by Eric Flint
"No, Anna Sophia, I don't think I can. I really don't-and believe me, I've thought about it a lot, the last few weeks. More to the point-way, way more to the point-I don't want to."
Her foot got jammed halfway into the shoe. "Three years is too long, isn't it, Maureen?"
"Don't be stupid. If we were still back up-time, with what you've learned, you'd be a licensed clinical social worker by now. If it was up to me, excessive and self-indulgent grief would be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a no-kidding mental disorder. Of course it's too long. Way too long."
"Yeah, I know. It's just-oh, damn the man! Why didn't he ask? They're at least a size too small!"
"Same reason you didn't, I imagine. Didn't know what to ask or how to ask it in the first place."
Caroline put back on her own shoes, her shoulders slumped. "I'm an idiot. And now it's too late because-"
Her shoulders unslumped and her head came back up. "Is Kristina still here?"
"Should be. Last I saw she and the four-headed Cerberus were-"
Caroline didn't hear the rest. She snatched up the shoes Thorsten had left and raced out the door. Once in the hall beyond, she located the princess by the simple, direct-and incredibly improper-expedient of just bellowing: "Kristina! Where are you? I need you right here, right now!"
Kristina popped out of a doorway not three seconds later.
"Okay, girl, you keep telling me what a great horsewoman you are. I need to get to the army camp before they close the gates at sundown. No way there's enough time to get a carriage-too slow, anyway-and if I tried to ride a horse I'd fall off before I got to the end of the street."
"Oh, I can take you! Just ride behind me and hold on tight!"
It didn't strike either one of them that the notion of a full-grown woman-bigger than most, at that-"holding on" to a seven-year-old girl-smaller than most, at that-while cantering on a horse was perhaps not a good idea.
Of course, it did occur to the four-headed Cerberus.
"You can't do that!" they shrilled as one.
"Watch me!" came the imperious reply, and off they went. Kristina only paused long enough once they reached the stable to tell Caroline, "You'd probably better put those shoes in the saddlebag. So you can hold on with both hands."
The four noblewomen almost got trampled as they came into the stable, just at the moment the horse and its two riders went out. Fortunately, they were spryer than they looked. The two soldiers had been lagging so far behind they only needed to take two steps aside to clear the street.
"This is so much fun!" Kristina shrieked.
Caroline was far too scared to think it was "fun." Kristina had-what a surprise-a truly superb horse, and she did in fact know how to use it. Her notion of a "canter," however, was nothing Caroline would have called by the name. Not, admittedly, that Caroline could tell the difference between a trot and a canter and a gallop much better than she could the difference between a horse and a cow. But it did seem to her that they were racing along faster than she could remember driving on a freeway.
All things are relative, though, and at the moment Caroline's fear of their speed was pretty much drowned beneath her fear at the speed with which the sun was setting.
However, they got to the gates before sundown. The question now became…
How does a civilian female holding a pair of shoes get herself admitted into an army base?
Luckily, Kristina had the answer. "Open the gates! I'm Princess Kristina, daughter of the king and emperor! My friend Caroline, the countess of Oz, needs to see Thorsten"-there might have been just the tiniest hesitation here-"the count of Narnia!"
The four guards stared at her. The princess stamped her foot. "Now! Or I'll-well, you won't like it."
She cocked an eye up at Caroline. "Is that okay?" she half-whispered.
"I'm not about to give you a hard time over it, that's for sure. But where in the world did you learn to tell fibs like that?"
Kristina sniffed. "How silly. Watching my father and Uncle Axel. And all the others. They're frightful fibbers, you know."
An officer emerged. "What's this all about?" he demanded, half-sternly and half-worriedly. Whether or not his soldiers knew who the girl was, he certainly did.
It took another two minutes, but in the end he let them through. In fact, he even offered to guide Caroline and Kristina to the right barracks. Surprisingly, perhaps, Caroline was almost sure it was more the silent appeal in her own eyes than Kristina's royal proclamations that turned the tide.
Or perhaps it was simply that he knew Thorsten Engler. And, like everyone Caroline had met, liked the man. That didn't surprise her at all.
"There," he said, pointing to one of the barracks, once they were fifteen yards away.
Kristina surged to the fore again. "Thorsten Engler! Come out!"
A few seconds later, he did. Stared at Caroline, then at the shoes in her hand. Then, turned his head away slightly. A subtle but unmistakable look of great sadness came over his face.
She'd done something wrong. In God's name, what?
So, it was over. Thorsten realized-he should have listened to Eric and the others-that he'd not only been foolish, but had even insulted the woman. So greatly that she'd come out here, the same day, to return the gifts in person. Lest he be under any misapprehension at all.
Suddenly, she started striding toward him. That same very athletic stride that could still arouse him so. But he only watched from the corner of his eyes, since he couldn't really bear to look at her directly.
Until she was standing just three feet way, and extended the shoes. The gesture was oddly tentative, not the firm thrust he'd expected.
"Thorsten… Oh, damnation. Look, I can't help it. It's just the way I am, take it or leave it. I'm a practical girl. And I've got big feet for a woman. The shoes are too small. But…"
Hope surged, where he'd thought there was none. His eyes went to hers.
There was no anger at all, in those green orbs. No smile on the face below, either. But the eyes were simply…
Appealing? Uncertain?
"Can I-or you?-I don't care-trade them in? I'd love to have a pair that fits." Her eyes started watering. "I can't tell how much I would. But…"
Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I don't know what to do, either. And I don't want to do anything wrong. Not now. God, not now."
Perhaps he smiled. He never remembered. Whatever. Finally-for sure-he did something right.
Caroline's full smile erupted. She dropped the shoes. "Oh, fuck it," she said. "And fuck whatever horse anybody rode in on."
The next thing he knew she had him in a fierce embrace, and was kissing him more fiercely still.
So. At least that legend was true. Americanesses did all use the Austrian kiss. Her tongue felt like it was halfway down his throat. Good thing he came from sturdy farmer stock, with stout hearts on both side of the family. Or he would have died, right then and there.
Eventually-who could say when? who cared?-she broke off the kiss and nuzzled his ear. "I'll write to you, but I don't know if the letters will get delivered. Please write to me, whenever you can."
"They might," he murmured back. "Hard to know. Damn army. But whether they ever get to you or not, I will write them."
The bugle blew. "Oh, damn," Caroline said. "Does that mean what I think it means?"
Kristina managed to extort another five minutes for them. She'd inherited her father's ability to throw a truly majestic temper tantrum along with his prominent nose. But, eventually, the officers insisted. Push comes to shove, officers with combat experience are less susceptible to the menace of a shaking seven-year-old finger than noble ladies.
But, by then, it really didn't matter. Enough had been said-enough finally understood-that Caroline and Thorsten would either have all the time in the world, or Thorsten would be dead before she saw him again.
Grief she could handle, if need be. Hopefully, this time, she'd handle it better. But at
least uncertainty was gone.
Oh, so very very very gone. He had a wonderful kiss, too. And she already knew he'd make a wonderful father, just from watching him with Kristina.
After she was out of sight, Thorsten turned back and reentered the barracks. There, in the middle of the room, he planted hands on hips and looked about at the pitiful inhabitants. They'd all watched, of course, half of them crammed into the doorway and the other half crowded at the windows.
"Go ahead," he said. "Make a joke. Any joke…"
Eric Krenz covered his eyes. "He's going to be insufferable, fellows. Absolutely insufferable. How did it come to this, anyway? This is absurd. It's not in any of the legends." Part Three A glittering sword out of the east April 1634
Chapter 31
The next morning, Thorsten Engler was trying hard not to laugh at his friend Eric Krenz. Eric was in a foul enough mood as it was. Fortunately, since Eric was riding behind him and to his right, Krenz couldn't see the grin on Thorsten's face.
"Where did they get these fucking nags, anyway?" he heard Krenz complain.
After making sure he'd suppressed the grin, Thorsten turned his head and looked back. As he'd expected, Eric wasn't even looking at the horses drawing the battery wagon at all. Instead, his gaze was fixed, like a paralyzed rabbit's on a snake, at the limber pole swaying back and forth very close to his right leg. The "tongue," as it was often called, would inevitably wind up slamming against that leg from time to time, when the limber's wheels struck an obstruction or rut of some sort. Of which there were bound to be some, especially this time of year, even in a road as well designed and graded as the road that followed the Elbe north of Magdeburg.
The blow could easily cause bruises, and possibly even break a bone. That was the reason that the right legs of the volley gunners riding the three near horses of each gun crew had an iron guard encased in leather. So did those of the riders on the ammunition wagon and the battery wagon. The devices worked perfectly well, even if it was a bit startling to have the tongue suddenly slam against you.
The problem was twofold. The first aspect was that Eric simply wasn't accustomed to it. By now, Thorsten had plenty of experience riding the near horses on a gun team, even if-as was true today-he would normally ride his own horse on campaign. That being one of the chief perquisites of his august status as the sergeant in command of a battery, not assigned to any specific team.
Eric, however, being none too fond of horses to begin with, had used every opportunity during their training to avoid riding the blasted beasts. He'd been able to get away with it because he wasn't assigned to one of the crews in Engler's B Battery either. Instead, he'd accompany the battery wagon with its load of tools and equipment to repair whatever needed to be repaired on campaign.
The second part of the problem was even simpler. Krenz was a mediocre horseman, at best. He invariably referred to horses as "surly brutes"-even though, in point of fact, Captain Witty and Lieutenant Reschly had selected the most placid animals they could find. Eric's stubborn insistence on indulging his dislike for horses meant that his rudimentary skills in a saddle had not improved much throughout the course of their training. By no means all of the volley gunners came from backgrounds, like Thorsten's own farming, that gave them experience with horses. But, by now, all of them-except Krenz-were at least passable riders. Thorsten's own horsemanship was quite good, as good as that of most cavalrymen.
Engler had warned Krenz several times that eventually Eric would have to get on a horse. But Krenz had cheerfully insisted that what he called "proper military doctrine"-and there was a laugh, since Eric missed as many of the formal classes as he could, too-meant that he'd always either be on foot or, at worst, riding on the limber.
"Artillery officers want their men on foot, Thorsten," he'd said stoutly, a few weeks back. "I read that in the manual."
"Not our manual, you didn't," replied Engler, a bit irritated. "That's the general manual you're talking about, which is mostly addressed at heavy artillery. Eric, we're the lightest artillery there is. What they call 'flying artillery' or-brace yourself-'horse artillery.' We're supposed to be able to keep up with cavalry, on anything except an actual charge or a fast reconnaissance."
Krenz just looked stubborn. He could do that superbly well, when he was of a mind. "I read it," he persisted.
"No, what you read was that in the regular artillery, they only use one or two riders on the near horses. Yes, fine, you could get around that, if you were assigned to something like a six-pounder or twelve-pounder battery. As bad a horseman as you are, no sergeant in his right mind wants you guiding a horse team. The manual's insistence that the gunners who aren't riding must stay on foot except under special circumstances like fast maneuvers is because they don't want lazy gunners riding on the limbers, like so many of them will do if the officers or sergeants aren't watching. That's because they're likely to get injured if the limber hits a hole or a rock and jostles them hard enough."
He might as well have been talking to a brick wall, from the expression on Krenz's face.
Thorsten sighed. "Still don't get it, do you? When we actually go out on a campaign-especially the one we're training for, where we have to keep up with the ironclads-you will be riding a horse. Everybody will. There's no way we could keep up otherwise."
Alas, when he wanted it to be, Eric's capacity for self-justification was an endless cornucopia.
"Oh, that's nonsense, Thorsten. I heard one of the up-timer sergeants in the infantry-not more than two weeks ago-saying that a properly conditioned man on foot can travel longer and faster than a horse over long distances. He said they even had some tribe of savages in their old country-'Apashoes,' or something like that-who could make a hundred miles a day on foot."
Thorsten silently cursed Paul David Willcocks. Though now in his mid-forties, with no excuse for the childish habit, the up-time sergeant who served the volunteer regiments as a special trainer had the incorrigible practice of regaling his soldiers with tales from his former universe, many of which Engler thought were probably what the up-timers called "tall tales." But whether true or not, Willcocks never seemed to give any thought at all to whether the stories were appropriate for a training sergeant to be blathering to his men.
"Apaches," he corrected. "Yes, I know, I've heard the story. Here's what else is true. Since you now seem besotted-and when did this magical transformation take place?-with proper military doctrine. Apaches were light infantry-as light as it gets-detached into small units. A dozen men, perhaps. They didn't have to worry about keeping hundreds of men moving on a single road, and they weren't carrying any equipment worth talking about. You, on the other hand, unless you used horses, would have to carry several hundred pounds of gear, powder and shot. You couldn't even pick up your share and take one step, much less outrun a horse. You couldn't outrun a tortoise. Even in the infantry, the average soldier in the regiments has to be able to tote fifty pounds on campaign."
Since Krenz was obviously still willing to argue, Thorsten had broken it off. "Never mind," he'd said, waving his hand. "Be as stupid as you want. But if you fall off your team horse a few weeks from now and get turned into sausage by the wheels of the limber and the wagon, don't claim I didn't warn you."
Now that the joyous day of I-told-you-so had finally come, Thorsten wasn't actually worried that Eric would fall off his mount. Given the white-knuckled way he was grasping the pommel, Krenz would probably manage to stay in the saddle even if he and his horse were both swept up by a tornado. In any event, Thorsten had made sure the least skilled horseman in his battery was riding the third of the near horses, the one closest to the limber. The "wheelers," as they were called-the other two on each side would be the "swing" and the "lead" horse-were the biggest and steadiest horses on each team. Even if Eric did fall off he'd manage to land on the limber instead of under it.
Of course, Engler knew he probably wouldn't be able to bask in the sunshine of just retribution for more than a few we
eks. They were setting off on the expedition with six horses assigned to each gun or wagon, when four would be plenty and, in a pinch, the volley guns were so light they could be hauled by two. That was because it was inevitable that some of the horses would fall by the wayside as time went on. Lamed, ill, killed or wounded in action. So, sooner or later, Eric probably would be able to start walking or riding on the limber.
Captain Witty had told Thorsten that they could expect, at best, to lose one horse in ten over the course of the expedition-and that was assuming they didn't fight any major actions. That was the average for a good cavalry unit. In reality, Witty thought their losses would be closer to one horse in four. Most of the men in the volley gun batteries were only passable horsemen, and the price for their inexperience and clumsiness would mostly be paid by the horses themselves.
***
As it happened, Captain Carl Witty was thinking about the matter himself, that very moment. And his thoughts were every bit as acerbic as that of his master sergeant.
"Let's hope they get better as time goes by," he grumbled to his second-in-command.
Lieutenant Markus Reschly-"Mark," now, since he'd adopted the up-time abbreviation of his name-was a more cheerful man by nature than his commander. Smiling, he said, "Oh, they're bound to. Training exercises are one thing; a real campaign, quite a different matter. They'll learn."
"Yes, I know. But how many horses will they grind up while they do? Horses are not cheap."
From the blank look on the young lieutenant's face, it was clear as day that he'd never once thought about that aspect of the problem. That was a bit odd, actually. Had Reschly been one of the usual volunteers, Witty wouldn't have expected him to understand that whatever else war was, it was also an economic enterprise. But Reschly was one of the traditional sort of mercenaries, of whom there were plenty in the USE's new army, especially in the officer corps. Witty himself was another, from Switzerland.