Paul Kearney - The Second Empire

“Make your point, Fournier,” Corfe said. “I do not have any more time to waste.”

Fournier’s voice changed: the bantering tone fled to be replaced by cold steel. “My agents made a capture today of some interest to us all. A Merduk mullah with two companions, out riding alone. The mullah was a strange little fellow with a mutilated face and no fingers on one hand. He spoke perfect Normannic, with the accent of Almark, and claimed to be one Bishop Albrec, fresh from the delights of the Merduk court.”

Corfe said nothing, but the candlelight made two little hellish fires of his eyes.

“Our adventurous cleric was bearing this scroll on him. He took quite a deal of persuasion to give it up, I might add. After further persuasion he revealed that he had been charged with delivery of it to you, my dear General. You alone, and in person. Now, we have an agent in the enemy camp, that you already know. But would you believe that until tonight I did not know the identity of that agent? Strange, but true. Now I know everything there is to know, General. Or almost everything. Perhaps you could explain to me why exactly you are receiving despatches from someone at the very heart of the Merduk court?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Fournier. What is in this scroll?”

“That is of no matter for the moment. However, there is the rather alarming prospect of the Torunnan commander-in-chief being in clandestine communication with the enemy High Command. That, my dear Corfe Cear-Inaf, is treason in anyone’s book.”

“Don’t be absurd, Fournier. It’s come from this agent of yours you’ve been preening yourself over for weeks. What’s in the damned scroll? And what have you done with this Albrec?”

“All in good time, General. You see, the interesting thing is that the scroll did not come from any agent of mine. It came, as my little misshapen bishop finally admitted, direct from the hands of the Merduk Queen herself. Perhaps you could explain this.”

Corfe blinked, startled. “I have no idea-”

“Colonel Willem,” said Fournier, raising his voice a fraction. And out of the darkness a group of men instantly appeared. The candles lit up the length of their drawn swords.

A shaven-headed man with a patch over one eye stepped into the summerhouse. Willem, one of Corfe’s senior officers. Behind him was young Colonel Aras. Willem had a horse pistol cocked and ready, the match already smouldering on the wheel.

“Place General Cear-Inaf under arrest. You will take him to my offices down by the waterfront and hold him there.”

“With pleasure, Count,” Willem said, grinning to show broad gap-ridden teeth. “Get up, traitor.”

Corfe remained in his seat. The amazement fled out of his mind in a moment. Suddenly many things had become clear. He took in the faces of the newcomers with a quick glance. All strangers to him but for Willem and Aras. They were not even in army uniform. He turned to Fournier, keeping his voice as casual as he could.

“Why not just have me shot now?”

“It’s obvious, I would have thought. The mob would never wear it. You’re their darling, General. We must discredit you before we hang you.”

“You’ll never convince the Queen,” Corfe told him.

“Her opinion is as immaterial as her rule is unconstitutional. The line of the Fantyrs is at an end. Torunna must look elsewhere for her rulers.”

“I’ll wager she’ll not have to look far.”

Fournier smiled. “Willem, get this upstart peasant out of my sight.”

They had a closed carriage waiting in the court-yard. Corfe was manacled and locked inside. Aras shared it with him, another pistol cocked and pointed at his breast, whilst Willem and the others rode pillion. The carriage lurched and bumped through the sleeping capital, for it was late-some time past the middle night, Corfe guessed. His mind was racing but he felt curiously calm. It was all in the open at last. No more intrigue: only naked force would work now.

He looked Aras in the eye. “When I saw you hold your ground in the King’s Battle I never would have believed you could be a part of something like this.”

Aras said nothing. The carriage interior was lit by a single fluttering candle-lantern and it was hard to see the expression on his face.

“This will mean civil war, Aras. The army will not stand for it. And the Merduks will be handed the kingdom on a plate. That is what he intends-to be governor of a Merduk province.”

Again, silence but for the rumbling of the iron-bound wheels and the horses’ hooves on the cobbles.

“For God’s sake, man, can’t you see where your duty lies?”

The carriage stopped. The door was unbolted and opened from without and Corfe was hauled outside. He could smell dead fish in the air, pitch and seaweed. They were down near the southern docks, on the edge of the estuary. Lightless buildings bulked up against the sky, and he could see the masts of ships outlined before the stars. He offered no resistance as they manhandled him. Willem wanted him dead at once, that was plain. Corfe would not give him an excuse to fire.

Swinging lanterns scattering broken light on the wet cobbles. Men in armour, arquebuses, pikes. The soldiers were all in strange liveries-part of the conscripted retainers that Corfe had brought into the capital. They had foxed him there. He had brought the enemy into the city himself. That was the reason for their confidence.

Inside. Someone boxing him on the ear for no reason. Down stone stairs with water running down the walls. Torchlight guttering here, a noisome stink that turned his stomach.

“Hold him,” Willem’s voice said, and men pinioned him. The one-eyed colonel sized him up in the unsteady torchlight.

“Caught you by surprise, didn’t we? You thought it was all signed, sealed and delivered. Well you thought wrong, you little guttersnipe-” and he brought the butt of his pistol down on Corfe’s temple.

Corfe staggered, and at the second blow the world darkened and his legs went out from under him. He struggled, but the men about him held him fast as Willem rained blow after blow down on his head. No pain, just a succession of explosions in his brain, like a battery of culverins going off one by one. Somehow he remained conscious. His blood dappled the flags of the floor, gummed shut his eyes and nose. He heard his own breathing as though from a great distance, as stertorous as that of a dying consumptive.

Keys clinking, and then he was flung into a black cell, and the door clanged shut behind him. The footsteps outside retreated, laughter retreating with them.

His head felt like it belonged to someone else. The lights were sparkling through it like a twilit battle, and the tight manacles were already puffing up his hands. The floor was sodden and stinking.

Corfe sat up, and the pain began to seep in under the shock of it all. His ears were ringing, his mouth full of blood. He retched, heaving out a mess of bile on to the filthy floor.

“Who is that?” a voice asked in the darkness, an odd voice, something wrong with it.

“Who wants to know?” he rasped.

“My name is Albrec. I’m a monk.”

He fought for breath. “We meet again, then. My name is Corfe. I’m a soldier.” And then the blackness of the cell folded over his mind, and his face hit the floor.

By dawn the arrests had begun. Willem and his men went around in squads. Andruw and Marsch were picked up first, along with Morin, Ebro and Ranafast. Then Quartermaster Passifal and General Rusio were roused out of their beds and led away in chains. The Cathedrallers’ barracks were surrounded by three thousand arquebusiers under Colonel Willem, while Colonel Aras led twenty more tercios to confine Formio’s Fimbrians. An order was issued to the army in general, directing it to stay in barracks, and a curfew was imposed upon the entire city. Lastly, Fournier himself took fifty men and marched them into the palace, demanding admittance to the Queen’s chambers. Odelia was placed under guard-for her own protection, naturally-and the palace was sealed off.