‘How dare he?’
‘Before the end of the season?’ frothed Mitterick. ‘He is quite mad!’
‘Ridiculous!’ snapped Felnigg. ‘Ridiculous!’
‘Bloody politicians!’
But Gorst had a smile, and not just at the dismay of Mitterick and the rest. Now they would have to seek battle. And whatever they came for, I came to fight.
Kroy brought his fractious officers to order by banging at the table with his stick. ‘Gentlemen, please! The Closed Council have spoken, and so the king has spoken, and we can only strive to obey. We are but the masons, after all.’ He turned towards the map as the room quieted, eyes running over the roads, the hills, the rivers of the North. ‘I fear we must abandon caution and concentrate the army for a concerted push northwards. Dogman?’
The Northman stepped up to the table and snapped out a vibrating salute. ‘Marshal Kroy, sir!’ A joke, of course, since he was an ally rather than an underling.
‘If we march for Carleon in force, is it likely that Black Dow will finally offer battle?’
The Dogman rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. ‘Maybe. He ain’t the most patient. Looks bad for him, letting you tramp all over his back yard these past few months. But he’s always been an unpredictable bastard, Black Dow.’ He had a bitter look on his face for a moment, as if remembering something painful. ‘One thing I can tell you, if he decides on battle he won’t offer nothing. He’ll ram it right up your arse. Still, it’s worth a try.’ Dogman grinned around the officers. ‘’Specially if you like it up your arse.’
‘Not my first choice, but they say a general should be prepared for anything.’ Kroy traced a road to its junction, then tapped at the paper. ‘What is this town?’
The Dogman leaned over the table to squint at the map, considerably inconveniencing a pair of unhappy staff officers and giving the impression of not caring in the least. ‘That’s Osrung. Old town, set in fields, with a bridge and a mill, might have, what … three or four hundred people in peacetime? Some stone buildings, more wood. High fence around the outside. Used to have a damn fine tavern but, you know, nothing’s how it used to be.’
‘And this hill? Near where the roads from Ollensand and Uffrith meet?’
‘The Heroes.’
‘Odd name for a hill,’ grunted Mitterick.
‘Named after a ring of old stones on top. Some warriors of ancient days are buried beneath ’em, or that’s one rumour, anyway. You get quite a view from up there. I sent a dozen to have a look-see the other day, in fact, check if any of Dow’s boys have shown their faces.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing yet, but no reason there should be. There’s help nearby, if they get pressed.’
‘That’s the spot, then.’ Kroy craned closer to the map, pressing the point of his stick into that hill as though he could will the army there. ‘The Heroes. Felnigg?’
‘Sir?’
‘Send word to Lord Governor Meed to abandon the siege of Ollensand and march with all haste to meet us near Osrung.’
That got a few sharp in-breaths. ‘Meed will be furious,’ said Mitterick.
‘He often is. That cannot be helped.’
‘I’ll be heading back that way,’ said Dogman. ‘Meet up with the rest o’ my boys and get ’em moving north. I can take the message.’
‘It might be better if Colonel Felnigg carries it personally. Lord Governor Meed is … not the greatest admirer of Northmen.’
‘Unlike the rest of you, eh?’ The Dogman showed the Union’s finest a mouthful of sharp yellow teeth. ‘I’ll make a move, then. With any luck I’ll see you up the Heroes in what … three days? Four?’
‘Five, if this weather gets no better.’
‘This is the North. Let’s call it five.’ And he followed Bayaz out of the low sitting room.
‘Well, it might not be the way we wanted it.’ Mitterick smashed a meaty fist into a meaty palm. ‘But we can show them something, now, eh? Get those skulking bastards out in the open and show them something!’ The legs of his chair shrieked as he stood. ‘I will hurry my division along. We should make a night march, Lord Marshal! Get at the enemy!’
‘No.’ Kroy was already sitting at his desk and dipping pen in ink to write orders. ‘Halt them for the night. On these roads, in this weather, haste will do more harm than good.’
‘But, Lord Marshal, if we—’
‘I intend to rush, General, but not headlong into a defeat. We must not push the men too hard. They need to be ready.’
Mitterick jerked up his gloves. ‘Damn these damn roads!’ Gorst stood aside to let him and his staff file from the room, silently wishing he was ushering them through into a bottomless pit.
Kroy raised his brows as he wrote. ‘Sensible men … run away … from battles.’ His pen scratched neatly across the paper. ‘Someone will need to take this order to General Jalenhorm. To move with all haste to the Heroes and secure the hill, the town of Osrung, and any other crossings of the river that—’
Gorst stepped forwards. ‘I will take it.’ If there was to be action, Jalenhorm’s division would be first into it. And I will be at the front of the front rank. I will not bury the ghosts of Sipani in a headquarters.
‘There is no one I would rather entrust it to.’ Gorst grasped the order but the marshal did not release it at once. He remained looking calmly up, the folded paper a bridge between them. ‘Remember, though, that you are the king’s observer, not the king’s champion.’
I am neither. I am a glorified errand boy, here because nowhere else will have me. I am a secretary in a uniform. A filthy uniform, as it happens. I am a dead man still twitching. Ha ha! Look at the big idiot with the silly voice! Make him dance! ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Observe, then, by all means. But no more heroics, if you please. Not like the other day at Barden. A war is no place for heroics. Especially not this one.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kroy let go of the order and turned back to peer at his map, measuring distances between stretched-out thumb and forefinger. ‘The king would never forgive me if we were to lose you.’
The king has abandoned me here, and no one will care a stray speck of piss if I am hacked apart and my brains splattered across the North. Least of all me. ‘Yes, sir.’ And Gorst strode out, through the front door and back into the rain, where he was struck by lightning.
There she was, picking her way across the boggy front yard towards him. In the midst of all that sullen mud her smiling face burned like the sun, incandescent. Delight crushed him, made his skin sing and his breath catch. The months he had spent away from her had done not the slightest good. He was as desperately, hopelessly, helplessly in love as ever.
‘Finree,’ he whispered, voice full of awe, as in some silly story a wizard might pronounce a word of power. ‘Why are you here?’ Half-expecting she would fade into nothing, a figment of his overwrought imagination.
‘To see my father. Is he in there?’
‘Writing orders.’
‘As always.’ She looked down at Gorst’s uniform and raised one eyebrow, darkened from brown to almost black and spiked to soft points by the rain. ‘Still playing in the mud, I see.’
He could not even bring himself to be embarrassed. He was lost in her eyes. Some strands of hair were stuck across her wet face. He wished he was. I thought nothing could be more beautiful than you used to be, but now you are more beautiful than ever. He dared not look at her and he dared not look away. You are the most beautiful woman in the world – no – in all of history – no – the most beautiful thing in all of history. Kill me, now, so that your face can be the last thing I see. ‘You look well,’ he murmured.
She looked down at her sodden travelling coat, mud-spotted to the waist. ‘I suspect you’re not being entirely honest with me.’
‘I never dissemble.’ I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you …
‘And are you well, Bremer? I may call you Bremer, may I?’