One group of walking wounded was escorting eight Soldese prisoners. Their hands had been tied behind them so tightly that the skin looked like a dead man's flesh. I ordered them cut free and found a little boiled barley for them, and some wine, although we are nearly at the point of eating Atteno's boars. They told me how they had looted Olmo, and burned it afterward. The burning was on their Duko's orders, they say. They are confident of a victory that will free them within a day or two; I do not believe it will be the victory they expect, but wish I were as sure of it as they are.
The last of the big guns has arrived. We hid it in a haystack just now, and are roasting the oxen that brought it. Everyone says how good they are and urges me to eat; but I know that it is only hunger that lends those roast oxen their savor, and I am too tightly strung for that. How long has it been since I have slept more than an hour at a stretch? Three days, I believe? I am all right as long as I keep moving, but sitting like this and trying to write, I can do nothing but yawn.
Wonderful news! It has begun to snow!
I lay down-for only a minute or two, I told myself-and slept until late this morning. No one woke me. When I got up there was two fingers of snow on the ground. Now there must be four or five.
Sfido and Rimando have performed wonders while I slept. The walls are all complete, and our troopers are building themselves huts from the remaining sacks of soil and whatever else they can lay hands on.
But the snow is the best, except that it has slacked off our trip ropes. I have set a few reliable men to retightening them. The fireworks are stacked in the solaria of this farmhouse to keep them dry; the chief danger now is that we may not get them out and into position in time.
The old woman who lives here brought me an apple and a mug of sweet cider. Apples and cider are about all she has left, she says; our troopers have taken her chickens, ducks, and geese. Her husband is dead, her sons in the hills with Inclito. She said she felt sorry for me, but I feel sorrier for her. I've told Uscita I want as good a supper as she can find me tonight, and I intend to share it with my hostess.
We are seeing unwounded troopers now. So many have thrown their slug guns away that I sent a party up the road to salvage what they can. I got a group of about twenty of these beaten men together this afternoon and talked with them for nearly an hour, then asked them to stay with us voluntarily and defend their town. Not a hand went up. Inclito would have had half of them swearing they would fight to the death, I'm sure; but I am a poor speaker.
It is interesting to walk up the rutted, snow-covered road a few chains and approach our defenses as the enemy will. Our walls do not appear very formidable, and the ditches in front of them (which are filling with snow) can easily be overlooked. I have been telling our troopers that the enemy will be here tomorrow afternoon, speaking as though I knew it. "In a day," I tell them, "it will be over." It is always a matter of hanging on for one more day, after all.
The old woman refused to share my dinner, swearing that she had just eaten. There is something familiar about that thin, wrinkled face. For a time I told myself that I must have seen her at Cugino's, but I spotted him among the new men Colbacco brought up from the south; and although I described her carefully, Cugino could not identify her. He had only his axe to fight with, but I have gotten him a slug gun. He was happy to see my staff, and surprised that I still have it.
A regular formation of unwounded men has passed through our line a little after dawn, still under discipline and making an orderly retreat. I had no opportunity to count them, but I would guess there were between fifty and a hundred. They would have been a valuable addition to our strength, but the officer in charge had been ordered to march to Blanko, and rejected my authority. (Which is scant enough, I must admit.) He said that Inclito is with the rear guard. I asked how many, and he told me three hundred; but he was lying-I knew it, and he knew that I did.
Inclito is here! He has been making a fighting retreat with his horsemen. I've seen his coachman and Perito, one of the other men who worked for him. I asked about Kupus's men; they should join us here within an hour.
It is over. Over!
Midnight, I suppose, but I cannot sleep. The woman in the boat arrived just after I wrote about Perito. I knew it could not be long then, and supposed that it would be under an hour.
That hour passed, and I sent Oreb, who returned so quickly that I knew the enemy was almost in sight.
Before continuing I should tell you who will read this, whoever you may be, that we had posted small parties along the road, in most cases three boys commanded by a man. Their orders were to fire as soon as the first Soldese troops came in sight, and retire to our lines. Most seem to have remained at their posts longer than we intended; there had been scattered shooting for some time before I sent Oreb to scout.
I should tell you, too, about something else-although it probably means nothing at all. The fireworks party came, and there was a young man there who reminded me poignantly of Hoof and Hide. I called their corporal to me and asked who he was.
"I don't know, Master Incanto sir. I saw him wandering around and asked whose squad he belonged to. He couldn't tell me, so I put him to work."
"You did the right thing, I'm sure. What is his name?"
The corporal, too young even to be a trooper in Inclito's horde, picked absently at a pimple on his chin. "I don't know, sir. He told me, but it's... I don't remember."
"Find out for me, please, and bring him to me whenever you have the time and can spare him. I'd like to talk to him."
The corporal said he would, saluted, and left, turning back after he had taken a step or two. "Cuoio, sir. I knew it'd come to me."
But Cuoio and his corporal have not come to me as I asked; and it may be that one or both are dead, although I dare to hope it is not so. Tomorrow, perhaps. No doubt they are exhausted, just as I am.
Tomorrow-tomorrow night, I suppose-I will write all about the battle, giving it an entire evening. By that time I will be rested and will have received the reports of others. I should be able to offer a rational account.
Attacked again, but we have beaten them back.
Seawrack is singing. I can hear her through the windows and the shutters and the crackling of the fire. I feel I must go to her, but I cannot.
Chapter 17
The Battle of Blanko
I was so tired last night that I actually believed I would be back in my snug bedroom in the old farmhouse tonight, writing at the little deal table by lamplight while Sfido snored on his pallet. In reality I am (as I should have foreseen) in these barren, snow- covered hills again, hunting down stragglers from the Duko's horde, a defeated and broken horde that crashed like a wave upon the small, hard rock of Novella Citta after the battle, and appears to have shattered into spray. But more about that at the proper time.
We still have not found Mora and Eco, but I have high hopes for tomorrow. It is possible, of course, that they are already with Inclito. I pray that is the case.
And now I would like to launch into my account of the battle, which had interest, excitement, and heroism enough for every quill in both Oreb's wings; but first I must mention (and truthfully, although it is difficult to be truthful here) what happened just before I went to bed last night.
I had promised you a rational account of the battle and risen, and was corking the ink bottle and wiping my pen when the old woman knocked as she did every night that I stayed in that house to ask whether we wanted anything and announce that she was about to retire.
I told her we were fine, much better off than those who had fought so gallantly and lacked the comfort of her roof. She thanked me and began moving about the room, straightening small items as women will, snuffling to herself and coughing much as I do, but moving (although it did not strike me at the time) gracefully nonetheless, so that I was reminded vaguely of you, Nettle; and then more vaguely still of Evensong, Tansy, Seawrack, Hyacinth, and various others-or perhaps simply of all the women-or of all the young women, at least-that I have known at various times in diverse places, and fell to thinking (as I pulled off my boots and removed my robe) that it was a pity, a great pity, that we had no daughter-although it was so often all that we could do to feed the children we had, boys but good boys all of them, at least until Sinew was older.
All that we could do, and more.
And then I thought about Sinew and Krait, and the time-I hesitate to mention it, knowing it will pain you-when the house was building and the inhumu got into our little tent and drank blood from our child. The inhuma, I really ought to say, although at the time you and I assumed it had been male.
"I'm keeping you from undressing," the old woman said when I had washed and dried my feet.
I slid between the sheets and closed my eyes, seeing at once the flashes of Soldese slug guns. "I have been going to bed in my trousers and tunic every night," I told her, yawning, "and spreading my robe over me for additional warmth." I had given all my bedclothes except one old quilt to others who were forced to sleep outdoors, or in unheated sheds, and needed them much more than I did.
She muttered something in reply, wished me a good night, and blew out the lamp; and I, without thinking, said, "Thank you, Jahlee." It was a strange thing to say, surely, but even now I am not entirely certain I was wrong.
For two hours that seemed whole years, the new advance guard of the Horde of Soldo ranged up and down the wide U of our walls and ditches, firing from time to time and taking our measure; then a Soldese officer advanced carrying a flag of truce, and Inclito sent me out to talk with him.
He smiled and offered me his hand, saying, "I'm Colonel Terzo."
I accepted it, and we shook hands. I introduced myself and explained that I was not formally a member of the Horde of Blanko, merely a friend of its commander trying to give him what help I could.
"You are a combatant, eh? Do you fight, Incanto?"
"Not so far; and I have no slug gun, though I admit I have directed others who have fought you." It was all true, although as I spoke I was very conscious of the azoth in my waistband.
He shook his head, looking very gloomy indeed. "It will go hard with you if you are captured."
I said I would endeavor not to be.
"There are times, Incanto, and I speak as one who has seen a great deal of war, when one can't avoid it."
I told him I understood that, and explained that back in the Whorl I had once been captured by the Trivigauntis.
"Ah, you saw them? You fought them?"
I nodded.
"In Grandecitta we thought they were legendary. Women troopers? Not even Pas would attempt such a thing! That was what we said."
"They fought very well," I told him. "I realize now that they fought better than I did, although I wasn't aware of it at the time. We - Nettle and I and many others-had been fighting our own Civil Guard before, and they'd been very good fighters indeed, so that when we came to fight Trivigauntis we were only conscious that these new opponents were not quite up to the measure of our old ones."
"Someday you and I will speak of this all afternoon over a bottle of wine," he told me solemnly. "I have a place on the Bacherozzolo, and grow good grapes there. South-facing hillsides, eh? But at present it is my unpleasant duty to require your surrender, upon the authority of the Duko."
I pointed out that since I was not in Soldo and was not a citizen of Soldo, its Duko had no authority over me.
"Not only you." Terzo shook his head sadly. "Not just you, Incanto, but those pitiful grandfathers I see, and those unlucky women. The boys, too. You have boys? We dislodged a few on our march."
I confessed that our reserve was made up largely of those boys.
"Then you have no reserve." He spread his hands, appalled at our weakness but unable to help us. "Your women will run screaming as soon as the fighting is serious. I have never seen women cut down with the saber, and do not wish to see it. There will be sickening bloodshed. Incanto..."
He attempted to put his arm over my shoulders, but I shook it off.
"I like you, Incanto, and I'll try to do what I can for you. You have a horse?"
I confessed that I did not.
"I see a few country louts on horseback behind your line. Six, seven? How many?"
"We are short of cavalry," I admitted.
"Borrow a horse from one anyway. Surrender, and ride off as soon as we begin disarming the poor women that scoundrel General Inclito has forced out of their kitchens. I will see to it that you escape."
I thanked him for his good wishes, but repeated that we had no intention of surrendering.
"Incanto, you are unfamiliar with the rules of war."
"Yes, but I have two friends, one a very experienced officer, who advise me."
"You have three. I am the third, and you need all of us more than you know. It is one of the rules of war that untenable positions may not be held. Do you understand? Suppose, and I saw this only today, that some graybeard fool and three children attempt to hold a little mud-brick shed against an army. That is an untenable position, since the four greatest heroes mankind has ever seen could not maintain such a place against a hundred ordinary troopers. Do you understand me, Incanto?"
"Very well," I said.
"But they are stubborn, eh? Even fools can be heroes, just as the greatest heroes can be fools. We invited their surrender, they refused, and we stormed their little cowshed. Soon I was handed two little boys, boys of twelve or thirteen, which is about the age of my younger son, bleeding and weeping. You would have bandaged their wounds, eh? Waved your hands through the air and recited spells of healing?"
"Prayed over them, perhaps," I told him.
"Exactly. But I am a trooper, and I had no choice. They have tried to hold an indefensible position. You see what I'm getting at, eh? I had to shoot them both, and I did."
I was too shocked to say anything.
"I would hate to shoot you, Incanto. Possibly I would try, but I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I'd call in some subordinate and have him do it, and turn my head away. I beg you not to give me so much pain."
