Paul Kearney - Corvus

“She thinks the sun rises and sets on you, Haukos knows why.”

“She is the very picture of a virtuous lady, a credit to your family. If I married her, she’d – well, you know what would happen. No, one day soon she will see sense and marry some other worthy fellow who will come home sober every night and plant her with babies. Enough.” He patted down his fine chiton and stepped into a pair of beaten sandals. “Now where is the fucking wine? Polio!”

The wine arrived, borne by an absurdly pretty girl whose tunic barely reached her thighs. Polio stood over her like a stern father.

“Master, will that be all?”

“For now. We’ll eat later – have the cook run up some of that good broth we had yesterday. And make sure no-one comes near this door, Polio.”

Polio bowed and withdrew, as stately as a grey-bearded king.

Karnos sat down and poured two clay cups of wine. He stuck his fingers into his own glass and flicked a few drops into the fire. “For Phobos, the rotten bastard – a libation.”

Kassander did the same with a big man’s slow smile. “For Haukos, who has not turned his face from us yet.”

“Your sunny disposition makes me want to puke,” Karnos said. “What are the details of the thing, or don’t we know them yet?”

Kassander leaned back in his chair with a sigh, making the ironwork creak under his bulk.

“The same story we’ve seen before. Scare the little people with the size of his army, offer them easy terms, and move on.”

“He had only just arrived before their walls,” Karnos said, punching his knee. “I thought we had time – Phaestus assured us he would hold out.”

“Phaestus was overruled, and declared ostrakr. Sarmenian was installed as governor.”

“Sarmenian! That rat-faced prick. I had him to dinner last month and he was full of shit about how Hal Goshen would halt the invader in his tracks. Bastard. He has a tiny cock, too; Grania told me.”

“Whatever the size of his instrument, he now rules Hal Goshen as tyrant, under Corvus. But there’s more, Karnos.”

“I see it in your face. You’re saving the best for last, you big fuck. Well, toss it at me if you must.”

“Rictus of Isca was at Hal Goshen. He has thrown in his lot with the invader.”

Karnos stood up. He set his wine cup on the desk, spilling some of the berry-dark liquid on the papers there. He stood before the fire and stared blindly into the flames whilst Kassander wiped up the spill doggedly with the hem of his cloak.

“Rictus,” he said dully. “I would not have thought it of him.”

“Who is the optimist now? Rictus is a mercenary,” Kassander said, irritably. “He goes where the money is; and this Corvus must have a fortune in his treasury by now.”

“No.” Karnos turned round. “Rictus is one of the old-fashioned Macht. He believes in things. I thought I had him, Kassander. This summer, we spoke, and I thought I had him. Imagine, if we had lured him here to lead the army!”

“My imagination runs riot,” Kassander said. “It’s unfortunate you’ll have to make do with Kassander of Arienus instead.”

Karnos waved a hand at him. “Don’t be a girl about it. You know damn well what it would have meant to have the leader of the Ten Thousand on these walls. Phobos! I never would have thought it of him.”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“A politician’s habit – it keeps the mouth working until there’s something new to say. Kassander, we must push this issue now, while the shock of the news is getting around the streets. If we argue it out in the Kerusia, Corvus will he at our walls before we’ve even managed to convene the assembly.”

“Something tells me I have a role in this.”

“You’re polemarch of the army. For God’s sake, he’s ten good day’s march from these walls – we don’t have time to fuck around!”

Kassander sighed heavily. “You want me to call out the army on my own initiative.”

“By dawn. We must have the streets full of men -we must wake up the people to the danger, and force the Kerusia’s hand.”

“I can do that – I can have the host called out, but it’ll mean the end of your political career, you know that. You by-pass the Kerusia and they’ll vote you down. They hate you anyway.”

Karnos flapped a hand in dismissal. “I was voted onto the Kerusia by popular acclaim. If they throw me out of it they’ll have the people to answer to.”

Kassander looked into his wine. There was a silence in the room, broken only by the cracking of the fire. Olive wood was burning upon it, and the subtle blue fragrance of it stole about them in the quiet.

“You got me this post,” Kassander said. “You made me polemarch, so I am tied to you. I owe you for it.”

“This is not about calling in favours -” Karnos cried. Kassander raised his head, smiling. That slow, broad smile of the honest man.

“I know that. We have been friends a long time, Karnos. If I do this it will be for two reasons. Because it is the right course of action to preserve this city, and because you are my friend.”

“The only real friend I have,” Karnos said, with feeling. “After this the rest will desert me like rats running from a burning house.”

“Look on the bright side; you’ll still have your slaves to fuck.”

Machran was six pasangs from west to east, and three parts asleep. Even up in the Mithannon Quarter, the wineshops and brothels shut their doors for a few hours at this time of night. It was remarkable, then, how fast news could travel the narrow streets, how it lit up at window after window.

Kassander started it, storming into the dormitory of the city criers with Karnos’s seal affixed to a Kerusiad edict and shouting them awake. Brass-voiced men with fast feet, the criers took to the streets within minutes, shouting the news at every crossroads they came to. Hal Goshen had fallen. The army was being called out. Every able-bodied man of the first and second property classes was to arm and make his way to the Marshalling Yards on the Mithos River.

By the time Karnos was mounted and riding to the Empirion, the streets were wide awake and teeming as though it were festival time. Men shouted at him as they thronged the wide avenue to the Amphion Quarter, many bearing shields and spears. He tugged his black cloak about him and rode on with a practised look of remote authority on his face, feeling as though he had just opened the gate on a fractious bull.

The Empirion was a vast domed amphitheatre which could house five thousand with ease. Nominally a theatre, it was also used for public meetings in inclement weather. Karnos had chosen it quite deliberately. He wanted a certain amount of chaos, a massed crowd to speak to. He was always best when addressing a mob. It was how he had become Speaker of Machran, though his father had been nothing more than a stallholder of the third class, unable even to afford a spearman’s panoply.

The other members of the Kerusia, all scions of the oldest families in Machran, regarded Karnos with at best a certain patronising indulgence, and at worst with outright loathing. He was a man who got things done, who took on all the dirty jobs and accomplished them not only with relish but with a certain vulgar flair.

He was uncouth, foul-mouthed and ostentatious, but when he spoke, men listened. He could cajole a crowd, flirt with it, make people laugh and set them alight with outrage. Those who thought him ill-educated and uncultured had never seen his personal library, or heard him hold forth on drama or philosophy after dinner. He was careful to keep it that way. He was everyman. That was his charm.

Kassander had done his work well. Crowded though the streets were, there was a definite current of movement to the north and the Mithannon Gate. The levies were gathering, trusting that the machinery of the city was working with legal correctness. Hundreds of men were bowed down under the weight of their wargear, and every street was bristling with spears.