The Iron Wars

“Might I trouble you for a drink of the wine?” he asked.

They gazed at him at a loss for words. Finally Avila bestirred himself and in his best frosty aristocratic tone said: “By all means, soldier. Perhaps then you will leave us alone. My friend and I have important matters to discuss.”

The man drank deeply from the proffered wineskin and pinched the drops from his moustache. “How are you both feeling?”

“We’ve been better,” Avila said, still haughty, every inch the Inceptine addressing a lowly man-at-arms. “Might I ask who you are?”

“You might,” the man said, unruffled. “But then again I might not choose to tell you. As it happens, my name is Barbius, Barbius of Neyr.”

“Then perchance, Barbius of Neyr, you will leave us, now that you’ve had your drink of wine.” Avila’s haughtiness was becoming brittle. He was begi

“Are you an officer?” Albrec asked, staring at the man’s scarlet sash.

“You could say that.” Off in the darkness an invisible soldier uttered a half-smothered guffaw.

“Perhaps you would tell us what happened to our belongings then,” Avila said. “They seem to have been misplaced.”

The man smiled, but his eyes had the glitter of sea ice, no gleam of humour to warm them. “I might have thought some gratitude was in order. My men, after all, saved your lives.”

“For which we are duly grateful. Now our things, where are they?”

“Safe in the tent of the army commander, never fear. My turn for questions. Why were you fleeing Charibon?”

“What makes you think we were fleeing the place?” Avila countered.

“You were perhaps taking a constitutional in the blizzard, then?”

“It is none of your business,” the young Inceptine snapped.

“Oh, but it is. I saved your lives. You’d be frozen wolf-bait had my men not found you. I believe I am due an answer to whatever questions I have the urge to pose, plus some common courtesy in their answering.”

The two monks were silent for a few seconds. It was Albrec who finally spoke.

“We apologize for our lack of ma

“I am intrigued,” the Fimbrian said. “Go on.”

“I saved certain forbidden texts from destruction,” Albrec said, his mind racing as it concocted the tissue of half truth and outright lie. “They were discovered, and we had to flee or be burned as heretics. That is all there is to it.”

Barbius nodded. “I thought as much. The text you were carrying with you—is it one of these heretical documents?”

Albrec’s heart leapt. “Yes, yes it is. It still exists, then?”

“The marshal has it in his tent, as I told you.” He seemed to lose interest in them. His gaze flicked out to the surrounding campfires where his men lay close to the flames in weary sleep. “I must go. Call by the marshal’s tent in the morning and you shall have your belongings back. You may stay with the column as long as you wish, but be warned: we travel to Orma

“If you could spare us a couple of mules we could be on our way by tomorrow,” Albrec said eagerly.

Barbius’s cold eyes sized up the little monk squarely. “Whither will you go?”

“To Toru

“Why?”

Albrec was momentarily confused, sure he had said too much, given something away. He faltered, and it was Avila who spoke, his voice dripping with scorn.

“Why, to throw in our lot with Himerius and his fellow heretics, of course. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, as they say. It’s a hard world, soldier. Even clerics have to rub along the best they can.”

Barbius smiled again. “Indeed they do. I will see you in the morning, then.” He rose easily, and it was Avila who called him back as he turned to go.

“Wait! Where is this commander’s tent? How shall we find it? This camp is as big as a town.”

The Fimbrian shrugged, walking away. “Ask for Barbius of Neyr’s headquarters. He commands the army, or so I am told.”

THREE

“I don’t like it, my lady,” Brie

“If they won’t spill their confidences to you, there is truly something wrong with the world,” Isolla said wryly. “That’s enough, Brie

“You’ve an impression to make,” Brie

Isolla smiled. There was no arguing with her maidservant sometimes. Brie

“You don’t think he’s dead, do you?” she asked Brie

“No, my lady. Not dead. I ventured to suggest that to one of the cooks and was almost brained by a ladle for my pains. They’re very touchy, the palace staff. No, it’s my belief something happened to him in the battle to retake the city. He was wounded, that’s plain, but no one knows or will say how badly. It’s unsettling. I was in Abrusio as a girl—you know my family hailed from Imerdon—and it was a godless place then, teeming with foreigners and heathens, everything to be had for a price. It’s different now. All that is gone.”

“War is apt to put a dampener on things,” Isolla said, studying herself in the dressing mirror. “That will do, Brie

“No powder, my lady?”

“For the fiftieth time, no. I’ll not have myself painted like a ma

Brie

Brie

There was a knock on the door. Isolla rose smoothly from the dressing table and said: “Enter.”

A footman stood there in Hebrian scarlet. He bowed. “My lady, the wizard Golophin asks if he might be admitted.”