It had come to this at last, this brutal reality.
Dion and Eurymedon stood beside Karnos on the tower’s topmost outpost. Two old men who looked even older this bright winter’s day as the undefeated army of Corvus deployed in line of battle before the city, as if to taunt them.
Behind the trio of Kerusia members were Murchos of Arkadios, whose city was already lost, and Tyrias of Avennos, or Scrollworm to his friends. Kassander was down at the gates, cursing and cajoling the men working there.
“I do not know what he is thinking,” Dion said, and there was the quake of age in his voice. “He forms up as though we’re about to give him battle.”
“Or invite him in,” Murchos grunted, striding forward to lean on the grey stone of the battlement. He rubbed shards of snow off the stone irritably. “Arrogant bastard. He means to begin the investment right here and now, in the middle of winter.”
“He has never been one to dawdle,” Karnos said. “Ah, the impetuousness of youth.”
“Let him sit there while the snow comes down on him, and see how he likes it,” Tyrias said. “He’s overreaching himself. We can sit here all winter and watch him shiver.”
“Have the messengers gone out?” Eurymedon asked. He was a cadaverous, grey-bearded man with a long red nose. He looked as though he either had a cold, or liked to stave one off with wine.
“They went out last night,” Karnos said with a touch of impatience. “What good they will do us remains to be seen.”
“They’re a fart in the wind,” Murchos said. “Those who are willing to fight are already here within the walls. The rest will wait on events. There will he nothing done now until the spring, perhaps even later.”
“Agreed,” Karnos said. “We’re on our own, brothers, for a few months at least. We put up a good showing through the winter, bleed this boy’s nose for him a little, and the hinterland cities will get over their fright and see that their fate rests here with us as surely as if they were standing on these stones.”
“There are many cities that would like to see Machran humbled,” Eurymedon said with a sniff.
“We’ll see how they feel once this conqueror’s foraging parties start faring afield for supplies,” Karnos told him. “Once their granaries get raided a few times, things will turn around, you mark my words.”
He hoped he sounded more convincing to the others than he did to himself.
All afternoon the army of the conqueror marched and counter-marched. When his challenge was not taken up, Corvus put his host into camp square across the Imperial road, and as the winter afternoon dwindled swiftly into night, so the people of the city looked out to see a second city come to life in a thousand gleaming campfires to the south and east.
Stragglers from the outlying farms hammered on the East Prime Gate that night and pleaded to be admitted to the city, but were denied entry for fear that they were in the pay of the enemy. They were told to try the Mithannon Gate, which was farthest away from Corvus’s camp, and they cursed the men on the walls and held up their children to show the cautious gatekeepers. The Goshen road was cut, a mora of spearmen encamped across it, and their farms were being raided for food and livestock. If they stayed outside the walls they would starve, they shouted up. They were told to wait for daylight, and try the Mithannon, and some kind soul threw a few flatbreads and a skin of wine down to them.
Karnos remained on the walls until well after dark, unwilling to be seen to leave before the city crowds. Eventually the numbers on the walls thinned with the advent of night and the growing chill in the air, and soon there was no-one about the battlements except the armoured men whose job it was to walk them.
Kassander joined him. His face was thinner than it had been, but he still had the slow easy smile which belied’the quick workings of his mind.
“I’ll be bored to death before this thing is done,” Karnos said. “Especially if the Kerusia keeps those two ancient vultures hanging at my heels.”
“Anyone would think they didn’t trust you,” Kassander said.
“They’re afraid. Frightened men feel a need to try and know everything. When they were ignorant they were happier.”
“Then from the sounds in the streets, there are a lot of ignorant people abroad tonight. Can you hear them?”
Karnos nodded. “The Mithannon is teeming like a puddle full of spawn. The incomers from Arkadios and the other cities are intent on seeing the fleshpots while there’s still some flesh to be had.”
“It’s what men do.”
“And a damned fine idea!” Karnos exclaimed. He clapped Kassander on the shoulder. “Join me for dinner. Bring your sister. I’ll have Polio hunt out the good wine. We’ll get drunk and I’ll make an arse of myself – it’ll be like old times.”
Kassander smiled. “I accept your gracious invitation.”
“Good! I’ll ask Murchos and Tyrias too. Murchos can hold his wine and Scrollworm always has a poem or two on hand to help preserve civilization.”
Kassander jerked his chin towards the distant campfires. “You don’t think he’ll try anything tonight?”
“Tonight? That would be rude – he’s only just arrived. No, Kassander, our friends across the way will be busy making plans tonight. They’ve cut two roads into the city, and have three more to go. Tonight Corvus will be talking to his friends as we will be, plotting our destruction. And if they’ve any sense, they’ll be doing it with a drink in their hands too. I’ll have Gersic stay on the walls and report to us later on; he’s too excited to sleep tonight anyway.”
“Aren’t we all?” Kassander drawled.
Karnos’s villa on the slopes of the Kerusiad presented a fortress-like face to the world. Built around the fountain-courtyard, it looked in on itself rather than out at the city, a fact which Kassander had remarked upon more than once.
In summer, Karnos threw parties centred on the fountain, and drunken guests had been known to end up in it. So had their host. But with the advent of winter the long dining tables were laid athwart the second hall, further inside, so that the sound of the falling water was lost, and in its place a fire spat and crackled on a raised stone platform at one end of the room, the smoke sidling out of a series of louvred slats in the roof. The long couches upon which the guests sat or reclined according to their preference were set out facing one another, and slaves brought food to the diners on wooden platters and in earthenware dishes.
It was the way the rich ate, and Karnos was nothing if not rich. He had never forgotten the communal pot-meals of the Mithannon, with a dozen people dipping their hands in the food at once and grabbing it by the fistful in an echo of the mercenary centos. He had sworn never to eat like that again.
The meal was plentiful but plain. Karnos had developed expensive tastes in many things, but food was not one of them. He still relied on the country staples of bread, oil, wine, goat meat and cheese. The wine, however, was Minerian, one of the finest vintages ever trodden. Tyrias exclaimed as he tasted it, and held up his cup in salute. “As sieges go, this one certainly begins with promise,” he said.
“I thought it fitting to mark the day,” Karnos told him. He raised himself up off his elbow and turned to the plainly clad woman seated apart from the men on an upright backless chair of black oak.
“Kassia, are you sure you’re quite comfortable? These couches were made by Argon of Framnos -it’s like lying on a cloud.”
The woman, a handsome dark-eyed lady with Kassander’s broad face, smiled at him. “It would scarcely be proper, Karnos. And besides, I’ve spent enough evenings here to know you will probably end this one on your back.”
The men laughed, Kassander as loud as any. “My sister knows you too well, Karnos,” he said.
“She does.” Karnos raised his cup to her. “Her honesty is as refreshing as her beauty is intoxicating.”