He was not a blushing youth of sixteen. He caught her arm as she pushed him, and pulled. He thought she would fall into his arms.
She almost did. But she caught herself, and his kiss was deflected. His arms pinned her, and she said, with all the ice a woman can muster: ‘Shall I tell Sym you forced me? Captain?’
He let her go. Just in that moment, he hated her.
Just in that moment, the feeling was probably mutual.
She walked away to the main hospital room, and he had nowhere to which he could retreat except the dispensary behind him.
On the other hand, it was empty, and just then what he needed, perhaps more than ever before in his life, was to be alone.
He collapsed into the heavy wooden chair in the darkened room, and before he knew it, he was crying.
Lissen Carak – Sauce
Sauce had the duty. She was fresh enough to her promotion that she still enjoyed the responsibility – made a special effort to be clean, neat, her armour well-polished, her square-topped cap neat as a pin. She knew that a lot of the older men resented taking orders from a woman, and she knew that a perfect turn-out helped.
She set the guards on the main gate, and marched the duty detachment to the posterns, relieving each post in turn – challenge, password, posting by the numbers, and accepting the salutes – she loved the ceremony. And she loved to see the effect on the farmers and their families. Farmers clean and oil their tools, tour their livestock, morning and night. Farmers know a patient craftsman when they see one, even when the craft is war.
She relieved the last post and marched the off-going detachment through the courtyard to the base of the West Tower, where she dismissed them. Two slow-moving archers were detailed to wash the heavy wood piling driven into the ground for sword practice – Low Sym had been tied to it for his punishment, and it had various substances on it that needed cleaning off.
Then she climbed the steps to the tower, listening to the off-going soldiers. She was listening for criticism; she expected it. She wasn’t really good enough to be a corporal. She wanted to be – but there was so much to learn.
And she knew that this was going to be a tough night. All across the garrison tower men were polishing, sharpening, trimming a belt end, checking the stuffing on a gambeson sleeve. A thousand rituals to conjure safety and luck in battle. And they were all tired.
At the head of the stairs stood Bad Tom, her nemesis, with his cronies. She straightened her back, noticed that even though he was supposedly off-duty he was still fully armed, wearing full harness but for the gauntlets and the bassinet, which sat together on the plank table. She noted that his armour was as carefully polished as her own.
He was talking to Bent, and they were smiling.
She met their looks and glared. ‘What?’
‘Your people look good enough for the Royal Guard,’ Tom said with a rich chuckle.
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ she spat. She looked past him, over the walled balcony that let light and air into the tower from the courtyard. She could see the priest from here, climbing out on the wall. She wondered what he was doing there.
Bent slapped his thigh and roared. ‘Told you!’ he shouted, and went back to his game, and she forgot Father Henry. ‘Can’t even take a fucking compliment.’
She glared at both of them and went to the roof to watch her posts. ‘Where are all the men-at-arms? Captain left a note-’
Tom nodded to her. ‘I’ve got it, Corporal. I’m preparing the sortie.’
Sauce felt a keen disappointment edged with anger. ‘A sortie? But-’
‘You have the duty,’ Tom said. ‘It’s my turn.’
’It’s always your turn,’ she shot back.
He nodded, unrepentant. ‘I’m primus pilus, Sauce. I can take the sortie out until Christ returns to earth – maybe after. Wait your turn. Sweeting.’
She drew herself up. But Bad Tom shook his head.’Nay – never mind me, Sauce. That was ill-said. But I want the sorties. The lads need to see me fight.’
‘And you love it,’ Sauce said. She put her nose very close to his. ‘I love it too, you bastard.’
Tom laughed. ‘Point taken, Corporal.’
She backed off. ‘I want my turn. Anyway – where is everyone?’
‘The boys are all off confessing to the priest. Don’t worry, Sauce. We probably won’t go. But there’s going to be a sortie ready all night, every night, in the covered way.’
Sauce shook her head and went up the steps to the roof-top feeling left out.
Full darkness had almost fallen, and the sounds made by the various species of besiegers would have been chilling if she’d let herself think of them that way, but she didn’t. Instead she stood with the crew on the great ballista – as of today, re-mounted on a complex set of gimbals designed by the old Magus. She tried it herself. Now it moved like a living thing. No Head, the man responsible for the machine, patted it affectionately. ‘The old fuck magicked it, that’s what he did. It’s alive. Going to get us a wyvern, next time one comes.’
She swung it back and forth. It was physically pleasant to move – like playing some sort of game.
‘Sometimes a machine is just a machine,’ said a strong voice, and the old man himself emerged from the darkness. She had never been so close to a real magus, and she started.
‘It’s our good luck that we have fifty skilled craftsmen suddenly among us. A pargeter, who can draw precisely. Blade smiths who can make springs. A joiner who can do fine carpentry.’ He shrugged. ‘In truth, it is an Archaic mechanism I found in a book. It was the craftsmen who made it.’ Nonetheless, the old man seemed very satisfied with it, and he gave it an affectionate pat. ‘Although I confess I gave it a touch of spirit.’
‘Which he magicked it, and now it’s alive!’ said No Head happily. ‘Going to bag us a wyvern.
Harmodius shrugged as if mocking the ignorance of men – while accepting their plaudits.
His eyes lingered on her.
Christ – did the old Magus find her attractive? That was a chilling thought. She wriggled involuntarily.
He caught her movement and laughed. Then stopped laughing. ‘Something is moving down between the forts,’ he said.
She leaned over the tower. ‘Wait a little,’ she said. Then, ‘How did you know?’
His eyes glowed a little in the dark. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I can make the sky bright for a moment.’
‘No need,’ she said.
Sure enough, there was a low clash, as if of cymbals, and then another.
‘Captain put lines of tin bangles across the fields,’ she said as the ballista spun, No Head pulled its lever and a bolt crashed out into the darkness.
On the next tower, the onager released a bucket of gravel, and suddenly the night was full of screams.
A retaliatory bolt of purple-green lightning shot out of the darkness and struck the tower on which the onager rested. Sparks flew as if a smith was pounding red-hot metal.
‘Christ, what the fuck was that?’ Sauce asked the darkness. Her night-sight was ruined by the green bolt; all she could see was a pattern on her retinas.
Old Harmodius leaned over the tower, and a bolt of fire sprayed from his hand – it passed almost exactly down the line of the green lightning, as far as the dancing images on her retinas could discern.
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ he said. Over and over.
His target caught fire in the distance – a giant of a man, or an oddly misshapen tree. Perhaps two trees.
‘Dear God,’ Harmodius muttered. ‘Again!’ he called.
No Head needed no urging. Sauce watched his crew as they danced through their drill – two men wound the winch, slipped the cocking mechanism into place, removed the winch again, a third carried the twenty-pound bolt as easily as if it was made of straw, dropped it into the charge-trough and pushed it back until the huge nock engaged the heavy string. No Head spun his machine with one hand, gave the burning tree-man a hint of windage, and pulled the release.
Another line of lightning, this one levin-bright – flashed onto the north tower and rock exploded. Men screamed. Her men.