The company – with a hundred Morean shipwrights and labourers – had built three heavy galleys in a week – or rather, the new ships were framed on the quays, waiting for the long work of nailing planks. The planks had to be adzed to shape, and the trees had to be felled before that, and it seemed that Andronicus, the former Duke of Thrake, controlled most of the long, straight spruce and oak in Morea. Ser Jehan took twenty men-at-arms and as many archers into the hills with orders to fetch in enough lumber to complete ten row-galleys. He went with good grace. The second day after he left, he sent a report of an attempted ambush.
In the city, Tom chased phantoms.
Every archer received a handbill written out carefully by a scribe who’d never read Alban, announcing that every man who deserted from the company would receive fifty gold nobles and a free pass to Alba – or higher wages in the armies of the true Duke of Thrake, fighting for the true Emperor.
Whoever had written the handbills had mistaken the archers for men who cared which side was in the right. A great deal of ink had been spent on describing the Princess Irene as a scheming usurper and Duke Andronicus as a loyal supporter of the Emperor.
Bad Tom sat in his ‘office’, a table in the guardroom where the senior officers stood watches, and read it carefully. Across the table, Cully sat with his hands folded.
‘Cap’n – which I mean the Duke – won’t think I want to run, would he?’ Cully asked. The Captain’s temper had been sour since they left Lissen Carrak and now verged on poisonous.
Bad Tom shrugged. ‘If he does, he’s fucked in the head. Where would you go? Who’d take you?’
Cully struggled to decide whether he should defend his status as a master archer or his loyalty.
Tom threw the bill back at him. ‘Anyone tempted?’ he asked. Long Paw had brought him the same bill, and now sat with his feet up.
Long Paw made a face. ‘There’s the usual awkward sods. We don’t have enough choir boys, that much I can tell ye. And skipping a pay parade – well that started some mutters.’ Long Paw had a low, gravelly voice that utterly belied his gentle nature and correctly warned the listener of his danger, too. He cleared his throat – half of them had colds. ‘No one will run now. Miss two or three more pay days; someone will run then.’
Bad Tom nodded his agreement.
Bent came in to the guardroom, spoke briefly to the officer of the day, Ser George Brewes, who sat with his armoured feet on a table and drank wine. Brewes was, in many ways, the worst soldier imaginable – he was a terrible example and he was bad for discipline.
The men loved him, so he got away with it.
Bent tossed a casual salute to Ser George and came up to Bad Tom’s table. He reached into the breast of his doublet and withdrew a crumpled handbill.
Bad Tom passed his eyes over it and nodded. ‘Sit,’ he muttered. ‘How would you three like to desert?’
Bent narrowed his eyes. ‘They’d never buy it. We’re master archers. Well, some of us are.’ Bent shot a glance at Cully, who rolled his eyes.
Bad Tom sighed. ‘I need to get a more private place to meet. For the nonce, I am assuming that everyone in the company is reliable. But listen. Whoever’s up to this ain’t ten feet tall. They think we care whose side we’re on. They don’t know us. Stands to reason we can feed them a few archers.’
Bent flexed his hands.
Long Paw studied his nails the way a woman might. ‘What’s in it for us?’ he asked.
‘A good fight?’ asked Bad Tom. ‘Money?’ he tried.
All three men brightened up.
‘Shares? Man-at-arm’s shares?’ Long Paw leaned forward.
Tom rolled his eyes. ‘As long as you three realise I’ve never made one thin clipped silver leopard from my share.’
They all four shook hands on it.
Long Paw went to the taverna that was listed on his handbill. He was the only archer who spoke the Morean version of Archaic, and he dressed in a heavy linen overshirt and a broad straw hat and walked all the way around the city – outside the walls – to enter at the Vardariot gate driving a small pig.
Either his disguise was excellent or no one was watching him. He scouted the taverna, behind the Academy and in a seedy slum of small tenements and three-storey stuccoed houses with flat roofs, and returned without incident.
When he came back, the whole company was turned out in armour, standing at attention in the Outer Court. Bad Tom had already taken twenty lances to the Navy Yard.
Someone had torched their new ships on the stocks, and someone else had poisoned a great many of the company’s horses.
The Captain – whose beautiful new horse was dead – walked up and down in front of his company, obviously deep in rage.
Long Paw slipped into the guardroom. Wilful Murder was the duty archer – he was leaning in the doorway of the guardroom watching the fun.
‘Christ on the cross – you’ll catch it,’ Wilful said. He was delighted to see someone so senior as Long Paw so deeply in the shit.
‘Heh,’ Long Paw grunted. ‘What’s the Cap’n on about?’
‘We turned out for the alarm, and there ain’t forty horses fit to ride. Turns out he ordered the stables guarded, but they weren’t. Ser Jehan ain’t here to say one way or another, see?’ Wilful shook his head. ‘Ser Milus said – right on parade, in front of everybody – that the Cap’n clean forgot to order the stables guarded.’
Long Paw grunted, slipped into the barracks and had a nap.
The next day, a maid, one of the Princess Irene’s servants and a pretty thing already chased by half a dozen Scholae, two Nordikans, and Francis Atcourt, died of poison in the palace kitchen. Bad Tom ran through the palace to get to her corpse as soon as he heard, but by the time he reached the kitchens she had been taken for burial and all of the people who might have had something to say were gone to their duties.
He did find Harald Derkensun and his pretty whore Anna. The two men clasped arms. They spoke briefly, and Anna nodded several times.
That night Bad Tom reported to his Captain, who had lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes and was sitting drinking wine with Ser Milus, who looked as bad or worse.
‘Sorry, Captain – er, my lord Duke.’ Bad Tom paused in the doorway of the Captain’s outer office.
Ser Milus rose stiffly. ‘I should go,’ he said.
‘You can hear anything Tom has to say. Milus – I’m sorry. My temper got the best of me.’ The Duke put a hand on his standard bearer’s shoulder, but the older knight simply bowed and withdrew – gracefully enough that it was hard to see if he was angry or not.
‘You must hae’ cocked up proper. Ne’er heard you speak so small to any man.’ Tom grinned.
‘I was an arse of the first water, and the worst of it, Tom, is that I feel as if I’m losing my mind. Nay – forget I said that. Anything saved on the docks?’ The Duke mixed something into his wine with the tip of his fighting knife.
‘Master Aeneas thinks we can save one hull out of the three,’ Tom said. ‘I doubled the guard and put him to it. For what it’s worth, I accept that it’s my fault and ye can do as ye like.’
There was a silence.
‘Well, I accept that it was my fault too, so we can both sulk together. You won’t be rid of this job so easily.’ The Duke tossed off a cup of wine.
‘Ye’r drinking hard these days.’ Tom poured some for himself. Toby was making himself scarce – he looked like he was going to have a prime black eye, too.
‘Yes, well, some days it is like I have a fucking voice inside my head and I’m never alone! ’ He spat.
Tom laughed. ‘Nah, that’s just Sauce.’
The Captain spat out some of his wine. ‘You make me laugh, Tom,’ he said. ‘I wonder if that means I’ve lost my mind.’
‘Like eno,’ said Tom. ‘Listen, Cap’n – I’d like to send Bent and Cully to pretend to be deserters. Long Paw will cover them.’