Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [266]
Nicholas smiled. He said, ‘How can you guess what I know? You are wise. If you shared this assault, you might lose control of your Mamelukes’ conduct, and for what they did, the King would have an excuse to retaliate. Also, we attack without the King’s knowledge. If we fail, my company will take the brunt, during and after.’
‘I fear,’ said Tzani-bey, ‘that whatever quarrel we have, there may be little chance after to settle it.’
Nicholas surveyed him gravely. ‘I might survive,’ he said. ‘But of course, you may not wish to meet another man, except with a whip and when he is manacled. In which case, I may have to seek you out. I felt I should warn you.’
The emir Tzani-bey laughed. He said, ‘I am warned. I am solemnly warned. How it rankles, that one small experience; that journey from Cape Gata to Zacco’s succouring arms! I expected you to pay me for such attentions, my dear. Zacco does.’
‘The slut!’ said Astorre, once they were outside the camp. ‘You should have let me nick them off him.’
‘Fine,’ said Nicholas. ‘But you were there to protect me, not get us all slaughtered. At any rate, now we know the Mamelukes won’t be with us, and I feel a bit safer. Not a lot, but a bit. I wonder if Abul Ismail has got to him yet.’
‘Could you believe it?’ said Captain Astorre, who preferred dealing with certainties. ‘The little heathen thought you might combine against Zacco.’
‘That’s the point,’ Nicholas said. ‘It sounded as if Abul hadn’t joined him. But maybe that was just how it was meant to sound. He’s a tricky devil, our emir. Well, let’s see how our private war is progressing. If John doesn’t blow himself up, we have three days.’
John le Grant, when designing mines, had never been known to make a mistake, and he made none now, although he worked without sleep, as they all did. Until now, the siege plan had been orthodox. Now it had to be different. Despite the immense firing power of the city, they had to cease relying on simple blockade and long-range cannon. They had to breach the walls at close quarters and then scale them, using ladders and fighting-towers. For that, Nicholas had his own company, and another one hundred men picked for him by Pesaro. He had refused to take more. Whatever happened, the losses were going to be his responsibility. And if there were only two thousand living souls in Famagusta several days ago, there would be fewer now who were both soldiers and active. The men firing those guns, manning the walls, shooting from the high galleries might not amount to much more than half that number. Once they had been overcome, there would be no resistance. From inside, he or his men would open the gates, ready for Zacco.
The plan, therefore, had been made by John and Astorre, Pesaro and himself while the Mamelukes kept to their camp, and the King and his other officers prepared to hold Christmas at Nicosia. The weakest stretch of the walls had been identified. Stone and clods and faggots were brought and by day, under murderous fire, were projected at three different points into the great ditch that surrounded the city. By night they were added to, using the trenches. By day, the defenders shot fire-bolts into the rising piles of brushwood, causing them to burst into flame and reducing their height by half. Only on the south side, where his biggest battery of light cannon stood, did Nicholas build his bridge from the start almost entirely with stone. There, by the end of two days, the pile of rubble had reached two-thirds of the way to the top. Nearly high enough for an army to cross, or a siege-tower. The fourth day dawned, and wore through its hours of abrupt rain and mild, blustering wind. They all worked in scuffed brigandines and thick caps, most often with their helmets on top, and they were chilled with weariness, and grim and lewd by turns in the raw, brittle moods that went before battle.
John le Grant said, ‘They’re not fools, you know. Some of