He was taller than they remembered, and he looked old enough to be the father of the young man they had once known. No trace of the boy-king remained. His eyes were like two glitters of black frost as he surveyed the kneeling throng. Jemilla remained in her seat by the fire, too paralysed to move, but he did not even glance at her. The chamber stank of fear as much as the burning match. He could have them all shot, here and now, and no-one would be able to lift a finger.

Hardio and a few others who had been against the regency from the first were beaming. “Give you joy of your recovery, sire,” the old nobleman said. “This is a glad day for the kingdom.”

The severity on the seamed face of the King lifted somewhat: they glimpsed the youth of a few months past. “My thanks, Hardio. Noble cousins, you may rise.”

A collective sigh, lost in the noise of the aristocrats getting off their knees. They were to live, then.

“Now,” the King went on quietly, “I believe you were gathered here to discuss matters of import that concern my realm.” No-one missed the easy emphasis on the my, the momentary departure from the Royal we.

“We will—if you do not object—take our place at the head of this august gathering.”

“By—by all means, sire,” Urbino stammered. “And may I also congratulate you on the regaining of your health and faculties.”

Abeleyn took the empty throne which headed the long table. His gait was odd: he walked on legs which seemed too long for him, rolling slightly like a sailor on the deck of a pitching ship.

“I was not aware our faculties had ever been lost, Urbino,” he said, and the coldness in his voice chilled the room. The nobles were once again aware of the lines of armed soldiers at their backs.

“But your concern is noted,” the King continued. “It shall not be forgotten.” And here Abeleyn’s eyes swept the room, coming to rest at last on Jemilla.

“We trust we see you well, lady.”

It took a second for her to find her voice. “Very well, my lord.”

“Excellent. But you should not be worrying yourself with the problems of state in your condition. You have our leave to go.”

There was no choice for her, of course. She curtsied clumsily, and then left the room. The doors boomed behind her, shutting her away from her ambitions and dreams. Jemilla kept her chin tilted high, oblivious to the roaring jubilation of the crowds outside, the grinning soldiers. Not until she had reached the privacy of her own apartments did she let the tears and the fury run unchecked.

“A very satisfactory state of affairs,” Himerius, High Pontiff of the Ramusian Kingdoms of the West, said.

It was a day of brilliant sunshine which blazed off the snow-covered Narian Hills all around and glittered in blinding facets upon the peaks of the Cimbric Mountains to the east. Himerius stood foursquare against the bitter wind which billowed down from those grim heights, and when he exhaled his breath was a white smoke shredded instantly away. Behind him, a group of monks in Inceptine black huddled within their habits and discreetly rubbed their hands together within voluminous sleeves in a futile effort to keep the blood in their fingers warm.

“Indeed, your Holiness,” bluff, florid-cheeked Betanza said. “It could not have gone more smoothly. As we speak, Regent Marat is preparing an expeditionary force of some eight thousand men. They should be here in fifteen days, if the weather holds.”

“The couriers have gone out to Alstadt?”

“They went yesterday, under escort of a column of Knights. I would estimate that within three months we will have a fortified garrison in the Torrin Gap, ready to repel any Merduk reconnaissance or to serve as a stageing post for further endeavours.”

“And what news from Vol Ephrir?”

“King Cadamost will accept a garrison on the Astaran border, but it must not be of Almarkan nationals. Knights Militant only—it is a question of national pride, you understand. Unfortunately, we do not currently have any Knights to spare.”

“Almarkan troops are now the servants of the Church as much as the Knights Militant. If it will ease Perigraine’s conscience the Almarkans can be clad in the livery of the Knights, but we must install our troops in southern Perigraine. Is that clear, Betanza?”

“Perfectly, Holiness. I shall see to it at once.”

“Cadamost shall be made an honourary presbyter, of course. It is the least I can do. He is a faithful son of the Church, truly. But he cannot afford to think of Perigraine alone at a time like this. We must present a united front against the heretics. If Skarp-Hethin of Finnmark is willing to accept Almarkan garrisons, then Cadamost has no reason not to do likewise.”

“Yes of course, your Holiness. It is merely a question of prestige. Skarp-Hethin is a prince, and his principality has traditionally been closely allied with Almark. But Perigraine is a sovereign state. Some of the diplomatic niceties must be observed.”

“Yes, yes. I am not a child, Betanza. Just get it done. I care not what hoops you have to jump through, but we must have the forces of the Church garrisoned throughout those kingdoms which acknowledge her spiritual supremacy. This is a time of crisis. I will not have the debacle of Hebrion repeated. We lost an entire kingdom to the heretics there because we had insufficient forces on the ground. That must never happen again.”

“Yes, Holiness.”

“If we are to strike back at the heretics then it can only be east through the Torrin Gap, and south into East Astarac… Still no word from Fimbria?”

“No, Holiness. Though rumour has it that the Fimbrian army sent east by the Electors was destroyed along with the Ormann Dyke garrison at the Battle of the North More.”

“Rumour? We base our policy on rumours now?”

“It is difficult to obtain reliable information on the eastern war, Holiness. I have also heard that there has been a great battle close to the gates of Torunn itself, but of its outcome we have no word.”

“Have we no reliable sources in Torunn?”

“We have, yes, but with the Torunnan capital virtually under siege it is a slow business getting their intelligence this far.”

Himerius said nothing. His face was drawn and haggard in the harsh sunlight, but the eyes within it were bright as gledes. Over the past days he had displayed an astonishing reservoir of energy for a man of his years, working far into every night with shifts of scribes and scholars and Almarkan military officers. Privately, Betanza wondered how long he could keep it up. The Ramusian Church—or this version of it, at any rate—had in a space of weeks been transformed into a great empire which now encompassed not only Almark, but Finnmark, Perigraine and half a dozen other minor principalities and duckedoms also. Cadamost of Perigraine, appalled by the carnage in the heretical states of Hebrion, Astarac and Torunna, had hastened to place his own kingdom under the protective wing of Charibon. A loyal son of the Church indeed, Betanza thought, but one without any balls to speak of.

Betanza himself regarded this sudden transformation of the Church with mixed feelings. He was Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order, the second most powerful figure in the Church hierarchy, but he found himself wondering about the accumulation of power which was taking place here. If Torunn had become the focuss of resistance to the Merduk invasions, then Charibon was now the centre of a huge new power bloc which stretched from the Malvennor Mountains in the west to the Cimbrics in the east, and even extended as far north as the Sultanate of Hardukh, not far from the foothills of the Northern Jafrar. Only Fimbria, in her heyday, had ever governed a tract of land so large, and the men who had had this awesome responsibility thrust so precipitately upon their shoulders were clerics, priests with no experience in governance. It made him uneasy. It also seemed not quite right to him that the head of the Ramusian faith in Normannia should spend twenty hours a day dictating orders for the levying of troops and the movement of armies. He had not joined the Church to become a general; he had done his soldiering in the lay world and wanted no more of it.