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‘No, sire.’ For all the horror of him a child’s greed and child’s pride lay about the Dead King. Perhaps his interest in the Ancrath kings lay in the mirror they held up to him.
‘Do you know why the Hundred have not united against me, Chella?’
‘They hate each other too much, sire. Gather them on a ship and let it sink – no hand would be spare for bailing or for swimming, they’d all be locked on throats, choking away the air before the waters could.’
‘They have not united because they don’t fear me.’ Artur Elgin rose from the Dead King’s throne. ‘The returned cannot breed, they rot, they know more of hunger than of caution, they can stand against armies only where the ground favours them. It is a wonder that I have taken what I now hold with nothing but corpses to play with.’ Artur’s hand settled on Chella’s shoulder and it took all her control not to flinch it off.
‘Empires are won in many ways. Do you know of tactics, Chella?’
‘A little, sire.’ If he would just take that hand away …
‘And what are the only two tactical advantages of my legions, Chella?’
‘I— I— They know no fear?’
‘No.’ An exquisite agony bled into her shoulder and the Dead King returned Artur’s hand to his side. ‘A man without fear is missing a friend. An old ghost once told me that.
‘My troops have two tactical advantages. They don’t breathe and they don’t eat. That means that any swamp, lake, or sea, is a stronghold and that I need not maintain supply lines. Past that they are poor servants at best. And it is these advantages that have given me the Isles and allow us to assault Ancrath from the Ken Marshes.
‘Beyond this, my ambitions require new strategies if they are to be met on a timescale to my liking.’
The Dead King settled once more in Artur Elgin’s driftwood throne. He ran white fingers along the chair’s polished arms, and Chella heard the screams of sailors drowning.
‘Thantos, Keres.’
Two lichkin detached from their brethren and moved to flank the Dead King. Still Chella’s eyes would not see them, returning only glimpses of ghost-wrapped bone.
‘Chella.’ He leaned Artur’s body toward her in the chair. ‘Choosing a strategy is like deciding upon a weapon. And a weapon needs a point if it is to pierce the foe, neh? You, Chella, are going to pierce the belly of the empire for me. I’m sending you on a journey. Brother Thantos and Sister Keres will keep you safe. The remainder of your escort is on a ship approaching the harbour as we speak.’
23
We made progress, not good progress but enough. Sometimes the guard didn’t get their charges to Vyene on time, but it hadn’t happened in my lifetime. Even when a member of the Hundred died en route, their corpse would make a punctual arrival.
When towns and villages lay at convenient points we spent the night in commandeered accommodation, otherwise tents were pitched in fields or clearings. I liked those nights best, Katherine and Miana lit by firelight in woods where cold mists threaded the trees, each woman framed by the fur trim of winter robes, all of us huddling close to the heat. Gomst and Osser in their chairs with wine goblets in hand debated as old men do, Makin and Marten kept by the queen ready to make up for my failings, Kent sat quiet, watching the night. Rike and Gorgoth bookended our little band, soaking up the warmth, both looking meaner than hell.
On one such night, with the crackle of the fire and the glow of many others dotted about us through the wood, Miana said, ‘Jorg, you sleep so much better out of the Haunt, why is that?’ Her breath steamed before her in the night and though she faced me it was Katherine that she watched.
‘I’ve always loved the road, dear,’ I told her. ‘You leave your troubles behind you.’
‘Not if you bring your wife.’ Rike snorted and kept his gaze on the fire, immune to the sharp look Marten sent his way.
‘In the Haunt you always talked in your sleep.’ Miana turned to face Katherine now. ‘He practically raved. I had to set my bed in the east tower just to get some rest.’
Katherine made no reply, her face still.
‘But now he sleeps like a sinless child, without murmur,’ Miana said.
I shrugged. ‘Bishop Gomst is the one with night terrors. Should we worry when our holiest rest uneasy?’
Miana ignored me. ‘No more “Sareth”, no more “Degran”, and no more endless “Katherine! Katherine!”’
Katherine arched one eyebrow, delicate, expressive, and delicious. Miana had been irritable all day in the carriage, but then if I’d swallowed a whole baby and it insisted on kicking the hell out of my insides I might be less than my normal tolerant self.
A stick popped with a loud retort, sending embers from the fire.
Defence is always a weakness and I didn’t feel like attacking, so I waited. Katherine had so many options open to her – I wanted to know which she would take.
‘I trust King Jorg only called my name out in torment, Queen?’
I wondered what her hands were doing under that fur wrap. Twisting? Sliding toward a knife? Still and collected?
‘It’s true.’ Miana smiled, quick and unexpected, her frown erased. ‘He never did seem pleased to see you.’
Katherine nodded. ‘My nephew has many crimes to answer for, but the darkest are against my sister, Queen Sareth and her child. Perhaps as he says his sins are left behind on the road. Maybe when we stop at Vyene they will catch up with him once more.’
None around the fire made any move to defend me from the charges.
I spoke up for myself. ‘If there were any justice, lady, God himself would reach down and strike me dead, for I am guilty as you say. But until he does, I will just have to keep moving on and doing what I can in the world.’
Gorgoth surprised me then, his voice so deep at first you might think it a trembling in the ground itself. It took me a moment to understand he had started to sing, something wordless, elemental like the crackle of the fire, and captivating. For the longest time we only sat and listened, the stars wheeling overhead, frosty in the night.
For three nights and days rain thundered from leaden skies, drowning out conversation in the carriage and attempting to drown pretty much everything else outside. The roads before us became rivers of mud. The rivers themselves grew to dark and swirling monsters wielding trees and carts as they surged past. Captain Harran led his force along the alternative routes planned out against such eventualities, taking us through larger towns, through cities where the stone bridges had ridden out many a flood.
I took to Brath’s saddle again. After days pressed against the warmth of Katherine’s cool indifference I could do with a cold shower.
‘Making your escape, Jorg?’ Makin rode up beside me as I pulled away from Holland’s carriage.
The road led like a causeway through a sea of flooded pasture, the waters broken only by half-drowned hedgerows. Hours later the rain failed and the sky cracked open along a bright fault-line. The still waters all around became mirrors, every lone tree reflected, bare fingers reaching below as well as above. So much of the world is about surfaces, the eye deceived, with the truth in the unknown and unknowable depths beneath.
