Ships from the West

Four

Snow lay bright and indomitable on the peaks of the Cimbrics, and beyond their blinding majesty the sky was blue as a kingfisher's back. But spring was in the air, even as high up as this, and the margins of the Sea of Tor were ringed with only a mash of undulating pancake ice which opened and closed silently around the bows and sterns of the fishing boats that plied its waters.

In Charibon the last yard-long icicles had fallen from the eaves of the cathedral and the lead of the roof was steaming in the sunlight. The monks could be heard singing Sext. When they were done they would troop out in sombre lines to the great refectories of the monastery-city for their midday meal, and when they had eaten they would repair to the scriptoriums or the library or the vegetable and herb gardens or the smithies to continue the work which they offered up to God along with their songs. These rituals had remained unchanged for centu shy;ries, and were the cornerstones of monastic life. But Charibon itself, seat of the Pontiff and tabernacle of western learning, had changed utterly since the Schism of eighteen years before.

It had always been home to a large military presence, for here were the barracks and training grounds of the Knights Militant, the Church's secular arm. But now it seemed that the austere old city had exploded into an untidy welter of recent building, with vast swathes of the surrounding plain now covered with lines of wooden huts and turf-walled tents, and linking them a raw new set of gravel-bedded roads spider-webbing out in all directions. West to Almark they went, north to Finnmark, south to Perigraine, and east to the Torrin Gap, where the Cimbrics and the tall Thurians halted, leaving an empty space against the sky, a funnel through which invading armies had poured for millennia.

And on the parade grounds the armies mustered, bristling masses of armoured men. Some on horseback with tall lances and pennons crackling in the wind, others on foot with shouldered pikes, or arquebuses, and others manhandling the carriages of long-muzzled field guns, waving rammers and linstocks and sponges and leading trains of mules which drew rattling limbers and caissons. The song of the monks in their quiet cloisters was drowned out by the cadenced tramp of booted feet and the low thunder of ten thousand horses. The flags of a dozen kingdoms, duchies and principalities flapped over their ranks. Almark, Perigraine, Gardiac, Finn-mark, Fulk, Candelaria, Touron, Tarber. Charibon was now the abode of armies, and the seat of Empire.

The Fimbrian embassy had been billeted in the old Pontifical Palace which overlooked the Library of Saint Garaso and the Inceptine cloisters. Twelve men in trailworn sable, they had tramped at their fearsome pace across the Malvennor Moun shy;tains, over the Narian Hills and down on to the plains of Tor to consult with the Pontiff Himerius in Charibon. They had marched for miles amid the tented and log-hewn city which had sprung up around the monastery, noting with a profes shy;sional eye the armouries and smithies and horse lines, the camp discipline of the huge host dwelling there, and the endless lines of supply wagons that came and went to the rich farmlands of the south and west, all under tribute now. Almark and Perigraine were no longer counted among the monarchies of the Five Kingdoms. Himerian presbyters ruled them, priestly autocrats answerable only to the High Pontiff himself, and King Cadamost had shaved his head and become an Inceptine novice.

It was twelve years since the Fimbrian Electors had signed the Pact of Neyr with the Second Empire, wherein they had professed complete neutrality in the doings of the continent outside their borders. They had sent an army east to aid Torunna against the Merduk, only to see half of it destroyed and the other half desert to the command of the new Torunnan king. This had brought to an abrupt halt their dreams of rekindling some form of imperial power in Normannia, and to add insult to injury they had in subsequent years seen a steady trickle of their best soldiers desert and take ship for the east, where they had joined the tercios of King Corfe and his renegade Fimbrian general, Formio. The Torunnan victories of sixteen years before had shaken the Electorates, who had long been accustomed to viewing all other western powers as inferior in military professionalism to themselves. But the heterogeneous army which Corfe had led to such savage victories against the Merduk had given them much food for thought. The Torunnans were now the most renowned soldiers in the world – at least as long as they were led by their present king. And they were now part of this Grand Alliance which encompassed Hebrion, Astarac, Gabrion, and even Ostrabar. Set against this confederation was the might of the Second Empire. At the court of the Electors it had long been decided that Fimbria would swallow her pride, bide her time and await the collision of these two titans. After the dust had cleared, then that would be the time for Fimbria to reassert her old claims on the continent, and not before – no matter how this neutrality might frustrate and even anger the common soldiers of the army, who were burning to reclaim their reputation as the conquerors of the west. But times were changing with a rapidity bewildering to those who had grown up with the twin certainties of the indivisible Holy Church and the menace of the heathen east, and Fimbria had decided to review her policies, and take stock of the new order of the world.

'I make it at least thirty thousands of infantry, and ten of cavalry,' Grail said, consulting the varicoloured counters which littered the table.

Justus turned from the window and his view of Charibon's faithful streaming out of the cathedral into the square below. Almost all the clerics he saw were in black. One or two in Antillian brown here and there, but for the most part the Inceptines seemed to have virtually subsumed every other religious order in the world. In this half of the continent, at any rate.

'There are other camps,' he told his companion. 'Further to the east, towards the gap. They have fortresses there in the foothills of the Thurians. Their entire strength may be half as much again.'

'And that's not counting their garrisons,' a third raven-clad Fimbrian put in from his post by the fire. 'Our intelligence indicates that they have large contingents in Vol Ephrir and Alstadt, and even as far west as Fulk.'

'Hardly surprising,' Grail said. They have the resources of half the continent to draw upon, and then there are these others . . .' With an impatient gesture, he began scooping the counters into a leather pouch, scowling.

'It is mainly these others that we are here to find out about,' Justus told him. 'Armies of men, we can prepare for. But if half the rumours are true-'

Tf half the rumours are true then the Second Empire has both God and the devil on its side.' Grail chuckled. 'I daresay it is mostly a case of tall tales and skilful rumour-handling.'

The Fimbrian at the fire was shorter, and older than the other two. His hair was a cropped silver, and his face was as hard and seamed as wood. Only his eyes gave him away. They flashed now like two cerulean gemstones. 'There is more to it than that. There are strange things happening in Char-ibon; there have been ever since this Aruan appeared out of nowhere five, six years go and waltzed into the Vicar-Generalship as though it had been specially set aside for him.'

'Do you think the stories about him are true then, Brian-non?' Grail asked. There was a mocking edge to his voice.

'The world is full of strange things. This man has opened the doors of the Himerian Church to all the sorcerers and witches of the Five Kingdoms, reversing the ecclesiastical policies of generations, and they have come flocking to him as though he were Ramusio himself. Why would he do this? Where has he come from? And what manner of man is he? That is what we are here to find out. Now, before the stormclouds break and it is too late.'

A knock on the door of the chamber, and a man who might have been brother to any of those within peered inside and said, 'It's time, sir. They're expecting us in a few moments.'

'Very well,' Briannon answered. He repaired to a side chamber for a few minutes, and when he returned some of the worst of the grime had been slapped off his uniform, and he wore a scarlet sash about his middle.

'No circlet?' Grail asked wryly. He and Justus had buckled on short swords of iron and wiped some of the mud off their boots, but aside from that they looked much as they had when they had marched into Charibon the night before.

'No. As we agreed, I am Marshal Briannon here – no relation to the Elector who happens to share my name.'

The Pontifical Reception Hall had been built to overawe. It resembled the nave of a cathedral. Every supplicant who sought an audience with the High Pontiff must needs tramp a long, intimidating path down its length towards the high dais at the end, his every move flanked by alcoves in the massive walls – every one of which held the figure of a Knight Militant in full armour, standing like a graven statue, but following everything with his eyes.

At the far end, Himerius sat on a tall throne, and on either side of him stood his Vicar-General, and the Presbyter of the Knights. Other monks were black shadows in the background, murmuring and scraping quills across parchment. Although it was a bright spring day outside, and sunlight flooded in through the tall windows that butted the vaulted roof of the building, braziers were burning around the dais, and elabor shy;ately carved wooden screens had been drawn around, so it seemed that Himerius and his advisors were cloaked in shadow and flame light, and difficult to make out after the dazzling length of the hall.

The twelve Fimbrians marched sombrely towards this darkness. Their swords had been left in the antechamber and their hands were empty but they somehow seemed more formidable than the heavily armoured Knights whom they passed by.

They came to a cadenced halt before the dais, and were enveloped in the shadow that surrounded Himerius.

Grail was listening to the opening exchanges with one part of his mind, but more of it was studying the men he saw before him. Himerius was old – in his seventies now – and his frame seemed withered and lost in the rich robes which clad it. But his eyes were bright as a raptor's, his ivory face still retaining a haggard vitality.

To his right stood a tall man in Inceptine black, with the chain of the Vicariate around his neck. He was monk-bald, but had the air about him of a great nobleman. He had a hawk nose that put even Himerius's to shame, and thick, sprawling eye shy;brows over deep orbits within which the eyes were mere glints. He looked somehow foreign, as though he came from the east. It was the high cruelty of the cheekbones, perhaps. There was about him an air of command that impressed even Grail.

This was Aruan of Garmidalan, the Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order, and, some said, the true head of the Hime-rian Church. The power behind the throne at any rate, and an object of mystery and speculation throughout all the Norman-nic kingdoms.

To Himerius's left stood a different pot of fish entirely. A broad-shouldered, shaven-headed soldier in half armour with a broken nose and the scar of long helm-wearing on his forehead. In his sixties, perhaps, he looked as hale and formidable as any Fimbrian drill sergeant Grail had ever known. But there was intelligence in his eyes, and when Grail met them he felt was being gauged and, as the eyes moved on, dismissed again. This man had seen battle, spilled blood. The violence in him could almost be smelled. Bardolin of Carreir-ida, Presbyter of the Knights Militant – another enigma. He had been a mage, apprentice to the great Golophin of Hebrion, but had turned against his master and now completed the triumvirate of powers here in Charibon.

'-Always a pleasure to see the representatives of the Electorates here in Charibon. We trust that your quarters agree with you, and that there will be time during your visit to discuss the many and varied subjects of importance which now concern both our fiefdoms. The Grand Alliance, as it styles itself, has been for years a warlike and threatening presence on our shared continent, and it borders both our states, yet of late its posturing has become more substantial, and we must needs consult together, I believe, as to how its ambitions may be curtailed.' This was Himerius, his old voice surprisingly clear and resonant under the massive beams of the hall.

'The restraint shown by the Electorates has been admirable, considering the many hostile acts committed against it by the alliance, but we feel here at Charibon, the seat of the True Faith, that it is perhaps time that Fimbria and the Empire made common cause against these aggressors. The world is divided irrevocably. To our sorrow, our advisors tell us that war may not be long in coming, despite all our efforts to prevent it. The anti-Pontiff Albrec the Faceless and his bene shy;factor, the murderous usurper Corfe of Torunna, not to mention the despicable despoilers of the holy city of Aekir, are all massing troops on our eastern borders. While in the west, Hebrion, Gabrion and Astarac – also in league with the Merduk – blockade our coasts and strangle trade. We pray therefore, Marshal Briannon, that your embassy is come here today to make common cause with us in this approaching struggle – one that will, with God's blessing, wipe the heresy of Albrec from our shores for ever, and bring to an end the disgusting spectacle of Merduk and Ramusian worshipping together – in the same temple, at the same altar! – as it is said they do in the iniquitous sink that is Torunn.'

Grail blinked in surprise. As diplomatic statements went, this one was as subtle as an onager's kick. He wanted to glance at Briannon, to see how the Elector had received this speech – nay, this demand – but faced his front rigidly, and kept his face as blank as wood.

'Your Holiness makes many valuable points', Briannon replied, his voice hard as basalt after Himerius's music. 'Too many in fact to be addressed adequately standing here. As you know, no Fimbrian embassy is ever dispatched lightly, and our presence here is evidence enough that we, also, share your concerns about the current state of affairs on our borders and yours. I will divulge to you that I stand here with the authority to make or break any treaty hitherto entered into by the Electorates. The Treaty of Neyr, guaranteeing Fimbrian neutrality in any war in which the Second Empire might become involved, has served us well over these last twelve years. But times are changing. I rejoice that you and I are of one mind in this respect, Holiness.'

Himerius actually smiled. 'Shall we adjourn for dinner then, my dear Marshal, and afterwards, perhaps we can meet more informally and begin to explore the new possibilities that this current state of affairs has brought to light?'

Briannon bowed slightly. 'I am at your Holiness's disposal.'

'I had thought Himerius to be a wily negotiator,' Justus said. 'He as much as stated we are either for or against him, the old buzzard.'

'They were not his words,' Briannon told him. 'Himerius is a mere figurehead. We are dealing with this Aruan, no other, and he is confident enough of his strength that he thinks to lay down the law to the Electorates.'

'What will it be then?' Grail asked impatiently. 'Are we to throw in our lot with these sorcerers and priests?'

Briannon stared at him coldly. 'We will do whatever is best for our people, no matter if we have to lay down with the devil to do it.' The trio of sombrely clad men tramped back to their quarters in silence after that. Grail found himself thinking of his cousin, Silus, who had deserted to Torunna not three weeks before. To serve under a soldier, he had said bitterly. The only real soldier left in the west.

When the doors had boomed shut on the Fimbrians' retreating backs the three figures on the dais seemed to become animated.

'We were too obvious’ Himerius said discontentedly. 'Master, these Fimbrians have the stiffest necks of any men alive. One has to handle them with care, courtesy, flattery.'

They tolerate these things – they do not appreciate them,'

Aruan said. 'And they are men like any other, fearful of what the future may bring. Our friend Briannon is in fact the same Briannon who is Elector of Neyr, and should the Fimbrians ever set aside their internal differences and decide to raise up an emperor again, then he will be the man clad in imperial purple. He is not here for the exercise. I believe they will sign the new treaty. We will have Fimbrian pike within our ranks yet, I promise you. Not for a while, perhaps, but once Hebrion and Astarac fall, they will see which way the wind is blowing.'

'They don't like us,' Bardolin said. 'They would prefer to serve under King Corfe – a fighting man.'

'They would prefer to serve under no one but themselves. However, their rank and file will obey orders. It's what they're good at, after all.' Aruan smiled. 'My dear Bardolin, you have been very promiscuous in your comings and goings of late. I sometimes regret letting you into the mysteries of the Eighth Discipline. Do I detect a note of sympathy for this soldier-king?'

Bardolin met Aruan's hawkish gaze without flinching. 'He's the greatest general of the age. The Fimbrian rank and file may obey their orders in the main, but over the past fifteen years thousands of them have flocked to his banner. The Orphans, they call themselves, and they are fanatics. I've met them in the field, and they are a fearsome thing to contend against.'

'Ah, the Torrin Gap battle,' Aruan mused. 'But that was a small affair, and almost ten years ago. We have our own brand of fanatics now, Bardolin, and they laugh at pikes no matter who wields them. Children? Am I not right?'

At this the monks who stood in the shadows raised their heads, and as their cowls slipped back there were revealed the slavering muzzles of beasts. These opened their maws and howled and yammered, and then crawled forward to fawn at the feet of Aruan, their yellow eyes bright as the flickering flames of the braziers.