by K. J. Parker
Maybe. He called over a sergeant and told him to take a dozen men and either bring the four mystery horsemen in or drive them away. The sergeant set off looking like a man who's just been ordered to jump into a volcano, and came back remarkably soon afterward, nervously escorting three men and a woman. They were riding horses with Mezentine-issue saddles, but they were pale-skinned and dressed in dirty civilian clothes. One of them was tied up so securely he could barely move, and Nennius realized, in a moment of agonizing hope, that he recognized him.
"For crying out loud get that man untied and over here," he shouted. One of the other prisoners was yelling something, but it couldn't be important. The sergeant hauled the trussed-up man off his horse and got busy with a knife.
"You're that engineer," Nennius said, before the gag was out of the man's mouth. "The Mezentine's sidekick."
The sergeant loosened the gag, and the strange-looking man flexed his jaw a few times before saying, "Gace Daurenja. And yes, I work for Ziani Vaatzes."
Hope is really just a variety of fear, all the more painful because it twitches a chance of escape in front of your nose as it slides by. "We've got a problem," Nennius said breathlessly, "with the carts. Can you fix it?"
Daurenja looked at him and blinked. "I can try," he said.
Nennius explained, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Then he said, "Well?"
Daurenja nodded. "Yes," he said, "I think I can fix that. We'll need a big, hot fire, something we can use for anvils, and five of the armor plates off the wagons. How soon…?"
"Now," Nennius replied with feeling.
"All right." Daurenja seemed bizarrely calm, and for the first time it occurred to Nennius to wonder why he'd been tied up, in company with two men and a woman, in the middle of the wilderness. Wondering, however, was an inappropriate luxury, like satin cushions and goose-liver pate. "Anvils," Daurenja prompted him.
"What? Yes, we've got anvils." Nennius looked round for someone to shout at; a sergeant, experienced in the ways of stressed-out officers, was already walking fast in the right direction. "And you want a fire."
"Charcoal," Daurenja said, stretching his fingers; cramp, presumably. "Find two large, flat stones; they'll do for a hearth." He wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but a couple of troopers set off to look for flat stones. I wish I could do that, Nennius thought; he can make people do things without rank or the chain of command, without even knowing he's doing it. A born foreman, which is just another word for officer. "I don't suppose there's such a thing as a double-action bellows anywhere."
Nennius had no idea what he was talking about, but someone else-one of the farriers, he remembered-had dropped into motion, like some mechanical component. Daurenja yawned and wriggled his back. "The first thing I'll need to do is make up the mandrels, so I'll want three strong men with sledgehammers to strike for me." (They materialized out of the crowd of soldiers, which had been clotting around him since he'd started to speak; he drew assistants to him like a magnet draws filings.) "What've we got in the way of wrought-iron stock?"
There's something wonderful about handing over a burden of worry; a glorious relief, like shedding chains. The process didn't take very long and it was delightfully smooth. Half an hour later, as the bellows blew tongues of flame up through the mounded charcoal and Daurenja touched a pair of calipers to a spare cart-axle and nodded his approval, Nennius realized that this strange man, this freak who'd just ridden in bound hand and foot, was now in complete command of the column, and he was overwhelmed with the sudden dissipation of anxiety. Relieved of command; exactly that.
"What I'm doing," Daurenja was telling the world in a calm, splendid voice, "is making an iron bar exactly the same size as the timber we've got to fix. Then we're going to cut strips off a sheet of the armor plate, get them good and hot so they'll work easily, and fold them round three sides of the bar to form a sort of jacket, if you see what I mean. That'll hold the timber together on three sides, and the armor plate'll brace the fourth side; then, even if the timber breaks, it can't go anywhere." He lifted his head and smiled. "A bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it'll get the job done. Once we've got going, assuming we keep at it nice and steady, we should be ready to move out this time tomorrow." He turned his head and looked at Nennius. "Will that be soon enough? What's the tactical position? I'm assuming the threat's coming from the garrison at the inn on Sharra."
"That's right," Nennius said.
Daurenja nodded. "In that case it's not so bad," he said. "I've just come from there. I didn't have a chance to count heads or anything, but there're not enough of them to mount a serious attack in force. If they want to take us, they'll have to get help from the next post down the line. Mind you," he added with a slight frown, "there's a good chance they'll have scouts out; looking for me, actually, sorry about that. But, all things being equal, we should be well out of here by the time they're in any position to bother us."
Which reminded him. "Those people you came in with," Nennius started to say.
"My guests," Daurenja said firmly, and his authority was beyond question as the glowing charcoal flared to the bellows. "Please make sure they're looked after properly; they've had a pretty rough time. I'd appreciate it if you'd see to it yourself."
(But they had you all tied up, like a dangerous criminal.) "Of course," Nennius said.
"I imagine they'll be staying with us," Daurenja went on, scrutinizing the fire, "but if they want to move on, perhaps you could let them have fresh horses and supplies, anything they want. They're my friends," he added with quiet emphasis, "so I'd be grateful if you could…"
"Right away." Nennius had to make a conscious effort not to salute. "Is there anything else you need here?"
Pointless question, like telling a man in his own house to make himself at home. "No thank you," Daurenja replied gravely. "I think I can manage for now. I'll let you know how we get on."
In other words, dismissed. Nennius dipped his head in the approved manner, and turned his back. As he walked briskly away, the first blows of a hammer chimed behind him like a wedding bell.
They'd put the three of them (only now he had to think of them as the honored guests) in a tent; sat on the ground, with a guard outside. Nennius winced: time for diplomacy. "It's all right," he snapped at the guard, who made himself scarce. At least they hadn't been tied up. He shouldered through the tent flap and smiled.
"Have you had anything to eat?" he said.
All three of them looked at him as if he was mad. Then the older of the two men said, "We want to see the officer in charge."
Nennius broadened his smile. It felt uncomfortable on his face, like an ill-fitting boot galling his heel. "That's me," he said. "Can I get you anything?"
"That man, the one we brought in-"
"Daurenja," Nennius said. It seemed important to show that he knew the name.
"He's a murderer," the man said. "You've got to put him under arrest until we can get him before a court."
On balance, Nennius would have preferred it if the man had punched him in the face. The dazed, wretched feeling would've been the same, and it'd have been over quickly. "I'm sorry," he heard himself say. "I don't-"
"He murdered my son," the man went on. "He's admitted it, in front of a witness. Presumably you can deal with it yourself, if you're the commanding officer. I'm not quite sure about how the jurisdictions would work out, but in the circumstances-"
"I'm sorry." An understatement. "I can't do that. You see-"
The older man tried to jump up; the younger one grabbed his arm and yanked him back, not gently. "Don't give me that," the older man said. "He's-"
"It's all right," the younger one interrupted. Clearly the wrong thing to say.
"He killed my son and raped my daughter." A loud, clear voice; probably they could hear him right across the camp, even in spite of the hammering. "He's admitted it. I want him tried and hanged."
"That's not possible."
"Don't be ridic
ulous. Look, if you don't believe me-"
"It's true," the other man said. The woman had her head turned away, fastidiously, as though ignoring a couple of drunks. "My name's Miel Ducas. I heard him confess."
Miel Ducas; wasn't he a guerrilla leader? Unimportant. Nennius couldn't spare any mental capacity for heroes of the Eremian resistance; he'd just thought of something. "Daurenja's one of the Duke's engineers, he answers directly to Valens. I haven't got any authority."
For a moment, the older man's anger seemed to hover in the air like a falcon; then it slumped into the most ferocious resentment Nennius could ever remember witnessing. "Where is the Duke?" he asked quietly. "We'll have to take Daurenja to him."
Which meant the moment had passed. "We'll be joining up with him," Nennius said, "as soon as this column is mobile again. We've had to stop to repair the carts." He took a deep breath. "I'll make sure Daurenja doesn't leave the column until we meet up with Valens' party. I'm afraid that's all I can do."
"We understand." Ducas, trying to keep the peace, the way well-meaning idiots do. "Thank you. But it really is very important." Now he's going to try and change the subject. "Can you tell us what's going on here, please?"
Nennius explained as succinctly as he could manage while being silently hated to death by the other man; then he summoned a young ensign who had the misfortune to be too close, left him in charge of looking after the guests, and escaped. Outside, he stood for a moment and listened to the ringing of hammers. So simple; wrap a bit of iron round it; so obvious. Of course, it would never have occurred to the carpenters, and it definitely hadn't occurred to him, or anybody else for that matter. As for Daurenja being a rapist and a murderer; well, Nennius had no problem at all believing that. The appalling thing was, he really couldn't care less, so long as the carts got fixed. That, he decided, was why countries had to have dukes and kings and governments; someone who could pin a medal on a man like that for saving the column, and then string him up as a criminal.
In spite of the hammering from the night shift, he slept well, and an ensign had to shake him awake in the morning, to tell him that the work had been finished well ahead of schedule, and the carters were backing the horses into the shafts, ready to start. Meanwhile, the three guests who'd come in with the engineer had apparently found a notary and sworn out depositions about something or other. They'd insisted that he should have them as soon as he woke up, and since he'd given orders that they should have anything they wanted…
Well. He could read them later, at some point.
The column was under way by mid-morning. Nennius sent outriders on ahead to see if they could pick up Valens' trail, or find anybody who knew which way he'd gone. Catch us up had been all very well when he was convinced he'd never get the carts going again; now he had a whole new set of problems to fret over. Water; food; fodder for the horses; finding the right road; making up time; fending off Mezentine sorties. It's a rule of human life that when a soldier successfully deals with an apparently insuperable difficulty, he gets rewarded with something twice as bad. The new concerns kept him happily occupied for the rest of the morning, and at noon he halted the column to see how the repairs were holding up.
"Fine," Daurenja announced, crawling out from under a cart. His back and sleeves were white with dust, but he made no effort to brush himself off. "Don't look as though they've shifted at all. Provided we take it reasonably steady, we shouldn't have any bother."
Not quite what he wanted to hear. "When you say reasonably steady…"
Daurenja thought for a moment. "Brisk walking pace," he said. "You don't want to go any faster than that on these roads, even if the carts were new from the workshop." He pulled a face. "I know you want to make up time and join up with the Duke, but we've got to be realistic. Leave it to the outriders to catch him up and tell him to wait for us. If you push the pace and bust up the carts, we'll never get there." He looked away, and added: "How are my friends getting along? I haven't seen them."
"Fine," Nennius replied awkwardly. "I shifted some people around so they could have a wagon to themselves, and I've seen to it they've all got fresh clothes and plenty to eat." He hesitated. Did Daurenja know about the sworn depositions? Probably. Since he'd mended the wagons, he had become the hero of the column, the man who'd saved the day. Whoever gave the order to place him under arrest wouldn't be popular with the troops. As for his accusers, they weren't even Vadani. Miel Ducas he'd heard of, vaguely; the other two-had he been told their names? If so, he'd forgotten them. He'd assumed they were telling the truth, mostly because of Daurenja's unfortunate appearance; he looked like someone who was capable of rape and murder, but that was sheer unfounded prejudice. For all Nennius knew, they were compulsive liars, delusional; Mezentine agents paid to discredit the miracle-working engineer. Anybody could swear an affidavit, but what about corroborative proof? (And would he be entertaining these high-minded doubts if Daurenja hadn't just saved the column?)
"That's fine," Daurenja said. "Thanks, I'm obliged to you." He smiled reassuringly. "I expect it all seems pretty odd to you, but I want you to trust me. I know who my friends are, even if they don't. It'll all smooth out, and everything'll be fine. There's nothing in it for you to worry about."
Again; dismissed. Nennius nodded. After all, said the quiet voice of logic in his mind, if there really was anything in their wild claims, would Daurenja be acting like this toward them, when he could have them tied up and dumped by the roadside if he wanted to? Serves me right, Nennius decided, for judging by appearances. And as soon as we meet up with the Duke, it won't be my problem anymore.
The next day and night were delightfully uneventful: no problems with the carts, no dust-cloud behind them marking the approach of a Mezentine army, and the river shown on the map was exactly where it was supposed to be, so they could fill up with enough water to last them at least three days. Food and fodder for the horses weren't yet a matter of desperate urgency, so if they could only make contact with Valens' contingent in the next forty-eight hours…
Which they did.
The crows had found them, and begun the long, patient work of rendering them down into raw materials. They flew off angrily as the column came over the rise, reluctantly abandoning their quarry to the superior claims of a better class of scavenger.
A quick inspection showed that the crows hadn't been the only ones who'd come there to feed. The bodies had been stripped of their clothes, weapons, boots and possessions, then stacked up in neat piles like cordwood. At first glance, the ratio of Mezentines to Vadani seemed to be something in the order of three to one. The stacks lined the road verge at intervals of roughly fifteen yards, up to the brow of the next rise and presumably over it.
Daurenja was the first to break the silence. "I'm guessing they were going to come back and bury them," he said. "It's what they usually do. Looks like something drove them off before they could get around to it."
Nennius had seen dead bodies before, of course: on the frontier, and when he'd ridden with Duke Valens to the relief of Civitas Eremiae. He was no expert, but he knew a bit about the subject: the waxy look of the skin, the degree to which the flesh had shrunk, the beginnings of a stench. A lot depended on how hot it had been, whether it had rained or not, how heavy the dew had been. An informed guess: no more than three days.
"No carts," said one of the junior officers. "But they'd have taken them along with the clothes and armor and stuff, so that's nothing to go on."
A long silence; then someone else asked, "So, do you think we won?"
"Took some of the bastards with them, at any rate," the junior officer replied. "Some of them," he repeated.
The ratio of men to women and children among the Vadani dead: maybe four to one. So far, nobody had recognized anybody they knew among the log-piles. Their faces, Nennius noticed, looked rather like apples that had been stored in the barn a little bit too long.
"I gather it's something of an industry these days, looting the dead," someone
else said. "Well organized, a lot of people involved. Makes you wonder where they're planning on selling the stuff, though. I wouldn't have thought there's any customers left."
The man at Nennius' feet had a grave, wise expression on his face, spoiled rather by the damage a crow had done to his left eye. Mezentine. Cause of death a puncture wound in the chest, too big for an arrow. A horseman's lance, possibly a boar-spear with a crossbar, by the way it had caved in the ribs on its way through. "Have any of the outriders come back yet?" he asked, well aware that the answer would be no; not in the five minutes since he'd last asked the question. For all he knew, his scouts were right there, in one of the neat stacks. "Send out another dozen; and I want the looters found, they may know what happened." He paused, then added: "Bring in half a dozen. If you find any more, I don't need to know what's become of them."
Someone dismounted close by. "It carries on quite a way," he reported. "It's like this for a good half-mile up ahead, and that's as far as I went."
"Suggesting a running battle rather than an ambush," someone commented. "Which is more or less how the Duke had got it planned, isn't it?" Nobody said, That could have been us; I'm so glad we weren't there. No need.
Someone else joined the discussion. "Hoofprints and cart tracks," he said. "Of course they're all scraped up, and there's no way of knowing which are the looters. A lot of horses, though."
"Do you think it was the garrison from the inn?" someone asked.
"Too many for that. We were told there was only one squadron."