The Last Crusaders: Ivan the Terrible by Napier William

Author:Napier, William
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2014-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

25

They spent the rest of the day overseeing the citizen militia drilling, and beginning to make meagre preparations for siege: setting up water barrels on street corners for fires, laying out piles of wet sheepskin, timber props for the gates. It was pathetically little.

That evening they ate at the English House, a grim and subdued meal. The merchants were quiet, anxious, and somehow resentful. Nicholas could tell that they blamed the new arrivals for this unpleasant turn of events. In a way they were right. The embassy men still could not believe that the army of Devlet Giray would ride in and sack Moscow. They could not understand the urge to destruction when there could be trade and prosperity, and they certainly did not wish to hear about the military preparations for siege. It was all too ridiculous.

The daughter of Thomas Waverley, however, wanted to know. She asked boldly, ‘If the Tatars do attack, will the city be able to hold them off ?’

Nicholas looked at her. Trying not to feel drawn to her. Just a schoolgirl. Just a young girl who looked a bit like Maddalena, and yes, had admirable spirit. And was, admittedly, pleasing to look at.

‘Daughter,’ scolded Waverley.

But Stanley waved his hand. ‘The walls are strong,’ he assured her, ‘and there is a civil defence force of several hundred. We also have our friends the Cossacks.’

Thomas Waverley snorted.

Rebecca said, ‘But the Tatars number thousands.’

‘True,’ said Stanley. ‘But a force attacking a well-walled city needs to outnumber it by ten or a hundred to one. I believe this city can withstand a long siege, and send the Tatars home empty-handed at the end of summer.’

Waverley banged his goblet down hard. ‘That it should come to this. All quite unnecessary.’ Already he was planning to open direct negotiations with Devlet Giray, as a neutral representative of the Great Queen of England, and have the English House declared a Tatar protectorate.

‘Have you seen many battles?’ purred a woman’s voice to Nicholas’s right, as the conversation continued around them.

Mistress Ann Southam seemed an unlikely wife to her husband, an Englishwoman who behaved more like a Frenchwoman. She wore her dress cut rather low on her full bosom, and talked in a husky, insinuating voice that sounded not quite sincere.

‘I, well, some – I am no Knight of St John, just a fellow traveller, on Her Majesty’s business.’

‘But you have scars on your hands, I see.’ She reached out and touched the back of his hand with light fingertips. ‘And another on your brow.’

‘I’ve been in a few scrapes. Nothing to boast of, I assure you.’

She looked at him from under lowered eyelids, as if they were already involved in some amusing conspiracy together. He glanced around. The men were now debating animatedly.

‘What age are you?’ asked Mistress Southam.

‘Twenty-five.’

‘So young – little more than a boy!’ She bit lusciously into a leg of chicken. It was absurd. He did not ask her age, naturally, but she must have been at least ten years his senior, perhaps fifteen.

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