"— and your marriage-kinsman Ingreid Manfrond is not even a vassal, being a usurper. Let me further point out that neither you Brigaderos nor any other barbarians built this city or its walls-you couldn't even keep them in repair. It has returned to its rightful rulers, and we intend to keep it. If you think you can take it away from us, you're welcome to try, with hard blows and not with words. Siegecraft is not something the Brigade has ever excelled at, and I predict you'll break your teeth on this nut before you crack it. Meanwhile you'll be camping in the mud and getting sick, while the people rise up behind you and the northern savages burn your undefended homes.
"Go back, Lord Welf," Raj went on. "Use your eloquence on your compatriots. Tell them to end their rebellion now, while they have their lives and land, before they're hunted fugitives cowering in caves and woods. Because the Sovereign Mighty Lord has entrusted me with the task of reducing the Western Territories and all in them to obedience. Which I will do by whatever means are necessary."
* * *
"So, what's this Whitehall fellow like?" Ingreid Manfrond said.
Ingreid and Teodore and Carstens were alone now. Teodore put his booted feet up on the chest. The servant clucked and began unbuckling the mud-splashed greaves; another handed him a goblet of mulled Sala with spices. The commander's tent was like a small house and lavishly furnished, but it already had a frowsty smell. The young man frowned; Ingreid was a pig. And he doesn't know anything about women, he thought. The way he treats Marie is stupid. Dangerously stupid.
It wouldn't do to underestimate Ingreid, though. There was a boar's cunning in the little eyes.
"Whitehall?" Teodore said. As a relative by marriage to the General, he could leave out the honorifics in private. "About my height, looks to be around thirty. Dark even for an easterner, but his eyes are gray. A real fighting man, I'd say, from the way he's built and from the look of his hands and face-a saddle-and-sword man, not a hilltop commander. Doesn't waste words; told me right out that if we want the city, we can come and fight him for it. And. . Lord of Men, you've got a real war on your hands. This is a man who warriors will follow."
Ingreid grunted thoughtfully, his hand caressing the hilt of his sword. "They say he has the demon's luck, too."
"I don't know about that, but I saw his wife-and they say she's a witch. I can believe it."
Ingreid shook his head. "We'll break him," he said, with flat conviction. "No amount of luck means a turd when you're outnumbered twenty to one." His shoulders hunched unconsciously, the stance of a man determined to butt his way head-first through a brick wall or die trying.
Carstens and the young officer exchanged a glance. I had him outnumbered and he killed two thousand of my best men, Teodore thought. He doubted Whitehall had lost more than a hundred or so. Of course, at that rate the Civil Government army would run out of men before the Brigade did. . but victory bought at such a price would be indistinguishable from defeat.
"What about the Civvies?" Carstens put in. "He can't hold the city with only twenty thousand men if the natives don't cooperate with him."
"The Council?" Teodore snorted. "They won't crap without asking his permission, most of them. Scared of us, but more scared of him because he's in there with them. We might do something with the Priest, though. Whitehall's been leaning on the Civvie gentry pretty hard, they thought they'd watch the war like spectators at a bullfight and he's not having any of that."
Carstens nodded. "I've got some tame Civvie priests hanging around," he said. "We can get messages over the wall."
Ingreid flipped a hand. "You handle it then, Howyrd," he said. "Get me an open gate, and you're Hereditary Grand Constable." Carstens grinned like a wolf; that would give his sons the title, if not necessarily the office.
"Land?" he said. "I'd need more of an estate, to support that title."
"Those Councilors must have a million or two acres between them. The ones who stick to Whitehall will lose their necks-and you get your pick, after the Seat."
Teodore nodded thoughtfully. "And do I have your authority to oversee the encampment?" he asked.
Both the other officers looked at him. "Sure, if you want it," Ingreid said.
It was routine work. Almost servant's work. . "We're going to be here a while," Teodore said. "Better to get it right. I don't want us wasting men, we've already lost too many through Forker's negligence."
"Eight camps?" Ingreid Manfrond said, peering at the map the younger man unrolled. "Why eight?"
Teodore Welf cleared his throat. "Less chance of sickness if we spread the troops out, Lord of Men," he said. "Or so the priests say."
It was also what Mihwel Obregon's Handbook for Siege Operations said, but Teodore wasn't going to tell his monarch the idea came out of a book, and a Sponglish book at that. He hadn't taken everything in it all that seriously himself, when he read it-but since meeting the Civil Government's army, their methods looked much more credible.
Howyrd Carstens nodded, walking to the tent-flap and using his telescope on the walls of the city two kilometers distant.
"Sounds good," he said. "With twelve regiments in every camp, we'll have enough to block any Civvie thrust out of the city more than long enough for the others to pile in."
"You think they'll dare to come out?" Ingreid said, surprised.
Teodore tossed back his mulled wine and held the goblet out for more. "Let's put it this way, kinsman," he said. "When we've got Whitehall's head on a lance, I'll relax."
* * *
"Have you seen those handless cows at drill, mi heneral?" Jorg Menyez said bitterly. "What're they good for, except getting in the way of a bullet that might hit someone useful?"
Raj chuckled without looking up from the big tripod-mounted binoculars. From the top of the north-gate tower the nearest enemy encampment sprang out at him, the raw reddish-gray earth of the berm around it seeming within arm's reach.
"Others have been known to say the same thing about our infantry, Jorg," he said, stepping back. "Grammeck, tell me what you think of those works."
The artilleryman bent to the eyepiece. The tower-top was crowded; in the center was a sandbagged emplacement for the 200mm mortar, and movable recoil-ramps had been built near the front, timber slides at forty-five degree angles. Field-guns could run up them under recoil and return to battery by their own weight, saving a lot of time in action. A counter-weighted platform at the rear of the tower gave quick access to ground level.
Raj forestalled his infantry commander with a raised hand.
"I know, I know. Still, we have to work with what we've got. I'm going to call for volunteers from the militia; since they'll get full rations and pay-"
"We can afford that?" Jorg said.
"The Priest has agreed to pay a war-levy on ecclesiastical property," Raj said. "I expect about ten thousand men to step forward." They'd been drilling forty thousand or so, and employment was slow in a besieged city.
"We'll take the best five thousand of those. From that, cream off a company's worth for each of your battalions, younger men with no local ties. We'll enlist them, and you can begin full-time training. We've enough spare equipment for that many. At the least, they can stand watch while real soldiers sleep; I suspect we're going to get constant harassing attacks soon."
He grinned. "And just to make you entirely miserable, you can also provide cadre for the rest; that'll be about eight battalions of full-timers, armed with Brigade weapons. Again, they can replace regular infantry on things like guardia duty."