The Second Empire (4 page)

“How many today then?” he asked.

“Two,” di Souza told him. “Miriam di—”

“I don’t need to know their names!” Sequero snapped. “That leaves us with, what? Eighty-odd? Still plenty. Thank God the soldiers and sailors are made of sterner stuff. Sergeant Berrino, how are the men?”

“Bearing up well, sir. A good move to let them doff their armour, if I might say so. And Garolvo’s party brought in three boar this morning.”

“Excellent. A good man that Garolvo. He must be the best shot we have. Gentlemen, we are in a hellish place, but it belongs to our king now and we must make the best of it. Make no mistake, there will be promotions when the Governor returns from his expedition. Fort Abeleius may not be much to look at now, but in a few years there will be a city here, with church bells, taverns and all the trappings of civilisation.”

His listeners were dutifully attentive to his words, but he could almost taste their scepticism. They had been ashore two and a half months now, and Sequero knew well that the Governor was popularly believed to be long dead, or lost somewhere in the teeming jungle. He and his party had been away too long, and with his absence the discontent and fear within the fort was growing week by week. Increasingly, both soldiers and civilians were of the opinion that nothing would ever come of this precarious foothold upon the continent, and the Dweomer-folk were ready to brave even the pyres that awaited in Abrusio rather than suffer the death by disease and malnutrition that was claiming so many of them. At times Sequero felt as though he was swimming against an irresistible tide of sullen resentment which would one day overwhelm him.

“Ensign di Souza, how many of the ship’s guns have we ashore now?”

“Six great culverins and a pair of light sakers, sir, all sited to command the approaches. That sailor, Velasca, he wants to complain to you personally about it. He says the guns are the property of Captain Hawkwood and should remain with the ship.”

“Let him put it in writing,” said Sequero, who like all the old school of noblemen could not read. “Gentlemen, you are dismissed. All but you, di Souza. I want a word. Sergeant Berrino, you may distribute a ration of wine tonight. The men deserve it—they have worked hard.”

Berrino, a middle-aged man with a closed, thuggish face, brightened. “Why thank you, sir—”

“That is all. Leave us now.”

The two soldiers clambered down the ladder that was affixed to one leg of the watchtower, leaving Sequero and di Souza alone in their eyrie.

“Do have some wine, Valdan,” Sequero said easily, and gestured to the bulging skin that hung from a nearby peg.

“Thank you, sir.” Di Souza squirted a goodly measure of the blood-warm liquid down his throat and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. They had been equals in rank, these two young men, until landfall here in the west. Murad had then promoted Hernan Sequero to haptman, making him military commander of the little colony. The choice had been inevitable: di Souza was noble only by adoption, whereas Sequero was from one of the high families of the kingdom, as close by blood to the Royal house as Murad himself. The fact that he was illiterate and did not know one end of an arquebus from another was neither here nor there.

“The Governor’s party has been away almost eleven weeks,” Sequero told his subordinate. “Within another week or two they should return, with God’s grace. In all that time we here have been cowering behind our stockade as if we were under siege. That has to change. I have seen nothing in this country which warrants this absurd defensive posture. Tomorrow I will order the colonists to start marking out plots of land in the jungle. We’ll slash and burn, clear a few acres and see if we can’t get some crops planted. If things work out, then some of the colonists can be ejected from the fort and can start building homes on their own plots of land. Valdan, I want you to register all the heads of household amongst them, and map out their plots. They will hold them as tenants of the Hebriate crown. We must start thinking of some form of tithe, of course, and you will organise a system of patrols…. You wish to say something, Ensign?”

“Only that Lord Murad’s orders were to remain within the fort, sir. He said nothing about clearing farms.”

“Quite true. But he has been away a lot longer than he originally anticipated, and we must all show a little initiative now and then. Besides, the fort is overcrowded and rapidly becoming unhealthy. And these damned mariners must do their share. How many soldiers do we have fit for duty?”

“Besides ourselves, eighteen. Hawkwood’s second-in-command, Velasca, has a dozen sailors out surveying the coast in two of the longboats. He’s also been salvageing timbres and iron from the wreck of the caravel that foundered on the reef. There are a score more still busy making salt and preserving meat and suchlike. For the return voyage. And four of them are in the fort, instructing some of our men in the firing of the big guns.”

“Yes. They like to set themselves apart, these sailors. Well, that must change also. Tell Velasca I want a dozen of his men, with firearms, to join our soldiers and place themselves under Sergeant Berrino. We need more men on the stockade.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?” Di Souza’s face was completely neutral.

“No—yes. You will dine with me tonight in the residence, I trust?”

“Thank you, sir.” Di Souza saluted and left via the creaking ladder. When he had gone Sequero wiped the sweat from his face and allowed himself a mouthful of wine.

He was not yet sure if this place were an opportunity for advancement or the graveyard of his ambitions. Had he stayed in Hebrion he might have been a regimental commander by now. His blood demanded no less. On the other hand, that very blood might have been considered a little too blue for the King’s liking, hence his presence here, in this Godforsaken so-called colony. Still, if anyone had ambition, it was his superior, Lord Murad. That one would not have taken part in such a reckless scheme if he had not seen some kind of advantage in it for himself. Better here than at court, then. In the field superior officers had a habit of dying. At court there was only the age-old manoevring for power and rank, none of it counting for much in the presence of a strong king. And Abeleyn was a strong king, for all his youth. Sequero liked him, though he thought him too informal, too ready to lend an ear to his social inferiors.

Was Murad dead? It seemed hard to believe—the man had always seemed to be constructed equaly out of sinew and pure will. But it had been a long time—a very long time. For once in his life, Sequero was unsure of himself. He knew the soldiers were close to mutiny, believing the colony to be cursed, and without Murad’s authority to hold them in cheque…

A clattering of boots on the ladder, and a red-faced soldier appeared at the lip of the watchtower.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s my turn on sentry. Ensign di Souza told me to come on up.”

“Very well. I was just finished.” What was the man’s name? Sequero couldn’t remember and felt vaguely irritated with himself. What did it matter? He was just another stinking trooper.

“See you keep your eyes open… Ulbio.” There. He had remembered after all.

Ulbio saluted smartly. “Yes, sir.” And remained the picture of attentive duty as his commander lowered himself down from the watchtower. When Sequero had disappeared he spat over the side. Fucking nobles, he thought. None of them gave a damn about their men.

T HE Governor’s residence was the only edifice with any pretensions to architecture within the colony. Loopholed for defence like the strongpoint it was, it nonetheless had a long veranda upon which it was almost pleasant to sit and dine of an evening. The wood of the great trees about the fort was incredibly hard and fine-grained, but it made admirable furniture. The sailors had set up a pedal-powered lathe of sorts and that evening Sequero and his guests were able to eat off a fine long table with beautifully turned legs. There was still silver and crystal to eat off and drink from, and tall candles to light the flushed faces of the diners and attract the night-time moths. Were it not for the cloying heat and the raucous jungle they might have been back in Hebrion on some nobleman’s estate.

The gathering was not a large one. Besides Sequero and di Souza there were only three other diners. These were Osmo of Fulk, a fat, greasy and sycophantic wine merchant whose personal store of Gaderian meant it politic to invite him, Astiban of Pontifidad, a tall, grey man with a mournful face who in Abrusio had been a professional herbalist and an amateur naturalist, and finally Fredric Arminir, who hailed originally from Almark, of all places, and who was reputed to be a smuggler.

None of the three men was an actual wizard, so far as Sequero knew, but they all possessed the Dweomer in varying degrees, else they would not be here. He felt a childish urge to make them perform in some way, to do some trick or feat, and he was absurdly gratified when the stout Osmo set weird blue werelights burning at the far corners of the veranda. The insects crowded around them and sizzled to death in their hundreds, whilst the diners were able to eat and drink without continually slapping the vermin from around their faces.

“Something I picked up in Macassar,” Osmo explained casually. “The climate there is similar in many ways.”

“And you, Astiban,” Sequero said. “Being a naturalist, I assume you are rapt with wonder at the wealth of creatures that crawl and flit about us on this continent.”

“There is much that is unfamiliar, it is true, Lord Sequero. With Ensign di Souza’s permission I have accompanied some of the hunting parties out into the jungle. I have seen tracks there belonging to creatures not seen in any bestiary of the Old World. On my own initiative, I explored the ground beyond our stockade for several hundred yards out into the forest. These tracks approach the fort, and mill about, and then retreat again. It is a pattern I have found a hundred times.”

“What are they doing, coming to have a look at us?” Fredric asked, amused.

“Yes, I think so. I think we are being closely watched, but by what exactly I cannot say.”

“Are you assigning a rationality to these unknown beasts?” Sequero asked, surprised.

“I do not know if I would go that far. But I am glad we have a stout palisade in place, and soldiers to man it. When the Governor returns from his expedition I am sure he will have learnt much of this continent, which may clarify my findings.”

The man sounded like a lecturing professor, Sequero thought irritably. But at least he seemed to think that the Governor would actually return. From the sidelong glances that Fredric and Osmo exchanged, it seemed they did not share his confidence.

Aloud, Sequero said, “We are pioneers. For us the risks are outweighed by the rewards.”

“A pioneer you may be, my lord,” Astiban said, “but we are refugees. For us it was a place on Captain Hawkwood’s ships, or an appointment with the pyre.”

“Quite. Well, we are all here now, and must make the best of it.”

A solitary gunshot cracked heavily through the thick night air, making them all start in their seats. Di Souza rose. “Sir, with your permission—”

“Yes, yes, Valdan, go and see. Another sentry firing at shadows, I presume.”

Then there was a great crashing boom that ripped the darkness apart, and the flash of a cannon firing from the palisade. Men were shouting out there in the darkness. Di Souza pelted off, snatching his sword from where it hung at the front of the veranda and disappearing. Deliberately, Sequero sipped his wine before his wide-eyed guests. “Gentlemen, I am afraid our dinner may well be cut short…”

Some unknown beast was bellowing in rage, and there was a flurry of shots, little saffron sparkles. Torches were being lit along the stockade, and someone began beating the ship’s bell that was their signall for a full alarm. Sequero rose and buckled on his sword-belt.

“You had best go to your families and make sure they are safe, but I want every able-bodied man on the palisade as soon as possible. Go now.”

He finished the last of the Gaderian in his glass as the three men hurried off. It would have been a pity to waste it. There was a regular battle going on out there. He set down the empty glass and strolled off the veranda towards the firing. Behind him, Osmo’s blue werelights sputtered and went out.

THREE

“W HAT is it?” Hawkwood asked, waking to find Bardolin standing listening to the night-time jungle.

“Something—some noise far off, towards the coast. Almost I thought it was a cannon firing.”

Hawkwood was wide awake in an instant and on his feet beside the wizard. “I knew we were close, but I didn’t think—”

“Hush! There it is again.”

This time they both heard it. “That’s a cannon all right,” Hawkwood breathed. “One of my culverins. Perhaps they brought them ashore. God’s blood, Bardolin, it can’t be more than a few miles away. We’re almost home.”

“
Home,”
Bardolin repeated thoughtfully. “But why are they firing cannon in the middle of the night, Hawkwood? Tell me that. I don’t think it means good news.”

They both sat down by the fire again. On the other side of the flames Murad lay like a corpse, mouth open, his face rippled with scar tissue.

“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Hawkwood said. “A few more miles, and it’s finished. We’ll board the
Osprey
and get the hell out of this stinking country. Breathe clean air again, feel the wind on our faces. Think of that, Bardolin. Think of it.”

The far-off gunfire continued for perhaps an hour, including one well-spaced salvo that sounded exactly like a ship’s broadside. After that there was silence again, but by that time Hawkwood had set up his primitive compass and taken a bearing on the sound so that in the morning they could march straight towards it. Then he fell asleep, exhausted.

Bardolin remained awake. They had long since given up the keeping of any kind of sentry, but as the weeks had drawn on he had found himself needing less and less sleep.

Their journey had been incredibly hard—indeed, it had come close to killing them. They had been transformed by it into matt-haired, sunken-eyed fanatics, whose only mission in life was to keep walking, who revered Hawkwood’s home-made compass as though it were the holiest relic, who scrabbled for every scrap of anything resembling food and wolfed it down like animals. All the patina of civilisation had been scraped away by day after day of back-breaking toil, and the filth and heat of the rainforest. Many times, they had decided they could go no further, and had become resigned to the idea of death—even inured to it. But odd things had saved them at those critical moments. The discovery of a stream of pure water, finding a freshly killed forest deer, or a medicinal herb which Hawkwood had recognised from his travells in Macassar. Somehow they had lurched from one lucky windfall to another, all the time keeping to the bearing that Hawkwood set for them every morning. And they were going to survive. Bardolin knew that—he had for a long time. But now he also knew why.