by David Drake
“What will you do, Land-heiress?” asked Wolfe.
“I’ll stay here with my husband, of course,” Mahaut replied.
Wolfe nodded and glanced away, but not before Mahaut saw the disapproval in his eyes.
“Please do not exhaust yourself on his account, your grace.”
“It will break Pater Benjamin’s heart if we lose him,” she said. “So I will consider it tending to the Pater as well as to my husband.”
“Very good, mistress. As will we.”
4
As she’d predicted, the fever struck Edgar hard. She bathed him frequently to bring the temperature down and made sure that he did not yank the bandage off his arm, which he tried to do several times in his delirium. After two days, the fever broke. Edgar drank a prodigious amount of tea, and she had to order the servants not to bring him wine because he wanted a bottle of that, as well.
“So you stayed with me through all of this?” Edgar said to her. “I suppose I ought to thank you.”
“I was doing my duty to the house,” Mahaut replied.
“Yes, the house. Meaning the old man of the house.”
“And to you.”
Edgar smiled, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Damn right you were.” He chuckled. “Do you want me to tell you what happened?”
“If it will make you feel better to go into it,” Mahaut said.
Edgar snorted in contempt at her, but apparently his need to talk overcame his petulance, and he began to speak.
It was, as Mahaut had suspected, a dueling wound. He’d fought in Garangipore at the dueling grounds the First Family bravos preferred down by the Canal. The weapons had been blunderbuss pistols. The other had gotten his shot off first, at least according to Edgar. He’d scored the hit in Edgar’s arm, but the shot had not brought Edgar down. To the contrary, it had only made him angrier. Edgar had then taken his time lining up his weapon.
“The bugger stood in place, as a gentleman should, do you believe it?” Edgar said, shaking his head.
Edgar had shot the other straight through the heart.
“I don’t consider myself a crack shot or anything,” Edgar said. “But at twenty paces, I’m rather proud of myself for that one.”
“You killed him?”
“Dead before he hit the ground.”
“And who was this?”
Edgar winced. “I’m afraid that’s the problem. He wasn’t a nobody, and he wasn’t just anybody.”
“Just tell me who it was, Edgar.”
Another wince from Edgar.
This really is going to be bad news.
“It was Walter Eisenach,” Edgar replied in a pained whisper.
“Walter Eisenach of House Eisenach? The firstborn son of the gunpowder baron of Bruneberg?”
“I see you’ve been paying attention to your First Family genealogy lessons.”
Did he think she would not know House Eisenach when she was competing against them every day for shipping space on the barges?
“Curse it, Edgar, do you know what this might mean to House Jacobson?”
“Since when did you start caring so much what becomes of the sons of House Jacobson?”
“Edgar, this is not good.”
“I know that, you idiot,” he said. “He had it coming, though. The bastard challenged me to meet him. I would’ve gotten away, but my exit plan from the town ran into a snag, I’m afraid, and I was forced to confront him. It’s his own fault he’s dead.”
“Do you imagine that’s the way his father will look at it?” Mahaut asked.
“I suppose not.”
“Are you going to tell me what the duel was over? Was it over a gambling debt?”
“Oh, now you want to know the details. No, not gambling,” he said. “Go on, guess some more.”
“It was over a woman.”
“Not exactly,” said Edgar with a philosophical sigh.
“Don’t tell me that you killed him because he made some insulting remark? Even you are not that stupid, Edgar.”
Edgar looked up at her with flaring eyes and snorted from an angry intake of breath. But he was too weak to sustain it, and fell back onto his bed. “Like I told you, he’s the one that called me out. And it wasn’t because I insulted him to his face or anything.”
“Are you going to tell me, or shall we wait for Benjamin to drag it out of you?”
Edgar considered her for a long moment. Then he smiled. Not a good sign. When Edgar smiled like this it meant he was up to no good. “I suppose I could tell you. You’re not going to like it. Are you sure you want to hear about it?”
“I think I must.”
“He believed that I had gotten a woman pregnant. He believed that I had insulted the honor of his house.”
“Who did you get pregnant?” Mahaut didn’t really want to hear the answer, but she knew she needed to if she had any hope to contain the damage.
“It wasn’t even his little bastard! The bugger claimed that I gotten his sister with child. She’s married to his best friend from childhood. Can you imagine that? What if your brother Xavier had forced you to marry me, instead of your choosing to do it of your own free will? What if he’d forced you to have sex with me, instead of your liking it so much you begged for more.”
“Let’s not go down that road, Edgar.” Mahaut shook her head. She would not let him get to her, not ever again. “And did you get her pregnant?”
“Perhaps. Who knows? Somebody did, and I have a feeling it wasn’t her husband, since he was away on business in Lindron for the past five months.”
“I won’t ask why you did it,” Mahaut said. “But I do wonder why her, of all women?”
“You may find this hard to believe, wife, but many women find me difficult to resist. In fact, I had turned the poor thing away several times, but she kept showing up on my doorstep.”
“You know how to avoid making a woman pregnant.”
“Yes. Marry a woman who gets her womb torn to pieces by a bullet while fighting in a battle that she had no business being involved in in the first place.” He finished off the statement with a disgusted smile. “Betta Eisenach is pure First Family. Maybe I didn’t use the sheath on purpose. Maybe I wanted to plant my seed in a whole woman of the finest stock.”
Mahaut sighed. Edgar’s insults were like insectoid chirping to her now. “Edgar, this could be a disaster. Do you know what it means when First Families feud? You didn’t die. They’ll want a price in blood for Walter Eisenach. They may even come after your brother.”
“Oh, my brother can take care of himself,” Edgar replied. “Or at least Father will.”
Mahaut considered him, then leaned back in her chair. She had moved it to be by his bedside and had stayed in it constantly for the last three days.
“It’s time to change your bandages again,” she finally said. “We’ll take a good look at the wound when we do.” She allowed herself to smile wickedly. “There’s still a chance that arm will have to come off.”
5
Mahaut left Edgar’s bedside the next day and did not return. He was past the crisis point, and now would only require several weeks of recovery. She was not looking forward to having him around the Lilleheim compound. His official appointment was as House Jacobson factor in Garangipore, although it was understood that a staunch family retainer named Mahler did the actual work of grain transshipment from the Canal to the barges traveling up and down the river.
Edgar had spent the last two years living permanently in Garangipore, with the agreement that Mahaut would visit him occasionally to keep up appearances but would remain in Lilleheim most of the time. There was a large family block of buildings in the town, and Edgar had a palatial apartment within them. He was more often to be found in the area brothels and gaming houses than at home, as Mahaut knew from several sources that she cultivated to keep her informed of the business matters at Garangipore.
And now, apparently in the bedrooms of First Family matrons.
Mahaut was beyond being shocked by Edgar’s behavior. The trouble now was how to contain the damage. A war between families would do no one any good, especially if those families were as powerful as the Eisenachs and the Jacobsons.
She called one of those sources of information to her, a grizzled, nondescript man named Jeptha Marone. For over a decade, he’d been a traveling trader for House Jacobson. He’d started out as a wagon driver, and worked his way up as Benjamin Jacobson, and now Mahaut, had discovered that he had that rare combination of trustworthiness and wiliness that was most needed when there was business that had to be conducted quietly. He had also done a stint in the Regulars and was handy with gun, knife, and fists.
Marone stepped into Mahaut’s anteroom and bowed. As always, he looked very nervous to be anywhere near a land-heiress’s quarters. At least officially. He’d done enough snooping in them to be quite calm when the visit was unofficial—and unannounced.
“Trader Marone, we need something done, and we need it done with the utmost discretion. Will you take some wine?”
“No, Land-heiress, thank you,” he replied. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched for one with such gruff looks. “How may I be of service?”
“There’s a child. At least, we think there is a child. First, I want to find out if this child exists, or if it is the product of Edgar’s imagination.”
“Establish if there is a child,” Marone said. He liked to restate his instructions carefully, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for clarification. “What child is this I am to find or not find, Land-heiress?”
“It is the child of Betta Eisenach of House Eisenach. She is married to the first cousin of the Family pater. She’ll either be in Garangipore, or perhaps she’s gone to Lindron. I gather that’s where she’s from. She would go there especially if there is a child and she needs to enter into confinement. I do not think they will want this child known to the world, so it is not going to be the easiest thing to find out what it is or where it is.”
“If it exists at all?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, Land-heiress, I am to find the child’s location.”
“And sex.”
“I am to find if the child is boy or girl.”
“Yes, Marone. Most important of all, however, is this. I want you to find out what House Eisenach intends to do with that child. I want to know if they plan to keep it, kill it, or give it away. This will be the difficult thing to ascertain. I’m going to place substantial funds at your disposal for use in obtaining this information, however.”
“Find out ultimate plans for disposition of the child,” Marone said. “This is a matter of importance, and expenditure of the necessary funds needed to obtain the information is preapproved by the Family.”
“You have it, Marone. Do you think you can do it?”
Marone bit his lower lip and shuffled a bit, considering. “It may prove difficult, Land-heiress. Especially since House Eisenach does not want any of this to come to light. But I think it is not impossible. And whom do I report this to when I’ve completed the assignment, your grace?”
“To me,” Mahaut said. “I will deliver the gist of it to Pater Benjamin.”
“As you say, Land-heiress Jacobson,” said Marone with another bow. “It’s my pleasure to serve the House, as always.”
“You do us honor,” Mahaut replied.
And you grow richer in the process, she thought.
Which wasn’t such a bad thing, considering that Jeptha Marone had six mouths to feed back home, and a seventh on the way, if the gossip around town were true. Tana Marone had been seen at the Lilleheim baker’s with quite the bulge showing under her linens—a bulge that hadn’t been there two months before.
Marone took another bow and made his way out.
“And what are you going to do about this child?” said Benjamin Jacobson, stepping into the antechamber.
Mahaut started out of her thoughts. “Pardon me, Pater. I didn’t know you were there.”
“The question stands.”
She rubbed her eyes and checked her fingertips to be sure a smudge of kohl had not come off. “It isn’t up to me. It’s up to you.”
“No, this one I am leaving to you. We will go with your decision.”
“Then I don’t know,” Mahaut replied. “I will try to do whatever is best for the house as I see fit, but that will depend on the circumstances. If you wish me to handle this, you’ll have to trust me, Pater.”
“I have nothing but trust in you, daughter-in-law,” Benjamin replied. He shook his head and sat down in the chair that Marone had refused. “But this situation that Edgar has put us into is dangerous. I saw a feud among Firsts when I was younger. It was between House Dupree and House Freemont. So much blood. Three friends of mine dead and floating in the Canal as carnadon fodder. The only thing they ever did to deserve it was to be born in the wrong place and time.”
* * *
A month later, Edgar was back on his feet and stalking around the compound like a pent-up wolverdon. He wore a sling around the injured arm and complained when he wasn’t permitted a dont to take out riding. Benjamin had forbidden the stablehands from giving him a mount, but this didn’t stop Edgar from railing at them and striking a stable boy viciously with a hand whip.
Mahaut tended the boy’s wound, which was ugly but not too severe—although the whip’s lash had only missed the boy’s eye by a finger’s width.
Oh, yes, Edgar Jacobson is back, she thought.
PART THREE
The Load
Six years later
The Present
1
Approaching Garangipore
476 Post Tercium
Abel chose a large female dont from the train to ride. The gunny sergeant in charge said her name was Nettle. Abel began his acquaintance, as he always did with a new dont, by feeding her tender, newly grown rushweeds he’d found near an irrigation ditch on his march to the rear. Normally, he would spend at least a halfwatch getting to know a new dont mount. Today, he had only a few moments, but he did his best to woo her with soft words and more rushweeds.
Then he put on the saddle the supply sergeant had issued him, and carefully girthed it on the dont’s inhale. He mounted up and headed back up the line he’d just marched down, setting Nettle to a brisk trot.
It was just past midday and the enormous, self-made dust cloud that engulfed an army on the march had billowed into being. The Guardians marched eight abreast, in four columns of two with a larger space down the middle of varying width—built-in room for give while maneuvering around objects. They stretched across the Road, and, when necessary, marched in the ditches and fields that lined it. Where the road narrowed severely, columns merged, moving through without missing a step or slowing down.
Like the flowing of the River, Abel thought. Or the slithering of a legless cliff viper.
Villagers gathered along the sides of the road to watch the procession, but stayed many paces back. There was awe on their faces, and a certain amount of worry. When a child reached up to wave, or jumped up and down in excitement, parents or relatives would pull the child away and place it behind them. As with a viper in a wicker cage, you did not want to tap too much and make the deadly beast notice you. It might find a way out.
But one could observe from an appropriate distance.
There had not been a march of the entire Corps such as this in over a hundred years. One hundred ten years, to be exact. Abel knew; he’d spent the last four years practically living and breathing military history scrolls. On that previous campaign, the Guardians had been sent to correct a problem in the Delta. The locals had taken to sailing out to blue water ocean. They’d developed a new kind of triangular sail, larger ships, and were even venturing out to harpoon the near-legendary grendels and collect their oil. Grendels were the largest beasts ever seen in the Braun Sea—the size, it was rumored, of over a hundred daks.
According to the scrolls, these sailing folk were of a diff
erent stock than the short, mostly dark-complexioned Deltamen who now lived in the area. They had been fair, freckled, and some were said to have flaming red hair.
Abel knew that complexion. He’d seen it before, in the Redlands. Red hair and freckles was the mark of a Flanagan. They inhabited the wastelands to the east of the River Delta and existed in a state of squalor. The Blaskoye looked upon them as subhuman and treated them as animals when they caught one, even occasionally hunting them. The Flanagan tribe subsisted mostly on clams and mussels they gathered along the seashore and cracked open with rocks.
As Abel read the old scroll, it dawned on him where the Flanagans had come from. The people of the Delta, First Family and commoner alike, had been rounded up by the Guardians in a surprise attack. The scrolls were remarkably frank on what happened next. Most had been killed outright, or imprisoned inside enclosures and hastily dug pits. They’d been left to starve to death. Others had been driven into the sea at the point of bayonets. Most of the children who remained had been sold as slaves to a Redlander barbarian tribe of the time.
The very few who escaped had fled east with their families—and these must have become the beach-grubbing, primitive Flanagans.
* * *
The day’s marching pace was relentless. The Guardian Corps had started out from Lindron four days previously and in that time had covered nearly fifty-five leagues on foot. Three brigades, each composed of four one-thousand-man battalions, plus mounted forces, specialist platoons, and a quartermaster’s corps. Sixteen thousand men.
A drop in the sea compared with armies of yore, Center had commented.
You work with the army you have, Raj replied.
Abel could hardly believe it was possible to move a force this large so far and so quickly, but the proof was before his eyes. And they did it all with rifles and three-stone packs on their backs.
The air was hot and sticky. They’d left Lindron, worked their way through the badlands known as the Giants, and arrived in Ingres just four days ago. Now they were headed out the flat flax and wheat fields of Ingres, nearing its border with Treville District. This brought the road close to the River, and the humidity rose with each watch spent marching. The dust cloud glowed a luminous, sun-drenched yellow around the marching men. Fine brown alluvial dust stuck to sweating skin. It got into men’s eyes and scratched its way down their craws so that every swallow was dry and every breath ragged.