Last Argument Of Kings: Book Three (The First Law 3)

‘Well enough, thank you, sir. The preparations are well underway. We should be ready to leave at first light.’

‘As efficient as ever. Where would I be without you?’ Burr gestured at the decanter. ‘Wine?’

‘Thank you, sir.’ West poured himself a glass. ‘Would you care for one?’

Burr indicated a battered canteen at his elbow. ‘I believe it would be prudent if I was to stick to water.’

West winced, guiltily. He hardly felt as if he had the right to ask, but there was no escaping it now. ‘How are you feeling, sir?’

‘Much better, thank you for asking. Much, much better.’ He grimaced, put one fist over his mouth, and burped. ‘Not entirely recovered, but well on the way.’ As though to prove the point he got up easily from his chair and strode to the map, hands clasped behind his back. His face had indeed regained much of its colour. He no longer stood hunched over, wobbling as though he were about to fall.

‘Lord Marshal . . . I wanted to speak to you . . . about the battle at Dunbrec.’

Burr looked round. ‘About what feature of it?’

‘When you were sick . . .’ West teetered on the brink of speaking, then let the words bubble out. ‘I didn’t send for a surgeon! I could have, but—’

‘I’m proud that you didn’t.’ West blinked. He had hardly dared to hope for that answer. ‘You did what I would have wanted you to do. It is important that an officer should care, but it is vital that he should not care too much. He must be able to place his men in harm’s way. He must be able to send them to their deaths, if he deems it necessary. He must be able to make sacrifices, and to weigh the greatest good, without emotion counting in his choice. That is why I like you, West. You have compassion in you, but you have iron too. One cannot be a great leader without a certain . . . ruthlessness.’

West found himself lost for words. The Lord Marshal chuckled, and slapped the table with his open hand. ‘But as it happens, no harm done, eh? The line held, the Northmen were turned out of Angland, and I tottered through alive, as you can see!’

‘I am truly glad to see you feeling better, sir.’

Burr grinned. ‘Things are looking up. We are free to move again, with our lines of supply secure and the weather finally dry. If your Dogman’s plan works then we have a chance of finishing Bethod within a couple of weeks! They’ve been a damn courageous and useful set of allies!’

‘They have, sir.’

‘But this trap must be carefully baited, and sprung at just the right moment.’ Burr peered at the map, rocking energetically back and forward on his heels. ‘If we’re too early Bethod may slip away. If we’re too late our Northern friends could be crushed before we can reach them. We have to make sure bloody Poulder and bloody Kroy don’t drag their bloody feet!’ He winced and put a hand on his stomach, reached for his canteen and took a swig of water.

‘I’d say you finally have them house-trained, Lord Marshal.’

‘Don’t you believe it. They’re only waiting for their chance to put the knife in me, the pair of them! And now the King is dead. Who knows who will replace him? Voting for a monarch! Have you ever heard of such a thing?’

West’s mouth felt unpleasantly dry. It was almost impossible to believe that the whole business had been partly his own doing. It would hardly have done to take credit for it however, given that his part had been to murder the heir to the throne in cold blood. ‘Who do you think they will choose, sir?’ he croaked.

‘I’m no courtier, West, for all I have a seat on the Closed Council. Brock, maybe, or Isher? I’ll tell you one thing for sure – if you think there’s violence going on up here, it’ll be twice as brutal back home in Midderland, with half the mercy shown.’ The Marshal burped, and swallowed, and laid a hand on his stomach. ‘Gah. No Northman’s anything like as ruthless as those vultures on the Closed Council when they get started. And what will change when they have their new man in his robes of state? Not much, I’m thinking. Not much.’

‘Very likely, sir.’

‘I daresay there’s nothing that we can do about it either way. A pair of blunt soldiers, eh, West?’ He stepped up close to the map again, and traced their route northwards towards the mountains, his thick forefinger hissing over the paper. ‘We must make sure we are ready to move at sunup. Every hour could be vital. Poulder and Kroy have had their orders?’

‘Signed and delivered, sir, and they understand the urgency. Don’t worry, Lord Marshal, we’ll be ready to go in the morning.’

‘Don’t worry?’ Burr snorted. ‘I’m the commander of his Majesty’s army. Worrying is what I do. But you should get some rest.’ He waved West out of the tent with one thick hand. ‘I’ll see you at first light.’

‘There’ll be no sleep for anyone tonight.’ Brint finished dealing and scraped up his cards with his fingernails.

‘I wish I could remember the last time I got more than three good hours together,’ said West. Back in Adua, most likely, before his sister came to the city. Before the Marshal put him on his staff. Before he came back to Angland, before he met Prince Ladisla, before the freezing journey north and the things he had done on it. He hunched his shoulders and frowned down at his dog-eared cards.

‘How’s the Lord Marshal?’ asked Jalenhorm.

‘Much better, I’m pleased to say.’

‘Thank the fates for that.’ Kaspa raised his brows. ‘I don’t much fancy the idea of that pedant Kroy in charge.’

‘Or Poulder either,’ said Brint. ‘The man’s ruthless as a snake.’

West could only agree. Poulder and Kroy hated him almost as much as they hated each other. If one of them took command he’d be lucky if he found himself swabbing latrines the following day. Probably he’d be on a boat to Adua within the week. To swab latrines there.

‘Have you heard about Luthar?’ asked Jalenhorm.

‘What about him?’

‘He’s back in Adua.’ West looked up sharply. Ardee was in Adua, and the idea of the two of them together again was not exactly a heartening thought.

‘I had a letter from my cousin Ariss.’ Kaspa squinted as he clumsily fanned out his cards. ‘She says Jezal was far away somewhere, on some kind of mission for the king.’

‘A mission?’ West doubted anyone would have trusted Jezal with anything important enough to be called a mission.

‘All of Adua is buzzing with it, apparently.’

‘They say he led some charge or other,’ said Jalenhorm, ‘across some bridge.’

West raised his eyebrows. ‘Did he now?’

‘They say he killed a score of men on the battlefield.’

‘Only a score?’

‘They say he bedded the Emperor’s daughter,’ murmured Brint.

West snorted. ‘Somehow I find that the most believable of the three.’

Kaspa spluttered with laughter. ‘Well whatever the truth of it, he’s been made up to Colonel.’

‘Good for him,’ muttered West, ‘he always seems to fall on his feet, that boy.’

‘Did you hear about this revolt?’

‘My sister mentioned something about it in her last letter. Why?’

‘There was a full-scale rebellion, Ariss tells me. Thousands of peasants, roaming the countryside, burning and looting, hanging anyone with a ‘dan’ in their name. Guess who was given command of the force sent to stop them?’

West sighed. ‘Not our old friend Jezal dan Luthar, by any chance?’

‘The very same, and he persuaded them to go back to their homes, how about that?’

‘Jezal dan Luthar,’ murmured Brint, ‘with the common touch. Who could have thought it?’

‘Not me.’ Jalenhorm emptied his glass and poured himself another. ‘But they’re calling him a hero now, apparently.’

‘Toasting him in the taverns,’ said Brint.

‘Congratulating him in the Open Council,’ said Kaspa.

West scraped the jingling pile of coins towards him with the edge of his hand. ‘I wish I could say I was surprised, but I always guessed I’d be taking my orders from Lord Marshal Luthar one of these days.’ It could have been worse, he supposed. It could have been Poulder or Kroy.

‘Lord Marshal, Poulder and Kroy are waiting for your word to move.’ Burr lay upon his camp bed, his eyes closed, his mouth open, sleeping peacefully. West would have liked to leave him there, but time was already wasting. ‘Lord Marshal!’ he snapped, walking up close to the bed. Still he did not respond.

That was when West noticed that his chest was not moving.

He reached out with hesitant fingers and held them above Burr’s open mouth. No warmth. No breath. West felt the horror slowly spreading out from his chest to the very tips of his fingers. There could be no doubt. Lord Marshal Burr was dead.

It was grey morning when the coffin was carried from the tent on the shoulders of six solemn guardsmen, the surgeon walking along behind with his hat in his hand. Poulder, Kroy, West, and a scattering of the army’s most senior men lined the path to watch it go. Burr himself would no doubt have approved of the simple box in which his corpse would be shipped back to Adua. The same rough carpentry in which the Union’s lowest levies were buried.

West stared at it, numb.

The man inside had been like a father to him, or the closest he had ever come to having one. A mentor and protector, a patron and a teacher. An actual father, rather than the bullying, drunken worm that nature had cursed him with. And yet he did not feel sorrow as he stared at that rough wooden box. He felt fear. For the army and for himself. His first instinct was not to weep, it was to run. But there was nowhere to run to. Every man had to do his part, now more than ever.

Kroy lifted his sharp chin and stood up iron rigid as the shadow of the casket passed across them. ‘Marshal Burr will be much missed. He was a staunch soldier, and a brave leader.’

‘A patriot,’ chimed in Poulder, his lip trembling, one hand pressed against his chest as though it might burst open with emotion. ‘A patriot who gave his life for his country! It was my honour to serve under his orders.’

West wanted to vomit at their hypocrisy, but the fact was he desperately needed them. The Dogman and his people were out in the hills, moving north, trying to lure Bethod into a trap. If the Union army did not follow, and soon, they would have no help when the King of the Northmen finally caught up to them. They would only succeed in luring themselves into their graves.

‘A terrible loss,’ said West, watching the coffin carried slowly down the hillside, ‘but we will honour him best by fighting on.’

Kroy gave a regulation nod. ‘Well said, Colonel. We will make these Northmen pay!’

‘We must. To that end, we should make ready to advance. We are already behind schedule, and the plan relies on precise—’

‘What?’ Poulder stared at him as though he suspected West of having gone suddenly insane. ‘Move forward? Without orders? Without a clear chain of command?’

Kroy gave vent to an explosive snort. ‘Impossible.’

Poulder violently shook his head. ‘Out of the question, entirely out of the question.’

‘But Marshal Burr’s orders were quite specific—’

‘Circumstances have very plainly altered.’ Kroy’s face was an expressionless slab. ‘Until I receive explicit instructions from the Closed Council, no one will be moving my division so much as a hair’s breadth.’

‘General Poulder, surely you—’

‘In this particular circumstance, I cannot but agree with General Kroy. The army cannot move an inch until the Open Council has selected a new king, and the king has appointed a new Lord Marshal.’ And he and Kroy eyed each other with the deepest hatred and distrust.

West stood stock still, his mouth hanging slightly open, unable to believe his ears. It would take days for news of Burr’s death to reach the Agriont, and even if the new king decided on a replacement immediately, days for the orders to come back. West pictured the long miles of forested track to Uffrith, the long leagues of salt water to Adua. A week, perhaps, if the decision was made at once, and with the government in chaos that hardly seemed likely.

In the meantime the army would sit there, doing nothing, the hills before them all but undefended, while Bethod was given ample time to march north, slaughter the Dogman and his friends, and return to his positions. Positions which, no doubt, untold numbers of their own men would be killed assaulting once the army finally had a new commander. All an utterly pointless, purposeless waste. Burr’s coffin had only just passed out of sight but already, it seemed, it was quite as if the man had never lived. West felt the horror creeping up his throat, threatening to strangle him with rage and frustration. ‘But the Dogman and his Northmen, our allies . . . they are counting on our help!’

‘Unfortunate,’ observed Kroy.

‘Regrettable,’ murmured Poulder, with a sharp intake of breath, ‘but you must understand, Colonel West, that the entire business is quite out of our hands.’

Kroy nodded stiffly. ‘Out of our hands. And that is all.’

West stared at the two of them, and a terrible wave of powerlessness swept over him. The same feeling that he had when Prince Ladisla decided to cross the river, when Prince Ladisla decided to order the charge. The same feeling that he had when he floundered up in the mist, blood in his eyes, and knew the day was lost. That feeling that he was nothing more than an observer. That feeling that he had promised himself he would never have again. His own fault, perhaps.

A man should only make such promises as he is sure he can keep.