Great Kings' War (55 page)

Kalvan's mouth made an O and a soundless whistle. A casual, even complimentary mention of the man who'd defeated him demonstrated just how much Ptosphes had recovered his morale. He wondered if he should include in his reply the rumors that the Grand Master was in serious trouble with the Inner Circle for pulling his Knights off the field of Phyrax instead of keeping them there to die to the last man.

Best not. Letters could be captured, and so far the rumor was just that, apart from also being something the Styphoni might not know had reached Hos-Hostigos. Right now Styphon's House appeared to be running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off, and any precaution that contributed to their confusion and ignorance was justified.

And speaking of precautions—Kalvan rose to his feet and shouted at the gunners who were digging a pit out of the side of the trench toward Tarr-Beshta. "That's deep enough, you Ormaz-spawned idiots! Any deeper, the gun will be firing straight up. And the shells will land on the heads of the men in the forward trenches! If they landed on
your
heads it might not be so bad, because I don't think you keep anything important there! But that's not true of your comrades."

"Your Majesty?" several bewildered artillerymen said at once.

Kalvan sighed, cursing Styphon's House for discouraging the art of siegecraft, and stood up. He spent a long moment studying the scarred gray walls of Tarr-Beshta for any signs of unusual activity that might mean a sortie, then scrambled down into the trench without regard to his dignity or the ability of his guards to keep up with him.

Five minutes with the artillerymen who were digging the pit was enough to give him some hope that they almost understood most of what he'd been trying to teach them. To be sure, the old twelve-pounder they were using as an improvised mortar would have a longer barrel and therefore more range than the mortars he had the Foundry working on, but why take chances? Only one or two shells on the heads of the infantrymen doing the dirtiest work of the siege, and the whole concept of indirect fire would be distrusted and despised so thoroughly that not even a Dralm-sent Great King could get it easily accepted.

On the other hand, if those shells landed inside Tarr-Beshta—it would take more than one or two, but not many more before it would be safe to storm the castle, end the siege and let a Great King who was also acting as his own Chief of Engineers get more than three hours' sleep a night!
Note: First thing, start a Dept. of Engineering at the new University of Hostigos.
 

Kalvan finished Ptosphes' letter over lunch in his field headquarters. The letter concluded almost jauntily:

Prince Aesklos' leg is being treated with your new healing wisdom about cleanliness by Brother Cyphrax, an underpriest of Galzar. There is some danger in this, because if the Prince dies or loses his leg, we shall be blamed for setting demons upon him. However, Brother Cyphrax says that the bone of his leg is not so badly broken. If the flesh wound does not bring the fester devils and the Prince need fear neither for life nor limb. We are more likely to heal than harm him, as he is much respected both as Prince and as war leader in Hos-Agrys, we will have in our debt a man whose voice will carry much weight in the councils of Demistophon the Short-Sighted. 
When the dangers from Styphon's Guardsmen is past, I intend to use such of the Army of Nostor as can be supported with our available supplies to rebuild and garrison some of Prince Pheblon's abandoned tarrs and strongholds, and after that root out the bandits who have become a veritable plague upon the countryside. Despite their wagon trains, the Agrysi soldiers fell upon Nostor like locusts, although most prudent men and women fled from their advance, abandoning their fields. However, what is more likely to prevent a proper harvest in Nostor this year, besides the number of farmers who died in the wars or protecting their holds, are the Agrysi deserters and the bandits, and it seems to me that the best work for me is seeing that they are destroyed.
 

With good fortune and the aid of the True Gods, I may return to Hostigos within a moon. Amasphalya should be warned that at that time I shall pick up my granddaughter and hold her, and Hadron take anyone who stands in my path! 
Perhaps Amasphalya dares to stand against a mere Prince, but if she stands against a grandfather she shall suffer for it. 
With best wishes for Your Majesty's continued health and success and for that of our well-beloved Queen Rylla and Princess Demia, I remain, 
Your obedient humble servant 
Ptosphes 
First Prince of Hos-Hostigos 
 

This time Kalvan whistled out loud. It was hard to believe this letter was written by the same man he'd seen off to Nostor a moon ago, who'd looked as if he were going to his execution. Kalvan had been torn between sending someone to keep an eye on his father-in-law and prevent him from getting killed unnecessarily, and fearing that doing this would be an insult that would make Ptosphes certain he was incompetent and dishonored even in the eyes of his son-in-law. After listening to Rylla, he'd decided to let Ptosphes go without a watchdog and keep his fingers crossed—a gesture that the here-and-now gods or Somebody seemed to have rewarded.

It was a pity that after so many men wound up being killed in the process of restoring Ptosphes' morale. Not that the war with Hos-Agrys was Ptosphes' fault—or Kalvan's, or anybody's but Styphon's House and to some extend King Demistophon, who had fallen upon Hostigos like a wolf on a wounded bear only to learn to his cost that the bear was still full of fight.

Kalvan saw no reason to quarrel with Harmakros' epitaph on Demistophon's campaign in Nostor:

"The stupid son of a she-ass should have known better."

Not to mention that some of his nobles apparently
had
known better, or at least were having second thoughts, and if antisepsis saved Prince Aesklos' life and his leg as well... Kalvan decided not to uncross his fingers until he heard how Aesklos was doing.

Later, back at the manor house he was using as the Army of Beshta HQ, Kalvan was reading Ptosphes' second enclosure, a list of booty collected and honors he wanted awarded, when he became aware of someone standing in his light. He looked up and stifled a groan when he saw Major-General Klestreus looming over the whale-oil lamp. The Chief of Intelligence could hardly have ridden down from Hostigos Town without neglecting his duties, so he'd better have a damn good excuse for the trip.

"Yes, Klestreus?"

"Your Majesty, the convoy with the shells for the—the
mortar
—has arrived. Great Queen Rylla rides with it, as well as Princess Demia, so it seemed to me that a man of more rank that the captain of the convoy should accompany—"

"Rylla? The baby! Here?"

"I just told Your Majesty—"

"
Yes
, you did. Now tell me—are they well?"

"I am no judge of such matters, having always believed that saddles were made for horses, not men, and that if the True Gods—"

"Get on with it, man!"

"Yes. Yes. The Queen rode all the way, and Her Royal Highness cries most lustily and keeps the wet nurses awake much of the night—and the drovers and guards as well. I suspect a trace of the croup."

"Kalvan thought of tell the life-long bachelor that he was not a lot of other things besides a judge of the health of babies, then decided to save his breath for the inevitable fight with Rylla. This time he was going to lay down the law, and if she threw tantrums or anything else, he'd just duck and go on until he'd spoken his piece.

He practically leaped down the stairs from his War Room and reached the door of the manor just in time to see Rylla dismounting from the big roan gelding that had the easiest gait of any horse in the royal stables. Rylla looked pale, but she was still so damn
beautiful
that before he could think of royal dignity he was running toward her.

She ran to meet him, and a moment later he was glad he was wearing a back-and-breast, because otherwise he would have felt his ribs cracking. He was hugging her back with one arm and stroking her hair with the other, saying things he hoped nobody else was hearing until he ran out of breath.

At last, Kalvan held her out at arm's length and saw beyond her grinning face most of his guards trying very hard
not
to grin. Farther out was a trio of horse litters and a long string of pack animals surrounded by at least two hundred mounted men all armed to the teeth. A fat, gray-haired woman was dismounting from one of the litter, carrying a wailing bundle as delicately as if it had been a basket of spiderwebs.

Rylla hadn't just ridden off on a whim; she had come with a proper escort and a regular traveling nursery and generally done things the way he would have told her to do them—assuming that he hadn't been able to keep her from coming at all, which knowing Rylla was a pretty safe assumption.

Besides, a second look told him that Rylla wasn't pale because she was sick. She'd been inside so long that she'd lost her usual tan. In fact, she looked even better close up than she had from a distance.

Not to mention that after he'd made this kind of spectacle of himself, she'd never believe a single harsh word he said. She'd break into giggles, and in the face of that, Kalvan doubted he could keep either the last shreds of his royal dignity or even much of a straight face.

Tarr-Beshta was the oldest castle Kalvan had seen here-and-now; it reminded him of some of the Norman castles he'd seen after his discharge from the Army. He'd taken a month off to tour Europe, though he'd spent most of his time in England and France. Balthar might have been as miserly as Scrooge, but he still had spent enough to keep the old stone walls in good repair. With traditional here-and-now siege craft, it might have taken two moons to invest Tarr-Beshta; Kalvan hoped to do it in a quarter of that time.

From behind Kalvan and Rylla the converted twelve-pounder went off with a sound like that of a bull running into a wooden fence. They watched the shell train sparks as it soared overhead, rising toward the peak of its trajectory and then dropping toward the walls of Tarr-Beshta.

With the previous two shells, the spark trail had died on the way down as the fuse went out, and the shells fell as harmlessly as stones. At least that was better than the shell bursting over the Hostigi trenches, which had only happened once—a damned good record for the gunners, considering that the fusing of shells was still very much a matter of by guess and by gods.

The trial of sparks lasted all the way down to the shell's bursting just above the breach in the curtain wall. The Beshtans working in the breach didn't panic; they'd learned by now that shells were not a demonic visitation but only a new use of fireseed. They still hadn't leaned one of the basic rules of night combat: when suddenly illuminated,
don't move
. Hardly surprising, either, since this was the first night bombardment with shells in here-and-now history.

In the glare of the bursting shell, Kalvan could see men with picks and sledges running for cover. He also saw the Hostigi in the forward trenches raising their rifles and arquebuses. Two volleys crashed out, the second fired into darkness, drawing a score of screams from the Beshtans. Two or three slow shooters let fly after the volleys; they drew the voice of a petty-captain describing explicitly where he would put their handguns the next time they fired without a target.

From the battered walls of Tarr-Beshta came only silence.

"They must be short of fireseed," Rylla said.

"That, or saving it for when we storm the walls."

"They still can't do much harm—seven hundred against six thousand."

"They can do enough," Kalvan answered. "Not to repel the attack, probably, but certainly enough to send our men out of control."

"Does that matter? The traitorous dogs have no right to quarter!"

Kalvan shook his head. "If it will save Our own men—"

"It won't, my husband. All it will do is make other rebels think that the Great King is too weak to punish them as they deserve. Then they will think that rebellion is perhaps
not
so foolish, and we will have more Balthars and more Tenabras. That is not saving Our men."

The hint was about as subtle as the chamber pot lid she's once thrown at him. Kalvan looked to his right and left along the earthworks. Count Phrames stood to the left, Captain Xykos, newly promoted and made a Royal Bodyguard for his work at Phyrax on Colonel Verkan's recommendation, stood to the right. They were keeping the guards out of earshot; Phrames would sooner be burned alive than embarrass Rylla, and Xykos had the intelligent peasant's common sense about ignoring the indiscretions of his betters. As long as he and Rylla didn't start shouting at each other, they would have it out right here.

"All right. I'll consider not giving them another chance to surrender."

It would be better not to do it at all."

"I'll think about it. Men who ignore three chances to surrender aren't likely to have the wits to recognize a fourth."

"That is certainly true."

"But I
won't
take Tarr-Beshta the way Styphon's Red Hand took that temple of Dralm in Sashta. I'll cut off my hand and cut out my tongue before I write or speak the orders to do that."

Rylla shook her head in exasperation. "What's more important to you, the Great King's tender conscience or the Great King's justice? And the Great King's head, and the Great Queen's and our daughter's? All of them will rest uneasy on their shoulders if you are weak toward traitors. This is a time for death warrants, not pardons!"

"Rylla—" Kalvan began, then stopped, shaking his head as he realized the futility of the argument. She was right, of course. He'd even said something like that himself, last fall when he considered how many kings had lost their thrones through signing too many pardons and too few death warrants.

That was before the Great Kings' War, though, with its hundred thousand or more dead or maimed between spring and autumn, not to mention only-the-gods-knew how many civilians. That was also before he faced the need to sign the death warrants himself.