The Stealers' War (7 page)

‘A solid fellow,’ said Colbert. ‘A yard of sharp steel is a fitting last meal for those traitors.’

Duncan suspected the majority of their ambushers possessed the good sense to pull back when they noticed cannons being loaded with grapeshot. Those left firing were only holding fast to slow the pursuit; but the rebels hadn’t counted on the reckless abandon of a brute like Viscount Wallingbeck riding with them. Colbert didn’t order the infantry in after them. Once the cavalrymen had the bit between their teeth, anyone around them was likely to be ridden into the mud and sliced at, friend and foe alike. A strange silence fell down the length of the road. Their column left as spectators. The creaking of cooling cannon barrels, shots and yells muffled by the undergrowth. Sentries were picketed just inside the trees to ensure their ambushers didn’t try to circle back. Wisely, in Duncan’s opinion, the artillery was left behind the wall in case they were needed to clear for action again. The road was emptied of corpses and dropped supplies, wounded soldiers attended to, horses calmed and wagons put back into some sense of order. Wallingbeck and his men emerged from the dark shade of the trees ten minutes later, a disarmed sergeant in a rebel uniform stumbling before them. A boot against his back from one of the riders sent the prisoner into the arms of the infantry.

‘This is all we have to show for the fight?’ demanded General Colbert. ‘A single damnable outlaw?’

‘There’re more bodies dead back there,’ said William Wallingbeck. ‘Not enough to account for the fire the column took, I’d say. With your permission, we’ll ride around to the eastern edge of the woods and see if we can flush out any of the pretender’s grouse that attempt to fly that way.’

Colbert nodded and the horsemen rode off whooping, waving their sabres in the air.

‘I know you, man,’ said Benner. ‘You work for the Avisons as an estate manager.’

‘Not anymore,’ spat the captured soldier. ‘Now I work as a pig slaughterer. Southern pigs and the traitors who support them.’

Duncan’s father might be an amateur officer, but he had a memory like a steel trap when it came to the business of the house. Particularly as it related to people who worked for commercial rivals inside the prefecture.

‘Not one of mine,’ said Benner, taking whatever consolation he could from the fact.

‘Long live the assembly of the people and the people’s king. May maggots feast on the usurper’s bony arse.’

‘You stand condemned as a rebel by your own detestable words,’ said Colbert. ‘Hang him.’

‘I wear a uniform. I’m a soldier. I demand the common conventions and protection of the Lanca.’

‘You are nothing but a bandit in grey rags, sir. The outlaw pretender you serve has fled the nation and you shall suffer the same sentence as Owen when we capture him.’

‘Hang him in front of the town,’ said Benner. ‘Raise him like a standard on the flagpole for everyone in Northhaven to see the cost of rebellion against the king.’

‘A capital suggestion,’ said Colbert. ‘And he won’t be the last example that needs setting. By the saints, Benner, if you had not rebuilt this city after the slavers’ raid, I would burn a street for every soldier lying dead on the road here today.’

Duncan’s father looked pale enough to faint. ‘I am grateful for your forbearance, Hugh. I still have loans on the majority of the properties. The cost of building a new cathedral was enough to bankrupt a lesser house than mine.’

‘Well then, we shall have to make sure it’s the rebels who pay for the cost of meeting their treachery,’ said General Colbert. ‘We’ll root them out; confiscate land and title deeds from every traitor who put the king’s treasury to such cost.’ He looked meaningfully at Benner. ‘Such reparations are King Marcus’ due. And the king’s allies in the north.’

‘Our due,’ agreed Benner.

‘And how will the rebels pay?’ asked Duncan. ‘When you throw the defeated off their land and cast them out of their stores and premises?’

‘With their labour, of course,’ said Colbert. ‘The new mills in the south are hungry for indentured labour. And the estates up here will be far more profitable without greedy field-hands constantly grasping and griping in the cause of unreasonable wages, threatening to down tools at every opportunity.’

Benner nodded. ‘It is good to see our Prefect still remembers the problems of the region.’

‘When an ungrateful hound bites the hand that feeds it, you kick it quite thoroughly and place the dog on a shorter leash,’ said the general. ‘We have been over-kind for too many years, and our forbearance has been interpreted as weakness by the rebels.’

Duncan watched the struggling Avison man held by two soldiers as a noose was fitted around his neck by a third trooper. He suspected the nobles’ so-called kindness wasn’t a mistake that would ever be repeated. Not as far as Northhaven and its people were concerned.
This isn’t your business. Northhaven is no longer your home. Forget that and you’ll end up back here shuffling trade papers for old man Landor like a glorified clerk until you’re old enough to need a walking stick. Vandia is where everything that matters to you belongs now
.

Colbert mounted his horse, drawing his sabre to point it down the river. ‘March east to Little Bridge and ford the river there. Check for powder charges
first
. When you’ve crossed, secure the airfield so we can start landing our skyguard.’

Crossing Northhaven’s town limits was a surreal experience for Duncan. The last time he had seen his home was through the grubby glass porthole of a slave carrier, circling the burning town from a few thousand feet, jostling with his fellow prisoners in a crowded slave hold for what they all thought would be their last ever glimpse of home.
I suppose for many of them, it was
. But not for Duncan. He had risen to become an imperial citizen. Past all the fools and doubters who had only seen a spoilt, pampered, useless and largely ornamental heir to the House of Landor. Past all the jealous townspeople who had considered Duncan’s capture as a slave his just deserts for lording it over the rest of them for so long. From what he had seen of his devastated town, left burning by the slavers’ incendiary bombs, Benner Landor had done a grand job of rebuilding Northhaven when Duncan was far-called inside Vandia. The old, narrow, wooden streets that once sprawled up the hill towards the ancient fortified citadel of the old town, had been rebuilt as wide open boulevards flanked by four-storey stores, apartments and businesses, backed up by suburbs which sprawled across twice the area they had replaced. There was even a full-sized stone cathedral risen on the outskirts of the town.
No wonder my father was so worried about all of this being damaged in a siege
. Part of Duncan couldn’t help but resent Northhaven. Benner Landor’s duty to house and staff, the best excuse his father had to avoid joining the rescue expedition which had ventured after the slavers.
Leaving me and Willow to rot wherever we ended up. Replacing our mother with Leyla and his son with a fresh new heir. It would serve him right if he saw the fruit of his crippling loans go up in flames and smoke again
. Jacob Carnehan had risked his life to save his son Carter, Willow and every other Weylander left alive in the sky mines.
And he was just a common pastor who turned out to be a murdering bandit hiding out from the law
. Would Benner Landor have survived the hard, long, dangerous journey from Weyland to Vandia? Unlikely. Even Jacob Carnehan had arrived at the far end driven half-mad from the voyage, stripped down to the true, ragged core of the killer he had once been. But then, by rights, everyone in the expedition should have died. Because that was what family did for family.
They put their necks on the line for those they love
. Duncan snorted to himself.
But not me. I’ve got a treacherous sister who wants to stick a knife in my back and a father who’d sooner shuffle trade papers in the warmth of his mansion than try to save his own children.

Duncan glanced back towards the landau. The open carriage rattled up the hillside avenue drawn by a pair of white mares. His father putting Leyla Landor on display was an all-too-obvious way of flaunting the fact Northhaven’s richest family had returned to take charge; the hard-faced blue-uniformed soldiers lining the streets the guarantee of the king’s imposed peace. Sitting in the facing seat of the open carriage, Adella Cheyenne appeared happier about returning to Northhaven than his father’s new wife.
There’s an irony for you
. When Adella had been a common town clerk’s daughter with an eye on snaring Duncan as her future husband, Benner Landor couldn’t do enough to keep the young woman out of the way of his son. Now that Adella was one of the favoured courtesans of a powerful Vandian nobleman, she was permitted to ride alongside Leyla Landor. The sight of captured rebel bodies swinging from lampposts didn’t seem to be enough to rub the sheen off Adella’s return, at least, not in her eyes – affecting all the pomp and majesty of a queen returning to her kingdom. William Wallingbeck had done a thorough job of sweeping the town with his cavalry. Duncan’s brother-in-law had handily discovered enough traitors to decorate the streets all the way up the hill to the gatehouse of the walled old town.
I wonder how many of them were actually rebel supporters, and how many the result of old grudges and family feuds being settled?
It seemed unlikely to Duncan that those actually involved in the rebellion would have hung around to see how forgiving King Marcus’ forces would prove to be. There was a lack of males of fighting age along the town’s streets, along with an awkward predominance of surly pensioners and frightened mothers with trains of young children clinging to them. That suggested that anyone with trouble in mind and treason in their heart was hiding out in the wilds somewhere. The pinched faces and hungry expressions of the townspeople indicated a serious lack of backs labouring in the Landor fields, too.

Benner Landor glanced about the street, sitting a little too stiff and proud on his horse. Duncan’s father appeared unsettled.
You’ve noticed how many of your tenant farmers are absent, too. No rents, no crops, and perhaps daggers in the dark creeping towards Hawkland Park. You’ll need to hire a lot more sentries at the estate, Father.

‘You’ve done a fine job of restoring order, William,’ said Benner Landor.

Wallingbeck patted his sheathed sword. ‘No sand left in ’em. All their fighting spirit’s fled. But that’s the best you can expect when you set copse-cutters, cattlemen and shepherds against a gentleman in the saddle with a foot of sharp steel and a carbine, eh?’

‘They’re a disgrace to the prefecture,’ said Benner. ‘I would hardly credit it. I travel away to stay at the court for a season, and in my absence the whole territory is wrecked by treason.’

‘It is not your fault, my darling,’ called Leyla from the carriage. ‘The people here were led to ruin by our traitor of an assemblyman, Charles T. Gimlette.’

Duncan held back a snigger.
And is he by chance related to the same plump fool whose votes were purchased with Landor money for decades?
From the sound of it, the politician had found himself on the wrong side of the conflict purely by dint of his party membership, ending up as one of many arrested when the king sent his guards to disband parliament. Gimlette had escaped, only to die ignobly in the siege of Midsburg.
The only thing Charles T. Gimlette led was his way to the nearest restaurant with an expensive menu. Who’d have thought being a paid lackey of the House of Landor would turn out to be such a dangerous profession?
Certainly not their ex-assemblyman.

‘Where is everyone?’ demanded Adella. ‘There should be more people out on the streets to welcome us.’

The lack of citizens on the streets wasn’t the only disquieting thing about their victory procession. It was a chilly day. Half the town’s chimneys should have been giving out smoke, but they were largely standing cold and still. Either Northhaven didn’t have wood chips to burn or enough people who needed to stay warm.

Leyla gave Duncan a sly look from the landau that seemed to suggest she found the company of the baron’s mistress as irritating as Duncan did.

‘I think they’re a little shy today,’ said Duncan. ‘Bayonets and rifles can be terribly off-putting. Especially to copse-cutters and shepherds.’

‘They’ll need to get used to it,’ said Benner, failing to acknowledge his son’s sarcasm. ‘The Army of the Boles is to be garrisoned here until the pretender and the remaining few bandits are captured and executed.’

Peace isn’t anything the Landors can buy with our money, Father
. Luckily for Benner Landor, the house could rely on brutes like Viscount Wallingbeck to pay with steel. They reached the old city’s main gatehouse at the top of the slope, its heavy wooden doors left open and a metal portcullis raised, the ramparts of the high stone wall patrolled by southern soldiers. An anxious committee of notables awaited them in the gate’s shadow, flanked by royalist troopers, but no faces Duncan recognized. Not the old mayor or high sheriff or anyone from the town council. The most senior of the party was a weary-looking man wearing a bishop’s vestments, a white circular cape and tunic and a heavy mitre on his head.
He must have come with the cathedral
. In Duncan’s day, the only churchman in the town had been Pastor Carnehan.
I don’t know these people and they don’t know me . . . not even as Benner’s son. A visiting traveller would receive more welcome on market day. I’m as good as a stranger here now
.

‘Bishop Kirkup,’ said Benner Landor. ‘I am glad to see that you at least have survived the rebellion unharmed.’

The bishop seemed to understand well enough who had paid for the heavy stone of his cathedral and the living of the new seat. ‘The saints be thanked for your arrival. You have liberated us from an unholy terror, Squire Landor. I preached for peace, passing on every urging from the church authorities in Arcadia, but there were too many hotheads here ready to declare in favour of Prince Owen.’

‘The pretender you talk of is no true prince,’ said Prefect Colbert, coldly. ‘Only an outlaw traitor who conspired against the nation with raiders from the Burn. Owen Hawkins was cast out by the royal family for his crimes and, as his revenge, the pretender led the realm to rebellion and ruin to satisfy his malice. Rule has now passed to the upper house. In Northhaven, to
me
.’