The great cacophany of falling rock awoke Quintus Scarlett with a start.
"M'lud," said Ser Magnus Dodd gloomily from where he stood in the doorway, his sword lain across a nearby table.
Quintus blinked his way to consciousness. "That sound," he observed, "is not the adoring masses come to exalt their favorite Duke," he asked, or rather stated.
"Not exactly," replied Quintus' lieutenant.
Quintus rose to his feet with some effort. He was old; he felt old. But the lines of his face were hardened into resolve, if not battle-resolve. "What is our status?"
"Per your instructions," Dodd replied, "we did not recruit any new militia; Aurvandil seems to have observed this fact and arrived to overwhelm what militia we had. So we have very few men and the walls are coming down around us."
Quintus looked thoughtful. "So the battle is lost, we have few men, and a large pile of gold. Fetch me a writer of fairy-tales and a curly black moustache; we have perhaps two days to perfect our mad cackling before they break down the gates."
Dodd furrowed his brow, uncertain how much of the request to take seriously. "Lord Hireshmont has also been seen in the area--"
"Pain," Quintus interrupted, "comes in two varieties: the kind that makes you stronger for having endured it, and needless suffering. I despise the unnecessary. Strike the standard of the Republic from the battlements," he said. "Raise the white flag and open the gates. If there is to be a reckoning, let us get it over with; I never thought I would say it, but I do wish that Mendicant were here instead of wherever the blazes he has got off to."
Dodd did not reply, but merely turned to carry out his orders. A short while later, the green cross-and-clover of the Republic ceased flying over the Chateau Saffalore.