Corfe, General Rusio and Quartermaster Passifal stood on the battlements of the southern barbican and watched them troop in. As the long serried column trailed to an end a compact group of five hundred Cathedraller cavalry came up behind them, Andruw at their head. As the tribesmen passed through the gateway below Andruw saluted and winked, then was lost to view in a cavernous clatter of hooves as he and his men entered the city.

“That’s the last contingent will make it this week, General,” Passifal said. He was consulting a damp sheaf of papers. “Gavriar of Rone has promised three hundred men, but they’ll be a long time on the road, and the Duke of Gebrar, old Saranfyr, he’s put his name down for four hundred more, but it’s a hundred and forty leagues from Gebrar if it’s a mile. We’ll be lucky to see them inside a month.”

“How many do we have then?” Corfe asked.

“Some six thousand retainers, plus another five thousand conscripts—most of them folk from Aekir.”

“Not as many as we had hoped,” Rusio grumbled.

“No,” Corfe told him. “But it’s a damn sight better than nothing. I can leave six or seven thousand men to garrison the city and still march out with—what? Thirty-six or seven thousand.”

“Some of these retainers the lords sent are nothing more than unschooled peasants,” Rusio said, leaning on a merlon. “In many cases they’ve sent us squads of village idiots and petty criminals, the dregs of their demesnes.”

“All they have to do is stand on the battlements and wave a pike,” Corfe said. “Rusio, I want you to take five hundred veterans and start training the more incapable. Some of the contingents, though, can be draughted straight into the regular army.”

“What about their fancy dress?” Passifal asked, mouth twitching.

Many of the lords had clad their retainers in all manner of garish heraldry.

“It won’t look so fancy after a few days in the mud, I’ll warrant.”

“And the lords themselves?” Rusio inquired. “We’ve half a dozen keen young noblemen who are set on leading their father’s pet army into battle.”

“Rate them as ensigns, and put capable sergeants under them.”

“Their daddies may not like that, nor the young scrubs themselves.”

“I don’t give a stuff what they like. I won’t hand men over to untried officers to be squandered. This is war, not some kind of parlour game. If there are any complaints, have them forwarded to the Queen.”

“Yes, General.”

Feet on the catwalk behind them, and Andruw appeared, his helm swinging from one hand. “Well, that’s the last of them,” he said. “The rest are hiding in the woods or the foothills.”

“Did you have any trouble?” Corfe asked him.

“Are you serious? Once they saw the dreaded scarlet horsemen they’d have handed over their daughters if we’d asked. And I very nearly did, mark you. Poor stuff, though, most of ’em. They might be all right standing atop a wall, Corfe, but I wouldn’t march them out of here. They’d go to pieces in the field.”

“What about the retainers?”

“Oh, they’re better equipped than the regulars are, but they’ve no notion of drill at any level higher than a tercio. I’d rate them baggage guards or suchlike.”

“My thoughts exactly. Thanks, Andruw. Now, what about these horses?”

“I have a hundred of the men under Marsch and Ebro escorting the herd. They’ll be here in three or four days.”

“How many did you manage to scrape up?”

“Fifteen hundred, but only a third of those are true destriers. Some of them are no better than carthorses, others are three-year-olds, barely broken.”

“They’ll have to do. The Cathedrallers are the only heavy cavalry we have. If we mount every man, we can muster up some…”

“I make it a little over two thousand,” Passifal said, consulting his papers again. “Another batch of tribesmen arrived this morning. Felimbri I think, nearly two hundred of them on little scrub ponies.”

“Thanks, Colonel.”

“If this goes on half the damn Torunnan army will be savages or Fimbrians,” Rusio said tartly.

“And it would be none the worse for that, General,” Corfe retorted. “Very well. Now, how are the work gangs proceeding on the Western Road…?”

The small knot of men stood on the windswept battlements and went through the headings on Passifal’s lists one by one. The lists were endless, and the days too short to tackle half their concerns, but little by little the army was being prepared for the campaign ahead. The last campaign, perhaps. That was what they hoped. In the meantime billets had to be found for the new recruits, willing and unwilling; horses had to be broken in and trained in addition to men; the baggage train had to be inventoried and stocked with anything thirty-odd thousand soldiers might need for a protracted stay in a veritable wilderness; and the road itself, which would bear their feet in so few days’ time, had to be repaired lest they find themselves bogged down in mud within sight of the city. Nothing could be left to chance, not this time. It was the last throw of the dice for the Torunnans. If it failed, then there was nothing left to stand between the kingdom and the horror of a Merduk occupation.

C ORFE had been invited to dine that night at the town house of Count Fournier. He did not truly have the time to spare for leisurely dinners, but the invitation had intrigued him, so he dressed in court sable and went, despite Andruw’s jocular warning to watch what he ate. Fournier’s house was more of a mansion, with an arch in one wing wide enough to admit a coach and four. It stood in the fashionable western half of the city, within sight of the palace itself, and to the rear it had extensive gardens which ran down to the river. On the bank of the Torrin there was a small summerhouse and it was to this that Corfe was led by a crop-headed page as soon as he had left his horse with a young stable boy. Fournier met him with a smile and an outstretched hand. The summerhouse had more glass in it than Corfe had ever seen before, outside of a cathedral. It was lit by candle-lanterns, and a table within had been set for two. To one side the mighty Torrin gurgled and plopped in the darkness, its bank obscured by a line of willows. As Corfe looked around, something detached itself from one of the willows and flapped away with a beat of leathery wings. A bat of some sort.

“No escort or entourage, General?” Fournier asked with raised eye-brow. “You keep little state for a man of such elevated rank.”

“I thought I’d be discreet. Besides, the Cathedrallers are mobbed every time they ride through the streets.”

“Ah, yes, I should have thought. Have a seat. Have some wine. My cook has been working wonders tonight. Some bass from the estuary I believe, and wild pigeon.”

Silver glittering in the candlelight upon a spotless white tablecloth. Crystal goblets brimming with wine, a gold-chased decanter and a small crowd of footmen, not one yet in his thirties. Fournier noted Corfe’s appraising glances and said shortly, “I like to be surrounded by youth. It helps keep my—my energy levels high. Ah, Marion, the first course, if you please.”

Some kind of fish. Corfe ate it automatically, his plate cleared by the time Fournier had had three mouthfuls. The nobleman laughed.

“You are not in the field now, General. You should savour my cook’s work. He is an easterner as a matter of fact, a convert from Calmar. I believe he might once have been a corsair, but one should not inquire too thoroughly into the antecedents of genius, should one?”

Corfe said nothing. Fournier seemed to be enjoying himself, as if he possessed some secret knowledge which he was savouring with even more gusto than he did the food.

The plates were taken away, another course came and went. Fournier talked inconsequently of gastronomic matters, the decline in Torunn’s fishing fleet, the proper way to dress a carp. Corfe drank wine sparingly and uttered the odd monosyllable. Finally the cloth was drawn and the two men were left with a dish of nuts and a decanter of brandy. The servants left, and for a while the only sound was the quiet night music of the river close by.