The Cuckoo, page 6
“You believe him?”
Bellamus looked down at Vigtyr. “I do, as a matter of fact. And it’s what I would do, if I were in Roper’s boots.”
“Then what on earth are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Bellamus. “But there’s always a way out.”
“But like what?”
“I’m thinking.”
Both men kept an unhappy silence, observing Vigtyr with knitted brows. Bellamus was trying to think of something reassuring to say when the door opened once more and Aramilla swept in. She saw Vigtyr and stopped in her tracks. “Great God. What is this?”
“Vigtyr, here, has defected to our side, and brought the news of the Unhieru.” Bellamus glanced at Vigtyr. “He’d like to be an adviser at court.”
Aramilla smiled suddenly, her eyes narrowing. “An adviser? Yes… Why not?” She gave Vigtyr a look of amusement. Vigtyr leapt at her words like a trout for a fly, and scrambled into a kneeling-up position from which he could very nearly look her in the eye.
“I can serve, Majesty,” he spluttered in Saxon. Bellamus grimaced as he made a mess of the words once again, and Aramilla’s smile widened.
“I’m sure you could tell even Lord Safinim here a thing or two about your kind,” she observed.
“I hope so, Majesty,” said Vigtyr, spilling more saliva.
“Well then, we’ll have to find you some clothes befitting your new position,” said the queen, beaming. The Anakim were a direct people, but perhaps it would not have been obvious even to a Sutherner in Vigtyr’s position that Aramilla was mocking him. “You’ll understand if we keep these men with you, for now,” she added, indicating the guardsmen. “For your protection too, of course. I think my court would be a little shocked to see an Anakim walking around unsupervised.”
“Of course, Majesty.”
“He can have room in the servants’ quarters for now,” said Aramilla, gesturing to the guards. “See him there now.”
“Thank you, Majesty, thank you!” said Vigtyr, bowing clumsily from the floor.
Bellamus and Stepan exchanged a glance, the knight biting his lip, as Vigtyr was led out. Aramilla turned on them, snorting. “A proper court should have a fool, and he’d be marvellously appropriate, would he not? Good morning, Sir Stepan,” she added, smiling pleasantly at the knight.
“Good morning, Majesty.”
When it came to people, Aramilla missed nothing, and must have decided to ignore his disapproving tone. “The Unhieru, then,” she said lightly, turning to Bellamus. “What are we to do?”
“I was just going to suggest to Stepan here, that we might talk on it for a while. See what we can come up with.”
“Do that,” she agreed, waving a hand generously. “I’m going to walk with Cathryn. She says there’s a man in town with a goshawk that’s the most superb hunter. Let me know what you come up with, won’t you, Lord Upstart?”
When she had gone, Stepan said: “Does Her Majesty genuinely have no fear? Or does she not understand?”
“I think it may be a little of both,” said Bellamus. “There has not been enough consequence in her life for her to truly believe bad news will affect her. In an Unhieru advance, all she hears is a break from a life she finds boring. But us, my friend? We’re men of action. So what are we going to do about it?”
“Ah,” Stepan hesitated. He looked around for somewhere to sit, and then realising that Bellamus’s spartan quarters offered nothing but the bed, resigned himself to standing. “If I’m being honest, Captain…”
Bellamus just waited, not the faintest idea what Stepan might be about to suggest.
“I wasn’t… really hoping to discuss the Unhieru. I’m not sure… I’m not sure I plan to be here to fight them, either.”
“Why’s that?” asked Bellamus.
“Well. As you know I’ve wanted to secure my household—my wife, my dogs, my servants—for some time now. They’re all further north, in Anakim-held territories. I’ve no idea what’s happened to any of them. I haven’t been able to get a message to them for… months. They probably think I’m dead, killed at Lundenceaster or by some Anakim head-hunting patrol. I need to get them, Captain. I need them here.” He and Bellamus looked at one another. The knight was playing with a silver charm about his neck, biting his lip again. “I want to go now. Today.”
“My friend,” said Bellamus, shaking his head. “Of course you do. Of course. But… you can’t travel there alone. This country is in turmoil. Even if you don’t hit a Black Legion out foraging and end up being skinned alive, the roads are infested with brigands. If you try and go today, your family won’t just believe you’re dead. You actually will be.”
“Well,” said the knight slowly, “that’s true. But I’d hoped you might lend me some men. Just a few—twenty, maybe—enough to keep the brigands at bay and protect my household on the way back.”
Bellamus took a breath, faltering at the look of hope on his friend’s countenance. He shook his head. “Stepan… Why would you want your household here? This is probably the most dangerous place in Albion.” Bellamus gave an incredulous laugh. “We’re about to get stomped on by ten thousand giants! Forgive me, but wouldn’t they be better off in the north? At least the Anakim-controlled lands are stable.”
“There’s no safety anywhere, Captain,” said Stepan. “I’m not sure we know which bits of the country are more dangerous any more. I’m not sure it even makes sense to try and choose between them, we could be struck down anywhere, at any time. At least this way, we’d be together.”
Bellamus found he could not look the knight in the eye, and though he felt like a coward, he addressed his next words at his rug. “Brother… we’re about to be overrun. We’re talking about arming the fyrd with hoes and ploughs to fight chain-mailed Unhieru. I can’t spend twenty good men on a ride across country, who wouldn’t be back before the Unhieru started battering at the walls.”
“Don’t worry,” said Stepan quickly, and Bellamus could see his embarrassment at having asked. “I knew it would be difficult. But better to know.”
“Any other time,” said Bellamus, just as quickly. “It’s just now… if we hold on to this town, it’ll be with our fingernails. But soon, I promise. The moment we’ve got half an inch of breathing room, you shall have a full company, riding under the queen’s banner.”
“Don’t worry,” Stepan insisted. “And you’re right, I can’t go alone. I wouldn’t make it. Let’s talk about the Unhieru.”
Lubricated with a flagon of ale and a length of good blood sausage, they talked through the afternoon and into the night, but few sensible ideas came to them. Stepan noted that the Unhieru had no horses, and were therefore relatively ponderous. “Maybe Widukind could distract them with the Abbio,” he suggested. “Lead them in circles.”
More likely the Unhieru would just ignore such a meagre force and carry on, Bellamus thought, but they had come up with so little that even this was not to be sniffed at.
They went to quiz Vigtyr in his quarters as to precisely what deal Roper had struck with the Unhieru. The Anakim turncoat could do no more than describe their original negotiations in Unhierea, though he also mentioned that Gogmagoc had since been injured.
Bellamus retired to bed that night, wondering how he could possibly stand before the witan with such feeble schemes to hide behind.
The morning felt like the first day of autumn. The light was different, and the air newly cool and fresh, until a maid arrived to kindle the hearth in his chambers. To an Anakim, this was The Dying. The flies, and fungus and mould which had time to take hold over the growing months, and might otherwise replicate until they choked all Albion, would be destroyed. The earth was refreshed, and winter wiped the slate for the new year.
And as surely as a reckoning was coming for the summer insects, it felt as though the same was coming for the Sutherners in Albion. The Unhieru would arrive the next day.
No inspiration had arrived during the night, and though Bellamus sat at his desk with paper and quill until mid-morning, he had little to report when Stepan knocked at his door and asked if he had made any progress.
“I was thinking about something Vigtyr said last night,” said Bellamus, laying down his quill. “Seems as though if Gogmagoc were dead, the alliance with the Anakim would be forfeit. He’s already injured: maybe we could lay an ambush and finish him off?”
Stepan made a noncommittal noise. “Possibly. Are our men up to it?”
“Almost certainly not,” said Bellamus, bitterly. Even with well-trained men, an ambush was fiendishly difficult to organise. “It depends where Gogmagoc is travelling. If he’s at the van, or an edge of the column, the Abbio might be able to plunge in and do the business before they’re wiped out.”
“No worse than any of our other plans,” Stepan observed. “And if anyone could pull it off, it’d be Widukind. He’s quite the fellow, isn’t he?”
“I thought you said he was a fanatic.”
“Oh, he’s definitely that,” said Stepan comfortably. “But I got friendly with one of the Abbio lads this morning, told me all about the bishop’s teachings.”
“Oh?” murmured Bellamus, looking back at his paper.
“A man of almost complete silence, apparently. He thinks it’s better to say nothing at all if you can. His big line is that words are worth nothing because they’re so cheap, and only actions are worth paying attention to because they’re so costly.”
“Well he certainly lives by that principle. There aren’t many people whose actions have been more costly than Widukind’s.”
“I was asking how he raises his armies so fast,” Stepan went on blithely, settling himself on Bellamus’s oaken chest. “His lads talk about him like he pisses fine wine. They say he’s the closest to God that any man has been, and can heal the sick.”
Bellamus looked up. “Heal the sick?”
“They’ve seen it!” protested Stepan, sensing the scorn in Bellamus’s voice.
Bellamus laughed and rolled his eyes. “Stepan…” he muttered, smiling in spite of himself.
“I’m not the only one gullible enough to have swallowed that tale,” the knight insisted. “Widukind’s with the queen as we speak. She asked him to come and pray with her.”
Bellamus snorted. “God, he’s become another vogue in court,” he said. “Widukind is unique, and a little wild, and all those men in there—” he jerked his head at the wall, through which lay the court—“who’ve never seen anything wilder than their own archery range, mistake that wildness for power of some sort. They’re so keen to be elevated above the common man, sporting the latest ideas and fashions, that it makes them absurdly vulnerable when something new appears.”
Stepan raised his eyebrows at this bitter outburst. “But you like him, don’t you?”
“I like his principles,” said Bellamus curtly. “I like his dedication. They make him forceful. But I don’t believe his hocus pocus. Now come, we need a solution. I have to go into court this afternoon to explain how we survive the Unhieru.”
Stepan shrugged. “In all honesty, Captain, I think retreat is our best option. At first sight of those monsters in full battle-rig, axes fit to fell an oak, the fyrd are going to hurl down their weapons and sprint for whichever gate offers the best chance of escape. And the regulars won’t last much longer. If we can even persuade them to engage the Unhieru, the fight’ll be exceptionally brief. With the forces we have here, we can’t hold them.”
“But we can’t retreat,” said Bellamus. “This has to be the place we defend, there is no pulling back.”
Stepan observed him thoughtfully. “Is this to do with the project you’ve had the fyrd working on? I’ve seen them coming and going at every hour, so muck-covered it’s like they’re wrestling pigs. What have you got them doing?”
“I’ll tell you soon,” Bellamus assured him. “But for now… the fewer people who know, the better. The witan will think it’s mad if they find out before the time is right. I have to show them it’s possible before they know it’s happening.”
Stepan raised his eyebrows. “So what are you to tell the witan?”
Bellamus wished he knew. When he stood before the queen and assembled nobles that afternoon, confidence was his only shield. He explained how they would ambush and kill the weakened Gogmagoc, causing the Unhieru mob to fall apart. And if that did not work, they would set traps before the walls to dishearten their enemy, who would be lost without Anakim expertise in fortress-breaking. He told them this was their last chance, and that with their queen and the famous Bishop Widukind inspiring resistance, the fyrd would hold off even the Unhieru.
But he had no faith in this plan, and nor did the court. As they traipsed from the room, even Bellamus’s enemies were downcast. Scorn him they might, but they had wanted him to show how they could win.
It was a brittle evening at Penbro Hall, with arguments erupting in parlours and kitchens. Aramilla seemed the only one unburdened by thoughts of the next day. She breezed the corridors in high humour, calling on every lord, and Bellamus most of all, to talk fashions, autumn fruits, Widukind and Vigtyr. “What I want to know is,” she declared to Bellamus, perched on the edge of his bed, “how did these Kryptea people get old Vigtyr out of the Anakim camp?”
“In a wagon with a false bed,” Bellamus replied. “They smuggled him here, told him the Unhieru were coming and said they’d wait to make sure we were preparing for their arrival. If we weren’t, they would know Vigtyr had failed, and come to punish him.”
“Do you suppose the old rogue was lying? If the Unhieru are due tomorrow, then why haven’t our scouts sighted them yet?”
“I wish he were lying, Majesty,” said Bellamus heavily. “I will be expecting them in the afternoon.”
“But do you trust him? Why would these Kryptea people work against the Black Kingdom?”
“They work for the Black Kingdom, but against the Black Lord. They thought their kingdom would be better off without involving itself in Suthdal, and without Roper on the Stone Throne. Now usually they’d have executed him, but at the moment they are not popular, and the Black Lord very much is. So their only option was to work against him in secret, and hope to turn public opinion against him.”
“So that is why they protected this Vigtyr creature.”
“Precisely. The Black Legions only recently discovered Vigtyr’s treachery, and the Kryptea helped him escape them, again as a means of undermining Roper. That’s why I’d be surprised if the information about the Unhieru was wrong. Helping us fits with the objectives of both Vigtyr and the Kryptea.”
Aramilla gave every impression of being thrilled at this news. “Marvellous! I’ve still not seen a giant. I’ll be able to watch from the walls as you beat them back, Lord Upstart.”
Her confidence was so out of place that Bellamus found it alarming. More than anything, it underlined that the defence of this city lay on his shoulders. Long after Aramilla retired to bed, he was still scheming in the pool of yellow light spilt by a large oil lamp. He was so focused on his work that he only realised it was dawn when the distant tolling of church bells penetrated the walls. He raised his head for a moment, staring at the lightening window. “Heaven help us.”
He tried to write a warning order to be pinned around the marketplace, but found his hand was shaking so badly he had to dictate instead. “When you come back,” he told the scribe as he left to distribute the copies, “bring wine.”
The market was closed. The streets drained. Even the filthy labourers, working on Bellamus’s secret project, ceased to traipse in and out of the gate, which was shut, barred, and materials for a barricade set out in readiness.
Bellamus waited and drank through the morning, and then went up to stand on the battlements with the queen in the afternoon. Together they inspected the rolling fields about Wiltun, but no mass of Unhieru warriors darkened the pasture.
“They’re terribly slow,” Aramilla observed. She had taken to a wardrobe of ivory gowns inlaid with silver and trimmed with fur, and now sported an incarnation so pale and glittering that it was as though Bellamus was accompanied by a vast icicle. “What’s keeping them?”
“I’ll not question it, Majesty,” Bellamus replied. “Another day’s preparation is exceptionally welcome.”
But the Unhieru did not arrive the next day either. Nor the day after that.
Repeatedly, Bellamus was summoned to the queen’s chambers to report. Was there any word? What was the delay? He had no answers, and three days after the Unhieru had been expected, Aramilla lost patience.
“That Vigtyr creature has sold us out!”
“I doubt it, Majesty,” said Bellamus. He was tired of making these reports and had no wish to further interrogate the wretched Vigtyr. “I see nothing he’d gain from that lie. If we have been misled, it’ll be because the Kryptea lied to him.”
Aramilla waved a hand. “Who cares where the information came from? Vigtyr should be made an example of. Come, I want to speak with him.” She latched onto Bellamus’s arm and led him to Vigtyr’s chamber, all the while expressing her very great admiration for the Lord Upstart, her gratitude that they should have him organising their defences, her disbelief that he should have been a commoner in his homeland. “How lordly your bearing is,” she declared, sizing him up as they walked. “There must be noble blood in there somewhere. Surely the get of an illicit liaison, my dear Bellamus. A bastard child of royalty perhaps.”
Bellamus doubted it.
They found Vigtyr in his chamber. He was under guard from two royal retainers, who showed them through the door. They found a dingy wood-panelled room, and Vigtyr scrambling up in bed, where he seemed to have been dozing. At the sight of them, he slid off the bed and into a deep bow. “Majesty. My lord.”
