"Stand back," Patience said, and tugged at Baj's parky. "Back and out of sight from the boulevard. These Constables haven't yet marched south."
"And may not march south," Marcus-Shrike squatted by the gallery's ice wall with the other tribesmen, "if the Wolf-General has changed her mind about attacking."
As if to prove the possibility, Baj, crouching low, saw through thick-carved ice balusters a man come from a passageway below, to stand leaning on a halberd's staff. This man – pale, bearded, corded with muscle – was naked but for a bronze cuirass. He wore no boots, stood barefoot on ice in a city of ice.
"An officer, Baj," Patience stooped beside him, "- proving Warming-talent. A Formation commander at least, though I don't remember him… Well, perhaps Franklin Peabody, though he looks too young to be Franklin."
"Whoever," Richard had come on all fours to join them… Nancy close behind, gripping Errol's arm. "- he seems to be a worried Sunriser. Has heard of trouble coming."
"Which better come soon," Nancy said. "If one of these people Walk-in-air, they'll see us up here, call those Constables."
"No." Patience shook her head. "It isn't done to air-walk in town, unless in emergency or for lamp-tending. We're safe here for a while."
As she spoke, Baj saw her hand was trembling, saw she now seemed weary, older, matching her silver hair at last… Perhaps, he thought, from killing the Watchers down the Gate.
As he noticed, Nancy said, "Your wound, dear one," and opened Patience's colored coat. It was a seeing and knowing together that Baj had found more and more, is if he and Nancy were becoming a wiser, more observant creature than either was, alone.
"Nothing," Patience said, but held still.
"There now…" Nancy lifted clotted torn shirting away. "Runs along the rib."
"Little enough." Patience set Nancy's hand aside, drew her wool coat closed. "I'm alive."… Though her eyes, black and gleaming, seemed to Baj more than alive – as if the young Patience, tireless, still lay behind them.
They crawled back to settle against the wall with the Shrikes, who huddled in their furs against the cold flowing with the slow river of wind down the township's vaulted spaces.
The voices of the people passing below seemed to Baj oddly noisy – beyond their clipped accent – and high-pitched. "Frightened," he said.
Nancy leaned against him, soft beneath fur's softness. "And who is not?"
Dolphus-Shrike, down the way, had heard them. "And time," he said, "- past time for these ice-den fuckers to feel fear."
"Still," Richard said, "the Guard will only be demonstrating at South Gate. It's shallower than the North -"
"Much shallower," Patience said. "With double-staircases, and broader passage."
"- And the more easily reinforced by the city, because of that." Richard hummed a moment, thinking. "The Guard will come hard enough to draw them south – but then, three and a half thousand of these city soldiers, defending, will be too many for them. Sylvia Wolf-General will be fortunate to be able to retreat her companies."
"The attempt," Baj said, "should be enough for us."
… They waited against the ice gallery's wall, the tide of cold seeming to muffle further talk, so they became silent watchers, silent listeners in a glittering palace of crystal reflections, the precincts of Boston-town.
Beneath them, on the boulevard, New Englanders in rich-colored furs or few clothes at all hurried past on worry's business, sounding uneasy voices. A few towed little white dogs on cords, dogs small as rabbits but very lively.
Then, through and over everything – vibrating in Baj's bones – there was a grand note struck… then struck again, that sang and rang up the boulevard. A great bell's tolling.
"That," Patience said, "that is the bell of alarm. – I've never heard it struck, except in Constable-drill. No one now alive has heard it seriously struck." Still crouching, she drew her scimitar. "- There are two dreadful great bells, and it is the first. The Guard is attacking at South Gate."
The great instrument tolled again, its voice deep, resonant, and rich as Lord Winter's voice might be… Then again.
"Not too soon," Marcus-Shrike said, and Dolphus gestured the other tribesmen ready.
"The Wolf-General," Nancy said, "has keep her word."
"Yes," Baj said, loosening rapier and dagger in their sheaths, "- and expects us to do the same." It seemed to him now a sad, inevitable tragedy. The Guard, Boston's Made-Person sword and shield, had come home to their gate at last, come concerned no longer for their suffering mothers' lives. Those, already decided lost – and with them, the city's dark and ancient leverage.
… The bell's continuing slow-measured notes rang in Baj's ears. There had been bells hung at Island, bells in chapel to sing songs to Floating-Jesus. But no bells as great as this – and hung, no doubt, in a tower of ice that trembled, shining, as the bronze spoke. – Baj found he feared now only for Nancy, and the killing to come. All other concerns, as for himself, were winnowed away. It was an odd sort of freedom to feel.
He crouched with the others, his fur hood up, his breath frosting in the air, and imagined – as if from a great distance – the life he and Nancy might have had together, but for this. He saw them somehow at Island… welcomed at Island. Nancy wearing the paneled dress, the gleaming jewels of a Lady Extraordinary, so her narrow lovely face was framed in fisher-cat fur, her slender throat banded in sapphires and silver… They would have had chambers in East tower, and he would have handed her down stairways and along tapestried hallways – their harsh stone so much warmer than Boston's ice. Would have handed her down and along, her far-southern cottons and silks rustling beside him.
King Howell Voss, one-eyed and ferocious as Warm-time's God-Odin, would have made her a favorite. She might have sung her high, harsh notes in quick counterpoint to his strumming banjar… With the years, all at Island would have come to love her, and found her golden fox's eyes a pleasure…
There were shouts of command below – then a crash of many little bells.
Those sounds became a swift, rhythmic, pounding jangle over the continuing ponderous, paced thunder of the alarm… Baj, Richard, and several Shrikes, keeping low, went to the gallery's balustrade and peered down at the boulevard now filling with grim men, rank on rank in bronze half-armor, chest and back – many lightly clothed beneath it, others colorfully furred, some naked but for the metal. All carried halberds slanted over their right shoulders.
Bell staffs – Baj had read of them, but never seen one – rose at the front of every long column… then were struck down together in a great ringing chorus, and the hundreds of Constables stepped off together, left feet first – booted or bare. They swung away down the boulevard to the rhythm of shaken bells, so their gleaming halberds' heads – each ax, hook, and point – swayed all together, a sparkling awning of bright steel above them as they marched.
"Soldiers," Richard said, "whatever they're called."
Dolphus-Shrike nodded. "Yes, soldiers… Patience, do they go to South Gate?"
"Wait." She stood up to watch. "If they turn on the Street of Flowers…"
Baj, Richard, and Dolphus-Shrike also stood to watch the wide formations march away through shimmering light, frosting breaths streaming behind them, their columns cleaving the people to either side as they went.
"A halberd," Richard said, "is a difficult weapon to deal with. A slight soldier – Sunriser or Moonriser – strikes with its weight as if strong. A strong soldier is made even stronger."
"… They're turning," Patience said. "Turning down Flowers – toward South Gate." The great bell still tolled, steady as a giant's heartbeat.
Dolphus gestured his tribesmen to their feet. "And that's how far?"