"Don't worry, lad," Deccus murmured. "I'll do my damnedest to see to it that Lady Fleurais gets all the aid Tiberium can muster."
No regrets.
"Thank you, my lord," I said.
Eamonn and Brigitta stood motionless, folded together in his cloak. His head was bowed, his coppery hair mixed with her gold. They looked almost like one figure. Not until Deccus and Claudia were safe on the ground and one of the guards gave a conspicuous, apologetic cough did Eamonn tear himself away.
"I will find you," he said to her.
"I will be waiting," she whispered.
She went down the ladder with her face averted. Eamonn watched her all the way.
When all was in readiness for their departure, I beckoned to Quentin LeClerc. He brought his horse to the edge of the moat. I withdrew my letter, wrapped in an oilskin packet. "Messire LeClerc," I called. "Will you ask the ambassadress to see this is delivered to the Comtesse de Montrève?"
He bowed. "Of course, your highness."
I tossed the packet. It was light and sailed easily across the moat. The waters seemed to have sunk a bit.
He caught it handily. "Have you any message, Prince Eamonn?"
"Yes." Eamonn was still watching Brigitta. "Tell my mother… ask the Comtesse de Montrève to let the Lady of the Dalriada know that her son married well. And to tell my father I'm glad I met him."
Quentin LeClerc bowed again. "It will be done."
There was nothing left to say. Everyone was mounted, with six of the guards riding double to free up horses for the hostages. LeClerc saluted and gave the signal. They struck out across the burned fields at a steady jog. I laid my hand on Eamonn's shoulder and we watched them go. For once, none of the guards disturbed us.
Valpetra's cavalry had withdrawn to their post on the road. They halted the D'Angeline contingent, inspecting the released hostages and LeClerc's men to make sure none of them was me, trying to sneak out of Lucca with both my hands attached at the wrist.
It didn't take long.
Domenico Martelli must have gotten a good look at me, I thought. Then again, I suppose one doesn't forget such things. I will see the Mahrkagir's face in my nightmares until I die.
Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when the cavalry let them pass. Valpetra's soldiers wheeled and beat a path back toward the river, vanishing beyond the wall's curve. The D'Angeline contingent labored onward, dwindling into specks as they neared the foothills of the mountains and began to ascend. Eamonn and I watched them until the last banner was out of sight.
Eamonn sighed. "So."
"So," I echoed.
"A few weeks, do you think?" he asked.
Time. Time for the delegation to return, time for Lady Denise Fleurais to set the wheels of diplomacy in action, time for Claudia Fulvia to prevail on the Unseen Guild to grease those wheels, time for Deccus Fulvius to convince the Senate to put Tiberium's collective shoulder to the wheel. Time for mercenaries to be hired, time to report and muster. Time for messages to fly to Terre d'Ange and back. Time for the wrath of a nation's Queen to gather.
"A few weeks," I said. "Mayhap."
He grinned at me. "Ah, well! If that's all, we can hold."
"Can and will," I agreed. "Can and will."
The Tadeii villa felt deserted upon our return. The Lady Beatrice, who had bade her daughter farewell at the door, haunted it like a ghost, wringing her hands. I'd gotten over the awkwardness of imposing on her hospitality—after all, I was engaged in the defense of her city—but it came back to me that day. She got around it by plying Eamonn and me with food. There was an abundance of it, since no one had alerted the kitchen staff that three members of the household were departing. Food was rationed yet, but there were enough rations for five.
If it was a deliberate oversight, it was much appreciated. I suspected Claudia. She'd been the one to hold everything together.
"So they're well?" Lady Beatrice asked anxiously. "They're well away, my Claudia and Senator Deccus, and oh! Your lovely bride?"
Eamonn nodded, shoveling food into his mouth.
I swallowed a mouthful of lentil porridge. It was tasteless, but filling. "They are, my lady. Away and safe under the aegis of Terre d'Ange."
She was glad, and we were sated.
Afterward, we slept; or at least I did. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the body's exhaustion takes its own toll. One of the Tadeii retainers came to wake me near sundown, and Eamonn and I reported for night patrol.
There, Gallus Tadius greeted us with another pleasant surprise. As though he'd read my mind, he was dividing the night patrol into two shifts. Half the riders were dismissed, and the rest of us remained. I blew on my cold fingers, already luxuriating in the thought of returning to my warm bed hours earlier than anticipated.
"I expect a quiet night," Gallus said. "But stay alert."
"He doesn't look happy," Eamonn whispered.
"Does he ever?" I whispered back.
He was right, though. Gallus Tadius flagged us down as we rode past and saluted. His face was engraved in unwontedly somber lines. "The exchange was made?"
"Yes, my lord," I said.
"Good." He leaned over and spat. "It's worth the price of Valpetra's wounded baggage to see the Tadeii bloodline carried on safely. Lads, I'm calling a conclave tomorrow. I expect to see you there.""Aye, sir." I hesitated, trying to see if there was anything of Lucius in his sunken gaze. It was hard to tell in the dusk. "My lord, if you don't mind my saying, you should get some sleep."
"Sleep!" He gave a hollow laugh, his eyes glinting briefly in their bruised sockets. "Plenty of time for that when you're dead."
"Some jest," Eamonn muttered after we'd ridden onward.
"Not really," I said.
As Gallus Tadius had predicted, it was an uneventful night. We rode our endless circuits, exchanging password and countersign, but nothing was stirring beyond the wall. Valpetra's forces remained withdrawn. There was no stealthy advance, no attempt to drag siege engines within range under cover of darkness, no effort to bridge the moat or begin the long process of tunneling beneath it to sap the walls.
So what, I wondered, were they doing?
Whatever it was, it had Gallus Tadius worried.
We found out on the morrow.
As before, the conclave met in the basilica. It was a smaller gathering and there were no women present, only men. Captain Arturo was there and two of his lieutenants. Gaetano Correggio and a handful of other nobles, though fewer than before. No sign of Publius Tadius. Several of the more competent conscripts in the Red Scourge were present, sporting their scarlet armbands. For that matter, I supposed Eamonn and I numbered among them. Others looked to be tradesmen, work-hardened and sturdy.
We all crowded in the lower tiers, while Gallus stood on the rostrum and waited for us to settle. He had a table of sorts set up there; a low, shallow tray filled with loose dirt. We sat and shivered, chafing our hands in the cold air, peering at the tray and wondering.
"Right," Gallus said without preamble. "Here's the thing. We're in trouble."
He used the tray to demonstrate. While we were exchanging prisoners for hostages, Gallus Tadius had spent the better part of the day atop the northwestern section of the wall, staring toward the river and trying to determine what Valpetra was doing. He watched the distant figures of the condottiere's men bustling and digging, and while he couldn't make out much of their activity, by the day's end, he reckoned he had a good idea.
"I had the same idea myself, see," he said dryly. "Back in the day. Turned out I didn't need to use it."
Hands in the dirt, Gallus Tadius shaped a mounded curve to represent Lucca's outer wall. With a stick, he traced the river's broad, winding course, with a smaller line representing the canal that fed the moat.
"So," he said, sketching in the dirt. "Valpetra diverts the river to the west, here, and builds two dams, one above the canal and one below it. He fills in the trench and returns the river to its proper course. The water backs up here, in LakeEmarus. Once it threatens to flood, he breaches the upper dam, and the water goes here."
His pointed stick traced a swift course along the canal, bursting through the mounded dirt that represented Lucca's wall.
"Trouble," he said.
Gaetano Correggio descended to examine the model. He shook his head. "It will not happen. The walls are strong, and the moats will disperse the water's impact. The river has overflowed its banks and flooded the plains before. It happened when I was a child. Lucca stood then, and it will stand now."
"Oh, you think so, do you?" Gallus eyed him.
The former Prince of Lucca paled. "I know my city."
"Your city." Gallus snorted. "Let me tell you something about your city, Correggio. It's got trees growing atop the walls. Very pretty. Oak trees have deep roots." He tapped the mounded dirt. "All this dirt between the walls ought to be packed hard as rock. And it's not. You know why? Your damned pretty oak trees. We're not talking about a river flooding its banks, Correggio. We're talking about a river in full flood changing its course. And when the gods alone know how many tons of rushing water hit that spot, with the sluice underneath it and roots eating through the dirt above it, it's going to burst like a rotten melon."
"Odds are he's right, my lord." A burly man in tradesman's attire rose.
Gaetano frowned at him. "Who are you to say?" "He's the head of your Masons' Guild," Gallus Tadius commented. "Didn't you bother to learn anything about your city? Master Varrius spent several hours examining the wall at my behest yesterday. He concurs." Beside me, Eamonn groaned. "My lord," I said. "How long do we have?"
Gallus shrugged. "Who can say, D'Angeline? It's a huge task, but Valpetra's got two thousand men at his disposal. By the look of it, they're trained in the old Tiberian manner." He looked approving. "They know how to set their hands to hard labor. They know what they're about, and they needn't do a bang-up job of it, either. It's only got to hold for a little while. And they'll work fast, because we've burned their food supplies out from under them, and because now they're worried about Terre d'Ange making a fuss." He slashed idly at the model of Lucca with his stick. "A few weeks, perhaps?"
A nobleman I didn't recognize glanced at his fellows, then cleared his throat. "So what do we do, Prince Gallus?" He told us.
In short, we prepared for the worst. Master Varrius and his masons would do all they could to shore up the wall, but we were to assume Valpetra's plan would succeed. We were to prepare for flood and invasion. Every household with an upper floor was to move their living quarters. Every household without one was to seek an alternate shelter. The conscript army of the Red Scourge was to begin drilling in preparation to fight.
"We've got nearly a thousand men," Gallus Tadius said cheerfully. "So the odds against us are a mere two to one." He rubbed his chin.
"I'd like to say we'll hold the breach, but the truth is, we've got an inexperienced army with a piss-poor assortment of arms and precious little armor to speak of. We'd be overrun in an hour's time. So we'll fall back in stages. Trick 'em, trap 'em, lead 'em into ambush. And I want your wives and sisters and daughters to hit them from the rooftops and upper stories—stone them, scald them, whatever they can muster. No safe havens." Gallus chuckled. "It's our city, lads. We can do this."
There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around.
I caught Eamonn's eye, wondering if I'd gone mad. It seemed to me there was an enormous flaw in Gallus' plan. Eamonn looked equally perplexed, so I asked. "My lord… how are we to do this if the city's flooded? What about the water?"
"The water?" Gallus jabbed his stick into the center of the tray. He grinned at me, baring healthy white teeth in his death-mask face. "Why, we're going to send it straight to hell, D'Angeline."
No one seemed to find this strange.
I opened my mouth to protest. A dozen blank stares fixed me. The pointed stick stood upright in the tray, quivering. I hadn't gone mad. Whatever haunted Lucca, they weren't my dead, weren't Eamonn's dead. But everyone here had gone a little bit mad, except for Gallus Tadius, who was either a lot mad, or right. I thought about the blackened husk of the bell-tower and the mundus manes beneath it. The pointed stick quivered. I thought about the cold, barren firepit in the Mahrkagir's festal hall. Joscelin had flung his torch into it like a warrior planting a spear, and the Sacred Fires had ignited across the whole of Drujan.
What did I know?
"Right," I said. "Straight to hell it is."
Once the conclave ended, Gallus Tadius dismissed the masons to their labors and dispatched the noblemen to see to it that his orders were spread. He called his conscripts together and informed us that we would be performing drills in the public park from this day forward.
"Tell the others," he said. "You'll get orders when to report. I'll make my decisions after I've gauged your skills. You lot seemed among the best, but we'll see."
"Does that mean no more night patrol?" Eamonn asked hopefully.
Gallus stared at him. "Hell no, Prince Barbarus! After all, I might be wrong."
No orders came that day. Eamonn and I spent most of it conferring with the Lady Beatrice and her household staff on preparing for the eventuality of a flood. Most of the villa's stores were in cellars. We studied the inventory together and made up lists of what should be hauled to the second floor of the villa, and what could safely be abandoned. She flung herself into the task, seeming grateful to have a purpose. Neither of us mentioned the part about the floodwaters being sent to hell, not until that night's patrol.