"And I would offer them to you without the whip," she said, "a€”Master." "Fortunate for you that you are not a slave!"
She laughed, merrily.
"I would you were naked at my feet, in a collar," I said, angrily.
"Ah," she said, "I would that I were there, too, my master, but I fear that that pleasure, if pleasure it be, seeing me so, having me so, will go not to you, but, if luck be with me, to a Cosian."
"That is not unfitting," I said. "You are a traitress. You declared for Cos. It seems not unfitting, then, that you should belong to a Cosian.
She tossed her head, angrily.
"Go," I said.
"I do not want to go," she said.
"I will not be able to protect you here," I said, "nor, in a few moments, will these others."
"I will remain here," she said.
"Here you will be in the way," I said. "You would jeopardize others, concerned for you."
She looked at me, her eyes angry.
"Go," I said. "You do not belong here."
"And do you?" she asked. "You are not of Ar's Station. You are not even of Cos!" "Go," I said. "The work of men is soon to be done in this place." She knelt down before me, though she was a free woman, and lifting her veil, pressed her lips to my sandals.
She then lifted her head to me, tears in her eyes. "I would that I were at your feet as a true slave, my master," she said.
"Go," I said.
Her eyes regarded me, piteously.
"Go," I said. "I would, if I were you," I said, "while any of Ar's Station are about, with a sword in their hand, keep my veil."
She nodded, frightened. She then looked once more at the former Lady Publia, now a roped slave, suspended on a spear, and then again at me, and then hurried from the wall. I then turned to look across the twenty yard or so of space between the somber, looming towers, aligned, and the wall of the citadel. I could see cracks in the wood. Through some of these I could see numerous shapes, on various levels. The hides hung profusely about the outsides of the towers, especially on the frontal surfaces, were dark with water. The ram was still pounding at the gate.
The men on the wall, others coming up to join them from below, prepared to meet the onslaught. Groups bunched before each tower. Others scattered down the wall to meet the grapnel crews and the scalers, with their ladders. Weapons were unsheathed. Tridents were readied. Buckets of oil on the long poles were ignited.
I would have thought Aemilianus, commander of the citadel, would have come to the wall, but I did not see the helmet with the crest of sleen hair.
It occurred to me that I had not much business here, really. This was not my fight. I was no lover of Ar nor of Cos.
The trumpets would surely sound any moment.
The sky was calm enough, oblivious of a pending tumult beneath. The clouds would be indifferent to the blood that would be split beneath, dark in their racing shadows. What occurred here would surely be insignificant in the face of the universe. What small expanse of meaning was this, compared to the magnitudes of space? How tiny the disturbances and exertions of the afternoon must seem, compared to the dissolution and formation of worlds, and the turmoils wrought in the depths of incandescent orbs? Yet there was feeling and consciousness here and they, flickering it seemed in the darkness, tiny and frail, seemed to me in that moment to blaze in dimensions unfamiliar to the physicist, and in their own world and way to dwarf and mock the insensate placidities of space. Should the eye which opens on the awesomeness of the universe not apprehend as well the awesomeness of its own seeing? In man has the universe not come to self-consciousness, surprised that it should exist?
Where then was Aemilianus?
It was not my fight. I should go below. Surely in the citadel, somewhere, I could find other garments. My accents could not be confused with the liquid accents of Ar or those so similar, of Ar's Station. In the ingress of victors I should mingle with them.
It was not my fight.
Where was Aemilianus?
How dispirited seemed the defenders! How listlessly they stood! How resigned to their fate! What preparations did they make for the towers? Did they think they now faced only fellows on ladders, fellows climbing ropes, the clinging, climbing, creeping, shouting swarms, stinging with spears and blades, that they knew from a hundred trails in the past? They would be swept aside like dried leaves before the descendent blast of Torvaldsland. Were Cosians not to know their swords had been warmed and nicked in their romp?
"Ho, fools!" I cried, striding down the walkway. "The bridges will drop and you will think an avalanche of iron has spilled upon you! How shall you meet it? Let it spill on your heads? Clever fellows! Bring poles! Bring stones! You, fetch grapnels and ropes. The crews to the catapults, now! Yes, to the engines! You men there, you can see where this tower will come, there by the stairs. Break away the stone there! Open a great gap! You there, bring tarn wire!"
"Who are you?" cried a man.
"One who holds this sword!" I said. "Do you want it in your gut?" "You are not Marsias!" cried another.
"I am assuming command," I said.
Men looked at one another, wildly.
"The wall cannot be held," said a man.
"True," I said. "I do not lie to you. The wall cannot be held. But what will it cost the Cosians?"
"Much," said a man, grimly.
"Those who have no stomach to stay," I said, "let them hide themselves among the women and the children below."
"Life is precious," said a man, "but it is not that precious."
Suddenly there was a blast of trumpets from the foot of the wall and the eleven towers, with a lurch and groan, began to creep forward.
"Hurry!" I cried.
"Bring stones, poles, tarn wire!" cried men.
17 Battle: We Will Withdraw to the Landing
The bridges of the tower were still raised. These bridges were each about eight to ten feet in width. The towers themselves, which taper on the sides and back for stability, but are flat on the approaching surface, to make it possible to come flush with the wall, at that height were about fifteen feet in width. They were out from the wall, back from it, some seven feet. The lower sills of the bridges, from whence they would swing down, clapping, thundering, on the crenelation, were about four or five feet above the height of the wall. This permits a considerable momentum to the attackers without being so steep as to endanger the surety of their footing. There was no accident about the height of the towers. A simple geometrical calculation gives the height of the wall. We could now hear little movement within the towers, scarcely the clink of arms. They were, however, crowded with men.
"It is the waiting I do not like," said a fellow near men.
I lifted and lowered my sword. Men tensed along the wall. Fires were lit. It had taken the towers at least five Ehn to move the twenty yards or so to the wall.
They were now here.
There are many ways of meeting such devices. The most effective, but generally impractical, as it consumes much time and materials, is to raise the wall itself, building it higher, so that they can serve as little more than ladder platforms. What is more often done when time permits is to build portable wooden walls, some fifteen feet or so, in height, with defensive walkways and loopholes for missiles, which are then moved in the path of the towers. Sorties, the object of which is to fire the towers, are less practical than it might seem at first glance. Such towers are usually well defended, and are often not brought into play until such excursions are for most practical purposes beyond the resources of the defenders. Too, it is difficult to fire such objects, and the fires began on them by, say, small task forces are generally quickly extinguished.