TWENTY-ONE

T HE squadron was a brave sight as it hove into view around the headland. War carracks with their banks of guns, nefs bristling with soldiers and marines, darting caravels with their wing-like lateen sails; and all flying the scarlet of the Hebrian flag at their mainmasts and the deeper burgundy of Admiral Rovero’s pennant at the mizzens. As they caught sight of the party on the beach they started firing a salute. Twenty-six guns for the recognition of their king, every ship in the squadron surrounded with powder-smoke as the thunder of the broadsides boomed out. Abeleyn’s throat tightened at the sight and sound. He was a king again, not a travelling vagabond or a hunted refugee. He still had subjects, and his word could still bring forth the bellowed anger of guns.

He and Rovero went below as soon as the longboats brought the King’s party out to the ships. The squadron put about immediately, the ponderous carracks turning like stately floating castles in sequence, the smaller vessels clustering about them like anxious offspring.

Rovero went down on one knee as soon as he and Abeleyn were alone in the flagship’s main cabin. Abeleyn raised him up.

“Don’t worry about that, Rovero. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past weeks, it’s not to stand on ceremony. How long before we strike Abrusio?”

“Two days, sire, if this south-easter keeps up.”

“I see. And what of the city when you left? How bad is it?”

“Sire, wouldn’t you like to change and bathe? And I have a collation prepared—”

“No. Tell me of my kingdom, Rovero. What’s been happening?”

The admiral looked grim, and hissed the words out of his lopsided mouth as though they were a curse uttered to someone behind him.

“I had a visit from Golophin’s bird yesterday. The thing is almost destroyed. We have it in the hold as it cannot fly any more. It bore news of Abrusio, and this.” The admiral handed Abeleyn a scroll with Astarac’s Royal seal upon it. “It was meant for you, of course, sire, but the bird could go no farther.”

Abeleyn held the scroll as gingerly as if it might burst into flame any second. “And Abrusio?”

“The Arsenal is burning. The powder magazines have been flooded, so there is no worry on that score. And Freiss is dead, his men taken, burned or fled into the Carreridan lines.”

“That is something, I suppose. Go on, Rovero.”

“We are holding our own against the traitors and the Knights Militant, but with the fire and the press of the population we cannot bring our full strength to bear. Fully two thirds of our men are fighting fire not traitors, or else they are conducting the evacuation of the Lower City. We may be able to save part of the western arm of Abrusio—engineers have been blasting a fire break clean across the city—but thousands of buildings are already in ash, including the fleet dry docks, the Arsenal, the naval storage yards and many of the emergency silos that were meant to feed the population in the event of a siege. Abrusio has become two cities, sire: the Lower, which is well-nigh destroyed and is, for what it’s worth, in our hands, and the Upper, which is untouched and in the hands of the traitors.”

Abeleyn thought of the teeming life of his capital in summer. The crowded, noisy, stinking vitality of the streets, the buildings and narrow alleys, the nooks and corners, the taverns and shops and market places of the Lower City. He had roved Abrusio’s darker thoroughfares as a young man—or a younger one—out in search of adventure disguised as just another blade with money in his pocket. All gone now. All destroyed. It felt as though part of his life had been wiped away, only the memories retaining the picture of what once was.

“We’ll discuss our plans later, Admiral,” he said, his eyes unseeing, burning in their sockets as though they felt the heat of the inferno that was destroying his city. “Leave me for a while, if you please.”

Rovero bowed and left.

He is older, the admiral thought as he closed the cabin door behind him. He has aged ten years in as many weeks. The boy in him is gone. There is something in his look which recalls the father. I would not cross him now for all the world.

He stomped out into the waist of the ship, his mouth a skewed scar in his face. That damned woman, the King’s mistress, was on deck arguing about her quarters. She wanted more room, a window, fresher air. She looked green about the chops already, the meddlesome bitch. Well, older woman or no, she’d no longer be able to twist this king about her finger as it was rumoured she had in the past. Wasn’t she getting rather stout, though?

T HE King of Hebrion stepped out of the cabin on to the stern gallery of the flag carrack, which hung like a long balcony above the foaming turmoil of the ship’s wake. He could see the other vessels of the squadron in line before him scarcely two cables away, plain sail set, their bows plunging up and down and spraying surf to either side of their beakheads. It was a heart wrenching sight, power and beauty allied into a terrible puissance. Engines of war as awesome and glorious as man’s hand had the capacity to make them.

Man’s hand, not God’s.

He broke open King Mark’s letter and stood on the pitching gallery reading it.

My Dear Cousin, it began. This is written in haste and without ceremony—the dispatch galley waits in the harbour with her anchor aweigh. Her destination is Abrusio, for I know not where else you can be reached. Despite the terrible stories which are coming out of Hebrion, I believe that you will arrive back in your capital in the end and eject the traitors and Ravens who are intent on ruining the west.

But I must tell you my news. My party was ambushed in the foothills of the southern Malvennors by a sizable force of unknown origin, and we barely scraped through with our lives. An assassination attempt, of course, an effort to rid the world of yet another heretic. It can only have been arranged by Cadamost of Perigraine and the Inceptine Prelate of that kingdom. I fear other attempts have been made, on both you and Lofantyr, but obviously if you are scanning this missive you survived.

The old laws which governed conduct and guided men’s actions are destroyed. I have had an uprising of the nobles in Astarac to deal with, and it is only in the last few days that I have been able to call Cartigella my own capital again. But the traitors were ill-led and ill-equipped—and they had no Knights Militant to back them up. The army, which remained loyal in the most part, thank God, is now scouring Astarac for the remaining pockets of the rebels. But there are rumours that Perigraine is mobilizing and I must guard my eastern frontiers, else you would have Astaran reinforcements to help you in the sorry task of regaining your own kingdom.

My sister will wed you, and if she is as plain as a frog she is nonetheless a woman of sense and intelligence. More than ever we heretic kings must stand together, Abeleyn. Hebrion and Astarac shall be allied, for if we remain separate then we will fall alone. I will not waste time on pomp and ceremony. As soon as I hear from you that you are safe in Abrusio she shall be sent to your side, the living proof of our bond.

(Do you remember her, Abeleyn? Isolla. You pulled her plaits as a boy and mocked her crooked nose.)

From Torunna I have tidings much the same as here. Macrobius has been properly received as the true Pontiff, but according to my sources he is not seen much abroad and may be ailing, may God forfend. He is all that stands between us and utter anarchy. Lofantyr is directing the Merduk war personally, and yet Ormann Dyke seems to be neglected and the refugees surround Torunn by the hundred thousand. He is not a general, our cousin of Torunna. Sometimes I am not even sure if he is a soldier.