Authors: Paul Kearney
Again, that pain in his heart when he looked at her, and imagined the golden hair turned raven, the green eyes grey. Ah, Heria. Lord God, I miss you.
He did not want to hurt this formidable yet vulnerable woman. He did not love her—doubted if he would ever love her or any other woman again. And yet he liked her, very much. More than that, he respected her.
He strode over to the fireplace, stood behind the Queen and placed his hands on hers so that they were standing one within the other. She leaned back into his body and their fingers intertwined, the ornate rings on hers digging into his flesh. Pain, yes. But he did not mind. Nothing good came without pain in this life. He knew that.
“I would have you as a wife,” he said, and in that moment he believed he meant it. “But the kingship is too lofty a prize for me. I am not the stuff of Royalty.”
Odelia turned and embraced him, and when she drew back she looked strangely jubilant, as though she had won something.
“Time will tell,” was all she said.
F IFTY leagues from where Corfe and his Queen stood the new winter camps of the Merduk army were almost complete. Tens of thousands of men were toiling here, as they had toiled ceaselessly in the days since the King’s Battle. Their redeployment—it was not a withdrawal, or a retreat—entailed a massive labour. They had felled a fair-sized forest to raise a series of stockades which stretched for miles. They had dug ditches and set up thickets of abatis out to the west, all covered by dug-in batteries of artillery. They had erected tall watchtowers, created roads of corduroyed logs and set up their tents within the new defences. A veritable city had sprung up on the plains west of Ormann Dyke, the new roads leading to it thronged with troops coming and going, supply-waggons, artillery limbers, fast-moving couriers and trudging gangs of Torunnan slaves serving as forced labour. Farther east, nestled within yet more lines of field fortifications, a vast supply depot had been set up, and boxes, sacks and barrels of food and ammunition were piled in lines half a mile long and twenty feet high. Crates of blankets and spare uniforms and tents were stacked to one side by the thousand. Waggons plied the bumpy log roads between the depot and the camps continuously, keeping the front-line troops fed and clothed. Perhaps ten square miles of the Torunnan countryside had been thus transformed into the largest and most populous armed camp in the world. Although Aurungzeb, Sultan of Ostrabar, was commander-in-chief of this mighty host, it now included large contingents from the sultanates of Nalbeni, Ibnir and Kashdan. The Merduk states had set aside their differences and were finally combining to settle the issue with the Ramusians once and for all. They aimed now at nothing less than the conquest of all Normannia as far as the Malvennors, and had decided to stop there only because of the dread name of Fimbria.
Aurungzeb himself and his household were not in the winter camps, but had relocated to Ormann Dyke in order to pass the cold weeks of waiting more comfortably. Ostrabar’s Sultan stood this day on the tower from which Martellus the Lion had once watched the Merduk assaults break upon the dyke’s impregnable defences, and silken Merduk banners now flew above the Long Walls that Kaile Ormann had reared up centuries before.
“Shahr Johor,” Aurungzeb boomed.
One of the gaggle of soldiers and courtiers who hovered nearby stepped forward. “My Sultan?”
“Do you know how many of our men died trying to take this fortress?”
“No Highness, but I can find out—”
“It was a question, not an order. Almost thirty thousand, Shahr Johor. And in the end we never took it, we only outflanked it, and forced its evacuation. It is the greatest fortress in the world, it is said. And you know what?”
Shahr Johor swallowed, seeing the flush creep into his sultan’s swarthy cheeks. “What, Highness?”
But the explosion did not happen. Instead, Aurungzeb spoke in a low, reasonable tone. “It is utterly useless to us.”
“Yes, Highness.”
“The Fimbrians, curse their names, constructed it that way. Approaching it from the east, it is unconquerable. But if by some chance you happen to capture it intact, then it is worthless. All the defences face east. From the west, it is indefensible. Very clever, those Fimbrian engineers must have been.”
The courtiers and soldiers waited, wondering if this strange calm were the herald of an unprecedented rage. But when Aurungzeb turned to face them he looked thoughtful.
“I want this fortress destroyed.”
Shahr Indun Johor blinked. “Highness?”
“Are you deaf? Level it. I want the dyke filled in, I want the walls cast down and the tower broken. I want Ormann Dyke wiped off the face of the earth. And then, using the same stones, you shall create another fortress, on the
east
bank of the river, facing west. If by some freakish chance the Ramusians ever manage to push back our armies, then we shall halt them here, on the Searil. And we shall bleed them white as they did us. And Aekir, my new capital, it shall be safe. Golden Aurungabar, greatest city of the world. See to it, Shahr Johor. Gather together our engineers. I want a set of plans drawn up for me to see by tonight. And a modell. Yes, a scale modell of how it will look, Ormann Dyke obliterated and this new fortress in its place. I must think of a name…”
Shahr Johor bowed, unnoticed, and left the summit of the tower to do his master’s bidding. The courtiers who remained looked at one another. Never before had they heard their master speak of anything save advances and victories, and now here he was planning for defeat. What had happened?”
A flabby, glabrous palace eunuch piped up, “My Sultan, do you truly believe that the accursed Unbelievers could ever push our glorious armies back to the Searil? Surely, they are in their death throes. We shall soon be feasting in the palace of Torunn.”
Aurungzeb stared moodily out at the ancient fortress below him. “I wish I had your optimism, Serrim. This general of the red horsemen. My spies tell me that he is now commander-in-chief of all the Torunnan forces. He and his damned scarlet cavalry have saved the Torunnans from destruction twice now.”
“Who is this man, lord? Do we know? Perhaps our agents—”
Aurungzeb snorted with mirth. “He is, by all accounts, a hard man to kill.”
Then his mood soured again. “Leave me, all of you. No—Ahara, you will remain.” He broke into halting Normannic. “Ramusian, you stay here also.” And in Merduk again: “The rest of you, get out of my sight.”
The tower cleared of people, leaving two figures behind. One was a small man in a black habit whose wrists were bound with silver chains. The other was a slim, silk-clad woman whose face was hidden behind a jewelled veil. Aurungzeb beckoned the woman over, the thunder on his brow lifting a little. He twitched aside her veil and caressed a pale cheek.
“Heart of my heart,” he murmured. “How does it go with you and my son?”
Heria stroked her abdomen. The bulge was visible now. “We are well, my lord. Batak has used his arts to examine the child. It is a healthy boy. In five months, he shall be born.” She spoke in the Merduk tongue.
Aurungzeb beamed, encircled Heria’s shoulders with one massive arm and sighed with contentment.
“How I love to hear you use our speech. It must become your own. The lessons will continue—that tutor has earned his pay.” He lowered his voice. “I shall make you my queen, Ahara. You are a follower of the Prophet now, and you shall be the mother of a sultan one day. My heir cannot have a mere concubine for a dam. Would you like that? Would you like to be a Merduk queen?” And here Aurungzeb set his huge hands on her shoulders and scrutinized her face.
Heria met his eyes. “This is my world, now. You are my lord, the father of my child. There is nothing else. I will be a queen if you wish it. I am yours to do with as you will.”
Aurungzeb smiled slowly. “You speak the truth. But you are no slave to me, not any more. A wife you shall be as well as a queen. We will live in Aurungabar, and our union shall be a symbol.” Here the Sultan turned and raised his voice so that the black-garbed man behind them might hear.
“The meeting of two peoples, priest. Would you like that? This way the Ramusians who remain east of the Torrin will see that I am not the monster they—and you—believe me to be.”
Albrec shuffled forward, more chains clinking invisibly under his habit. “I think it is a worthy idea. I never thought you were a monster, Sultan. I know that you are not. In the end, a truly great ruler does what is best for his people, not what pleases himself. You are beginning to realise that.”
Aurungzeb seemed taken aback by the priest’s bluntness. He forced a laugh. “Beard of the Prophet, you are a fearless little madman, I’ll give you that. You and your people have courage. Shahr Baraz always told me so. I thought him a sentimental old fool, but I see now he was right.”
Heria regarded Aurungzeb with some wonder. She had never before heard him speak of Ramusians with anything resembling moderation. Were the court rumours true then? Was Aurungzeb tiring of war?
He caught her glance, and stepped away towards the parapet.
There was a pause. Finally Heria mustered the resolve to speak.
“My lord, do you really believe this new general of the Ramusians is so dangerous?”
“Dangerous? His army is a broken rabble, his country is led by a woman. Dangerous!” But the words rang hollow somehow.
“Come here, Ahara. Beside me.”
She joined him. Albrec stood forgotten behind them.
Together they could look down from the dizzying height of the tower to the battered walls of the fortress and the River Searil beyond, crossed by the new wooden bridges that the engineers had been working on for weeks. On the far side of the river was the great desolation of craters and rubble that had once been the eastern barbican of the fortress. The Ramusian garrison had packed it with gunpowder and destroyed it just as it fell into the hands of the Merduks.
“Look up on the hills to the east, Ahara. What do you see there?”
“Waggons, my lord, dozens of them. And hundreds of men digging.”
“They are digging a mass grave to hold our dead.” Aurungzeb’s face seemed to slump. “Every time we fight the Torunnans, another must be dug.”
“Can it go on much longer, lord? So much killing.”
He did not reply at once. He seemed tyred—exhausted even. “Ask the holy madman behind you. He has all the answers it seems.”
Albrec clinked forward until he too stood on the lip of the parapet. “All wars end,” he said quietly. “But it takes more courage to bring them to a close than it does to start them.”
“Platitudes,” Aurungzeb said disgustedly.
“Your Prophet, Sultan, did not believe in war. He counselled all men to live as brothers.”
“As did your Saint,” Aurungzeb countered.
“True. They had much in common, the Prophet and the Saint.”
“Listen, priest—” the Sultan began heatedly, but just then there was a clatter of boots on the stairway and a soldier appeared on the parapet, panting. He fell to his knees as Aurungzeb glared.
“Highness, forgive me, but despatches have arrived from our forces in the north. Shahr Johor said you were to be informed immediately. Our men have reached the Torrin Gap, Highness. The way to Charibon is open!”
The trouble on Aurungzeb’s brow evapourated. “I’ll come at once.”
And as the soldier leapt up, he followed him off the tower without a backwards glance, his stride as energetic as that of a boy. Heria and Albrec were left behind.
“You are from Aekir?” the little priest asked her at once.
“I was married to a soldier of the garrison, and captured in the sack of the city.”
“I am sorry. I thought—I am not sure what I thought.”
“Why did you come here, Father—to the Merduks?”
“I had a message I wished them to hear.”
“They don’t seem to be listening.”
Albrec shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I feel the tide is turning. I think he is beginning to listen, or at least to doubt, Ahara.”
“My name is Heria Cear-Inaf. I am still Ramusian, no matter who they make me pray to.”
“Cear-Inaf.” Albrec knew that name. Somewhere he had heard it before. Where?
“What is it?”
“Nothing. No, nothing.” It was somehow important he remember but, as was the way with these things, the more he thought about it the farther it receded.
“The other sultanates are tiring of the war,” Heria said quickly. “Especially Nalbeni. They lost ten thousand men in the last battle, and there are rumours that their fleet is being beaten in the Kardian by Torunnan ships. The army is going hungry because its supply lines are overstretched, and the levy, the
Minhraib
, they are discontented and want to get back to their farms. If the Torunnans could win one more battle, I think Aurungzeb would sue for peace.”
“Why are you telling me this, Heria?”
She looked around as if they might be overheard. “There is not much time. The eunuchs will come for me soon. He has forgotten about us for a moment, but not for long. You must escape back to Torunn, Father. You have to let them know these things. That new general there—they’re all afraid of what he might do next, but it must be quick, whatever it is. He must hit them before they recover their nerve.”
Albrec felt a chill about his heart. He remembered meeting the leader of a long column of scarlet-armoured horsemen marching out of Torunn, his eyes as grey as those of the woman who now stood before him.
Who are you?
Corfe Cear-Inaf, Colonel in the Torunnan army
.
“Sweet blood of the Saint,” Albrec breathed, his face gone white as paper.
“What is it?” Heria demanded. “What’s wrong?”
“Lady, you are to come down to the harem at once,” a high voice said. They spun around to see the eunuch, Serrim, flanked by a pair of soldiers. “And that Ramusian—he is to go back to his cell.”
Heria replaced her veil, her eyes meeting Albrec’s in one last, earnest appeal. Then she bowed her head and followed the eunuch away obediently. The Merduk soldiers seized the little priest and shoved him roughly towards the stairs, but he was hardly aware of them.