Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (15 page)

Albrec and Avila listened to the exchange in shivering silence. They were wet through, mudstained and hungry and their legs wobbled under them, but the two old soldiers seemed to be built out of some other substance than mere human flesh. Twenty years older than either of the two monks, and they were as fit and hardy as youths.

"Must we go farther today?" Avila asked.

"Yes, priest," Joshelin told him curtly. "We've done scarcely eight leagues today by my pacings. Another two or three before dark, then we can lie up for the night. No fire, though. The hills are crawling with Merduks."

Avila slumped. He rubbed a hand over his face and said nothing.

"Do you think the capital is safe yet?" Albrec asked.

"Oh, yes. These are merely part of the enemy screen. He sends out light cavalry so that we can learn nothing of his movements, while he learns all about ours. Basic tactics."

"How ignorant we are, not to know such things," Avila said caustically. "Can we ride now?"

"Yes. The mules have had a good rest these last three leagues."

Avila muttered something venomous none of them could catch.

They had been four days travelling, the two monks and the two Fimbrians. During that time they had marched and ridden harder than Albrec had ever thought it possible for the human frame to bear. They had spent fireless nights shivering against the mules for warmth, and had eaten salt beef and army biscuit through which the weevils squirmed. Joshelin reckoned that another three days would see them in Torunn, if they continued to elude the Merduk patrols. Those three days loomed ahead of them like a long period of penance. Albrec found it easier to think only about putting one foot in front of the next, or getting to the next rise on the horizon. He had not even had the energy to pray. It was only the crinkling bulk of the ancient document he carried which kept him on his feet at all. When it was safe with Macrobius in Torunn, his mind as well as his body might know some peace at last.

At day's end Albrec and Avila were numb and swaying on the backs of the two mules. Nothing in their lives had prepared them for this unbelievably swift, unencumbered travel across a wilderness. Their feet were blistered, the stumps of Avila's lost toes weeping blood and fluid, and their rumps were rubbed almost raw by the crude pack-saddles. When the little party finally stopped for the night, the two monks were too far gone to care. They had not even the energy to dismount. Their companions looked at each other wordlessly for a long moment, and then Siward began to lift the monks down off their steeds whilst Joshelin unpacked an entrenching tool and began to dig a hole.

They had halted in the eaves of a small wood, mostly spruce and pine with beech and pale-trunked birch on the outskirts. Farther in, the coniferous trees grew closer together, and their needles carpeted the ground, making the travellers' footfalls soundless as a cat's. Night was fast setting in, and it was black in the wood already. Beyond it, the wind had picked up into a whine that roamed across the Torunnan hills like winter's courier. Albrec thought that never had he felt himself so lost, or in such a place of desolation. During the day they had passed abandoned farms and had helped themselves to food from their larders. They had even sighted a roadside inn, as deserted as a mountaintop. The entire population of Northern Torunna, it seemed, had fled at the coming of the Merduks. Would the Torunnans ever make a stand and fight?

When Joshelin had dug his hole to the depth of his knees, he threw aside his entrenching tool and began gathering wood from under the deciduous trees at the outskirts of the forest. Siward threw the two shuddering monks a couple of greasy, damp blankets, and then unsaddled and rubbed down the mules before fitting them with bulging nosebags. The animals were so tired he did not even hobble them, but merely tied their picket ropes to a nearby tree.

An owl hooted in the ghost-dark of the wood, and something - a fox, perhaps - yipped and barked far off, the sounds merely adding to the emptiness.

There was a flash, a jump of sparks that revealed Joshelin's face bent and puff-checked as he blew on the tinder. A tiny flame, smaller than that of a candle. He fed it as delicately as if he were tending a sick baby, and when it had grown a hand's breadth, he lifted the small pile of twigs and needles into the trench he had dug and began feeding it with larger limbs. He looked as though he were peering into some crack in the earth that led to Hell, Albrec thought, and then dismissed the image as unlucky.

The fire grew, and the two monks crawled over to its warmth.

"Keep it going," Joshelin told them. "I have things to do."

"I thought we were to have no fire," Avila said, holding his hands out greedily to the flames. His blanket stank as it began to warm.

"You looked as though you needed it," the Fimbrian said, and then strode off into the darkness with his sword drawn.

"Ignorant fellows," Avila muttered. His eyes were sunken, and the firelight writhed in them like worms of yellow light.

"Their bite may not be quite so bad as their bark, I'm thinking," said Albrec, blessing the warmth and the gruff thoughtfulness of their companions.

Chopping sounds, breaking wood, and then the two soldiers returned to the firelight holding a rough screen-like structure they had created out of interlaced branches stuffed with sods of turf. They planted it in the ground on the side of the fire trench that faced the border of the wood, and at last sat down themselves, pulling their black military cloaks about them.

"Thank you," Albrec said.

They did not look at him, but threw over a wineskin and the provisions bag. "You'll eat well tonight, at any rate," Joshelin said. "That's dainty fare we picked out of that farm."

They had a chicken, already plucked and gutted, bread that was several days old but which nonetheless seemed like ambrosia after Fimbrian hardtack, and some apples and onions. The chicken they spitted over the fire, the rest they wolfed down along with swallows of rough wine which in Charibon they would have turned their noses up at. Tonight it slid down their throats like the finest of Gaderian vintages.

Siward produced a short black pipe from the breast of his tunic and filled it from a pouch at his waist, and he and Joshelin smoked it in turns. The pipe smoke was heavy and strong and acrid. There was some tang in it that Albrec could not quite identify.

"Might I try it?" he asked the soldiers.

Siward shrugged, his face a crannied maze of light and dark in the fire-laced blackness. "If you have a strong head. It is
kobhang
, from the east."

"The herb the Merduks smoke? I thought it was a poison."

"Only if you take too much of it. It helps keep you awake and sharpens the senses, so long as you do not abuse it."

"How do you obtain it?" Albrec's curiosity awoke, taking his mind off his exhaustion.

"It is army issue. We get it along with the bread and salt horse. When there is no food to be had, a man can keep going for weeks by smoking it."

"And can he then stop smoking it if he has a mind to?" Avila drawled.

Joshelin stared at him. "If he has the will."

Albrec took the pipe Siward proffered rather gingerly and sucked a draught of the bitter smoke deep into his lungs. Nothing happened. He returned the pipe to its owner, rather relieved.

But then his aches and pains dimmed to a comfortable glow. He felt a new strength seeping through his muscles and his body became as light as a child's. He blinked in wonder. The firelight seemed a beautiful, entrancing thing of bright twisting loveliness. He put out his hand towards it, only to have his wrist grasped by the hard fist of Joshelin.

"One must be careful, priest."

He nodded, feeling foolish and exhilarated in the same moment.

"I haven't seen you smoke it before," Avila said to the Fimbrians.

Siward shrugged. "We are getting tired. We are men also, Inceptine."

"Well, bless my soul," Avila retorted, and wrapped himself in his evil-smelling blanket.

They took the chicken off the spit and ripped it into four pieces. Albrec was no longer hungry, but he ate the scorched meat anyway, no longer able to taste it. His mind felt clear as ice. His worries had vanished. He began to chuckle, and then stopped himself as he found his three companions were watching him.

"Marvellous stuff. Marvellous," he muttered, and fell back into the soft pine needles, snoring as soon as he was horizontal.

Avila threw a blanket over him. It had holes in it from other nights spent lying close to campfires.

"I will dress your feet in the morning," Joshelin told him.

The young Inceptine nodded distantly and took a huge swallow of the wine. "What will you do when you have escorted us safely to Torunn?" he asked.

The two Fimbrians glanced at each other and then into the fire. "We will await further orders from the marshal," Siward said at last.

"You don't believe you'll get any further orders, though. Albrec told me his intentions. Your marshal is leading his men to their deaths."

"Mind your own matters, priest," Joshelin hissed with sudden passion.

"It is no matter to me," Avila said. "I only wonder that you had not thought out what will become of you when you have run this errand for him."

"As you say," Joshelin grated. "It is no matter to you. Now get you to sleep. You need a lot of rest if you are to keep up today's volume of whining on the morrow."

Avila looked at him for a long minute, and finally his face broke out into a smile.

"Quite right. I would hate to let my standards slip."

Nine

H
E THOUGHT SHE
looked younger in the morning light than she had the night before. He lay propped up on one elbow watching her quiet sleep, and in him a storm of feelings and memories fought for the forefront of his mind. He wrestled them back brutally, slammed a door in their faces, and was able for some few precious seconds to lie there and watch her, and be almost content.

Her eyes opened. No morning bleariness or process of awakening. She was instantly alert, aware, knowing. Her eyes were green as the shallows of the Kardian Sea in high summer, a bewitching, arresting green. His wife's eyes had been grey, quick to humour, and holding less knowledge in their depths. But then his wife had died still a young woman.

"No grief," Odelia said quietly. "Not on this morning. I will not permit it." Her words were imperious but their tone was almost pleading. He smiled, kissed her unlined forehead, and sat up. His moment of peace had passed, but that was to be expected. He did not wish for more.

"I must away, lady," he said, feeling like some swain in a romantic ballad. To connect himself back to reality, he swung his feet off the bed and on to the stone floor. "I have a thousand men waiting for me."

"What is one woman, set against a thousand barbarians?" she asked archly, and rose herself, naked and superb. He watched her as she slipped a silk robe about her shoulders, her hair spilling gold down her back. He was glad she was not dark. That would have been too much.

He pulled on the court uniform he hated, stamping his feet into the absurd buckled shoes. They seemed as insubstantial as cotton after the weeks in long cavalry boots.

A discreet knock at the door.

"Yes," Odelia said, never taking her eyes off Corfe.

A maid. "Highness, the King is in the antechamber. He wishes to see you at once."

"Tell him I am dressing."

"Highness, he will not wait. He insists on entering immediately."

Odelia met Corfe's eyes, and smiled. "Find yourself a corner, Colonel." Then she turned to the maid. "Tell him I will see him now, in here."

The maid scurried out. Corfe cursed venomously. "Are you out of your Royal mind?"

"There's a tapestry behind the headboard which will serve admirably. Make sure your toes do not stick out below it."

"Saint's blood!" Swallowing other oaths, Corfe dashed across the room and concealed himself there. The tapestry was loose-woven. He could see through it as though through a heavy fog. His heart hammered as cruelly as if he were going into battle, but he found time to wonder if he were not the first man ever to hide in that spot.

The King of Torunna entered the Queen Dowager's bedchamber seconds later.

Odelia sat down at her dressing table with her back to her son and began brushing her golden hair.

"An urgent matter indeed, if you must burst in on me before I am even dressed," she said tartly.

Lofantyr's eyes swept the chamber. He was sweating, and looked like nothing so much as a frightened boy in the schoolmaster's study.

"Mother, Ormann Dyke has fallen."

The brush stopped halfway through the gleaming tresses.

Corfe thought that his heart had stopped with it. Almost he stepped out from behind the tapestry.

"Are you sure?"

"Merduk light cavalry have been sighted scarcely ten miles from the city walls. General Menin sent out a sortie which destroyed or captured an enemy patrol. One of the enemy was found to have this on him."

Lofantyr proffered his mother a small leather cylinder, much scuffed and stained.