It was Henrak, who had worn the white scarf, who had betrayed the rencers. 'The arsenal!' he cried. 'The arsenal is afire!'
11 The Crest of Sleen Hair
The Captains leaped from their chairs, crying out. Great chairs fell bounding down the tiers of the council chamber. The Scribe at the table before the thrones was on his feet shouting. Papers were scattering to the floor. Feet were pounding toward the great double door, leading to the hallway beyond, leading out to the tiled piazza fronting on the hall of the council. I saw pages scurrying about, in their red and yellow silk. Ink had spilled on the great table.
Then I saw that Lysias, with the captain's crest of sleen hair on his helmet, had not stirred from his chair.
And I saw, too, that the Scribe who normally sat his attendance at the right arm of the empty throne of Henrius Sevarius, the Fifth, in the council chamber was gone.
Outside, in the distance, through the great door, flung open, I heard cries of alarm, and the clash of weapons.
Then I saw Lysias, his hair tied behind his neck with the scarlet string, rise. He placed on his head his helmet.
He unsheathed his weapon.
So, too, did my steel leave its sheath.
But Lysias then, weapon at the ready, backed away, and then turned and fled through a side door, leading from the council hall.
I looked about.
A small fire was burning to one side, where a lamp with candle had been knocked to the floor, in the rush toward the door.
Chairs lay knocked over, furniture was broken. The floor was covered with papers.
The scribe at the central table, that before the empty thrones, stood numb behind the table.
Other scribes came and stood with him, looking from one to the other. To one side, cowering, stood several of the page boys.
Then, staggering, bloody, the quarrel of a crossbow protruding from the emblem on his velvet tunic, a captain reeled into the room and fell, clutching at the arm of one of the curule chairs. Then, behind him, in the groups of four and five, crying out, many bleeding from wounds, weapons brandished, and sometimes bloodied, there came those captains who could.
I went to the place before the thrones.
I indicated the small fire burning to one side, that which had been caused by the fallen lamp with candle. 'Put it out,' I told two of the frightened pages. I resheathed my sword.
The two pages leapt to do my bidding.
'Gather up and guard the book of the Council,' I told the Scribe who had been at the great table.
'Yes, Captain,' said he, leaping to seize it up.
I then, throwing papers to the floor, scattering ink, lifted the great table over my head.
There were cries of astonishment.
I turned and, step by step, carrying the great table, advanced toward the large door leading to the hallway.
More captains, their back to the room, fighting, falling, were retreating through the door.
They were the last of the captains.
Over their heads in the doorway I flung the great table.
Its great weight, to screams of horror, fell crushing upon men who, with shields and swords, were closely pressing the captains.
I saw, wide with horr in the apertures of their helmets, the eyes of men pinned beneath its beams.
'Bring curule chairs!' I ordered the captains.
Though many were wounded, though all could scarcely stand, they leaped to gather up chairs and hurl them into the doorway.
Crossbow bolts flashed through the chairs, splintering their backs and sides. 'More tables!' I cried.
Men, and scribes, and pages, too, came forward, four and six men to a table, adding the tables ot our barricade.
From the outside some men tried to climb the barricade, and break it down. On its height they met Bosk, in his hands the wine-tempered steel of a Ko-ro-ban blade.
Four men fell reeling backward, tumbling down the chairs and tables. Crossbow bolts flashed about my head.
I laughed, and leaped down. No more men were trying to climb the wood of the barricade.
'Can you hold this door?' I asked the captains, and the scribes and pages there. 'We will,' they said.
I gestured to the side door, through which Lysias and, I assumed, he who had been scribe for Henrius Sevarius, had escaped. Several of the pages, incidentally, and some of the scribes had also fled through that door. 'Secure that door,' I told four of the captains.
Immediately they went to the door, calling scribes and pages to help. I myself, taking with me two captains, went to a rear corner of the great chamber, whence, via a spiraling stairwell, the roof of the hall of council might be attained.
We soon found ourselves on the sloping roof of the hall of the council, shielded and turrets and decorative embrasures at its edge.
From there, in the late afternoon sun, we could see smoke from the wharves and arsenal to the west.
'There are no ships from Cos or Tyros in the harbor,' said one of the captains standing near me.
I had seen this.
I indicated wharves. 'Those wharves,' I said, 'are those of Chung and Eteocles?' 'Yes,' said one of the captains.
'And those,' I asked, indicating other wharves, farther to the south, 'are those of Nigel and Sullius Maximus.'
'Yes,' said the other captain.
'Doubtless there is fighting there,' said the first captain.
'And along the wharves generally,' said the second.
'It seems,' I said, 'that the holdings of Henrius Sevarius, patron of the captain Lysias, are untouched.'
'It does indeed,' said the first captain, through gritted teeth.
Below in the streets we heard trumpets. Men were shouting.
We saw some waving banners, bearing the design of the house of Sevarius. They were trying to urge men into the streets to support them.
'Henrius Sevarius,' they were crying, 'Ubar of Port Kar.'
'Sevarius is proclaiming himself Ubar,' said the first captain.
'Or Cladius, his regent,' said the other.
We were joined by another captain. 'It is quiet now below,' he said. 'Look there,' I said. I pointed down to some of the canals, cutting between the buildings. Slowly, moving smoothly, there oars dipping in rhythm, from various sides, we saw tarn ships moving toward the hall of the council.
'And there!' cried another captain, pointing to the streets.
There we saw crossbowmen fleeing, in lines along the edges of the buildings. Some men-at-arms were joining them.
'It appears,' said one of the captains at my side, 'that Henrius Sevarius in not yet Ubar of Port Kar.'
At the far edge of the piazza, in one of the bordering canals, nosing forward to take a berth between two tiled piers, we saw a ram-ship, medium class. Her mast, with its long yard, was lashed to the deck. Doubtless her sail was stored below. These are the arrangements when a galley moves through the city, or when she enters battle. On a line running from the forward starboard mooring cleat to the stem castle, furnishing cover for archers and spearmen, there flew a flag, snapping in the wind. It was white with vertical green stripes on its field and, over these, in black, the head of a Bosk.
I could see, even at the distance, leaping from the prow of the ship to the tiles of the piazza, running across the large, oblique-looking, colored squares toward the Hall of the Council of Captains, the great Thurnock, with his yellow bow, followed by Clitus, with his net and trident, and by Tab, with my men. 'Estimate for me,' I said, 'the damage to the arsenal,'
'It appears,' said one, 'to be the lumber sheds and the dry docks.' 'The warehouses of pitch and that of oars, too,' said the other.
'Yes,' said the first. 'I think so.'
'There is little wind,' said another.
I was not dissatisfied. I was confident that the men of the arsenal, in their hundreds, almost to the count of two thousand, would, given the opportunity, control the fire. Fire has always been regarded as the great hazard to the arsenal. Accordingly many of her warehouses, shops and foundries are built of stone, with slated or tinned roofs. Wooden structures, such as her numerous sheds and roofed storage areas tend to be separated from one another. Within the arsenal itself there are numerous basins, providing a plenitude of water. Many of these basins, near which, in red-painted wooden boxes, are stored large numbers of folded leather buckets, are expressly for the purpose of providing a means for fighting fires. Some of the other basins are large enough to float galleys; these large basins connect with the arsenal's canal system, by means of which heavy materials may be conveyed about the arsenal; the arsenal's canal system also gives access, at two points, to the canal system of the city and, at tow other points, to the Tamber Gulf, beyond which lies gleaming Thassa. Each of these four points are guarded by great barred gates. The large basins, just mentioned, are of two types: the first, unroofed, is used for the underwater storage and seasoning of Tur wood; the second, roofed, serves for heavier fittings and upper carpentry of ships, and for repairs that do not necessitate recourse to the roofed dry docks.
Already it seemed to me there was less smoke, less fire, from the areas of the arsenal.
The wharves of Chung, Eteocles, Nigel and Sullius Maximus, I conjectured, from the blazings along the waterfront on the west and south, would not fare well. The fires at the arsenal, I supposed, may have been even, primarily, a diversion. They had surely served to draw the captains of Port Kar into the ambush prepared for them outside the hall of council. I supposed Henrius Sevarius might not have wished to seriously harm the arsenal. Could he come to be the Ubar of Port Kar, it would constitute a considerable element of his wealth, indeed, the major one.
I, and the three other captains, stood on the sloping roof of the hall of the council and watched the ships burning the wharves.
'I am going to the arsenal,' I said. I turned to one of the captains. 'Have scribes investigate and prepare reports on the extent of the damage, wherever it exists.
