Harvest (44 page)

This helped shift the mood of anxiety and panic in the citizenry to one of purpose and determination.

But Blut deliberately kept himself out of the public eye, working through Lord Festoon and Igor Brunte.

‘My own role, gentlemen, must remain in the background for now until I have earned your citizens’ acceptance’

He was now insisting that the Council of War was in continuous session. But, he ruled, its meetings should be private and attended by only a very few, for fear that Fyrd spies would report back
to Quatremayne what was afoot in the city they were about to invade.

He moved quickly to reduce rancour between the civilian and military forces of the city, with Mister Pike in charge of the former and Meyor Feld the latter.

It was a clever move by Blut.

He had understood early on, because Jack had explained the fact, that the weakness in Brum had been the rivalry between the military and civilian forces. One saw itself as professional and the
other amateur; the other saw one as arrogant and insensitive and itself as representative of the true spirit of Brum.

‘That has to stop, and
now
, gentlemen. The roles of each must be defined and the objectives clearly stated. I am giving you an hour to sort that out. Now, to other matters:
transport . . .’

In this way Blut directed members of the Council to clarify their tasks and work one with the other. At the same time, he worked with Brunte in particular on the question of strategy in the
early phase of the coming assault.

‘The Fyrd numbers are overwhelming, Brunte, and you cannot meet them equally and head-on.’

‘Agreed,’ said Brunte. ‘We need to focus our defence where it will have most effect . . .’

‘You call it “defence”, Marshal; may I suggest you call it attack? That will foster proactivity from the first.’

Brunte stayed silent, staring at the impassive face of Blut.

It went hard on him that a non-military should see some things so clearly and state them so succinctly.

‘You are right,’ said Brunte finally.

‘You must understand that I have sat in innumerable War Council meetings in Bochum and been responsible for filing the reports of many more. In any case, war interests me as it did my Lord
Emperor Sinistral . . .’

‘That is the third time I have heard you refer to him as “my Lord Emperor”,’ said Brunte.

It was Blut’s turn to be silent.

Brunte smiled that canny, warm, avuncular smile of his.

‘There is more to this abdication and your accession than meets the eye,’ he said.

‘Is there?’ said Blut softly.

‘There is, Emperor.’

Blut flushed slightly, a rare occurrence.

Brunte had seen something others had not.

Their respect for each other was mutual.

‘Marshal,’ said Blut finally, ‘I have a suggestion. I will keep silent about my contribution to your military thinking if you will keep your thoughts to yourself about the
basis on which I hold this office. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘When the time is right, you will be the first to know the truth. So, now . . . I can tell you what Quatremayne, who has been the most successful field officer in our time, would do in
your situation. He would gain as much intelligence as he could about the opposing strategy. Well, that you now have in its entirety. He would realize at once that militarily his position was
hopeless.’

Brunte nodded and said, ‘That I now concede.’

‘He would then deploy his best forces in one or two places where they would do most damage and behave as if he thought he was going to win. The blow would not be a knockout one, but it
would give time for other things.’

‘The fullest evacuation possible?’

‘Yes. But you already have that in train?’

‘We have. We have chosen two sites, to the north and west, both easily reachable for different forms of transport, both easily defensible, both with good stockpiles of supplies.’

Blut said nothing.

‘Have those evacuations started?’

‘In part, but not fast enough.’

‘From which areas?’

Brunte told him.

‘Wrong ones,’ said Blut, ‘given where the Fyrd trains are going to be arriving with troops. And you need four if not five places to send people. Let me explain . . .’

So the work had begun with the military, and the emphasis on initial attack, but rapidly moved onto Mister Pike’s stavermen, who were the very heart and spirit of Brum’s later
defence.

Blut did not doubt they would be doughty and courageous; the questions he asked were what their objectives were and, from that, how effective might they be. Only those who had seen the Fyrd
attacks at work knew how devastatingly powerful and destructive they were.

‘Tell me, Pike, how are the stavermen organized? Centrally, locally or not at all?’

Pike had been in charge of the stavermen for twenty years, after he emerged as the city’s finest fighter with an ironclad, or metal-hooped stave. He had defeated all comers without much
trouble, including in back-alley contests and rough ginnel fights for money, which in the old days were illegal bouts against willing Fyrd fighters.

He had won time and again and had earned that combination of respect and fear which a good staverman needs if he is to control the rougher elements of Brum society.

He was a stolid, grizzled sort of hydden, no-nonsense but good-natured. He had been a particular friend of the late Master Brief and, as such, a protector and supporter of Bedwyn Stort, whom he
regarded with affection and awe. He could never quite understand how the thin, freckly youth, as he had first known him, and the abstracted, innocent and obviously harmless adult he had become, had
the courage to get himself into the scrapes he did, and the wit to get himself back out of them.

One way and another, Pike was respected and liked by all and there was no better hydden in peacetime to keep the peace.

Blut’s skill in handling a hydden like Pike was such that, in a matter of an hour or two, he had made him understand that, in war, things could be very different indeed. The old enmities
with Brunte’s force must cease forthwith. The organization must be tighter. The tasks given must be clearly defined.

Hence his sharp and pointed questions.

‘The stavermen are in what they call chapters, sir, which reflect kinships, streets and where they were schooled . . .’

‘Meaning that one chapter may well consider itself a rival to another by family, by locale and by education?’

Pike, like Brunte, fell silent before such inquisition. He considered what Blut implied and saw its truth.

They talked around the problems for some little time.

‘So what do you suggest?’ said Pike eventually.

Blut shook his head.

‘You know the issues now, as you know your strengths and weaknesses as a fighter. It is for you to find a solution.’

Pike frowned and scratched his chin.

Then his rough, scarred face broke into a grin.

‘Mix the buggers up into units of fifteen. Appoint new, younger leaders of each. Set ’em tasks for a bit of friendly rivalry. Tell ’em it’s demotion or a fight with me if
they play the fool with Brunte’s boys. And . . .’

Blut held up a hand.

‘The fight with you is not a good idea.’

‘With Jack then.’

‘That’s better. And . . . you were going to say . . . ?’

The grin broadened.

‘Blame it all on you, sir. Say I’m just following orders.’

‘Perfect,’ said Blut. ‘I’m used to being unpopular!’

Pike nodded and stood up. He could relate to that.

Before he left, he turned and fixed Blut with an appraising eye and said, ‘You’re not doing a bad job, if I may be so bold, Emperor. Don’t forget to get some sleep.’

Blut nodded and said he would.

‘And after that . . . if I may be bold again.’

‘Yes, Pike?’

‘The fighting’s going to get dirty and it’s going to be street to street, humble to humble. No one knows Brum’s ins and outs better than my stavermen. We’ll get as
many of our people to remain when the Fyrd move in as we possibly can, while the Marshal’s forces hold up the advance. Then we’ll come back in and fight in ways the Fyrd never dreamed
of in their foulest nightmares.’

Blut nodded and remembered Brunte’s personal file.

Warsaw.

A city fight like no other.

The resistance there nearly broke Quatremayne.

No wonder he was so savage afterwards.

‘I suggest you talk to the Marshal about street fighting. He knows more about it than you might think.’

Pike left – and he left Blut thinking.

In a few short sentences Mister Pike had stated more clearly than anyone else what their overall strategy was going to be.

The thinking was over.

The action must begin.

One last thing to sort out. He rose, stretched, and looked at his chronometer. He had suggested a break in proceedings two hours before. The interviews since had been one on one. He had ten
minutes left and no one to see, no one to talk to.

He got up and ambled through the High Ealdor’s offices to the main foyer.

The place hummed with activity.

Hydden came and went continuously.

The mood was one of purposeful excitement, nervous but no longer panic-stricken.

He went to the front doors, which were open to the day, and the Square was busy too, with traders, news vendors and folk bustling. That was a clever front devised by Festoon to keep any spies
around thinking that the city had not woken up to reality yet. The more amateur Quatremayne believed the defence of Brum would be, the better. As for the notion it might go onto the attack . . .
Blut wanted to convey the idea that that was inconceivable.

The guards were under strict instructions not to identify him to others. As he went to go outside and down the steps one came over and said quietly, ‘My Lord, would you like one of us to
go with you . . . for your safety?’

Blut shook his head and thanked him.

He went on down the steps and wandered anonymously among the citizens of Brum. He heard his name mentioned. He saw people reading his words on the broadsheet. He began to feel the true spirit of
the famous city.

You’re not doing a bad job . . .

He walked on slowly until he saw a crowd of pilgrims in the centre of the Square and strolled over.

They were crowding round a star of different coloured cobbles that seemed to form the cardinal points of a compass.

A guide was talking to them.

It seemed that even at a time like that, business went on as usual in Brum.

‘This star of cobbles, ladies and gennelmen, was made in olden times. You might think it marks the centre of our great city, you’d be wrong. Or maybe the centre of Englalond, wrong
again!’

‘The Earth?’ someone called out.

The guide laughed and stepped onto the star.

‘This star was personally laid, I am given to understand, by one of the greatest hydden who ever lived. Anyone know his name?’

‘Lord Festoon!’ shouted someone.

‘Mister Bedwyn Stort,’ cried another.

‘Not even close and, anyway, they’re both alive and kicking and that personage who settled in these cobblestones is dead and gone.’

‘The former Emperor Slaeke Sinistral?’

The guide shook his head.

Blut was tempted to correct the impression that my Lord was dead, but wisely did not.

‘No? No one knows? It was the hydden who made this Square and the High Ealdor’s Residence, who created the famous Chamber of Seasons of which there is a tour once in a while, when
permitted, and who was tutor to the aforementioned gennelman, Slaeke Sinistral, who, by the by, was born in this city but for obvious reasons ain’t much missed. I refer, of course, to . . .
to
? Does no one know?’

‘To ã Faroün,’ said Blut, prepared to believe, from the antique look of the cobbles and the old way in which the flat brass plate surrounding the circle was inscribed
with places and distance, that they had been made by him.

‘Correct! Will that gennelman kindly come here!’

Blut thought it best to do so.

‘It is a common belief that any who stand on this fabled spot will, if they face the right direction, be well on the way to becoming a citizen of the Universe!’

‘What’s the right direction?’ someone shouted.

‘Now that, one and all, is a secret I cannot reveal!’

The tour was over, tips given, and moments later Blut found himself standing alone on the spot.

He closed his eyes and felt, or thought he did, a shiver in the ground and shift in the air, a brief wobble in things all about.

He heard a running of feet.

‘My Lord,’ whispered that same guard who had spoken to him a few minutes before, ‘they are all assembled, the Council awaits you.’

Blut shook his head but still felt dizzy. He looked at his feet and tried to ascertain which way he was facing. Not the way he had begun.

‘My Lord . . .’

‘Already? I thought I had only been here a few minutes.’

He stepped off the star and looked at his chronometer. He had lost more than twenty minutes. He stared at the cobbles and the star shape they made. There was something odd about it which . . .
which . . . which did not quite please his sense of order, and how come it was later than it ought to be?

‘
My Lord
. . .’

‘I’m coming now,’ he said. He looked back again and knew he had left something of himself behind in the ‘centre of the Universe’. The city of Brum had taken a
little of its newest arrival into its huge, warm, eternal heart.

B
y the following morning Blut had matters so well delegated that he was finally able to attend to an item on his continually updated list which
kept being put back to the bottom:
Mister Stort.

He turned to Jack and Arthur, now his advisers and sounding boards, and said, ‘I meant to say goodbye to Bedwyn Stort before he left the city ahead of the invasion, but I never did. Not
top priority, but important all the same. Is there some way I can get a message to him?’