Authors: Paul Kearney
Twenty-seven thousand men left to defend the capital—the Last Army. Torunna had squandered her soldiers with sickening prodigality. An entire field army destroyed in the sack of Aekir. Another decimated in the fall of Ormann Dyke. And even this remaining force had lost nearly a third of its number in the latest round of blood-letting. But the Merduks—how many had they lost? A hundred thousand in the assaults on Aekir, it was reckoned. Thirty thousand more in front of the dyke. And another forty thousand in the King’s Battle. How could a single people absorb losses on that scale? Numberless though the hordes of the east might be, Corfe could not believe that they were unaffected by such awful arithmetic. They would hesitate before committing themselves to another advance, another around of killing. That was his hope, the basis for all his half-formed plans. He needed time.
Corfe and Andruw were relieved at last, their place taken with grim parade-ground formality by Colonels Rusio and Willem. Corfe caught the cold glance of Willem as he marched away towards the back of the cathedral. Hatred there, resentment at the elevation of an upstart to the highest military command in the west. Well, that was not unexpected, but it would complicate things. Things were always complicated, even when it came to that most basic of human activities, the killing of one’s fellow man.
C ORFE was unburdened of his armour by a small regiment of palace servitors in the General’s Suite of the palace. His new quarters were a cavernous cluster of marble-cold rooms within which he felt both uncomfortable and absurd. But the general could no longer be allowed to mess with his men, drink beer in the common refectories or pick the mud off his own boots. The Queen Dowager—now Torunna’s monarch and sole remaining vestige of royalty—had insisted that Corfe assume the trappings of his rank.
It is a long time, Corfe thought to himself, since I shared cold turnip with a blind man on the retreat from Aekir. Another world.
A discreet footman caught his eye and coughed. “General, a simple repast has been set out for you in your dining chamber. I suggest you avail yourself of it while it is still hot. Our cook—”
“I’ll eat later. Have the palace steward sent to me at once, and some writing materials. And the two scribes who attended me last night. And pass the word for Colonel Andruw Cear-Adurhal.”
The footman blinked, crinkling the white powder on his temples. Where in the name of God did that fashion begin? Corfe wondered distractedly.
“All shall be as you wish, of course. But General, the palace steward, the Honourable Gabriel Venuzzi, is answerable only to the Monarch of Torunna. He is not under your aegis, if you will forgive me. He is a person of some considerable importance in the household, and were I to convey so—so peremptory a summons, he might take it ill. If you will allow me, I, as senior footman of the household, should be able to answer any questions you might have about the running of the palace and the behaviour expected of all who dwell within it, as guests or otherwise.”
This last sentence had inserted within it a sneer so delicate it almost passed Corfe by. He frowned and turned a cold eye upon the powdered fellow. “What’s your name?”
The footman bowed. “Damian Devella, General.”
“Well, Damian, let’s get a few things straight. In future, you and your associate servitors will wipe that white shit off your faces when you attend me. You’re not ladies’ maids, nor yet pantomime performers. And you will send for this Venuzzi fellow. Now. Clear it with Her Majesty if you must, but get his powdered backside in this room within the quarter-hour, or by God I’ll have you and your whole prancing crew conscripted into the army and we’ll see if there’s even six inches of backbone hidden under all that velvet and lace. Do you understand me?”
Devella’s mouth opened, closed. “I–I—yes, General.”
“Good. Now fuck off.”
Scribes, a writing desk, a decanter of wine, appeared with remarkable speed. Corfe stepped out on to his balcony as behind him the dining chamber was transformed into an office of sorts and members of the household scurried about like ants whose nest has been poked with a stick.
Outside sleet was withering down from the Cimbric Mountains. Corfe could see the vast crowd still milling about in Cathedral Square, their voices meshing into a shapeless buzz of noise. Half of them were Aekirian refugees, still without homes of their own or the prospect of any alteration in their wretchedness. That would change, if he could help it. They were his people too. He had been a refugee like them and could never forget it.
“What’s afoot, General?” Andruw’s cheery voice demanded. Corfe turned. His friend was dressed in old field fatigues and comfortable boots, but his colonel’s braid was bright and shining-new. It looked as though he had stitched it on himself. Some of the ice about Corfe’s heart eased a little. It would be a black day indeed that saw Andruw out of humour.
“Just trying to get a few things done before the funeral,” he told Andruw. “That crowd means business, even if they don’t know it themselves yet. You brought the papers?”
“They’re on the table. Lord, I’ll need some sleep tonight. And some fresh air to blow away the smell of all that ink and paper. Stacks of it!”
“Think of it as ammunition. Ah—excuse me, Andruw.”
A richly dressed man with an ebony staff of office had been admitted to the room by the footmen with all the pomp of an eastern potentate. He was very tall, very slim, and as dark as a Merduk. A native of Kardikia or perhaps southern Astarac, Corfe guessed.
“Gabriel Venuzzi?”
The man bowed slightly, a mere nod of the head. “Indeed. You, I believe, are General Cear-Inaf.”
“The very same. Now listen here Gabriel, we have a problem on our hands and I believe you may be able to help me solve it.”
“Indeed? I am glad to hear it. And what might be the nature of this problem, General? Her Majesty has requested me to give you any assistance in my power, and I of course must obey her commands to the letter.”
“There’s your problem, Gabriel. Down there.” Corfe gestured at the view from the balcony. Venuzzi stepped over to the open doors, wincing slightly at the cold air coursing through them, and glanced out at the murmuring crowds below.
“I am afraid I don’t quite understand you, General. I am not an officer of militia, merely the head administrator of the household. If you want the crowd cleared you should perhaps be addressing some of your junior officers. I do not deal with commoners.”
His hauteur was almost impressive. Corfe smiled. “You do now.”
“Forgive me my ignorance. I still do not follow you.”
“That’s all right, Gabriel. I don’t mind explaining.” Corfe lifted the sheaf of papers Andruw had brought in with him. The two of them had spent the early hours of the morning, before they had done their ceremonial duty in the cathedrals, hunting them up in the storehouse of Palace Housekeeping Records, a musty tomb-like warren dedicated to the storage of statistics.
“I have here records of all the foodstuffs kept in the palace. Not only the palace, in fact, but in Royal warehouses across the entire city and indeed the kingdom. Gabriel, my dear fellow, the household has squirrelled away hundreds of tons of wheat and corn and smoked meat and—and—”
“And stock-fish and hardtack and olive oil and wine,” Andruw added. “Don’t forget the wine. Eight hundred tuns of it, General.”
“And I won’t even mention the brandy and salt pork and figs,” Corfe finished, still smiling. “Now explain to me, Gabriel, why it is necessary to hoard these stupendous amounts of goods.”
“I’d have thought it was obvious, General, even to you,” Venuzzi drawled, not turning a hair. “They are Royal reserves, destined to supply the palace on an everyday basis, and also put aside in case of siege.”
“All this, to keep the inhabitants of the palace well fed?” Corfe asked quietly.
“Why yes. Certain proprieties must be observed, even in times of war. We cannot”—and here Venuzzi’s lean face broke into a knowing smirk—“we cannot expect the nobility to go hungry, after all. Think how it would look to the world.”
“It is not a question of going hungry. It is a question of hoarding the means to feed tens of thousands when one has in fact only to supply the wants of a few hundred.” There was a tone in Corfe’s voice which made everyone in the room pause. His smile had disappeared.
Venuzzi retreated a step from that terrible stare. “General, I—”
“Hold your tongue. In case it had escaped your attention, we are at war, Venuzzi. I am issuing orders for the collection of these hoarded stocks of food and their redistribution to the refugees from Aekir, and anyone else in Torunn who has need of them. The orders will be posted up in public places later today. These scribes have already made out fifty copies. I need your signature, I am told, before I can start the process.”
“You shall not have it! This is outrageous!”
Corfe stepped closer to the steward. “You will sign,” he said in a voice so soft no-one else in the room heard, “or I will make a private soldier out of you, Venuzzi. I can do that, you know. I can conscript anyone I please.”
“You’re bluffing! You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
A silence crackled in the room. Venuzzi’s knuckles were bone white around his black staff of office. Finally he turned, bent over the desk, and seized a quill. His signature, long and scrawling, was scratched across the topmost set of orders.
“Thank you,” Corfe said quietly.
The steward shot him a look of pure vitriol. “The Queen shall know of this. You think I am friendless in this place? You know nothing. What are you but a backwoods upstart with mud still under your nails? You fool.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the room in a cloud of footmen. The doors boomed shut behind him.
Andruw sighed. “Corfe, a diplomat you are not.”
The general bent his head. “I know. I’m just a soldier. Nothing more.” Then he caught his subordinate’s eye. “You know, Andruw, there is a new cemetrey outside the South Gate. The Aekirians, they created it. There are over six thousand graves already. Many of them starved to death, the folk who rot in those graves. While we banqueted in the palace. So don’t talk to me of diplomacy, not now—not ever again. Just see that those orders are posted all over the city. I’m off to have a look at the men.”
Andruw watched him go without another word.
L ATE that night in the capital a group of men met in the discreet upper room of a prosperous tavern. They wore nondescript riding clothes: high boots and long cloaks muddy with the filth of the streets. Some were armed with military sabres. They sat around a long candlelit tavern table marked with the rings of past carouses. A fire smoked and cracked in a grate behind them.
“It’s intolerable, absolutely intolerable,” one of the men said, a red-faced, grey-bearded fellow in his fifties: Colonel Rusio of the city garrison.
“They say he is the son of a peasant from down in Staed,” another put in. “Aras, you were there. Is it true, you think?”
Colonel Aras, a good twenty years younger than anyone else in the room, looked uncomfortable and willing to please at the same time.
“I can’t say for sure. All I know is he handles those daemon tribesmen of his with definite ability. Sirs, you know he had the southern rebels crushed before I even arrived. I’m willing to admit that. Five hundred men! And Narfintyr had over three thousand, yet he stood not a chance.”
“You almost sound as though you admire him, Colonel.” A silken purr of a voice. Count Fournier, head of the Torunnan Military Intelligence, such as it was. He stroked his neat beard, as pointed as a spearhead, and watched his younger colleague intently.
“Perhaps—perhaps I do,” Aras said, stumbling over the words. “In the King’s Battle he stopped my position from being overrun when he sent me his Fimbrians. And then he threw back the Nalbeni horse-archers on the left, twenty thousand of them.”
“
His
Fimbrians,” Rusio muttered. “Lord above! He also sent you
my
guns, Aras, or had you forgotten?”
“I hope you are not prey to conflicting emotions in this matter, my dear Aras,” Fournier said. “If so, you should not be here.”
“I know where my loyalties lie,” Aras said quickly. “To my own class, to the social order of the realm. To the ultimate welfare of the kingdom. I merely point out facts, is all.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” Fournier’s voice rose. “Gentlemen, we are gathered here, as you well know, to discuss this—this phoenix which has appeared in our midst. He has military ability, yes. He has the patronage of our noble Queen, yes. But he is a commoner who prefers commanding savages and Fimbrians to his own countrymen and who is utterly lacking in any vestige of respect for the traditional values of this kingdom. Am I not right, Don Venuzzi?”
The palace steward nodded, his handsome face flushed with anger. “You’ve read the notices—they’re all over the city. He is distributing the Royal reserves at this very moment, breaking open the warehouses and handing the contents out to every beggar in the street who has a hand to lift.”
“Such largesse will win him many friends amongst the humbler elements of the population,” one of the group said. A short, stocky individual this, with a black patch over one eye and a shaven pate. Colonel Willem, who had been commander of the troops left to garrison the capital when the army marched out to the King’s Battle. “A shrewd move, indeed. He has brains, this fellow Corfe.”
“Didn’t you go to the Queen?” Fournier demanded of Venuzzi. “After all, it’s her property he’s giving away.”
“Of course I did. But she is besotted with him, I tell you. I was told not to cross him.”
“He must wield a mighty weapon besides that sword of Mogen’s she gave him,” Rusio grunted, and the men at the table sniggered, except for Fournier and Venuzzi, who both looked pained.
“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.”