Manfred was not the senior southerner but his father, Manfred Ludovico, was senile, bedridden, and a figurehead.
Hecht was giving nothing away, yielding daytime command. Serenity was not going to let God decide his fate on a battlefield.
The Manfreds had no intelligence concerning the true situation, which was that Serenity’s advisers had convinced him to go defensive till the southern levies completed their feudal obligations.
Similar limits would obtain for levies raised in the Patriarchal States. But Serenity’s cronies were concerned only with themselves and their own immediate security.
The younger Manfred set the order of battle. His southerners made up the center, arrayed for the traditional heavy cavalry charge. The disdained Righteous formed the wings, with a scatter of auxiliary light cavalry out beyond the divisions of the Righteous. Hecht was both appalled and amused because those light horsemen were Pramans recruited from what had been Calzir before the Calziran Crusade.
Nothing happened. Not even a herald came out. Hecht reassumed command come sunset. He ordered camp set, with special attention paid to wards against sorcery and Instrumentalities. Manfred Otho retired cursing the lack of panache shown by the Brothen knightly class.
Reports from the city had the Collegium in a state of civil war. Serenity’s partisans had the upper hand in the streets. Their behavior was abominable.
Only the Devedian quarter remained quiet. The Deves had locked up and hunkered down, getting ready for the customary attacks that turned their way whenever there was civil unrest.
Hecht asked Consent, “Do we have any goodwill in the Devedian quarter at all?”
“After what we did to Krulik and Sneigon? No.”
“Understandable. They were just trying to make money. That’s what Deves do.”
Consent gave him a dark look. He loathed the stereotypes and generalizations.
Hecht added, “They’d best get ready to suffer for our success.”
“What?”
“Apply the usual logic. Falcons gave us a bloody victory in the Shades. Deves made the falcons.”
“And the fact that we robbed the Deves to get the falcons wouldn’t enter the argument. You’re right. The usual logic.”
“It could happen tonight, Titus. I’m going to my tent to pray. I don’t want to be disturbed. Please remind Mr. Ernest.”
Consent did not reply. He just went off to do his job.
Lila turned up right on time.
“You look tired, girl.”
“I’m working hard. Great Grandpa Delari always has more work for me than I can possibly get done.”
“Don’t let him take advantage. Say no. You are being careful?”
“Very, very careful. This city is a deadly place right now.”
“As long as you understand. Don’t take chances. We’re coming in tonight.”
“And they’re expecting you. They already have the gates reinforced.” She produced a map, described the welcomes being prepared.
“Dear girl, it’s almost like you were sitting in on their meetings.”
“Isn’t it?”
“They know about the Arniena plan, don’t they?”
“There’s a Benedocto agent close to Mr. Sayag. The Benedocto have agents inside all of the Five Families.”
No surprise, that. Everybody did it. Some of those spies worked for two or three families at once. “Do we know any names?”
Lila produced a scrap of paper. “There are more. These are just names I overheard.”
Hecht examined the list, saw nothing familiar. He admired Lila’s precise hand. Clearly, she had worked hard to develop it. “I’m loving this, Lila. You’re better at this than Heris or the really old man.”
“No. I’m not. I’m just doing things the way you want them done. They only do things the way they want to.”
“I’ll give you that.” He studied the map some more. “This isn’t good. These sites are all traps.”
“I told you that. They’ll have crossbowmen on the roofs. And you can’t surprise them. They’ll be watching with every little brownie and boogie in this end of the world. The Patriarch pulled them in from a hundred miles around.”
Hecht stared at the map. And stared. And found no inspiration. “How is Pella?”
“Turning stupid again. He whines constantly. The old old man should’ve left him where he was. Should’ve let him ripen. He could’ve gone back if somebody else didn’t find him.”
“Rough. And Vali? And Anna?”
“Vali is working hard to make herself good enough to help me. Anna cries a lot.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s her time of life, I think. It doesn’t matter if she’s sad or happy or angry. Everything makes her cry. Except when she gets all righteous and wants to go over to Krois and slap Serenity till he starts seeing sense.”
“Good for her. I guess. So. Honored daughter. Any ideas about what we should do tonight?”
Lila grinned a huge one. “You attack them where they aren’t. I’ll smash them where they are.”
Commencing sometime after midnight, for slightly more than two hours, about every four minutes, there were explosions in the Mother City. They were scattered and happened according to no discernible pattern-though every one damaged Serenity’s friends or the city’s defenders.
There were occasional gaps in the timing. Whenever that happened somebody dropped ropes from sections of wall not being closely guarded.
The Righteous failed to achieve complete surprise anywhere. Despite all the confusion some people did keep their minds on their jobs.
Those chosen to climb the ropes took rope ladders up. They were men experienced at dealing with small Instrumentalities and, one and all, were suspected of being in possession of handheld firepowder weapons. They established their footholds, helped more men come up, helped assemble cranes when the parts for those arrived, then helped hoist light falcons and munitions. They expanded their footholds and fended off swarms of minor Instrumentalities.
The falcons crushed counterattacks. Those ceased. The Shades had imprinted an abiding dread of falcons on Serenity’s friends.
Pots of explosive tossed into gatehouses encouraged men there to surrender or flee. Two gates changed hands despite the prepared traps, which broke up under falcon fires.
Deeming them likely to be useless except as a cause of further confusion, Hecht let the southerners go howling into the city after he opened the gates.
Hagan Brokke rumbled, “So much for it being impossible to attack the Mother City.”
Rivademar Vircondelet observed, “It’s not the attack, it’s the accomplishing anything once we do. Now they know where we’re coming in. They can pull everybody together to deal with us.”
Falcons barked not far away, from above, blasting rooftops. Stones rattled off roofing tiles, broke roofing tiles that clattered to the ground, and found spies or ambushers because there were cries of pain.
Meantime, the southerners finished flooding in. Hecht watched them out of sight. “I wonder how many will survive.”
“They stick together and do what you told them to do, maybe most of them.” Brokke coughed. His lungs were sensitive to firepowder smoke. “But my money is on discipline failing. They’ll spread out to start looting and get themselves picked off a few at a time.”
They were supposed to roar through the streets cutting down anyone they ran into. Spread enough fear and the streets would clear. The invaders could move north, toward Krois, where an enraged but supposedly more rational than usual Serenity would be straining to get the most out of having his enemies attack as he had hoped.
