Hawkwood and the Kings: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume One) (69 page)

"Or she," Abeleyn added.

"It is a boy." She smiled, the first genuine smile Abeleyn had seen from her since leaving Hebrion. "He feels like a boy. I see him curled in my womb with his fists clenched, growing."

Abeleyn did not reply. He stared into the fire again, remembering the flame and wreck of the battle lately fought. A skirmish, he had called it, honestly enough. There was worse awaiting them in Abrusio. The Knights Militant would not vacate the city without a fight, and no doubt the personal retainers of the Sequeros and Carreras would stand shoulder to shoulder with them. But he would win, in the end. He had the army and the fleet at his back.

Jemilla's hand slid slowly upwards from the King's knee, bringing him out of his reverie. It began to stroke him intimately. "I thought in your condition..." he began.

She smiled. "There are many things a man and a woman can do together, your Majesty, even in my condition, and I have not taught you a tithe of them yet."

It was this quality in her that both pricked his pride and fascinated him. She was older, experienced, the tutor of his bed. But he was too weary. He lifted her hand away gently.

"There are things to do, lady. I do not have the time, even if the inclination is there."

Her eyes flared for a second: another thing about her which aroused him; she was unaccustomed to not getting her own way - even with a king, it seemed. It took an effort of will for Abeleyn to stand up. Her hand caressed his ankle, the fish-white skin which had not been wholly dry for days.

"Later, perhaps," she said.

"Perhaps. There will not be much time for it in the days to come, however."

He hauled on the clammy boots and kissed her.

She turned her cheek aside so his lips met her mouth. Then her tongue was questing like a warm snake over his teeth. She drew away with an arch smile. Abeleyn stumbled out of the hut into the firelit darkness beyond, feeling that once again she had somehow had the last word.

Seven

T
HE BARRICADES HAD
gone up overnight.

When the deacon led his demi-troop out on their regular patrol of the city in the blue murk of the dawn, they found that the streets were occupied. Carts had been overturned, sacks and crates from the docks piled up and roped together. Even the narrowest of alleys had its obstacle, manned by citizens who had lit braziers against the cold and were standing round them rubbing their hands and chatting good-naturedly. Every street, roadway, avenue and alley which led down into the western half of the Lower City of Abrusio had been blocked off. The place had been sealed as tight as the neck of a stoppered bottle.

The deacon of the Knights Militant and his nine serving brethren sat their heavy horses and watched the Abrusian citizens and their makeshift fortifications with a mixture of anger and uncertainty. True, over the past weeks the Lower City had been an unfriendly place and any Knight who ventured down there was liable to have a chamber pot emptied over his head from an upper window. The Presbyter, Quirion, had ordered his men to stay away from the region whilst the delicate negotiations went on with the Abrusio garrison commanders. But this, this was different. This was open rebellion against the powers which had been ordained by the High Pontiff to rule the city.

The quiet horses with their heavy loads of steel and flesh stood their ground on the cobbles of the street, breathing out spumes of steam into the cold dawn air. It was a narrow place, the closely packed timber-framed houses of this part of the city leaning together overhead so that it seemed their terracotta tiles almost met to form an arch over the thoroughfare below. The citizens behind the barricade left their braziers to stare at the Knights. They were of both sexes, old and young. They carried makeshift weapons fashioned from agricultural implements, or simply hefted the tools of their trades: hammers and picks, scythes, pitchforks, butcher's cleavers. A weaponry as diverse as the colourful citizenry of Abrusio.

The shape of the city was like a horseshoe, within which was the trefoil outline of a cloverleaf. The horseshoe represented the confining outer walls, curving round to end on the northern and southern shores of the Southern Gulf, or the Gulf of Hebrion as it was sometimes called. The cloverleaf represented the three harbours within the walls. The northernmost blade of the leaf was the Inner Roads which extended into the heart of the city, the wharves and docks lapping at the very foot of Abrusio Hill. To left and right of it, and not so far inland, were the Outer Roads, two later-built harbours which had been improved by the addition of man-made moles. The western Inner Roads housed the shipyards and dry docks of the Hebrian navy and were frowned over by the bulk of Admiral's Tower. On a promontory to their north, another ageing fortress stood. This was the Arsenal, the barracks and magazines of Abrusio's garrison. Both fleet and army were therefore quartered in the western arm of the Lower City, and it was this area which had been blocked off by the barricades of the citizens.

But the earnest young deacon was not deliberating on that as he sat his horse in the early morning and wondered what to do. He knew only that a group of rabble had seen fit to deny passage to a demi-troop of the Knights Militant, the secular defenders of the Church on earth. It was an insult to the authority of the Pontiff himself.

"Out swords!" he ordered his men. They obeyed at once. Their lances had been left in their billets as they were inconveniently long to carry when traversing the narrow, packed streets of Lower Abrusio.

"Charge!"

The ten horsemen burst into a trot, then worked into a canter, the shoes of their mounts striking sparks off the cobbles. Two abreast, they thundered down the narrow street like avenging angels, if angels might be so laden with iron and mounted on steaming, wide-nostrilled warhorses.

The citizens stared at the approaching apocalypse for one moment, and then scattered. The barricades were deserted as people took to their heels, fleeing down the street or shouldering in the closed doors of houses on either side.

The deacon's mount struck the piled oddments which blocked the street and reared up, armour, rider and all, then scrambled over the barricade, tearing half of it down as it did so. The other Knights followed suit. The street became full of the din of nickering animals and the clang of steel. The upended cart fell back on to its wheels with a crash. They were through, urging their gasping mounts into a trot again, screaming "Ramusio!" at the top of their purpling lungs.

They clattered onwards. People were trying to dodge the heavy swords and the hooves of the destriers. The deacon clipped one fellow on the back of the head and took a chunk out of the base of his skull. When he went down, the horses trampled him into a steaming pulp.

Others too slow to hide or get away were smashed off their feet and suffered the same fate. There were no side alleyways, no way out. Several men and women were hacked as they thumped closed doors frantically with their fists, seeking sanctuary in the adjoining houses. The horses reared as they were trained to do, splintering bone and rending flesh with their ironshod forehooves. The street became a charnel house.

But it opened out. The streams of survivors scattered as the street became one arm of a three-way junction. There was a little square there.

The deacon was hoarse from yelling the Knights' battlecry, grinning as he swung and hacked at the fleeing mob. Sweat dripped off his nose and slicked his young body inside his armour. This was sport indeed.

But there was something in the air. An odd smell. He paused in his slaughter, puzzled. His men gathered about him panting, the gore dripping from their swords in viscous ribbons. The clattering chaos of a few moments before stilled.

Powder-smoke.

The end of the street had emptied of people. Standing there now were two ranks of Hebrian soldiers with streams of smoke eddying from the lighted match in their arquebuses.

Still the deacon did not fully understand. He kicked his mount forward, meaning to have a word with these fellows. They were in the way.

An officer at the end of the front rank lifted his sword. A pale winter sun was rising over the rooftops of the houses. It caught the steel of his rapier and turned it into a blaze.

"Ready your pieces!"

The arquebusiers cocked back the serpentine locks which held the glowing match.

"Front rank, kneel!"

The front rank did so.

"Wait!" the deacon shouted angrily. What did these men think they were doing? Behind him, his brother Knights looked on in alarm. One or two began kicking their tired horses into life.

"Front rank, give fire!"

"
No!"
the deacon yelled.

An eruption of flame and smoke, a furious rolling crackle. The deacon was blasted off his horse. His men staggered in the saddle. Horses were screaming as the balls ripped through their iron armour and into their flesh. The massive animals tumbled to the ground, crushing their riders beneath them. A fog of smoke toiled in the air, filling the breadth of the street.

In the powder-smoke, the surviving Knights heard the officer's voice again.

"Rear rank, present your pieces."

The surviving Knights turned as one to the enemy and savagely urged their terrified horses into a canter. Shrieking like fiends they charged down the street into the smoke, determined to avenge their fallen brethren.

They were met by a second storm of gunfire.

All of them went down. The momentum of the two lead riders carried them into the ranks of the arquebusiers, and the horses collapsed through the formation scattering the Hebrian soldiers like skittles. One of the Knights was flung clear, clanging across the cobbles. As he struggled to his feet in the heavy armour that the Knights wore, two Hebrian soldiers flipped him on his back again, as though he were a monstrous beetle. They stood on his wrists, pinioning him, then ripped off his casque and cut his throat.

A final shot as a moaning horse was put out of its pain. From the doors of the houses the people emerged. A ragged cheer went up as they saw the riddled corpses which littered the roadway, though some went to their knees in the clotted gore, cradling the head of a butchered friend or relative. The keening cries of women replaced the cheering.

The citizens of Abrusio rebuilt their barricades whilst the Hebrian soldiers methodically reloaded their weapons and resumed their hidden stations once more.

"I
DON'T BELIEVE
it!" Presbyter Quirion said. Abrusio stretched out, mist-shrouded and sun-gilded, in the morning light. He blinked as the sound of arquebus fire came again, echoing over the packed rooftops to the monastery-tower wherein he stood.

"So far three of our patrols have been ambushed," the Knight-Abbot said. "Skirmishing goes on even as we speak. Our casualties have been serious. We are cavalry, without firearms. We are not equipped to fight street battles with foes who possess arquebuses."

"And you are sure it is the Hebrian soldiery who are involved, not civilians with guns?"

"Yes, your Excellency. All our brothers report the same thing: when they try to force the barricades, they are met with disciplined gunnery. It has to be the garrison troops; there can be no other explanation."

Quirion's eyes were blue fires.

"Recall our brethren. There is no profit in them throwing themselves under the guns of rebels and heretics."

"Yes, your Excellency."

"And have all officers above the rank of deacon assemble in the speech-hall at noon. I'll address them myself."

"At once, your Excellency." The Knight-Abbot made the Sign of the Saint on his armoured breast and left.

"What does this mean?" the Presbyter asked.

"Would you like me to find out for you?" Sastro di Carrera said, one hand fiddling with the ruby set in his earlobe.

Quirion turned to face his companion squarely. They were the only occupants of the high-ceilinged room.

"No."

"You don't like me, your Excellency. Why is that?"

"You are a man without much faith, Lord Carrera. You care only for your own advantage."

"Doesn't everyone?" Sastro asked smiling.

"Not everyone. Not my brothers...
Do
you know anything about these developments then?"

Sastro yawned, stretching out his long arms. "I can deduce as well or better than the next man. My bet is that Rovero and Mercado have somehow had a communication from our ex-King Abeleyn. They have come down on his side at last - another reason why they postponed the viewing of the Pontifical bull scheduled yesterday. The army and the fleet will hold the Lower City against us until Abeleyn arrives in person, then go over on to the offensive. It is also my guess that your Knights were not meant to be slain; they pressed too hard. Obviously the general and the admiral meant this to look like a popular uprising, but they had to use national troops to defend their perimeter when your brethren tested it."

"Then we know where we stand," Quirion snarled. His face looked as though invisible strings had pulled chin and forehead towards each other; fury had clenched it as it might a fist. "They will be excommunicated," he went on. "I will see them burn. But first we must crush this uprising."