The Rose Sea

by S. M. Stirling

  "How so, sir?" he asked. He kept his tone polite, and tried to ignore the dig about "senior" command staff. He and Gonstad had gotten out of the academy at the same time—but Gonstad had risen through the ranks like a black-powder rocket fallen back now and then when his screw-ups became too blatant to ignore, then risen again on the gilded wings of wealth and birth and patronage in high places. Bren wouldn't have minded so much, if it weren't for the fact that the man had no feeling for his regiment.

  "Have the XIXth packed by tomorrow midday. It's one of the units standing at full strength, so it will be going out first—the following dawn. You'll be at the harbor and boarding ships by twilight, to sail with the tide. Twilight according to the schedule, so don't count on it."

  "To… morrow?" Bren whispered. "Sir, the XIXth might be at full strength numerically, but nearly a third of our numbers have been recruited within the last months… some of them within the last three days."

  "I was there to do the recruiting," Gonstad said. "Willek's orders, Morkaarin." The Lord Colonel grinned through his beard "Units at full strength go first. Incidentally, I'm placing you in charge of leading the scouts. Personally. As well as the skirmishers. I'll take the command of the foot and the pikes myself."

  Which meant their company commanders would do the work, actually. It was a serious demotion; Gonstad probably thought he'd better take real command, with their superiors suddenly watching him. Or perhaps he thought he'd prevent Bren from getting any glory out of the coming campaign—it seemed to be one of Feliz Gonstad's aims in life to ruin Bren Morkaarin's prospects.

  Bren Morkaarin got a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. His superiors had refused him experienced scouts. He'd been told to take green recruits and train them. And now he was being put in charge of his green unit, which had existed for only days, and was being sent into the field—and not incidentally, the front lines—first.

  He and Grand Admiral Willek had never met. He'd known of the Tornsaarin-Morkaarin feud all his life, of course. That was common knowledge. He knew what her great-grandfather had done to his great-grandfather, and vice-versa, but somehow he had never believed generations-old animosity would reach from the past to affect his career. He'd obviously been far too naive. Somehow, Grand Admiral Willek had discovered a Morkaarin in her midst and had taken umbrage. Killing him hadn't worked, and too many attempts in the midst of a war would look bad even at her station on the greasy pole.

  So she'd devised another method of getting rid of him. An efficient one, from the looks of it.

  Well, it explained a lot. He should, now that he thought about it, have been promoted over Gonstad and not the other way around. He was competent, and Gonstad was, to his way of thinking, a moron. But Gonstad didn't have the Morkaarin bloodlines; he didn't have the Morkaarin's feud with the Grand Admiral's ancestors, either. So he held regimental command, while Bren stayed stuck at First Captain—and now he was back doing field-sergeant's work, at that.

  A Morkaarin would go down like an officer. "Tomorrow, is it? I'll have my people ready by then."

  Gonstad's smug grin dwindled away to nothing, and he sat there a moment longer, feet still on Morkaarin's table, with the disappointment evident on his face. "Well… good," he said at last.

  He stood at last, and Bren saluted sharply, and Gonstad left.

  When he was well away from the hut—and Bren had listened to the sound of the Lord Colonel's footsteps until the sounds of them were swallowed by daysounds—the First Captain sank into his chair and rested his head in his hands.

  There are dooms a man can face, he thought The doom of defeat in honest battle, or the doom of death in an heroic act—I could accept those. But to die from an act of treachery brought on by a dispute that started and ended before my mothers grandfather was born—that's too much to bear.

  And what of my people? They're as doomed as I, and even less deserving of the doom. Their only sin was to fall into my command.

  He grinned suddenly. I should have let the new recruits drown Gonstad in the trough. Godsall, but I should have. Would have been a lovely thing. He sat a moment, enjoying the picture of it.

  "Things could be worse," he said to himself. "Not much, but they could be worse." Thanks to the pimp's generous donation, and the hard work of some of his new recruits, the unit had a good supply of arms. Second-hand, most of the stuff—but far, far better than nothing. Which was what they'd have had if he'd waited for the Quartermaster-General to find something from the armories. The mills of the gods ground slow, but even they were usually faster than a bureaucrats response to a request.

  "So we are not without weapons," he muttered "And we are not without talent."

  The Grenlaarin scion, and the law-speaker—he felt confidence in them. The beast-girl seemed exceptional, too. They'd piled in without hesitation at the tavern; that was just a brawl, but a good sign nonetheless. The rest… well, he'd have to see.

  "This isn't without hope," he told himself. "Kremis says, In war, the unexpected is the only sure thing, and True Leader rides the unexpected like a fish rides the sea.'" He stood and paced "I hope Kremis knows what she's talking about."

  So the only thing left to consider was whether or not he ought to tell the troops the night before, or let them find out in the morning.

  And then end up chasing the green recruits over hill and valley, when they panicked and broke?

  So he'd tell them in the morning.

  Let them have a final evening of relative peace. They'd earned it.

  Chevays had followed his quarry enough to be sure. The yellow-eyed girl was going toward the XIXth's camp. He slipped off to a public jakes just long enough to change into uniform and wash the pale paint from his face. He caught up with the beast-girl again easily enough. The road was crowded, and she and her party were heavily laden. He entertained himself by watching her, by fantasizing about her. She moved like the cat she brought to his mind I want that toy myself,he thought. Several amusing games presented themselves to his imagination. She would fight, he decided She'd fight hard. He smiled, imagining.

  Shillraki mercenaries paced along the embankment, while buckskin-dad levies from Old Tykis leaned impassively on their spears at the gate and watched from emotionless, tattooed faces. Most of the subsidiary camps inside were Imperial regular infantry, each regiment of foot in a checkerboard around the hutments of the officers and the unit Shrine of the Three, divided from the next by open space reserved for drill.

  The cart turned off at the XIXth Foot's encampment, those with it saluting raggedly as they passed by the standard at the gate. Chevays snapped his fist to his breast and out smartly as he went by a few moments later, under the pole with the Imperial daggertooth and the blazoned numbers.

  The commander's tent was more like a pavilion: definitely nonstandard, three or four times the authorized load Haifa dozen blooded horses waited on a picket string beneath an awning outside. The guards snapped to attention and passed him through; the interior was brightly lit, and surprisingly busy. Most of the officers were unremarkable, the same weathered professionals a man could find anywhere in the New Empire. A half-dozen or so were personal aides to the commander, unmistakable sprigs on various prominent family trees—and all, men and women alike, young and remarkably handsome, their uniforms as gaudy as the flexible regulations would allow, or rather more so.

  Gonstad, the filing mechanism in his mind prompted him. Lord Colonel Feliz Gonstad commanded the XIXth; the usual mixture of connections and pull, because he certainly hadn't earned the promotion. How delightful! the spy thought. Corrupt, devious and stupid Lord Colonel Gonstad. So corrupt and stupid that he'd ended up in charge of an infantry outfit—not a status assignment for the high born; a man with his breeding and wealth should have been a cavalry general at least.

  Chevays had a file on Gonstad thick as a man's fist. It was no accident that Gonstad's aides were all lovely young things in tight uniforms. Blondes, brunettes, redheads; Chevays had to admire the
Lord Colonel's taste, even if he didn't think much of the man's hobbies. They were entirely too simple and straightforward Chevays thought he could show the Lord Colonel a thing or two about amusement.

  One lithe redhead showed him into the Lord Colonel's office: snow-leopard furs, a flask of Perdiki sweating coolness in a spelled snowbath, incense and a jewelled Three-set, and on a stand a suit of three-quarter armor had to be Dilaarin-made.

  Chevays didn't bother with introductions, salutes, or other proprieties. "I need to see your register of troops," he said.

  Lord Colonel Gonstad studied his grey tunic, the special division insignia, and the lieutenant's pips. The expression on Gonstad's face told Chevays the Lord Colonel didn't like the special division, and he didn't like Chevays. Knowledge of that fact made Chevays very happy. He hoped Lord Colonel Gonstad would be difficult.

  "Where's your authorization?" Gonstad held out his hand as if he thought Chevays would hand over the usual paperwork.

  Chevays walked back and closed the Lord Colonel's door, then returned and sat on the edge of his desk. "My authorization, sir, is that on the fifth day of last month, during the celebration of the Virgins of the Lady of Derkin, you used seventy-four crowns, eighteen coppers of unit money to buy gifts for three of the virgins, lured them to a rented room, and deflowered all three—the gifts including highly illegal aphrodisiac candy. One of the virgins, or rather," Chevays smiled slyly, "ex-virgins, though you may not know this, is the daughter of the Hereditary Totani, the Guardian of the Flame of Derkin. Just turned thirteen, I believe."

  The Lord Colonel was turning the most delightful shade of green. Chevays thought that last item was probably news to him.

  "Further, we have a complete, word-by-word transcript of your, ah, assignation with the three virgins, and only the fact that the Hereditary Totani doesn't know who you are has kept him from having you gelded You know, of course, that he has that right?" Chevays paused, waiting for Gonstad's answer.

  Gonstad's mouth hung open. He seemed to be having difficulty coming up with a response.

  "Well," Chevays said after the silence had continued long enough, "he knows he has that right, and he is looking for you. But since you're going to cooperate with the special division, he probably won't find you. Aren't you glad about that?"

  Gonstad still made no response.

  "Yes. I thought you would be. Your troop register, please." Now Chevays held out his hand.

  Gonstad pulled out a large black book and handed it over to the lieutenant.

  Chevays flipped through it. The names and equipment of each member of the XIXth were listed in the book, along with such useful esoterica as race, sex, and profession before entering the military.

  Chevays was looking through the "race" column—he thought he'd probably come up with the information he needed fastest if he went that route.

  Sure enough, on the last filled page, he noted a question marker in the race column about a third of the way down the page. The name on that line was Eowlie Thirddaughter. The profession, he noted, was "whore."

  How wonderful, he thought Chevays loved whores. They lasted so much longer than other women. And they were always so sure they'd seen everything.

  It was always a pleasure to show them how wrong they were.

  Her assignment now was scout He thought he'd join her unit and decide how he wanted to deal with her once he'd spent some time with her.

  He turned to Gonstad. "You'll write orders for me to join the scouts of the XIXth," he said "list me as 'specialist in covert operations'—vague, and delightfully accurate."

  Lord Colonel Gonstad started to argue with him. He could see the protests forming. But then the Lord Colonel did something totally unexpected.

  He smiled. He reached into his desk, pulled out a standard appointment form, and signed it at the bottom. "Fill it in yourself," he said. "Give the papers to First Captain Morkaarin. If you fill them out fairly fast, you'll probably still find him in his quarters. Why don't you just give them to him immediately?"

  Chevays didn't like the sudden happiness he saw in Gonstad's eyes. He didn't know to what to attribute it. But he was getting what he wanted—and if Morkaarin turned out to be a tyrant, or a raving lunatic, or worse, Chevays knew he could handle that.

  He borrowed the Lord Colonels scritoire and filled out the form.

  "You've made the right decision," he told Gonstad.

  "I'm sure of it," the Lord Colonel agreed.

  Feeling vaguely uneasy, Chevays Coado carried his new orders out of the office and went in search of First Captain Morkaarin.

  CHAPTER VI

  Amourgin couldn't sleep. It was his first night out of the stockade, and he was finding the freedom less to his liking than he had anticipated. Insects bit him; uneven spots in the hard ground under his bedroll dug into his back and hips; and dust blew into the tent on the hot, dry wind and gritted in his eyes and nose. He began to imagine ways by which he could get himself thrown back into the stockade. At least it would get him out of the disconcertingly sharp gaze of the regimental priest, who seemed to be a good enough type, but if he discovered that there was an unlicensed, unclerical practitioner of magic amongst them…

  Then Amourgin considered his plight and started to grin. He'd gotten out of worse. As he intended to get out of this predicament.

  For the first time since the night the army had found him, he had some privacy.

  He peeked outside the tent. The string of moons slipped in and out of the scattered clouds, casting little light, and most of the recruits were, from the sounds of things, well and truly asleep. At the distant camp perimeter, he heard the guards tramping, the occasional call of sentries, and the lights still burned at the regimental headquarters—but nearby, nothing moved.

  Well and good

  He turned his head to face away from the tent opening, and rummaged through his kit He retrieved his copy of the Consolidated Analects of Mero Rimsin, and pressed gently but firmly on the top edge of the back cover. The thin margin of a panel slid out, and he tugged at it to work it the rest of the way free.

  The contents of the secret panel might as well have been at the bottom of a deep well.

  "It's too dark in here," he muttered. He didn't dare light a slowmatch, nor a flare. The idea of checking his supplies by moons' light worried him immensely, but he could think of no other alternative. He turned around again, held the book under the open sky, and was able, vaguely, to make out the contents. He pushed his spectacles up his nose and squinted at the labels on the dozens of tiny gut, wax-stoppered tubes that lay packed in rows in the secret compartment.

  Blueginny, he read, bone, bophrayne, caylene, cidon…by the Three, what is that next tube?

  The writing was tiny, and some idiot had done it in an ornate script that was nearly unreadable in the dim light. He wanted to swear out loud. Don't they consider when they put these kits together that those of us in the field might have to use them in the dark?

  Cuevil. That's what it says. No, they don't consider the dark. That would imply, not just a minimum of intelligence on their parts, but some familiarity with the trials of fieldwork… and expecting that out of the flunkies doing kitpacking—all right, where is the dolemard? They can't have forgotten that, can they?

  He looked through the tubes, increasingly frantic. He had plenty of what he didn't need, but the one thing he needed…

  He found his tube of dolemard in the R's. I would have assumed the packers were at least taught the rudiments of filing, he thought, then remembered, with a twinge of shame, that he had used the dolemard once. Thus, the misfiling was his own fault.

  He gave the kitmaker a mental apology for the dolemard—but not for the writing.

  He took his tube and turned again to face away from the tent opening. He slipped his Wolf sept ring off his hand, and pressed the wolfs ears in, then pushed on the nose of the wolfs head. The silver totem slid back to reveal a dark, polished dome of stone. Amourgin licked the stone to
wet it, then sprinkled a pinch of the dolemard into the saliva.

  The law-speaker muttered arcane syllables under his breath, and stared into the pale light. The stone began to glow.

  A face formed in the center of the light, its outlines hazy at first. It stared at him for the briefest of instants, then snapped in a faint and tinny voice, "Where in the Great Domain have you been… and why are you calling at this hour?"

  Amourgin refused to be cowed "I've been pressed into the army," he whispered. "I've spent the last few days tramping around playing soldier, and the nights in the stockade for trying to bribe my way out of this mess."

  The glowing face looked disgusted. "Got yourself pressed? That was clever."

  In theory the Movement disapproved of impressment—it was one of the abuses they were sworn to correct—but that didn't mean Jawain lacked the general prejudice against anyone stupid enough to be caught in a sweep.

  "It isn't as if I volunteered, Jawain." Amourgin glared at the ghostly image. "I missed my contact."

  "I imagine you did. Your contact was murdered trying to get to you. We've had that story now for a day or so—-but no word from you."

  Amourgin rubbed at his forehead with one hand "Killed? Then I could have sat in that inn waiting forever." He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "This is just lovely. I came down to this hot hell and got pressed into the stinking army for nothing. Why don't you send someone to get me out?"

  "And waste a perfectly good cover story? Certainly not! We've wanted to get one of our people on the inside of the army for a while, but so far, everyone we've tried to slip in has been… identified. They must be skimping on the scrying spells because of the rush." Jawain looked pleased. "If you get shipped to Tarin Tseld—and my indications are good that the army should be moving in that direction very soon—you can meet up with someone we've had planted down there. So, since you're there, you might as well do something useful. Just stay put, be a good soldier, and don't get killed. I'll find a way to let our agent in Tarin Tseld know you're coming once the time is right."