“I teeter on the abyss of common sense, whilst you fools dance arguments on the heads of pins. Can’t you see what is happening? Himerius realizes he is the impostor—the wrongly elected High Pontiff—so he strikes first, stamping his authority across the continent in fire and blood—”
“And rightly so,” said Haukir of Almark resoundingly. “It is time the Church governed with a strong hand. Macrobius, who is undoubtedly dead, was an old woman who let things slide. Himerius is the kind of man we need on the Pontifical throne: a man unafraid to act. A strong hand on the tiller.”
“Spare me the eulogy, cousin,” Abeleyn sneered. “Everyone knows that the Inceptines have had Almark in the pocket of their habits for years.”
Haukir went white. “Even kings have limits,” he said in an unusually subdued voice. “Even kings can transgress. Your words will condemn you, boy. Already the Church governs your capital. If you do not take care it will end up governing your kingdom and you will die an excommunicate.”
“I will die my own man then, and not a puppet of power-hungry Ravens!” Abeleyn cried.
The chamber went silent, the heads of state appalled at this exchange. The Fimbrians, however, looked only distantly interested, as if this were nothing to do with them.
“I will not obey the bulls of Himerius,” Abeleyn said in a calmer voice. “I do not recognize him as Pontiff, but call him impostor and usurper. The true Pontiff is Macrobius. I repudiate the authority of Charibon, based as it is on a falsehood, and I will not see my kingdom torn apart by avaricious murderers who happen to be in the guise of clerics!”
Cadamost started to speak, but Abeleyn quelled him with a look. He was on his feet now, and every eye in the room was turned to him. In the silence it was possible to hear the birds singing in the tallest of the trees that surrounded the palace towers.
“I hereby withdraw Hebrion from the company of Ramusian Kingdoms which recognize the Prelate Himerius as High Pontiff. His inhumane edicts I will ignore, his servants I will banish from my borders. I stand here and say to you: who else is with me in this thing? Who else recognizes Macrobius as the true head of the Church?”
There was a pause, and then Mark of Astarac stood up slowly, heavily. His reluctance was obvious, but he faced the other rulers squarely.
“Astarac is allied to Hebrion in this thing; Abeleyn is betrothed to my sister. I will stand by him. I also repudiate Himerius the usurper.”
A buzz of talk swept the room. It was silenced by the scraping of another chair on the beautifully ornate floor.
Lofantyr of Torunna was on his feet.
“Torunna has stood alone against the threat from the east. No succour have we had from any western state, and as Pontiff, Himerius has denied us the aid which is our right. I believe my general, Martellus the Lion of Ormann Dyke. Macrobius is alive and is Pontiff. I will stand with Hebrion and Astarac in this thing.”
That was all. No one else stood up, no one else spoke. The Ramusian Kingdoms were irrevocably split down the middle, and the continent possessed two High Pontiffs, perhaps two Churches. The air in the chamber was pregnant with foreboding, a sense of the destiny of the moment.
Cadamost cleared his throat and when he spoke was as hoarse as a crow, his singer’s voice crushed.
“I beg you, think of what you are doing. You lead three of the great kingdoms of the west. At a time when the enemy howls on our borders, we cannot afford to be riven apart like this. We cannot let the faith that sustains us be the weapon which cleaves our ranks apart.”
“You are Heretics, all three of you,” old Haukir said with scarcely concealed satisfaction. “No aid will you receive now, Lofantyr; you have signed the death warrant of your kingdom. And Hebrion and Astarac cannot stand alone against the other states of the west.”
Abeleyn looked at them as they sat there: kings, dukes and princes. Almark and Perigraine, Finnmark and Candelaria, Tarber and Gardiac, Touron and Fulk. Even Gabrion, long known for its tradition of independence. But what of the two men in black who sat silent in their midst? What of the Fimbrians?
“Do the electorates have anything to say about this, or will they follow the lead of others?” he asked.
Marshal Jonakait raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Fimbria has never recognized the authority of any power outside its borders, including that of the Pontiff. We too are a Ramusian country, and the Inceptines live and work within our borders, but the electors are not bound by the bulls or edicts of the head of the Church.”
Hope sprang up in Abeleyn. “Then your offer of troops still stands?”
Something like a smile crossed the marshal’s hard face and then was gone.
“We will not contribute soldiers to any fellow-Ramusian state which wars upon another, but we will make them available to fight the Merduks.”
Cadamost started up. “You cannot! You will be aiding heretics whose souls are as damned as the Merduks’ are!”
Jonakait shrugged. “Only in certain eyes. The struggle in the east takes precedence over all else in the eyes of our superiors. If others disagree, then they will have to make their arguments known and we will consider them. But no Fimbrian will be farmed out as a mercenary in a fratricidal religious war.”
“That is absurd!” Haukir cried. “Not long ago you were promising troops to whoever wanted them. What is that if not farming your soldiers out as mercenaries?”
“Each and every case will be considered on its merits. I can promise no more.”
The Fimbrians naturally could not commit themselves here and now. The west had split down the middle. In honour, the electorates would have to send troops to Lofantyr—he had already asked for them, Abeleyn knew that. But they would wait and see what happened before committing them anywhere else. No doubt the marshals were secretly hugging themselves with glee at the thought of a divided west, the Five Kingdoms at each other’s throats. It augured well for any Fimbrian attempt to reestablish the Hegemony she had lost centuries before. But for the moment, more important was the fact that Lofantyr would have his reinforcements—though they would have a long journey ahead of them were they not to traverse Perigraine to reach Ormann Dyke.
The gamble had paid off. Mark and Lofantyr had played their roles well, but then Abeleyn had had them well-rehearsed in the days following the news from Charibon.
Haukir glared at the three renegade monarchs.
“I will personally see that the High Pontiff excommunicates you, and it will mean war—Ramusian versus Ramusian. May God forgive you for what you have done this day.”
Abeleyn leaned forward on to the table. His eyes were like two black holes.
“What we have done today is lift our heads out of the Inceptine yoke that has been tightening on the throat of every land in the west for decades. We have delivered our kingdoms from the terror of the pyre.”
“You have plunged the west into war at a time when she is already fighting for her life,” Cadamost said.
“No,” Lofantyr told him hotly. “Torunna is fighting for her life. My kingdom, my people—we are the ones who are dying on the frontier. You here know nothing of what we have suffered, and you have cared less. The true Pontiff resides in Ormann Dyke at the heart of the struggle to defend the west. He is not sitting in Charibon issuing edicts that will send thousands to the pyre. I tell you this: before I am done, I will see this Himerius burned on the same pyre he has already burned so many innocents upon.”
There was a shocked stillness. The men sitting at the table had an air of disbelief about them, as though they could not quite credit what they had heard.
“Leave this city,” Cadamost said finally, his face white as paper and his eyes two red-limned orbs. “Leave it as kings in due state, for once Charibon hears of this you will be beyond the Church and every right-thinking man’s hand will be turned against you. Your anointed right to rule will be stripped from you and your kingdoms declared outlaw states. No orthodox ruler need fear retribution if he invades your borders. Our faces are turned against you. Go.”
The three kings left their places and stood together. Before they started for the door, Abeleyn turned round one last time.
“It is Himerius we defy. We harbour no ill-will towards any other state or ruler—”
Haukir snorted derisively.
“—but if any seek to injure us without good cause, then I swear this to all of you: our armies will seek redress in the blood of your subjects, our fleets will make unending infernos of your coasts and we will show less pity to our foes than the blackest Merduk sultan. You will rue the day and hour you crossed swords with Hebrion, or Astarac, or Torunna. And so, gentlemen, we bid you good day.”
The three young men, all kings, turned and left the chamber together. In the silence that followed, the Himerian kings, as they would come to be known, stared at the round table which had witnessed their conclave and the dissolution of the Five Kingdoms. The path of history had been set; all they could do now was follow it and pray to God and the blessed Ramusio for guidance on their journey.
T HE north-easter stayed with them, as steady and as welcome as the Hebrian trade. Hawkwood could feel the constant thrumming of its power on the ship as though it were acting on the marrow of his very bones. The Osprey was alive, afloat, running before the wind. His mind relaxed and wandered off to that other place once more.
H E was a boy again, at sea for the first time on the clumsy caravel which had been the first Hawkwood-owned ship. His father was there, shouting obscenities at the straining seamen, and the white spray was coming aboard in packets as the vessel ran before the wind on the peridot-green swells of the Levangore. If he looked aft he could see the pale, dust-coloured coast of Gabrion with the darker rises of forests among the inland hills; and to larboard were the first islands of the Malacar Archipelago, floating like insubstantial ghosts in the haze of heat that had settled on the horizon.
Up and down, up and down the bow of the caravel went, the green waves like shimmering walls looming up and retreating again, the gulls screeching and calling and dropping guano over the deck, the rigging straining and creaking in time to the working timbers of the ship, and the blessed wind they had harnessed bellying out the booming and flapping sails.
This, he had thought, is the sea. And he had never questioned his right to be on it; rather he had welcomed his craft as a man would his wife.
H AWKWOOD could not move. He was drenched in sweat and as immobile as a marble caryatid. There was an unfamiliar smell in his nostrils. Burning.
A vast shudder as the ships came together, their hulls crunching and colliding.
“Fire!” Hawkwood yelled, and along the deck the men whipped the smoking slow-match across the touch-holes of the guns. Like a rippling thunder they exploded in sequence, leaping back on their carriages like startled bulls. There was an enormous noise, unlike any other. Louder than a storm-surf striking a rocky shore or a tempest in the heights of the Hebros. The whole starboard side of the ship disappeared in smoke and fire. Only men’s screams and the shrieking of the blasted timbers carried above the roar.
The corsairs fired their own broadside, the muzzles of their culverins touching the very side of the carrack. They elevated the muzzles so the shot plunged upwards through the deck. The air exploded, became full of jagged shards of wood which ripped men apart, flung them clear across the deck or tossed them overboard like gutted fish. Hawkwood clambered on to the starboard quarterdeck rail and raised the heavy cutlass above his head. “Now, lads, at them. Boarding parties away!”
And then he leapt on to the crowded slaughterhouse of the enemy ship.
“R ICHARD!’ she cried as he pushed into her, expending himself, driving her backbone into the stuffed softness of the bed. The sweat dripped off his face to land on her collar-bone and trickled between her breasts. Jemilla grinned fiercely up at him, her body answering his, struggling against him. The sweat was a slick glue between them so their skins sucked and slid as they moved together and apart, like a ship breasting a heavy swell, the keel burying itself in each wave.
B UT the heat. His body was on fire, lying in a pool of liquid metal, every movement a torment, every pore oozing his life’s fluid. The heat squeezed the water out of him until he was as dry and withered as the salted fish they had barrelled in the hold. If he moved he would crackle and creak and break apart into fragments as fine and desiccated as ash.