to tap his claret, and said words in the ex-king’s ear that hauled him up all standing.
“If you say another word, cramph, I shall pull your vile tongue out by the roots.”
Everyone there in the High Hall knew that this young tearaway, Vax Neemusbane, meant what he said. And this was my son.
Just about then strong parties of soldiers from the walls rushed in, demanding to know if the Grodnims had struck here. I realized they had a good reason to suspect the possibility that attack could reach the city-center, and I filed the information away. With a great yell I jumped up — most blasphemously -
onto the Roo Throne. The throne is called this because the city is protected by the Ten Dikars, and the throne is the eleventh to guard all. Had Kregen possessed in addition to its seven moons and two suns one more heavenly body, then on the nights of blackness it would not be Notor Zan which rose but Notor Roo.
“Listen to me, soldiers!” I bellowed in my old sailorman’s voice. “The usurping dog of a paktun is thrown down! The true lineage is preserved. Queen Miam rules now in Zandikar! She will lead us all to victory against the Zair-forsaken Grodnims!”
The expected outburst of cheering broke against the high ceiling rafters. If it was grossly unfair to saddle a young girl with such onerous responsibility, I can plead only that I was in a hurry and that, anyway, she was the great-granddaughter of a king and must therefore expect to be thrust forward into positions of power and peril.
“Queen Miam, the true daughter of Zandikar, leads us on to victory!” I glared down on them as they waved their swords on high. Zair knows, I have stared down on mighty warriors waving their swords and shouting the “Hai Jikai!” often enough. But, this time, they were not shouting for me. I rather liked that.
“Glycas and his Green cramphs will never take the city! We have food! We have strong arms! And we have a queen! Every man will do his duty for her sake.” Then I bashed it out just as in the old days, the old vicious intemperate Dray Prescot bawling his head off to a ravening pack of fighting-men. “And if any man seeks to cower away and fail the queen I’ll have his entrails out for varter springs!”
They howled at this, indignant at any suggestion impugning their honor. I quieted them down and told them to pass the word to their comrades on the walls. I mentioned that we had brought food into the city more than once, just to keep the notion fresh in their minds.
The scenes of wild enthusiasm persisted as individual warriors, convinced that they were orators, shouted their own promises of valor and what they would do to the Grodnims. Later in a small inner sanctum we conspirators met. The ex-king Zenno and those men of his who wished to go with him had been taken down and stuffed into a small boat, to be dispatched. I did not think he would seek to join Glycas. Glycas, the mean cramph, would probably hand him over to his tormentors for failing his plans. In the small room with the lamps burning nastily with cheap mineral oil, for all the samphron oil was long since used, Miam said to me, “I do not know if I should thank you or hate you.”
“Many people hate me, Miam. And a few thank me. You must make up your own mind.”
Vax bristled; but he was really coming to know my ways, and understood I spoke like this to make the girl see reality.
I bore down the other speakers. We had a great deal to do and precious little time in which to do it. I gave orders. Oh, yes, I gave orders. At first there was opposition, then reluctance, finally acceptance, and, at the end, enthusiasm. I felt the trace of tiredness. But tiredness is a sin, especially when there is a queen to make safe on her throne and a city to save — quite apart from all my own concerns, by Vox!
Early the next day I rode one of Roz Janri’s sectrixes on a circuit of the walls. They had stood up to the bombardment very well. The besieging army dug their trenches close and closer. Areas of tents covered the ground where the gregarian groves had been ruthlessly cut down. Smoke lifted from many cooking fires. The infantry out there dug and sweated and the cavalry trotted about looking magnificent. There was no chance of the solid phalanx in this siege. Or, so the Grodnims would think, not until the final breach had been made. Then the cavalry on which they doted would charge in and the mercenary warriors earn their hire. I studied everything carefully. I had had a few burs’ sleep; tonight I would sleep longer. Now there was work to do.
At a spot in the inland walls where the cracks looked ominously gaping and the wall had been hastily repaired, I stopped.
“Here, Roz Janri,” I said. “This is the breach. Here they will break in. This is the spot.”
Chapter Fifteen
Everyone who could be spared worked. We had the oar-slaves up out of the swifters and set them to hauling stones. I took pains to make sure houses of architectural merit were not knocked down; but we took ruthlessly all the stone we needed. What I proposed was no new thing; but if the Grodnims persisted in their high-handed arrogant ways it was a winner. Or so I hoped. I will not go into every detail of the Siege of Zandikar. A great song was made, later, and in it, among a wealth of stirring anecdote and much Jikai, the part of Dak is mentioned with some frequency. But, so are the names of all my comrades who labored with me.
If the stunning ease with which we had disposed of King Zenno indicated to me that Zena Iztar had taken a hand, I did not think she gave overt assistance during the stages of the siege itself. Sieges are fascinating. They are also quite horrible. The horror detracts, for my part, from the fascination. On this day, the day before we expected the next grand assault, an event occurred that made me once again revile the ethics of some paktuns, and to realize afresh that other and greater forces invested effort in this siege, despite the aloofness of Zena Iztar.
Some seventy or so paktuns had elected to stay and fight with us, acknowledging the sovereignty of Queen Miam. Her coronation would have to wait, as Queen Thyllis had waited for hers in distant Hamal. I had ridden over to see how the work on the new wall progressed — as I say, the plan was simple -
when a rider flogging his sectrix roared up and screamed of an attack on the western wall. We all turned at once and spurred to the point threatened.
When I say all I mean the officers and staff with me and the escort; not the workers. Also, I bellowed at a likely Jiktar who seemed a smart man, to go personally to the eastern wall and check that the attack on the west was no feint.
We arrived at a scene of dust being kicked up as men battled in the open space between the houses and the walls. The Grodnims had scaled the walls and dropped down, howling in triumph, intending to reach the nearest gate and fling it wide to their waiting cavalry. A Hikdar, one ear missing and his helmet a blaze of blood, husked out that some of the paktuns on duty here on the walls had betrayed their post. It had been concerted. The Grodnims would have dropped down and opened the gate. But, said the Hikdar, a warrior appeared and halted them in time for reinforcements to come up and engage them. I looked at the fight, and my anger against the treacherous paktuns was overlaid by conjectures. Surely, I thought, surely I shall see a man who, although I will not recognize him, I will know?
With wild and savage shouts the men with me drove in on the fight. The dust smoked higher. Men on the walls were shooting outward, and I knew they were keeping back the cavalry out there, which were impatient to spur in through the gate they expected to open at any moment. Shrill shrieks rent the air. Dust and blood cloyed on the tongue. Then I was in among the melee and slicing down with my Ghittawrer brand at a red-faced fellow trying to degut my sectrix. With him disposed of, I was faced with others trying to reach the inner gateway. We smashed and bashed around in the dust for a space, working them in to the wall and finally ringing them and so disposing of them. They were of the Green. When it was all over I mounted to the wall and looked out.
A mass of infantry was drawn up in impeccable formation out of varter shot. Cavalry moved impatiently between, the green pennons flying, the glitter of their war harness brave under the suns. Back and forth they cantered, their swords breaking the light into fragments of radiance, back and forth. But the gate would not open for them this day.
“Bring me the warrior who stemmed the first attack.”
“Quidang!”
He was brought. I stood on the ramparts of the wall and looked at him. Yes, I did not know him; but I knew
