“She has what she has been hankering after for years,” Fournier said icily. “Power in name as well as in fact. She is Torunna’s ruler now, no longer the string-puller behind the throne but the occupant of the throne itself. And this Cear-Inaf fellow, he is the fist of the new regime. Mark my words, gentlemen, there are several of us at this table whose heads are about to roll.”

“Perhaps literally,” Rusio muttered. “Fournier, tell me, will they reopen the investigation into that assassination attempt?”

Fournier coloured. “I think not.”

“It was you and the King, wasn’t it?”

“What a monstrous accusation! Do you think I would stoop to—?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Willem interjected testily, “enough. We are allies here. There are to be no accusations or recriminations. We must answer this stark question: how do we rid Torunna of this parvenu?”

“Do we want to be rid of him at the moment?” Aras asked nervously. “After all, he is doing a good job of winning the war.”

“Good Lord, Colonel!” Rusio snapped. “I do believe you’ve fallen under this fellow’s spell. What are you thinking? Winning the war? We left eight thousand dead on the field a few days ago, including our King. Winning the war indeed!”

Aras did not reply. His face was white as bone.

“It must be legal, whatever else it is,” Fournier said smoothly, gliding over the awkward little silence that followed. “And it must not jeopardise the security of the kingdom. We are, after all, in a fight for our very survival at the moment. It may be that Aras is right. This fellow Corfe has his uses—that cannot be denied. And if truth be told, I am not sure the troops would follow anyone else at the moment.”

Rusio stirred at this but said nothing.

“So it behoves us to work with him for now. As long as he has the confidence of the Queen he is well-nigh untouchable, but no man is without his weak spots. Aras, you told us he lost his wife in Aekir.”

“Yes. He never talks about it, but I have heard his friend Andruw mention it.”

“Indeed. That is an avenue worth exploring. There is guilt there, obviously, hence his largesse to the scum of Aekir that we harbour in the capital. And you, Aras, you must work to get closer to him. You obviously admire him, so that is a start. Remember, we are not out to destroy this fellow—we simply feel that he has been elevated beyond his station.”

Aras nodded.

“And make sure you recall whose side you are on,” Rusio growled. “It’s one thing to admire the man, another to let him ride roughshod over the very institutions which bind this kingdom together.” A murmur of agreement ran down the table. Willem spoke up.

“Another six hundred tribesmen from the Cimbrics arrived outside the city this evening, wanting to fight under him. Quartermaster Passifal is equipping them as we speak. I tell you, gentlemen, if we do not curb this young fellow he will set himself up as some form of military dictator. He does not even have to rely on the support of his countrymen. What with those savages and his tame Fimbrians at his back, he has a power base completely outside the normal chain of command. They won’t serve under anyone else—we saw that at the last planning conference the King chaired, here in the capital. And now he’s stirring up the rabble who fled from Aekir when he should be shipping them south, dispersing them. There’s a pattern to it all. It’s my belief he aims at the throne itself.”

“It is disturbing,” Fournier agreed. “Perhaps—and this is only a vague suggestion, nothing more—perhaps we should be looking for allies of our own outside the kingdom, a counterweight to this growing army of mercenaries he leads.”

“Who?” Rusio asked bluntly.

Fournier paused and looked intently at the faces of the men around the table. Below them they could hear the buzz and hubbub of the tavern proper, but in this room the loudest sound was the crackling of the fire.

“I have received in the last sennight a message brought by courier from Almark, gentlemen. That kingdom is, as you know, now on the frontier. The Merduks have sent exploratory columns to the Torrin Gap. Reconnaissances, nothing more, but Almark is understandably alarmed.”

“Almark is Himerian,” Rusio pointed out. “And ruled directly by the Himerian Church, I hear.”

“True. The Prelate Marat is regent of the kingdom, but Marat is a practical man—and a powerful one. If we agreed to certain… conditions, he would be willing to send us a host of Almarkan heavy cavalry in our hour of need.”

“What conditions?” Willem asked.

“A recognition that there are grounds for doubting the true identity of the man who claims to be Macrobius.”

Rusio barked with bitter laughter. “Is that all? Not possible, my dear Count. I know. I met Macrobius while he still dwelled in Aekir. The Pontiff we harbour here in Torunn is a travesty of that man, admittedly, but he is Macrobius. The Himerians are looking for a way to get their foot in the door, that’s all. They failed with war and insurrection and now they’ll try diplomacy. Priests! I’d get rid of the whole scheming crew if I had my way.”

Fournier shrugged elegantly. “I merely inform you as to the various options available. I, too, do not wish to see Almarkan troops in Torunna, but the very idea that they could be available is a useful bargaining tool. I shall brief the Queen on the initiative. It is as well for her to be aware of it.” He said nothing of the other, more delicate initiative which had come his way of late. He was still unsure how to handle it himself.

“Do as you please. For myself, I’d sooner we were hauled out of this mess by other Torunnans, not heretical foreigners and plotting clerics.”

“There are not many Torunnans left to do the hauling, Colonel. The once mighty Torunnan armies are a mere shadow of what they once were. If we do not respond in some fashion at least to this overture, then I would not be too sanguine about the safety of our own north-western frontier. Almark might just strike while the Merduks have our attention, and we would have foreign troops on Torunnan soil in any case, except that we would not have invited them.”

“Are you saying we have no choice in the matter?”

“Perhaps. I will see what the Queen thinks. For all that she is a woman, she has as fine a mind as any of us here.”

“We’re getting away from the point of this meeting,” Willem said impatiently.

“No, I don’t think so,” Fournier replied. He steepled his slender fingers and swept the table with hard eyes. “If we are trying to shift this Cear-Inaf from his current eminence it may be best to use many smaller levers instead of one big one. That way the prime movers are more easily kept anonymous. More importantly, Cear-Inaf will find it harder to fight back.”

“He’s not ambitious,” Aras blurted out. “I truly think he fights not for himself but for the country, and for his men.”

“His lack of ambition has taken him far,” Fournier said drily. “Aras, you have met with him more often than any of us. What do you make of him?”

The young colonel hesitated. “He’s—he’s strange. Not like most career soldiers. A bitter man, hard as marble. And yet the troops love him. They say he is John Mogen come again. There is even a rumour that he is Mogen’s bastard son. It started when they saw him wielding Mogen’s sword on the battlefield.”

“Mogen,” Rusio grunted. “Another upstart bedmate of the Queen’s.”

“That’s enough, Colonel,” Fournier snapped. “General Menin, may God be good to his soul, obviously saw something in Cear-Inaf, else he would not have posthumously promoted him.”

“Martin Menin knew his death was near. It clouded his thinking,” Rusio said heavily.

“Perhaps. We will never know. Do we have any inkling of our current commander-in-chief’s plans for the future?”

“It will take time to reorganise and refit the army after the beating it took. The Merduks have withdrawn halfway to the Searil for the moment, so we have a breathing space. There is no word from Berza and the fleet, though. If they succeed in destroying the Merduk supply dumps on the Kardian, we may be left alone until the spring.”