The two horsemen are less than a mile away and already beginning to cross the bare fields by the time they are spied. I am one of the crowd that, hearing shouts from the walls, pours out in welcome; for we all recognize the green and gold battalion standard they bear. Among scampering excited children I stride across the freshly turned clods.
The horseman on the left, who has been riding shoulder to shoulder with his companion, turns away and trots off towards the lakeside track.
The other one continues to amble towards us, sitting very erect in the saddle, holding out his arms from his sides as if intending to embrace us or to fly up into the sky.
I begin to run as fast as I can, my sandals dragging in the earth, my heart pounding.
A hundred yards from him there is a thud of hooves behind and three armoured soldiers gallop past, racing towards the reed-brakes into which the other horseman has now disappeared.
I join the circle around the man (I recognize him, despite the change) who, with the standard flapping bravely above his head, gazes blankly towards the town. He is lashed to a stout wooden framework which holds him upright in his saddle. His spine is kept erect by a pole and his arms are tied to a cross-piece. Flies buzz around his face. His jaw is bound shut, his flesh is puffy, a sickly smell comes from him, he has been several days dead.
A child tugs at my hand. "Is he a barbarian, uncle?" he whispers. "No," I whisper back. He turns to the boy next to him. "You see, I told you," he whispers.
Since no one else seems prepared to do it, I am the one to whose lot it falls to pick up the trailing reins and lead these tidings from the barbarians back through the great gates, past the silent watchers, to the barracks yard, there to cut their bearer loose and lay him out for burial.
The soldiers who set out after his lone companion are soon back. They canter across the square to the courthouse from which Mandel conducts his reign and disappear inside. When they reappear they will speak to no one.
Every premonition of disaster is confirmed, and for the first time true panic overtakes the town. The shops are swamped with customers bidding against each other for stocks of food. Some families barricade themselves in their houses, herding poultry and even pigs indoors with them. The school is closed. The rumour that a horde of barbarians is camped a few miles away on the charred river-banks, that an assault on the town is imminent, flashes from street corner to street corner. The unthinkable has occurred: the army that marched forth so gaily three months ago will never return.
The great gates are closed and barred. I plead with the sergeant of the watch to allow the fisherfolk inside. "They are in terror of their lives," I say. He turns his back on me without reply. Above our heads on the ramparts the soldiers, the forty men who stand between us and annihilation, gaze out over lake and desert.
At nightfall, on my way to the granary shed where I still sleep, I find my way blocked. A file of two-wheeled horse-drawn commissariat carts passes along the alley, the first loaded with what I recognize as sacks of seed grain from the granary, the others empty. They are followed by a file of horses, saddled and blanketed, from the garrison stables: every horse, I would guess, that has been stolen or commandeered in the past weeks. Roused by the noise, people emerge from their houses and stand quietly by watching this evidently long-planned manoeuvre of withdrawal.
I ask for an interview with Mandel, but the guard at the courthouse is as wooden as all his comrades.
In fact Mandel is not in the courthouse. I return to the square in time to hear the end of a statement he reads to the public "in the name of the Imperial Command". The withdrawal, he says, is a "temporary measure". A "caretaker force" will be left behind. There is expected to be "a general cessation of operations along the front for the duration of the winter". He himself hopes to be back in the spring, when the army will "initiate a new offensive". He wishes to thank everyone for the "unforgettable hospitality" he has been shown.
While he speaks, standing in one of the empty carts flanked by soldiers holding torches, his men are returning with the fruits of their foraging. Two struggle to load a handsome cast-iron stove looted from an empty house. Another comes back smiling in triumph bearing a cock and a hen, the cock a magnificent black and gold creature. Their legs are bound, he grips them by the wings, their fierce bird-eyes glare. While someone holds open the door he stuffs them into the oven. The cart is piled high with sacks and kegs from a looted shop, even a small table and two chairs. They unfold a heavy red carpet, spread it over the load, lash it down. There is no protest from the people who stand watching this methodical act of betrayal, but I feel currents of helpless anger all about me.
The last cart is loaded. The gates are unbarred, the soldiers mount. At the head of the column I can hear someone arguing with Mandel. "Just an hour or so," he is saying: "they can be ready in an hour." "No question of that," replies Mandel, the wind carrying the rest of his words away. A soldier pushes me out of his path and escorts three heavily bundled women to the last cart. They clamber aboard and seat themselves, holding up their veils to their faces. One of them carries a little girl whom she perches on top of the load. Whips crack, the column begins to move, the horses straining, the cartwheels creaking. At the rear of the column come two men with sticks driving a flock of a dozen sheep. As the sheep pass the murmur in the crowd grows. A young man dashes out waving his arms and shouting: the sheep scatter into the dark, and with a roar the crowd closes in. Almost at once the first shots crack out. Running as fast as I can in the midst of scores of other screaming running people, I retain only a single image of this futile attack: a man grappling with one of the women in the last cart, tearing at her clothes, the child watching wide-eyed with her thumb in her mouth. Then the square is empty and dark again, the last cart trundles through the gates, the garrison is gone.
For the rest of the night the gates stand open and little family groups, most of them on foot and weighed down under heavy packs, hurry after the soldiers. And before dawn the fisherfolk slink back in, meeting with no resistance, bringing their sickly children and their pitiful possessions and their bundles of poles and reeds with which to begin all over again the task of home-building.
My old apartment stands open. Inside the air is musty. Nothing has been dusted for a long time. The display cases-the stones and eggs and artifacts from the desert ruins-are gone. The furniture in the front room has been pushed against the walls and the carpet removed. The little parlour seems not to have been touched, but all the drapery carries a sour stuffy smell.