They did not get a good place among the observers. The best spots had been occupied long since.

The Castreresonese descended the hill to the Inconje works in a roiling mob, tripping over one another. They were too numerous and disorganized to march. Brother Candle groaned. "What a waste! This city is run by idiots."

He did not care that several idiots were within earshot- instead of out with the men running to their deaths.

Soon it seemed the consuls and magnates were not fools after all. Something could be said for terrified enthusiasm and overwhelming numbers.

By sheer bodyweight the Castreresonese breached the palisade shielding the Inconje bridgehead. They drove the Patr-archals back. Cut a great many off. Some swam the Laur to get away. The raiders captured the unfinished guard tower at the western end of the bridge: They charged the tower at the eastern end.

That tower held out for two hours. The enemy used the time to bring up artillery and crossbowmen. They laid steady missile fire on the bridge. The artillery included something that made loud noises and belched sulfurous smoke. Despite their losses, though, the Castreresonese captured the second tower and prepared to defend it.

The Patriarchals did not counterattack.

They built wooden towers that, by day"s end, let them lay plunging fire on the lost towers and anyone crossing the bridge.

The watchers on the walls cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e.

Brother Candle did not join in. Nor did Socia Rault.

The girl understood. The Patriarchals had not suffered crippling reverses.

The day"s work meant little in the long run. Especially if Castreresone"s losses left it unable to defend its entire circ.u.mference against surprise attacks.

Only after night fell did the cost become apparent. The wailing inside the city had to hearten the enemy camp. The fallen numbered more than a thousand, the injured and wounded many times more. Some families had lost all their men. More would do so once sepsis had its way.

Brother Candle would have bet gold that the enemy had not suffered a tenth as badly as the bold fools of the White City.

He wept. And was not ashamed to be seen doing so while the city consuls proclaimed a triumph.

Brother Candle told Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le, "They haven"t gone away. And, guaranteed, we"ll hear back from them soon."

"Soon" came quicker than even the Perfect Master antic.i.p.ated.

The counterstroke fell before sunrise. The Captain-General had men swim the Laur, and cross over on boats, above and below the bridge. No pickets had been posted to watch for that. The men who crossed upstream joined those already caught on the west bank. The downstream force attacked the Inconje defenses. They routed the poorly armed citizens, excepting those shut up inside the two towers. Dawn revealed the slope below the new barbican carpeted with newly fallen. No mercy had been shown.

Fugitives from nearby towns and castles all reported the same thing. The Patriarchals were merciless when they encountered resistance. So towns were falling as fast as the Captain-General"s troops could accept surrenders. Few found the backbone to fight.

While the city was distracted by the slaughter on the fore slope, the enemy attacked the New Town again, bursting through the poorly repaired breaches. They drove the defenders out almost as fast as those could run. By midmorning the Patriarchals were undermining the main wall and building artillery towers so they could shoot down onto the ramparts.

Here the confidence and procrastination of the Castreresonese betrayed them again. Shelters had not been set up to protect defenders from plunging fire. h.o.a.rdings had not been installed, making it more difficult to counterattack the masons undermining the wall. It was no longer possible to counterattack through the posterns. The enemy knew where they were. He buried them systematically. The main gateway from the city into the New Town got heaped with brush and timber and set afire.

This living history was written under continuously heavy gray skies, often in drizzling rain. With the full attendance of the Night.

Brother Candle was deeply troubled. Even the most fanatic Brothen Episcopals feared the Night, now, as a thousand awful stories circulated. Rook"s slime trails painted the fore slope, where so many had died. Death himself had been seen outside the barbican, tallying in his Book of Hours. A thousand people claimed their cousins or uncles had seen Hilt. Fragments of Kint lurked in every alleyway.

Brother Candle saw nothing. Nor did anyone else he spoke with. The reports were all hearsay. But their c.u.mulative impact was potent.

Socia wanted to know, "Why would the Old Ones help the Brothen Usurper? The Church wants to destroy them." She asked over a weak noontime meal of hard cheese and harder bread, taken in a small room off the kitchen in the keep of the Counts of Castreresone.

"Only speculation, mind," Brother Candle replied. "But I"d bet those people out there are asking how come the Old Ones are helping us when n.o.body over here wants to see them back."

The girl started to say something but had a thought. She shut her mouth.

"The Night doesn"t take sides. We only think it does because all we know is what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears." Considering events on the east bank of the Dechear, the Night might, indeed, have a definite preference in the current mortal squabble.

"They have members of the Collegium to help."

"They do," Brother Candle conceded. "Possibly some of the best." The enemy was not hiding that fact. Some of those Collegium members had no particular reputation. But Muniero Delari came wrapped in dread rumor. And Bronte Doneto, at Antieux, might be the most powerful Princ.i.p.ate of all. Doneto had spent his adult life hiding his real strength.

"We have no way to balance that."

"No. So all the advantages are on their side of the balance."

Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le showed up. He was depressed. "They"ve recaptured the tower on the far end of the bridge. And they"ve started building a floating bridge. We"ll try to wreck it tonight. But I don"t expect we"ll have much luck. There aren"t many citizens willing to go out there again."

There was more on Amberch.e.l.le"s mind. Brother Candle made a little rolling hand gesture, inviting him to continue.

"The Patriarchals still can"t manage a complete encirclement." With forty percent of their strength at Antieux or Sheavenalle and half the rest ravaging the countryside, the Patriarchals outside numbered no more than eight thousand. Still the largest concentration of troops seen in the Connec in generations. "We should consider leaving before the situation deteriorates any further."

"I thought Castreresone was impregnable." The Perfect was aware, though, that fugitives had been leaving since the Patriarchals appeared. Who were content to let them go. They would become an economic burden elsewhere.

"It could be. If it had leaders determined to defend it. The consuls and magnates aren"t willing to deal with a real siege. n.o.body wants his property demolished for stone and lumber. Let the other guy go first. And, of course, they"ll get help from Khaurene and Navaya before it gets that bad."

Brother Candle nodded. He knew. He saw it all the time. People could not believe that Tormond IV could go on being the Great Vacillator, now. Nor that King Peter was unlikely to send more men than were with Isabeth already. If he weakened himself any more the princes of al-Halambra would seize the opportunity to blunt the Reconquest.

Nor would there be direct help from Santerin, despite any wishful thinking. Though King Brill"s transgressions along Arnhand"s borders did now have Charlve the Dim and Anne of Menand distracted.

With invaders just sixty miles away Duke Tormond began, for the first time, rehearsing his military options.

Brother Candle hoped Tormond would defer to Sir Eardale Dunn. "You"re the man Count Raymone put in charge. I"m here to keep an eye on everybody."

Amberch.e.l.le was disappointed. Of course. He had hoped to be told what to do. "We"ll wait and see, then. If the magnates here go on pretending the situation isn"t desperate, we will act. Just be ready to go on short notice."

Brother Candle went up onto the wall south of the barbican two days later. A hundred fires burned outside, providing light for the Patriarchal artillerists. Their engines worked day and night. The troops manning them worked in shifts. Local people brought the stone and firewood.

Part of the barbican had collapsed a few hours ago. The main wall had begun to creak and groan and shift.

The Patriarchals had begun building floating wharves on the east side of the Laur, below their pontoon bridge. A dozen barges and boats were tied up already, unloading by night. Buildings were being erected to warehouse incoming cargo.

The besiegers were living far better than the besieged.

Though the siege might not go on much longer. The New Town had been lost. Now it looked like the crusaders meant to hit the Burg suburb again, soon.

Despair had found a home in the narrow, shadowed streets. Few people now believed this city, that had not been overcome in five centuries, would remain inviolate. They invested their hopes in Queen Isabeth and Duke Tormond.

Isabeth and her knights were twenty miles away. The Great Vacillator had sent out a call for volunteers to go help the Connec"s second city.

Brother Candle suspected little would come of that. A new, small hope came with news from Viscesment. Immaculate"s supporters had a.s.sembled after the departure of the Patriarchals. They had elected a successor to the murdered Anti-Patriarch. An unknown bishop, Rocklin Glas from Sellars in the Grail Empire, had accepted the ermine and a.s.sumed the inauspicious reign name Bellicose. He promised a vigorous campaign against the Pretenders of Brothe. Not the traditional resistance but an aggressive countercampaign. He had sent out a call for crusaders. Though he was not taken seriously outside Viscesment, the Society in those parts faced savage persecutions already. Reaping what they had sown.

Bellicose promised to execute a member of the Society every time a non-Brothen Episcopal suffered at its hands. He and Sublime were bee-busy excommunicating and publishing Writs of Anathema against one another. More insanity, Brother Candle thought. Maybe the sides could exterminate each other. Leave the world to the Unbelievers, the Seekers, and those whose harsh old deities had begun slithering in out of muck and shadow.

The Perfect Master grew increasingly dismayed as he watched the besiegers. He realized he was looking at something unseen since the collapse of the Old Empire.

Professional soldiers led by professional officers, chosen for competence rather than n.o.ble lineage, veterans all, were going about their business with the dispa.s.sionate skill of butchers and bricklayers. However much the n.o.bility on either side disdained them, they represented sudden, efficient death.

How would they stand up to a ma.s.sed heavy cavalry charge?

Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le found him there, in his pessimism. "Brother? I just left another meeting of the consuls and magnates."

"Let me guess. They can"t agree on a sensible course of action."

"You should be a professional gambler, Brother."

"I am, in a way, nowadays. Risking my soul chasing earthly illusions."

Amberch.e.l.le"s short, wide frame shuddered. "I"ve decided. They won"t do the needful things. The Patriarchals should go after the Burg in the morning. Tonight may be our last chance to get out."

"I feared as much. I am, of course, ready to go."

"Good. Good. There"ll be enough moonlight. We should be well away before sunrise." Amberch.e.l.le sounded shaky. Frightened and trying to hide it.

"Something out there worries you?"

"Rumors. Horrible things in the dark."

Brother Candle nodded, though the horrible things he had heard of were awful mainly on an intellectual level. Rook. Hilt. The other revenants. They were disgusting but nothing he feared. Not at the strength they possessed now.

They barely qualified as ghosts of the G.o.ds they had been.

Brother Candle said, "Very well. I"ll get my things and chivvy the girl."

"I"ve spoken to her already."

"Excellent. We might get out of here before sunrise."

It was midnight. Socia Rault and Brother Candle, accompanied by Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le and his a.s.sociates, eased out a sally port in Castreresone"s north end. They had waited half an hour for their turn. A human river was headed out.

Those Brother Candle made out by feeble moonlight were Seekers and other minorities. Those who had most to lose if Castreresone fell.

They made less than a mile before the clouds masked the moon permanently. The chill breeze picked up, growing colder. The darkness became oppressive.

A mile farther on the path rounded a hill. The darkness deepened. The fugitives now moved in a slow shuffle, feeling the way. There was talk of torches. n.o.body had one. Then someone with a clear head observed that a torch would attract enemy pickets. Who were out there somewhere. Who would cheerfully rob and murder them all. The Patriarchal city levies did most of the scouring of the countryside. The Captain-General did little to restrain their greed.

It stood to reason that if they killed everyone who resisted soon enough few Connectens would show any inclination to fight.

This darkness was not friendly. It hid them but also blinded them. The path wound between rolling hills. Eventually, it split. The right-hand path led to the old Imperial highway, which could be followed easily even in darkness. Bernardin Amberch.e.l.le had hoped to be on it a dozen miles west of the White City by first light.

That did not happen.

First light came. They had not found the old road yet.

There were delays, not only because of the darkness.

Things moved in the night, pacing them. Things that stank. Things that laughed foully. Things that raced across the path, triggering screams, apparently just for the h.e.l.l of scaring people.

Brother Candle"s band never reached the Imperial road. Word came that it was occupied by Patriarchals moving west to keep an eye on Queen Isabeth. They thought she might do something when she heard about the new a.s.sault on the Burg.

The band joined the rest of the fugitives, heading back to find another way. Snow began to fall.

"NO REST FOR THE WICKED," THE PERFECT MUTTERED TO Socia. He had had no intention of joining the Queen"s camp. He had gone there only because the road ran past Mohela ande Larges. And because the Navayans would make a nice block in the path of any pursuit. He followed the man who had recognized him among the refugees. "Michael Carhart, why must you do this to me?" He was amazed that the Devedian philosopher would be found outside Khaurene.

Carhart chuckled. "Relax. Isabeth just wants to talk about Castreresone. She"s harmless."

"So is an adder. To those wise enough not to sup with serpents."

Michael Carhart did not like that. "Watch your tongue, old friend. The n.o.bility have no patience for that sort of jest these days."

"Yes. I recall those times when the jongleurs roamed freely, like wild chickens, cackling that seditious nonsense to anyone who would listen."

"Make light if you like. But you know what I mean. Take care."

Brother Candle did understand. The mighty were not happy. They wanted someone else to hurt.

There were more familiar faces in the great hall of Mohela ande Larges, the little castle Isabeth had appropriated. She was accompanied by a half-dozen darkly handsome men, none of them her husband. King Peter must trust them indeed. Or the several women in shadow behind Isabeth were harsh enough chaperones to provoke Peter"s absolute confidence.

Michael Carhart joined others whose presence startled Brother Candle: Hanak el-Mira and Bishop Clayto. Friends. Or as much so as could be amongst men of such diverse backgrounds. Only Bries LeCroes was missing.

What had become of LeCroes? He should ask. He had heard no final disposition of the poisoner"s case.

The handsome men said nothing. They stared at the Perfect Master with a feigned indifference bordering on disdain. The Navayan n.o.bility were dedicated Brothen Episcopals, their faith tempered by worldly convenience. King Peter had more allies among Direcia"s Pramans than among rival Episcopal princes.

The Queen was courteous. "Be seated, Master. Your companions will be cared for. I understand they"re rather ragged."

Brother Candle inclined his head. "Socia Rault and I have spent months staying ahead of Arnhanders, Grolsachers, revenant demons, and now the Usurper Patriarch"s Captain-General."

"Tell me what you"ve seen since last our paths crossed."