Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (12 page)

Odelia looked at her son. "Why?" she asked.

"I don't know what you mean, mother."

"Don't seek to play games with me, Lofantyr."

"What has irked you? That I made a decision without first running to your chambers to consult? I am King. I do not have to answer to you, whether you be my mother or not," the King said, his pale face flushing pink.

"You are a damned fool," the Queen Dowager told her son, her voice still soft. "Like a child who destroys something precious in a fit of pique and cannot have it mended afterwards. Look beyond your own injured pride for a moment, Lofantyr, and consider the good of the kingdom."

"I never consider anything else," the King said, at once angry and sullen.

"This man I have sponsored, this young officer - he has ability beyond any of your court favourites and you know it. We need men like him, Lofantyr. Why do you seek to destroy him?"

"I will promote my own war leaders. I will not have them chosen for me!" the King exclaimed, and he stood up, his fur cloak billowing around him.

"Perhaps you will be allowed to choose your own when you have learned to choose wisely," Odelia told him. Her skin seemed almost to glow and her eyes were alight, like emeralds with the sun refracted through them.

"By God, I do not have to listen to this!"

"No, you do not. A fool never likes to listen to wisdom when it crosses his own desires. Think, Lofantyr! Think not of your own pride but of the kingdom! A king who is not master of himself is master of nothing."

"How can I be master of anything when you are always there in the shadow, spinning your webs, whispering into the ears of my advisors? You have had your day in the sun, mother, now it is my turn. I am the King, damn it all!"

"Then learn to behave like one," Odelia said. "Your antics are more those of a spoilt child. You surround yourself with creatures whose only goal in life is to tell you what you want to hear. You place your own absurd pride above the good of the country itself, and you refuse to listen to any news which conflicts with your own ideas of how the world should work. The men bleeding on the battlefields are the glue which keeps this kingdom together, Lofantyr, not the fawning office-seekers of the court. Never forget where the true power lies, what the true nature of power is."

"What is this, a lesson in kingship?"

"By the blood of the Saint, were I a man I'd thrash you until you shrieked. You're so blinded by protocol and finery you cannot hear the very footfalls of doom come striding across the world."

"Don't become apocalyptic on me, mother," her son told her, scorn in his own voice now. "We all know the witchery you practise - it is common knowledge at court - but it cannot help you predict the future. Your gifts do not lie that way."

"It does not take a soothsayer to predict the way the world is going."

"Nor does it take a genius to understand your sudden interest in this upstart colonel from Aekir. Does it help you to forget your age to take a man young enough to be your son to bed?"

They stared at each other.

Finally Odelia said, "Tread carefully, Lofantyr."

"Or what? It is all over the court - the Queen Dowager bedding the ragged deserter from John Mogen's vanished army. You talk to me of my behaviour. How do you think yours reflects upon the dignity of the Crown? My own mother, and a ragged-arsed junior officer!"

"I ruled this country when you were a snotty-faced child!" she cried shrilly.

"Aye, and we know how you managed that. Errigal you bedded too. You would prostitute yourself a thousand times over if it would seat you any nearer the throne. Well, I am a grown man, mother, my own man. You are not needed any more."

"You think so?" Odelia asked. "You really think so?"

They were both standing now, with the hellish radiance of the brazier between them, illuminating their faces from below so that they were transformed into masks of flame and shadow. Above them, the giant spider that was Arach had awoken and its legs were gently tapping the web it clung to, as though readying itself for a spring. Lofantyr peered up at the thing; it was uttering a low keening, something like an anguished cat's purr.

"Stop meddling in the affairs of state," Lofantyr said more calmly to the Queen Dowager. "You must give me a chance to rule, mother. You cannot hang on for ever."

Odelia inclined her head a trifle, as if in gracious agreement. Her eyes were two viridian flickers mingled with the yellow flame-light.

"Release the tribesmen," she said in a reasonable tone. "Let him have them. It can do no harm."

"Arm the Felimbri? Is that what you want? And you were the one who cautioned me about hiring the Fimbrians!"

"They will obey him. I know it."

"They are savages."

"Maybe if you had given him a command of regulars at the beginning this problem would never have arisen," she said, her voice cutting.

"Maybe if you had not -" he began, and stopped. "This bickering does neither of us any good."

"Agreed."

"All right, I will release them. Your protégé can have his savages. But they will receive no assistance from the military authorities. He is on his own, this Aekirian colonel."

Odelia bowed her head in acceptance.

"Let us not fight, mother," Lofantyr said. He moved around the brazier and held out his hands.

"Of course," his mother said. She took his hands and kissed his cheek.

The king smiled, then turned away. "There are couriers from Martellus on their way in from the gates. I must see them. Will you come with me?"

"No," she said to his retreating back. "No, see them alone. I have my work to do here."

He smiled at her, and left the room.

Odelia sat a moment in the quiet he had left behind, her eyes hooded, their fire veiled. Finally she picked up the embroidery board and hurled it across the room. It cracked against the far wall in a tangled mess of snapped wood and fabric and thread. The maid peeped in at the door, saw her mistress's face, and fled.

T
HE BLACK-BURNT STONE
of Admiral's Tower seemed somehow in keeping with the tone of Abrusio in these times. Jaime Rovero, admiral of Hebrion's fleets, had his halls and offices near the summit of the fortress. In a tall chamber there he paced by his desk while the smell of sea water and ashes came sidling in from the docks below, and he could hear the gulls screaming madly. A winter fishing yawl must be putting in. All his life he had been a seaman, having risen from master's mate aboard a caravel to command of his own vessel, then of a squadron, then a fleet, and finally the very pinnacle of his career: First Lord of the Navy. He could go no higher. And yet he would look down on the trefoil of harbours that the city of Abrusio encircled and - seeing the ships there, the hiving life of the port, the hordes of dock hands and mariners - he would sometimes wish he were a mere master's mate again with hardly two coppers to rub together in his pocket, and the promise of a fresh horizon with the next sunrise.

The door was knocked and he barked, "Enter!" and straightened, blinking away the memories and the absurd regrets. One of his secretaries announced, "Galliardo Ponera, Third Port Captain of the Outer Roads, my lord."

"Yes, yes. Send him in."

In came a short, dark-skinned man with an air of the sea about him despite fine clothes and an over-feathered hat. Ponero made his bow, the feathers describing an arc as he swung his headgear in a gesture he imagined was elegance itself.

"Oh, stow that courtly rubbish," Rovero grated. "This isn't the palace. Take a seat, Ponero. I have some questions for you."

Galliardo was sweating. He sat in front of the massive dark wood of the admiral's desk and soothed down his ruffled feathers.

Rovero stared at his visitor silently for a second. He had a small sheaf of papers on his desk which bore the Royal seal. Galliardo glimpsed them and swallowed.

"Calm down," Rovero told him. "You're not here on corruption charges, if that's what you're thinking. Half the port captains in the city turn a blind eye now and again. It's the grease that turns the wheels. No, Ponero, I want you to have a look at these." He tossed the papers across the desk at his trembling guest.

"They're victualling warrants. Royal ones," Galliardo said after a moment's perusal.

"Bravo. Now explain."

"I don't understand, your excellency."

"Those two ships, outfitted and victualled at Royal expense and carrying Hebrian military personnel, were readied for sea in your section of the yards. I want to know where they were headed, and why the King sponsored their voyage."

"Why not ask him?" Galliardo said.

Rovero frowned, an awful sight.

"I beg your pardon, your excellency. The fact is the ships were owned by one Richard Hawkwood, and the leader of the expedition and commander of the soldiers was Lord Murad of Galiapeno."

Rovero's frown deepened. "
Expedition
? Explain."

Galliardo shrugged. "They were carrying stores for many months, horses for breeding - not geldings, you understand - and sheep, chickens. And there were the passengers, of course..."

"What about them?"

"Some hundred and forty of the Dweomer-folk of the city." Rovero whistled softly.

"I see. And what of their destination, Ponero?"

Galliardo thought back, back to the tail end of a summer that now seemed years ago. He remembered clinking a last glass of wine with Richard Hawkwood in the portside tavern by his offices which had seen so many partings, the backs of so many men who went into tall ships and sailed towards the horizon, never to return. Where was Richard Hawkwood now, and his ships, his companies? Rotting in the deep perhaps, or wrecked on some cragged rock out in the unmapped ocean. One thing Galliardo knew: Hawkwood had been meaning to sail west - not to the Brenn Isles or the Hebrionese, but west as far as his ships would take him, farther perhaps than anyone had ever sailed before. What had become of him? Had he found at last the limits of the turning world and set his foot on some untrodden strand? Galliardo would probably never know, and so he deemed it safe to tell the admiral what he knew of the Hawkwood expedition despite the fact that Richard had enjoined him to secrecy. Richard was probably dead, and beyond the consequence of anything Galliardo might do. The Hawkwood line had ended: his wife, Estrella, had died in the howling inferno that had been Abrusio scant weeks ago.

"West, you say?" Rovero rumbled thoughtfully when Galliardo had told him.

"Yes, excellency. It's my belief they were trying to discover the legendary Western Continent."

"That's a fable, surely."

"I think Hawkwood had some document or chart which suggested differently. In any case, he has been gone for months with no word sent back. I do not think he survived."

"I see." Rovero seemed strangely troubled.

"Is there anything else, Excellency?" Galliardo asked timidly.

The admiral stared at him. "No. Thank you, Ponero. You may go."

Galliardo rose and bowed. As he left the room and negotiated his way through the dark maze that was the interior of Admiral's Tower, sharply lit memories came to his mind, pictures from what seemed another age. A hot, vibrant Abrusio with a thousand ships at her wharves and the men of a hundred different countries mixed in her streets. The
Gabrian Osprey
and the
Grace of God
sailing out of the bay on the ebb tide, proud ships plunging into the unknown.

As he came out into the cold grey day of the winter city, Galliardo whispered a swift prayer to Ran the God of Storms, the old deity many seamen sought to placate when they were a thousand miles from land or priest or hope of harbour. He prayed briefly for the souls of Richard Hawkwood and his crews, surely gone to their long wave-tossed rest at last.

Seven

Y
EAR OF THE
S
AINT
552

D
IM THOUGH THE
winter afternoon was, it was darker yet in the King's chambers. It seemed to Isolla that lately she had been living her life by candlelight and firelight. She sat by Abeleyn's bedside reading aloud from an old historical commentary on the naval history of Hebrion, glancing every so often at the King's inert form in the great postered bed. In the first days she had been here she had constantly been prepared for some sudden show of life, some twitch or opening of an eyelid, but Abeleyn lay as still as a graven statue, if a statue could occasionally break into loud, stertorous breathing.

She stroked his hand as she read, the book propped on her knees. It was dry stuff, but it gave her a reason to be here, and Golophin believed that Abeleyn might yet be recalled to himself by the sound of a voice, a touch, some external stimulus which none of them had yet discovered.

It never for an instant occurred to her to wonder what she was doing here, by the bedside - or perhaps the deathbed - of a man she scarcely knew, sitting reading aloud to a man beyond hearing, in a country that was not her own, in a city half ruined by fire and the sword. Her sense of duty was too deeply ingrained for that. And there was an innate stubbornness too which her maid Brienne could have vouched for. A willingness to see something through to the end, once it was undertaken. She had never run away from anything in her life, had braved the snide asides of the Astaran court ladies for so long that it slipped like water from the feathers of a duck. She knew her brother the King loved her, also. That was one of the unshakable pillars of her life.