by Robert Adams
"Desertion?" queried Portos blandly, suspecting untold the true answer, even as he spoke. "We'll apprehend these miscreants in no time, never you fear, Opokomees, the scouts will tell us which way they went, and then I'll send some of Captain Chief Pawl's Horseclanners to ..."
"No, no, no, no no!" the visiting officer half-shrieked, shaking both gloved fists and stamping one booted foot upon the floor in his agitation. "The pigs didn't desert, my lord Thoheeks, not legally; no, Petros and the rest of those drooling idiots I called my officers came to me and demanded back the prices of their ranks . . . and, of course, I had to give them the money. The others, those scoundrelly sergeants and the idiot troopers and my cretin of a servant, they all just took everything that did not belong to me and went over in a body to join that goddam Wolf Squadron. They're hunkering there, now."
"Well, lord Opokomees," inquired Portos, "what do you want me to do about it all, pray tell? If the troops did not desert, then they still are members of my command who simply have chosen to serve me and the army in a different squadron. Admittedly, the other ranks should, strictly speaking, have gone through channels to effect a transfer to another unit of horse, but now that it is done, I can see no reason to censure them."
"I don't want them censured!" Captain Ehrrikos half-shouted. "I want the lowborn scum back! I'll see the bare white spines of every one of those damned sergeants . . . and that backbiting batman, too!"
"It is all as I have heretofore stated, Captain Opokomees" said Portos with chilly formality. "This . . . ahhh . . . rearrangement of officers and troops will not discommode me or my brigade of horse, and so I can think of nothing that would impel me to involve myself in it. Have you considered riding over and pleading with Captain Vahrohnos Bralos to return them to Panther Squadron?"
Ehrrikos turned livid and grated from between tightly clenched teeth. "I did ... earlier today. The bastard of a shoat and a goat, he laughed at me, laughed at me, to my very face. He said that did I put less gold on myself and more upon the backs of and in the bellies of my troopers, I might still have more of them within the precincts of my own camp and fewer of them within his. Then the misbegotten son of a diseased ape informed me that as he was very busy with interviewing newly come personnel, he would have to cut our visit short. The gall of the upstart, only a damned vahrohnos, and not even that for long!"
Portos tried hard to keep the smile from off his face, the laughter out of his voice. "Well, then, Captain, have you considered seeking an audience with the Grand Strahteegos? You seemed to have his ear and his favor earlier this week, as I recall. Perhaps he would see that you got at least your other ranks back. Neither he nor I could tell your noble officers what to do, not after you allowed them to sell back their ranks in Panther Squadron."
The officer's lividity deepened, darkened, and he ground his teeth. "Lord Thoheeks, it was our Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos who sent me here, to you as cavalry brigade commander to resolve this stinking mess. He said that he would leave resolution of the current matter up to you, trusting as he does your judgment, and he . . ." Ehrrikos paused and ground his teeth once more.
"Yes?" prompted Portos. "The Grand Strahteegos had other words, Captain?"
"He ... he said ... it was of a rather personal nature, my lord," said Ehrrikos, a little lamely.
"Even so, I will hear it, Captain. Now," Portos demanded, ordered.
Even in his anger, Ehrrikos could not mistake the authority in the voice of the senior captain, and he could not but obey. "He said, my lord, that if I was desirous of keeping my rank and the command of Panther Squadron, the two troops I had remaining and the third that I must immediately begin to recruit, I had best sell my finger-rings, my arm-rings and my golden chain and use the money from them to outfit my troops for winter campaigning and begin to feed them more and better rations. He ... he promised that was Panther Squadron not the equal at least of Wolf Squadron by spring, that . . . that the entire army would be witness to my impalement."
Lolling in the chair in Bralos' office, the big, brawny Portos could no longer restrain himself, gusting once more into laughter that continued until tears were coursing down his scarred cheeks into his beard and he must perforce hold with both hands his aching sides.
"And would he?" asked Bralos. "Captain Thoheeks, could the Grand Strahteegos have an opokomees publicly impaled for such cause?"
Sobering a bit, the brigade commander replied, "Whether he would or not is really anyone's guess; old Pahvlos is not easy to fathom. But if he felt he had cause, sufficient cause, he most assuredly could. His successes—past and present—have made him virtually a law unto himself, insofar as Council is concerned.
"But in this case of Opokomees Ehrrikos' callous mistreatment of his squadron, I doubt that Pahvlos would go that far. Most likely, if Ehrrikos sees fit to ignore Pahvlos' 'advice,' he will just have him well striped, stripped of his military rank and enough of his personal treasures to cover refurbishing the squadron and meeting the prices of rank of the remaining officers, then send him home in disgrace. No doubt, Ehrrikos' overlord will be sufficiently displeased to punish him, too. But impalement, no, I doubt it, Bralos, not crucifixion or maiming, even."
"My lord," Bralos said, "I would ask a question of you."
Smiling, Portos nodded. "Ask away, then, my good Bralos."
"The provisions I have made for the men of my squadron—decent clothing, equipment and food—should these things not be provided to all men of the army by the army, rather than leaving such necessities' provision up to individual commanders who, in most cases, either cannot or will not? Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos has told me that in both the Royal Army of Karaleenos and in the Army of the Confederation, things are just so—all soldiers' needs being issued by the army."
Portos took his barely touched goblet from off the desktop and took a sip, then sighed. "The biggest and, to Pahvlos and many another noble officer, most important reason is that the present method, with all its undeniable faults, is the traditional method in armies of the Southern Ehleenohee. The most pressing reason that this was not adopted by Grahvos and the rest when Tomos first advised its adoption, years back, before Pahvlos came, was and is the simple fact that the Council could not and cannot afford it ... yet.
"Hell, Bralos, I dislike it as much as any other officer or man. I would much rather be putting such funds as I come by into my new duchy, rather than using them to clothe and equip and feed my troops, but they are completely dependent on me and I realize that fact, recognizing my responsibility to them and to the army.
"But until, if, when, Council sees fit to step into the management of the army, has the necessary income and effects a reorganization of sorts, you and I are just stuck with making the best that we can of an old, bad, but long-established situation."
"All right, then, if the squadron is to be my responsibility, I want it to be my sole responsibility, my lord, all of it. I want leave to buy the present horses from Council, the furnishings for them and my men's weapons," said Bralos.
"Sweet Christ on Your Cross!" exclaimed Portos. "Man, do you have any conception of the kind of money you're speaking of laying out here? Just how rich are you, anyway?"
Bralos nodded. "Yes, I know the figure almost to the coppers, my lord, Sub-strahteegos Tomos and I added it all up with the help of a quartermaster officer and a remount officer, both sworn to secrecy. It will put somewhat of a dent in my present finances, but I still can afford it."
"Why do you want to do such a thing?" demanded Portos, incredulity in his voice, a stunned look on his face. "It ... the thing just makes no sense to me."
"Should I leave the army, for whatever reason," answered Bralos, "I want to go with the knowledge that the men who served me so well for so long and under such trying conditions will each own at least the value of a good troop-horse and their weapons and armor. Another thing is this: many of my men are—rather were—farmers, herders and suchlike. My barony—hel
l, the entire duchy, for that matter—is underpopulated, now. Whenever things wind down and the army need not be so large, I want to take all of my squadron who wish to go with me back to my lands, to till and sow and herd upon them. For those men not so inclined, both my overlord and I will need small armed bands of retainers."
Portos stared hard into Bralos' eyes, then dropped his gaze. "A bit earlier, I was speaking to Ehrrikos on the responsibilities of rank. Bralos, you shame me, you shame all of us officers, in your concern for the present welfare and even the future welfare of your troopers. How I wish all of my cavalry officers were alike to you.
"Your request will, naturally, have to go to the highest authority, to the Grand Strahteegos himself. But I will personally bear it to him and pray that he approve it; if he does not, then I'll put it to Council. That's the best I can do."
"My lord is more than generous, may God bless him," Bralos said with sincere feeling.
"Yes, I recall that ruckus in Council," said Thoheeks Sitheeros, while using his powerful hands to crack nuts. "A duel resulted from some of the name-calling engendered in that day's civilized debate. Grahvos finally summoned Tomos up to the palace and closeted with him for a while, then rammed the measure through by way of a half-Council vote. That can be done, you know; most business can be decided by the votes of seventeen councillors only, not the full thirty-three.
"So, then, that was how you got on the bad side of our late Grand Strahteegos, hey?"
"I'm now certain that that was the beginning of the Grand Strahteegos' antipathy toward me, my lord. He insisted after that that my squadron be listed as mercenary cavalry; I suppose that he thought that such a designation would limit my ability to recruit replacements and sell officer ranks, but of course it did not," replied Bralos.
The spring thaw saw the beginning of nearly two years of almost constant campaigning for the army of Council, beginning with a long march into the far-northwestern corner of the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee and a protracted war against an alliance of a number of tribes of mountain barbarians. The army stayed in those mountain for more than six months, almost until snowtime, seldom engaging in large open battles, but one hit-and-miss ambuscade or running fight or assault upon walled or stockaded hold and village after another. The cavalry, particularly the light cavalry, took heavy losses in this campaign.
Once arrived back at the camp under Mehseepolis' walls, Bralos set about buying horses and equipment to replace losses, carted out wainloads of damaged items for repair and had broadcast a call for men to fill out his ranks . . . and they came, despite the measures taken by his peers in military rank to prevent them so doing. They came because—despite the brutally hard service to which Wolf Squadron had been subjected— very few troopers had been lost due to malnourishment or frostbite, most casualties being the result of enemy action or common accident or mischance.
Although the snows came, this unpleasant fact did not prevent the army being marched forth on another campaign for the year, this one to the south and lasting the most of the winter.
Barely had the next spring been ushered in when Wolf Squadron and half of the Horseclan Squadron were dispatched again to another stretch of border to deal with yet another pack of bandit-raiders whose ongoing depredations were become the bane of two more thoheeksee. So once more Bralos rode north with Captain Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn.
This action did not take as much time, for Chief Pawl was senior officer from the start, and immediately it was seen by him and Bralos that the border was being used just as the other bandits had used it, he rode into the mountains with local hunters and chewed the fat with his fellow barbarian chiefs, and shortly he and Bralos were headed back to Mehseepolis with a long coffle of slaves-to-be and but few losses from among their own ranks.
It had been during the campaign of the previous winter—that one conducted along the ill-defined border of the sinister Witch Kingdom, which lay somewhere deep within the dank, dark, overgrown wilderness of ghoul-haunted fens and monster-teeming swamps, where huge and often deadly serpents slithered, where carpets of lush vegetation concealed beds of quicksand and bottomless pools of brackish water—that Grand Strahteegos Pahvlos had acquired a lover. This boy of about fourteen or fifteen, Ilios by name and the recognized bastard of a thoheeks, reared in his father's household and extended most of the same education and advantages as had his legitimate half brothers, was as pretty as a young girl, and Pahvlos' possession was envied by those officers and soldiers of similar tastes; the rest referred to him in private as "Ilios Pooeesos." It had been determined much later by general consensus that the coming of this Ilios had marked the very beginnings of old Pahvlos' abrupt change of character, when he first began to drive the army unmercifully in the field and exact upon the flesh of his soldiers such exaggerated outrages of discipline that, had he not died when he had, he might have sundered the army apart. As it was, he came quite close to tearing apart the Council of Thoheeksee.
Chapter V
Upon arrival of the victorious cavalry column at the crossroads just beyond the army's camp, Captain Bralos, having rather urgent business in the commerce district of Mehseepolis, ordered his senior lieutenant to take the squadron into camp, while he and his personal guards accompanied the lancers and Horseclansmen guarding and guiding the hundred-odd chained prisoners bound for the state slave pens, these situated behind a palisaded enclosure just beyond the city's west gate, the ever-present stenches of it, the main abattoir and the tanneries nearby borne away from the city on the prevailing winds.
A low hill with a wide, flattish top a few hundred yards west of the tanneries had become the new location of executions, the former one, when Mehseepolis had been merely a ducal city, having been used as the site of the slave pens. Bralos and the column of horsemen and stumbling war captives slowly passed the place of terror, of torment and death. There apparently had been no recent crucifixions, for all the line of uprights sat without crosspieces, bare save for black crows perching atop three of them, with wistful hope. Beyond them, Bralos could discern the bulk of the permanent gallows, large enough to hang as many as a dozen miscreants at once. A powerful shudder suddenly coursed through the length of him, and he tore his gaze away to look up at the blue skies . . . only to see the buzzards patiently gliding, circling the abattoir and slave pens.
Inside the outer palisade, a quartet of burly, cruel-looking men shoved and cuffed and cudgeled the bone-weary captives into several files, counted them and reported to a languid, bored-appearing man who had earlier introduced himself to Bralos as one Kahsos of Ahkapnospolis (his lack of title indicated him to be a younger son whose patrimony had been a small city or walled town, but in polite conversation, he would still be addressed as "lord," of course).
Leading the way to the smallest of the buildings, the gentleman ushered his noble military guest in, saw him seated, then poured two battered brass cups half full of a sour, unwatered wine, before seating himself and starting to dictate a receipt to a scribe whose ankles were fettered and joined by a chain.
When he was done and the slave scribe was busy with the sanding and the affixing of the seal to the document, the gentleman said, "My lord Vahrohnos, you could not have brought these slaves to us at a better time. When the last batch were gelded, an appalling number of the bastards had the effrontery to die on us, many more of them than is at all normal after geldings, so old Thoheeks Bahos, who heads up the Roads and Walls Committee in Council, is fuming, fit to be tied, swears he's going to send out a real surgeon or eeahtros and insist he and his helpers do all future geldings."
"Who had you had doing them before, Lord Kahsos?" asked Bralos. "Some of your guards?"
The reply made him sorry he had asked. "No, my lord Vahrohnos, a man name of Pehlzos, used to be a swine-breeder, works now over at the abattoir. He's going to be madder than hops at the loss of his three coppers for each pair of balls if the man lived, one copper was he to die.
"Very funny story,
my lord Vahrohnos, about the time we threw a slave and Pehlzos come to find out when he went in his bag, the damn bastard didn't have but the one ball, and while Pehlzos was squatting down there with that single ball in his hand, arguing about how we was still going to owe him the going rate and all, that slave bastard, he jerked one hand loose of the straps, took up one of old Pehlzos' knifes and put it through his own heart, right there. I ended up giving Pehlzos a half-copper for that one, and he was bellyaching about it and over it for weeks; still brings it up now and then."
A few yards outside the city gates, Bralos signaled his guards to rein up, kneed his horse over to the side of the road, leaned from his saddle and retched until nothing more would come up. To solicitous words from the guards, he remarked, "That country gentleman's wine, or whatever the stuff really was, was fouler than swampwater or ditchwater running off a new-mucked field. Far better that it be back at home in that ditch than sloshing about in my poor belly."
"Well, then," remarked his guards-sergeant, Tahntos, slyly, "will my lord be wanting to stop by a wineshop to get the taste of that brew from out his mouth?"
"No, my good Tahntos." Pausing long enough to see the disappointment register on Tahntos' face and that of the others before continuing, he said, "But all of you have my leave to visit Master Keemohsahbis' place while I call upon Master Haigh's smithy, across the way . . . just so long as you all stay sober enough to easily stay on a horse and ride with me back to camp, that is."