The Second Empire (36 page)

“Are you all right?” Odelia whispered to Corfe as they led the Merduk Royal couple down from the dais to the carriages that awaited.

He nodded, grey in the face. Albrec had to help him into the carriage; he was as unsteady as an old man.

The crowds found their voices at last, and began to cheer as the carriages trundled the short distance to the open doors of the great audience hall, where rank after rank of Fimbrian pikemen were drawn up alongside Torunnan regulars and a small, vermilion line of Cathedrallers. Aras and Formio rode alongside the carriage.

“Wave, Corfe,” Odelia said to him. “This is supposed to be a glad day. The war is over, remember.”

But he did not wave. He stared out at that sea of cheering people, and thought he saw faces he knew in the crowd. Andruw and Marsch, Ebro, Cerne, Ranafast, Martellus. And at the last he saw Heria, the woman who had once been his wife, with that heartbreaking smile of hers, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards.

He closed his eyes. She had joined the faces of the dead at last.

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