The more junior officers about the table eyed each other a little askance, wondering who the lucky man would be.
“Colonel Cear-Inaf, I have decided to give you the command,” the King said briskly.
Corfe was jerked out of his reverie. “What?”
The King paused, and then stated in a harder voice: “I said, Colonel, that I am giving you this command.”
All eyes were on Corfe. He was both astonished and dismayed. A command that would take him south, away from the dyke? He did not want it.
But could not refuse it. This, then, was what the Queen Dowager had been referring to earlier. This was her doing.
Corfe bowed deeply whilst his mind fought free of its turmoil.
“Your majesty is very gracious. I only hope that I can justify your faith in my abilities.”
Lofantyr seemed mollified, but there was something in his regard that Corfe did not like, a covert amusement, perhaps.
“Your troop awaits you in the Northern Marshalling Yard, Colonel. And you shall have an aide, of course. Ensign Ebro will be joining you—”
Corfe found Ebro at his side, bowing stiffly, his face a mask. Clearly, this was not a post he had coveted.
“—And I shall see what I can do about releasing a few more officers to you.”
“My thanks, your majesty. Might I enquire as to my orders?”
“They will be forwarded to you in due course. For now I suggest, Colonel, that you and your new aide acquaint yourselves with your command.”
Another pause. Corfe bowed yet again and turned and left the chamber with Ebro close behind him.
As soon as they were outside, striding along the palace corridors, Corfe reached up and savagely ripped the lace ruff from his throat, flinging it aside.
“Lead me to this Northern Marshalling Yard,” he snapped to his aide. “I’ve never heard of it.”
N O one had, it seemed. They scoured the barracks and armouries in the northern portion of the city, but none of the assorted quartermasters, sergeants and ensigns they spoke to had heard of it. Corfe was beginning to believe that it was all a monstrous joke when a fawning clerk in one of the city arsenals told them that there had been a draft of men brought in only the day before who were bivouacked in one of the city squares close to the northern wall; that might be their goal.
They set off on foot, Corfe’s shiny buckled shoes becoming spattered with the filth of the winter streets. Ebro followed him in dumb misery, picking his way through the puddles and mudslimed cobbles. It began to rain, and his court finery took on a resemblance to the sodden plumage of a brilliant bird. Corfe was grimly satisfied by the transformation.
They emerged at last from the stinking press and crowd of the streets into a wide open space surrounded on all sides by timber-framed buildings. Beyond, the sombre heights of the battlemented city walls loomed like a hillside in the rain-cloud. Corfe wiped water out of his eyes, hardly able to credit what he saw.
“This can’t be it—this cannot be them!” Ebro sputtered. But Corfe was suddenly sure it was, and he realized that the joke was indeed on him.
Torunnan sentries paced the edges of the square with halberds resting on their shoulders. In the shop doorways all around arquebusiers stood yawning, keeping their weapons and powder out of the rain. As Corfe and Ebro appeared, a young ensign with a muddy cloak about his shoulders approached them, saluting as soon as he caught sight of the badge on Corfe’s absurd little breastplate.
“Good day, sir. Might you be Colonel Cear-Inaf, by any chance?”
Corfe’s heart sank. There was no mistake then.
“I am, Ensign. What is this we have here?”
The officer glanced back to the scene in the square. The open space was full of men, five hundred of them, perhaps. They were seated in crowds on the filthy cobbles as though battered down by the chill rain. They were in rags, and collectively they stank to high heaven. There were manacles about every ankle, and their faces were obscured by wild tangles of matted hair.
“Half a thousand galley slaves from the Royal fleet,” the ensign said cheerily. “Tribesmen from the Felimbri, most of them, worshippers of the Horned One. Black-hearted devils, they are. I’d mind your back, sir, when you’re near them. They tried to brain one of my men last night and we had to shoot a couple.”
A dull anger began to rise in Corfe.
“This cannot be right, sir. We must be mistaken. The King must be in jest,” Ebro was protesting.
“I don’t think so,” Corfe murmured. He stared at the packed throng of miserable humanity in the square. Many of them were staring back, glowering at him from under thatches of verminous hair. The men were brawny, well-muscled, as might be expected of galley slaves, but their skin was a sodden white, and many of them were coughing. A few had lain down on their sides, oblivious to the stone cobbles, the pouring rain.
So this was his first independent command. A crowd of mutinous slaves from the savage tribes of the interior. For a moment Corfe considered returning to the palace and refusing the command. The Queen Dowager had obtained the position for him, but clearly Lofantyr had resented her interference. He was supposed to refuse it, Corfe realized. And when he did, there would never be another. That decided him.
He stepped forward. “Are there any among you who can speak for the rest, in Normannic?”
The men muttered amongst themselves, and finally one rose and shuffled to the fore, his chains clinking.
“I speak your tongue, Torunnan.”
He was huge, with hands as wide as dinner plates and the scars of old lashings about his limbs. His tawny beard fell on to his chest but two bright blue eyes glinted out of the brutish face and met Corfe’s stare squarely.
“What’s your name?” Corfe asked him.
“I am called the Eagle in my own tongue. You would say my name was Marsch.”
“Can you speak for your fellows, Marsch?”
The slave shrugged his massive shoulders. “Perhaps.”
“Do you know why you were taken from the galleys?”
“No.”
“Then I will tell you. And you will translate what I say to your comrades, without misinterpretation. Is that clear?”
Marsch glared at him, but he was obviously curious. “All right.”
“All right, sir,” Ebro hissed at him, but Corfe held up a hand. He pitched his voice to carry across the square.
“You are no longer slaves of the Torunnan state,” he called out. “From this moment on you are free men.” That caused a stir, when Marsch had translated it, a lifting of the apathy. But there was no lessening of the mistrust in the eyes which were fixed on him. Corfe ground on.
“But that does not yet mean that you are free to do as you please. I am Corfe. From this moment on you will obey me as you would one of your own chieftains, for it is I who have procured your freedom. You are tribesmen of the Cimbrics. You were once warriors, and now you have the chance to be so again, but only under my command.”
Marsch’s deep voice was following Corfe’s in the guttural language of the mountain tribes. His eyes never left Corfe’s face.
“I need soldiers, and you are what I have been given. You are not to fight your own peoples, but are to battle Torunnans and Merduks. I give you my word on that. Serve me faithfully, and you will have honour and employment. Betray me, and you will be killed out of hand. I do not care which God you worship or which tongue you speak as long as you fight for me. Obey my orders, and I will see that you are treated like warriors. Any who do not choose to do so can go back to the galleys.”
Marsch finished translating, and the square was filled with low talk.
“Sir,” Ebro said urgently, “no one gave you authority to free these men.”
“They are my men,” Corfe growled. “I will not be a general of slaves.”
Marsch had heard the exchange. He clinked forward until he was towering over Corfe.
“You mean what you say, Torunnan?”
“I would not have said it otherwise.”