Paul Kearney - The Heretic Kings

Quirion was silent for a moment. From the city below came the odd crack of arquebus fire where pickets were taking potshots at each other, but compared to the hellish chaos of the past days Abrusio seemed almost tranquil.

“There may be something in what you say,” he admitted at last. “But we will not be able to stump up much in the way of pomp for a time yet. My men and yours are too busy fighting to keep what we have.”

“Of course, but I ask you to bear it in mind. The sooner this vacuum is filled the better.”

Quirion nodded and then turned away. He leaned on the balcony rail and stared out over the maimed city.

“They say that fifty thousand of the citizens perished in the fire, quite apart from the thousands who died in the fighting,” he said. “I don’t know about you, Lord Carrera, but for me that is a heavy load for conscience to bear.”

“They were heretics, the scrapings of the sewers. Of no account,” Sastro said scornfully. “Do not let your conscience grow tender on their behalf, Quirion. The state is better off without them.”

“Perhaps.

“Well perhaps you would care to walk with me and show me your plans for the defence of the Upper City.”

“Yes, Lord Carrera,” Quirion said heavily. As he turned away from the balcony, however, he had a moment of agonizing doubt. What had he done here? What kind of creature was he making a king of?

The moment passed, and he followed Sastro into the planning chamber of the palace, where the senior officers of their forces were awaiting them.

There was no beauty in ships for the lady Jemilla. To her they were little more than complicated instruments of torture, set to float on an element which might have been designed specifically to cause her discomfort.

But there were times when she could dimly see some of the reasons why men held them in such awe and reverenced them so. They were impressive, if nothing else.

She was taking a turn about the poop-deck of the Providence , the flagship of Rovero and Abeleyn’s squadron. If she did not spend too much time looking at the gentle rise and fall of the horizon and concentrated instead on the cold wind which fanned her pale cheeks, then she might almost enjoy the motion. In any case, she would rather die than be sick here on deck, in front of five hundred sailors and marines and soldiers, all of whom were stealing privy glances up at her as she paced heavily to and fro from one bulwark to the other.

The flagship was a magnificent two-decker mounting some fifty guns, four-masted and with high-built fore- and stern-castles. Seen from aft, with her gold ornament and long galleries hanging over her wake, she looked like nothing so much as some baroque church front. But her decks presented an entirely different aspect. They had already been strewn with sand so that when the time came the gunners and sailors would not slip in their own blood. The guns had been run out, the firetubs set around the mast butts, and the slow-match which would set off the guns already lit and spreading its acrid reek about the ship. They were cleared for action. Abrusio was just over a league away. The admiral had told her they were doing six knots, and would raise the city in less than half an hour. She would be confined when that happened in the dark below-decks, in the murky stench of bilge and close-packed humanity which was the particular hallmark of every warship. So she was making the most of the fresh air, preparing herself for the ordeal ahead.

Abeleyn joined her on the poop. He was in half-armour, black-lacquered steel chased with silver and with a scarlet sash about his middle. He looked every inch the sovereign as he stood there with one hand resting on his sword hilt and the other cradling the open-faced helm which he would wear into battle. Jemilla found herself curtseying to him without conscious volition. He seemed to have grown in stature somehow, and she noticed for the first time the streaks of grey in his curly hair behind the temples.

“I trust you are enjoying your last moments of freedom, lady,” he said, and something in the way he said it made her shiver.

“Yes, sire. I am no sailor, as you know. I would stay up here throughout the battle if I could.”

“I believe you would.” Abeleyn smiled, his regal authority falling from him. He was a young man again. “I have seen seasick marines lift their heads and forget about their malady the moment the guns begin to roar. Human nature is a strange thing. But I will feel better knowing that you are safe below the waterline.”

She bowed slightly. “I am selfish. I think only of myself, and sometimes forget the burden I bear, the King’s child.” She could not resist reminding him, though she knew he disliked her doing it.

Sure enough, his face hardened. The boy disappeared again.

“You had best go below, lady. We will be within range of the city batteries in less than half a glass.”

“As you wish, sire,” she said humbly, but as she started for the companion ladder she paused and set her hand on his. “Be careful, Abeleyn,” she whispered.

He gripped her hand briefly and smiled with his mouth alone. “I will.”

The squadron went about, the sails on every ship flashing in and out as one, obedient to the signal pennants of the flagship. They were around the last headland and could see in the distance Abrusio Hill, the sprawl of the city itself and the fleet which stood ready beyond its harbours.

The sight was a shock for Abeleyn, no matter that he had tried to prepare himself for it. It seemed to him at first glance that his capital was entirely in ruins. Swathes of rubble-strewn wasteland stretched across the city, and fires were burning here and there. Only the western waterfront and the Upper City on the hillside seemed unchanged. But Old Abrusio was destroyed utterly.

As the squadron was sighted, the fleet began its salute, some four hundred vessels suddenly coming alive in clouds of smoke and flame, a thunder which echoed across the hills inland and carried for miles out to sea as the King was saluted and welcomed back to his kingdom. The salute was the signal for the battle to commence, and before its last echoes had died away the warships of Hebrion had unfurled their sails and were weighing anchor. The blank rounds of a moment before were replaced by real cannonballs, and the bombardment of the mole forts which protected the Great Harbour had begun.

The staggering noise of a fleet action was something which had to be experienced for anyone to believe it. Added to the guns of the ships now was the return fire of the batteries on the city walls and the harbour forts. As his squadron edged closer to the eastern half of the Lower City, where his forces would attempt their landing, Abeleyn saw the water about the leading squadrons of the fleet erupt in geysers of foam as the first rounds went home. Topmasts were shattered by high-ranging shells and came crashing down in tangles of rigging and wood and billowing canvas. The bulwarks of the leading ships were swept with deadly chain shot, splinters of oak spraying through the gun crews like charges of canister. But still the great ships in the vanguard sailed on, their chasers firing across their bows and producing puffs of rubble and flame from the casemates of the forts.

Abeleyn saw one tall carrack dismasted entirely, her towering yards shattered and crumpling over her side. She yawed as the fallen spars dragged her to one side and in a moment had collided with one of her sister-ships. But the battle for the mole forts and the boom was being obscured by rising clouds of pale powder-smoke. It seemed that the whole surface of Abrusio’s Great Harbour, over a mile from one end of it to the other, was a seething cauldron which bubbled steam, amid which the masts of ships could be glimpsed as the smoke rolled and toiled in vast thunderheads across the broken face of the sea.