Gods, I’d make myself believe anything just to be able to keep this thing. It’s worth more than I ever earned in ten years in the racket. And what the devil does he mean ‘all my love’?
Loredan suddenly remembered the meeting he was late for. It was by a conscious act, no mere instinct of haste, that he unbuckled his belt, threaded it through the double loops of the scabbard-frog and drew it tight again; and in that instant he rejected the comfort that lay implicit in the excuse, I was only ever following instructions; they made me do it; it wasn’t me. Bardas Loredan, a Guelan broadsword; weapons of such quality and antecedents with minds of their own…
Well, well, he said to himself as he slammed out of the small, cold room and ran down the cloister towards the chapter house, if in the end I had to sell my soul, better keep it in the family than flog it off cheap to the charcoal people. But that thought didn’t resolve the matter; a final decision would have to be deferred until he had more time to consider it, and if possible more data.
‘I’d feel happier if I had the faintest idea what’s going on,’ Ceuscai muttered. The dim moonlight made the cloud of his chilled breath glow, as if his words had somehow frozen in the cold of the night. ‘The first one was bad enough. And I didn’t like this one at all.’
Beside him, crouched under the cover of a wagon, Temrai watched the torches burning on the bridgehouse tower, and shivered a little. ‘Probably some family thing,’ he replied, ‘about which we neither need to know nor particularly care. My only worry is that it’s some kind of trap.’
‘Bound to be,’ said the man on Temrai’s left. ‘Honestly, it smells like last year’s cheese. Enemy General’s brother comes and tells you he’s going to open the gates and lower the drawbridge at midnight – Gods, Temrai, what else do you believe in? The old woman with the basket of winds? The tooth fairy?’
Temrai scowled, though nobody could see him. ‘If it looks at all dodgy we won’t go,’ he said. ‘But if this trap of yours involves opening the gates and lowering the drawbridge, then it’s my kind of trap.’
‘They could have all sorts waiting for us; boiling oil, pitfalls, engines, a whole company of archers loosing off point-blank-’
At the very least, Temrai said to himself. If the first hundred men through the gate get more than ten yards in, I’ll be highly astonished. But that’s all budgeted for under Acceptable Losses. We could lose a thousand in the first ninety seconds and still be doing better than anticipated…
‘Hello,’ Ceuscai whispered. ‘Look.’
‘I’ll be damned,’ said somebody else further down the line. ‘The gate’s opening.’
There was indeed a slight change in the texture of the shadows under the bridgehouse tower. Temrai caught his breath. In a small fraction of a second, he would have to give the order to move forwards if he wasn’t to miss the opportunity. Once the order was given, there was a strong possibility that his forces might actually enter the city and begin to do the job. Once they were in, just suppose it all started to go according to plan; a detachment to storm the tower and seize the engines, stopping them from bombarding the causeway; two more to force the towers on either side, cutting communications on the wall and preventing the defenders from shooting down into his people as they came through the gate; a strong force to establish a bridgehead just inside the gate; then, assuming the city’s main relief force hadn’t arrived yet (three minutes into the operation, four if there was any resistance on the wall), a push outwards following the foot of the walls, with the aim of encircling the relief force when it appeared and cutting it off from retreat into the maze of streets and squares. If the plan worked, the city would be carved like an animal’s carcass fresh from the spit, divided into manageable portions that the various detachments could easily digest.
Temrai had envisaged the attack as being something like netting rabbits at night on the plains. First, get between the grazing rabbits and their burrows before they see or hear you, and set up the nets. Then show the lights and make the noise, sending the quarry darting back towards safety, right into the instrument of their destruction. Then, methodically and at one’s leisure, pull them struggling from the nets and stretch their necks. It had all seemed straightforward enough, put like that.
Once the order was given, he’d no longer be in control. Always assuming he’d ever been in control to begin with.
‘Here we go,’ he said, edging forward with his elbows until his head was clear of the wagon. ‘Best of luck, everyone. See you in Perimadeia.’
Gorgas Loredan stepped over the body of one of the guards and put his weight on the capstan handle. The drawbridge was massive; made deliberately so, in order that one man on his own wouldn’t be able to lower it. He felt the strain wrenching the muscles of his chest and back; fairly soon the weight would take over, and he’d need to let go and jump clear to avoid being knocked flying by the spinning handles of the windlass. At that point, it’d be beyond his capacity to undo what he was now doing; a few inches more, and Perimadeia would inevitably fall.
He stopped and took off the quiver that hung across his back; the baldric was galling his shoulders, and was one more thing for the windlass poles to catch in once the point of no return had been reached.
Arguably, that point had come and gone many years ago.
He’d shot down all the guards he could see; there had been four, which agreed with the observations he’d made over the last few nights of careful watching. If the plainsmen played their part, and were ready and waiting on the other side, there ought to be men inside the city within the next six minutes; their irruption would be his opportunity to slip away, head for the harbour and the ship he had standing by. If things worked out, he’d be well out to sea by the time the city knew it was dying.
Suddenly he felt the handle pulling away from him, its downward surge greater than his own strength. He let go and stepped back hurriedly, and the windlass began to turn of its own accord. The sound it made, a sort of chattering whir, seemed horribly loud in the still night – They’ll be able to hear that in the second city, he thought, you’d have to be dead not to hear it and guess what was going on. He let the moment linger in his mind; the last chance gone, the instant when the suicide feels the stool slip out from under him, or knows he can’t regain his balance on the parapet. In a way it was a comfort; oh, well, too late to do anything about it now, so what’s the point of worrying? The windlass spun like the wheel of a ship out of control; quite literally out of his hands now.
Job done; successful; no spear in my ribs or arrow in my back. Time I wasn’t here.
Just for once, I got it right.
A scoop of shadow grew dense in front of him and became a man; a guardsman, on his way to relieve one of the watch. He was running, staring, not even interested in Gorgas Loredan. Let him go by; no point in picking a fight at this stage of the proceedings.
The guardsman noticed him, hesitated, stopped running just long enough to yell to him. ‘Somebody’s opened the gate! Get help, quick!’ Then he disappeared into the shadows, just as the drawbridge reached the end of its chains, bounced and found its level. There were torches approaching in the distance, where the shadows of eaves overhanging an alley darkened the night. On the wall, someone called out. Suddenly there were men under the arch of the gate, running in, spreading out. An arrow hit the guardsman and he dropped dead to the ground.
Time I wasn’t here.
More arrows flying now; Gorgas could hear them hiss as they flew past. Behind him somewhere a window smashed. A brief burst of shouted speech, quickly drowned out by the hollow drumming of feet on the planks of the drawbridge. More shouts overhead, sword blades clashing four, five times. This is the first trickle of water appearing on the wrong side of the dam. Running out of time to get away. Time to move. Time I wasn’t here.