‘I have a private solar for our ease,’ said Lord Phokus.
‘Then let us retire,’ the Duke said. He took Lord Phokus’s arm. ‘I apologise if I laid it on too thick.’
Phokus smiled a crooked smile. ‘I ask myself every hour if I have indeed sold this castle to you. It is painful to be reminded of it.’ He shrugged. ‘But my men need to be paid. The whole town depends on their wages.’
They went through a door to a low room with a ceiling worked in dark blue paint and bright gold stars, with tapestries of hunting along one wall and nine worthy women along the other wall. Father Arnaud joined them, and Mag, and Ser Gavin.
Toby slipped through the door and put a cup of something on the table in front of their guest, who took the head of the table. He lifted it and tasted.
‘Ah – cider. Well chosen, Toby.’
Toby flushed and all but ran from the room.
‘Call me Master Smythe,’ said the nondescript man. ‘Listen, friends. I am here only briefly. Tom, I have looked into your matter.’ Master Smythe spread his hands wide, and then folded them together – an inhuman gesture, as his steepled fingers met the way an artist might draw them, folded perfectly flat and pointing straight at heaven.
In fact, watching Master Smythe was a little liking watching a puppet show.
‘In brief, then. Hector – the Drover – was killed by Sossag Outwallers. They were, at the time, in the service of the entity who now calls himself Thorn and was formerly the magister Richard Plangere. But my investigations have shown that Thorn himself is merely the tool of one of my kind.’
Tom smiled, although the smile never reached his eyes. ‘Lovely, then. Show me to the bastard.’
Master Smythe shook his head. ‘It is a great deal more complicated than that, Tom.’ He sighed. ‘I think one of my kin has decided to break a certain compact that our kind has made. That is all I will say just now. Even saying this much – that my kind have a compact with some of yours, and that this compact is threatened – forces me to take sides in this matter.’
Smoke trickled out of Master Smythe’s nose.
The Duke nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Master Smythe, but please remember that we are not at fault,’
Smythe looked down the table. ‘I was going to say that no one is innocent. But that is the merest casuistry, and we’re better than that. So I will say that I have taken certain precautions. Gabriel, you have done well, but you will need to push your timetable forward. Tom, I know that you mislike me but I must ask you to follow me west and take up the duties of Drover. Lord Phokus, your help was, and will remain, instrumental – Ser Gabriel will need to be able to move east and west on this road for more than a year to come, and this fortress may become the focus of several armies. Which, despite their very different agendas, are being moved by a single will. Gabriel, I have brought you some interesting materiel. Use it wisely. My friends – when I must finally tip my hand I will come under attack, and then things will become very difficult. I apologise for all of the ambiguity and the cloak and dagger, but if I show my hand early the consequences would be most dire.’
The Duke laughed. ‘And they accuse me of having a flair for the dramatic. Master Smythe, what kind of consequences are you thinking of?’
Master Smythe raised his eyebrows. ‘The extermination of humankind in this sphere,’ he said. He smiled, and his eyes locked with the Duke’s. ‘Are those stakes high enough to interest you, Gabriel?’
The Duke nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good. Because, while we are, in every possible way, the underdog, the enemy has no idea who you are. Or what I can do.’ Master Smythe nodded, and his smile was as natural as his hand gestures were false. ‘It is exciting to have a true adversary after aeons of neutrality. It will require one of your God’s miracles for us to triumph.’ He nodded. ‘But I have always found that it is far more entertaining to be the underdog. There is more honour if you triumph, and no censure if you fail.’
‘Not my God,’ the Duke said, somewhat automatically.
Father Arnaud snorted. And Mag nodded.
And Harmodius said, Ahh. How I feared this.
The Sacred Island – Kevin Orley and Thorn
Orley had ordered a castle built, and instead he had a series of sheds, each fouler than the last. The young men who followed him – a growing number – lacked the inclination to build in hardwood, or to rig latrines or shingle a roof properly. He could terrify them, but he had a hard time motivating them unless there was a town to plunder. They had dead eyes and preferred raw violence to any semblance of discipline.
The sheds angered him every day.
He had more than three hundred warriors, now, who ranged in age from eleven to seventeen. A few of the older boys were fully trained warriors, and whenever he had the spirit to rouse himself from the fire, he made the older men take the boys out in the snow where he drilled them as Southern soldiers were drilled. From Nepan’ha he had crossbows, and he begged Thorn for bolts until the sorcerer made him so many that he could have used them as tent stakes – a massive outpouring of the sorcerer’s power, but one that allowed Orley to turn his least useful boys into silent killers.
He made them build a long shed for target practice, and another in which to sleep, and every time he had fifty more boys, he forced them to build another shed.
He wanted to dig a well, but in the end he had to settle for water brought from the sacred lake. That made all the boys afraid, for a while. But familiarity bred contempt so they drank the sacred water every day, fought among themselves, and the results were brutal.
There were girls as well as boys among his recruits, and they were used regularly and none kindled – some dark magery, no doubt, but nothing that Orley needed to concern himself with, although their blank eyes and lank hair felt like accusations every day. They didn’t scream, and they didn’t complain any more than the rest of his child soldiers, and he went among them like a war god, ordered them to train, to wash, to strip, to dress . . . and eventually they obeyed. The older boys seldom obeyed unless he killed one of them.
Orley grew taller. It shocked him – he’d have said he was past his last growth. He was, in fact, standing looking at the bottom of his beaded leggings, and his bare anklebones, and wondering why he’d suddenly grown four fingers, and what this portended, when suddenly the human skin of Thorn was with him.
‘Choose me your two most useless mouths,’ Thorn said.
‘Too easy,’ Orley said. He led the mage out into the main shed, and found a big boy with slabs of muscle like hams on his legs and arms. The boy was pissing on another boy while three others held him down.
‘Tail!’ Orley called.
The big boy raised his breach clout. ‘Hah! What?’ he whined.
‘You are wanted.’ Orley cuffed the boy and then grabbed the other – the runt being held by the others. ‘And the Squirrel. The master wants you both.’
The two boys were immediately silent, and their fear stank.
‘Things will begin to move, now,’ Thorn said. ‘Your warriors do not impress me, Orley.’ His voice was hoarse and low. The warriors cringed away from him.
Perhaps the long shard of wood that transfixed his abdomen and the curl of intestine protruding from his lower back was the reason. Or perhaps it was the smell.
‘You are injured?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Thorn.
Orley had never found the sorcerer so alien as in that moment. But he made himself shrug. He made himself stand up, like Orley. ‘Pulse and Dragonfly tell me that the Galles have sacked Mont Reale.’ He paused to watch his master, but the effort was wasted. In the skin of Speaker of Tongues, Thorn gave nothing away. ‘We will have many more recruits if we make war on them,’ Orley asserted.
Thorn didn’t even shrug. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We will use them as allies. They have broken the Northern Huran. There is nothing to be had from broken people.’
Orley’s eyes encompassed the boys and girls who made hi
s ‘army’. ‘I see,’ he said.
Not for the first time, Orley wondered how fickle his new master was, and how easily discarded his little force might be.
‘When I am done with a project here, I will go to the Galles and help them determine their next course of action.’ Thorn nodded. His face was perfectly blank. It was like communicating with a stone.
Orley stood his ground. ‘I need armour, swords, more crossbows – helmets. Perhaps horses. Space to train.’
Thorn nodded. ‘Good. I can find these things.’
‘When will we fight?’ Orley asked. ‘You were going to deliver Muriens to me.’
‘His wife did well to warn him against me.’ Thorn sounded distant. ‘It will all happen in the spring. Train well, Orley. Be worthy. Because with the Galles, I may not need you, as you do not need this pair, even though this one is of the strongest.’
Both boys began to weep.
They were still weeping when Thorn fed them to the eggs, which ate their souls.
N’gara – Redmede, Mogon, and the Faery Knight
Insistent knocking at his door, and Redmede threw on a robe and went to open it. The whole house shook – the straw mats let in gusts of cold air. He drew his falchion, opened the door—
Mogon stood there, as tall as a warhorse, her plumes erect on her head. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I need you. Dress warmly.’
Redmede looked back at Bess, who was sitting up on their snug pallet, throwing a heavy wolf fur around her shoulders.
‘I’ll come,’ Redmede said. It was a complex decision. She might eat him. Even now, he could feel the wave front of her rage. But she had more control than any of the other Wardens and her urgency communicated itself even through the medium of her alien body.
He pulled on two pairs of hose, one over another, and then deerskin leggings over all, and took Outwaller shoes – heavy moose hide, lined in fur – off the wall and laced them high on his legs. He had a good wool gown in Jack white, and he wore his falchion and took his bow, which he strung in the warmth of his little hut. He buttoned his old hood onto his head and put a fur cap atop it, and then pulled light gloves over his hands. Bess pulled heavy mittens like a knight’s gauntlets made in wool and leather over his gloves.
Bess was more than just his partner, now. He saw the Hold through her eyes, sometimes – she loved to see the faeries, the irks, and the Wardens. To her, they were childhood tales made real, and she was living in some sort of paradise. He only saw the Wardens as monsters, and her vision of them steadied him.
‘Help her,’ Bess whispered. ‘If Mogon seeks your aid, it can only help all of us.’
He kissed her, and went out into the brutal cold and snow.
The tall daemon was wrapped in furs, so that she was twice as big in girth as usual. ‘My kind broadcast all our heat,’ she admitted. ‘Winter is very dangerous for us.’
‘What’s this about, lady?’ he asked.
‘Can you ride?’ she asked.
He made a face. ‘There’s not a horse in this town,’ he said.
She trotted off, her mighty three-toed feet crushing the snow flat for him, and he could walk easily except where she went through a drift. But she led him only as far as the cavernous main gate of the Hold. ‘Tapio keeps war elk. Tamsin has one saddled for you.’
‘What is this about?’ Redmede asked.
‘Tapio is missing in the snow,’ she said. ‘I can find him, but I need help. And this is not something he, or I, will wish to have known.’
‘Shit,’ Redmede said. He felt hopelessly over his head but he clung to how much Bess liked these . . . monsters. And Tamsin had ever been like a creature out of a faery tale to him. He plunged into the cavern, through the curtain of warmth, some mighty working that protected the dooryard, and just inside, a pair of small irks held a sharp-faced animal like a moose but with back-swept antlers. The animal had the complete tack of a horse, although oddly shaped, decorated with tiny bells over mottled green leather.
The two irks bowed.
Tamsin, who Bess called the Faery Queen, was standing on the other side of the animal. He felt her presence – and smelled her, too. She smelled like sunlight and cinnamon and balsam of Gilead all together. He bowed. It was reflexive – he, Bill Redmede, every man’s equal, had no hesitation in bowing to the Faery Queen.
‘Find him, ser knight,’ she said.
‘I’m no knight,’ he said.
Her sad smile told him that his opinion held no weight.
‘What of your own people?’ he asked.
‘Please go,’ she begged.
He had no resistance against her. He got a foot into the near-side stirrup and the great beast grunted.
‘You aboard? ’
Redmede gave a little shriek.
Tamsin held out an amulet. ‘It will find him. Even if he is dead.’
The bull elk trotted out into the storm.
‘Can you hear me, boss? ’
Redmede fought his trembling hands – everything in irkdom seemed to scare him. ‘I’m – how do you do that?’
‘Who knows? Good seat. Don’t worry, I won’t drop you. You do your part and I do mine. And don’t use that fucking bit unless you have to, or we’ll see which of us is stronger. Understand me? ’
Redmede put the reins carefully on the warm beast’s neck and left them there, tied together. The elk increased his pace, and Mogon trotted alongside.
Too soon, they’d left the warm darkness of the Hold and the surrounding huts behind.
‘Why?’ Redmede asked. ‘I’m not unwilling, lady. But why me?’
Mogon ran on. She ran for long enough that Redmede thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, and then she crossed a series of downed trees and paused.
‘We’re in the Wild, man. If his own nobles suspected that he was alone in the snow, badly injured – well. Suffice it to say that his mate asks a Warden and a man to save her lord.’ She turned, far more agile than a creature of her bulk had any right to be, and headed into the open woods.
Thrake – Aeskepiles
‘My father will never agree to outright assassination,’ Demetrius said.
Aeskepiles poured him more hippocras. ‘This is the time, Your Grace. If we allow the usurper to hold the city through the winter, we have lost.’
Demetrius sat back. Despite his temper, he had the quick eyes of the thinking man, and they rested on Aeskepiles’ own. ‘My father said we had already lost. That all that remained of our cause was to see how much of the north we can hold.’
Aeskepiles shook his head. ‘You father is merely despondent. It was a local defeat – a mere matter of marching—’
Demetrius cursed. ‘Listen, Magister. Perhaps the person we needed most was you. This Red Knight – he had all sorts of sorcery. He tied my two praeceptors in knots as soon as the action started. He moved a storm front the way a goodwife moves a curtain.’
Aeskepiles nodded. ‘I agree. So let’s be rid of him.’
Demetrius took another drink. ‘The world is full of sons who plot against their fathers. I am not one such. I dislike to betray my father’s trust.’
Aeskepiles could feel his audience wavering. ‘We are not betraying your father, but saving his cause. Was the Emperor a good ruler? No. He was a weak fool who made concessions to every foreigner. May I be frank? Even the usurper is better at ruling the Empire than the Emperor. I know it is blasphemy, but listen, Your Grace. I did not join this rebellion to win more power, or wider estates. There are greater issues at hand. We must win. So let’s send that message. When the usurper is dead, we can cry mea culpa to your father.’
Demetrius drank again. ‘We’ll need his signet.’
Aeskepiles nodded. ‘And the messenger leaves tomorrow for the city. We must be quick.’
Liviapolis – Kronmir and Mortirmir
More than a week after his return to the city, Kronmir stood at the Gate of Ares and watched the Imperial Army march in from the snow. They had been announced the
night before, and it was widely held that they had won some great victories and had with them a fortune in furs. He might have cursed, but he didn’t bother. Kronmir lived his life successfully by concerning himself only with elements that he could control. However, it must be said that the Megas Ducas’ month-long winter campaign and its results had caused Master Kronmir to think certain thoughts about his employer and the likely durability of the cause which he was representing, and Kronmir had spent a day or two taking certain precautions.
The army, led by the Megas Ducas, looked triumphant, and far warmer than they should have. The troopers looked thin; a month of winter campaigning had shed any fat they might have had. But their white surcoats hid any deficiencies of clothing, their animals looked healthy enough, and the long train of wagons behind them spoke volumes for their triumph – Kronmir counted a hundred and sixty wagons. Enormous wagons, many drawn by oxen.
The master spy stood in the frozen evening, his hands deep in the sleeves of his fur-lined cote, and pondered how much advance planning and logistics his agents had missed which had allowed this army to march a thousand miles in winter.
He also couldn’t help but notice that the crowd – ten deep at the gate and six deep even in the squares – cheered the army like madmen. They cheered the weather-beaten stradiotes, who looked proud as Pilate, every one of them, and they cheered the spry Vardariotes and their wind-reddened faces that matched their cotes, and they cheered the magnificent Scholae, who looked a little less magnificent in white wool, but still bore themselves like elven princes. They roared for the Nordikans, who rode by, hauberks swinging, tattoos almost black against their winter-white and sun-reddened skin, and singing a hymn to the Virgin Parthenos. And, most disturbing, they roared themselves hoarse for the Megas Ducas on his tall black horse, wearing what appeared to be a cloak of white ermine – entirely of white ermine. He had a rod in his hand – a command staff – and he used it to salute the crowd, like an emperor of old.
At the back of the convoy of wagons there were forty further vehicles – just pairs of axles carrying heavy loads of lumber, pulled by oxen.