“First, this is a great city. Even if they’ve obtained the governor’s permission to attack us, or at least his tacit consent, they can’t be allowed to damage the whole district. So there’ll be no fire attack. Unless they mean to burn all of Delphinad.”
Hal looked at Rosa in astonishment. It felt as though he were truly hearing a commander’s explanation of the battlefield.
“Second, for the same reason, we’ll initially be attacked only from the front. Other houses block the rear, so siege weapons can’t be used there. They’ll have to engage us in earnest at close quarters, which is wasteful. Third, this building was made in the northern style, which favors a defense. It astonishes me that anyone built it in this hot region.
“Fourth, they’ll have no idea what it looks like inside. Unless they’ve fought in the north. So I’ll change my thirty minutes back to three hours.”
The men’s expressions were dissatisfied. Was this woman making fun of them?
Rosa continued.
“I know what you’re thinking. Of course I’ve never commanded a war. But I’ve seen more than enough of them. That’s how I know at least this much.”
She turned to Hal.
“Take thirty men and defend the second and third floors. When soldiers come forward to attack the main entrance, you have to strike from the windows. Protect the wall too.”
“Will those stones bring the wall down?”
“Certainly. If they concentrate on one spot, it’ll collapse quickly. Then we’ll all die like dogs. Before that happens, we have to draw the battle line around to the back yard.”
“How?”
Rosa did not answer. Instead, she spoke to Creses.
“Creses. Take twenty men and gather every piece of furniture and equipment in the house on the first floor. We’ll need plenty of axes in particular. We’re about to build barricades.”
“Where?”
She did not answer that either. This time, she looked at Onil.
“Onil, take ten and keep preparing weapons for the siege, the way you were doing earlier. That leaves ten, doesn’t it?”
Her gaze went around the men as though selecting those ten. Meeting each man’s eyes in turn, she spoke.
“You’ll come up to the bell towers with me. It’ll be dangerous, so put on helmets at least. Do we have helmets?”
From the eastern bell tower, Hawk Square looked smaller still. Almost close enough to touch, enemy soldiers and archers were arrayed in their formations. Fortunately, there was only one catapult. Not that more seemed necessary to demolish one house.
From the size of the prepared stones, this northern-style House of the Hawk would not collapse in an instant. A hit on wooden shutters was another matter, though. Since it had been a temple rather than a fortress, it had a great many windows.
A search through the corners of the house turned up five helmets after all. Ten men went up, five to each bell tower, and looked uneasily down at the square. Rosa had them bring buckets of wood soaked in water, and live embers. When they began burning the wood in both towers, black smoke rose in great billows. She meant to make it look like a fire and induce the guards to respond. At the same time, she calculated that spreading rumors might bring other patrolmen or Tahyang back.
Looking down, Rosa waited. Before long, what she expected appeared in Saltcart Street, running south. A dozen mounted guards approached and surveyed the square. She called the men and had them look that way. Their faces lit up.
“Oh, the guards are here!”
One guard dismounted, went behind the army blocking the square, and spoke with someone. Then he turned and simply left. The men stared wide-eyed in disbelief. Some stamped their feet in anger.
“Have those bastards lost their minds? They see this and just leave? And they call themselves guards?”
Rosa waited for their anger to spend itself, then spoke.
“Leave just one man in each tower now. The rest, go down and join Hal and Creses.”
They would spread the word downstairs: they could not expect the guards to help. At last, the noon bell rang.
Crouching behind a wall, Rosa looked down at the soldiers beginning to move. First, they brought up a log and began pounding the main entrance. The second-floor windows opened, and the men poured down hot water and stones. The soldiers fell back briefly, then soon returned.
After several repetitions, a deep dent formed in the middle of the door, and cracks spread outward from it. At this rate, breaking through was only a matter of time. The defenders had far too few weapons to repel their attackers. They had no bows, not even long spears.
The soldiers returned with the log. Then the catapult began to move. After three or four stones flew in, the entrance was half destroyed. Soldiers began running forward again.
It was time to use her power. Coughing a few times because of the smoke, Rosa spoke.
“Keep watching the five streets from here. I’ll send a messenger soon. Report to them then.”
She ran down to the first floor. As expected, it was chaos. The atmosphere had changed from even a moment earlier. All the weapons prepared for the siege had been carried up to the second floor, and no materials remained for more. Furniture for the barricades lay piled over the first-floor floor. The heaps of earth-filled sacks before the main entrance had partly collapsed. Through their gaps, the split in the door was clearly visible. The men argued over whether they must block it or whether that was useless, without reaching any conclusion.
Hal shouted, “Miss! The enemy’s coming!”
“I know.”
Rosa ran to the altar and climbed onto it. Then she called, “Move those two water jars in front of the main entrance!”
Seeing that Rosa seemed to have a new plan, the men who had been arguing moved at once. Faced with danger, people tend to follow the person who grasps the crisis and offers a way out. Whether they respected or mocked her no longer mattered.
Once the jars were brought over, Rosa gave an order.
“Pile the sacks again, blocking the top of the door. Then pour water evenly over the whole door!”
“Water over the door?”
“Are we leaving drinking water?”
Some men questioned her, but others immediately began piling the sacks. Another went for a dipper. Rosa spoke again to those still on the first floor.
“We’ll use the furniture piled here to block the back yard completely. Especially the mouths of the two alleys. Move quickly. We haven’t much time.”
Then she faced the door and took a deep breath. Unfamiliar syllables flowed from her mouth.
“Sioni Tas Bin Ter Pesanok Hus Im Maon.”
Suddenly, cold air spread across the entire first floor, making every man flinch. It rose over the door, and ice began covering the whole surface. Watching, the men looked as though their eyes would leap from their heads.
“Wait, th-that, that’s m-magic?”
“Was the young lady a mage?”
“Wow, so this is what magic is…”
By the time the entire door froze solid, Rosa was breathing as though she had run with all her strength. Her face was pale, and even her legs wavered. Terry, beside her, hurried to support her.
“Ah, I don’t know what to say. That takes an enormous amount out of you, doesn’t it? Are you all right? Want some water? Shall I, ah, carry you?”
After a moment, some color finally returned to Rosa’s face. She immediately shook off Terry’s hand.
“I’m fine. Go… build the barricades. That won’t last long.”
Terry raised his head and shouted, “The young lady’s building barricades in the yard! Hurry up!”
From that moment, the men’s movements doubled in speed. Furniture was carried into the yard in an instant, and the sound of axes rang out. It would have been better to do it earlier, but there had been no chance of their obeying her so readily then. Before long, however, they returned and spoke.
“Isn’t there anything else? This isn’t enough to block it all.”
They had already pulled out every piece of furniture in the house. Rosa sat on the altar. Somehow, a dozen men were now standing before her to receive orders. Not yet fully recovered, her voice was small, but she pointed upward.
“Take apart the second floor.”
Again, the men hearing the order widened their eyes.
“Take apart the second floor? Then how do we reach the third floor and the bell towers?”
“The sheet ropes we braided earlier. Hang them before the bell-tower entrances. You can all manage that much acrobatics, can’t you?”
One man asked, “Will the house stand if we take apart the second floor?”
Rosa merely nodded. The House of the Hawk’s second floor had been built of wood during its conversion to an inn. It was separate from the stone building itself. Harat muttered, “The captain’s room is on the second floor too…”
“The captain…”
Rosa drew a breath and went on.
“Would he rather you kept your heads or kept his room intact?”
Glancing at the second floor, Hal shouted, “Right. Smash the lot. We’ll tear it down from the top. Neups, take five men and get up there!”
While the men worked frantically, someone quietly poked his head out of the farthest room behind the stables. It was Ashabel. He looked around the devastated first floor, his mouth hanging open. Then he spotted Rosa on the altar and edged toward her. Seeing him, she asked, “Where have you been hiding?”
“Heh. Here one moment, there the next, that’s me. But what’s all this? Well, you’re doing better than I expected.”
At those words, Rosa drew her brows together.
“Have you been outside?”
With a finger raised as though to demand secrecy, Ashabel grinned. Rosa’s expression grew serious.
“Is there a way out?”
“Only a hole I use. It works because we’re children. An adult would get three arrows in them before you could blink. The alleys behind are all sealed off now too.”
It was suspicious to hear a sixteen-year-old boy use a word such as “sealed off.” Wasn’t that a term for war?
“Why did you come back after getting out?”
“What, did you think I’d abandon the House of the Hawk and run away, with the dep… captain gone? That hurts. I’m not that sort of fellow. Last time too…”
Ashabel abruptly swallowed the rest and beckoned Rosa down.
“I’ll show you something interesting. But… Wait. That door. What’s happened to it?”
Only then noticing the frozen entrance, Ashabel widened his eyes. Rosa climbed down from the altar and spoke.
“It won’t last long. What did you want to show me?”
Still glancing at the door, Ashabel went toward the back of the stables. At a crash from the second floor, he looked up there too, then suddenly asked, “Where’s Nana?”
“In the storeroom under the kitchen.”
“Won’t she be frightened in a dark place like that?”
“Things like that don’t frighten her much.”
The windows were all blocked, but there were gaps in the roughly fitted wooden pieces through which one could see a little of the outside. Ashabel pointed.
“Look over there, Rosa.”
Putting her eye to the gap, she could see the catapult clearly. It had stopped. The attackers seemed to be wondering what to do about the frozen door. Then she spotted someone moving on the roof of a three-story building beside it. He appeared for only an instant, then vanished again.
Grinning, Ashabel spoke.
“Keep watching.”
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