"'THE CITY WAS SACKED,'" EDWARD SAID BITTERLY. "YOU READ about it in history books, but that doesn't prepare you for the real thing. Drogheda, Cawnpore, Boadicea in London, or the Goths in Rome . . . the Saxons, the Vikings. Just words."
The train had slowed to a crawl, waiting for a clear signal to pull into Greyfriars station. Only the grassy sides of a cutting crept by the windows, with a single church spire bright against the evening sky.
"It can't possibly compare with what's been happening in Europe lately," Alice said. She had been wrong to make him speak of it.
"In some ways it's worse, because it's more personal. You pull the trigger on a machine gun and you don't see the blood spurting, I suppose. But battering a man to death with a club—that's real."
"Well, don't talk about it anymore."
"Why not? If I'm ashamed to talk about it . . . I mean, I did it. I opened the city. I knew there would be killing, didn't I? I must have done, mustn't I? It was them or us. The old, old excuse. If I wasn't ashamed to do it then, why should I be ashamed to talk about it now?"
He was ashamed, she knew, deeply ashamed. This was part of the change she had sensed in him. He had brought about the death of thousands.
"Fire and slaughter?"
A clamor of couplings ran down the line and the carriage lurched. Picking up speed, the train began chuffing toward the station.
"There was some fire, yes, but the defenders did that. Men were slaughtered. Children and the old were mostly driven out. The thing had not been properly planned, of course . . . too many deaths. The Lemodians out in the woods reacted very quickly. They broke into the camp and killed all our sick and wounded. In the end it was a reversal of positions—us inside, them outside. But we had the supplies and could wait out the winter. That was what mattered."
People were emerging from the compartments, bringing their bags.
"And rape, I suppose?" she said. "You haven't mentioned the rape."
He shrugged. "That really wasn't so bad. Gosh, I know that sounds awful, but being gutted with a spear is frightfully permanent. There was no violence, no public violence at least. The women knew the rules. When the killing was over and the Joalians held the city, then every man just picked out a woman and said, 'I'm so-and-so. You're mine now.' They submitted and made the best of it."
"Edward! How can you be so . . . callous?"
He looked at her oddly. "That's how it's always been—in their world or in ours. That's more or less how the women were married in the first place. No one ever asked their opinions. Like in Africa, women are property; you know that. This isn't Kensington we're talking about. Even in Kensington it happens. Ask some of the debutantes! Valians live closer to the ground than we do."
She shook her head in disbelief. Was he serious?
"And the men were dead!" he added bitterly. "They had it worse, wouldn't you say?"
The station slid into view, and a sign saying GREYFRIARS. Some of the people standing on the platform were waiting to board, standing patiently until the train came to a stop. Others were there to meet friends, and were waving and running. Porters scanned the windows, hunting for hire.
"There was no numen in Lemod," Edward said, peering out the window. "That was probably lucky from my point of view. Most cities in the Vales are sited on nodes, and I think that's true here, too. Lemod had been chosen for its defensible location. It had just a trace of virtuality near the north wall, and there were shrines there and a small temple to Eltiana. But no numen."
Clattering and huffing, the train came to a stop. He slid down the window and reached out to the door handle. He went first with the suitcase and handed Alice down to the platform.
"So there we were, locked up snug in Lemod for the winter, knowing that the Thargians would arrive in the spring. I had fulfilled the prophecy and given the first sign, so I had advertised where I was to Zath. Apart from that—By Jove, there's Mrs. Bodgley!"