Just Deserts

My dear and trusted friend,

It gives me great pleasure to tell you that the circumstances have arisen in which I can invite you back to Adua, to once again take up your position among the Knights of the Body, and your rightful place as my First Guard.

You have been greatly missed. During your absence your letters have been a constant comfort and delight. For any wrong on your part, I long ago forgave you. For any wrong on mine, I earnestly hope that you can do the same. Please, let me know that we can continue as we were before Sipani.

Your sovereign,

The High King of Angland, Starikland, and Midderland, Protector of Westport and Dagoska, His August Majesty …

Gorst could read no further. He closed his eyes, tears stinging at the inside of the lids, and pressed the crumpled paper against his chest as one might embrace a lover. How often had poor, scorned, exiled Bremer dan Gorst dreamed of this moment? Am I dreaming now? He bit his sore tongue and the sweet taste of blood was a relief. Prised his eyelids open again, tears running freely, and stared at the letter through the shimmering water.

Dear and trusted friend … rightful place as First Guard … comfort and delight… as we were before Sipani. As we were before Sipani …

He frowned. Brushed his tears on the back of his wrist and peered down at the date. The letter had been despatched six days ago. Before I fought at the fords, on the bridge, at the Heroes. Before the battle even began. He hardly knew whether to laugh or cry more and in the end did both, shuddering with weepy giggles, spraying the letter with happy specks of spit.

What did it matter why? I have what I deserve.

He burst from the tent and it was as if he had never felt the sunlight before. The simple joy of the life-giving warmth on his face, the caress of the breeze. He gazed about in damp-eyed wonder. The patch of ground sloping down to the river, a mud-churned, rubbish-strewn midden when he trudged inside, had become a charming garden, filled with colour. With hopeful faces and pleasing chatter. With laughter and birdsong.

‘You all right?’ Rurgen looked faintly concerned, as far as Gorst could tell through the wet.

‘I have a letter from the king,’ he squeaked, no longer caring a damn how he sounded.

‘What is it?’ asked Younger. ‘Bad news?’

‘Good news.’ And he grabbed Younger around the shoulders and made him groan as he hugged him tight. ‘The best.’ He gathered up Rurgen with the other arm, lifting their feet clear of the ground, squeezing the pair of them like a loving father might squeeze his sons. ‘We’re going home.’

Gorst walked with an unaccustomed bounce. Armour off, he felt so light he might suddenly spring into the sunny sky. The very air smelled sweeter, even if it did still carry the faint tang of latrines, and he dragged it in through both nostrils. All his injuries, all his aches and pains, all his petty disappointments, faded in the all-conquering glow.

I am born again.

The road to Osrung – or to the burned-out ruin that had been Osrung a few days before – brimmed with smiling faces. A set of whores blew kisses from the seat of a wagon and Gorst blew them back. A crippled boy gave excited hoots and Gorst jovially ruffled his hair. A column of walking wounded shuffled past, one on crutches at the front nodded and Gorst hugged him, kissed him on the forehead and walked on, smiling.

‘Gorst! It’s Gorst!’ Some cheering went up, and Gorst grinned and shook one scabbed fist in the air. Bremer dan Gorst, hero of the battlefield! Bremer dan Gorst, confidant of the monarch! Knight of the Body, First Guard to the High King of the Union, noble, righteous, loved by all! He could do anything. He could have anything.

Joyous scenes were everywhere. A man with sergeant’s stripes was being married by the colonel of his regiment to a pudding-faced woman with flowers in her hair while a gathering of his comrades gave suggestive whistles. A new ensign, absurdly young-looking, beamed in the sunlight as he carried the colours of his regiment by way of initiation, the golden sun of the Union snapping proudly. Perhaps one of the very flags that Mitterick so carelessly lost only a day ago? How soon some trespasses are forgotten. The incompetent rewarded along with the wronged.

As if to illustrate that very point, Gorst caught sight of Felnigg beside the road in his new uniform, staff officers in a crowing crowd around him, giving hell to a tearful young lieutenant beside a tipped-over cart, gear, weapons and for some reason a full-sized harp spilled from its torn awning like the guts from a dead sheep.

‘General Felnigg!’ called Gorst jauntily. ‘Congratulations on your promotion!’ It could not have happened to a less deserving drunken pedant. He briefly considered the possibility of challenging the man to the duel he had been too cowardly to demand a few evenings before. Then to the possibility of backhanding him into the ditch as he passed. But I have other business.

‘Thank you, Colonel Gorst. I wished to let you know how very much I admire your—’

Gorst could not even be bothered to make excuses. He simply barged past, scattering Felnigg’s staff – most of whom had recently been Marshal Kroy’s staff – like a plough through muck and left them clucking and puffing in his wake. And away to fuck with the lot of you, I’m free. Free! He sprang up and punched the air.

Even the wounded near the charred gates of Osrung looked happy as he passed, tapping shoulders with his fist, muttering banal encouragements. Share my joy, you crippled and dying! I have plenty to spare!

And there she stood, among them, giving out water. Like the Goddess of mercy. Oh, soothe my pain. He had no fear now. He knew what he had to do.

‘Finree!’ he called, then cleared his throat and tried again, a little deeper. ‘Finree.’

‘Bremer. You look … happy.’ She lifted one enquiring eyebrow, as though a smile on his face was as incongruous as on a horse, or a rock, or a corpse. But get used to this smile, for it is here to stay!

‘I am, very happy. I wanted to say …’ I love you. ‘Goodbye. I am returning to Adua this evening.’

‘Really? So am I.’ His heart leaped. ‘Well, as soon as my husband is well enough to be moved.’ And plummeted back down. ‘But they say that won’t be long.’ She looked annoyingly delighted about it too.

‘Good. Good.’ Fuck him. Gorst realised his fist was clenched, and forced it open. No, no, forget him. He is nothing. I am the winner, and this is my moment. ‘I received a letter from the king this morning.’

‘Really? So did we!’ She blurted it out, seizing him by the arm, eyes bright. His heart leaped again, as though her touch was a second letter from his Majesty. ‘Hal is being restored to his seat on the Open Council.’ She looked furtively around, then whispered it in a husky rush. ‘They’re making him lord governor of Angland!’

There was a long, uncomfortable pause while Gorst took that in. Like a sponge soaking up a puddle of piss. ‘Lord … governor?’ It seemed a cloud had moved across the sun. It was no longer quite so warm upon his face as it had been.

‘I know! There will be a parade, apparently.’

‘A parade.’ Of cunts. A chilly breeze blew up and flapped his loose shirt. ‘He deserves it.’ He presided over a blown-up bridge and so he gets a parade? ‘You deserve it.’ Where’s my fucking parade?

‘And your letter?’

My letter? My pathetic embarrassment of a letter? ‘Oh … the king has asked me to take up my old position as First Guard.’ Somehow he could no longer muster quite the enthusiasm he had when he opened it. Not lord governor, oh no! Nothing like lord governor. The king’s first hand-holder. The king’s first cock-taster. Pray don’t wipe your own arse your Majesty, let me!

‘That’s wonderful news.’ Finree smiled as though everything had turned out just right. ‘War is full of opportunities, after all, however terrible it may be.’

It is pedestrian news. My triumph is all spoiled. My garlands rotted. ‘I thought …’ His face twitched. He could not cling on to his smile any longer. ‘My success seems quite meagre now.’

‘Meagre? Well, of course not, I didn’t mean—’

‘I’ll never have anything worth the having, will I?’

She blinked. ‘I—’

‘I’ll never have you.’

Her eyes went wide. ‘You’ll— What?’

‘I’ll never have you, or anyone like you.’ Colour burned up red under her freckled cheeks. ‘Then let me be honest. War is terrible, you say?’ He hissed it right in her horrified face. ‘Shit, I say! I fucking love war.’ The unsaid words boiled out of him. He could not stop them, did not want to. ‘In the dreamy yards, and drawing rooms, and pretty parks of Adua, I am a squeaking fucking joke. A falsetto embarrassment. A ridiculous clown-man.’ He leaned even closer, enjoying it that she flinched. Only this way will she know that I exist. Then let it be this way. ‘But on the battlefield? On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I … I wish it wasn’t over. I wish … I wish …’

But far sooner than he had expected, the well had run dry. He was left standing there, breathing hard, staring down at her. Like a man who has throttled his wife and come suddenly to his senses, he had no idea what to do next. He turned to make his escape, but Finree’s hand was still on his arm and now her fingers dug into him, pulling him back.

The blush of shock was fading now, her face hard with growing anger, jaw muscles clenched. ‘What happened in Sipani?’

And now it was his cheeks that burned. As if the name was a slap. ‘I was betrayed.’ He tried to make the last word stab at her as it stabbed him, but his voice had lost all its edge. ‘I was made the scapegoat.’ A goat’s plaintive bleating, indeed. ‘After all my loyalty, all my diligence …’ He fumbled for more words but his voice was not used to making them, fading into a squeaky whine as she bared her teeth.

‘I heard when they came for the king you were passed out drunk with a whore.’ Gorst swallowed. But he could hardly deny it. Stumbling from that room, head spinning, struggling to fasten his belt and draw his sword at once. ‘I heard it was not the first time you had disgraced yourself, and that the king had forgiven you before, and that the Closed Council would not let him do it again.’ She looked him up and down, and her lip curled. ‘God of the battlefield, eh? Gods and devils can look much alike to us little people. You went to a ford, and a bridge, and a hill, and what did you do there except kill? What have you made? Who have you helped?’

He stood there for a moment, all his bravado slithering out. She is right. And no one knows it better than me. ‘Nothing and no one,’ he whispered.

‘So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken.’ She stabbed at his chest with her forefinger. ‘You’re a hero.’

She turned with one last look of excruciating contempt and left him standing among the wounded. They no longer looked so happy for him as they had done. They looked, on the whole, to be in very great pain. The birdsong was half-dead crowing once more. His elation was a charming sandcastle, washed away by the pitiless tide of reality. He felt as if he was cast from lead.

Am I doomed always to feel like this? A most uncomfortable thought occurred. Did I feel like this … before Sipani? He frowned after Finree as she vanished back into the hospital tent. Back to her pretty young dolt of a lord governor. He realised far too late he should have pointed out that he had been the one to save her husband. One never says the right things at the right time. A stupendous understatement if ever there was one. He gave an epic, grinding sigh. This is why I keep my fucking mouth shut.

Gorst turned and trudged away into the gloomy afternoon, fists clenched, frowning up towards the Heroes, black teeth against the sky at the top of their solemn hill.

By the Fates, I need to fight someone. Anyone.

But the war was over.