But that was not the problem at all. The problem was much crueller than that.

Lieutenant Soten sat down by him and puffed out his round cheeks. "Castle," he said. "Lose weeks taking that town, and then still have the castle to breach."

"Breach that – with the guns we've got? Once we're in the town, they'll accept terms in the castle."

"Captain, that woman in there isn't going to accept any terms."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen her!"

"So have I," said Andre. "We'll set the culverins there, at the south wall of the town. We'll begin bombardment tomorrow at dawn. We were asked to take the fort as it stands. It'll have to be at the cost of the town. They give us no choice." He spoke grimly, but was in his heart elated. He would give her every chance: the chance to withdraw from the hopeless fight and the chance, also, to prove herself, to use the courage she had felt heavy and shining in her breast, like a sword lying secret in its sheath.

He had been a worthy suitor, a man of her own mettle, and had been rejected. Fair enough. She did not want a lover, but an enemy; and he would be a worthy, an estimable one. He wondered if she yet knew his name, if someone had said, "Field-captain Kalinskar is leading them," and she had replied in her lordly, gentle, unheeding way, "Andre Kalinskar?" – frowning perhaps to learn that he had joined the Duke against the King, and yet not displeased, not sorry to have him as her foe.

They took the town, at the cost of three weeks and many lives. Later when Kalinskar was Marshal of the Royal Army he would say when drunk, "I can take any town. I took Moge." The walls were ingeniously fortified, the castle arsenal seemed inexhaustible, and the defenders fought with terrible spirit and patience. They withstood shelling and assaults, put out fires barehanded, ate air, in the last extremity fought face to face, house after house, from the town gate up to the castle scarp; and when taken prisoner they said, "It's her." He had not seen her yet. He had feared to see her in the thick of that carnage in the narrow, ruined streets. From them at evening he kept looking up to the battlements a hundred feet above, the smoking cannon-emplacements, the round tower tawny red in sunset, the untouched castle.

"Wonder how we could get a match into the powder-store," said Lieutenant Soten, puffing his cheeks out cheerfully. His captain turned on him, his hawk-eyes red and swollen with smoke and weariness: "I'm taking Moge as it stands! Blow up the best fort in the country, would you, because you're tired of fighting? By God I'll teach you respect, Lieutenant!" Respect for what, or whom? Soten wondered, but held his tongue. As far as he was concerned, Kalinskar was the finest officer in the army, and he was quite content to follow him, into madness, or wherever. They were all mad with the fighting, with fatigue, with the glaring, grilling heat and dust of summer.

They bombarded and made assaults at all hours, to keep the defenders from rest. In the dark of early morning Andre was leading a troop up to a partial breach they had made by mining the outer wall, when a foray from the castle met them. They fought with swords there in the darkness under the wall. It was a confused and ineffectual scrap, and Andre was calling his men together to retreat when he became aware that he had dropped his sword. He groped for it. For some reason his hands would not grasp, but slid stupidly among clods and rocks. Something cold and grainy pressed against his face: the earth. He opened his eyes very wide, and saw darkness.

Two cows grazed in the inner courtyard, the last of the great herds of Moge. At five in the morning a cup of milk was brought to the princess in her room, as usual, and a little while later the captain of the fort came as usual to give her the night's news. The news was the same as ever and Isabella paid little heed. She was calculating when King Gulhelm's forces might arrive, if her messenger had got to him. It could not be sooner than ten days. Ten days was a long time. It was only three days now since the town had fallen, and that seemed quite remote, an event from last year, from history. However, they could hold out ten days, even two weeks, if they had to. Surely the King would send them help.

"They'll send a messenger to ask about him," Breye was saying.

"Him?" She turned her heavy look on the captain.

"The field-captain."

"What field-captain?"

"I was telling you, princess. The foray took him prisoner this morning."

"A prisoner? Bring him here at once!"

"He's got a sabre-cut on the head, princess."

"Can he speak? I'll go to him. What's his name?"

"Kalinskar."

She followed Breye through gilt bedrooms where muskets were stacked on the beds, down a long parqueted corridor that crunched underfoot with crystal from the shattered candle-sconces, to the ballroom on the east side, now a hospital. Oaken bedsteads, pillared and canopied, their curtains open and awry, stood about on the sweep of floor like stray ships in a harbor after storm. The prisoner was asleep. She sat down by him and looked at his face, a dark face, serene, passive. Something within her grieved; not her will, which was resolute; but she was tired, mortally tired and grieved, as she sat looking at her enemy. He moved a little and opened his eyes. She recognised him then.

After a long time she said, "Dom Andre."

He smiled a little, and said something inaudible.

"The surgeon says your wound is not serious. Have you been leading the siege?"

"Yes," he said, quite clearly.

"From the start?"

"Yes."

She looked up at the shuttered windows which let in only a dim hint of the hot July sunlight.

"You're our first prisoner. What news of the country?"

"Givan Sovenskar was crowned in Krasnoy on the first. Gulhelm is still in Aisnar."

"You don't bring good news, captain," she said softly, with indifference. She glanced round the other beds down the great room, and motioned Breye to stand back. It irked her that they could not speak alone. But she found nothing to say.

"Are you alone here, princess?"

He had asked her a question like that the other time, up on the rooftop in the sunset.

"Brant is dead," she answered.

"I know. But the younger brother … I hunted with him in the marshes, that time."

"George is here now. He was at the defense of Kastre. A mortar blew up. It blinded him. Did you lead the siege at Kastre, too?"

"No. I fought there."

She met his eyes, only for a moment.

"I'm sorry for this," she said. "For George. For myself. For you, who swore to be my friend."

"Are you? I'm not. I've done what 1 could. I've served your glory. You know that even my own soldiers sing songs about you, about the Lady of Moge, like an archangel on the castle walls. In Krasnoy they talk about you, they sing the songs. Now they can say that you took me prisoner, too. They talk of you with wonder. Your enemies rejoice in you. You've won your freedom. You have been yourself." He spoke quickly, but when he stopped and shut his eyes a moment to rest, his face looked still again, youthful. Isabella sat for a minute saying nothing, then suddenly got up and went out of the room with the hurrying, awkward gait of a girl in distress, graceless in her heavy, powder-stained dress.

Andre found that she was gone, replaced by the old captain of the fort, who stood looking down at him with hatred and curiosity.

"I admire her as much as you do!" he said to Breye. "More, more even than you here in the castle. More than anyone. For four years – " But Breye too was gone. "Get me some water to drink!" he said furiously, and then lay silent, staring at the ceiling. A roar and shudder – what was it? – then three dull thuds, deep and shocking like the pain in the root of a tooth; then another roar, shaking the bed – he understood finally that this was the bombardment, heard from inside. Soten was carrying out orders. "Stop it," he said, as the hideous racket went on and on. "Stop it. I need to sleep. Stop it, Soten! Cease firing!"