Monarchies Of God - Hawkwoods Voyage Part 36

"Good. What think you of your new appointment?"

"I shall try to fulfil your wishes and ambitions to the best extent of my abilities, Majesty. I am yours to command."

"That's right," the Sultan grunted emphatically. "Your predecessor, the esteemed Shahr Baraz, is unfortunately rendered infirm due to the weight of his years. A magnificent soldier, but I am told his faculties are not what they once were-hence our failure before this absurd Ramusian fortress. You will carry on where Baraz left off. You will take Ormann d.y.k.e, but first you will reorganize the army. My sources report that it is somewhat demoralized. Winter is coming on, the Thurian pa.s.ses are closed and your only supply line is the Ostian river. When you reach the d.y.k.e you will put the army into winter quarters, and attack again once the weather has improved. In the meantime the accursed Ramusians will have to contend with coastal raids from our new allies, the Sultanates of Nalbeni and Danrimir. They will be prevented from reinforcing the d.y.k.e, and you will storm it when the winter snows abate."

"Then I am not to attack at once, Majesty?"

"No. As I said, the army is in need of some . . . reorganization. This present campaign is over. You will see that communications between the camps and the supply depots in Aekir are improved. Baraz was building a road, I believe; one of the last of his more coherent plans. Everything must be made ready so that in the spring the army is ready to move again. The d.y.k.e will be crushed and you will march on Torunn. A fresh levy will be made available to you then. Have you any questions?"

Shahr Johor, new supreme commander of the Merduk armies of Ostrabar, hesitated a moment and then said:"One question, Majesty. Why was I selected for this particular honour? Shahr Baraz's second-in-command Mughal is surely better qualified."

Aurungzeb's florid face darkened. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger.

"Mughal has a certain absurd attachment to Shahr Baraz. It would not do to leave him in command. He is being transferred elsewhere, as are most of the previous staff officers. I want a new beginning. We have been shackled by the old Hraib for too long; the world is entering a new age, when such outdated codes are a hindrance rather than a help. You are young and you have studied the new modes of warfare. I want you to apply your knowledge to the coming campaigns. There is a shipment of forty thousand arquebuses travelling down the Ostian River even as we speak. You will equip the best troops with them, and train them in the tactics that the Torunnans have used against us in the past. We will no longer face firearms with steel and muscle and raw courage. War has become a scientific thing. You will be the first general of my people to wage it according to the new rules."

Shahr Johor flung himself to the floor.

"You honour me too much, my Sultan. My life is yours. I will send you the spoils of all the Ramusian kingdoms. The west shall be brought into the fold of the True Faith, if Ahrimuz wills it."

"He wills it," Aurungzeb said sharply. "And so do I. Do not forget that." He waved a hand. "You may go."

Shahr Johor backed away, bowing as he went. Aurungzeb stood motionless long after he had gone, then: "Sit up!" he said abruptly.

Heria straightened, the silk sliding like water from her shoulders.

"Raise your head."

She did so, staring at a point on the ornate ceiling.

Aurungzeb sidled over to her. He was as silent as a cat in his movements, despite being a big man on the edge of corpulence. His eyes drank her in. One brown ring-encrusted hand slid along her torso. She remained as motionless as marble, a lovely statue sculpted by some genius.

"I shall give you a name," the Sultan breathed. "You must have a name. I know. I shall call you Ahara. It is the old name for the wind that every year sweeps westward across the steppes of Kambaksk and Kurasan. My people followed that wind, and with them went the Faith. Ahara. Say it."

She stared at him dumbly. He cursed and began speaking in the halting Normannic that was the common language of the western kingdoms.

"Your name is Ahara. Say it."

"Ahara."

He grinned hugely, his teeth a white gleam in his beard.

"I will have you taught our tongue, Ahara. I want to hear you speak it to me on our wedding night."

Still her eyes revealed nothing. He laughed.

"I talk to myself, do I not? You Ramusians. . . You will have to be consecrated into the Prophet's worship, of course. And you are too thin, the marks of the journey are upon you yet. I will feed you up,put flesh on those bones of yours. You will bear me fine sons in the time to come, and they will spend so much time killing each other that their sire will be left in peace in his old age." He pulled the sheet up around her. "Wife number twenty-six, you will be. I should have had more, but I am an abstemious man."

He flung an arm out towards the doorway. "Go," he said in Normannic.

She scampered from the chamber, the silk billowing from her shoulders like a pair of wings. Her feet could be heard pattering on the marble and porphyry of the floors beyond. Aurungzeb smiled into the empty room. He was in a good mood. He had found himself a superb new wife-he would marry her, despite the inevitable objections. She was too rare a jewel to keep as a mere concubine.

And he had rid himself of that relic from the past, Shahr Baraz. The orders had gone out by special courier, a picked squad of the palace guard journeying with them to carry them out. Soon the old man's head would be carted towards Orkhan in a jar, pickled in vinegar. He had been a faithful servant, a superb soldier, but now that Aekir had fallen and the impossible had been achieved, he was no longer needed. And besides, he was growing dangerously insubordinate. Shahr Johor was different. He was forward-looking for one thing, and after the example of Baraz he would know better than to disobey his Sultan.

Aurungzeb lay back on the rumpled, s.e.x-smelling bed.

A pity they would not take the d.y.k.e in the same campaigning season as they had taken Aekir. That would have been a feat indeed. But it was of no great import that they would have to wait out the winter.

It would give him a chance to cement the new alliances with Nalbeni and Danrimir.

The Ramusians, he knew, mostly thought of the Seven Sultanates as one Merduk power-bloc, but the reality was different. There were rivalries and intrigues, even minor wars between this sultanate and that Danrimir was virtually an Ostrabarian client state, so closely tied to Orkhan had she become in the last months, but Nalbeni was a different matter.

The oldest of the Merduk countries, Nalbeni had been founded before even the Fimbrian-Hegemony had fallen. It was primarily a sea power and its capital, Nalben, was supposed to be the largest port in the world, save perhaps for Abrusio of Hebrion in the west. It did not trust this upstart state from the north of the Kardian Sea, so naturally had allied with it to keep a closer eye on its progress. It was a good way of insinuating Nalbenic diplomats into Aurungzeb's court. Diplomats with flapping ears and heavy purses.

But such was the way of the world. Ostrabar needed Nalbeni to keep up the pressure on Torunna from a different direction, so that when Shahr Johor moved against the d.y.k.e in the spring he would not find it manned by all the armies of Torunna.

This war was not coming to a close; it was only beginning. Before I am done, Aurungzeb thought, I will have all the Seven Sultanates doing my bidding, and Merduk armies will be marching to the very brim of the Western Ocean. Charibon I will set afire, and its black priests I shall crucify by the thousands.

Temples of the True Faith shall be reared up over the whole continent. If the Prophet wills it.

A shadow fell through the doorway. Aurungzeb sat up at once.

"Akran?"

"No, Sultan. It is I, Orkh."

"You were not announced."

"I was not seen."The shadow glided into the room and was nothing more than that: an absence of light, a mere shape.

"What do you want?"

"To speak with you."

"Speak, then. And let me see you. I am sick of this ghost business."

"You might not like what you see, Sultan."

"Show yourself. I command it."

The shadow took on substance, another dimension. In a moment a man stood there in long dun-coloured robes. Or what had once been a man.

"Beard of the Prophet!" Aurungzeb breathed.

The thing smiled, and the lights that were its eyes became two glowing slots.

"Is this what happened to you when-?"

"When Baraz slew my homunculus? Yes. I was relaying your own voice through it, acting as a conductor; thus I could not defend myself against the . . . consequences until it was too late."

"But why has it done this to you?"

"The surge of power was like the explosion of a gun when the barrel is blocked. Something of the Dweomer that went into making the homunculus was blasted back through me, and I had no barriers up because of my role in the communication. It changed me. I am working on a remedy for the unfortunate effects."

"I see now why you haunt the palace like a shadow."

"I have no wish to frighten your concubines-especially one so delicious as just pa.s.sed me in the corridor."

"What did you want, Orkh? I am meeting the Nalbenic amba.s.sadors soon."

"I am your eyes and ears, Majesty, despite the malady which afflicts me. I have agents in every city in the west. It is partly because of my network of information gatherers that this sultanate has risen to the prominence it now enjoys. Is that not true?"

"There may be something in what you say," Aurungzeb admitted, scowling. He did not like to be reminded of his reliance on the sorcerer, or on anyone else for that matter.

"Well, I have a very interesting piece of information I would like to impart to you. It does not concern the present war, but an occurrence much further west in one of the Ramusian states."

"Go on."

"It seems there is a purge in progress in the kingdom of Hebrion, which seeks to rid the land of its exotic elements. I lost two of my best agents to their d.a.m.ned pyres, but the chief targets of the purge seem to be oldwives, herbalists, weather-workers, thaumaturgists and cantrimers-in short, anyone who has an inkling of the Dweomer.""Interesting."

"My sources-those who survived-tell me, however, that this purge was initiated by the accursed Inceptines-the Black Priests of the west-and has not found favour with King Abeleyn."

"Why does he not command it stopped then?" Aurungzeb asked gruffly. "Is a king not King in his own land?"

"Not in the west, sire. Their Church has a great say in the running of every kingdom."

"Fools! What kind of rulers are they? But I interrupt. Continue, Orkh."

"Abeleyn hired a small fleet, I am told, filled it to the brim with fleeing sorcerers and the like and commissioned the fleet to sail west."

"To where? Hebrion is the westernmost kingdom of the world."

"Exactly, sire. To where? They did not touch upon any of the other Ramusian states as far as I know. It may be they made landfall in the Brenn Isles or the Hebrionese, but there are rumours flying round the Hebrian capital."

"Rumours of what?"

"It is said that the fleet sailed with a Royal warrant for the setting up of a new colony, and it carried in addition to its pa.s.sengers and a complement of soldiers everything that might be needed when starting a settlement in a hitherto uninhabited land."

"Orkh! Are you saying-?"

"Yes, my Sultan. The Ramusians have discovered a land in the far west, somewhere in the Great Western Ocean, and they are claiming it for themselves."

Aurungzeb sank back on the bed. Orkh let his Sultan sit in silence for a few moments; he could see the wheels turning.

"How reliable is this information, Orkh?" the Sultan asked at last.

"I am not a peddler of hearsay, sire. My informants know that to feed me false news is the best way to ensure a swift end. The rumours have been investigated, and they have substance."

Another pause.

"We cannot let it be, of course," the Sultan said thoughtfully. "We must test the veracity of your rumours, and if they possess the substance you say they do we shall outfit our own expedition and stake our claim.

But Ostrabar is not a sea power. We have no ships."

"Nalbeni?"

"I trust them less than I do Ramusians. No, this must be done further from home. The Sea-Merduks of Calmar. Yes. I will commission them to send a fleet into the west, commanded by my own officers of course."

"It will be expensive, my Sultan."

"After Aekir, my credit is good anywhere," Aurungzeb said with a chuckle. "You have agents in Alcaras.See to it, Orkh. I will select the officers of this expedition personally."

"As my Sultan wishes. I have one boon to ask of him, however."

"Ask! Your information merits reward."

"I wish to be included in this expedition. I wish to sail west."

Aurungzeb stared closely at the hideously inhuman face of his court mage. "I need you here."

"My apprentice Batak, whom you know, is well able to take my place, and he does not have the same disability that afflicts me."

"Are you seeking a cure in the west, or oblivion, Orkh?"

"A cure if I can find one-oblivion if I cannot."

"Very well. You shall sail with the expedition."

Orkh faded back into misty shadow as the vizier came into the room, bent low, eyes averted.

"My Sultan, the Nalbenic amba.s.sadors are here. They await your inimitable presence."

Aurungzeb waved a hand. "I'll be there directly."

The vizier left, still bowed. Aurungzeb stared around the chamber.

"Orkh? Are you there, Orkh?" But there was no answer. The mage had gone.

T HE first snows had come to the Searil valley. Shahr Baraz had felt them in his tired old bones before he had even thrown off the furs. His head ached. It had been too long since he had slept out under the stars like his forebears, the chieftains of the eastern steppes.

Mughal already had the fire going. It was almost colourless in the bright morning light and the snow glare.

Melted slush sizzled around the burning wood.

"Winter arrives early this year," Mughal said.

Shahr Baraz climbed to his feet. Darkness danced at the corners of his vision until he blinked it away. He was almost eighty-four years old.

"Pa.s.s me the skin, Mughal. My blood needs some heat in it."