Cattra's Legacy

by Anna Mackenzie

  ‘If the storm lasts they’ll founder,’ Cantrel announced with satisfaction.

  ‘A pity it didn’t come sooner.’

  A waterlogged guardsman passed in his circuit of the battlements, pausing briefly when he saw them.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Quiet so far.’ The man trudged on.

  ‘They’ve no need to hurry,’ Cantrel observed. ‘It’s possible they’ll wait for the rest of their men.’

  ‘The other four ships?’ There would be no resistance in the harbour this time. ‘Cantrel, how long can we hold out?’

  The old man stared at the whitecaps that scuffed the ocean. ‘LeMarc’s citadel has never fallen, even to an eight-month siege.’ He looked back at her. ‘I do not say it will be pleasant.’

  ‘I should have sent Margetta north. She’d have been safer and—’

  ‘There’s no use mulling over what hasn’t been done. For the moment we’re secure and Westlaw is licking his wounds — wounds I warrant he wasn’t expecting. That is something.’

  The storm held for two days. One of Westlaw’s ships broke anchor during the second night and was smashed against the rocks that lay north of the harbour. By the end of the following day, little remained of the wreck.

  Each night Risha repeated her attempt to reach Nonno, holding in her head images of the attack, the town burning, Harl. On the third night an image of a man, handsome and assured, swam into her head. It was Donnel, she realised, younger and less harried; Donnel as her mother would have known him. She concentrated on forming a picture of the man as she had seen him last, kitted for war, leading his soldiers north.

  Early the next morning Risha’s vigil on the battlements was rewarded by the sight of sails on the horizon. She let herself hope for as long as she could, but, as the square sails loomed larger, Cantrel confirmed the ships were Westlaw’s. ‘One less than sailed north. Perhaps our decoy proved more challenge than chase.’

  Risha wondered how many more men she should add to her tally of deaths. But please not Harl. By now he would have reached Havre and laid her request before the Council. She hoped that the good burghers would not choose this moment to suffer indecisiveness.

  By midday the invaders had disabled the guard chain and Westlaw’s remaining ships were anchored within the harbour. As they passed the breakwater the guardsmen in the mangonel tower loosed several projectiles, earning a cheer from the battlements as one clipped the rigging of the second vessel, but the invaders were otherwise unimpeded.

  The soldiers who swarmed ashore were not the worst of it. Through the afternoon teams of men unloaded lumbering wooden structures onto the jetty. Risha scowled at the scaling ladders and towers, covered ram and trebuchet.

  ‘It could be worse,’ Cantrel said tersely. ‘There are fewer than they’d have had if we’d not sunk half their ships.’

  It took Westlaw’s men three days to manoeuvre their machines into position. Seven days after Goltoy’s ships first appeared on the western horizon, the siege began in earnest.

  The attack came just before dawn. Escalades were thrown against the walls while archers rained covering fire across the battlements. Risha woke to the sound of shouting. Pulling on the heavy leather jerkin Galyn had found for her, she ran for the battlements.

  ‘Warn the gatehouse to expect an assault,’ Cantrel cried. ‘And keep out of harm’s way!’ He lunged forward as a soldier sprang from one of the ladders, a second man close on his heels. They were quickly beaten back, but others swarmed behind them.

  As Risha darted across the courtyard a guardsman tumbled, heavy as a sack of grain, from the battlement — dead before he fell, she decided, surprised at her own dispassion. She was halfway up the gatehouse stairs when the ram began to batter the outer gate with steady, stone-trembling thuds.

  Women and children were raining rocks on their attackers when she reached the first floor, but the ram and the men who worked it were well shielded by a heavy skin of timber and oxhide.

  ‘The torches!’ Risha reached for the firepots Cantrel had prepared.

  Westlaw’s archers replied to the new threat with a volley of arrows that sent several women reeling back. One dropped her torch and in seconds her skirt was alight, her wail of pain scaling into one of terror. Snatching up the flaming torch, Risha leant from the narrow window and hurled it onto the ram. Cantrel’s mix of pitch and sulphur spread eagerly, the shouts and curses of the men below mingling with the injured woman’s screams.

  Risha turned. Someone had smothered the woman’s legs with a blanket, her cries ceasing abruptly as she fainted.

  Risha climbed the ladder to the tower above, the bowman stationed there greeting her with a nod. ‘They’ve just about got it out of range.’

  She held her breath as he loosed a shot. It fell short. ‘Save your arrows.’

  Shouts drifted up to them. One of Westlaw’s soldiers ran forward with a bucket and threw water onto the burning ram. Just as Cantrel had warned, the flames flared and spread, leaping from timber to flesh. The man’s cries were drowned by an irate string of curses from his captain.

  With her mouth set in a grim line, Risha went in search of the seneschal.

  She found him sitting on the floor of the watchtower, legs outstretched, eyes closed. She dropped beside him. ‘Cantrel! Are you injured?’

  ‘Old. How did the gatehouse fare?’ He listened to her report then levered himself to his feet. ‘We’ll reduce our losses if we’re quicker at dislodging the scaling ladders and grapples. Westlaw’s strength lies in numbers; ours in strategy.’

  The second assault came during the night, and Cantrel was ready. When grappling hooks appeared over the walls, he signalled the guardsmen to wait, silent, judging the moment when the soldiers climbing the ropes would be nearing the parapet. On a single command the ropes were slashed. Several screams cut off abruptly. One went on and on.

  The following day was still and silent. The wind had dropped and seagulls cried loudly from the shore. Risha stalked the battlements, but the horizon remained obstinately empty. By evening, tension crackled through the citadel. She found Margetta and Lyse in the hall. The woman who had been burned was lying with her face to the wall, tears oozing slowly from her eyes.

  ‘She’ll recover,’ Lyse said. ‘She’s afraid.’

  ‘The waiting is bad,’ Risha agreed.

  A little after midnight Risha was woken by a resounding crash. A second shook the stonework as she flung herself out of bed. The thudding continued, dust filtering from the walls as she ran toward the sound. Somewhere a child was screaming.

  Cantrel met her at the doors of the keep. ‘They’re attacking the gate. Find Galyn: it might be a ruse to draw our attention away from the walls.’

  She ran, pausing only for her crossbow and a quiver of bolts. ‘Cantrel thinks it might be a ploy to distract us,’ she told the captain when she found him.

  ‘I’ve doubled the patrols. Makes no sense using a trebuchet when you can’t see what you’re aiming at.’

  ‘They’re hitting something,’ Risha answered, as the stones beneath them shook.

  ‘Whatever they throw at us, we’ll be ready.’ Shadows pooled and shifted between the circles of light shed by the wall torches. ‘Get some rest,’ he advised, nudging her firmly towards the stairs.

  Sleep was impossible. The pounding of stone on stone continued erratically until dawn. When it stopped the silence seemed filled with menace. Risha called at the kitchen for a hunk of bread before returning to the battlements.

  Galyn frowned when he saw her. ‘You’re supposed to be out of harm’s way.’

  ‘I’m as safe here as anywhere. Has the trebuchet done much damage?’

  ‘A little,’ he conceded. ‘Not as much as you might imagine. They’ll be adjusting their aim now it’s light.’

  The prediction proved accurate. When the battering resumed, the attack was concentrated on the northern side of the gatehouse. At mid-morning Cantrel walked with her around the battlements.
Guardsmen straightened as they passed, returning Cantrel’s greetings, but the men couldn’t hide the exhaustion on their faces.

  ‘Can the gate hold?’ Risha asked, as another rock thudded against the stonework.

  ‘For a while yet,’ Cantrel said equably. ‘And while they’re busy ferrying stone, they’re not scaling the walls.’

  The sound seemed to jar up through her teeth. ‘If they breach the gate—’

  ‘It’s not the last of our defences. A siege often comes down to whoever’s nerve holds longest.’

  Risha’s thoughts swung to Donnel: would his nerve or Somoran’s prevail in Fratton?

  Towards evening Westlaw changed tactics. As the sun bled into the sea, painting the sky in a wash of red, his men found the range and began lobbing rocks into the courtyard. Cantrel had been expecting it and the missiles did little damage, save to one of the stables. Listening to the screams of panicked and injured horses, Risha felt a surge of relief that Dragonfly was safe in Havre — as he must be: she refused to allow any other option. Havre would come. They must. The thought pulsed in her head with each fresh bombardment.

  The outer wall of the gatehouse collapsed into rubble on the fifth day of battering and Westlaw lowered his aim, hoping to breach the gate. Cantrel still refused to be ruffled.

  There had been two further attempts to scale the walls, each repelled at far greater cost to Westlaw than LeMarc. Even so it was clear that the citadel could not hold out indefinitely. The hall was overflowing with injured guardsmen and, with the keep’s population swollen by families from the outlying farms, reserves of food would soon dwindle.

  Risha went in search of Lisbet, one of the casualties of the gatehouse wall. She found her rolling bandages one-handed.

  ‘You should be resting.’

  ‘I am.’ Lisbet’s smile was wan. ‘I promised Cantrel I’d stand down from nightwatch for at least two days, though my eyes are undamaged.’

  ‘Thankfully. You were lucky to escape so lightly.’ The woman’s arm was broken and her shoulder badly bruised.

  ‘Where is Cecily, do you know?’

  ‘Carrying soup to the guardhouse the last time I saw her. She was wearing your leather jerkin; I offered to find her something smaller but she said she preferred it.’

  ‘It’s one of Kern’s. He’ll be pleased it’s proving useful.’ A shadow crossed the woman’s face.

  Risha’s thoughts followed hers northwards. ‘We’d have heard if there’d been any change.’

  With a nod Lisbet rallied. ‘How is Anya? It can be only a matter of days. Perhaps the baby plans to wait until we’ve won.’

  Two guardsmen staggered into the hall, a wounded comrade slung between them. Fretha hurried forward to attend him. She looked exhausted — everyone looked exhausted. Risha felt the edge of hysteria grip her. Where was Havre? Closing her eyes she let desperation colour her thoughts as she threw her question at Nonno and Timon. Hot light broke in her mind. She was part of something larger than herself, something sharp and bright, the third arm of a triangle. Timon’s shock reverberated through her. The triangle wavered.

  Coming. We’re coming.

  Hurry.

  Nonno’s soothing stretched out for her, cradled her like arms, so that she felt as if she had fallen back into her childhood, before Pelon’s ban. I’ve missed you, she sent. Then everything was gone.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She fainted. Wait, she’s coming round.’

  ‘Arishara.’

  Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift.

  ‘Someone fetch a blanket. And water: quickly Lyse.’

  ‘Arishara.’ It was Cantrel’s voice.

  Risha steadied her effort on the task of opening her eyes. The stone beneath her was cold and ungiving. ‘Havre is coming.’ Her voice croaked.

  Cantrel held a cup to her lips and she drank gratefully. Her head had begun to throb as if it might split both ways at once. ‘I must have fainted. Havre—’

  Cantrel made a disparaging sound. ‘Lyse, ask Fretha for willowbark. Don’t dawdle.’

  Cantrel and a guardsman settled her in a chair and Lisbet clumsily tucked a blanket around her. Risha felt dazed and shivery. When Lyse returned with a tisane, she drank it obediently.

  Cantrel fixed her with a piercing look. ‘That was no ordinary faint.’

  ‘They’re coming,’ she said.

  ‘I heard you. Your mother’s feyness alongside your father’s stubbornness, and no doubt a head like a melon ready to split.’ He stood, grimacing as he straightened. ‘Finish the tea then get some sleep. We’ll speak more of this later.’

  Lyse helped her to bed. When she woke an hour later to the resumed thud of the trebuchet, her headache was largely gone. She went in search of Cantrel.

  In the courtyard two townsmen were strengthening the gate that blocked the barbican. ‘Best take yourself somewhere safe,’ one of them told her. ‘Seneschal’s about to lift the beams that shore up the outer gate.’

  Risha frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Go up to the guardhouse. You’ll see.’

  She did, and wished she hadn’t. With the next projectile that found its target the outer gate quivered. When a second rock hit, part of the gate splintered inward. With a roar Westlaw’s soldiers poured over the rubble, forcing their way through the broken gate and surging into the barbican. With a slash of his sword Cantrel closed the trap. The portcullis fell with a crash, crushing three of Westlaw’s soldiers and trapping thirty more. Risha blocked her ears against their cries as they were felled by arrows shot through purpose-built slits.

  It rained during the night, sluicing blood from the courtyard. Soon the pile of bodies that lay in the barbican would begin to stink.

  Cantrel found Risha in the west tower, her eyes fixed on the empty sea horizon. She didn’t answer his greeting. The trebuchet had fallen silent, the stillness seeming to stretch into the distance like a bolt of silk, unwound. ‘War is an ugly business.’

  Her sleep had been tortured by dreams of Donnel, Gorth and Muir, trapped and butchered. She eased the strap of her crossbow. ‘Will the siege at Fratton be like this?’

  ‘Donnel was hoping that Fratton would give way from within. Risha, when you fainted yesterday—’

  A shout from the guard swung them both back to the window slit. ‘Sails! Sails on the horizon.’

  Risha squinted through the rain. It was impossible to see clearly. There was a sharp crack as a scaling ladder tipped the battlements to their right. ‘To me!’ Cantrel bellowed as he ran to meet the attack, calling over his shoulder, ‘Risha, down to the hall.’

  A bell sounded the alarm and guardsmen poured up the stairs. Ladders and grapples were sprouting like malevolent warts along the walls. Swinging her crossbow into position, Risha spanned a bolt and steadied her aim on the top of the nearest scaling ladder. Guardsmen were already fighting to either side of the tower. As the head and shoulders of a soldier appeared, Risha released the bolt. As easily as that, the man fell, the bolt buried in his throat. Hands shaking, Risha reloaded her bow.

  Her second bolt missed — a guardsman ran to meet the soldier who cleared the parapet. Her third bolt felled another invader before he left the ladder. Heart pounding, Risha risked a glance along the battlements. Men were scattered in writhing knots, the numbers beginning to weigh on the side of Westlaw’s troops.

  As a soldier appeared at the top of a ladder to her left she shot again, hitting his shoulder and sending him tumbling backwards. A guardsman kicked at the ladder, calling another to help him. She didn’t wait to see if they were successful.

  Two more soldiers had breasted the parapet to her right. She aimed, fired, fumbled for another bolt — she was nearly out, but there was a stash in the corner of the tower. Four guardsmen burst from the stairs, swords ready. The fighting was suddenly too thick for her to shoot safely. She turned and saw Cantrel, holding his own against one of Westlaw’s soldiers. There was a cheer as a group of guardsmen dislodged a ladder, the s
creams of the men clinging to it severed when it hit the ground with a muffled thud. As Risha took aim at a soldier swarming up a grappling line, Cantrel saw her. He pivoted, roaring her name.

  As if in slow motion, Risha saw a soldier fell a guardsmen, leap past his body and charge up behind the seneschal. She screamed a warning and Cantrel began to turn. Too late. The soldier’s sword swung in an arc, connected, continued its downwards slice through cloth and flesh and bone. Cantrel crumpled. Above him, the soldier raised his sword for a finishing blow.

  Risha was out of bolts — the stash in the corner was too far away. Abandoning her bow she wrenched her sword free of its scabbard and charged out of the watchtower. Seeing her coming, the man adjusted his stance, parrying her blows with practised ease. He was playing with her. As she realised it, he seemed to tire of his game. Risha felt the jarring up the length of her arm as she blocked his first attack. His second thrust sent her sword spinning away across the stones. Their eyes met and he grinned, his sword already beginning its lethal arc. The blow was never completed. The man’s eyes suddenly lost focus and he shuddered, his sword clattering from his hand. Behind him, Palt pulled his sword free, shoved the lifeless body sideways and turned to meet a soldier climbing over the parapet.

  Risha slumped to her knees. A thin trail of bile burned its way up her throat and spattered across the stones. The hand she brought to her mouth was red. She stared at it, uncomprehending, then at the stain spreading slowly around her. Realisation blasted through her like pain. Cantrel!

  Blood was welling from a gash that cut deep into his back, the white of bone showing through the butchered flesh. ‘Cantrel.’ Her voice was a whimper. She forced down the urge to vomit. ‘Cantrel,’ she pleaded. He moved beneath her hand. ‘You’re alive!’ She stared around. Soldiers were still spilling onto the battlements from the remaining ladder, guardsmen running to stem the tide.

  A hand gripped her shoulder. ‘This is no place for you, my lady.’

  Risha stared dumbly up at Palt’s blood-spattered face. ‘It’s Cantrel. He’s …’