Hold the fortress by all means possible was the order from Vienna. Hard to imagine obeying it as more and more soldiers come, endless and unrelenting: twelve thousand foot, six thousand cavalry.

“There is power, and magic, in growing things,” one of the oldest monks had told her kindly. “The land protects those who care for it. Remember that, my child.”

By November, the bodies of the city’s living have become the graves of the dead.