Hawkwood and the Kings: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume One) (35 page)

As well for me he is
, Corfe thought.
The other officers would as soon have hung me on the spot for desertion.

He joined his general on the Long Walls, where he was standing amid a knot of staff officers and aides, all of them in half-armour, all looking east to the Searil and the land beyond. There was a table littered with maps and lists, stones weighing down the parchment against the breeze. It was a fine morning, and sunlight was gilding the old stone of the battlements and casting long shadows from their far sides. It caught the many puddles that were strewn about the land and lit them up like coins.

"There," Martellus said, pointing out beyond the river.

Corfe stared. He could see a line of horsemen coming down the slopes of one of the further hills, pennons snapping and outriders out to flanks and rear. Perhaps two hundred of them.

"The insolent dog," one of the other officers said hotly.

"Yes. He is happy to ride around under our very noses. A flamboyant character, this Merduk commander. But this is only a scouting force. Light cavalry, you see? Not a glint of plate or mail among them, and unarmoured horses. He is here to take a look at us."

There was a hollow boom that startled the morning, a puff of white smoke from the eastern barbican, and a moment later the eruption of a fiery flower on the hillside below the horsemen. They halted. Martellus was grinning like a cat sighting the mouse.

"That's young Andruw. He was always a restless dog."

"Shall we assemble a sortie and chase them away?" one of the officers asked.

"Yes. I've no wish to make their intelligence-gathering easy. Tell Ranafast to saddle up two squadrons, no more. And see if he can take some prisoners. We need information as much as they."

"I'll tell him," Corfe said at once, and before anyone could respond he ran down from the battlements.

Ranafast was commander of the five hundred cavalry that the garrison possessed. A quarter of an hour after Corfe reached him they were riding out of the eastern barbican at the head of two squadrons: eightscore men in half-armour carrying lances and matchlock pistols. They were mounted on the barrel-chested Torunnan warhorses that were most often black or dark bay in colour, much larger than the beasts of the Merduk horsemen who preferred the smaller ponies of the steppes and mountains for their light cavalry.

The two squadrons shook out into line abreast, cheered on by the occupants of the eastern barbican, and thundered up the slopes beyond the river at a fast, bone-shaking trot.

It had been a long time since Corfe had been on a horse. He had originally been a heavy cavalryman in the days before the Merduk siege of Aekir had rendered the city's cavalry superfluous. It took him back to his former life to be part of a moving squadron again, the lance pennons of the troopers whipping about his head.

"Stick close to me, Ensign," Ranafast shouted. He was an emaciated-looking, oldish man whose hawk-like face was now almost entirely hidden by the Torunnan horse helm.

"Out matchlocks!" the cavalry commander ordered, and the lances were settled in their saddle and stirrup sockets. The men drew the already smoking pistols from their saddle holsters.

"East, lads! Close in on them first. Make sure we get the range."

The line of horsemen advanced steadily, the horses labouring a bit to fight the gradient. Ribbons of powder-smoke eddied downhill in countless lines from the glowing slow-match of the pistols. The Merduk cavalry seemed to be somewhat disordered. Knots of them rode this way and that as though uncertain as to their course of action.

The Torunnans clattered and thumped closer, heavy men on heavy horses, a mass of iron and muscle. Ranafast raised his voice.

"Bugler, sound the charge!"

The bugler raised the short instrument to his lips and blew a seven-note blast that rose until it had the hair on the back of Corfe's neck rising with it. The squadrons quickened into a canter.

Up on the hilltop the Merduks were still milling around with what looked to Corfe to be inexplicable confusion until he heard the booms over the noise of the Torunnan advance, and caught sight of the shell-bursts which were peppering the slopes behind the enemy. The gunners in the fortress had the Merduks' range and were deliberately overshooting, keeping the fast-moving horsemen from fleeing the approach of the Torunnan cavalry.

Corfe drew his sabre, possessing no lance or pistols, and leant low in the saddle to avoid the wicked Merduk lances.

They were at the hilltop. The Merduks were streaming away in disorder, the ground littered with smoking holes, dead horses, crawling men. The fort gunners were walking the barrage away eastwards, following their flight.

And then the Torunnans were upon them. The cannon had held back the enemy long enough for the heavier horses to close. The Torunnans fired their matchlocks, a great noise and smoke and riot of spouting flame, and then they were at full gallop, lances out and levelled.

There was no sense of impact, no rolling crash. The Torunnans melted into the rear of the fleeing Merduks and began spearing them from behind. Corfe picked a man on an injured horse, galloped up past him and took off most of his head with one satisfying, brutal blow of his sabre. He laughed aloud, searching for more quarry, but his horse was already tiring. He managed to slash the hindquarters of a fleeing Merduk pony, and then hack its rider from the saddle, but when he looked around again he saw that the Torunnan squadrons were over the hill. The fortress was out of sight and the cavalry was widely scattered, every man absorbed in his private pursuit. Ranafast and his bugler had halted and were blowing the
reform
but the excited men on blown horses were slow to respond. It was the first chance many of them had had to inflict damage on the enemy in weeks, and they had made the most of it.

A line of Merduk cavalry, five hundred strong, came boiling up over the crest of the next hill.

"Saint's blood!" Corfe breathed.

The furthest out of the pursuing Torunnans were engulfed in small groups as the Merduk line came on at an easy canter. The bugler was blowing the retreat frantically and dots of horsemen were turning and fleeing back the way they had come.

"A fucking ambush!" Ranafast was yelling. He had lost his helm and looked almost demented with rage.

"If we get back over the hill the gunners in the fort can cover our retreat," Corfe told him.

"We won't make it - not as a body. It's every man for himself. Get you on back to the river, Ensign. This is not your fight."

Corfe bridled. "It's mine as much as anyone else's!"

"Then save your hide so you can fight again. There's no shame in running away from this battle."

They gathered up what they could of the two squadrons and fought a rearguard action back up the slope they had galloped down a few minutes before. Luckily the Merduks did not possess firearms, so the Torunnans were able to turn in the saddle and loosen off a volley from their pistols every so often to rattle the enemy and stall his pursuit. As soon as Ormann Dyke was in sight once more, they galloped in earnest for the eastern gate whilst the gunners opened up on the Merduk cavalry behind them. It had been a close thing, and Ranafast brought back scarcely a hundred men through the gate, a loss the dyke could ill afford. As soon as the Merduks saw that the Torunnan cavalry were back within the walls of the dyke they called off the pursuit and retreated out of cannon range.

Ranafast and Corfe dismounted once they had clattered across the two bridges to the Long Walls. The surviving Torunnans were subdued, made thoughtful by their narrow escape.

"Well, now we know the strength of the enemy scout force," Ranafast growled. "Caught like a green first-campaigner, damn it. What's your name, Ensign?"

"Corfe."

"Part of Martellus's staff, are you? Well, if ever you want back in the saddle, let me know. You did all right out there, and I'm short of officers." Then the cavalry commander stumped off, leading his lathered horse. Corfe stared after him.

T
HE LEONINE
M
ARTELLUS
bent his knee and kissed the old man's ring reverently.

"Your Holiness."

Macrobius inclined his head absently. They covered his ragged and empty eye-sockets with a snow-white band of linen these days, so that he looked like a venerable blind-man's-buff player. Or a hostage. But he was dressed in robes of lustrous black, and a Saint's symbol of silver inset with lapis lazuli hung on his breast. His ring had been Martellus's own, a gift from the Prelate of Torunna before the general had set out for the dyke. Perhaps there had been an element of prescience in the gift, because it fitted the High Pontiff's bony finger almost as well as it had Martellus's.

"They tell me there was a battle today," Macrobius said.

"A skirmish merely. The Merduks managed to stage an ambush of sorts. We came off worst, it's true, but no great damage was done. Your erstwhile bodyguard Corfe did well."

Macrobius's head lifted. "Ah, I am glad, but I never doubted that he would not. My other companion, Brother Ribeiro, died today, General."

"I am sorry to hear it."

"The infection had settled in the very bones of his face. I gave him his last absolution. He died raving, but I pray his soul will take itself swiftly to the Company of the Saints."

"Undoubtedly," Martellus said stoutly. "But I have something else I would discuss with you, Your Holiness."

"My public appearances, or lack of them."

Martellus seemed put out. "Why, yes. You must understand the situation, Holiness. The Merduks are finally closing in. Our intelligence puts their vanguard scarcely eight leagues away and, as you know, the skirmishes with their light troops go on daily. The men need something to hearten them, to raise their spirits. They know you are alive and in the fortress and that is to the good, but if you were to appear before them, preach a sermon and give them your blessing, it would be a wonderful thing for their morale. How could they not fight well, knowing they were safeguarding the representative of Ramusio on earth?"

"They knew that at Aekir," Macrobius said harshly. "It did not help them."

Martellus stifled his exasperation. His pale eyes flashed in the hirsute countenance.

"I command an army outnumbered by more than ten to one, yet they remain here at the dyke despite the knowledge that it would take a miracle to withstand the storm that is upon us. In less than a week we will see a host to our front whose size has not even been imagined since the days of the Religious Wars. A host with one great victory already under its belt. If I cannot give my men something to believe in, to hope for - no matter how intangible - we'd be as well to abandon Ormann Dyke here and now."

"Do you really believe that I can provide that thing they need to believe in, my son?" Macrobius asked. "I, who played the coward at Aekir?"

"That story is almost unknown here. All they know is that by some miracle you escaped the ruin of the Holy City and are here, with them. You have evidenced no desire to go south to Torunn or west to Charibon. You have chosen to remain here. That in itself is heartening for them."

"I could not play the coward again," Macrobius said. "If the dyke falls, I fall with it."

"Then help it stand! Appear before them. Give them your blessing, I beg you."

Eyeless though he was, Macrobius seemed to be studying the earnest soldier before him.

"I am not worthy of the station any more, General," he said softly. "Were I to give the men a Pontiff's blessing, it would be false. In my heart my faith wavers. I am no longer fit for this high office."

Martellus leapt up and began striding about the simply furnished apartments that were Macrobius's quarters in the citadel.

"Old man, I'll be blunt. I don't give a damn about your theological haverings. I care about my men and the fate of my country. This fortress is the gateway to the west. If it falls it will take a generation to push the Merduk back to the Ostian river, if we ever can. You will get up on the speakers' dais tomorrow and you will address my men, and you will put heart in them even if it means perjuring yourself. The greater good will be served, don't you see? After this battle is over you can do whatever you like, if you still live; but for now you will do this thing for me."

Macrobius smiled gently. "You are a blunt man, General. I applaud your concern for your men."

"Then you will do as I ask?"

"No, but I will do as you demand. I cannot promise a rousing oration, an uplifting sermon. My own soul stands sadly in need of uplifting these days, but I will bless these worthy men, these soldiers of Ramusio. They deserve at least that."

"They do," Martellus echoed heartily. "It's not every soldier can go into battle with the blessing of the High Pontiff upon him."

"If you are so very sure I am yet High Pontiff, my son."

Martellus frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It has been some weeks since my disappearance. A Synod of the Prelates will have been convened, and if they have not received word of my abrupt reappearance, they may well have chosen a new Pontiff already, as is their right and duty."

Martellus flapped one large hand. "Messengers have been sent both to Torunn and Charibon. Rest your mind on that score, Your Holiness. The whole world should know by now that Macrobius the Third lives and is well in the fortress of Ormann Dyke."