He summoned Father Arnaud.
The priest came.
The Megas Ducas was sitting with the Emperor, who was dining while the Red Knight served him. Father Arnaud waited patiently to be called forward, as he had studied the Morean etiquette and had some idea what he might be in for.
The Emperor ate as if no one was watching him, and talked – politely – to Count Zac, who poured his wine, and Ser Giorgios, who held his napkin, and to Harald Derkensun, who stood with an axe on his shoulder. There were servants – actual servants – and for each of them there was a gentleman of the Scholae, who watched them the way cats watch mice.
The Red Knight turned and caught Father Arnaud’s eye and winked.
Father Arnaud was shocked, but also pleased.
The Emperor discussed the weather, and some differences between Alban and Imperial religious practice. Father Arnaud was surprised to hear how conversant the Red Knight was with Alban practice.
Eventually the Emperor ate something very sweet and sticky, and raised his hand for a napkin. He glanced at Father Arnaud and smiled. ‘Ah – the fighting priest. Please be with us!’
Father Arnaud came forward and made a deep bow.
‘It is the Emperor’s pleasure that you take command of a detachment of belted knights to police the city,’ the Red Knight said.
Father Arnaud nodded. ‘We intend to hold these walls and force a siege?’ he asked.
The Emperor smiled. ‘I would rather that my Megas Ducas used our army to force a battle, in which God might show us his mercy. But the commander of our armies has different intentions.’
The Red Knight picked up a dish and Father Arnaud discovered he found it disconcerting to see him waiting on the Emperor as if he was a servant. He bowed, and carrying the plate, which held the remains of two roast pheasants in saffron with their skins gilded so that they shone like birds of solid gold, he walked down the hall’s dais and out the door by which the noblemen and women were served.
Father Arnaud bowed to the Emperor, took a serving dish – rapini, or something like it, loaded with garlic – and followed the Red Knight.
The moment he crossed out of the hall, a pair of servants – real servants – took the dish from his hands with the obvious disdain of professionals for amateurs.
‘You serve beautifully,’ Father Arnaud said.
‘I had practice. I was my father’s page for years. Ticondaga is too far from civilisation for me to have been fostered, but while there I waited on many famous men.’ He followed the servants towards the kitchen, and as they entered he plucked most of a pheasant off the tray and stood in an alcove, eating.
Father Arnaud adapted his actions to his own needs and seized a large piece of slightly used chicken pie, with raisins, spices and sugar, from a serving tray where it sat idle and unwanted.
‘There’s wine in the pitcher,’ the Red Knight said. ‘I love kitchens. Well-run kitchens, anyway. I could live here.’
‘But we’re retreating,’ Father Arnaud said.
‘Yes,’ the Red Knight said. He’d finished his pheasant and now had sticky gold leaf on his hands.
‘You could hold this place,’ Father Arnaud said.
The Red Knight cocked his head to one side like a puzzled puppy. ‘You can’t have it both ways,’ he said.
Father Arnaud now had hands coated in ginger and sugar. ‘Both ways?’ he said. Boyhood habits count and he began to lick his fingers. The pie had been delicious.
‘You don’t want any towns to be sacked. You were right. I was tired and annoyed. And I was wrong. I needed to get my head together and control my men. But – now you want me to hold this place? Really?’ The Red Knight shook his head. ‘When we fight, I’ll make it as far from here as I can manage.’
‘The Emperor seems to think that you – and God – can win.’ Father Arnaud couldn’t find a cup, so he drank from the jug.
‘The Emperor is a kindly man, who is so nice that he can’t imagine that his daughter sold him out, his chamberlain betrayed him and his magister stabbed him in the back.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you staking some special claim to the wine, or will I get some if I’m especially good, or what?’
Father Arnaud handed over the wine. ‘He’s not a good strategist,’ he commented.
‘He’s not terribly bright,’ the Red Knight said. He paused. ‘He’s not of this world,’ he added. ‘That’s a kinder way of putting it.’
‘You know that his daughter betrayed him?’ Father Arnaud asked.
The Red Knight shrugged. ‘I wasn’t there. But I’d bet heavily on the notion. I can prove she sent messengers to Andronicus. And Kronmir thinks she was the original betrayer.’
Father Arnaud shook his head. ‘How terrible.’
Again, the Red Knight shrugged. ‘Really? He’s a dreadful Emperor, Arnaud. He cares nothing for most of the things that the others live for – including keeping the Etruscans in line. Imagine living in the palace, watching your father doom your Empire to stagnation and death. Imagine you could stop it. Imagine being trained from birth to respect and adore a thousand years of history that is being destroyed before your eyes.’ He smiled.
Arnaud was careful not to move too fast. He didn’t want to break whatever spell kept the man talking. ‘Is that how your childhood was?’
The other man laughed. ‘Not at all. My father was the best soldier I knew, and my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. We had the best castle, the strongest, the most magical, and it was going to be mine if I proved myself worthy.’ He was looking off into the kitchens. ‘That’s why, when I found out—’ He paused. Then he turned slowly and looked at the priest. ‘Damn, you are good. Let’s just leave it there, shall we?’
Father Arnaud smiled. ‘So, I’m the duty officer for tonight?’ he asked.
The Red Knight nodded. ‘Ser Gavin will take your place at the fourth hour, so you can have two hours’ sleep before we march.’
‘Mark my words,’ Wilful Murder said. And this time, he was right. They did march at first light, leaving the most comfortable welcome and the warmest beds. The company had been billeted in the town, and the townspeople had treated them like heroes – scary heroes. Bent and Long Paw shared a bed in a house owned by a wool merchant, and the cook made them bread fried in eggs with maple syrup for breakfast, and Bent shook his head at Long Paw.
‘I can’t remember the last time someone cooked me breakfast of their own will,’ he said. He wiped his sticky moustache on his sleeve.
‘Ever think about it?’ Long Paw asked.
‘About what?’ Bent asked, in the way that men do when they already know the answer, but need to buy themselves some time to think.
‘Oh,’ Long Paw said, and then he got his saddle down off the family’s rack – a nice touch, and very helpful on a cold morning. He got it up on his gelding’s back. The horse grunted. ‘You know. We could have stormed this town. Killed the men. Done the women. Right?’
Bent nodded. ‘Yep.’
‘We was eating breakfast just now, and she served us on nice pewter plates – you saw that?’ Long Paw asked.
Bent nodded, and their eyes met as he flung his own saddle over his horse. ‘A few words different, and the Cap’n orders us to storm this place. An’ the cook is dead or worse, and I have those pewter plates in my panniers.’ Bent got the girth under his horse. ‘But no breakfast, eh?’
Long Paw smiled. ‘That’s just what I mean.’
As the sun rose, it became obvious that the Thrakians had marched all night.
They were just too late to surprise the town – and Count Zac had mounted patrols who reported their approach as the Imperial Army formed up in the town’s square.
The Red Knight climbed a tower by the main gate – a laborious process in full harness. Ser Michael went with him, and Ser Jehan too, and they had the briefest of conferences.
And then the army was moving, leaving from the north gate even as the warden of the south gate was opening a pa
rley with the Thrakians.
Count Zac was first out of the gate with three hundred Vardariotes, Gelfred, and fifty green-coated men of the company. They formed in small companies just south of the town and, at a raised hand from the Count, they galloped over the iron-hard fields, right and left around the town.
Next the stradiotes emerged – first the companies of city stradiotes, and then the Scholae, guarding the army’s baggage – a long string of mules, some donkeys, a few horses taken at Amphilopolis and a dozen new wagons. They passed through the gate one by one. It took a lot of time.
Just south of the city, almost under the walls, Count Zac’s Vardariotes emerged from the olive grove and slashed into the vanguard of the Thrakians. They were like a razor cut – they passed very quickly and left blood in their wake.
Demetrius’s Easterners countered their charge, emerging from the distant treeline to the south in good order with sabres drawn over their right arms and hilts tucked over their bowstring hands, so that they could loose arrows with their swords ready to hand. Screaming war cries, they went at Count Zac’s men. The two forces went right at each other. As it was early spring, there was no dust. The two forces spread out wide, looking for a flank or an opportunity, and then threaded each other, each warrior passing between the charging horses of two enemies.
Both sides rallied instantly. The khan’s men had more empty saddles, but they charged again and the much-feared Vardariotes broke and fled. The khan’s men harried them, and more than a hundred of the Thrakian heavy horse who had initially been harried by the red-coated Vardariotes now changed direction and pursued the pests who had stung them.
The longbows on the town walls shocked them. The Thrakians had taken for granted that the company archers were already gone, retreating. The flight of three hundred arrows, even at long range, emptied saddles and killed many horses outright.
And then Gelfred struck, leading his scouts in a charge from under the walls to the west. He only had fifty men, but they made a great deal of noise, and the khan’s men feared a larger trap – and so they broke.
Instantly, the Vardariotes switched direction – their best trick. Arrows flew in every direction for a moment, but the Easterners were broken. They left two or three dozen dead behind them.
The Vardariotes formed a crisp array, picked up their wounded, and trotted away into the shadow of the olive trees. Gelfred’s men took no casualties and melted into the woods to the north and west of the town.
The Red Knight watched the last of the action from the base of a south-facing tower. Then he turned his charger and cantered heavily around the town, in time to see his archers, led by Bent, riding out of the north gate.
Bent saluted, and the archers cheered.
The action lost him forty men, but it bought him another day.
‘He is making us dance to his tune every day,’ Aeskepiles said.
Demetrius scratched his jaw. ‘My men performed well this morning. Those are the Empire’s best soldiers – we matched them.’
Aeskepiles shook his head. ‘No. We lost.’
‘We’ll catch him tomorrow,’ Demetrius said. ‘But our horses need rest, and my men need sleep.’
That night Dariusz doubled the guards on the horse herd. The raid came in the hour of death, when men sleep most heavily, three hours after midnight, and took no one by surprise. The fields were dark, and the woods were darker, and they only found a dozen dead men, but Dariusz slapped Verki on the back.
‘It’s good to win one,’ he said, looking at the dead man-at-arms.
The rest of the army slept. Their horses rested.
At midnight, Gelfred came in from the west and demanded to be taken straight to the Duke, who was awake.
‘He looked as happy as his sourpuss face can manage,’ Nell muttered to Wilful.
Wilful shrugged. ‘We’ll be fighting again tomorrow, mark my words.’
Nell slapped him as one of his hands drifted over the treaty line, and he subsided and took a bite of garlic sausage.
Two hours later, Ser Giorgios brought back the raid. He was despondent, having lost almost a dozen men. ‘They were waiting for us,’ he told Kronmir, who took his horse.
Kronmir nodded. ‘They aren’t fools,’ he said.
‘You would know,’ Ser Giorgios said. It wasn’t accusing, merely factual. Moreans took a different view of these things.
‘I would know,’ Kronmir said, and went to report to the Duke.
Two hours before sunrise, the Imperial Army had its light horse in motion.
An hour before sunrise, their baggage, all their women and children and most of the non-combatant men, marched away – west. It was the first day they hadn’t marched north in several days. Mag knew why, and when she kissed her man goodbye she gave him a hard squeeze.
‘What do you know?’ John le Bailli asked.
‘Same as you,’ Mag said. She winked. ‘Don’t be brave.’
He kissed her again. ‘Only the brave deserve the fair.’
‘Just my point.’ She kissed him again, fought the urge to cry or say something foolish, and pushed him away lightly, her fingers on his cold breastplate.
She climbed back up on her wagon box and looked over her convoy. She pumped her fist once, and the wagons began to roll. West.
The Empress Livia referred to the plains and wheat fields of Viotia as the dance floor of Mars. Both of the major battles of the Irk campaigns were fought there – and two of the three battles of the Second Civic War. There was space on the plains for armies much bigger than the Imperial Army commanded by the Red Knight, but the hand of history was palpable here.
The ground was flat for miles. Lonika rose in the middle distance, almost ten miles away, a forest of turrets amidst the cliffs of crenellated walls.
At the strategic level, the plains of Viotia offered the best manoeuvring space on this side of the Green Hills. He could march his army in almost any direction.
But at a tactical level, they represented a nightmare of hedgerows, small tilled fields, farm ponds and stone walls – some of them ten feet high – stone barns and outbuildings, churches with fortified walls, a monastery as big as an Imperial castle, sheep pens, and streams running so full that they flowed over their carefully tended stone banks, all criss-crossed with excellent roads that had high hedges or stone walls of their own. Most of the fields were quite large, but a few were very small indeed.
His rearguard covered the crossroads where the wagons had turned west. They waited, a detachment of the company’s mounted archers dismounted behind the walls, backed with two squadrons of Vardariotes, until the sun was high in the sky and the wagons were long out of sight to the west. On roads this good, wagons could make five miles an hour.
Ser Jehan kept them in place for another hour. When the first Thrakian scouts came down the road from the south, they received a volley of arrows that emptied a handful of saddles. The Alban mercenaries mounted without haste and trotted away, and the Thrakians kept their distance.
It was noon before Captain Dariusz occupied the crossroads.
He looked west along the old Dorling road and watched it for a while. He could see the enemy army halfway between his horse and the distant loom of Lonika, waiting. He watched them for a bit, too. Then he snapped his fingers.
‘Stepan,’ he said. ‘Inform Lord Demetrius he has his battle.’
Aeskepiles rode into the crossroads and examined the enemy array, and then made a sign, unfolded his hands and produced a shimmering lens of air. He played with it for some time and added a second, and by the time Lord Demetrius came up, he had the thing focused on the enemy.
Demetrius looked through it like a child with a new toy, but his attention was elsewhere. ‘Why has he halted? Have they dug traps?’
Ser Christos spat derisively. ‘No, my lord. The ground remains frozen. If it wasn’t, we’d be fetlock deep in mud.’
Demetrius sat watching. ‘Why fight me at all?’ he asked. ‘The capital is wide open
. He can march in and take Lonika.’ He shrugged. ‘We have no siege equipment.’
Aeskepiles smiled. ‘You have me,’ he said. ‘And your own mages, worthy young men that they are.’
Demetrius shrugged again. He rode west a few paces and turned, looking over the fields from a better vantage point. ‘It’s not a bad position,’ he said. ‘He’s got his right flank covered against the farm and all those little outbuildings, and his left refused with a nice high wall. A tough nut to crack.’ He turned and grinned. ‘Let’s get him.’
The Thrakians didn’t waste time. Their cavalry marched into the field, and then split up into companies and began to form lines. Duke Andronicus’ infantry marched straight up the road to a point where their pioneers had knocked holes in the old farm wall. They marched through a gap forty feet wide, with the farmer standing cursing them.
‘You fucking— That’s a year’s work! A year’s work!’
A spear point licked out and saved him from any further effort. He fell forward, over his own wound, and bled out on the ground he’d tilled throughout his life.
The heavy infantry were almost two thousand strong – all by themselves, they equalled the whole of the Imperial Army. They flew three great banners: the Virgin Mary, Christ Crucified, and Christ Harrowing Hell. They marched in silence, formed up to a few shouted commands, and halted, waiting for the cavalry to form on them.
The Easterners went wide west, galloping away down the road. They were ordered to sweep well out around the Imperial flank on their own left, to fall on the enemy’s unshielded flank.
The Thrakian stradiotes formed to either flank of the infantry. The one band of mercenary knights formed to the right of the stradiotes, close to the road. The rest of the left was made up of a thousand Thrakian peasants, all armed with axes and bows.
The Thrakian line overlapped the Imperial line on both flanks. Their line was almost two Alban miles from end to end. The Imperial line had gaps and different depths, and was still only a little less than an Alban mile long.
When the lines were formed, a little less than a mile apart, the Thrakians sang a hymn. It was two in the afternoon, and they raised their weapons and gave a shout that rang off the distant hills.