The Belly of the Bow Page 15

  ‘Me?’ The shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a great help. All right, we’ll head on home. Probably best to follow the road back to Briora and then take the short-cut from there, in case they double back in a hurry. Are you all right, by the way?’

  ‘Fine,’ the boy replied. ‘I gave them the bows and arrows like you said—’

  Loredan frowned. ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said. ‘Bad idea. I expect the trouble only began when they started shooting.’

  ‘More or less. I mean, they were smashing things up and hitting people, but once the villagers shot at them they went mad. They started killing people, and then some of the village men ran away and others tried to jump in and stop the soldiers; and they grabbed this little girl and threw her down the well in Briora, and then this woman tried to grab hold of the men who were doing it, and they cut her hands off, just like trimming a sapling. She just stood there then, and they went away and left her. It was as if they were more frightened of her than the other way about.’

  ‘Get a move on,’ Loredan said. ‘Like I said, I don’t want to stay on the road longer than we can help.’

  ‘I expect the army will come soon,’ the boy said, after they’d splashed half a mile down the road. ‘And then there’ll be a proper battle.’

  Loredan shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘More likely, if the army does get here in time, they’ll try and surround them and make them surrender. And if they come by sea, they’ll hole the barges so they can’t get away.’ He smiled. ‘They made pretty sure of that themselves when they smashed up the boats in Briora.’

  ‘If they surrender, what’ll the army do to them? Will they hang them? That’s what I’d do.’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘If you kill your prisoners, the enemy stop surrendering, and then you’ve got to fight it out to the last man every time, which is stupid. War isn’t about killing people, it’s about winning.’

  The boy nodded. ‘Did you kill many people when you were a soldier?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not many.’

  ‘And did you win?’

  ‘Not so as you’d notice.’

  The boy thought about that. ‘You won when you fought those men that night when the City fell,’ he objected. ‘I saw you.’

  ‘True, but I was supposed to be defending the City, remember. You can’t lose more conclusively than that.’

  The boy thought some more. ‘If you’d had more men and someone hadn’t opened the gates, you’d have won,’ he declared. ‘So really it wasn’t a fair contest.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Loredan said. ‘That’s taken a great weight off my mind.’

  The rain started again as they rounded the bend into Briora. The boy didn’t have a hood, so they stopped and found one that more or less fitted. ‘That’s stealing,’ the boy pointed out, as he tied the string under his chin. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Looting, possibly,’ Loredan replied. ‘Though looting’s more your gold and precious stones. When it’s just useful things we used to call it requisitioning.’

  ‘Oh. And that’s all right, is it?’

  ‘It is if nobody’s watching. Look, if it bothers you, dump the wretched thing.’

  ‘But then I’d get wet,’ the boy objected.

  They skirted round the village and picked up the track. The dead halberdier was still there; the rain had washed silt down off the mountainside, lightly covering his hair with grime, as if the mountain was in a hurry to bury him. The boy stepped over the body without saying anything.

  It was harder going in this direction, of course, since the gradient was against them most of the time, and the extra few hours’ rain had made the track slippery. After a mile they stopped and had a rest.

  ‘Did they find the house?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Went straight past it,’ Loredan replied. ‘We were lucky.’

  The boy nodded. ‘If they’d tried to smash the house up, would you have fought them?’ he said.

  ‘No chance,’ Bardas Loredan answered. ‘Seventy-five of them and one of me.’

  ‘Oh. Was that why you didn’t go and try and help the village? You could have told them what to do.’

  Loredan frowned. ‘That’d have been a stupid thing to do,’ he said. ‘What they should have done is clear out until the soldiers had gone away. And besides, we aren’t anything to do with these people, or this war. Only idiots get involved in other people’s quarrels.’

  The boy looked at him. ‘You used to,’ he said. ‘When you were a lawyer back in the City. You used to fight people in the lawcourts.’

  ‘That was different,’ Loredan said. ‘That was my job. And it wasn’t seventy-five to one, either.’

  ‘I see,’ said the boy, doubtfully. ‘So it’s all right to get involved if you get paid and you’re going to win.’

  ‘I’d drop this subject if I were you,’ Loredan said. ‘In fact, if I were you I’d keep my face shut till we get home. That’d be the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘All right,’ the boy said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘Let’s get on,’ Loredan said. ‘No point sitting here in the wet when we could be back home.’

  They struggled on up to the top of the rise, where the downs started to fall away from the rocky sides of Horn Point. Then Loredan told the boy to stay put while he went ahead and had a look around. He made his way carefully up to the edge of the briar-patch and pushed his way through, until he was looking down onto the beach.

  There was a ship just inside the mouth of the cove. It looked like one of the military sloops, and it had crept in as far as it dared. There were two longboats on the water, both filled with men heading for the beach. The army had arrived.

  Loredan stayed where he was and watched. The men in the boats were definitely Scona military; they had bow-cases and quivers, or shields and short, heavy pikes, not halberds, and their helmets were a different shape. One man, who was standing in the bow of the nearer of the two longboats, wasn’t wearing a helmet, and the rain glistened on his bald head. Loredan’s brows furrowed, and he crawled out of the briars and walked quickly back to where he’d left the boy.

  ‘The army’s here,’ he said. ‘They’re landing men right now, and presumably they’re going to follow on up the road and try and engage the enemy. Best thing we can do is head up the mountain and sit it out there till it’s all over.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we go down and tell them what we’ve seen?’ the boy queried. ‘I mean, we know pretty well where they’ve been, it might help.’

  ‘None of our business,’ Loredan said firmly. ‘We stay out of it and let them get on with it.’

  ‘Because it’s their job,’ the boy said.

  ‘Right. I say we carry on up the hill till we come to one of those old abandoned farms we passed when we were up there with the cart. Give it tonight and tomorrow morning; it should all be over by then.’

  ‘All right,’ the boy said. ‘I’d have liked to have seen the battle, though.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a sick little bugger,’ Loredan said. ‘Mind you, kids are like that at your age. Anyway, this time you’re out of luck. Let’s get moving before anything happens.’

  The cart track up into the mountains broke away from the coast path about two miles beyond Horn Point and traced a series of zigzags up the face of the main escarpment, occasionally dodging behind one of the lesser formations. At first it was a steep climb, made even more disagreeable by the mud, but once they were on the slopes, the ground was harder and less muddy and the gradient was easier. There were several clumps of trees (no osage or yew, just stumps), and quite a few streams cut across the trail, all of them louder and more boisterous with the rainwater draining off the mountains. Low cloud was draped over the higher ground up above, but they weren’t going up that far. They stopped at the foot of a farm tower that faced out to sea; unusually it still had most of its conical slate roof, although the rest of the far
m buildings had been picked over for building stone a long time ago.

  ‘This’ll do,’ Bardas announced. ‘We can see right down the slope from up here, and we can cut some of this gorse to block the doorway with. From the track it’ll just look overgrown.’

  After an hour sitting in the middle of the floor with nothing to look at but the walls and the crumbling remains of the stairs, the boy was thoroughly bored. ‘I’m cold,’ he said. ‘Can’t we start a fire?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Loredan replied.

  ‘And I’m hungry,’ the boy added. ‘We could go out and lay wires for rabbits.’

  Loredan frowned at him. ‘We haven’t got any wire,’ he pointed out.

  ‘What about the string off your bow? We could make wires out of that.’

  Loredan wasn’t amused. ‘This bowstring,’ he said icily, ‘is made of twenty-four strands of the best-quality linen thread money can buy, woven into three plies, laid into a three-forked loop at both ends and served with three plies of silk. It took me four hours to make, not counting spinning the thread. Get lost, will you?’

  ‘All right,’ the boy said, ‘why don’t we take the bow and go and shoot something to eat?’

  ‘Because we’re supposed to be hiding,’ Loredan replied irritably. ‘Look, you’re just going to have to stay hungry. It won’t be for long.’

  ‘I’m bored.’

  ‘Of course you’re bored. We’re in a war. Four-fifths of any war is very, very boring. The other fifth makes you realise what a wonderful thing boredom is. And keep your voice down, will you? Just because we’re in here doesn’t make us inaudible.’

  The boy thought for a while. ‘Are you good at making string, then?’

  ‘A bowyer’s got to be. And we made all our own rope and twine on the farm when I was your age. You can make good string and cord out of almost anything that’s got fibres in it.’

  The boy nodded. ‘If you can make string, you could pull some thread out of your coat and twist some string to make wires with.’

  Loredan sighed. ‘For the last time, we aren’t going to set any wires. If the enemy see newly set wires all over the place, they’ll know there’s somebody about. We’re staying here, and that’s all there is to it. Got that?’

  ‘All right.’ The boy yawned. ‘Will you teach me how to make string?’

  ‘One of these days. Like I said, it’s something you’ll need to know how to do.’

  ‘Why can’t you teach me now?’

  ‘Because.’

  The roof of the abandoned tower was almost watertight, but not quite. The dripping and gurgling of rainwater reminded Loredan of an apartment he’d had in a tenement block when he’d only just arrived in Perimadeia. Like most of the ‘islands’, as the huge, spec-built blocks were called, it had belonged to one of the craft guilds, who used the income to provide for the needs of elderly and infirm members and their families. It had always struck him as odd, that organisations set up for such praiseworthy objectives should be the most notorious slum landlords in the City. But then, the whole business of owning property in the rabbit-warrens of Perimadeia was so complicated and arcane that nobody really understood it, and since legal disputes were settled by the swords of the fencers-at-law, nobody ever needed to. There’d have been no trouble finding a tenant for this place, at twelve quarters a month, he said to himself, looking up at the sky through the holes in the roof. They’d have been queuing up.

  ‘Why did they build these towers?’ the boy asked. ‘I thought this place was an old farm.’

  ‘It was,’ Loredan replied. ‘But they were difficult times back then. Gangs of soldiers roaming about the place were an everyday occurrence. So people lived out in the open instead of in villages, and every farm had a high wall round it, and a tower. Who knows, if things carry on the way they seem to be going, maybe it’ll end up that way again.’

  The boy considered the matter for a moment. ‘Should we build one, then? Just in case, I mean.’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘If it starts getting bad, we’ll be off out of it. I’ve got no intention of hanging about here on the edges of somebody’s else’s war.’

  ‘Somebody else’s?’ The boy looked at him. ‘I don’t understand. ’

  Loredan didn’t reply.

  Thanks to the local knowledge of the messenger, Gorgas Loredan knew all about the top path. He decided to split his force into two. The larger part would press on up the main road, while he took forty men with him up the top path to try and overtake the raiding party and stop them getting any further. With luck he’d be able to hold them until the rest of his force came up behind them, and then they’d have them surrounded. That would make it much easier to contain them until the substantial reinforcements arrived overland from Scona Town.

  He set the pace himself, clambering through the rocks and the mud at a rate he knew they wouldn’t be able to keep up for long. With luck, they wouldn’t have to; it all depended on how far the raiding party had got. According to the messenger, the top path was a substantial short-cut, forming the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle whose other sides were formed by the road running due west to Briora, then a few miles north to Penna, the next village on, before angling sharply back to follow the slope down towards Scona Town.

  When he blundered headlong into the enemy, coming down the path in the opposite direction, he was taken as much by surprise as they were. It didn’t take him long to realise that he was in trouble, however; the enemy were right on top of them, far too close for comfort for a half-platoon of archers facing heavy infantry. It was also too late to fall back, and as the enemy lowered their halberds and charged, he didn’t really know what to do. It was probably fortunate that his thinking time was reduced to a few seconds.

  The halberdier officer gave the order to charge, but in the context of a narrow slippery path ground out of the side of a steep slope, it was meaningless. Instead, the halberdiers edged forward and a pantomime fight broke out, something like the mock combats at fairs where two men stand on a greasy plank and hit each other with sacks of feathers. There wasn’t room for more than one man on the path at a time, and outflanking either above or below the path was out of the question because of the gradient. As the two parties pushed forward, Gorgas found himself squeezed up against his opponent, so that neither of them had any room to use their weapons; instead, the contest turned into a shoving-match, with the raiders’ superior weight of numbers becoming a hindrance rather than a help because of the treacherous footing. After a very uncomfortable fifteen seconds, the halberdier slipped and fell forward, grabbing Gorgas to break his fall and pinning his arms to his sides. Gorgas did everything he could to stop himself going over, since the greatest danger was clearly getting trampled underfoot, but it was no use. At the last minute, though, he did manage to fall backwards onto the man behind him, who caught hold of him by the scruff of the neck as if he was a delinquent child in an apple-orchard, and kept him from going down, until the forward momentum of the men behind put him back on his feet again. He still couldn’t get his arms free, however, and could do nothing except stare into the round, terrified eyes of the halberdier, only a few inches from his own. It was the closest he’d ever been to someone he was trying to harm in his life.

  Then, quite suddenly, the shoving-match stopped, and Gorgas found himself falling forwards as the enemy stopped trying to force their way through and started to give ground. Unable to stop himself, he toppled over on top of the halberdier, who cracked his head against a rock as he went down and let go of Gorgas’ arms. Gorgas tried to stand up, but the man behind him shoved him forward, and this time he landed with his knee in the halberdier’s face; he heard a sharp crack as the man’s nose broke. He had the presence of mind to grope for the dagger on his belt, but he couldn’t reach it.

  Somehow the halberdier managed to roll them both over, then scrambled to his feet, turned and ran. Gorgas tried to grab him, but all he managed to do was fall on his face in the mud, cutting his fo
rehead on a stone. Somewhere behind him, he heard the sound of a bow being loosed, but the arrow went wide.

  Someone caught hold of his arm and yanked him up; presumably whoever it was was trying to help, but he contrived to wrench a muscle in Gorgas’ right shoulder, and he shouted with pain.

  ‘Get off me, you clown,’ he yelped. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  Since he knew the answer already he didn’t wait for a reply; instead, he gave a rather superfluous order to stop the line, and looked to see what the enemy were doing.

  They’d vanished out of sight past the bend in the track they’d just come round. They’re up to something, Gorgas realised, I just wish to hell I knew what it was. He waved his men forward and they edged along the track until they came round the sharp corner and were able to see what the halberdiers were doing; they were following the bed of a stream up the hill, clambering as much as walking, heading for the top of the escarpment. It seemed a curious thing to do, and Gorgas didn’t waste any time on trying to puzzle out their motivation any further. He gave the order to nock arrows and loose.

  But it wasn’t a good day for archery. The rain had saturated their bowstrings and soaked through into the wood of their bows, sapping the cast. The first volley fell short and, as the archers tried to compensate, the second volley mostly overshot. Two of the Shastel men went down, but both scrambled up again. There was the added complication of shooting up a steep slope, which threw out the archers’ largely instinctive estimation of range. By the time they had drawn for the third volley, the halberdiers were among the large boulders halfway up the slope, a good hundred and twenty yards away, and the arrows from forty bows were spread fairly thin at such a range. Scowling, Gorgas led his men up the slope after them, but the Shastel men were moving so quickly that it was all he could do to keep pace with them; there was no time to form the line and loose another volley. They aren’t going anywhere, Gorgas told himself, and slowed down the pursuit. The last thing he wanted to do was actually to catch up with them, and face sixty-five heavy infantry with forty bowmen hand to hand; that would be inviting the enemy to charge, with the gradient in their advantage. He sent back two men to try and find the relief parties and let them know what was going on. With luck, the main force from the city could be diverted round the other face of the escarpment, to come up on the enemy from the other side and complete the encirclement. It didn’t look as if the Shastel men had any stomach for a fight. Quite probably they’d guessed that there weren’t any boats waiting for them now. A reasonable show of force ought to be enough to prompt a surrender without any further significant bloodshed. Gorgas contented himself with keeping up with them, driving them steadily up the mountainside like a party of beaters flushing out game. Wherever they end up, they’ve got no place to go, he reminded himself. In fact, putting himself in the enemy commander’s position, he couldn’t think of anything that could be done, except to wait until there were enough of the enemy to justify an honourable surrender.