Golophin laughed. “What a jest it is to sit and try to put the world to rights. The earth was a flawed place ere man arrived to skew it further; we shall never set it straight upon its foundations. Only God can do that, or the ‘Lord of Victories’,” as the Merduks call Him.”

“We will do our best, nonetheless,” Abeleyn said.

“Now, my King, you are beginning to sound like your father.”

“God forbid that I should ever sound like that sanctimonious, cold-eyed old warhorse.”

“Do not be so hard on his memory. He loved you in his own way, and everything he did was for the good of his people. I do not believe he ever committed one act which could be attributed to personal motives.”

“That much is certainly true,” Abeleyn said tartly.

“Were he Torunna’s king, sire, I’ll guarantee you that Aekir would be standing and the Merduks would be breaking their heads against its walls as they have done for the past sixty years. And the Knights Militant would be there in number also, instead of carrying out purges up and down the continent. It is hard to argue with a man of perfect convictions.”

“That I know.”

“John Mogen was such a man, but he was too abrasive. He inspired either love or hate, and alienated those who should have been his allies in Aekir’s defence. A king must appear to be as solid as a stone in his beliefs, lad, but he must bend like a willow when the gale blows.”

“And bend invisibly,” Abeleyn pointed out.

“Even so. There is a vast difference between blinkered intolerance and the ability to compromise without being seen to compromise.”

“Ironic, Golophin, isn’t it, that the best soldiers in the world, the Torunnans, are ruled by a king who has never seen battle, a young man who knows nothing of war?”

“The old monarchs are gone or going, sire. There is you, Lofantyr, King Mark of Astarac and Skarpathin of Finnmark—young men only a few years on the throne. The older kings who remember the earlier struggles with the Merduk are on their way out. The fate of Normannia rests on the shoulders of a new generation. I pray they will prove equal to the burden.”

“Thank you for your confidence, Golophin,” the King said dryly.

“You have it, sire, insofar as any man can have it. But I worry. The Ramusians have stood off the Merduk threat so long because they were united, strong, and of one faith. Now the holy men of the west seem intent on splitting each kingdom apart in the search for—what? Piety or earthly authority? I cannot yet say, but it worries me. Perhaps it is time there was a change. Perhaps Macrobius’ downfall and the loss of Aekir is a new beginning—or the beginning of the end. I am no seer; I do not know.”

Abeleyn stared into the cloudy heart of his beer. The tavern around them was quiet. There were a few murmuring knots of men in the corners, and the landlord stood at the bar smoking a short, foul-smelling pipe and whittling a piece of wood. Only Abeleyn’s bodyguards, across the dim room, were looking about them, ever alert for the safety of their king.

“I need something, Golophin,” Abeleyn said in a low voice. “Some morsel to take with me to the Conclave of Kings, some means of raising hope.”

“And of staving off requests for troops,” Golophin told him.

“That too. But I cannot think of anything.”

“You just spoke of the Torunnans, sire, and how they were the best soldiers in the world. That was not always true.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Think, lad. Who once held all of Normannia in their fist? Whose tercios marched from the shores of the Western Ocean to the black heights of the Jafrar in the east? The Fimbrians, whose hegemony lasted two hundred years before they tore themselves apart in their endless civil wars. The Fimbrians, whose hands built Aekir and laid the foundations of Ormann Dyke, who broke the power of the Cimbric tribes and founded the Kingdom of Torunna itself.”

“What about them?”

“They are still there, aren’t they? They have not disappeared.”

“They have shut themselves off in their electorates for this past century and more, endlessly quarrelling amongst themselves. They are no longer interested in empire, or in any events east of the Malvennor Mountains.”

“They have fine armies, though. There is something you can take to your meeting of kings, Abeleyn. The west needs troops? There are untold tens of thousands of them in Fimbria contributing nothing to the defence of the continent.”

“The Five Kingdoms distrust Fimbria; men have long memories. I am not sure even Torunna would welcome Fimbrian troops on its soil, despite the urgency of its needs—and even if we could persuade the Fimbrians to send them. They are an isolationist power, Golophin. They are not even sending a representative to the conclave.”

Golophin leaned back from the table and flapped a hand in exasperation. “So be it then. Let the men of the west keep their fears and prejudices. They will no doubt still possess them when the hordes of Ahrimuz have cast the shadow of their scimitars over all the Ramusian kingdoms.”

Abeleyn scowled, feeling as though he were the pupil again and Golophin the teacher who had just received the wrong answer.

“All right then, blast you! I’ll see what can be done. It can do no harm, after all. I’ll send envoys to the four Fimbrian Electorates, and I’ll bring the whole thing up at the conclave. Much good it will do me.”

“That’s my boy,” Golophin said, knowing how much that phrase irritated the King. “But there is one thing you might remember when dealing with the Fimbrians, sire.”

“Yes?”

“Do not be proud. They hoard memories of empire, even if they say they no longer hanker after it. You must make yourself into a supplicant, no matter if it galls your pride.”

“I must be a willow, eh, bending in the wind?”

Golophin grinned. “Exactly—but not, of course, seen to be bending. You are a king, after all.”

They clinked flagons like men sealing a bargain or toasting a birth. The King drank deeply, and then pinched foam from his upper lip.

“There is one last thing tonight, something near to your heart, perhaps.”

Golophin cocked an eyebrow.

“The list. The list we drew up of those of your own kind who might be saved from the pyre.” The King did not meet the old wizard’s eyes as he spoke. He seemed oddly abashed. “Murad tells me he will be ready to sail within two sennights. He takes a demi-tercio with him, fifty Hebrian arquebusiers and sword-and-buckler men. Counting the crews, that leaves space for some hundred and forty passengers.”

“Less than we had hoped,” Golophin said tersely.

“I know, but he is convinced he will need the soldiers once landfall is made.”

“To deal with the wild natives he may meet, or with the passengers he must travel with?”

Abeleyn shrugged helplessly. “I have hamstrung his scheme enough as it is, Golophin. If I prune away at it any further he may throw it all up, and then we are back where we started. A man like Murad needs some kind of incentive.”

“The viceroyship of a new colony.”

“Yes. He has few superstitious prejudices against the Dweomer-folk. He should treat them fairly. They could be said to be the backbone of his ambitions.”

“And your ambitions, sire. How do the Dweomer-folk fit into those?”

The King coloured. “Let us say that Murad’s expedition eases my conscience and—”

“So many fewer innocents consigned to the flames.”

“I do not relish being interrupted, Golophin, not even by you.”

The old mage bowed in his seat.

“As you have said, it is a means of putting these folk beyond the reach of the Church, but you know also that there are other motives involved.”

“As always.”

“If there is a Western Continent, it must be claimed by Hebrion—must be. We are the westernmost seafaring power in the world. It is our right to expand in that direction whilst Gabrion and Astarac look to the Levangore for trade and influence. Think of it, Golophin. A new world, an empty world free of monopolies or corsairs. A virgin continent waiting for us.”