Once the preparations had been made, he pulled all his men back into cover, and settled down to wait. He knew this would be the hardest part of the job, a lethal opportunity to shred his own self-confidence to the point where he'd order the retreat sounded the moment a single Mezentine appeared in the distance. He almost wished he was the one being ambushed, since at least he wouldn't have to cope with the anticipation.

When the enemy finally arrived, of course, he was looking the other way. Worse; he was on foot, in a small holly grove, taking a last pre-battle piss. He heard the creak of an axle, followed by shouting; more shouting, as he fumbled numbly with his trousers (no mean feat of engineering for a man wearing plate cuisses) and battled his way out of the holly, stumbling on exposed roots and fallen branches as he tried to get back to where he'd left his horse. He mounted badly, twisting his ankle as he lifted into the saddle, winding himself as he sat down. There were screams among the shouts now, and a clattering of steel like blacksmiths trying to work the metal too cold. For a split second his sense of direction deserted him and he couldn't remember where the battle was.

His horse scrambled awkwardly out onto the road, and there was nobody there; he turned his head in time to see the last of his men joining in a full-blown charge. They could've waited for me, he thought, unfairly and incorrectly; he followed them, a shamefaced rearguard of one. Before he reached them he passed five dead men and nine sprawled horses, all Eremians. Wonderful omen.

Immediately he saw what the problem was. Quite properly, whoever had taken command while he was away urinating had seen an opening in the enemy front and thrown a full charge at it. Also quite reasonably, he hadn't expected the level of success that in the event he'd achieved. The charge had gone home and then gone too far, like an unbarred spear into a charging boar. The risk now was of being enveloped from the sides. Miel looked round in desperation for the horn-blower to sound the disengage. He found him almost straight away; lying on the ground, covered from the waist down by his fallen horse. He was dead, of course; and the horn lay beside him where he'd dropped it. At least one horse had trodden on it, crumpling it up like stiff paper.

Not so good, then. He sat still, frantically trying to decide what to do, painfully aware that the battle had slipped away from him, like a cat squirming out of a child's arms. Common sense urged him to stay out of the fighting, but he was the Ducas, and his place was in the thick of it. Muttering to himself, he pushed his horse into a half-hearted canter and, as something of an afterthought, drew his sword.

A horseman was closing on him; not an Eremian, therefore an enemy. He spurred forward to meet him, but the rider swerved away. Miel realized he was an archer, one of the Cure Hardy scouts. He pulled his horse's head round, determined to be at least a moving target, but the enemy was more concerned with getting away; he had his bow in his right hand and his left was on the reins. Before Miel could decide whether or not to do anything about him, the archer slumped forward on his horse's neck, dropped his bow and slid sideways out of the saddle. His foot snagged in his stirrup-leather just as his head hit the ground. His helmet came off and a tangle of long, dark hair flowed out like blood from a wound. He was being dragged. With each stride of the horse his head was jerked up, only to bump down again and bounce off a stone or the lip of a pothole. After a few yards, the horse slowed down; his foot came free from the stirrup, he rolled over a couple of times and came to rest. The side of his head was white with dust, like a fine lady's face-powder, blood blotting through it in a round patch, like blusher. The stub of a broken-off arrow stuck out of his neck, just above the rolled edge of his breastplate.

Miel looked up. He'd forgotten that, as he was moving into position, he'd dismounted his own archers and sent them to command the tops of the ridges that flanked the road. His own tactical skill impressed him. His archers were already in position, and because the attacking cavalry had forced the enemy out of the way and over to the sides, they had a clear view with minimal risk of dropping stray shots into their own men. If he'd planned it that way, it would have been a clever and imaginative tactic. Planned or not, though, the archers had turned a potential disaster into the makings of a famous victory. The arrows were driving the enemy back into the center of the canyon, where they were coming up against the Eremian cavalry; crushed between arrows and lances, like ears of wheat between two grindstones, they were gradually being ground away. In the distance he heard louder, shriller yells, from which he gathered that battle had been joined on the other side of the canyon.

It is incumbent upon the Ducas always to fight in the front rank, always to be the best... Query, however: is the Ducas obliged to fight in the front rank even if nobody's watching? The battle was coming along very nicely without him, thanks to the timely intervention of the archers, and the sheer aggression of the horsemen. The charge had long since foundered and lost all its momentum. The knights and lancers were no longer moving. Instead they were standing in their stirrups, bashing down on the helmets and coats of plates of the enemy infantry, who were too tightly cramped together to be able to swing back at them with anything approaching lethal force. With a considerable degree of reluctance, he pushed his horse forward into the fighting.

It reminded him of a thrush cracking snail-shells against a stone. His fellow knights were whirling and swinging their swords, flattening their delicately honed edges against the cheap munitions plate of the enemy footsoldiers. Even the swords of the Phocas, the Suidas, the Peribleptus couldn't cut into sixteenth-inch domed iron sheet. Farm tools or hammers would probably have been more use, but noblemen didn't use such things. Instead, they tried to club the enemy to the floor with their light, blunt swords; it was perfectly possible, provided you hit hard enough and took pains to land your blows on the same spot. Cursing the aimless stupidity of it all, Miel Ducas dug his spurs into his horse's side and forced the poor creature into a clumsy, unwilling canter.

He saw the enemy. Things weren't going well with them. Tidemarks of dead bodies showed where they'd tried to scramble up the slope to get at the archers, only to find out by trial and error that it couldn't be done. Instead, they'd tried to go back, and that, presumably, was when they'd discovered that the other end of the canyon was blocked. There were thousands of them, all the scouts had agreed on that, but just now their vast weight of numbers was working against them. Jammed together as their flanks cringed away from the archers, most of them were useless to their commander; they were a traffic jam, obstructing the passage of orders and intelligence from one end of the canyon to the other. It occurred to Miel that if he'd only had another couple of thousand men, he could probably kill enough of them from this position to end the war. But that wasn't the case; and at any moment, the sheer pressure of men trying to get away from the spearhead of knights wedged into their center would explode up the canyon sides and flush away his archers, albeit with devastating loss of life... Entirely against his will and better judgment, he spared a moment to consider that. Ever since childhood he'd trained with weapons, as a nobleman should; he'd fought with the quintain and the pell, sparred with his instructors, shot arrows into targets both stationary and moving. In due course he'd put the theory into practice, against the Vadani, in what proved to be the last campaign of the war, and afterward in border skirmishes and police actions against brigands and free companies. All his life he'd learned to fight a target - a wooden post wrapped in sacking, a sack dangling from a swinging beam, a straw circle with colored rings painted on it, an exposed neck or forearm, the gap beside the armpit not covered by the armor plates. It hadn't ever worried him, until now. He paused to consider how deeply troubled he was, now that he was in command, and all these deaths and mutilations were by his order and decision. It troubled him, he discovered, but not enough.

Devastating loss of life; the sides of the canyon could be covered with dead men, packed close enough together that if it rained, the dust wouldn't get wet, and it'd still only be three thousand dead, maybe four, and that wouldn't be enough to end the war or even affect it significantly. It was an extraordinary thought; he could litter the landscape as far as the eye could see with the most grotesque obscenities he could imagine, and it wouldn't actually matter all that much, in the great scheme of things. He considered the duty of the Ducas, and the beneficial effect on morale that the sight of their commander in the thick of the fighting would have on his men, and thought, to hell with that. He'd had enough. What he needed most of all was a horn-blower.

What he got was a couple of Mezentines. Two infantrymen who'd squeezed and wriggled their way past, through, under, over the heaped corpses of their friends were running toward him, yelling what he assumed was abuse. Dispassionately, he assessed them from the technical point of view. Their defenses consisted of kettle-hats, mail collars and padded jacks reaching just below the waist. They were armed with some form of halberd (were those glaives or bardisches? He ought to know, but he always got them mixed up). Calm, determined and properly trained in the orthodox school of fencing they'd be formidable opponents, worthy of six pages of detailed drawings and explanatory text in the manual. As it was, they were a chore.

He rode at them, pulled left at the last moment, overshot the neck with a lazy thrust and severed the appropriate vein with a long, professional draw-cut. He felt blood on his face, which saved him the bother of turning his head to look. He could, of course, let the other man go, but that would be failing in his duty. He stopped his horse, dragged its head round and rode down the second man, hamstringing him with a delicate flick of the wrist as he passed him on the right. As chores went it hadn't exactly been arduous, but he felt annoyed, imposed upon; he was a busy man with a battle to stop, and he didn't have time for indulgences.

He found a horn-blower and ordered the disengage followed by the withdrawal in good order. The horn-blower looked at him before he blew. The effect was immediate. The archers vanished from the ridgetops, the knights and lancers wheeled and cantered away, leaving the butchered, stunned enemy staring after them. Pursuit, he knew, wouldn't be an issue. He asked the horn-blower if there was a recognized call for "back the way we came." Apparently there was.

Back into the cover of the trees, back down the deer-trails they should have taken the first time, back to the forest road, and they were safe. The archers joined them almost immediately. Their captain rode over and announced that his losses were fewer than twenty killed, a handful injured. Miel thanked him and rode on; he hadn't actually thought about it, or asked for a similar report from the captains of the knights and the lancers. That reminded him that he hadn't given any thought to the fate of the other half of his army, the men who'd blocked the far end of the canyon. Before he could ask anyone or send a scout, they appeared out of the trees in front of him. He could see riderless horses being led by their reins - how many? A dozen? Twenty? But their captain seemed in good spirits.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Wonderful," Jarnac replied, his voice comically muffled as he lifted off his helmet. "Couldn't have gone better if we'd rehearsed it with them beforehand. Your end?"

Miel nodded. "I think we should get out of here," he said. "I'm not inclined to push my luck any further today."

Jarnac grinned at him. "Quite right," he said. "It never does to be greedy, and the rest'll keep for another day. I couldn't see it all, of course, but I'm fairly sure our score's up into four figures. If only we'd brought another three squadrons, we could've had the lot."

Miel nodded and drew away from his cousin. He felt exhausted, angry and very sick. He cast his mind back to another massacre, when the scorpion bolts had curtained off the sun and it had been Eremians rather than Mezentines carpeting the dirt. That had been easier to bear, somehow.

The exuberance of his men had worn off by the time they reached the city; they were quiet as they rode in through the gate, too tired to care about much more than getting out of their armor, washing off the smell of blood and going to sleep. Even Jarnac (who'd insisted on riding beside him for much of the way) had stopped singing; instead he was whistling softly, and Miel couldn't make out the tune. There were a hundred and sixteen dead to own up to; mostly lancers, but of the twelve knights, one was the younger brother of the lesser Phocas (a brash, arrogant boy whom Miel had always disliked). The guilt of a victory is different from the guilt of a defeat, but no less depressing.

He gave the necessary orders to dismount, stand down and dismiss the army; a quick run-through his mental check-list, and he concluded that he'd done everything that was required of him and the rest of the day was his own. He went home; the streets were nearly empty, and there were only a few old women and drunks to stop and stare at the blood-spattered horseman in full armor, plodding up the cobbled street with his reins long and his horse's head drooping. Grooms were waiting at the gate to help him down and take the horse inside. The housekeeper and one of the gardeners helped him out of his armor.

"Where's Bucena?" the gardener asked; and Miel realized that he hadn't seen Bucena Joac, his squire, the head gardener's nephew, since shortly before the ambush. He didn't know whether the boy was alive or dead, so he couldn't answer the question. The two servants drew their own conclusions from his silence; they didn't say anything, which made for an awkward atmosphere. At any other time, Miel would've run out and looked to see if Bucena had come home; if not, he'd have found out what had become of him before stopping to shed his armor or wash his face. Instead, he told the housekeeper, "I need a bath. Soon as possible."

He fell asleep in his bath, and woke up shivering in the cold water. Someone was banging on the door, which wasn't a suitable level of behavior for the Ducas house. He demanded to know who was making that abominable noise.

It was the porter, and he had the butler, the sergeant and the housekeeper with him. Some men had come from the palace to talk to the Ducas. They had a piece of paper with a big red seal at the bottom. Apparently, they wanted to arrest him.

21.

The debate that followed the attack on Melancton's expeditionary force was unexpectedly subdued, as if neither major faction was sure what to make of it. Tactically, as the Drapers were quick to point out, it had been a disaster. Melancton had walked into a trap and been utterly humiliated; the enemy had come and gone with hardly a scratch. Strategically, as the Foundrymen immediately replied, it was something and nothing; the fact that the Eremians had committed so few men to the attack and had withdrawn so quickly, neglecting opportunities for slaughter that could have been exploited at affordable cost, argued that they had no stomach for the war and a deep-seated timidity that more or less guaranteed success to the invasion. The body-count could be taken either way. The Drapers said that Melancton had wasted three thousand lives through sheer fecklessness. The Foundry-men said that three thousand was still well within budget, given that the harrying attacks they'd anticipated as the army advanced through the hostile terrain of Eremia hadn't materialized; indeed, if the pre-invasion casualty estimates were compared with actual reported losses, the invasion was comfortably in credit. Furthermore, the expeditionary force had been left in full possession of the field, and had resumed its march on Civitas Eremiae. By virtue of forced marches, Melancton had made up the lost time and was currently slightly ahead of schedule. Both sides were perfectly correct in their assertions, and neither faction even tried to dispute the other's arguments or statistics. A motion from the Clockmakers to dismiss Melancton wasn't even put to a vote, since (as Chairman Boioannes had pointed out in his opening remarks) there was no alternative candidate for overall command of the expedition who would be acceptable to the men themselves. A motion of censure was passed by a narrow majority, but it was agreed that it would be counterproductive and damaging to morale to publish it until the war was over and safely won, at which point it would be irrelevant; accordingly, it was agreed that it should lie on the file indefinitely.

Eventually she found him in a small room near the top of the old clock tower. When she burst in he was sitting facing the narrow window, a pile of papers on a small table beside him, a book open on his lap. She noticed that it was upside down.

"Orsea, you've got to do something," she said breathlessly, wondering as she said it why he hadn't turned his head to look at her. "There's this crazy rumor going around that Miel's been arrested and he's going to be executed or something. If people start believing that, there'll be panic and chaos and God knows what. You've got to tell them it's not true. Maybe the two of you could go out on the balcony and make a joint statement or something."

Still he didn't turn toward her. "Who says it's just a rumor?" she heard him say.

That didn't make sense. "Orsea," she said.

"Actually, the part about having him executed is a bit premature," he continued, in a voice that sounded like his, but very far away. "There'd have to be a trial first, and we can't allow that; at least, not till the war's over, assuming we survive it, and maybe not even then. In fact, definitely not. So no, we won't do that. Have to think up something else instead."

That was more cryptic gibberish than she could take. She lunged forward and grabbed at his shoulder; he avoided her, like a good fencer. "Are you completely out of your mind?" she said. "He's just won a battle, for pity's sake. He's your best friend. You can't -"

Now he turned and looked at her, and she took a step back. He searched for something on the table, found it; a small square of closely folded parchment. He pointed it at her as though it was a weapon.

Oh, she thought.

"He had it," Orsea said. "At least, it was hidden in a room in the Ducas house, in a place only he knew about. And it so happens I can verify that myself, because when we were kids he stole my lucky penknife and hid it there - a little sort of crack in the wall, behind a tapestry; but I was watching through the keyhole, though he didn't know. It was his secret place. If he put it there, it was because he didn't want it found."

"How did you -?" Veatriz started to say. She cut the question short, but the damage was done.

"How did I find out?" Orsea laughed. There was something frightening in his voice. "Extraordinary thing. That Mezentine, Vaatzes, the one who builds the war engines; he scheduled a meeting with me, I thought it was just about production schedules, but as soon as we were alone he took it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I was stunned; I sat there staring at it, trying to figure out what the hell it was. I could read the words; but for ages I simply couldn't figure out what it could possibly mean. And also I kept thinking, why the hell would Miel be hiding a letter, written to you by the Duke of the bloody Vadani? How in God's name did you come into it? And then -"

"Orsea, don't," she heard herself say; but she might as well have been in the audience at a play, watching a drama written two hundred years ago. She could protest all she liked, but there was nothing she could do to alter the words that were due to come next.

"And then," Orsea went on, "I remembered that extraordinary speech of yours, about how we should run away and throw ourselves on the mercy of Duke Valens." He shook his head. "Really, Triz, I don't know; have I been really stupid, not seeing the bloody obvious when it's right under my nose, or what? I didn't know you'd ever met him, even, let alone -"

"Once," she shouted. "Once, when we were kids, practically. I talked to him for five minutes at some horrible boring reception."

He looked at her and said nothing; his silence killed something inside her. "And Miel fits in, of course, I can see that now," he went on eventually. "He was always in love with you. You and he would've been married, only you had to marry me instead, because of politics. So of course he'd help you. The one thing I still can't figure out is who he's been betraying me to. I mean, this proves he's been working for the Vadani; then he goes and throws the battle, lets the bastards escape when he could've finished them off, so is he working for the Mezentines as well? Or is it just anything to screw me, because I took you off him?" He shrugged; big, melodramatic gesture. "I suppose I should care, because it matters politically, but I can't even be bothered to work it out. All I want is for the Mezentines to come quickly and finish us all off, before I find out anything else about what's been going on here."

She realized that her legs were giving way; she took two wobbly steps back and leaned against the wall. "It's not like that at all," she said. "Will you just listen to me?"

He looked at her. "I don't think so," he said. "It'll just make me feel worse if you lie to me."

That just made her feel murderously angry; if she'd had a knife, she'd have wanted to cut him with it. "Orsea," she said, "it was just letters. He wrote to me about something, or I wrote to him, I can't bloody remember which; and we just carried on, like friends. That's absolutely all it was, I swear. And God knows how Miel got hold of that letter, but he was nothing at all to do with it, I promise."

"You swear and you promise," Orsea said gravely. "There, now."

"Orsea, don't be -"

"Stop it, Triz," he said. "It's obvious. It's so obvious a bloody Mezentine who's only been in the country five minutes knows all about it; I suppose everybody knew but me. It's so horrible." He clenched his fists; it was a weak, petulant gesture, something a little boy might have done. "Would you please go away now," he went on. "I really don't want to talk to you anymore right now."

She tried to take a step toward him, but her feet wouldn't take her weight. "Orsea," she said. "Read the bloody letter. It's just harmless stuff, it's just chat. It doesn't -"

He laughed, and her mind was suddenly full of poison. "Just chat," he repeated. "Do you really think I'm so stupid? Well yes, apparently you do. Fine. I must be. Now would you please go away? I've got a war to run."

"Orsea. Will you please just listen?"

He shook his head. "No," he said. "Right now, if you told me my name I wouldn't believe you."

She wanted to fall on her knees and beg. She wanted to smash his face in. She couldn't do either. "At least talk to Miel," she said.

"No." He turned his back on her, sat down, picked up the book. It was King Fashion and Queen Reason. She could have burst out laughing. Instead, she leaned against the wall for balance and left the room.

The Mezentine army duly presented itself at the foot of the mountain road. Scouts reported that they numbered thirty thousand infantry, five hundred scorpions and a small garnish of light cavalry. They sat down and waited, like an actor waiting for his cue. Two days; nothing happened.

On the third morning, the baggage train arrived. It was suitably long and impressive; enough food and materiel for a long, thorough siege, enough plant and equipment for a devastating assault. Most of the machinery visible from the scouts' viewing point was so unfamiliar that they could only guess what it was supposed to be for; some reckoned it was heavy artillery for bashing down the walls, others were certain it was lifts and cranes for scaling ladders and siege towers, while a vocal minority insisted it was earth-moving equipment for undermining the main gate.

Just for the hell of it, Orsea sent an embassy under a flag of truce to ask why he was being invaded, and if there was anything he could do by way of reparation or apology. The embassy didn't come back. That, it was generally agreed inside the city, wasn't promising. On a more positive note, the Mezentine Vaatzes reported that all the scorpions were installed on the wall, fully operational, with good supplies of ammunition. If the enemy were stupid enough to come within range, he said, he could lay down a barrage that'd take out ten thousand of them before they had time to set up and load a single scorpion.

Certain death at the hands of an implacable and invincible enemy on the one hand; a stone-cold certain guarantee of victory on the other. Forced to choose between them, the Eremians in general made the obvious compromise and believed in both equally. It was easy enough to do; look down the valley at the enemy and abandon all hope, look up at the rows of war engines on the battlements and feel nothing but pity for the poor Mezentines, lambs to the pointless slaughter. Presumably the same ambivalence was what was keeping the enemy at a safe distance down in the valley; and there seemed to be no reason why they shouldn't stay there forever and ever.

As was only proper for such a noble and ancient house, there were plenty of precedents for the treatment and privileges of a Ducas arrested for high treason. It had been established over two centuries ago that he should be held in the East Tower of the inner keep, a substantial and self-contained space where he could enjoy the view out over the long cover, and the sun sparkling on the distant water of the Ribbon Lake. It was held that this would afford him peace and tranquillity in his darkest hour; further or in the alternative, it would remind him of the start of the falconry season, and by implication everything he'd forfeited by his foolish and presumptuous behavior. He should be brought food and fresh clothing three times a day direct from the Ducas house (tasting the food to make sure it wasn't poisoned was a special perquisite of the guard captain) together with books, writing materials, playing cards, chess sets and other basic necessities of civilized life. Each day two of his hounds should be brought to see him, so that the pack wouldn't pine for their master, and in the season he should be permitted to fly a peregrine falcon from his window at the doves roosting in the eaves of the bell-tower. His daily exercise should consist of a walk along the battlement of the curtain wall morning and evening, and shortly before noon either twelve ends of archery (with a child's bow and blunts) or sparring with wooden wasters in the courtyard behind the main guardhouse at the top of the tower. His valet should come to shave him at sunrise and sunset, under supervision of the guard captain. The Ducas steward, bailiff, treasurer, head chamberlain, private secretary, housekeeper, head keeper and huntsman were permitted to call at any time during the hours of daylight, or after dark when urgent business required the Ducas' attention; other visitors were at the guard captain's discretion and subject to review by a supervisor appointed directly by the Duke. In the event that the Ducas was unmarried, he should be permitted after thirty-eight consecutive months' detention, or if condemned to death, to marry a woman of good family nominated by the Duke solely for the purpose of begetting an heir. During any one calendar year, his personal expenditure was limited to sixty thousand thalers, and he was not permitted to buy land in excess of three hundred acres (except in completion of contracts entered into prior to his arrest) or participate in a mercantile venture to the value of more than two hundred and fifty thousand thalers (except for contracts for the supply of food, textiles or lumber to the army or the ducal household). He was permitted to stage a masque at midsummer and midwinter, employing no more than sixteen paid actors and thirty-six musicians, and to be staged in the main guardhouse; and to hold a banquet for no more than a hundred and twenty guests on the occasion of his birthday, the Duke's birthday and the anniversary of the Battle of Cantelac. He could have his portrait painted once every six months.

From the southern balcony of the East Tower, Miel could just see the extreme edge of the Mezentine camp: a section of the perimeter ditch, which they'd dug on the first night and second morning, a corner of the enclosure they'd built to pen up the wagon horses, and, if he leaned out and twisted his neck as far as it would go, the arms of the tallest of the giant long-range war engines that were being assembled from prefabricated components in a specially fortified stockade. Beyond that, he had to rely on observations made for him by members of his household; they told him about the arrival of the supply train, various comings and goings of auxiliaries and engineers, and the lack of any other significant activity.

In a curious way, much of the time he didn't feel like a prisoner. Running the everyday affairs of the Ducas - rent reviews, planting schedules, repairs and renovations to tenanted properties, adjudicating in tenants' disputes, all the duties he'd carried out all his adult life without a second thought - felt more or less the same, regardless of the fact that he was doing them in a slightly different setting. They'd brought up some of the tapestries and smaller paintings from the rent-room at the Ducas house, since it would've been unreasonable to expect the Ducas to receive his dependents and tenants in anything less than the proper surroundings; his sitting-room in the East Tower was, if anything, slightly larger than the rent-room, and not quite as drafty. Once I've been acquitted, he told his visitors, I've got a good mind to ask Orsea if I can stay here. Most of them smiled the first few times he said it.

He wrote to Orsea four times a day: once before breakfast, usually a quick, personal note asking for a meeting as soon as possible; a longer, more formal appeal composed during the morning; another similar during the afternoon; an expanded but more informal summary of all three, usually written in the early hours of the morning. All were delivered personally by his private secretary, all were read, none were answered. At least once a day he wrote to Veatriz, between three and ten pages, all of which he burned once he'd finished them. People brought him presents; mostly books ( Jarnac gave him a brand-new copy of King Fashion, profusely illuminated and illustrated by a leading artist) and fruit, as though he was ill.

He didn't know what he was supposed to have done, or who had accused him, or what evidence, if any, there was against him. The general consensus of opinion among his visitors was that it was something to do with the cavalry raid; it was cowardice or incompetence, or else deliberate collusion with the enemy, because he could have killed far more of them from the position he'd been in but had instead chosen to withdraw. His steward, a gloomy man called Evech, reckoned it was all the Mezentine Vaatzes' fault; he'd never forgotten how Miel had wanted to have him executed as a spy, and now he was in a position of power and influence, he was getting his revenge. Cousin Jarnac refused to offer any opinion whatsoever. He simply couldn't understand it, but Orsea had refused to see him or answer his letters, so he could shed no light on the matter. Miel's valet reckoned the Duke was after the family wealth, to help pay for the war. Nobody said anything about Veatriz being involved in any way, but she hadn't been to see him or written a letter. His housekeeper reckoned it was all a nasty plot by the Phocas, whom she always blamed for everything.

"If you ask me," she said vehemently, "it's them bloody Phocas who started this whole stupid war, just so they could do us down and get the command. Nothing they wouldn't do to push us out and be on top, only they know so long as you're around there's no chance of that, so they start spreading their filthy lies, and of course the Duke believes them, he'd believe any bloody thing -"

"You mustn't talk like that about the Duke," Miel said firmly.

She looked at him as if he was a martyred saint. "But look at how he's treating you," she said, "his best friend and all. If I could only get my hands on him -"

"That's enough," Miel said sharply; then he went on: "I mean, it'd be no good if I got out of here to find my own housekeeper, who's the only woman in the city who can run our house properly, is in jail for high treason. Fact is, you're far more important to the Ducas house than I am."

There were fat, soggy tears in her eyes; not just admiration and doglike devotion, but guilt as well. "You're making me feel dreadful," she said. "I wasn't going to tell you, not till you got out of here, but I can't keep it to myself anymore, it's like I'm betraying you when you need me most. For two pins I'd tell him to forget it, only everything's arranged now and I don't know if we'd be able to get the money back, and he's set his heart -"

"Hang on," Miel interrupted. "I think you may have missed a bit out. What can't you keep to yourself, and how are you betraying me?"

"Well," she said with a sniff, "me and Geratz - he's my husband, you know -"

"I've known him since I was six," Miel pointed out.

"Of course you have, I'm sorry. Anyway, we've come into a bit of money, a nice bit of money actually, and Geratz has always had his heart set on a farm, ever since he was a kid, his uncle being a smallholder out in the Crane valley and Geratz going there such a lot when he was a small boy -"

"You're buying a farm, then," Miel interrupted.

She nodded three times quickly. "Cousin of a friend of Geratz's aunt," she said, "got no kids of his own and he's getting on, the place is too big for him, but it's a good farm, there's sixty acres of pasture, a good vineyard, nice big plot for growing a bit of corn down by the river - that's the Mare's Tail, I expect you know it well, out west on the border, which would've put us off, of course, but now we're all friends with the Vadani there's really nothing to worry about - and there's a good road for taking the flock to market, and he wants next to nothing for it really, I think he just wants someone to look after it, make sure it doesn't all go to seed and ruin - well, you can understand that, after working all his life -"

"I'm delighted for you," Miel said firmly. "Truly I am. You deserve some luck, both of you."

She gazed at him as though her heart was breaking. "Yes, but leaving you, at a time like this, it just doesn't seem right..."

"Rubbish," Miel said. "The most important thing is to take your chances when you can. Now, as a token of my appreciation for all your hard work over the years I'd like to do something to help you set up. How about the live and dead stock? Is that included, or are you just buying the land?"

That had the effect of reducing her to tears, which was rather more than Miel could take. Besides, it was all completely fatuous; the Mezentines were camped at the foot of the mountain, and pretty soon all contracts, agreements, promises and plans would be null and void forever. It occurred to him to wonder whether she appreciated that. Absurd irony: to cherish an unthinkable ambition for a lifetime, to attain it through a small miracle (she hadn't said where the money had come from; a legacy, presumably) only to have it swept away by a huge, unexpected, illogical, ridiculous monstrosity of a war. Of course, he couldn't help thinking, here's my chance to be a hero; I could promise her any damn thing - five hundred prime dairy cows, a brand-new barn, a new plow and a team of twenty milk-white horses - and of course I'll never have to pay up, because in a very short time we'll all be dead. Oh, the temptation!

He spent the rest of her visit dealing with strictly domestic matters. Because of the siege, it wasn't possible for the steward of the home farm to send the usual supplies of provisions for the household up to the town house; it was therefore necessary to buy food for the staff, something that the Ducas hadn't done for generations. He authorized the extravagance with all due solemnity, and also agreed to a general washing and airing of curtains and bedlinen. ("Might as well get it all done while you're not at home," she'd said, "so it won't be a nuisance to you." He appreciated the thought, at any rate.) After a slight hesitation, she asked if she could take down the big tapestry, which she knew she shouldn't touch without express permission, but it had got in a dreadful state, with dust and all. There was a slight catch in her voice when she asked him that, but she was, after all, a rather emotional woman.

When she'd gone, he took a fresh sheet of paper (she'd brought a ream with her up from the house, since he was running low) and wrote his usual letters: to Orsea, conversational and slightly desperate; to Jarnac, asking him if he'd mind taking the riding horses to his stables for the time being, since he was concerned that they weren't getting enough exercise; to Veatriz, six pages, which he read over slowly before tearing them into small pieces and feeding them methodically into the fire. Not long after he'd finished that task, a guard told him he had another visitor: Vaatzes, the Mezentine, if he could spare a moment to see him.

"I think I might be able to fit him in," Miel replied gravely. The guard went away, and Miel got up to pour some wine from the jug into a decanter. There was a bowl of fresh apples, a new loaf and some seed-cakes, which the housekeeper had brought. The Ducas recipe for seed-cake was as old as the city itself and even more closely guarded; Miel had never liked it much.

Vaatzes looked tired, which was hardly surprising; he was thinner, and he grunted softly when he sat down. Then he yawned, and apologized.

"That's all right," Miel said. "I imagine they're keeping you busy right now."

Vaatzes nodded. "It sounds bad saying it," he replied, "but I'll almost be glad when the attack comes, and there's nothing else I can do. At the moment I keep thinking of slight modifications and improvements, which means breaking down four hundred sets of mountings just to put on an extra washer or slip in another shim. I know for a fact that all the artillery crews hate me. Don't blame them, either."

Miel shook his head. "You just wait," he said. "Once they attack, you'll have your work cut out."

"Not really," Vaatzes said. "I'm not a soldier, I'm just a mechanic. As soon as the bolts start flying I intend to find a deep, dark cellar and barricade myself in."

"Very wise," Miel said. "And you've done your bit already, God knows. But I suppose it's your war as much as ours, given the way they treated you. You want to get back at them, naturally."

Vaatzes frowned. "Not at all," he said. "I've got one hell of a grudge against a small number of officials in the Foundrymen's Guild and Compliance, but I love my city. What I want most in the whole world is to go home and carry on with my old life. That's not going to be possible, but it still doesn't mean I suddenly hate everybody I used to love, and that I've stopped believing in everything that I used to live by. No, I'm helping you because it's my duty, because you people rescued me when I was dying and gave me a home and a job to do; and because nobody else has a use for me. I'd have thought you of all people would've understood about duty."

"That old thing." Miel laughed. "It's actually one of our family's titles: the Ducas, Lord of the Mesogaea, Baron Hereditary of the Swan River, Master of the East Marches, Slave of Duty. Always made me laugh, that, but in fact it's true; the Ducas is the second most powerful man in this country, but everything he does every day, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, is pretty well dictated to him by duty. It's not something I ever think about, the way fish don't think about water."

Vaatzes studied him for a moment, as though making an assessment. "Duke Orsea's taken over running the war himself," he said. "Someone called the lesser Phocas is in charge of supplies and administration, and your cousin Jarnac's in command of the defense of the walls. There's a man called something Amyntas supposedly commanding the artillery, but I haven't met him yet. I think he's quite happy for me to get on with it; which is stupid, since I don't know the first thing about military science."

Miel grinned. "Neither does Tarsa Amyntas," he said. "He was famous for a week or so about fifteen years ago, when he killed a lot of Vadani in the war; hand-to-hand fighting in a forest, if I'm thinking about the right man. Since then, he's mostly spent his time composing flute-music and trying to grow strawberries in winter. Military command in this country goes according to birth, rank and position. It's a miracle we're still here."

"It seems to have worked," Vaatzes said mildly. "Take you, for instance. You won a battle."

"That seems to be a matter of opinion," Miel said.

"No, it's a fact. You were outnumbered - what, ten to one? It was something ridiculous like that. You outplanned and outfought the best professional commander money can buy. And I don't suppose it was just natural talent or beginner's luck," he added, with a small grin. "It's because you were born and brought up to do a particular job, just like sons follow their fathers in the Guilds. I'll bet you were learning about logistics and reading up old battles at an age when most kids are learning their times tables."

"Sort of," Miel said. "But I'm nothing special, believe me. It was just luck; and besides, I threw it all away by pulling back too early. At any rate, that seems to be what Orsea thinks, and the opinion of the Duke is the only thing that matters to the Ducas. Says so somewhere in the book of rules."

Vaatzes frowned at him. "Your family has a rule-book?" he said.