Colours in the Steel (38 page)

Nobody was moving, or whispering to the person sitting next to him, or even looking out of the window. Loredan was surprised and impressed; maybe they were going to take this thing seriously after all.

‘Now then,’ he continued, ‘I may not be a scholar of history, but I can’t call to mind any occasion when these magnificent walls of ours have ever been put to the test by a properly equipped assault force. Maybe they’re impregnable, maybe not; we just don’t know. I suggest we assume they aren’t, and try and get inside the other man’s mind. How would we go about attacking the walls of Perimadeia? Any suggestions?’

He folded his arms and waited. There was a long silence, as his audience tried to work out whether it had been a rhetorical question. Then a short, broad man with a beard stood up somewhere near the back, more or less opposite Loredan. The face was vaguely familiar; some kind of engineer, at a guess.

‘The answer to that’s quite simple,’ he said. ‘There’s three ways. One, knock the walls down. Two, climb over them. Three, dig under them. Simple,’ he added, ‘but not easy, if you get my meaning.’

Loredan nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go through them one at a time. Knocking them down; I take it you’re thinking of torsion engines, mangonels, trebuchets and so on, right?’

The engineer nodded. ‘And rams,’ he said. ‘But in order to use rams they’ve got to get across the river, which means building a causeway or floating a ram down the river on pontoons. Neither way’s easy, but both are possible.’

‘Right,’ Loredan said. ‘And you’re . . .?’

‘Leucas Garantzes, Deputy Municipal Engineer,’ the bearded man replied. ‘Responsible for maintaining the walls, guard towers and stationary engines on the landward side.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Loredan said. ‘Here’s what I want you to do. I don’t actually know how effective rock-chucking engines are against heavy masonry, so I want some facts and figures - ranges, capacities, rates of fire, some indication of what each class of engine is capable of. Now, we don’t actually know anything about what they’ve got, but we can start by assuming they’re copies of the government pattern. Once we know what they can do, we’ll know what we need to do to counteract them. Agreed?’

Garantzes nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, and sat down.

Loredan drew a deep breath. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere, ’ he said. ‘Anybody here who can provide me with scale plans of the defences?’

Nobody moved for a while; then a very young man near the front stood up and said, ‘I think I can help with that.’

‘And you are?’

‘Timoleon Molin,’ the young man replied. ‘Surveyors’ Office. Really I’m in charge of drainage and flood precautions, but we’ve got lots of detailed maps in the office, which ought to do.’

‘That’s good,’ Loredan said, and Molin sat down again with obvious relief. ‘Anybody here from the arsenal?’

The man who stood up was short, bald and slightly stooped. ‘Teodrico Tiron,’ he said. ‘I make catapults.’

‘Just the job,’ Loredan said with approval. ‘I want you to get together with Timoleon over there and Deputy Garantzes and draw me a plan of the walls showing the fields of fire of all the stationary engines we’ve got in place already, and any blind spots or places where we could do with upgrading the artillery cover. If their engines look like they’re going to be a threat, our best chance is to be able to knock them out before they get going.’ He turned to his left. ‘City Prefect,’ he said, ‘while we’re on the subject, I’d like to talk to all the full-time artillery captains about what they’re capable of at the moment, and sort out some intensive training. I want us to be able to hit what we shoot at, otherwise we’ll just be wasting our time.’ He paused to draw breath, going over in his mind what had been said. ‘Now, unless anybody can show me something I’ve missed, we’ve covered their first option. Let’s turn to the second option, scaling the walls.’

As he continued, he could feel the mood of the council changing; from curiosity to a kind of stunned acceptance of all the work they were being so high-handedly assigned; and he wondered,
Why are they taking all this like it was words of wisdom from some great general? Can’t they see I’m making it all up as I go along? Or hadn’t it even occurred to them to do any of these things? Why’s it all suddenly up to me, for gods’ sakes?

‘Now then, food distribution,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I know we’ve got a fair bit put by, and the Prefect’s Office is adding to that by large-scale purchasing on the open market, so that’s fine; but I think it’d help if we knew exactly how many people we’ve got to feed, and how we’re going to go about organising distribution. Anybody here from the Chancellor’s Office? Good; now, I know it’s been a long time since we had a proper census...’

He suddenly realised he’d run out of things to say. He felt awkward; he didn’t know how to wrap up a speech and sit down again -
well, of course I don’t, I’m a fencer, for gods’ sakes
- and wasn’t sure how to work it out from first principles. So he nodded, again, and turned to the Prefect.

‘I think that’s all I wanted to say,’ he said. ‘City Prefect, over to you.’

The Prefect got up, looking slightly startled. ‘Thank you, Colonel Loredan,’ he said. ‘Well now, it seems that we all have a great deal of work to do, so I suggest we adjourn until this time tomorrow. Gentlemen.’ He dipped his head in a shallow nod, and everybody stood up and started chattering at once; the abrupt swell of noise and surge of movement put Loredan in mind of a flock of rooks suddenly put up off a field of wheat stubble. He stayed where he was, hoping he’d be left alone while he tried to make sense of it all.

‘My congratulations, Colonel.’ It was that damn fool of a Prefect, glowering at him from under his spectacular eyebrows. ‘You’ve contrived to make yourself the most important man in the city.’ He paused for effect. ‘After myself, of course. I do hope you’ll bear that in mind.’

Oh, good, threats. Now I know where I am
. ‘You want to give this job to someone else, City Prefect,’ he said wearily, ‘please, be my guest. I’m still trying to figure out where all that stuff came from.’

The Prefect raised an eyebrow. ‘I imagine from your time on General Maxen’s staff,’ he said. ‘Where, I assume, you learnt to use your common sense in dealing with matters of administration.’

‘Ah.’ Loredan couldn’t help grinning. ‘So that’s what we were doing. Odd; all I can remember is a lot of sleeping rough and fighting people. I suppose you’re right, though; it
is
just common sense, and recognising the fact that we don’t know how to go about this, so we’d better try and work it out before we start. Is that really why I got lumbered with all this?’

The Prefect sat down beside him and leant close to his ear. ‘Partly,’ he said. ‘Mostly, it’s politics. I think I’ve been guilty of sloppy thinking; I assumed you’d have realised. It’s quite simple; you used to be a military officer, and now you’re nobody. If someone has to be given extraordinary powers to co-ordinate the defence of the city, a political nonentity like yourself is obviously the safest bet.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘No chance of you siding with one faction or the other and setting yourself up as a military dictator. We have to bear these things in mind, you see. And,’ he added graciously, ‘you would appear to be reasonably competent. As I said a moment ago, it’s mostly just common sense.’

The Prefect wandered away to talk to someone else, probably unaware of the heavy load of savage curses he’d suddenly accumulated. Loredan put him firmly out of mind, and had decided to try sneaking out into the city and maybe even going home for an hour or so when he noticed Alexius beckoning him. With a soft sigh he made his way across the chamber.

‘The Prefect’s just been explaining why I got the job,’ Loredan said. ‘Apparently it’s because I’m a person of no consequence whatsoever. With men like him in charge, it amazes me that we haven’t tried sorting out this business with diplomacy. He’d make a marvellous ambassador.’

‘It never ceases to amaze me how clever the fools are in this city,’ Alexius replied. ‘I’ve known Bolerun for fifteen years on and off. He’d spent his entire life getting to the stage where he can be an abject failure in the most public manner imaginable.’

Loredan looked puzzled. ‘Bolerun?’ he asked.

‘Meinas Bolerun. The City Prefect.’

‘Oh.’ Loredan shrugged his shoulders. ‘You see? I don’t even know what these people are called. In fact, I don’t know if he’s been Prefect for years and years, or if he only took office last month. I don’t suppose most people do, come to that.’

Alexius muffled a yawn with his knuckles. ‘If it’s any consolation,’ he replied, ‘by sunset tonight everybody in the city will know who you are.’

‘No,’ Loredan said bleakly. ‘It isn’t.’

 

Feeling slightly dazed, Venart found his way back to the inn (follow your nose till you come to the river, second turning and then immediately left) and asked for a small jug of cider.

There was more to rope, he’d discovered, than meets the eye. Rope, in fact, had turned out to be a subject of such multifarious complexity that a hundred scholars devoting their lives to its study would never obtain more than a faint and misleading shadow of understanding of the great miracle that was rope. Perimadeian rope, at any rate; back home, rope came in thick, medium or thin, hairy or smooth, cheap and nasty or good but expensive, and that was all you needed to know apart from how much of the stuff you wanted. Two whole days touring the ropewalks of the city, however, had opened his eyes, with the result that he knew rather less than he did when he’d started, but was at least properly aware of the scale of his own ignorance.

He also hadn’t bought any rope. First thing tomorrow, he promised himself, he would go out and buy some rope. Any rope, so long as it was cheap. After all, if he didn’t understand rope, neither did the people he intended to sell it to.

On the other hand, he mused as he put the jug on the fender to mull, thanks to his guided tours he now knew something he hadn’t known before, and knowledge is never wasted. Now he knew that there was flax rope, reed rope, rope made from a mixture of flax and reed, rope made from the hair of any number of different animals (except that it wasn’t called rope, and what it was called he couldn’t now remember), there was silk rope, which was surprisingly cheap, and there was cheap rope, which had turned out to be more expensive than he’d bargained for; above all, there was bulk rope, which was what he wanted to buy and what everybody wanted to sell him. It was only the incidental details, such as price, that were holding up the clinching of the deal.

He poured out half a mug of cider and drank a couple of mouthfuls, relishing the unfamiliar flavour of the nutmeg; a typical city refinement that he liked very much. There was something else, he realised; something he was missing.

Namely, one sister.

He put the mug down and got to his feet, uncertain what to do. His first thought was that something had happened to her; an innocent girl, on her own in a decadent and sophisticated city. What had he been thinking of, letting her loose on her own? Even while he was caught up in the first surge of panic, a rational voice inside him pointed out that Vetriz wasn’t entirely innocent, and it was a matter of cold fact that Perimadeia was a much safer place to wander about in, especially at night, than the Island. There was also the problem of where to start looking, in a place this size. He sat down again, and had another swig of cider to clear his mind.

She was supposed to come straight back here, and that was four hours ago. By now, she’s either dead or shopping
.

Either way, continued the irritatingly rational inner voice, the chances of finding her by just wandering up and down are depressingly slim. Far more sensible to sit down, keep calm and stay put until she finally turns up. Venart had no answer to that; so he shooed away the mental image of his sister lying bleeding to death in an alleyway (feebly calling his name with her dying breath, needless to say) and finished off the cider, which it would have been wasteful to leave now that he’d paid for it. It was particularly good cider, robust without being heady, and he was just about to get another jug when he heard a loud, musical and familiar voice coming from the other room. He jumped up, tripped over a sleeping dog, swore and went through.

There was his sister; and with her another girl, pretty, vaguely familiar. Relief, good manners in the presence of a stranger and a small jug of good cider dissipated his fraternal wrath; he waved and joined them.

‘Hello, Ven,’ Vetriz said. ‘Sorry, I completely lost track of the time. I’ve been shopping.’

‘I thought as much,’ Venart replied casually. ‘Er . . .’

‘This is Athli,’ she went on. The pretty girl smiled politely. ‘You remember, we met her in that tavern the day we went to the lawcourts.’

Ah, yes, that was it. The fencer’s clerk
. ‘Hello,’ Venart said. ‘Nice to see you again.’ Quite decidedly pretty, Venart said to himself, while Vetriz explained that they’d bumped into each other in the stationery market and Athli had been kind enough to help her with her shopping, so she’d asked her back for something to eat. Venart agreed that that was the least they could do, and made some feeble joke about maintaining the Island’s reputation for hospitality. Another part of him was wondering whether it was usual for unmarried girls in this city to go out dining in taverns after dark with chance acquaintances; a futile reflection, he decided, since here one was, doing just that.

It was a good meal, as one would expect from one of the best inns in the city; a dish of roast quails with soft white rolls followed by a fair-sized red mullet with capers and a wine sauce; then the inevitable Perimadeian main course, the ‘table’ - a round, flat, thin sheet of unleavened bread made exactly the same diameter as the table they sat round, onto which the serving boys ladled dollops of strange and colourful mixtures out of huge steaming cauldrons. Venart and Vetriz eventually managed a third of the thing between them, while their guest effortlessly dealt with the rest. In fact, she finished before they did and was happily recommending the sweet dumplings in cranberry sauce while they were nerving themselves to swallow the little dough shovels still between their fingers. However often I come here, Venart told himself, I’ll never get used to the amount they eat; which would make a siege interesting, as well as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity.