by David Drake
“Who’s next, Abdullah?” She switched to Arabic; hers was far better than Fatima’s Sponglish, and the tongue was little known this far west outside enclaves of Colonial merchants.
“A lord of the Brigade, saaidya,” he said. “And the merchant Reggiri of Wager Bay.”
“Ah,” Suzette said, frowning. “The Brigadero, my Abdullah; does he give his name?”
“No, lady. He is of middle years, with more gray than black in his beard, and wears a bandana, thus.” The Druze covered his lower face. “He seeks to show humility but walks like a man of power; also a man who rides much. The guards hold him in an outer room.”
“I’ll bet they do,” Suzette murmured.
Reggiri has the information we need, she thought. He’d been most generous with information before the invasion of the Southern Territories, information he’d gotten through his trading contacts. Crucial information about Squadron movements. Of course, she thought coldly, he was paid in full, one way or another, after that little supper-party of his I attended. Doubtless he’d like another installment.
Decision crystallized. “Bring the Brigadero. Send refreshment and entertainment to Messer Reggiri and tell him . . . ah, tell him my chaplain and I are Entering my sins at the Terminal.” He would laugh at that. Let him. He would be far from the first man she’d had the final and most satisfying laugh on.
The Brigadero entered between three of the 5th Descott troopers assigned as her personal bodyguards. He was a stocky man, not tall for one of the barbarians, and wrapped in a long cloak. Together with the bandana and broad-brimmed leather hat, it was almost comically sinister. Conspicuous, but effective concealment for all that.
“Thank you, Corporal Saynchez,” she said. “You searched him for weapons, of course.”
“Yis, m’lady,” the noncom said in thick County brogue. “Says ye’ll know him an’ wouldna thank ussn fer barin’ his face.”
“You can leave, now. Wait outside.”
“No, m’lady,” the man said. He stood three paces to the rear of the stranger, with drawn pistol trained. The other two rested their bayoneted rifles about a handspan from his kidneys.
A dozen generations of East Residence patricians freighted her words with ice:
“Did you hear me, corporal?”
“Yis, m’lady.”
“Then wait out in the hall.”
“No, m’lady. Might be ’n daggerman, er sommat loik that. Messer Raj, he said t’ see ye safe.”
The stolid yeoman face under the round helmet didn’t alter an iota in the searchlight of her glare. Suzette sighed inwardly; she was part of the 5th’s mythology now, the Messer’s beautiful lady who went everywhere with him, bound up troopers’ wounds . . . flattering as hell and extremely confining. This bunch would obey any order except one that put her in danger.
“Very well, corporal . . . Billi Saynchez, isn’t it? Of Moggersford, transferred from the 7th Descott Rangers last year?” She smiled, and the young trooper swallowed as if his collar was too tight as he nodded. “Now, if you would stand off to one side, in the corner there? And you, messer, whoever you are, pull up that stool.”
She rang the handbell again; her servants came and placed kave, biscuits and brandy. Fatima looked up at her for a moment with shining eyes; she’d told her patroness once that the cruelest thing about harem life was that nothing ever happened.
Softly, she began to sing to the sitar, a murmur of noise that would drown out the conversation to anyone more than a few paces away. It was a reiver’s ballad from the debatable lands below the Oxhead mountains, the long border between the sea and the Drangosh where Borderer and Bedouin fought a duel of raid and counter-raid nearly as old as man on Bellevue. Suzette had heard a version sung in south-country Sponglish with the names and identities reversed. The Colonial’s started:
O woe is me for the merry life
I led beyond the Bar
And trebble woe for my winsome wife
That weeps at Shalimar.
“The girl speaks no Namerique,” she said in that language. “And I don’t speak to men with masked faces.”
“Lady Whitehall,” the man said. He lowered the bandana; the hat would hide him from view from the rear. “A pleasure to see you once again.”
“And the same for me, Colonel Boyce,” she said softly. The square-cut beard was grayer than she remembered, but the little blue eyes were still cool and shrewd.
“No names . . . and the circumstances are less fortunate than our last meeting.” Boyce had been rather more than a friendly neutral as commander of the Brigade forces on Stern Isle when Raj passed through to the Southern Territories.
“I’ve been relieved of command, as of last week. Colonel Courtet is now in charge of Stern Isle, or at least of Wager Bay, since that’s all the idiot has been able to keep.”
“Would you have been able to hold more, against my husband?”
“No, I would have surrendered on demand,” Boyce said. “Which is why the local command council deposed me, the fools. The Stern Isle garrison was here to keep the natives down and guard against Squadron pirates. With the Southern Territories in Civil Government hands, we’re indefensible against a determined attack. Outer Dark, we’re an island with no naval protection!”
They have taken away my long jezail,
My shield and saber fine,
I am sold for a slave to the Central Bail
For lifting of the kine.
“Do have some kave,” Suzette said, pouring for them both. “That’s very intelligent of you, I’m sure,” she went on. “I expect you’ll be taking the amnesty, then?”
“Only if nothing better offers,” he said. “Two sugar, thank you. The terms of the amnesty specify that those who surrender don’t have to take active part in operations against the Brigade.”
“I take it you also object to the provision for the surrender of two-thirds of landed property?” she murmured, taking a brandy snifter in her other hand.
“By the Spirit of Man of . . . the Spirit, I do, Messa! So will my sons, some day; they’ll find that real estate wears better than patriotism.”
“Let me see if I understand you, Messer Boyce,” Suzette said. “Your main properties lie on the mainland, don’t they?” He nodded. “If the Brigade wins this war, you stand to recover the mainland properties at least—even if you take the amnesty, and even if we retain this island. On the other hand, if you aid us openly, those lands will be forfeit to the General. Unless we win. You’re telling me you expect us to win? And want to be on the winning side, of course.”
“Of course.” Boyce sat silent for a moment, and the throaty Arabic music rang louder.
The steer may low within the byre
The serf may tend his grain,
For there’ll be neither loot nor fire
Till I escape again.
“Messa,” he went on slowly, “I know you call my people barbarians. The Squadron are—were, rather. The Guards are, since they haven’t had our contact with the Midworld Sea; the Stalwarts most assuredly are. We of the Brigade have ruled the Western Territories for a long, long time, though. Give us credit for learning something. Give me credit, at least.
“Yes,” he continued, “I think your Messer Raj—” he used the troops’ nickname “—may win this war. May. It seems unlikely from the numbers, but I’ve visited the Civil Government. I know its potential strength when there’s a strong Governor with an able commander. That’s happened now, and we, well, I wouldn’t trust General Forker to lead a sailor into a whorehouse, to be blunt. Most of the possible replacements are worse, we’ve managed to turn Carson Barracks into a stew of intrigue as bad as East Residence, only with less sense of long-term interests. Most of all, I’ve seen Raj Whitehall. I’ve studied his campaigns in the east, and I had a ringside seat for the destruction of the Squadron.
“You may win. Even if you don’t, the war will be long and bloody. If we kick you out, we’ll still be so weakened the Stalwarts will r
oll over us like a rug. We’re having more and more trouble holding the border against them anyway.”
He leaned forward, the blunt swordsman’s fingers incongruous on the delicate china.
“And win or lose, the worst thing that could happen to us is a long war. If we win, the Stalwarts will pick our bones. If we lose, the Western Territories may be so weakened that you can’t hold them against the northern savages either. And in any case, if we lose after a long struggle we may just . . . vanish as a people, the way it’s happening to the Squadron. Ordinary nations can lose their nobles and soldiers and priests—” he snapped his fingers “—and they’ll produce a new set of ’em. in a few generations, even if they have to throw off a foreign yoke first. We of the Brigade, we haven’t had a peasant class of our own since we left the Base Area. If we lose our lands and positions, we lose everything.”
And God have mercy on the serf
When once my fetters fall
And Heaven defend the noble’s garth
When I am loosed from thrall.
Suzette looked at him with new respect, “So since you know that General Whitehall can’t be beaten easily, you think a swift Civil Government victory is the best thing for your people?”
“Exactly, my lady. You’ll need us. Need our fighting men, not least. In a generation or two, who knows?” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t describe myself as an idealist, Lady Whitehall. Let’s say I value civilization, if nothing else because it’s so much more comfortable than sitting in a drafty log hall eating bad food and listening to worse poetry. The more thoughtful members of the Brigade have always considered themselves guardians of the culture we took over. General Whitehall claims to be defending civilization by uniting it. The Stalwarts have taken a third of our mainland possessions since my grandfather’s time—they’re like ants. As I said, I’m interested in preserving my sons’ heritage.”
“And your lands,” Suzette said.
It’s woe to bend the stubborn back
In a coal-mine’s inky bourne
It’s woe to hear the leg-bar clack
And jingle when I turn!
“And my lands. All of them, not one-third. The information I have is worth it.”
“Why come to me?”
“Too many eyes on your husband, my lady. Too many patriotic fools ready to kill a middle-aged traitor; my excessively honorable sons, for starters. I don’t want to see them buried in a ditch and my grandchildren sold as slaves; on the other hand, I don’t want them to kill me, either. They’ll quiet down when it’s over.”
Suzette sat in silence, setting down the empty kave cup and sipping at her brandy. Beads of sweat ran down from the Brigade noble’s hairline, but his features were very steady.
But for the sorrow and the shame,
The brand on me and mine,
I’ll pay you back in the leaping flame
And loss of the butchered kine.
“Corporal!” she called. The Descotter gunmen came over at the trot, weapons poised.
“M’lady,” Saynchez said, bracing to attention.
“This man is to be put under arrest . . . there’s a vacant room with an iron door in the cellars here, isn’t there?”
“Yis, m’lady.”
For every sheep I spared before—
In charity set free—
If I may reach my hold once more
I’ll reive an honest three.
“Take him there. Let nobody see his face. He’s to have food, water and bedding, but nobody, and I mean nobody, is to enter his cell or have conversation with him until I or General Whitehall authorize it. You will see that he’s guarded by men who know how to keep their mouths shut. Do you understand?”
“Yis, m’lady.” Corporal Saynchez quivered with eagerness, like a war-dog just before the charge is sounded. “T’barb ’ull vanish offn t’earth.”
For every time I raised the lowe
That scarred the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
I’ll light the land with twain!
“Abdullah,” she called, when the soldiers had gone. Not quite at a run, and their hobnails grinding on the pavement.
“Saaidya.”
“Messer Whitehall should be back in—” she looked out the window; Miniluna was three-quarters, and a hand’s breadth above the horizon “—five hours. Please set a table for three in the lower alcove in time for him. Serve us yourself, please.” That room had a stair to the cellars. “And take this to Messer Reggiri.”
She pulled a ring from her finger; it was in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail, ruby-studded. “Tell him,” she went on, after a pause for thought, “that I will give him a better gift than this, and a sweeter. But not here, in Wager Bay; and that I trust his discretion absolutely.”
The dog runs better if you dangle the bone, she thought coolly. Her mind felt sharp as crystal, completely alive. The puzzle in her brain was not solved, but the pieces were there, and she could feel her consciousness turning and considering them. She had no genius for war; that was Raj’s domain, and no human living could match him. At plot and counter-plot and the ways of devious treachery, she was his third arm. She would give him what he needed to know, and he would wring victory out of it.
Spur hard your dog to Abazai,
Young lord of face so fair—
Lie close, lie close as Borderers lie,
Fat herds below Bonair!
“And Cabot?” she said, in answer to an unasked question. “I don’t know. There’s a great many things I don’t know.”
The one I’ll shoot at the twilight-tide,
At dawn I’ll drive the other;
The serf shall mourn for hoof and hide
The March-lord for his brother.
“But I do know what my Raj can do, if he has the tools he needs to work with. What he needs. And I’ll bring him what he needs, whether he knows it or not.”
’Tis war, red war, I’ll give you then,
War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,
And a thief of the Bani Kahil.
And if I fall to your hand afresh
I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pigs flesh
And hang me in the skin!
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Not as enthusiastic as they were in Port Murchison,” Raj said.
The capital of the Southern Territories had greeted his army with flowers and free wine; the men still talked about it with wistful exaggeration. Here the streets were mostly empty, save for a few knots of men standing on streetcorners watching the Civil Government’s army roll by. The ironshod wheels of guns on the cobbles and the thunder-belling of nervous dogs rattled oddly through the unpeopled streets, a night-time sound on a bright summer’s morning. Hobnailed boots slammed in earthquake unison as the infantry marched; he was keeping most of his cavalry bivouacked outside, in villages and manors in the rich coastal countryside. Less chance of disease breaking out, and better for the dogs.
“They’re not as sure we’re going to win as they were in Port Murchison,” Kaltin Gruder pointed out.
They all snapped off a salute as the banner of the 24th Valencia Foot went by, and the standard dipped in response. The Companion considered them with a professional eye.
“Their marching’s certainly sharp,” he said dryly; cavalry in general and Descotters in particular didn’t spend much time on it.
Raj shrugged. “It helps convince them they’re soldiers,” he said.
The foot-soldiers were mostly conscripted peons from the central provinces, several cuts below the average cavalry recruit socially. You just have to know how to treat them, he thought. Tell a man he’s worthless often enough, and he’d act like it. For initiative and quick response, the infantry were never going to match a mounted unit like the 5th or Kaltin’s 7th Descott Rangers. But they could be solid enough, if you handled them properly.
&
nbsp; His eyes went back to the fort. “Well, the good citizens certainly got some evidence for doubting our chances,” he pointed out.
The main north gate of Wager Bay gave them a good view downslope and to the east, where Fort Wager sat atop its headland. Every ten minutes or so a cannon would boom out, and a few seconds later a heavy roundshot would crash through a roof in the town below. Mostly they were falling in the tenement-and-workshop district of the town, narrow streets flanked by four-storey limestone apartment blocks, soap works, olive-oil plants and sulfur refineries. Columns of black smoke marked where fires had started.
“Kaltin, see to getting those out, would you? There’s a working aqueduct here, so it shouldn’t be so difficult. Coordinate with the infantry commanders if you need more manpower.”