The Heretic Kings

NINE

Corfe hated the new clothes, but the tailor had assured him that they were typical court wear for officers of the Torunnan army. There was a narrow ruff which encircled his neck, below which glittered a tiny mock breastplate of silver suspended by a neck chain and engraved with the triple sabres of his rank. The doublet was black embroidered with gold, heavily padded in the shoulders and with voluminous slashed sleeves through which the fine cambric of his shirt fluttered. He wore tight black hose beneath, and buckled shoes. Shoes! He had not worn shoes for years. He felt ridiculous.

“You will do very well,” the Queen Dowager had said to him when she had looked him over, with the tailor bowing and hovering like a blowfly behind him.

“I feel like a dressmaker’s mannequin,” he snapped back.

She smiled at that and, folding her fan, she chucked him under the chin with it.

“Now, now, Colonel. We must remember where we are. The King has expressed a wish to see you in the company of his senior officers. We cannot let you march into their council of war looking like a serf dragged in from the fields. And besides, this becomes you. You have the build for it, even if your legs are a little on the short side. It comes of being a cavalryman, I suppose.”

Corfe did not reply. The Queen Dowager Odelia was gliding round him as though she were admiring a statue, her long skirts whispering on the marble floor.

“But this thing”-her fan rapped against Corfe’s scabbarded sabre-“this is out of place. We must find you a more fitting weapon. Something elegant. This is a butcher’s tool.”

Corfe’s fist tightened on the pommel of the sword. “By your leave, lady, I’d prefer to keep it with me.”

“Why?”

She had glided in front of him. Their eyes met.

“It helps remind me of who I am.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Corfe could sense the tailor’s presence behind him, uneasy and fascinated.

“You must be in the chambers of the war council by the fifth hour,” Odelia said, turning away abruptly. “Do not be late. The King has something for you, I believe.”

She was gone, the end of her skirts trailing round the doorway like the tail of a departing snake.

As the palace bells sounded the fifth hour, Corfe was ushered into the council chambers by a haughty footman. He was reminded a little of his arrival at Ormann Dyke, when he had walked in on General Pieter Martellus’ council of war. But that had been different. The officers at the dyke had been dressed like soldiers on campaign, and they had been planning for a battle which was already at their door. What Corfe walked into in the palace of Torunn was more like a parody, a game of war.

A crowd of gorgeously dressed officers. Infantry in black, cavalry in burgundy, artillery in deepest blue. Silver and gold gleamed everywhere with the pale accompaniment of lace and the bobbing magnificence of feathers from the caps some of the men retained. King Lofantyr was resplendent in sable and silver slashed hose and the crimson sash of a general. The light from a dozen lamps glittered off silver-buckled shoes, rings, gem-studded badges of rank and chivalric orders. Corfe made his deepest bow. He had refused cavalry burgundy, preferring infantry black though he belonged to the mounted arm. He was glad.

“Ah, Colonel,” the King said, and gestured with one hand. “Come in, come in. It is all informality here. Gentlemen, Colonel Corfe Cear-Inaf, late of John Mogen’s field army and the garrison of Ormann Dyke.”

There was a murmur of greetings. Corfe was subjected to a dozen stares of frank appraisal. His skin crawled.

The other officers turned back to the long table which dominated the room. It was scattered with papers, but what occupied its shining length principally was a large map of Torunna and its environs. Corfe went closer, but his way was blocked. Irritably he looked up and found himself face to face with one of the dandies of the palace audience.

“Ensign Ebro, sir,” the officer said, smiling. “We’ve met, I believe, though one would hardly recognize you out of your fighting gear.”

Corfe nodded coldly. There was an awkward pause, and then Ebro stepped aside. “Pardon me, sir.”

His sabre was unwieldy, harder to handle than the slim rapiers the other officers sported. He found himself peering over shoulders to see the rolled-out map. Figurines of Torunnan pikemen cast in silver had been placed at the four corners to stop the stiff paper from curling up. There were decanters on the table, crystal glasses, a blunt dagger of intricate workmanship which King Lofantyr picked up and used as a pointer.

“This is where they are now,” he said, tapping a point on the map some eighty leagues west of Charibon. “In the Narian Hills.”

“How many, sire?” a voice asked. It was the crusty, mustachioed Colonel Menin, whom Corfe had also encountered the evening of the audience.

“A grand tercio, plus supporting artisans. Five thousand fighting men.”

A series of whispers swept the chamber.

“They will be a great help, of course,” Menin said, but the doubt was audible in his voice.

“Fimbrians on the march again across Normannia,” someone muttered. “Who’d have thought it?”

“Does Martellus know yet, sire?” another officer asked.

“Couriers went off to the dyke yesterday,” King Lofantyr told them. “I am sure that Martellus will be glad of five thousand reinforcements, no matter where they are from. Marshal Barbius and his command are travelling light. They intend to be at the Searil river in six weeks, if all goes well. Plenty of time for his men to settle in before the beginning of the next campaigning season.”

Lofantyr turned aside so that an older man in the livery of a court official could whisper in his ear. He was holding a sheaf of papers.

“We have commanded General Martellus to send out winter scouting patrols to ascertain the state of readiness of the Merduks at all times. At the moment it seems they are secure in their winter camps, and have even detached sizable bodies of men eastwards to improve their supply lines. The elephants and cavalry, also, have been billeted further east where they will be nearer to the supply depots on the Ostian river. There is no reason to fear a winter assault.”

Corfe recognized the papers in the court official’s hands; they were the dispatches he had brought from the dyke.

“What of the Pontifical bull demanding Martellus’s removal, sire?” Menin asked gruffly.

“We will ignore it. We do not recognize the imposter Himerius as Pontiff. Macrobius, rightful head of the Church, resides here in Torunn; you have all seen him. Edicts from Charibon will be ignored.”

“Then what of the south, sire?” an officer with a general’s sash about his middle, but who looked to be in his seventies, asked.

“Ah-these reports we’ve been getting of insurrections in the coastal cities to the south of the kingdom,” Lofantyr said airily. “They are of little account. Ambitious nobles such as the Duke of Rone and the Landgrave of Staed have seen fit to recognize Himerius as Pontiff and our Royal self as a heretic. They will be dealt with.”

The talk went on. Military talk, hard-edged and assured. Councils of war loved to talk, John Mogen had once said. But they hated to fight. Most of the conversations seemed to Corfe to be less about tactics and strategy and more about the winning of personal advantage, the catching of the King’s eye.

He had forgotten how different the Torunnan military of the capital and the home fiefs was from the field armies which defended the frontiers. The difference depressed him. These did not seem to him to be the same kind of men with whom he had fought at Aekir and Ormann Dyke. They were not of the calibre of John Mogen’s command. But perhaps that was just an impression; he had not mixed much with the rank and file of the capital. And besides, he lashed himself, he was not such a great one to judge. He had deserted his regiment in the final stages of Aekir’s agony, and while his comrades had fought and died in a heroic rearguard action on the Western Road, he had been slinking away in the midst of the civilian refugees. He must never forget that.

There was no mention of the refugee problem at this meeting, however, which puzzled Corfe extremely. The camps on the outskirts of the capital were swelling by the day with the despairing survivors of Aekir who had first fled the Holy City itself and had then been moved on from Ormann Dyke in the wake of the battles there. If he were the King, he would be concerned with feeding and housing the hopeless multitudes. It was all very well for them to camp outside the walls by the hundred thousand in winter, but when the weather warmed again there would be the near certainty of disease, that enemy more deadly to an army than any Merduk host.

They were discussing the scattered risings of the nobles in the south of the kingdom again. Apparently Perigraine was giving the disaffected aristocrats surreptitious support, and there were vague tales of Nalbenic galleys landing weapons for the rebels. The risings were localized and isolated as yet, but if they could be welded together by any one leader they would pose a serious threat. Swift and severe action was called for. Some of the officers at the council volunteered to go south and bring back the heads of the rebels on platters and there were many protestations of loyalty to Lofantyr, which the King accepted graciously. Corfe remained silent. He did not like the complacent way the King and his staff regarded the situation at the dyke. They seemed to think that the main effort of the Merduks was past and the danger was over except for some minor skirmishing to come in the spring. But Corfe had been there; he had seen the teeming thousands of the Merduk formations, the massed batteries of their artillery, the living walls of war elephants. He knew that the main assault had yet to come, and it would come in the spring. Five thousand Fimbrians would be a welcome addition to the dyke’s defenders-if they would fight happily alongside their old foes the Torunnans-but they would not be enough. Surely Lofantyr and his advisors realized that?

The talk was wearisome, about people whose names meant nothing to Corfe, towns to the south, far away from the Merduk war. As members of Mogen’s command, Corfe and his comrades had always seen the true danger in the east. The Merduks were the only real foes the west faced. Everything else was a distraction. But it was different here. In Torunn the eastern frontier was only one among a series of other problems and priorities. The knowledge made Corfe impatient. He wanted to get back to the dyke, back to the real battlefields.

“We need an expedition to clamp down on these traitorous bastards in the south, that’s plain,” Colonel Menin rasped. “With your permission, sire, I’d be happy to take a few tercios and teach them some loyalty.”

“Very good of you, I’m sure, Colonel Menin,” Lofantyr said smoothly. “But I need your talents employed here, in the capital. No, I have another officer in mind for the mission.”

The more junior officers about the table eyed each other a little askance, wondering who the lucky man would be.

“Colonel Cear-Inaf, I have decided to give you the command,” the King said briskly.

Corfe was jerked out of his reverie. “What?”

The King paused, and then stated in a harder voice: “I said, Colonel, that I am giving you this command.”

All eyes were on Corfe. He was both astonished and dismayed. A command that would take him south, away from the dyke? He did not want it.

But could not refuse it. This, then, was what the Queen Dowager had been referring to earlier. This was her doing.

Corfe bowed deeply whilst his mind fought free of its turmoil.

“Your majesty is very gracious. I only hope that I can justify your faith in my abilities.”

Lofantyr seemed mollified, but there was something in his regard that Corfe did not like, a covert amusement, perhaps.

“Your troop awaits you in the Northern Marshalling Yard, Colonel. And you shall have an aide, of course. Ensign Ebro will be joining you-”

Corfe found Ebro at his side, bowing stiffly, his face a mask. Clearly, this was not a post he had coveted.

“-And I shall see what I can do about releasing a few more officers to you.”

“My thanks, your majesty. Might I enquire as to my orders?”

“They will be forwarded to you in due course. For now I suggest, Colonel, that you and your new aide acquaint yourselves with your command.”

Another pause. Corfe bowed yet again and turned and left the chamber with Ebro close behind him.

As soon as they were outside, striding along the palace corridors, Corfe reached up and savagely ripped the lace ruff from his throat, flinging it aside.

“Lead me to this Northern Marshalling Yard,” he snapped to his aide. “I’ve never heard of it.”

N O one had, it seemed. They scoured the barracks and armouries in the northern portion of the city, but none of the assorted quartermasters, sergeants and ensigns they spoke to had heard of it. Corfe was beginning to believe that it was all a monstrous joke when a fawning clerk in one of the city arsenals told them that there had been a draft of men brought in only the day before who were bivouacked in one of the city squares close to the northern wall; that might be their goal.

They set off on foot, Corfe’s shiny buckled shoes becoming spattered with the filth of the winter streets. Ebro followed him in dumb misery, picking his way through the puddles and mudslimed cobbles. It began to rain, and his court finery took on a resemblance to the sodden plumage of a brilliant bird. Corfe was grimly satisfied by the transformation.

They emerged at last from the stinking press and crowd of the streets into a wide open space surrounded on all sides by timber-framed buildings. Beyond, the sombre heights of the battlemented city walls loomed like a hillside in the rain-cloud. Corfe wiped water out of his eyes, hardly able to credit what he saw.

“This can’t be it-this cannot be them!” Ebro sputtered. But Corfe was suddenly sure it was, and he realized that the joke was indeed on him.

Torunnan sentries paced the edges of the square with halberds resting on their shoulders. In the shop doorways all around arquebusiers stood yawning, keeping their weapons and powder out of the rain. As Corfe and Ebro appeared, a young ensign with a muddy cloak about his shoulders approached them, saluting as soon as he caught sight of the badge on Corfe’s absurd little breastplate.

“Good day, sir. Might you be Colonel Cear-Inaf, by any chance?”

Corfe’s heart sank. There was no mistake then.

“I am, Ensign. What is this we have here?”

The officer glanced back to the scene in the square. The open space was full of men, five hundred of them, perhaps. They were seated in crowds on the filthy cobbles as though battered down by the chill rain. They were in rags, and collectively they stank to high heaven. There were manacles about every ankle, and their faces were obscured by wild tangles of matted hair.

“Half a thousand galley slaves from the Royal fleet,” the ensign said cheerily. “Tribesmen from the Felimbri, most of them, worshippers of the Horned One. Black-hearted devils, they are. I’d mind your back, sir, when you’re near them. They tried to brain one of my men last night and we had to shoot a couple.”

A dull anger began to rise in Corfe.

“This cannot be right, sir. We must be mistaken. The King must be in jest,” Ebro was protesting.

“I don’t think so,” Corfe murmured. He stared at the packed throng of miserable humanity in the square. Many of them were staring back, glowering at him from under thatches of verminous hair. The men were brawny, well-muscled, as might be expected of galley slaves, but their skin was a sodden white, and many of them were coughing. A few had lain down on their sides, oblivious to the stone cobbles, the pouring rain.

So this was his first independent command. A crowd of mutinous slaves from the savage tribes of the interior. For a moment Corfe considered returning to the palace and refusing the command. The Queen Dowager had obtained the position for him, but clearly Lofantyr had resented her interference. He was supposed to refuse it, Corfe realized. And when he did, there would never be another. That decided him.

He stepped forward. “Are there any among you who can speak for the rest, in Normannic?”

The men muttered amongst themselves, and finally one rose and shuffled to the fore, his chains clinking.

“I speak your tongue, Torunnan.”

He was huge, with hands as wide as dinner plates and the scars of old lashings about his limbs. His tawny beard fell on to his chest but two bright blue eyes glinted out of the brutish face and met Corfe’s stare squarely.

“What’s your name?” Corfe asked him.

“I am called the Eagle in my own tongue. You would say my name was Marsch.”

“Can you speak for your fellows, Marsch?”

The slave shrugged his massive shoulders. “Perhaps.”

“Do you know why you were taken from the galleys?”

“No.”

“Then I will tell you. And you will translate what I say to your comrades, without misinterpretation. Is that clear?”

Marsch glared at him, but he was obviously curious. “All right.”

“All right, sir,” Ebro hissed at him, but Corfe held up a hand. He pitched his voice to carry across the square.

“You are no longer slaves of the Torunnan state,” he called out. “From this moment on you are free men.” That caused a stir, when Marsch had translated it, a lifting of the apathy. But there was no lessening of the mistrust in the eyes which were fixed on him. Corfe ground on.

“But that does not yet mean that you are free to do as you please. I am Corfe. From this moment on you will obey me as you would one of your own chieftains, for it is I who have procured your freedom. You are tribesmen of the Cimbrics. You were once warriors, and now you have the chance to be so again, but only under my command.”

Marsch’s deep voice was following Corfe’s in the guttural language of the mountain tribes. His eyes never left Corfe’s face.

“I need soldiers, and you are what I have been given. You are not to fight your own peoples, but are to battle Torunnans and Merduks. I give you my word on that. Serve me faithfully, and you will have honour and employment. Betray me, and you will be killed out of hand. I do not care which God you worship or which tongue you speak as long as you fight for me. Obey my orders, and I will see that you are treated like warriors. Any who do not choose to do so can go back to the galleys.”

Marsch finished translating, and the square was filled with low talk.

“Sir,” Ebro said urgently, “no one gave you authority to free these men.”

“They are my men,” Corfe growled. “I will not be a general of slaves.”

Marsch had heard the exchange. He clinked forward until he was towering over Corfe.

“You mean what you say, Torunnan?”

“I would not have said it otherwise.”

“And you will give us our freedom, in exchange for our swords?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you choose us as your men? To your kind we are savages and unbelievers.”

“Because you are all I have got,” Corfe said truthfully. “I don’t take you because I want to, but because I have to. But if you will take service under me, then I swear I will speak for you in everything as though I were speaking for myself.”

The hulking savage considered this a moment.

“Then I am your man.” And Marsch touched his fist to his forehead in the salute of his people.

Others in the square saw the gesture. Men began to struggle to their feet and repeat it.

“If we break faith with you,” Marsch said, “then may the seas rise up and drown us, may the green hills open up and swallow us, may the stars of heaven fall on us and crush us out of life for ever.”

It was the old, wild oath of the tribes, the pagan pledge of fealty. Corfe blinked, and said:

“By the same oath, I bind myself to keep faith with you.”

The men in the square were all on their feet now, repeating Marsch’s oath in their own tongue.

Corfe heard them out. He had the oddest feeling that this was the beginning of something he could not yet grasp: something momentous that would affect the remaining course of his life.

The feeling passed, and he was facing five hundred men standing manacled in the rain.

He turned to the young ensign, who was open-mouthed. “Strike the chains from these men.”

“Sir, I-”

“Do it!”

The ensign paled, saluted quickly, and ran off to get the keys. Ebro looked entirely at a loss.

“Ensign,” Corfe snapped, and his aide came to attention. “You will find a warm billet for these men. If there are no military quarters available, you will procure a private warehouse. I want them out of the rain.”

“Yes, sir.”

Corfe addressed Marsch once more. “When did you last eat?”

The giant shrugged again. “Two, three days ago. Sir.”

“Ensign Ebro, you will also procure rations for five hundred from the city stores, on my authority. If anyone questions you, refer them to-to the Queen Dowager. She will endorse my orders.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, I-”

“Go. I want no more time wasted.”

Ebro sped off without another word. Torunnan guards were already walking through the crowd of tribesmen unlocking their ankle chains. The arquebusiers had lit their match and were holding their firearms at the ready. As the tribesmen were freed, they trooped over to stand behind Marsch.

This is my command, Corfe thought.

They were starved, half naked, weaponless, without armour or equipment; and Corfe knew he could not hope to obtain anything for them through the regular military channels. They were on their own. But they were his men.