Kronmir knew how it all worked.
“Cut off some fingers, Carlos,” the priest said. “I’m in a hurry.”
Kronmir could watch.
Three fingers from his right hand went, one by one.
He screamed for each one. Never again to hold a sword, or a pen. Of course, that was faulty thinking, as he was not getting away. Never again now applied to everything.
Actually, none of it hurt as much as his hip, when he writhed at the pain from the fingers.
“He is someone very important,” the priest said to someone else. “He has been trained to resist. This is an extraordinary discovery.”
“Is this their Red Knight come in person?” the sibilant voice said. “That would be excellent. But it is not he. He is in the north, fighting the rebel.”
“God’s will,” said a third voice.
“I need this to move faster,” said the sibilant voice. “I have no time for this. Cut his manhood.”
“Holiness, I have found .…” said his torturer.
“Speak,” said the voice.
“Once you cut the manhood, they surrender to death, not to you.” The priest-torturer shrugged. Kronmir could see him. He was young; the same age as Favour.
Kronmir wished he had magical powers of communication. Brown might avenge him. He certainly wanted to be avenged. He had no Christian forgiveness in him. He hoped that Brown would, someday, track them all down.
“Have him raped, then,” said the voice. “I am told this works.”
“His pelvis is broken,” said the priest. “He could die.”
“Ssssssssss!” the voice said. “Break him! The sun rises in an hour! I have no time for this.”
Kronmir was just congratulating himself that they needed to hurry, and then Carlos rolled him on his back.
There was a jolt of incredible pain.
Kronmir took refuge in unconsciousness.
It didn’t last long enough, and then he awake again.
He knew immediately that he had been gelded; the whole of his manhood cut away. He could feel the wound.
He felt curiously detached now. The priest knew something about torture; Kronmir agreed with him. He had crossed over. The man’s giggles were not nerves, but a tick. He was skilled, and his principal was not letting him do his job.
There was light coming in the windows. He turned his head to it.
“Fine,” said yet another voice. “Send for the archpriest. We will use the worms.”
Kronmir lay, mutilated, alone, and terrified. He knew better than most what the worms were.
He lay and prayed fruitlessly for death.
The mutilation of his body had been seamlessly healed; not the pain, or the brokenness. Someone had used the sorcerer’s art to stanch the blood. Not the pain. Not the mutilation.
Not even the fever he already felt. Or the feeling of defilement.
Kronmir’s only armour was that he had always expected to end this way, and he had imagined it many times. It was not too horrible to be real; it merely was. He was dead; he needed to be dead, before they broke him. That was now the contest. And the worms …
But the light was growing. He was in a strange place, where time had little meaning, and the pain was something for which he had practiced. He had been tortured twice before. Once by experts, and once by amateurs. Of course, there had been limits on them, both times, and people coming to save him.
Not this time.
The light was growing. Even pain, terror, and death could not hide the sound of an army breaking camp, and every moment he did not break was a tiny moment of victory. He screamed and whimpered, but in the fortress of his thoughts, even if that fortress was breached and considering surrender, he could acknowledge that he’d done pretty well with this part.
“Now, you have been very brave,” said the voice. “You know you are going to die.”
It was all Kronmir could do not to agree, and thus, speak.
“The Patriarch wants me to feed you to these worms. Do you know what they are? They go in through your eyes and eat your soul. Your soul is destroyed. No heaven, no hell. They master your will and you never were.”
Weak theology, Kronmir thought, and was delighted he could think such a thought.
“And once they eat into you, we’ll have your whole life at our disposal in a few hours,” the man said.
Kronmir heard himself whimper.
I will break in a few seconds, he promised himself. Just not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
“Open your eyes, or I will pull the lever again,” the voice said.
Eventually, there was an eternity of pain, and then Kronmir’s eyes were opened physically. He felt the invisible Carlos put thumbs on his eyelids. The big man put pins through Kronmir’s eyelids into his forehead, pinning his eyes open. Tears and blood cascaded down, blinding him.
He writhed again, in fear and loathing of the end he faced, and his hip exploded in pain.
He vomited.
They cleaned the vomit off his lips and face.
And he saw the worms. The tears were slowing, and his eyes focused, without his volition, and they were there.
There were the long, sinuous grey worms, writhing in a man’s armoured hand. A hydra of six; their mouths were purple, their tiny teeth just visible to the human eye.
Kronmir screamed. He could not help himself.
“Who is Alison?” the voice asked.
Kronmir was at his limit. Somewhere, in the part of his head that could still think, he knew that every man has a limit for torture; he was far past his. He’d really done very well, and they’d killed him and ruined his body anyway. It didn’t matter. Or it did.
But the mouth he needed to talk with was screaming, and he couldn’t master it.
The voice said, “And who is Giselle?”
Giselle.
Giselle.
Giselle.
The name went through him like magic. For an instant, he was himself; he had command of his mind.
He thought of Giselle, fighting the will.
He thought of Giselle. He loved, and he would not betray. His resistance rose and his surrender fell away.
And he said nothing.
“I’m afraid this is your very last chance. No repentance, no afterlife, no hope.” The priest’s hand moved a fraction, and the heads of the worms all but brushed his eyes, pinned open now.
I was destined for hell anyway. Perhaps extinction is what I deserve. But I will not betray. I will defeat you.
“You fool! The worms will have it all from you anyway. Your entire life. Speak, or be damned!” the priest growled, frustrated.
“Just do it,” said the sibilant voice.
And as Kronmir screamed out what little life was left to him, the worms ate his eyes and started into his brain.
The San Colombo Pass—Ser Alison
Sauce stood at a small camp table while Daniel Favour sketched a chart on a large sheet of cheap paper from Venike.
“Isn’t paper wonderful?” the duchess asked.
Sauce shook her head. “Really?” she asked. “I’d rather have Mortirmir to make me a piece of sorcery. With the terrain. And colour.”
Behind her, in the darkness of the early hours of morning, her army snored, sound asleep except for a handful of sentries.
A messenger arrived, and then another. The duchess read the messages and passed them to Sauce, and she drank quaveh and looked over her chart.
“The river is rising,” the duchess said.
“Better and better,” Sauce said.
She began to dictate orders to her two scribes and No Head, whose literacy had now reached churchly proportions.
“What do you want?” she asked Giselle.
“I’ll take the attack on his baggage.” Giselle was cleaning dirt from under her nails with the tip of her eating knife. “It is the kind of war I know best. And mostly my own soldiers.”
Sauce nodded. “Whole poin
t of the battle,” she said. “Time?” she asked No Head.
He raised an eyebrow and looked outside. “Half past three.”
“Officers,” she snapped.
“You are enjoying this too much,” No Head said.
“Fuck yes,” Sauce said.
It took almost half an hour for the captains and senior corporals to come in; many attended by squires or pages still arming them. She had all the red banda and all the white, with Ser Milus commanding the red and Ser George Brewes taking Ser Michael’s place.
She had only three battle mages, the best of whom was Mortirmir’s wife, Tancreda, university trained and strangely ruthless; and in addition to the three, she had Magister Petrarcha, whose skills in combat were untested, although Mortirmir and Gabriel both seemed to think he was a peer.
Conte Simone had six hundred excellent knights; she doubted that her opponents could match the quality of her heavy cavalry.
But then, she didn’t plan to use her heavy cavalry unless things went wrong.
Which, her experience told her, they always did.
“What’s the first thing you do in a sword fight, gentlemen?” she asked, looking around. She and Giselle, Duchess of Venike, were the only two women present; odd, as they were in command. Sauce was smiling, trying to will one of the old salts to answer her. She needed them to participate; to participate was to accept her authority. She didn’t expect to be challenged, but she wanted enthusiasm, dammit.
Ser Milus grinned. “Defend myself,” he said.
Dammit, Bad Tom would know the answer.
Corner, the captain of marines, made a very Etruscan face.
“I hope he’s an idiot,” he said.
Sauce gave the Venikan her full, broad smile. “And then?”
“And then, if he’s a fool, I kill him without risk.” He nodded.
“And if he’s no fool?” she prompted him.
Corner raised an eyebrow. “Then I work harder perhaps.”
Sauce nodded emphatically and turned her broad smile on the candlelit tent. “Exactly. First try the easy way. Without risk. If that doesn’t work, then we all have to work hard. Here’s my plan.”
She laid it out, with schemes and a timetable.
Milus nodded. “Pretty simple, lass,” he said.
“Didn’t Ser Jehan always say to keep it simple?” she asked. She looked at Conte Simone.
The great count was frowning. “We will never fight,” he said.
“You can have my part,” said George Brewes.
“You will if something goes to shit,” Sauce said. “And to be fair, in war, something always goes to shit.”
The Count of Berona shook his head. “I do not generally wait to charge. I like to settle the battle myself.”
Sauce thought again of Bad Tom. “I know someone who would suit you very well,” she said. She laughed. “Listen, my lord. If you have to charge, you will settle the battle yourself; this, I promise you. There is no dishonour in being in reserve; I will, in fact, be beside you.”
For a moment, she wondered if he would say that she’d been a whore and knew nothing of honour.
It hung there a moment, and then the older man tilted his head like a hungry hawk. Half a smile lit his lower face. “Ah,” he said. “As long as I have the pleasure of your company, Ser Alison,” and he snapped his fingers. “That for the enemy.”
“You are the very soul of courtesy,” Sauce said with a curtsy. In armour. Then she turned back.
“Remember what Gabriel says. We have to win every time. Play this careful; like a sword fight. Try easy, then try blunt, then try subtle. We can’t afford losses and we don’t have any time. So just get it done.” She looked around. “Listen for the signals. Follow orders. But you are all good captains; you know your business. If you have the moment to, then get it done. Understood?”
They all smiled.
In seconds, the pavilion was empty. To the east, a smear of orange had been spread across the base of the sky.
“You are a strange woman,” Giselle said.
“This from you, darlin’?” Sauce asked.
“You have just told them they may use their own initiative, something my husband at his strongest would not have done.” Giselle was eating berries. She looked as if she had a mouthful of blood.
“They are all masters in their own house,” Sauce said. “Why should I put reins on them?”
Giselle toasted her with quaveh. “You are as remarkable as Blanche, or Sukey. Or Tom or Kronmir. Where did your emperor find you all?”
Sauce smirked. “Whorehouses mostly,” she said. “Well, Blanche was a laundress. Kronmir … is no man’s friend, nor woman’s.”
“I must disagree, although we are sisters in most things,” Giselle said. “He saved me. He had other options, and he chose to save me.” She sat languidly for a bit, and then rose. “I should arm.”
“If’n he saved you, then it suited another agenda,” Sauce said. “He’s not a man. He’s an automaton. After we win, I’ll put him down, just to make sure he doesn’t work for someone else.”
“I wouldn’t like that,” Giselle said softly.
The two women looked at each other.
“You fancy him?” Sauce asked.
“I do not fancy men,” Giselle said. “But I can be loyal to one who was loyal to me.”
Sauce thought about that a moment and kissed her friend’s cheek. “Mayhap I’ll come to see what you see, then,” she said, and went out and started giving orders.
Giselle stretched, and called for her squire.
San Batiste—The Patriarch of Rhum
An hour after first light, the Patriarch’s scouts entered the town of San Batiste and found it empty. They weren’t particularly thorough, but they checked cellars and pillaged the church like normal soldiers, and then pushed on.
A handful crossed the bridge, saw the enemy vanguard waiting for them, and retired, chased by inaccurate crossbow bolts. Messengers tore back along the road and found the Patriarch under his canopy of embroidered cloth of gold.
He issued orders.
The Patriarchal army had more than twelve thousand men, mostly trained militia from the powerful towns around Rhum, and the great city itself; some thousands of armoured spearmen from the Rhumanol, and three thousand knights and squires from the south of Etrusca, mostly sell-swords, and some mounted crossbowmen as well, prosperous merchants’ sons and a handful of adventurers. He also had a small band of foreign mercenaries from Dar as Salaam—exiles from the Sultan, and fallen Mamluks.
He tended to listen to their advice; they knew more about his enemies than anyone he’d ever spoken to, and they knew a good deal about war as well.
The Patriarch snapped his fingers and pointed at Ali-Mohamed el Rafik. The exile was never going home; he’d killed the sultan’s son. And he looked the part of the dangerous infidel: dark skin, and a scar across the bridge of his nose that made him look more like an imp of Satan than was quite right.
“Holiness,” he said when he came even with the Patriarch’s red shoe.
“This enemy army is waiting on our road north. At the bridge at San Batiste.” The Patriarch pointed north. “Go and look at them and come back and advise me.”
“This is the only crossing for ten miles, north or south,” said one of the endless priests who surrounded the Patriarch.
“What did the prisoner say?” Ali asked. He knew a high-ranking prisoner had been taken.
“Nothing yet,” muttered the Patriarch.
“Impressive,” said Ali. His mustaches moved into his imitation of a smile. “I will return,” he snapped, and whirled his horse and rode away in a little whirlpool of dust. He enjoyed showing his superior horsemanship.
The morning passed while he rode forward and reconnoitered the edge of the river. He noted the shingle of gravel and the cattle crossing, but there were fewer than two hundred enemy soldiers in sight.
He galloped back to his master.
“I thi
nk perhaps you are being bluffed,” he said.
The Patriarch was no novice to war. “You think this is some rear guard, and my enemy has gone to face the Duke of Mitla?” he asked.
“That is one explanation,” Ali said. “There are many. If I had a hundred Mamluks, I would ride across the bridge and see what could be seen by the ridge.” He shrugged. “There is nothing in the plain. The enemy captain either is bluffing, or is a fool. We can cross the bridge either way. And once across, we cannot easily be stopped from joining the Duke at Mitla.” He shrugged. “Or the enemy captain is using the plain to trap us against the river, in which case he is absolutely confident that his army is superior to ours.”
“The enemy commander is a woman,” the Patriarch said.
“Holiness,” the man called the archpriest said. “Surely, if she is a woman, we can assume she is a fool. Women know nothing of war. And we caught her spy, did we not? So she will not know the terrain.”
Ali-Mohamed raised an eyebrow. “Women can be devious,” he said quietly.
The Patriarch looked around, but none of his other captains or advisors was bold enough to speak, perhaps because of his policy of punishing those who failed. He sat above them, in a palanquin entirely of metal, and he seemed to emanate heat like a furnace. People said no horse would bear him.
“I have won ten battles and never met a woman who could lead an army. Let us cross the river. At worst, we will have more men and more knights, and we will simply break out.” His voice was low and sibilant, and his delivery flat and unemotional.
Everyone nodded.
Except Ali-Mohamed, who began to look at the girth on his horse.
“Let us march.” The Patriarch turned to one of the younger priests. “What of the prisoner?”
“He is infected. It will be another two hours before he can be questioned.” The priest shrugged.
The Patriarch shrugged. “If there is no enemy force, kill him and harvest the worms,” he said. “Really. I do not desire the will to know more than we know ourselves. In two hours, we’ll have this over with. So much for torture.”