“Your Grace!” Anwyll called out.
“Captain,” Tristen said. “One squad comes up the hill with me for the Stable Gate, one for the Zeide’s East Gate by Woolmarket, one by Bell Street for the South Gate, the third to hold here and assure us of this gate. But don’t trouble these guards! They’re honest men. Captain, take command at the South Gate, do no harm to the town, and be ready to come in when I open the doors!”
“ Yes, Your Grace.” There was no more demur. Anwyll knew the town intimately, and called for the sergeant who knew the streets. “Cossell! Three squads, East Gate! Brys, three squads, follow His Grace!”
“Banners!” Uwen shouted, setting their own men in order, and with no more ado Tristen started Gery moving uphill as his banner-bearers raced to the fore. The man to whom he had given Petelly’s lead was in the squad with them, and Petelly created a small stir among the armed men going with them, wanting to get forward… Petelly, who knew nothing of king’s men or the desperate bid of rebels against the king. He was an Amefin horse, and knew what justice was: his stable and his grain were at the top of the hill.
They rode through the street with a clatter of iron-shod hooves echoing back and forth off the houses and off the high and low walls of the town. As they went, shutters cracked in prudently shut houses, and here and there cautiously opened.
Then, quietly, emboldened, the people alongside them opened doors for a general look, and came out onto their steps, or stared down from the upper windows.
“Lord Sihhë!” someone shouted through the dark streets. It was the name the town had called him before, the name that would have scandalized the Quinalt in Guelemara. “Lord Sihhë! ” other voices shouted, and ahead of them shutters cracked open, and doors opened. Light broke faintly onto the street from closely held lamps and firesides, and the white Sihhë Star glowed on the banners. “Lord Sihhë!” people shouted, and poured into the streets, some running dangerously close to the horses. More and more doors opened, a few householders bearing lights sheltered from the wind. The Gate-street Tavern turned out a befuddled, cautiously enthusiastic knot of patrons and servingmen in their aprons.
“Lord Sihhë!” The cry went all along. “Lord Sihhë!” The town cheered him as they had cheered him when he returned from Lewenbrook. “Lord Sihhë!” echoed off the walls and brought commotion and lights to the dark side streets. Now the Sihhë Star and the black Eagle alike showed in fitful gleams from doors and lanterns. “Lord Sihhë!” the people cried.
They were glad to see him, and that was so rare a notion it confounded his warlike expectations and broke quite unexpectedly through the guard he had for two months set about his heart, setting it to beating larger than war or fear could bring on him. He had arrived where he was supposed to be, he had no doubt now. He had come, moreover, where he was needed, and as swordsmanship and the ordering of armies had Unfolded to him, so he knew what he had to do: secure every street by which their enemies might come down the hill and seal all the gates from which new enemies might arrive at their backs. He knew, too, the worth in this people that rushed to the streets… usetheir help, gain their goodwill, bring them what they hoped to find, but he had to keep them from breaking into mischief and harm.
And to do that, he had to bring the banners up the hill quickly to make the citadel sure with whom they were dealing, in the darkness of night, and he must notrely wholly on the viceroy he was riding to save.
Not rely, for one thing because the king’s forces might already be overwhelmed; but most of all because the king’s Guelen troops might inflame resentments in the town. He had sent his forces sweeping up like shadow through the streets, on the cries of people that had never loved the Marhanen kings. Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! they cried, and he could not mistake the sentiment behind it. It was all too easy to let slip a hatred of Guelen overlords that would not easily be reined in.
Lights broke out now in the side streets as they went, lights spread all along the rows of shops and houses. He saw in an intersection of streets one of the other Dragon squads going up the hill beside them, swift-moving riders silhouetted against the lamplight, there and then gone as they pursued their way uphill in a scattering of accompanying lanterns in the upper town. Their going acquired a voice, a shouting, a roar. Common townsfolk brought sticks and staves to his aid and marched in a growing band behind them as they neared the very gates of the citadel, still shouting, Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë!
They met a West Gate shut fast, three sets of bars, inner and outer sets swung shut from the side, the portcullis dropped between. A troop of the Guelen Guard was drawn up inside, afoot, in the stable-court, red coats gleaming faintly in lanternlight, the same as the colors of the Guard with him. An overeager rush of townsmen ran for the bars with staves and kitchen knives.
“Here, here!” Uwen shouted out. “Way for His Grace!” And the people shouted out, “Way for Lord Sihhë!” and they gave back, pushing and shoving one another to clear a space for him.
From Gery’s back and above the heads of the mob Tristen could see the viceroy’s forces holding in good order. They had fortified themselves behind the triple hedge of iron bars, but it was not an enviable position for the Guelenmen despite the viceroy’s command of the stores and the water.
“Ho the guard!” Uwen called through the bars as their horses paced and stamped the cobbled space outside—a knot of Guelenmen themselves, in a ring of Amefin townsfolk on the verge of riot. “His Grace Tristen, Duke of Amefel, the grant of His Majesty Cefwyn by the gods’ grace king of Ylesuin! Ho the garrison, in the duke’s name and His Majesty’s! Where’s His Majesty’s viceroy?”
An officer on the other side of the gate moved his horse nearer the inmost bars. That man gave an order, imprudently instructing the men in the gatehouse behind the bars to open the inner gate, and to raise the portcullis. At the first clank of the pawl, the mob behind them pressed forward, with only the inward-swinging gates to hold them back. They were strong gates; but the weight of men outside was perilously great.
“Keep back!” Tristen shouted, and rode Gery a half circle about, making a line beyond which the crowd pushed and shoved at each other to clear his path.
“In His Majesty’s name!” the viceroy’s officer shouted out from inside, near the remaining, inward-tending screen of bars. “Of Your Grace’s goodwill, the viceroy bids Your Grace know he has not officially received His Majesty’s messenger. The earl has arrested the courier!”
“Ye’re relieved!” Uwen shouted against the noise. “His Majesty’s made a new duke in Amefel, which is His Grace Tristen of Ynefel and Althalen, who wants to know where is the lord viceroy?”
“His Lordship does not talk to rabble.”
“ To the duke of Amefel, I say, and with His Majesty’s seal on’t! Open the damn gate, man, before it falls down.”
“His Lordship will not step down until we have seen the king’s seal!”
“Good lovin’ gods,” Uwen began, directing himself to Tristen. A stick flew, and struck the bars. The people shouted to open the gate, and pressed forward. Uwen turned Gia about. “Quiet there! Ware the horses!” He turned and with Gia’s shoulder pushed the crowd further back, as a sudden ragged surge of the mob compacted the ranks of the guardsmen with them against the side of the gate. “Back! Back, there, ye fools!”
Uwen was in acute danger. All their company was in danger, from the very forces that came to their support: the hindmost ranks were pushing forward, thinking the gate was open. Tristen turned Gery to come near Uwen, and from him, people still fell back , the front rank pushing at the others to gain him room, pushing with all their force against the tide trying to roll in on them, shouting, “ Lord Sihhë himself! Give way, give way!”