“Lord count, I am born of that class now known as ‘the Old Nobility.’ My late father owned twenty-five thousand acres of rich farm and pasture lands, woodlands and fish ponds. When I was barely three years old, Duke Tcharlz dispossessed my house of all, save only our hall and our town-house in Twocityport, neither of which we could afford to staff and keep up without the income from lands that were no longer ours. Our estate was parceled out to the serfs who had worked it. The duke freely gave these rural scum title to that which should have been the patrimony of me and my brothers. “My father died shortly after he had been plundered, in an ill-conceived attempt to exact a measure of vengeance from the flesh of Duke Tcharlz. My widowed mother and my brothers and I were taken in by Duchess Ann, who is a distant cousin of my house. My brothers and I were reared in her court, fed and clothed, educated, trained and equipped by her charity.” Martuhn felt his heart go out to the young knight. He too knew how it felt to be bereft of lands by a greedy overlord, to be cast into a hostile world with only his wits and the strength of his sword arm to sustain him… but he was also Duke Tcharlz’s man and must try to defend the actions of his overlord, no matter how reprehensible.
“Sir Djaimz, your class fought Duke Tcharlz—openly and in secret ways—at every turn, almost from the day of his ascension. He had no choice but to break them, render away their wealth and strength. Nor was that all; to your late father’s generation, the men and women who actually worked the land were little better than slaves, lived far worse than slaves in most cases and often starved even when the harvest was good, which was damned poor incentive to work hard, you must admit. Since his grace broke up the estates and parceled out the land to those serfs and their sons and a scattering of old soldiers, yields have doubled and redoubled to the point that no one who is willing and able to work starves any longer. And this duchy, which formerly was obliged to import beer and ale now ejrports both, to the vast profit of a large proportion of the folk of the duchy, directly or indirectly. Why, his grace…” Now it was Sir Djaimz who held up a hand. “Hold, my lord, please hold. You need not waste your time in convincing me. A few weeks agone, yes, but not now. There is an-other side to the duke, this I have always known, though I have long pushed that knowledge to the back of my mind.
“Even though my father tried to take his life, and, in fact, wounded him sorely, five years later the duke saw to it that my mother was paid a good price for Stylz Hall and the acreage hard by it. Furthermore, at his own expense, he had every stick of remaining furniture, paintings, carpets, every movable of value, carted to our townhouse in Twocityport. Would a true tyrant, an ogre such as the duke is painted by Duchess Ann and her court, have done so much for the widow of an enemy? I think not.
“When first Duke Alex arrived, I—along with the duchess and all the rest of the court—welcomed him, hailed him as a liberator, a savior… but I have had reason to reconsider. Using as excuse that there is nowhere nearby the citadel to set up his tents, this unbearable man has quartered his men and officers on every household in the Upper City, to be housed, clothed, fed and… entertained, with no hope of any reimbursement. By this time, I doubt there’s a girl or a woman of the lesser gentry or the commoners between the ages of ten and sixty who has not been raped at least once. Yet Duke Alex merely laughs off any complaints for redress, and the duchess dotes on him. cannot praise and honor him and his pack of raping, thieving, guzzling cutthroats enough. I can but be thankful that my own poor mother is dead, for she was a comely woman. “The Stylz townhouse, the last single piece of real property left to me and my brothers, was one of the row of buildings Duke Alex chose to raze to provide him material for that wretched little useless wall of his. But, to add insult to injury, he and his officers trooped through my house and all the others just prior to the demolition and had them stripped of anything that caught their eyes or fancies.
“When, they would have forcibly prevented such blatant thievery, both my younger brothers were cut down, coldly butchered. I was in attendance on the duchess at the time, but neighbors and servants apprised me of these atrocities. By the time a messenger fetched me and I got back to what had been my home, it was fast on the way to becoming a heap of rubble.
“My just complaint to the duchess brought from her the answer that I and every other soul in her cities and lands were hers to do with as she wished, and that my poor brothers had been criminals for attempting to save our possessions from Duke Alex. That night, trying to sleep in the mean quarters assigned me by the palace majordomo, I began to compare the two dukes—Tcharlz and Alex—and to sift through the lies and distortions that had been my daily fare for most of my life.
“After some week or more of soul-searching, I thought upon you and your offer to one who had treated you with naught save contumely. I thought me that I had wasted enough of my life in service to a blind hatred of a man who had truly done much good for the duchy and who, even at his worst, was far and away a better man, a more just and honorable man, a more noble man in all senses than his rival will ever be.
“Had his grace been at Pirates’ Folly, I should have hied me there to humbly beg that I be allowed to enter his service in any capacity he might deem fitting. But he is on campaign downriver, so I came to you, my lord. Will you have me?” Sir Djaimz’s mind, because he possessed no scintilla of telepathic ability, was as an open book to Martuhn, and nowhere in the roil of confused thoughts could the captain sense that the young knight was trying to delude him. He decided to add this former foe to his staff for a while. When he had proved himself, he could be trained for duties of a military nature. In his final instructions to Captain Count Martuhn, Duke Tcharlz had bluntly granted his surrogate much latitude in defense of the citadel. “Martuhn, as matters sit that city is not worth a pinch of cow shit to me; most of its residents cleave to that fat bitch and hate my guts, despite all I’ve done and tried to do for them. So don’t be afraid to bombard or even fire the city, if it comes to that. You’ll hear no complaints from me. The damned palace, too, for all I care!
“I would prefer that the cables and the docks remain more or less intact, but if push comes to shove, cut the frigging cables and render the docks to gravel and splinters. If you wish I’ll put all this in writing, legally witnessed and sealed, that there be no misunderstanding.”
Martuhn had taken his overlord up on that last offer and the written, witnessed and sealed orders now reposed in his strongbox, in the hollow under a certain stone in the floor of his tower room. And for this reason, he had no compunction in ordering the engines to return fire against the cleverly concealed enemy engines at the edge of the bluff.
After a day of being too busy dodging stone shards or bouncing boulders or the collapses of battered-down house walls to get many missiles launched at the citadel, the engineers of Duke Alex elected to recommence by night. After all, they knew the distance and direction, so there was scant need to actually see the target.
Their first boulder produced Martuhn’s first casualty of the siege when it knocked down a merlon which, in falling, broke the leg and crushed to paste the foot of a sentry. It was then that Martuhn decided to teach the enemy not to repeat this night’s work.
Fifteen minutes after their initial loosings, the engineers atop the bluff heard the long-drawn-out creakings, then the basso thuummpps, and cringed despite themselves, recalling the carnage and destruction of the past day. But no single stone fell among them. Rather a hail of red-glowing, hissing, spluttering, fire-tailed pitchballs passed high over them to fall onto and around the palace. After the first volley of pitch-balls came a second, a third and then a fourth.