The Duke turned to the Castellan. ‘I can pay two years’ salaries,’ he said.
Lord Phokus bowed. ‘My lord, I would say that would dissipate any – ahem – hard feeling.’
The Duke inclined his head. ‘Just so that we understand each other,’ he said, ‘I expect that once paid, your troops will remain loyal. Or put it another way – once bought, they should stay bought.’
The Castellan’s cheeks burned. ‘My lord,’ he said, his words clipped.
The Duke nodded. ‘I know it is crass to discuss such things. But Lord Phokus, I will execute – quite publicly – any of my soldiers who commits a crime in the streets of this town. So please have your men think on how I will treat a garrison who takes my wages and betrays me.’
‘You, or the Emperor?’ Phokus asked.
‘A fair question. The Emperor, naturally. But as I am now the Duke of Thrake, you may be saddled with me for some years.’ The Duke sipped his wine. ‘Is our mutual friend joining us?’
‘I don’t know – will you bully me, too?’ asked a plainly dressed man. He was smaller than the Duke and had dark hair and dark eyes and most men ignored him. Ser Ranald, on the other hand, plucked Mag’s sleeve and pointed, and her eyes widened.
The Duke bowed. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I mean no bullying.’
The nondescript man smiled. ‘I trust you found all your food.’
The Duke nodded again. ‘It was beyond splendid, sir.’
‘Lord Phokus has his own issues with the former Duke of Thrake and does not need to be threatened into this alliance. Likewise, Lord Phokus, Ser Gabriel here threatens you only because he is tired, and not because he is one of nature’s bullies. He has, in fact, worked surprisingly hard for the restoration of the Emperor. Where is Thomas Lachlan?’
Bad Tom came forward with Ranald at his side.
‘Do you recognise me, Thomas?’ asked the man.
‘Aye. I’d know you whatever skin you wore.’ Tom towered over the smaller man, and nonetheless didn’t seem the bigger man.
‘I have a private solar for our ease,’ said Lord Phokus.
‘Then let us retire,’ the Duke said. He took Lord Phokus’s arm. ‘I apologise if I laid it on too thick.’
Phokus smiled a crooked smile. ‘I ask myself every hour if I have indeed sold this castle to you. It is painful to be reminded of it.’ He shrugged. ‘But my men need to be paid. The whole town depends on their wages.’
They went through a door to a low room with a ceiling worked in dark blue paint and bright gold stars, with tapestries of hunting along one wall and nine worthy women along the other wall. Father Arnaud joined them, and Mag, and Ser Gavin.
Toby slipped through the door and put a cup of something on the table in front of their guest, who took the head of the table. He lifted it and tasted.
‘Ah – cider. Well chosen, Toby.’
Toby flushed and all but ran from the room.
‘Call me Master Smythe,’ said the nondescript man. ‘Listen, friends. I am here only briefly. Tom, I have looked into your matter.’ Master Smythe spread his hands wide, and then folded them together – an inhuman gesture, as his steepled fingers met the way an artist might draw them, folded perfectly flat and pointing straight at heaven.
In fact, watching Master Smythe was a little liking watching a puppet show.
‘In brief, then. Hector – the Drover – was killed by Sossag Outwallers. They were, at the time, in the service of the entity who now calls himself Thorn and was formerly the magister Richard Plangere. But my investigations have shown that Thorn himself is merely the tool of one of my kind.’
Tom smiled, although the smile never reached his eyes. ‘Lovely, then. Show me to the bastard.’
Master Smythe shook his head. ‘It is a great deal more complicated than that, Tom.’ He sighed. ‘I think one of my kin has decided to break a certain compact that our kind has made. That is all I will say just now. Even saying this much – that my kind have a compact with some of yours, and that this compact is threatened – forces me to take sides in this matter.’
Smoke trickled out of Master Smythe’s nose.
The Duke nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Master Smythe, but please remember that we are not at fault,’
Smythe looked down the table. ‘I was going to say that no one is innocent. But that is the merest casuistry, and we’re better than that. So I will say that I have taken certain precautions. Gabriel, you have done well, but you will need to push your timetable forward. Tom, I know that you mislike me but I must ask you to follow me west and take up the duties of Drover. Lord Phokus, your help was, and will remain, instrumental – Ser Gabriel will need to be able to move east and west on this road for more than a year to come, and this fortress may become the focus of several armies. Which, despite their very different agendas, are being moved by a single will. Gabriel, I have brought you some interesting materiel. Use it wisely. My friends – when I must finally tip my hand I will come under attack, and then things will become very difficult. I apologise for all of the ambiguity and the cloak and dagger, but if I show my hand early the consequences would be most dire.’
The Duke laughed. ‘And they accuse me of having a flair for the dramatic. Master Smythe, what kind of consequences are you thinking of?’
Master Smythe raised his eyebrows. ‘The extermination of humankind in this sphere,’ he said. He smiled, and his eyes locked with the Duke’s. ‘Are those stakes high enough to interest you, Gabriel?’
The Duke nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good. Because, while we are, in every possible way, the underdog, the enemy has no idea who you are. Or what I can do.’ Master Smythe nodded, and his smile was as natural as his hand gestures were false. ‘It is exciting to have a true adversary after aeons of neutrality. It will require one of your God’s miracles for us to triumph.’ He nodded. ‘But I have always found that it is far more entertaining to be the underdog. There is more honour if you triumph, and no censure if you fail.’
‘Not my God,’ the Duke said, somewhat automatically.
Father Arnaud snorted. And Mag nodded.
And Harmodius said, Ahh. How I feared this.
The Sacred Island – Kevin Orley and Thorn
Orley had ordered a castle built, and instead he had a series of sheds, each fouler than the last. The young men who followed him – a growing number – lacked the inclination to build in hardwood, or to rig latrines or shingle a roof properly. He could terrify them, but he had a hard time motivating them unless there was a town to plunder. They had dead eyes and preferred raw violence to any semblance of discipline.
The sheds angered him every day.
He had more than three hundred warriors, now, who ranged in age from eleven to seventeen. A few of the older boys were fully trained warriors, and whenever he had the spirit to rouse himself from the fire, he made the older men take the boys out in the snow where he drilled them as Southern soldiers were drilled. From Nepan’ha he had crossbows, and he begged Thorn for bolts until the sorcerer made him so many that he could have used them as tent stakes – a massive outpouring of the sorcerer’s power, but one that allowed Orley to turn his least useful boys into silent killers.
He made them build a long shed for target practice, and another in which to sleep, and every time he had fifty more boys, he forced them to build another shed.
He wanted to dig a well, but in the end he had to settle for water brought from the sacred lake. That made all the boys afraid, for a while. But familiarity bred contempt so they drank the sacred water every day, fought among themselves, and the results were brutal.
There were girls as well as boys among his recruits, and they were used regularly and none kindled – some dark magery, no doubt, but nothing that Orley needed to concern himself with, although their blank eyes and lank hair felt like accusations every day. They didn’t scream, and they didn’t complain any more than the rest of his child soldiers, and he went among them like a war god, ordered them to train, to wash, to strip, to dress . . . and eventually they obeyed. The older boys seldom obeyed unless he killed one of them.