Surrender to the Will of the Night (53 page)

***

Though determined to force a decisive encounter neither Peter nor Regard was prepared for the opportunity. Both were still abed when the first arrows flew. Peter was the worse for a terrible hangover. His people did their best to get him up, get him dressed, get him armed, armored, and mounted. He departed Metrelieux under the stern eyes of his Queen, her gaze so flush with anger that, hangover and all, he preferred a battle to explaining himself.

Peter joined his knights after the fighting became chaotic, neither side pursuing any strategy deeper than hacking at the man who was nearest. Contingents of Navayans sat their mounts outside the fray and did nothing because they had received no instructions and had no initiative. Many Arnhanders did the same. And the Khaurenese stayed well back from danger.

On the wall, beside Brother Candle, Raulet Archimbault grumbled, “I feel like I’m hearing this story for the second time.”

Kedle responded, “You are, Dad. But last time it was the Captain-General. And he was ready.”

Archimbault grunted. “Handed us our heads and hearts and sent us scurrying into the Altai like terrified rats.” He eyed Soames but said nothing.

Kedle, the Perfect noted, did not so much as glance at her husband.

Archimbault said, “Things were different, then.”

Indeed. The Patriarchal forces had been disciplined and well led. For them it had been another day’s work at organized murder.

***

The Navayans approached to within bowshot before the Arnhanders wakened their sovereign. Regard had spent the night with an equerry named Thierry, sure there would be no fighting for days. The weather made campaigning impractical.

The enemy did not agree. He began making probing attacks. Frightened courtiers brought word that several of Anne’s favorites had fallen already.

The situation looked desperate.

Regard would not be hurried. He refused to hear talk of flight. He performed his morning religious obligation, demanding added blessings for a warrior headed into harm’s way on God’s behalf.

Panic found a home in the hearts of some awaiting the King’s appearance, particularly those in the Connec out of greed rather than conviction. Several dozen knights chose to leave Regard in God’s keeping before he completed his obligation. Among them were three of his cousins, his mother’s brother, and Anne’s latest pet priest, Bishop Mortimar du Blanc. Du Blanc was a senior member of the Arnhander branch of the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.

The omens were bad from the beginning. Regard’s squires broke the laces on his mail shirt as they tightened them. While they hunted replacements news came that the last hint of organization had fled the battlefield.

More faint hearts discovered a conviction that they would be of more value at home than at Khaurene. Anne might spit and swear but she would not leave them facedown, dead, in freezing Connecten mud.

Several contingents from counties that had shifted allegiance from Tormond IV to Charlve the Dim moved off, refusing to participate, having no desire to make a permanent enemy of Peter of Navaya.

The Navayans had similar problems. Many Direcian allies would not engage unless Peter himself took command.

Elsewhere, King Jaime of Castauriga exceeded his instructions. Rather than block the road to Khaurene he stormed into the Raffle, a valley poorly suited to fighting on horseback.

At Repor ande Busch King Regard’s back cinch broke when he put weight on his stirrup. He fell. His left shoulder and the back of his head hit hard. He did not break his skull, only knocked himself dizzy. But he hurt his shoulder so he could not raise his shield more than a few inches.

His right leg also turned back under him when he fell. Some who were present later claimed they heard bone break. Regard himself only ever admitted to injuring his ankle and knee.

Several dozen more reluctant warriors saw the last evil portent they could stand. They joined the dribble headed north.

Once Regard did settle astride his great gray warhorse the animal at first refused to accept commands. Another ill omen.

Barely two hundred lances followed the Arnhander King when, finally, he rode out to face the victors of Los Naves de los Fantas.

***

Severely hungover, yet still drunk, Peter of Navaya arrived on the battlefield at the same time. He cursed Count Alplicova for not having been more forceful and aggressive while, at the same time, damning as an idiot any petty-minded count or prince who had failed to carry out Alplicova’s directives. He ordered them to assemble.

Some nobles arrived looking sheepish. Some arrived defiant. More than one, obliquely, indicated that Peter’s disrespect for his Queen had cost him much of his own respect.

It was not so much that he had bedded a woman not his wife but that he had done it in his wife’s home castle, making no effort to be discreet.

Peter, King of Navaya, honored by most Chaldareans and respected by his enemies, nevertheless stood second in the hearts of millions. Good Queen Isabeth’s admirers believed her destined for sainthood.

Peter’s state did not leave him best capable of temperate thinking and reasoned decisions. His allies saw that.

They had no faith at a moment when faith was all they needed.

***

King Regard led a charge as soon as he got his men aligned. When that line surged forward a dozen horsemen did not move.

The Navayans were not prepared despite Regard’s slow, lackluster preparation for the attack. However, there were a lot of Navayans. And most of the Arnhanders who followed Regard did so out of obligation, not enthusiasm.

The Navayans were no more enthusiastic once it became man-to-man.

Regard set his eye on Peter’s standard and kept pushing that direction.

He kept having dizzy spells. He had trouble staying on his horse. His friends had to protect his left and keep him in the saddle.

No one knew who did what to whom. The chaos only worsened. It became ever more every man for himself. Navayan numbers and experience should have told quickly but did not gel. Count Alplicova never gained tactical control. King Peter had arrived too late. Many of his knights never knew that he had come to the fray. Quite a few got bogged down in the marshy ground while trying to circle the disorganized and confused Arnhanders.

At one point someone knocked Regard off his horse. His men surrounded him. He managed to remount as his foes mistakenly began shouting that he was dead.

The entire engagement was one of the most ill-starred and incompetently managed of the age despite the presence of the veterans, the trained fighters, and the famous commanders. At the root, no one had any idea what they were supposed to be doing.

***

After what seemed ages of inconclusive, halfhearted, chaotic fighting, King Peter lost control of his mount. The animal had had enough. It bolted. He fell off.

While fighting the Pramans Peter had taken to wearing plain armor so he could not be singled out. Praman Direcian princes considered him a demon incarnate. In every engagement their whole strategy would hinge on their destroying him first. He had followed habit here, though his standard-bearer did stay close.

Stunned by the fall, Peter failed to make his identity known. A foot soldier who could have grown rich ransoming Peter of Navaya instead killed an unknown knight. He used a mason’s pick-hammer to punch holes through Peter’s helmet.

No one noticed. No one knew. The chaos continued. Count Alplicova strove to bring order but had no luck. He began moving his own followers out of the fight, meaning to disengage long enough to re-form.

The Khaurenese militia watched from a slope a few hundred yards distant. They did nothing because no one gave the order.

The Connecten counts did not show, though messengers had gone to their several camps.

Tormond IV, given a powerful draught of medicine, had been led out to inspire his people. But all he could do was remain upright in his saddle.

People on the city wall cried out in anguish, anger, outrage. Who dared send Tormond into battle? They wept. The most devout pacifists among the witnesses agreed: Someone, anyone, had but to give the order and the Arnhanders would be overwhelmed. They were scattered, disorganized, outnumbered. Their King kept falling off his horse. It was a raging, diabolic miracle that the Navayans had not crushed them already.

Arnhander reinforcements were sure to come soon, from the Raffle and Peque ande Sales, then from the numerous scattered small contingents.

***

King Jaime and his Castaurigans surprised the Captal du Days. The Arnhanders hunkered down in Raffle were confident that the weather precluded enemy action. Their only warning came moments before the Castaurigan storm, brought by fleeing foragers.

King Jaime was as vicious and aggressive a warrior as he was a lover. And today he was inattentive to doctrine developed through centuries of battlefield experience. He did not take time to assemble and array so his charge would have maximum impact. He just rushed in and started killing.

The slaughter was terrible amongst those who were not knights, the majority in any camp. The knights themselves, once they donned their armor and mounted up, managed well enough.

Just as in the struggle nearer Khaurene, the fighting went on and on. The living on both sides neared that point where they might collapse from exhaustion. King Jaime still drove his followers. So great was the slaughter, and so numerous were those who fled, that the Castaurigans developed an advantage, including one in leadership. The Captal had been killed. So had most of his captains and champions — unless they had run away.

Jaime’s advisers wanted him to leave while his men and animals had strength enough to return to Khaurene. Fresh Arnhanders could arrive anytime.

Thirsts for blood and glory ruled the young King. He refused to go. He meant to spend the night in the camp of the defeated. He thought Haband would be too frightened to come out of Peque ande Sales.

But Haband came. Though hardly fresh after a six-mile forced march, his men were less exhausted than the Castaurigans. Fugitives from the Raffle added weight to Haband’s force, professing eagerness to redeem their earlier cowardice.

Haband’s men were inexperienced. Most were the useless sort of night crawler who concealed natural-born cowardice by hiding inside the Church and Society. They could be terribly fierce with an enemy already caught and disarmed, but with an armed and angry knight, not so much.

For a while it seemed there would be an afternoon of epic slaughter in sequel to the morning’s butchery, with the same result. The faint of heart from earlier had found no additional courage. Most ran away again.

Then a fighting bishop, quite by accident, knocked King Jaime off his exhausted mount. The youngster ended up in the midst of a wild tangle of men on foot.

Responsibility, later, would be claimed by every bishop who survived. Haband himself would lay claim, though scores of witnesses put him miles away already, with companions who believed they were too valuable to die in that cruel valley.

Credit mattered not. It might even have been a stray Castaurigan blade that delivered the first wound, unintentionally.

The Castaurigans lost their stomach. They backed out of the fight. Jaime’s brother Palo, just sixteen, tried to rally them. He wanted to recover Jaime’s body. No one would join the effort. His advisers insisted that he ransom it later. So bullied, he led the survivors south.

In fact, no one had seen the King actually die. But no one expressed any doubt that he was dead.

They did remain professional in retreat. They ambushed those who pursued them, and killed all the Arnhanders they encountered along the way.

***

Brother Candle had been shaking his head for hours. It had become a tic. He could not control it. Like every Khaurenese and Direcian still breathing he could not believe that the militia had remained paralyzed all day. Any idiot could see what needed doing. The old man began talking to himself. He had been mad to leave Sant Peyre de Mileage. He should go back to Navaya Medien before the insanity here twisted round to where the crusaders were on the inside, with the Seekers and true Khaurenese driven out.

The world now imposed itself. His muttering faded as he realized that all those who had shared the ramparts with him had disappeared. He conjured vague recollections of Raulet and Kedle trying to get him to go. Fear must have forced them to abandon him.

Still he stared. This disaster, likely to echo through the centuries, had happened only because his oldest friend could never make a decision. Though, to be fair, today’s Tormond had all he could do to stay upright and breathe.

“Master!” The voice was impatient. It had been trying to get his attention for some time.

Brother Candle turned. “Hodier! Why aren’t you out there with the Duke?”

“Because Isabeth made me stay here to deal with you.”

“There’s no dealing to do. The thing is done. Count Raymone has the tokens and instruments.”

“I know.” Tormond’s herald stepped forward, separating himself from his escort, Direcians all. “Yet there might be cause to delay the transition.” Hodier pointed. “Out there. King Peter didn’t apply his genius because he has so little to gain. Tormond still breathes but can’t do anything. The magnates won’t do anything because they dread losing Tormond in battle. The consuls are hiding under their beds.”

Hodier rambled on, a soliloquy for his mother city. The old man listened in silence. Succession complications. They plagued all lands, all the time, and caused endless dislocation, confusion, and misery. There had to be a better way.

He did not expect to see it in his lifetime.

Every plan, every scheme, every social experiment broke down as soon as people became involved.

“Arrest me, Hodier. Take me away if you must. You’re wasting your time. And mine. What little I have left. These days I’m nothing but a spectator.” He moved half a step so he could lean on a merlon. Nearer the gate carpenters had started putting up hoardings.