by David Drake
“Why me?” he said. “I thought you’d have some bureaucrat ready . . . or one of our local arse-lickers who’d buy his way into your favor the way he did with the Brigade. De Roors is good at that.”
Anarenz was a brave man. He still shivered slightly at Raj’s smile.
“You actually care about the welfare of the citizens,” the general said. “That makes you more predictable; men like de Roors don’t stay bought. I’m going to need stability here. I’ll be leaving plenty of the Administrative Service to oversee you, don’t worry. Messer Historiomo to begin with, but he’ll be taking over all occupied territory, and I’ve advised him to consult you.”
Raj turned to face the wounded man. “There’s a saying, Goodman—Messer Alcalle—Anarenz, back in the east. That the Governor’s Chair rests on four pillars of support: a standing army of soldiers, a sitting army of bureaucrats, a kneeling army of priests, and a creeping army of informers. It’s a settled way of doing things, and it functions . . . but here I need the active support of the people I’m liberating from the Brigade.”
He nodded to the huddle of Syndics below the podium. “After this, I don’t think the magnates of other cities will try to sit things out.”
Aloud, he went on: “Citizens of Lion City!”
A signal, and the soldiers ripped the rich clothing from the former oligarchs of the town, leaving a group of potbellied or scrawny older men edging away from the bright levelled menace of the bayonets, and a few others trying hard to look brave—a difficult task, naked and helpless. There were a hundred or so of them, all the adult males of the ruling families.
“Here are the men,” Raj went on, pointing, “who are the true authors of your misfortunes. Here are the men who refused to open the gates peacefully and exposed your city to storm and sack.”
An animal noise rose from the crowd. Oligarchs were not popular anywhere, and right now the commons of Lion City needed a target for their fear and fury, a target that wasn’t armed. De Roors turned and knelt toward the podium, bawling a plea for mercy that was lost in the gathering mob-snarl. A rock hit the back of his head and he slumped forward. The old Syndic who’d had his guard try to assassinate Anarenz spat at the mob, lashing out with his fists as work-hardened hands cuffed him into the thick of it. A knot of women closed around him, pried-up cobblestones flailing in two-handed grips. The others disappeared in a surge of bodies and stamping feet, dying and pulping and spreading as greasy stains on the plaza pavement.
“Spirit of Man,” Anarenz shouted, pushing forward. “Stop this, you butcher! Hang them if you want to, that’ll terrify the Syndics of the other cities.”
“No,” Raj replied.
His voice cut through the noise much better than the sailmaker’s did, and the mob were recoiling now—from themselves, as much as from what remained of the city’s former rulers.
“No, doing it this way is better. The magnates elsewhere will know I’ve a much more terrible weapon to use against them than my army.” He nodded to the crowd. “And they will know there’s no going back; if the Brigade wins, it’ll make an example of Lion City.”
Anarenz looked at him with an expression more suitable for a man who’d stumbled across a pack of carnosauroids devouring an infant.
“For the Spirit’s sake, is there anything you won’t do to win your bloody war?” he shouted. “Anything?”
Raj’s head turned like a cannon moving with a hand on its aiming-wheel. “No, Messer Alcalle,” he said. “There’s nothing I won’t do to unite civilization on Bellevue, and end things like this forever. For the Spirit’s sake.”
Suzette sank down beside Raj and leaned her head against his shoulder. “You did what you had to do, my love,” she said softly.
His hands knotted on the table, and the empty bottle of slyowtz rolled away. The spray of plumb-blossom on the label curled about a stylized H; it was the Hillchapel proprietary brand. How long was it since he’d been home?
“Only what you had to do.”
Raj’s arms groped blindly for his wife. She drew his head down to rest on her bosom, rocking it in her arms.
lady whitehall is correct, Center said. observe—
I know! Raj cut in. Lion City rising behind him, other cities closing their gates. Costing him men, costing him time, neither of which he had to spare.
“I know,” he said aloud.
“Shhhh, my love.” The commandeered room was quiet, only the light hissing of the lantern breaking the silence. “You’re with me now. No need to be the General. Peace, my love. Peace.”
For a moment the hard brilliance of another image gleamed before Raj: the Old Residence seen in the near distance, its wall towers and walls silent but threatening simply for their enormous extent.
The vision faded, yes, said Center. peace, for now.
IV
THE STEEL
CHAPTER ONE
Thom Poplanich floated through infinity. The monobloc exploded outward, and he felt the twisting of space-time in its birth-squall. . . .
I think I understand that now, he thought.
excellent, Center said. we will return to socio-historical analysis: subject, fall of the federation of man.
He had been down here in the sanctum of Sector Command and Control Unit AZ12-b14-c000 Mk. XIV for years, now. His body was in stasis, his mind connected with the ancient battle computer on levels far broader than the speechlike linkage of communication. It was no longer necessary for him to see events sequentially. . . .
Images drifted through his consciousness. Earth. The True Earth of the Canonical Handbooks, not this world of Bellevue. Yet it was not the perfect home of half-angels that the priests talked of, but a world of men. Nations rose and warred with each other, empires grew and fell. Men learned as the cycles swung upward, then forgot, and fur-clad savages dwelt in the ruins of cities, burning their books for winter’s warmth. At last one cycle swung further skyward than any before. On a small island northwest of the main continent, engines were built. Ones he recognized at first, clanking steam-engines driving factories to spin cloth, dragging loads across iron rails, powering ships. The machines grew greater, stranger. They took to the air and cities burned beneath them. They spread from one land to the next, springing at last into space.
Earth floated before him, blue and white like the images of Bellevue that Center showed him—blue and white like all worlds that could nourish the seed of Earth. One final war scarred the globe beneath him with flames, pinpoints of fire that consumed whole cities at a blow. Soundless globes of magenta and orange bloomed in airless space.
the last jihad, Center’s voice said. observe.
A vast construct drifted into view, skeletal and immense beside the tubular ships and dot-tiny suited humans.
the tanaki spatial displacement net. the first model. Energies flowed across it, twisting into dimensions describable only in mathematics that he had not yet mastered. The ships vanished, to reappear far away . . . here, in Bellevue’s system. The Colonists, first men to set foot on this world. They landed and raised the green flag of Islam.
even more than the jihad, the net made the federation of man essential, Center said. the empire that rose this time expanded until it covered all the Earth, and leaped outward to nearby stars. a century later, its representatives landed on distant Bellevue, much to the displeasure of the descendants of the refugees, and the net was its downfall. expansion proceeded faster than integration. Long strings of formulae followed. once the tipping point was reached, entropic decay accelerated exponentially.
The higher they rise, the harder they fall, Thom thought.
true. There was a slight overtone of surprise in Center’s dispassionate machine-voice.
More images. War flickering between the stars, mutiny, secession. Bellevue’s Net flaring into plasma. The remnants of Federation units turning feral when they were cut off here, bringing civilization down in a welter of thermonuclear fire. Swift decay into barbarism for most areas, a pathetic
remnant of ancient knowledge preserved in the Civil Government and the Colony, degenerating into superstition. Now a thousand years and more had passed, and a tentative rebirth stirred.
cycles within cycles, Center said. the overall trend is still toward maximum entropy, unless my intervention can alter the parameters. fifteen thousand years will pass until the ascendant phase of the next overall historical period.
An image eerily familiar, for he had seen it with his own eyes as well as through Center’s senses. Two young men out exploring the ancient catacombs beneath the Governor’s palace in East Residence. Unlikely friends: Thom Poplanich, grandson of the last Poplanich Governor. A slight young man in a patrician’s hunting outfit of tweed. Raj Whitehall, tall, with a swordsman’s shoulders and wrists. Guard to the reigning Barholm Clerett, and like him from distant Descott County, source of the Civil Government’s finest soldiers. Once again he saw them discover the bones outside the centrum, the bones of those Center had considered and rejected as its agents in the world.
Raj will do it, Thom thought. If any man can reunite the world, he can.
if any man can, Center agreed. the probability of success is less than 45% ±3, even with my assistance.
He’s already beaten back the Colony. The battle of Sandoral had been the greatest victory the Civil Government had won in generations. Destroyed the Squadron. The Squadron and its Admirals had held the Southern Territories for more than a century, the most recent of the Military Governments to come down out of the barbarous Base Area. And he’s beating the Brigade. The 591st Provisional Brigade were the strongest of the barbarians, and they held Old Residence, the original seat of the Civil Government at the western end of the Midworld Sea.
to date, Center acknowledged, he has taken the crown peninsula and lion city. the more difficult battles remain.
“Men follow Raj,” Thom said quietly. “Not only that, he makes them do things beyond themselves.” He paused. “What really worries me is Barholm Clerett. He doesn’t deserve a man like Raj serving him! And that nephew he’s sent along on this campaign is worse.”
cabot clerett is more able than his uncle, and less a prisoner of his obsessions, Center noted.
That’s what worries me.
CHAPTER TWO
The cavalry were singing as they rode; the sound bawled out over the manifold thump of paws from the riding dogs, the creak of harness and squeal of ungreased wheels from the baggage train:
Oh, we Descotters have hairy ears—
We goes without our britches
And pops our cocks with jagged rocks,
We’re hardy sons of bitches!
“Hope they’re as cheerful in a month,” Raj Whitehall said, looking down at the map spread over his saddlebow. His hound Horace shifted beneath him from one foot to the other, whining with impatience to be off at a gallop in the crisp fall air. Raj stroked his neck with one gauntleted hand.
The commanders were gathered on a knoll, and it gave a wide view over the broad river valley below. The hoarse male chorus of the cavalry troopers sounded up from the fields. The Expeditionary Force snaked westward through low rolling hills. Wagons and guns on the road, infantry in battalion columns to either side, and five battalions of cavalry off to the flanks. There was very little dust; it had rained yesterday, just enough to lay the ground. The infantry were making good time, rifles over their right shoulders and blanket-rolls looped over the left. In the middle of the convoy the camp-followers spread in a magpie turmoil, one element of chaos in the practiced regularity of the column, but they were keeping up too. It was mild but crisp, perfect weather for outdoor work; the leaves of the oaks and maples that carpeted the higher hills had turned to gold and scarlet hues much like the native vegetation.
The soldiers looked like veterans, now. Even the ones who hadn’t fought with him before this campaign; even the former Squadrones, military captives taken into the Civil Government’s forces after the conquest of the Southern Territories last year. Their uniforms were dirty and torn, the blue of the tailcoat jackets and the dark maroon of their baggy pants both the color of the soil, but the weapons were clean and the men ready to fight . . . which was all that really mattered.
“Looks like more rain tonight,” Ehwardo Poplanich said, shading his eyes and looking north. “Doesn’t it ever not rain in this bloody country?”
The Companions were veterans now too, his inner circle of commanders. Like a weapon whose hilt is worn with use, shaped to fit the hand that reaches for it in the dark. Ehwardo was much more than a Governor’s grandson these days.
“Only in high summer,” Jorg Menyez replied. “Rather reminds me of home—there are parts of Kelden County much like this, and the Diva River country up on the northwestern frontier.”
He sneezed; the infantry specialist was allergic to dogs, which was why he used a riding steer, and why he’d originally chosen the despised foot-soldiers for his military career, despite high rank and immense wealth. Now he believed in them with a convert’s zeal, and they caught his faith and believed in themselves.
“Good-looking farms,” Gerrin Staenbridge said, biting into an apple. “My oath, but I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on some of this countryside.”
And Gerrin’s come a long way too. He’d commanded the 5th Descott before Raj made them his own. Back then garrison-duty boredom had left him with nothing to occupy his time but fiddling the battalion accounts and his hobbies, the saber and the opera and good-looking youths.
There were a good many orchards hereabouts; apple and plum and cherry, and vineyards trained high on stakes or to the branches of low mulberry trees. Wheat and corn had been cut and carted, the wheat in thatched ricks in the farmyards, the corn in long rectangular bins still on the cob; dark-brown earth rippled in furrows behind ox-drawn ploughs as the fields were made ready for winter grains. Few laborers fled, even when the army passed close-by; word had spread that the eastern invaders ravaged only where resisted . . . and the earth must be worked, or all would starve next year. Pastures were greener than most of the easterners were used to, grass up to the hocks of the grazing cattle. Half-timbered cottages stood here and there, usually nestled in a grove, with an occasional straggling crossroads village, or a peon settlement next to a blocky stone-built manor house.
Many of the manors were empty; the remaining landlords were mostly civilian, and eager to come in and swear allegiance to the Civil Government. Here and there a mansion stood burnt and empty. Ill-considered resistance, or peasant vengeance on fleeing masters. Some of the peons abandoned their plows to come and gape as the great ordered mass of the Civil Government’s army passed, with the Starburst fluttering at its head. It had been more than five hundred years since that holy flag flew in these lands. Raj reflected ironically that the natives probably thought the 7th Descott Rangers’ marching-song was a hymn; there was much touching of amulets and kneeling.
We fuck the whores right through their drawers
We do not care for trifles—
We hangs our balls upon the walls
And shoots at ’em with rifles.
“Area’s too close to the Stalwarts for my liking,” Kaltin Gruder said. His hand stroked the scars on his face, legacy of a Colonial shell-burst that had killed his younger brother. “Speaking of which, any news of the Brigaderos garrisons up there?”
“The Ministry of Barbarians came through on that one,” Raj said, still not looking up from the map. “The Stalwarts are raiding the frontier just as we paid them to, and most of the enemy regulars there are staying. The rest are pulling back southwest, toward the Padan River, where they can barge upstream to Carson Barracks.”
Bribing one set of barbarians to attack another had been a Civil Government specialty for generations. Cheaper than wars, usually, although there were dangers as well. The Brigade had come south long ago, but the Stalwarts were only down from the Base Area a couple of generations. Fierce, treacherous, numerous, and still heathen—not even following the heretical Thi
s Earth cult.
“Right,” Raj said, rolling up the map. “We’ll continue on this line of advance to the Chubut river—” he used the map to point west “—at Lis Plumhas. M’Brust reports it’s opened its gates to the 1st Cruisers. Ehwardo, I want you to link up with him there—push on ahead of the column—with two batteries and take command. Cross the river, and feint toward the Padan at Empirhado. It’s a good logical move, and they’ll probably believe it. Engage at your discretion, but screen us in any case.”
The Padan drained most of the central part of the Western Territories, rising in the southern foothills of the Sangrah Dil Ispirito mountains and running northeast along the range, then west and southwest around its northernmost outliers. Empirhado was an important riverport, and taking it would cut off the north from the Brigadero capital at Carson Barracks.
“Actually,” Raj went on, “we’ll cut southeast again around Zeronique at the head of the Residential Gulf and come straight down on Old Residence. I want them to come to us, and they’ll have to fight for that eventually—it is the ancient capital of the Civil Government. At the same time, it’s accessible by sea up the Blankho River, so we’ve a secure line of communications to Lion City. Strategic offensive, tactical defensive.”
Everyone nodded, some making notes. Lion City was a very safe base. Its ruling Syndics had tried to resist the Civil Government army, fearful of Brigade retaliation and confident in their city walls. Raj had found an ancient Pre-Fall passageway under them and led a party to open the gates from within. After the sack, the Syndics who’d counselled resistance had been torn to bits—quite literally—by the enraged common folk of the city. The commoners’ only hope now was a Civil Government victory; if the Brigade came back they’d slaughter every man, woman and child for treason to the General . . . and for the murder of their betters.