“Galenius tells us that starvation is the most effective weapon in siegecraft, far more powerful than any catapult or ram,” Malden said, thinking out loud. He had learned this in one of his frequent sessions with Cutbill. The former guildmaster of thieves was reading to him from the Manual of Fortifications like a mother telling stories to her toddler to help him sleep. The contents of the book, however, had left Malden with more than one sleepless night. “The siege of Hollymede, four hundred years ago, lasted two and a half years. There were a hundred thousand men and women inside the city walls when the siege began, and only six thousand still alive when the gates were opened-and the invaders never fired an arrow or bloodied a sword. Of course, many of the deaths were the result of disease and thirst. We have plenty of small beer on hand, and if we have to we can drink water, but we’ll need to watch for outbreaks of plague. Velmont, make a note of that-I want a committee of the public health set up. Any sign of disease must be taken seriously. Report to me if anyone gets so much as a running nose.”
“Mother and I can help with that, a little,” Cythera said. “Much of learning how to be a witch is the study of health and sickness.”
Malden nodded appreciatively. “Slag-how many archers can I muster right now? If the barbarians decide to scale the wall in the night, will we be able to repel them?”
“Depends how serious they are, lad,” the dwarf admitted. “If they all came at once? Not a fucking chance. If it’s just a few we might be all right.”
He turned to Cythera next. “Has Coruth been keeping an eye on the Burgrave and his free men? Galenius makes it sound like the only way to break a siege is with help from outside. We need them to move, and now.”
Cythera sighed. “I wish I could tell you otherwise, but the truth is, Tarness is building a winter camp, thirty miles north of here. He’s staying close, but he shows no sign of moving to rescue us.”
“The bastard!” Malden swore. “He’s getting revenge for what we did to Pritchard Hood, most like.”
“Or,” Slag said carefully, “he simply knows he hasn’t got an arsehole’s chance of beating Morg, and he doesn’t want to lose everything just to make a demonstration.”
Malden sighed. “All right. We’ve done what we can. Galenius is also quite clear on the fact that the most important skill a besieged general needs to learn is when to sleep. We might be here quite a while, and we all need to keep ourselves as rested and sharp as possible. I’ll see you two in the morning.”
Velmont and Slag glanced at each other and shared a discreet smile.
Malden shrugged it off. He didn’t care who knew that he and Cythera spent every night together now. He loved her-he’d always wanted the world to know that. He’d only kept it secret so long because he knew Croy would kill him if he ever found out.
That seemed the least of his problems now.
Cythera turned down the sheets of their bed upstairs at the Lemon Garden and warmed it with coals in a covered pan. Malden watched her in this simple domestic task and found his heart nearly broke. He’d never expected her to be a real wife to him. Not the way most men seemed to think of their spouses-as free labor they could exploit mercilessly, and beat if they ever complained. That was something he’d never wanted, and especially not from Cythera. He’d never thought she would cook for him either.
He’d never thought she would mend his hose. Or share a roof with him. Or hold him in her arms when he woke screaming in the middle of the night, terrified the barbarians were already inside the walls.
He’d never thought she would truly so much as love him.
Yet here she was, warming his bed. Literally. In a moment she would do it again, figuratively. “I love you,” he said, because it was the only thing he could feel at that moment.
“I love you, too,” she said with a smile.
It couldn’t last much longer. Already Coruth was preparing for Cythera’s initiation. And witches didn’t marry. No one would give Malden a proper explanation for why they couldn’t, but everyone knew it. Witches lived alone, growing old and twisted as their powers expanded. There were scores of old stories about famous witches, and not one of them included a man about the house.
In a few days Cythera would be a witch, and this domestic bliss would be over.
A few more nights would have to be enough. That night Malden was too tired for much lovemaking, but he took what he could get. Eventually they fell asleep in each other’s arms. Malden thought he could sleep the whole day through like that.
Alas, it was not to be. Just after dawn a crashing noise tore through the city, a report loud enough to make their bed jump on its four feet. Malden leapt out from beneath the covers and threw open the window that faced Castle Hill.
Just in time to see the spire of the Ladychapel fall into Market Square, with a noise far louder than the one that woke him.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Malden hurried through the streets, headed for the bridge to Castle Hill. He doubted anyone was inside the Ladychapel when it fell-the place abandoned since the priest and his followers left-but there might have been plenty of townsfolk in Market Square, setting up what few market stalls still had anything to sell.
He hadn’t covered three blocks when the barbarians struck again.
He saw it coming-saw the impossibly big stone hurtling through the air. Its shadow fell across his path and he danced backward as if it was going to fall right on him. Then it was gone, past the rooftops on the far side of the street.
Malden grabbed a timber on the front of a house and pulled himself upward, reached and grabbed for the edge of a balcony, hauled himself up to the shingled roof. He ran to its ridgeline and looked out over the city, trying to see where the stone had gone. Then it struck home with a rumbling boom and he nearly fell from his perch as the whole city shook underneath him. He struggled to get upright again, to get his feet underneath him so he could see what had happened.
As he watched, a house in the Stink collapsed in on itself. Timbers and plaster shredded with a series of horrible shrieks, stones rattled and bounced. A plume of dust swirled up into the air. And then he heard a woman screaming, and knew that this time there had definitely been casualties.
He was trying to determine where he should go first-Market Square or the Stink, both about equal distance away-when he heard someone calling him.
“Lord Mayor! Get down from there! It’s not safe!”
He ran back to the edge of the roof and looked down. A one-armed beggar was in the street, waving at him. The man ducked his head as a third stone came flying over the city.
Maybe the beggar had a point. Malden hurried down the side of the house and grabbed the man’s shoulders. “Go home,” he said. “Get to a cellar-anywhere but out in the open.” The beggar hurried away, moments before Malden realized that the last place anyone wanted to be when a flying rock hit their house was underground.
There was nothing for it. He couldn’t chase after an unhurt man while citizens might lie dying in the rubble. He hurried toward Market Square, thinking he might be able to help there. Do something. Anything.
When he arrived he found he wasn’t the only one who’d had the same idea. Say what you wanted about the people of Ness-that they were corrupt, lazy, and mostly stupid. True enough. But they did come together in a crisis.
The falling spire had deposited itself as a line of rubble and debris all the way to the gate of Castle Hill, cutting the square in half. Teams of citizens were hauling away rocks and broken wood, piling it on the cobbles as if they wanted to sort through it later.
“There’s a girl in there!” someone shouted at him.
Malden rushed up and grabbed half of a broken gargoyle. He passed it to a man who appeared behind him. He thought of nothing else as he worked, his back aching and his arms weak with fatigue. It didn’t matter. Little by little he cleared the rubble. He only stopped when he heard joyous shouting and looked over to see a group of women digging furiously at one spot in the mess.