Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (42 page)

As the hubbub within the abbey died down and the nobles took their places, it was possible to hear the clamour of the crowds outside. It had risen sharply. They sounded as though they were cheering.
Mindless fools
, Jemilla thought.
Their country is in ruins about their ears but splash them a measure of cheap wine and they'll make a holiday.

The nobles were finally assembled, and seated according to all the rivalries and nuances of rank. Duke Urbino rose in his space at the right hand of the King's empty chair. He looked as though he was trying not to grin, a phenomenon which sat oddly on his long, mournful face. The horsetrading which had occupied them day and night for the last several days was over. The outcome of the vote was already known to all, but the legal niceties had to be observed. In a few minutes he would be the
de facto
ruler of Hebrion, one of the great princes of the world.

"My dear cousins," Urbino began - and stopped.

The din of the crowds had risen to a roaring pitch of jubilation, but now they in turn were being drowned out be the booming thunder of artillery firing in sequence.

"What in the world?" Urbino demanded. He looked questioningly at Jemilla, but she could only frown and shake her head. No doing of hers.

The assembly listened in absolute silence. It sounded like a regular bombardment.

"My God, it's the Knights Militant - they've come back," some idiot gushed.

"Shut up!" another snapped.

They listened on. Urbino stood as though turned to wood, his head cocked to the sound of the guns. They were very close by - they must be firing from the battlements of the palace. But why? And then Jemilla realised, with a sickening plunge of spirit. It was a salute.

"Count the guns!" she cried, heedless of the shrill crack in her voice.

"That's nineteen now," one of the older nobles said. Hardio of Pontifidad, she remembered. A Royalist. His face was torn between hope and dismay.

The echoing rumble of the explosions finally died away, but the crowds were still cheering manically. Twenty eight guns. The salute for a reigning king. What in the world was going on?

"Maybe it's for the new Regent," someone said, but Hardio shook his head.

"That'd be twenty-two guns."

"Perhaps he's dead," one of the dullards suggested. "They always fire a salute on the death of a king."

"God forbid," Hardio rasped, but most of the men present looked relieved. It was Jemilla who spoke, her voice a lash of scorn.

"Don't be a fool. You hear the crowds? You think they'd be cheering the death of the King?" It was slipping way - she could feel it. Somehow Golophin and Isolla had stymied her. But how?

The question was soon answered. There was a deafening blare of horns outside and the clatter of many horses. A Royal fanfare was blown over and over. Beyond the great double doors of the refectory they could hear the tramp of feet marching in step. Then a sonorous boom as someone struck the doors fom the outside.

"Open in the name of the King!"

A group of timorous retainers belonging to Urbino's household stood there, unsure. They looked to their lord for orders, but he seemed lost in shock. It was Jemilla who rapped out - "Open the damn doors, then!"

They did so. Those inside the hall stood as one, scraping back their chairs on the old stone. Beyond the doors were two long files of Hebrian arquebusiers dressed in the rich blue of Royal livery. Banner-bearers stood, the Hibrusid gonfalons a silk shimmer above their heads. And at the head of them all, a tall figure in black half-armour, his face hidden by a closed helm upon which the Hebrian Crown gleamed in a spangle of gems and gold.

Wordlessly, the files of arquebusiers entered the room and lined the walls. Their match was lit and soon filled the chamber with the acrid reek of gunpowder. The solitary figure in the closed helm entered last, the banner-bearers closing the doors shut behind him. The assembled nobles stood as though turned to stone, until a hard voice snapped, "Kneel before your King." And the figure in black unhelmed. The aristocracy of Hebrion stared, gaped, and then did as they were bidden. The figure in the black armour was without a doubt Abeleyn IV, King of Hebrion and Imerdon.

He was taller than they remembered, and he looked old enough now to be the father of the young man they had once known. No trace of the boy-king remained. His eyes were like glitters of black frost as he surveyed the kneeling throng. Jemilla remained in her seat by the fire, too paralyzed to move, but he did not even glance at her. The chamber stank of fear as much as the burning match. He could have them all shot down, here and now, and no-one would be able to lift a finger.

Hardio and a few others who had been against the regency from the first were beaming. "Give you joy of your recovery, sire," the old nobleman said. "This is a glad day for the kingdom."

The severity on the seamed face of the King lifted somewhat: they glimpsed the youth of a few months past. "My thanks, Hardio. Noble cousins, you may rise."

A collective sigh, lost in the noise of the gathered aristocrats getting off their knees. They were to live, then.

"Now," the King went on quietly, "I believe you were gathered here to discuss matters of import that concern my realm." No-one missed the easy emphasis on the
my
, the momentary departure from the Royal
we.

"We will - if you do not object - take our place at the head of this august gathering."

"By - by all means, sire," Urbino stammered. "And may I also congratulate you on recovering your health and faculties."

Abeleyn took the empty throne which headed the long table. His gait was odd - he walked on legs which seeemd too long for him, rolling slightly like a sailor on the deck of a pitching ship.

"I was not aware our faculties had ever been lost, Urbino," he said, and the coldness in his voice chilled the room. The nobles were once again aware of the lines of armed soldiers at their backs.

"But your concern is noted," the King continued. "It shall not be forgotten." And here Abeleyn's eyes swept the room, coming to rest at last on Jemilla.

"We trust we see you well, lady."

It took her a second to find her voice. "Very well, my lord."

"Excellent. But you should not be worrying yourself with the problems of state in your condition. You have our leave to go."

There was no choice for her, of course. She curtsied clumsily, and then left the room. The great doors boomed shut behind her, shutting her away from her ambitions and dreams. Jemilla kept her chin tilted high, oblivious to the roaring jubilation of the crowds outside, the grinning soldiers. Not until she had reached the privacy of her own apartments did she let the tears and the fury run unchecked.

"A
VERY SATISFACTORY
state of affairs," Himerius, High Pontiff of the Ramusian kingdoms of the west, said.

It was a day of brilliant sunshine which blazed off the snow-covered Narian Hills all around and glittered in blinding facets upon the peaks of the Cimbric Mountains to the east. Himerius stood foursquare against the bitter wind which billowed down from those grim heights, and when he exhaled the white smoke of his breath was shredded instantly away. Behind him, a group of monks in Inceptine black huddled within their habits and discreetly rubbed their hands together within voluminous sleeves in a futile effort to keep the blood in their fingers warm.

"Indeed, your Holiness," bluff, florid-cheeked Betanza said. "It could not have gone more smoothly. As we speak, Regent Marat is preparing an expeditionary force of some eight thousand men. They should be here in some fifteen days, if the weather holds."

"The couriers have gone out to Alstadt?"

"They went yesterday, under escort of a column of Knights. I would estimate that within three months we will have a fortified garrison in the Torrin Gap, ready to repel any Merduk reconnaisance, or to serve as a staging post for further endeavours."

"And what news from Vol Ephrir?"

"King Cadamost will accept a garrison on the Astaran border, but it must not be of Almarkan nationals. Knights Militant only - it is a question of national pride, you understand. Unfortunately, we do not currently have any Knights to spare."

"Almarkan troops are now the servants of the Church as much as the Knights Militant. If it will ease Perigraine's conscience the Almarkans can be clad in the livery of the Knights, but we must install our troops in southern Perigraine. Is that clear, Betanza?"

"Perfectly, Holiness. I shall see to it at once."

"Cadamost shall be made an honorary Presbyter of course. It is the least I can do. He is a faithful son of the Church, truly. But he cannot afford to think of Perigraine alone at a time like this. We must present a united front against the heretics. If Skarp-Hethin of Finnmark is willing to accept Almarkan garrisons, then Cadamost has no reason not to do likewise."

"Yes of course, your Holiness. It is merely a question of prestige. Skarp-Hethin is a Prince, and his principality has traditionally been closely allied with Almark. But Perigraine is a sovereign state. Some of the diplomatic niceties must be observed."

"Yes, yes. I am not a child, Betanza. Just get it done. I care not what hoops you have to jump through, but we must have the forces of the Church garrisoned throughout those kingdoms which acknowledge her spiritual supremacy. This is a time of crisis - I will not have the debacle of Hebrion repeated. We lost an entire kingdom to the heretics there because we had insufficient forces on the ground. That must never happen again."

"Yes, Holiness."

"If we are to strike back at the heretics then it can only be east through the Torrin Gap, and south into East Astarac... Still no word from Fimbria?"

"No, Holiness. Though rumour has it that the Fimbrian army sent east by the Electors was destroyed along with the Ormann Dyke garrison at the Battle of the North More."

"Rumour? We base our policy on rumours now?"

"It is difficult to obtain reliable information on the eastern war, Holiness. I have also heard that there has been a great battle close to the gates of Torunn itself, but of its outcome, we have no word."

"Have we no reliable scources in Torunn?"

"We have, yes, but with the Torunnan capital virtually under siege, it is a slow business getting their intelligence this far."

Himerius said nothing. His face was drawn and haggard in the harsh sunlight, but the eyes within it were bright as gledes. Over the past days he had displayed an astonishing reservoir of energy for a man of his years, working far into every night with shifts of scribes and scholars and Almarkan military officers. Privately, Betanza wondered how long he could keep it up. The Ramusian Church - or this version of it at any rate - had in a space of weeks been transformed into a great Empire which now encompassed not only Almark, but Finnmark, Perigraine, and half a dozen other minor principalities and duchies also. Cadamost of Perigraine, appalled by the carnage in the heretical states of Hebrion, Astarac and Torunna, had hastened to place his own kingdom under the protective wing of Charibon.
A loyal son of the Church indeed
, Betanza thought,
but one without any balls to speak of
.

Betanza himself regarded this sudden transformation of the Church with mixed feelings. He was Vicar-General of the Inceptine Order, the second most powerul figure in the Church hierarchy, but he found himself wondering about the accumulation of power that was taking place here. If Torunn had become the focus of resistance to the Merduk invasions, then Charibon was now the centre of a huge new power-bloc which stretched from the Malvennor Mountains in the west to the Cimbrics in the east, and even extended as far north as the Sultanate of Hardukh, not far from the foothills of the Northern Jafrar. Only Fimbria, in her heyday, had ever governed a tract of land so large, and the men who had had this awesome responsibility thrust so precipitately upon their shoulders were clerics, priests with no experience in governance. It made him uneasy. It also seemed not quite right to him that the head of the Ramusian faith in Normannia should spend twenty hours a day dictating orders for the levying of troops and the movement of armies. He had not joined the Church to become a general; he had done his soldiering in the lay world and wanted no more of it.

He looked up and out to where the savage peaks of the Cimbric mountains brooded, white and indomitable. The snow was blowing in great streaks and banners from their summits, as though the mountains were smoking. The world was on fire; the world he had known as a boy and a young man tottered on the brink of dissolution.
If only Aekir had not fallen
, he found himself thinking.
If only Macrobius had not been lost.

Such thinking was absurd, of course, and dangerous. They had all to make the best of it. But why did he feel so afraid, so apprehensive of the future? Perhaps it was the change in Himerius. The Pontiff had always been a proud, vain man, capable of ruthless intrigue. But now it seemed that the ambition had left the faith behind. The man never
prayed
anymore. Could that be right, in the Head of the Church? And that odd light in his eyes occasionally, at night. It seemed otherworldly. Unsettling.

I am tired
, Betanza thought.
I am tired, and I am older than I think I am. Why not step down, and walk the cloisters, contemplate the world beyond this one, and the God who created it? It is what I donned this habit to do, after all.