Who might you be?
He staggered physically. Something like the glare of a bonfire passed over him, the massive, all-seeing regard of an immensely powerful mind.
Ah, there I have you. Hebrion! Now there is synchronicity in action. Not many of you left, are there? The continent is dark as a grave. They have almost done us all to death.
Golophin was frozen, a specimen turned this way and that for inspection. He tried to send a probing feeler towards the mind that held him, but it was rebuffed. Amusement.
Not yet, not yet! You’ll know me soon enough. What are you doing scanning the empty west this night? Ah, I see. He lives, you know. He is not happy, but he will come to it in time. I have great plans for your friend Bardolin.
And then a feeble spark of someone else, hurled across the darkling ocean.
Golophin! Help me, in the name of God—
And nothing. Golophin fell to his knees. Something huge and dark seemed to blot out the stars beyond the tower window for an instant, and then it was gone and the cold night air was empty and silent.
“Lord God,” he croaked. He spun a cantrip to light up the midnight room, but it guttered and flared out in seconds. He knelt in the darkness, gasping, until finally he mustered the strength to fumble for flint and tinder and light a candle. His hands were shaking and he skinned a knuckle with the flint.
And it smote him.
A bolt of mind energy so intense that it manifested physically. He was tossed across the room. The power crackled through him, contorting his limbs, ripping a shriek out of his throat. He rose in the air and the chamber grew bright as day as the excess poured out of him in a discharge like the effulgence of a captured sun. He blazed like a torch for ten seconds, writhing in an extremity of pain he had never before experienced or imagined. His robes burned away to ash and the candle was shrivelled into a pool of steaming wax. The heavy wood furniture of the room smouldered.
Then it left him, and he fell with a crack of bones to the floor.
T HE copyists had finished ahead of time, and the fruit of their round-the-clock labours sat on the table amid a jumbled pile of other gear. Albrec had had it bound in oilskin against the wet, but it was small enough to fit into the bosom of his robe if need be.
He ran his hands over his things again. Fur-lined boots, socks that stank of mutton fat, a pair of thick woollen habits, mittens, a heavy cloak and hood, and the capacious valise with the extra straps he had had a leatherworker add. Some store of dried and smoked food, a full wineskin, flint and tinder in a cork-lined metal box, and a bearskin bag that he was somehow supposed to sleep in. And the book, the precious copy of the even more precious original which he had carried from Charibon.
He dressed in the bulky winter travelling clothes, stuffed his valise with the rest and pulled the straps over his shoulder. Done, he thought. The baggage is ready, but is the resolve?
Torunn’s streets were quiet as he left the palace. The succession of blizzards which had been battering the city of late had stalled, and there was icy stillness in their place, the creak of solid ice underfoot. But the stars were veiled in thick cloud, the night sky heavy with the promise of more snow.
Albrec negotiated three separate sets of sentries without incident, passing as a Papal courier, and crunched through the freezing snow towards the North Gate. They opened the postern for him, though one soldier wanted to hold the little monk until he could call on an officer for confirmation of Albrec’s errand. But another, looking at the monk’s ravaged face, prevailed upon his comrade to forbear.
“There’s no harm in him,” he said. “Go with God, Father, and for the Saint’s sake watch out for those fucking Merduk cavalry, begging your pardon.”
Albrec blessed the unsure group of gate guards, and moments later heard the deep boom as the heavy postern was shut behind him. He made the Sign of the Saint, sniffed the frigid night air through the twin holes which had been a nose, and began trudging north through the snow. Towards the winter camps of the enemy.
F ROM the height of the palace Corfe could clearly see the tiny shape forging off into the hills, black against the snow. What poor soul might that be? he wondered. A courier without a horse? Unlikely. He considered sending down to the gate guards to find out, but thought better of it. He closed the balcony screen instead, and stepped back into the firelit dimness of the Queen Dowager’s bedchamber.
“Well, General,” Odelia said softly, “here we are.”
“Here we are,” he agreed.
She was in scarlet velvet beaded with pearls, a net of them in her golden hair. The green eyes seemed to have a light of their own in the darkened room.
“Won’t you come and sit with me, at least?”
He joined her at the fire. Mulled wine here, untouched, a silver tray of cloying pastries.
“How is your shoulder?” she enquired.
“Good as new.”
“I’m glad. The kingdom has need of that arm. No word on the investigation into the . . . incident?”
His mouth curved into a sardonic smile. “What investigation?”
“Quite. It was my son, you know.”
Corfe gaped. “My God. You’re sure?”
“Quite sure. He is learning, but not fast enough. His spies do not rival mine yet. The assassin was not one of the true brotherhood, but a sellsword from Ridawan. An apprentice. As well for you, I suppose, though even an adept of the Brotherhood of the Knife would have had trouble with both you and that Fimbrian acolyte of yours.”
Corfe frowned, and she laughed. “Corfe, you have this rare gift with men. There’s not a soldier in the garrison would not give an arm to ride by your side. Even that Fimbrian martinet is not immune. Do you think he’d have put the remnants of his men at the disposal of Menin or Aras, had they been his rescuers? Think again. And then his absurd offer to storm the palace. You have become a power in the world, General. From now on you will attract followers as a candle does moths.”
“You are well-informed,” Corfe told her.
“I make it my business to be, as you well know. The King has decided to adopt your suggested strategy, by the way.”
“Has he?” Hope leapt in Corfe’s heart.
“Yes, but only because Menin put it forward as his own. Lofantyr will be leading the army, and he and Menin will do their best to keep you out of any great victory.”
“I don’t care. As long as we win. That’s all that matters.”
She shook her head in mock wonder. “Such altruism! Even Mogen was not so selfless. Have you no lust for glory?”
He had asked that question himself once, when Ebro was worried about the odds they faced. He could answer it honestly now.
“No, lady. I have seen glory enough to turn my stomach.”
“Have you, indeed?” The marvellous eyes looking him up and down, for ever gauging him. Then she rose, and stretched like a girl before him. “Well, you’ll receive your orders in the morning, and the army will march the day after tomorrow. Right into the maw of another blizzard, no doubt.” Her tone was off-hand, but he sensed a tenseness in her. The taut, velvet-clad abdomen was inches from his face. She set her hands on his shoulders, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to encircle the slim waist with his arms, and lay his head on her, burying his face in the warm velvet. Her fingers ruffled his hair like those of a mother.
“My poor Corfe. You will never revel in your glory, will you?”
“It’s bought with too much blood.”
She knelt and kissed him on the lips. In a second, they seemed somehow to catch fire from one another. He tugged the gown down her shoulders and it fell to her hips, gripped it harder and rent the material so that it flowed down her thighs. A little explosion of dislodged pearls, her warm skin under his hands. She was entirely nude underneath the gown. He fumbled with his breeches, but she made a kind of sign in the air with her hand which left a momentary glimmer behind, and at once he was naked also. He laughed.