The Shasht War

by Christopher Rowley

  "And just don't drink too much wine. Keep a clear head and you'll be fine."

  His coat and trousers were all repaired, and his boots were polished to a lovely shine. Thus he arrived at the Royal Palace among the throng of guests and was shown through the wide passageways of polished wood to the banquet hall, hung with red and gold in honor of the Royal Army of Sulmo.

  A long table was laid with a scarlet cloth. Thru had never seen so much silver and gold. A hundred candles were lit in two lines down the length of the table. It was a vision of Old Sulmo, from her brief golden age.

  The gathering was split into two noticeably different groups. The officers of the army, in their sober blue uniforms with the red-and-yellow pegs that denoted their rank, and surrounding them a more numerous mass of the cream of Sulmo society. Here were the Gryses of every province, the great Melds of the four Quarters and the shorelines, the Lady Mors dressed in grand finery, and many humbler folk, the squires of the shires and the constables of the larger towns.

  Thru Gillo, wearing his simple blue outer coat with the red pin of his rank at the throat, felt the differences. He was but a humble mot of a Northern village. His accent betrayed that every time he spoke.

  Still, the King had asked for Thru to sit by him. Nearby were the Melds of the South and the East and, of course, the Meld of Daneep. King Gueillo was a portly mot, with fine silvery fur and peculiarly large ears. Like most of the crowd the King was clearly enjoying the occasion. The wine had been flowing freely. Suddenly the King stood up.

  "To you, Colonel Gillo," the King extended his goblet. Others were rising to do the same in a formal toast. Thru was half inclined to rise, too, but the King caught his eye and held it and thus he knew that he must remain seated.

  "In the name of the throne of Sulmo and all the people of my realm, I dedicate this toast to Colonel Gillo, who was so instrumental in winning our victory."

  Thru cast a look across the table. There was the Meld of Daneep, eyes smiling, raising a goblet to him.

  Thru raised his own goblet, and toasted the Meld back.

  There were loud murmurs among the gathered aristocrats who much approved of this public giving of respect to one of their own.

  "To Thru Gillo," said the King again, and everyone raised their goblet and repeated his words.

  The throng now sat down, and he saw by the King's glimpse that it was his turn to stand. He surveyed the table and the crowd of lesser folk gathered along the far wall of the huge room.

  All eyes were on him.

  He raised his goblet.

  "I thank you for the honor you do me. I do not think I have ever felt a prouder moment, but I must pass on some of this honor, for it lies in truth with the mots and brilbies of the army that fought at Chenna and the Sow's Head.

  "So, to the army!"

  With a congratulatory roar the well-dressed folk rose up and toasted the army of the realm.

  Then it was time to be seated for the first courses. Mots in livery brought in platters piled high with delicacies from the royal kitchen. There were wedges of lime and bewby pie, then fresh oysters in the shell, and crayfish cooked in the Sulmese way.

  When the table was cleared once more, a round of introductions began. Thru was presented to the Melds of the Quarters and the other Melds of shoreline and hill. The Meld of Daneep himself did the introductions, a singular honor.

  Having met the Melds, he turned back to his seat at the table but was interrupted by a posse of Assenzi.

  "Masters!" he said with astonishment as Utnapishtim and Graedon came forward.

  "Hail to thee, young Thru Gillo," said Utnapishtim.

  "Let me second that," said Graedon.

  Thru grasped their thin, bony hands.

  Behind them were another pair of Assenzi that Thru had never met. Utnapishtim turned to them.

  "May we introduce you to our friends who guard the Southland?"

  "Honored," said Thru with a bow.

  "Culpura of Sulmo"—an especially wrinkled Assenzi—"Eisteed of Annion," Eisteed wore a small yellow cap with a white bobble on the end. Thru shook their bony hands.

  The King, talking with the Meld of Daneep and the Meld of the North Quarter, now turned to the group of Assenzi. He had taken note of the warm greeting exchanged between Thru and the Assenzi.

  "So, Utnapishtim, is my brigadier Gillo one of your Highnoth mots?"

  "Oh, yes, Your Majesty," said the Assenzi.

  "I see." The King smiled, and turned to Thru. There was something cool in his expression now. "So, Brigadier, is that where you learned to be such a good soldier?"

  "No, Your Majesty, we did not learn about war at Highnoth. Master Graedon taught us engineering. Master Utnapishtim showed us the stars through his telescope."

  "Oh-ho, so you have traveled to the stars!"

  "Only in our imaginations, Your Majesty. We have merely seen the light of those stars thorough the telescope. They are bright, and the colors are strong."

  A horn blared to announce the next course in the feast. They resumed their seats. The Assenzi squeezed into spaces up and down the table. Thru detected a certain unease, even distaste among some of the nobility when the ancient ones sat next to them.

  In Sulmo the Assenzi were still not loved. For it was well remembered that in the time of King Ueillim, the Assenzi had stifled the city's ambitions in the cloth trade. Just when Sulmo had taken a strong grip on the trade, the Assenzi had helped organize the weavers of the Braided Valley. Within a generation the Braided Valley had broken Sulmo's grip.

  "So," the King returned his gaze to Thru. "Just where did you learn the arts of war so well?"

  "In Dronned, Your Majesty, from General Toshak."

  "Ah, from Toshak."

  The King turned away to speak with the Meld of Daneep. Thru's sense of it was that the King was uncomfortable with the mention of Toshak's name. Something had come between the King and great Toshak, but it was hidden in the past.

  A fine pie of savory bushpods and hammelbem was brought in and broken into. Plates loaded with stuffed vegetables and rich mussel stew came. More wine was poured, though Thru tried to keep his consumption to a minimum.

  Then, to an outburst of applause, the cooks wheeled in an entire roast boar, its mouth stuffed with an apple. Truly this was a feast in the manner of the Land, and it was the first time in a long time that Thru had seen such a lavish display.

  A conversation was underway to his right between the Grys Kreisa and several others. When a lull occured the Grys turned to Thru.

  "Tell, us, Colonel Gillo, where do you think the next attack will come?"

  "Well, Grys Kreisa, I would not claim any ability to read the enemy's mind. But he has many options."

  "Meld Annion thinks it will be in Annion again. Now the enemy knows that country, they will return to it."

  Another Grys, a heavyset fellow wearing a light blue jacket, leaned over to exclaim.

  "I say they'll land in Annion."

  "Do you now, Grys Capennion?"

  "I do, and you know why? Because the Assenzi say they will not. I say the Assenzi are not to be trusted."

  Thru looked up. "Why ever not, Grys Capennion?"

  "Who knows the secrets in their dark hearts?" Capennion's face had screwed itself into a snarl. "They may sacrifice us to the men."

  Thru was taken aback. "I find that remark astonishing."

  "Ah, but you're a Northern mot, well liked by Highnoth."

  "Indeed," said the Grys Kreisa, "he is a Highnoth welp."

  "Ach!" Grys Capennion's face darkened even further. "Then, I shouldn't waste my breath speaking to you."

  Thru was taken aback by such open prejudice. He bit back his first retort.

  "Well, Grys, you can of course make that decision for yourself, but I grieve to hear such unjust accusations against the Assenzi. I know that in Sulmo you lament certain events from the past."

  The Grys Capennion cut him off with a rush. "Listen to him! Lament? My family w
as stripped of its wealth, of its grandeur."

  Thru nodded thoughtfully. "And yet, Grys, your coat is of high quality. You are not a beggar by any means."

  "Bah, my forebears had a thousand looms working in this city. By now we would have had complete control of the cloth trade."

  "The Assenzi built up the Braided Valley," said Grys Kreisa. "Our position was lost."

  "And don't you think they still do?" sneered Capennion. "Believe me, these Assenzi are sly devils. They preach austerity while they invest in the Braided Valley and take the profits themselves."

  Thru had to laugh. "Well, if that's the case then I don't know what they spend it on, because at Highnot they live very simply. They eat the same rations as the students, and they get no more heat for their rooms."

  "Bah. Does not matter. It is what they did to us in Ueillim's time that counts. This city was rich with looms."

  "But why should you have had a monopoly on cloth production? Why should all the wealth of the Land be handed to Sulmo?"

  "Because we are the oldest city, the purest civilization. Because we inspired advances in technique."

  Thru snorted. "I have relatives with family trees as long as your own. We may be just simple country mots, but we have lived in the Dristen Valley for just as long as your kin have lived here. And we may be farming folk, but that doesn't keep us from developing our senses. We can always tell when other folk are getting above themselves, that's for sure."

  "So you come down here to preach to us, eh? What is this, a live-the-simple-life lecture? And meanwhile you exclude the Sulmese from the army's command."

  Thru shook his head at these particular words. "That is a strange accusation to make. We came down here because we have experience of fighting the men. Do you?"

  The Grys Capennion growled and looked away.

  "We came down here," said Thru again, "because Sulmo desperately needed experienced officers for the army. I would be just as happy protecting my own valley as protecting your city, Grys."

  "I'm sure you would. As you say, you're just a simple country mot. But the Assenzi don't want Sulmese running our own army. They know they must keep us docile and helpless. So they bring down you northerners and make you our army staff."

  Thru felt the anger rising, he fought to keep it out of his voice.

  "Both my regimental commanders are Sulmese. One of them is the Grys Glaine. The other is a hill kob from an ancient family of the hills of Glaine. My tour of duty here will end in the next year or so, and I will go back to the North. One of them will become brigadier. Within another year most of the Northerners will be gone, and your army will be staffed by Sulmese alone."

  Grys Capennion was in no mood to hear this. "Bah, there's no point in talking to a Northerner. That's what my family says, and you know something? They're right."

  Capennion withdrew into his chair across the table. The Grys Kreisa fell silent, embarrassed by the turn of the conversation.

  Thru kept quiet thereafter, responding when asked questions, but concentrating on the excellent food, while his mind whirled over the words of the Sulmese nobles. For a moment he was reminded of Pern Treevi, his old enemy. Pern had developed that urge for great wealth, too, and Pern had expressed that same bitter contempt for others.

  When the plates were finally cleared and carried away, there was a short speech from the Meld of Daneep and a longer one from the King.

  Once again, the battles of Chenna and the Sow's Head were toasted, and then all the officers of the army were toasted, and toasted again. There was a strong feeling of Sulmo the Great in the air. Pride and patriotism of a kind that was hardly ever heard in the northern realms of the Land.

  Now everyone stood to sing a verse or two of the Sulmo song, and then they turned away to mingle once more. The aristocrats gathered together at one end of the table, and the officers gathered at the other.

  Thru found himself at the back of the crowd, unnoticed at last. There came a gentle tug on his arm. He looked around and found Master Graedon there. The eyes of the engineer studied him carefully.

  "And how are you, Thru Gillo? How is your head now?"

  Graedon had taken a strong interest in Thru's head injury from the day he'd returned from the battlefield to Sulmo.

  "It is better now, Master Graedon."

  "I have heard that you suffer from headaches."

  "I have done, yes."

  "And do these still continue?"

  "Less frequently, but yes..."

  "I would like to examine your wound."

  "Here now?"

  The Assenzi looked around. Utnapishtim was coming across to join them.

  "I don't think anyone will notice."

  Thru looked around the room, indeed no one was looking his way. For a moment he glimpsed the Meld of Daneep, still sitting by the King in the midst of some long explanation about the battle. They were moving the salt cellars around.

  "Hail, young Thru Gillo," said Utnapishtim, coming up and putting a hand upon Thru's shoulder."

  "Utnapishtim," said Thru with a small bow.

  "So you have encountered the sour rage of the old nobility here?"

  Nothing escaped those wise old eyes.

  "Yes, Utnapishtim. Not for the first time."

  "They will never stop harking back to that time. They cling to their wound and thereby water the seeds of their unhappiness."

  "There's something very unreasonable about it."

  "There is greed at the root of it. Some people are born with a hunger for more than they really need in life. Some people do not get enough love from mother and father and acquire this same hunger. If it is not controlled, it can be very damaging. The greed of nations and cities is a similar thing, and its evil effects are recorded in the histories of the ancient times."

  Graedon tugged on Thru's arm again.

  "Come into the light."

  He had placed a chair beside a large floor lamp. Thru sat in the chair, and Graedon pulled out a magnifying glass and carefully inspected the back of Thru's head. He palpated the skull and asked Thru to add up some numbers and subtract others. Then he had Thru look close into a candle held up by Utnapishtim while Graedon examined his eyes with a magnifying glass.

  After a couple of minutes he was done and put away his magnifying glass.

  "No serious harm has been done. We have been fortunate. It would have been a sad thing to lose you, young Thru Gillo."

  "Indeed," said Utnapishtim.

  As mysterious as ever, thought Thru as the Assenzi bid him farewell and left the chamber.

  He went across to join the other officers. Seeing him approach, some of the Sulmese officers turned their backs or walked away.

  Downcast, Thru joined Briohj of Dronned, a colonel in the Royal Military Staff, and Colonel Ibbert of the newly formed Fourteenth Regiment.

  "Afraid the Southerners don't like to see the Assenzi."

  "So, guilt by association, eh?" Thru took a goblet of wine and sipped it.

  "You've run into it a thousand times, I bet. I know I have," said Ibbert, who'd been training his unit for several months. "The Sulmese think they were robbed of something very important to them. But when you find out what you think they were robbed of, you just feel glad that it happened. They wanted to make themselves the rulers of the Land."

  "It's troubling to hear them speak like that," said Thru.

  "What did the old ones want?" said Briohj.

  "Wanted to be sure my head wasn't completely broken."

  "It is an honor to be of such concern to them."

  Thru looked over to the Sulmese officers, who were now grouped together, ignoring the Northerners. " 'Tis an honor, but I wish they'd not done that in front of these Sulmo mots. It won't help in our dealings with them."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The news flashed to the Shasht fleet first from the incoming frigate Viper as she hurried into the bay.

  "More ships! More ships have come from Shasht!"

  Admira
l Heuze stumbled up onto the deck, eyes bleary, his stump itching and burning, as it often did first thing in the morning. He read the distant signal flags in an instant and felt a cold stab of fear in his heart.

  Another fleet? So soon? Damn! Who commanded the newcomers?

  "Signal!" he snapped. "How many ships?"

  The signal boy hurriedly sent up a dozen fresh flags.

  The suspense was agonizing. Furious calculations spun through Heuze's head. When the fleet had left Shasht, there had been no mention of any reinforcements. That didn't mean that the Emperor wouldn't include them; Aeswiren had long ago learned how to rule by keeping his secrets.

  Filek Biswas appeared on the upper deck, blinking away sleep.

  "Ah, Filek, good morning. We have reinforcements it seems."

  Heuze was gratified by the shock and dismay that flashed over Biswas's face. Biswas knew he depended on the admiral for his very survival.

  "What do you mean, Admiral?"

  "See Viper over there? Captain Pukh reports sighting ships about to join us."

  "More ships from Shasht?"

  "Of course, where else would you expect them from?"

  "I see." Biswas clearly was worried about this development.

  You're not the only one, thought the admiral.

  Heuze noticed message flags flickering on the mizzen mast of Sword and brought his telescope up to his eye.

  "Eight ships!"

  A reinforcement, but not necessarily a threat to his position. Heuze felt immediate reassurance. He commanded the larger force; that gave him a strong position.

  Some hours later when the eight vessels entered the harbor, guided in by Viper, Heuze knew much more and was already planning for the upcoming political struggle. The eight new ships were under the command of Admiral Beshezz, who technically outranked Heuze by several years of seniority. This was a problem that Heuze would have to finesse.

  Fortunately the new ships were crammed with three thousand troops. That restored their army to almost ten thousand effectives, which surely would give them sufficient margin to be sure of victory.

  The new ships, lead by their flag Arrow, slid into the bay and took positions in a line, a quarter mile behind the line of Heuze's ships.

  Admiral Beshezz fired the first volley in the struggle between the admirals. A set of signal flags flew up requesting "commanding officers" to come aboard Arrow at once! Beshezz was announcing his seniority in the most public manner.