‘How long’s that likely to take? You Arcians are the experts on castles and sieges.’

‘Quite a few hours, Komier. The mangonels will take longer. He’ll have to construct those here.’

‘What’s a mangonel?’

‘It’s a sort of oversized catapult. It’s too big to transport – even if you break it down. They use whole trees when they build them.’

‘How big a rock can it throw?’

‘A half-ton or so.’

‘The walls won’t take too many of those.’

‘That’s sort of the idea, I think. He’ll be using the standard catapults at first, though. The mangonels will probably take at least a week to build.’

‘The catapults and battering rams and towers should keep us occupied until then, I suppose,’ Komier said sourly. ‘I hate sieges.’ Then he shrugged. ‘We’d better get at it.’ He looked disdainfully at the church soldiers. ‘Let’s set these enthusiastic volunteers to work tearing down houses and cluttering up the streets.’

At some point not long after dark, some of Martel’s scouts discovered that the outer walls of Chyrellos were undefended. A few of them, the stupider ones, reported back. For the most part, however, these scouts proved to be the vanguard of the looters. An hour or so before midnight Berit woke Sparhawk and Kalten to report that there were troops in the outer city. Then he turned to leave again.

‘Where are you going?’ Sparhawk asked bluntly.

‘Back out there, Sir Sparhawk.’

‘No you’re not. You stay inside the inner walls now. I don’t want you getting yourself killed.’

‘Somebody has to keep an eye on things, Sir Sparhawk,’ Berit objected.

‘There’s a cupola on top of the dome of the Basilica,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Go and get Kurik, and then the two of you go up there to watch.’

‘All right, Sir Sparhawk.’ Berit’s tone was slightly sullen.

‘Berit,’ Kalten said as he pulled on his mail-shirt.

‘Yes, Sir Kalten?’

‘You don’t have to like it, you know. All you have to do is to do it.’

Sparhawk and the others went through the ancient narrow streets of the inner city and mounted to the wall. The streets of the outer city were filled with bobbing torches as the mercenaries under Martel’s command ran from house to house, stealing what they could. The occasional screams of women clearly said that looting was not the only thing on the minds of the attacking force. A crowd of panicky and wailing citizens stood outside the now-closed gates of the inner city, pleading to be admitted, but the gates remained steadfastly closed to them.

A somewhat delicate Patriarch with sagging pouches under his eyes came running up the stairs to the top of the wall. ‘What are you doing?’ he almost shrieked at Dolmant. ‘Why aren’t these soldiers out there defending the city?’