Lord of Janissaries

by Jerry Pournelle

  And we’ve got about a hundred rounds for the rifles, Rick thought. “That’s pretty heavy odds,” he said carefully.

  “The other starmen have taken all of Drantos,” Tylara said. “Can you not do as well?”

  “They needed the armies of Sarakos to do it.” And I suspect Sarakos has reason to regret his bargain. He’s not likely to be much more than a puppet for André Parsons. Serves him right.

  Lowlands. In about five years, maybe less, that new Roman Empire was going to be under water—all but the high plateau that held Rome itself. And by that time the people of Tamaerthon would be starving. Except Mac Clallan Muir and his family. They wouldn’t starve. According to Yanulf, the clan leaders and their children would—in theory, willingly—offer themselves as a propitiation to the gods. It came with the job of leader. In Drumold’s grandfather’s time, it had happened after three years of bad harvests, which was how Drumold’s grandfather had got the position of high chief of Tamaerthon.

  Damnation, there had to be something he could do. And he wasn’t too likely to talk Tylara out of jumping off that cliff into the sea, either. That was one girl who was likely to take her duties seriously.

  “You have raided the Empire in the past?”

  “Aye,” Drumold said.

  “Tell me more of the Empire. How are the legions armed?”

  “With lances and swords. How else?”

  “Lances and swords—they’re horsemen, then?”

  Drumold seemed surprised. “Aye. Horses and centaurs. Mostly horses.”

  “Not footsoldiers.” Rick described a classical Roman legionary: square shield, pilum, and gladius hispanica.

  “There are no such anywhere I know of,” Drumold said. “Ken ye any in your western lands, Priest?”

  “No.” Yanulf studied Rick’s face. “What makes you think there might be?”

  As near as he could figure it, the Shalnuksis had brought an expeditionary force from Earth in about 200 a.d., about the time of Septimius Severus. That had to be when the ancestors of these new Romans arrived. Severus still employed classical foot-marching legionaries, a bit degenerated from those of Caesar’s time, but still the most effective infantry Earth would see until gunpowder. Evidently the same thing had happened to legions here as happened on Earth: they fell to heavy cavalry and lack of discipline. Now the heavy cavalry ruled everywhere that the terrain was suitable. This Rome was more like the Holy Roman Empire—aha! There would have been another expedition in about 800, the time of Charlemagne. This Rome must be the Holy Roman Empire. But he couldn’t explain all that.

  “One of the greatest kingdoms in our history was armed that way,” he said. “Uh—what religion is the Empire?”

  “They call themselves Christian,” Yanulf said. “But the Christians of the southern lands say they are not.”

  “Yatar does not prosper in Rome, then?”

  “No.”

  “Have they ice caverns? How did Rome survive the Time?” Rick asked.

  Yanulf spread his hands. “They do not welcome visitors. Or rather, their slavemasters welcome them all too well. It is said that there are caverns in Rome, but who attends them I do not know. It is also said that there is a great library with many records of previous Times, but again this is not of my own knowledge.”

  Gwen had been listening with a growing look of amazement. “Rick, what are you thinking of?” she demanded.

  That earned her a sharp look from Drumold, who wasn’t used to having women speak up that way.

  “North is barren,” Rick said. “West is the salt marsh and west of that Parsons and Sarakos. South of us is mostly ocean. If we’re going to get anything to store up for the Time, we’ll have to take it from Rome.”

  “Man, are ye daft?” Drumold asked. “We raid the Empire, true, and done quickly, we often bring back cattle and horses. But we seldom escape punishment from the legions.”

  “He is not daft,” Tylara protested. “He can—I have heard him speak of battles before. Of his victories over the Cubans—”

  Yeah, I brag a lot when you’re around, Rick thought. “What kind of punishment? What do the legions do?”

  “Sometimes nothing,” Drumold said. “But if we annoy them enough, they bring their army into the hills.”

  “And you fight them—”

  “We try,” Drumold said. “Aye, and we can win battles. But they come on, and we must take to the hills. They burn the villages and the crops and slaughter the flocks. Ofttimes we lose more than ever we gained. The Empire is a giant best left unawakened.”

  “But you have won battles against them,” Rick said. “You must have, or they’d have simply occupied Tamaerthon and had done with it.”

  “Aye, we’ve beaten them in the passes,” Drumold said. “In the passes, in the hills. But no one has ever beaten the legions on the plains. I think no one remembers the last time anyone tried.”

  So far it sounded a lot like the Scottish border country. Scotland remained free, but just barely. But there had been a time after Bannockburn when England feared Scotland . . . The rifles would probably win a single battle. The result wouldn’t be anything more significant than looting a border province, but that could be the difference between life and death for Mac Clallan Muir. And for Tylara.

  An organized raid, with a wagon train to carry out grain and a properly organized force to delay the legions while the wagons got into the passes. It was possible.

  “How many men could you put into the field against the Empire?” Rick asked. “For the biggest raid ever. Something to sing about for a hundred years.”

  Drumold frowned. “Not all the clans would respond to the summons,” he said. “Perhaps three hundred lances. Two thousand archers. Another three thousand lads wi’ swords. Perhaps a thousand more freedmen armed wi’ whatever they can find. No more.”

  “And the nearest legion is four thousand strong,” Rick mused.

  “Four thousand legionaries,” Drumold protested. “Wi’ mail shirts, and good horses. Man, on level ground they’ll ride us down.”

  Two thousand archers. Edward had four times that many at Crécy, but Edward faced the entire chivalry of France, at least thirty thousand men. Proportionally, Tamaerthon could field more troops against the Empire than Edward ever had.

  But there was a vast difference. Archers alone could never face cavalry. Edward’s main line at Crécy had been dismounted men-at-arms, fully armored knights. From what Rick had seen, Tamaerthon’s three hundred lances would be at most five hundred men with no more than half of them armored. There was no way five hundred could form a shield for the archers. The legionary cavalry would sweep through. Once at close quarters, it would be all over for the archers.

  Gunpowder? No. Even assuming Gwen was wrong about the possibility of the Shalnuksis helping Parsons, there just wasn’t enough time. They’d need at least a thousand arquebuses and a ton of gunpowder. They’d need ring bayonets, too. It would take years. No. It wouldn’t hurt to have some of the younger clan warriors start a systematic search for sulfur, just in case, but gunpowder wasn’t the answer.

  But there was another way. Heavy cavalry had been finished on Earth well before gunpowder put the final nails in their coffins. “Have any of your clansmen ever drilled with pikes?”

  “Pikes?” Drumold asked.

  “A long pole with a sharp metal point.”

  “Ye mean spears. We have spears.”

  “No, I mean pikes. How long are the spears you use? What formation do you fight in?”

  That took a while. Eventually a henchman brought in a typical weapon. It was about six feet long, far too short to be any use against cavalry. The pikes used by the Swiss, and later by the landsknects, had been eighteen feet long. As for formation, men who could afford no better weapon than a spear were peasants and didn’t fight in any formation at all. They just went off to battle in droves and died in droves.

  “How long can you keep the clansmen together without fighting?” Rick asked. �
��To drill.” He had to explain the concept of training and drill. By now even Tylara was wondering about his sanity.

  “The fields and herds would go to waste,” Drumold protested. “And there’s nae enough to feed such a horde in one place.”

  “There’s food in the caverns.”

  “For the Time,” Yanulf protested. “And not enough for that.”

  “Not enough for the Time,” Rick agreed. “But enough to feed an army in training. What good will it do to keep what little we have? A properly trained army can beat the legions. We can march in—” he thought rapidly. There’d not be enough time for real training, and keeping the men too long without a battle would be disastrous for morale. “—in six ten-days.”

  “Harvest time,” Drumold shouted. “Now I know ye’re daft. You’d strip the land of the men at harvest time.”

  “You’ve said yourself it will be a poor harvest,” Rick said. “Leave it for the women and children to gather.”

  “What do we eat for the winter?”

  “It will be harvest season in the Empire, too. We take their crops. And they have to have granaries or they couldn’t support regular troops in garrison. We’ll have that grain, too.”

  “And you truly believe you can defeat a legion wi’ your star weapons?” Drumold said.

  No, I can’t possibly. But they’re not invincible—or wouldn’t be if everybody didn’t think they were. There’s one way to fix that. “Sure. We’ve got other weapons you haven’t even seen. But Mason and I can’t do it alone. We’ll need your lads properly trained and properly armed.” Now’s the time to back out, he thought. To hell with that. “If we’re going to do it, late harvest season is the time.”

  “ ’Tis a bold plan,” Drumold said.

  Tylara’s brother had listened in silence. Now he stood. “I have lost comrades to the imperials,” he said. “And I for one would like the chance to repay.”

  Tylara smiled happily. “It would be better to lose and die on the field than to starve in the Time,” she said. “But with Rick’s aid, we will not lose.”

  “You are crazy,” Gwen said in English. “Stupid, bloodthirsty crazy—”

  “Is it better if we all starve. Tamaerthon and the Empire alike? Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “We don’t have to stay here—”

  “No,” Rick said. “We don’t have to. But I’m not running this time. I’ve given up running.”

  3

  Drumold was arrayed as Mac Clallan Muir, High Chief of the Clans of The Garioch. His kilts were splendid, his armor covered over with silver badges. Gwen recognized some of the symbols: the horned bull of Crete splayed across a caldron; the ancient linked spiral found in virtually every Bronze Age site in Europe and which Yanulf said represented order grown from primeval chaos; a dragon. There were others which she thought might be fabulous creatures—but after what she’d seen in the ship’s data banks, she couldn’t be sure.

  Other clan chiefs were arrayed around Drumold, all dressed in their finery. Some of the bright-colored plaids might have come from the ancient Celtic tombs found in Dalmatia on Earth. The splendor of the chiefs contrasted strongly with the drab clothing of their warriors and the even drabber robes of the various priests.

  Gwen could not keep track of all these. There were too many gods, and each had an order of priests. Some, like Yanulf, were full-time and consecrated; many of the minor gods, though, were served by men and women who had other tasks—artisans, landholders, ladies of households.

  They all assisted at this ceremony. Reverently they opened a tomblike chamber cut into the granite cliff that towered above the alpine meadow; reverently they removed a stone box and opened it with great ceremony. Balquhain, Drumold’s oldest son, took a battle-axe from the box.

  The axe was double-headed and made of flint chipped to resemble bronze. Gwen felt tingles at her spine. This double-axe might have come from Earth four thousand years ago!

  Drumold took the axe from his son and displayed it aloft. Then he went to a log altar erected in the center of the village green. A ram was tethered there. Drumold felled it with a single stroke of the axe.

  He dipped the axe into the flowing blood. Two priests came forward with stone bowls of blazing pitch and bound them above the axe blade. Drumold brandished the fiery axe and chanted. Everyone present took up the cry.

  Where had Gwen seen this before? Then she remembered. Scott’s poem, when Roderick Dhu had summoned Clan Alpine. Roderick had sent a fiery cross through the hills, but that was in a nominally Christian land. Here they sent a stone axe with two fires. The ritual Scott described must have been more ancient than he knew.

  A priest chanted curses to befall any clansman who failed to respond to the symbol, and a henchman took the axe and ran from the glen. The Garioch clans were summoned to war.

  * * *

  The rogue star was visible for an hour after dawn, and there was dark for several hours each night. Tran’s two suns drew closer together. Summer was gone.

  “We ready, Cap’n?” Mason asked.

  “No, but we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. These lads won’t stay around much longer.”

  Mason nodded. “Yeah, they don’t like drill much. But they’re not that bad. Cap’n, did those battles you keep talking about really happen?”

  “Most of them. I’ve mixed them up a little. Truthfully, I don’t recall any time when there was a combined force of longbows and pikes, but pike and musket was a pretty standard mix for a hundred years.” Rick grinned. “Besides, the stories cheer up the troops.”

  They could use cheering. Even with all of his tales of victory—by his account, he’d led half the successful armies of history—and the demonstrations of their magic weapons, most of his troops didn’t really believe they could beat an imperial legion on fair ground. The priests, and the rogue star to confirm the priests’ stories had scared enough of them into trying, but not many really believed they could win.

  Rick wasn’t sure himself.

  The glen was curiously still. All summer it had rung with the sounds of hammers. A dozen smiths had been brought—some at swordpoint—to forge iron heads for pikes. The new saplings of an entire forest had gone into pikeshafts.

  The hammers were still, and so were the shouts and curses of the drillmasters. Drill time was over. Now it was time to march.

  * * *

  Gwen was miserable. Her belly had swollen and she knew she was ugly. The midwives and even Yanulf himself had assured her that everything was normal, but they couldn’t convince her. She had too vivid an imagination, and knew too well all the things that could go wrong even in a modern hospital. She’d had friends back on Earth who’d been ecstatic about natural childbirth—but she doubted that any of them had meant to be quite this natural about it.

  Outside she could hear the sounds of the army assembling. They were about to march into the Empire, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She couldn’t even run. On Rick’s advice, Drumold had sealed the passes with armed parties of his clansmen. No one would leave Tamaerthon. Rick had made it plain that this especially meant Gwen Tremaine. He was certain that she knew more than she’d told him, and he was going to make sure she stayed with him.

  There was a lot she could tell him, but Les had warned her against it. There was nothing he could do anyway. What could anyone do? Her original plan had been to find a hiding place, somewhere she could blend in and wait—

  But she couldn’t do that alone, and when she was honest with herself, she was ashamed of wanting to. These people were human, they weren’t merely subjects of an anthropological study. And they faced starvation or worse. But she wished she had as much confidence in Rick as Tylara had. There was a scratching at her door. “Yes?” she called.

  Caradoc came in. “We are leaving, Lady.” He stood nervously at the door.

  “Have you no one else to say farewells to?” she asked.

  “No, Lady.”

  “I’ve
told you a dozen times, my name is Gwen—”

  “Aye.” He hesitated. “Gwen. A lovely name. Will you wish me well?”

  “Of course.” She wasn’t sure of what to say. This wasn’t the first indication she’d had that Caradoc was interested in her—more than interested. She wondered why. She certainly wasn’t pretty in her present condition, and as captain of one of the archery regiments, Caradoc could have his pick of a dozen girls.

  But he seemed fascinated by Gwen and spent as much time with her as he could. He treated her like a goddess, and that was flattering—and he was a very attractive man.

  She wanted to hate men. All of them. But she was lonely, and the need to have someone of her own was a physical ache. “Come back, Caradoc,” she said. “Come back to me.”

  “I will.” He hesitated, then came closer to her. “I will.”

  She took two steps forward into his open arms. She let him hold her, but she felt her distended belly pressing against him and she was afraid, afraid to care for anyone again, and she hated herself for wanting to.

  PART SIX

  WAR LEADER

  1

  Most of the outbuildings and slave quarters had been burned, but the villa still stood. Rick was surprised that it remained. Despite everything he could do, it was difficult to convince the camp followers that their purpose was to loot, not pillage and rapine. He had trouble enough keeping the army itself from breaking ranks and joining in, and only constant threats to abandon them thirty miles inside the imperial boundary stones kept them in line.

  A hundred candles burned inside the villa, and most of his officer corps were getting drunk in the main hall. For that matter, there was plenty of wine in the smaller room where Rick assembled the senior commanders.