Chapter 21: The Banker's War

The company arrived at first light.

Corvus was on the western rampart when they came through the treeline. Two thousand, give or take. He had estimated two thousand from Dahl's finances and the current hire rate for standing companies. He had been exactly right, which he found faintly annoying. Being exactly right about an estimate meant his assumptions were reasonable, which meant he hadn't accounted for anything he didn't already know. That was the problem with reasonable assumptions.

"They brought siege equipment," said Parris. She was twenty-eight, ex-Conclave guard, which meant she had changed sides twice and was now on the side that paid most consistently. Corvus had come to trust her for this reason. People who changed sides did the arithmetic.

"Behind the main body," Corvus said. "Three hours to deploy."

"We won't last three hours at that section."

"I know."

He went down from the rampart.

Seven hundred and twelve fighting men, if he counted the watch units — which he did, under advisement. They weren't soldiers, but they knew the streets and they could hold narrow passages and they would stand behind something if given something to stand behind. Against that: two thousand professionals with siege equipment and a contract that required Ashenveil occupied and Aldric Vane in custody.

Aldric was not in Ashenveil. That clause was already unfulfillable.

Whether the company's commander knew that was a question worth knowing the answer to.

He sent riders to the three gate captains and wrote his orders in the shorthand Parris had helped him develop over the past four months — the kind of shorthand that took ten minutes to learn and was useless to anyone who hadn't. Watch units on the south wall. Heavy infantry to the east. The north wall was the weakest section and the company would find it within two hours. He needed two hours to matter before that.

The first assault came at the third hour.

They hit the south gate in three waves. The first was probing — probes were information, not attacks, and Corvus read them as such. They were looking for the watch units' cohesion under pressure, which was not good. It was good enough. The second wave was harder, and the south gate held by a margin Corvus would not have described as comfortable. The third pulled back, which meant the commander had seen what he needed.

Corvus had lost nineteen men by the end of the first three waves.

By noon, thirty-one.

Parris found him at the water cistern with a map he was no longer looking at.

"They've started deploying the trebuchet," she said. "North approach."

"How long."

"Two hours. Maybe three if we slow the teams."

Which meant the north wall in two hours, and then the numbers would matter, and the numbers did not favor him. He had a defensible position and a shortage of defenders and a timeline that was closing.

He folded the map.

"Find me a white cloth," he said. "Something clean."

---

The company's commander met him fifty yards from the walls, as the conventions of parley required.

His name was Thrane. Corvus knew it from the hire records Aldric's steward had obtained. Compact man, grey-bearded, with a stillness that came from having been in enough battles to stop being nervous about them. He had brought two of his captains and a boy to hold the flag. Corvus had brought Parris and a document he had drafted in twenty minutes using the Conclave asset ledger.

"Contract value," Corvus said, "plus thirty percent. From the Conclave financial reserves, currently under steward's authority. Paid within five days of stand-down."

Thrane took the document. He read it the way soldiers read documents — looking for what was missing.

"My contract is with Lord Dahl," he said.

"Lord Dahl's liquid assets are frozen by writ of the city watch as of this morning. He cannot pay you. I can."

"You're offering money that isn't yours."

"I'm offering money from a reserve I have operational access to. Whether it's technically mine is a question for the stewards." Corvus kept his voice level. "I'm also offering you the ability to tell your men they'll be paid. Your alternative is a siege that benefits neither of us. You take casualties. You don't get paid. You report to your backers that the contract failed against a force a third your size, which is not a report that helps the next contract."

Thrane was quiet. His captains were doing the math; Corvus could see it in their faces.

"The contract specifies Lord Vane in custody," Thrane said.

"Lord Vane is in the city. He is not in Ashenveil. He has not been in Ashenveil for eight days." Corvus paused. "You cannot fulfill that clause."

Thrane looked at the document once more. Then he looked at the walls.

"I'll need to speak with my captains," he said.

"Take an hour."

He took two.

---

The trebuchet deployment stopped.

Thirty percent premium — four thousand, one hundred and thirty gold weight from the Conclave reserves. Which Corvus had not been authorized to commit. He had operational access to those reserves for supply purposes. Supply. Four thousand gold weight was not supply.

He had also not received custody of Dahl. Thrane had said, with the precision of a man who knew exactly what he was and was not obligated to deliver, that Dahl had left the company's camp four hours before the parley. His current location was outside Thrane's knowledge.

Corvus had expected this. He noted, with some detachment, that expecting it and not being bothered by it were different states.

Forty-one dead.

Two of them were his. Maren had been with him since the western contracts, three years back. She had a reliable crossbow arm and a better memory than anyone gave her credit for. Osten was twenty-four and had been assigned to the east section because that was where the stronger units were, which meant when the east section held, he had been part of why. He died in the third watch-unit collapse, which was not the east section.

Corvus stood in the east gatehouse and wrote the after-action report in the format he always used: unit positions, timeline, casualties, expenditures, decisions. He wrote the premium in the expenditure column. He noted that it had not been authorized by Lord Vane. He noted that he had committed it anyway, on the basis that the alternative was significantly worse.

He stared at that sentence for some time.

Aldric's letter had said act on your own judgment. It had not said spend whatever you find necessary from the reserves. Those were two different instructions, and Corvus had treated them as one. It had worked. Forty-one dead instead of, by his estimate, two hundred and more. The walls intact. Dahl without his army.

Being right because the bet paid out was not the same thing as having been right. He had known that since the western contracts. He had been reminded of it periodically since.

Parris came to the door.

"We've tracked Dahl," she said. "He went east. Orvaine's estate, by the road."

Corvus wrote that in the report.

He added a postscript at the bottom: The premium is my accounting error to carry if you decide it was an error. I would do it again. —C.

He sealed the report and gave it to the rider.

He did not know, with any certainty, whether that made him right.

He had not expected to know. That had not been part of the contract.