Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (62 page)

"I pray to God you do," Macrobius said. His eyeless face was sunken and gaunt, vivid testimony to what Merduks would do in the hour of their victory.

"If this happens - if you manage to halt this juggernaut of theirs - what then?" Odelia asked. "How much can we expect to regain, or lose by a negotiated peace?"

"Ormann Dyke is gone forever," Corfe said flatly. "That is something we must get used to. So is Aekir. If the kingdom can be partitioned down the line of the Searil, then we will have to count ourselves fortunate. It all depends on how well the army does in the field. We'll be buying back our country with Torunnan blood, literally. But my job is to kill Merduks, not to bargain with them. I leave that to Fournier and his ilk - I have no taste or aptitude for it."

You will acquire one, though, I will see to that
, Odelia thought. And out loud she said: "When, then, will the army take to the field?"

Corfe sat silently for what seemed a long time, until the Queen began to chafe with impatience. Macrobius seemed serene.

"I need upwards of nine hundred warhorses, to replace our losses and mount the new recruits that are still coming in," Corfe said finally. "Then there are the logistical details to work out with Passifal and the Quartermaster's department. This will be no mere raid - when we leave Torunn this time we must be prepared to stay out for weeks, if not months. To that end the Western Road must be repaired and cleared, depots set up. And I mean to conscript every able-bodied man in the kingdom, whatever his station in life."

Odelia's mouth opened in shock. "You cannot do that!"

"Why not? The laws are on the statute-books - theoretically they are in force already, except for the fact that they have never actually been enforced."

"Even John Mogen did not try to enforce them - wisely. He knew the nobles would have his head on a spear if he ever even contemplated such a thing."

"He did not have to do it at Aekir. Every man in the city willingly lent a hand in the defence, even if it was only to carry ammunition and plug breaches."

"That was different. That was a siege."

Corfe's fist came hurtling down onto the table with a crash that astonished both the Queen and the Pontiff. "There will be no exceptions. If I conscript, then I can leave an appropriate garrison in the city and still take out a sizeable field army. The nobles in the south of the kingdom all have private armies - I know that only too well. It is time these privately raised forces shared in the defence of the kingdom as a whole. Today I had orders written up commanding all these blue-bloods to bring their armed retainers in person to the capital. If my calculations are correct, the local Lords alone could add another fifteen thousand men to the defence."

"You do not have the authority -" Odelia began heatedly.

"Don't I? I am Commander-in-Chief of all Torunna's military. Lawyers may quibble over it, but I see every armed man in the kingdom as part of that military. They can issue writs against me all they like once the war is over, but for now I will have their men, and if they refuse, by God I'll hang them."

There was naked murder on his face. Odelia looked away. She had never believed she could be afraid of any man, but the savagery that scoured his spirit leapt out of his eyes like some eldritch fire. It unnerved her. For how many men had those eyes been their last sight on earth? She sometimes thought she had no idea what he was truly capable of, for all that she loved him.

"All right then," she said. "You shall have your conscription. I will put my name to your orders, but I warn you, Corfe, you are making powerful enemies."

"The only enemies I am concerned with are those encamped to the east. I piss on the rest of them. Sorry, Father."

Macrobius smiled weakly. "Her Majesty is right, Corfe. Even John Mogen did not take on the nobility."

"I need men, Father. Their precious titles will not be worth much if there is no kingdom left to lord them about in. Let it be on my head alone."

"Don't say such things," Odelia said with a shiver. "It's bad luck."

Corfe shrugged. "I don't much believe in luck anymore, lady. Men make their own, if it exists at all. I intend to take an army of forty thousand men out of this city in less than two sennights, and it will be tactics and logistics which decides their fate, not luck."

"Let us hope," Macrobius said, touching Corfe lightly on the wrist, "that faith has something to do with it also."

"When men have faith in themselves, Father," Corfe said doggedly, "they do not need to have faith in anything else."

A
LBREC AND
M
EHR
Jirah met in a room within Ormann Dyke's great tower, not far from the Queen's apartments. It was the third hour of the night and no-one was abroad in the vast building except a few yawning sentries. But below the tower thousands of men worked through the night by the light of bonfires. On both banks of the Searil river they swarmed like ants, demolishing in the west and rebuilding in the east. The night-black river was crowded with heavy barges and lighters full to the gunwale with lumber, stone, and weary working-parties, and at the makeshift docks that had been constructed on both sides of the river, scores of elephants waited patiently in harness, their mahouts dozing on their necks. The Sultan had decreed that the reconstruction of Ormann Dyke would be complete before the summer, and at its completion it would be renamed
Khedi Anwar
, the Fortress of the River.

The chamber in which Albrec and Mehr Jirah sat was windowless, a dusty storeroom which was half full of all manner of junk. Fragments of chainmail, the links rusted into an orange mass. Broken sabre-blades, mouldering Torunnan uniforms, even a box of mouldy hardtack much gnawed by mice. The two clerics, having nodded to each other, stood waiting, neither able to speak the other's tongue. At last they were startled by the swift entry of Queen Ahara and Shahr Baraz. The Queen was got up like a veiled Merduk maid, and Shahr Baraz was dressed as a common soldier.

"We do not have much time," the Queen said. "The eunuchs will miss me in another quarter-hour or less. Albrec, you are leaving for Torunn tonight. Shahr Baraz has horses and two of his own retainers waiting below. They will escort you to within sight of the capital."

"Lady," Albrec said, "I am not sure -"

"There is no time for discussion. Shahr Baraz has procured you a pass that will see you past the pickets. You must preach your message in Torunna as you have here. Mehr Jirah agrees with us in this. Your life is in danger as long as you remain at Ormann Dyke."

Albrec bowed wordlessly. When he straightened, he shook the hands of Mehr Jirah and Shahr Baraz. "Whatever else I have found among the Merduks," he said thickly, "I have found two good men." Heria translated the brief sentence and the two Merduks looked away. Shahr Baraz produced a leather bag with dun coloured clothing poking out of its neck.

"Wear these," he said in Normannic. "They are clothes of a Merduk mullah. A Holy man. May - may the God of Victories watch over you." Then he looked at Heria, nodded and left. Mehr Jirah followed without another word.

"I can still preach here too, Lady," Albrec said gently.

"No. Go back to him. Give him this." She handed the little monk a despatch scroll with a military seal. "They are plans for the forthcoming campaign. But do not tell you who gave them to you, Father."

Albrec took the scroll gingerly. "I seem to make a habit of bearing fateful documents. Was there no other way you could get this to Torunn? I am not much of a courier."

"Two men we have sent out already," Heria said in a low voice. "Merduk soldiers with Ramusian blood in them - Shahr Baraz's retainers. But we do not know if they got through."

Albrec looked at her wonderingly. "So he is in on it too? How did you persuade him?"

"He said his father would have done it. The Shahr Baraz who took Aekir would not have condoned a war fought in the way Aurungzeb fights it today. And besides, my Shahr Baraz is a pious man. He thinks now the war should stop, since the Ramusians are brothers-in-faith. Mehr Jirah and many of the mullahs think likewise."

"Come with me, Heria," Albrec said impulsively. "Come back to your people - to your husband."

She shook her head, the grey eyes bright with tears above the veil. "It is too late for me now. And besides, they would miss me within the hour. We would be hunted down. No, Father, go back alone. Help him save my people."

"Then at least let me tell him you are alive."

"No! I am dead now, do you hear? I am not fit to be Corfe's wife anymore. This is my world now, here. I must make the best of it I can."

Albrec took her hand and kissed it. "The Merduks have a worthy queen then."

She turned away. "I must go now. Take the stairs at the bottom of the passage outside. They lead out to the west courtyard. Your escort awaits you there. You will have several hours start - they won't miss you until after dawn. Go now, Father. Get that scroll to Corfe."

Albrec bowed, his eyes stinging with pity for her, and then did as he was bidden.

T
HE SUN WAS
failing. A stiff easterly breeze had winnowed all the dark anvil-headed clouds from the sky. As the day died into a wilderness of silence, there was a little crossroads some twelve leagues north of Torunn, upon the Western Road, which sat deserted in the last bloom of the ruddy sunset. An empty hamlet stood there at the meeting of the ways, and on the gables of the abandoned houses ravens perched, fat from the pickings of war. The name of the place was Armagedir, which in the language of the Cimbric tribes meant
Journey's End
. As the sunset settled low into darker hues of violet and aquamarine in the early starlight, so the forsaken houses sank into shadow, their peace undisturbed, for now, by the sight or sound of any living man.

Eighteen

A
LL DAY THEY
had been trooping into the city, a motley procession of armed men in livery all the colours of the rainbow. Some were armed with nothing more than halberds and scythes on long poles, others were splendidly equipped with arquebuses and sabres. Most were on foot, but several hundred rode prancing warhorses in half armour and had silk pennons whipping from their lance-heads.

Corfe, General Rusio and and Quartermaster Passifal stood on the catwalk of the southern barbican and watched them troop in. As the long serried column trailed to an end, a compact group of five hundred Cathedraller cavalry came up behind them, Andruw at their head. As the tribesmen passed through the gateway below Andruw saluted and winked, then was lost to view in a cavernous clatter of hooves as he and his men entered the city.

"That's the last contingent will make it this week, General," Passifal said. He was consulting a damp sheaf of papers. "Gavriar of Rone has promised three hundred men, but they'll be a long time on the road, and the Duke of Gebrar, old Saranfyr, he's put his name down for four hundred more, but it's a hundred and forty leagues from Gebrar if it's a mile. We'll be lucky to see them inside of a month."

"How many do we have then?" Corfe asked.

"All told, some six thousand retainers, plus another five thousand conscripts - most of them folk from Aekir."

"Not as many as we had hoped," Rusio grumbled.

"No," Corfe told him. "But it's a damn sight better than nothing at all. I can leave six or seven thousand men to garrison the city and still march out with - what? Thirty-six or seven thousand."

"Some of these retainers the lords sent are nothing more than unschooled peasants," Rusio said, leaning on a merlon. "In many cases they've sent us squads of village idiots and petty criminals, the dregs of their demesnes."

"All they have to do is stand on the battlements and wave a pike," Corfe said. "Rusio, I want you to take five hundred veterans and start training up the more incapable. Some of the contingents, though, can be drafted straight into the regular army."

"What about their fancy dress?" Passifal asked, mouth twitching. Many of the lords had clad their retainers in all manner of garish heraldry.

"It won't look so fancy after a few days in the mud, I'll warrant."

"And the Lords themselves?" Rusio inquired. "We've half a dozen keen young noblemen who are set on leading their fathers' pet armies into battle."

"Rate them all as ensigns, and put capable sergeants under them."

"Their daddies may not like that, nor the young scrubs themselves."

"I don't give a stuff what they think. I won't hand men over to untried officers to be squandered. This is war, not some kind of parlour game. If there are any complaints, have them forwarded to the Queen."

"Yes, General."

Feet on the catwalk behind them, and Andruw appeared, his helm swinging from one hand. "Well, that's the last of them," he said. "The rest are hiding in the woods or the foothills."

"Did you have any trouble?" Corfe asked him.

"Are you serious? Once they saw the dreaded scarlet horsemen they'd have handed over their daughters if we'd asked. And I very nearly did, mark you. Poor stuff, though, most of 'em. They might be all right standing atop a wall Corfe, but I wouldn't march them out of here. They'd go to pieces in the field."