The doorknob turned with a loud rattle and a heavy-set old man entered the room, entirely bald with a short grey beard. He gave no immediate impression of supreme power. His clothes were only slightly less rain-soaked and mud-spattered than Gorst’s own. His staff was of plain wood shod with steel, more walking stick than rod of office. But still, though he and the single, unassuming servant who scraped in after him were outnumbered ten to one by some of the finest peacocks in the army, it was the officers who held their breath. The old man carried about him an air of untouchable confidence, disdainful ownership, masterful control. The air of a slaughterman casting an eye over that morning’s hogs.

‘Lord Bayaz.’ Kroy’s face had paled, slightly. It might have been the very first time Gorst had seen the marshal surprised, and he was not alone. The crowded room could not have been more dumbstruck if the corpse of Harod the Great had been trundled in on a trolley to address them.

‘Gentlemen.’ Bayaz tossed his staff carelessly to his curly-headed servant, wiped the beads of moisture from his bald pate with a faint hissing and flicked them from the edge of his hand. For a legendary figure, there was no ceremony to him. ‘Some weather we’re having, eh? Sometimes I love the North and sometimes … less so.’

‘We were not expecting—’

‘Why would you be?’ Bayaz chuckled with a show of good humour that somehow managed to seem a threat. ‘I am retired! I had left my seat on the Closed Council empty once again and was seeing out my dotage at my library, far removed from the grind of politics. But since this war is taking place on my very doorstep, I thought it would be neglectful of me not to stop by. I have brought money with me – I understand pay is standing somewhat in arrears.’

‘A little,’ conceded Kroy.

‘A little more and the soldier’s veneer of honour and obedience might swiftly rub away, eh, gentlemen? Without its golden lubricant the great machine of his Majesty’s army would soon stutter to a halt, would it not, as with so much in life?’

‘Concern for the welfare of our men is always uppermost in our minds,’ said the marshal, uncertainly.

‘And mine!’ answered Bayaz. ‘I am here only to help. To keep the wheels oiled, if you will. To observe and perhaps, should the occasion call, offer some trifling guidance. Yours is the command, Lord Marshal, of course.’

‘Of course,’ echoed Kroy, but no one was convinced. This, after all, was the First of the Magi. A man supposedly hundreds of years old, supposedly possessed of magical powers, who had supposedly forged the Union, brought the king to his throne, driven out the Gurkish and laid a good section of Adua to waste doing it. Supposedly. Hardly a man noted for a reluctance to interfere. ‘Er … might I introduce General Mitterick, commander of his Majesty’s second division?’

‘General Mitterick, even sealed away with my books I have heard tales of your valour. An honour.’

The general fluffed up with happiness. ‘No, no! The honour is mine!’

‘Yes,’ said Bayaz, with casual brutality.

Kroy charged boldly into the ensuing silence. ‘This is my chief of staff, Colonel Felnigg, and this the leader of those Northmen who oppose Black Dow and fight alongside us, the Dogman.’

‘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—’

But he might as well have reasoned with the tide. The First of the Magi was not interested. ‘You stray onto the details again, Lord Marshal. Masons and architects and so forth, did I speak about that? The king sent you here to fight, not march around. I have no doubt you will find a way to bring the Northmen to a decisive battle, and if not, well … every war is only a prelude to talk, isn’t it?’ Bayaz stood, and the officers belatedly struggled up after him, chairs screeching and swords clattering in an ill-coordinated shambles.

‘We are … delighted you could join us,’ Kroy managed, though the army’s feelings were very clearly the precise opposite.

Bayaz appeared impervious to irony, however. ‘Good, because I will be staying to observe. Some gentlemen from the University of Adua accompanied me. They have an invention that I am curious to see tested.’

‘Anything we can do to assist.’

‘Excellent.’ Bayaz smiled broadly. The only smile in the room. ‘I will leave the shaping of the stones in your …’ He raised an eyebrow at Mitterick’s absurd gauntlets. ‘Capable hands. Gentlemen.’

The officers kept their nervous silence, as the First of the Magi’s worn boots and those of his single servant receded down the hallway, like children sent early to bed, preparing to throw back the covers as soon as their parents reached a safe distance.

Angry babbling broke out the moment they heard the front door close. ‘What the hell—’

‘How dare he?’

‘Before the end of the season?’ frothed Mitterick. ‘He is quite mad!’

‘Ridiculous!’ snapped Felnigg. ‘Ridiculous!’

‘Bloody politicians!’

But Gorst had a smile, and not just at the dismay of Mitterick and the rest. Now they would have to seek battle. And whatever they came for, I came to fight.

Kroy brought his fractious officers to order by banging at the table with his stick. ‘Gentlemen, please! The Closed Council have spoken, and so the king has spoken, and we can only strive to obey. We are but the masons, after all.’ He turned towards the map as the room quieted, eyes running over the roads, the hills, the rivers of the North. ‘I fear we must abandon caution and concentrate the army for a concerted push northwards. Dogman?’

The Northman stepped up to the table and snapped out a vibrating salute. ‘Marshal Kroy, sir!’ A joke, of course, since he was an ally rather than an underling.

‘If we march for Carleon in force, is it likely that Black Dow will finally offer battle?’

The Dogman rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. ‘Maybe. He ain’t the most patient. Looks bad for him, letting you tramp all over his back yard these past few months. But he’s always been an unpredictable bastard, Black Dow.’ He had a bitter look on his face for a moment, as if remembering something painful. ‘One thing I can tell you, if he decides on battle he won’t offer nothing. He’ll ram it right up your arse. Still, it’s worth a try.’ Dogman grinned around the officers. ‘’Specially if you like it up your arse.’

‘Not my first choice, but they say a general should be prepared for anything.’ Kroy traced a road to its junction, then tapped at the paper. ‘What is this town?’

The Dogman leaned over the table to squint at the map, considerably inconveniencing a pair of unhappy staff officers and giving the impression of not caring in the least. ‘That’s Osrung. Old town, set in fields, with a bridge and a mill, might have, what … three or four hundred people in peacetime? Some stone buildings, more wood. High fence around the outside. Used to have a damn fine tavern but, you know, nothing’s how it used to be.’

‘And this hill? Near where the roads from Ollensand and Uffrith meet?’

‘The Heroes.’

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