Water Logic

by Laurie J. Marks

“Just Seth. I’m spending the night here. Ellid’s orders.”

  His eyebrows rose comically, and he spoke to the confused women, then said, “But there are bugs in the beds.”

  Seth began laughing so hard she finally had to sit down on the bed, lest she fall over. The women liked her much better then, and even more when she went out into the city and convinced the greengrocer to talk to the herbalist down the street, who was as mystified as everyone else, but let her have a big bag of strewing herbs, which took care of all the bugs in all the beds. So her life as a soldier began.

  Chapter 15

  In Clement’s childhood, her mother’s company had scarcely left the coastal region of Hanishport. Here, in Shaftal’s only safe port, many of the first influx of refugee soldiers had landed, and here they had built their first garrison. As a youthful foot soldier she had fought on the leading edge of the occupation, into the Midlands and southward to Han, but not until the death of Harald G’deon and the attack on the House of Lilterwess did the Sainnites, reinforced by a new influx of refugee soldiers, move north and west. But Clement had never been far enough west to see the mountains, and although Saleen told her they could be seen anywhere beyond the Reestown crossroad, the clouds never lifted to let her see the view.

  The Corber Valley had narrowed, the river ceased its meandering, and the flood finally lay behind them, to the east. They could follow the road again, and the road even was in reasonable condition, but still their progress was slow. They had taken a day’s respite in a settlement near Haprin, but that rest had done little good. Day after day they hobbled westward, with the brown river on their left and the brown hills on their right, so hemmed in by the weather’s gray horizon that Clement felt dislocated for days. Still, though her companions certainly were more than eager for the tedious journey to be over, she was not.

  One evening they spotted some travelers at a distance, coming towards them through the drizzle. “Paladins,” said Saleen. “Who else would travel in this weather?” He trotted forward to greet them.

  He returned with a man Clement’s age, whose lively face lost all expression every time he looked at Clement. Two gold earrings marked him as a true Paladin, Saleen’s equal in rank, whatever rank meant to the Paladins. However, like his irregular followers he wore plain homespun the brownish gray color of very dirty sheep, the preferred color of the irregulars, whose strategies depended so much on their ability to melt into the landscape.

  “General Clement, this is Ronal, Commander of Paladins in South Hill,” said Saleen.

  Clement offered her hand, but Ronal kept his own hands tucked under his rain cape. Saleen hastily continued, “Even though the ice broke up, Ronal did receive Emil’s message several days ago. The letter was relayed from one settlement to the next and arrived in good time despite the weather.”

  “You understand, then, that your people are to be subject to my authority,” said Clement. “But your direct orders will come from Mabin, just as my people’s will come from me. However, my people also understand that under some circumstances they could be subject to your command.”

  Ronal said, “Yes.”

  He greeted Mabin with warmth, exchanged wry comments on the foul weather, and gave her a casual report as they slogged through a particularly muddy patch of the road. He had learned that all five rebel garrisons were shut tight, with the siege gates closed and the walls guarded as though in expectation of an imminent attack. In some regions the Paladin commanders had mustered their companies out of caution, and some had not. The fighters of South Hill company, some fifty total, had been mustered to Wilton, where they resided in scattered households but could quickly be summoned to the garrison. “But surely we won’t attempt a direct attack on the garrison,” he said to Mabin.

  “No attack is planned,” Mabin said. “According to General Clement, we have here a simple discipline problem, which she will personally resolve without conflict.”

  Ronal glanced at Clement with an expression of surprise that swiftly settled into hostile blankness again. “Does the general know Heras?”

  “I know her very well, Commander. Our mothers were in the same company, we arrived in Shaftal on the same boat, we learned to fight together, and we lived together for ten years.”

  Ronal turned his gaze back to Mabin and told her that a nearby cluster of farmsteads was prepared to receive them, and that they would reach Wilton by midday tomorrow.

  Saleen, at Clement’s side, muttered, “My brother Paladin seems unready to give up his anger.”

  “He’s been fighting Heras since he succeeded Emil as the commander of South Hill company—that’s been five years, at least. Five years of fighting Heras would make me detest all Sainnites, and I am one.”

  “But the more bitter the enemy, the more important is detachment.”

  “Saleen, I beg you—give me a respite from philosophy.”

  He grinned. “Have I made myself unendurable? Then I have succeeded.”

  The city of Wilton had developed around a port on the Corber, but even in the lowland section of the city the buildings were not on stilts, and neither were there any derricks. Apparently, the river never flooded here. In the vast valley around the city the old farmstead boundaries could still be distinguished, but these fields were choked with dead weeds, the orchards were hewn down, and the farm buildings were nothing but black bones open to the weather. Heras had laid waste to the valley’s rich farmlands, with the result that no one—beast, farmer, or soldier—had grain to eat. After two years of famine the highland farmers had recovered. Oxen to replace the plow horses arrived from all over Shaftal, pulling wagons of seed rye driven by experienced rye farmers, who remained to watch over the fields until the first harvest had successfully been brought in. All this had happened so stealthily that it wasn’t until the next year’s harvest that Heras noticed that her plan to depopulate South Hill had failed. “The Great Bread War,” that fiasco was called in a mocking ballad sung all over Shaftal.

  Clement heard many fragments of that story during the morning’s journey. With each cluster of destroyed buildings they passed, the local Paladins recounted another piece of history; and their memories seemed to reach all the way back to the first spade full of dirt and the first seed dropped into the soil. Clement had escaped some of her tribulations when she left Watfield, and though a closed gate awaited her in Wilton she had taken hope in the journey—as Paladin and Sainnite endured common miseries rather than inflicting miseries on each other. Now Clement entered the darkness of spirit once again.

  The five new garrison commanders—Mayer, Denit, Sarney, Efrat, and Sevan—walked with her on this last stretch of the grueling journey. She did not translate the Paladins’ farmstead elegies, but her people understood enough, and it was not good for morale.

  “General, I’d be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell you my concerns,” said Efrat. “If you permit.”

  “Continue, Commander.”

  “These South Hill Paladins—I don’t trust them. And how do we know that Saleen and his few people would be able to protect us from Ronal’s many, if they turn against us? As for Commander Heras, her people are known to be loyal to her. Practically an entire battalion followed her from Rees to South Hill! And General Cadmar always let her do as she liked, so she is accustomed to independence. Isn’t it possible the people under her command are more loyal to her, and she more trigger-quick, than we expect?”

  “Than I expect, do you mean?” said Clement. “Efrat, I’m not Cadmar. You can say what you’re thinking without getting your face smashed in.”

  The commanders snickered, for the most recent face to be smashed in by Cadmar’s heavy fist had been Clement’s. “It’s taken you long enough to tell me these concerns,” Clement said. “I’ve been waiting for you to mention them since before we left Watfield.”

  “General, you are a gr
eat strategist. But we have begun to wonder if—” Efrat had to pause here, ill-accustomed as he was to frank speaking to a general. “—if your confidence might be somewhat feigned.”

  Mayer spoke, and it was a relief to see that the commanders weren’t going to silently allow Efrat to make himself a target on their behalf. They were learning. “Yesterday, after you told us what to do should you be killed, we discussed these matters with each other. The moment you’ve appeared at Wilton garrison in person, Heras will know she has lost her gamble. Whether you kill Heras, or she kills you, she will not win what she wants. Her success depended on your not making this journey at all.”

  “So we think she will kill you,” said Sevan in a low voice. “She’ll have no reason not to.”

  Clement said, “I agree with your thinking. But what happens at the gate depends on the gate captains more than on Heras. She can hardly have given them orders to shoot me on sight—not if she wants them to believe in her honor. And she can’t shoot me with her own hand, for she hasn’t got the eyesight for distance weapons.”

  “I told you the general had thought it through,” said Denit with relief.

  “Still, it’s a risk, General,” said Sevan doggedly. “And you shouldn’t put yourself in such a position. Send one of us forward instead. I’ll go.”

  “No,” said Clement. “I have to do this.”

  “Bloody hell,” muttered Efrat. “What are we to do if you get yourself killed, eh?”

  “You’ll bring the written orders to your assigned garrisons and replace the chief officers as commanded. And then you’ll vote for Ellid to be general.”

  “Ellid is a good commander,” said Sevan. “But none of us think she can be a good general.”

  “I agree—but no one can be a good general. Cadmar managed because of me and Gilly; I manage because of Gilly, Ellid, and Emil; Emil manages because of a whole host of people. If Ellid becomes general, all of you become general.”

  As they entered the outskirts of the city, people looked out doorways and windows and gathered on the edges of the street to watch them pass. With South Hill company quartered in the city, the citizens seemed to have been forewarned to expect something to happen, and they watched the passage of this strange company in somber silence. Clement dropped back to speak with Mabin. “My officers’ lives are in these Paladins’ hands. Think of what it is like for us to have to listen to these endless grievances.”

  She expected an argument, preferably one vigorous and angry enough to distract her during this long walk to the garrison gate. But Mabin said, “Yes, General.” She immediately went to Ronal, who soon was talking to his officers, and though they argued vigorously and walked with sullen faces afterwards, they also disciplined their tongues.

  The rectangle of the book in Clement’s tunic felt like a piece of armor pressing her breastbone. But for thirty-five years philosophy had failed, and so with neither shield nor weapon she walked forward.

  When Clement’s mother first adopted her and brought her home with her, Heras was already ensconced as a leader among the garrison children. The child gangs played soldier, of course, and fought each other with all the glee and desperation that they imagined their parents fought with, though their weapons were nothing more than pieces of wood and balls of mud. Heras had not wanted Clement because she was small, but another gang leader had liked her intelligence and sharp tongue. Clement, though a sudden growth spurt made her taller, was still blundering along at the bottom of that gang’s ranking when, in the world outside their garrison, politics and firepower forced their company into the sea.

  On the boat, Clement and Heras were exiled to the lower deck, forbidden to go above lest they get in the way of a sailor or get themselves blown overboard. Their flotilla sailed into a storm during which a number of the ships disappeared entirely. Clement, Heras, and ten other children clung to each other in the gloom, desperately seasick, frightened, abandoned, making up information because they could tolerate fantasies better than facts. They had seen their parents beaten and cowed; they had seen them take flight. They explained to each other how it was possible to simultaneously take to one’s heels and be brave, and each explanation was more unlikely than the last. But they succeeded in making themselves believe in their parents again.

  Seasickness leveled them; their old gang affiliations dissolved. They puked into buckets, and the buckets slopped over, and they had to clean up their own awful mess. Day after day, the narrow room plunged and ducked and swung, and they could not rest because they had to hold onto the bunks to keep from falling off, so they held onto each other, some holding and some sleeping in turns. By the time the sea calmed and their parents managed to check on them, a new hierarchy of age and responsibility had been established, a hierarchy that endured long after they finally shipwrecked on the coast of Shaftal. Clement’s status had risen precipitously.

  By the time Clement was sixteen, and a soldier, her people had been pariahs in Shaftal for seven years. The first wave of refugees had been followed by others, and by the time the Shaftali realized they were slowly being invaded, some ten thousand Sainnites were ensconced along the coastline. The dozen children who had survived that awful journey with Clement continued to be loyal to each other as, one by one, they took up the weapons of the fallen and became soldiers themselves. And one summer night, Heras pulled Clement into bed with her, and taught her lovemaking. They swore to be loyal to each other forever. Then they became rivals, and remained rivals for the rest of their lives.

  Clement’s hair was stiff and sticky, her uniform limp and grimy, her boots rotting off her feet, and her feet rotting as well. Her weather-battered appearance could not be repaired. However, with spit and salt and a dirty kerchief, Herme had polished the tarnish from her insignia—the badge taken from Cadmar’s hat and pinned on hers before they lit his pyre, a badge that had in turn been plucked from the old general’s hat when his body was burned, and ceremonially pinned onto Cadmar. And before the old general, someone in Sainna had worn the badge. Clement had worn it for less than three months, and Heras thought she should be wearing it. It was an old, familiar problem.

  Wilton was not half as impressive as Watfield, and probably not half as old. Shaftali civilization seemed to have moved slowly westward, following a path similar to that of the Sainnite occupation. Wilton was the last city; further west the villages and settlements gave way to temporary camps, to tribal land, to wilderness, and finally to the mountains. This brick and sandstone city had a roughness that the granite and slate city of Watfield lacked. Its windows were smaller, and patches of unmelted snow revealed that it must be even cooler here.

  “The raven asked to talk to you,” said a Paladin. The bird hopped from his shoulder to Clement’s, and the man discreetly moved away.

  “Emil?” said Clement. “I must do this alone—I’m only more certain of that now. I can’t be surrounded by Paladins like a prisoner. I can’t be shielded by my officers like a coward. And I must make it obvious to all watchers that Heras only wants to be general because she can’t endure that it be me.”

  “We trust your judgment,” said the raven. The bird must be speaking not only for Emil, but for a group of people, probably all sitting together in a Travesty parlor. “Medric says there will be a heroic ballad about you and this day. A ballad sung by Shaftali.”

  “Bloody hell. Can’t that man say something useful?”

  “He’s laughing,” reported the raven. “Go forward alone, as you say you must. You are not alone, though.”

  The bird took off. Weighed down by wet feathers, it flew in heavily climbing circles until it reached a rooftop and walked to its peak. From there it flew in short bursts along the rooftops, keeping pace with the people below, until the local Paladins said they were nearly at the garrison. Clement’s officers saluted; the Paladins stood in solemn silence; and Clement went forward, to turn her
self into a heroic ballad.

  Every time Clement did something like this, she could do it only because she had survived something almost as frightening in the past. At midwinter, when she walked unarmed across the open snow field towards a giant who with a single hammer blow had destroyed the garrison wall, that had been hard, even with the soldiers cheering her forward. Everyone watching her must have suspected she was walking quickly so as to stay ahead of her terror. And they certainly had known that she was making that walk in their stead, so that they would be spared. This time, without their cheers, it was much harder. Every time Clement walked ahead of her people it was harder to do, and the risk was greater. But she had led a lucky life. Someday her luck would fail, and maybe today would be the day. Still, she would do what she had to, as quickly as possible, so that it could be finished, and she could get on with the easier parts.

  That was the true stuff of soldier’s courage. It was not so impressive, really, stripped of its ritual and romance. What the Shaftali would find to sing about she really could not imagine.

  She walked briskly up to the garrison gate. The siege gates were closed, and she could not see in. She shouted in her commanding voice, “Gate captain! I am your general! Open the gate!”

  The raven could probably see what was happening, but she could only imagine the consternation that these nine words caused. The members of the guard peered at her through the balustrade overhead, then turned to each other, agitatedly confirming that she wore the general’s badge. Eventually one person looked over the barrier and said, “I am Megert, captain of the day watch. Please pardon the delay, but no one in my company knows your face.”

  The bloody duty rosters, for years the most onerous of Clement’s duties, would prove to have some value after all. “I know you, Captain. You’ve been captain of the day watch in three different garrisons, and six times you’ve been commended for swift action that spared the garrison from infiltration. I know that you have never been promoted above captain because you let it be known you didn’t want it. You’ve followed Heras for over twenty years, though, since you were assigned to her company just after the Battle of Lilterwess, when she and I both made captain. I can recite every battle you’ve fought in, every injury. Shall I do it?”