Our story began here.
The Siege
Shula hadn’t been quite ready to believe the reports regarding the size of the army set against them until she saw it with her own eyes.
“You say we think this the main force has gone to Timbre?” she said to Euan Stand as she reviewed the hordes of warriors rapidly surrounding the castle.
“It is hard to say but… this is what we face your highness,” the captain offered tentatively, his great mass towering over her as he scratched the graze of steel grey hair that topped his head.
“This force is roughly a third of the size of the army that has taken Motra Mundy highness,” Crane put in with a shrug.
The tall thin wizard resembled a ragged crow and although usually people thought of him as tall, he was near a head shorter than the Euan Stand.
Shula glanced at both men and nodded.
“I suppose what the captain is trying to say is that it doesn’t matter how much more trouble Timbre is in, this is the battle we must fight,” Shula sighed.
Euan Stand heaved the smallest sigh of relief. The woman was catching on fast, he thought.
The princess pulled a cloak tight about her throat and went a little ashen so that her freckles stood out on her face. Her emerald green eyes peered out between two bangs of red hair as she looked again on the army outside. But she did not quail and moved closer to the window to review the situation again.
The enemy were too far away to discern much about them, but Crane had reported few magical elements among their ranks, which was something at least. So too was the construction of the castle. Standing at a bend in the River Renton, it was surrounded on three sides by deep wide water. The central tower on which they now stood looked short to an outside view, but it was stolid and squat and appearances were deceptive. And whilst the ancient inner tower was more vulnerable to modern siege equipment, the outer circular walls were far more robust. One of these was hard to the old keep and great hall, while another greater wall surrounded that holding supporting buildings and a haven for the refugees.
“There is a blind side from this tower above the great hall,” Euan said gently as he hoped that the princess was receptive to his strategic thinking. “The roof of the hall rises half as high as the main tower to block the battlements on the river side.”
Shula nodded as she tried to take it in.
“It can be countered by placing archers on the roof, but that will weaken our defence forces a little and require some disruption in the royal apartments as we struggle to keep these men supplied,” the captain said softly.
“You expect to fight within the inner keep then?” Shula shuddered at the thought of the foe so deep into her home.
“Not for several days or, the gods be praised, weeks I hope,” the captain offered carefully, “But if the need should come… it will take too long to place men on the roof as it has no ready access.”
Shula nodded again. She remembered her father saying that castles were always impregnable until 10 minutes into a siege and then all the foolish weaknesses were revealed.
“The water we have will outlast any siege,” Shula said decisively to show she understood, “There are wells that draw from the river. But we must strictly ration food, have someone calculate what we have… for? How many people are there?”
Euan shrugged.
“Find out. You and your men will get subsistence rations from now on; you and the younger children under 10. All non-combatants like me are to be given starvation rations. No exceptions do you understand?” Shula sounded angry. “If there is not enough food for a month then we will…”
“I think we have at least that much Ma’am,” Euan assured her, “Actually I am more worried about our supply of arrows and medicine.”
The captain was also worried about the woman’s soft heart. He had to say something.
“Your orders regarding the children…” he knew it was essential that they could discuss this.
“Parents will feed their children no matter what. Even your soldiers,” Shula said firmly. “And even if they don’t, a castle full of screaming children will drag moral down faster than…”
Only a woman would think of that, Euan realised, she might turn out to be good at this.
“In that case Ma’am, we should perhaps feed children up to 12 or even 14 if our stores will support it?” the captain suggested now convinced the woman was right.
“Let us see what we have first, but I agree,” Shula replied.
Both she and the officer looked at Crane for his opinion, but he only shrugged. What did he know of sieges?
*
Days had passed into weeks and the enemy at the gates were in no hurry to make their assault. Euan was convinced that it was because the more dynamic generals and most of the priest-witches were focussed on Timbre and that the siege here was intended as a holding action.
“Well it is working,” Shula said bitterly.
“Yes Ma’am,” Euan agreed.
But not everything was going against them. The stores versus refugees had held up well and even with a relaxed distribution regime, supplies could last eight or nine months. However, the shortage of medicine remained a problem and the best they had been able to do was distil vinegar to clean wounds. But Crane had consulted with several healers in the castle and reported that matters might be mitigated with magical intervention.
“I thank you Mr Crane,” Shula said with a smile.
Crane bowed awkwardly and muttered for the hundredth time, “It is just Crane Ma’am.”
The arrow shortage had been rather more critical. Euan had set fletchers working around the clock and given the lack of serious attacks they had been able to make more than they were using.
“We will use them fast enough when they attack,” the captain said bitterly, “A thousand archers can get through over 200,000 arrows an hour in a battle.”
Shula gaped. That was one for every man at her gates.
“Most fall harmlessly even in an experts hands,” Euan might have been reading her thoughts.
“How many arrows do we have?” Shula felt sick, knowing that when the attack came it would really bite.
“We began with a million or so,” Euan shrugged, “I have 200 fletchers and hastily assembled apprentices working around the clock producing near 5,000 new arrows every day… I expect the count to reach 12 hundred thousand by about tomorrow. Or to make it clearer, half a day’s solid fighting’s worth if all our archers shoot.”
Shula sat down ashen faced as she took this in.
“Your highness, if it came to that we would probably win. That many arrows…” he imagined the carnage, if only they were that foolish, he thought. “Sorties generally last 20 minutes and less than 500 men would be in a position to return fire,” Euan said encouragingly.
“Good to know,” Shula said unconvincingly. “What you are saying is that they will wear us down with small attacks and each time we will…” she did a calculation in her head, “…use some 30 or 40,000 arrows.”
He nodded.
“Which will then take a week to replace?” Shula added pointedly.
“So long as the materials last out, yes,” Euan agreed.
Shula pitched the bridge of her nose in despair. Thank the gods I am not a man. I despise this mathematics of death.
“Your highness, there are other matters we must…” Euan decided to broach the thing now.
Shula looked up and wondered what more horrors he had for her.
“Restrictions on supplies of food and medicine have been strict, but we have had a few breaches,” he sighed, “Hoarding and attempts to side step the rules.”
Shula frowned. She thought about her maid Cali still standing in the corner back in her chambers. The girl had swiped a crust of bread from the kitchen; an act for which she would heartily pay when Shula had the time. The girl wouldn’t sit down for a week by the time Shula was done with her.
“One was just a young mother chancing her arm,” Euan said, “I took the liberty of having stripped across a block in the yard and even now she is having her bare arse blistered with a quirt by a sergeant-at-arms. She won’t sit easily for the rest of this siege I promise.”
“That is for the good but see that her children have been fed. Some food may have been… misplaced.” Shula relaxed. She was on easy ground now. “Oh and put the woman to work… making arrows.”
Euan snorted in approval. Then he said, “Actually it is the other issue that concerns our remaining thief.”
“Misplaced food you mean?” Shula asked.
“That’s right Ma’am,” the captain looked uncomfortable, “We caught some black-marketeers, a man and a woman. The man was killed trying to escape, but we have the woman in custody.”
“You want to hang her?” Shula said bluntly.
Oh the gods no, Euan thought, but it was needful he knew.
“Bring her in,” Shula said wearily.
It didn’t take long and after a minute two guards entered either side of a woman like bookends. She was tallish and thin with short tousled hair and men’s clothes. Shula adjudged her to be in her late 20s, but by her manner she was not the usual highwayman’s moll or footpad. In fact she looked arrogant and defiant.
“What is your name?” Shula asked.
The princess took a moment to sit down without looking at the woman as if her captive were singular of no importance.
“Leah Gingham-Woolf,” the woman said in a dead voice.
By its vowels she was of a professional class, but not so highborn that she didn’t carry a hint of an Aspen accent.
“You are what a… a footpad, smuggler?” Shula asked.
“I am the proprietor of an export business,” she said proudly, and then a bit less certainly, “Or I was.”
“You don’t look like an exporter,” Shula accused her.
“I had to take to the road when Aspen fell and I thought I might be safer as a man.” The woman sounded bored.
“Hard times,” Shula replied.
“It has been dreadful your highness.” For a moment the woman sounded as if she might cry.
“So you thought you would make it harder for others by stealing?” Shula said bitterly.
The woman blanched and then looked at the floor.
“I didn’t mean…” she sighed. At school this was the time to say ‘no excuse ma’am’ and take her licks. But her licks this time would be delivered by a rope. “I fell in with the wrong man, alright,” she spat bitterly as if it were Shula’s fault. “It is kill or be killed out there, you should try it sometime ma’am. I have been a proud woman all my life and I have never needed a man… but Gus saved me… I didn’t want to raid the stores… I swear by the gods that I didn’t know that was what he intended until… oh what difference does it make? I probably wouldn’t have stood up to him anyway. Life is just small steps isn’t Ma’am? And I took small steps in the wrong direction.”
“And if someone had stolen from you? Back in Aspen I mean?” Shula asked.
Leah opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again.
“I once vouched for a woman who had. Got her whipped instead of a penal indenture. She came to work for me afterwards actually.” Leah smiled at the memory. “But it was only a blanket she stole and it wasn’t during a siege. Anyway she is dead now too; never made it out of Aspen.”
The sadness in the woman’s voice was crushing.
“I have no one,” Leah whispered, “So hang me. It is just.”
“No it is not is it? Nothing about this is just,” Shula sighed. “This damn war wasn’t asked for and the demon-spawn bastards at our gates can go to bloody hell.”
Shula sucked in air through her nose and let it go slowly as it would blow away all the world’s ills.
“Drop those ridiculous breeches right down to your ankles and get over that bench. I want your bare bottom pointing at the ceiling and your elbows on the floor.” Shula ordered the woman.
“Your highness…” Euan protested.
“Hanging a woman this early in the siege is not good for morale is it? We have the culprit; this man. Hang him from the castle gibbet with a sign that reads ‘looter,’” Shula spat angrily.
“But he is already…” Euan let the puzzlement fall from his face and he shrugged. “Yes Ma’am.”
Leah was still hovering and eyeing the guards and the bench in some consternation.
“You, breeches down, bottom over that bench, I won’t tell you again,” Shula snapped.
The woman fumbled for a coarse rope that held up her tattered clothing and pulled it free. Her trousers fell to her ankles in one motion, baring her legs and revealing a lack of underclothes.
There was no dignity in her struggle to get down and over the bench, but she managed it after a fashion so that she was jack-knifed with her small hard white bottom mooning the ceiling.
“You,” Shula said sharply to the older of the two guards gaping at the woman’s shame. “You have grown daughters?”
“Yes Ma’am,” the guard said awkwardly. “And granddaughters come to that.”
He was a big fellow with grey hair that put his age above 50.
“Good. Take a belt to this woman’s bottom like it was a daughter you just caught selling her tail to a Westerner and don’t stop until I tell you,” Shula said.
The guard nodded and offered Leah’s vulnerable bottom a disappointed smile. Then he unhitched his sword belt and laid it with his shield by the door.
“You can go,” Shula said to the other guard.
The man snapped to attention and fixed his eyes ahead and the wheeled on his heels and marched out.
“I’ll go too if I may be excused,” Crane said pointedly and without waiting he strolled away.
The older guard had removed his other belt and folded it double before advancing on Leah’s long pale legs and exposed bottom. Then he took one final glance at Shula who gave one curt nod.
The first thwack of leather on skin was as loud as trebuchet assailing a castle and a red band of pain landed across Leah’s behind.
“Yah,” she yelped. School had been nothing like this.
The second stroke landed followed by a third before the woman could draw breath. Thereafter she continued to wail with only the crack of leather for punctuation as each swat pursed swat as regularly as sword drill.
Shula guessed the proud Leah Gingham-Woolf, former merchant of Aspen, had never been so treated. Well it would do her good and at least it was better than a rope.
Leah’s bottom leathering lasted an age and hard welts of red had formed long before Shula called a halt. By then of course the woman was a mess of sorrow sobbing and howling like an Aspen orphan who had gone without supper.
“I doubt you’d make a good fletcher’s apprentice my fine lady,” Shula said soothingly, “So you can work as a scullion for the duration.”
But Leah was passed caring as she bucked over the bench in great heaving sobs.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she wailed.
“I know and I so am I,” Shula sighed.
It took a while for Leah to half rein-in her tears and get to her feet and when she did she bounced up down with her hands clamped to her bare bottom without the least regard for her modesty or dignity.
“Say thank you to the man,” Shula said quietly.
“Thank you Sir,” Leah wept.
The man nodded.
Then Leah turned to Shula and kneeled, “Thank you Ma’am… thank you so much.”
Then the woman stooped to kiss the hem of Shula’s dress.
“You may go,” Shula said, faintly embarrassed, and to the guard she muttered, “Take her to the kitchens.”
To be continued.
