Paks nodded, laughing, and Vik went on. “This is letting some of the ale out of Siniava’s barrel—he lost more than six hundred men last fall, and he’ll lose these, and the rest in Andressat—say eight hundred or more. You can’t pull that many well-trained troops out of a hat, you know. However many he’s got, this will hurt.”
“I hope so,” said Paks.
Chapter Twenty-three
For the next three days, the Halverics and the Duke’s Company marched south to Cortes Andres. Rain and rugged country slowed them; the road zigzagged into steep valleys and back up to the sheep pastures. Paks saw carefully terraced slopes set with precise rows of dark sticks.
“Are those young fruit trees?” she asked Stammel.
“Tir, no! Those are grapevines. This is wine country, Paks.”
“Oh. They don’t look like any grapevines I’ve seen.” Paks thought of the little black grapes of the north sprawling over bushes and walls in an untidy tangle.
“They are. Expensive ones, too. If we break off a single twig, the Count’d have our hides.”
They passed through villages nestled in the sides of valleys: stone houses built so close together that the roof of one made the first story of another. Down in the narrow valleys, little plots of spring grain showed green, and a few fruit trees were just starting to bloom. Streams ran clean and clear in rocky beds. Paks saw no cattle, and noticed that the sheep and goats were often spotted in bold patterns of brown and black and white.
The rain which had slowed them covered their approach to Cortes Andres. Clart Cavalry slipped between Siniava’s pickets and the city, and the retreating enemy ran straight into the front of the Duke’s column.
Seen from the high ground on the northern road, Cortes Andres gave Paks an impression of great strength and stubbornness. Its outer walls were built of immense blocks of gray stone, while above the wall all the towers and battlements gleamed white. Two inner walls circled the city as well. The innermost, like the citadel which rose inside it, was built of pale gold stone. Of the buildings within the walls nothing could be seen but red-tiled roofs, which gave color to the stone around them. Paks could well believe that this citadel had never been taken by assault. She could not see anything of the rivers that came together just south of the city wall; she had been told they formed a deep gorge, and cliffs protected the city on that side.
They marched nearer. The rain stopped, and the sky lightened. Aliam Halveric rode up beside the Duke; both had their standard bearers display their colors. As they neared the gates, a blue and gold banner rose above it. Arcolin halted the column. After a short wait, a man rode from a narrow postern to meet the Halveric and the Duke. The Duke turned and waved; Arcolin started them moving again. They marched nearer. Paks noticed that the portcullis did not rise, nor the gates open. She glanced up. Bowmen edged the wall. The column had marched past the commanders in conference, but now the man from Cortes Andres rode forward and shouted up to the gate tower windows. Arcolin halted them again. Paks squinted up at the arrowslits and caught a glint of light. She felt sweat spring out on her neck, and fought the desire to swing her shield up. Suppose these were not Andressat’s men, but Siniava’s? The Duke rode up beside them. With a terrible screech the portcullis lifted from its bed. It moved more slowly than any Paks had seen, crawling up its tracks. Then the gates folded inward.
The gatehouse tower was uncommonly deep; Paks saw the tracks of three portcullises. Between them, when she looked up, were convenient holes for bowmen, and she thought she saw eyes gleaming behind each hole. They came out of the tower into a stone paved area between the first and second walls, bare of cover and easily commanded by either. Part of this had been fenced off for sheep pens, but all of it, Paks realized, would make a fine trap for an army that managed to take the outer gate.
The second wall loomed higher than the first, and its gate was offset to the west. They threaded their way between pens of sheep to halt outside the second gate tower. These gates too were closed, but a cluster of figures in blue and gold waited for them. Paks, marching in the first cohort, could see the deference with which the Duke and Aliam Halveric dismounted and walked up to the gray-haired man in the middle. It startled her to hear them addressed as “Aliam” and “young Phelan.” She expected the Duke to object, but he answered courteously, calling the man “my lord Count.” The captains were introduced, and after more conversation the Count strolled down their column. Paks wished they were not rain-wet and muddy. As he returned, he was chatting with the Duke about border towers and the condition of the vineyards. Paks could not see how they were related.
“Well, then,” he said. “We haven’t enough stabling within the inner walls for all those cavalry—your mount, of course, Phelan, and Aliam’s, and your captains’, will be in the citadel. Your troops can have barracks space in the second ring. Fersin, my aide, will direct them.” One of his retinue bowed. “You’ll dine with me in the citadel, and your captains as well. I expect they’ll want to be housed with their cohorts, yes?” The Duke nodded. “I’ve arranged a suite for you and Aliam, convenient to my quarters; we have much to confer about.” The Count glanced at the column again. “Do you—do you need separate barracks space for the women?”
“No, my lord Count.”
“I see.” He sounded doubtful. “We don’t—meaning no disparagement to your troops, Phelan, but we have not seen so many women active in warfare. A paladin here or there, and occasional knight—but—well, no matter.”
“I assure you, my lord, that they are quite capable.” The Duke’s voice was dry, and Paks suppressed a grin.
“Oh, quite—quite, I’m sure. Meant no disparagement. But one thing, Phelan, your troops can’t wander about armed in the city—”
“Certainly not, my lord. They will stack their arms in barracks, and I had not planned to permit any wandering anyway.”
“I didn’t mean to sound inhospitable—”
“Not at all. No one wants strange troops straying loose. These won’t.”
“No harm if they go to the fountains—or if you need more supplies—but it might be better if they stayed close.”
“Certainly.”
“Very well, then. Fersin will direct my quartermaster to stand ready with any assistance. I know you brought your own surgeons, but if your wounded need special care, you have only to ask. Hobben—” He spoke to one of the gate guards. “Open this thing and let our guests through. Come along, Phelan, and tell me what you found.” He turned away; the Duke and Aliam Halveric followed him through the opening gate.
The column followed Fersin, who turned left inside the gate and led them beside the wall to two-story stone barracks built against it.
“This and the next are empty,” he told Arcolin. “If you need more bedding, just tell me. The baths—” he glanced back at the column, “are in the far end of this one, and the near end of the next; there’s a kitchen in each cellar. By the Count’s order, water’s been heating since noon, for your convenience. If you need food, we can supply it, but it will take a little time, since I must speak to the quartermaster. I’d appreciate a squad of your men—uh, troops—helping me bring it—”
“We’re well supplied,” said Arcolin. “We have what we took from Siniava’s army. But we appreciate the offer. Where shall we take the baggage mules?”
“I’ll have stable boys come help you. Just a moment—” He looked up and caught the eye of one of the soldiers on the wall, then whistled a complicated phrase. The man saluted and turned away.
“We’ll take the far building,” said Arcolin. “The Halverics are behind us, and the Clarts behind them; we don’t want any more confusion than necessary. Now, where are the fountains?”
“Just down that street,” said Fersin, pointing. “There are full waterbutts in each barracks, but if you need more, feel free to get some.”
“Thank you, Fersin. Stammel, two squads for the mules; send the rest in. I’ll check back.”
The Count’s
barracks were much like the Duke’s: long clean rooms with wooden bunks. Each room would hold two cohorts if some slept on the floor, and there were plenty of pallets to make that comfortable. Soon the upper room was organized for the night. Paks caught Stammel’s eye when he came upstairs to look.
“Why didn’t that man call the Duke by his title?”
“The Count?” Paks nodded. Stammel shook his head. “Oh, he’s what they call an aristocrat—one of the old kind.”
“So?”
“Well, he doesn’t think the Duke is really a Duke—from what I hear, the only duke he thinks is real is the Duke of Fall, over near the Copper Hills.”
Paks frowned. “Is he like those bravos, then that you told me about my first year?”
“Tir, no! Nothing like. He really is a count, the sixteenth in his line, I think.”
“But you told me nobody disputed the Duke’s title.”
“The Count doesn’t dispute it; the Duke doesn’t ask him to acknowledge it. That’s different. Courtesy among allies. And if it doesn’t bother the Duke, why should it bother you?”
“I don’t understand.” Paks felt that it ought to bother the Duke.
Stammel shrugged. “Remember what I told you about Aare—the old country across the sea?” Paks nodded. “Well, these southern nobles trace their titles back to it. They hardly allow that the throne of Tsaia has a king—or a crown prince, as he is—and they don’t recognize Pargun and Kostandan and Dzordanya at all. You can see if they don’t recognize the crown of Tsaia, they wouldn’t acknowledge titles granted by it.”
“I see.” Paks laid out another blanket. “Well, is the Honeycat one of their kind of nobles, or our kind, or just made up?”
“I don’t know. If anyone does, it’ll be this count. They say he’s so proud of his family that he can recite his fathers and mothers and aunts and cousins all the way back to the beginnings, and say who married whom two hundred years ago.”
Paks thought about that, shaking her head. In her own family—she mused over it, coming up blank past grandparents, aunts, uncles, and near cousins. How could the count keep up with more? When she looked up, Stammel had gone on to something else.
Paks drew first shift for a bath, and came to the basement dining hall dry, warm, and comfortable. It would be strange to sleep indoors again. She wondered what it would be like to live in those barracks all the time—then remembered the count’s comments on women, and chuckled to herself. Southerners had strange ideas. She wondered if southern women who wanted to be warriors went north.
The next morning they marched at first light, carrying only their weapons, to attack the besieging force that held the south road. They made their way around the city between the outer and second walls. On the south, the city seemed to tip itself over the edge of high cliffs. Before Paks could see what lay below, they dove into an echoing torchlit passage, steeply pitched, and came out on one landing of a zigzag stair winding down from wall to wall, and ending in a huge gatehouse still some way above the rivers. Here they were joined by some five hundred Andressat troops who had come by a different way. As the gates opened, Paks could see nothing at first but distant slopes, dim in the early light.
Once through the gates, the road ran steeply down to a platform above the confluence of the two branches of the Chaloquay: a wild, tossing whirlpool at this season. Upstream, on the right, a narrow road led down to a high arched stone bridge, guarded by towers at either end. The enemy held both towers.
With the roaring rivers close below, it was hard to hear the captains’ commands, but their gestures were clear enough. Paks yawned, clearing her ears, and shifted her shield a bit as she marched forward with the others. Spray from the rivers drifted up, cold on her legs. As they dropped to the level of the bridge approaches, arrows skipped along the stones in front of them to shatter on the wall to their right. Archers from the bridge towers: Paks knew how bad that could be as they came closer. But a flight of arrows passed over them from the wall of Cortes Andres. Paks saw several enemy bowmen throw up their arms and fall from the nearer tower. Fewer and fewer archers cared to expose themselves to Andressat’s accurate aim; the arrows stopped. Then as the road made an abrupt left turn to the bridge, Paks caught a glimpse of fleeing men on the road south. She hoped that meant the bridge was not defended. A battle was one thing, but she didn’t like the thought of fighting over water, or being swept away in the Chaloquay’s fierce currents.
The bridge gates, a lattice of heavy timbers rather like a folding portcullis, were closed; their own bowmen sent a volley of shafts through the lattice onto the bridge itself. The enemy retreated to the far tower. Doubling shields, the front rank of archers made it to the gates and unhooked the bar that held them closed. Another rank stepped forward to pull the gates open; soon they gaped wide. Their own archers ran for the tower stairs. Paks’s cohort went forward onto the bridge. Nothing barred their way at the far tower; against the light that came through from the open air beyond she could see a dark mass: the enemy.
As they charged, Paks heard the whirr of a few arrows, but saw no one fall. The enemy fell back before them; the rear ranks were already turning to run. By the time the first two ranks were engaged, Siniava’s men had retreated from the bridge approach, giving them room to spread out. Paks found herself an opponent. She pressed forward, fending off his blade easily until he left an opening, then she plunged her sword into his body. Another, and another, and the enemy was fleeing, breaking away from the fight in ones and twos and clumps to run gasping up the road away from the bridge. Paks and her cohort pursued, trying to keep their formation while pressing the attack. As they moved farther from the river, Paks could hear Arcolin shouting, urging them on.
Suddenly a thunder of hooves rose from behind them, and a company of cavalry in Andressat blue and gold rolled by, lances poised. Paks had a stitch in her side, and slowed her stride. With cavalry after them, they wouldn’t get far. She looked around for her recruits. Keri and Volya were both grinning—she grinned back and took a deep breath as the stitch eased. Not as hard as she’d expected, not at all. Arcolin called them to a halt, and Stammel and Kefer checked the lines. No one seemed to be hurt badly. Paks could hear other troops coming up behind them. The Duke rode past, and the Count, and Aliam Halveric and his captains. They were all talking and laughing. A cohort of Clarts trotted by, yipping and tossing their lances. Paks looked up the slope. Sunlight gilded the top of it, and she watched as it crept toward them, lighting on the way the lance-tips of the horsemen.
After awhile the Clarts rode back at a walk; their leader laid his hand edgewise on his throat. Arcolin grinned. The commanders returned. The Duke reined in beside Arcolin, glancing over the Company with a broad smile before speaking a few words to his captain and riding on. Arcolin turned in his saddle, looking back down the slope.
“We march south today,” he said. “My cohort will stay here. The others will go back to pick up all the gear. You did the fighting; no reason for you to climb all those stairs again.” Paks grinned to herself, thinking of Barra and Natzlin having to go back. “Stammel,” said Arcolin, breaking into her thoughts. “Take ’em to the head of that slope, and keep a guard posted in case the cavalry missed a few of those southerners.” He turned his horse and rode back toward the bridge.
The road from the bridge angled toward the main stream of the Chaloquay before turning south in the river’s gorge. Instead of this, Stammel led them upslope, until they were well above both road and river. Here an ambush would be impossible. From this vantage point, Paks could see how Cortes Andres had been built on and into a natural cliff. From the rough gray native stone at the river to the pale golden towers of the inner citadel, the city’s southern face offered no weakness to an attacker. Paks could not see how anyone could hope to break such a wall: too high to scale, no cover for sappers, the foundation stones three or four times the length of a man, and man-high. If this was how cities were built in the far south, they would have trouble.
Andressat troops—five hundred foot and a hundred horse—marched on the lower road, while the mercenary companies traveled across the rough pasture of the upper slopes. It was pleasant weather, Paks thought, and the spring turf was a welcome change from a muddy road. The next day the valley along the river widened; Paks looked down gentler slopes to see plowland and the pink and white of fruit trees in bloom. It was almost too warm for cloaks. About midday, they moved down to join the Andressat troops on the road. That afternoon they passed through several little villages. Peasants fled, scrambling over the low field walls, and dragging away sheep, goats, and even a pig from its sty. Paks noticed that the Count permitted no straggling or looting. When she looked back, she saw the villagers sneaking back toward their homes. By nightfall, she could see that the slope west of them curved around to the south, blocking their way. She wondered if the river entered another gorge.
The next morning a rumor ran through the camp that a courier had come in with news of Golden Company.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Stammel kept saying. “A rider came from Andressat. It could just as likely have been word from the Viscount. More likely.” But when they were ready to march, the Duke rode up, smiling.
“Just to make sure you get it straight,” he said, “Pliuni rebelled against Siniava’s regents and yielded to the Golden Company—” He paused while a delighted roar went up. “Aesil M’dierra is on her way south, with Pliuni and Westland troops as well as her own. If the Honeycat is in his own cities, we’ll have him in a few days. If not—well, he won’t have a warm hearth to come home to.”
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