Swords and Saddles

by Jack Campbell

  Tyndall scratched his head. “I don’t know for sure, cap’n. Maybe not. She wouldn’t be Belisa. Now, she wasn’t raised a Christian, either, but that don’t bother me. The Good Lord understands that kind of thing, and Belisa seems a better Christian than many a church-goer I’ve seen, if you take my meaning, sir.”

  “Then, Sergeant,” Benton advised, “I’d tell you to take Belisa as she is. She’s not what we were raised to expect, but she is, as you say, a fine woman. Maybe changing what we expect isn’t a bad idea.”

  Grinning, Tyndall nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That’s the truth, isn’t it? Though she’s not the only fine woman here. Not by a long shot. That Odwan Freya, she’d make a fine officer’s lady. Hell, I mean she’s a fine officer in her own right. Oh, damnation, what I mean is –“

  “I understand, sergeant.” After Tyndall had left, Benton sat thinking, surprised at his own reactions to the sergeant’s words about Freya. She was a fine lady, indeed, and the more he learned of her the more he thought of her. But his inadvertent implication at the negotiations that he might use her need for the cavalry’s support to force her favors had been bothering Benton ever since then. Surely Freya had not forgotten, either. As an officer and as a gentleman, he could not allow her to believe that he ever intended demanding her self as a price for the protection the cavalry company provided the city.

  Only a few days later, Freya asked him to speak privately with her. The weather was mild that day, so she led the way to the city walls, where they could stand on a rampart isolated from anyone else and speak knowing that no one was close enough to overhear.

  Freya leaned on the wall, looking east. She wasn’t dressed for battle, but wearing one of the outfits in which she usually conducted business, a white blouse embroidered with depictions of horses which seemed to bear some ancestral debt to the drawings in the ruins south of here, dark trousers with more embroidery in many colors, a long over-skirt split almost all the way up the center and back so it fell gracefully at rest but didn’t hinder movement or riding, and over all a high-collar, knee-length coat with more needle-work, this time of warriors and battles moving among signs and emblems of various kinds. It wasn’t like any outfit which Benton had ever seen a woman wear, yet he found it very pleasing to the eye. “We must speak of war,” Freya said. “The Wikosans plan to attack Astera again, as soon as the threat of freezing storms lessens, but before we expect them.”

  “Your scouts told you this?”

  “Yes. Scouts. Spies. I think both words are right. They say the army will be at least ten decires strong.”

  “Decires? I thought that was a military rank.”

  “Decires are also those who lead decires.” Freya held up her hands, all fingers spread, then closed all but two.

  “Twelve?”

  “A decire is a twelve of twelves.”

  Benton did the math. “One hundred and forty-four. Ten of those. So about one thousand five hundred.” Very nasty odds if only his cavalry company was counted, but Astera had its own army. “How many soldiers do you have?”

  “Able to defend the walls? About eight decires. The ones who could face the enemy in open battle only number about six decires, though.”

  A question had kept occurring to him, and now he voiced it. “What happened? There’s a lot more young and elderly people in this city than there are men and women of military age, and you had plenty of room for my men in your barracks and for our horses in your stables.”

  Freya’s face grew somber and she let out a long sigh, her forehead resting for a moment on the cold stone of the parapet before she raised it again. “The last Odwan gathered the largest force which Astera could muster, and marched it to meet Wikosa in battle. He didn’t know the Wikosans had forged a temporary alliance with Telasa, which controls the lands south of us to the great gulf. As our army fought the Wikosans, the Telasans fell upon us from the rear.” She shook her head. “Some of us managed to hold our formations together and fight our way clear. If night hadn’t fallen we wouldn’t have gotten away, but under cover of darkness we escaped. We left many comrades behind, those who had died holding their places. Now you know why we greeted your alliance with such joy.”

  It must have been a battle rivaling some of those during the southern rebellion against the United States. “The alliance has benefited us as well. How many mounted troops do you have?”

  “Half a decire. Brave, but not the equal of yours, even if you did not carry the carbines.”

  All right, then. About one hundred U.S. Cavalry, counting all ranks, against fifteen hundred enemy soldiers. “We can fight on horse or on foot, outside the walls or inside, depending on what seems best.”

  “It is wise not make firm plans until we know more.” But despite her words Freya appeared unhappy, and she finally faced him full on. “I have deceived you in part. Not by saying what is false, but by not saying all that is true.”

  Benton frowned at her, shocked by how badly that statement had rattled him.

  “There can be no half-truths between us if we are to fight as one,” Freya continued. “Now, under the sky, I give you a full answer to what you asked before. You wondered why the Wikosans attacked your troop without speaking first, without learning who you were. That was my doing.”

  That had been the last thing which Benton had expected to hear. “You told the Wikosans to attack us? And they did?”

  “No, no! Not that way. They would have heeded nothing from me. But on the walls we saw you coming. We could tell even from a distance that you weren’t from any place we knew of. We had nothing to lose. I ordered everyone on the walls to begin cheering and pointing toward you, as if you were expected allies who had come to relieve the siege of the city.”

  He stared now, momentarily wordless at Freya’s audacity. “You fooled the Wikosans into thinking you were happy to see us and that we were coming to help you?”

  “We were happy to see you,” Freya replied with a half smile, “and you were coming to relieve the city. You just didn’t know it yet.” The smile grew and became mischievous before fading into regret. “I should have told you. But I feared your response, and Astera needs your cavalry so badly.”

  He really ought to be angry that she had provoked the Wikosans to attack his company, but Benton found himself laughing. “That was a stratagem worthy of U.S. Grant himself! Sergeant Tyndall was right when we first met you and he told me to watch out for tricks from you.” Only after the last sentence had left his mouth did Benton realize he shouldn’t have said that to her.

  But Freya didn’t seem offended, instead smiling. “You must thank your sergeant for me for giving me such praise.”

  Praise? Well, why wouldn’t she see it that way? Male commanders who outwitted their opponents by using clever tricks, or stratagems, were happy to be praised for such skills. Why wouldn’t a woman commander feel the same way? “I’ll be sure to tell him you were pleased.”

  “Who is this U.S. Grant? Your leader?”

  “Yes. He was a general, a war leader, and he was recently elected our president. That is, the people of my country voted for him to lead us.”

  “Oh. An Odwan. Like me.”

  “You?” Benton found himself staring at Freya again. “I thought you were some sort of princess.” Caught up with learning about the past here, learning the language and keeping an eye on the company, he’d neglected to learn much about how the city was run. It simply hadn’t been necessary when he could deal directly with Odwan Freya.

  “Prin-cess?” she now asked.

  “Yes. Hereditary royalty. Your family rules because they’re always in charge.”

  Freya’s smile vanished. “Don’t you believe I could earn this position on my own? Be elected because I’m the best at it?”

  He could feel the heat of an embarrassed flush on his face as he realized that was exactly what his thoughts had been, even though Freya had repeatedly proven her intelligence and skills as a leader. “My sincere apologies.
I spoke without thinking.”

  She seemed uncertain whether to accept the apology. “Our people belong to groups. By where they live, by what they do for work. The groups elect leaders, who form the council. The council votes for the Odwan.”

  A form of democracy then, instead of the monarchal set-up he had assumed. “I am sorry.”

  Freya gave Benton a direct look. “Why did you think otherwise? Your men, they seemed surprised by our women. I did not wish to pry, but now I ask why?”

  “Because back home our women don’t fight alongside men and don’t hold positions of authority.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Unless they are a prin-cess?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is a very backward place you come from. I had thought it very civilized, but now I see otherwise.”

  He bit back an angry rebuttal. Backward? When we have carbines and pistols and you have bows and arrows? But she’s not talking about weapons, or technology. She’s talking about…civilization.

  When he was twelve years old, Benton’s mother had drawn up and proposed a few changes in the laws of his hometown. His mother, well read and with a keen mind, had crafted ideas which had impressed twelve-year old Ulysses Benton, and which he still thought would have been of great benefit to the town. However, the proposals had been rejected without discussion or debate, but with a goodly portion of scorn because they had been made by a woman. His mother had never again ventured to do such a thing, though he had seen the well-hidden resentment in her whenever politics was discussed in her hearing, and young Benton had often wondered that the most foolish and least educated man in town could vote in elections and his mother could not.

  He thought of the West he had known with a different way of seeing it, thinking of the women there who from necessity or desire worked at tasks regarded as unfeminine by his civilization. That civilization had not yet established a firm grip on those who lived between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Benton now realized for the first time that when that happened, and women in the West were confined to corsets and kitchens, something of great value would have been lost. Maybe changing what we expect isn’t a bad idea, he had told Sergeant Tyndall. “You have a point there. You have a very good point there.”

  His response finally seemed to mollify Freya. “But you do not truly think like that. I see this. For a moment I feared you were like the Wikosans.”

  “They’re that different from your people?” Benton asked.

  Freya pointed west. “We are from those who came out of Palenkaza long ago. Along the waters of the greatest ocean.”

  “The west coast.”

  “Yes. The lands there. We, the peoples to our south and west and some ways north, all came out of Palenkaza, where the men and women work as one. This is as our ancestors were and as the Light wishes. But the Wikosans are of those who came out of Bareos, from the north out of the cold lands. They, and the people north and east of them to the mountains, do not live as we do.”

  Waves of migration, as Lieutenant Garret had speculated. “They don’t have women soldiers?”

  “Of course they do! What city could stand if half of its people didn’t bear arms along with the other half? But the Wikosans use their women only to guard the city. On the attack, they use men, and they allow no women to lead their armies.”

  It felt odd to know that he would have agreed without question with the Wikosans not long ago, and even odder to realize how much his opinions of women had changed from being around those of Astera.

  Freya inclined her head toward him. “Do I have your forgiveness for my deception?”

  “Yes, Odwan Freya. I respect you all the more that you admitted to it, and for the cleverness of your stratagem. But you’re right that we must keep each other apprised of such stratagems in the future.”

  She smiled, and Benton realized she had really cared how he would react. But then, the safety of her city and her people rested on how he had accepted the news, didn’t it?

  #

  Six weeks later, a courier raced down the road from the east, bringing news that triggered a full council of war. Besides Freya and Benton, it included Lieutenant Garret, the Decires Agani and Costoni, Sergeant Tyndall and Belisa.

  Decire Agani laid out the news brought by the rider. “They come early, before their full force is ready, to strike us with surprise when we believe ourselves still safe. The Wikosans number only about six decires. This is a great opportunity. We can strike them and wipe them out.”

  Freya ran her hands across the map before them, tapping an area which Benton estimated was about twenty five miles to the east-northeast of Astera, near where Salina had been. “We could do it here, near the crossroads.” She frowned. “Why do I feel doubts?”

  Benton glanced at Lieutenant Garret, who gestured at the map. “It seems like a perfect opportunity, sir.”

  Sergeant Tyndall cleared his throat, and Benton turned his gaze that way. “What do you think, sergeant?”

  Tyndall squinted at the map, his mouth twisting. “Captain, an old Indian once told me that when you see one wolf, you ought to be wondering where the rest of the pack is.”

  Lieutenant Garret frowned in puzzlement, but Freya gave the sergeant a careful look. “You think this is a trap? Why?”

  “Ma’am, I’m no general, but I’m looking at these guys and there ain’t all that many of them. They out-number us, sure, but even if we didn’t have our carbines we’d still be in a fort. I’m thinking, what if they’re bait? The Indians do that, send out a few braves to lure us into chasing them and then before you know it there’s a lot more Indians on all sides.”

  Belisa was nodding. “The Telasans. Like last time.”

  “The Telasans cannot come north this early in the year.” Decira Agani pointed at the map. “If we fail always to act, we will never win. This is a great opportunity.”

  “True,” Freya agreed. “But the chance seems too good. Are the Wikosans so foolish? They know we have the carbines of the cavalry now.”

  “Our messenger says the Wikosan fighters have been told it was a trick, a noise to frighten them but one otherwise harmless.”

  “They’ll learn otherwise,” Tyndall remarked with a grin.

  “But,” Benton added, “their own leaders may have convinced themselves it’s true. Those killed by our shots didn’t make it home.”

  Freya nodded. “They were buried on the field in one grave. So, the Wikosans believe us to be desperate and still weak. They would think this bait would be irresistible. We could not risk not taking it. It is in my mind to find the hook, that which would strike us when we go for the bait, and to deal the surprise to them.”

  Benton was studying the terrain. “Will they expect you to attack them in that place you showed us?”

  “There or closer to Astera. No farther off, because we would not risk such a long march from our city, leaving it lightly defended in our absence.”

  “I can see a crossroads, but is there a town there? What do these symbols mean?” Salina had boasted a population of about one thousand, but it was surely gone along with every other human artifact he had known of in Kansas.

  Costoni shook his head. “The ruins of a city. Over there, to the northeast of the crossroads. It’s been empty for a very long time. Right there, not far away from the ruins, there was a town in the time of the empire, but it was new and too small to defend itself when the empire fell, and was abandoned as well a few decades ago.”

  Benton nodded, trying not to let what he had known of human habitation in that area get in the way of what was now there. “There’s not a lot of cover on the plains, but a force moving along a watercourse would be low and screened by the trees growing alongside the water.” He moved one finger the length of a stream. “Is this Spring Creek, sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This would offer a great approach for that hook you spoke of, Odwan Freya. They could move along here, concealed from being spotted by any
one on the road roughly paralleling them to south.”

  The Asterans followed his gesture, nodding. “Six decires on the road,” Decire Costoni remarked. “That leaves at least four for the hook. I distrust our reports on this. If the Wikosans gathered even minor help from cities such as Lacanan,” he pointed to near where St. Louis should be, “or Midasa,” pointing to a place about midway between Omaha and Sioux City, “they could easily have at least six decires in the hook, or perhaps another hook to the south as well.” Costoni pointed to a another watercourse running south of the area. “What do you call this?”

  “Dry Creek,” Tyndall replied. “Cap’n, if someone followed Dry Creek where it bends west, it’d take ‘em toward that same area with Spring Creek to the north.”

  “Cannae?” Lieutenant Garret wondered. “That’s what Hannibal did at Cannae, tricking the Romans into attacking and then surrounding them on both flanks.”

  “None of us would escape this time,” Freya murmured, her expression as she looked at the map becoming concentrated like that of a cougar eyeing her prey. “But we are not so desperate as they think. If we turn their own plan upon them, Wikosa will suffer such a blow that for years they will be busy defending themselves from those they have preyed upon.” Her hand moved as she talked, sketching out movements of forces, while the others watched and listened, Benton with growing approval, Garret obviously surprised but listening closely, the two Decires nodding, and Tyndall’s own jaw slowly dropping.

  As they left the room, Sergeant Tyndall shook his head. “What do you think, cap’n?”

  “I think it’s bold and has a decent chance of success.” Benton smiled. “I once compared Odwan Freya to U.S. Grant. I guess I was more right than I knew.”

  “U.S. Grant? Hell, cap’n, if she pulls this off she’ll be Grant, Sherman and Sheridan all rolled into one.”

  #

  The Asterans had developed fairly decent weather forecasting ability, being as reliant on the skill as any people who depended on grazing, farming and trade for their survival. When the forecasters declared a mild period was coming up, Freya ordered the Asteran forces to prepare to march at any time. Captain Benton took his company out on the field before the city and drilled them out of their winter ease, getting the cavalry ready for offensive operations.