Against the Tide of Years

by S. M. Stirling

  Training saved her, making muscle go limp as she fell to the blood-slick boards. She drew the shorter wazikashi and her tanto-knife, but there was no way to parry the clubbed musket that a short, thick, heavy-bodied Tartessian sailor was raising to beat out her brains. Then the Tartessian screamed and fell back, his face half sliced off by a boarding ax in the hands of a Chamberlain. The crewman was a Sun People tribesman, and the battle madness of his folk was on him, eyes showing white all around the iris, moving with a lethal, inhuman fury . . .

  Alston flipped herself back to her feet. “You!” she shouted, grabbing the bosun. The fighting had surged past her a little. “Get that!”

  She pointed to a small stubby carronade standing to port of the enemy ship’s wheel, a flintlock piece with the hammer cocked—ready, but the enemy had been surprised before they could use it. The bosun nodded, understanding her gesture if not her voice in the overwhelming noise. He and she and half a dozen others grabbed the little cannon and ran it forward.

  “Way, there!” they called.

  The Guard fighters parted, and there was a single moment to see the appalled faces of the Tartessians before she jerked the lanyard. It leaped backward, right up the quarterdeck and through the stern rail, but it had done its work . . . and it was loaded with grape.

  The enemy gave way, turning and running down into the waist of the ship. Marian paused an instant to recover her sword, aware in some distant corner of her mind that the sensation of her feet sliding greasily in a pool of blood and body fluids would come back to her later. And the stink, the stink . . .

  The Marines among the boarders fell out, reloaded their rifles, and volley-fired from fo’c’sle and quarterdeck, effective beyond their numbers in their crisp discipline and the ordered glitter of their bayonets. A Tartessian threw down his cutlass and fell to his knees, holding out his hand for quarter. There was an instant’s wavering, and then the enemy’s morale broke like a glass jar dropped on a granite paving stone.

  “Cease fire!” Marian called as the rest of the enemy joined the first. “Belay fighting, there—cease fire!”

  She stood, suddenly conscious of pain and of blood pouring in a wet sheet down her neck and her side. Her fingers went to one ear as a Tartessian in an officer’s gaudy tunic came and knelt, offering his sword. She took it, wincing at the same time.

  Well, there goes the earlobe, she thought, as the boarders began cheering, loud even after the memory of combat. One ran cat-nimble up the Stormwind’s rigging, slashed the crowned mountain of Tartessos down from the mast and ran up the Stars and Stripes.

  The cheering spread across the water, and the Republic’s flag was flying from Sun Dancer too. Alston felt her knees begin to buckle and clamped her fingers on the wound despite a sensation like a red-glowing steel spike thrust through the side of her head. Head wounds always made you bleed like a pig for some reason; the one in her side was deeper but not leaking as badly.

  If this keeps up, eventually I’m going to be held together entirely by scar tissue, she thought, then called aloud:

  “Ensign! Get the first aid going for the wounded and signal for the medics. Bosun, I want these prisoners disarmed and under hatches. You, there—”

  Despite fatigue, despite the grief of losses and the pain of wounds, she felt a surge of sheer joyous relief. They were going home.

  Home. Most beautiful word in the language.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  (February, Year 10 A.E.)

  March, Year 10 A.E.

  Thump.

  William Walker jackknifed backward as the padded foot slammed into his leather-armored midriff. Go-with, he thought, and threw himself backward into a tumbling roll that brought him upright again in time to block a follow-up spinning back-kick. Ohotolarix closed in, moving lightly on the straw mats of the practice arena, grinning through the bars of his boiled-leather helmet, gloved hands up.

  A roar went up from seats around the practice circle where the audience—officers and senior noncoms of his Royal Guard—cheered and yelled, shouting advice and comments. The Iraiina was a big man by the standards of this era, eight years younger than his overlord and a natural athlete. He bored in with a flurry of punches, back-fist strikes, then a sweeping takedown with his shin.

  Walker grinned himself as he leaped over it, nearly chest-high, and his own foot lashed out—the showy jumping side-kick, rarely practical. Walker spun, then hooked a foot in under the short ribs. They went into a grapple, falling and rolling, hands finding and breaking leverage-holds. At last Walker caught his guard-captain in a scissors lock and mimed slamming the heel of his palm into his face, the killing blow up under the nose. He rose and offered the Iraiina a hand, pulling him up.

  “ You’ve gotten pretty good at the Sword Hand,” he said.

  “Indeed, lord,” his Guard commander replied. He pulled off his helmet, shaking his thatch of sun-faded tow.

  “It seemed like magic to me, that first time I saw it—you remember, I’d just lost a wrestling match to Hlokorax Winnahtaur’s son? For that girl, what was her name . . . and you took him on and beat him in twenty seconds. And gave the girl back to me, and Hlokorax’s knife. It was then I knew you were the wehaxpothis I must follow.”

  Walker laughed and nodded, slapping the other man on the back. He did remember that, quite vividly; it had been on the Eagle’s first visit to Alba, before he knew the language, but he’d still sensed something significant about the happening.

  That’s when I stopped daydreaming and began planning, he thought. The moment when the Event became really real to him. That moment when Ohotolarix knelt and put his hands between mine.

  The two combatants walked out of the practice circle and headed down the corridor to the officers’ bathhouse. It was as well equipped as the palace, if slightly less sumptuous, tile and brass rather than marble and gold.

  Work ’em hard in the field, treat ’em like fighting cocks the rest of the time, Walker thought. That was the formula.

  He made sure a lot of the officers were men who owed everything to him, too; younger sons of Achaean nobles without prospects, a lot of them, and promotions from the ranks—luckily, service in a king’s guard was high-status work here. Some Albans he’d brought with him as well, and a few more who’d come along in the intervening years, ones who couldn’t stomach the peace the Islanders had imposed in Alba. The odd foreign mercenary too; he made a mental note to check if there were any Ringapi in the ranks.

  Slave girls took their sweat-sodden clothing, lathered them up, and turned on the hot water. After they scrubbed and soaked in the tub, they lay on massage tables while the attendants pummeled and thumped as they sipped fruit juice. It was hot and steamy here, the scent of steam and clean stone broken by the sharp medicinal odor of the massage oil.

  Ohotolarix laughed. “I’ve even gotten used to being washed by women,” he said.

  Walked nodded; the Iraiina were a pretty prudish bunch, in some respects. After a silence broken only by the slap of the girls’ hands on hard, taut muscle, he spoke: “Have you ever regretted following me here?”

  The Iraiian shrugged, muscle rippling in his thick shoulders. To his way of thinking, that hadn’t been a choice. He had put his hands between Walker’s, and an honorable warrior followed his chief wherever he led, even into the Cold Lands beyond the grave.

  By now he was used to the conditional-hypothetical way of thinking, though.

  “Not often, lord. I confess, sometimes the summers here are too hot, and the people always too sly and tricksy, and they use too much garlic, and sometimes I long to see beech trees and snow and heather again, and smell a north wind whistling off the fens. But back in the northlands I’d never have been more than a wirtowonax”—an ordinary freeman of the tribe. “Here I’m great chief held in high honor, many men know my name, bards sing my deeds, and I have women and land, cattle and horses and gold of my own, with the best of lords to follow. And strong sons to sacrifice at my grave; four, not counti
ng by-blows, and all of them alive!”

  “Thanks to Hong,” Walker noted.

  How many kids myself ? he thought. Twelve that I’ve acknowledged. And Iphigenia is preggers, as Alice puts it. Most of the Achaeans assumed that child would be his heir, but in fact he intended to pick whoever turned out best. A good way to keep the kids very, very attentive and eager to please the old man, too.

  Ohotolarix made a slight grimace at Hong’s name; he didn’t like the Lady of Pain.

  Well, thought Walker tolerantly, not many people do like Alice, except the ones she’s brainwashed. Her Little Shop of Experimental Horrors out in the country had produced some strange results. I do like her, but then, not many are as broadminded as I am.

  “What did you think of the Ringapi?” he said.

  “Much like my folk, lord—richer, though. They’ll fight well, in the old fashion. Their horses were good, of their kind, and they knew how to handle a chariot.”

  “I agree.” He was silent for a while. “I’m thinking of sending a mission to their country, to establish a stronghold. I might want you to command that.”

  “Lord!” Ohotolarix was alarmed. “I’d miss the fighting!”

  Walker shook his head. “No, just fight in a different area. And I need a man I can trust absolutely there.”

  That mollified the Iraiina; he thought the Achaeans were treacherous faithless dogs to a man, and by his standards he was right. “What’s their land like?” he said.

  “Great plains of grass, surrounded by mountains with thick forest. Timber and mines in the mountains, with the towns and villages on the flats, and great rivers running through it. Marshes with reeds and a lot of game, wildfowl, boar, aurochs. Colder winters than here, too cold for olives, but vines will grow there.”

  “It sounds a goodly land, lord.” A laugh. “Why didn’t we go there?”

  “I considered it,” Walker said. “But there are so many advantages to being by the sea.” A pause. “Disadvantages too, of course.”

  The Iraiina’s brows knotted; he wasn’t a stupid man by any means, and he’d learned a good deal since his days as a simple warrior-herdsman.

  “You don’t think we’ll have the victory in this war, lord?”

  “I think we will have the victory, but I’m not certain. The Ringapi could be useful either way.”

  They talked until the next few contestants came into the baths—one was carried through limp, off to the medic—and the conversation became more general. There were a few halfhearted attempts to pump him for the inside skinny on the coming war, but he frowned those into silence—the need-to-know principle was something he worked hard at getting into their heads.

  He did hint at promotions, which was true enough; he used the guard as a training ground for his officer cadre. When the men adjourned to their mess for a little further partying, Walker headed instead for the stables. He caroused with the guard officers fairly often; they were a pretty good set of guys, the hero worship didn’t hurt and there was no loss of face—in this country even gods were supposed to come down and kick up their heels now and then. But today he felt thoughtful.

  It was a bright winter’s afternoon outside, just brisk enough to make him glad of the cloak as he walked across the parade ground and through the sere gardens at the base of the hill that held his palace. A hound waiting for him at the door sprang up and gamboled about as he came out, jumping up and licking at his hands until he cuffed it affectionately aside.

  “Down, Rover, goddammit! Is there anything I miss about the twentieth?” he mused aloud—in English, which made it private. “Let’s see—movies, deep-dish pizza, good barbecue sauce, air conditioning, CDs . . . and that’s about it. Don’t think you’d have liked it there, Rover. Down! Good dog!”

  Thank God for Ohotolarix, who’s a good dog too, he thought. The lunatic warrior code of his folk was deep in the Iraiina’s bones; Walker understood the motivations thoroughly, without sharing them in the least. So long as Walker fulfilled the obligations of a chief, the Iraiina would be loyal unto death. It was good to have a few completely honest men around.

  Particularly if you’re . . . flexible and realistic yourself, Walker thought with a chuckle, swinging his arms. Important to remember that people are different; you can’t always judge other people’s motivations by your own.

  He felt loose and relaxed, alert and strong all at once from the hard exercise and the hot water and massage.

  On impulse he walked through to the stable complex. He kept some dried apricots on him and now fed them to a few of his favorite mounts. They came eagerly at the sound of his step, snorting, ears cocked forward.

  I understand your motivations, too, he thought. Horses and dogs were more honest than human beings; they didn’t pretend to love you because you fed them, they actually did.

  Rover had been sniffing around; now he raised his head, cocked his own hairy ears, whined, and then growled slightly. Walker heard the noise a little later, and then a stablehand was backing into the hallway. Althea came after him, in riding clothes, slashing at him with her riding crop; at nine she was only a couple of inches shorter than the slave, showing promise of her father’s height. The stable worker backed up, babbling excuses and sheltering his face with crossed arms that showed bleeding welts from the steel-cored leather; he knew better than to try and touch the girl, of course.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Walker said.

  Quite a temper on that chick, he thought, looking at his daughter objectively. In a couple of years, she’s going to be quite a sight, too. Long buttercup-colored hair fell down her back, shining from careful attention; her face was oval and regular, the eyes large and cornflower blue.

  “ This . . . this . . . this fool had Stamper taken over to the farriers to be shod today!” Althea said. “I wanted to ride him, and now I can’t!”

  The slave was from some tribe in the northern mountains and had most of his face covered with woad-blue tattoos; it didn’t hide the depth of his fear as he turned and threw himself at Walker’s feet.

  “Lord, it wasn’t my fault! Nobody said he’d be needed today, I swear by Rheasos the Rider!”

  “Get out,” Walker said, nudging him with a toe.

  When the man had scurried away, he reached out and gripped his daughter by the back of the neck in an iron grip that brought a squeak of surprise. Then he effortlessly plucked the quirt out of her grasp and gave her three strokes with it, across the seat of her tight riding pants, hard enough to make her jump.

  “Quiet!” he said, when she squalled.

  “Yes, Father,” she said, stepping back and rubbing her backside reflexively. Her blue eyes narrowed; not a hint of tears, he saw with approval. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because you lost your temper,” Walker said.

  “Father! He’s just a slave.”

  “Oh, it’s not the slave,” Walker said. “Plenty more where he came from. You’re the one who screwed up. What do I say about anger?”

  “Oh.” She frowned in thought. “I see, Father. Yes, that it’s a good servant but a poor master.”

  “Right on, infant. You can’t master anything unless you master yourself. If you ate sweets whenever you felt like it and didn’t bother to exercise, who would you be?”

  She giggled. “A big fat ugly sausage—Minister Selznick.”

  “And if you started hitting and killing every time you felt angry?”

  “I’d be Auntie Hong!”

  Walker shouted laughter, and the girl grinned. “That’s funny but not true, Althea. Your Aunt Hong is . . . ah, sort of strange.”

  “Dad,” Althea said, dropping into English for a moment, “she’s a sicko.”

  “Well, yes, actually . . . who did you get that word from?”

  “Bill—Mr. Cuddy.”

  “Ah, yes . . . and don’t try to distract me, young lady. If you didn’t control your anger, you’d be no better than all these wog lordlets. Think about it for a moment. It’s good to have peo
ple fear you, but they shouldn’t be afraid you’ll start whipping them the moment some little thing goes wrong, or killing them for telling you something you don’t want to hear. If you do, they’ll lie to you—more than they would otherwise—and always tell you what they think you do want to hear. That’s like being fucking blind, girl. And they may fear your temper, but they’ll lack respect for you.”

  He bent over and caught her eye, his voice going cold. “And you will never, never do anything that might make people lose respect for us. Understand? ”

  She flushed and looked down at her booted toes. “Okay, Dad,” she said in a small voice.

  “Okay, then. Now go get yourself another horse.”

  Walker ruffled the dog’s ears as his daughter trotted away. “Good kid,” he said, sighing with contentment.

  “Well, that’s that,” Marian Alston said. She looked down at the paper and the totals of her prize money and Swindapa’s, neatly summed up and deposited to their account at the Pacific Bank. “It seems a little excessive.”

  Jared Cofflin quirked the corner of his mouth. “So were the cargoes on those boats you captured excessive. The government’s share is enough to pay the repairs on the Chamberlain and a good chunk of the expedition’s costs as well. And where they found the gold dust and nuggets God alone knows.”

  “She isn’t talking, but I suspect Australia, then back via the Sunda Strait,” Marian said. “And they were ships, not boats. Well, a schooner and a brig, if you want to get technical.”

  “Now you’re sounding like Leaton,” Cofflin said.

  “No,” Swindapa said, looking up from her seat by the fire across the room. “Not quite like Ronald.”