Jezal clattered through the cobbled streets astride a magnificent grey, Bayaz and Marshal Varuz just behind him, a score of Knights of the Body, led by Bremer dan Gorst, following in full war gear. It was strangely unsettling to see the city, usually so brimful with humanity, close to deserted. Only a scattering of threadbare urchins, of nervous city watchmen, of suspicious commoners remained to hurry out of the way of the royal party as they passed. Most of those citizens who had stayed in Adua were well barricaded in their bedrooms, Jezal imagined. He would have been tempted to do the same, had Queen Terez not beaten him to it.

'When did they arrive?' Bayaz was demanding over the clatter of hooves.

'The vanguard appeared before dawn,' Jezal heard Varuz shout back. 'And more Gurkish troops have been pouring in down the Keln road all morning. There were a few skirmishes in the districts beyond Casamir's Wall, but nothing to slow them significantly. They are already halfway to encircling the city.'

Jezal jerked his head round. 'Already?'

'The Gurkish always liked to come prepared, your Majesty.' The old soldier urged his horse up beside him. 'They have started to construct a palisade around Adua, and have brought three great catapults with them. The same ones that proved so effective in their siege of Dagoska. By noon we will be entirely surrounded.' Jezal swallowed. There was something about the word 'surrounded' that caused an uncomfortable tightening in his throat.

The column slowed to a stately walk as they approached the city's westernmost gate. It was, in an irony that gave Jezal little pleasure, the very same gate through which he had entered the city in triumph before he was crowned High King of the Union. A crowd had gathered in the shadow of Casamir's Wall, larger even than the one that had greeted him after his strange victory over the peasants. Today, however, there was hardly a mood of celebration. Smiling girls had been replaced by frowning men, fresh flowers with old weapons. Polearms stuck up above the press at all angles in an unruly forest, points and edges glinting. Pikes and pitch forks, bill hooks and boat hooks, brooms with the twigs removed and knives nailed in their places.