Sheepfarmers Daughter (36 page)

When she opened her eyes next, she was stiff as a board and the surgeon was laughing at her in the lamplight. "Some watcher," he said. "If you were going to sleep, you should have found a pallet and stretched out."

Paks yawned and tried to focus her eyes. "I didn't know I was going to sleep. Sorry." She looked at Jenits, but he slept peacefully.

"No sign of fever," said the surgeon. "This time get comfortable before you go back to sleep."

Paks pushed herself up, shaking her head. "I won't sleep. What watch is it, anyway?"

"Don't worry. Stammel came by to tell you he wouldn't need you — "

"And found me asleep." Paks blushed.

"Well," said the surgeon, "he didn't wake you, and told me to let you sleep till dawn. That's another four hours."

Paks yawned again. "It's tempting — " The surgeon turned away. Three years' experience told her to take sleep when she could find it — but now she was awake, and curiosity kept her so. With a last look at Jenits, she left the tent and headed for the area assigned to her cohort.

Refer was snoring by the watchfire, but roused when she spoke to the sentry. He confirmed what the surgeon had said, and told her to get what sleep she could.

"We'll march tomorrow, and if we catch them, we'll fight." Refer yawned. "Clarts got many of'em, but six hundred or so are loose."

Paks held her hands to the fire; the night was cold after the surgeons' tent. "Stammel said our losses weren't bad — ?"

"No — not in our cohort. Three returned veterans. One recruit. Dorrin's was harder hit — but still not bad, considering. Go on, Paks, get some sleep." He pointed to a nearby tent; Paks edged in, found an empty space, and slept until day.

Despite Refer's prediction, they did not march the next day; instead they dismantled the enemy camp. Several squads went to the battlefield, returning with salvageable weapons and armor. Others cleared the camp itself of supplies: bags of grain and beans, great jars of wine and barrels of ale. One tent held all the gear for a smith's shop: anvils, hammers, tongs, bellows, and bars and disks of rough iron.

Most of this they carried into the storage cellars of the tower, each load tallied by a scribe from each company. Siger and Hofrin chose weapons to replace those damaged, and reserve supplies to take along. The enemy's mules were distributed to each company too, along with the feed for them.

From the talk she heard while working, Paks gathered that Siniava's army had come from the west. Before reaching this tower, they had taken those along the western border, and these were now garrisoned by Siniava's troops. But a survivor had escaped to warn the commander of the north watch, the Count of Andressat's son-in-law; when the enemy force arrived, it found the tower sealed and well defended. Clart scouts, riding ahead of the Halverics, had discovered the siege in progress, and the Halverics attacked the besiegers. Though heavily outnumbered, they had held the enemy close under the tower walls, where the Andressat archery could do its worst, until the rest of the Clarts and the Phelani arrived in force.

"They should have got out of here," said a Halveric corporal as he and Paks dragged sacks of grain across the tower court. "Only they thought they could break us and get rid of us — the fools — and we kept 'em busy enough they didn't think of anyone else."

"You had a rough time, then," said Paks.

"Oh — we fight close order, same as you. We just drew in and let 'em pound. We knew you was comin'. And we had some Clarts, to mess 'em about on the flanks."

"It's too bad they broke loose," muttered a Halveric private. "After what they did last year — "

"Too many of' em," said the corporal. "We mauled 'em enough, they'll be wary of us awhile. Besides, let 'em go tell their master they were beat again. Enough times running away like that, and they won't be good for anything — nor the ones they tell the story to, neilher."

By that night, the enemy camp was dismantled. Everything else was piled and burned, a great fire that leapt into the dark and told everyone for miles around that the enemy's camp was gone. Paks had a share marked to her in the account books. Her recruits were recruits no longer; they had all been promoted.

When they marched the next morning, Paks found herself moved up in the column; she was sorry about those whose death and injuries gave her the place, but she liked seeing ahead. All along the way she saw evidence of the enemy's flight: broken weapons, blood-stained clothing and armor, and bodies. Not all had been killed by Clarts or Halverics, as the wounds showed.

By midafternoon they reached the next tower to the west. A black and yellow banner flew from its peak, and a hail of arrows met them when they ventured closer. Their assault failed, and the two companies camped around the walls. The Clarts had ridden afar ahead, to scout the tower beyond, and returned with the news that it too was held by an enemy force.

At dawn the next day, Paks saw about fifty black-clad fighters come over the wall, barely visible in the dim light. She yelled an alarm and darted forward; an arrow glanced off her helmet. The archers were awake in the tower. She threw up her shield and plunged on with the rest of the sentries, as the camp came awake behind her. For a few desperate minutes, the sentries were outnumbered and hard pressed.

Simultaneously, enemy troops tried a sally from the south entrance, where the Halverics were just taking their positions for an assault. In minutes a howling mass of fighters swayed back and forth in front of the gate. More and more of Siniava's troops poured out, as Paks heard later from one of the Halveric soldiers.

"We had to give back; they had us outnumbered, but then your Duke brought two of your cohorts around, and it was stand and stick. That went on all morning, near enough. They couldn't break out, and we couldn't get in. Then they backed in a step at a time, and got that portcullis down — I'll say this for Andressat: they know how to build a fort."

Paks had been on the fringe of that battle, as one of the sentry ring on the other side. She met Barranyi in the cook tent.

"I'll tell you what, Paks," said Barra. "He's no fool, their captain. They came near breaking through more than once, and if they pick the right time, they might yet."

Paks mopped up the last of her beans with a crust of bread. "Not with the Halveric and the Duke. He won't surprise them. What I wonder about is how many more there are — at the next tower, and the next. We can hold these — but more?"

"Andressat has troops somewhere — "

"What — sixty or so in the first tower, and maybe as many in the next one or two? And they won't leave the towers unguarded."

"No, more than that. I heard Dorrin say something to Val about it this morning. Troops on the way, she said, and could be here this afternoon or tomorrow."

"I'll believe that, Barra, when I see it. Did you hear whether the Honeycat was in there?" she cocked her head at the tower.

"No. They all say not. And I haven't seen the banner his bodyguard carried last fall."

"I hope we don't waste too much time here, then. I wonder where that scum is."

"And what troops he has. All we can do is hope the Clarts don't miss anything."

"If he's clear off east — back toward Sorellin or those other cities — we could wander around here all season and never catch him."

Barra shrugged. "That's the Duke's business. Not yours." Paks stood up, and Barra eyed her. "Are you upset about anything in particular? More than Canna and Saben?"

"That, and — Barra, you know what he did to some of the prisoners last year— ?" Barra nodded. "We found a set of tools in one of the tents. I just want to be sure we do kill him."

"But his army'd still be — "

Paks shook her head. "No, I don't think they'll be the same, even if there's much army left. I think it's his doing."

"Maybe." Barra turned to greet Natzlin, coming from the serving line, and Paks waved and went back to her station.

The rest of that day the two forces did not change their positions. The Andressat troops arrived midmorning the next day. Paks thought they looked much more professional than the city militia she'd seen. They numbered just over a thousand, organized into four cohorts, each with two hundred foot and fifty horse. Paks watched as the Duke and the Halveric rode out to meet them. The Andressat troops moved into siege positions, and the mercenaries withdrew a space.

"I heard we march in the morning," said Vik, as he and Paks lugged tent poles from one camp to another.

"I hope so," said Paks. "That group can handle the tower without us."

"They do look good," conceded Vik. "But why d'you suppose they make their cohorts so big? They can't be as flexible."

"Huh. If we had that many men, we might find four units easier to move than—" Paks wrinkled her brows, trying to think how many it would be.

"Ten," said Vik smugly. "I wish we had — then nobody could stand against us."

"Nobody's going to." Paks grunted as they heaved the poles up in their new holes. "I hope we don't have to raise all the tents for only one night."

"I don't think so." Vik rubbed his sunburnt nose. "I'd like to know how many troops Siniava has — altogether."

"Not enough to stop us," said Paks grimly.

"I hope not. But look, Paks — if he could send eight hundred or a thousand up here — and he's not with them — he must have another army someplace. And his cities garrisoned. He could have a much bigger army than the Duke's put together."

"That's true." Paks frowned. "Well — if it is — "

"We'll do like the man with the barrel of ale," said Vik with a grin.

"What's that?"

"Don't tell me you never heard that! It's old, Paks."

"I never did. Tell me."

"Well, there was a man famous for what he could down at one swallow.

At a market fair, he won lots of free ale by betting that he could drink this jug or that, or a skin of wine, at one draught. Soon he was famous for miles around, and no one would bet. Then he went on a journey with a brother of his, and they stopped at an inn. His brother started bragging on what he could do, and the long and short of it is that the innkeeper asked him to wager. Well, he looked around the room, and saw no pot or jug he couldn't drain. He agreed to take but one swallow to empty any alepot in the room, or give up all his silver.

"But the innkeeper had his own tricks, and pulled aside a curtain by the bar, and there was a barrel half full of ale. Of course the man said it was no pot, but the others around said it was, and there were more of them, and they were armed.

"The man knew he was trapped, and he was angry besides. So he walked over and tried to lift it, and of course it was too heavy. The innkeeper told him to kneel down and drink from the bunghole — actually he said worse than that — laughing all the while, and the man was so angry he could nearly fly. So: No, he said, and I drink my ale standing, as any man may, he said, and he rammed a hole in the bottom and let the ale run out until he could lift it and drink the rest — in one swallow. His brother held the inn-keeper off in the meantime with a sword off the wall. And when he had finished, he said: A pot's what you can lift in your hand, innkeeper, and any fool who can't tell a pot from a barrel might sell a barrel of ale for the price of a pot. Then the townsmen laughed, and not just because of his strong arm, and made the innkeeper pay up. And he and his brother made their way on the road alive and no poorer. So now, where I grew up, if anyone takes on too much, we say he must be like the man with the barrel of ale: cut the trouble down to his size before swallowing it."

Paks nodded, laughing, and Vik went on. "This is letting some of the ale out of Siniava's barrel — he lost more than six hundred men last fall, and he'll lose these, and the rest in Andressat — say eight hundred or more. You can't pull that many well-trained troops out of a hat, you know. However many he's got, this will hurt."

"I hope so," said Paks.

For the next three days, the Halverics and the Duke's Company marched south to Cortes Andres. Rain and rugged country slowed them; the road zigzagged into steep valleys and back up to the sheep pastures. Paks saw carefully terraced slopes set with precise rows of dark sticks.

"Are those young fruit trees?" she asked Stammel.

"Tir, no! Those are grapevines. This is wine country, Paks."

"Oh. They don't look like any grapevines I've seen." Paks thought of the little black grapes of the north sprawling over bushes and walls in an untidy tangle.

"They are. Expensive ones, too. If we break off a single twig, the Count'd have our hides."

They passed through villages nestled in the sides of valleys: stone houses built so close together that the roof of one made the first story of another. Down in the narrow valleys, little plots of spring grain showed green, and a few fruit trees were just starting to bloom. Streams ran clean and clear in rocky beds. Paks saw no cattle, and noticed that the sheep and goats were often spotted in bold patterns of brown and black and white.

The rain which had slowed them covered their approach to Cortes Andres. Clart Cavalry slipped between Siniava's pickets and the city, and the retreating enemy ran straight into the front of the Duke's column.

Seen from the high ground on the northern road, Cortes Andres gave Paks an impression of great strength and stubbornness. Its outer walls were built of immense blocks of gray stone, while above the wall all the towers and battlements gleamed white. Two inner walls circled the city as well. The innermost, like the citadel which rose inside it, was built of pale gold stone. Of the buildings within the walls nothing could be seen but red-tiled roofs, which gave color to the stone around them. Paks could well believe that this citadel had never been taken by assault. She could not see anything of the rivers that came together just south of the city wall; she had been told they formed a deep gorge, and cliffs protected the city on that side.

They marched nearer. The rain stopped, and the sky lightened. Aliam Halveric rode up beside the Duke; both had their standard bearers display their colors. As they neared the gates, a blue and gold banner rose above it. Arcolin halted the column. After a short wait, a man rode from a narrow postern to meet the Halveric and the Duke. The Duke turned and waved; Arcolin started them moving again. They marched nearer. Paks noticed that the portcullis did not rise, nor the gates open. She glanced up. Bowmen edged the wall. The column had marched past the commanders in conference, but now the man from Cortes Andres rode forward and shouted up to the gate tower windows. Arcolin halted them again. Paks squinted up at the arrowslits and caught a glint of light. She felt sweat spring out on her neck, and fought the desire to swing her shield up. Suppose these were not Andressat's men, but Siniava's? The Duke rode up beside them. With a terrible screech the portcullis lifted from its bed. It moved more slowly than any Paks had seen, crawling up its tracks. Then the gates folded inward.

The gatehouse tower was uncommonly deep; Paks saw the tracks of three portcullises. Between them, when she looked up, were convenient holes for bowmen, and she thought she saw eyes gleaming behind each hole. They came out of the tower into a stone paved area between the first and second walls, bare of cover and easily commanded by either. Part of this had been fenced off for sheep pens, but all of it, Paks realized, would make a fine trap for an army that managed to take the outer gate.

The second wall loomed higher than the first, and its gate was offset to the west. They threaded their way between pens of sheep to halt outside the second gate tower. These gates too were closed, but a cluster of figures in blue and gold waited for them. Paks, marching in the first cohort, could see the deference with which the Duke and Aliam Halveric dismounted and walked up to the gray-haired man in the middle. It startled her to hear them addressed as "Aliam" and "young Phelan." She expected the Duke to object, but he answered courteously, calling the man "my lord Count." The captains were introduced, and after more conversation the Count strolled down their column. Paks wished they were not rain-wet and muddy. As he returned, he was chatting with the Duke about border towers and the condition of the vineyards. Paks could not see how they were related.

"Well, then," he said. "We haven't enough stabling within the inner walls for all those cavalry — your mount, of course, Phelan, and Aliam's, and your captains', will be in the citadel. Your troops can have barracks space in the second ring. Fersin, my aide, will direct them." One of his retinue bowed. "You'll dine with me in the citadel, and your captains as well. I expect they'll want to be housed with their cohorts, yes?" The Duke nodded. "I've arranged a suite for you and Aliam, convenient to my quarters; we have much to confer about." The Count glanced at the column again. "Do you — do you need separate barracks space for the women?"

"No, my lord Count."

"I see." He sounded doubtful. "We don't— meaning no disparagement to your troops, Phelan, but we have not seen so many women active in warfare. A paladin here or there, and occasional knight—but—well, no matter."

"I assure you, my lord, that they are quite capable." The Duke's voice was dry, and Paks suppressed a grin.

"Oh, quite — quite, I'm sure. Meant no disparagement. But one thing, Phelan, your troops can't wander about armed in the city — "

"Certainly not, my lord. They will stack their arms in barracks, and I had not planned to permit any wandering anyway."

"I didn't mean to sound inhospitable — "

"Not at all. No one wants strange troops straying loose. These won't."

"No harm if they go to the fountains — or if you need more supplies — but it might be better if they stayed close."

"Certainly."

"Very well, then. Fersin will direct my quartermaster to stand ready with any assistance. I know you brought your own surgeons, but if your wounded need special care, you have only to ask. Hobben — " He spoke to one of the gate guards. "Open this thing and let our guests through. Come along, Phelan, and tell me what you found." He turned away; the Duke and Aliam Halveric followed him through the opening gate.

The column followed Fersin, who turned left inside the gate and led them beside the wall to two-story stone barracks built against it.

"This and the next are empty," he told Arcolin. "If you need more bedding, just tell me. The baths — " he glanced back at the column, "are in the far end of this one, and the near end of the next; there's a kitchen in each cellar. By the Count's order, water's been heating since noon, for your convenience. If you need food, we can supply it, but it will take a little time, since I must speak to the quartermaster. I'd appreciate a squad of your men — uh, troops — helping me bring it — "

"We're well supplied," said Arcolin. "We have what we took from Siniava's army. But we appreciate the offer. Where shall we take the baggage mules?"

"I'll have stable boys come help you. Just a moment— " He looked up and caught the eye of one of the soldiers on the wall, then whistled a complicated phrase. The man saluted and turned away.

"We'll take the far building," said Arcolin. "The Halverics are behind us, and the Clarts behind them; we don't want any more confusion than necessary. Now, where are the fountains?"

"Just down that street," said Fersin, pointing. "There are full waterbutts in each barracks, but if you need more, feel free to get some."

"Thank you, Fersin. Stammel, two squads for the mules; send the rest in. I'll check back."

The Count's barracks were much like the Duke's: long clean rooms with wooden bunks. Each room would hold two cohorts if some slept on the floor, and there were plenty of pallets to make that comfortable. Soon the upper room was organized for the night. Paks caught Stammel's eye when he came upstairs to look.

"Why didn't that man call the Duke by his title?"

"The Count?" Paks nodded. Stammel shook his head. "Oh, he's what they call an aristocrat — one of the old kind."

"So?"

"Well, he doesn't think the Duke is really a Duke — from what I hear, the only duke he thinks
is
real is the Duke of Fall, over near the Copper Hills."

Paks frowned. "Is he like those bravos, then that you told me about my first year?"

"Tir, no! Nothing like. He really is a count, the sixteenth in his line, I think."

"But you told me nobody disputed the Duke's title."

"The Count doesn't dispute it; the Duke doesn't ask him to acknowledge it. That's different. Courtesy among allies. And if it doesn't bother the Duke, why should it bother you?"

"I don't understand." Paks felt that it ought to bother the Duke.

Stammel shrugged. "Remember what I told you about Aare — the old country across the sea?" Paks nodded. "Well, these southern nobles trace their titles back to it. They hardly allow that the throne of Tsaia has a king — or a crown prince, as he is — and they don't recognize Pargun and Kostandan and Dzordanya at all. You can see if they don't recognize the crown of Tsaia, they wouldn't acknowledge titles granted by it."

"I see." Paks laid out another blanket. "Well, is the Honeycat one of their kind of nobles, or our kind, or just made up?"

"I don't know. If anyone does, it'll be this count. They say he's so proud of his family that he can recite his fathers and mothers and aunts and cousins all the way back to the beginnings, and say who married whom two hundred years ago."

Paks thought about that, shaking her head. In her own family — she mused over it, coming up blank past grandparents, aunts, uncles, and near cousins. How could the count keep up with more? When she looked up, Stammel had gone on to something else.

Paks drew first shift for a bath, and came to the basement dining hall dry, warm, and comfortable. It would be strange to sleep indoors again. She wondered what it would be like to live in those barracks all the time — then remembered the count's comments on women, and chuckled to herself. Southerners had strange ideas. She wondered if southern women who wanted to be warriors went north.

The next morning they marched at first light, carrying only their weapons, to attack the besieging force that held the south road. They made their way around the city between the outer and second walls. On the south, the city seemed to tip itself over the edge of high cliffs. Before Paks could see what lay below, they dove into an echoing torchlit passage, steeply pitched, and came out on one landing of a zigzag stair winding down from wall to wall, and ending in a huge gatehouse still some way above the rivers. Here they were joined by some five hundred Andressat troops who had come by a different way. As the gates opened, Paks could see nothing at first but distant slopes, dim in the early light.

Once through the gates, the road ran steeply down to a platform above the confluence of the two branches of the Chaloquay: a wild, tossing whirlpool at this season. Upstream, on the right, a narrow road led down to a high arched stone bridge, guarded by towers at either end. The enemy held both towers.

With the roaring rivers close below, it was hard to hear the captains' commands, but their gestures were clear enough. Paks yawned, clearing her ears, and shifted her shield a bit as she marched forward with the others. Spray from the rivers drifted up, cold on her legs. As they dropped to the level of the bridge approaches, arrows skipped along the stones in front of them to shatter on the wall to their right. Archers from the bridge towers: Paks knew how bad that could be as they came closer. But a flight of arrows passed over them from the wall of Cortes Andres. Paks saw several enemy bowmen throw up their arms and fall from the nearer tower. Fewer and fewer archers cared to expose themselves to Andressat's accurate aim; the arrows stopped. Then as the road made an abrupt left turn to the bridge, Paks caught a glimpse of fleeing men on the road south. She hoped that meant the bridge was not defended. A battle was one thing, but she didn't like the thought of fighting over water, or being swept away in the Chaloquay's fierce currents.

The bridge gates, a lattice of heavy timbers rather like a folding portcullis, were closed; their own bowmen sent a volley of shafts through the lattice onto the bridge itself. The enemy retreated to the far tower. Doubling shields, the front rank of archers made it to the gates and unhooked the bar that held them closed. Another rank stepped forward to pull the gates open; soon they gaped wide. Their own archers ran for the tower stairs. Paks's cohort went forward onto the bridge. Nothing barred their way at the far tower; against the light that came through from the open air beyond she could see a dark mass: the enemy.

As they charged, Paks heard the whirr of a few arrows, but saw no one fall. The enemy fell back before them; the rear ranks were already turning to run. By the time the first two ranks were engaged, Siniava's men had retreated from the bridge approach, giving them room to spread out. Paks found herself an opponent. She pressed forward, fending off his blade easily until he left an opening, then she plunged her sword into his body. Another, and another, and the enemy was fleeing, breaking away from the fight in ones and twos and clumps to run gasping up the road away from the bridge. Paks and her cohort pursued, trying to keep their formation while pressing the attack. As they moved farther from the river, Paks could hear Arcolin shouting, urging them on.

Suddenly a thunder of hooves rose from behind them, and a company of cavalry in Andressat blue and gold rolled by, lances poised. Paks had a stitch in her side, and slowed her stride. With cavalry after them, they wouldn't get far. She looked around for her recruits. Keri and Volya were both grinning — she grinned back and took a deep breath as the stitch eased. Not as hard as she'd expected, not at all. Arcolin called them to a halt, and Stammel and Refer checked the lines. No one seemed to be hurt badly. Paks could hear other troops coming up behind them. The Duke rode past, and the Count, and Aliam Halveric and his captains. They were all talking and laughing. A cohort of Clarts trotted by, yipping and tossing their lances. Paks looked up the slope. Sunlight gilded the top of it, and she watched as it crept toward them, lighting on the way the lance-tips of the horsemen.