The Queen's Consort (23 page)

             
She moved to Ansel's side. “Sergeants,” she called. “A head count?”

             
After a few minutes the sergeants reported. “All accounted for,” they reported.

             
“And the Guard?” she asked anxiously.

             
“All here,” Tristam said proudly. Apparently he'd forgiven them for their bad behavior yesterday.

             
Clairwyn's shoulders eased and she beamed at her troops. “I am more pleased than words can say,” she said with touching emotion. “And I know that you are weary. But you cannot rest yet.”

             
She gestured and the captain and sergeants moved forward. “Feed your troops,” she said. “And then send them into the fields and woods, and even onto the bluffs on the other side of the river. Tell them to collect what they find.”

             
They looked at each other but avoided looking at her.

             
“You will find arms and armor,” she clarified. “If you find any remains of men, collect them for proper burial.”

             
Ansel kept his face carefully blank. The only explanation for the night was an elaborate hoax. The Guard, undoubtedly aided by a bunch of soldiers, had made all of the noise. And now the rest of these credulous Highlanders would find some battered swords and shields and believe that the mighty Courchevelian army had been dealt a huge defeat.

             
Clairwyn bowed her head. “Any personal effects that bear names,” she continued, “will be gathered for their kin. Please pass these orders on to your men.” She dismissed them with a gesture.

             
Tristam stayed rooted to his spot. She raised a brow at him. “The Guard stay with the Queen,” he said stubbornly.

             
The corner of her mouth twitched but she nodded in solemn agreement. “I would have it no other way.” She turned to Ansel. “My prince, will you rest with me?”

             
Thinking quickly, he bowed politely. “I will go with the captain. I can best identify the legions of the king.”

             
Disappointment flashed across her face but quickly passed. “As you wish,” she said softly, not looking at him. “I shall await your return.” She slipped into the tent.             

Twenty-Five

             
Ansel stayed with the captain as he advised his sergeants to caution their men to beware of ambush. Tense and wary, they stepped over the line of sand and moved into the tall grass around the camp.

             
They had not taken five steps before the first cry rang out. A soldier lifted a sparkling shield high in the air. Shocked, Ansel recognized the emblem of the elite King's Corps.

             
He strode forward to examine it. Turning the heavy shield in his hands, he saw the letters “EX” stamped in the metal. “Excellence in All” was the Corps' motto. The shield was authentic.

             
But how could it be?

             
Another shout went up and another shield was held aloft. The soldiers scattered like children on a scavenger hunt. They returned and stacked shields and swords, breastplates and helms until the pile towered higher than Ansel's head.

             
He recognized the symbols of three legions of Courchevel's best soldiers, all seasoned professionals.
Legions.
If he could believe the evidence before his eyes, the heart of Courchevel's army had died last night.

             
But how could that be? He stared, uncomprehending, at the massed weaponry.

And then a soldier handed him a blue-and-gold banner. “We found this, sir, with this shield.”

Shocked, disbelieving, Ansel unfurled the banner and blinked at the insignia. It was a white stallion on a blue field surrounded by gold. It was his brother Elric’s banner.

Ansel snatched the shield out of the man’s hand and flipped it over. There, scratched on the bottom, was “EPC.”
Elric, Prince of Courchevel
. The world reeled around him and he found himself on his knees on the ground.

No. It couldn’t be. Not Elric.
Not Elric
.

His brother wa
s dead. He’d sent a message but Beaumont had not come. The king had sent Elric in his stead.

Ansel had sent the message.

He bowed his head over his brother’s banner. He’d sent the message, and his brother was dead.

And all of Ansel’s plans died with him.

“My prince?”

Slowly Ansel realized that a group of soldiers had gathered around him. They watched him warily, reluctant to get close enough to touch.

Looking for weakness.

Ansel staggered to his feet. “You have your orders,” he growled, scattering them with a gesture.
             

Relieved, they left him to join the other men scouring the fi
eld. When they reached the wood they started to find bloodied strips of uniform and an occasional fleshy bone.

             
The bones were marked. Ansel studied them, utterly baffled. The scoring and depth of the marks reminded him of old bones he'd seen on a long-ago battlefield where wild dogs had torn apart the bodies of the dead and feasted on the flesh.

             
Ansel dropped the bone and backed away in horror. Last night something horrible had killed this man. And then that something had
eaten
him.

             
Ansel gagged and spewed his breakfast into the tall grass.

*****

              All of that morning and into the afternoon the grim task continued. Clairwyn's men found the enemy camps and retrieved equipment, animals, and supplies. None of it had been touched by the horror that had reduced the attackers to bloody rags.

             
Understandably, Clairwyn's soldiers celebrated as if they'd won a great victory. And they had, Ansel was forced to admit, even if none of them had raised a sword or loosed an arrow. Without a single blow the cream of Courchevel's army lay dead around them.

             
The Highlanders themselves were a bloodthirsty lot and prone to taking trophies, but they obeyed their Queen's orders. A large pile of personal effects were gathered for return to the kin of the dead. Ansel was touched by this sign of respect until he overheard a conversation between a pair of sergeants.

             
“We'll send that lot back,” one said, gesturing at the sad pile.

             
The second's face stretched into an evil grin. “That will tighten their sphincters,” he replied.

             
“If it doesn't scare the shit outta them.” The first smiled back. “After this disaster Beaumont will be forced to replace his best soldiers with reluctant, half-starved conscripts. He'll have to press raw and untrained recruits into service.”

             
“That'll level the playing field a bit,” his companion said.

             
“We'll have weeks of training on him, as well as a volunteer army of healthy young men.”

             
“And women. Don't underestimate our Queen. She's our most potent weapon.”

             
The men fell silent, surveying the evidence all around them.

             
“Glad she's on our side,” one of them finally said.

             
The other clapped him on the shoulder. “Truer words were never spoken, man. I tell you now—if she told me to close my eyes and jump off those bluffs yonder, I'd say 'Yes, my Queen' and do it.”

             
“And I'd be right by your side,” his friend avowed.

             
Ansel sighed to himself. Of course. As always, Clairwyn was the beating heart of her country. Without her this army—and this war—were finished.

*****

              Ansel found Clairwyn and her generals in the map room. The generals and another squadron of soldiers had marched through the night and arrived shortly after noon.

“Well met, my prince,” Perry greeted him. Despite his sleepless night he was in a very good mood. “Now that Moth's Landing is secured and the cream of Beaumont's army annihilated, we should move against these smaller strongholds here and here.” He indicated them on the map. “They should fall quickly.”

              “I'm sure that is an excellent plan,” Clairwyn said, “but we shall bypass those towns and make directly for Kingsford.”

             
The men stared at her, appalled. Ansel smiled. He loved it when she did things like this.

             
“My, my, my Queen,” Perry began. The words stuck in his throat but he did his best to force them out. “One of the basic rules of warfare is that you do not leave a standing enemy behind you. Kingsford is in the very heart of Courchevel. If we march directly there we will be surrounded by no less than six cities, one—no, two—garrisons, and many towns and manors.”

             
Clairwyn shook her head. “I believe that when Beaumont learns of our plans and, sadly, I'm sure he will, he will take every able-bodied man from those cities, garrisons, towns, and manors, and move them to Kingsford.”

             
“No doubt, my Queen.” Perry sounded as if he was strangling. “And so, instead of defeating a small knot of men in each smaller place, we will face them all at the well-stocked and fortified stronghold of the King.”

             
“You grasp my purpose exactly.” Clairwyn beamed at him. “I have no desire to lay waste to this country. I do not wish to hack at the limbs of the beast when we can cut off its head in one fell stroke.”

             
“My Queen.” General Carpenter straightened. “Beaumont surely knows that you can reduce stone to dust. He probably had a spy in your very own chambers when you demonstrated that to Sayer.”

             
Very carefully, no one looked at Ansel. They were so polite. It amused the hell out of him.

             
Perry and Carpenter studied her. “Can you summon those…things…that destroyed these men anytime you wish?” Perry asked.

             
“I cannot. And I would not unleash them against a city full of civilians.”

             
Her generals twitched unhappily.

             
Clairwyn waved a dismissive hand. “It matters not,” she said. “I have other magic I can use against Beaumont.”

             
Perry and Carpenter desperately wanted to argue with her. They should have known better. Ansel did. He’d learned the hard way that arguing with her never worked. A man had to be more subtle, less direct, and appeal to her without confrontation. Handling Beaumont had prepared him to negotiate with Clairwyn.

             
Ansel pointed at the map. “My Queen, consider the roads of Courchevel when you plan your route. They are not straight and clear like your roads. You will have to go past my manor, Falsafe, here.”

             
He waited, tense, for her response. He'd always intended to bring her to his home. It wasn't nearly as grand as Haverton, but it was where she belonged.             

             
“Very well, my prince,” she agreed easily. “Will your people open their arms for you?”

             
“Of course.” If they hadn't already run off with everything they could carry.

             
Ansel moved his hand along the map. “And you will wish to take my neighbor, Lord Durnham. I've been trying to kill the evil bastard for years.”

             
“The Queen's army shouldn't be used to settle petty feudal disputes,” Carpenter said to the air over Ansel’s shoulder.

             
“Durnham is a cruel tyrant,” Ansel said through gritted teeth. “I objected to the way he treated his people.”

             
Clairwyn's brow furrowed. “We cannot allow abuse. We will do as you suggest, my prince.”

             
She was so easy to manipulate. It almost made him feel bad.

             
“And then the road winds past Flint Ridge and Hart's Leap,” he continued. “If they resist we will have to subdue them.”

             
Perry and Carpenter bridled in fury. Ansel knew that there were other, more strategic cities that the generals would have preferred to attack. His suggestion was the most direct route to Kingsford but could take a great deal longer to travel.

             
Clairwyn studied the map thoughtfully, looking like a tactician. The men around her knew far more about strategy than she did. But Ansel knew that Clairwyn and the men did not share the same thoughts, and strategy would not weigh heavily on her decision.

             
“We will do as you say, Ansel,” she said, and her generals groaned aloud. They believed that she was choosing her lover’s biased advice over the best interests of her soldiers.

             
Ansel himself wasn't so sure. By the rules of warfare Clairwyn had done everything wrong—but somehow everything was going exactly the way she wanted it to.

             
A nagging fear in the back of his mind whispered that they were all just pawns in her plan and that she was using him, too.              Ansel banished the thought immediately. Clairwyn was clever but he was the strategist. He knew what he was doing.