‘All right, Sir Sparhawk.’ Berit’s tone was slightly sullen.
‘Berit,’ Kalten said as he pulled on his mail-shirt.
‘Yes, Sir Kalten?’
‘You don’t have to like it, you know. All you have to do is to do it.’
Sparhawk and the others went through the ancient narrow streets of the inner city and mounted to the wall. The streets of the outer city were filled with bobbing torches as the mercenaries under Martel’s command ran from house to house, stealing what they could. The occasional screams of women clearly said that looting was not the only thing on the minds of the attacking force. A crowd of panicky and wailing citizens stood outside the now-closed gates of the inner city, pleading to be admitted, but the gates remained steadfastly closed to them.
A somewhat delicate Patriarch with sagging pouches under his eyes came running up the stairs to the top of the wall. ‘What are you doing?’ he almost shrieked at Dolmant. ‘Why aren’t these soldiers out there defending the city?’
‘It’s a military decision, Cholda,’ Dolmant replied calmly. ‘We don’t have enough men to defend the whole of Chyrellos. We’ve had to pull back inside the walls of the old city.’
‘Are you mad? My house is out there!’
‘I’m sorry, Cholda,’ Dolmant told him, ‘but there’s nothing I can do.’
‘But I voted for you!’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘My house! My things! My treasures!’ Patriarch Cholda of Mirischum stood wringing his hands. ‘My beautiful house! All my furnishings! My gold!’
‘Go and take refuge in the Basilica, Cholda,’ Dolmant told him coldly. ‘Pray that your sacrifice may find favour in the eyes of God.’
The Patriarch of Mirischum turned and stumbled back down the stairs, weeping bitterly.
‘I think you lost a vote there, Dolmant,’ Emban said.
‘The voting’s all over, Emban, and I’m sure I could live without that particular vote anyway.’
‘I’m not so sure, Dolmant,’ Emban disagreed. ‘There’s still one ballot yet to come. It’s fairly important, and we might just need Cholda before it’s over.’
‘They’ve started,’ Tynian said sadly.
‘What has?’ Kalten asked him.
‘The fires,’ Tynian replied, pointing out across the city as a sudden pillar of golden orange flame and black smoke shot up through the roof of a house. ‘Soldiers always seem to get careless with their torches when they’re looting at night.’
‘Isn’t there something we can do?’ Bevier asked urgently.
‘Not a thing, I’m afraid,’ Tynian said, ‘except maybe pray for rain.’
‘It’s the wrong season for it,’ Ulath said.
‘I know,’ Tynian sighed.
Chapter 12
The looting of the outer city continued throughout the day on into the night. The fires spread quickly, since no one was available to check them, and the city was soon enveloped in a thick pall of smoke. From the top of the wall, Sparhawk and his friends could see wild-eyed mercenaries running through the streets, each carrying an improvised sack over his shoulder. The crowd of citizens gathered before the gates of the inner city to plead for admittance melted away as Martel’s mercenaries began to appear.
There were murders, of course – many of them in plain sight – and there were other atrocities as well. One unshaven Cammorian dragged a young woman from a house by the hair and disappeared with her up an alley. Her screams quite clearly told the watchers what was happening to her.
A red-tunicked young church soldier standing beside Sparhawk atop the city wall began to weep openly. Then, as the somewhat shame-faced Cammorian emerged from the alley, the soldier raised his bow, aimed and released all in one motion. The Cammorian doubled over, clutching at the arrow buried to the feathers in his belly.
‘Good man,’ Sparhawk said shortly to the young fellow.
‘That could have been my sister, Sir Knight,’ the soldier said, wiping at his eyes.
Neither of them was really prepared for what happened next. The woman, dishevelled and weeping, emerged from the alley and saw her attacker writhing in the rubble-littered street. She lurched to where he lay and kicked him solidly in the face several times. Then, seeing that he was unable to defend himself, she snatched his dagger from his belt. It were best, perhaps, not to describe what she did to him next. His screams, however, echoed in the streets for quite some time. When at last he fell silent, she discarded the bloody knife, opened the sack he had been carrying and looked inside. Then she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, tied the sack shut and dragged it back to her house.
The soldier who had shot the Cammorian started to retch violently.
‘Nobody’s very civilized in those circumstances, neighbour, ’ Sparhawk told him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder, ‘and the lady did have a certain justification for what she just did.’
‘That must have hurt him terribly,’ the soldier said in a shaking voice.
‘I think that’s what she had in mind, neighbour. Go and get a drink of water and wash your face. Try not to think about it.’
‘Thank you, Sir Knight,’ the young fellow said, swallowing hard.
‘Perhaps not all church soldiers are so bad,’ Sparhawk muttered to himself, revising a long-held opinion.
As the sun went down, they gathered in Sir Nashan’s red-draped study in the Pandion chapterhouse, what Sir Tynian and Sir Ulath had come to call – not entirely in jest – ‘the high command’, the Preceptors, the three Patriarchs and Sparhawk and his friends. Kurik, Berit and Talen, however, were not present.
Sir Nashan hovered diffidently near the door. Nashan was an able administrator, but he was just a bit uncomfortable in the presence of so much authority. ‘If there’s nothing further you need, My Lords,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave you to your deliberations now.’
‘Stay, Nashan,’ Vanion told him. The Preceptor smiled. ‘We certainly don’t want to dispossess you, and your knowledge of the city may prove very useful.’
‘Thank you, Lord Vanion,’ the stout knight said, slipping into a chair.
‘I think we’ve stolen a march on your friend Martel, Vanion,’ Preceptor Abriel said.
‘Have you looked over the wall lately, Abriel?’ Vanion asked dryly.
‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ Abriel said, ‘and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. As Sir Sparhawk told us yesterday, this Martel couldn’t believe that we’d abandon the outer city without a fight, so he didn’t take it into account when he made his plans. He made no attempt to keep his scouts out of the city, and those scouts are just the forerunners of the main body of looters. As soon as his scouts found that the city was unprotected, they rushed in to loot the houses and most of the rest of the army followed. Martel’s completely lost control of his forces now, and he won’t regain it until the outer city is picked clean. Not only that, as soon as his soldiers have as much as they can carry, they’ll begin to desert.’
‘I cannot encourage theft,’ Patriarch Ortzel said rigidly, ‘but under the circumstances –’ A faint, almost sly smile touched his thin lips.
‘Wealth needs to be redistributed from time to time, Ortzel,’ Emban pontificated. ‘People with too much money have too much time to think up assorted sins to commit. Perhaps this is God’s way of restoring the filthy rich to a condition of wholesome poverty.’
‘I wonder if you’d feel the same way if your own house were being looted.’
‘That might influence my opinion, all right,’ Emban conceded.
‘God’s ways are mysterious,’ Bevier said devoutly. ‘We had no choice but to abandon the outer city, and that may be the one thing that will save us.’
‘I don’t think we can count on enough desertions from Martel’s ranks to grow complacent, gentlemen,’ Vanion said. ‘The rampage of his troops will gain us some time, I’ll grant you.’ He looked around at the other Preceptors. ‘A week, perhaps?’ he asked.
‘At the v
ery most,’ Komier said. ‘There are a lot of men out there, and they’re very busy. It’s not going to take them all that long to strip the city.’
‘And that’s when the killing’s going to start,’ Kalten said. ‘As you said, Lord Komier, there are a lot of men out there, and I’m fairly sure that not all of them got into the city. The ones who are still outside are just as greedy as the ones who got here first. It’s going to be chaotic for a while, I think, and it’s going to take Martel quite a bit longer to regain control. ’
‘He’s probably right,’ Komier grunted. ‘Either way, we’ve got some time. There are four gates into the inner city here, and most of them aren’t much better than the ones in the outer wall. One gate’s easier to defend than four, so why don’t we fix it that way?’
‘Are you going to make the gates disappear by magic, Komier?’ Emban asked. ‘I know the Church Knights are trained to do many unusual things, but this is the Holy City, after all. Would God really approve of that sort of thing on his own doorstep?’
‘I never even thought of magic,’ Komier admitted. ‘Actually, I wasn’t going to use anything like that. It’s very hard to batter down a gate if there are two or three collapsed houses piled up behind it, isn’t it?’
‘Almost impossible,’ Abriel agreed.
Emban grinned broadly. ‘Isn’t Makova’s house fairly close to the east gate of the inner city?’ he asked.
‘Now that you mention it, Your Grace, I do believe it is,’ Sir Nashan replied.
‘A fairly substantial house?’ Komier said.
‘It certainly should be,’ Emban said, ‘considering what he paid for it.’
‘What the Elenian taxpayers paid for it, Your Grace,’ Sparhawk corrected.
‘Ah, yes. I’d almost forgotten that. Would the Elenian taxpayers be willing to contribute that very expensive house to the defence of the Church?’
‘They’d be delighted, Your Grace.’
‘We’ll certainly look the house of the Patriarch of Coombe over very carefully when we’re selecting the ones to tear down,’ Komier promised.
‘The only question now is the whereabouts of King Wargun,’ Dolmant said. ‘Martel’s blunder has bought us some time, but it won’t keep him out of the inner city forever. Could your messengers have gone astray, Ortzel?’
‘They’re good, solid men,’ Ortzel said, ‘and an army of the size of Wargun’s shouldn’t be hard to find. Besides, the messengers you and Emban sent earlier should have reached him quite some time ago, shouldn’t they?’
‘Not to mention the ones the Earl of Lenda sent from Cimmura,’ Sparhawk added.
‘The absence of the King of Thalesia is a mystery,’ Emban said, ‘and it’s becoming increasingly inconvenient. ’
The door opened, and Berit entered. ‘Excuse me, My Lords,’ he apologized, ‘but you wanted to be informed if anything unusual was happening out in the city.’
‘What have you seen, Berit?’ Vanion asked him.
‘I was up in that little house on top of the dome of the Basilica, My Lord –’
‘Cupola,’ Vanion corrected.
‘I can never remember that word,’ Berit confessed. ‘Anyway, you can see the whole city from up there. The ordinary people are fleeing from Chyrellos. They’re streaming out through all of the gates in the outer wall.’
‘Martel doesn’t want them underfoot,’ Kalten said.
‘And he wants the women out of town,’ Sparhawk added bleakly.
‘I didn’t quite understand that, Sparhawk,’ Bevier said.
‘I’ll explain it to you later,’ Sparhawk told him, glancing at Sephrenia.
There was a knock on the door, and a Pandion Knight entered. He was holding Talen by the arm, and the boy from the streets of Cimmura had a disgusted expression on his face and a fair-sized sack in one hand. ‘You wanted to see this young fellow, Sir Sparhawk?’ the Pandion asked.
‘Yes,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘Thank you, Sir Knight.’ He looked rather sternly at Talen. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked directly.
Talen’s expression grew evasive. ‘Ah – here and there, My Lord,’ he replied.
‘You know that’s not going to work, Talen,’ Sparhawk said wearily. ‘I’ll get the answer out of you eventually anyway, so why bother trying to hide it?’
‘To keep in practice, I suppose,’ Talen shrugged. ‘You’ll twist my arm until I tell you, won’t you, Sparhawk?’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’
‘All right,’ Talen sighed. ‘There are thieves in the streets of the inner city, and there are a lot of interesting things going on out beyond the walls. I managed to find a way to slip out there. I’ve been selling that information.’
‘How’s business?’ Patriarch Emban asked him. Emban’s eyes were bright.
‘Not too bad, actually,’ Talen said professionally. ‘Most of the thieves here inside the walls don’t have too much to bargain with. You don’t make much profit sitting on the things you’ve stolen, but I’m easy to do business with. I just charge them a percentage of what they’re able to steal from the soldiers outside the walls.’
‘Open the sack, Talen,’ Sparhawk ordered him.
‘I’m really shocked at you, Sparhawk,’ Talen said. ‘There are holy men in this room. Is it really proper to expose them to – well, you know.’
‘Open the sack, Talen.’
The boy sighed, laid the sack on Sir Nashan’s desk and opened it. There were a number of largely decorative items inside – metal goblets, small statues, thick chains, assorted eating utensils and a rather intricately engraved tray about the size of a dinner plate. All of the items appeared to be made of solid gold.
‘You got all this just for selling information?’ Tynian asked incredulously.
‘Information’s the most valuable thing in the world, Sir Tynian,’ Talen replied loftily, ‘and I’m not doing anything immoral or illegal. My conscience is perfectly clear. Not only that, I’m making my contribution to the defence of the city.’
‘I don’t quite follow that reasoning,’ Sir Nashan said.
‘The soldiers out there aren’t giving up what they’ve stolen willingly, Sir Knight,’ Talen smirked. “The thieves know they’ll feel that way, so they don’t bother to make requests. Martel’s lost a fair number of his troops since the sun went down.’
‘Most reprehensible, young man,’ Ortzel said reprovingly.
‘My hands are completely clean, Your Grace,’ Talen replied innocently. ‘I haven’t personally stabbed a single soldier in the back. What the villains from the street do out there isn’t my responsibility, is it?’ The boy’s eyes shone with innocence.
‘Give it up, Ortzel,’ Emban chuckled. ‘None of us are worldly enough to argue with this young fellow.’ He paused. ‘Dolmant,’ he said, ‘tithing is a well-established practice, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ the Patriarch of Demos said.
‘I was sure it was. Given the unusual circumstances here, I’d say that the young fellow should contribute a quarter of his profits to the Church, wouldn’t you?’
‘It sounds about right to me,’ Dolmant agreed.
‘A quarter?’ Talen exclaimed. ‘That’s highway robbery!’
‘Actually, we aren’t on a highway, my son,’ Emban smiled. ‘Would you like to settle up after each of your excursions? Or should we wait until you’ve gathered all your profits and we can take care of it all at once?’
‘After you’ve settled up with the Patriarch Emban, Talen,’ Vanion said, ‘I have this burning curiosity about this secret way you’ve found to get in and out of the city.’
‘It’s not really much of a secret, Lord Vanion,’ Talen said deprecatingly. ‘About all it really consists of are the names of a squad of enterprising church soldiers who have the night watch in one of the towers on the wall. They’ve got a nice long rope with knots tied in it to make climbing up and down easy. They’re willing to rent out the rope, and I‘m willing to rent out their nam
es and the location of the tower they’re guarding. Everybody’s making a nice profit.’
‘Including the Church,’ Patriarch Emban reminded him.
‘I was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about that, Your Grace.’
‘Hope is a cardinal virtue, my son,’ Emban said piously, ‘even when it’s misplaced.’
Kurik came in carrying a Lamork crossbow. ‘I think we may be in luck, My Lords,’ he said. ‘I happened to look into the armoury of the Archprelate’s personal guard in the Basilica. They’ve got racks and racks of these down there, and barrels of bolts.’
‘An eminently suitable weapon,’ Ortzel approved. Ortzel was a Lamork, after all.
‘They’re slower than a longbow, Your Grace,’ Kurik pointed out, ‘but they do have an extraordinary range. I think they’ll be very effective in breaking up charges against the inner city before they can pick up much momentum.’
‘Do you know how to use this weapon, Kurik?’ Vanion asked him.
‘Yes, Lord Vanion.’
‘Start training some church soldiers then.’
‘Yes, My Lord.’
‘A number of things are turning our way, my friends,’ Vanion said. ‘We have a defensible position, a parity of weapons and a certain delay working for us.’
‘I’d still be happier if Wargun were here,’ Komier said.
‘So would I,’ Vanion agreed, ‘but we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got until he gets here, I’m afraid.’
‘There’s something else we need to concern ourselves with, gentlemen,’ Emban said gravely. ‘Assuming that all goes well, the Hierocracy’s going to go back into session just as soon as Martel’s been driven off. Abandoning the outer city is going to alienate a sizeable number of Patriarchs. If you let a man’s house be looted and burned, he’s not going to be very fond of you or want to vote for you. We’ve got to find some way to prove the connection between Annias and Martel. If we don’t, we’re doing all this just for the exercise. I can talk as fast as the next man, but I can’t perform miracles. I need something to work with.’
It was about midnight when Sparhawk climbed the stairs to the wall of the old city not far from the south gate, the most defensible of the four and the one it had been decided to leave unblocked. Chyrellos was burning in earnest now. A looter, upon entering a house to find it already empty, feels a certain angry frustration, and he usually vents those feelings by setting fire to the place. Such behaviour is totally predictable and, in a certain sense, quite natural. The looters, their faces more desperate now as the number of unpillaged houses diminished, ran from building to building waving torches and weapons. Kurik, always practical, had stationed the church soldiers he was training with crossbows on the walls, and the looters provided those men with moving targets upon which to practise. There were not too many hits, but the soldiers appeared to be improving.