Queenmaker 16-17
Chapter Sixteen
The march was as rough as I’d expected.
It wasn’t just that we needed to march fast, but that we had to take Captain Alonzo’s men with us. Some were in great shape, some really should have been left behind … would have been, if I could guarantee their safety. There was no way I could. The mine had been wrecked beyond easy repair, then abandoned save for a skeleton guard. If an enemy patrol realised what we’d done and moved in to take the post, they’d take it. A handful of men had objected, but I’d overruled them. Either we won the war, and retook the mine afterwards, or we lost. If that happened … I hoped the warlord had problems fixing the mines. We’d done enough damage to make certain the mine wouldn’t be back in production for months, if not years.
I smirked at the thought as we avoided the enemy troop – on their way to kick us out of the mining complex – and continued on our way to Houdon. The enemy didn’t seem to realise what we’d done, somewhat to my relief. No tactician worthy of the title could fail to grasp the simple fact we couldn’t keep the mine, not unless we wanted to be pinned down by some very motivated enemy troops, and the enemy CO might have figured I had something else in mind. A pawn-queen swap … but which prize was the pawn and which the queen? I knew which one I counted the greater prize, yet I had no idea what my enemy was thinking. He might have worked out what I was doing and moved to counter my plan.
The scout galloped up to me. “Sir, I counted at least a thousand infantry marching to the mine,” he said. “They didn’t have a strong cavalry screen.”
“Good,” I said. “Go get yourself something to eat, then rejoin the march.”
The scout nodded and hurried off. I watched him go, hoping to hell the scout had counted the enemy forces accurately. The old scouts, the ones I’d retrained ruthlessly, had been prone to guessing, providing estimates that were either ridiculously tiny or massively exaggerated to the point of absurdity. A thousand men sounded reasonable, if one wanted to retake the mine as quickly as possible. The missing cavalry was odd – cavalry had no business trying to hold down a city – but there might be a good explanation. The warlord had good reason to want to sweep the countryside, if only to keep the peasants on their knees. A major revolt in his rear would blow all his plans to hell.
“They took the bait,” Horst said, quietly.
“They had no choice,” I said. The warlord would murder the idiot who left the mine in my hands, even though – objectively speaking – there was no point in hurrying. We’d already stolen everything that could be stolen, then wrecked everything that could be wrecked. “It’s time to move.”
We marched on, pushing our men to the limit as night started to settle over the land, and only slowing as Houdon itself came into view. The city was darker than Damansara, few lights visible in the gathering darkness. I wouldn’t have known it was a city if the wind hadn’t shifted, blowing the stench into my face. Houdon smelt worse than Damansara … I guessed the warlord hadn’t allowed the city fathers to start cleaning the streets, pushing basic sanitation and everything else that might save the city from becoming a cesspit. Or the city fathers simply didn’t care. Either was possible.
“Get the men into their outfits,” I ordered, quietly. “It’s time.”
Horst nodded. “You too, sir,” he said. “If you’re really bent on coming …”
I shot him a sharp look – I was damned if I was going to send men to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself – and pulled the cloak over my head. The lead horses were already clad in stolen caparisons … horse clothes, I translated mentally. The warlord had gone to some trouble to outfit his cavalry properly, giving them decent uniforms as well as light armour that might – might – save their lives if they ran into something they couldn’t outrun. I felt an odd twinge of discomfort as we changed, then unfurled a stolen banner. The enemy wouldn’t see a threat, when we approached. They’d see a cavalry unit wearing their master’s livery.
They’ll realise what we did, I told myself, as my eyes swept up and down the mounted infantry. They didn’t look right, to the experienced eye, but I was counting on the gloom to cover any mistakes. Their weapons were hardly typical … I snapped orders at a couple of men, telling them to sling their rifles. The enemy might notice if the troop looked like they were riding to war. But even when they know what we did, they’ll have problems dealing with it.
I grinned. I’d given strict orders that security precautions were to be followed to the letter and made it clear – though a series of unannounced drills – that anyone who followed them would be backed to the hilt. An aristocratic commander would throw a fit, and order a guard whipped, if that guard dared to demand his papers; I’d proven, several times, that I’d promote any guard who stood his ground, no matter who tried to bully his way through the checkpoint. The warlords couldn’t do the same, not unless they wished to undermine their prestige. And that would send morale straight into the crapper.
“We’re heading home for the night, at least until the shit hits the fan,” I reminded them. It was unlikely, to say the least, that any of the guards would recognise the cavalrymen, but there was no point in taking chances. “Remember, as far as they’re concerned, we’re friendly. Don’t give them any reason to think otherwise until it is too late.”
I glanced at Captain Alonzo. “Ready?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Forward,” I snapped.
The mounted infantry flowed forward, down the road. We made no attempt to hide our approach. It was vitally important the enemy believed us to be friendly and that meant we had to act as if we had nothing to fear, even though we did. I frowned as I studied the city’s defences, cursing the warlord under my breath. The walls would have been practically invulnerable, once upon a time, but now they were useless. Worse than useless. Their mere presence would make the city fathers feel safe, until the enemy brought up massed cannons and battered the walls into powder. And then they would sack the city.
I glanced at our banners, rippling in the wind, then back at the gatehouse. It was a small castle in its own right, solid enough to give cannonballs trouble and carefully designed to ensure that any conventional assault would be incredibly costly. My blood ran cold as a spotted the murder holes, designed to let archers rain death on an advancing enemy, and half-concealed slits intended to release boiling oil, if the attackers got close enough to actually try to scale the walls. The city had never been completely invulnerable, but taking it would have been incredibly costly. But now … a modern army could take the city effortlessly.
The gates opened as we approached. We didn’t slow, even though we were cantering into a killing zone, a trap designed to pin us down until we were wiped out. We’d gone through a handful of contingency plans, if the enemy played it smart and let us inside the killing zone before opening fire, but escape was going to be difficult, if not impossible. If we were caught …
We galloped through the inner gates and into the courtyard. The guards were already pulling open the gates leading into the city itself, without even bothering to check our identities. I suspected they didn’t want to piss off the warlord’s cavalry. They were almost always aristos – or at least wealthy enough to keep up with the blue-bloods – and could cause real trouble for a hapless guardsman. Or worse … Cuthbert would have marched his front-line troops to Damansara, leaving reserve formations to keep Houdon under control. The few deployable forces the enemy CO had under his command were on their way to recapture the mine.
I glanced around rapidly, then put the whistle to my lips and blew. The men reacted splendidly, leaping off their horses and rushing to overwhelm the defenders before they could react. They gaped in shock, rather than trying to raise the alarm … they barely had a moment to grab for their weapons before they were shot or knocked down or otherwise put out of commission. My men darted past them, heading up and into the gatehouse itself. The enemy couldn’t be allowed any time to think, not when they still had cards to play. If they dropped the portcullis and locked it in place, they might trap us within the gatehouse. It was what I would have done, if I’d been in their shoes. The operation could still fail spectacularly …
Someone shouted outside. I heard trumpets blaring and cursed under my breath as I pulled the makeshift firework from my belt, placed it on the ground and lit the fuse. Someone had reacted quickly, inside the city itself. The trumpets would bring the enemy’s entire force down on our heads quickly, if I gave them the chance. The firework whooshed into the air and exploded, a flash that could be seen for miles around. The remainder of my force, lurking outside the city, would throw caution to the winds and gallop to the gates. And once they arrived …
“Sir,” a scout snapped. “The gatehouse is in our hands!”
“Lock the gates open,” I ordered. I had no intention of losing, but cutting my line of retreat was asking for trouble. The rest of the gatehouses would be a great deal harder to capture, if we couldn’t force a surrender. “Order the first and second units into the city; the third and fourth are to hold the gatehouse against all comers.”
The scout nodded and hurried off. I ran to the inner walls myself and scrambled up to peer over the city, ignoring the handful of bodies on the battlements. Houdon looked very much like Damansara – buildings packed too close together, slums and makeshift shelters clearly visible in the alleyways – but it was weirdly quiet, as if the people were too scared to go out after dark. The enemy had probably enforced a curfew … I gritted my teeth as I stared towards the palace, taken over by the enemy and turned into a centre of operations. My men were well-trained, but if the enemy had time to deploy …
Captain Alonzo joined me. “If I go into the city now …”
“Go,” I said. The shooting and trumpets would have been audible all over the city. The population would know liberation was at hand … would they rise? Or had they been so badly treated they were too scared to revolt? “Hurry.”
I dropped back to the ground and snapped orders as my men flowed into the city, engaging and destroying an enemy patrol that either hadn’t known what was happening – unlikely – or hadn’t realised it was already too late to reinforce the gatehouse garrison. Horst sent scouts further into the city as we secured the nearest district, telling the inhabitants to keep their heads down and out of the fight. There would be too much confusion, in the darkness, to ensure the civilians attacked only the enemy. I wanted them to rise in enemy-controlled territory, but not in mine. They might accidentally defeat their own liberators.
The scout returned. “Sir, enemy units are forming up near the palace.”
“Good,” I said. I hadn’t wanted a long-drawn out siege. The enemy might not know it – we were certainly doing everything in our power to hide it – but they had superior numbers. They still held the other gatehouses … not that it mattered. I didn’t have any reinforcements on the way. If the enemy realised they still had the edge, they’d throw everything they had at me. “Prepare to engage.”
“Yes, sir.”
I waited, my men rushing past to secure their positions. We didn’t know enough about the enemy CO to guess what he’d do, if he thought the city was on the verge of falling into my hands. The laws of war were clear – the city should surrender, once the enemy troops were over the walls and inside the city itself – but would he follow the rules? I’d made it clear to my troops that raping, looting and killing would not be tolerated and, ironically, it might have come back to bite me. If I couldn’t threaten to storm the city, my legal right if the city refused to surrender, the enemy CO might feel he could get away with defying me. It wasn’t his city. The nasty part of my mind noted that would probably make it easier for him to decide to destroy it.
And if they draw us into an urban fight, we’re fucked, I thought. Unless the enemy CO was a complete halfwit, he’d already dispatched messengers to the warlord himself. The bastard would dispatch troops and force-march them back to Houdon, trying to catch me between two fires. I doubted they could manage the coordination they’d need to make it work, but it wouldn’t matter. If I took heavy causalities, there was no way I could put the second half of the plan into action. We need to act fast …
“Hold the line,” I ordered. My mortar teams were opening fire, lobbing shells into enemy positions. Their accuracy was shit – we didn’t have anything like the kind of weapons the insurgents had used in Iraq – but they’d be playing merry hell with enemy morale. “Let them come to us, so we can break them.”
I left Horst with the main force and stepped into an apartment block, hurrying up the stairs and out onto the rooftop. The palace was brightly lit – I could see men running around like headless chickens, their officers and sergeants trying to get them into formation – and an enemy force was already on its way, pushing through the streets as if the devil himself was after them. I felt a stab of sympathy, even though the men were on the other side. Their CO was a cold-blooded monster, sending them to charge our positions and soak up our bullets. It might work too. We didn’t have any supplies on the way, just what we’d brought with us. If we ran out of ammunition …
The enemy force seemed to stall. I stared, unable to see what was happening. A mutiny? Or … my eyes narrowed as I spotted dark figures on the rooftops, throwing slates and stones on the enemy forces. A dull roar echoed over the city as more people charged onto the streets, laying down their lives just for a chance to get at the enemy soldiers. The city was rising … I hoped, prayed, most of the rebels would live to see the dawn. The enemy soldiers weren’t very well trained and most of them wouldn’t have any qualms about hurting, or killing, civilians. All hell was about to break loose.
My lips twisted as the enemy force shattered. It had been caught by surprise, assembled at tearing speed and marched into battle against a force that had already, as far as they knew, broken into the city itself. And now … I gritted my teeth as I saw men running in all directions, some tearing at their armour as they tried to flee. I doubted many would make it. The locals knew their city like the back of their hand, knew their fellows … it was unlikely any soldier or mercenary would manage to go to ground long enough to escape the city before it was too late. The latter were in real trouble. The citizens would slaughter them like bugs.
I hurried back downstairs and took command, directing my troops to secure the palace and enemy warehouses before someone bright spark had the idea of setting fire to them. Reports were incredibly confused; one scout insisted the gatehouse garrisons were trying to surrender, another reported the garrisons had abandoned their posts and were fleeing into the countryside. I suspected the latter was more likely to be accurate. The citizens were in no mood to take prisoners.
“Sir,” Horst said. He was grinning from ear to ear. “You have a visitor.”
I looked up, then smiled as a middle-aged man in a fancy uniform – I couldn’t help thinking he looked like a military officer from a particularly unstable country – was shoved into my presence. He looked incredibly shaken. His escort – ten men in light armour – had already been disarmed. The man stared at me, his mouth working soundlessly. I resisted the urge to say something cutting. I’d seen too many enemy commanders who’d sent their men to their deaths, then tried to surrender.
“I …” The man stopped and started again. “My Lord, I …”
“No terms.” I cut him off without a second thought. “Unconditional surrender.”
He stared at me in shock. I stared back, coldly. I had no intention of treating him as a guest, rather than a prisoner; I certainly had no intention of ransoming him or anything else that would set him above the common herd. The aristos regarded war as a sport because they rarely suffered the consequences – if they were captured, they were ransomed; if they were injured, they were healed – and if that didn’t change …
He swallowed. “My Lord, I …”
“Tell your men to surrender, or I’ll hand you over to the cityfolk,” I said, bluntly. I had no idea if he could surrender his men – I doubted he’d had any control even before he’d run to my troops – but it was worth a try. “What do you choose?”
He bowed his head. I grinned. The city was mine.
Chapter Seventeen
“It is good that war is so terrible,” I muttered. “Or else we might get too fond of it.”
I scowled, inwardly. General Lee had been a traitor – he’d fought for a bad cause, although I gave him credit for accepting the cause was lost and surrendering to the inevitable – but he’d known how to turn a phrase. Lee had seen the devastation of the first total war. He’d marched beside his men, starved with them … if the warlord and his aristocratic officers had felt the pain of war, the suffering inflicted on the common folk, they might have thought better of starting a fight. But then, it was rare for them to suffer. I intended to make sure that changed.
My mood darkened as I surveyed the inner city. The uprising had turned into a bloody rebellion, with enemy officers and collaborators dragged out of their hidey-holes and savagely torn to pieces by the crowd. Their womenfolk had suffered worse. They’d been beaten bloody, then bent over and raped repeatedly until I’d managed to get my men into position to stop it. Stores had been looted, drunken rioters had tried to set fire to hundreds of buildings … I suspected, although I had no way to prove it, that a number of personal scores had been settled in the chaos. Morning had brought a certain degree of calm , but I could feel the tension in the air. The city was still angry. It still wanted revenge.
I scowled as I watched the enemy prisoners, shackled together, picking up bodies and piling them up in the streets. Other teams were already outside the city, digging a mass grave for the bodies that couldn’t or wouldn’t be identified. The looters had been through the bodies already – they’d stolen everything the poor bastards had been carrying, when they’d been killed – and I feared most of them would never be identified, let alone returned to their families for burial. I doubted the warlord would care. If he’d given a damn about his men, he wouldn’t have put them in such a trap.
We won, I thought, darkly. The Battle of Houdon would go down in history as a great victory. A small force had invaded the city, sparked an uprising and defeated an enemy garrison that had enjoyed, at least on paper, superior numbers. So why does it feel like a defeat?
“My Lord,” Captain Alonzo said, hurrying over to join me. He was the closest thing to a leader the city had, after half the city fathers had been murdered by the occupation force and the other half executed for collaborating with the enemy. I privately suspected he’d make himself into a dictator, if he didn’t set up a new council, but it didn’t matter. “I want Lord Sourpuss.”
“Lord Sothern,” I corrected. I supposed the enemy CO did look a bit of a sourpuss – he’d started complaining the moment I’d put him in a cell, purely for his own safety, and as far as I knew he’d kept complaining – but insulting one’s enemy after he’d been imprisoned was just immature. “Why do you want him?”
“He ruled this city from when it was occupied until now,” Alonzo pointed out, sharply. “He led the troops and mercenaries that raped the city … that stole and raped and murdered their way across the city! He needs to pay!”
I couldn’t disagree. It had only been a few hours, but I’d already seen plenty of evidence of how the occupying force had mistreated the civilians. Men killed for daring to protect their pretty daughters, the daughters flinching away from all men … if they’d been lucky enough to be allowed to go home, older women forced to cook and clean for the troops, merchants robbed and beaten when they’d complained … the list went on and on, a liturgy of horror that would have broken the city completely, if we hadn’t attacked and liberated the people. I had no qualms about handing Lord Sothern over to face justice, but …
On one hand, we need to make it clear atrocities will not go unpunished, I thought. On the other, we don’t want to discourage later surrenders.
I sighed, inwardly. On paper, there was a clear procedure for surrendering a city to an invading force. In practice … the enemy troops hadn’t had a chance to line up and march out of the city, nor had the enemy officers had a chance to convince their captors they were worth more alive or dead. Lord Sothern had told me there’d been over fifty officers who might bring in a good ransom, if they were taken alive, but only two had been captured. The remainder were either missing or dead. One had been killed by his harem, who’d been very inventive. I didn’t want to think about what they’d done to him. It would make me limp forever.
Poor bitches, I thought, tiredly. The girls hadn’t asked to become part of his harem … but their lives were still at risk. They’d be lucky if they merely had their heads shaved. But at least they got their revenge on their tormentors.
“We’ll hold a trial,” I said, finally. “But we also need to prepare for the coming battle.”
Alonzo made a face. “Are you sure Cuthbert is going to come here?”
“Yes,” I said. “He has no choice. And if we’re not ready for him …”
I paused, letting my words sink in. Alonzo wasn’t a fool, but – like so many other cityfolk – his awareness of the greater world was very limited. The occupation should have shaken him out of his complacency, but … I understood the urge to pretend everything was back to normal and there was no need to prepare for another fight. I understood … but could not share. We’d won a battle, not the war.
My thoughts darkened. Cuthbert had turned Houdon into a giant supply depot. The warehouses were crammed with everything his army needed to advance and fight, from guns and ammunition to food, drink, and medical supplies. The buildings were tiny compared to some of the giant storage units I’d seen back home – the logistics bases in Kuwait had been staggeringly huge – but by local standards it was pretty impressive. They’d brought along a shitload of luxury goods for the aristos – fine wine, finer food, the kind of bedding one would expect to find in a luxury hotel – yet they hadn’t skimped on anything else. I had to give Cuthbert credit. He’d done a bang-up job of preparing his logistics for the big push …
… And now it was mine, all mine.
I smiled as I contemplated his reaction. Yesterday, he’d been patiently waiting for Damansara to starve to death – or surrender. Today … he was now cut off from his supplies, his army suddenly threatened with starvation and collapse. I doubted he’d be able to maintain discipline, once it dawned on his men that there’d be no more food on the way, and I doubted he’d be able to survive by pillaging the countryside. I’d warned the locals to hide or destroy their food supplies, but even if they hadn’t there were limits to how much the army could take and use. They’d starve to death, beaten without a fight. Unless …
He has two choices, I reminded myself. He can attack Damansara, which would be incredibly risky, or he can try to retake Houdon.
I knew what I’d do, if I was in his shoes. If he tried and failed to take Damansara, he’d be fucked. His lords would desert him. It would all be over, bar the shouting. A successful attack on the city would be a little less catastrophic, at least at first, but the city supplies wouldn’t last indefinitely. I’d given orders to make sure all military supplies were destroyed before they could be captured. He might win the battle and ravage the city, then lose the war anyway. No, his only realistic choice was to lift the siege and head back to Houdon before I dug in and prepared to fight to the death. He’d certainly left me enough supplies to keep up the fight for weeks.
Alonzo nodded, curtly. “You’ll have my full support,” he said. “But we do insist on putting Sourpuss on trial.”
“We start work first,” I said. “We can hold the trial once the digging is underway.”
I had to give Alonzo credit too. He was a great organiser. He had entire battalions of young men and women marching out within the hour, digging trenches and piling up earthworks and siting defences and everything else we needed to do to make the city a far harder target for a modern army. His guardsmen – or what was left of them – ran up and down, helping to keep the streets under control while my men assisted in training the newborn army. A year ago, there would have been no way to prepare the city in time; now, it only took a few hours of training to teach someone how to load, fire and maintain a flintlock or rifle. I wasn’t blind to the simple fact he was putting his loyalists in key positions, but I wasn’t too concerned. There was no way he could switch sides, at least not in the short term, and in the long term … I smiled. There were so many weapons on the streets now that any attempt to create a dictatorship would end badly. I wondered if he’d realised it.
Fallon joined me as I watched the proceedings. “I just got a messenger from the city,” she said. It took me a moment to realise she meant Damansara. “The enemy army is preparing to withdraw.”
“Good,” I said. I’d known Cuthbert had only one logical course of action, but he might not. It was impossible to be sure what he knew – and what conclusions he might draw from what he knew. He might think I’d raided Houdon and then abandoned it, rather than trying to turn the city into a fortress. Did he know I’d hit the mine? It was quite possible he didn’t. His local CO might have forgotten to inform him while dispatching troops in hopes of recovering the mine before his boss found out. “They’ll be here soon.”
Fallon gave me an odd look. “How can you be sure?”
I winked as we walked back to the makeshift command post. “The trick to winning a battle is to put your enemy in a place where they have to fight the battle you want to fight,” I said, recalling my early studies. Rommel might have been a better tactician than Monty, but Monty had forced Rommel to fight a battle that played to the British army’s strengths and took ruthless advantage of the German army’s weaknesses. “Cuthbert’s only good choice is to come here, right now, and dislodge me before I get too strong or his army comes apart. And that is what he will do.”
I sounded more confident than I felt. There was one other possibility. Cuthbert could march his forces around Houdon and head back to his core lands, leaving us untouched. It would be an admission of defeat, and it would give me all the time I needed organised and march after him, but it was possible. I doubted it, though. Cuthbert knew better than to let himself look weak. If he did, his supporters would turn perception into reality.
The thought bothered me as the day turned to night and then to day again. I’d half-hoped Alonzo would give up on the idea of putting Lord Sothern on trial, but … he insisted. I wished the man had been killed during the fighting, if only to avoid a dilemma. If Lord Sothern was hanged, his peers would refuse to surrender; if he wasn’t, our allies would be outraged – and rightly so – and there’d be nothing deterring the enemy aristos from carrying out more atrocities. I didn’t blame Alonzo for insisting Lord Sothern be tried and punished. But I had to admit it was going to cause problems …
I put the thought aside as we stepped into the makeshift courtroom. Alonzo had organised the trial with his usual efficiency, bringing in witnesses to testify to Lord Sothern’s crimes and broadsheet reporters – just as scrummy as their counterparts back home, but in different ways – to make sure the trial was reported to the mob. I’d arranged for Fallon to cast a truth spell – there were no magicians left in the city, we’d been told – and for my men to stand on guard, to deter both the mob and anyone who might try to save the prisoner. It wasn’t a particularly fair trial – no one had volunteered to defend Lord Sothern – but it was better than the alternative.
Alonzo stood as Lord Sothern was marched into the courtroom – in chains – and pushed into a chair. “Lord Sourpuss … Lord Sothern,” he said. I tried to hide my irritation. “You were the commanding officer of the garrison occupying the city. You bear ultimate responsibility for the crimes of your men. How do you plead?”
Lord Sothern looked as if he were on the verge of falling over, but his voice was steady enough. “This trial is illegal, under the laws of war,” he said, flatly. “I do not recognise the authority of this court.”
“This court has the authority to try you,” Alonzo said, equally flatly. “You bear responsibility for the crimes your men committed.”
That was true enough, I reflected, as Alonzo recited a long list of crimes from the unpleasant to the horrific. It was a point of local law that “I was only following orders” was a perfectly valid defence, if the orders came from one’s superior officer. The excuse excused practically everything, as long as one could stretch the orders to cover whatever one had done. I suspected it wasn’t going to work. Someone with a legal bent had put together a counterargument that noted Queen Helen had flatly forbidden atrocities and, as the warlords claimed to be fighting in her name, the orders were technically illegal. I had to admit it was a cunning argument, even though I thought it wouldn’t get very far. The warlords would probably ignore it, rather than risk opening a debate into their authority.
I forced myself to listen as the witnesses spoke, one by one, recounting stories of looting, rape and murder. It went on and on, an endless series of crimes that could not be reasonably justified under any law, save the rule of force. The city had surrendered without a fight and was due, according to the conventions, a degree of good treatment. Lord Sothern and his men hadn’t bothered to come up with a legalistic argument to justify themselves. They’d just done it.
Alonzo summed up the case. “Your men abused the population of this city,” he said. “Your claim you did not know about their crimes is flatly untrue: you not only knew, you benefited. You had stolen goods piled up for shipment back to your estates, your guests were feasted on food and drink taken from the city’s merchants, your bed was warmed by maidens taken from their homes … you knew. You encouraged it.”
He paused. “Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence before we pass sentence?”
I studied Lord Sothern thoughtfully. The man’s composure was almost completely gone. He had nothing left, save the offer of a ransom … I wondered, sourly, if anyone would volunteer to pay. I’d met some officers I wouldn’t have paid a cent to recover, if they’d fallen into enemy hands. I’d have paid the enemy to keep them.
“My family is wealthy,” Lord Sothern stammered, finally. “I … they … will pay for my safe return.”
Alonzo stood. “Can your family bring the dead back to life? Can your family restore the stolen maidenheads? Can your family return the looted goods and rebuild the destroyed shops and careers and everything else?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “Take Sourpuss outside and hang him,” he snapped. “And be glad we’re only hanging you.”
I sighed inwardly as Lord Sothern was dragged out of the courtroom. Alonzo probably thought he was offering Lord Sothern mercy … the hell of it, I reflected sourly, was that Alonzo was probably right. The punishment for treason was death by slow torture, prolonged by magical healing; the punishment for so many other crimes, I’d learnt in the last year, was truly excessive. Alonzo was doing Lord Sothern a favour …
Not that it will do him any favours, I reflected. The interrogation hadn’t revealed anything of particular value, saving the location of Lord Sothern’s collection of stolen goods. Cuthbert had trusted Lord Sothern to rule the city, but not to know much – if anything – about his master’s future plans. There’s no way Cuthbert will let this pass.
I stood and left the courtroom. I had no intention of bearing witness to Lord Sothern’s death. The lawyers would pretty the verdict up nicely, proving Lord Sothern deserved to die, but it wouldn’t matter. Everything hinged on the coming battle. The men cheering Lord Sothern’s death would cheer for Cuthbert, if the warlord retook the city. Of course they would. Anyone who didn’t show enough enthusiasm would be in deep – deep – shit.
They’ll be in deep shit anyway, I noted. If Houdon is taken a second time, she’ll be stormed.
“Sir,” Horst said, when I reached the command post. “The pickets reported a brief sighting of enemy scouts, who took one look and ran.”
“They’re not going to charge the city walls on their own,” I said. I had two cavalry troops covering the diggers. If the enemy risked an attack, there’d be a very quick slaughter and then we’d resume the digging. “They’ll fall back and wait for orders.”
Horst smirked. “You think the warlord can get here in time to stop us?”
“Fuck, no,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I think we’ll have more than enough time to prepare a very hot welcome indeed.”
