Raj blew smoke. "It might be easier if I knew for what," he said.
"I have betrayed you—I have betrayed the Spirit of Man of the Stars, may I be damned to… well, forgiven—I have betrayed the Civil Government."
Kaltin Gruder thumbed back the hammer of his revolver. "Spying for the ragheads?" he said, in a voice as metallic as that sound.
"No, no! The Tribune arranged with… " a visible internal struggle "… with authorities in East Residence, I think the Chancellor… "
"Tzetzas," the Companions chorused.
"Watch your language," Suzette observed.
"… to transfer the garrison. It is the land grants, you see, until title is cleared the rents are still collected but the soldiers get nothing, nothing!"
Raj nodded sickly. There was never enough money in the central government Fisc to pay the foot soldiers directly, not and keep the more important cavalry units supplied… not to mention the mercenaries from outside the Civil Government, who wanted good hard cash in sound coin, no bank drafts please. Revenue melted on the way from the Counties to the capital, and on the way back out for disbursements; instead, the infantrymen were each assigned a farm. Worked by tenants, so that they had time to drill, although many ended up spending more time helping in the fields than marching. If the unit was transferred, the soldiers were supposed to be settled into equivalent holdings immediately. Even when it worked the way it was supposed to morale dropped hideously every time an infantry regiment moved.
Kaltin was nodding thoughtfully. "You know, one of the infantry Captains was wearing a uniform coat tailored from Azanian torofib." That was a fiber spun to line its nests by a burrowing pseudoinsect that lived in the savannahs inland from the Zanj coast. "The real thing. He didn't buy that on an infantry officer's pay. I couldn't afford it, myself." And the Gruder estates pastured ten thousand head of pedigreed Angoras.
"But… " Evrard burst out, "that's… that's despicable!" The others looked at him pityingly; he had been out from Descott less than a year.
Gerrin shrugged. "That's Tzetzas," he amplified.
Muzzaf nodded, tears streaking his face. "The Legate suggested it, but he's the Chancellor's appointee. That was before Tewfik moved, nobody thought there would be more than raids on the outlying settlements."
"What was your share?"
"I… acted as agent, to collect the rents. Five percent to me; out of… three thousand silver FedCreds. A quarter to the officers, and the rest to the Legate, I don't know how he split that with the Chancellor." Brokenly: "My lord, I did not know… it seemed that all the others were doing it, and they said Komar would still be safe. The Spirit of Man and of the Stars and the Civil Government have been good to me, my lord: now I see you are Their true servant. I have served a corrupt man in corruption —let me serve you in honesty!"
"Merida," Raj said quietly. Shit. "So much for our secure base. How many actual troops are there in this town?"
He looked at Muzzaf: a man of mixed blood, probably bitterly determined to make his loyalty unquestioned, as many such were. Who could blame him, for following the lead the Legate and Chancellor gave? An able man as well, invaluable if his remorse was lasting and not a mere fit …
"Ahh, there is the Legate's personal guard, mercenaries from Asaura County." A few snorts; that was in the mountains north and east of the plateau-and-canyon country of Descott, part of the Civil Government only by courtesy. The County Legate of Descott was chosen by the area's gentry, in practice if not theory; the County Legate of Asaura was appointed in East Residence and stayed there, if he had any sense. Even Descotters considered Asuarans backward, but they were much in demand as elite infantry.
"Well, good enough fighters, except that when they're drunk, which is usually, they cut every throat in sight and rape the corpses," Mekkle Thiddo said. "How many of them?"
"About a hundred. Then, there is the town militia, but they are for manning the guns, only. And one of the infantry Captains, he has been maintaining two hundred of his men at his own expense, I think that the others forced him to go along with the billeting scheme by threats. And perhaps as many again, among the retainers of the Messers in town, but they are not organized."
"Not nearly enough to hold the walls," Raj said. Heads turned toward him, eyes full of unspoken questions. And
Observe.
* * *
—he was looking through his own viewpoint, seeing the hands on the table before him move as they would when he shrugged.
"Well," he said/might say, "there's nothing we can do about it but pray; the Legate's in charge here. We'll just have to be sure we don't need a secure base, let the enemy worry about that—"
POM-POM-POM—the quickfirer shells slashed into the mass of screaming humans and animals that jammed the gates of Komar. It was dark, lit only by the moons and the fires that were turning the buildings of the White City crimson and black. White-hot metal slashed dogs and oxen and men into things that fell twitching, to be trampled underfoot; others were pushed off the edge of the bridge, into a moat whose bottom bristled with angle-iron stakes.
Raj was halfway through the gates himself, blood from a scalp wound coating one side of his face in a glistening sheet. "Rally!" he shouted, beating at fugitives with the flat of his saber, forms in the blue of the 5th and the white jackets of the 2nd Gendarmerie, or the dun robes of peasants. The noise overrode everything he could say; everything but the triumphant roar of the Colonist troops as they scrambled down into the moat on ropes and raised the scaling ladders against the inner side. A cannon fired from the ramparts, another, loads of grapeshot cutting paths of moaning, twitching meat through the bright-clad ranks. But they were too few, and only the odd rifle cast its muzzle flame beside them.
"Ul-ul-ul-Allahuu Akbar!" The shrieks were like files on stone, thousandfold, as the soldiers of Islam poured over the walls in a flood, a flood whose surf shone in the firelight with eyes and teeth and the edges of their scimitars.
A jump; morning, that would have been bright if the smoke had not lain so heavy. A pile of bodies was growing in the center of the plaza before the Tribune's palace; Colonist infantry were pitching new loads onto the growing heap. One was Barton Foley, his eyes wide and a gaping cut from ear to ear that nearly reached the backbone. The foot soldier at his shoulders giggled, calling attention to it:
"Hai, this one has had the hallal, brothers!" he said, giggling. The ritual throat cutting which the Shari'ah, the Road to a Watering Place, prescribed for animals slaughtered for meat. "Would any feast on this tender dainty?"
A mounted officer leaned over and lashed a nine-thonged whip on the soldier's back, bringing a yelp of pain.
"Silence, you blasphemous son of ten Berber pigs and a syphilitic whore!" he shouted. There was a huge crash from the temple across the plaza, as the great silver starburst was thrown down and shattered its way through the roof to a chorus of jeers. The officer looked up with a chill satisfaction, then down at survivors of the 5th lined up against the palace; two of them supported a half-fainting Raj, with bandages swathed around his head.
"You kaphar dogs have seen," the officer said, waving his lash over the burning city, "that there is no strength in shirk, idolatry. Indeed there is no God but God. Which of you will renounce your idols and embrace the Faith?" Glares and silence. "As God wills. These are strong men, they will work well in the mines— wait," he continued, as the soldiers began to prod them away. "That one." He pointed at Suzette. "She will be comely, once she puts some flesh on her bones. Cover her face from the sight of men and take her to my quarters."
* * *
Observe:
* * *
—he was looking through his own viewpoint, seeing the hands on the table before him move as they would when he shrugged.
"Well, we'll just have to try and pry the supplies for the infantry loose," he said.
A blur, and he was watching a pouting bureaucrat stamp his seal on a document.
"You could have done t
his last week," Raj said, snatching it up.
The civil servant was about to speak when the door swung open, and an orderly leaned in with a casual salute.
"Beggin' yer parden, ser, an' the officer of the day requests yer presence. Raghead columns approachin'."
* * *
Enough, Raj thought: Center's holograms faded. "We've got to do something, and do it fast," he said, tight-lipped. "What was the name of that infantry officer, the one who's paying his men out of pocket?"
"Messer Captain Jorg Menyez," Muzzaf said, drying his eyes with the back of his hand, then pulling a handkerchief from one sleeve to blow his nose.
"I know the family," Raj said. Landowners up in Kelden County, by the straits of the same name, the narrow waters between the Midworld and Pierson's Seas. Quite well-to-do, you saw their wine sold by name in East Residence, and they had… oh, yes, marble quarries, too. "What's he doing in an infantry outfit in the bundu? Never mind; Mekkle, if you'd be so good, look him up and have him come by my quarters tomorrow at, hmmm, 1400 hours, that should give us enough time." He planted his fists on the table and rose. "Now, here's how we're going to implement a little matter of administrative reform. At reveille, Gerrin will—"
* * *
"This is utterly irregular!"
The Vice-Assistant Legate of Komar was a local man, but dressed in the height of East Residence fashion. The corridor Raj and Staenbridge and Foley had tramped down was lined with open rooms, clerks sitting cross-legged at low desks and chattering as they read and annoted reports and letters; they had fallen nervously silent as the Descotters tramped through, boots ringing on the pebble-surfaced concrete. This office was rather different, walled in hand-painted tiles; the outer wall was stone fretwork laced with a flowering jasmine vine, dew-spangled with the cooling water that flowed down from jets above the ceiling. A secretary huddled wide-eyed on a bronze-legged couch in one corner of the room, almost as ornamental as the vine in her tight red dress. The bureaucrat's desk was at chair-height, northern style, a slab of porphyry almost empty save for neatly arranged pens and a lithograph of the Governor, Vice-Governor, and Chancellor in court robes.
"If you read carefully," Raj said, plucking the parchment sheet out of the man's hands, "it authorizes me to levy contributions and assert the authority of the Civil Government by any means necessary." In gold, vermilion, and silver ink, complete with six ribboned seals, starting with the Vice-Governor's and running down through the Chancellor to the Minister of War and the Master of Soldiers, Residence Area. "And it enjoins all civil authorities to cooperate."
"But—that is for operations over the border!" The Civil Government recognized no other state on Earth—
Bellevue, Center interjected in Raj's inner ear.
—on Earth as sovereign; all other territories were in rebellion.
"Oh?" Raj said, unrolling the document and giving it a quick scan. "Not that I can see; not a mention of borders in here; it just specifies 'Komar and area.' This is Komar; so I'll thank you to sign that order for immediate transfer of title on the land grants, if you please. Plus arrears of rent, to be met out of the County treasury."
"Out of the question," the bureaucrat began, then faded into silence as Raj turned his back and braced a steel-toed boot against the door, wedging it shut.
Foley reached over his shoulder and drew the shotgun. He swallowed, visibly nervous, but even a man as unacquainted with first-hand violence as the plump Vice-Assistant did not doubt his willingness to use it. If anything, the slight tremor in the twin muzzles made it more terrifying still.
Staenbridge came up behind the civil servant and pushed him back into the chair with a thump. "You're right-handed, aren't you, Citizen?" he asked politely.
"Yyyyes," the Vice-Assistant stuttered.
"Good, wouldn't want to leave you unable to sign," the Descotter continued cheerfully, and grabbed his left wrist. There was no struggle—or rather the bureaucrat struggled; Staenbridge laid the hand on the smooth stone of the desk without noticeable delay. Whistling between his teeth he drew his pistol with his right hand, flipped it around to grip by the barrel, and brought it down in a blurring arc that ended on the pudgy clenched fist.
The sound of impact was like a bundle of sticks breaking, combined with the thump of bread dough on a kneading board. The Vice-Assistant screamed in antiphonal chorus with his secretary, then slumped out of his chair, sprawling. The Companion's grip on his wrist pinned the limb to the surface of the desk as effectively as an iron staple would have, however, so he could not slump all the way to the floor. His face had gone grey-brown and saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth to match the tear streaks around his eyes. Then he spasmed and whinnied as Staenbridge shifted a thumb and ground it into the soft mush of shattered small bones at the center of his hand.
The Companion bent low, tapping the other man's nose sharply with the pistol butt to attract his attention. "Now, do sign the papers, there's a good little capon," he said. "Or shall I continue?" The thumb brushed across the wound once more, lightly.
* * *
"It's out of the question," the Director of Municipal Supply said, glaring at the Gruder brothers; their blocky shoulders filled the space in front of his desk. "Two thousand infantry tunics and trousers, shoes, belts, cartridge cases… out of the question! I have their rifles in store, for reissue when the land grants are cleared and they resume regular duties, but this—!" he riffled at the request form. "Ridiculous!"
"The land grants are bein' taken care of right now," Evrard said patiently. Someone who knew him well would have realized how dangerous the trace of brogue was. "And this is Komar? Got cotton mills, dyeworks, tailors, tanners, cobblers? Export cloth and boots? Just append an authorization for rush contracts, down there at the bottom."
"Get out of my— Here, you man, what do you think you're doing?" he said, looking sharply around the blocky forms of the Gruder brothers.
Antin M'lewis looked up and grinned, snaggled brown teeth and cold brown eyes. "Stealin'," he said, wrapping the silver paperknife in a dirty handkerchief and tucking it into one of the patch pockets of his jacket. "Gives us summat in common, loik, eh?" The office walls were lined with shelves for knickknacks; he picked up a glass bubble with a miniature house inside, laughing like a child as he shook it to produce a tiny snowstorm inside, then dropped it in beside the knife.
The Director's eyes bulged, and his face turned purple, but the bellow died in his throat as Evrard's saber came out with a smooth sshhunng sound. The tip settled under his nose, touching just enough to dimple the skin of his upper lip.
"Evrard," Kaltin said. He touched a statue of a dancing girl, only six inches high but vibrant with life; it was of honey-toned spicewood, and he rubbed his fingertips on it before holding them under his brother's nose. "Excellent taste, don't you think?"
"Mmmm. Smells almost as nice as a real girl," Evrard said.
"But these," Kaltin continued, indicating a set of blown-glass animal figurines, "are definitely common." He began picking them up and dropping them over his shoulder, one tinkling crash after another.
"Damn you all to the Outer Dark, crash your cores and burn, demons eat your eyes," the Director hissed. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. "You can't intimidate me this way!"
"Oh? How disappointing," Evrard said, wiping the tip of his sword on his sleeve and sheathing it. "M'lewis, what do you think we should do, then?"
"Dunno, ser," the trooper said, frowning. He brightened. "Throw 'im out the window, ser?"
They pounced, lifting the writhing, yelling form between them. "One—" The windows were glazed, with the outer wooden shutters latched against the sun "Two—
"Heave!"
The scream was cut off by a brittle crash and the crunch of breaking wood. The Director bounced back into the room; there were half a dozen superficial cuts on his face, and he spat out a tooth as he tried to climb to his hands and knees. The Descotters came around the desk an
d the Gruders seized him by ankles and belt; then they used his head and shoulders as a battering ram, to clear what was left of the windows and shutters out of the way. His bloodied hands scrabbled frantically at the frame, careless of the spikes of glass, before the inexorable pressure left him dangling head-down, supported only by their one-handed grips on his ankles. The struggles ceased then, as he realized that kicking free would send him fifteen feet straight down onto the cobbles.
M'lewis came up and pulled off one of his shoes. "Wouldn't fit nohow," he said regretfully, standing on one leg while he measured it against his own sole. The shoe went out the window, followed by the other and the red-and-blue checked socks; M'lewis reached behind his back and drew the skinning knife, held the hilt in his teeth while he rolled up his sleeves. "Tum-te-tum," he hummed, testing the edge by shaving a patch of hair from his corded forearm. "Well now, sers, m'father always said, you want a man to accommodate yer, skin 'im from the feets up. Er down, as we has heres."
"Keep him away from me!" the Director squealed, kicking again as the trooper drew a line of thin red down the bottom of one of his feet. "I'll sign!"
"I knew you would," Kaltin said.
* * *
"As per orders," Mekkle Thiddo said, dropping the documents on the table in front of Raj; the Companions were meeting in the same room as they had the day before. They rustled against the stack of papers already there, as the Companion sucked on a skinned knuckle and then went to rinse the hand in the fountain.
"Three months' rations for the full complement. No killing, but mine's going to be eatin' real careful."
Raj nodded briskly. And the men these penpushers depend on for their lives won't be begging in the streets, he thought with bleak satisfaction. "Is that infantry Captain here yet?" he asked. And what sort of a Menyez is he, to end up commanding an infantry Battalion?
* * *
Captain Jorg Menyez was a tall man, with much the same broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build as the cavalryman he faced; Raj remembered suddenly that his maternal grandmother had been from the Kelden Straits country. There was little resemblance otherwise; Menyez was in his thirties, a pale-eyed, straight-nosed man with russet brown hair, sun-faded and thinning on top. The pale eyes were red-rimmed now, watering behind the wire-rimmed spectacles; he sneezed into his handkerchief and cleared his throat repeatedly as he scanned the documents. His lips thinned as he looked up:
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