Ships from the West

Fourteen

Corfe had decreed that the funeral should be as magnificent as that of a king's, and in the event Queen Odelia was laid to rest with a sombre pomp and ceremony that had not been seen in Torunn since the death of King Lofantyr almost seventeen years before. Formio's Orphans lined the streets with their pikes at the vertical, and a troop of five thousand Cathedrallers accompanied the funeral carriage to the cathedral where Torunna's Queen was to be interred in the great family vault of the Fantyrs. The High Pontiff himself, Albrec, intoned the funeral oration and the great and the good of the kingdom packed the pews and listened in their sober finery. With Odelia went the last link with an older Torunna, a different world. Many in the crowd cast discreet glances at the brindled head of the King, and wondered if the rumours of an imminent Royal wedding were true. It was common knowledge that the Queen had wanted her husband to be re-wedded before even her corpse was cold, but to whom? What manner of woman would be chosen to fill Odelia's throne, now that they were at open war with the might of the Second Empire, and Hebrion had already fallen and Astarac was tottering? The solemnity of those gathered to bid farewell to their Queen was not assumed. They knew that Torunna approached one of the most critical junctures in her history, more dangerous perhaps than even the climax of the Merduk Wars had been. And there were rumours that already Gaderion was beset, General Aras hard-pressed to hold the Torrin Gap. What would Corfe do? For days thou shy;sands of conscripts had been mustering in the capital and were now undergoing their Provenance. Torunn had become a fortress within which armies gathered. Whither would they go? No one save the High Command knew, and they were close-lipped as confessors.

When the funeral was over, and Odelia's body had been laid in the Royal crypt, the mourners left the cathedral one by one, and only a lonely pair in the front rank of pews remained. The King, and standing in the shadows Felorin his bodyguard, and General Formio. After a brief word Formio departed, laying his hand on the back of the King's neck and giving him a gentle shake. They smiled at each other, and then Corfe bent his head again, the circlet that had been Kaile Ormann's glinting on his brow. At last the King rose, Felorin following like a shadow, and knocked on the door of the cathedral sacristy. A hollow voice said 'Enter', and Corfe pushed the massive ironbound portal open. The Pontiff Albrec stood within flanked by a pair of Inceptines who were in the process of disrobing him. Behind him gleamed a gallery of chalices and reliquaries and a long rail hung with the rich ceremonial garments a Pontiff must needs don at times like this.

'Leave us, Brothers,' Albrec said crisply, and the two Inceptines bowed low to King and Pontiff, and departed through a small side door.

'Corfe – will you give me a hand?' Albrec asked, tugging at his richly embroidered chasuble.

'Felorin,' the King said. 'Wait outside and see no one enters.'

The tattooed soldier nodded wordlessly and heaved shut the great sacristy door behind him with a dull boom.

Corfe helped Albrec out of his ceremonial apparel and hung it up on the rail behind, whilst the little cleric pulled a plain black Inceptine habit over his head and, puffing slightly, kissed his Saint's symbol and settled it about his neck. The air wheezed in and out of the twin holes where his nose had been.

There was a fire burning in a small stone hearth which had been ingeniously hewn out of a single block of Cimbric basalt. They stood before it warming their hands, like two men who have been labouring together out in the cold. It was Albrec who broke the silence.

'Are you still set on this thing?'

'I am. She would have wished it. It was her last wish, in fact.

And she was right. The kingdom needs it. The girl is already on the road.'

'The kingdom needs it,' Albrec repeated. 'And what of you, Corfe?'

'What of me? Kings have duties as well as prerogatives. It must be done, and done soon, ere I leave on campaign.'

'What of Heria? Is there any word on how she is taking all this?'

Corfe flinched as though he had been struck. 'No word,' he said. He stood rubbing one hand over the other before the flames as though he were washing them. 'It has been eighteen years since last I saw her face, Albrec. The joy we shared so long ago is like a dream now.' Something thickened in Corfe's voice and his face grew hard and set as the basalt of the burning hearth before him. 'One cannot live by memory, least of all when one is a king.'

'There are other women in the world, other alliances which could be sought out,' Albrec said gently.

'No. This is the one the country needs. One day, Albrec, I foresee that Torunna and Ostrabar will be one and the same, a united kingdom wherein the war we fought will be but a memory, and this part of the world will know true peace at last. Anything, any sacrifice, any pain, is worth the chance of that happening.'

Albrec bowed his head, his eyes fixed on Corfe's tortured face. And you my friend, he thought, what of you?

'Golophin has been transporting messages swiftly as a hawk's flight. Aurungzeb knows of Odelia's death, and we have both agreed on a small, a – a subdued ceremony, as soon as the girl arrives. There will be no public holiday or grand spectacle, not so soon after . . . after today. The people will be told in time, and I will be able to leave for the war without any more delay. I want you to conduct the ceremony, Albrec.' Corfe waved an arm. 'In here, away from the gawpers.'

'In the sacristy?'

'It's as good a place as any other.'

Albrec sighed and rubbed at the stumps where long ago frost had robbed him of his fingers. 'Very well. But Corfe, I say this to you. Stop punishing yourself for what fate has visited upon you. It is not your fault, nor is it anything to feel ashamed over. What's done is done.' He reached up and set a hand on Corfe's shoulder. The Torunnan King smiled.

'Yes, of course. You sound like Odelia.' A strangled attempt at a laugh. 'God's blood, Albrec, but I miss her. She was one of the great friends of my life, along with Andruw, and Formio, and others long dead. She was another right hand. Had she been a man, she would have made a fine king.' He pushed the palm of his hand into the hollow of one eye. 'Perhaps I should have told her. She might not have been so insistent on this thing.'

'Odelia? No, she would still have wanted it, though it would have tortured her much as it is tormenting you. It is as well she never knew who Ostrabar's Queen is.'

'Ostrabar's Queen … I wonder sometimes – even now I wonder – about how it was for her, what nightmares she must have suffered as I fled Aekir with my tail between my legs.'

'That's enough,' Albrec said sternly. 'What's done is done. You cannot change the past, you can only hope to make the future a better place.'

Corfe looked at the little cleric, and in his bloodshot fire-glazed eyes Albrec saw something which shook him to the core. Then the King smiled again.

'You are right, of course.' He tried to make his voice light. 'Do you realise that Mirren will have a step-mother younger than she is? They will be friends, I hope.' The word hope sounded strange coming out of his mouth. He embraced the disfigured little monk as though they were brothers, and then knelt and kissed the Pontifical ring. ‘I must away, Holiness. A king's time is not his own. Thank you for yours.' Then he spun on his heel and thumped the sacristy door. Felorin opened it for him, and they left together, the King and his shadow. Albrec stared unseeing into the depths of the bright fire before him, not hearing his Inceptine helpers re-enter the room and stand reverently behind him. He was still shaken by the light he had seen in Corfe's eye. The look of a man who cannot find peace in life, and who means to seek it in death.

In the midst of the crowded activity that currently thronged Torunn, few remarked upon the entry into the city of a Merduk caravan several days later. It was some thirty wagons strong, and halfway down their column a curtained palanquin bobbed, borne on the shoulders of eight brawny slaves. They had been given an escort of forty Cathedraller cavalry, and entered the city via the North Gate, where the guards had been told to expect them. Merduk ambassadors and their en shy;tourages were a common sight in Torunn these days, and no one remarked as the caravan made its stately way to the hill overlooking the Torrin Estuary on which loomed the granite splendour of the palace, its windows all draped black in mourning for Torunna's dead Queen.

Ensign Baraz was within the palace courtyard as the heavily laden covered wagons rattled through the gates, drawn by camels whose heads bobbed with black and white ostrich feathers. He drew up the ceremonial guard, and at his crisp command they flashed out their sabres in salute. The palan shy;quin came to a halt upon the shoulders of the sweating slaves, and a bevy of silk-veiled Merduk maids lifted back the cur shy;tains to reveal a barely discernible form within. This shape was helped out with the aid of a trio of footstools and the ministrations of the maids and stood, slim, and somewhat uncertain, with the cold spring wind tugging at her veil. Baraz stepped forward and bowed. 'Lady,' he said in Merduk, 'you are very welcome in the city of Torunn and kingdom of Torunna.'

He got no farther through the flowery speech of welcome which he had devised the night before after the King had peremptorily informed him of his mission. A stout Merduk matron with black eyes flashing above her veil waddled forward and demanded to know who he was and why the King was not here to greet his bride-to-be in person.

'He has been unavoidably detained,' Baraz said smoothly. 'Preparations for the war-'

'Sibir Baraz! I know you! I served in your uncle's household ere he was transferred to the palace. My brave boy, how you've grown!' The Merduk matron enfolded Baraz in her huge arms and tugged his head down to rest in her heaving, heavily scented cleavage. 'Do you not know Haratta, who wiped your nose when you could barely say your name?'

With difficulty Baraz extricated himself from her soft clutch. Behind him, a fit of coughing had spread throughout the men of the honour guard and the eyes of the slim girl who had been in the palanquin were dancing.

'Of course I remember you. Now lady' – this to the girl – 'I have been instructed to guide you and your attendants to your quarters in the palace and make sure that all is as you wish there.'

Haratta turned and clapped her hands. In an entirely differ shy;ent tone, a harsh bark, she began to issue orders to the hovering maids, the slaves, the wagoneers. Then she turned back to Baraz, having produced a chaotic turmoil of activity out of what had been stately stillness a moment before, and pinched his burning cheek. 'Such a handsome young man, and high in the favour of King Corfe, no doubt. Lead on, master Baraz! The lady Aria and I would follow you any shy;where, I'm sure.' She winked with a kind of jovial lechery, and when he hesitated shooed him on as though he were a chicken clucking in her path.

The procession had something of the circus about it, Baraz leading, with Haratta beside him chattering incessantly, Aria following with her maids about her, and then an incongruous crocodile of burly, sweating men burdened with trunks, cases, rolled carpets, bulging bags and even a flapping nightingale in a cage. But the sombre mourning hangings which festooned the palace soon put paid to even Haratta's loquaciousness and by the time they reached their destination they were a silent troop, and somewhat subdued.

The palace steward, an old and able quartermaster named Cullan, was waiting for them surrounded by sable-clad cour shy;tiers. The Merduk party was installed in a cavernous series of marble-floored rooms which were traditionally reserved for visiting potentates, but which had seen little use since the days of King Minantyr forty years before. Even the braziers, which had been lit in every corner, seemed to have done little to dispel the neglected chill within. Haratta eyed the suite critically, but was courteous, even restrained to Cullen and his subordinates. The Merduk slaves deposited a small hillock of luggage in every room, and then were shown to their own quarters above the kitchens – no doubt warmer and less draughty than the grand desolation their betters occupied.

Baraz turned to go, but Aria laid a hand on his arm. 'When will I see the King, Ensign Baraz?'

'I do not know, lady. My orders were to see you com shy;fortably installed here and then to report to him, that was all.'

She drew back, nodded. Her eyes were incredibly young and somewhat fearful under the cosmetics which had been painted about them. Baraz smiled at her. 'He is a good man,' he said kindly, then collected himself and saluted. 'A pair of palace maids will be stationed in this wing to see that you have everything you need. Fare well, lady.' And he was gone.

Aria's entourage spent the rest of the day converting the cold chambers into something more befitting a Merduk princess, and by the time evening had rolled in, and with it a chill spring rainstorm out of the heights of the Cimbrics, they had transformed the austere suite into an approximation of the luxurious living spaces they were used to. Rich and colourful carpets had been unrolled to cover the bare marble, hangings had been hooked upon the walls, brass and silver lamps had been lit, incense was burning, and the nightingale sang his drab little heart out from the confines of his golden cage.

Aria and Haratta were in the bedchamber unpacking silken dresses and shawls from one of the larger trunks, Haratta enlarging upon the merits and defects of each garment, when one of the doe-eyed maids rustled in and fell to her knees before them.

'Mistress, mistress! The Torunnan King is here.'

'What?' Haratta snapped. 'Without a word of warning? You are mistaken.'

'No! It is he, all alone but for a tattooed soldier who waits down the passage. He wishes to talk with the Princess!'

Haratta threw down the costly silk she had been examining. 'Barbarians! Send him away! No, no, we cannot do that. My sweet, you must receive him – he is a king after all, though now I believe those stories about his peasant upbringing. Unheard of – to force himself upon us unheralded, catching us unawares. Veil yourself, girl! I will speak to him and set him to rights.' Haratta rose and, twitching her own veil about her pouting mouth, stalked from the chamber in a shimmer of billowing raiment.

In the main antechamber a man of medium height stood warming his hands at the glowing charcoal of a brazier. He was dressed in black and his close-fitting tunic sat on him as trimly as on the torso of a youth. But when he turned Haratta saw that his hair was three parts grey and his eyes were sunken, though they gleamed brightly in the lamplight. He wore a simple silver circlet about his temples and no other ornament or decoration of any kind. King or no, Haratta had intended to upbraid him politely but icily for his presumption, but something about his eyes stopped her cold. She curtseyed in the Ramusian way.

'You speak Normannic?' the man asked.

'A small piece, mine lord. Not very goods.'

'Haratta your name is, I am told.'

'Yes, lord.'

'I am Corfe. I am here to see the lady Aria. I apologise for my absence at your arrival, but I was detained by matters of state.' He paused, and seeing the look of alarm and incom shy;prehension crossing her face his eyes softened. In Merduk he said:

‘I wish only to speak with your mistress for a moment. I will wait, if that is necessary.'

Her face cleared. 'I will ask her to come at once.' There was something in this man's gaze, something which even at first meeting made one eager to obey him.

When Aria entered the room a few moments later she was swathed in yards of midnight silk, the finest she possessed, and kohl had been applied to her eyelids, the lashes drawn out at the corners of her eyes with black stibium. Haratta followed her and took an unobtrusive seat in a shadowed corner as her mistress walked steadily towards her future husband, a man old enough to be her father.

The Torunnan King bowed deeply and she inclined her head in answer. He did not look as old as she had feared, and had in fact the bearing of a much younger man. He was not ill-looking either, and the first, absurd, girlish fears she had harboured faded. She was not to share a bed with some pot shy;bellied bald-headed libertine after all.

They exchanged inconsequential courtesies, all the while taking in every detail of the other. His Merduk was adequate, but not fluent, as though it had lately been studied in a hurry. They switched to Normannic at her request, for she was at home in both, thanks to her mother. He had a stern cast to his face, but when she made him smile she saw a much younger man beneath the Royal solemnity, a glimpse of someone else. She found herself liking his gravity, the sudden, unexpected smile which lifted it. His eyes were almost the same shade as her own.

He asked about her mother, turning away to poke at the brazier with a fire iron as he did so. She was very well, Aria told him lightly. She sent her greetings to her future son-in-law. This last thing she had invented as an empty courtesy, no more, but as she said it the fire iron went still, and remained poised in the burning red heart of the coals. The King went silent and she wondered what she had said to offend him. At last he turned back to her and she could see sweat glittering on his brow. His eyes seemed to have sunk back into his head and the firelight raised no gleam from them.

'May I see your face?' he asked.

She was taken aback, and had no idea how to deal with such a bold request. She glanced at Haratta in the shadows and almost called the older woman over, then thought better of it. Why not? He was to marry her, after all. She twitched aside her veil and drew back her silken hood without speaking.

She heard Haratta gasp with outrage behind her, but had eyes only for the King's face. The colour had fled from it. He looked shocked, but mastered himself quickly. His hand came up as if he were about to caress her cheek, then fell away without touching her.

'You are the very image of your mother,' he said hoarsely.

'So I have been told, my lord.' Their eyes locked and something indefinable went between them. There was a great, empty hunger in him, a grieved yearning which touched her to the quick. She took his hard-planed fingers in her own, and felt him tremble at her touch.

Haratta had reached them. 'My lord King, this is no way to be behaving. I am here as chaperone for the Princess, and I say that you overstep the mark. Aria, what are you thinking? Cover yourself, girl. A man does not see his bride's face until their wedding night. For shame!'

Corfe's eyes did not leave Aria's for a second. 'Things are done differently here in Torunna,' he said quietly. 'And besides, we are to be married in the morning.'

Aria felt her heart flip. 'So soon? But I-'

‘I have communicated with your father. He has agreed. Your dowry will be sent on with your brother Nasir and the reinforcements he is leading here.'

Haratta seemed to choke. She dabbed at her eyes. 'Oh my little girl, oh my poor maid. Are you ashamed of her, my lord, that you rush through this thing like – like a thief in the night?'

Corfe's cold stare shut her mouth. 'We are at war, woman, and this kingdom buried its Queen this morning. My wife. It is not how any of us would have wished, but circumstance dictates our actions. I must leave for the war myself very soon. Forgive me, Aria. No disrespect is intended. Your own father recognises this.'

Aria bowed her head. 'I understand.' She still held his fingers in her own and she felt the pressure as he squeezed them, then released her.

'A covered carriage will be waiting for you in the morning, and will convey you to the cathedral where we are to be married. You may bring Haratta and one other maid, but that is all. Are there any questions?' He seemed to think he was briefing a group of soldiers. His voice had become hard and impersonal; the tone of command. Aria and Haratta shook their heads silently.

'Very good. I will see you in the morning then.' He raised Aria's hand to his lips and kissed her knuckle, a dry feather touch. 'Good night, ladies.' Then he turned on his heel and strode away. When the door had closed behind him Aria covered her face with her hands and fought the sudden sobs which threatened to burst free.

The bells woke her. There had been a late spring snowfall a few days before, probably the last of the year, and Aurunga-bar's usual clatter and clamour had been muffled by the white tenderness of the snow. But now all over the city this morning the bells of every surviving Ramusian church were tolling, and chief among them the mournful sonorous pealing of Carcasson's great bronze titans. Heria threw aside the piled coverlets, and shrugging a fur pelisse about her shoul shy;ders she darted to the window and tugged aside the ornate shutters.

The cold air made her gasp and the whiteness was blinding after the gloom of the room. The sun was still rising and was nothing more than a saffron burning glimpsed through thick ribands of grey cloud. Some kind of emergency? But the people trudging through the streets seemed unafraid. The wains heading to market in great clouds of oxenbreath trundled obliviously, their drovers yawning, muffled figures unpanicked by any news of war or fire or invasion.

A knock on the door, and immediately after her maids entered bearing hot water and towels and her clothes for the day. She closed the shutters without a word and let them undress her; they might have been deaf for all the notice they took of the tolling bells. When she was naked she stepped into the broad, flat-bottomed basin in which the water steamed and they dabbed at her with scented sponges brought up from the jewel-bright depths of the Levangore. They wrapped warm towels about her white limbs and she stepped out of the basin to peruse the garments they had brought for her to choose from.

The Sultan entered the room without fanfare or ceremony, rubbing his ring-bright fingers together. 'Ah! I caught you!'

The maids all went to their knees but Heria remained standing. 'My lord, I am at my ablutions.'

'Ablute away!' Aurungzeb was grinning white out of the huge darkness of his beard. He settled himself on a creaking chair and arranged his robes about his globular paunch. The curved poniard he wore in his sash jutted forth as though it had been planted there. 'It is nothing I have not seen before, I am sure. You are still my wife, after all, and a damned fine figure of a woman. Drop those towels, Ahara; even queens must not stand on their dignity all the time.'

She did as she was told and stood like a white, nude statue while the maids cowered at her feet and Aurungzeb eyed her appreciatively, ignoring or unaware of the blazing hatred in her eyes.

'Splendid, still splendid. You hear the bells? Of course you do. I thought I would be the one to tell you. The union I have long sought is concluded. This morning our daughter weds Corfe of Torunna, and our kingdoms are indissolubly linked for posterity. My grandson shall one day rule Torunna. Ha ha!'

Blood coloured her face. 'This was not to happen so soon. We were to be at the ceremony. I -1 was to give her away. We agreed.'

Aurungzeb flapped a hairy-knuckled hand. 'It proved im shy;possible in the event – and what is a little ceremony, after all? They have just buried their queen. Corfe wanted a quiet wedding, without fanfare. He is to leave for the war very soon, and had best try and plant a seed in Aria ere he goes.'

Heria snatched a dressing robe from one of the frozen maids, wrapping it about her. Her eyes were blazing but vacant, as if they gazed upon some cruelty only she could see. 'I was to be there,' she repeated in a murmur. ‘I was to see them. I was . . .'

Aurungzeb was becoming irritated. 'Yes yes, we know all that. Matters of state intervened. We cannot have all we wish in this world.' He hauled himself out of the chair and padded over to her. 'Put it out of your mind. The thing is done.' He raised her chin and regarded her face. She stared through him as though he did not exist, and he frowned.

'Queen or no, you are my wife, and you will bend to my will. You think the world will stand still to suit you?' When he released her his fingermarks left red bars on her cheek.

Heria's eyes returned to the room. After a moment, she smiled. 'My Sultan, you are in the right of it as always. What do I know of matters of state? I am only a woman.' Her hand sought his, raised it, and slipped it inside the loose collar of her robe so that he cupped one of her full breasts. Aurungzeb's face changed.

'Sometimes I must be reminded that I am a woman,' Heria said, one eyebrow arching up her forehead. Aurungzeb licked his upper lip, wetting his moustache.

'Leave us,' he growled at the maids. 'The Queen and I desire a private word together.'

The maids rose to their slippered feet and backed out of the room with their heads bowed. When the door had shut behind them Aurungzeb smiled. He reached up and twitched Heria's robe aside. It fell to her waist.

'Ah, still beautiful,' he whispered, and grinned. 'My sweet, you always knew how-'

Her hand, which had been stroking the sash about his volu shy;minous middle, fastened upon the ivory hilt of the poniard tucked away there. She drew it forth with a flash.

'But you never knew,' she said. And she stabbed him deep, deep in the belly, twisting the blade and slicing open the flesh so that his innards bulged out and blood flooded with them. Aurungzeb sank to his knees with an astonished gasp, trying vainly to press his lacerated flesh together.

'Guards,' but the word came out as little more than a strangled whisper. He fell over on his side in a widening pool of his own blood, his eyes bulging white. His legs twitched and kicked uselessly.

'Why-?'

His Queen looked down on him contemptuously, with the bloody knife still gripped in one small fist. 'My name is Heria Car-Gwion of the city of Aekir, and my true husband is, and has always been, Corfe Cear-Inaf, one-time officer in the garrison of Aekir, now King of Torunna.' Her eyes bored into Aurungzeb's horrified, dying face. 'Do you understand?'

Ostabar's Sultan gurgled. His horror-filled eyes seemed to dawn with some awful knowledge. One hand left his terrible wound and reached for her like a claw. She stepped back leaving bare footprints in his blood, and watched in silence as his movements grew feebler. He tried again to shout, but blood filled his mouth and came spitting out. She dropped her robe over his contorted face and stood naked, watching him struggle ineffectually under it. At last he was still. Tears streaked her face, but her features were stiff as those of a caryatid.

She blinked, and seemed to become aware of the weapon still clenched in her hand. Her arm was crimson to the elbow. There was a soft, insistent knocking at the door.

She looked around the room through a blaze of tears, and smiled. Then she thrust the keen blade deep into her own breast.