Even so, Gianni found it hard to believe that even the peasants whom Gar had persuaded into going out and seeking information again and again, and who brought back hair-raising tales and became amazingly adept at gathering information, could have brought back as much as the giant knew, or brought it as fast as he learned it. He also noticed the new medallion Gar wore pinned over his heart, but assumed it was just a sort of last-ditch armor.
Nonetheless, Gar did tell his officers and the Council that the other merchant cities had already fortified their walls and were training their own armies. That surprised no one, but how could he have learned it so quickly? How could he have discovered that many of the lords had taken their men back to their home cities to punish these insolent upstarts? Above all, how could he have known it a day or two before spies came back to confirm it? Nonetheless, it was apparently true—and when the number of peasants fleeing into Pirogia suddenly increased fivefold, Gar told them the aristocrats’ army was near. The next afternoon, when that army appeared on the ridges across from the city, Gar assured them it was only two-thirds the size it had been.
Whatever its size or condition, Prince Raginaldi knew his one chance when he saw it, and sent a troop of cavalry charging down the slopes and across the seaside plain to catch up with and pass the last of the fleeing peasants, to capture the land bridge and causeway.
But Gar knew the importance of that chance, too, and had sent his soldiers out that morning to hurry the laggards and warn then that the city wouldn’t wait for them. Even the most stubborn had finally abandoned their carts and their goods and fled to the city, riding pillion behind Pirogian cavalrymen—and the last of them cleared the land gate a good quarter-mile ahead of the prince’s army. Two swift-footed volunteers followed the refugees back along the causeway, lighting fuses as they went—and as they ran through the inner gate, the first explosions shook the island. Turning about, they watched spellbound as a huge geyser rose up from the lagoon, scattering bits of the causeway in all directions. Then another section blew, and another, waterspouts marching across the strait toward the inner gate, each shaking the ground beneath it, each with a shorter and shorter fuse.
“Back! Away!” Gar called, and the army took up the cry with him, herding people away from the gate. Protesting, they withdrew, truculent but disturbed by the soldiers’ concern—and discovered the reason, when bits and shards of stone and wood showered the piazza, striking down the gateway itself.
Finally, the last of the explosions died, the last of the deadly rain of shards and scrap fell and ceased—and the whole city watched in deathly quiet as the waves roiled where the causeway had been, and the horsemen a half-mile distant shook their fists and shouted in frustration. Everyone stared; everyone realized how completely cut off from the mainland they were—and everyone realized that the siege of Pirogia had begun.
It was indeed a siege, and could only be a siege, for the inland lords had no idea how to manage a navy. They conscripted every fishing boat they could get; they brought down riverboats while the city men sat and watched—and laughed. Finally, the lords loaded a hundred picked soldiers onto the craft and pushed out from shore.
They were halfway to Pirogia, and the soldiers were cocking their crossbows and nervously readying their halberds, when six of the Pirogia’s caravels came sailing out from behind each side of the island, sailing against the seaward breeze.
The lords’ conscripted fishermen saw, and began to paddle frantically, trying to speed boats that already moved as fast as they could with the wind filling their sails. But the captains shouted, and the caravels shifted tack and glided down onto the ragtag fleet like falcons upon a flock of pigeons. A few of the lords’ soldiers shouted defiance, raising cumbersome muskets to rest against the gunwale, then firing with a huge flash of powder and thunder of noise—but the horses took fright, as did the fishermen, and the musketeers hadn’t realized what recoil would do in a boat. Over they went in a flailing of horse legs and soldiery arms—and troopers cried out in panic, unable to swim. The fishermen, at least, had the sense to swim back and cling to their overturned boat, but the Pirogian sailors, laughing hugely, tossed ropes down next to the soldiers, who caught them and let themselves be fished out like so many bedraggled, wet dogs.
Some other ships, with quick-witted fishermen for captains, furled their sails and tried to dodge the caravels by running oars—but the soldiers, unused to such gyrations, teetered and shouted and lost their balance, knocking one another overboard. In one boat, the fishermen saw their chance and turned on the few remaining soldiers with their oars, tipping them over, knocking them out, then rolling them over the gunwales and rowing for all they were worth toward Pirogia and freedom. The others, slower-witted, more merciful, or more loyal to those who paid them, turned their boats back to haul the soldiers aboard—and were themselves hauled up short by the caravels’ grappling hooks. Marines dropped down into the smaller boats, and the fight between dripping soldier and seawise marine was brief. Even so, a few marines died, but each caravel took its score of soldiers prisoner. Then they turned back to Pirogia, leaving a scattering of wreckage behind them—but most of the boats, intact, drifted behind the caravels, lashed to lines as prizes. A few soldiers’ bodies washed up on the beach that evening, but by that time, ninety-six of their surviving comrades were grumbling around fires in the cellar of the Council house, which was hastily fitted out with bars as an improvised but very effective prison.
But Gar looked out over the scene of their triumph and shook his head. “The prince is saying, ‘Never mind—they must feed a hundred more, and Heaven only knows how many peasants fled to them in the last few days. Their food cannot last long.’ ”
“He doesn’t know that the refugees are swelling the ranks of your army,” Gianni said.
“But their wives and children and elders are not,” Gar reminded him, “and even our soldiers must eat. Is the prince right, Gianni? Will our supplies disappear like a morning’s frost?”
“I saw frost when we wandered in the mountains,” Gianni said thoughtfully, “but I had seen a rain of plenty before that, and all my life.” He pointed toward the bar. “There comes your answer, Gar.”
The giant looked up and saw a caravel tacking in against the offshore breeze.
“Wine from the southlands, grain from the northern shore of the Central Sea,” Gianni said, musing. “Pork from the western shores, beeves from the eastern … No, Gar, we won’t starve. Far from it and that ship bears wool, too, or others will, and every goodwife who has fled to us can card and spin and weave. That ship will take our stout Pirogian cloth back to trade for more food, and will also bear dishes and glassware from the clay and sands of our islands. No, we won’t starve …”
An explosion echoed from the mainland, and they saw a ball flying through the air, straight toward the ship. They held their breaths in an agony of suspense, but the ball splashed into the sea, raising a geyser and rocking the ship, but not harming it. Gianni breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn’t know the lords had a cannon that could shoot even that closely.”
“Neither did I,” Gar replied. “Did any of the lords buy a gun from your armories?”
Gianni frowned. “Not that I know of—and surely no one would have been foolish enough to sell one of the cannon made with the secrets of your new ideas!”
Gar grimaced. “I don’t like the idea of keeping knowledge to ourselves, Gianni—but for once, I must admit secrecy is wise, at least until we have won this …”