Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (79 page)

"It's horn." Abeleyn, less ginger than the rest, had knelt beside the carcass and was examining it closely, tapping it with the pommel of his dagger. "Heavy, though. Too heavy to float. Look at the pincers there at the end of the arms! Like a giant lobster. And the spikes on the feet would pierce wood. Captain, help me here."

Together the mariner and the King grasped a segment of plate that might be said to be the helm of the creature. They tugged and grunted, and there was a sharp crack, followed by a nauseating sucking sound. The helm-part came free, and the smell it released set them all to coughing. Hawkwood controlled his heaves first.

"It's a man, then, after all."

A contorted ebony face with snarling yellow teeth, the lips drawn back, the eyes a pale amber colour. It was a study in bone and sinew and bulging tendon, an anatomist's model.

"A man," King Mark of Astarac said, rather doubtfully.

"If they're men, then they can be beaten by other men," said Abeleyn. "Take heart, my friends. Rovero, let this news be passed onto the crew at once - it's ordinary men in strange armour we face, not soulless demons."

"Aye, sire." Rovero gave the corpse a last, dubious stare, and left the cabin.

Hawkwood, Abeleyn, Murad and Mark were left to gaze at the dripping carrion at their feet.

"It's like no kind of man I've ever seen before," Hawkwood said. "Not even in Punt are their skins so black. And see the corner teeth? Sharp as a hound's. They've been filed, I believe. Some of the Corsairs do the same to render themselves more fearsome-looking."

"Those eyes," Abeleyn muttered. "He burns in Hell now, this fellow. You can see it in the eyes. He knew where he was going."

They stood in an uncomfortable silence, the agony in the dead man's face holding them all.

"He may be a man, but something dreadful has been done to him all the same," Mark said in almost a whisper. "These sorcerers... Will their lord Aruan be here in person, you think?"

Abeleyn shook his head. "Golophin tells me he is still in Charibon, marshalling his forces."

"This fleet of theirs -"

"Is very close now. It may only have been sighted once or twice in the last ten years, but it exists. Small ships, it is said, lateen-rigged and bluff-bowed. Scores of them. They appear out of mists like this. They've been raiding the Brenn Isles these two years past and more, taking the children and disappearing as they came. Odd-looking ships with high castles to fore and aft."

"Like the cogs of ancient times," Hawkwood put in.

"Yes, I suppose so. But my point is that they are built for boarding. Our long guns can - can keep them at bay..." The King's voice fell and they all looked at one another as the same thought struck them at once. In this fog, long guns next to useless, and an enemy ship might drift close enough to board before anyone had any notion of her.

"If our sails are empty, then theirs are also," Hawkwood said. "I've not heard tell they have any galleys, and even the most skilled of weatherworkers can affect only an area of ocean - he cannot choose to propel individual ships. They're boxing the compass just like us - and these things here" - he nudged the corpse with his foot - "they can't swim, it seems, which is another blessing."

Abeleyn slapped him on the shoulder. "You hearten me, Captain. It is the good sense of mariners we need now, not the paranoia of politicians. You may rejoin the admiral on deck. We shall be up presently."

Dismissed, Hawkwood left the cabin, but not before trading chill glances with Murad.

Abeleyn flicked the hessian over the snarling dead face on the deck and poured himself a long glass of wine. "I should like to keep this thing as a specimen for Golophin to examine when he next visits us, but I fear the crew would not be overly enthusiastic at the notion. And the stink!" he drained his glass.

"Mark, Murad, no formality, now. I want advice as the" - he raised his empty glass ironically - "supreme commander of our little expedition. We have enough supplies for another month's cruising, and then we must put about for Abrusio. If we are not attacked tonight, then -"

"We're not going anywhere as long as this calm lasts," Murad interrupted him harshly. "Sire, while we are helpless and blind in this airless fog, it may be that the enemy is sailing past us in clear skies, and is intent on invading a kingdom stripped of its most able defenders."

"Golophin has six thousand men garrisoned in Abrusio, and another ten scattered up and down the coast," Abeleyn snapped.

"But they are not the best men, and he is no soldier, but a mage. Who's to know how his weathercock loyalties may swing if he sees this thing going against us?"

"Don't go doubting Golophin's loyalty to me, cousin. Without him this alliance would never have been possible."

"All the same, sire," Murad answered him, unabashed, "I'd as soon as seen a soldier in command back in Hebrion. General Mercado -"

"Is dead these ten years. I see where you are going with this, kinsman, and the answer is no. You remain with the fleet. I need you here."

Murad bowed. "Cousin, forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive. And I do not believe we will be bypassed by the enemy."

"Why not, sire?"

King Mark of Astarac spoke up in the act of filling his own glass. His face had regained some of its colour. "Because there are too many ripe royal apples in this basket to let it go by unplucked. Isn't that so, Abeleyn? We're dangling out here like the worm on the end of a hook."

"Something like that, cousin."

"Hence the pomp and circumstance that attended our departure," Mark said wryly. "Bar an engraved invitation, we have done everything we could to persuade the enemy to rendezvous with us. Abeleyn, I salute your cleverness. I just hope we have not been too clever by half. When is Golophin due to drop in again?"

"In the morning."

"You can't summon him in any way?"

"No. His familiar is with Corfe, in the east."

"A pity. For all your doubts, Murad, I for one would feel a lot happier with the old boy around. If nothing else, he might blow away this accursed mist, or whistle up a wind."

"Sire, you speak sense," Murad said, with what passed for humility with him. "If the enemy has any intelligence at all of our comings and goings, then he will attack tonight, while the elements are still in his favour. I must get back to my ship."

"Don't bump into anything in the dark," Abeleyn told him, shaking his hand.

"If I do, it had best not be allergic to steel. Your majesties, excuse me, and may God go with you."

"God," said Abeleyn after he had left. "What has God to do with it anymore?" He refilled the wineglasses, and emptied his own at a single draught.

T
HE NIGHT PASSED,
the stars wheeled uncaring and unseen beyond the shroud of fog that held the fleet captive.

Unforgivably, Hawkwood had nodded off. He jerked upright with a start, a sense of urgent knowledge burning in his mind. As his eyes focused he took in the steady glow of the lamp, motionless in its gimbals, the blur of the chart on the table before him resolving itself into the familiar coastal line of Hebrion, the shining dividers lying where they had dropped from his limp fingers. He had been dozing for a few minutes, no more, but something had happened in that time. He could feel it.

And he looked up, to see he was not alone in the cabin.

A darkness there in the corner, beyond the reach of the light. It was crouched under the low ship-timbers. For an instant he thought he saw two lights wink once, and then the darkness coalesced into the silhouette of a man. Above his head eight bells rang out, announcing the end of the middle watch. It was four hours after midnight, and dawn was racing towards him over the Hebros Mountains far to the east. It would arrive in the space of half a watch. But here on the Western Ocean, night reigned still.

"Richard. It is good to see you again."

Hawkwood tilted the lamp and saw, standing in the corner of the cabin, the robed figure of Bardolin. He shot to his feet, letting the lamp swing free and career back and forth to create shadowed chaos out of the cabin. He lurched forward, and in a moment had grasped Bardolin's powerful shoulders, bruising the flesh under the black robes. A wild grin split his face, and the mage answered it. They embraced, laughing - and the next instant Hawkwood drew back again as if a snake had lunged at him. The smile fled.

"What are you come here for?" His hand went to his hip, but he had unslung his baldric, and the cutlass hung on the back of his chair.

"It's been a long time, Captain," Bardolin said. As he advanced into the light, Hawkwood retreated. The mage held up a hand. "Please, Richard, grant me a moment - no calling out or foolishness. What has it been, fifteen years?"

"Something like that."

"I remember Griella and I searching the docks of old Abrusio for the
Osprey
that morning" - a spasm of pain ran across his face - "and the brandy I shared with Billerand."

"What happened to you, Bardolin? What did they do to you?"

The mage smiled.

"How the world has changed under our feet. I should never have gone into the west with you, Hawkwood. Better to have burned in Hebrion. But that's all empty regret now. We cannot unmake the past, and we cannot wish ourselves other than we are."

Hawkwood's hammering heart slowed a little. His hand edged towards the hilt of the cutlass. "You'd best do it and have done, then."

"I'm not here to kill you, you damned fool. I'm here to offer you life." Suddenly he was the old Bardolin again; the dreamy menace retreated. "I owe you that at least - of them all, you were the only one who was a friend to me."

"And Golophin."

"Yes - him too. But that's another matter entirely. Hawkwood, grab yourself a longboat or a rowboat or whatever passes for a small insignificant craft among you mariners, and get into it. Push off from this floating argosy and her consorts, and scull out into the empty ocean if you want to see the dawn."

"What's going to happen?"

"You're all dead men, and your ships are already sunk. Believe me, for the love of God. You have to get clear of this fleet."

"Tell me, Bardolin."

But the strange detachment had returned. It did not seem to Hawkwood that it was truly Bardolin who smiled now.

"Tell you what? For the sake of old friendship, I have done my best to warn you. You were always a stubborn fool, Captain. I wish you luck, or if that fails, a quick and painless end."

He faded like the light of a candle when the sun brightens behind it, but Hawkwood saw the agony behind his eyes ere he disappeared. Then was alone in the cabin, and the sweat was running down his back in streams.

He heard the gunfire and the shrieking up on deck, and knew that whatever Bardolin had tried to warn him about had begun.

Four

S
NOW LAY BRIGHT
and indomitable on the peaks of the Cimbrics, and beyond their blinding majesty the sky was blue as a kingfisher's back. But spring was in the air, even as high up as this, and the margins of the Sea of Tor were ringed with only a mash of undulating pancake-ice which opened and closed silently around the bows and sterns of the fishing-boats that plied its waters.

In Charibon the last yard-long icicles had fallen from the eaves of the cathedral and the lead of the roof was steaming in the sunlight. The monks could be heard singing Sext. When they were done they would troop out in sombre lines to the great refectories of the monastery-city for their midday meal, and when they had eaten they would repair to the scriptoriums or the library or the vegetable and herb-gardens or the smithies to continue the work which they offered up to God along with their songs. These rituals had remained unchanged for centuries, and were the cornerstones of monastic life. But Charibon itself, seat of the Pontiff and tabernacle of western learning, had changed utterly since the Schism of eighteen years before.

It had always been home to a large military presence, for here were the barracks and training-grounds of the Knights Militant, the Church's secular arm. But now it seemed that the austere old city had exploded into an untidy welter of recent building, with vast swathes of the surrounding plain now covered with lines of wooden huts and turf-walled tents, and linking them a raw new set of gravel-bedded roads spider-webbing out in all directions. West to Almark they went, north to Finnmark, south to Perigraine, and east to the Torrin Gap, where the Cimbrics and the tall Thurians halted, leaving an empty space against the sky, a funnel through which invading armies had poured for millennia.

And on the parade-grounds the armies mustered, bristling masses of armoured men. Some on horseback with tall lances and pennons crackling in the wind, others on foot with shouldered pikes, or arquebuses, and others manhandling the carriages of long-muzzled field-guns, waving rammers and linstocks and sponges and leading trains of mules drawing rattling limbers and caissons. The song of the monks in their quiet cloisters was drowned out by the cadenced tramp of booted feet and the low thunder of ten thousand horses. The flags of a dozen kingdoms, duchies and principalities flapped over their ranks: Almark, Perigraine, Gardiac, Finnmark, Fulk, Candelaria, Touron, Tarber. Charibon was now the abode of armies, and the seat of Empire.