interfere. Both suburbs, the Burg in the northwest and the New Town down south, had their own walls, extending from the older main walls. Theirs were lower and thinner.
'They may not be entirely serious,' the Perfect Master mused one afternoon. 'This could be a show of strength meant to awe the city into giving up. They do say this Captain-General is niggardly with the lives of his men.'
'They say he's pretty clever, too.'
News of the extermination of the god grub on the Ormienden side of the Dechear River had reached Castreresone shortly before the Patriarchal vedettes. People did not want to believe that the Captain-General had faced down and destroyed a major Instrumentality. But he had captured Sonsa easily. Had taken Viscesment and Immaculate II by surprise, so quickly that Immaculate's bodyguards had offered only a token defense. His sub- commanders were at Antieux and Sheavenalle, now, the latter chieftain enjoying unanticipated success.
A week after the Patriarchal army arrived the White City's mood began to turn. The enemy had begun systematically capturing nearby towns and fortresses. The swiftness of their fall was frightening.
The mood blackened further when news spread that the darkest brethren of the Collegium accompanied the invaders.
Sorcery explained the failure of so many strongpoints.
Sorcery and treachery.
The Patriarchal Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy had people planted everywhere. Those traitors worked their wickedness.
Bernardin Amberchelle was a crude, cruel man, not without cunning. His agents had penetrated the Society. On the eighth day of the siege one of those betrayed a plan to seize and open a hidden postern. Amberchelle's status ballooned after the traitors had been thrown off the taller barbican tower. Seventeen priests and lay brothers. Including an otherwise innocent Brothen Episcopal priest who had the nerve to beg mercy for the captives.
There was no central power in the city. Roger Shale had not been replaced. The magnates could agree on nothing. Isabeth was en route from Navaya with a hundred of Peter's knights and all their train. Having planned to land at Sheavenalle, then march up the Laur. But much of Sheavenalle was in the hands of the Patriarchals already. An attempt to land would be risky. So the ships were back at sea. They might put in at Terliaga, two-thirds of the way back to Platadura, whence they had sailed.
Wind and rain returned. The bee-busy Patriarchals had created their own rude city by then, employing local labor. The Captain-General had done the same during the Calziran Crusade.
Though the Patriarchal army had arrived without a tail of camp followers, it was acquiring them now.
People did what they must to survive. And most country folk did not care who occupied the castles and cities. The ruling class were all the same, seen from a charcoal maker's hut.
Bernardin Amberchelle summoned Socia Rault and Brother Candle on the fifteenth day. Amberchelle seemed pensive. Unusual in a short, wide man best known for smashing his way through puzzles.
Several of Amberchelle's odd associates were in the background. Likewise, a dozen leading Castreresonese, including Berto Bertrand, Roger Shale's longtime companion and deputy, now castellan till Isabeth arrived. Brother Candle surveyed the assemblage with a jaundiced eye. There was not a leader among the locals, evidently. Else why defer to half-mad outsider Amberchelle? Simply because the man had the nerve to commit mass murder?
What about those lurking, dusky men with the odd accents, now believed to be Artecipean?
'Thanks for coming,' Amberchelle said, proving he could find manners when he wanted.
'At your command,' the old man replied. 'Though I'm baffled. What can I possibly contribute?'
'Advice.'
'If I'm able. Though you have more practical minds here than mine.'
'Back to you in a moment, Master. We have a question for the Count's betrothed.'
Socia was learning. She had not yet blurted something irrelevant just to establish her presence. She awaited Amberchelle's question.
'Miss… Did you get any replies to your requests for help?'
Socia sneered. 'Not one. Though King Peter is sending Isabeth to assert his rights.'
'We feared as much. Master. The enemy won't talk. They've ignored every proposal for negotiations.'
'Sublime says there's nothing to negotiate.'
'We have spies moving in and out of their camp. They don't seem interested in Sublime's opinions, either.'
The Captain-General would expect his local laborers to include spies. Evidently he did not care what they learned. 'And?'
'The enemy are confident that they can stay the winter- if the city refuses to yield. We may have to if they cut off communications completely. And they have started harassing anyone bringing in food or supplies.'
The old man repeated, 'And?'
'We're consuming food much faster than it can be brought in.'
'That happens during a siege.'
Socia said, 'Turn out the people who don't contribute. Let the enemy have to deal with them.'
Brother Candle said, 'We'd better pack, then, hadn't we, girl?'
Socia glared.
The old man said, 'She does have a point, though. Seeker refugees could slip out and go to Khaurene. Or into the Altai.'
'Assuming the enemy lets them.'
'Assuming that.' The Captain-General might decide that overcrowding and starvation were useful weapons. Or he might want terrified refugees to carry panic to the rest of the Connec. 'But you have something else on your mind, don't you? You don't need me to tell you that.'
'The Night,' Amberchelle murmured, like a boy caught doing something he should not. 'The Night is… isn't… Whatever happened on the Dechear, the Night now seems to be
Brother Candle frowned. What he knew about that event was limited to exaggerations heard in the street. Why was Amberchelle concerned? Or was it his odd friends who were? Those friends, he had learned, had taken flight from Viscesment after the surprise appearance of Patriarchal troops.
'I have no intercourse with the Night. I'm a philosopher, not a sorcerer or priest. If the Night shuns the Patriarchals, it stands to reason that they're afraid they could share the fate of the thing that perished on the Dechear.'
Amberchelle sighed. 'I didn't think you'd tell us much. But I hoped.' He shook his head vigorously. That did no good. 'They've got Principates with them.'
That was no secret. 'They're substantially overrated, I suspect,' Brother Candle said.
'He's right. We are.'
The voice came out of nowhere. Socia squealed. The Connectens gaped and gabbled panicky questions. Some thought it was a practical joke. But Amberchelle's dusky friends panicked. Several produced weapons they should not have been carrying. They slashed empty air. Others fled the chamber.
'Master,' Socia said in a scared little-girl voice. 'Something just touched me. It put this in my hand.' She held up a ring.
Brother Candle took the ring to the brightest lamp. Two outsiders nearby blanched when they saw it. The shorter staggered as though suddenly faint. 'What is it?' the old man asked.
He got no reply. The chief foreigner herded his gang out of there. Berto Bertrand, Bernardin Amberchelle, and Socia crowded Brother Candle.
He said, 'It's a signet ring. Like none I've ever seen. Uhn.' That looked like specks of dried blood. 'I've seen these symbols somewhere before.' In the mountains north of Khaurene, the Altai, come to think. Back in the dark woods, where Eis, Aaron, and their fellows were come-lately and the Old Gods, though no longer worshiped, were not forgotten.
'Bernardin. Find out why your friends are upset.' He wanted to quiz Socia about how it had come into her possession.
He did not want to accept her claim. Even he might panic if he believed there were invisible men afoot in
