Jim moved to assist his grandfather, who waved him away. ‘I need to get some proper clothes on, boy. Can’t fight a war in my nightshirt.’
Jim smiled and called for servants. They quickly attended to the old duke and when he was dressed, he beckoned his grandson to his side. ‘I’ve sent word to what’s left of this family of ours.’
There were several members of the Jamison family scattered around the Kingdom, although only Jim had taken service with his grandfather. Jim’s father had chosen early in his life to go into business with traders to the Eastern Kingdoms, and Jim’s cousin Richard had taken service in Krondor as a soldier, working his way up to being Prince Edward’s Knight-Marshal, but there were more distant members of the clan, as his grandfather liked to call them.
‘Richard will give his life for Edward, of that I have no doubt. But some of those others …’ He sighed. ‘I made it clear they were to sit on their hands and do nothing to aid Oliver or his allies, else they’ll answer to me.’
‘I’m sure they’ll behave,’ said Jim.
‘They’d better. If Oliver wins, anyone named Jamison will be fortunate to be left penniless and alive on the side of the road, because most of us will certainly hang.’
‘That should keep them in line.’
‘One can hope.’ The duke sat down at the desk he had been using for more than thirty years. ‘Let’s talk about something unpleasant.’
‘What?’ asked Jim, with a smile that said, as if the previous conversation was pleasant.
‘I’m going to die, boy.’
Jim stayed silent.
‘Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, and even if Oliver doesn’t put my head on a pike outside this city’s gate, sooner or later I’m going to be called to Lims-Kragma’s halls. Here’s the thing of it, Jim.’ He held up his hand as if swearing an oath. ‘As the gods are my witness, when I was young, when your Great-uncle Dash and I were doing all manner of stupid things for our grandfather, I thought I’d live for ever. Even when I was your age, I thought I had a century ahead of me. Now I realize that no matter how long you have, you will always leave things undone, tasks that will fall to others to complete, or that will go unfinished.’
Jim nodded. He had come to that realization early in life, perhaps because of his grandfather’s delight in telling stories about his youth with his twin brother Dash.
‘It comes to this, Jim. You and Richard are the last two Jamisons to matter to the Crown. You’ve had the more difficult road, for too many reasons to recount. But do not believe for a moment your work has gone unnoticed or unappreciated. When this war is done, if we survive, and I am still alive, I will be stepping down. I need to move Montgomery aside and name another to my office. Edward will do as I ask, so if I ask him to name you Duke of Rillanon, he will.’
‘Name Bas-Tyra,’ said Jim evenly. ‘He’s shown his loyalty when he saw through Chadwick and Oliver’s lies, and has four capable sons who can fill in where needed: we’re going to need some new dukes if we win. I am not by nature a man to do what you do, grandfather. I could not sit all day and read reports, endure state functions endlessly, or listen to the prattling of fools on trivial topics because it’s required of me. I cannot do it.’
‘Bas-Tyra is a man for whom I have no small regard,’ said Lord James. ‘One of his ancestors was Duke of Rillanon, as well, so it’s precedented.’
Jim grinned. ‘You just hate seeing the title leave the family after all these years.’
Lord James returned his grandson’s smile. ‘Indeed. Jamison is a name that has earned its place in the annals of the Kingdom.’ He sighed. ‘Though your contributions are far less likely to be found in any volume in the royal library. You’ve had the most thankless of tasks, Jim.’ His voice lowered. ‘Jimmyhand.’ He looked out of the window at the noon sun. ‘Meal-time soon; stay and eat with me.’ He returned his gaze to his grandson. ‘No one has given more, Jim. Don’t think I don’t recognize it. Other men would have succumbed years earlier to the need to remove themselves from your bloody work. Others would have got themselves killed or simply walked away.’
‘That has occurred to me from time to time,’ said Jim.
‘No doubt. No wife, no children, nothing to live on after you.’
‘The Kingdom will live on after me,’ Jim answered quietly.
‘My grandfather, already the legendary Jimmy the Hand by the time I was born, was the first Lord Jamison, first Duke of Krondor, then Duke of Rillanon, and perhaps the wiliest bastard in the history of the Kingdom. He was in love with the Kingdom, Jim. He was in love with Prince Arutha, the father he never had, with Princess Anita, the woman he idolized, with his wife, my grandmother, Gamina, conceivably the only person who ever truly knew his heart and loved him anyway, and he loved her beyond words for that.’
Jim had heard endless stories of his great-great-grandfather before, but he knew his grandfather was trying to make a point.
‘But of all the things he loved – his friends, his family – he ended up loving the Kingdom more. He died for it, and let his wife die with him for it, and do you know why?’
‘No, sir, I do not,’ answered Jim honestly.
‘Because the Kingdom is an idea, an ideal. The first king had this notion that he was there to protect his people, and given how serious about duty the conDoins have been since then, it’s become a family tradition, to uphold the greater good of every subject within the Kingdom’s borders.
‘Now, don’t misunderstand me, Roldem is a lovely place. If I could just hand all of the Isles over to King Carole and let him take on the bother of ruling here, no one would likely notice much difference. And it would probably be the same under that boy of his …’
‘Constantine,’ supplied Jim.
‘Yes, that’s the boy. He’s got three, and I always seem to mix them up. But there’s no Congress of Lords in Roldem, so if Constantine has a monster for a boy, there’s no one to keep him from getting the throne. Roldem’s lords are too much concerned with their own well-being ever to think of what is good for the nation, which is why their politics can be even more bloody than ours. We need close ties with Roldem. We are descended from common ancestry after all, though the Roldemish deny it, of course, but we were sleeping with their daughters and they with ours when we were paddling around these islands in sewn-hide canoes, and everyone knows it. But Kesh? The Eastern Kingdoms?’ He sighed. ‘No, if we let the Kingdom fall into Oliver’s hands we will one day end up like those, or even worse, the city states down in Novindus. So, what choice have we?’
Jim smiled. Of all the people on this world he perhaps loved his grandfather most of all. ‘None, of course.’
‘Exactly!’ said the duke.
‘So what next?’
‘We see if this mad plan of yours works.’
‘I don’t see any alternative.’ He moved to sit next to his grandfather. ‘We’re getting some odd reports from the West.’
‘What now?’
‘Something to do with the elves up in the mountains east of Crydee.’
Duke James waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Let the elves east of Crydee worry about it, then. You’ve studied as much history as I have, and we both know the only reason we have a duchy there is that it was a king’s little brother who conquered that part of ancient Bosania, and that king in particular loved to tweak Great Kesh’s nose. Not that I approved of their latest attempt to take it back without asking first, but the West has always been something of a drain on the Kingdom.’
Jim nodded, though he knew that wasn’t true. A common complaint in the politics of the Kingdom since the conquest of the Far Coast, it was never true. Crydee, the Sunset Islands, and Yabon were all self-sufficient, not costing the Kingdom a copper coin to administer, and moreover they paid a modest, but not trivial, tax every year. The meme was continued by Eastern Realm nobles as a means to keep Western Realm influence in court to a minimum.
‘Where are you heading now?’
??
?To Bas-Tyra. Duke Charles needs to be informed of our progress, and then I need to get back to Edward.’
‘All with that magic thing?’
‘I only wish,’ said Jim. ‘I can get here, Krondor, and Roldem in a moment, but if I’m to reach Prince Edward, it will be by fast horse unless there’s an unoccupied magician handy who has the talent to move me with thought. I will be out of the harbour at sunset by fast sloop, up the coast and across to Bas-Tyra. With luck I’ll see their harbour in a week’s time. After speaking with Charles, it’s back to Roldem, then I’ll drop in here to check up on you.’
‘Don’t worry about me, my boy,’ said Lord James, patting a stack of papers. ‘I’ve got Montgomery in check, and if I don’t drop dead before you get back, all will be well.’
‘It’s on the way,’ said Jim.
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Lord James said, ‘I’ll be fine. Go find yourself a magician. That fellow you huddle with at times, Ruffio? He was around yesterday for a bit.’
‘Ruffio?’ wondered Jim. ‘What was he doing here?’
‘Had something important to speak to you about, but seemed pressed for time. So he flew off, as he does.’ Lord James narrowed his gaze. ‘I believe he left someone in his quarters with a message for you. Donato by name?’
Jim smiled. ‘I know the fellow. He’ll do admirably. I’ll go find him, then if King Carole can see me and give me what I need—’
‘What is that?’
‘There’s a fast Roldemish messenger cutter in the harbour. If Carole will lend me its use, I can be back here for dinner with you, then be off with the morning tide on Carole’s ship, and overtake Oliver’s fleet before he turns to land north of Salador. I can reach Edward before Oliver even knows he doesn’t hold either Silden or Salador.’ He kissed his grandfather on the cheek, a rare gesture of affection. ‘I haven’t called you Grandpa in a very long while … but I love you, Grandpa.’
The old man gripped his grandson with surprising strength. ‘I love you too, Jimmyhand.’ He patted his Jim’s shoulder. ‘Now go, and if no one else ever knows, remember your grandfather understands what you’ve given to that ideal, the Kingdom.’
Finding himself feeling revitalized in no small way by his grandfather’s words, Jim left his quarters and found his way down a series of backstairs and neglected hallways to a little-used exit where a horse waited for him. He nodded to the groom, one of his agents in the palace, and without word took the reins and mounted. He would head straight for the docks and by sunset he would be clear of the southern point of the harbour, and with a following wind, would be sailing to Bas-Tyra.
This was such a mad plan, he thought, and dependent on so many impossibilities. Still, he realized as he cantered down a backstreet from the palace towards the docks, nothing mattered if Geoffrey du Gale couldn’t hold Silden for a week or two.
‘Oil!’ shouted Geoffrey du Gale as the first wave hit the base of the walls. While soldiers were pushing over scaling ladders with long poles, the defenders rushed forward with large pots of sticky oil, two men carrying each pot, and poured them over the wall onto the gathering men below.
‘Torches!’ he shouted and the men below started screaming as the oil was fired by torches cast down from above.
Captain Armand Boucicault ran to his commander and said, ‘They’re withdrawing.’
Looking at the dying men in flames below and those racing away from the wall, pelted with arrows, Geoffrey said, ‘Duke Arthur feeds his militia and foreign mercenaries to the wall without thought of the cost.’
‘What cost, my lord?’ asked the captain. ‘Each death is one less man to pay.’
‘But we lose men, and we spend on arrows and oil.’
‘Shall I send men out to retrieve arrows?’
‘After dark,’ said Geoffrey. ‘A squad of no more than a dozen men, dressed in black, quietly. Each is to gather what they can easily carry and return. If Duke Reginald hadn’t taken every fletcher in the city with him …’ He shrugged. ‘We shall make do until relieved.’
‘You expect relief?’ asked the captain.
‘I expect another attack,’ answered his commander. ‘Return to your position, Captain.’
Geoffrey du Gale, Knight-Marshal of Silden, nephew to Duke Reginald and by circumstance defender of the city, avoided feeling overwhelmed by his duties by the simple expedi-ent of having too many things to think about which gave him no time to worry. But his city had been surrounded for ten days now, and he gave thanks for the seeming incompetence of Duke Arthur of Salador. On three occasions the Saladorian forces had nearly breached the walls, only to withdraw at sunset. It seemed as if Arthur disliked the idea of fighting at night. They had endured three days of rain and Salador apparently also disliked fighting while wet. Whatever the cause, Geoffrey was glad for the time. He knew he needed to hold for a few more days before relief arrived. If it arrived.
He made quick rounds of the key defensive positions and assessed the damage done by the constantly hammering trebuchets of the enemy. The walls of Silden were ancient and had been built when this was the frontier of the Kingdom, when Salador was a trading village. There was a weak spot on the north-east side of the city, where an ancient trading gate had been replaced when it became superfluous because of the larger eastern gate’s creation during an expansion of the city. It had been bricked over and refaced with stone and few even knew of its existence, but Geoffrey worried about every detail. It was possible to move around the entire city of Silden on the ramparts of the walls, save for two places where one could only reach the barbicans over the massive western and eastern gates by descending a flight of steps and ascending another.
It took more than an hour to circumnavigate the entirety of the city’s defences if one was merely walking the route. To stop and inspect and discuss the situation with the commanders of each section took far more time.
When Geoffrey reached the sea-gates, he paused to ask the sergeant in command, ‘Anything?’
‘No, sir,’ answered Sergeant Bales, a gnarled veteran who knew exactly what his commander wanted to know. ‘No sign of anything sailing up from the south.’
Geoffrey removed his helmet and ran his hand through his hair, damp from the warm, muggy evening and his running like a maniac for the last hour. Here was the defensive position he worried over the most. The harbour had once been as heavily fortified as the rest of the city, but in years of peace defence had become an afterthought. Only the recent war with Kesh had made that shortcoming apparent, and it was only in the last few months that action had been taken to defend Silden by sea.
Catching his breath, he said, ‘We have depended on the fleet to keep us safe for too many years, Sergeant.’
The old veteran nodded. ‘No argument from me, sir.’
‘Signal fires ready?’
‘I make sure they’re ready every five minutes,’ said Bales with an evil grin. ‘Annoys the men something fierce.’
Geoffrey chuckled. ‘Which amuses you no end, I’m certain.’
‘A man must grab whatever tiny slice of happiness he can when he finds it, I always say.’
Geoffrey didn’t bother telling the sergeant to stay alert. There was no need. He had put Bales on this post because he was the most reliable sergeant in the garrison.
Each ship in the harbour had a man aboard whose only task was to watch where Bales now stood watch. If a powder was poured into a signal brazier, it would cause a huge crimson flame to erupt, bright enough to be seen at noon and producing a red plume of smoke. If that signal was sent, every man was ordered to scuttle the ship aboard which he waited, then jump into the sea and swim to shore.
Each ship carried a barrel of Quegan fire oil in her hold, which, once lit, would burn with a fire so hot the bottom of the ship would be holed within minutes, an hour at most. Quegan oil burned without air. Water spread it.
Each man aboard knew he risked his life, for in some cases that oil would explode before the man could swim free of t
he ship, or even if he did, he might find himself swimming into flaming water.
The strategy was simple. Turn the harbour into a maze of burning hulks that no invading fleet could manage. Deny the docks to Salador’s marines and let Duke Arthur continue to assault the walls. Buy Lord James of Rillanon and his grandson the time they said they needed in which to bring reinforcements, and hopefully to speed the end to this war.
Not for the first time since being placed in charge of the city’s defences, Geoffrey prayed to any god who would listen that Jim Dasher Jamison knew what he was talking about.
On the twelfth day, a messenger came running to the exhausted knight-marshal. The attacks by Salador’s army were unceasing and by Geoffrey’s estimation, both sides were nearing breaking point. Jim Dasher’s intelligence that Arthur of Salador would not attempt a traditional siege, that he had no time for it, proved accurate. He was attempting an onslaught, he had ground down Silden’s defences, and he was verging on success. The last two assaults had topped the wall and only been beaten back by the sheer determination of the city’s commander and her defenders. One more such, with a dozen ladders providing breach points, and Salador would be in the city.
‘Report,’ Geoffrey told the breathless youth.
‘Captain Garton says there’s a breach forming in the north-east wall, sir. He’s trying the best he can, but we’ve no timbers to shore up the damage and a few more strikes from the enemy’s engines will hole the wall. Orders, sir?’
Geoffrey was already racing past the messenger, who stood for a moment in surprise, then ran after the commander. He picked up two soldiers as escorts as he raced along the wall. They cut across the western quarter of the city, the guards clearing a way for him through the throngs who huddled in the streets, seeking shelter where they could.
Reaching the wall, Geoffrey saw what Garton had reported. The captain saluted and said, ‘Must have been a hidden flaw in the masonry, sir.’
Geoffrey saw several stones bulging out of place, and where other stones should have supported them there was crushed rock and earth. ‘A quick fix of an old breach, I think,’ he said to the captain. ‘We need to brace it.’