For the next two days, people streamed across the drawbridge. Men, women, and children from Dunwall, the large town nearest the castle, came seeking protection and bearing everything they could carry. Once through the gatehouse, they set up temporary camp in the outer baileys. So, too, did inhabitants from the little hill hamlets that lay in the path of Lord Sicard’s army. Anyone with grain or livestock brought it to sell to a castellan suddenly eager to purchase supplies at a premium.
All this I learned from Margery, who brought me news along with my humble meals, and who—unlike her sister—seemed to enjoy my company. She said the mood inside the walls was almost festive.
“It’s like they’re preparing for a feast instead of a battle,” she said.
“The fools don’t know what to expect,” Agnes replied, straightening the blankets on my bed and frowning furiously as she did so.
“And how many attacks have you lived through, sister?” Margery asked. She turned to me. “The answer is none, of course.”
“Because the old baron knew how to keep his enemies in line,” Agnes said. “He kept a larger force—he wasn’t afraid to show his strength.”
“Until he died with an arrow through his neck,” Margery reminded her.
“Such’s the perils of lordship,” Agnes said. “He was serving his king, as he should. I don’t miss him, God knows. But he’d have kept us from being killed or raped or starved, unlike the stripling we serve now.”
“The walls will protect us,” Margery said firmly.
I thought of the people gathered in the courtyards. “Did anyone come from my village?” It was so small that it had never been given a real name, but it was where the Vernet River turned and curved south. “The Bend, they call it.”
“We don’t go asking where the stinking lot comes from,” Agnes said.
I didn’t think anyone from home would have sought protection in the castle—not after Maraulf, Merrick, and Vazi returned to The Bend wounded, with news of my failed plan and its deadly consequences. But I told myself that distance would keep them safe from enemy swords.
Opening a locked trunk, Margery reached in and drew out a woolen cloak. “Here,” she said, “put this on. You’re coming with me.”
I stared at her in surprise—I was going to be allowed out? I took the heavy garment and draped it around my shoulders. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Baron Joachim is on the wall—”
“Is he going to have his ogre hang another starving commoner?” I interrupted. “Or will he behead someone, just for the novelty? Must get all the justice done before Sicard comes!”
Margery fastened the cloak at my neck with a silver clasp. “Enough, child. He’s going to speak—to prepare us for what’s to come.”
I hardly cared about anything the baron had to say unless it was about letting me go back to my village, but Margery hustled me out the door and down a series of long hallways until we came out onto a narrow tower balcony.
The baron stood a stone’s throw away on top of the gateway to the middle bailey. His cheeks were flushed in the sharp wind, and his dark brows were furrowed. “—and so Sicard comes, leading five hundred men, to try to take what is ours. There are some on my council who say I should meet him on the battlefield. Make a show of force, they say, though we have less than two hundred swords at hand. Our men are better fighters, they say. Does that mean I should set them riding toward a foe twice their number? I don’t think so. To the men who itch for battle, I ask this: What sword can pierce stone? The castle is our shield—our best defense and our greatest weapon.” He looked at the crowd of knights and villagers. “We cannot stop them from coming,” he said. “But when they get here, we will drive them back.”
And what if you don’t? I wanted to call out. But I knew the answer to the question already. Sicard’s army would make camp outside the walls and wait until we were starved into surrender.
And then, when the baron and his men finally understood what it felt like to be truly, horribly, and achingly hungry, I would stand there with my hollow cheeks and my empty belly, and I would laugh.