The Dog of the North (51 page)

‘You do me too much honour, my lord.’

‘Both you and Captain-General Virnesto will be knighted,’ he said. ‘How does the name of Sir Beauceron sound? You will be a Snowdrop Knight.’

‘You are a most magnanimous lord.’

Brissio nodded in a private reverie. ‘The matter is settled, then,’ he said. ‘I will be taking Oricien’s surrender at The Patient Suitor as the sun goes down.’ He
rose and stalked from the tent.

From outside came a hubbub of hoofs and voices. Beauceron rose, brushed the crumbs from his shirt and ducked under the flap.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ cried Brissio. Before him, on gallumphers, were Captain-General Virnesto and a soldier in Beauceron’s livery. They dismounted.

‘My lord, all is changed!’ said Virnesto in voice tight with tension. ‘King Enguerran is on his way!’

Brissio looked all around as if to see the King’s army. ‘What is this? Enguerran? Where?’

‘Half a day’s march south,’ said Virnesto. ‘He has brought much of his strength.’

Brissio paled. ‘What is the source of this information?’

Virnesto jerked his head towards the soldier. ‘It seems some of Beauceron’s men were plundering the countryside. This fellow ranged south, and saw troops.’

Brissio stepped close to the man. ‘What is your name? Could you be wrong?’

The soldier rubbed a long chin. ‘I am Tocchieto, my lord. There can be no error. I have ridden with Beauceron these past eight years, and I know troops. Enguerran’s personal standard
flies high. He has many infantry and cavalry – more than we have here.’

Brissio looked at Virnesto, who said nothing.

Beauceron asked Tocchieto: ‘How closely were you able to scrutinize the forces?’

‘Well enough. Since I imagine I will be fighting them, I took care to glean as much information as possible.’

‘Is this man reliable?’ asked Virnesto.

Beauceron nodded briskly. ‘He is one of my best men, if over-fond of the pleasures of the field.’ He frowned at Tocchieto, who responded with a gap-toothed grin. ‘Did he have
any siege engines?’

Tocchieto thought for a moment. ‘No, my lord. He had baggage wagons, of course, but for certain there was no tre-buchet.’

Brissio licked his lips. ‘King Enguerran is a bloodthirsty man. His wrath is best avoided.’

‘Do you suggest lifting the siege, my lord?’ asked Beauceron with a sardonic smile.

‘Can we not keep the information from Oricien?’

‘He will be here in half a day. It will be hard to disguise his presence at that point.’

‘We have only one choice,’ said Beauceron. ‘We must storm the city.’

Virnesto frowned.

‘Consider, my lord,’ Beauceron said to Brissio. ‘If we are caught on the plain, we will be trapped between Enguerran’s larger army and Oricien’s men behind the
walls. Once we take the city, Enguerran cannot extract us without siege engines.’

‘We will be trapped!’ said Brissio in a high voice.

‘Better to be trapped behind the walls than on the plains. The Summer Armies can relieve us.’

Brissio looked around. ‘We will starve as Oricien’s men starve.’

‘We can keep men in the field. My men can live off the land, and they can ravage the countryside. Enguerran will soon come to terms.’

Brissio ran his hand through his hair. ‘Virnesto?’

‘Either we raise the siege now, my lord, in which case Enguerran may drive us into the sea; or we assault the city today.’

Brissio straightened his doublet. ‘So be it, General. Sound the assault!’

6

Beauceron stood at the foot of the ladder looking up at the walls. Never before had they seemed so tall. From high above, Oricien’s archers fired down into the press
of men. He signalled to his own archers, who set up a concerted fire at the men on the city walls. With curses the defenders drew back, and Beauceron pulled on a steel cap and dashed up the ladder
with his own men, including Tocchieto and Rostovac behind him. Something clattered off his helmet. From above he heard cries of ‘Oil, oil!’ and shuddered. He was no stranger to battle,
but this was something new. He tensed his shoulders.

‘Come on, lads!’ he cried. ‘Before they burn us.’ He looked down for a vertiginous moment: he had thought only to climb a couple of rungs, but he was almost at the top of
the ladder. Tocchieto pressed at his heels. Above him a soldier in a ragged leather hauberk drew back a battleaxe: before he could complete his stroke, an arrow from the ground sent him plunging
forwards over the wall. Two more rungs!

The press of men defending the walls grew thicker. Beauceron’s ladder was the one closest to a breach, but the defenders jostled so thickly they did not have space to bring their own
weapons to bear. All that was preventing him from entering the city was the sheer bulk of men before him. From below, Tocchieto saw what was happening and levered his cupped hands under
Beauceron’s boot. He was thrust upwards, propelled into the air and headfirst over the wall. He rolled as he landed on the walkway; then he was on his feet, his sword in his hand. The
defenders turned to face him: before they could realize their error, Beauceron’s men surged over the wall and fell upon the disorganized Croadasque.

Beauceron’s men were armoured, battle-hardened, ready to fight: their opponents wore whatever had come to hand, and had been expecting to hand the city over by nightfall. By the time they
had realized the changed situation, the wall had been taken in several places along the western boundary. He watched as the West Gate swung open, taken by Virnesto’s men from another ladder.
The broad street leading to the market square offered no barrier to the troops. Virnesto’s herald blew a triple call. From his vantage point atop the walls Beauceron could see Brissio’s
cavalry assembling. Once they were in the city they would be unstoppable.

From the market square came Oricien’s cavalry with his own banner flying at the head: a pitifully small force. A gallumpher drew a rattlejack containing a cauldron of oil alongside. It was
too late to pour it on the ladders now: the attackers were already in the city. The cart trundled its futile course ahead of the cavalry. Oricien, on his white gallumpher, rode alongside it. Would
he surrender? The city would be sacked in any event: he had little to lose by fighting on.

Beauceron looked down to where Brissio’s gilded armour rode at the head of his cavalry. His right hand was high in the air: he dropped it and spurred his gallumpher forward, leading the
triumphal cavalry charge. Beauceron shook his head in disgust: he had left no reserve at all, but chosen to charge with his entire cavalry. In the circumstances it would make no difference, but it
was the mark of an amateur – an amateur who intended to see him dead, he reminded himself with a start. He could not stop his heart thrilling at the sound of the gallumphers’ hoofs as
they clattered across the cobbles of the street, the cries of the knights and the snorting of their mounts.

Oricien signalled to two of his men, who pulled on a rope and positioned the rattlejack athwart the street. It would hardly delay the cavalry charge, but it might give Oricien’s men a
chance to escape and fight again. Brissio’s cavalry continued their charge, howling with bloodlust. As he watched, one of the gallumphers slipped and fell to the ground, bringing another with
it. Beauceron noticed that the cobbles were darker here, and he realized – Oricien had pulled the plug from the oil container. At the speed Brissio’s cavalry were moving they had no
chance. One gallumpher after another hit the spreading patch of oil: on the slick surface of the cobbles they fell before they realized what was happening. From the houses on either side of the
streets archers fired from the windows into the prone cavalrymen. Oricien’s men dismounted and waded in among the fallen knights as they scrabbled to rise in their heavy armour. The sun
glinted on the bodkins of the defenders as they stabbed the knights through their gorgets and visors. The oil mixed with the slick of blood leaking from the knights’ armour.

It was slaughter. Beauceron, too far away to intervene, watched as Brissio scrambled to his feet, surrounded by a phalanx of knights who had managed to rein in before they reached the oily
cobbles. Brissio was hauled aloft and skittered back down the road with the few knights who had stopped in time: no more than ten in total. Brissio had managed to destroy his entire cavalry in less
then ten minutes. Beauceron shook his head.
I hate you, Oricien, but that was magnificent. Your father could have done no better.

Beauceron removed his helmet and dashed towards the fray, his men at his heels. He had to find Virnesto and launch a counter-attack. With Brissio’s cavalry lost, Oricien could yet win the
battle.

Virnesto had managed to secure the northwest quadrant of the city, which contained houses but few fortifications. They were cut off from the bulk of the army outside, which Brissio was trying to
bring into order. There was a real danger, Beauceron realized, that Virnesto would be killed or captured before a larger force could rescue them. The Mettingloom officers were not generally of a
high standard. Without Virnesto they would surely be beaten.

He gave Monetto orders to rally the troops outside and plunged into the press of fighting in the streets. He needed to find Oricien: he might have to take any vengeance which presented itself to
him. But where had the Lord of Croad gone? He had not yet conceded defeat, that much was sure. Oil, that was the key. It had beaten the cavalry, and it could yet hamper the infantry. And where was
the oil stored? He grinned to himself: the viatory.

The shrieks and howls of the fighting reached his ears as if damped by cloth. They could have been from another city, and in a sense they were. He ran through the market square, noting as he did
so one gibbet set away from the others, with his own wolf’s-head standard flapping limply above it. Isola had not exaggerated: Oricien had built him his own gallows. He smiled. The gallows
would only be effective if Oricien could capture him.

By the time he reached the Viatory the city could have been deserted: the fighting was all on the western side of the city. The tower of the Viatory reached for the sky above him. It was many
years since he had listened to Viators Dince and Sleech inviting the folk of Croad to Find the Way: one a sadistic hypocrite, the other a feeble reed. Little wonder that he had fallen away from the
Way.

He cautiously opened the heavy wooden door. If he was right, Oricien would be within, and whoever he had commandeered to help him. In the gloom of the cavernous interior, at first he thought to
see no one. Then, in the Arch, an elderly stooped figure: Beauceron fought back a laugh, for it was surely Viator Sleech, a decrepit character even when Beauceron had been growing up. By now he
must be in his dotage.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw another man on the steps to the tower. It was Oricien. Beauceron regretted for a moment leaving behind his bow; but it was no part of his plan
to kill the Lord of Croad from a distance. He crept along the walls until he stood within touching distance of the Arch. Oricien turned the spigot which released the flow of Harmonic Elixir from
the tower. The glutinous liquid gurgled irritably into a long low trough.

‘Quickly, Sleech, the buckets!’ called Oricien from the ladder. ‘We must fill as many as we can.’

Sleech inched towards the front of the Arch and picked up a bucket, moving with even greater slowness towards the channel. ‘—no care for my old bones – at my age –
retire—’ he grumbled as he moved.

Suddenly he turned his head. Something had alerted his rheumy suspicion. Beauceron cursed, for Sleech was looking straight at him. ‘Oh!’ he cried in a scratchy voice. ‘My
lord—’

Beauceron struck the old man across the face with a mailed fist.
Old fool,
he thought.
Lucky I do not kill you.

‘Sleech?’ called Oricien. ‘Sleech, is anything amiss?’

He jumped from the ladder, turned to see Sleech’s form slumped before him. His broadsword was in his hand even as he took in the scene. Beauceron would have had no compunction about
settling with him whether he were armed or not, but maybe it was better this way.

He stepped from the shadow. ‘Oricien,’ he said softly. ‘Turn slowly, or die now.’

Oricien took a step away from Sleech and turned to look into the flickering sconce. ‘Arren,’ he breathed.

Beauceron gave an infinitesimal bow. ‘I now use the name Beauceron or, colloquially, the Dog of the North.’

Oricien raised his sword. ‘Isola said the Dog of the North was Lord Guigot.’

Beauceron shrugged. ‘Such was the rumour in Mettingloom. I saw no reason to discountenance it.’

‘Either way, you were banished upon pain of death.’

‘Guigot’s exile was deserved. Mine was not.’

‘Now is not the time to rehearse your grievances. My city is under attack.’

‘Everyone is fighting on the West Walls,’ said Beauceron. ‘No one will come, and no one will save your city. We may talk a while, if you choose.’

‘I choose to pour burning Elixir upon the northern raiders. I have already shattered your cavalry,’ said Oricien. ‘If you try to stop me I shall kill you.’

‘You have the chance now,’ said Beauceron with a slow smile. ‘Although I would know why you betrayed me first.’

Oricien shook his head impatiently. ‘There was no “betrayal”. You abused my father’s favour by defiling Siedra. He was merciful – to excess, as events have turned
out – in allowing you to live.’

‘Siedra trapped me. She was jealous of Eilla, for whom I had made my preference clear.’

Oricien waved the point away with a swat of his hand. ‘The question is of little relevance. It was many years ago.’

‘It is rather less academic to me,’ said Beauceron. ‘There has not been a day when I have not sworn revenge on all who betrayed me: your father, your sister, and you. My father
died in your father’s service, at his side. I never saw him or my mother after that night. Eilla, the sweetest and truest lady of all, was torn from me and exiled. Your family destroyed her
life and mine.’