‘All done,’ a captain reported, when it was over. ‘What now?’
Uncle Anakai, who had never seen the like before in all his many years, had regret in his voice when he gave him Temrai’s order. ‘Burn the lot,’ he said, ‘everything that’ll take. But not till we’re through that gate up there – what’s it called? Upper city? Whatever. Shouldn’t take you long to get through there; apparently it isn’t even garrisoned. So, torch the upper city first, then this. And then,’ he added quietly, ‘get yourselves up on this wall before it catches up with you, unless you want to play candles too.’
When he came round, Loredan was lying on his back on the bed of a moving wagon. For a moment he thought he was somewhere else entirely (maybe he’d been dreaming); then he remembered, all too clearly.
He turned his head and saw the outline of Gorgas’ back, silhouetted against an alarmingly red sky. The thing he could feel lying under his left leg was the body of a girl, apparently his niece or what was left of her. He knew without having to check that she was still alive. That’s one of the infuriating things about natural-born pests, the really tiresome and pernicious variety. Knock them about, cut their fingers off, stick them with arrows, hurl them about like stooks of hay; no chance at all of killing them. They’re the ones that always survive, somehow or other. Probably, Loredan realised, why there’s so many of them and so few of us.
Gorgas wasn’t looking at him; his eyes were on the road ahead, a burning house that was starting to slide into the street, a platoon of the clan being herded onto a similar wagon for transport out of danger now that the job was over and the mopping-up could be left to the fire. And that’s what Gorgas is going to do, damn his hatefully intelligent soul; he’s going to creep out of the city in a convoy of enemy wagons. Then all he’s got to do is slip away, find a boat or a small raft, and paddle out to meet this ship of his. The part that really burns me is, I’d never have had the wit to think of that.
The hell with it. Taking care to keep his head down, Loredan edged his way backwards along the bed of the wagon until his feet were hanging over the edge of the open tailgate. Then he pushed away with the palms of his hands until he slid off and landed, face down, on the hard ground.
You may be clever but you don’t catch me, he said to himself as he scraped himself up and somehow found the strength to scramble to his feet. As he ducked down behind the pillar of an archway, he caught sight of his brother’s head, outlined against a backdrop of fire, as if he was wearing the flames. If only that could be the last he ever saw of Gorgas Loredan, he’d be a happy man.
And the rest of your life’s your own. The city was beyond saving, so his obligations in that direction had obviously lapsed. His chances of getting out alive were negligible, which released him from his obligations to his family. Athli was safe. Alexius – well, it would have been nice to have made an effort, but the old man was surely dead by now. He could choose what to do with his last half-hour or so with nobody to please but himself. If he wanted to, he could rush up to the first enemy unit he came across and die fighting. Or he could kick down a tavern door and get as drunk as time permitted. Or he could sit cross-legged in the street and meditate on the infinite. Wouldn’t matter a toss what he did.
Or he could try and escape.
Futile, of course. He had no chance, none whatsoever. On the other hand he was starting from a point of accepting his own death (and taking it pretty damn well, at that). The intellectual challenge would be stimulating, if nothing else. He decided to have a go.
Putting aside what he thought of brother Gorgas as a man, his idea wasn’t a bad one. By now, the docks were out of the question; burning people jumping into the sea and drowning, not the sort of thing you want to have going on around you during your final moments. But if he could get back along the Drovers’ Bridge, possibly even find a horse, once he was safely over the river he could go anywhere, west, east or south by land, north if he could hitch a ride on a ship-
(No money; damn. If I see any it’d be worth picking it up, for food and clothes and fares).
– Anywhere but here, in fact. Maybe he wouldn’t exactly be popular, but nobody would bother to chase him, surely. And he’d still be free, able to do what the hell he liked. It was an intriguing prospect, almost worth staying alive for.
Assuming, of course, that he could make it as far as the bridge and then across the river somehow. Instinct suggested that he should hurry, and he rationalised the urge by arguing that Temrai’s next logical move would be to pull out his remaining men, take up the drawbridge and let the people left inside the city fry. In which case, it’d make sense to get to the bridge before closing time.
It’d be quicker by the backstreets, but that might prove to be a false economy. The fire would make the high-walled alleyways impassable, so he’d do best to stick to the wide streets. The best way, in fact, would be along the ropewalks, which were the nearest thing the city had to natural firebreaks. True, the warehouses on either side would be full of inflammable material, under ordinary circumstances. But ever since the now-discredited Colonel Loredan had bought up all the rope, the stock level in the warehouses had been well below normal. Loredan thought for a moment of the merchant Venart and his rope; now there was a man who had no cares and no worries beyond the trivial aggravations of the commercial life. It would be nice to be someone like that.
To reach the ropewalks from here without using the back lanes meant following this highway down as far as the potters’ district, doubling back up the hill along the bowyers’ avenue as far as the pipemakers’ quarter, then taking the downhill fork through the sack-weavers’ district. Nice wide roads all the way, but quite a lot of distance to cover. Running might be a good idea, except that a running man is never inconspicuous. He’d have to do it by walking fast.
It was all clear until he reached the pipemakers’ arch. Then, as he came round a bend into the main square, he found he’d walked into some kind of last-minute battle; the pipemakers’ company defending their homes and families to the last, that sort of thing. But he didn’t have the time…
Walked into it, quite literally; as he rounded the corner he collided with a man clutching a pike backing away from another man wielding a poleaxe, albeit with more enthusiasm than science. Loredan tried to get out from under the warriors’ feet; but the jolt had broken the pikeman’s concentration, giving the poleaxe man his chance. It wasn’t neglected. The pikeman had been city. Embarrassing.
Loredan stepped back and drew his sword as the clansman cleared the spike of his poleaxe from the wound. The fool made the mistake of attacking; Loredan sidestepped to his right, fending the lunge away from his body to the left, hands reversed, left elbow high; that put him in perfect position for a counterthrust the clansman had neither time nor space to parry. He went down like a coat dropped on the floor; but before Loredan could make himself scarce, another one appeared out of the shadows and came at him with a big Zweyhender sword. Crass mistake; the sword, which was loot, plainly wasn’t the man’s usual weapon, because he was swinging it like a woodcutter’s axe instead of fencing with it, the way the maker had intended. He was completely open as Loredan stepped in under his raised arms and punched the blade of the Guelan through his ribcage. A quick and crafty twist freed the blade before the body hit the ground, which was just as well since it allowed him to bring the sword up in more or less the same movement to block an axe-cut from his left while shuffling right to get out of the way of a lance-thrust from directly in front. From that position it was no real trouble to work himself over to the right-hand side of the axe-wielder, using him to block the man with the lance. Then it was just a matter of disabling the axeman with a jerk of the knee, lunge behind him into the lancer, twist to disengage and bring the sword back across and sharply down to finish off the axeman with a cut across the back of his neck. Easy as shelling peas, Loredan thought with a slight surge of disgust. But then, poor devils, they never had the advantages I’ve had.