The back half of the eating hall had been curtained off into a kind of command tent. Vencel and Arrio were there conversing in low tones; they did not notice Gemma as she slipped through the slit in the whispering linen with her carefully balanced tray. The two men were hunched over the table, closely examining the long parchment that Arrio had unrolled. Gemma set her tray by the lone taper lighting their work and bent close to see what they were about.

"He can not attack from the northward sides," Arrio was saying. "The river bends there and protects us."

"Yes," said Vencel. "He would rather come in along the road; he would have the river to protect his right flank, at least."

Gemma took the earthen jug of ale from the tray and offered it to Vencel. He took it absently, drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Thank you lass," said Arrio as he took the jug in his turn. "I do not think he will come along the road. The ground there is clear, it is true, but turns upwards rapidly as you approach the town. Janus would find himself advancing uphill against a charge. There is a reason the citizens of the Empire built on bluffs."

"Ah, I did not know that," said Vencel. He seized one of the small loaves from Gemma's tray and broke into it. "I came the opposite way, from across the ferry. It is good you are here Arrio; it will save me much time if I do not have to learn the land."

His long finger traced the line of the river inked on the parchment.

"So he must attack from the south."
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Gemma looked curiously around the Scriptor's archive. It had been two years since she had last visited it, but she still remembered its sunlit dustiness and leathery smell with pleasure. The Scriptor was ensconced on his stool, busily scribbling away with ink-stained fingers, the tools of his craft spread out on the benches around him.

"Scriptor John?" she called shyly.

The Scriptor peered down at her over his ledger. A pair of gleaming lenses perched on the bridge of his nose, pinched on with a little golden clip. His hair had grown iron grey since the last time Gemma had seen him, and his hard black eyes were set in wrinkled sockets. But his smile was kindly, and his voice was the same as she remembered, a great rough rumble that seemed to shake the earth with its humor. Gemma had looked forward to that voice.

"Well, young citizen," he said. "I have not seen you for a long time. Who would have known when I penned your name into my census what beauty I was unleashing on the world."

Gemma looked away and shifted her feet as she felt a blush creep up her face.

"You ought not to say such things, Scriptor John," she admonished. "I am sixteen gone now, a farm woman." She displayed her hands for proof; they were tough and callused.
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