by Dan Abnett
‘He’s part of E Company,’ said Dalin from the doorway. ‘What are you going to do? Transfer him? He can’t have a commissar personally watching over him, day and night. Or do you want him moved away from barracks quarters?’
‘I think I made it clear what I want, trooper,’ said Ludd.
‘No,’ said Criid. ‘He stays put. He stays in the ranks.’
‘That’s not your call, captain,’ said Ludd.
‘Chass came to us to learn to be a soldier,’ said Criid. ‘That’s what his mother wanted. That’s what his high-born house wanted. And that’s what Gaunt wants too. He’s not going to learn the ways of the Astra Militarum by being mollycoddled.’
‘I’m not talking about special treatment–’ Ludd began.
‘But you are,’ said Criid. ‘He stays put. He has a decent bond with Dalin. Dalin will look after him and bunk with him. Keep an eye on him. A less obtrusive eye than a commissar.’
Ludd glared at her with what looked like suppressed anger.
‘You’re only saying that because Dalin is your son. You wish to earn him favour in Gaunt’s eyes. It is entirely unsuitable.’
‘And you’re not trying to earn favour?’ asked Rawne.
‘I’m interested in… the boy’s welfare, major,’ Ludd snarled.
‘Enough,’ said Curth. ‘This trailer is small, and there are too many people in here already. Settle this or take it outside.’
She looked at Felyx.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to sound unfeeling. I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘I didn’t say what I said because Dalin’s my son,’ said Criid quietly. ‘I said it because that’s what Maddalena wanted. When I got to her, she was still alive. Barely. I knew… I knew she wasn’t going to make it. She made me promise. She made me swear, that I would do the best for you.’
‘You?’ asked Ludd.
‘Not because Dalin’s my son, but because I am a mother,’ said Criid.
‘She… she was alive?’ whispered Felyx, staring at Criid.
‘For a moment,’ said Criid gently. ‘Just a moment or two. It was too late. She made me promise. She… she trusted me. Feth knows why. She made me promise.’
‘Well, that’s all well and good,’ said Ludd, ‘but–’
‘A soldier’s promise is a serious thing,’ said Rawne quietly. ‘Simple, but serious. Like a soldier’s funeral. Criid was asked, and she promised. We do it the way Criid says.’
‘Major, I object!’ cried Ludd.
‘Object all the feth you want, Ludd,’ said Rawne. ‘I’m senior commanding in this room. Throne, except for Gaunt, I’m senior commanding in this fething regiment. I’ve just given an order. That’s how things will go. Gaunt can overrule me if he likes, but you won’t, Ludd. You should know by now I have feth-all truck with directives from the Officio Prefectus. Which will be the end of me, in due course. But right now, we do it Criid’s way.’
‘I’ll take this to Hark,’ said Ludd, his face grim.
‘Knock yourself out,’ said Rawne.
Ludd looked at Felyx. There was a softness in his voice that surprised all of them.
‘Will you..?’ he started. ‘Are you all right with this? Will you be all right?’
Felyx looked back at him. It was quite clear he wasn’t, but he nodded anyway.
‘Dalin?’ said Rawne. ‘Take Trooper Chass, get him bunked in a room with you. Just the two of you. Shuffle sleeping arrangements if you have to. My authority.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Dalin.
He stepped into the trailer to escort Felyx out. Rawne put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him in his tracks. He leaned forwards and whispered in Dalin’s ear.
‘Look after him, Dal. Eyes on him, you hear me? He’s in shock. And don’t let Meryn feth with him.’
‘Yes, sir. No, sir,’ Dalin said. He glanced at Criid, who nodded, and then led Felyx out into the rain.
After Rawne, Criid and Ludd had departed, Curth finished her clean up, and then turned to look at the death reports piled in her workspace.
Kolding had just sent the patched-up driver off with a bandage around his face.
‘Shall I finish the reports, doctor?’ he asked.
‘I can do it, Auden.’
‘You are tired, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Besides, death and paperwork are two of my specialties.’
She smiled, and nodded.
‘Thank you. I could do with some air at least.’
She stepped out of the trailer into the artificial glare of the yard. The rain had eased to a drizzle, and beyond the limits of the lamp rigs, the world was black and cold.
‘Finished for the day?’
She glanced around and saw Vaynom Blenner strolling up to join her.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘A trying day,’ said Blenner. ‘You know what I always find is an efficacious cure for a trying day?’
‘In your medical opinion?’
‘I am a physician of life, Ana,’ he chuckled. ‘And in my experience, the trials that life spits at us are best deflected by a glass or two of liquid fortification. The Munitorum driver who conveyed me here today was most helpful in releasing a bottle of amasec into my care. If you’d like to join me?’
She looked out into the darkness. There was a faint radiance in the distance, the glow of the city, she presumed. Perhaps the lamps and flares of the Urdeshic Palace that overlooked them all.
‘No, thank you, Vaynom,’ she said. ‘I find, of late, I drink too much.’
‘Surely not,’ he smiled.
‘You should know, Vaynom. I do it all in your company.’
‘And we set the affairs of mankind to rights, two great philosophers together.’
‘No, Vaynom. There’s no philosophy in me either.’
He shrugged.
‘There are, of course, many other ways to unwind, Ana.’
She looked at him. He was startled by the hardness in her eyes.
‘You’re very persistent, Blenner. Very persistent. I think I was clear.’
‘Well, I certainly meant nothing by it, Doctor Curth.’
‘Vaynom, you mean nothing by anything, and everything by everything. I have appreciated your friendship these last few months. Truly, I never expected to find any kinship with a man like you.’
‘A man like–? You wound me, doctor.’
‘I have come to know you, Vaynom, and you certainly know yourself. You have a raucously uplifting soul, but there is always an agenda with you.’
‘Never!’ he protested.
‘Always,’ Curth said firmly. ‘You seek to serve yourself, in any way you can. To cushion your life against inconvenient hardship. When I spend time with you, I laugh, and I forget myself.’
‘How is that a bad thing?’
‘I forget that I serve others,’ she said. ‘I am medicae, Vaynom. It is my duty and my purpose. Always has been. I fear that if I dally with you too often, I will lose sight of that. I will begin to subscribe to your more self-interested way of living. I will end up serving myself, not others.’
‘Is that how you see me?’ he asked.
‘You know what you’re like,’ she replied. ‘It is not approbation. You are a man of distinguished qualities, if you’d only own them. In fact, I think the Imperium could be improved if there were more people like you. People who are able to find, against all odds, seams of joy and delight in this fething darkness.’
‘You’re saying I’m a bad influence?’ he said, with a waspish smile. He leaned towards her.
‘I’m completely fething serious, Blenner,’ she said. ‘I have lost myself of late. I have no wish to lose myself any more.’
She turned and began to walk away.
‘This is because she died, isn’t it?’ he called after her. As he said the words, he flinched. He knew they had come out too bitterly.
Curth turned back.
‘What?’ she snapped.
‘I heard she died,’ he said. ‘We al
l heard. Now she’s out of the picture, you can stop wasting time with me and set your sights on–’
She strode right up to him and grabbed him by the lapels.
‘A woman died. Eight people died. And you call it a “trying day”?’
‘You didn’t even like her!’ he blurted, pulling against her grip.
‘I did not, but I am a doctor and that doesn’t come into it. I save lives, Blenner. I don’t judge them.’
‘You just judged mine.’
She let him go, and looked away at the puddles in the yard.
‘I apologise,’ she said. ‘I am not perfect and I am sometimes inconsistent.’
He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
‘You didn’t like her, Ana. You told me so enough times.’
Curth shrugged off his hand.
‘She was a human life, sir,’ she said. ‘She was brave. She was not a nice person, but she was a good person. She had a duty that she performed steadfastly to the end. An object lesson to both of us, perhaps.’
‘I think you’re upset,’ he said softly, ‘not because she is dead, but because you’re happy she’s dead.’
She wheeled to face him.
‘How dare you?’ she asked.
‘You don’t mean to be. You don’t want to be. The fact that you are upsets that precious sense of self you just lectured me about. Gaunt’s bitch is gone. The way is clear for you to finally–’
‘Stop talking.’
‘–and you cast me aside in the process as disposable–’
‘Stop talking, Blenner,’ she growled, ‘or our friendship, which I value, will be over and done. I confided in you that I had feelings for Gaunt–’
‘Always had feelings…’
‘The duration is hardly the point, you idiot. I confided in you. A friend to a friend. I confided in you, when worse the wear for your procured drink, about your childhood comrade. Your best bosom pal from the bad old days. Ibram Gaunt, the man you like to tell anyone who is listening is your oldest, dearest friend of the ages! Why do you do that? Because it makes you look good to be able to say it?’
‘He is my best friend,’ said Blenner. He looked mortified.
‘Then act like he is. His companion died today. As far as I’m aware, he doesn’t even know it yet. I never cared for her. She was hard to like. But he liked her. He found some consolation in her–’
‘Her face. She looked like–’
‘It doesn’t matter, Vaynom. If you truly know Gaunt, you know he is distant. Alone. He has been his whole life. It’s the old affliction of command. As a colonel and as a commissar, he has to stand apart, to retain his authority, and that makes him remote. I know damn well he’s impossible to reach, and I think his life has made it hard for him to reach out. For whatever ridiculous reason, that woman offered him something that was valuable to him. Now she’s gone. Does that not, for a moment, worry you? How will it affect him? And how will it affect the regiment if he slips into a darker place because of it?’
Blenner sneered.
‘I don’t think you believe a word of that,’ he said. ‘I think… I think you’re good at making generous, principled arguments of care and concern that entirely ignore your own feelings. It’s just smoke. You’re glad she’s gone, and you despise yourself for being glad about it.’
‘This conversation is over, Blenner,’ she said.
‘You know I’m right. Stop dressing it up. Stop pretending there’s some moral principle here…’
He paused.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to strike me?’
‘What?’ she said. ‘No!’
He nodded. She looked down and saw that her right fist was balled. She relaxed it.
‘No,’ she repeated.
‘Well, then,’ he sighed.
‘You’re wrong,’ she said.
‘We’ll differ. And I will check on my old friend the moment he returns.’
‘Good night, then,’ she said. She paused.
‘Vaynom?’
‘Yes, Ana?’
‘You… you are feeling better, these days?’
‘Better?’
‘The nerves? The anxiety?’
‘Hah,’ he said, a dismissive gesture. ‘I am more settled. Good conversations with a friend have helped.’
‘You haven’t… you haven’t asked me for pills. Not for a while.’
‘The placebos, you mean?’ he chuckled.
‘I told you, sir, I was simply following the course of support Doctor Dorden prescribed.’
‘Sugar pills to salve my troubles,’ he said. ‘You know, the placebo effect is very powerful. I am feeling myself again, these days.’
‘Vaynom, if you are not… if, Throne save us, this business between us tonight has unsettled you–’
‘My, but you think a lot of yourself, doctor,’ he said.
She hesitated, stung.
‘Do not backslide,’ she said. ‘Whatever the dispute between us, do not let it cloud you. If you struggle, you can come to me. I will help you. Don’t go turning to the low lives who peddle–’
‘I am enlightened by your low estimation of me, Doctor Curth,’ he said. He tipped his cap.
‘Good night to you,’ he said, and walked away.
She watched him cross the yard, and then turned to find whatever dank billet they had assigned to her.
The banquet had been cleared from the grand salon adjoining the war room of the Collegia Bellum Urdeshi. The generals and lord commanders sat back as servitors brought in amasec and fortifiq. A fire burned in the great hearth.
The company had been convivial, despite Gaunt’s state of shock. It was as if the staff seniors had been keeping straight faces before and could finally share the joke, and celebrate both Gaunt’s elevation and his amusing disorientation.
He had found himself seated between Van Voytz and Bulledin, with Grizmund facing him. Van Voytz had been particularly garrulous, getting to his feet at regular intervals to raise a glass and toast the newest of the lords. Lugo, to Gaunt’s surprise, had been the most entertaining, lifting his soft, hollow voice above the din of feasting to regale the company with genuinely amusing stories, many of them self-deprecating. One tale, concerning Marshal Hardiker and a consignment of silver punch bowls, had been so uproarious that Gaunt had witnessed Lord General Cybon laugh out loud for the first time. Marshal Tzara had smashed her fist on the table so hard it had shaken the flatware, more in mirth at Cybon’s reaction than at the hilarity of the tale itself.
At one point, Urienz had leaned across the table and gestured to Gaunt with the half-gnawed leg of a game fowl he was devouring.
‘You’ll need a good tailor, Gaunt,’ he said.
‘A tailor?’
‘You’re a militant commander,’ said Urienz. ‘You need to look the part.’
‘I… What’s wrong with my uniform? I’ve worn it all my career.’
Urienz snorted.
‘He’s right, you need to look the part,’ said Tzara.
‘This admixture of commissar and woodsman guerrilla is very rank and file, young man,’ chuckled Kelso.
‘I have the mark of office,’ Gaunt replied. He picked up the large, golden crest of militant command that Bulledin had handed him. It was lying beside his place setting. He had not yet pinned it on. Just raising it brought a chorus of cheers and a clink of glasses.
‘It’s not about modesty and decorum,’ said Grizmund. ‘You don’t restyle yourself as a lord of men out of arrogance.’
‘Well,’ said Blackwood, ‘some do.’
‘I heard that, Blackwood, you dog!’ Lugo called out.
‘It’s a matter of apparent status,’ said Grizmund, laughing.
‘My men have never had a problem discerning my authority,’ Gaunt said.
‘In a company of five thousand?’ said Urienz. ‘Perhaps not. But in a warhost of a hundred thousand? Five hundred thousand? You look like a commissar.’
‘I am a commissar.’
‘You’re a militant commander, you stupid bastard!’ roared Van Voytz. ‘When you step upon the field, you need for there to be no doubt who wields power. You don’t want men asking, “Who’s in charge here?”… “That man there!”… “The commissar?”… “No, the man standing with the other commissars who isn’t just a commissar”…’
‘It’s not pride, Gaunt,’ said Grizmund. ‘It’s necessity. You need to look like what men of all regiments will expect.’
‘You need to stand out,’ growled Bulledin.
‘A cloak, perhaps?’ suggested Tzara. ‘Not that ratty rag you wear.’
‘Perhaps an enormous void shield parasol supported by battle-servitors!’ cried Lugo.
‘I will take the wise advice of my lords and turn myself at once into the most colossal target for the enemy,’ said Gaunt.
The table shook with laughter.
‘Take the address of my tailor, at least,’ said Urienz. ‘He’s a good man, in the Signal Point quarter. A clean jacket, a sash, that’s all I’m talking about.’
As the meal ended, the generals began to leave, one by one. Duties and armies awaited, and some had been from their HQs too long already. Every one of them shook Gaunt’s hand or slapped him on the back before they left.
It came down to Van Voytz, Cybon, Bulledin, Blackwood, Lugo and Tzara.
‘I feel I should return to my company,’ said Gaunt, finishing the last of his amasec. ‘They’ve barely disembarked.’
‘There are still some matters to discuss, Bram,’ said Van Voytz. He shot a nod to the house staff waiting on them, and they withdrew, closing the doors behind them.
‘The state of the crusade, and the campaign here?’ asked Gaunt.
‘Oh, yes, that,’ said Cybon. ‘We’ll get to that.’
‘I was eager for full intelligence reports,’ said Gaunt. He gestured to his crest on the table. ‘Now, more so, for I believe it is my duty to review.’
‘My man Biota will furnish you with everything you need,’ said Van Voytz. ‘A full dossier, then a briefing tomorrow or the day after to examine strategy.’
‘And when do I get an audience with the warmaster?’ Gaunt asked.