‘No. And ain’t you supposed to be downstairs?’
‘Not ’til they come, I’m not. Don’t get to see this every day, do you?’
Beck brushed him off with an elbow. ‘Just get out of it! Your stink’s making me sick!’
‘All right, all right.’ Brait shambled away, looking hurt, but Beck couldn’t bring up much sympathy. It was the best he could do not to bring up the breakfast he hadn’t had.
Reft was stood at the other window, bow over his shoulder. ‘Thought you’d be happy. Looks like you’ll get your chance to be a hero.’
‘I am happy,’ snapped Beck. And not shitting himself at all.
Meed had established his headquarters in the inn’s common hall, which by the standards of the North was a palatial space, double height and with a gallery at first-floor level. Overnight it had been decorated like a palace too with gaudy hangings, inlaid cupboards, gilded candlesticks and all the pompous trappings one would expect in a lord governor’s own residence, presumably carted half way across the North at monstrous expense. A pair of violinists had set up in the corner and were grinning smugly at each other as they sawed out jaunty chamber music. Three huge oil paintings had even been hoisted into position by Meed’s industrious servants: two renderings of great battles from the Union’s history and, incredibly, a portrait of Meed himself, glowering from on high in antique armour. Finree gaped at it for a moment, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Large windows faced south into the inn’s weed-colonised courtyard, east across fields dotted with trees towards brooding woods, and north towards the town of Osrung. With all the shutters wide open a chilly breeze drifted through the room, ruffling hair and snatching at papers. Officers clustered about the northern windows, eager to catch a glimpse of the assault, Meed in their midst in a uniform of eye-searing crimson. He glanced sideways as Finree slipped up beside him and gave the slightest sneer of distaste, like a fastidious eater who has spied an insect in his salad. She returned it with a beaming smile.
‘Might I borrow your eyeglass, your Grace?’
He worked his mouth sourly for a moment but was held prisoner by etiquette, and handed it stiffly over. ‘Of course.’
The road curved off to the north, a muddy stripe through muddy fields overflowing with the sprawling camp, tents haphazardly scattered like monstrous fungi sprouted in the night. Beyond them were the earthworks Meed’s men had thrown up in the darkness. Beyond them, through the haze of mist and drizzle, she could just make out the fence around Osrung, perhaps even the suggestion of scaling ladders against it.
Her imagination filled in the blanks. Ranks of marching men ordered forward to the palisade, grim-faced and determined as arrows showered down. The wounded dragged for the rear or left screaming where they lay. Rocks tumbling, ladders shoved from the fence, men butchered as they tried to climb over onto the walkways, thrust screaming back to be dashed on the ground below.
She wondered whether Hal was in the midst of that, playing the hero. For the first time she felt a stab of worry for him, a cold shiver through her shoulders. This was no game. She lowered Meed’s eyeglass, chewing at her lip.
‘Where the hell is the Dogman and his rabble?’ the lord governor was demanding of Captain Hardrick.
‘I believe they were behind us on the road, your Grace. His scouts came upon a burned-out village and the lord marshal gave him leave to investigate. They should be here within an hour or two…’
‘Typical. You can rely on him for a knowing shrug but when the battle begins he is nowhere to be seen.’
‘Northmen are treacherous by nature,’ someone tossed out.
‘Cowardly.’
‘Their presence would only slow us down, your Grace.’
‘That much is true,’ snorted Meed. ‘Order every unit into the attack. I want them overwhelmed. I want that town crushed into the dust and every Northman in it dead or running.’
Finree could not help herself. ‘Surely it would be wise to leave at least one regiment behind? As I understand it, the woods to the east have not been thoroughly…’
‘Do you seriously suppose you will hit upon some scheme by which you will replace me with your husband?’
There was a pause that seemed impossibly long, while Finree wondered if she might be dreaming. ‘I beg your…’
‘He is a pleasant enough man, of course. Brave and honest and all those things housewives like to coo about. But he is a fool and, what is worse, the son of a notorious traitor and the husband of a shrew to boot. His only significant friend is your father, and your father’s days in the sun are numbered in small digits.’ Meed spoke softly, but not so softly that he could not easily be overheard. One young captain’s mouth fell open with surprise. It seemed Meed was not held quite so tightly by the bonds of etiquette as she had supposed.
‘I frustrated an attempt by the Closed Council to prevent me taking my brother’s place as lord governor, did you know that? The Closed Council. Do you really suppose some soldier’s daughter might succeed where they failed? Address me only once again without the proper respect and I will crush you and your husband like the pretty, ambitious, irrelevant lice you are.’ He calmly plucked his eyeglass from her limp hand and looked through it towards Osrung, precisely as if he had never spoken and she did not exist.
Finree should have whipped out some acid rejoinder, but the only thing in her mind was an overpowering urge to smash the front of Meed’s eyeglass with her fist and drive the other end into his skull. The room seemed uncomfortably bright. The violins ripped at her ears. Her face burned as if she had been slapped. All she could do was blink, and meekly retreat. It was as if she floated to the other side of the room without moving her feet. A couple of the officers watched her get there, muttering among themselves, evidently party to her one-sided humiliation and no doubt relishing it too.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Aliz. ‘You look pale.’
‘I am perfectly well.’ Or, in fact, seething with fury. Insulting her was one thing, no doubt she deserved it. Insulting her husband and her father were other things entirely. That she would make the old bastard pay for, she swore it.
Aliz leaned close. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Now? We sit here like good little girls and applaud while idiots stack up the coffins.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t worry. Later on they might let you weep over a wound or two and, if the mood takes you, you can flutter your eyelashes at the awful futility of it all.’
Aliz swallowed, and looked away. ‘Oh.’
‘That’s right. Oh.’
So this was battle. Beck and Reft had never had too much to say to each other, but since the Union first started fighting their way over the fence they hadn’t said a word. Just stood silent at the windows. Beck wished he’d got friends beside him. Or wished he’d tried harder to make friends of the lads he’d found beside him. But it was too late now.
His bow was in his hand, an arrow nocked and the string ready to draw. He’d had it ready the best part of an hour, but there was no one he could shoot at. Nothing he could do but watch, and sweat, and lick his lips, and watch. He’d started off wishing he could see more, but now the rain had slacked off, and the sun was getting up, and Beck found he was seeing far more than he wanted to.
The Union were over the fence in three or four places, into the town in numbers. There was fighting all over, everything broken up into separate little scraps facing every which way. No lines, just a mass of confusion and mad noise. Shouts and howls mashed together, din of clashing metal and breaking wood.
Beck was no expert. He didn’t know how anyone could be at this. But he could feel the balance shifting over there on the south side of the river. More and more Northmen were scurrying back across the bridge, some limping or holding wounds, some shouting and pointing off south, threading their way through the shield wall at the north end of the span and into the square under Beck’s window. Safety. He hoped. Felt a long bloody way from safe, though. Felt about as far from safe as Beck had in his whole life.
‘I want to see!’ Brait was dragging at Beck’s shirt, trying to get a peek through the window. ‘What’s going on?’
Beck didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if he could find his voice, even. Right under them some wounded man was screaming. Gurgling, retching screams. Beck wished he’d stop. He felt dizzy with it.
The fence was mostly lost. He could see one tall Union man on the walkway, pointing towards the bridge
