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*****
Hanyan clung to Clair's shoulders and sobbed. The bustle of the last few days, the news that his father would be going to war, the dim knowledge that his other father had died in war, had brought back all the anxieties he had suffered from when his mother had left. Clair knelt patiently on the sitting-room floor in full mail with the red silk surcoat, his helmet on the floor beside him, and let Hanyan cling to his shoulders. Arianna stood away from them, holding Arkyllan. She had tried to persuade Hanyan to come to her but as soon as Clair started to leave them, Hanyan ran and clung to him again, gasping with unnameable terror.
Her brother Hanya had come through into the sitting-room in search of her. He came up to her and looked a question. She sighed, turning to try to resolve his difficulty at least but then Hanya went suddenly forward to Clair and Hanyan.
"Ar't Hanya like me," he said. The child turned, startled, and stared at him, catching his red lip up in his teeth and looking through his tears at the scarred golden face close to him. The child's face was like an Angel of the Sorrows, achingly lovely with tears scattered like pearls on the golden fair cheeks. The scarred man said to him, "We have to be brave now, is it not? I too wish I could go to the battlements with your father and uncles but we have our duties here behind the lines. What says't?" Hanyan hiccupped and stared with his beautiful blue eyes into Hanya's summer sky eyes.
"Shall't be a soldier one day?" Hanya enquired. Behind him, Arianna started forward. She hated it if people encouraged the boys to think of going into the army. She was even cross when Tashka gave them toy soldiers and books about uniforms and battle formations. Clair scowled at her to make her let it pass. "The other Commanders are waiting on papa. Shall he go and say, it was little Lieutenant-Sir Hanya, he would not let me go? That would not be right, is it, that a Lieutenant should order a Commander to stay with him."
Hanyan let go of the thin red and gold silk surcoat on Clair's mailed shoulders. He reached out and put one hand on Hanya's scarred right cheek. Hanya knelt patiently on the floor and let him.
"Does it hurt?" Hanyan asked.
"Sometimes it itches," Hanya answered.
"Did it hurt when the dogs bit you?"
Clair saw el Jien's eyes veil over but Hanya replied in a quiet voice: "Of course. It hurt terribly but I was brave and I went to the hospital and as sees't, I am better of it now."
"I will be brave then," Hanyan said. "I will be brave like you, Uncle Hanya."
"There it is then," Hanya said. "Shall't be my brother Lieutenant, is it not? and help me and Aunt Anna roll the bandages."
"Yes," Hanyan said, letting Clair's shoulders go.
Clair leant over to give his son in duty bound a soft kiss. He put his hand on his brother by marriage's shoulder and gripped it in thanks. He went to Arianna and knelt to give his son in blood a hug, stood up and put out a hand to Arianna's head, he tucked a curl behind her ear and she smiled into his eyes then he was gone.
'I did not kiss him,' she thought wistfully. 'I wish I had kissed him. Too late. I stop to think about it so I am always too late.'
She turned with Hanya and the boys to go through to the dining-hall. The dining-hall was filled with servants, the tables pushed back against the walls on one side to make room for rows of spread out mattresses. The children who ordinarily lived in the castle and any servants who could be, had been evacuated to the town but there were a large number who felt it their duty to remain in their Lord and Lady's service. The footman Fiotr and some other servants who had come out of the army had helped Dar and Petra set up a makeshift kitchen army-style in the huge fireplace, Dar was presiding over cauldrons of stew and pots of coffee there. Petra and the five remaining assistant cooks chopped ingredients on a nearby table. Arianna was surprised to see that the filthy pot-boy, whom Clair would always grumble about but in whom he put up with a high degree of slackness, was still with them. She had assumed he would be among the first to run off and idle about the town.
About an hour later there was a most terrible crashing roar. Their heads lifted and some of the servants screamed. Arianna started up to look over to the children but they had fallen asleep in a pile of bedding, cuddled close between Ria and Lisette, even for a noise like this they did not stir.
She walked about the hall saying: "We knew the attack would begin at some time, clearly it has started early. Remember, it is only we who have cannon, not the troops besieging us." Slowly the twittering servants settled back down again, starting up at the second roar and staring about them but not so desperately scared.
It was so terrible, staying there in the hall in dreadful ignorance of what was happening. Occasionally some one of the Guard would come and say something incomprehensible, like:
Fifth Sietter sent a scouting unit out behind Tenth and found they were withdrawing. Therefore the battle was engaged early. We are using a version of the Palair net and trident strategy
. She would nod and say: "Tell my Lord that we are ready to receive the wounded." Then she would turn to Hanya and he would explain:
Tenth were withdrawing to leave the field free for Ninth Vail to come in with Clathan's cannon
. "But why are Tenth not fighting? I thought they had joined our side?"
No, Anna, we cannot ask them to fight with those they have been living with, side by side. It would soil Tashka's honour to ask that of them, he has only asked them to withdraw and not take part. They will fight for us later in the war, when their intentions have been formally declared. But it is a matter of concern that Fifth have realised early that Tenth Sietter are withdrawing, it is a question whether Ninth Vail and the cannon are in place yet.
One of the cannon on the battlements burst during the night and they brought the wounded down the corridors to put them in the family quarters around the courtyard. Hanya stood up to go and assist but Arianna put her hand on his arm and said firmly: "There are enough people there, people who have medical skills." He sat back down by her side restlessly twisting his long pale fingers together.
Shortly afterwards Clair came striding through the dining hall. She was so glad to see him, she stood up and went straight to him. Heedless of the servants all about them, she walked into his embrace. The rings of his mailcoat were hard and pinching under his thin silk surcoat to her soft plump flesh. Her soft breasts pressed into the military mail, he gripped her arms with tight fingers and stared into her eyes, his grey eyes fierce and angry under the ridge of his shining helmet. Her heart bumped uncomfortably in her chest in the fear that he had come to tell her they had lost already.
