nodded, laughing, and Vik went on. "This is letting some of the ale out of Siniava's barrel—he lost more than six hundred men last fall, and he'll lose these, and the rest in Andressat—say eight hundred or more. You can't pull that many well-trained troops out of a hat, you know. However many he's got, this will hurt."
"I hope so," said Paks.
Chapter Twenty-three
For the next three days, the Halverics and the Duke's Company marched south to Cortes Andres. Rain and rugged country slowed them; the road zigzagged into steep valleys and back up to the sheep pastures. Paks saw carefully terraced slopes set with precise rows of dark sticks.
"Are those young fruit trees?" she asked Stammel.
"Tir, no! Those are grapevines. This is wine country, Paks."
"Oh. They don't look like any grapevines I've seen." Paks thought of the little black grapes of the north sprawling over bushes and walls in an untidy tangle.
"They are. Expensive ones, too. If we break off a single twig, the Count'd have our hides."
They passed through villages nestled in the sides of valleys: stone houses built so close together that the roof of one made the first story of another. Down in the narrow valleys, little plots of spring grain showed green, and a few fruit trees were just starting to bloom. Streams ran clean and clear in rocky beds. Paks saw no cattle, and noticed that the sheep and goats were often spotted in bold patterns of brown and black and white.
The rain which had slowed them covered their approach to Cortes Andres. Clart Cavalry slipped between Siniava's pickets and the city, and the retreating s