It was a hollow feast. The King was not present, having pleaded some indisposition-hardly surprisingly-but Corfe sat at the right hand of the Queen Dowager as she managed small-talk with their neighbours and contrived to make Corfe feel part of conversations he contributed no word to. Everyone seemed intent on becoming roaring drunk and the din of the massed diners was unbelievable, though Corfe’s own ears were still ringing from the thunder of the North More battle. His ribs, too, ached from the sword blow they had taken during the fighting.
Andruw was in tearing spirits, flirting outrageously with two pretty duke’s daughters who sat opposite, and tossing back the good wine like a man unaware of what he was doing. Marsch was there also, utterly ill-at-ease and answering everyone in monosyllables. He seemed staring sober, though the sweat was streaming down his face and he had tugged his lace collar awry. Two seats down from him was Ensign Ebro, who was already drunk and leering and regaling his neighbours with gory tales of slaughtering Merduks. And the Fimbrian, Formio, sat like a mourner at a wake, drinking water, being carefully polite. The diners around him-a bluff Torunnan staff officer and a minor noble and their wives-were obviously plying him with questions. He did not seem particularly responsive. His eyes met Corfe’s, and he nodded unsmilingly.
Martellus and the greater part of the Ormann Dyke garrison, the finest army left to the country, lay dead and unburied to the north. The wolves would be feasting on their bodies, a mid-winter windfall. Laid beside them, close as brothers, were three thousand of Formio’s countrymen and his commander. And the city celebrated as though a victory had been won, a crisis averted. Corfe had never felt such a fraud in his life. But he was not an idealistic fool. Once he might have torn off this general’s braid and raged at the crowd. Before Aekir, perhaps. But now he knew better. He had rank and he would use it. And he had a command with which something might yet be accomplished.
He thought he fathomed the frenzied gaiety of the assembled diners. It was a last fling, a defiance of the gathering dark. He had seen its like before. In Aekir, as the Merduks began to surround the city, many noblemen had staged banquets such as this, and seen out the night in torrents of wine, processions of dancing girls. And in the morning they had taken up their stations on the walls. What had Corfe done, the day the siege began? Oh, yes. That night was the last time he had slept in the same bed as his wife. The last time he had made love to her. After that there was no more time left. She had brought him his meals as he paced the battlements, snatched previous minutes with him. Until the end.
“You’re drunk, Corfe!” Andruw cried gaily. “Lady”-this to the Queen Dowager-“you’d best keep one eye on the general. I know his fondness for wine.”
He was indeed drunk. Silent, brooding drunk. There was no joy left for him in wine; it merely brought the pain of the past floating in front of his eyes, all new and raw and glistening again. He felt the Queen Dowager’s knee press against his under the table. “Are you all right, General?” she whispered.
“Never better, lady,” he told her. “A fine gathering, indeed. I must thank you for it-for everything.”
He turned his head and met her eyes, those perilous green depths, like sunlight on a shallow sea. So beautiful, and she had done so much for him. Why? What payment would be required of him in the end?
“You must excuse me, lady. I am unwell,” he said thickly.
She did not seem surprised, and clapped her hands for the serving attendants. “The general is taken poorly. See him to his quarters.”
He rid himself of their ministrations as soon as he was out of the hall, and staggered on alone through the dimly lit palace, the sound of the banquet a golden roar behind him. His shoulder brushed the wall as he wove along. It was cold out here after the stuffiness of the close-packed crowd, and his head cleared a little. Why the hell had he drunk such a lot of the damned stuff? There was so much to do tomorrow, no time to nurse a blasted hangover.
His mind was too blurred to hear the soft footfalls behind him.
The parade ground before the palace. He stepped out into the star-bright night and stood looking up at the wheeling glitter of the sky. There were rows of massively designed buildings on both sides of the square, but most of their windows were dark. His men were quartered within, tribesmen and Torunnans and Fimbrians. No revelry there. They were too tired. They had seen too much. He would give them a few days to rest and refit, and then he would have to begin hammering these disparate elements into an organic whole, a close-knit organization.
Footsteps behind him, louder. He turned. “Andruw?”
And saw a dark shape lunging, the quicksilver flash of the knife. He twisted aside, and instead of slashing his throat it sliced open his right shoulder. The pain lit up his mind, burning away the wine fumes. He threw himself backwards as the blade came hissing towards his face, tripped and fell heavily on to his back. His attacker came at him again, and Corfe managed to plant a boot in his midriff and kick him away. He rolled, his cracked ribs screaming at him, his right arm weakening as the blood streamed out black in the starlight. But before he regained his feet another shape appeared. It piled silently into his attacker. There was a flurry of movement, too fast to follow in the darkness, and a grisly crack of bone. A body fell to the cobbles of the parade ground and the newcomer bent over him.
“General, are you much hurt?”
He was helped to his feet, his arm dangling stiff and useless. “Formio! By the Saint, that was timely. Let me have a look at the bastard.”
They dragged the body inside and examined it. It wore a black woollen mask with slits for eyes and nose. Ripping it off they saw the swarthy face below, eyes wide with surprise. An easterner, perhaps Merduk. His neck was broken.
“I’ll see the guard is turned out,” the Fimbrian said. “There may be more of them. This man was a professional.”
“How did you come to be here?” Corfe asked. He felt light-headed with loss of blood and the singing adrenalin of the struggle.
“I followed you. I am not a great lover of formal dinners either, and I wanted to talk…” He trailed off, seeming almost embarrassed.
“Lucky for me. He’d have cut my throat, else. An assassin, by God. The Sultan has a long arm.”
“If it was the Sultan. Not all your enemies are beyond the walls. Come, we need to get that shoulder dressed.”
• • •
The inevitable uproar as the guard turned out and the palace was scoured room by room for other assassins. The Queen Dowager was informed and at once had Corfe conveyed to her personal apartments, but those at the banquet feasted on into the night, unaware of the goings-on.
“I should be at your side permanently,” Odelia told Corfe as the wound in his shoulder closed under her hands and the faint ozone smell of the Dweomer filled the room. “That way you would get into less trouble. Where have you stowed the body?”
“Formio had it thrown into the river.”
“A pity. I should like to have examined it. A Merduk, you say?”
“An easterner of some sort or other. Lady, I wish we had a dozen folk with your skills in the army. Our wounded would bless their names.” Corfe moved his right arm experimentally and found it slightly stiff, but otherwise hale. A tiny scar remained, that was all, though the assassin’s knife had laid bare the bone.
“You would have trouble finding them,” she said. “The Dweomer-folk grow fewer every year. It is a decade since we even had a true mage at court here in Torunna. Golophin of Hebrion is the only one I know of who remains in the public eye. The rest have gone into hiding.”