by Gene Wolfe
As if the comparison had stirred her to speech, Saba asked, “What do you think, Generalissimo? A fine body of women?”
Oosik declared that he had been favorably impressed.
“How old are they?” Silk inquired suddenly; he had not intended to speak.
“We take them at seventeen,” Saba told him. “There’s a year of training before they’re assigned to permanent units. After that we keep them four years.”
“Do you mean that they have to become troopers? What if one doesn’t want to?”
Saba pointed. “See that one with the big feet? And her over there, the tall one with a stripe?”
“At the end of the line? Yes, I see her.”
Saba pointed again. “There, that little fat one. None of them wanted to.”
“I see. I’m surprised you know these troopers so well, General. Is this group a part of your airship’s crew?”
“No, Calde.” Saba glanced across Siyuf’s head with the suppressed smile he had noticed earlier. “In weather like this we need everybody on board. I picked them by chance, but that’s the truth about them. Who’d want to be a trooper?”
Silk glanced at Oosik, who was looking at him; troopers in Viron served voluntarily.
Another band, then hundreds of saddleless horses herded by mounted men. Seeing Silk’s puzzled expression, Saba explained, “They’re remounts. When a trooper’s horse is shot, she has to fight on foot unless there’s a remount for her.”
Siyuf looked up at him. “Do you not have remounts for your own cavalry?” He found her steady eyes disconcerting.
Oosik said quickly, “Our practice is to issue two horses to each mounted trooper. He is responsible for their care, and is to ride them alternately unless one goes lame. In peacetime he rides one on one day and the other on the next.”
“You, Generalissimo. Were you a horse officer? We say cavalrywoman, but I do not think you will say that here. A cavalryman, I think?”
Oosik made her a small bow. “Correct, Generalissimo. No, I was not, nor are most of our officers. We have only one mounted company per brigade, though the second has two at present. My son is a cavalryman, however.”
For the first time, Siyuf smiled; seeing it, Silk could readily imagine her subordinates risking their lives to earn that smile. She said, “I hope to meet him. Tomorrow or the day after. We shall speak of horses.”
“He will be honored, Generalissimo. Unfortunately he is unwell at present.”
“I see.” She turned back to the parade, and her voice became indifferent. “It is sad that boys must fight here.”
Mules hauling cannon followed the horse herd. “I expected camels,” Silk told her.
“Horses and camels do not make friends,” she said absently. “It is best we hold them apart. Mules are more…” She snapped her fingers.
“Easygoing,” Saba supplied. “They don’t mind camels as much as most horses do.”
“Does it really take eight to pull one of these big guns?”
“On your street of fine stones? No. But over our desert where is no road, many more sometimes. Then one must lend to another its mules and wait. I have seen sixteen unable to pull a single howitzer from the mud. That was not on this march, or we would not be here.”
Saba asked, “Didn’t you notice the mixed gun crews, Calde? I expected you to ask about them.”
Already the last cannon was rumbling past. After it came a long triple line of small carts with male drivers; each cart was drawn by a pair of mules.
Silk said, “I’m accustomed to working with women, General. With Maytera Marble and Maytera Mint at my manteion, before I became calde — with Maytera Rose as well until she left us. Your mixed crews seem more normal to me than,” he groped for an inoffensive phrase, ending lamely, “than the other thing, just women or just men.”
“Men drive the mules and hump shells. They do those almost as well as women could. Women lay the guns and fire them.”
Siyuf asked, “Where is General Mint? Did you not call her Mother Mint just now? Or are there two of this name?”
“No, they’re the same person. She’s a sibyl as well as a general, just as I’m an augur as well as calde.” Silk was tempted to add that he hoped to drop the first soon.
“She marches with her troops today?”
“I’m afraid not.” A bare-faced lie would serve best, but he was unwilling to provide one. “We’re still engaged with the enemy, Generalissimo.”
If Siyuf suspected, nothing in her face revealed it. “I am sorry I do not meet her. Next you see camels.”
Silk, who had seen camels singly or in small caravans of a dozen or a score, had scarcely imagined that there were so many in the whorl — not hundreds but thousands, innumerable camels tied one behind another in strings of thirty or more, each such string led by a single camel-driver riding its big lead camel. They grunted continually as they walked, peering at everything with haughty eyes in faces that recalled Remora’s.
“They carried food, mostly,” Saba explained, “and oats and barley for the horses and mules. They’re lightly loaded now.”
Here was one of the most sensitive points. “You have to realize there’s very little food in Viron.” Silk picked his way among snares. “We’re delighted to have you, and we’ll do our best to feed you and your troops; but the harvest was bad, and our farmers have been hoarding food because of the fighting.”
“We know your difficulties.” Siyuf’s dust-colored cap and hunched shoulders spoke. “We will send out foraging parties.”
“Thank you,” Silk said. “That’s extremely kind of you.”
Oosik stared.
“Which reminds me,” Silk hurried on, “I’ve planned a small, informal dinner tonight at the Calde’s Palace.” (He found he could not bring himself to say, “At my palace.”) “You’re all invited, and I hope that all of you can attend. We haven’t got a real kitchen yet, but I’ve arranged to have Ermine’s cater our dinner; Ermine’s serves the best food in our city, or at least it has that reputation.”
“I must bring with me a staff officer.” Siyuf turned to face him. “This our custom demands. May I do this?”
“Of course. She will be very welcome.”
“Then I come. Saba also, if you wish it.”
“I certainly do,” Silk assured Siyuf.
Saba nodded reluctandy.
Oosik said, “You may rely upon me, Calde.”
“Thank you. And you, Your Cognizance?”
With the help of the baculus, Quetzal rose. “I’ve no food, Patera Calde. That’s what you’ll talk about, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure we will; we have that to discuss, along with many other things. You have wisdom, Your Cognizance, and we may need it more than food.”
“Then I’ll be there. I may even have suggestions.”
Chapter 5 — The Man from Mainframe
A hand signal held the group parallel to the human stream below; Sciathan reinforced it with helmet notification: “Two east.” As each agreed, he checked them off mentally: Grian, Sumaire, Mear, and Aer were still willing to accept his leadership. His right arm stiff, he slapped toward Viron’s thatch and shingles, palm down. “Going lower.” Fingertips to forehead. “You may follow if you choose.”
Aer almost certainly would.
Was this man Auk among the marchers’ creeping rectangles? One of the spectators whose cheers had dwindled to chirps in the vastness of the sky? Either way this Auk was a lone individual, his fellow citizens a myriad of myriads. As he had from the beginning, Sciathan told himself that he should be bursting with pride; for this daunting, almost impossible mission, Mainframe had chosen them.
The possibility that Mainframe wished to destroy them had to be dismissed unheard, like the equal possibility that he, Aer, and the rest had been chosen because they were expendable.
Right arm pointing, hand cupped. “I fly east.”
Four acknowledgements. They were all coming.
He had begun a
circuit of the city. They would have to land soon, have to remove and secure their wings, question and persuade its inhabitants in the Common Tongue. Whether he was a miracle worker or a malcontent, his fluency had no doubt been a factor.
Where was there a good, big field, with people near but not too near, close to the city? Below him, a house with a desert-colored peaked roof sprang up like a mushroom.
Right arm extended, palm flat, motioning down. “Lower.”
It seemed that he could read the character of each of his companions in their acknowledgments: Grian weighing the odds; Sumaire narrow-eyed, her hands deadly still; Mear frantic for adventure; Aer concerned for everybody except herself.
At this altitude they were within the reach of small-arms fire, and small arms were evident; all the overseers of the bearded men erecting tents seemed to have them. He reminded himself that once they had landed the presence or absence of weapons would make no difference, that any mob of Cargos could kill them with stones or sticks. In fact the weapons that these Cargos had should be an advantage; armed, they would be less apt to feel threatened.
Pointing arm, hand a fist. “North.” Two fingers down, separated. “Terminate flight.”
“Aye, Sumaire.” Taut face, dry lips, hooded eyes.
“Aye, Mear!” Descending too fast and glorying in it.
“Aye, Grian.” Picking his spot.
“Aye, Aer.” Worrying about him, worried not that he would crash but that he would bungle his approach.
Grassy land, a little uneven. No more time for character or planning. Reverse thrust, legs down and feet together, hands braced for a fall that must be straight forward.
Mear was already down, having pulled up at the precise moment and landed striding; reckless though Mear was, no more skilled flier ever tuned the sun. Now he, too, would have to land without a fall or lose what authority he had. Four cubits, stall, drop into the wind. Did it!
At once a gust nearly blew him off his feet.
Grian, Surnaire and Aer came down as he was taking off his wings and PM, Aer too close, perhaps; Sumaire four-pointing; Grian dropping a full eight, wings bow-bent when he hit.
Big women were running toward them from the tent ground, pursued, overtaken, and surpassed by a lone woman on horseback.
“Peace!” He raised both hands, palms out. “We who serve the gods mean no harm.”
The rider reined up, a handweapon drawn. “There are no gods but the goddess!”
Could the database be wrong? “We are her supporters and servitors!”
A dozen towering women surrounded them, some staring, some leveling short, gap-mouthed guns, some clearly waiting for the mounted woman’s instructions.
“We come from Mainframe,” Sciathan explained. “Mainframe, the home of the goddess. At her order we come to find Auk.” Privately he wondered which goddess it was.
“We’ll help you, but first you must give your weapons to us.” There was calculation in the mounted woman’s eyes.
Aer said, “No gun, no knife.”
The mounted woman’s attention went to her at once. “You’re in charge?”
Aer shook her head. “Fliers.” She touched her chin. “Aer I am. All fly.”
Mear joined them carrying his wings and PM, and accompanied by a gaggle of big women. “Each is one. Five ones.”
“Surrender your weapons,” the woman on horseback told him.
Coming up behind Mear, Sumaire held out her hands. “Mine. With these I kill.”
Calculation again. “You’re the leader.”
“Yes. My own.”
Mear said, “I am mine. No weapon. No gun. You give?” One of the big women laughed loudly and the horse shied, neck bent and hooves dancing.
“Quiet, you!” Pulling up the reins, the mounted woman scrutinized them. “Marhaba! Betifham ’arabi?”
Aer and Mear looked to Sciathan; he could only shrug.
She holstered her weapon and dismounted; her smile could not vanquish something vindictive that had made her face its own. “We started badly,” she told Aer. “Let’s start over and be friends. I’m Major Sirka, Flier Aer. I command the advance party of the Horde of Trivigaunte. I can’t welcome you to this city, because this city’s not mine. Mine’s to the south. You have flown over it many times. You must know it.”
Aer nodded and smiled. “Beautiful!”
“This man,” Major Sirka nodded at Sciathan, “came looking for a Vironese, another man. Are you looking for a woman?”
Sumaire said, “The man. Where will we find Auk?”
Grian, who arrived still wearing his PM, said slowly, “We are not like you are, Woman.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be, little man. Now listen to me. You’re…”
Her voice faded; she had become a painted figure, an image of gray on a featureless plain. Sciathan felt his lips drawn back and lifted in a grin by someone else.
Aer gaped at him, eyes wide as her mouth. Now, when all other color had fled, the blue of her eyes was still bright. Someone else reached out to her with Sciathan’s arms, and in a distant place she screamed.
The flash and boom of the shot so startled him that almost he woke; colors were briefly real, the scarlet-daubed thing at his feet Aer. He felt himself thrust violently down and back into a helpless dark at the edge of oblivion.
Sumaire slew with a touch and Mear fought with desperate valor until more shots threw both to the ground in their first embrace. Still carrying his wings, Grian shot straight up. He, Sciathan, should fly too; but his PM was gone, his hands bound. Turning, he saw his wings and kicked and stamped them.
“Let me think, Patera.” Maytera Marble cocked her head to one side. “The generalissimo from Trivigaunte and another one, but we don’t know her name. I’m assuming it will be a woman.”
Silk nodded. “I believe we can rely on it.”
“We don’t know how much either one eats. Probably a lot. Then there’s General Saba and Generalissimo Oosik. I’ve seen them, and they’ll want a whorl of food. Are each of them going to bring somebody, too?”
“That’s a good point.” Silk considered. “Oosik’s almost certain to, because Siyuf said she’d bring one of her staff. Let’s assume that they both do. That’s six so far.”
“All big eaters.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but His Cognizance and I won’t eat much and you’ll eat nothing.”
“Am I invited?” It was difficult to read Maytera Marble’s expression.
“Of course you are. You’re the hostess, the mistress of the house — of this palace, I should have said.”
“I thought Chenille might do it, Patera.”
“She’s a guest.” Silk settled himself more comfortably in the big wingback chair, conscious that he would have to leave it soon. “She’s here only because she may be in danger.”
“She’s a real help, that girl. She does everything I tell her to and looks for more. There are times when I have to hold her back, Patera.”
“Now I understand. You were afraid I wouldn’t invite her, that I’d ask her to wait on table or something. She’s invited — or she will be as soon as I see her. I want her, and your granddaughter and Master Xiphias; I sent Horn to tell him.”
“I teach arithmetic.” Maytera Marble sighed. “And now I want to count on my fingers. What’s worse, I can’t. Only up to five, and we had six with Generalissimo Oosik and all those foreign officers. You and His Cognizance make eight. The old fencing master nine. Chenille, ten. Mucor and me, twelve. If you’re going to invite anybody else, you’d better make it two, Patera. Thirteen at table’s not lucky. I don’t know why, but you’re supposed to bring somebody in off the street if you have to, to make fourteen.”
Silk stood up. “No, that should be all. Now come with me. I asked Hossaan to bring the floater, and I think I heard it a moment ago.”
“Where…? I can’t go away, Patera. Not with company for dinner tonight.”
Silk had anticipated that; he imagine
d himself arguing with Siyuf and was firm. “Of course you can. You’re going to. Go get your hand.”
“No. No.” Maytera Marble’s one functioning hand gripped the arm of her chair so tightly that the upholstery rose like dough between its metal fingers. “You don’t understand. You’re a good man. Too good, to tell the truth. Too good to me, as you always have been. But I’ve a thousand things to do between now and dinner. What time will it be? Six?”
“Eight. I do understand, Maytera, and that’s why we’re going to that shop the valet — what was his name?”
“Marl. Patera, I can’t.”
“Exactly. You can’t because you have only one hand. You have to tell Chenille, for the most part, and get her to do it. So we’re going to get your right hand reattached. As you say, there’s a lot to be done, and with two hands you’ll be able to do twice as much as Chenille, instead of half as much.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he strode to the door. “I’ll be outside; I want to ask Hossaan why their generalissimo speaks the way she does. We’ll expect you in five minutes, with your hand.” As he stepped into the reception hall, he added, “You and Chenille, and your granddaughter Bring her, too.”
Maytera Marble’s last wailing “Patera…” was cut off by the closing of the door. Grinning, Silk limped the length of the reception hall and got an overrobe of plain black fleece from the cloakroom off the foyer.
The outer door swung toward him before he could open it, and Hossaan stepped inside with Oreb perched on his shoulder. “Your bird was out there, Calde. I guess he couldn’t find a window open, so I brought him in.”