Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [289]
We all crowded in the lower tiers, while Gallus stood on the rostrum and waited for us to settle. He had a table of sorts set up there; a low, shallow tray filled with loose dirt. We sat and shivered, chafing our hands in the cold air, peering at the tray and wondering.
"Right," Gallus said without preamble. "Here's the thing. We're in trouble."
He used the tray to demonstrate. While we were exchanging prisoners for hostages, Gallus Tadius had spent the better part of the day atop the northwestern section of the wall, staring toward the river and trying to determine what Valpetra was doing. He watched the distant figures of the condottiere's men bustling and digging, and while he couldn't make out much of their activity, by the day's end, he reckoned he had a good idea.
"I had the same idea myself, see," he said dryly. "Back in the day. Turned out I didn't need to use it."
Hands in the dirt, Gallus Tadius shaped a mounded curve to represent Lucca's outer wall. With a stick, he traced the river's broad, winding course, with a smaller line representing the canal that fed the moat.
"So," he said, sketching in the dirt. "Valpetra diverts the river to the west, here, and builds two dams, one above the canal and one below it. He fills in the trench and returns the river to its proper course. The water backs up here, in Lake Emarus. Once it threatens to flood, he breaches the upper dam, and the water goes here."
His pointed stick traced a swift course along the canal, bursting through the mounded dirt that represented Lucca's wall.
"Trouble," he said.
Gaetano Correggio descended to examine the model. He shook his head. "It will not happen. The walls are strong, and the moats will disperse the water's impact. The river has overflowed its banks and flooded the plains before. It happened when I was a child. Lucca stood then, and it will stand now."
"Oh, you think so, do you?" Gallus eyed him.
The former Prince of Lucca paled. "I know my city."
"Your city." Gallus snorted. "Let me tell you something about your city, Correggio. It's got trees growing atop the walls. Very pretty. Oak trees have deep roots." He tapped the mounded dirt. "All this dirt between the walls ought to be packed hard as rock. And it's not. You know why? Your damned pretty oak trees. We're not talking about a river flooding its banks, Correggio. We're talking about a river in full flood changing its course. And when the gods alone know how many tons of rushing water hit that spot, with the sluice underneath it and roots eating through the dirt above it, it's going to burst like a rotten melon."
"Odds are he's right, my lord." A burly man in tradesman's attire rose.
Gaetano frowned at him. "Who are you to say?" "He's the head of your Masons' Guild," Gallus Tadius commented. "Didn't you bother to learn anything about your city? Master Varrius spent several hours examining the wall at my behest yesterday. He concurs." Beside me, Eamonn groaned. "My lord," I said. "How long do we have?"
Gallus shrugged. "Who can say, D'Angeline? It's a huge task, but Valpetra's got two thousand men at his disposal. By the look of it, they're trained in the old Tiberian manner." He looked approving. "They know how to set their hands to hard labor. They know what they're about, and they needn't do a bang-up job of it, either. It's only got to hold for a little while. And they'll work fast, because we've burned their food supplies out from under them, and because now they're worried about Terre d'Ange making a fuss." He slashed idly at the model of Lucca with his stick. "A few weeks, perhaps?"
A nobleman I didn't recognize glanced at his fellows, then cleared his throat. "So what do we do, Prince Gallus?" He told us.
In short, we prepared for the worst. Master Varrius and his masons would do all they could to shore up the wall, but we were to assume Valpetra's plan would succeed. We were to prepare for flood and invasion. Every household