Colours in the Steel

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘I’d feel happier if I had the faintest idea what’s going on,’ Ceuscai muttered. The dim moonlight made the cloud of his chilled breath glow, as if his words had somehow frozen in the cold of the night. ‘The first one was bad enough. And I didn’t like this one at all.’

Beside him, crouched under the cover of a wagon, Temrai watched the torches burning on the bridgehouse tower, and shivered a little. ‘Probably some family thing,’ he replied, ‘about which we neither need to know nor particularly care. My only worry is that it’s some kind of trap.’

‘Bound to be,’ said the man on Temrai’s left. ‘Honestly, it smells like last year’s cheese. Enemy General’s brother comes and tells you he’s going to open the gates and lower the drawbridge at midnight – Gods, Temrai, what else do you believe in? The old woman with the basket of winds? The tooth fairy?’

Temrai scowled, though nobody could see him. ‘If it looks at all dodgy we won’t go,’ he said. ‘But if this trap of yours involves opening the gates and lowering the drawbridge, then it’s my kind of trap.’

‘They could have all sorts waiting for us; boiling oil, pitfalls, engines, a whole company of archers loosing off point-blank-’

At the very least, Temrai said to himself. If the first hundred men through the gate get more than ten yards in, I’ll be highly astonished. But that’s all budgeted for under Acceptable Losses. We could lose a thousand in the first ninety seconds and still be doing better than anticipated…

‘Hello,’ Ceuscai whispered. ‘Look.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ said somebody else further down the line. ‘The gate’s opening.’

There was indeed a slight change in the texture of the shadows under the bridgehouse tower. Temrai caught his breath. In a small fraction of a second, he would have to give the order to move forwards if he wasn’t to miss the opportunity. Once the order was given, there was a strong possibility that his forces might actually enter the city and begin to do the job. Once they were in, just suppose it all started to go according to plan; a detachment to storm the tower and seize the engines, stopping them from bombarding the causeway; two more to force the towers on either side, cutting communications on the wall and preventing the defenders from shooting down into his people as they came through the gate; a strong force to establish a bridgehead just inside the gate; then, assuming the city’s main relief force hadn’t arrived yet (three minutes into the operation, four if there was any resistance on the wall), a push outwards following the foot of the walls, with the aim of encircling the relief force when it appeared and cutting it off from retreat into the maze of streets and squares. If the plan worked, the city would be carved like an animal’s carcass fresh from the spit, divided into manageable portions that the various detachments could easily digest.

Temrai had envisaged the attack as being something like netting rabbits at night on the plains. First, get between the grazing rabbits and their burrows before they see or hear you, and set up the nets. Then show the lights and make the noise, sending the quarry darting back towards safety, right into the instrument of their destruction. Then, methodically and at one’s leisure, pull them struggling from the nets and stretch their necks. It had all seemed straightforward enough, put like that.

Once the order was given, he’d no longer be in control. Always assuming he’d ever been in control to begin with.

‘Here we go,’ he said, edging forward with his elbows until his head was clear of the wagon. ‘Best of luck, everyone. See you in Perimadeia.’

Gorgas Loredan stepped over the body of one of the guards and put his weight on the capstan handle. The drawbridge was massive; made deliberately so, in order that one man on his own wouldn’t be able to lower it. He felt the strain wrenching the muscles of his chest and back; fairly soon the weight would take over, and he’d need to let go and jump clear to avoid being knocked flying by the spinning handles of the windlass. At that point, it’d be beyond his capacity to undo what he was now doing; a few inches more, and Perimadeia would inevitably fall.

He stopped and took off the quiver that hung across his back; the baldric was galling his shoulders, and was one more thing for the windlass poles to catch in once the point of no return had been reached.

Arguably, that point had come and gone many years ago.

He’d shot down all the guards he could see; there had been four, which agreed with the observations he’d made over the last few nights of careful watching. If the plainsmen played their part, and were ready and waiting on the other side, there ought to be men inside the city within the next six minutes; their irruption would be his opportunity to slip away, head for the harbour and the ship he had standing by. If things worked out, he’d be well out to sea by the time the city knew it was dying.

Suddenly he felt the handle pulling away from him, its downward surge greater than his own strength. He let go and stepped back hurriedly, and the windlass began to turn of its own accord. The sound it made, a sort of chattering whir, seemed horribly loud in the still night – They’ll be able to hear that in the second city, he thought, you’d have to be dead not to hear it and guess what was going on. He let the moment linger in his mind; the last chance gone, the instant when the suicide feels the stool slip out from under him, or knows he can’t regain his balance on the parapet. In a way it was a comfort; oh, well, too late to do anything about it now, so what’s the point of worrying? The windlass spun like the wheel of a ship out of control; quite literally out of his hands now.

Job done; successful; no spear in my ribs or arrow in my back. Time I wasn’t here.

Just for once, I got it right.

A scoop of shadow grew dense in front of him and became a man; a guardsman, on his way to relieve one of the watch. He was running, staring, not even interested in Gorgas Loredan. Let him go by; no point in picking a fight at this stage of the proceedings.

The guardsman noticed him, hesitated, stopped running just long enough to yell to him. ‘Somebody’s opened the gate! Get help, quick!’ Then he disappeared into the shadows, just as the drawbridge reached the end of its chains, bounced and found its level. There were torches approaching in the distance, where the shadows of eaves overhanging an alley darkened the night. On the wall, someone called out. Suddenly there were men under the arch of the gate, running in, spreading out. An arrow hit the guardsman and he dropped dead to the ground.

Time I wasn’t here.

More arrows flying now; Gorgas could hear them hiss as they flew past. Behind him somewhere a window smashed. A brief burst of shouted speech, quickly drowned out by the hollow drumming of feet on the planks of the drawbridge. More shouts overhead, sword blades clashing four, five times. This is the first trickle of water appearing on the wrong side of the dam. Running out of time to get away. Time to move. Time I wasn’t here.

‘What’s happening?’ someone shouted. Gorgas saw whoever it was; a guardsman with a lantern who ran towards the shapes of men gathered around the gate. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded of the first person he met, who drew a short sword and stuck it in him. More arrows hissing; they must be loosing blind, no light to see by. Just for once, I got it right. Out of my hands now.

There are ever so many orthodox reasons for bringing about the annihilation of a great city; revenge for some intolerable wrong; straightforward advantage, for example where a powerful and ambitious commercial interest decides that it would rather not repay the capital of the huge loan that threatens to strangle it; an overwhelming abhorrence for everything the city stands for; or simply because the grey of its walls clashes with the green of the grass and the blue of the sea. Some cities have been betrayed for the price of twenty acres of rocky pasture, or for love, or because they were there. Wise men in Alexius’ Order often debated the proposal that cities are by their very nature an abomination, a wart or growth that the body of the earth sooner or later heals of its own accord. Cities have been burnt to the ground by madmen, children playing with flint and tinder, and the hem of a curtain being blown into the open door of a bread oven by a gust of wind. Some cities have been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that workmen digging a ditch for a latrine will slice through a dozen crusts of masonry and ash, like the layers of a cake.

Gorgas Loredan had his own reasons, revenge and hatred and level-headed commercial acumen among them. More to the point, he was doing as he’d been told. All fair enough, for someone analysing the pathology of his actions. But Gorgas knew; he knew he was doing it for the best and most wholesome of reasons, for the same reason as everything he’d ever done since he’d left the Mesoge. For family.

Guardsmen were coming up, bringing torches and lanterns. One stopped and fell forwards. Others pulled up, stopped dead, swore under their breath and turned back. One of them will run to the second-city gatehouse to summon the Deputy Lord Lieutenant. He’ll grab his sword and his helmet and come running, shouting orders that nobody’ll be awake to catch. He’ll come running, straight into the oncoming enemy.

Gorgas Loredan drew a deep breath and started to run, not towards the harbour but up the hill. If he ran fast he might get there first, be in time to intercept his brother; it’s all over, I’ve got a ship waiting. A moment for the message to sink in; another moment, and, How did you know? Why’ve you got a ship waiting? Well, he’d deal with that when the moment came.

Behind him as he ran, more shouting on the walls; not city voices, not bewildered requests for information but signals and confirmations, anxiously waited for. An arrow hit the flagstones beside him and skipped, its movement like that of an eager dog at his heels. Irrelevant; no arrow was going to hit Gorgas Loredan tonight, because Gorgas Loredan has important things to do, he can’t be spared to make up the quota of first casualties. As he ran, his temples throbbed; what a time to have a headache, he said to himself, and tried to ignore it.

Someone grabbed Loredan by the shoulder and he woke up.

‘Come on!’ hissed the voice from behind the lantern. ‘They’re here. Some bastard opened the gate.’

Loredan blinked. His head was still full of sleep, and it hurt. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he mumbled. ‘Who…?’

‘The savages,’ the voice replied. ‘Come on, will you?’ They’re swarming all over the wall.’

Loredan stumbled off his bed and groped for his boots. ‘How did they get in?’ he asked. ‘Did you say-?’

‘Someone opened the gate. A traitor. There’s half a company of guards holding them at the pottery market, and that’s it.’

His feet didn’t want to go in the boots; his left heel was stuck about halfway down, and he couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. He pulled the boot off and started again.

‘Has anyone called out the reserve?’ he asked. ‘And what about the district garrisons? Surely-’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’ve just come from the gate – I was about to go on duty.’ Whoever it was handed him his helmet.

‘No, mailshirt first,’ Loredan snapped.

‘Where is it?’

‘There, in the corner.’ Someone had opened the gate; someone from the city had deliberately opened the gate.

There must be some mistake…

Fumbling for the straps of his mailshirt, he tried to think clearly about what had to be done. Alert the reserve and the district garrisons; each unit had an area of deployment assigned to it for this sort of emergency, he’d seen to it that everybody would know where to go and what to do. He’d need messengers-

‘Leave that,’ he said, ‘and go and find the Couriers’ Office. There should be at least ten runners there, standing by. I want them in the courtyard here in the next two minutes. Go on, run. And leave the lantern-’

The last part came too late; whoever it was had run off, taking the light with him. Loredan swore and located his helmet and sword by feel. The sword was, of course, the Guelan broadsword-’

Sure, I believe in coincidences. But this isn’t one.

What else would he need? Wax tablets and a stylus; but he didn’t have any here. Maps and plans, and they were all in the departmental chief clerk’s office, being copied. The chiefs of staff, then; had anybody told them what was happening? He couldn’t assume that, but they’d have to wait until he’d found more runners; raising the reserve and the garrison were the first priority. And still more runners, to bring him an accurate report of what was actually happening. Damn it, when he’d set up the Couriers’ Office he’d assumed for some reason that ten would be enough. That’s your trouble, Bardas, you never think.

What next? He racked his brains as he stumbled into the courtyard. When the runners showed up, he gave them their destinations and watched them dashing away into the darkness. Fortunately, the sound of voices and running attracted a few passers-by, clerks from the Department of Supply for the most part. He co-opted them as messengers and sent them running for the chiefs of staff, too fazed to question the messages they were carrying.

If they’re on the wall already, what’s to stop them forcing a way through all the way round? It depended on how many of them there were, and whether they were coming up on two fronts or only one. If they met no resistance at ground level, they could get across to the next staircase along and take on any defenders from both directions. I should have made specific plans for something like this; but then, who’d ever imagine someone would actually open the gates?

The various chiefs of staff staggered and bumped their way into the courtyard; the Chief Engineer first, accompanied by his first officer, both with their helmets and mailcoats on over long, old-fashioned nightgowns; the Chief of Archers, properly equipped and armed, with his four deputies; the four captains of infantry – guards, garrison, reserves and auxiliaries – in and out of armour, with and without staff; the Chief Clerk from Works and the Quartermaster. Supply was vacant at the moment, because the previous Chief Clerk had been promoted to customs, and it was a political appointment… Second from last the Prefect. Last of all the Lord Lieutenant, his magnificent parade armour still tacky with storage grease, so that dust and fallen leaves stuck to his shins and ankles.

Quickly, Loredan explained, gave his orders. Nobody argued, most of them seemed to know what to do. He put the Prefect in charge of the wall, left the Lord Lieutenant to organise the defence of the second city, and at last was free to go. As he reached the long, broad downhill sweep of the Grand Avenue, he broke into a run. As it happened, he left the gatehouse at more or less the same time as Gorgas reached it. In the darkness and confusion, neither recognised the other.

Metrias Corodin was a maker of scientific instruments, and a good one too. By day he worked in a small but adequate shop on the second level of the western balcony of the instrument-makers’ courtyard, torturing his eyes as he marked out the tiny calibrations on the scales and barrels of the instruments and scorching his fingers over the soldering lamp. In the evenings, he was the sergeant of his watch district; it was a social function as much as anything else, an honour bestowed on him by his neighbours in recognition of a useful and industrious life. He enjoyed the duty; a few hours a week of drill, a little paperwork, a good excuse to hold meetings that people could linger after to talk shop and share news and a jug or two of cider. The drill wasn’t particularly irksome; as a young man he’d been something of an athlete, and he wasn’t so much out of condition that half an hour’s square-bashing or a morning at the butts was a problem for him, even if the straps had had to be let out a few times since the shirt was new.

Now he was standing in front of a line of bleary-eyed nervous men drawn up across the entrance to the coopers’ square. His small company was wedged in between the coopers and the nailmakers, two substantial detachments, each with several sergeants. By a quirk of seniority and guild etiquette, however, he found himself in overall command of the defence of the lower city.

Until the real soldiers get here, he reassured himself, which must be soon, surely. Somewhere ahead, an indeterminate distance away, there were unnerving noises, shouts and yells and sporadic clashes of metal on metal. Something was coming this way, and he had a nasty feeling it was the war.

He tried to remember his basic theory; Ninas Elius’ Art of Urban Defence, required reading for watch officials for the last hundred and twenty years. Defensive actions in a confined space against an oncoming enemy – he could remember swotting up on the section for his lance-corporal’s examination twenty years ago – are to be conducted in two phases, comprising the disruptive use of archery and the obstructive effect of an infantry line. He’d learnt it, yes, but never stopped to think what it might mean. Shoot the buggers first and then hit them, he guessed. It seemed to be the sensible thing to do.

As he peered into the darkness ahead he cursed his poor eyesight, and the years of crouching over his bench that had bowed his legs and cramped his back. His helmet felt loose on his head, despite his wife’s last-minute packing with a woollen scarf, and with the sideflaps tied down he was sure he could only hear about half as well as usual.

The disruptive effect of archery… Well, time to get ready to do something about that. Nervously, his voice higher and squeakier than it should have been, he gave the order to string bows, and set about bending his own; the end of the bottom limb trapped against the outside of the right foot, then the left leg steps over the bow until the underside of the knee is brought to bear on the inside of the bow, just below the handle; grip the upper limb firmly in the left hand and flex it inwards (and every time he did it, he felt sure the bow would snap, though it hadn’t done so yet), while the right hand brings the loop of the bowstring over the nock, thus completing the manoeuvre. Standard bow drill, he’d done it many thousands of times; but tonight he had to try three times before he got it right.

The noise was nearer, close enough that he could make a good estimate of where they were; just inside the plumbers’ quarter, where the tank-makers had their shops. He tried to imagine the scene, but couldn’t; bloodthirsty savages swarming past shops he’d known since he was a boy, the idea was so incongruous as to be laughable. He gave the order to nock arrows.

A fairly new bow, this. Last spring, when the tournament season started, he’d finally been forced to admit that his old bow, twenty-five years old and still as sound as the day it was made, was getting too heavy for him to draw, and so he’d treated himself to a brand new one, a hickory and lemonwood ninety-five pounder instead of the hundred and twenty pound draw of the old self yew. Ninety-five was still too stiff, if the truth be told, but a man has his pride. The string felt dry against his fingers – shame on him for neglecting to wax it, he’d have nobody to blame but himself if it broke on him now. As for the arrow, he’d instinctively chosen the worst of the set, slightly bowed and a bit shabby in the fletchings; it always flew left and a little high; he knew the degree of variance well enough. This would almost certainly be the last time he drew it; other things more important in a battle than retrieving spent arrows, after all. The thought of aiming it deliberately at someone was quite bizarre; hadn’t he spent the last fifteen years as range officer telling the archers never under any circumstances to point a bow at anyone?

Movement under the archway opposite-

Too dark to make anything out except a general impression of moving bodies, a wave of men advancing steadily, cautious on unfamiliar ground. Not our men, anyway. Without looking round, he stepped back into the line, heard his own voice giving the order to mark and draw…

(The strain of the bow against his left wrist; a sharp twinge in his back as he brought his shoulder blades together. He looked for a single target to aim at but there wasn’t one, just a featureless line seventy-five yards away across the square)

… Hold and loose; his fingers relaxed and the string pulled away, slapping the inside of his left arm where the bracer protected it. He tried to follow the course of his arrow, but it was lost among so many, and now his voice was calling, Nock, mark, draw, hold, loose! and he was doing the drill in time to his own commands, as if he was once more a young boy under the sergeant’s eye. He felt a muscle protesting in his left forearm, easy to pull something if you don’t take care, but there wasn’t time to worry about that, he had to keep up with the commands (nock, mark, draw, hold, loose) or else get hopelessly out of step, be the laughing-stock of the quarter-

A shape loomed up at him in the darkness and turned into a man; short, thickset, in early middle age, a spear in both hands and his eyes full of terror, plunging towards him not twenty yards away. So that’s what the enemy looks like, he realised as he lowered his aim, picking a spot a hand and two finger’s breadth above the handle and letting his fingers relax. He saw the arrow strike, the shaft vanish into the man’s chest until only the fletchings and the nock were left; he saw the man run on two, three paces until his legs folded under him so that he pitched forward on his face; and behind him another – enough time to nock another arrow, he wondered dispassionately, as one second expanded into a substantial part of a lifetime. Perhaps, but if he was wrong he’d never have time to draw his sword. He let the bow fall (my beautiful new bow, and someone’s bound to tread on it) and dropped his hand to his belt, feeling for the pommel of the old standard-issue sword that had been his father’s-

Horrible, heavy great thing, cruel to the hands of a man who made his living by fine work; sword drill was compulsory but he’d never made an effort at it; enough that he should cut his fingers to the bone with a bowstring without rubbing the skin off his palms with a wire-bound sword-hilt…)

– Which slid out of its scabbard with a rasping, grating noise and felt hopelessly heavy, lumpish in his hand, as the enemy came forward, running straight towards him-

He’s got his eyes shut, Corodin noticed with amazement. Bugger’s charging with his eyes shut. Poor bastard must be scared stiff.

– In his hand a short-bladed, long-handled sword with a single cutting edge, which he held above his head like a winnowing-flail-

Metrias Corodin the instrument-maker let him come, let him come; and when he was close enough to reach, he held out his sword and let the poor frightened savage run straight onto it; at which point he was close enough to hear the air escaping from the punctured lung, before the man dropped to the ground, pulling Corodin’s arm down and yanking the sword from his grasp. Empty-handed, then, he looked up at the next one, coming straight towards him as the other one had done, a lance in his hands, the same terror reflected in his face. Too late to work the sword free, but he tried it anyway, felt it budge and start to move just as the other man’s spearhead came into sharp focus, so close that even his dim eyes could make it out, down to the fresh marks of the stone on its broad, leaf-shaped blade. He waited for the lance to pierce him, in that long last second thinking, I wonder if it’ll hurt much, and was still waiting when the man next to him in the line leant across him and fended the lance away before following up with a thrust that ripped into the other man’s stomach and made him howl. Corodin was grateful to his neighbour – gods, if it wasn’t Gidas Mascaleon under that big, rusty helmet, a cheapskate and a disgrace to our profession – but before he could say thank you, another one of the enemy slashed Gidas Mascaleon across the face, cutting right through his nose just above the bridge; and while he was still stunned with the shock and the pain, drove the sword into his chest and killed him.

Corodin had his sword free by now and looked round for the man who’d killed his neighbour, but somehow wasn’t there any more. No time to look more carefully; another one of them straight ahead, running in, but slowing down to climb over the drift of dead and dying men that was starting to build up around the feet of the defenders. As Corodin watched, the man seemed to lose his sense of purpose; there was fear in his eyes too, but the man was thinking, weighing up whether the attempt was feasible. He stood there for a moment astride a dying man; a tall, thin boy with a straggle of beard and slim, muscular arms showing under the baggy sleeves of a mailshirt, a sensible lad who realised the attack was over, and turned his back and ran off the way he’d come.

‘We’ve tried three charges,’ the man said, a junior captain of the line. ‘It’s hopeless, we just can’t budge them.’

‘Why the hell are you bothering with that?’ Temrai panted. ‘Get your men out of my way so I can clear this lot out with my archers.’

Four volleys was all it took (nock, mark, draw, hold, loose) and then the few that were left standing broke and ran, leaving the way clear for another hundred yards or so. As his line advanced Temrai felt a cold rage inside him towards the young captain, the man whose mistake had cost the lives of many of his men; but he ignored it, concentrating on the way ahead, desperately trying to remember the geography, whether there was any point ahead that was likely to harbour an ambush, how the streets were laid out, whether there was another lane alongside this one that the enemy could come down and take them in flank and rear. Each time one of his men fell he wanted to run to him, protect him, get his body away from the danger just in case there was a little drop of life still left in him. But it was out of his hands now, he couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging his finer sentiments and his noble nature, not when everything that happened here was his responsibility. He couldn’t have run forward into the thick of the fighting even if he’d wanted to.

Sounds like an excuse to me, he told himself, but he knew that wasn’t true.

Where in hell were the enemy? Three squares they’d crossed and not an arrow loosed at them, nothing in their path except a few parked wagons and the occasional trader’s booth. A trap? Or were they struggling to bring their men up in time, or letting this district go so as to form a defence in strength at some more advantageous point? There was a map somewhere, but he couldn’t remember who’d had it last; besides, he ought to know these things. He looked round and shouted, furious that in spite of everything he’d said the line wasn’t keeping level. The right wing was trailing behind, the centre was too far forward. Gods, if they were to attack us now…

Down this one, Loredan muttered to himself, past the livery stable and the tavern that does cheap mutton pies, should bring us out opposite the beltmakers’ guildhall, and that’ll be right. Assuming they’ve advanced as fast as I think they have, and I haven’t missed a turning in the dark.

Here we are; but we’re too early, got to give them time to run up against the force blocking the chandlers’ arch. Then we’ll have them front and back, without room to turn or use their bows. At least, that’s the theory.

Wonderful thing, theory.

He stopped and raised his hand, and behind him the column bustled to a halt. Slowly he counted to fifty – why fifty? Well, as good a number as any – before dropping his hand and turning the corner back into the Grand Avenue, which was full of people.

It was like a Navy Day parade, seen from behind. In front, in the distance, a solid wedge of people squeezed down the street, followed by the stragglers, the people who couldn’t be bothered to walk fast and keep up. We’ll have them at any rate, he muttered to himself as he ran forward, quickly selecting a man at random.

Whoever he was, he can’t have known very much about it; and then he was down, with Loredan stepping over him and a scrum of soldiers close behind, surging forward and across to fill the width of the street. Only a few of the enemy had turned round to face them by the time they were close enough to make contact, and after that it was sheer hard work, swinging the arms and taxing the shoulders, like digging peat or cutting back an overgrown stream. It was possible to feel the ripples of panic spreading out, from the back of the crush where Loredan’s men were cutting out their path, on into the middle where men were packed so closely that their main concern was avoiding the sharp butt-spikes on the ends of the spears of the men in front. It was a little bit like watching something melt, seeing the solid turn to liquid under the heat.

Gods, it was a trap after all, and I fell for it. Temrai tried to look back and see the extent of the disaster, but there were too many heads in the way; all he could see was heads and shoulders and a forest of spears. But he could feel the shock running through his army as the men behind shoved forward to get as far away as they could from the shambles they couldn’t see. There didn’t seem to be a way out of it; not unless by some miracle another part of his army happened along and took the ambush in rear. For an instant, Temrai’s mind was full of a ludicrous vision of the Grand Avenue, crammed as full of men as a sausage skin, alternating strata of them and us, each layer stabbing the backs of the men in front, being stabbed by the men behind, until only the very front and rear detachments were left to fight it out on top of a mattress of corpses.

Someone was tugging at his arm. He turned his head.

‘… Through the houses,’ the man was saying. ‘Break through the walls of the houses; they’re only wood and brick.’

At first it sounded like gibberish, until Temrai realised what the man was trying to say. More or less opposite where they were standing, on the left-hand side of the avenue, there was a row of dilapidated cottages. He remembered them, recalled hearing that they’d been allowed to go to ruin by the owner, who’d bought them as an investment in anticipation of some development or other along this part of the avenue. On the other side of the cottages, if he’d got it right, there was a long alley that curved round the avenue like a strung bow curling back to its string. More than enough men to push in the walls of the cottages and then they’d be through, and the battle would effectively be rotated through ninety degrees. There might even be scope for an outflanking manoeuvre of his own.

‘Do it,’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Take as many men as you can get. And hurry, for gods’ sakes.’

Without tools or equipment, or any real idea of what they were meant to be doing, they threw themselves at the walls of the cottages, kicking in doors and shutters and scrambling through, burying axe-heads in the soft plaster. When the wall began to give the mass pressed forwards like a stampede of horses frightened by thunder on the plains. A few, maybe a dozen, were buried under chunks of masonry; the rest squashed and crushed their way through, like grass forcing its way up through a pavement. As soon as men started spilling out on the other side, Temrai could feel the tension relax, now that the men trapped inside the box had somewhere to go. He had no choice but to follow the flow towards the breach, wondering as he went how many of his people would be left behind, to be massacred as they tried in vain to get past and into the hole in the wall. Too many, he decided, and left it at that. It was a simple form of arithmetic, because no matter what the figures said, the result would always be too many.

Patriarch Alexius woke up to the sound of yells and people running. At first he assumed the building was on fire – it wouldn’t have been the first time – but somehow the noise was different. He strained to make out some words among the shouting.

Whatever it was that was happening, it sounded important. Common sense suggested that it would be a good time to get out of bed and put some clothes on, but for some reason Alexius stayed where he was. The confused shouting still wasn’t making any sense, and he’d woken up with a migraine. He closed his eyes, just for a moment-

– And saw a bench in a long, roomy workshop. He appeared to be at the dark end of the shop, but there was plenty of light near the open door, where two men were hanging what looked like a half-finished bow on a peg fixed to the wall. The younger man, who was little more than a boy, held the bow firmly on the peg with both hands while the older man (who was Bardas Loredan) slipped a hook over the bowstring and attached a cord to it. He fed the cord through a pulley, then looped it over one of the crossbeams of the roof; then he fished about under the bench and came up with a lead weight, marked on the side with tallies representing numbers. It was a heavy weight, because Loredan strained as he lifted it off the floor and held it under the end of the cord, cradled on his forearms, while he tied the cord to it.

‘Hold it steady,’ he said, and gently took his arms away, leaving the weight hanging from the cord. The bow on the peg bent as the weight drew down through the pulley, and Alexius noticed a number of marks scribed on the wall under the peg; the apex of the cone formed by the bent bowstring was touching one of them.

‘Sixty pounds at twenty-four,’ the boy said, having examined the mark. Loredan nodded, untied the weight and laid it gently down.

‘More to come off the belly,’ he said. ‘Take it down and put it up in the vice, and get me the small drawknife.’

The boy did as he was told, asking, ‘Why the belly? The wood’s thicker on the back, shouldn’t we thin it there instead?’

Loredan shook his head as the boy handed him an eight-inch blade with a handle at right angles on each end. ‘You’re forgetting your basic theory,’ he said, ‘about the back and the belly. You’d better tell me again, and remind yourself.’

The boy sighed; then, as Loredan spat on a flat brown stone and started whetting the blade slowly along it, the boy began to recite, ‘The back of the bow stretches,’ he said, ‘and the belly is compressed. It’s the stretching and the compression, balanced and in proper proportion, that gives a bow its strength. I know that,’ he added in a wounded voice. ‘I was just saying, there’s an awful lot of wood in the back, so shouldn’t you even it up?’

Without looking up, Loredan shook his head. ‘You’re forgetting what I told you about the heartwood and the sapwood,’ he said.

‘No, I’m not,’ the boy replied, fidgeting with a beechwood mallet. ‘Sapwood for the back, because it’s young and can be stretched, heartwood for the belly because it’s old and remembers its shape, even when it’s been crushed up tight.’

‘And the sapwood should be thin and the heartwood thick,’ Loredan added, ‘because what is compressed has more power when it expands again than that which has been stretched when it contracts. And that’s the important bit,’ he concluded, testing the edge of the blade against his thumb. ‘The bit you always seem to forget.’

‘Only because it’s full of long words,’ the boy replied. ‘I’m not very good with long words. I’d remember it much easier if I actually knew what it meant.’

Loredan smiled. ‘It does help,’ he conceded. ‘All right, then, think of it this way. Lord Temrai-’

Alexius saw the boy’s face change, ever so slightly.

‘-is the sapwood, because he was young and he stretched the clan to make them do something they weren’t supposed to be able to do. By stretching them he gave them power.’

‘I don’t like this explaining,’ the boy said.

‘If you don’t like it, it must be doing you good. Now then, the Patriarch Alexius is the heartwood, because he was old and he was crushed up and bent back when the city fell, and all the strength of the Order was squeezed into him; and that’s how he got his power, which is much greater than the clan’s.’

‘Ah,’ said the boy. ‘Now I think I understand.’

‘There’s more,’ Loredan warned. ‘There’s the reason why you don’t make a bow out of just sapwood or just heartwood; because the same power that stretches the sapwood also compresses the heartwood, and the stretching of the one compresses the other.’

‘Now I’m not understanding again.’

‘Never mind. Learn now and understand later. Without the heartwood to support it, the sapwood stretches too much and breaks. Without the sapwood to contain it, the heartwood compresses too much and breaks. That’s why the sapwood’s on the outside, facing away from you as you draw the bow, and the heartwood’s inside.’

‘I see,’ said the boy. ‘Or I think I do. We’re in the belly of the bow, and they’re outside, in the back.’

Loredan nodded. ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘Right, that’ll have to do for an edge. Now, let’s let the dog see the rabbit.’

– and opened them again, because someone had opened the door and was shouting something at him.

‘What?’ he mumbled. ‘Speak up, I can’t-’

‘The enemy,’ the boy in the doorway repeated, ‘are inside the city. Somebody’s opened the gates. The savages are taking the city.’

‘Oh,’ Alexius replied. ‘That would explain it, then.’ He frowned, wondering why he’d said that. ‘Do we know what we’re supposed to do?’

The boy shrugged. ‘The precentors and the librarians want to see you as soon as possible,’ he said, ‘about trying to hide the library or bury it or something.’ He shuffled his feet nervously. ‘Do you need me any more, Patriarch, or can I go?’

Alexius shook his head. ‘No, you run along,’ he said. ‘I’d get home, if I were you, before your mother worries herself to death.’

The boy nodded gratefully and shut the door behind him, leaving Alexius in the dark once more. He sat up and felt for his slippers with his toes. Next, he should get dressed and go and see the precentors and the librarians; but was there any point, now that the city was about to fall? There was no earthly hope of saving the library, over a hundred thousand books ranged over a couple of miles of shelves. As for saving himself, that would be a sublimely futile effort; the strain of hurrying down to the harbour and trying to jostle his way onto a ship would kill him just as effectively as an arrow or a lungful of smoke. If he thought he’d be able to help organise an efficient evacuation, he’d go to it with a will. But the truth was that he’d only get in the way. If only there was some light, he could spend his last hours, or minutes maybe, admiring the justly famous mosaics on the ceiling and using them as a focus for some final act of meditation. But there wasn’t; and he couldn’t be bothered to grope around in the dark for his tinderbox. Ah, the hell with it; he’d never particularly liked the things to begin with.

His eyelids were beginning to droop as he slipped back into a doze when the door flew open again, and light flooded in from the stairway behind. But it wasn’t the pageboy, or even a plains warrior with a dripping knife in each hand; it was someone he knew, if he could only fit a name to…

‘Patriarch Alexius? Patriarch? Excuse me, are you there?’

His eyes snapped open. ‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Who’s that?’

The glow of the lantern fell across the man’s face. ‘It’s me, Venart. You remember, we met a while ago when you were…’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Alexius peered at him, wondering if this was another of those dreams. ‘Please, come in,’ he added. ‘What can I do for you?’ An incongruous conversation to be having in the middle of the sack of one’s city, he reflected, but any interruption to his own death vigil was welcome enough.

‘My sister,’ Venart said. ‘She – well, she sent me to fetch you.’

‘Oh.’ It would have made much better sense if it had been a dream, but it patently wasn’t. He could smell the oil burning in the lantern, and Venart, pale-faced with embarrassment overlaid on terror, was quite obviously both here and now. ‘That was – very thoughtful.’

‘She insisted,’ Venart replied. ‘It’s really quite unnerving, as if she somehow knew.’ He stared at Alexius for a moment. ‘Patriarch,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry if this is a rude question or against your ethics or whatever, but I’m worried. Is she a witch? It’d never have occurred to me in a million years; but all those things you said the first time we came here, and now this-’

She isn’t; but perhaps I know who is. ‘Please,’ Alexius replied, ‘don’t ask me. The one thing I’ve learned in my recent studies into the subject is that I still know next to nothing about it.’ He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and added, ‘Actually, if we’re going to escape from the city, shouldn’t we be making a start? I imagine it isn’t going to be easy.’

‘What? Oh, gods, yes, we must leave at once.’ Venart half-turned, then stopped. ‘You, um, don’t want to take much stuff with you, I suppose? Only I don’t think we ought to load ourselves down with heavy bags and parcels.’

Alexius considered for a moment. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I actually need,’ he said. ‘If you’d be kind enough to hand me my coat; it’s just there, on the stool.’

‘No books or anything like that?’

Books of spells, grimoires, magical instruments, a brass jar or pottery lamp containing my familiar demon. ‘No,’ Alexius confirmed. ‘There’s all sorts of things I’d like to take, but nothing I can’t do without. It’s rather wonderful to be able to say that at my age, don’t you think?’

As they set out, Alexius confidently expected he wouldn’t survive as far as the second-city gate, let alone beyond it. But the streets were remarkably quiet; in the distance there were vaguely disquieting noises, but no recognisable shrieks of agony, no red glow over the lower city. He led the way from the gate, hoping his twenty-year-old recollections of back ways to the harbour were still reasonably accurate and valid.

‘How did you manage to get here? To my lodgings, I mean. Did you arrive before it all started, or…?’

‘Yes,’ Venart said (he was actually puffing, having to make an effort to keep up), ‘I was having a late meal at my inn when I heard the first rumours, so I came over straight away. Actually,’ he added, ‘I’m going to have to leave you at the docks – there’ll be a boat to carry you to the ship, assuming they haven’t both been stolen yet – because I’ve got to go back and pick up someone else. Or try to, at any rate.’ Venart was close to tears, Alexius noticed as they passed under a lamp. He wore the expression of a man who’s in desperate trouble not of his own making, trouble he knew was coming and could so easily have avoided, that it’s-not-fair kind of despairing rage that feels so much worse than ordinary fear or anger.

‘Loredan?’ Alexius prompted him.

He nodded. ‘Though how I’m supposed to find the General in the middle of a battle, let alone persuade him to drop everything and come with me…’

‘I’m sure you’ll do your best,’ Alexius said with a trace of firmness, as if encouraging a child to do something he didn’t want to, but which would be good for him. ‘I expect you’ll manage,’ he added, truthfully.

They were no more than a quarter of a mile from the harbour; but now they had no choice but to leave the back alleys and join the surge of people in a main thoroughfare. It wasn’t a pleasant walk, by any means; Alexius was reminded of excessively boisterous festivals, a student riot from his youth, the panic that had attended a fire, other similar precedents. But there were far more people here; women and children as well as men, all shoving and jostling, while on either side of the street the inevitable opportunists were indulging in some last-chance-to-steal looting of the better class of shops, and a few overturned carts and collapsed loads didn’t help the flow of traffic. Witchcraft, he muttered to himself as the crowd crushed and compressed all around them without ever actually impeding them, without anybody so much as treading on their feet. There wasn’t anything he could point to and legitimately call a supernatural effect; it was just that there were gaps and air pockets in the crush precisely where they wanted to go.

‘The boat’s not actually down by the docks,’ Venart said in a loud, hoarse whisper. ‘That’d be inviting people to come and grab it. So I told the boatmen to hide up under the arches of the long jetty, where I reckoned nobody’d see them. Mind you, I wasn’t expecting a wholesale panic like this.’

Fortuitously the current of the stampede swept them directly towards the long jetty. Some fool had started a fire, accidentally or deliberately, in one of the warehouses, and its light reflected off the water was good enough to see by for some way. ‘There,’ Venart hissed. ‘Oh, gods, there’s people trying to get on it, just as I feared. Come on.’

Alexius saw a small longboat, six oars each side, standing off about fifteen yards from the jetty. Around it in the water men and women were swimming; some of them were trying to scramble over the side of the boat, and the oarsmen were hitting them with boathooks, the butt-ends of oars, even the wooden clogs from their feet. Venart shouted and waved; by chance one of the oarsmen looked up and saw him, and shouted to his fellows. They dislodged the remaining swimmers with difficulty and quite a lot of force, and rowed towards the point where Venart and Alexius stood.

‘This’ll be the tricky part,’ Venart muttered. ‘I don’t suppose you’re up to swimming.’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Pity.’ Quite a few people were watching the boat coming in, others were scrambling to get to the front. It was the pushing and shoving behind them, in fact, that launched Venart and Alexius unexpectedly into the water, solving one problem but creating another.

Alexius felt the water close above his head. Ah, well, he thought, it was worth trying, I suppose. But I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Then he became aware of something pinching hard on his arm, and he was moving, being towed (still under the water) in the direction that he seemed to remember the boat being in. Since he was effectively dead already, of course, he could afford to be relaxed about the whole thing-

– Until he felt the first mouthful of water enter his lungs, and the panic, which happened at almost precisely the moment when his head broke through the water back into the air, and many hands grabbed him and hauled him upwards; then a bump as he hit the planks of the boat, and someone pushing down on his chest – trying to kill him? No, this was something to do with getting water out of his lungs. It was all rather unpleasant, and he wasn’t entirely sorry when his eyes blacked over and he lost consciousness.