Touching stone, feeling its texture and contours against his palm, was always a pleasure for Barden, especially after a long sea voyage. He hated the weak fragility of the ships he was forced to use to cross the Southern Sea. The creaking of a ship’s planks and ribs as they fought and flexed against the pressure of the waves reminded him about the fragility of life and of all of man’s works. He preferred the less pressing reminder provided by a worn wall of well-mortared limestone blocks. A structure might fall or crumble, but a good building would be around hundreds of years after the average ship had rotted away.
Unfortunately, sea travel was a frequent requirement of his work because few lords controlled enough resources to build their manors, castles, or fortresses on a scale that offered him satisfaction. The Emperor to the north did, of course, yet Barden would sooner cut off his own arm than work for the Tiberian Empire. This restriction significantly limited his options for employers and necessitated many long trips.
After his ship finally dropped anchor in Ravenwood, the duchy’s capital city, two weeks of hard riding had brought him to his current location, deep in the duchy’s southern reaches on Duke Cedric’s ancestral estate. Only his four journeymen had accompanied him for the entire journey, although others in the duke’s service had escorted them for segments of the journey before handing over the escort duty to new troops from other posts.
His students now lingered behind him in the bailey. The sounds of their whispered conversations floated amongst the songs of a flock of pigeons. Barden ignored both distractions; instead, he reveled in the cool density of the stone.
He stood close to the castle’s heart, a large four-towered square keep with a solid oak gate ten feet high. The keep reached eighty feet into the sky and had been constructed by good masons. It had thick walls, and the stones were closely spaced and well mortared. His hand rested against a block forming part of the door’s archway.
A well-made edifice has a spirit. A solid block of chiseled limestone or granite might bear tool marks as if fresh from the quarry or be worn smooth by centuries of weather and walkers. An aged oak timber might complain about the pressure of a strong wind or it might simply rest stolidly in its proper place, seemingly prepared to bear the weight upon it until the end of creation. Taken together, though, stone and wood combined according to the design of a builder become something more, something that was almost alive and that spoke its own language.
The master builder could listen to each structure’s muttering, feel its strength and resiliency, and predict its eventual death when others could see only a house, a tower, a cathedral, or a castle. Barden had built, or supervised the building of, more than seventy structures, and written two of the longest existing treatises on building. What there was to know about building with stone and wood, he knew from firsthand experience with the materials and from reading every book or manuscript on building or mining that he could find in the libraries of his employers. He might not yet be the greatest builder of his age, but if not, he was close to achieving that honor.
Quality began, as he so often said to his journeymen and apprentices, with passion, planning, and perspiration. All three were necessary, but passion—love—came first. Some of his apprentices never grasped this simple truth. They were the ones who thought that moments like this one, when he stood with his hand, eyes, and thoughts touching the fruits of another builder’s labor, were odd. They were the ones who never made it to master rank.
Duke Cedric’s castle was a fine piece of craftsmanship. No craftsman built something so beautiful without loving to build and without devoting years of his life to one simple purpose—to bring this work of art into existence—and no one man built a structure this large and complex. Such effort, spread out over several years at the very least, merited the gift of Barden’s time, the long moments in which he showed his respect and appreciation for this achievement.
“The duke is waiting,” said the officer standing a polite distance to his left. His interruption demonstrated that one man’s necessity was another’s waste of time.
The officer was the commander of the duke’s lifeguards. Derek Johanson might be twenty years younger than Barden, although the man’s black hair was heavily salted with gray and his skin had taken its own share of damage from long days in the sun.
Barden restrained a sigh. “Yes,” he said. “I apologize, Colonel. The journey was long, and I am tired.” He motioned to the small group of men standing perhaps twenty feet behind him and the commander. “Give me some time to speak with my students, and then let us go to him.”
The colonel shook his head. “The duke’s orders were to bring you to him as soon as you arrived, and we have already been delayed. He will meet with you on the battlements. I have asked the seneschal to set out a meal and wine in the hall; your men can wait there while I escort you to the duke.”
Even a lifetime of habitual deference to the powerful was not enough to allow Barden to hide his wince. Nearing the end of his fifth decade, Barden lacked the stamina he once had possessed, and meeting on the battlements would require a long climb. But he had long ago learned the art of diplomacy. “I am at the duke’s service,” he said, lifting his hand from the obdurate stone and stepping away from the wall.
To reach this point, he and his party had followed their escort through two gatehouses. The first marked one of two entry points through a curtain wall with three-story square towers that enclosed an outer bailey; round towers were the preference for modern builders, so this wall had been added by one of the duke’s ancestors. The second gatehouse, apparently part of the original construction, projected out from the keep’s east side and, along with its tall curtain wall, enclosed a small courtyard. A staircase led up to a platform twelve feet above ground where a smaller gate provided the only entrance into the keep’s interior.
It was a fine castle, but the walls were too low to allow for the optimal performance of modern ballistae and catapults and were not the strongest Barden had seen or built. The gate was too large for maximum defensive strength, and a competent builder could strengthen the defense by adding a stronger portcullis and a longer entry tunnel with more murder holes.
After the brisk walk across the inner bailey, Barden was breathing more heavily than he would have preferred to be breathing with an unknown number of stairs awaiting him.
Step by step, they climbed five flights. His eyes noted the telltale markers of recent maintenance and repairs throughout the keep’s interior and the relatively restrained number of luxuries—a few tapestries, ancient swords and shields hanging on pegs, the occasional sculpture—decorating the hall. No duke ever lived in uncomfortable surroundings, but Duke Cedric’s keep was clearly not the home of a decadent wastrel. It radiated functionality and clarity of purpose, down to the small wooden arrow holders and sheaves of arrows near each slit Barden passed. That detail alone was unusual—this duke feared a lack of readiness more than the possibility of wasted pennies.
At the top of the stairway, a small oak door stood open, the stiff wind of early May blowing through it with a moaning whistle. After a brief coughing fit, Barden followed the commander out onto a tower’s roof, immediately feeling the wind buffeting his cheeks and ears. The sun was strong enough to eat at a man’s skin, but its full heat still seemed far removed from this part of the world.
Encircled and protected by the battlements, the platform was large enough to hold a catapult and a ballista, with room to spare for half a dozen archers or crossbowmen. Perhaps twenty feet to his left a stone staircase ran down to the ledge that ran the length of all four walls; at any point, an archer could find an opening in the battlements and shoot at attackers. At least five soldiers patrolled the battlements at regular intervals, although the one whose route brought him closest to the tower turned at the foot of the steps, leaving its roof as a zone of privacy. A man turned to face them as they approached the tower’s northern side.
With brown hair that included only a few strands of gray, strong and fit, Duke Cedric was a man in the prime of his life. Although he must carry his fair share of scars or have suffered the aches of broken fingers, cracked ribs, and other injuries—at least if his reputation as a warrior was more than a minstrel’s tale—Barden saw few signs of wounds or infirmity on the man’s face or hands.
“Master Barden,” Duke Cedric said, smiling, “welcome to my family’s home. My home away from home now.” Barden understood the duke’s meaning; as lord of the duchy, he must spend the majority of his time in his capital city, the duchy’s trading center and largest port.
Barden bowed and murmured his thanks for the greeting. “You have a well-made home, your Grace. I am surprised that you want to use my services here, instead of in your capital.”
The duke nodded. “I have my father and grandfather to thank for it. I have commissioned no major work on this castle since I rose to my seat. But it is past time to change that fact.”
Following the order wrapped in the duke’s gesture, Barden moved to stand beside him, reaching out the touch one of the crenellations.
Duke Cedric waved an arm out at the castle beneath and around him. “What would you do to improve this castle’s defenses?”
Ravenwood Castle rested on a leveled hill and loomed over the adjoining town, which was also fortified with a twenty-foot wall and thirty-foot towers. The castle’s purpose was clear even from Barden’s vantage point, and he had studied several maps, too, before leaving the Seven Kingdoms. Overlooking both the river and the major trade road through the forest to the south, the castle guarded the most important position in this region. No army could pass south of this point and support itself in the field without neutralizing the castle. No boats could safely use the river for trade or transport if the castle’s garrison opposed their passage.
Since his first glance, Barden had been considering the possibilities, but possibilities existed only as figments of the imagination in the world of stone and wood. “Perhaps you might give me the amount of coin that you are willing to spend and how much you can provide each year?”
The Duke smiled. “I would hear your thoughts first.”
Barden pointed without hesitation to the gatehouse in the outer bailey’s wall. “I would demolish your gatehouse and build a much larger one, with a stronger portcullis and more defenses. The new gatehouse also would have a platform wide enough for many more missile weapons. You will need more catapults and ballistae to have the best chance to withstand a serious siege. With them, you can make any serious attempt to undermine the walls or storm the gate a very difficult task.”
“I agree,” the duke said, “but you misunderstand me, master builder.” He folded his arms and locked his intense blue eyes in contact with Barden’s. “You picked a project nicely calibrated to what you think I might pay you for. Ignore the plainness of my keep—that is a family quirk. Think on a larger scale. What would you do if coin were not a significant consideration?”
Barden lifted one hand to rub his chin, intrigued. “Pardon, your Grace, but in my experience, coin is always a consideration.”
Duke Cedric enumerated some specific figures, and Barden coughed, returning his eyes to the grounds surrounding the castle. At least thirty thousand gold coins, if necessary, the duke had said. Thirty thousand. Conavon Castle in the Tiberian Empire, by all accounts, had cost perhaps half that sum, and it was the greatest fortress in the world. But potentially not for much longer.
Barden cleared his throat. His entire chest echoed with the excited thunder of his heart. “Duke Cedric,” he asked, in a quavering voice, “do you have any idea about what I can build with that amount?”
Duke Cedric shrugged. “I might have a rough approximation. But, in this, you are the expert. I asked you to clarify my understanding, and I am still waiting for an answer.”
“Yes,” Barden admitted, turning his attention to the view before them. Think larger, the duke had instructed.
The castle rested on a low plateau that overlooked a wide river. It was well constructed and worth integrating into any expansion. That simplified the project somewhat, but . . . Barden tore his attention away from his visions. “Who is the most likely attacker?”
“In the near future, the Emperor.” When the duke spoke those words, he revealed not the slightest hint of emotion.
Barden lacked such self-control. The sudden widening of the duke’s eyes must mean that he had seen the quick twist of rage on Barden’s face. Still, the duke said nothing, his face frozen into an impassive basalt slab, as he watched and waited patiently until Barden regained his composure.
“So my skill was only the primary reason you requested my services?” Barden’s voice was ragged, almost broken.
Duke Cedric nodded. “I know about your grievance against the Empire. And I believe that motivation enhances skill.”
“Yes,” Barden whispered. “I believe that, too.” He breathed deeply. Once, and then again. “The Empire’s preferred tactic is to batter a breach in the walls and then send in the assault parties; its generals rarely waste men in assaults on intact walls, which might be one reason why the number of its regiments keeps growing. This Emperor, I also hear, has many mages whose powers he can draw upon.”
“He does,” Duke Cedric agreed. His hand pointed to the nearby ballista. “So whatever you build, I will need room for many more artillery pieces.” At ten or twenty feet, a good mage could destroy most structures, although it took most of them a while and exposed them to other threats. From a distance, though, even the strongest mage’s control quickly bled away. “I’ll also have at least a dozen mages here to help with the defense.”
Barden nodded. “We can make room for the artillery,” he murmured. “And the mages will help. You will need their power to shore up the walls. Can you assign one here immediately so that I can coordinate my plans with his advice and understanding of other mages’ capabilities?”
“Of course.”
Barden dipped his head and studied the current layout again. “How many men must the castle be able to support as a garrison?”
Duke Cedric held up his hands, palms facing the sun, to signal the uncertainty in his answer. “Let us say two hundred as a permanent garrison. During a siege, I’ll want room for as many as five companies—call it a thousand men—for at least ten months; any other troops that I might have with me will be quartered in the town. We have two deep and reliable wells, so water should not be a problem. But I do not want to rely on the town for food, so we’ll store grain and such within the castle’s walls. If I or my allies can’t relieve the castle in a year, we’ll be finished.”
Given those requirements, Barden decided that space was the first consideration. He returned to the design already taking shape in his mind and added a new curtain wall, interrupted with five-story round towers, around a large outer courtyard. One strong gatehouse—on the river wall, where it could be reached only after a long ride under the curtain wall. A temporary ramp on the east wall, which would loom over the old Imperial trade road. (If the Duke’s garrison withstood the attack, another gate could be added later.)
A deep and wide ditch outside the wall would decrease the utility of siege towers, increase the difficulty of successfully completing mining operations, and keep the mages at a distance. A tall wall and artillery platform on the side facing the river, from which many more catapults and ballistae could solidify the control over the waterway. A new donjon, tall and round and far higher than the current square keep, to add range and deadliness to catapults and ballistae that would be able to heave their stones or missiles in any direction. For the town itself, the reinforcement and heightening of the existing walls.
Chills ran down Barden’s spine as he considered his final picture of the fortress that would be, and his ingrained honesty forced him to speak. “I can give you a fortress that will be the envy of the world, your Grace. But even it will not be impenetrable. Every fortress can be taken eventually.”
“I know,” Duke Cedric said, resting on his hands as he leaned toward the battlements. He stared silently down at this small piece of his domain. “But if I need to defend this place, I’ll only need it to hold well for a time. This fortress would halt the Emperor; we still would need to beat him in the field to drive him back.” His head swiveled toward Barden. “Do the best you can. But whatever you build, build it quickly.”
Barden shook his head, slowly and with some reluctance. “Your Grace, I will be dealing with stone and wood, and with men. This will take time.”
Duke Cedric lifted a hand. “I am not asking the impossible, but anything you plan that would take more than five years to build might not survive until completion. You’ll have at least two years, I think, and probably somewhere between three years and seven years. The only enemy likely to arrive here within five years is the Emperor. More than that I cannot promise.”
“I see,” Barden said. The donjon would have to wait until the curtain wall was well underway, then, but it might, with only a little luck, still be completed, too. There was not a day to lose, though. “It can be done, your Grace, but I will be spending your coin like water and I will need to start immediately.” His eagerness slipped out in a twisted smile. “Tomorrow.”
Barden could almost see the duke’s satisfaction regarding the fierceness of his chosen builder’s motivation. He was happy to see it on his employer’s face, because he most certainly was not seeing it on his memory of his wife’s face. Unlike the duke, Jocelyn would not have approved of this burning desire for revenge.
Duke Cedric held out a hand to seal the bargain. The written contract could come later this day, but by reputation and in reality, Barden was a traditionalist and the duke clearly knew it.
“I’m ordering a draft of laborers and a company of my soldiers to help you in whatever way you desire,” Duke Cedric said, “and they’ll be ready for your orders in the morning. The company will be assigned here as the permanent garrison, so I hope that you will share your assessment of this castle’s strengths and weaknesses with its captain and his officers.”
“Of course,” Barden said. With a mighty effort, he suppressed the painful memories surging like storm waves in his head and focused on the duke. “Digging . . . If you want to warn their commander, tell him that there will be a lot of digging.”
How long they would be digging might surprise them, but some surprises were better left unspoken.
#
Downstairs, after the audience with the duke had ended, Barden joined his journeymen in the great hall.
Grover, the oldest of the four men sitting at a table, was the first to speak. “We have a commission?”
“Yes,” Barden said, “one that will keep us here for years.”
The other three men loosed relieved exclamations and tapped their mugs together in a toast. The trip had been long, and the seas—this early in the year—stormy and unsettling. The faces of the two youngest journeymen were dry and peeling from the wind and sunburn they suffered from, whereas the older two’s faces were long ago weathered into seemingly permanent leathery tans. All of them would welcome a long break from travel.
“Years? Yet this castle seems to be in good repair, Master Barden,” Grover observed. He had remained silent, which was not surprising. Grover was a patient man, but still as curious as he had been as a raw apprentice over ten years ago. In a year or two, he would be worthy of master’s rank, and Barden felt bittersweet about the impending change.
Barden nodded. “Come with me, all of you,” he said, “and let me show you what this duke has charged us with.”
#
Evening, First Day, Fifth Month, 496 A.C. [After the Old Empire’s Collapse]
I rely on this testament to preserve my thoughts. My memory is less true than it once was, and I must not forget the smallest detail.
Today, I was commissioned for a project on the type of scale that fills the dreams and nightmares of every good builder. My apprentices looked like clubbed oxen after I shared the news with them, but the timing is opportune. Grover is superb. Lyman is not quite his equal but will also make master’s rank someday, and Sanford and Weston both show great promise. Their shock soon gave way to the fires of ambition, and pleasure at their coming wages.
Duke Cedric seems likely to deliver on his promises of coin for wages and materials. From his mouth and the mouths of others I hear about his new gold and silver mines somewhere in the western mountains, and with my own eyes, I have seen thousands of freshly minted gold coins in his treasury. For the first, and probably the last, time in my life, I might be able to build while focusing entirely on quality.
If we complete this fortress successfully, our names might be remembered as long as men put stone on stone. I find some small comfort in the thought, because if I am remembered, perhaps my beloved Jocelyn also will be.
I do hope that the Empire is the first to attack the walls we build. The duke knows about my refusal to work for the Emperor; he even knows the reason for my refusal.
What he does not know is my secret: for a chance to injure the Empire, I would have worked for free.
II
Early the next morning, Barden and his journeymen stepped off measured lines and hammered wooden markers into the ground. The work would start with the digging, and the crews needed to know where to dig and where to leave the lanes for hauling the stone and timber into the construction site. The duke had estimated that they would have several years, but once Barden started major building, the current castle would be vulnerable to close approach. The outer ditch would offer some compensating protection. Eventually, a smaller moat close against the curtain wall would offer even more.
Barden had been eating a lunch of cheese and apples in the great hall when Vaugn, the captain in command of the garrison company, marched into the room and joined him at a table.
Lean and seemingly little older than Barden’s two apprentices, the captain was surprisingly polite as he asked Barden what his men would be asked to do. He remained so even after Barden mentioned the words digging and months in the same sentence.
Barden filled the man’s wine glass from the large pewter pitcher on the table. “I’m surprised, captain, that you seem pleased with this assignment. Most soldiers I’ve known resent having to do the work of common laborers.
The captain shrugged. “It will help us burn off our winter fat. Duke Cedric is pulling the best ideas from the Old Empire’s army—all the soldiers in the companies know how to dig. My lieutenants and sergeants also all have seen combat; they know how much less fun it is to fight in the open field, instead of behind a wall. Show me what you want done, and we will do our share.”
“Gather your other officers then,” Barden said. “We marked the starting track of the ditch this morning, and I want to make sure all of you understand the plan. Time is a factor; we must get this right on the first try.”
The captain chuckled. “Duke Cedric made that same point very clearly less than half an hour ago,” he said. “Since we’ll possibly be defending these walls one day, my officers and I will happily follow your directions. Some of the young ones will grumble. I’ll deal with that as necessary.”
Barden walked outside with the captain, pausing briefly so Vaugn could introduce him to his two lieutenants, and then the assembled group marched briskly through the courtyards. Small flocks of doves and pigeons were feeding on the seeds thrown down each morning by the cook’s apprentices, and the birds fluttered out of their paths before returning and resuming their feasting. Barden and his four students would eat in the hall for as long as the building project took to complete, and none of them had seen any reason yet to be unhappy about that prospect.
Outside the wall, Barden cast an appraising but pleased eye upon the growing stacks of timber and piles of stones that already decorated the plain. Even before meeting with him, Duke Cedric had laid in a supply of stone and wood, and more streamed into the stacks seemingly with each passing hour. On the duke’s orders, some of his soldiers and hired laborers were destroying two nearby forts, and more were cutting down trees in the forest. Duke Cedric also had devoted nearly the full production of a local quarry to the project. His written instructions licensed Barden to make whatever deals were necessary to secure more supplies, and after putting Captain Vaugn’s men to work, he would send a runner into town with letters asking for a meeting with the factors of the two wealthiest merchants in this area of the world. Even a deal concluded today would only bring the first loads of timber and stone to the site in two or three months, so time was valuable.
Without the river, Barden doubted that he could have gotten adequate materials here quickly enough. But the river was broad and deep. If he knew who had built the first river barge, he would offer a toast to the man’s name. He still planned to drink a beer tonight in his memory, because to succeed in his own task, Barden would be standing with one foot on that first barge-builder’s shoulders.
He was still standing on his own two feet when he halted the small procession by a row of the wooden pegs he and his students had hammered into the ground earlier this morning.
“I want the digging to start here,” Barden said. “Let this be the trench’s inner wall. I want a depth of at least twelve feet.”
Captain Vaugn nodded. “How wide do you want it to be? Or are you also going to mark the other side with pegs, too?”
“Over there.” Barden pointed to the pegs parallel to the one they stood near. It was over forty feet away.
The captain followed the line of sight indicated by Barden’s hand until he spotted the pegs and then went very still. “Holy Creator,” he whispered. His was not the only reaction Barden heard; at least one of the lieutenants released a strangled cough.
“Yes,” Barden said. “It is no small task I am setting.”
“Master Barden—” The captain hesitated, looked around at their surroundings as if seeing them for the first time “—even with a thousand other laborers, moving this much dirt will take months. Perhaps half a year. At least.”
“I know, captain. But the duke assures me that we have that much time.” Scanning the ground again, he lost himself for a moment in his vision of what might one day be. “This will be your first line of defense.”
“Our ‘first line,’” the captain echoed, as he studied Barden in a shaken reappraisal. “I am eager to see what you build at this place.”
“I share that same wish,” Barden said. “We will start as soon as I can hire the first work crews.”
“One final question: where do you want us to put the dirt?”
Barden nodded. “For now, have your men pile it beyond the outer side of the ditch. I will need much of it.” He shrugged. “Perhaps the town can use the rest to buttress its own walls.”
If not, he would find some other use for it.
#
Evening, Second Day, Fifth Month, 496 A.C.
Tomorrow, I will ride into Oakford, the town next to the castle, and meet with Duke Cedric’s factor and the factor of a merchant he says I can trust. I will need wood and stone and many more men—carpenters, miners, masons, and strong laborers. It will take time, but I should be able to hire at least a hundred or two on the morrow.
Grover and Lyman, I will place in charge of the two gatehouses; they do their best work when they are competing against each other. Sanford and Weston, I will keep under me for the curtain wall and towers. If time permits, all of us will work on the new donjon.
I will make time permit.
The duke is buying supplies from the kingdom of the Rose for this project, so he clearly believes he is protected to the south. I pray that he is correct. If he is, the Emperor and his armies will have no help, and seeing them break against the walls of a fortress of my own making is my last desire in life.
Jocelyn was never one to hate. But I am.
If they come here, this making of mine will bleed them. It will make them howl. My word and my life on it.
First Day, Ninth Month, 496 A.C.
The first barges loaded with large blocks of limestone have arrived, and we will begin in earnest on the new curtain wall and the donjon’s foundation tomorrow. The wall is the first priority, but I can plant the seeds of its bigger brother at the same time.
I finally—finally—have found and hired enough skilled craftsmen to ease the demands on my time to a more manageable level. Jocelyn always worried when I pushed myself this way, and to my discredit, I rarely listened. I would listen now, but she is not here to chide me and I have no time.
I am paying high wages, but it is necessary to pay more to keep the men here under the restrictions that the duke insists upon. I have contracts with the following men:
30 Blacksmiths at 3 silver shenar per day
30 Carpenters at 2s. 6 pennies per day
200 Masons at 1 s. 6p. per day
200 Miners at 2 s. per day
960 Laborers at 1 s. per day
I will need more men, but Captain Vaugn has been true to his word: his soldiers work hard despite their constant grousing, grousing that seems to get louder whenever I pass on an inspection and ignore their complaints about “common labor.” The laborers are doing the lion’s share of the work on the digging of the outer ditch, and although they are making exceptional progress, they still have several months to go. That should keep them fruitfully engaged but still out of the way of the real building work, which is also well underway. Perhaps later, we will be able to make do with fewer men, but not for at least a year or two.
My cough has been less noticeable these last few months. I think that it is not consumption as I first feared, but something is not right in my chest. I get winded easily now.
III
The cold air of October nipped at Barden’s cheeks as he stalked down the town’s main thoroughfare. He should have been hard at work at the building site, but this day’s routine had been severely disrupted.
Not thirty minutes earlier, Grover had stormed into the great hall while Barden was spooning his last bit of oatmeal into his mouth. His senior journeyman’s face was a splotchy red and white tapestry, and he was practically vibrating with suppressed outrage.
“I have fifteen men—fifteen—who are too drunk to work this morning,” Grover grated after only the barest courtesies.
Barden frowned. Construction labor was a hard way to make a living, and the workers often grabbed a few drinks to ease the aches in their muscles after a long day. But they had hired good men, men who knew their limits and knew how to keep a job once they had it. “What were they celebrating?”
“There is a troupe of actors staying at one of the taverns in town,” Grover said. “They are putting on a show every night, and they let women take the stage. It’s drawing my men like honey draws flies.”
A long stream of curses raced through Barden’s mind. If he were still Grover’s age, they all might have escaped his mouth. But he had slightly more self-restraint now. “Damn it,” he groaned.
Actors. And women. Women actors. It was a recipe for disaster. The town clergy were already complaining about the sudden surge in the number of harlots and gamblers plying their trade both in town and in the shantytown that had sprung up at the workers’ encampment. But Barden knew from long experience that any attempts to stop these activities were doomed to failure. Many of the laborers were young and now had money to spend; in such circumstances, someone always attempted to separate them from their money by giving them what they wanted.
Actors, thought, brought the illusion of glitz and glamour with them. If Barden did not act quickly, almost every worker he had would soon be drinking himself into a clumsy stupor while pursuing the fantasy of sleeping with a beautiful queen, a pagan sex goddess, or a damsel in distress. And on and on went the list. He knew well how it might go; Jocelyn had been a young actress when he met her while working as a mason on his first major project, and he had almost died twice because of his fevered dreams and sleepless nights. His laborers could not be permitted to suffer from the same distractions. He could not allow it.
Barden stood. “I’ll deal with it first thing this morning. Work as best you can today. I’ll talk to each of the men when I return from town. We’ll give them one more chance.”
Walking out of the castle only minutes later, he was well pleased by the progress of the construction. The ditch was essentially finished, and most of the foundation stones for the curtain wall were set in place. More stone and timber arrived each week, and the wall would grew steadily now as the masons and laborers found their rhythms. Or it would if the work crews were not . . . distracted.
Reviewing the conversation with Glover only increased the heat of Barden’s anger as he neared the Whistling Sailor, the tavern in which the troupe was performing. He ducked his head to clear the low entryway and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Smoke from the oil lamps and patrons’ pipes tickled his lungs and made his eyes water. The place smelled of roasting meat and beer, and even this early in the day, it bustled with activity. A few early morning drinkers were scattered at tables throughout the common room, but none spared him more than a glance when he entered.
Their attention was held by the troupe of actors gathered on an elevated wooden stage in one corner of the long room. The actors were apparently interspersing bits of their rehearsals for performances later in the day with short pieces designed to entertain the morning patrons. They started into a new piece as Barden moved further into the tavern.
At the front of the stage, six chairs, each holding a young woman dressed in a blue dress, formed a crescent moon. Behind each chair stood men wearing armor and carrying an ominous assortment of weapons. The man who was standing before them in the stage’s center launched into the performance with gusto. He had a loud, vibrant voice, and cut an impressive figure as he declaimed upon the punishments the Creator meted out through the efforts of the Six Sisters—Truth, Goodness, Honor, Justice, Law, and Mercy—and their Brothers—the Nameless Warriors.
He seemed young, but his skill matched that of a skilled veteran, which was surprising. Actors practically lived in taverns, and most that Barden had encountered wore the red splotches and puffy features of years of dissipation on their faces. This man, though, looked as healthy as one of Barden’s younger journeymen. Of the six women on stage, two were astonishingly beautiful, with flawless complexions, symmetrical features, and long, flowing hair.
Barden sighed. He should have known that the amount of money he and his workers were pouring into the local markets and taverns might draw the attention of a good company. But a good company presented the worst kind of problem for him. His laborers were unlikely to resist such a temptation, no matter how he threatened them. He waited until they finished the piece, and then he approached the front of the stage.
The male actor bowed deeply and smiled. “If you enjoyed that little sample, friend, I urge you to stay until this evening. We have one of the very best comedies to play for you.”
“Yes, you are very skilled,” Barden grumbled. “But I need a word with your director. Is that you?”
The man’s smile widened. He crouched and looked wildly from side to side. “I am indeed me,” the man intoned, reaching out with a pointing finger on each hand and then whipping the fingers around and into his own chest. “I am Konrad, the leader of this fine company, and I am wondering what I have done now.”
“I am Barden the Builder, and I would like a word in private with you.”
The man turned serious within one blink of his eyes. “I have heard the name, of course,” he said. “Many of your workers have toasted it in this very tavern.”
“That is what I want to talk to you about.”
Konrad nodded and turned to the rest of his troupe. He issued a rapid stream of orders and directions, and then he hopped off of the stage and went with Barden to a table in the corner. They had been seated for less than five breaths when the owner, a balding, stout man with hard eyes, joined them. It took several minutes to reassure the owner that Barden was not a competitor come to steal away his new attraction, but then the man seemed only slightly less worried and clearly was reluctant to give them their privacy. Soon enough, though, Barden and the actor were alone.
Barden went to the issue immediately. “Fifteen of my workers were too drunk to carry their loads this morning, and I’m told that many more are likely to follow in their footsteps. I cannot allow that.”
Konrad looked concerned and somehow wounded at the same time. “I am sorry to hear that, and we certainly did not mean to interfere with your work. But it is our job to entertain. How can we be faulted for being good at it? At the end of the day, we must be able to buy bread for ourselves. Why not simply tell your men to drink less beer? Or hire different ones?”
Barden shook his head. He clenched his hands on the table before him and leaned forward. “You are here because we are buying food and drink from the people of this town and paying good wages to several thousand workers,” he said. “You know as well as I do that men will seek out a tavern after a hard day’s work. Stopping them from coming here would be like trying to stop the wind.”
“It does not seem fair to blame us for the decisions of your laborers.” The man was certainly an actor: his tone had shifted smoothly into the almost whine of the defiantly hurt.
“The world is not fair,” Barden said, “and I am not asking for miracles. I simply need you to reduce the number of performances.”
“We are both artists of a sort, my friend, and masters of our craft. Yet I would not think to tell you how to build a fortress. How can I support a troupe on one or two performances a week? The wealth your workers are spending in this town has also touched off a frenzy of greedy profiteering; bread, meat, wine—everything costs more. I cannot make do with fewer performances.”
“You will do it.”
“Sadly, we seem to be at an impasse,” Konrad observed.
Barden shook his head. “Do not be deceived by appearances. You, of all people, should know better,” he said, some of his anger finally leaking out. “I must finish this project. I must. So I cannot allow you to interfere, even if you are only indirectly responsible for my workers’ conditions. If necessary, I will raise the issue with the duke himself.”
The actor went very still. “I would prefer that you didn’t,” he admitted. “I am sorry. But we must perform if we are to remain here.” He tilted his head. “We can, of course, move to a new town or city if you truly wield such influence here, which, I am sure, might disappoint your workers once they learn of the reason for our leaving. But for the obvious reason this is a very lucrative place for us to practice our craft, so we would prefer to stay for a while. Do you have an alternative proposal?”
Barden felt a grudging respect for the man’s stubbornness, but he still was struggling to control his anger. He simply could not risk the effective loss of a twentieth of his work force for an unknown length of time; he needed work crews that were reliable and that grew steadily in experience. On the other hand, the actor was right; morale would suffer for weeks and months, with the resulting loss of productivity, if Barden brought about the company’s banishment. It was intolerable.
The silence stretched into minutes, but Barden was the first to speak. Jocelyn had been as stubborn as this actor. She certainly would have liked the man.
“What if you ended your final performance two hours earlier?”
“Possible,” Konrad allowed, “but the tavern keeper might not see the merit in that proposal.”
“I will pay generously for a special performance at our encampment once every week. You also can charge a fee for admission and split both the payment and the fees with the owner.” Barden pointed to the stage. “And I will improve your stage—a trapdoor, for example, would be easy to add.”
The actor smiled. “I believe that he might agree to such a proposal.”
Barden nodded. “Then come with me,” he ordered. “I will put it to him in words that will make him see reason.”
#
Twelfth Day, Third Month, 497 A.C.
A foul humor has troubled me these past two weeks. I struggle against the chills and to stay active in the face of the weakness in my muscles. At night, my own sweat soaks me. It is frustrating.
Still, I have been happy lately. Despite a cold winter, the wall and the new gatehouse are proceeding well. The pace of the construction has slowed because of the season, but fortunately, we are far enough south to be able to work on most days, even during the deepest days of the year’s second month. I reminded Captain Vaugn that this region’s mild winters were a mixed blessing; we’re using heavy oak beams inside the towers and gatehouses, and he’ll need to keep a close eye out for termites.
Today, as I walked the perimeter, I was reminded of the first time I showed Jocelyn the house I built for us. Compared to this fortress, it was a small matter: three stories high, with nine rooms. But her face lit up like the morning sun when I first took her inside. For years, I had asked her the occasional question about what she liked about the houses I worked on or that we visited, and once I had the necessary time and money, I built a house in which each staircase or room had a feature that she had admired elsewhere. It was the first thing I built that felt perfectly right. “This is a princely gift, husband,” she said, her smile incandescent
What I feel as I look at these works and what I felt when I finished our home seem little different to me. The actor understands this feeling. I asked him once, when we were sharing a pot of ale, why he spent so much time rehearsing the small pieces when the long plays brought him the lion’s share of his income. He shrugged and said something that I will remember, in part because it came from such an unexpected source: “This is what we do, Master Barden. Long piece or short, they are all the same to us; we strive to achieve perfection and only reluctantly settle for excellence.”
Until that moment, I had respected him, but only grudgingly and more for his pigheadedness than for his talent. Only a true craftsman, though, could put what we all feel into such eloquent words.
Konrad, I will grant, is a master of his art.
IV
The spring rains actually slowed the pace of the work more than the winter’s snow. Mud was always a builder’s nightmare, and more men fell sick during this time of the year. Barden probably suffered more than anyone else from the deep bite of wet weather, but then he was by far the oldest man involved in the building. His days of manual labor were long behind him, but even traveling from one wall to the next now taxed his stamina. So when the emergency summons arrived from Grover, he pulled on his heavy cloak with something of a pained sigh. Not for an instant, though, did the possibility of remaining inside the warm hall cross his mind. He was the builder; he was responsible for everything that happened.
Still, by the time Barden reached his senior journeyman’s side, he was winded, and a series of coughs escaped him as he caught his breath. When he was breathing normally, he asked, “What happened?”
“A hoist gave way, and when the stones fell, they took part of the scaffolding with them,” Grover replied. “I think that we lost at least ten of the laborers.”
Barden nodded. “Check the rope. If our new supplier is selling us trash, I’ll deal with him. Otherwise, give the men an extra keg of beer tonight, and get them back up there at dawn’s light. We can’t afford to let superstition take root.”
“I will handle it,” Grover said. “Set your mind at ease. This crew is a good one, and enough of them have the imagination to realize what they are a part of. I think that you should tour the site now, though, to reassure everyone.”
“That is a good idea,” Barden said, his mind already moving ahead to his next conversation even as he headed in the direction of the other gatehouse. He now had lost over three dozen men on this project already; the faster than usual pace of the work were pushing the losses well above the normal rate, even for a large building project.
Grief and reflection must await the coming of darkness; his wife’s death had taught him that lesson.
#
Twentieth Day, Eighth Month, 497 A.C.
Another accident today.
Three men—two laborers and a crew foreman—died, and another dozen were injured, when a third-story tower wall collapsed without warning. A flaw in the leveling of the stones might have unbalanced the masonry, but it is hard to be certain. I hired four more miners and another dozen laborers, so we will have more hands tomorrow than we had today, but the deaths hit hard among the workers. We have been together for a while now, and the crews have grown close.
I am paying for a surgeon to see to the injured men, and I will hold a job for them until their broken bones or torn flesh heals. But the dead are beyond such help, and every man here knows they might have been such, or might become such, with only the slightest turn in their luck.
Men die to make what I build.
I have always known and accepted that simple truth. But it troubles me more now than it did when I was a younger man. Jocelyn’s death taught me something about loss, though, and surely most of the men who have died on my projects left grieving parents, wives, lovers, or children behind them.
I believe, must believe, that the price is worth paying. We build that which endures long after we are dust in the ground. Men choose to work on these projects. I do not compel them.
V
One day, in the middle of autumn, while sheets of cold rain sandblasted the stones protecting them, Captain Vaugn escorted Barden to the lower level of the old gatehouse. Small cells held the town’s criminals, and one held three young men. The captain asked Barden whether he recognized them. He did, of course; they were three of his best masons. A patrol had caught them after a night of drunken revelry had spawned several charges of rape by some serving maids at a tavern close to the north gate.
The men’s frightened, bloodshot eyes met Barden’s, but they did not say a word. The silence proved nothing. Over the years Barden had seen dozens of men in such circumstances, men who were simply filled with fear and self-destructive recklessness—mediocre or sometimes good workers, and certainly not hardened criminals. But the captain claimed the certainty of witnesses for the charges.
“Well, men, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“We’re just here to work,” one man said, “and we were just easing the day’s aches. None of us remember much about last night, but we didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Judging from the look on Captain Vaugn’s face, the man’s explanation was not good enough to earn a reprieve. In truth, Barden did not want them to receive one. A work force must be disciplined.
“I will not oppose you in this, captain,” Barden said. “Punish them according to your laws.”
To the end of his days, Barden expected to remember the look in the men’s eyes as they were led to the stocks for their floggings. One of them did not survive the beating, and the other two were a month in the healing and were never the same again.
He could live with those memories. They should not have hurt the woman.
#
Twelfth Day, Eleventh Month, 498 A.C.
The sky was dark today, the sun’s light blocked from our view by a shroud of slate clouds. The men worked diligently, but everyone seemed to move slowly, as if their energy were being leeched away by the gloom. I have always hated this time of year, and only more so since Jocelyn died, yet the lack of sunlight is only fitting. My wife died on this day, and despite the passage of over twenty years, my grief still cuts into me like sharp obsidian into unprotected flesh.
My beloved Jocelyn died on a ship. The weather today reminds me of the weather during her final voyage. Her death was my fault.
Jocelyn would disagree. Yet her honesty would force her to agree that she warned me not to trust the former Emperor’s word. Despite her, and my, reservations, I accepted the contract. After one of the Emperor’s lapdogs shorted me on the contracted payment, I bowed to the implied threat and accepted the offer of a berth on a merchant’s cog for the trip home, a trip occurring far too late in the season. I should never have let her walk the deck in such weather, but she so wanted to smell air free of the stench of weeks of vomiting. The ship’s captain said that the wave that took her was a rogue, savage and unpredictable. It was, he said, nobody’s fault.
He was wrong. Many of the choices that put Jocelyn into the path of that wave, while I read a book safely below the deck, had been mine. And my choices resulted in her death.
Still, I would not have faced those choices if the Empire had honored its contract or had not tolerated the corruption in its midst.
Twenty-Ninth Day, Fourth Month, 4989 A.C.
I am not sure that I will live through another winter like this one. The cough is with me always now, and more often than not blood appears in the cloth that I hold over my mouth while coughing.
Today, I lost two men—Yates and Milburn, two of my better masons. They were putting the finishing touches on the eastern gatehouse, and somehow their scaffolding broke loose and dropped them all the way to the bottom of the ditch. I managed to get to Milburn before he took his last breath, but I don’t think he knew I was there. What foul luck!
Captain Vaugn has been promoted to colonel and fortress commander. He is a good man, and we spend long hours during the summer pacing the circuit of the old curtain wall, watching as the new wall approaches an equal level. He seems eager for a chance to defend the fortress, and he would do well, I think, but for my part, I want to see a man like Duke Cedric holding these walls.
Only the donjon remains.
VI
During the peak heat of summer, Duke Cedric rode into the outer bailey at the head of a column of two hundred light cavalry. Soon, Barden again stood with him on the tower’s heights.
“Time has not been kind to you, Master Barden,” the duke observed, after expressing his satisfaction with the progress. “I came, in part, because I am told that your health is not good. Yet you fail to mention any illness in your letters.”
Barden nodded, and then shrugged. “My health has been poor, but who among us is immune from age? You also look tired and show more gray hairs than I remember. As I said in my last letter, and as you can see, the work goes well.”
“Will you live to finish it?”
From another man, such a direct question might have seemed callous. But Barden knew that the duke understood him well, and the bluntness of his question was actually a respectful gesture. “I believe so,” Barden said. “If I falter, Grover is ready to carry on in my absence.”
Duke Cedric sighed. “I would much rather you were present to celebrate its completion. I am sorry, Barden. If I could, I would let you proceed at a more leisurely pace. But time is not a luxury I can buy you. In my baggage, I brought you a copy of a treatise on siege tactics written by one of the Empire’s leading engineers.” The duke smiled. “I find it useful to know an enemy’s thinking, and knowing the same might be helpful for you.” Cedric held up a hand. “Word of what you are doing here is starting to spread, and I’ve started to pump dozens of my own rumors into the stream to muddy the water. I’m also going to leave another squad of my rangers and a handful of mages here to ferret out as many spies as they possibly can. If the Emperor does attack, I would like to surprise him with your masterpiece.”
Barden nodded. He shared that desire, and he was no stranger to the workings of rumor. Soon enough only those who saw the fortress with their own eyes would believe anything resembling the truth. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his lips. “If I might make a suggestion, your Grace, you should have your men spread also rumors that my health is failing and that I have overreached myself here. Have your agents say that you are paying for a magnificent failure. Have them exaggerate the scale that I am working on. When reports do make it back to the Emperor, his engineers will tell him that work on that scale, if even possible, will take another decade to complete.”
Duke Cedric looked startled. Then fierce, full-body laughter took hold of him and held him in its grip for almost a minute. Men both under extreme stress and with a sense of humor sometimes suffered from such fits of hilarity. Barden had witnessed and experienced such fits many times.
“You are a gem, Barden,” the duke said once he finally regained control. “I fear you understand human nature too well. Your rivals will pass along those rumors faster than my people ever could.” A serious expression hardened his face. “I will do it. But I will also send a record of your achievement to Gillian Whiterose and Randolph of Khartras for storage in the libraries at the Academy and the University. You are building one of the world’s wonders here, and I will see that some at least give you your due credit. I pledge my word on it.”
To Barden’s surprise, tears welled in his eyes, and he had to wait a moment before he could speak. “That is very kind, your Grace. Thank you.”
“Rest today and sleep tonight,” the duke ordered. “And take better care of yourself. Your work is not yet completed; you are needed.”
“I feel fine, your Grace,” Barden said. “But I will do what I can to conserve my strength.”
This was at worst only a small deception: he would be able to take little rest in the next few months, the ones crucial to laying the donjon’s lower levels. Perhaps he might ease his pace after that, when the donjon were further advanced and his constant supervision less of a necessity.
If he could convince himself of this wish’s truth, he might draw sustenance from the illusion in the coming year.
#
Seventh Day, Fifth Month, 500 A.C.
Word arrived from the north today. We are ordered to send a status update by fast courier and to lay in any additional supplies necessary to withstand a siege. The Emperor is moving south, and Duke Cedric rides to meet him. The Duke has not visited again since the end of last summer, but he knows our progress and knows that we are ready for what might come.
We have perhaps another two weeks of work to do to finish the donjon, mostly final touches on the battlements and emplacing two catapults and three ballistae on the upper level. Grover and a handful of the masons and carpenters will work through the night, and I will consult with the weaponsmith in the mornings. Even if the Duke must retreat to here sooner rather than later, we will be finished.
VII
It was the sixth day in the sixth month. For the first time in four years, Barden took a day of voluntary rest. The last stone in the donjon’s battlements had been placed yesterday evening, and the construction was essentially finished. As was his custom whenever he finished a major project, he would spend the next week or two examining every square foot of the new structures, looking for anything amiss. In this case, he expected to find only minor problems; even the lowliest laborer had radiated pride and care as what they were making came more and more into view with each passing month. During the whole of this last year, Barden and all of his men had been susceptible to the chills when they truly stopped to look at what they had wrought.
Nobody had ever built so grandly, and many of the workers knew it as well as he and his journeymen did. Few men ever felt the rich satisfaction that had been gifted to all of them, ever knew, while they worked, that they were the best in the world working on the greatest project in the world. It was only fitting that his men walked like men floating on clouds. They had poured their sweat and, in some cases, their blood into this making, and they deserved to revel in their success. Barden, though, still saw his project as incomplete.
So as the sun began to dip toward the horizon and he joined the colonel for their evening walk along the battlements of the new curtain wall, he felt only a great tiredness and a tentative satisfaction. Tomorrow, he would hold a brief ceremony in which he gave Grover and the others the letters that stated his support for their promotion to a higher rank in the Builder’s Guild, and as soon as they could convene a table with four masters sitting at it, they would undoubtedly receive confirmation of these ranks. Guild custom dictated the meeting be held in the town or city closest to their most recent building project, and from every point in the adjoining town, the donjon competed with the sun for the place of prominence in the sky.
But perhaps for only the second time in his life—the first being when he built the house for Jocelyn—Barden had come to a project with additional motives than solely building a structure as close to perfect as he could. In his mind, the project was still incomplete unless the Emperor matched himself against the fruits of Barden’s labor.
“Master Barden, you have earned yourself great honor here,” the colonel said. “This fortress will never fall. The duke will be pleased.”
Barden shook his head. “I thank you for your kind words, colonel, but let me caution you against overconfidence. We have built well here. But this fortress can still be taken, especially if a besieger gets close enough to the walls to undermine them or cuts off your ability to bring supplies over the river.”
“In theory, I’ll grant you that,” murmured the colonel. “But the garrison will never drop below two hundred men, and consider the amount of artillery the Duke has commissioned. If the Duke were behind the castle’s walls with a thousand men, I would hate to be the officer given the order to crack this nut. How would you do it?”
A deep breath triggered another coughing fit, and Barden had to wipe his lips with a cloth. “The wall fronting the town is the key. Only a fool would try an immediate direct assault on the fortress’s outer wall, but the north wall is lower and easier to get to. So if the task were mine, I first would take the town. Once inside the town’s wall, eventually any competent siege engineer would be able to create a breach in our curtain wall. A wise commander, and the Emperor has no shortage of those, will be more patient. But starving out a well-managed garrison would take years, and I do not think that the Emperor will want to wait that long.
“With a large enough army, I could drive any defenders back into the castle. Then I would work my mages and miners close enough to the curtain wall to allow them to bring it down. Because of our missile weapons and other precautions, doing so will not be easy or cheap in lives, but it is possible. Once the curtain wall is breached and assuming the garrison is resolute, then an attacker merely has to repeat the process twice more and the castle will fall.”
“I see,” the colonel said. “But even with your strategy, a victory will not be easily achieved or even necessarily assured.”
“No,” Barden admitted, permitting himself a thin smile. “Put your mind at ease on that score, colonel: this castle, if defended by brave and loyal men, will never fall quickly or easily. Victory here will require an attacker to pay a brutal blood price.”
#
Fifth Day, Seventh Month, 500 A.C.
This was a sad day.
Stragglers and remnants of companies began trickling into the outer bailey at midday. According to what the colonel tells me and what soldiers have told some of my men, Duke Cedric suffered a major defeat while defending a river crossing against the Emperor and tens of thousands of Imperial troops. What seemed like a victory was somehow snatched away, possibly by the mages in the Empire’s service. Rumor says that the duke himself fell there, and I fear it might be so. The man I knew would never let his army fall into such disarray.
I have never felt such fear. It presses at me so fiercely that I am surprised I am not yet reduced to a gibbering idiot. I always hoped that, if this day came while I was yet living, I would stand beside Duke Cedric as he led the defense. But if he is dead now . . .
What if my fortress is simply given to the Emperor without a fight?
VIII
Barden stood in the exact spot where he had first spoken to Duke Cedric four years and two months earlier. Beside him stood Colonel Vaugn, instead of the duke. They were watching the dust cloud of an approaching column of mounted troops. Scouts had spotted the column several hours ago. The first scout to return to the fortress had ridden his horse to utter exhaustion to bring the news to Vaugn’s ears as quickly as possible. The column was led by a bannerman who carried Duke Cedric’s standard and also by another who carried the standard of the duke’s lifeguard. Yet according to the scout, the column’s commander had confirmed Duke Cedric’s death in the battle at the river crossing.
Colonel Vaugn then had told Barden that much now depended on the column’s commander—Derek Johanson, who was the senior officer left in the duke’s regular companies and commander of the lifeguard. Duke Cedric still had an acknowledged bastard who might be able to claim the duchy as an inheritance if enough men like Derek Johanson supported him, and Vaugn made clear his willingness to follow whatever orders the commander of the duke’s bodyguard gave.
Since he had heard the news, Barden had been unable to control the tremors of uncertainty coursing through him. Perhaps he was even more exhausted than he felt, or perhaps the thought that all that he had wrought might be wasted in an instant if the commander were made of weak metal was too much for his weakened constitution to bear. He recalled his brief meeting with Derek Johanson years ago, when he first had been charged with this building commission, but that meeting had been too brief for Barden to gauge whether the man’s spine was stone or gravel.
Finally, Barden could restrain himself no longer. “He must be a strong man, a proud man to command the duke’s bodyguard. Could such a man surrender a position like this one without a fight?” His fear clenched at his throat like a gauntleted fist. After all, now was the time when an ambitious man might reach an agreement with the Emperor, or when a prudent one might evacuate the castle and join the bastard son in exile.
A brave man, though, would have other options. I have given him the greatest fortress in the world, Barden thought as he surveyed the wide walkways, the thick merlons and crenellations of the new curtain wall, and the long shadows cast over it all by the new donjon. The stones were muttering and whispering their eager anticipation to be tested, to be put to the purpose they existed to fulfill. Or perhaps he was deceiving himself with the bitter fantasies of a dying man. The sparrows and pigeons gamboling in the spaces between the stone structures certainly seemed undistracted in their play. But how could any true warrior suffer the humiliation of surrendering this ground, of this beautiful edifice, without even trying to hold it?
Colonel Vaugn looked at him, nodded almost as if he were reading Barden’s mind, and smiled thinly. “Put your mind at ease, my friend. I don’t know what his orders will be, but I doubt that he rode all this way merely to surrender.” He shrugged. “We’ll know soon.”
Barden took less consolation from those words than a man with all the time in the world might have. The cough in his lungs was deep rooted now, and the pain and his shortness of breath grew worse with each passing month. Soon he would be joining Jocelyn.
Their vigil seemed to last interminably as the column approached and filed through the gate and into the outer bailey, immediately dispersing into a scrambling mass of men, horses, and grooms. A party of officers detached itself from the others, and entered the old keep’s gate far beneath where Barden stood. He and the colonel waited impatiently, although for different reasons. The colonel’s eyes traced the telltale dust cloud that signaled the approach of a new column across the plains below—undoubtedly, the Emperor’s pursuit—whereas Barden’s remained glued to the doorway opening onto the tower’s roof.
The doorway slammed open and bounced loudly against the stone. A terrible apparition strode out from the doorway and, without a word, joined them at the parapet. Begrimed with layers of dried dust and sweat and wearing a tabard splattered with rust-colored stains, Derek Johanson presented a vision that Barden’s eyes drank like a man lost in the desert might drink from his last canteen.
“Right behind me still, I see,” Derek Johanson barked. “Good. I’m tired of running. Let them break their claws against these walls.”
A pent-up sigh of relief whooshed from Barden’s lungs. This man might have suffered a defeat, but he clearly was not defeated.
The noise apparently caught the commander’s attention and his hard black eyes fixed themselves on Barden.
“I remember you,” Derek Johanson said. “Colonel Vaugh, why is he still here? An extra mouth only eats food that should go into a soldier’s stomach.” The commander truly appeared to be considering whether to throw him over the parapet, and Barden felt almost giddy as he saw the ruthless scowl on the man’s face. What had seemed like rudeness years ago now seemed like the strength of character.
Vaugn cleared his throat. “He can be trusted, sir, and he is still working on strengthening the interior defenses,” he said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “He . . . spent fours years improving this fortress, and since we heard the news, he has been . . . concerned that it would fall without a fight.”
The commander let out one snarling grunt of laughter. “Be at ease, Builder. That will not happen. My word on it. I am going to give these bastards a fight they’ll never forget.”
Barden bowed respectfully. “I offer you my thanks, Colonel,” he said, hearing and hating the weak quaver in his voice, “from the bottom of my heart. And on behalf of my wife, who died because of actions taken by the men who work for your enemy.”
Colonel Johanson nodded, but he might have been carved from basalt; a man who understood death and vengeance, a man who lacked the sympathy to spare on someone still suffering the pangs of an old hurt because he still felt the raw wounds of too many recent losses, might note the words and move on just so.
“I accept your thanks, Master Builder,” he said. “And I give them back to you. You have given us a fighting chance. I cannot explain to you what good it did my men to see this haven awaiting after our long ride.” But then the commander surprised Barden by continuing. “Surely your wife would have felt nothing but pride in you if she had lived to see this.”
Perhaps, Barden thought. Yet Jocelyn had been a gentle person. She would have been troubled by the nature of his vengeance. But he was a builder, not a warrior like the colonel; the workings of his hands could only bleed those foolish enough to test them.
If the Emperor or his generals were reckless enough to assault the castle, it would reap a harvest of blood. If they tried to starve out its defenders, they might eventually succeed, but barring the vilest kind of mass treachery, such a victory would take a year or two. Men like Colonel Vaugn and Derek Johanson could accomplish much, given that amount of time.
With a tired but relieved nod, Barden left the roof and began the long journey down the stairs to the chamber set aside for him. For the first time in years, the pain in his chest seemed irrelevant, and Barden felt as if he might be able to touch the clouds.
