Colours in the Steel

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

War preparations meant more trade. More trade meant more litigation. More litigation meant more lawyers. And, since the turnover in the profession was necessarily high, newly qualified advocates were getting their chance to stand up in court for the first time rather earlier than usual.

Because justice must be seen to be done, the court listings were pinned up on the courthouse door every morning, four hours before the first session, to give the general public a certain amount of notice of the cases to be decided, to enable them to exercise their civic right to witness the proceedings and lay their bets.

Since Venart and Vetriz had gone home, taking with them enough rope to tie the Island to the city several times over, Athli had nothing in particular to do. When she happened to pass the courthouse and glance at the listings and the names of the advocates, she rapidly revised her plans for the day and joined the queue. There was a certain advocate making her first appearance in whose career Athli was personally interested.

The case was a rather complicated matter concerning a shipload of beans. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant, a ship’s master who had contracted to carry the said beans from Perimadeia to Nissa for the sum more particularly specified in the charter party, had failed to exercise proper care and attention in stowing the said beans during the voyage, in that he had allowed the said beans to become damp, with the result that they had sprouted and become valueless, thereby rendering the plaintiff in breach of his contract to supply the said beans to a third party in Nissa, in consequence of which the plaintiff had lost the value of his contract and of the said beans, and further was liable to the said third party in damages.

The defendant alleged that the said beans had sprouted as a result of the plaintiff’s own negligence in packing the said beans in barrels that were badly fitted and inadequately sealed; further or in the alternative it was a term of the plaintiff’s contract with the said third party that risk in the said beans passed to the said third party on the ship’s departure from Perimadeia, and that accordingly the said plaintiff had not breached the said contract and had suffered no loss at the hands of the defendant even if (which was not admitted) the defendant had been negligent in his stowing of the said beans.

While this rigmarole was being read out by the clerks, the audience sat in good-natured silence, broken only by the usual gentle coughing and the furtive munching of apples. It was a large crowd; lady advocates weren’t exactly a novelty in the courts, but they weren’t an everyday spectacle either, and a rumour had spread that this lady advocate was also young and pretty. On the strength of this rumour, several large bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit had already been handed in at the side door of the courthouse.

Not pretty, exactly, Athli said to herself; striking-looking. The girl – even now Athli couldn’t remember her name, though she’d recognised it immediately when she’d seen it written down – was dressed for the occasion in the traditional court costume of a male advocate; not what lady fencers usually wore, and the defendant’s clerk had tried to argue the point to the judge before the boos and hisses from the spectators had drowned out his words. The judge, an ex-fencer whom Athli recognised, had threatened to clear the court if the disturbance continued, but had disallowed the point of procedure. The trial was therefore about to begin.

The defence advocate was the first to take guard, adopting the bent-knees crouch of the City fence. Athli knew of him; he was no novice, and his reputation was for an energetic style of fencing that relied as much on the edge of the blade as the point. He was no more than average height, but his broad shoulders and thick forearms suggested that his wristwork would be strong and fast. The girl took her guard in the Old fence, standing up straight with her heels almost together and her sword-arm extended, the point held steady and unwavering. Athli put her apple core in her pocket and sat up straight. This was going to be interesting.

The woman next to her, middle-aged, red-faced, brightly dressed and fat, nudged her gently in the ribs. ‘Silver quarter on the bloke,’ she whispered. ‘Seen him last week, he’s mustard.’

‘Bet,’ Athli replied, as the defendant hop-skipped a pace forward, lifting his sword and aiming to push her blade aside in a pre-emptive parry that would leave her open. The girl watched him come; at the last moment she turned her own wrist over, bringing her blade up inside the parry, at the same time taking a step to her left. It was an intelligent gambit; he was now on a completely different line to her, and if she’d had the physical strength to deflect him safely, she could have counterthrust and finished the matter there and then. As it was, he was the one who counterthrust; she avoided it easily with footwork, but couldn’t reach far enough to thrust back. She reverted to guard; he did the same. She had the moral victory, of course; but, as Loredan was so fond of saying, moral victories feed no crows. It was still all to play for.

In the next encounter, the defence displayed a little more intelligence. Because she was using the Old fence it was obvious the plaintiff was waiting for him to come to her; logical enough, since he was bigger and stronger. He did no such thing, guessing that her relative inexperience would lead her to make an attack simply to relieve the tension. She stayed put, however, her sword-point as still as a star in the clear night sky, and in the event he was the one who lost patience first. Taking a gamble on her inexperience, he deliberately lowered his guard a little, creating an opening for her. She would take advantage of it, he would be ready for her, and that ought to be that.

The girl refused to oblige. Even from where she was sitting, Athli could see the sweat glistening on the man’s forehead; but the girl’s face was pale and dry as paper, and her eyes were fixed on the other man’s sword, exactly as they were supposed to be. It was almost, Athli realised, like watching Loredan fence; that total concentration on the ribbon of steel in the other man’s fist, that alert stillness which implied a dogged refusal to make assumptions until the other man’s sword was actually moving. If she had her back to me, Athli thought, I might even think it was him.

The battle of temperament was almost over. The defendant lowered his guard a little more, provocatively, like a woman hitching her skirt over her knee. The girl ignored him, continued staring down her blade at his. The crowd were beginning to murmur – hadn’t paid good money to see two people standing still – when the man closed up his guard and made a good, orthodox lunge, leading a true line and angling his blade down to make the parry as hard as possible.

The next development happened very fast. The girl took two steps to her right, circling, stepping out of his line, the fundamental ploy of the Old fence. Her movement took her out of striking range for a counterthrust of her own, but it allowed her to turn her arm and fend his blade away, opening him up on his right side so that he couldn’t easily recover in time to parry. He reared back, trying to get his sword inside hers to be in a position to use the strength of his wrist to make up for his disadvantage in position. But before he could even touch his blade to hers, she was inside him again; the counterthrust he’d anticipated she’d make hadn’t happened, and he was parrying a sword that wasn’t there. Before he had time to get back out of it, she’d stabbed him under his right arm. He fell off her blade, hit the ground and died.

‘Oh,’ said the fat woman. ‘Damn.’ She shrugged her big round shoulders, dug in her sleeve and produced a rather worn silver quarter. ‘Double or quits on the next case?’ she asked hopefully, still gripping the coin. Athli shook her head and held her hand out for the money. Then she stood up and walked out of the courthouse.

By the time she reached the street, she was trembling a little.

Wonderful advertisement for the school, she told herself. Wonder if she’s looking for a clerk?

It was purely force of habit that led her to the usual tavern, just round the corner. She’d just watched a lawsuit, and so she felt thirsty, in need of a stiff drink. It was the first time she’d ever been in the place on her own, and even though it was the sort of establishment where unescorted women wouldn’t expect to encounter difficulties, she nevertheless felt rather apprehensive until she saw a female figure sitting alone at a table by the window. A moment later, she realised who it must be.

Coincidentally, it was the same table she used to sit at with Loredan; out of the way of the through traffic to and from the back room, handy for the long-established matted sheaf of cobweb in case there were cuts to dress. Was it conscious imitation, or simply an inherent fencer’s instinct that had led the girl to it?

I’ll tell him when I see him next. He might be amused.

There was, of course, no need for her to go over and make conversation; she didn’t even want to. But she stood there looking in the girl’s direction for a minute or so longer than she should have. The girl looked up, caught her eye and recognised her. Good manners deprived Athli of the option of silent withdrawal. She went over.

‘Hello,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ve just been watching you in court. Well done.’

The girl nodded a perfunctory acknowledgement. In front of her was a small glass of wine, the smallest measure that the house provided. Athli asked if she’d like another. She shook her head, the minimum of movement necessary to convey her meaning. Rather appalling to think that, even in partial jest, Athli had contemplated clerking for this person. She decided to persevere a little longer.

‘Your first case, I gather,’ she said. ‘Rather a substantial client to get for your maiden brief.’

‘I’m related to him,’ the girl replied, turning her head away and staring out of the window. ‘On my father’s side. And it wasn’t as if they expected me to do anything; they were sure they were going to settle before it got to court.’ She looked round, straight into Athli’s eyes. ‘Neither side wanted it to go to trial,’ she went on. ‘They wanted to carry on doing business together, and all this stuff was just in the way.’

Athli was intrigued, in spite of herself. ‘What went wrong, then?’ she asked.

‘I knew there was going to be a cancellation in the listings, so I went to the court clerk and had this case brought forwards. It was such short notice they didn’t have time to settle. So I got my fight.’

‘I see,’ Athli replied slowly.

The girl grinned at her. ‘One of the advantages of not having a clerk,’ she said. ‘I can do things like that.’

‘Well, it’ll be good for your career,’ Athli replied. ‘You shouldn’t have any trouble finding work now.’

The girl shrugged. ‘I need the practice,’ she said. ‘Schoolwork’s all very well, but I need to get the feel of the real thing. Actually kill people in open court a few times, build up my temperament.’

It was a reasonable attitude for a professional, and it wasn’t the first time Athli had heard the gist of it, though never put quite in that way. Nevertheless, she found the girl’s attitude rather revolting, and decided not to say anything.

‘You were a clerk, weren’t you?’ the girl went on, looking away again. ‘So you’ll know about these things. If I wanted to get work from the State Prosecutor’s Office, are there any particular advocates I should be trying to get a case against? As I see it, if I target particular advocates, the Prosecutor’ll notice me far quicker than if I just flounder about in general practice.’

Athli thought for a moment and suggested a couple of names; established advocates who picked and chose their work and charged high fees. ‘If you beat any of them,’ she went on, ‘you’d certainly make a name for yourself. And obviously, the Prosecutor’s always looking out for new advocates.’ She paused, not wanting to know the answer to the question she was minded to ask. ‘Why do you want to work for the Prosecutor, particularly? The money’s good but nothing special, you’d do better in commercial practice. In fact, being a woman you’ll probably find divorce would be a good field to be in.’

The girl shook her head, dislodging one of the combs from her hair; it fell on the table with a clatter. ‘Divorce is a waste of time,’ she said. ‘Thanks for those names; I’ll bear them in mind.’

Athli felt a great urge to go away, and decided to give in to it. ‘Well,’ she forced herself to say, ‘well done once again and the best of luck.’ She stood up. ‘Clearly all that extra tuition wasn’t wasted.’

The girl looked up sharply at that. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I intend to make sure it wasn’t. Goodbye.’

She said the word like a military officer saying Dismissed, and Athli walked away without looking back. She had decided not to say anything to Loredan; after all, he was through with all this, and he had a city to defend. Besides, she found she couldn’t even now remember the wretched girl’s name.

The enemy camp appeared under the walls of the city one morning like a mushroom, or a suspicious lump under one’s skin not previously noticed. Later, the Security Council decided that they must have sneaked their rafts downstream as far as the gorge where the river cut through the low hills, a mile or so from the fork. Then, during the night, they somehow managed to make the last mile in pitch darkness, land their gear and set up camp no more than a third of a mile from the Drovers’ Bridge; all in utter silence, setting up tents by feel without a sound or a gleam of light. Practice, the Council supposed, makes perfect, and for nomads pitching and breaking camp must be second nature. Nevertheless, it was an impressive achievement.

That was what was said in retrospect. When the first light of a grey and rather chilly day illuminated a vast expanse of ghostly grey and brown shapes apparently growing out of the low slopes on the left bank of the river, the city’s reaction was rather less analytical.

This time, however, there were no mobs or riots; not even the anticipated mad rush to the harbour that Loredan had carefully provided against in his first-stage plans. That was just as well; even his plans hadn’t covered the possibility of the enemy simply being there one morning. Instead, the city was quite unnervingly quiet, with groups of people standing out in the streets as if they were waiting for something to happen but had no idea what it was likely to be.

The first Loredan knew of it was when someone he didn’t know burst into the small, cold room in the second-city gatehouse that he’d been using as a bedroom since his return from the cavalry raid. He jerked awake and was scrabbling for the hilt of his sword when the intruder spoke.

‘We’ve got company,’ the man said.

Loredan forgot about the sword and concentrated on getting his eyes open. He’d been up late the night before going over some discrepancies in the Quartermaster’s accounts.

‘What?’ he mumbled. ‘What’s going on?’

‘They’re here. The enemy. They’re camped outside the gates. Sir,’ the man added as an afterthought. ‘You’re needed right away.’

Loredan swung his legs off the stone shelf that served him as a bed. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m Captain Doria of the change watch. With respect, sir, are you coming or not?’

Loredan studied him sourly through barely functional eyes. ‘All right, Captain,’ he said. ‘Hold your water just a minute while I get dressed. Whatever the enemy may have done to us, they don’t deserve to be greeted by the sight of me without my trousers on.’

As he rode down through the lower city, past endless faces staring up at him from every inch of pavement, he had the feeling of being late for some important ceremony that couldn’t proceed without him; his wedding, for example, or his funeral. He was aware that he hadn’t shaved, his hair was a mess and his clothes looked like they hadn’t been changed for a week (which was true). He got a stitch in his side climbing the bridgehouse tower, and arrived uncharacteristically short of breath.

‘All right,’ he panted, resting for a moment against the frame of a trebuchet. ‘What’s going on?’

Then he noticed that almost the entire Council was there; the Prefect, the Lord Lieutenant, the clutter of officeholders that he hadn’t even bothered to sort out in his mind; even Alexius and the Chief Governor of the Fencing Schools. Always the same, he muttered to himself, the General’s always the last to know.

They made room for him on the rampart, and he looked out. At first, he took the grey shapes for low mist, such as sometimes drifted up from the river; but it was the wrong time of year and besides, he’d seen the clan’s tents before.

‘Well, well,’ he said, very quietly. ‘How did that get there, I wonder?’

The bridgehouse Captain told him what had happened in a low voice, and Loredan nodded. ‘Possible,’ he replied. ‘A good night’s work, if that’s the way it was. I’m impressed.’

‘We think it’s the only way they could have done it,’ the Captain murmured. ‘The implications…’

‘Quite.’ Loredan nodded. ‘By the way, why are we all whispering?’

Actually, it seemed reasonable enough; don’t make any loud noises, you might wake them up. ‘People in the city are saying it can only have been done by magic,’ said the Prefect, with a quick scowl at the Patriarch. ‘We’re putting a stop to that kind of talk, of course; terrible effect on morale.’ He paused and gazed out at the awesome sight in front of him; from his expression, it was quite possible that the Prefect subscribed to the magic theory. ‘I shall want an explanation of how this was allowed to happen,’ he added. Loredan ignored him.

‘Has it occurred to anybody to ask them what they want?’ he said.

‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ the Lord Lieutenant drawled. ‘I don’t believe they’re here to try and sell us carpets.’

‘It’s worth a try,’ Loredan replied evenly. ‘At the very least, we might get a good look at this remarkable young chief of theirs. I’d be interested in seeing what he looks like.’ He stopped talking and rubbed his chin, feeling the bristles against the ball of his thumb. ‘Talking of which, has anybody actually seen one of them yet? Looks to me like they’re still in bed.’ He looked round. ‘Where’s Garantzes? Is he here?’

The Chief Engineer stepped forward. Damn it, how come he was looking so spruce and military at this unholy hour?

‘Chief Engineer,’ he went on, ‘how far away would you say those tents are from here?’

The engineer frowned. ‘Six hundred yards,’ he replied, ‘possibly a fraction less. Well out of range, if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘Right.’ Loredan nodded. ‘Pity. Still, we might as well say good morning, while we’re here.’ He beckoned to the bridgehouse Captain. ‘Get that new trebuchet wound up, will you? Quick as you like. And someone send down for a twenty-five-pound stone and one of those big wicker baskets with straps on the lid.’

Trying to aim an underweight missile from a trebuchet over twice its normal operational range wasn’t an experiment Loredan had bothered to conduct. Fortunately, the camp was a large target. The stone flew from the hemp and rawhide sling, shedding the basket (which was only there to make it big enough to fly cleanly out of the sling) and rising almost impossibly high before plummeting down and landing destructively on an empty wagon just inside the extreme western edge of the camp.

The effect was quite satisfying. The thump and crash brought men running from the nearby tents; a pity they were too far away for their faces to be visible, but the way they stood for a moment before running off again in all directions was eloquent enough. They had been confident that they were well out of range, and here was evidence that they weren’t. It was quite some time before it occurred to them that it had been a fairly small stone, and there hadn’t been any others, whereupon they came out again. Now, with luck, they’ll go and wake the chief, Loredan said to himself. We might even find out where his tent is. I don’t see why he should have a nice lie-in if I can’t.

‘Temrai,’ gasped a voice in his dream, ‘they’ve started shooting.’

He woke up, lifted his head, opened his eyes. It wasn’t a dream any more; there was a young lad he didn’t recognise standing half-in and half-out of the tent flap. ‘What do you mean, shooting?’ he asked blearily. ‘And who the hell let me go to sleep? There’s so much I ought to be…’

‘They’re throwing rocks into the camp,’ the boy interrupted frantically. ‘From that big tower over the bridge. I saw it with my own eyes.’

Temrai was up out of his chair in a matter of seconds. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said. ‘We’re well out of range. They can’t have anything that powerful, surely.’

The boy led the way. Already the place was like an ants’ nest, just after the first slosh of boiling water has hit it. The scurrying people stopped in their tracks when they saw Temrai coming, and fell ominously silent. Gods, they’re blaming me, he thought, quickening his pace. But it’s still impossible. Nothing could pitch a two hundredweight block of stone over six hundred yards; it’d have to be a trebuchet, and you couldn’t make one with an arm strong enough to bear the counterweight, not to mention the devastating stresses on the frame. The thing would have to be as tall as a mountain; you’d never find trees tall enough to make it from.

‘There,’ the boy said excitedly, and Temrai saw that he was pointing at a wagon. It wasn’t exactly an inspiring sight; one side was splintered, an axle was cracked and the rear wheel on that side was missing a couple of spokes.

‘Well?’ Temrai said.

‘There!’ the boy repeated. Temrai looked more closely, and saw that there was a small rock partially buried in the ground beside it. For a moment he stood looking at it, wondering if there might be a connection. Then he realised what had happened.

‘Is that all?’ he said, relieved.

Everyone was looking at him.

‘Well,’ he went on, ‘just look at it. It’s nothing more than a pebble, compared to proper trebuchet shot. Think, will you? It takes twenty minutes to wind those things up, and the best they could do with stones that size would be pick us off one by one. They’d all be old men before they did us any significant damage.’

They carried on looking at him. Nobody actually said it – Yes, but suppose I’m the one the next rock hits – but they didn’t need to. Temrai went closer, picked the rock up and dropped it again. Most of all he was thinking about what he’d just said; significant damage, a military expression meaning thousands of dead people rather than just hundreds. It wasn’t all that long ago that one old woman being swept away when they crossed a river constituted a national disaster.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘here’s what we’ll do.’

The second shot of the war sailed over the city wall, clearing the rampart by a few inches, dropped in the gutter and was buried in horse manure up to its blue and white duckfeather fletchings. It was an arrow from the bow of a fast-moving mounted archer, riding a zigzag pattern directly under the arms of the wall-mounted engines, right up to the causeway opposite the drawbridge. He’d loosed his arrow at the gallop, wheeled flamboyantly round and hurtled back. Nobody shot at him, loosed off a catapult or even called him a rude name; the towers of the city seemed as indifferent to his escapade as the trees of a forest are to the scamperings of a squirrel.

‘What was all that in aid of?’ somebody asked, breaking the silence.

‘Bravado,’ someone else replied, picking the arrow fastidiously out of the dung by its nock and handing it at arm’s length to a clerk from the Office of Records. ‘Go and put that in a museum somewhere,’ he said with distaste. ‘One of these days it might be worth something, if you wash the horseshit off it first.’

Loredan nodded. ‘First round to us, anyway,’ he said. ‘We win the opening exchange of melodramatic and futile gestures. Now we’ve got their attention, let’s go and see if they want to talk.’

While the Security Council were bickering about who should make up the embassy, things started to happen down on the plain. A line of huge rafts appeared on the river, each one tying up as close to the camp as it could get. The rafts were laden with stacks of timber; you didn’t need to be an engineer to recognise the components of torsion engines.

Somebody on the wall noticed, and the word was passed down to Loredan, who left the squabbling diplomats and scampered up the stairs to the nearest tower.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We can do something about that. Run to the harbour and get three light cutters ready for immediate action. We can sink those rafts where they stand; or rather,’ he added, ‘we can tow a couple upstream and scuttle them, so the river’ll be blocked. We’ll see how they get on if they’ve got to carry all that stuff five miles on their backs.’

He’d hardly finished speaking when someone tugged his sleeve and pointed. One of the rafts had pulled in on the right-hand bank, not far upstream of the bridge causeway. As Loredan watched, the rafters unshipped one end of a thick, heavy chain. Other men from the same raft set about sawing through a substantial oak tree that grew beside the water. Hell, Loredan muttered to himself, they’re ahead of me again. They’re going to block the river off with that chain so we can’t get at the rafts. ‘Tell ’em to forget about the cutters,’ he called down the stairs. ‘These people are brighter than I thought.’

The embassy rode out across the drawbridge; ten members of the Council escorted by thirty heavy cavalry, with a captain of the guard riding ahead with the flag of truce.

‘I suppose they know what a white flag means,’ muttered the Lord Lieutenant nervously. ‘We know what it means, but do they?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ the Prefect muttered back. ‘You’d better ask Loredan, he’s the one who knows these people.’

Loredan pretended he hadn’t heard; let them worry, it might encourage them to keep quiet while he tried to parley. Not that he had much hope of success. It didn’t seem likely that this large and splendidly equipped army had come all this way and gone to all this trouble just to negotiate more favourable tariffs on imported manufactures. As far as he was concerned, there was only one thing to be achieved, but it was quite possibly the key to the defence of the city. He wanted to see the other man.

Because the enemy you’ve seen is the least of your problems.

The approach of the embassy caused a stir in the camp, where the clan was only just calming itself down after the shock of Loredan’s pebble. Another boy – a different one this time – came running full tilt to the landing area, where Temrai was going over the unloading routines with the men he’d put in charge.

‘Horsemen,’ the boy said, thereby gaining the attention of everyone present. ‘Forty of them, heading this way.’

Uncle Anakai broke the silence. ‘Either they’re being mean with their resources today, or they want to talk,’ he said. ‘Are they carrying a white flag?’

The boy looked uncertain. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘They’ve got a standard, I think, but I didn’t notice what colour.’

‘A white flag means they want to talk,’ Temrai explained. ‘It’s some sort of primitive Perimadeian belief – a bit of old shirt tied to a stick makes you arrowproof. One of these days I’d love to test it scientifically.’

Uncle Anakai grinned. ‘Are you going to talk to them?’ he asked. ‘There doesn’t seem much point to me.’

Temrai, who had been crouching on his knees drawing a diagram in the mud with a stick, stood up and wiped his hands off on his trousers. ‘On the contrary, Uncle An,’ he said. ‘This is a stroke of luck I hadn’t expected. It gives us a chance to take a good look at who we’re up against.’

One of the engineers raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean that’s their leaders out there? Why don’t we kill ’em now? Take out their entire high command before the battle starts.’

Temrai shook his head. ‘And then we’ll be back where we were, fighting against generals we know nothing about. No, let’s go and talk to them, get an idea of how their minds work. Best behaviour, everyone. Remember, ears open and mouths shut.’

The two parties met just in front of the camp. Not to be outdone, Temrai had brought with him fifteen counsellors, fifty horsemen and three white flags, hastily manufactured out of captured bedlinen. At the last moment, he nudged his cousin Kasadai in the ribs and whispered, ‘You be me, all right?’

‘What?’

‘Pretend you’re me. Don’t want them to know who I am. All right?’

Kasadai shrugged. ‘You’re the boss. What shall I say if they ask me things?’

‘Whatever you like. Thanks, Kas.’ Temrai dropped back, shifted his otterskin cap a little further down over his face and let Kasadai ride to the head of the party.

As the two groups converged, Loredan spurred ahead, dropped his reins and folded his arms across his chest. ‘All right,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Which one of you monkeys is in charge here?’

After only a tiny moment’s hesitation, Kasadai rode forward. He cleared his throat. ‘I am Temrai Tai-me-Mar,’ he said impressively, ‘son of Sasurai. What do you want?’

Loredan smiled at him contemptuously. ‘No, you’re not,’ he said. ‘You’re too old. The new chief’s a snot-nosed kid, everyone knows that. Must be you, the one wearing a dead rat on his head. Come over here where we can talk without bellowing.’

After a long embarrassed silence Temrai rode forward. ‘I’m Temrai,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

Loredan squinted at him. ‘I know you from somewhere,’ he said. ‘Hopeless with names, but faces I don’t forget. Got it; you’re that clumsy kid from the arsenal, the one who bust my sign.’

Temrai nodded slightly, his eyes as cold as steel in winter. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I remember you, too. I’m pleased to see my enemies have a drunk for a general.’

Loredan grinned broadly. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. ‘I must remember that. Anyway, enough small talk. We’ll let you withdraw in good order on two conditions. One, you burn those contraptions you’ve got over there before you go. Two, you pay me what you owe me for my sign. Deal?’

He was trying to maintain eye contact, stare the other man down; but it wasn’t easy. Just then, he’d have preferred it if Temrai had been looking at him down a sword blade, even if he’d been unarmed himself. He’d have known where he stood. But the boy’s eyes were painfully steady, as unwavering as that head-case girl’s sword-tip that night in the Schools.

‘I don’t forget faces either,’ Temrai said at last. ‘Since you won’t do me the courtesy of telling me your name, I shall just have to remember your face. I hope we’ll meet again.’

Loredan yawned. ‘I’m going to have to take that as a no, I think,’ he replied. ‘Pity. You haven’t a hope in hell, and an awful lot of your people are going to die. Not that I care a stuff about that; but some of mine’ll get hurt too, and I’d rather have prevented that, if I could. Ah, well, on your head be it.’

‘Accepted,’ Temrai said.

‘One last thing, though,’ Loredan went on, ‘since I’ve got you here and you’ll probably run away before we capture you, so we may not meet again – out of interest, why are you doing this?’

Temrai stared at him for a long time before answering. ‘It’s personal,’ he said.

‘Personal? That’s it? You’re leading your tribe to certain death because you’re miffed with us about something?’

Temrai nodded. ‘That’s about it,’ he said. ‘Actually, I’m grateful to you for reminding me. I was beginning to ask myself the same question; now I find I can remember the answer.’

Loredan pulled his horse’s head round. ‘Be like that, then,’ he said. ‘See if I care. You still owe me for my sign.’

‘You’ll get what’s owing to you,’ Temrai said. ‘I’ll see to that myself.’

To his credit, the City Prefect waited until they were out of earshot of Temrai’s party before he launched into his attack.

‘What in hell’s name did you think you were playing at?’ he hissed furiously. ‘If that’s your idea of diplomacy-’

‘It was a gambit,’ Loredan replied mildly. ‘An aggressive opening, like taking guard in the City fence. I found out what I wanted to know.’

‘I’m so pleased,’ the Prefect replied. ‘Perhaps you’d care to share this priceless intelligence with the rest of us, because I’m damned if I can see what was achieved back there. And what was all that nonsense about owing you for a sign?’

Loredan smiled wanly. ‘All perfectly true,’ he sighed. ‘And that’s five quarters I won’t see again in a hurry. You want to know what I’ve learnt? I’ll tell you. First, there’s no traitor who’s been selling arsenal secrets to the enemy; six months or so ago, that kid was working in the arsenal as a swordsmith. Now we know why. I guess we can say we taught him all he knows.’

The Prefect started to say something, but didn’t. Loredan nodded.

‘Second,’ he said, ‘that boy is clever. Grown up a lot, too; well, I suppose becoming chief of the clan might do that to a kid. Anybody who’s capable of carrying away the full specifications of all our major military engines in his head and then getting a tribe of nomads who’ve never done anything like it before to build a collection of engines like theirs is clearly not someone to be taken lightly. Now that’s justified this trip on its own.’

The Prefect bit his lip, and nodded. ‘I agree,’ he said.

‘Good. Now, third. Here’s a history lesson for you. Twelve years ago, Maxen attacked the chief’s caravan – that was when this lad’s father, Sasurai, was in charge – and we wiped out most of the royal household. To be honest, we thought we’d got the lot, all his living relatives in one go, all part of Maxen’s destabilisation policy; leave no obvious heir to the throne, result – civil war when the old man dies. Obviously we didn’t get them all, because the lad who pretended to be our man called himself Temrai, son of Sasurai. Also, when I asked him why he was doing this, he said it was personal.’ Loredan sucked his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘He wasn’t kidding, either. If he’s Sasurai’s son, then we killed his entire family, except for him and the old man. The fact of the matter is, he’s got no choice. He’s got to do what he’s doing, and the clan’ll know that. Which means they aren’t going to get bored and go away if they don’t carry the city at their first attempt.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d already guessed this was all to do with Maxen’s war. I hadn’t realised till now it was this serious.’

‘Anything else?’ the Prefect asked.

‘A bit more. Our boy isn’t impressed by bluster, and he doesn’t lose his temper. That’s worth knowing. He’s in full control, as far as I can judge; there were plenty of clan dignitaries there, but none of them said anything apart from Temrai. That implies they’ll do what he tells them to. We might try and figure out whether there’s a way of breaking that, something we can do to turn them against him, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of that.’

As soon as they were inside the city, Loredan called for Garantzes and told him to break up the causeway opposite the drawbridge. Soon afterwards, four torsion engines on the eastern bastions were let slip, and the causeway became a tangled mess of splintered logs and planks. It was an impressive display of artillery work, and Loredan hoped that Temrai had been watching. On the other hand, he felt it was a little depressing to think that the first part of the destruction of the city had been accomplished on his direct order. He rather hoped it wasn’t an indication of what was to come.

‘Of all the stupid, cowardly things to do,’ the Lord Lieutenant raved, ‘breaking down the causeway so we can’t mount a sortie. So now we’re going to sit behind the walls and watch while they assemble their engines completely unhindered. It’s criminal.’

‘We can’t very well watch if we’re behind the walls, surely,’ his daughter replied. The rest of the family managed not to giggle.

‘Don’t be flippant,’ he said. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’ He tore the crust off a slice of bread, crushed the middle into a hard knob of dough and bit into it. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if money was changing hands somewhere in all this,’ he added melodramatically.

‘But I thought-’ His wife stopped herself and returned to her embroidery.

‘Well?’

‘Take no notice. Just something I must have got wrong.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

‘Well,’ she said, squinting to thread her fine bone needle, ‘it’s just that I thought it was you who’d insisted – very sensibly, I thought – that after the, what’s the word, exploratory force or expeditionary force or whatever it’s called, after they made such a mess of things, we weren’t going to have any more going outside the walls to fight them, we were going to sit tight and let them come to us. I think that’s what you said,’ she added. ‘Can you remember what Daddy said, Lehan, dear?’

Lehan, who was seven, nodded gravely. ‘I think so,’ she replied. ‘That was more or less it, anyway.’

The Lord Lieutenant scowled. ‘That’s not the same thing at all,’ he replied through a mouthful of bread. ‘Going outside and looking for another pitched battle is one thing. Harrying them while they’re setting up their confounded siege engines is something else entirely. Sheer folly to deprive ourselves of the chance of doing that.’

‘But you said their engines wouldn’t work anyway,’ Lehan pointed out. ‘You said it stood to reason that a mob of ignorant savages-’

‘That’s not the point. The point is, while they’re weak and disorganised, with their minds occupied with unloading the engines, now’s the best time to attack them. And that fool-’

The Lord Lieutenant was not, of course, an impartial observer. He was the leader of the Reform faction in the politics of the city, whereas the Prefect (the object of his fulminations; as far as he was concerned, Loredan was merely the Prefect’s agent) led the Popular faction. Although to an ignorant outsider the two factions were completely indistinguishable, the rivalry between them was unremittingly ferocious, and the uneasy truce that had been in place since the emergency began was starting to take its toll of everyone in the Council.

Nevertheless, the debate in the Lord Lieutenant’s household was fairly representative of what everyone in the city was saying, except that the average man tended to compromise the two positions; he derided the government for its cowardice in breaking down the causeway, while wholeheartedly subscribing to the view that the walls were impregnable and the savages would soon give up and go away.

‘They should be doing something,’ said Stauracius, the senior deacon, as he walked off his dinner in the cloister of the City Academy. ‘You’re pretty thick with the Patriarch, Gannadius. You should be lobbying for some action. It’s time the Order’s views were given the consideration they deserve.’

‘Oh?’ Gannadius raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? We’re an organisation of philosophers and scientists engaged in abstruse metaphysical research. Why should we have a valid opinion about fighting a war?’

Stauracius looked at him oddly. ‘I have to say,’ he said, ‘as the effective leader of the Order now that Alexius is so busy with his new duties, you don’t seem to be particularly concerned with our standing in the community. Or our responsibilities, come to that. We have an obligation to guide and counsel at times like these. We should be doing more-’

‘Perhaps.’ Gannadius looked away pointedly. ‘So you belong to the let’s-zap-them-with-magic school, I presume. It’s not an approach I have much time for, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s nothing to do with magic, as you know perfectly well.’

‘That’s what they’re saying we should do,’ Gannadius pointed out. ‘Curse the savages to smithereens. Roast ’em with fireballs or turn ’em all into frogs and fill the sky with hungry cranes. I’d love to know how it’s done.’

‘Now you’re even starting to sound like Alexius,’ Stauracius replied disapprovingly. ‘With all due respect, I always felt there was an underlying flippancy in his character that didn’t quite accord with the best traditions of his office.’

‘You mean he’s got a sense of humour? Well, perhaps you’re right, and perhaps it’s something that gradually grows on you once you find yourself in charge of the Order. I can distinctly remember a time when I sounded just like you.’

That served its intended purpose of offending the deacon sufficiently to get rid of him, and Gannadius was able to get to his office without further molestation. He faced the cheerful prospect of a night of administrative paperwork, with a thick wedge of academic reading to catch up on if he wanted a break. He remember how Alexius had complained about such things, and how scornful he’d felt of someone who held the office but didn’t fancy the work. That was all a long time ago now.

He closed the door, shot the bolts and lit his lamp from the candle he’d been carrying. The sour yellow light cast heavy shadows in the corners of the room, and the smoke from a badly trimmed wick made his eyes itch. It would have been nice to go to bed now, but if he did that all the work would still be there in the morning. He sat down and picked a sheet of parchment off the top of the pile.

Minutes of a meeting of the Joint Faculties Committee on appointments and funding.

He scanned the page, noting his name under Apologies for absence and translating minutes-talk into real language as he went along. The words on the page made a sort of sense; but somehow he couldn’t see how any of it was relevant to him, or to anything anybody could possibly be interested in. The world had moved on too much since he’d last sat in a finance meeting.

Three days now; and so far, nothing had happened. On both sides of the wall, the air was filled with the sounds of hammers, saws, axes, winches and swearing; on both sides, men were hauling on ropes, lugging timber, bashing in wedges and slapping glue into mortices, trimming stones, shouting orders, standing around in groups while someone else tried to resolve the latest unforeseen disaster. Yet the distance between the camp and the wall was still the same, and nothing had dared set foot in it apart from the usual feeding birds and stray dogs. He hadn’t seen Alexius to speak to since the first morning; the Security Council was in more or less continuous session, although what there was for them to do he wasn’t entirely sure. At times he suspected they might have rigged up a couple of dice tables and one of those water-powered organs, just the thing if you’re having a really serious party.

For some reason, though, his mind kept returning to their ill-fated drinking expedition, and the man Alexius had claimed was Gorgas Loredan. At the time he’d put it down to the rather spectacular amount of industrial-grade rough wine the Patriarch had absorbed; the idea that even if the man was the Deputy Lord Lieutenant’s brother, he’d somehow managed to lure them into a tavern just so as to have a look at them had struck Gannadius as too far-fetched to be worth considering. Why bother? And even if he’d done everything Alexius claimed he had, so what? And yet the Patriarch had seemed convinced that Gorgas Loredan was somehow a bird of very ill omen, for the two of them and possibly the whole city as well.

And now I’m worrying about it too. I wonder if there really is anything in it? Or is it just a more entertaining subject for contemplation than these truly awful minutes?

To break his train of thought, he stood and made up a fire in the room’s small hearth. Lately, he’d found a certain degree of pleasure in doing this sort of thing for himself (strange; not long ago, he’d regarded not having to do this sort of thing as evidence that he’d made something of his life) and he lingered over the job, taking pains to lay the wood properly. Once he’d lit the kindling and got it going, he sat down again, not at his desk but in the fat, comfortable visitor’s chair, with his feet up on a large cedarwood clothes-press. He had the sheet of minutes in his hand and he was looking at it, but he wasn’t reading. Soon his eyelids began to feel heavy, and he let them close-

– And found himself in front of a different fire, something very hot and painfully bright; he was several yards away from it, but he could feel his skin tingle from the heat. It was like being in a forge, except that he was outside, not in. In fact, it was the building itself that was on fire.

He looked more closely, and recognised the arsenal; not a place he knew well, although he’d wandered in there once when he was a second-year student with time on his hands. Now it appeared to be burning to the ground; and outside it, using the flames to work with, was a man standing over an anvil, with a small hammer in his hand and a glowing orange strip of metal gripped in a pair of tongs. It was-

‘Gorgas Loredan?’

The bald-headed man turned his head and nodded affably. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Would you mind making yourself useful for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ Gannadius replied. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Work the bellows while I mix the flux for the solder,’ Gorgas replied. ‘Won’t be a jiffy. But if it cools down I won’t be able to get the solder to run.’

‘What do I do?’

‘Just pump these handles up and down – there, you’ve got it. Nice and steady, and that’ll be fine.’

‘All right.’ Gannadius pushed the handles and raised them again. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘how come I know all these technical terms? I don’t know the first thing about metalworking.’

‘Knowledge is never wasted,’ Gorgas replied, his back turned. He teased out a small pile of white powder onto a sheet of slate, spat into it and mixed up a paste with a bit of stick. ‘Valuable stuff this,’ he said, ‘got to be careful with it. Can’t use anything else with the silver solder.’

‘Ah,’ Gannadius replied, wiping sweat out of his eyes with his sleeve. ‘I thought we didn’t know how to use the silver stuff.’

‘That’s right,’ Gorgas replied, ‘but the plainsmen do. Marvellous stuff. Right, that ought to do it. Got to be the right consistency, like a cross between spit and snot, or it won’t take. Keep pumping while I do the business.’

Gannadius nodded and carried on working the bellows. ‘My friend Alexius suspects you of being at the root of all this,’ he remarked as he pumped. ‘I don’t see it myself. What do you think?’

‘I think Alexius may have a point,’ Gorgas replied. ‘But wouldn’t it be easier just to ask my brother, rather than guessing yourselves silly and losing sleep over it?’

‘True,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Or you could tell me yourself, come to that.’

Gorgas smiled. ‘I’d love to help,’ he said, ‘but I’m only a dream, sort of like a belch of undigested wind from your own subconscious mind. If you don’t know the answer, then how can I?’

‘Ah, but you’re not,’ Gannadius said, ‘because if that was the case, how come I know all this stuff about silver-solder flux and keeping the metal just the right shade of cherry red so the solder’ll take? That didn’t come from my memory; therefore, neither do you. So you can answer my question.’

Gorgas nodded. ‘Good point. Obviously you’ve learnt a thing or two since you’ve been hanging around with our esteemed Patriarch. Either that-’ Gorgas lifted his head and grinned; he was bright red in the glow of the flames, ‘-or I’m running you, like Alexius says I am. Come on, then, now you’re so clever, you tell me which it is.’

‘Why’s the city on fire?’ Gannadius asked.

‘Search me.’ Gorgas was bent over the strip of orange steel, delicately touching the stick of solder to the joint. ‘On that subject, you’d have to ask my sister. She’s the clever one in our family.’

‘I didn’t know you had a sister,’ Gannadius said, waking up with a start as the pile of papers slid off his lap onto the floor. Someone was tapping on the door. He grunted, picked up the documents (which were now all mixed up and out of order) and said, ‘Come in.’

A young girl’s face appeared round the door; not someone he recognised. ‘There’s someone to see you,’ she said. ‘They say they’re friends of yours. Foreigners,’ she added meaningfully.

‘Hm? Oh. Send them up here, will you? Did these foreigners have names, or are they too outlandish and foreign for you to pronounce?’

‘Oh, I didn’t ask,’ the girl replied, and her face vanished again.

Gannadius rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, reflecting on the girl’s emphasis on the word foreigners. He took it to mean that the visitors were either clan agents to whom he was about to hand over the keys to the city, or else incredibly powerful wizards who had come to help him cook up the really devastating magic by which the clan were soon going to be hexed to oblivion; probably, he decided, both. He regretted entertaining the second hypothesis when the door opened again and Venart and Vetriz were standing in the doorway.

Venart cleared his throat. ‘I’d just like to say,’ he announced, ‘that this was entirely her idea.’

His sister gave him a scornful look over her shoulder and perched on the edge of the desk. Venart stayed where he was, close to the door.

‘Please come in,’ Ganadius said. ‘Would you like something to drink? Please, help yourselves.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ The girl leant across the desk, neatly gathered the winejug and a cup, and poured. ‘Mm, this is delicious,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

Gannadius smiled. ‘Speciality of the house,’ he said. ‘It’s a sweet wine from the south, with honey and cinnamon. But that’s gone cold, and it should be warm. I’ll ring for some more.’

‘Thank you,’ Vetriz said, ignoring her brother’s pleading look. ‘I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, I can see you’re busy. But we wanted to see Captain Loredan-’

‘Colonel Loredan,’ her brother muttered.

‘Colonel Loredan, and nobody knows where he is. Ven went to his office, but he wasn’t there, and the clerks were terribly unhelpful, and Athli, that’s his clerk, she’s in business with us now, she happened to mention that the Colonel’s on very good terms with Patriarch Alexius these days, so we went to find him to see if he knew where the Colonel was, and when we asked at the palace-’

‘Warden’s lodgings.’

‘-they said you might know, since you were filling in for him while he was busy with the invasion and everything. Isn’t that a terrible thing, by the way?’

‘Shocking,’ Gannadius replied with a smile.

‘Isn’t it? Anyway, we were wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could pass a message on to the Patriarch to tell the Colonel that we’re back in the city, arrived here just this morning, and if he could spare us five minutes-’

‘Vetriz,’ groaned Venart. ‘Shut up.’

‘Oh, shut up yourself. Do you think you might?’ she went on. ‘We’d be ever so grateful if you could.’

There was a knock at the door; the young girl again. Gannadius placed an order for a large jug of warm spiced wine and three clean cups. The girl nodded, took a long look at the two Islanders, and went away.

Experimentally, Gannadius touched his fingertips to his forehead. It didn’t hurt. He wondered about that for a moment, and made up his mind.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he replied. ‘Venart – that’s right, isn’t it? – do please sit down, I think you’ll enjoy the wine. Yes, I should be able to pass a message through to Colonel Loredan. It may take a day or two, of course. You’ll appreciate that with the recent developments-’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Vetriz replied. ‘We’ve got to be here for at least a week to load the rest of the rope – Ven’s bought up all the surplus rope from the government, a very good deal for us. That’s what we want to see the Colonel about. You see, last time we were here he mentioned they’re very short of seasoned lemonwood staves for making bows, and while we were home this time we managed to get hold of a rather substantial quantity – cancelled order, actually, but please don’t tell the Colonel that.’

‘Of course.’ Gannadius nodded conspiratorially. ‘And I’m sure he’ll be delighted. Of course, if you wanted to deal with the matter quickly rather than wait around to see the Colonel personally, I believe the Quartermaster’s Office is allowed to do purchasing without the Colonel himself having to be involved.’

Vetriz smiled. ‘Oh, we knew that. But when you’ve got a contact high up in an organisation, it does no harm to deal personally. Isn’t that what you keep telling me, Ven?’

Venart, who was balanced on the edge of a hard straight-backed chair, nodded glumly and said nothing. For once, it seemed, he was perfectly happy to leave all the talking to his sister.

‘In return,’ Gannadius said, ‘perhaps you might care to do something for me.’

Vetriz beamed with pleasure. ‘Well, of course,’ she said. ‘Is it something you want brought in?’

Gannadius shook his head. ‘It’s more to do with the circumstances of our last meeting,’ he replied. ‘I have to confess, Alexius and I were rather less than honest with you.’

‘What, you mean-How absolutely fascinating! You’re talking about the magic, aren’t you? Oh, I forgot, I mustn’t call it that.’

Another tap at the door; the girl bringing the wine. ‘Thank you, we’ll pour for ourselves,’ Gannadius said firmly. The girl left, looking cheated.

‘Are you sure you won’t join us, Venart?’ Gannadius asked.

‘No thanks, really. Spiced wine always gives me a headache.’

Gannadius poured wine into two cups and passed one over to Vetriz. ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ he said. ‘When Alexius and I tried that experiment, the first time we met you, Alexius told you it had effectively been a failure. He wasn’t telling the truth. There was-’ He hesitated, stared into his cup. ‘Something there,’ he continued. ‘Something we’d neither of us come across before, which is probably why we kept quiet about it. More embarrassment than anything else, I suppose; after all, we’re supposed to be good at this sort of thing. And perhaps we both thought we’d imagined it, I don’t know,’ he added with a straight face. ‘On reflection, however, I’m sure there was something; so, with your agreement, I’d like to try again.’ He stopped fiddling with his cup and put it down before he spilt it. ‘I don’t think Alexius would approve, I have to say; but to be honest with you, now that we have this emergency on our hands, I feel that every avenue that might conceivably be productive has to be explored; and if it comes to nothing, well then.’

Vetriz’s eyes were big and round and shining like sunlight reflected on a distant glass. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘do let’s. You’re not going to be stuffy about this, are you, Ven? Because if there really is something we can do, I think we owe it to them, since they’ve been so helpful about everything.’

‘Go ahead,’ Venart said resignedly. ‘I take it you mean my sister,’ he added to Gannadius. ‘I seem to remember that I fell asleep.’

Gannadius stroked his chin. ‘The indications at the time did suggest that it was your sister who was, um, having an effect on things. But that may not mean anything. You see, I’m sure that whichever of you it is doesn’t consciously know what she or he is doing. On that basis, it could quite easily be you.’

Venart shrugged. ‘I’m game, then, if you think it’ll help.’

‘Splendid.’ Gannadius sipped his wine. Still no headache. ‘Perhaps it’d help if I very briefly explained how the Principle works in this regard – or at least, how we think it works. As I said a moment ago, this is effectively new ground for us as well.’

He started to explain, and although he did his best to keep it simple and reasonably lively, his monologue was inevitably rather abstruse and full of long unfamiliar words; and the room was comfortably warm and the wine was heavy and sweet, and before he knew where he was-

– He was standing on one of Loredan’s new bastions, apparently in the middle of a battle; there were men rushing about all round him, carrying ropes and levers and sheaves of fresh arrows with bits of straw still stuck in the feathers of the fletchings, and they were stepping over the bodies of dead men, and others who weren’t dead but groaning or weeping, and some of the casualties were city people and others were plainsmen. Every now and then he could feel the walkway shake beneath his feet; he guessed that heavy stones were hitting the wall below the level of the rampart. There was a big engine, a trebuchet, over to his left and there were men fussing over it, some of them scrambling up the side of the frame or sitting on the crossbars, others handing them up tools and lengths of rope.

There were arrows sticking in the wood, their shafts facing outwards towards the plain, and other arrows sailed across the wall from time to time, some clattering against the stone and others carrying over into the streets below. There were archers on the wall, standing up straight to bend their long, stiff bows; they didn’t seem to be worrying about the incoming arrows, but Gannadius saw one man fall to the ground with an arrow sticking out of his ear, and another suddenly drop his bow and clutch at an arrowshaft sticking in his upper arm. Two other men hurried up and helped him to the stairs, while a third picked up his bow and started to shoot.

Gannadius looked round, trying to see Vetriz or Venart, or anybody else he recognised, but he couldn’t. An arrow flew past him, so close that he imagined he felt the feathers brush lightly across his chin. It was terrifying, but it had happened so fast and so quietly that at first he’d taken it for a breath of wind or an insect.

Damn, he thought, so now what do I do? I must have come through on my own.

He peered round, but it was hard to see anything for all the running men in the way. Presumably he’d come through at some crucial moment – that seemed to be the way it worked, you found yourself at the turning point, the moment where you could reach out and grab hold, and by so doing change the course of events. He wished he knew something about military affairs, tactics and the like. It all looked to him like a confused mess; if there was something vitally significant going on he didn’t have the first idea what it was supposed to look like. That didn’t help; for all he knew, he might miss it completely, or change it the wrong way out of sheer ignorance. Suppose this was the moment when the battle was going to swing decisively in the city’s favour, and he was about to change that simply because he didn’t know what he was doing?

Someone was running up the stairs; Bardas Loredan, with blood soaking through his hair and a bow in his hands. Instinctively, Gannadius stepped back to let him past, although logically Loredan should have been able to walk straight through him.

‘The chain,’ he panted. ‘Which of you clowns forgot to raise the chain? Gods, we’ll have to do it in the middle of all this. Right, you and you, get ready to shin out along the pole and haul on the ropes. I’ll do this one here. All we’ve got to do is get it up onto the hooks and make it fast.’

The men he’d spoken to stepped back with terror in their eyes, not saying anything. Loredan grabbed one by the arm, but he pulled away.

‘Someone’s got to do it, for pity’s sake,’ he shouted. ‘They’ll have those ladders up here any minute.’

An arrow swished past Gannadius, hit Loredan’s mailshirt just above his hip and glanced off. The two men turned and ran. Somehow Gannadius couldn’t find it in his heart to blame them.

Oh, gods, he’s going to try and do it on his own. Gannadius concentrated, wondering how exactly he was supposed to go about changing the course of events. Then he thought, Yes, and suppose Loredan succeeds, and that’s what saves the city? If I stop him, we’ll all be killed. Oh, why don’t I know what to do?

Loredan was on the rampart, swinging one leg over, looking down to find the pole. Gannadius caught his breath. Do something! he told himself-

‘Hello?’ It was the Islander girl, Vetriz, and she was gently prodding at his shoulder. ‘You fell asleep,’ she said.

‘What?’ Gannadius opened his eyes. ‘Good heavens, so I did. I’m so sorry. What was I saying?’

He completed his explanation; and then they all tried very hard to fall asleep and couldn’t manage it. When it had started to be embarrassing, Gannadius thanked his visitors very much, promised again to pass their message on and shooed them out. Then he sat down on the edge of his bed, steadily drank his way through the rest of the wine (which was stone cold) and lay on his back, feeling ill.

He was exhausted. He didn’t have even the slightest trace of a headache.

He was a very worried man.