Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (40 page)

"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 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 storage 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 squirelled 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 all these hoarded stocks of food and their redistribution to all the refugees from Aekir, and anyone else in Torunn who has need of them. The orders will be posted up in public places this morning. 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 great 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 cemetary 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 up all over the city by noon. 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; long cloaks muddy with the filth of the streets and high boots. Some were armed with military sabres. They sat round 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 down 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 demon 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 Torunna's Intelligence service, 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 it out to every beggar in the street who has a hand to lift."

"Such largesse will win him many friends among 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."

"Perhaps literally," Rusio muttered. "Fournier, tell me, will they reopen the investigation into that assassination attempt?"

Fournier coloured. "I think not."

"It was you and the King, wasn't it?"

"What a monstrous accusation! Do you think I would stoop to -"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Willem interjected testily, "enough. We are allies here. There are to be no accusations or recriminations. We must answer this stark question - how do we rid Torunna of this parvenu?"

"Do we want to be rid of him at the moment?" Aras asked nervously. "After all, he is doing a good job of winning the war."

"Good Lord, Colonel," Rusio snapped. "I do believe you've fallen under this fellow's spell. What are you thinking? Winning the war? We left eight thousand dead on the field a few days ago, including our King. Winning the war, indeed!"

Aras did not reply. His face was white as bone.

"It must be legal, what ever else it is," Fournier said smoothly, gliding over the awkward little silence that followed. "And it must not jeapordise the security of the kingdom. We are, after all, in a fight for our very survival at the moment. It may be that Aras is right. This fellow Corfe has his uses - that cannot be denied. And if truth be told, I am not sure the troops would follow anyone else at the moment."

Rusio stirred at this but said nothing.

"So it behoves us to work with him for now. As long as he has the confidence of the Queen he is well-nigh untouchable, but no man is without his weak spots. Aras, you told us he lost his wife in Aekir."

"Yes. He never talks about it, but I have heard his friend Andruw mention it."

"Indeed. That is an avenue worth exploring. There is guilt there, obviously, hence his largesse to the scum of Aekir that we harbour in the capital. And you Aras, you must work to get closer to him. You obviously admire him, so that is a start. Remember, we are not out to destroy this fellow - we simply feel that he has been elevated beyond his station."

Aras nodded.

"And make sure you recall whose side you are on," Rusio growled. "It's one thing to admire the man, another to let him ride roughshod over the very institutions which bind this kingdom together." A murmur of agreement ran down the table. Willem spoke up.

"Another six hundred tribesmen from the Cimbrics arrived outside the city this evening, wanting to fight under him. Quartermaster Passifal is equipping them as we speak. I tell you, gentlemen, if we do not curb this young fellow he will set himself up as some form of military dictator. He does not even have to rely on the support of his own countrymen. What with those savages and his tame Fimbrians at his back, he has a power-base completely outside the normal chain of command. They won't serve under anyone else - we saw that at the last planning conference the King chaired, here in the capital. And now he's stirring up the rabble who fled from Aekir when he should be shipping them south, dispersing them. There's a pattern to it all. It's my belief he aims at the throne itself."

"It is disturbing," Fournier agreed. "Perhaps - and this is only a vague suggestion, nothing more - perhaps we should be looking round for allies of our own outside the kingdom, a counterweight to this growing army of mercenaries he leads."

"Who?" Rusio asked bluntly.

Fournier paused, looked intently at the faces of the men round the table. Below them they could hear the buzz and hubbub of the tavern proper, but in the room now the loudest sound was the crackling of the fire.

"I have received in the last sennight a message brought by courier from Almark, gentlemen. That kingdom is, as you know, now on the frontier. The Merduks have sent exploratory columns to the Torrin gap. Reconnaisances, nothing more, but Almark is understandably alarmed."

"Almark is Himerian," Rusio pointed out. "And ruled directly by the Himerian Church now, I hear."

"True. The Prelate Marat is now Regent of the kingdom, but Marat is a practical man - and a powerful one now. If we agreed to certain... conditions, he would be willing to send us a host of Almarkan heavy cavalry in our hour of need."

"What conditions?" Willem asked.

"A recognition that there are grounds for doubting the true identity of the man who claims to be Macrobius."

Rusio barked with bitter laughter. "Is that all? Not possible, my dear Count. I know - I met Macrobius while he still dwelled in Aekir. The Pontiff we harbour here in Torunn is a travesty of that man, admittedly, but he is Macrobius. The Himerians are looking for a way to get their foot in the door, that's all. They failed with war and insurrection and now they'll try diplomacy. Priests! I'd get rid of the whole scheming crew if I had my way."

Fournier shrugged elegantly. "I merely inform you as to all the various options available. I, too, do not wish to see Almarkan troops in Torunna, but the very idea that they could be available is a useful bargaining tool. I shall brief the Queen on the initiative. It is as well for her to be aware of it." He said nothing of the other, more delicate initiative which had come his way of late. He was still unsure how to handle it himself.

"Do as you please. For myself, I'd sooner we were hauled out of this mess by other Torunnans, not heretical foriegners and plotting clerics."

"There are not many Torunnans left to do the hauling, Colonel. The once mighty Torunnan armies are a mere shadow of what they once were. If we do not respond, in some fashion at least, to this overture, then I would not be too sanguine about the safety of our own north-western frontier. Almark might just strike while the Merduks have our attention, and we would have foreign troops on Torunnan soil in any case, except that we would not have invited them."