"Looks like. It's a thousand yards from the rear wall of the citadel, say a quarter-mile from the inner face of the works facing the harbor," he said. "Hmmm. Well out of bow and slingshot, of course, and you couldn't mount a useful number of torsion machines there."
He looked up, and for a moment his grin made him look young again, the youth who'd stood to be crowned at the Five Year Games. "But they don't know about your toys, do they?"
Smart lad, your brother, Raj said. He's got a real eye for the ground. That's extremely important-nobody fights battles on a tabletop, and a rise of six feet can be crucial.
"No, they don't," Adrian said, smiling back. Oh, shit, he thought to himself.
King Casull looked up at the burning fortress at the outer harbor mouth of Vase. It was a low massive blocky building, set cunningly into the rocky crags and scree, well placed to rain down arrows and burning oil and naphtha on any force trying to scramble up the gravel and boulder-littered slopes to its gates. That had helped it not at all when the shells from Adrian Gellert's mortar landed behind the battlements. A thick column of greasy black smoke rose, heavy with the scent of things that should not burn, a smell he was intimately familiar with comprised of old timber, paint, leather, cloth, wine, cooking oil, human flesh.
"How do you advise we assault the town and citadel, General Gellert?" he asked.
"If it please my lord the King," Esmond said, "we'll send in the gunboats now."
Those were waiting beside the royal galley, keeping station with occasional strokes of their oars. Ten of those to a side, with two men on each; the single cannon fired forward, over the bows; a long inclined wooden slide reached backward to nearly amidships, letting the weapon run in when it was fired or be lashed over the center of gravity when the gunboat was at sea. The crews waved respectfully as they saw the royal eyes fall on them.
"And we'll send the troop transports close behind. The cannon will fire solid shot until they've battered down a gate, or a suitable breach in a wall."
Casull nodded; it was often better to break down a wall, if you could-the rubble provided a natural ramp for assault troops, and gates usually had nasty dogleg irregularities and unpleasant surprises waiting for a storming party.
"That will give us the town," Esmond said. "But the guns are large-getting them up to the inner edge of the Directors' citadel, that will be difficult. Most of it's within bowshot of the walls, and all of it's within range of the boltcasters."
He nodded towards Vase. Two tall semicircular towers rose from the edges of the citadel facing the town. That was a curve itself; the whole inner complex where the ruler resided was shaped like an irregular wedge of pie, with the palace and keep occupying the outer, narrow tip.
"Well, my lord King," Esmond said. "My brother and I have thought up something that may distract the men on the battlements quite considerably."
* * *
"Here you are, sir," the transport captain said.
Adrian nodded, modeling his expression on the one Esmond used. Firm, confident, in charge, but not hostile or remote, he told himself.
Men were going ashore in relays; the little semicircle of beach was too small to take the ship, or more than a few score at a time. Three hundred men didn't seem like too many, until he saw them all together like this. A hundred of the Sea Strikers had gone ashore first: Esmond's security detachment-light infantry with sword, buckler and javelin. The two hundred arquebusiers and grenade slingers were following more slowly, burdened with their heavy weapons and ammunition. Adrian heard a thump and a volley of curses from the netting on the side of the ship where men climbed down into the boats. Long, clumsy and heavy, he amended to himself.
Beyond the little cove rose stony hills covered in thorny scrub. . and beyond those, the ruined tower where he was supposed to "amuse" the enemy and keep them from hindering the main assault. Adrian shook the captain's hand, adjusted his satchel of grenades, and swung over the bulwark himself.
"Feet here, sir," one of the Emerald slingers said cheerfully.
* * *
"What's that sound?"
"Ninety-nine, one hundred," Helga Demansk said, completing the series of sit-ups.
"Oh, stop that, Helga and come look," Keffrine said.
The woman who'd once been the pampered daughter of a Confederation Justiciar unhooked her feet from the back of the chair and padded over to the high barred window. If she stood on tiptoe, she could see some of the rooftops of Vase, down from the citadel. If she sprang up and gripped the bars, she could see a good deal more. She did, jumping nearly her own height and holding herself up easily, shaking tawny hair out of her eyes and peering against the bright light of morning reflecting off sea and roof tile.
"Oh, you're so strong," Keffrine said, batting her eyes upward. "Don't you think you should have a back rub, after all that exercise, though?"
"Can it, Keffie," Helga replied with a half-amused, half-exasperated twist of her lips. "I'm not that desperate yet."
"I can wait," the younger girl grinned. "Nobody's going anywhere."
Helga suppressed a shudder at that; even when the Director died, nobody in the hareem would go anywhere but into retirement. . which meant they'd be shut up together until the last of them died of old age, and they'd never see another entire male until the day they did die-not even a loathsome toad like the Director. She pushed her mind back into the present, recoiling from the waste of years that stretched ahead. It could be worse; not so many generations ago, the hareem of an Islander magnate accompanied him to the tomb, with a cup of hemlock if they were lucky.
I wonder what that noise is? Helga thought. And: Sky-Father Almighty, I'm tired of waiting.
She hadn't thought that being sold into the hareem of a pirate chief would be tedious-other things, but not that. The Director of Vase was an old, fat, worried, overworked pirate chief, though, with the fifty concubines that custom and prestige demanded. After the brutality of the pirate crew-exactly according to legend-and the transit here, she'd thought that a deliverance. . for the first four months in this velvet-cushioned, lavender-scented prison where nothing, absolutely nothing ever happened. There was a pool, where she could swim about six paces; there were a few chess sets and card decks; there were no books at all-it would never occur to an Islander chief that a woman would want to read. After a full year, only keeping up her training regimen and pretending she was going to escape had preserved her sanity and kept her from strangling someone at the seven hundredth repetition of the same inane gossip, the same shrill giggling at the same stupid jokes, the same fatuous cow-eyed flirting, the same. .
Being summoned to the Director's quarters at least meant she got out for an evening, even if under guard. Usually the old heap of lard couldn't do anything anyway.
"Smoke from the harbor," Helga said meditatively. "And I think I can hear. . yes, that's an alarm drum."
There was a section of garden and wall below the window, just visible. A dozen men trotted through it; archers, in brass-scale hauberks and spiked helmets, led by an officer with his saber drawn.
The young Confed woman released the bars and dropped back, her lips shaping a soundless whistle.
"War, I think," she said. "Wasn't there a rumor that the Director was having trouble with the King in Chalice?"
Keffrine nodded eagerly, blond bangs swinging around her ears and releasing a strong waft of verbena. Helga wrinkled her nose a little; she still didn't like the way Islander women slathered themselves with scent. That and cosmetics were the main pastimes here, along with intrigue and love affairs; one couldn't even dress up much, since tradition mandated hareem occupants wear filmy trousers and spangled halter tops.