by Glen Cook
Wind and rain returned. The bee-busy Patriarchals had created their own rude city by then, employing local labor. The Captain-General had done the same during the Calziran Crusade.
Though the Patriarchal army had arrived without a tail of camp followers, it was acquiring them now.
People did what they must to survive. And most country folk did not care who occupied the castles and cities. The ruling class were all the same, seen from a charcoal maker's hut.
Bernardin Amberchelle summoned Socia Rault and Brother Candle on the fifteenth day. Amberchelle seemed pensive. Unusual in a short, wide man best known for smashing his way through puzzles.
Several of Amberchelle's odd associates were in the background. Likewise, a dozen leading Castreresonese, including Berto Bertrand, Roger Shale's longtime companion and deputy, now castellan till Isabeth arrived. Brother Candle surveyed the assemblage with a jaundiced eye. There was not a leader among the locals, evidently. Else why defer to half-mad outsider Amberchelle? Simply because the man had the nerve to commit mass murder?
What about those lurking, dusky men with the odd accents, now believed to be Artecipean?
"Thanks for coming," Amberchelle said, proving he could find manners when he wanted.
"At your command," the old man replied. "Though I'm baffled. What can I possibly contribute?"
"Advice."
"If I'm able. Though you have more practical minds here than mine."
"Back to you in a moment, Master. We have a question for the Count's betrothed."
Socia was learning. She had not yet blurted something irrelevant just to establish her presence. She awaited Amberchelle's question.
"Miss… Did you get any replies to your requests for help?"
Socia sneered. "Not one. Though King Peter is sending Isabeth to assert his rights."
"We feared as much. Master. The enemy won't talk. They've ignored every proposal for negotiations."
"Sublime says there's nothing to negotiate."
"We have spies moving in and out of their camp. They don't seem interested in Sublime's opinions, either."
The Captain-General would expect his local laborers to include spies. Evidently he did not care what they learned. "And?"
"The enemy are confident that they can stay the winter- if the city refuses to yield. We may have to if they cut off communications completely. And they have started harassing anyone bringing in food or supplies."
The old man repeated, "And?"
"We're consuming food much faster than it can be brought in."
"That happens during a siege."
Socia said, 'Turn out the people who don't contribute. Let the enemy have to deal with them."
Brother Candle said, "We'd better pack, then, hadn't we, girl?"
Socia glared.
The old man said, "She does have a point, though. Seeker refugees could slip out and go to Khaurene. Or into the Altai."
"Assuming the enemy lets them."
"Assuming that." The Captain-General might decide that overcrowding and starvation were useful weapons. Or he might want terrified refugees to carry panic to the rest of the Connec. "But you have something else on your mind, don't you? You don't need me to tell you that."
"The Night," Amberchelle murmured, like a boy caught doing something he should not. "The Night is… isn't… Whatever happened on the Dechear, the Night now seems to be afraid of those people. Despite being ten times as active as it was only a year ago."
Brother Candle frowned. What he knew about that event was limited to exaggerations heard in the street. Why was Amberchelle concerned? Or was it his odd friends who were? Those friends, he had learned, had taken flight from Viscesment after the surprise appearance of Patriarchal troops.
"I have no intercourse with the Night. I'm a philosopher, not a sorcerer or priest. If the Night shuns the Patriarchals, it stands to reason that they're afraid they could share the fate of the thing that perished on the Dechear."
Amberchelle sighed. "I didn't think you'd tell us much. But I hoped." He shook his head vigorously. That did no good. "They've got Principates with them."
That was no secret. "They're substantially overrated, I suspect," Brother Candle said.
"He's right. We are."
The voice came out of nowhere. Socia squealed. The Connectens gaped and gabbled panicky questions. Some thought it was a practical joke. But Amberchelle's dusky friends panicked. Several produced weapons they should not have been carrying. They slashed empty air. Others fled the chamber.
"Master," Socia said in a scared little-girl voice. "Something just touched me. It put this in my hand." She held up a ring.
Brother Candle took the ring to the brightest lamp. Two outsiders nearby blanched when they saw it. The shorter staggered as though suddenly faint. "What is it?" the old man asked.
He got no reply. The chief foreigner herded his gang out of there. Berto Bertrand, Bernardin Amberchelle, and Socia crowded Brother Candle.
He said, "It's a signet ring. Like none I've ever seen. Uhn." That looked like specks of dried blood. "I've seen these symbols somewhere before." In the mountains north of Khaurene, the Altai, come to think. Back in the dark woods, where Eis, Aaron, and their fellows were come-lately and the Old Gods, though no longer worshiped, were not forgotten.
"Bernardin. Find out why your friends are upset." He wanted to quiz Socia about how it had come into her possession.
He did not want to accept her claim. Even he might panic if he believed there were invisible men afoot in Castreresone.
Amberchelle growled, no longer as pleased with his associates. Berto Bertrand said, "I'll spread the word that people who have somewhere else to go should do so."
Bernardin Amberchelle was not in charge. The consuls of the city, its magnates, and its urban nobility listened only because he was Count Raymone's cousin. They nodded politely, then did things their own way. Rejecting the presence of a large enemy army as any reason to create a strong central authority.
The sixteenth morning word spread that the enemy was doing something new. Several thousand forty-day men had arrived from Firaldia. The Captain-General meant to take full advantage. Later that same day a messenger from Sheavenalle brought word that the port city had surrendered.
Observing from the wall when he heard, Brother Candle mused, "That's what they've been waiting for. They can barge supplies up the Laur, now." He wondered about the fate of the Seekers of Sheavenalle. And of its Devedian and Dainshau minorities. The Captain-General's men were not fanatics, but the Society followed right behind them.
The seventeenth morning the invaders assaulted the Burg and the New Town, surprising defenders who had been warned that an attack was coming. The attackers got over the New Town wall and captured a gate immediately. Fighting spread across the suburb. The defense collapsed by nightfall. The Patriarchals immediately began using tall buildings as vantages from which to hurl missiles into the city.
In the northwestern suburb, the Burg, the defenders held the top of the wall but failed to prevent two breaches created by clever masons. The defenders recaptured those and closed the gaps under a hail of missiles from wooden towers the besiegers put up with astonishing speed. Heavy ballistae atop those flung blazing spears deep into the suburb.
Brother Candle told Berto Bertrand, "I'm no soldier, but I don't think a sally would be wise." Small raids had been attempted almost daily. None had turned out well.
"We'll counterattack in the New Town tonight," Bertrand said. The consuls and magnates had decided. "And go after the towers bombarding the Burg, too."
Only light defensive artillery had been mounted on the walls of the suburbs. None of Castreresone's defensive weaponry had done any good yet. The stone throwers still lacked ammunition. Those who made decisions remained confident in the White City's wall.
Brother Candle feared Roger Shale's improvements would go to waste.
Bertrand added, "We'll hit their main camp tomorrow. They won't expect that.
We'll push them back across the river and capture the towers they've built to control the bridge."
There was more. It was a grand and complex scheme. The enemy's unseasoned levees would be trapped this side of the river and destroyed…
Beyond ignoring the certainty that any complicated plan will stumble, those who had created this one had forgotten that voice out of nowhere.
Brother Candle thought chances of surprising this enemy were nil. He did not stay awake to watch the disaster unfold. He did not want to live with the pain.
Socia could not contain her excitement. She burst into Brother Candle's cell. She bounced up and down while he collected himself.
"It isn't seemly for a woman of your station to be here." Count Raymone had made little provision for her other than to trust her to the wisdom of the Perfect Master. "But you're here, now. Pull yourself together. Try to make sense."
"Everything is going the way they planned! They've retaken the New Town. They pulled those towers down that were shooting into the Burg." Her excitement faded. "They haven't put all the fires out, though."
Brother Candle slept on a reed mat. He sat there now, his ragged blanket pulled around him. It had turned cold during the night. 'There was an actual surprise?"
"Completely!"
He was unprepared to believe that was not an enemy ploy. "Back out of here for a minute. Let me get dressed." Soda's life at Caron ande Lette had been rude, simple, and relaxed. That would not do in Castreresone. The Count of Antieux could not have his betrothed acquiring a tail of rumors.
"Come on!" Socia enthused as the old man left his cell. "I want to see!"
He refused to be hurried. He stopped to break his fast: bread smeared with a dark, heavy, almost bitter honey. By the time the girl chivvied him forth from the keep there was light in the east as well as the north, where the Burg continued to burn. "I suppose we should head for the eastern wall."
The streets were filled with nervous men, all under arms. The arsenals had been emptied out. These men were supposed to capture the Laur bridge and its defenses.
Brother Candle believed he was looking at walking dead men.
The families were out and underfoot as well. Their fear was thick. They knew some of these fathers and husbands would not be coming back.
Would any? Brother Candle dreaded the answer.
He offered a blessing when requested, for anyone who asked, Maysalean or otherwise. Most Episcopals were not unwilling to take what they could get where they could get it. Though priests loyal to Viscesment would be waiting near the gate, to bless the faithful as they streamed past.
Brother Candle doubted that Sublime's priests would reveal themselves, though devout Episcopals of the Brothen stripe were among those about to fight for their city.
They had their doubts and fears, as men do in the hour before battle. But they had faith in the righteousness of their cause.
Brother Candle suffered the doubts and fears while enjoying none of the confidence of unquestioning faith.
"Socia. Dear girl. Once we're done here I fear I must leave you."
"Don't be… What are you talking about?"
"I've forgotten what I am, child. I'm lost. I have to put the world aside and find myself again. I'm losing my soul."
Socia used his own past remarks to argue with him.
The soldiers began their sally before the pair reached a good vantage. The rush through the gate almost caught them up. Socia's lack of manners saved them that unexpected adventure.
They did not get a good place among the observers. The best spots had been occupied long since.
The Castreresonese descended the hill to the Inconje works in a roiling mob, tripping over one another. They were too numerous and disorganized to march. Brother Candle groaned. "What a waste! This city is run by idiots."
He did not care that several idiots were within earshot- instead of out with the men running to their deaths.
Soon it seemed the consuls and magnates were not fools after all. Something could be said for terrified enthusiasm and overwhelming numbers.
By sheer bodyweight the Castreresonese breached the palisade shielding the Inconje bridgehead. They drove the Patr-archals back. Cut a great many off. Some swam the Laur to get away. The raiders captured the unfinished guard tower at the western end of the bridge: They charged the tower at the eastern end.
That tower held out for two hours. The enemy used the time to bring up artillery and crossbowmen. They laid steady missile fire on the bridge. The artillery included something that made loud noises and belched sulfurous smoke. Despite their losses, though, the Castreresonese captured the second tower and prepared to defend it.
The Patriarchals did not counterattack.
They built wooden towers that, by day's end, let them lay plunging fire on the lost towers and anyone crossing the bridge.
The watchers on the walls cheered themselves hoarse.
Brother Candle did not join in. Nor did Socia Rault.
The girl understood. The Patriarchals had not suffered crippling reverses.
The day's work meant little in the long run. Especially if Castreresone's losses left it unable to defend its entire circumference against surprise attacks.
Only after night fell did the cost become apparent. The wailing inside the city had to hearten the enemy camp. The fallen numbered more than a thousand, the injured and wounded many times more. Some families had lost all their men. More would do so once sepsis had its way.
Brother Candle would have bet gold that the enemy had not suffered a tenth as badly as the bold fools of the White City.
He wept. And was not ashamed to be seen doing so while the city consuls proclaimed a triumph.
Brother Candle told Bernardin Amberchelle, "They haven't gone away. And, guaranteed, we'll hear back from them soon."
"Soon" came quicker than even the Perfect Master anticipated.
The counterstroke fell before sunrise. The Captain-General had men swim the Laur, and cross over on boats, above and below the bridge. No pickets had been posted to watch for that. The men who crossed upstream joined those already caught on the west bank. The downstream force attacked the Inconje defenses. They routed the poorly armed citizens, excepting those shut up inside the two towers. Dawn revealed the slope below the new barbican carpeted with newly fallen. No mercy had been shown.
Fugitives from nearby towns and castles all reported the same thing. The Patriarchals were merciless when they encountered resistance. So towns were falling as fast as the Captain-General's troops could accept surrenders. Few found the backbone to fight.
While the city was distracted by the slaughter on the fore slope, the enemy attacked the New Town again, bursting through the poorly repaired breaches. They drove the defenders out almost as fast as those could run. By midmorning the Patriarchals were undermining the main wall and building artillery towers so they could shoot down onto the ramparts.
Here the confidence and procrastination of the Castreresonese betrayed them again. Shelters had not been set up to protect defenders from plunging fire. Hoardings had not been installed, making it more difficult to counterattack the masons undermining the wall. It was no longer possible to counterattack through the posterns. The enemy knew where they were. He buried them systematically. The main gateway from the city into the New Town got heaped with brush and timber and set afire.
This living history was written under continuously heavy gray skies, often in drizzling rain. With the full attendance of the Night.
Brother Candle was deeply troubled. Even the most fanatic Brothen Episcopals feared the Night, now, as a thousand awful stories circulated. Rook's slime trails painted the fore slope, where so many had died. Death himself had been seen outside the barbican, tallying in his Book of Hours. A thousand people claimed their cousins or uncles had seen Hilt. Fragments of Kint lurked in every alleyway.
Brother Candle saw nothing. Nor did anyone else he spoke with. The reports were all hearsay. But thei
r cumulative impact was potent.
Socia wanted to know, "Why would the Old Ones help the Brothen Usurper? The Church wants to destroy them." She asked over a weak noontime meal of hard cheese and harder bread, taken in a small room off the kitchen in the keep of the Counts of Castreresone.
"Only speculation, mind," Brother Candle replied. "But I'd bet those people out there are asking how come the Old Ones are helping us when nobody over here wants to see them back."
The girl started to say something but had a thought. She shut her mouth.
"The Night doesn't take sides. We only think it does because all we know is what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears." Considering events on the east bank of the Dechear, the Night might, indeed, have a definite preference in the current mortal squabble.
"They have members of the Collegium to help."
"They do," Brother Candle conceded. "Possibly some of the best." The enemy was not hiding that fact. Some of those Collegium members had no particular reputation. But Muniero Delari came wrapped in dread rumor. And Bronte Doneto, at Antieux, might be the most powerful Principate of all. Doneto had spent his adult life hiding his real strength.
"We have no way to balance that."
"No. So all the advantages are on their side of the balance."
Bernardin Amberchelle showed up. He was depressed. "They've recaptured the tower on the far end of the bridge. And they've started building a floating bridge. We'll try to wreck it tonight. But I don't expect we'll have much luck. There aren't many citizens willing to go out there again."
There was more on Amberchelle's mind. Brother Candle made a little rolling hand gesture, inviting him to continue.
"The Patriarchals still can't manage a complete encirclement." With forty percent of their strength at Antieux or Sheavenalle and half the rest ravaging the countryside, the Patriarchals outside numbered no more than eight thousand. Still the largest concentration of troops seen in the Connec in generations. "We should consider leaving before the situation deteriorates any further."
"I thought Castreresone was impregnable." The Perfect was aware, though, that fugitives had been leaving since the Patriarchals appeared. Who were content to let them go. They would become an economic burden elsewhere.
