horse – rubbing the gelding down, checking his legs.
‘How’s the road?’ asked the knight.
Harmodius permitted himself a moment of glowing satisfaction. ‘I think you’ll find it clear,’ he said. ‘Alcaeus? You’re the Emperor’s cousin.’
‘I am,’ said the man.
‘Strange meeting you here,’ Harmodius said. ‘I’ve read some of your letters.’
‘I’m blushing, and you can’t see it. You must be Lord Harmodius, and I’ve read everything you written about birds.’ He laughed, a little wildly. ‘You’re the only barba- only foreigner whose High Archaic is ever read aloud at court.’
Harmodius had a werelight going, and was writing furiously. ‘Yes?’ he asked absently.
‘Although you haven’t written a thing in five years, now? Ten?’ The younger knight had shaken his head. ‘I am sorry, my lord. I had thought you dead.’
‘You weren’t far wrong. Here – deliver this to the king. I’m going north. Tell me – did you see any Hermetics fighting against Albinkirk?’
Ser Alcaeus had nodded. ‘Something enormous came against the walls. It pulled the very stars from the sky, and threw them at the castle.’
They had clasped hands.
‘I long to meet you under more auspicious circumstances,’ Ser Alcaeus had said.
‘And I you, ser.’
And with that, each had ridden off – one north, and one south.
The last light of day had shown him smoke rising over Albinkirk, and if the town was gone then he was bereft of a plan.
His original impulse was all but gone. The evidence of the road, and Ser Alcaeus, was that a marauding army of the Wild had come down on the north of Alba, and he was afraid – to the core of his chilled and weary bones – that all the work of the old King Hawthor was undone. Worse, whatever had cast the ensorcellment on him was out there. With that army.
And yet he hadn’t pointed his horse’s head back south. When he came to the road that turned west, into the woods, and saw fresh wagon ruts on it he turned his horse’s head that way and followed them.
Part of that was pragmatic. He’d fought three bands of the Wild to win through this much of the road to Albinkirk. He wasn’t ready to fight a fourth.
Two hours later, somewhere in the darkness, a horse gave a long snort and then a soft whicker, and his horse answered.
Harmodius sat up.
He let his horse stumble forward. The horses would find each other quicker than he could, and they rode on for long minutes. He stared with unaided eyes at the darkness that pressed in on the road like a living thing.
The other horse whinnied.
His horse gave a call, almost a mule’s bray, in return.
‘Halt! You on the road – halt and dismount, or you’ll have enough crossbow bolts in you to play a porcupine in a show.’ The voice was loud, shrill, and sounded very young, which made the speaker dangerous. Harmodius slid from his horse, knowing in his bones that he was unlikely to be able to remount. His knees hurt. His calves hurt. ‘I’m off,’ he said.
A bull’s-eye lantern opened its baleful eye in front of him, the powerful oil lamp all but blinding him.
‘Who are you, then?’ asked the annoying young voice.
‘I’m the fucking King of Alba,’ Harmodius snapped. ‘I’m an old man on a done horse and I’d love to share your fire, and if I was a horde of boglins you’d already be dead.’
There were chortles from the darkness.
‘There you are, Adrian. Put that weapon down, Henry. If he’s riding a horse, he ain’t a creature of the Wild. Eh? Did you think of that, boy? What’s your name, old man?’ The new voice was authoritative without being noble. The bland accent of court was completely absent.
‘I’m Harmodius Silva, the King’s Magus.’ He walked forward into the lantern light, and his horse followed him, as eager for rest and food as his rider. ‘And that’s not a tall tale,’ he added.
‘Sounds pretty tall,’ said the new voice. ‘Come to the fire and have a cup of wine. Adrian, back to your duty, boy. Young Henry, if you point that weapon at me again I’ll break your nose.’
The man was in armour and had a heavy axe across his arms, but he stripped off a chain mitten and clasped Harmodius’ hand. ‘They call me Old Bob,’ he said. ‘Man-at-arms to the great and near great,’ he laughed. ‘You really Lord Silva?’
‘I truly am,’ said Harmodius. ‘Do you really have a safe camp and wine? I’ll pay a silver leopard to have a boy see to my horse.’
The man-at-arms laughed. ‘Long night?’
‘Three long nights. By the blood of Christ and his resurrection – I’ve been fighting for three days.’
