Lord of Janissaries

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Sounds all right. Who’s in charge?”

  Mason jerked his head in Morrone’s direction. Murphy frowned, raised his eyebrows, and lowered his voice. “Does he know what he’s doing?”

  “Close enough. He’s got more guts and charm than brains, but he’s not one of the real hard-core ironhats.”

  “Jesus, I hope not. Most of them were out for a short beer when God passed out the brains.”

  “Sure. Which is how you got your job.”

  Murphy grinned.

  “Anyway. Bring in your men, and I’ll pick my escort and go bring the captain up to speed.”

  Murphy grinned. “Escort? Come on, Art. You getting nervous in the service? I thought everybody knew by now that tackling an armed starman just gave Graves Registration some business.”

  “Some people are slow learners, and I’m pretty sure our killer isn’t alone. Besides, I’m a great noble now, Lord Mason, Marshal of the Household to the Captain General of the Realm, Major of Guards, Scrubber of the Official Chamberpot of Chelm, and Yatar knows what else. I have to swank around. Hell, Ben, you should know that sort of stuff better than I do.”

  “Maybe a little. Oh well, it sure beats being stuck on a hill in Africa, with Cubans all around and the only way out a friggin’ flying saucer.”

  “Damned straight.”

  2

  Rick’s party entered the long corridor leading to the Council chamber. There was a low whistle, then another group came down the stairs to his left. Rick’s guards advanced slightly. The leading guards of the other group fell in behind. This group moved down the corridor.

  Rick waited. After a moment Tylara came in. Silently she fell in beside him. When she was exactly even with him, they followed the forward guards, while the others merged behind them.

  “You are well, my husband?” Tylara said formally.

  “I am well. And you?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  Are you well? Very well. What in God’s name has happened to us? Rick wondered. How long has it been? Weeks. Months.

  He could remember when the sight of her was enough to make his heart leap. God, she’s beautiful, she’s still beautiful, and I love her still, but we meet in corridors with guards and witnesses, we speak in formalities, we haven’t been alone in weeks.

  When? How did it happen?

  After the last campaign. After Les came. After Caradoc was killed in a street riot. Could that be it? Was she in love with Caradoc? Her bodyguard, her captain, her rescuer? She knew him long before she knew me.

  No! She had plenty of opportunities with Caradoc, before we met, after we met. She never showed that kind of interest in him. Or anyone else. We were in love, and now we are not in love, and I don’t understand it.

  “I understand the Wanax will not join us tonight,” Tylara said.

  “Eh? But the summons to Council—”

  “Was withdrawn,” Tylara said. “We meet with the Eqeta of the Riverland.” She smiled at his puzzled look. “It is an ancient convention. No decisions can be taken if the Wanax is not present. Thus Wanax Ganton chooses to be represented by the Eqeta of the Riverland. Who is of course Ganton.”

  “Oh. Something of that sort was done on Earth. Perhaps it’s as well. I don’t know what to recommend anyway.”

  “Doubtless you will think of something,” Tylara said.

  And she says that as if she believes it. As if she still believes in me. But she won’t sleep with me, won’t even see me alone. Now we go in there, and Gwen will be there.

  Gwen. Could that be it? Tylara always was afraid of Gwen Tremaine. Could she know about that one time—nonsense. No way. It happened long before—before she started acting funny. And no one knows, except Gwen, and she sure won’t tell.

  Jamiy, Rick’s orderly and chief of guards, rapped on the Council room door. In response to the challenge from inside he answered, “The Lord Rick, Eqeta of Chelm, Captain General of the Host of Drantos, Lord of Star Lords.”

  Rick glanced at Tylara. She winked.

  So she still has a sense of humor. And knows I do. So what in God’s Name is wrong?

  * * *

  Gwen Tremaine finished her presentation and waited while the young man at the head of the long table stared at the map on the whitewashed wall. Finally he spoke.

  “Then is there no hope for us, or at least no more than there was before the starmen came? Have they in fact shed so much blood only to put us in greater peril of skyfire than we were before?”

  Rick frowned. Who’d been talking to the king? Ganton had every damn reason in the world to be grateful to Rick Galloway and his troops, and why was he taking that tone? Rick was about to speak when Tylara laid her hand lightly on his arm. “She speaks. Let her,” Tylara whispered.

  Feminism? Not hardly. Or does she hope Gwen will stumble? Damn. I used to understand Tylara. Not now.

  The others waited expectantly as Gwen paused to marshal her thoughts.

  She had painted a grim picture of the future. The dwarf sun that everyone on Tran called the Demon Star was approaching. At perigee it would add more than ten percent to the planet’s illuminance. That didn’t sound like much, but it was enough. Ice caps would melt. Weather and climate would change, and all for the worse.

  And now it was happening. The seas were rising, and the southern zones of this hemisphere were hot. Drought there. Rain here. Floods everywhere. Tribes, whole nations and populations fled northward. . . .

  Rick saw that Tylara wasn’t the only one staring at Gwen Tremaine. She’d told them the worst. Now the entire Inner Council waited for her to give them some shred of hope.

  Yanulf, Highpriest of Yatar and Chancellor of Drantos, sat impassively. Nothing Gwen had said would surprise him. The Yatar hierarchy had preserved the legends of previous visits of the rogue star. They knew what the Time would bring, and wanted only to prepare for it. So long as the ice caves were filled with grain and other food, Yanulf would be happy.

  Sergeant Major Elliot. Career soldier, U.S. Army, on loan to the CIA for an African adventure. Now a long way from home. Trustworthy, Rick thought. So long as I don’t screw up. But his loyalty’s to the outfit, not to any individual. And if push came to shove, as many of the mercs would take his orders as they would mine.

  Warrant Officer Larry Warner. They called him Professor when he was a private. Now he was Chancellor of the University, and a good job he was doing. Gwen as Rector, Warner as Chancellor, and they were teaching the locals everything from the calculus to how to make paper and soap. With luck, knowledge would be spread so wide this time that nothing the damn Demon Star could do would stop it.

  Lucius, in theory no more than Marselius Caesar’s freedman. Lucius had been tutor to Marselius’ son Publius, and every Roman senator had heard the old scholar referred to as Caesar’s oldest friend. A delegation of senators had been sent as the formal representatives of Rome. Perhaps some of them believed Caesar read their dispatches with as much attention as he gave Lucius. Perhaps.

  And the others. All waiting, like the young king, for Gwen to say what good would come from this alliance with the starmen.

  Gwen swallowed and brushed back into place a few blond curls that had escaped from her wimple. In her Gown of Office she looked remarkably like an old-fashioned nun—a misleading impression if there ever was one—

  And that was no safe thought, not with Tylara sitting right beside him!

  “Your—my Lord Count,” Gwen began. “I know you speak in anger and grief for those of your subjects you will not be able to save from the Time. Yet in truth much has already been done that will make this Time different from all those before.”

  Sure, Rick thought. Different. Provided that Les was reading Agzaral right, and Agzaral knew what he was doing, and the crazy-quilt union of races that governed this end of the galaxy didn’t decide to take matters into its own hands. And a lot of other ifs. We can’t talk about any of that here.

  “Tell of this,” Yanulf said.r />
  “Blunt bastard,” Rick whispered. Tylara touched his hand with dagger-sharp nails.

  “The servants of Yatar have ever foretold of the Time,” Yanulf said. “Often have we been ignored. It is well that as this Time approaches all believe us. But how else will the Time be different from the past? What has been done?”

  “Much for this Realm,” Gwen said. “The starmen’s weapons and knowledge of war have saved this Realm. Not once only. The Lord Rick has cast down in succession Sarakos the Usurper, Flaminius Caesar the Dotard, and the Westmen. Drantos itself survives because of them.”

  Yeah, Rick thought, but what have we done for them lately?

  “And there is more. There is knowledge,” Gwen said. “They have taught the servants of Yatar the skills to heal the sick and wounded.”

  Yanulf nodded sagely. He hadn’t known of the small devils that lived in septic conditions, which could be killed by boiling and ritual cleanliness. The knowledge made the priest healers enormously more effective.

  At a cost, Rick thought. Yatar heals, Vothan the Chooser of the Slain takes fewer guests to his hall. The Vothan cult has no great reason to love us—

  “And with the balloon they have made accurate maps where there were none before, maps that even the Romans envy. Iron plows turn the earth deeper, increasing yields, so that there is more to store in the Caves of the Preserver. There is paper, for records, so that the knowledge of the Time will be preserved, and the Wanax can know all that is known about his Realm. With the new healing knowledge, fewer wounds fester and fewer mothers die in childbirth, so that the number of His Majesty’s subjects increases.

  “My lord, the starmen are not gods. They do not claim the powers of gods. Yet they have much power, and all that they have has been freely used in the service of the Wanax and the Realm of Drantos. Much has been done. There will be more.”

  Someone shouted in the courtyard below. Ganton glanced at the window, then back at Rick.

  “You speak well,” Ganton said. “I am certain that the Wanax knows of his indebtedness to the Star Lords. Yet he also has obligations to his barons. And to all his subjects.”

  Rick looked to Tylara and got an answering nod. So that’s it. The bheromen always did resent us. Ganton’s father lost his throne when the barons deserted him. Ganton won’t make that mistake. Meaning that we’d better be more careful than I thought.

  “I know this,” Gwen was saying. “I have told you what I know. Now the Captain General should speak.”

  Damn Gwen, Rick thought. She could have given me a little warning.

  As he took the pointer from Gwen, he caught a whiff of her perfume. It was the same herbal essence she’d been wearing the day—no time to think of that. He glanced nervously at Tylara.

  Begin with what they know. No matter that Gwen just told them. Tell them again. If enough of us tell them often enough, maybe they’ll believe it. Maybe I’ll believe it.

  Tran was a planet in a triple-star system, consisting of the True Sun, the more distant Firestealer, and the Demon Star. Every six hundred Terran years—the Tran year was 1.7 of those—the Demon Star’s eccentric orbit carried it close enough to Tran to affect the climate. For the two years of closest approach there would be few crops harvested.

  But. As the Demon Star approached, the warmer weather did some good. In the years before closest approach crops were better, growing seasons longer. There was another effect. The increased sunlight made the plant the locals called madweed grow very well indeed—and madweed was much in demand as a recreational drug in interstellar trade. “Tran Natural” commanded an excellent price, and the Shalnuksi merchant adventurers had a monopoly on it, so long as they could get kidnapped human soldiers to collect it for them.

  And they’ve been doing that for three thousand years I know of, and Gwen says more like five. The Shalnuksis had brought in Achaean Bronze Age warriors. Romans from the time of Septimius Serverus, and again from the Byzantine period. Franks. Celts. Scythians. Cultures mixed together, and none allowed to develop, because as soon as Tran threatened to become civilized the Shalnuksis bombed them back into a new Dark Age.

  Not this time. Damn all, not this time! They can destroy technology, but we’ll spread something more powerful than technology. We’ll teach the scientific method. They can’t bomb that out! Only we have to live through the next few years.

  That wouldn’t be easy. If anything, it was going to be worse than Gwen’s lecture indicated—and that was worse than any of them except Yanulf had expected.

  The rising seas would swallow most of the coastal cities, adding their people to the hordes of refugees already heading north. Storms and tsunamis like the one that had already mangled Rustengo’s waterfront would scour the coastal areas. Tylara’s homeland of Tamaerthon would become a rocky island. Rome would be reduced to the highlands, which could only support a fraction of its people. The Romans were well organized, but no organization could make a single ton of grain feed a thousand people for two years.

  What Tran needed was the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. How fast did fish grow here? Weather changes would stir the water. Nutrients should upwell from the sea bottom. Ocean plant life would bloom. How long before the fish population rose significantly, and could anyone take advantage of that? Another task for the University.

  “I see two choices,” Rick began. “Both involve the Five Kingdoms. Drantos is inland. There will be flooding, but not so bad as in the coastal regions. Still, we will have famine, and there will be refugees from the south. Hordes of them, some well armed and desperate. We will need armies to hold them out lest they eat everything we have.

  “Famine and border war will weaken our army. The High Rexja of the Five Kingdoms has already invaded Drantos and nearly unseated our Wanax Ganton. Had his son Sarakos been more concerned with rule than destruction, Drantos might today be one of the Six Kingdoms.”

  Ganton frowned. “I think I would not care to remind the Wanax Ganton of too many painful matters.”

  Rick shrugged. “Yet these things must be said. The High Rexja has not given up his claim to Drantos. In the early years of the Time his lands will have better crops as ours have worse. We stand as his defense against the refugees—”

  “Give them safe passage to the north,” Tylara said.

  “If we could. But they would have to be fed and transported at a time when we will have little food for our own men and horses. I do not think it possible.” Rick spread his hands. “Eventually Toris or his ministers will realize that Drantos is his for the taking, and come south with an army.”

  “Star weapons,” Ganton said.

  “Star weapons,” Rick agreed. “But never enough. I have fewer than a score of starmen. We will never have more. I have little enough ammunition for our weapons. We can get more of that, but to do so we must continue to grow and harvest the madweed. That takes great effort—”

  “More than you know,” Yanulf said. “Slaves and convicts to grow the crops. Cavalry to guard the slaves so they do not run away.”

  As I would, if I could. Growing and harvesting that stuff is the worst work in the world.

  “Soldiers to watch the guards, men and wagons to bring in the food for slaves and their guards and soldiers. And those who grow the food and bring it must themselves be fed.”

  He’s learned well. “Precisely,” Rick said. “But we have no choice regarding madweed. If the—great Star Lords—do not get the madweed they want, not only will they cease to bring us tools and ammunition, they may well throw skyfire in their anger.”

  “So we are told,” Yanulf said. “A tale I believe. We have temple records, and everyone has heard how dangerous it is to deal with the demon gods who come with the Demon Star.”

  “You say, then, that they will grow stronger as Drantos grows weaker,” Ganton said.

  “Yes.”

  “And two choices.”

  “Yes. Either we invade the Five Kingdoms now, or we make peace with them now.”
<
br />   “It is not time to talk of war,” Yanulf said. “The Time approaches. We must have peace.”

  “Yet an alliance of Rome and Drantos might take the Five,” Ganton said. “If Drantos will grow weaker during the Time, will not Rome be harmed more? With lowland fields flooded—will not many Romans need shelter, here and wherever we can find food for them?”

  “It would be well to have that choice,” Lucius said. “My Lord Marshal, you have said there are two choices, but you have not said which you favor.”

  “Peace,” Rick said. “The gods themselves conspire to bring death and destruction. Should we add more?”

  “Well said.” Yanulf nodded approval. “Well said.”

  And Lord knows if we do march into the Five we’ll leave enough devastation in our wake. Tran armies live off the land, and discipline means they only rape the women.

  The north is the right place to be at the height of the Time. And it’s better to trade than fight. Trade iron, warhorses, maybe eventually gunpowder, for food. Teach the High Rexja how to set up his own University and send a cadre of people to help. Try to turn the High Rexja into an ally, instead of an enemy to be fended off or destroyed. . . .

  “Can we make peace?” Ganton demanded.

  “We can send a reliable commission to try.”

  “Nothing else?” said the Wanax/Count.

  “At this time, no,” Rick replied. “We do not wish to appear too eager. That would make the High Rexja suspect that we were weak or fearful.”

  “Since we are neither, why should the Wanax not wish to put forward his own claim to the High Throne?” said Ganton. “His grandfather’s sister was wife to Toris, and because of this Sarakos put forward his claim to the throne of Drantos. Why should not such a claim travel north as well as south?”