The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [87]
“Someone sound the retreat,” she screamed. “We’ve been tricked. We’ve got to get back to the infantry.”
A moment later the cornet shrilled. Her own guard was already in motion, charging back up the way they had come, but there were horsemen there, charging right down at them. It looked like double their number.
CHAPTER TEN
KAITHBAURG
SINISTER BLACK WALLS beneath dark skies surrounded by leagues of desert rubble: That was what Neil expected of Kaithbaurg. That certainly was how it was in the stories his old neiny Eley had told him when he was a little bern. Kaithbaurg, the city of black towers where evil dwelt.
But the road took them through pleasant fields, woodlands, and bustling little market towns. In the nineday it took to reach the heart of Hansa, they camped only once, resting instead in comfortable inns or castles. His Hanzish sharpened until he almost didn’t have to concentrate at all to speak or understand it, even though the country dialects were much softer and less clipped than the coastal vernacular he had learned.
Still, until the road crested a ridge and he actually saw Kaithbaurg, the image of brutal black walls with merlons like shark’s teeth was still in his mind.
Well, there were walls and towers, but that was about as close as his old neiny had come to the truth.
He realized they had drawn to a stop.
“You can see it best from here,” Berimund said. “It’s my favorite view.”
“I can see why,” the queen mother said. “One can really see most of it, it seems.”
It was true. Whereas Eslen was built on a rather dramatic hill, the loftiest point of Kaithbaurg wasn’t terribly higher than the lowest, which was the Donau River. The watercourse cut the city into two roughly semicircular parts: a smaller one on their side of the river and a much larger one on the northern side. Three great spans connected them.
Both parts of the city were surrounded by double walls of grayish-white stone. The outer wall was low and towerless. Just inside of it was a broad canal and then an embanked inner wall that looked about six or seven kingsyards high. The inner walls were guarded by a number of elegant, efficient-looking drum towers.
Towers bristled everywhere, in fact: delicate clock belfries with steepled roofs of black slate or green copper, massive cylindrical bastions wherever the walls met the river, sky-reaching gatehouse spires on the bridges.
More surprising was that although houses of all sorts were packed within the walls, Neil also could make out a good bit of green, as if there were fields in there.
The northern side of the city sloped gently up to another wall of darker-looking stone that encircled the hilltop, and the roof of some sort of keep or palace built of white stone could be partly seen.
“That’s the castle?” Neil asked, pointing to the last feature.
Berimund smiled. “A warrior’s question, eh? That’s the palace, yes. Everything inside of those older walls is Hauhhaim; that was the first city, here before everything else. Come down toward the river, and that’s Nithirhaim. The part nearest us, with all the green, is Gildgards. The west side of town—you can’t see it well from here—that’s Niujaim. On our side of the river, that’s Suthstath.”
“You like your city,” Alis commented.
Berimund nodded. “It’s the most wonderful city in the world. I’m eager to show it to Her Majesty.”
“Let’s hope your father allows that, then,” Muriele responded.
“You’ll see a bit on the way to the palace,” Berimund said.
Neil thought he was sidestepping the queen’s implied question, which wasn’t a good sign.
They entered through the Suthstath gate and found themselves in a busy market square with a fountain pool in the center and a statue, which by his winged shoes and staff Neil took to be Saint Turm. Across the square stood a massive temple with double clock towers.
The people all stopped what they were doing and bowed as Berimund passed. They continued on as the square