by John Norman
“By that of the sword,” I said.
“You cannot do this,” said a man.
“This says I can,” I said, drawing my sword.
“You are mad!” exclaimed a council member.
“If so,” I said, “it is the madness which is your only hope, the madness which stands between you and death, between you and the end of Mytilene, between you and the destruction of your Home Stone.”
“We shall consider the matter,” said a council member.
“It has already been considered,” I said. “I have considered it.”
“We shall vote,” said another council member.
“The vote is in,” I said. “Steel has won.”
“He has men,” had said a man.
“Who will dispute this?” had asked Thrasymedes.
Men regarded one another. There was silence.
“You are in command,” had said Thrasymedes.
It is now, as mentioned, the twentieth day of the siege.
Let me recount, with brevity, certain recent events. On what we might call the first day of the siege, the seven ships of the corsair fleet closed the harbor at Mytilene. On the same day, several hundred mercenaries, who had been landed earlier somewhere north of the harbor, moving overland, invested Mytilene. On the second day, the ships in the harbor, large and small round ships, fishing boats, coasters, and sundry small vessels, were attacked, looted, and burned. Surviving harbor personnel and the fleeing survivors of the attacked ships were funneled between contingents of the investing forces into Mytilene. The purpose of this was to place additional stresses on the supplies and stores of Mytilene. Following the entrance of these refugees into the town, the investing lines closed and Mytilene was encircled. Predictably, Mytilene was encouraged to open its gates, with given assurances of lenience and mercy to the population. This overture was refused by Thrasymedes and his council, apparently on two grounds, first, their terror of the supposed Bosk of Port Kar and their awareness of the merciless depredations inflicted in his name on several villages, such as Nicosia on Chios itself, and, second, the accounts of the harbor refugees of the unconstrained savagery and blood-thirstiness of the pillagers in the harbor. On the fourth day of the siege, Thrasymedes and the council attempted to negotiate a withdrawal of the corsairs, offering them fifty stone of gold for their departure and a pledge never to return, and then, later, a hundred stone of gold for their simple departure. The corsairs found this offer, generous as it might be, unsatisfactory. They reasoned, one supposes, that where there might be a hundred stone of gold there might be more than a hundred stone of gold. The heads of the council’s small negotiating party were catapulted over the wall of Mytilene. This act, if it was intended to dismay or terrify the citizenry of Mytilene, failed of its purpose, as it produced in most, but not all, a hardening of a general intention to resist. Next, the corsairs, as if regretting their grisly act, or perhaps, more likely, as if regretting its unforeseen consequence, its general stiffening of a will to resist amongst the besieged, offered an uncontested exit from the city to adult males. Why only adult males? The ulterior motivation of this proposal was presumably to reduce the number of able-bodied defenders within the city. Accordingly, dissent abounded. One council member, however, benign Tarchon, skilled with the lyre, advocated its acceptance on two grounds. First, its acceptance would reduce the strain on stores of food and water within the walls. Second, the town had no right to deny individual citizens the right in such a matter to choose for themselves. As I later learned, not having been permitted to attend or address the council, the view of Tarchon was accepted. The next morning some four hundred male citizens of Mytilene abandoned the town of their Home Stone and, rejoicing at their deliverance from danger, and encouraging others to follow their example, exited the great gate. Shortly thereafter they were shackled and put to work, with mercenaries, on the first and, later, the second, of two siege ditches, by which the town was then twice encircled. On the eighteenth day of the siege, the work done, within sight of the walls, they were decapitated.
It was toward noon, the tenth Ahn, on the twentieth day of the siege, a bright, windy day, that Thrasymedes joined Thurnock, Clitus, and myself on a ragged, uneven portion of rebuilt wall, now, at this point, only some fifteen feet in height. Our footing was on a broad, wooden scaffolding, formed from timbers of demolished houses.
We were looking toward the many tents of the main encampment of the mercenaries, some two hundred yards behind the second of the two siege ditches. From our location we could see that all three of the enemy’s siege engines had now, for only the third time, been brought together, almost side by side.
“Is there no end of the great stones?” asked Thrasymedes.
“There are many, but there is an end to them,” I said.
“The engines have been quiet for two days,” said Thurnock.
“They are stockpiling ammunition,” said Clitus.
“For a great attack?” said Thrasymedes.
“Possibly,” I said.
“How could so many stones, so much weight, in so short a time, have been obtained locally?” asked Thrasymedes.
“It was not,” I said. “It was imported from quarries near Pylos, and perhaps elsewhere, and shipped through Sybaris.”
“Surely not,” said Thrasymedes. “To transport it would require a dozen round ships.”
“I think,” I said, “it was barged to a living island, then near Sybaris, one I have thought of as the Brigand Island.”
“It would destroy such an island,” said Thrasymedes.
“It may have,” I said.
“Desertions are few, happily,” said Thrasymedes, “even before the digging of the double ditch.”
In such cases, an individual would anchor a rope to the ramparts and lower himself over the wall. As the town was invested, one supposed that few such attempts at escape had proved successful. Indeed, sometimes the individual was killed at the foot of the wall.
“Glory to the Home Stone of Mytilene,” I said.
“Your men have stayed with you,” said Thrasymedes. “They are as loyal as sleen.”
“As sleen with love, as sleen with honor,” I said.
“One fled,” said Thurnock, angrily. “One sought to save his skin, and may have been successful in doing so. One sought to flee, thus reducing defenders and imperiling his fellows the more, a Peasant, one of my own caste, Aktis of Nicosia.”
“I cannot hate him,” I said, “I cannot despise him. Do not do so either.”
“He was my friend, I trusted him,” said Thurnock. “We drank from the same bottle, we shared the same watch.”
“Blame him not,” I said. “His Home Stone is not ours. It is that of Nicosia. What hold have we on one whose Home Stone is not our own?”
“The hold of the sword brotherhood, the hold of fellowship,” said Thurnock.
“Sometimes,” I said, “it is not clear what honor prescribes.”
“It can be hard to keep the codes,” said Clitus.
“He will find no forgiveness in my heart,” said Thurnock. “He has betrayed our caste.”
“Be cheered,” said Clitus. “Perhaps he will survive.”
“But at a cost I would not pay,” said Thurnock.
We were then silent, and looked over the wall, past the double ditch and the now-quiescent engines of war, the three mighty catapults, to the many tents of the enemy, plentiful in the distance, like scattered, disorganized litter.
“It is near the end,” said Thrasymedes.
“Do not despair,” I said.
“I love Mytilene,” he said.
“It is the place of your Home Stone,” I said.
“You and your men have wrought much on our behalf,” he said. “Yet you are not of Mytilene. It is not the place of your Home Stone. I do not even think you are of the Farther Islands.
Why have you done so? Why have you stood with us on the wall and in the breaches?”
“Accept that we have done so,” I said, “and do not enquire further.”
“It has to do with codes?” he asked.
“That, and such things,” I said.
“We cannot hold out much longer,” said Thrasymedes.
“In the great rains, recently,” said Thurnock, “much water was gathered from stretched sail canvas and entered into many containers, dozens of barrels and kegs.”
This canvas had been obtained from naval stores held in Mytilene, supplies on which the harbor would normally draw.
“Eight of Mytilene’s wells, now closely guarded, still have water,” said Clitus.
“Very little,” said Thurnock.
“I still do not understand,” said Thrasymedes. “How could three wells have been fouled?”
“As the saying has it,” I said, “there is an ost within the walls.”
“We grow short on food,” said Thrasymedes.
“In some sieges,” said Clitus, “straws are drawn. He who draws the short straw is quickly and mercifully put to death, that his fellows may feed.”
“Better,” I said, “to finish remaining stores at once, with a great feast, and then, in the morning, hardy and nourished, in the sunlight and open air, scorning the enemy, singing, go forth to die in battle.”
“The codes?” said Thrasymedes.
“Of course,” I said.
“I think then,” said Thrasymedes, “that that time is not far away. We cannot hold out much longer.”
“The enemy also requires food and water,” I said.
“But,” said Thrasymedes, “they need only go out and find it.”
“That may not be as easy as you think,” I said.
“They have still not mounted a massive attack with scaling ladders,” said Thurnock.
“They are not eager to do so,” I said. “It requires great courage to cling to a ladder with one hand and try to defend oneself with the other, against burning pitch, axes, jabbing blades, cast stones, and such. Most such assaults are turned back with a great loss of life. That is one reason towns and cities have walls.”
“That is a great advantage of siege towers,” said Clitus. “They can conceal and protect men, be wheeled to walls, overtop walls, and, when they suddenly drop their gates, permit besiegers bearing shields to rush downward with great force upon defenders.”
“They have no siege towers,” I said. “Nor do they have thousands of men.”
“This is not a war between great cities with enormous resources,” said Thurnock.
“And even so,” I said, “siege towers can be at but one place at one time and, at that place, and time, can be faced.”
“The combination of siege towers with massive scaling is difficult to deal with,” said Clitus.
“That is true,” I said. “If one masses defenders to confront the siege tower, one commonly thins defenses elsewhere on the walls.”
“I think,” said Clitus, “by now, the enemy should have grown impatient.”
“Let us hope so,” I said.
“The enemy,” said Thrasymedes, “has brought his three siege engines together.”
“Closely together,” I said.
In this way, fire can be concentrated.
“I am not skilled in the ways of war,” said Thrasymedes, “but does not this massing of engines suggest an imminent assault, a barrage of stones, softening resistance, to be followed by a massive attack, presumably with an attempt to scale walls?”
“It certainly suggests that,” I said. “And I think that is exactly what it is intended to suggest.”
“I do not understand,” said Thrasymedes.
“I do not think the enemy wants a prolonged siege,” I said, “one that, as far as it knows, might last months.”
“Presumably not,” said Thrasymedes.
“On the other hand,” I said, “I do not think, either, that he is eager to risk ordering paid troops, with no loyalty to anything but loot, to subject themselves to the obvious peril of a general assault on a still stoutly defended town.”
“What is your thinking?” asked Thrasymedes.
“I think,” I said, “he would prefer to pour his troops into Mytilene through an opened gate.”
“The gates are guarded from within,” said Thrasymedes. “It would require several men to overcome the guards and open a gate.”
“What if there were several men?” I asked.
“I do not think there are so many traitors or spies in Mytilene,” said Thrasymedes.
“I do not, either,” I said.
“Then how could it be done?” asked Thrasymedes.
“Easily,” I said.
“I do not understand,” said Thrasymedes.
“First,” I said, “how numerous is the enemy ashore?”
“We do not know,” he said. “But, as you know, several, with the Builder’s Glass, have counted the tents as being in the neighborhood of five hundred.”
“Suppose, then,” I said, “there were five men to a tent.”
“There may be more,” said Thrasymedes.
“Granted,” I said. “But if five?”
“Then twenty-five hundred,” said Thrasymedes.
“That would be the largest corsair force we have faced,” said Thurnock.
“And there might be more,” said Thrasymedes.
“But still too few, in my opinion,” I said, “for the classical assault I have in mind.”
“What is that?” asked Thrasymedes.
“Mining,” I said.
“Digging?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “Classically, ideally, one digs beneath the walls at many points, say, twenty to fifty. The wall is then supported from beneath by timbers. At a given signal, the blasting of trumpets, the clashing of cymbals, the whistling of smoke arrows, the beating of drums, or such, the timbers are removed by ropes or blows, not fire, as fire is unpredictable and slow. When this is done successfully, the walls collapse at several points simultaneously, opening the town or city to the enemy.”
“You fear such an assault?” asked Thrasymedes, anxiously.
“The enemy,” I said, “outnumbers our men several to one, but their numbers are not sufficient to mount such a general assault.”
“But surely they might collapse the wall at one point or another,” said Thrasymedes.
“To be sure,” I said, “but the siege engines might do as much.”
“And one could rush our men to the limited point or points of danger,” said Clitus.
“Hopefully,” I said.
“Then you think we need not fear so general an assault?” said Thrasymedes.
“I think not,” I said. “Too, we are dealing with mercenaries, not disciplined troops, used to labor, as in building ditched and palisaded fortress camps, as well as fighting. Just consider the nature of the enemy’s tenting. There is no serious suggestion there of organization, discipline, or control. I cannot conceive of our friends on the other side of the wall delighting in the arduous, unpleasant, and dangerous work of digging several tunnels.”
“Then there is nothing to fear?” said Thrasymedes.
“What if there were but one tunnel?” I said.
“Then,” said Thrasymedes, “the collapsed wall at that point would be as easy to defend and repair, as in the familiar case of a blow resulting from the strike of one of the great engines.”
“But what if the tunnel emerged within the walls, in the town itself?” I asked.
“We could deal with it even more easily,” said Thrasymedes.
“Not if it were not seen,” I said.
“Then,” said Thurnock, “several men could be brought within the walls, enough to overcome the guards a
t, say, the great gate, and then open the gate to the enemy.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“I am afraid,” said Thrasymedes.
“The stones of the enemy have fallen heavily and plentifully into Mytilene,” I said. “Consider the broken roofs, the shattered houses.”
“Ruin is rampant,” said Thrasymedes.
“Notice now,” I said, “something odd.” I pointed to an area within the walls, south and west of the great gate, not one hundred yards from that massive portal.
“What am I to notice?” asked Thrasymedes. “I see nothing wrong.”
“That is what you are to notice,” I said, “that where I point there is nothing wrong.”
“Some buildings are fortunate,” he said. “They have not been damaged.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They have been missed by the great stones,” said Thrasymedes.
“I find that of interest,” I said.
“It is a coincidence,” said Thrasymedes.
“Possibly,” I said.
“What is that sound?” asked Thurnock.
“It is the sound of a lyre,” said Thrasymedes. “Tarchon, of the Council, is skilled with the instrument, and, when not engaged in defensive duties, often plays it.”
“That is his house?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Thrasymedes, “that house, the large one amongst the unharmed buildings.”
“Is he on duty tonight,” I asked, “patrolling the wall, watching in the streets, guarding wells?”
“No,” said Thrasymedes. “No member of the council is on duty tonight.”
Chapter Forty-Two
What Occurred One Night Within the Walls of Mytilene
“Be quiet, fellows,” I said. “Stand back, to the sides. Let it seem the gate is undefended.”
Those on the wall, above the gate, readied the unlit lamps and cords.
The night was unusually dark.
No moon was visible in the sky, and the light of the stars, many of which I might have recognized from Earth, could not be seen, their fires concealed by a tent of clouds.
“They are coming, filing forth,” I said. “Let them reach the gate, that they may be pinned against it.”