Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

‘Ah, yes!’ Bayaz raised his brows. ‘I believe we had a mutual friend in Logen Ninefingers.’

The Dogman stared evenly back, the one man in the room who showed no sign of being overawed. ‘I’m a long way from sure he’s dead.’

‘If anyone can cheat the Great Leveller it was – or is – he. Either way, he is a loss to the North. To the world. A great man, and much missed.’

Dogman shrugged. ‘A man, anyway. Some good and some bad in him, like most. As for much missed, depends on who you ask, don’t it?’

‘True.’ Bayaz gave a rueful smile, and spoke a few words in fluent Northern: ‘You have to be realistic about these things.’

‘You do,’ replied the Dogman. Gorst doubted whether anyone else in the room had understood their little exchange. He was not entirely sure he had, for all he knew the language.

Kroy tried to usher things on. ‘And this is—’

‘Bremer dan Gorst, of course!’ Bayaz shocked Gorst to his boots by warmly shaking his hand. For a man of his years, he had quite the grip. ‘I saw you fence against the king, how long ago, now? Five years? Six?’

Gorst could have counted the hours since. And it says a great deal for my shadow of a life that my proudest moment is still being humiliated in a fencing match. ‘Nine.’

‘Nine, imagine that! The decades flit past me like leaves on the wind, I swear. No man ever deserved the title more.’

‘I was fairly beaten.’

Bayaz leaned close. ‘You were beaten, anyway, which is all that really counts, eh?’ And he slapped Gorst on the arm as if they had shared a private joke, though if they had it was private to Bayaz alone. ‘I thought you were with the Knights of the Body? Were you not guarding the king at the Battle of Adua?’

Gorst felt himself colouring. I was, as everyone here well knows, but now I am nothing but a wretched scapegoat, used and discarded like some stuttering serving girl by his lordship’s caddish youngest son. Now I am—

‘Colonel Gorst is here as the king’s observer,’ ventured Kroy, seeing his discomfort.

‘Of course!’ Bayaz snapped his fingers. ‘After that business in Sipani.’

Gorst’s face burned as though the city’s very name was a slap. Sipani. And as simply as that the best part of him was where he spent so much of his time: four years ago, back in the madness of Cardotti’s House of Leisure. Stumbling through the smoke, searching desperately for the king, reaching the staircase, seeing that masked face – and then the long, bouncing trip down the stairs, into unjust disgrace. He saw smirks among the over-bright smear of faces the room had suddenly become. He opened his dry mouth but, as usual, nothing of any use emerged.

‘Ah, well.’ The Magus gave Gorst’s shoulder the kind of consoling pat one might give to a guard dog long ago gone blind, and occasionally tossed a bone for sentimental reasons. ‘Perhaps you can work your way back into the king’s good graces.’

Depend upon it, you arcane fuck-hole, if I must spill every drop of blood in the North. ‘Perhaps,’ Gorst managed to whisper.

But Bayaz had already drawn out a chair and was steepling his fingers before him. ‘So! The situation, Lord Marshal?’

Kroy jerked the front of his jacket smooth as he advanced on the great map, so large it had been folded at the edges to fit on the biggest wall of the mean little building. ‘General Jalenhorm’s division is here, to our west.’ Paper crackled as Kroy’s stick hissed over it. ‘He is pushing northwards, firing crops and villages in the hope of drawing the Northmen into battle.’

Bayaz looked bored. ‘Mmmm.’

‘Meanwhile Lord Governor Meed’s division, accompanied by the majority of the Dogman’s loyalists, have marched southeast to take Ollensand under siege. General Mitterick’s division remains between the two.’ Tap, tap, stick on paper, ruthlessly precise. ‘Ready to lend support to either one. The route of supply runs south towards Uffrith over poor roads, no more than tracks, really, but we are—’

‘Of course.’ Bayaz rendered it all irrelevant with a wave of one meaty hand. ‘I have not come to interfere in the details.’

Kroy’s stick hovered uselessly. ‘Then—’

‘Imagine yourself a master mason, Lord Marshal, working upon one turret of a grand palace. A craftsman whose dedication, skill and attention to detail are disputed by no one.’

‘Mason?’ Mitterick looked baffled.

‘Then imagine the Closed Council as the architects. Our responsibility is not the fitting of one stone to another, it is the design of the building overall. The politics, rather than the tactics. An army is an instrument of government. It must be used in such a way that it furthers the interests of government. Otherwise what use is it? Only an extremely costly machine for … minting medals.’ The room shifted uncomfortably. Hardly the sort of talk the toy soldiers appreciate.

‘The policies of government are subject to sudden change,’ grumbled Felnigg.

Bayaz looked upon him like a schoolmaster at the dunce ruining the standard of his class. ‘The world is fluid. We must be fluid also. And since these latest hostilities began, circumstances have not flowed for the better. At home the peasants are restless again. War taxes, and so on. Restless, restless, always restless.’ He drummed his thick fingers restlessly on the table-top. ‘And the new Lords’ Round is finally completed, so the Open Council is in session and the nobles have somewhere to complain. They are doing so. At tremendous length. They are impatient with the lack of progress, apparently.’

‘Damn windbags,’ grunted Mitterick. Lending considerable support to the maxim that men always hate in others what is most hateful in themselves.

Bayaz sighed. ‘Sometimes I feel I am building sandcastles against the tide. The Gurkish are never idle, there is no end to their intrigues. But once they were the only real challenge to us abroad. Now there is the Snake of Talins, too. Murcatto.’ He frowned as if the name tasted foul, hard lines deepening across his face. ‘While our armies are entangled here that cursed woman continues to tighten her grip on Styria, emboldened by the knowledge that the Union can do little to oppose her.’ Some patriotic tutting stirred the assembly. ‘Put simply, gentlemen, the costs of this war, in treasure, in prestige, in lost opportunities, are becoming too high. The Closed Council require a swift conclusion. Naturally, as soldiers, you all are prone to be sentimental about warfare. But fighting is only any use when it’s cheaper than the alternatives.’ He calmly picked a piece of fluff from his sleeve, frowned at it, and flicked it away. ‘This is the North, after all. I mean to say … what’s it worth?’

There was a silence. Then Marshal Kroy cleared his throat. ‘The Closed Council require a swift conclusion … do they mean by the end of the campaigning season?’

‘The end of the season? No, no.’ The officers blew out their cheeks with evident relief. It was short-lived. ‘Considerably sooner than that.’

The noise slowly built. Shocked gasps, then horrified splutters, then whispered swear-words and grumbles of disbelief, the officers’ professional affront scoring a rare victory over their usually unconquerable servility.

‘But we cannot possibly—!’ Mitterick burst out, striking the table with one gauntleted fist then hastily remembering himself. ‘I mean to say, I apologise, but we cannot—’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen.’ Kroy ushered down his unruly brood, and appealed to reason. The lord marshal is nothing if not a reasonable man. ‘Lord Bayaz … Black Dow continues to evade us. To manoeuvre and fall back.’ He gestured at the map as though it was covered in realities that simply could not be argued with. ‘He has staunch war leaders at his side. His men know the land, are sustained by its people. He is a master at swift movement and retreat, at swift concentration and surprise. He has already wrong-footed us once. If we rush to battle, there is every chance that—’