Meillard turned on Valiana and snarled, ‘You were supposed to be the Realm’s Protector! Would you truly wage war on your own people? You’re no better than that bitch Trin!’
As menacing as I’d tried to appear, Valiana was positively terrifying in her calm. ‘You made it quite plain, Prince Meillard, that you considered Pertine its own country – and a country that has sided with our enemy at that. Should you try to block our way, we will destroy your army, give your people six days to flee into Aramor, and then leave Pertine such a ruin that when the Avareans come, they will see there is nothing in Tristia worth invading.’
‘Still think it’s a good idea to secede from Tristia?’ I wondered aloud.
Meillard stared back at us, trying to work out if we really were ready to start a war between Aramor and Pertine that would end only in blood. I felt bad for him: Meillard wasn’t an especially bad man; he was just a little too used to getting his way.
Well, we all learn that lesson eventually, your Grace.
‘Very well,’ Meillard said at last. He motioned for one of his aides to come forward and issued a quick series of orders.
When he was done, the newly restored Duke of Pertine let out a sigh. ‘I’ve been on a knife’s edge about this whole secession nonsense since the beginning,’ he admitted, ‘but my Generals convinced me it was the only way we could survive.’
‘Those of us who fought the last wars are old men now,’ Feltock said. ‘Those battles were long ago, and our way of fighting as tired as we are. We’re facing something new now.’
‘And I suppose you’ve got some strategy to win, General Feltock?’
‘Me?’ Feltock chuckled. ‘Haven’t got a clue, to be honest. I can organise the troops, get ’em from one place to another with most of ’em alive, position cavalry and infantry – but winning? Against what’s coming?’ He shook his head and jerked a thumb at me. ‘I’m hoping the Trattari’s going to come up with something.’
Orders went down the line of both armies, and once it was done and we were amicably parting company, Meillard called out to me, ‘Do you really believe you can do it, Falcio?’
‘Do what, your Grace?’
‘Win a war the entire country knows cannot be won.’
Hopeless causes tend to end in blood and tears, but they do give opportunities for a good line here or there.
I grinned. ‘Just watch me.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The Absent Cannon
The truth is, Meillard was right: I really don’t understand war. I’ve spent most of my adult life fighting duels, so steel and bloodshed are old, if regrettable, companions. But war? Battles, sieges, troop movements, supply lines? None of that makes any sense to me. And worst of all is the waiting. A duellist deals in thrusts and parries, feints and counter-attacks. Our strength is in speed: decisions made in a fraction of a second, in lightning-fast movements. Go to any duelling court and count the seconds between the two opponents entering the circle, beginning to trade blows and one or both lying dead or injured. You’ll be lucky to get to sixty.
Wars take weeks, months, sometimes even years. The Shan have been at war with their Eastern neighbours for almost a century: children there are born, raised and die without ever having known peace. Do the people there spend their entire lives counting the minutes and praying the next will bring a trumpeting announcement of the end of the hostilities? Do they lie on their deathbeds, still at war, cursing the name of whichever ruler set them on this path in the first place?
On the snow-covered field of battle, our soldiers were frantically digging shallow holes and refilling them; we lacked the time and resources to build ballistae, trebuchet or other war machines that might have made a difference, so we had to put our hopes in less conventional methods.
I looked at the men and women, already exhausted, and wondered how many years would pass before the people of Tristia stopped cursing my name.
The field of battle. Through the exchange of emissaries we’d somehow agreed to this specific patch of land, this field that ends at a sheer cliff-face, the eastern edge of which separates Tristia from Avares, as the place to set about the business of killing each other.
‘They’re here,’ Brasti said, jogging towards me, Gwyn close behind him.
‘How far?’ Valiana asked. She, Feltock and Nehra had been working out troop deployment by arranging Filian’s coloured wooden blocks on a hastily sketched map. Who says war isn’t a game?
‘About two miles. It won’t be long now.’ He pointed towards the softly descending forest to the left of the cliff-face. ‘They’ll come down from there and then set up with the cliff at their backs.’
‘I told you we should have set traps in the forest,’ Feltock said.
‘How big is the horde?’ I asked Brasti.
For once, he was speechless. ‘Massive. Falcio, we couldn’t go far enough to see the end of their lines. It’s like . . . it’s like staring at the ocean and trying to count the drops of water.’
‘Would we kill them all with little traps in the hills?’ I asked Feltock.
‘Of course not, but—’
‘Then I’d rather not piss them off. The whole point of this suicide mission is to make the Avareans see us as honourable foes, after all.’ I looked back at our own soldiers. That was a lot of people to sacrifice just to make a positive impression on an implacable enemy.
‘I’ve got some of the local volunteers from Pertine organised,’ Ethalia said, coming up to stand beside me. ‘We’ve got a dozen tents set up over there as our infirmary.’
Ethalia had always been loath to shed blood, and now she was Saint of Mercy none of us knew what price she’d pay for doing so, but she had insisted on coming. It felt good to have her standing beside me; warmer, somehow. ‘I wish you weren’t here,’ I said.
She took my hand and drew me away from the others. ‘You need to stop saying that.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, not very convincingly.
Abruptly, she wrapped her arms around me, so tightly I could barely breathe. ‘You think I don’t know, Falcio? You expect to meet your end here. You hide it well, but I see it in your face every time you think no one’s watching.’
I hugged her back, suddenly afraid of the very thought she had given voice to. ‘I’m not suicidal. I don’t want to die, but I’ve been lucky for a very long time, Ethalia, and I think this time . . .’ I could feel her cheek brushing against mine.
‘You think Death himself will finally catch up to you.’
It sounded silly when she said it, but it was true, and I had nothing to offer that might comfort her.
‘Do you know why I came, Falcio?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I’m here because when . . . when it happens, when Death comes for you, I will stand in his way and refuse to let him have you.’
‘I don’t think it works that way, sweetheart.’
She buried her face in my shoulder. ‘It ought to.’