A Mist of Grit and Splinters

by Graydon Saunders

  “On the frozen streams?” Etch has gone thoughtful. “Ice is proverbially flat.” Etch may not feel it, but Etch thinks it’s unreasonably cold down here.

  “Streams go up and down, north-south. Trade needs to go across, east-west.” Across mountains, to get out of this valley. “The Cousins had a lot of time, but never much population or organization.”

  Etch looks at me narrowly. “Roads? ”

  “Not likely wheeled traffic. Trails, but trails accumulating small improvements.”

  “These several thousand years.” Etch finds the whole idea unlikely.

  “No money.” Etch looks at me like whatever wits I had have wandered.

  “Had to trade; no one had the whole of their necessities by their dwelling.” Some great flowing ‘of course’. Might be sarcastic. “Nobody could weed very well. Critical defensive stuff, but nothing stable.” Not much dominion. Dominion’s hard work; you don’t claim more than you think you need. “Nobody established money.”

  Money takes a couple of ideas, but population most of all. The Cousins never had it.

  Etch does an elaborate furrowed brow. Haven’t felt so requested to explain since I came back into camp with half a paddle and no survey team.

  “Once you’ve got money, you’ve got margin. Makes it clear what to do next once someone does the accounting.” Accounting is harder than counting. There’s some second century texts lasting angry about that.

  “Do you say the Cousins knew not means to calculate enough?” Etch has doubts by tribes and peoples.

  Never shrug at Typicals. You’re going to be insulting. So I adjust my hat. “Sufficiency’s a tough question. They had to trade.” If you need salt, you need salt. “The streams down here contain turtles, and whatever the turtles don’t like to eat.” The Line says the turtles are fine with anything detectably made of meat. Which tells you something about the wild kine. “It was still worth it to make a big canoe, take a couple tonnes of furs down to the customary landing, and walk back with maybe ten kilogrammes of steel tools.”

  The Cousins aren’t fond of the City-Staters.

  Etch sets their empty mug down, on a railing this time, and starts to pace out under the wet snow, hands clasped behind their back. The snow sort of misses, it’s not as neat as all just flowing around like water around a rock, but the snow stays off of Etch, even when they whirl back around and raise their chin at me.

  “You suppose — ” Etch’s tone’s just about to ‘j’accuse!’ — “that whoever should find themself transporting these certain essentials needs must not suppose a limit to the utility of their improvements.”

  “If it’s them, there isn’t.”

  That gets me four peculiar expressions and a grudging nod. You’re trying to have an easier time, not advance the general prosperity. Even if you want to, because you don’t have means to identify the general prosperity. “Really no money. No money means all the prices are customary. Nobody changes the prices unless there’s no other way. No ability to mint money because not enough trade, even with the other Cousins; nobody from outside ever brought money in, it was all accounts in their ledgers and the Cousins didn’t get a copy.”

  “Hardly any outside trade.” Etch sounds sad. There’s a complex gesture and a hat adjustment and body language transitions. I get that Etch knows they’re thinking of a province, that the Cousins would have been a small province by numbers for most of the time in question, that neither Commonweal has or ever had outside trade out of a refusal to permit commercial interaction with slave labour.

  Etch wouldn’t know there’d been a quiet little customary trade in copper for iodine since before either Commonweal, since Creeks came to be and some of the Cousins shifted instead of breed in. Iodine refining is a witchy trade, and the ritual to guarantee it’s the sellers own work was at least four thousand years old when Laurel showed up. There’s been five hundred years of ‘customary sources’ attestations; Cousins are relatives, and no one felt it would be right to cut off their copper.

  “Tomorrow,” Etch says, “I must prepare anyone who Parliament insists must not survive capture.” Etch looks briefly entirely dead. “Such death shall not prove specific of likelihood.” That gesture and posture might be contempt. “Certainty has not been introduced.”

  “Certainty’s met death.” If we’re being metaphorical. “That’s what we need.”

  Year of the Peace Established Five Hundred Forty-Three, Month of Nivôse, Seventh Day

  Sergeant-Major:

  Movement available to the Wapentake presupposes an active focus. This will not in all circumstances be desirable of the advance. While the utility of existing bug-charms is great, their protection is not comprehensive.

  Were it to operate by similar mechanism to the bug charms now available, in what numbers, and by what time, could a comprehensive protection against infection, predation, poison, parasitism, possession, co-option, and digestion be produced?

  Slow, Full-Captain, Second Battalion, First Brigade, Wapentake of the Creeks

  Year of the Peace Established Five Hundred Forty-Three, Month of Nivôse, Twenty-Sixth Day

  Full-Captain:

  You can have ten thousand on 25 Ventôse of this year as one-use charms. Grammar consultation confirms any repeatable variety of such a working would necessitate prior alteration of those who employ the charm.

  Delivery to your standard acceptable?

  Fire, First in Authority, Wapentake of the Creeks

  Year of the Peace Established Five Hundred Forty-Three, Month of Pluviôse, Second Day

  Sergeant-Major:

  Excellent work.

  Delivery to the standard of the Second preferable.

  Slow, Full-Captain, Second Battalion, First Brigade, Wapentake of the Creeks

  D-Day Minus 830

  Year of Peace 544, Germinal, Eighth Day (Early Spring)

  Duckling

  Puddle got Uniform Banner. While there, I thought they wouldn’t. Puddle’d’ve been likely for battalion sergeant-major had Meek died. Warrants of authority work by a shifting mix of not-disappointing and family’s-larger-then-you. Authority-and-commission’s actuarial. Makes it as aloof as you can manage.

  Tricky thing; troops have to trust you, whole, not just to kill as few of them as you can. Works for the Captain because nothing’s personal. Don’t know if all graul are like that. The Captain’s got stuff they care about, cuisine, graul-style fencing, the philosophy of peace. It don’t intersect with duty. The First don’t struggle for belief; the Captain’s notion of greater service’s axiomatic, you near enough suppose it effortless yourself.

  Slow’s actuarial’s years deep. Ain’t even impersonal. I said once that Slow’s mind’s living in the history someone’s going to write in two hundred years. Meek yelled at me because they didn’t want the thought.

  Hard to notice; Slow talks less than Slow’s there. Bit like the uncle who took an interest in your education; you get to believing Slow wants you alive. Couldn’t say why, specific, you’ve got the belief, it’s just there.

  Pretty sure neither approach’s possible as learning. Got to find your own approach.

  Nobody’d go select Weasel for kin; likely why Weasel’s here. Slow gave them Fierce; Meek’d insisted on Fierce because Fierce’s sergeant-major’s Half-Hat, who has sense. Weasel’s sharp; Weasel’s quick. Weasel’s enough quick to survive lacking sense.

  Weasel’s reliable with the focus. Weasel’s out ahead for learning all it does. Gotta hope Half-Hat’s will to survive matches Weasel’s will to victory.

  Puddle’s got sense. Puddle’s steady. So-so with executive on a banner focus. Improving. Eel’s about where a platoon sergeant ought to be. Respectable rate of learning, Meek’s pleased. Can’t substitute experience. Listens to Meek. Puddle careful-certain hasn’t said anything sergeant-y to Eel. Puddle’s getting actuarial. Not quick, but it’s going. Puddle likes people, and don’t like themself for the actuarial.

  Anti, Antithesis,
arrived plenty actuarial. Leads; nuanced grasp of what example to set when. Tries packing ideas themself, and quiet. Their best day’s marginal on front in a fight. Too aware of risks; ain’t dithering. Too considered’s its own trouble. Merge Anti and Weasel, both’d improve. Tact’s practical. Not nuanced, not quick; learns pretty regular, three tries for reliable. Nothing gappy between Anti and Tact; Thorn works, outside fighting. Slow ain’t worried about Thorn. I try not to be. Meek tells me private my expectation’s excessive. Thorn’s consistently quickest for march rate.

  Ogive’s iffy. Not for competence; Harsh has the makings of skill as a part-captain. Their conduct’s no ilk of harsh; the whole of Ogive’s got the pre-emptive horrors at the thought of proving disappointing. They’re cohering, they’re cohering steady. Three, four times as quick as the Old Line calls minimum, instead of six or eight. Can’t fix it, shouldn’t try; it ain’t broken. Might be why it’s not so quick. Harsh ever got tempted, Plage’d stop them. Plagioclase, because they knew what it was in a road cut. Steady as stones themself; no prior Line service, not from a weeding team, just apt.

  Part-captain Pumpkin has Robust. Kin was a trooper in the First. Don’t look like Knives, ain’t much like Knives in specific; Knives is resolute and skilled, Kin’s skilled and accepting. Way more social, emotionally reliable, it’s not all Knives’ conscious will avoiding murder. Kin don’t have to work at not murdering. Looks forward to murdering heaps of people soon as they get proper orders.

  Robust’s files took some time deciding they could do with Kin. Nap helped; Nap was a sergeant in the First. Nap’s got no expectation of survival. The calming what-can-we-get-done-first certainty, not the certain-horrible-fate version. Meek approves of Nap. Robust’s more there than Ogive, definite back of Fierce for fighting.

  Didn’t have to do this in the First. In the banner Colour Party; talked to other banners, didn’t coordinate. Duty required many fewer judgemental opinions.

  Didn’t have subordinates in the First. I can pretend the part-captains aren’t.

  Can’t pretend about Flinch, appointed Observer. I appointed. Checked; Meek called me sir and smirked, Slow said the Colour Party was entirely in my grant. Slow meant everything they said in youth. Don’t hear it, Slow don’t smell like death. Slow used to smell like fair weather, somehow. Bit like high places, now; feeling like you’re the first to ever breathe this air.

  Something’s information when you do something different after you notice. Observer’s duty’s checking the observation teams’ notions of information. Seeing what’s there’s essential. It asks much; eight or sixteen observer teams on the feed, plus platoons or banners. Get it enough wrong, battalions die.

  You ask recruits if they’re able to be present, ‘discharged of all other binding obligation’. You never ask, not formal, not social, why someone answers a call for recruits; you certain-sure don’t ask why they’re here after the oath. Flinch don’t like loud noises. Flinch entirely don’t like weapons. Flinch sees what’s there. Flinch goes fugue-state in the focus, reacts without experiencing. Dunno what you’d use that for besides Battalion Observer.

  Want to keep using it; paired Flinch up on their wheelbarrow with Wibble, who ain’t suited for observing. Wibble ain’t blood-hungry. Gives the impression of having more ruthless than bones. Ain’t resentful; ‘keep the Observer alive’ registers as a position of trust. What Flinch does registers as difficult. Would get on real well with Meek if they were the same age and seniority.

  Ninny transferred from One-Uniform-Three, where they were appointed platoon sergeant. Official reason’s opportunity, Ninny’s merits conflicting with no expectation of being appointed sergeant-major in the First. Quiet reason’s all in authority wanting the Second functional soonest. Private reasons: Lolly’s accurate observation that I’ll trust Ninny to run half a banner of the twitchy and witchy mixed with Lolly’s actuarial view wanting shut of Ninny. One sergeant obvious for replacing the sergeant-major ain’t comfortable for a banner. Ninny says they’re curious to work out how a Colour Party works on the expanded scale. Can’t mention Lolly’s actuarial; not polite. Doubt they missed it.

  Colour-sergeant don’t suffice if it’s all drill and kit inspection. Won’t be me or Slow deciding how many demons on the bubble’s enough to get the Colour Party active. Ninny’s not obviously a wrong amount of confident.

  Squish ain’t confident. It’s like starting arguments with Meek; you can’t, because Meek ain’t willing to admit the possibility. Squish don’t do more than ‘shall we be quick enough?’ questions. It keeps Ninny alert, it leads to regular, scheduled, packing discussions across files, we ain’t got official platoons, we ain’t even got teams. Colour Party’s Colour Party. Still too much for one sergeant, so Squish’s Ninny’s backup.

  The piper’s not stranger than you’d expect. Tuneful, teacher-skilled, enough teacher-skilled I wonder why they’re here. Official, piper’s a file-closer; practical, it’s closer to sergeant. There’s a file of pipers, I’ve let them know the gauntlets have to be on their persons if not their hands, they’re a tuneful lot. They manoeuvre with the standard, the phrase is; me and Slow and the observer teams.

  Slow’s departed custom lots of ways. One way was not picking a standard-bearer. Slow don’t feel the appointment’s required; Slow’s generally either got the standard, or it’s on the wheelbarrow. There was a delegation of those in authority about that; the standard hurled like a pointy stick in a moment of haste haunted with possibility. Specific wheelbarrow fittings resulted.

  There’s battalions appoint standard-bearers for evident valour or length of service. I appointed Cackles because they’re a bit clerkly, despite their awful laugh. Standard records everything you ask it to. Saves on can’t-find-the-sheet-of-paper problems. Doesn’t keep the schedule for you. Someone’s got to pay attention to where the spring shirt issue’s being delivered when.

  Slow does; Slow will. Ain’t who it’s best to ask. So Cackles.

  There ain’t stable traditions about wheelbarrow advances; the Old Line did no such thing. The Captain figures their own kit goes in the standard. Slow don’t. Slow’s relationship with the quarters in the standard don’t seem unsettled, but Slow don’t use it. Pretty sure it ain’t furnished; Meek’s been after Slow about that intermittent since we started recruiting.

  It’s worked out Slow and I pair on a wheelbarrow and Meek and Cackles do. Cackles had figured that their job would half be keeping track of Slow and took four-five décades before believing they weren’t. Keeping track of battalion-scale stuff for the battalion ain’t what the manual expects the standard-bearer to do. Near enough to working. Slow’s got Cackles delegated to put paperwork in the standard. Nobody’s got general extraction privileges. The servants-of-the-Line-gesith battalion clerks don’t like it. Slow’s been emphatic they’ll accept it.

  Three hundred files is twelve hundred wheelbarrows. They break. Not much; tenth of a percent per thousand kilometres. Ten to fifteen a décade and rising. Fixing anything aluminium with the focus’s effective warding practice. The armoury teams expected wear. Wheel bearings, wheels, or axle pins swap easy. Water tanks lift out; the mud guards are fungible. Can’t carry much for spares; can’t do much for bent.

  Spares expenditure goes straight into battalion readiness numbers. We can run two hundred kilometres; the wheelbarrows won’t take it at the rate we can fix. Failures clump; all the wheels from an issue are the same age, they all go out of true around the same time. Slow’s got me writing it up in an absence of judgement so it goes as facts to the quartermaster.

  Quartermasters don’t command; no authority. Old Line quartermaster’d accompany the battalion. Ours don’t run; might-maybe could, for exertion. Flesh needs an office. Flesh needs a reliable postal address. They show up with big deliveries; battalion sets of pointy sticks, five décades’ rations, anything that’s most of a barge or larger. It’s ‘Flesh’ because they used to manage a refectory before volunteering; their first interview with Tank
ard, they described some mutton jerky as “this dubious flesh” and it stuck.

  ‘No authority’ don’t matter, traditional; the quartermaster’s got commission, and handles contracts. Add in the armoury and this don’t work. Armoury focuses are for production; specific big teams making wheel rims or bearings or axle-pins or frames in quantity. Other teams put the wheelbarrows together. The focuses cost; you’d plan to run those fifty years.

  Ain’t making quite the right things. What to change, what new focuses, how to get enough wheelbarrows to test so there’s not another new focus not quite wanted, it’s seven problems. Maybe nine. Tank, Flesh, three judges, and several clerks all inventing how you do it by contract and organization. Bunch of standard-captains corresponding about divisions of authority. Ain’t expected to resolve before there’s another armoury.

  Meantime, we got an assembly team as does run; battalion repair team. Eleven of them, halfway into making up customs for their trade. Took the oath as quartermasters; latch and commission, no authority, strictly ain’t subject. No focuses; part of why the armoury’ll spare them. Charms and arms, they put it. Perceptible witchy; not obvious enough sorcerer for an independent. Official, they work for Flesh. Plentitude of awkward possibility; Meek asked the banner sergeant-majors their views. Nominal file in the Colour Party. Ninny and Squish worked out tactful expressions, the repair team’s figured out how to be tactful back. They keep up. No armour, no pointy sticks. Spares plus their own rations and accoutrements.

  It don’t work. Mean fix time’s an hour. New axle pin’s ten minutes. Rebuild a wheel with spare spokes runs two-three hours. Frame welds, about an hour. Skilled enough; can’t make time. Repair team’s got to sleep if they’re going to run. One spare wheelbarrow per platoon, run empty, ain’t ideal; someone’s running a full one single. Close enough to working. Flesh’s got a haulage team collecting the broken ones up regular. Month in the rain’s won’t make much worse.