The Belly of the Bow (2 page)

‘Doctor
Gannadius
!’ She was gazing at him with a mixture of horror and terminal shame, and her eyes were as big as catapult-shot. ‘What did I
do
?’

He picked himself up and made a humorous play of dusting himself down. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Nothing broken that I’ve used in a long time. Tell me what you saw.’

‘But Doctor—’

He sat down and looked at her. ‘Tell me,’ he said quietly, ‘what you saw.’

She found a handkerchief in her sleeve and started twisting it. ‘Doctor Gannadius,’ she said, and the horror was already tinted with just the faintest flush of pride, ‘I think I saw the fall of the City. You know, Perimadeia. And—’ She swallowed and took a deep breath, as if she was about to dive off a high rock. ‘I think I saw you get killed.’

Gannadius nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Tell me, how’s your head?’

She felt the back of her skull. ‘You think I might have banged it and I’m seeing things? I’m sure I—’

‘How’s your head?’

‘Fine. Well,’ she added, looking down at her hands, ‘I do have a bit of a headache, but apart from that—’

‘How did I die?’ Gannadius asked. He was perfectly still and his voice was perfectly even; only the palms of his crumpled-up hands were sweating. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I won’t be offended.’

‘You were shot,’ she replied in a tiny voice. ‘An arrow hit you in the face, it went right through—’ She stopped and made a succession of alarming noises, which sent Gannadius scurrying for a big copper bowl that usually held fruit. He made it back with the bowl just in time.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘It was the stress, it can take people that way sometimes. I should have warned you.’

She looked up, the lower part of her face muffled by the handkerchief. ‘So you do believe me?’ she said. ‘Oh, I’m so
glad
- oh, that sounds such a stupid thing to say, what I meant was—’

‘I know what you meant. If it’s any comfort,’ he lied, ‘I was sick the first time too. And I didn’t even see anything horrible.’

‘Doctor Gannadius—’ She stood up, sat down, stood up again. ‘I - please, do let me wash out the bowl for you. I am so terribly
sorry
—’

Not half as sorry as I am, Gannadius reflected, once he’d finally shooed her away to her cell. I think disasters must follow me round like a sausage-maker’s dog. A natural, someone who can break through into the Principle
at will
. . . A really sensible man would follow her back to her cell and cut her throat at once. But.

‘Damn,’ he muttered, flopping onto the bed and curling his legs round. As he closed his eyes, he thought of his former colleague Alexius - apparently still alive, by some miracle, and cooped up on the Island, miles away from this war and presumably safe. For a while he toyed with the idea of trying to reach him by projection -
Are you out of your tiny mind? You don’t stop a fire in a timber-yard by setting light to your neighbour’s oil store
. Remarkably soon under the circumstances he fell asleep; and though he had vivid dreams, he couldn’t remember anything about them when he woke up.

 

Towards the evening of the second day they found a single straight ash tree growing in the ruins of a derelict cottage.

‘It’s not perfect,’ he said, ‘but it’ll have to do.’

Bardas Loredan let the reins slip through his hands and sat for a while looking at the ruins, the stones standing out through the light sprinkling of snow like elbows poking through a frayed sleeve. Burnt down, by the look of it, maybe fifty or sixty years before; even after all that time, the marks of fire were plain enough. This high up in the mountains, moss and ivy and the other types of vegetation that seem to regard it as their duty to cover up human errors don’t seem able to take hold on fallen masonry; there were a few patches of wispy grass growing in the cracks of the exposed mortar, two young rowan saplings perversely trying to make a living in the gap between the wall and the hard earth, and this fine, mature ash tree he had chosen to cut down, standing tall in what should have been the middle of the floor. If he was a superstitious man and one given to reflecting on past horror and glories, he might be tempted to make a connection between the fall of the house and the rise of the tree. But he wasn’t, and it was the only piece of straight timber he’d seen in two days.

Beside him on the cart’s box, the boy shifted impatiently.

‘That’s ash, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I thought we were after yew or osage.’

‘It’ll do,’ Loredan repeated.

The boy jumped down from the cart and saw to the horses while Loredan walked round the base of the tree, peering up into its branches and mumbling calculations under his breath. The boy watched him with his head on one side.

‘I thought you said this stuff was rubbish,’ he commented. ‘More trouble than it’s worth, you told me.’

Loredan frowned. ‘Maybe I exaggerated,’ he replied. ‘Get a fire going, then come and give me a hand.’

He lifted the big axe down from the cart and tested its edge with his thumb. It felt dull, and he licked it over with the stone before slipping off his coat and squaring his shoulders for the first stroke.

‘I can’t get this fire to light,’ the boy complained. ‘Everything’s damp.’

Loredan sighed. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it after we’ve done this. Got your axe? Right, you go round the other side and try and match me cut for cut, try and keep it even. And for pity’s sake watch what you’re doing with that thing. Take it steady, don’t go wild.’

He adjusted the position of his hands on the axe, left hand at the bottom of the handle, right hand just under the axe-head, then fixed his eyes on where he wanted the blow to fall and swung. The shock of impact jarred his shoulders and he felt an uncomfortable twinge in his back, warning him to ease off a little.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ he grunted. ‘Your turn.’

The boy swung; typical boy with a big axe, wanting to show how strong he was. It was a wild, flailing swing, and he missed, hitting the tree with the handle of the axe rather than the blade. Needless to say, the head snapped off, whistled past disconcertingly close to Loredan’s elbow and landed in a patch of nettles.

‘Idiot,’ Loredan said indulgently. He remembered doing exactly the same thing himself when he was just a kid; younger than this boy, of course - by the time he was the boy’s age he really had known everything there is to know about felling a tree, instead of merely thinking that he did. ‘Go and find the axe-head.’

‘It went in the nettles,’ the boy replied.

‘I know.’

He carried on cutting, swinging the axe in a slow, economical rhythm, letting the weight of the head do all the work. After twenty or so strokes he moved round to the other side and evened up the cut; then he started again a quarter-circumference round, until he’d cut through to the core on three sides. He paused and leant on the axe-handle.

‘Found it yet?’

‘No.’

‘Gods, you’re slow, it’ll be dark soon,’ he said. ‘Come on, leave that and fetch the ropes.’

Together they roped the upper branches and made fast to what was left of the cottage’s doorframe. ‘Keep back,’ Loredan warned. ‘And don’t get under my feet.’

He finished the job then; and when he was all but through, the weight of the tree ripped away the last few splinters of heartwood and the trunk jerked sideways, came up against the restraint of the rope and slid off the stump, coming to rest more or less where Loredan wanted it to be.

‘That,’ he said, stepping back, ‘is the proper way to fell a tree. If you’d been paying attention, you might have learnt something useful.’

‘You told me to look for the axe-head,’ the boy replied. ‘Anyway, what’s the big deal about cutting down trees? You just hit them till they fall over.’

Loredan breathed out slowly. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Get the saw. There’s still just about enough light left to make a start.’

The boy yawned and fetched the long two-man bowsaw, and together they trimmed off the axe-cut point of the log, leaving a flat circle with the growth rings clearly visible.

‘That’ll do for today,’ Loredan said. ‘We’ll leave the next stage till tomorrow; that’s the important bit. Now find that axe-head while I light the fire.’

‘My arms are all stung,’ the boy pointed out mournfully.

‘Use the hook to cut back the nettles,’ Loredan said patiently. ‘Then you’ll be able to find the axe, and you won’t sting yourself.’

The boy grunted. ‘You might have told me that earlier,’ he said.

Loredan looked up from the pile of kindling and smiled. ‘I was hoping you might have worked that one out for yourself,’ he replied. ‘Get a move on, we haven’t got all night.’

 

They came an hour after sunset; five long black ships with their masts down, making almost no sound as they slipped through the two rocks that stood in the mouth of the cove. It was a fine piece of seamanship, bringing five warships through a narrow gap at twilight, and it was done with confidence and efficiency.

They disembarked quickly and quietly, every man knowing what to do, then their officers marshalled them into two parties and led them up the beach. There was nothing to hear, no clinking of armour or weapons or creaking of straps, no talking or careless footfalls. From where he lay, Gorgas couldn’t see well enough to count them, but he put the number at over two hundred, possibly as many as two hundred and fifty. A substantial force for a simple foreclosure, except that no foreclosures were simple any more.

‘There’s more than we expected,’ whispered the man at his side. He sounded frightened, which was how it should be.

‘We can handle them,’ Gorgas replied softly. ‘Now shut up and keep still.’

Brave words, he said to himself; odds of nearly three to one aren’t good business. He glanced up the hill towards the farmhouse; there was a light burning in the tower, as he’d ordered, and the path from the beach led straight up to the front gate. Logically they’d follow the path until they were maybe a hundred yards from the stockade and then split up, one party to the front, the other round the back. That’s what he’d have done. There weren’t that many options; it was a relatively simple job.

The raiders were hard to see against the rocks that crowded the sides of the path, and Gorgas could make them out only because he knew what he was looking for. It would have been much simpler to have taken them there, with the rocks for cover, but the line would have been too extended; he couldn’t have engaged all of them at once and the rearguard might have made things unpleasant for him if they kept their heads and didn’t run. Besides, if they were expecting an ambush, that was the obvious place for one.

The leader of the first party was passing the stone Gorgas had measured off as his fifty-yard mark. He could see them rather more clearly now, there were recognisable arms and legs and heads instead of a dark moving blur. It was, he realised, all rather like still-hunting deer in the forest when he was a boy. The trick was to be patient, to wait for the last possible moment before standing up and shooting, but with the proviso that the longer you waited, the greater the risk of spoiling the whole thing with a careless sound or movement. There was a small, fine irony there: he’d always been the impatient one, anxious to get it over with and shoot as soon as the animal was within range. Just as well he’d learnt his lesson.

The last man was clear of the rocks, and they were still moving at a smooth, unhurried pace, unaware that there was anything wrong. Probably, if they were experienced men, they were feeling a little surge of relief now that they were clear of the rocks, where an ambush might have been waiting. Between them and their objective, the ground was open and level. They’d be reckoning they were as good as home and dry.

Gorgas stood up and called, ‘Loose!’ at the top of his voice.

He’d chosen his ground well. The path ran along the crest of a slight ridge, so slight that you’d hardly notice it, but just enough to give his men sufficient angle to shoot up towards the path without the risk of dropping arrows among their own people on the other side. At fifty yards, even in this light, there was no excuse for missing, and he’d seen to it that his men could shoot. The first volley was gratifyingly effective.

The enemy leader was down, so there was no one to give the immediate orders that might have made a difference. Instead, most of the raiders froze, not knowing what to do, plenty long enough for a second volley. Gorgas realised his own first arrow was still on the string. He picked a man at random, looking at him down the arrowshaft as he drew back with his right hand, pushed forward with his left; then, as his right forefinger brushed the corner of his mouth he relaxed his right hand and let the arrow fly. He didn’t stop to see where it went; the enemy was still holding, but he could hear their officers shouting -
Left wheel, about face, keep the ranks together!
- and there was no time to lose if he wanted to keep the initiative. They were one volley ahead of the game already, which had probably gone some way towards reducing the numbers problem. He shouted, ‘Go!’

It was an awkward business, that clash of arms in the darkness. The man he came up against must have taken him for one of his own, because he turned to meet him with his shield lowered, started to say something but never got the chance to finish. Gorgas shot him from about four feet away, and he could hear the arrowshaft snap under the force of such a close impact. The man went down without a sound, and Gorgas looked around quickly. He could no longer tell friend from enemy himself, which was disconcerting. He quickly nocked another arrow and started to flex the bow, ready to make the last pull and push to full draw as soon as a target presented itself. In the event, he didn’t have long to wait. Someone barged towards him, presumably an enemy, certainly too close to take risk. He opened his chest into the strain of the bow, and something snapped.