‘If anyone can get us through this, you can,’ added Caxton loyally.
Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I don’t want the responsibility. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. That’s kind of you.’ The old reflexes of politeness kicked in without being looked for. She clapped the slender woman on the shoulder and went on her way.
*
The sun was sinking behind the Couchant cliffs now. Emily took a look at it from the window of the Survivors’ Club clubhouse, before returning to the table. Her musket rested in a corner, along with those of the other soldiers, and John Brocky had two pistols thrust alarmingly into the waistband of his trousers, hooked around his braces. ‘You can’t keep the sun up just by wishing,’ Scavian said to her with a slight smile. He was completely healed now: save for the handprint over his heart, one would never know he had been burned.
‘I should go and walk the perimeter again,’ she suggested, hovering about her chair.
‘Sit,’ Mallen said. ‘Time for that when they attack. We’ll all be sick of it before dawn. Also, a shilling in the jar.’ He seemed of them all the calmest, but then Mallen’s emotions never did show much.
Brocky stood up, dug into his pockets and dumped two entire fistfuls of silver coins into the jar and its immediate environs. ‘Consider I’m covering everyone’s bloody tabs for tonight. Anyone want to join me in another toast?’
‘Don’t get too reeling,’ Tubal warned him. ‘When I go out there, I don’t want you shooting me by mistake.’
‘You can’t go out there,’ Emily said, shocked. ‘How could you fight?’
‘Just prop me up and I can shoot Denlanders as well as the next man,’ he replied, as if chair-bound Sergeant Demaine was with them for a moment. ‘And you’ve provided me with a hefty barricade for propping purposes.’
‘And when the barricade is overrun?’
He smiled. ‘Hell, then it’s all a little academic, isn’t it?’
‘I wish they’d get on with it,’ said Scavian.
‘We all do,’ Tubal assured him. ‘Or, actually, I wish they’d just go home for good. That would get my vote. However did things come to this pass? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Bit late for that question,’ remarked Mallen.
‘Oh, I know, but still . . . Three years ago I was just a halfway successful printer who’d never held a gun in his life.’ His smile was rueful, now. ‘And now I have much gun-related experience here in my second career, and one foot less than when I started. And . . . why? What was it all for? What did the King of Denland and I ever have in common that his death has stuck me here? Where was my foot mentioned when they drew up the requisition lists for this business?’
In Emily’s mind arose the treasonous assertions of Doctor Lam, and she fought them down. She could not even think them to herself, let alone voice them here.
‘Dietricht was a bookish type, I hear,’ said Brocky with studied carelessness. ‘Maybe you killed him with a typesetting error. Maybe I brewed something up that poisoned the poor bastard. Maybe he disagreed with Mallen’s research, or saw one of Angelline’s plays on a bad night. Maybe young Marshwic here broke his heart at a gala reception. History, my friends, is vast and unfriendly. It—’
There was a shout of surprise from outside, and then someone was banging on the doorless entrance, shouting for Tubal, for Emily, for someone to come and take charge.
‘It’s started.’ How needless were the words, Emily reflected, even as she said them. She snatched up the guns from their stack in the corner, passed them out to the others. Mallen was first out of the door, Marie pausing only to kiss Brocky’s unshaven cheek before following.
‘Brocky, give me a hand,’ Tubal said. ‘Em, you go ahead, take charge.’
‘Good luck,’ she wished him desperately, clutching his hand for a moment before taking her leave.
She heard a single shot as she came out into the dusk air, and went running for the barricade, expecting any moment for the line to explode in gunfire. Instead a second lonely shot ran out, and still no great assault.
‘Caxton! What’s happening?’ She hit the barricade at a run, virtually bouncing off it. Caxton merely gestured out into the gathering darkness. There were a few shadows visible out there that might be men and, as she watched, she caught a muzzle-flash from one, and one of the perimeter lanterns exploded even as the sound of the