The Dog of the North (44 page)

‘Princess Agalina believed otherwise, so I heard. She felt your relationship to Oricien was more than casual: indeed, that this whole affair might be a blood feud.’

Beauceron started. ‘And how would you be in a position to know Princess Agalina’s speculations?’

Isola laughed. ‘Brissio told me. He is keen to know more of you, and was eager to regale me with what he had heard.’

Beauceron set his goblet down with a thump. ‘Brissio is a buffoon, a farmyard animal in the vestments of a prince. His theories should be evaluated in that light.’

Isola gave a quick harsh peal of laughter. ‘You are piqued.’

‘The matter of my identity is not germane,’ he replied. ‘Come, the hour is late: let us take dinner.’ He put his head outside the pavilion.

‘Rostovac!’ he called. ‘Kindly set up the tables. We shall be dining al fresco tonight.’

Rostovac, a gnarled veteran of many previous campaigns, gave an uncertain smile and bustled off to carry out his errand.

Beauceron offered Isola his arm and they walked outside. Once Rostovac had set up the tables, he said, ‘Sit down. What better prospect could we have for our meal?’ He gestured with a
sweep of his arm to take in the city of Croad immediately before them.

‘Are we not in some danger?’ asked Isola. ‘This close to the walls, might we not be killed by arrows, or fall victim to a sortie?’

Beauceron shook his head indulgently as Rostovac positioned the table and spread a heavy cloth. ‘Oricien will not dare to sally forth. His safety lies in his walls. And if he did choose,
the watch on the North Gate would alert us in high time. As to arrows, my experience allows me to calculate their range with exactitude.’ He pointed to a spot some fifty yards towards the
walls. ‘That is their maximum extent. You can relax. Tonight we will have a memorable meal.’

Lady Isola looked unconvinced. Campfires burned all around against the chill of the twilight. Behind them stood Beauceron’s trebuchets, eerily reminiscent of giant grasshoppers, and now
quiescent for the night.

‘The occasion is unconventional,’ said Beauceron with a smile, ‘but all the more noteworthy for that. You will be able to tell your grandchildren you dined before the walls of
Croad, during their destruction.’

Isola grimaced. ‘Grandchildren presuppose a husband. You have made your intention to kill mine clear.’

Beauceron waved the point away with an airy gesture. ‘You are not yet married, and many other prospects await you. But this is not the time for such talk. Look at the sun setting behind
the walls, feel the warmth of the burgeoning spring. All over Mondia, folk toil for their meagre bread: behind the walls, they wonder how long they will be able to eat at all. And look! Rostovac
approaches bearing a noble roasted capon, and that is merely the start of our repast. Rejoice in the privileges that you enjoy: do not complain of imaginary woes.’

Isola gave him a steady look. ‘You lack empathy for the suffering of others.’

Beauceron acknowledged the point with a nod. ‘Empathy is not a helpful quality for a man in my profession.’

‘Your profession as soldier, or monomaniac?’

Beauceron poured two goblets of wine from the flask Rostovac had set before them. ‘You shall not provoke me, my lady. And you mistake me if you think feasting before the walls of a
starving city denotes a lack of feeling. The opposite is true: my effect is precisely calculated. All along the walls Oricien’s soldiers will see us eating the finest viands: their bellies
will grumble, their spirits will be sapped. Word will reach Oricien; the capacity of the city to resist will be correspondingly diminished.’

‘I imagined you had invited me to dine for the charm of my company,’ said Isola.

‘And so I have. My illustration to the people of Croad could have been carried out as well on a table laid for one.’

‘May I ask where the food has come from?’

Beauceron smiled. ‘This is an additional irony, although not one which will be apparent to Oricien. Our victuals have come from the kitchen of The Patient Suitor inn, on the south of the
river, which is now our command headquarters. The people of Croad have furnished our meal tonight, and I salute them!’ He raised a goblet high towards the wall. Some seventy or so yards off
an arrow thudded into the turf.

‘Poor,’ said Beauceron, shaking his head. ‘Both accuracy and range are below the optimum.’

Isola picked at the food before her. ‘I am not sure that I have a great appetite this evening.’

‘As you will,’ said Beauceron. ‘The lesson for Oricien may be even more compelling if I feed the leftovers to my dogs.’

‘Does Prince Brissio countenance your behaviour?’

‘We have arrived at an arrangement of sorts,’ said Beauceron. ‘He has allowed me to deploy the trebuchets as I choose to the north of the river. He retains the bulk of the
troops to the south, shuts himself away in The Patient Suitor and sends daily challenges to Oricien.’

‘How so?’

‘He characterizes my siege tactics as “throwing stones”. He disdains anything so base: he wishes to win his victory on the field of battle, and demands that Oricien bring his
army out to fight like men. Oricien, of course, has more sense. He stays where he is, and gambles that a relief force will reach him before his food runs out. In his position I would do the
same.’

‘Brissio does not see the siege as real battle?’

‘Exactly. He wants to fight a second Jehan’s Steppe, before the walls of Croad. In this he is destined for disappointment.’

‘What if your trebuchets breach the walls?’

‘Either Oricien will surrender, or we shall have our battle, but it will be in the streets of Croad. A dirty, bloody business, taking a city by storm. There is little honour, and much
bloodshed. Brissio would not enjoy it.’

‘And you?’

Beauceron shrugged. ‘It is effective. Once we are in the city, we will win. That is enough for me.’

Isola sipped reflectively at her goblet. ‘If the city surrendered, the garrison would be allowed to march out, would it not?’

‘That is the normal way of war.’

‘Oricien would be able to negotiate a safe-conduct with Brissio. He would escape your vengeance.’

‘Be assured, he will escape nothing of what he is owed.’

‘You would still be unsatisfied if he surrenders.’

‘Perhaps. But I do not think he will surrender. He will fight before he concedes his city.’

‘Why then does he not do so now, while he has food and strong soldiers?’

Beauceron laughed. ‘You have the makings of a strategist. A battle can only end in defeat, either glorious or inglorious. It can be seen as “dynamic surrender”. His best, his
only, hope is the arrival of Trevarre or Enguerran, and he will cling to that to the point of starvation, and even beyond.’

‘Will you excuse me?’ asked Isola, rising stiffly. ‘I find this chilly calculation enervating. I will be in my pavilion if you wish to see me later.’

Beauceron raised his goblet and helped himself to another portion of ragout.

He walked around the northern perimeter of the city, until finally he found himself at the Traitors’ Gate by the river bank. He gave a rueful smile as he looked up. How long it had been
since he stood on the other side of the wall! He thought of the faces of his youth, so many of them now dead: Lord Thaume, Sir Artingaume, Darrien. He hardly knew what had happened to many of the
others. Had Sir Langlan ever returned to Emmen? He would no longer be a young man. What of the virtuous Lady Jilka? He doubted that age would have improved her temper, if she still lived. Rarely
was Beauceron this introspective: it must be the proximity of his great goal. He knew for certain that Oricien was there: and it was Oricien, as the Lord of Croad, who must pay the price for his
family’s misrule.

By the time he returned to his tent, the moon stood high in the sky. The campfires blazed and, on the walls of Croad, lanterns burned. There was a glow from within Isola’s pavilion: she
had not yet settled herself for sleep. She seemed preternaturally aware of his presence, for although he made no sound she came out to meet him.

He bowed. ‘You are abroad late, my lady.’

‘I do not find it easy to sleep.’

‘I will send to Brissio to dispatch you another mattress from The Patient Suitor.’

‘It is not the mattress which keeps me awake.’ Her eyes were dark and full in the moonlight. Her deep green velvet dress held a curious lustre. Beauceron fought down a pang of
sympathy: she was about to bemoan her fate again, an experience no more agreeable for extensive repetition.

‘Is there any help I can offer?’ he said.

Her mouth compressed into the involuntary sneer which had become all too common of late. ‘The time is late to make amends,’ she said. ‘You have shown the man I was to marry to
be not only a niggard but a coward, hiding behind his walls until death finds him. There is no restitution you can make for that.’

Beauceron felt an obscure motivation to support Oricien against so absurd a charge. ‘He has no real alternative. To come out is to invite defeat and the destruction of his city.’

Isola looked at him in astonishment. ‘You ride to his rescue? He is as far from the gallant lord of popular repute as can be imagined.’

‘In that, at least, you are correct,’ said Beauceron. ‘But as a commander and lord of his city, he takes the only course open to him.’

‘A man of spirit would ride forth with every man at his call, to gain a mighty victory or heroic defeat.’

‘It would be the latter,’ said Beauceron. ‘He is outnumbered four to one. Then a city of women and children would fall to the sack. Be assured, that is not good
lordship.’

She paused as they walked and turned to look at him, a shaft of moonlight falling across her face. ‘You speak without conviction,’ she said. ‘You, for all your faults, are a
man of spirit. You would not perish in such a timid way.’

‘I am not the lord of a city; nor would I wish to be. I am responsible for no one but myself. Such a situation allows me the occasional rash gesture.’

She stopped and looked up into his face. Her eye met Beauceron’s. ‘Had we met under different circumstances, matters might have gone differently between us.’

‘Differently from kidnap, you mean?’ said Beauceron with a smile. ‘It is perhaps not the best introduction.’

‘I am serious,’ she said, looking down. ‘You have a warped nobility, but a nobility nonetheless. It would not be hard for a woman to – You know, of course, that Cosetta
greatly admired you.’

Beauceron stared gravely into her face. This was not one of her occasional forays into flirtation.

‘Cosetta admired nothing more than her own advancement,’ he said. ‘I do not condemn her for that. Her feelings towards me must be viewed in that light. Prince Laertio will make
a far more suitable patron.’

‘You underestimate – either yourself, or Cosetta’s feelings, perhaps both.’

‘Cosetta’s feelings are of little interest. She is far away.’

Isola’s voice dropped. ‘But I am not, Beauceron. I am here, now, one foot away from you. If you touched me you would feel the warmth of my body.’

‘I am warm enough,’ said Beauceron. ‘I need no additional heat.’

‘Must I beg you?’ she said softly. ‘For six months we have ranged the steppes of fate together. You have been cruel, you have been indifferent, on occasion you have been
tender. I can never return to my old life. Beauceron—’ She broke off and her eyes searched his face.

Beauceron stepped back a pace. He looked over her shoulder to the glowering city walls beyond.

‘Isola, this is not wise,’ he said.

‘Am I not beautiful? I have been in your power, and you did not touch me. What you could have taken, I give to you freely.’ She put her hands on his shoulders, moved her face
forward.

Beauceron tried to look away. She was undeniably an attractive woman, if highly strung. But she was brittle, vulnerable, damaged. A flicker of a grin reached his lips as he recognized the irony
that he had no compunction about plotting to bring down a city, with perhaps hundreds of deaths, but he scrupled to take advantage of a lone woman.

She sprang back. ‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’ said Beauceron. ‘I honour and admire you. But I will not exploit you.’

‘Exploit me! You were happy enough to kidnap me and give my ransom away to win favour. But you will not “exploit” me!’ The moonlight highlighted the pink flush of her
cheeks.

She turned and ran back to her pavilion. At the threshold she looked back. ‘I thought you had given me every insult imaginable. I was wrong.’

In the morning, when Beauceron went to her pavilion to check on her, Lady Isola was gone.

Beauceron cursed as he looked around Isola’s pavilion. He had brought her against his better judgement, and now he had managed to mislay her. At the very least, with her ransom standing at
45,000 florins, this was careless. Irritably he saddled up a gallumpher and rode across the pontoon bridge to Prince Brissio’s camp.

He strode past the guards and bounded up the stairs to Brissio’s suite on the top floor. ‘Good morning, my lord,’ he said, bowing as well to Virnesto, who was poring over a
series of charts on a table in the corner.

‘Beauceron,’ acknowledged Brissio stiffly. ‘We rarely see you south of the river. Have you come to notify me of a breach in the walls?’

Beauceron scowled. ‘Regrettably I must inform you that Lady Isola has absconded from my company. I had hoped to find her over here.’

‘Absconded? The woman has been nothing but trouble since her arrival in Mettingloom.’

‘I take it she has not been found?’

Virnesto rose and walked to the window. ‘If you want to find her, that is where you look.’ He gestured to a queue of ill-dressed figures shuffling across the bridge; in the main,
country folk who thought to find safety in the city. ‘She will be trying to get inside Croad, I would have thought.’

‘Send men to detain her,’ said Beauceron.

Brissio raised a hand. ‘Let her in; let them all in. They all eat Oricien’s bread. I am sure Beauceron is too wily to have shared valuable secrets with her.’