Hawkwood's voyage

TWENTY-FOUR

“Shahr Indun Johor,” the vizier announced.

Aurungzeb the Golden waved a hand. “Send him in.”

He kissed the nipple of the raven-haired Ramusian concubine one last time then threw a silk sheet over her naked limbs.

“You will remain,” he said in her barbaric tongue, “but you will be a statue. Do you hear me?”

Heria nodded and bowed her head. He tugged the sheet up until she was entirely covered, then pulled his robe about him and sashed it tight. He thrust his plain-hilted dagger into the sash and when he looked up again Shahr Johor was there, kneeling with his eyes fixed floorwards.

“Up, up,” he said impatiently, and gestured to a low stool while he himself took his place on a silk-upholstered divan by one wall.

They could hear the birds singing in the gardens beyond the seraglio, the bubble of water in the fountains. This room was one of the most private in the entire palace, where Aurungzeb perused the most exquisite of his treasures-such as the girl cowering on the bed by the other wall, the sheet that cloaked her quivering as she breathed. The chamber was thick-walled, isolated from the labyrinth of the rest of the complex. One might scream to the depths of one’s lungs within its confines and yet go unheard.

“Do you know why you are here?” the Sultan of Ostrabar and Aekir asked.

Shahr Johor was a young man with a fine black beard and eyes as dark as polished ebony.

“Yes, Majesty.”

“Good. What think you of your new appointment?”

“I shall try to fulfil your wishes and ambitions to the best extent of my abilities, Majesty. I am yours to command.”

“That’s right,” the Sultan grunted emphatically. “Your predecessor, the esteemed Shahr Baraz, is unfortunately rendered infirm due to the weight of his years. A magnificent soldier, but I am told his faculties are not what they once were-hence our failure before this absurd Ramusian fortress. You will carry on where Baraz left off. You will take Ormann Dyke, but first you will reorganize the army. My sources report that it is somewhat demoralized. Winter is coming on, the Thurian passes are closed and your only supply line is the Ostian river. When you reach the dyke you will put the army into winter quarters, and attack again once the weather has improved. In the meantime the accursed Ramusians will have to contend with coastal raids from our new allies, the Sultanates of Nalbeni and Danrimir. They will be prevented from reinforcing the dyke, and you will storm it when the winter snows abate.”

“Then I am not to attack at once, Majesty?”

“No. As I said, the army is in need of some. . reorganization. This present campaign is over. You will see that communications between the camps and the supply depots in Aekir are improved. Baraz was building a road, I believe; one of the last of his more coherent plans. Everything must be made ready so that in the spring the army is ready to move again. The dyke will be crushed and you will march on Torunn. A fresh levy will be made available to you then. Have you any questions?”

Shahr Johor, new supreme commander of the Merduk armies of Ostrabar, hesitated a moment and then said:

“One question, Majesty. Why was I selected for this particular honour? Shahr Baraz’s second-in-command Mughal is surely better qualified.”

Aurungzeb’s florid face darkened. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger.

“Mughal has a certain absurd attachment to Shahr Baraz. It would not do to leave him in command. He is being transferred elsewhere, as are most of the previous staff officers. I want a new beginning. We have been shackled by the old Hraib for too long; the world is entering a new age, when such outdated codes are a hindrance rather than a help. You are young and you have studied the new modes of warfare. I want you to apply your knowledge to the coming campaigns. There is a shipment of forty thousand arquebuses travelling down the Ostian River even as we speak. You will equip the best troops with them, and train them in the tactics that the Torunnans have used against us in the past. We will no longer face firearms with steel and muscle and raw courage. War has become a scientific thing. You will be the first general of my people to wage it according to the new rules.”

Shahr Johor flung himself to the floor.

“You honour me too much, my Sultan. My life is yours. I will send you the spoils of all the Ramusian kingdoms. The west shall be brought into the fold of the True Faith, if Ahrimuz wills it.”

“He wills it,” Aurungzeb said sharply. “And so do I. Do not forget that.” He waved a hand. “You may go.”

Shahr Johor backed away, bowing as he went. Aurungzeb stood motionless long after he had gone, then: “Sit up!” he said abruptly.

Heria straightened, the silk sliding like water from her shoulders.

“Raise your head.”

She did so, staring at a point on the ornate ceiling.

Aurungzeb sidled over to her. He was as silent as a cat in his movements, despite being a big man on the edge of corpulence. His eyes drank her in. One brown ring-encrusted hand slid along her torso. She remained as motionless as marble, a lovely statue sculpted by some genius.

“I shall give you a name,” the Sultan breathed. “You must have a name. I know. I shall call you Ahara. It is the old name for the wind that every year sweeps westward across the steppes of Kambaksk and Kurasan. My people followed that wind, and with them went the Faith. Ahara. Say it.”

She stared at him dumbly. He cursed and began speaking in the halting Normannic that was the common language of the western kingdoms.

“Your name is Ahara. Say it.”

“Ahara.”

He grinned hugely, his teeth a white gleam in his beard.

“I will have you taught our tongue, Ahara. I want to hear you speak it to me on our wedding night.”

Still her eyes revealed nothing. He laughed.

“I talk to myself, do I not? You Ramusians. . You will have to be consecrated into the Prophet’s worship, of course. And you are too thin, the marks of the journey are upon you yet. I will feed you up, put flesh on those bones of yours. You will bear me fine sons in the time to come, and they will spend so much time killing each other that their sire will be left in peace in his old age.” He pulled the sheet up around her. “Wife number twenty-six, you will be. I should have had more, but I am an abstemious man.”

He flung an arm out towards the doorway. “Go,” he said in Normannic.

She scampered from the chamber, the silk billowing from her shoulders like a pair of wings. Her feet could be heard pattering on the marble and porphyry of the floors beyond. Aurungzeb smiled into the empty room. He was in a good mood. He had found himself a superb new wife-he would marry her, despite the inevitable objections. She was too rare a jewel to keep as a mere concubine.

And he had rid himself of that relic from the past, Shahr Baraz. The orders had gone out by special courier, a picked squad of the palace guard journeying with them to carry them out. Soon the old man’s head would be carted towards Orkhan in a jar, pickled in vinegar. He had been a faithful servant, a superb soldier, but now that Aekir had fallen and the impossible had been achieved, he was no longer needed. And besides, he was growing dangerously insubordinate. Shahr Johor was different. He was forward-looking for one thing, and after the example of Baraz he would know better than to disobey his Sultan.

Aurungzeb lay back on the rumpled, sex-smelling bed.

A pity they would not take the dyke in the same campaigning season as they had taken Aekir. That would have been a feat indeed. But it was of no great import that they would have to wait out the winter. It would give him a chance to cement the new alliances with Nalbeni and Danrimir.

The Ramusians, he knew, mostly thought of the Seven Sultanates as one Merduk power-bloc, but the reality was different. There were rivalries and intrigues, even minor wars between this sultanate and that Danrimir was virtually an Ostrabarian client state, so closely tied to Orkhan had she become in the last months, but Nalbeni was a different matter.

The oldest of the Merduk countries, Nalbeni had been founded before even the Fimbrian-Hegemony had fallen. It was primarily a sea power and its capital, Nalben, was supposed to be the largest port in the world, save perhaps for Abrusio of Hebrion in the west. It did not trust this upstart state from the north of the Kardian Sea, so naturally had allied with it to keep a closer eye on its progress. It was a good way of insinuating Nalbenic diplomats into Aurungzeb’s court. Diplomats with flapping ears and heavy purses. But such was the way of the world. Ostrabar needed Nalbeni to keep up the pressure on Torunna from a different direction, so that when Shahr Johor moved against the dyke in the spring he would not find it manned by all the armies of Torunna.

This war was not coming to a close; it was only beginning. Before I am done, Aurungzeb thought, I will have all the Seven Sultanates doing my bidding, and Merduk armies will be marching to the very brim of the Western Ocean. Charibon I will set afire, and its black priests I shall crucify by the thousands. Temples of the True Faith shall be reared up over the whole continent. If the Prophet wills it.

A shadow fell through the doorway. Aurungzeb sat up at once.

“Akran?”

“No, Sultan. It is I, Orkh.”

“You were not announced.”

“I was not seen.”

The shadow glided into the room and was nothing more than that: an absence of light, a mere shape.

“What do you want?”

“To speak with you.”

“Speak, then. And let me see you. I am sick of this ghost business.”

“You might not like what you see, Sultan.”

“Show yourself. I command it.”

The shadow took on substance, another dimension. In a moment a man stood there in long dun-coloured robes. Or what had once been a man.

“Beard of the Prophet!” Aurungzeb breathed.

The thing smiled, and the lights that were its eyes became two glowing slots.

“Is this what happened to you when-?”

“When Baraz slew my homunculus? Yes. I was relaying your own voice through it, acting as a conductor; thus I could not defend myself against the. . consequences until it was too late.”

“But why has it done this to you?”

“The surge of power was like the explosion of a gun when the barrel is blocked. Something of the Dweomer that went into making the homunculus was blasted back through me, and I had no barriers up because of my role in the communication. It changed me. I am working on a remedy for the unfortunate effects.”

“I see now why you haunt the palace like a shadow.”

“I have no wish to frighten your concubines-especially one so delicious as just passed me in the corridor.”

“What did you want, Orkh? I am meeting the Nalbenic ambassadors soon.”

“I am your eyes and ears, Majesty, despite the malady which afflicts me. I have agents in every city in the west. It is partly because of my network of information gatherers that this sultanate has risen to the prominence it now enjoys. Is that not true?”

“There may be something in what you say,” Aurungzeb admitted, scowling. He did not like to be reminded of his reliance on the sorcerer, or on anyone else for that matter.

“Well, I have a very interesting piece of information I would like to impart to you. It does not concern the present war, but an occurrence much further west in one of the Ramusian states.”

“Go on.”

“It seems there is a purge in progress in the kingdom of Hebrion, which seeks to rid the land of its exotic elements. I lost two of my best agents to their damned pyres, but the chief targets of the purge seem to be oldwives, herbalists, weather-workers, thaumaturgists and cantrimers-in short, anyone who has an inkling of the Dweomer.”

“Interesting.”

“My sources-those who survived-tell me, however, that this purge was initiated by the accursed Inceptines-the Black Priests of the west-and has not found favour with King Abeleyn.”

“Why does he not command it stopped then?” Aurungzeb asked gruffly. “Is a king not King in his own land?”

“Not in the west, sire. Their Church has a great say in the running of every kingdom.”

“Fools! What kind of rulers are they? But I interrupt. Continue, Orkh.”

“Abeleyn hired a small fleet, I am told, filled it to the brim with fleeing sorcerers and the like and commissioned the fleet to sail west.”

“To where? Hebrion is the westernmost kingdom of the world.”

“Exactly, sire. To where? They did not touch upon any of the other Ramusian states as far as I know. It may be they made landfall in the Brenn Isles or the Hebrionese, but there are rumours flying round the Hebrian capital.”

“Rumours of what?”

“It is said that the fleet sailed with a Royal warrant for the setting up of a new colony, and it carried in addition to its passengers and a complement of soldiers everything that might be needed when starting a settlement in a hitherto uninhabited land.”

“Orkh! Are you saying-?”

“Yes, my Sultan. The Ramusians have discovered a land in the far west, somewhere in the Great Western Ocean, and they are claiming it for themselves.”

Aurungzeb sank back on the bed. Orkh let his Sultan sit in silence for a few moments; he could see the wheels turning.

“How reliable is this information, Orkh?” the Sultan asked at last.

“I am not a peddler of hearsay, sire. My informants know that to feed me false news is the best way to ensure a swift end. The rumours have been investigated, and they have substance.”

Another pause.

“We cannot let it be, of course,” the Sultan said thoughtfully. “We must test the veracity of your rumours, and if they possess the substance you say they do we shall outfit our own expedition and stake our claim. But Ostrabar is not a sea power. We have no ships.”

“Nalbeni?”

“I trust them less than I do Ramusians. No, this must be done further from home. The Sea-Merduks of Calmar. Yes. I will commission them to send a fleet into the west, commanded by my own officers of course.”

“It will be expensive, my Sultan.”

“After Aekir, my credit is good anywhere,” Aurungzeb said with a chuckle. “You have agents in Alcaras. See to it, Orkh. I will select the officers of this expedition personally.”

“As my Sultan wishes. I have one boon to ask of him, however.”

“Ask! Your information merits reward.”

“I wish to be included in this expedition. I wish to sail west.”

Aurungzeb stared closely at the hideously inhuman face of his court mage. “I need you here.”

“My apprentice Batak, whom you know, is well able to take my place, and he does not have the same disability that afflicts me.”

“Are you seeking a cure in the west, or oblivion, Orkh?”

“A cure if I can find one-oblivion if I cannot.”

“Very well. You shall sail with the expedition.”

Orkh faded back into misty shadow as the vizier came into the room, bent low, eyes averted.

“My Sultan, the Nalbenic ambassadors are here. They await your inimitable presence.”

Aurungzeb waved a hand. “I’ll be there directly.”

The vizier left, still bowed. Aurungzeb stared around the chamber.

“Orkh? Are you there, Orkh?” But there was no answer. The mage had gone.

The first snows had come to the Searil valley. Shahr Baraz had felt them in his tired old bones before he had even thrown off the furs. His head ached. It had been too long since he had slept out under the stars like his forebears, the chieftains of the eastern steppes.

Mughal already had the fire going. It was almost colourless in the bright morning light and the snow glare. Melted slush sizzled around the burning wood.

“Winter arrives early this year,” Mughal said.

Shahr Baraz climbed to his feet. Darkness danced at the corners of his vision until he blinked it away. He was almost eighty-four years old.

“Pass me the skin, Mughal. My blood needs some heat in it.”

He drank three gulps of searing mare’s-milk spirit, and his limbs stopped shuddering. Warmth again.

“I had a look over the hill as the sun came up,” Mughal said. “They have pulled back the camps to the reverse slopes and are busy entrenching there.”

“A winter camp,” Shahr Baraz said. “Campaigning is finished for this year. Nothing else will happen until the spring.”

“Jaffan’s loyalty is to you, my Khedive.”

“Jaffan will obey the orders of Orkhan or he will find his head atop a spear before too long. He will not be left in command for he was too close to me. No, another khedive will be sent out. I hope, though, that Jaffan will not suffer for letting two old men slip away into the night.”

“Who will the new khedive be, you think?”

“Who knows? Some creature of Aurungzeb’s who is more malleable than I. One who will put his own ambitions above the lives of his men. The Searil will flow scarlet ere we take that fortress, Mughal.”

“But it will fall in the spring. It will fall. And where will we be then?”

“Eating yoghurt in a felt hut on the steppes.”

Mughal guffawed, then bent his face to the fire and nudged the kettle into the flames. They would have steaming kava to warm them before they broke camp and continued their journey.

“Will you turn your back on it so easily?” he asked.

Shahr Baraz was silent for a long time.

“I am of the old Hraib,” he said at last. “This war which we have begun will usher the world into a new age. Men like myself and John Mogen were not destined to be leaders in the times to come. The world has changed, and is changing yet. The Merduk people are no longer the fierce steppe horsemen of my youth; their blood is mixed with many who were once Ramusian, and the old nomadic times are only a memory.

“Even the way of the warrior itself is changing. Gunpowder counts for more than courage. Arquebus balls take no heed of rank. Honour counts for less and less. Soon generals will be artisans and engineers rather than soldiers, and war will be a thing of equations and mathematics. That is not the way I have waged it, or ever will.

“So yes: I will turn my back on it, Mughal. I will leave it to the younger men who come after me. I have seen a Merduk host march through the streets of Aekir; my place in the story is assured. I have that to take with me. Now I will ride east to the land of my fathers, there to see the limitless plains of Kambaksk and Kolchuk, the birthplace of our nation, and there I will leave my bones.”

“I would come with you, if I may,” Mughal said.

The terrible old man smiled beneath the twin tusks of his moustache.

“I would like that. A companion shortens a journey, it is said. And it will be a long journey.”

“But it is the last journey,” Mughal murmured, and poured steaming kava for them both.

Tell me what you see,” Macrobius said.

They stood on the battlements of the citadel of Ormann Dyke, a cluster of officers and soldiers and one old man who was missing his eyes. Corfe stared out at the white, empty, snow-shrouded land beyond the flinty torrent of the Searil river.

“There is nothing there. The camps have been abandoned. Even the trenches and walls they delved and reared are hard to see under the snow; mere shadows running across the face of the hills. Here and there is the remnant of a tent, a strew of wreckage covered with snow. They have gone, Holiness.”

“What is that smell on the air, then?”

“They gathered their dead under the terms of the burial truce, and burned them on a pyre in one of the further valleys. It is smoking yet, a hill of ashes.”

“Where have they gone, Corfe? Where did that great host go to?”

Corfe looked at his commander. Martellus shrugged.

“They have retreated into winter camp, a league or more from the walls.”

“Then they are defeated. The dyke is safe.”

“For now, yes. They will be back in the spring, when the snows melt. But we will be ready for them. We will hurl them back beyond the Ostian river and cleanse Aekir once more.”

The High Pontiff bent his ravaged head, his white hair flickering in the chill breeze. “Thanks to God and the Blessed Saint.”

“And you, Your Holiness, have done your duty here and done it well,” Martellus said. “It is time you left to take up your proper place.”

“My proper place?” Macrobius said. “Perhaps. I am no longer sure. Has there been no word from Charibon?”

“No,” Martellus lied. “King Lofantyr will be returning from Vol Ephrir very soon; it is best you are in Torunn to meet him. There will be much for you and he to discuss. Corfe will go with you. He is a colonel now; he has done well. He is the only Torunnan to have survived Aekir and he will be able to answer the King’s questions.”

“Are you so sure the Merduks will not attack again, General?”

“I am. They have abandoned their artillery emplacements and will have to fight to rehouse their batteries again. No-my scouts tell me that they are completing a great new road between here and Aekir for the passage of supplies. And they have small parties sniffing the upper and lower stretches of the Searil, searching for a way to outflank the Dyke. They will not find it. The Fimbrians did well to build their fortress here. The campaign is finished for this year. You will spend a more comfortable winter in Torunn than you would here, Holiness, and you will be of more service to us there.”

“Meaning?” Macrobius asked.

“Meaning I want you and Corfe to work on King Lofantyr. The dyke must be reinforced ere the snow melts. The Merduks have been having command difficulties-one of the reasons we are still here. But come spring they will be at our throats again under a new general. So it is rumoured.”

Macrobius started. “Is Shahr Baraz dead then?”

“Dead or replaced-it makes little difference. But the Ostian is reputed to be thick with supply barges, many of them carrying firearms. The tactics will be different when they come again, and we have lost the eastern barbican. We hang on here by a thread, despite the fools who are celebrating in the refugee camps-another subject that Corfe will bring up when he meets the King.”

Macrobius smiled wryly, looked blindly at Corfe.

“You have come far, my friend, since we shared burnt turnip on the Western Road. You have become a man who consorts with kings and Pontiffs, and your star has not finished rising yet; I can feel it.”

“You will have thirty of Ranafast’s troopers to escort you,” Martellus said, a little put out. “It is all we can spare, but it should be enough. The road south is still open, but you should leave as soon as you can.”

“I travel in state no longer, General,” Macrobius said. “All I own I wear on my back. I can go whenever you wish.”

“It is time the world saw Macrobius again, and heard of the things that have been done here. We have done well, but it is only the first battle of a long war.”

T HE year was turning. Even in Vol Ephrir the balminess was vanishing from the air and the flaming trees were growing barer by the day. The Conclave of Kings ground on interminably as the land settled into an early winter, a bitter winter that was already rendering the mountains impassable. This dark season would be long and hard, harder still for those lands which were under the shadow of invasion and war.

The High Pontiff in Charibon, Himerius II, issued a Pontifical bull denouncing the old blind man rumoured to be Macrobius and housed in Ormann Dyke as an impostor and a heretic. His sponsor, the Torunnan general Pieter Martellus, who had successfully defended the dyke against the army of Shahr Baraz, was indicted on charges of heresy in his absence, and couriers were sent to Torunna to demand his removal and punishment.

A second bull authorized clerical authorities in the Five Ramusian Kingdoms of the West, as well as the duchies and principalities, to seize and detain any person or persons who were users of black magic, who were natives of a state not within the Ramusian fold or who publicly objected to the seizure of any of the above. These persons’ property was to be considered confiscate and divided between the Church and the secular authorities of the region, and they were to be detained pending a Religious Trial.

At roughly the same time two thousand Knights Militant reached Abrusio in the Kingdom of Hebrion and were met by representatives of the Inceptine Order. The city of Abrusio was put under Theocratic Law and governed by a body of Inceptines and nobles answerable only to the High Pontiff and to the Hebrian king-who unfortunately was far away in Vol Ephrir. The first day of the new rule was marked by the burning of seven hundred and thirty people, thus emptying the catacombs for the influx of fresh heretics and foreigners the Knights were rounding up throughout the city and the kingdom beyond.

But the crisis that would do most to affect the shape of the world in the times to come occurred in Vol Ephrir, where the assembled kings met to discuss the bulls of Himerius and the dilemmas facing the west.

“To all appearances, we have two Pontiffs,” Cadamost said simply. “That is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, then anarchy will ensue.”

“Anarchy is already alive and well throughout the Five Kingdoms, thanks to Himerius,” Abeleyn snarled. He had been apprised of the situation in Hebrion by Golophin’s gyrfalcon, and now he burned to be away, to take back his kingdom and halt the atrocities.

“You verge on the edge of heresy, cousin,” Skarpathin of Finnmark said, smiling unpleasantly.

“I teeter on the abyss of common sense, whilst you fools dance arguments on the heads of pins. Can’t you see what is happening? Himerius realizes he is the impostor-the wrongly elected High Pontiff-so he strikes first, stamping his authority across the continent in fire and blood-”

“And rightly so,” said Haukir of Almark resoundingly. “It is time the Church governed with a strong hand. Macrobius, who is undoubtedly dead, was an old woman who let things slide. Himerius is the kind of man we need on the Pontifical throne: a man unafraid to act. A strong hand on the tiller.”

“Spare me the eulogy, cousin,” Abeleyn sneered. “Everyone knows that the Inceptines have had Almark in the pocket of their habits for years.”

Haukir went white. “Even kings have limits,” he said in an unusually subdued voice. “Even kings can transgress. Your words will condemn you, boy. Already the Church governs your capital. If you do not take care it will end up governing your kingdom and you will die an excommunicate.”

“I will die my own man then, and not a puppet of power-hungry Ravens!” Abeleyn cried.

The chamber went silent, the heads of state appalled at this exchange. The Fimbrians, however, looked only distantly interested, as if this were nothing to do with them.

“I will not obey the bulls of Himerius,” Abeleyn said in a calmer voice. “I do not recognize him as Pontiff, but call him impostor and usurper. The true Pontiff is Macrobius. I repudiate the authority of Charibon, based as it is on a falsehood, and I will not see my kingdom torn apart by avaricious murderers who happen to be in the guise of clerics!”

Cadamost started to speak, but Abeleyn quelled him with a look. He was on his feet now, and every eye in the room was turned to him. In the silence it was possible to hear the birds singing in the tallest of the trees that surrounded the palace towers.

“I hereby withdraw Hebrion from the company of Ramusian Kingdoms which recognize the Prelate Himerius as High Pontiff. His inhumane edicts I will ignore, his servants I will banish from my borders. I stand here and say to you: who else is with me in this thing? Who else recognizes Macrobius as the true head of the Church?”

There was a pause, and then Mark of Astarac stood up slowly, heavily. His reluctance was obvious, but he faced the other rulers squarely.

“Astarac is allied to Hebrion in this thing; Abeleyn is betrothed to my sister. I will stand by him. I also repudiate Himerius the usurper.”

A buzz of talk swept the room. It was silenced by the scraping of another chair on the beautifully ornate floor.

Lofantyr of Torunna was on his feet.

“Torunna has stood alone against the threat from the east. No succour have we had from any western state, and as Pontiff, Himerius has denied us the aid which is our right. I believe my general, Martellus the Lion of Ormann Dyke. Macrobius is alive and is Pontiff. I will stand with Hebrion and Astarac in this thing.”

That was all. No one else stood up, no one else spoke. The Ramusian Kingdoms were irrevocably split down the middle, and the continent possessed two High Pontiffs, perhaps two Churches. The air in the chamber was pregnant with foreboding, a sense of the destiny of the moment.

Cadamost cleared his throat and when he spoke was as hoarse as a crow, his singer’s voice crushed.

“I beg you, think of what you are doing. You lead three of the great kingdoms of the west. At a time when the enemy howls on our borders, we cannot afford to be riven apart like this. We cannot let the faith that sustains us be the weapon which cleaves our ranks apart.”

“You are Heretics, all three of you,” old Haukir said with scarcely concealed satisfaction. “No aid will you receive now, Lofantyr; you have signed the death warrant of your kingdom. And Hebrion and Astarac cannot stand alone against the other states of the west.”

Abeleyn looked at them as they sat there: kings, dukes and princes. Almark and Perigraine, Finnmark and Candelaria, Tarber and Gardiac, Touron and Fulk. Even Gabrion, long known for its tradition of independence. But what of the two men in black who sat silent in their midst? What of the Fimbrians?

“Do the electorates have anything to say about this, or will they follow the lead of others?” he asked.

Marshal Jonakait raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Fimbria has never recognized the authority of any power outside its borders, including that of the Pontiff. We too are a Ramusian country, and the Inceptines live and work within our borders, but the electors are not bound by the bulls or edicts of the head of the Church.”

Hope sprang up in Abeleyn. “Then your offer of troops still stands?”

Something like a smile crossed the marshal’s hard face and then was gone.

“We will not contribute soldiers to any fellow-Ramusian state which wars upon another, but we will make them available to fight the Merduks.”

Cadamost started up. “You cannot! You will be aiding heretics whose souls are as damned as the Merduks’ are!”

Jonakait shrugged. “Only in certain eyes. The struggle in the east takes precedence over all else in the eyes of our superiors. If others disagree, then they will have to make their arguments known and we will consider them. But no Fimbrian will be farmed out as a mercenary in a fratricidal religious war.”

“That is absurd!” Haukir cried. “Not long ago you were promising troops to whoever wanted them. What is that if not farming your soldiers out as mercenaries?”

“Each and every case will be considered on its merits. I can promise no more.”

The Fimbrians naturally could not commit themselves here and now. The west had split down the middle. In honour, the electorates would have to send troops to Lofantyr-he had already asked for them, Abeleyn knew that. But they would wait and see what happened before committing them anywhere else. No doubt the marshals were secretly hugging themselves with glee at the thought of a divided west, the Five Kingdoms at each other’s throats. It augured well for any Fimbrian attempt to reestablish the Hegemony she had lost centuries before. But for the moment, more important was the fact that Lofantyr would have his reinforcements-though they would have a long journey ahead of them were they not to traverse Perigraine to reach Ormann Dyke.

The gamble had paid off. Mark and Lofantyr had played their roles well, but then Abeleyn had had them well-rehearsed in the days following the news from Charibon.

Haukir glared at the three renegade monarchs.

“I will personally see that the High Pontiff excommunicates you, and it will mean war-Ramusian versus Ramusian. May God forgive you for what you have done this day.”

Abeleyn leaned forward on to the table. His eyes were like two black holes.

“What we have done today is lift our heads out of the Inceptine yoke that has been tightening on the throat of every land in the west for decades. We have delivered our kingdoms from the terror of the pyre.”

“You have plunged the west into war at a time when she is already fighting for her life,” Cadamost said.

“No,” Lofantyr told him hotly. “Torunna is fighting for her life. My kingdom, my people-we are the ones who are dying on the frontier. You here know nothing of what we have suffered, and you have cared less. The true Pontiff resides in Ormann Dyke at the heart of the struggle to defend the west. He is not sitting in Charibon issuing edicts that will send thousands to the pyre. I tell you this: before I am done, I will see this Himerius burned on the same pyre he has already burned so many innocents upon.”

There was a shocked stillness. The men sitting at the table had an air of disbelief about them, as though they could not quite credit what they had heard.

“Leave this city,” Cadamost said finally, his face white as paper and his eyes two red-limned orbs. “Leave it as kings in due state, for once Charibon hears of this you will be beyond the Church and every right-thinking man’s hand will be turned against you. Your anointed right to rule will be stripped from you and your kingdoms declared outlaw states. No orthodox ruler need fear retribution if he invades your borders. Our faces are turned against you. Go.”

The three kings left their places and stood together. Before they started for the door, Abeleyn turned round one last time.

“It is Himerius we defy. We harbour no ill-will towards any other state or ruler-”

Haukir snorted derisively.

“-but if any seek to injure us without good cause, then I swear this to all of you: our armies will seek redress in the blood of your subjects, our fleets will make unending infernos of your coasts and we will show less pity to our foes than the blackest Merduk sultan. You will rue the day and hour you crossed swords with Hebrion, or Astarac, or Torunna. And so, gentlemen, we bid you good day.”

The three young men, all kings, turned and left the chamber together. In the silence that followed, the Himerian kings, as they would come to be known, stared at the round table which had witnessed their conclave and the dissolution of the Five Kingdoms. The path of history had been set; all they could do now was follow it and pray to God and the blessed Ramusio for guidance on their journey.