Afterward, as they lay in each other’s arms, contently exhausted, Helga began casually mentioning some parts of her day’s conversation with Kata.
Adrian was more-or-less oblivious to it, at first. But, after a while, his scholarly instincts were aroused, as Helga had known they would be.
She could see him frowning in the dim light thrown out by the small lamp in the bunker, as he stared up at the wooden logs which formed the rough ceiling.
“Doesn’t make sense, Helga. Blithering barbarians! How can a man be both a prophet and the manifestation of a god at the same time? One or the other, fine, but not both.”
“Well, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me either. But Kata says—”
After a while, Adrian’s lips quirked wryly and he gave his head a little shake. “Gods, what a tangled mess. As much rhyme and reason as a bramble bush. But . . . for a moment there . . . Heh. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was listening to one of the Hallert school.”
“Hallert? Who are they?”
” ‘Him,’ not they. Hallert’s been dead for, oh, must be a century and a half, now. He was one of the founders of the Numerology School, which is still very prominent in the Grove. Hallert himself broke away, though, early on. He got obsessed with geometry instead of sticking with straight Number and Form. The convoluted stuff he came up with! I can still remember the headaches it gave me as a student. One of my tutors belonged to his school of thought.”
Helga rolled her head into his neck. “What was his name?” she murmured. “The tutor, I mean.”
“Schott. Kerin Schott. Nice enough old gent, mind you. Still pretty spry, too—at least, he was several years ago. Smart old man, no doubt about it. But, gods, what an obsessive maniac. Show him anything in the world, and he’d immediately try to figure out how it was all a manifestation of geometry.”
“Really? How odd.” She planted a wet kiss on the neck. “Introduce me to him, why don’t you? When we get back to Solinga. I’ve always found geometry a bit interesting myself.”
Adrian gave her shoulder a warm squeeze. “Certainly, love, if that’s what you want. Though, I’m warning you . . .”
But he fell asleep before he could do more than start warming up to the warning. Which, the more she heard, warmed Helga herself.
Fit a saint into the kaleidoscope, no sweat. I’ll bet that old man eats kaleidoscopes for breakfast. If I can just get him interested in the problem . . .
Chapter 31
The sounds now coming from behind the walls of Franness were those of gunfire—and velipads squealing with pain and fright, and men shouting in anger. The kind of bitter rage that comes from betrayal, not the simple fury of battle.
We’ve underestimated Prelotta all along, Raj Whitehall admitted. What a brilliant bastard. The number of barbarian warlords who can understand the difference between a defeat and a partial victory—which is all he can hope for now—are as rare as hens’ teeth. Even rarer are the ones who can calculate it beforehand. Which he obviously did.
For a moment, Adrian was distracted by an idle question. What are “hens”? But the meaning of the expression was obvious from the context, and he was doing his level best to keep his thoughts concentrated. That was hard enough, under the circumstances.
yes. that is why he built those new fortifications. i was wrong.
That admission of error, coming from Center, almost amused Adrian enough to break through the bleak shell which had surrounded him for days. Center had stated—with his customary “stochastic certainty”—that the purpose of the new outer wall which Prelotta had built on the northern side of Franness had been . . . nothing, really. Just the ignorance of a barbarian chief, fumbling with the concept of siege warfare for the first time. One wall good, two walls better. “Probability 68%, ± 17.”
The real purpose of the wall was now obvious. Adrian didn’t know whether to bless Prelotta or curse him.
Inside that new outer wall—but kept out of the city proper—were the thousands of Southron cavalrymen, mostly Grayhills, who had been driven by Demansk’s relentless campaign this spring to seek shelter from the storm. The only real shelter, of course, being the major walled city in the south under Southron control.