Lord of Janissaries

by Jerry Pournelle

  He’d thought one drink would be enough to send him off, but he was on his third when he heard a knock at the door.

  “Go to hell.”

  “It is Lord Severianus, Lord Gengrich.”

  “He can go to hell too.”

  “My lord,” came a more educated voice. “I fear this is worth disturbing you. When you have heard me, then if you wish I will go to hell.”

  Gengrich groaned. “Let him in.”

  Marcus Julius Vinicianus strode in. He’d been a drunk ever since Flaminius exiled him ten years ago for some satirical verses on Caesar’s inability to make up his mind. The booze had left his nose, eyes, and cheeks permanently red and given him a potbelly, but he still walked and carried himself like a drill sergeant.

  “All right. What is it?”

  “Forgive me for breaking in on your grief. May Christ and all His Saints keep your son, and send you and Lady Helena—”

  “I can hear condolences some other time. What else?”

  “Some news from the north. I fear we have misjudged one of the men we thought we could most trust, and much evil may come of—”

  “Marcus, if you want your neck wrung like a chicken, just go on trying to be polite. Spit it out.”

  Uninvited, Vinicianus poured himself a cupful of whiskey and drank. “Captain Aidhos do Vis assisted by the starman Harvey Rand made an attempt to carry off the Lady Gwen Tremaine and bring her south to you.”

  “Christ! Why?”

  “He thought she would be of value, to force the Star Lord Les to help you speak to the skyfolk. Or perhaps she could help you do that herself. Either way, you would be able to trade madweed for star weapons and tools. For medicines. Aidhos no doubt expected that you would be grateful for this, and give him honor and wealth.”

  “Jesus Christ.” What have they got me into? “That’s what he tried. What happened?”

  “Four of his men were killed or captured, including the starman Rand.”

  He’s no loss.

  “Two confessed under torture and were executed. No one seems to know what happened to Rand. Lord Rick spoke harshly to Master Daettan in Council and accused him of bringing thieves to a royal wedding.”

  “Thieves?”

  “Yes. Except for the Inner Council of Drantos, all are being told that the men were only thieves. Nor had Captain Aidhos been arrested at the time the message left Edron.”

  That could have long since changed, of course. But if Aidhos was going to be let go to protect the captain’s cover story . . . “Marcus. Do you have any reliable informants in Vis?”

  “Need you ask?”

  “Not really.” Vinicianus had informants everywhere. Including in my household, I expect. But he’s useful. “Have them learn all they can about Aidhos’ friends and kin. I do not want to be at feud with half of Vis for taking Aidhos’ head, but if I can do so safely, I will have it.”

  “To what end?”

  “As a present for the Lord Rick.”

  “It will take more than that to make peace with him.”

  “What makes you think I want to make peace with Lord Rick?”

  “I predict that we will have no choice by spring.”

  “When I want predictions, I’ll hire a soothsayer.”

  “Very well. You know better than I, whether the ‘magic’ of the star weapons will last beyond this winter without being renewed.”

  There wasn’t anything to say to that. “Sure, I’d like to make peace. I’ll be his ally if he’ll have us. All of us, everybody who follows me. Anyway, we can’t wait until spring.”

  “We agree, then.”

  Damn nice of you. “So. You look into Vis and I’ll send somebody to talk to Schultz in Rustengo.”

  “An alliance with Rustengo will anger the Prophet Phrados.”

  “Tell Phrados to kiss my arse.”

  “Impractical. How does one compel the master of a hundred thousand soldiers?”

  “The man who says he has a hundred thousand soldiers.”

  “Yes. It is not quite the same thing. But he certainly has a large host, and we have no spies in it.”

  “So I’ll keep it a secret that I’m talking to Schultz. For God’s sake, leave me alone!”

  “As you wish.”

  “Stop.” The liquor and the exhaustion were hitting now; Gengrich felt as if his arms and eyelids were weighted with lead. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’d do without you, Marcus.”

  “Today you would go to bed with your boots on,” said Vinicianus, expertly heaving Gengrich’s legs onto the bed and starting to unlace the boots. A snore was the only reply. He pulled the boots off and piled furs over the sleeping Star Lord.

  “Sleep, my friend, and God give you peace if men cannot.”

  7

  Master of Foot Mortimer Schultz stood up in the sternsheets of the boat. The boat swung to port as the helmsman put the tiller over to avoid the submerged ruins of a wall. Schultz spread his legs to balance against the sudden motion. They glided into open water. Two crewmen furled the sail and hoisted the leeboard. A moment later they slid aground on a muddy bottom that had once been a hillside above a fishing village east of Rustengo.

  “Well done,” Schultz said. The helmsman grunted something that might have been “thanks.” The sailors of Rustengo were a close-mouthed lot at best, and the helmsman no doubt suspected the Master Schultz knew little of ships. He was right; before Schultz joined the Army to escape going to rabbinical school his only acquaintance with ships had been the Staten Island Ferry.

  Schultz’s four guards splashed ashore and took up positions where they could cover the hillside with their crossbows. Schultz followed them, then called back to the crew, “If we have not returned by darkness or if anyone attacks the boat, you must bear word to the house of Mahros.”

  “Master—”

  “I don’t doubt your courage. But if we meet danger today, it will come from more men than the three of you could fight, were each of you an Achilles.”

  “As you wish, Master Schultz.” For the helmsman, that was an oration. As Schultz led the guards up the hill the crew were already breaking out poles to push the boat back into water deep enough for safe anchorage.

  Not that he expected trouble, even if the Prophet Phrados was a gonef of the worst sort and his envoy no better. Four guards hand-picked from the Bronzesmith’s Cohort would make easy and silent assassination impossible. He can’t kill me without the City finding out. Is that enough? Hell, I’m engaged to the daughter of the Master of Bronzesmiths. That has to be enough.

  Not even Phrados would be mad enough to start a new war with the city Guilds.

  Up the hill, over the crest, and down the other side. The point man had out his brush-cutter, a big curved wooden stick like a boomerang with a cold-worked bronze edge riveted to the inside. It was getting a workout. This path had got pretty nearly overgrown during the summer, now that the tidal wave and the rising sea had swallowed the village below it. The vegetation was dying back with the coming of autumn, but enough fleecevine and hydras bane was left to occasionally give Schultz the feeling he was back in the Mekong Delta.

  The path dipped sharply fifty yards beyond the crest. Ha. Used to be level here. The whole hillside was sliding down into the sea. Quake or undermined by water? No matter. This is our last trip here.

  He slipped on a patch of mud and caught himself with the rifle butt. Once again Schultz thanked the Lord that Gengrich and Warner had managed to snag H&Ks for everybody when they led the mutiny. M-16s would never have stood up to this kind of punishment and skimpy maintenance. He patted the plastic butt for luck.

  The old path now wound down to the water’s edge and vanished. A new path branched off to the left, following the new shoreline to a sprawling building of logs and driftwood with a thatched roof. A crudely lettered sign over the door told the world that this was “Charon’s Rest.”

  A while back the river running down through this little valley was something you could
wade across on a summer day. Then the earthquakes and tidal wave dumped a hill across its mouth; the rising sea did the rest. The valley was flooded a good eight or nine klicks back into the hill. Between the end of the valley and the next good road to the north was a lot of rugged hills and more bandits than anything short of a century would care to tackle, although Gengrich was supposed to be getting on top of those bastards.

  Right now, though, anyone coming along the coast road had to pay the owner of Charon’s Rest for a ferry across the valley. If it was too late for the traveler to reach Rustengo before the gates closed, a traveler could also pay stiff prices for bad food, worse wine, and vermin-ridden beds. Before the rising sea washed Charon’s Rest away, its owner was going to be a rich man—if an earthquake didn’t dump the whole thing into the water.

  The sign’s rusty chains squealed in the rising wind as Schultz led his men in through the door. The owner’s wife greeted him.

  “Your friend has already arrived. He is in the back room.”

  Schultz handed her two Roman silvers and five Rustengo brasses. She bit one of the silvers, then nodded. “He is alone there. Another man came with him, to tend their horses.”

  That pretty much ruled out treachery. “What does he look like?”

  “He dresses like a merchant from just north of the Sunlands, but he does not look like one. More like a soldier. He also speaks with the tongue of an educated man of the north.”

  “Thanks.”

  A lot of people running around these days weren’t what they looked like—and that included Anna Schultz’s son Mortimer. Northerner. Could be. Wonder if he knows what’s happening up there?

  Schultz nodded to the guards. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Matthias, Highpriest of Vothan, watched the starman enter. He was no taller than most men of this world, but his strange green and brown tunic and trousers made him look otherwise. He also carried both a large and a small star weapon.

  Two Rustengan soldiers followed him into the room. One stood by the door, holding his crossbow so that it was ready to shoot without appearing so to an inexperienced eye. That pleased Matthias. It suggested that the starman was accepting him as the merchant he said he was.

  Best not to accept things too calmly, however. “I asked that we meet alone, Master Schultz.”

  “We will, once my men have searched this room for spies. Would you trust the owner to hold his tongue? Either gold or less gentle means might give our secrets to God knows who.”

  So Schultz believed there was only one god. That meant he was a Christian like the other starmen. A pity. It would have been agreeable to learn that he lived apart even from Lord Gengrich because he worshipped other gods, even if they were not the true ones. Something might have been made of such a quarrel.

  The Rustengans knew their business. After the search one pronounced the room “clean” and went outside to stand by the door. The other vanished, to return shortly with sausages, cheese, and wine, then join his comrade. Schultz closed the door and poured out the wine.

  “To prosperity for all honest traders.”

  Matthias doubted there was such a thing, but it was a toast the man he pretended to be could not have refused. He drank, then picked up a sausage and cut a piece of cheese with his knife.

  Schultz ate no sausages, only cheese, and mixed his wine with water from a strange flattened metal jug at his waist. Their talk wandered over many matters—whether there was any profit to be found in the rebuilding of Rustengo’s walls, how many guards a caravan needed to be safe from bandits, what were the best (or at least the safest) inns for outland merchants, and much else.

  Matthias felt that it fouled his tongue to speak of such matters. He also knew that he had done as much in the service of Vothan, and would do worse in the service of Issardos, High Chancellor of the Five Kingdoms. “How tender a conscience can we allow ourselves, when we fight men who seem to have no conscience at all?” was the Chancellor’s question, and many nights of fasting and meditating at Vothan’s shrine had given Matthias no clear answer.

  At last matters turned to rebuilding certain temples of Yatar fallen or damaged in the earthquake. “Some say it is wasted effort, with the Time so close and other needs so pressing,” said Schultz. “Others say that it is never a waste, to honor the gods. Even some of the Christians say that they wish to help honor the Father of Christ, although what they would say if their own churches had not largely escaped I do not know.”

  “Then the vision of Archbishop—?”

  “Polycarp.”

  “That vision, it has won converts in Rustengo?”

  “Does this surprise you?”

  “No, since I know that the followers of Christ and the followers of Yatar have long been at peace with each other in Rustengo. Yet I warn you, this will not please the Prophet Phrados.”

  For a moment Matthias was in fear that the Star Lord would draw his weapon. It would be godless treachery, but if the Star Lords thought themselves so close to the gods that they need not fear them . . . ?

  The moment passed, but the unfamiliar and unwelcome taste of fear did not leave Matthias’ mouth. He drank more wine, glad to find his hand steady.

  “I thank you for your warning,” said Schultz. “It is not unknown, that the Prophet Phrados seeks to defend the honor of the gods by smiting those who believe in Polycarp’s visions. I return the favor by giving my own warning. Rustengo has ruled itself in such matters even when it was under the Empire of Rome. It will do no less now. Anyone who seeks to dictate the City’s religions had best bring an army with him.”

  “The Prophet has just that.”

  “He is said to have just that, my friend. Surely you have heard of enough ghost armies to believe only what you see.”

  “I have. The Prophet marches with a host the like of which no living man has seen. With my own eyes I have seen ten thousand men swearing themselves into his service. I have counted thrice that many already sworn. More come each day.”

  “Rustengo has ships, men, and walls enough to defend herself against any who seek to break the Great Peace.”

  “Ships and men, perhaps, but walls?”

  “What has fallen can be raised again.”

  Matthias shrugged. “May Yatar watch over Rustengo, and Vothan strengthen the arms of its defenders.”

  The wine was surprisingly good. Matthias drained the last and set down his cup. “It is said that the men of Lord Gengrich also follow the new way of Polycarp’s vision. Or so I was told in the camps of Phrados.”

  Schultz’s expression told nothing. “I have no great quarrel with the Lord Gengrich, but I cannot say that I am much in his confidence either. The Star Lords themselves are worshippers of Christ, but like all wise men they honor His Father and the Warlord as well. I do not know what gods Gengrich’s men worship. I am told that all who will obey his orders are welcome in his service.”

  “Even outlaws and bandits?”

  “Outlaws, very likely. Bandits, I much doubt it. I know that he has fought bandits side by side with the soldiers of half the city-states and a good many of the mercenary bands. Most speak well of him, although they also say he is a hard man in bargaining for pay and a dangerous man to cheat.”

  “He will hire himself to anyone?”

  “I have not heard that he refused any offer, unless he was already in another’s service or the pay was too low.”

  Those were the words from Schultz’s lips. What Matthias heard in his mind was, “Why don’t you come right out and say what would be Phrados’ price for Lord Gengrich’s men?”

  Once again Matthias reminded himself that a merchant would not show a nobleman’s anger. “It may be to Lord Gengrich’s—profit, to have made no alliance with those whom the Prophet calls enemies.”

  “I am sure that the Lord Gengrich will hear that message. As to what he may do afterward . . .” The shrug was not only a dismissal of the matter, it was very nearly a dismissal of Matthias.

&n
bsp; Matthias did not rise in anger, but swore that the next time he spoke to Master Schultz the Star Lord would learn to respect one who served Vothan and was also kin to the Crown of Ta-Lataos! Aloud, he said only, “Shall we order more wine?” and nearly sighed with relief when Schultz shook his head.

  * * *

  Schultz huddled amidships, back against the straining mast, trying to stay under his oilcloth cloak. Every so often the boat stuck her nose in deep enough to throw spray, and his boots were already wet from what was sloshing around in the bottom. They’d have to start bailing pretty soon, and it was getting dark. . . .

  They were sailing across what used to be swamp. Now it was open water with a few treetops. Fewer of those every day.

  The helmsman shouted. Schultz saw a wavering glow in the twilight about a klick off to starboard. That must be the new lighthouse, and it was a lot brighter than the last time he’d seen it. They must have got the reflectors installed. Last time he’d passed, the light from the fish-oil lamps was so dim that a good-sized ship would damned near run aground before anybody aboard saw the light.

  The helmsman shouted again and the boat heeled as she came about. Schultz threw one arm around the mast and held on. He’d a lot rather have an arm around Diana, but he’d have that in another hour, now that they were on course for the harbor.

  Schultz smiled as he thought of Diana waiting in her white robe with her blond hair unbound and flowing down over her shoulders. She’d lead him to the bath, of course. Funny how the Rustengans weren’t hung up on the virginity of their daughters. Guess it came from having been under the Romans without ever really turning Christian. Roman baths and willing girls made up for a lot of things, like having to deal with that wacko ambassador from the Prophet who called himself a trader.

  What was that momser’s game, anyway? With Rustengo, it was pretty clear. If the city did anything against the Prophet Phrados, they’d be in trouble—as much trouble as the Prophet’s army could make for them.