After Stenwold picked up the telescope for the ninth time, Marius said, ‘You will know first from the sound.’

The burly man stopped and peered down at him, telescope still half-poised. From their third-storey retreat the city walls were a mass of black and red, the defenders hurrying into place atop the ramparts and about the gates.

‘How do you mean, the sound?’

Marius, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, looked up at him. ‘What you hear now is men braving themselves for a fight. When it starts, they will be quiet, just for a moment. They will brace themselves. Then it will be a different kind of noise.’ It was a long speech for him.

Even from here Stenwold could hear a constant murmur from the gates. He lowered the telescope reluctantly. ‘There’ll be a great almighty noise when they come in, if all goes according to plan.’

Marius shrugged. ‘Then listen for that.’

Below there was a quick patter of feet as someone ascended the stairs. Stenwold twitched but Marius remarked simply, ‘Tisamon,’ and went back to staring at nothing. In the room beneath them there were nine men and women dressed in the same chain hauberk and helm that Marius wore, and looking enough like him to be family. Stenwold knew their minds were meshed together, touching each other’s and touching Marius too, thoughts passing freely back and forth between them. He could not imagine how it must be, for them.

Tisamon burst in, tall and pale, with thunder in his expression. Even as Stenwold opened his mouth he snapped out, ‘No sign. She’s not come.’

‘Well there are always-’ Stenwold started, but the tall man cut him off.