by Mick Farren
Slide’s chain mail mask covered his face, so his expression was impossible to read. “That was different.”
“How so different?”
Slide urged his horse forward. “We’re wasting time. Let’s stop the recriminating and move out, shall we?”
And so they moved away from T’saya’s cook shack, demon and boy riding, and the old African woman walking between them, an apparent prisoner of the two phoney Zhaithan in their stolen cloaks and helmets, making their way, as T’saya put it, “first to the bivouac of this Colonel Phaall, and then on to the parade ground to see if young Weaver’s message has made it through to the other boy.”
CORDELIA
The detour they had been forced to make gave Cordelia a chance to see a major portion of the Mosul camp in broad daylight, and what she saw, even excluding the horrors being prepared on the parade ground, far exceeded her worst expectations. In contrast to the comparatively civilized disposition of the Albany military, the Mosul army was a vast and chaotic convocation of only minimally ordered barbarism. In some parts of the camp, the stench of raw sewage almost caused her to gag, and she wondered how it was that cholera had not broken out months earlier. The majority of the drab rank and file looked ripe for any disease. They were unwashed, unshaven, and shabby. Their uniforms were shoddy and threadbare, and their weapons outdated and poorly maintained. Many seemed gaunt and underfed, and still more were the worse for drink. In complete contrast, the officers and the elite units, especially the cavalry, were swaggeringly well dressed, with some still sporting archaically impractical finery from a hundred years ago: lavish gold braid, flowing fur-trimmed cloaks, silk turbans, gleaming cuirasses, absurd plumed and winged helmets in a riot of dazzling colors that would surely make them immediate targets for any Albany marksman worth the issue of his ammunition. Though Jesamine and Cordelia were veiled and shrouded in their voluminous kaftans, Cordelia could feel the two of them being constantly observed by hundreds of pairs of hungry eyes. Jesamine had told her that the Mosul grunts had their own wretched brothels on the margins of the camp, where ugly and dispirited slatterns plied their slave trade from dusk to dawn, but clearly these were not enough to keep the soldiers satisfied, because the two women still walked like moving targets for a constant dull, but hungry and resentful, lust.
Although she had worn a uniform and spent almost two years in the company of heroes, generals, and politicians, Cordelia would never have described herself as a military analyst or expert, but it was plain even to her relatively inexperienced eye that, stacked up against the backs-to-the-wall determination of Albany, or the technical ingenuity of the Norse Union, the Mosul were a desolate and demoralized horde that should have been doomed to go down in defeat. The single and overwhelming consideration that was omitted from this optimistic equation was that the Mosul had the numbers. She had no idea how many men were now quartered in the fetidly endless camp by the Potomac, but she guessed the count could be as high as a half-million fighting men, plus support and supply, and with that numerical advantage it hardly mattered if they looked like the scurvy dregs of two continents going into the fight. The Mosul could lose a hundred and fifty thousand scurvy dregs in the assault on Albany and still come out grimly triumphant. She was also left in no doubt that they were about to engage in the final preparations for that terrible assault and the vast slaughter that would go with it. She and Jesamine had to stop repeatedly and wait as cannon and steam-wheezing fighting machines were moved up to the battle lines, and the rising sense of fear and tension was palpable. Officers and NCOs seemed to be tightening the screws of a brutal control, and Cordelia knew enough to see how such brutality might be needed. The moment when the men were pushed to the front was a time when an imperial army, armed and with little hope of individual survival, was at its most vulnerable to the spark of bloody mutiny. She recalled the history lessons during her RWA training about how the Teutons, fifty years before, had turned on their own officers at the start of an assault during the winter campaign against the Russe under Joseph the Terrible. The revolt had ultimately been put down with savage force and followed by the harshest reprisals, but—in Albany, at least—the Teuton mutiny had been seen as one of the rare cracks in the iron discipline of the Mosul. She could see that every effort was being made to prevent a repeat of such a thing on the Potomac.
Cordelia, of course, knew nothing of the geography of the sprawling camp, but Jesamine proved herself wholly familiar with its tent-lined quasi-streets and muddy thoroughfares, and Cordelia followed, fully confident that her newfound friend and psychic sister not only knew the way to where this woman T’saya lived and raised her goats, but could also steer a course around the numerous roadblocks and checkpoints. To Cordelia this seemed to be a hugely excessive number, and, at each one, men were being pulled out of line at random and hustled away. She also saw a number of groups of prisoners being marched off by escorts of military police and Zhaithan. It looked to Cordelia as though some kind of mass roundup was being conducted, but, being so unfamliar with the ways of the Mosul, she had no real clue as to whether this was some special circumstance or merely an unpleasant routine. After they had passed their third group of frightened and unhappy prisoners, she decided to ask Jesamine. “Is it always like this?”
Jesamine scowled and shook her head. “There’s always plenty of security, just to keep up the fear, but right now they want bodies.”
“Bodies?”
“You saw the gallows.”
Cordelia swallowed hard. She had been trying to forget the gallows she had seen being built on the parade ground. “But the gallows only held twenty. Surely, in a place like this, there must be that many prisoners and more being held under arrest already?”
Jesamine’s smile was tired, crooked, and devoid of humor. “The gallows only takes twenty at a time, but there could be dozens of drops.”
“Drops?”
“Multiples of multiple hangings.”
“Dozens?”
“They could kill three or four hundred, twenty at a time. It could go on for an hour or more. Hassan is coming, don’t forget. The Zhaithan want to put on a show. Thus they’re rounding up all the deserters, heretics, drunks, and defeatists. They want all the undesirables they can get their hands on to make up the kill quota. The Mosul like their ritual death in big numbers.”
“So what makes a man a heretic or a defeatist? What constitutes an undesirable?”
Jesamine stared at Cordelia as though she was innocent to the point of idiocy. “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and maybe with the wrong papers.”
Cordelia felt an icy band tighten around her chest. Pride would not allow her to expose the sudden breathless fear she felt in front of Jesamine, but she wanted to whimper like a baby. “You’ve got papers, though. Right?”
“I’ve got papers that would see us through normal times, but today I’d rather not put them to the test.”
“So what do we do?”
“We do what we’re doing. We go the long way round so we don’t get questioned, and then we see what T’saya has to say.”
Eventually they found themselves in an area that seemed to be primarily occupied by a number of Mamaluke regiments. Given the Mamalukes’ widespread and highly unsavory reputation, this seemed like a decidedly foolhardy route to be taking, but then Cordelia saw the collection of multicolored, penned-up and bleating goats and realized that this must be where the woman with all the essential knowledge lived and worked. “So this is it?”
Jesamine pointed to a small, sagging shack with a tin chimney. “That’s it. That’s where T’saya cooks for the Mamalukes.”
Cordelia spoke without thinking. “It’s hardly an inspiring residence for one who seems to know so much.”
Jesamine treated Cordelia to yet another look that a mentor might give to a thoughtlessly dense pupil. “She’s survived a very long time for someone who comprehensively flouts Zhaithan law, especially since, as a woman, and therefore already susp
ect, she could be denounced as a witch at any time. Cooking goat’s head soup for Mamalukes may not be a particularly exotic cover, but it sure as shit seems to work.”
They were almost to the shack when a young girl, skinny and perhaps no older than ten or eleven, with unkempt hair and dressed in the kind of shapeless smock issued to the most menial of serving slaves, beckoned urgently to them. “You’re the courtesan girls, right?”
Jesamine clearly did not think it was the right time to dispute the terminology. “We’re T’saya’s friends.”
“You’d better get away from here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was lifted.”
“Lifted?”
“T’saya, she was lifted. They took her away.”
Cordelia saw Jesamine actually turn white. “She was arrested?”
“That’s right. Arrested.”
“Who took her?”
“Zhaithan. High Zhaithan. The black riders. They come. They stay for a while and then they take her with them. You have to go. You have to get out of here.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
The slave girl shook her head. “I can’t be seen talking to you. I’ve said too much already.”
Jesamine’s face hardened. “How long ago?”
The girl turned to get away from these obviously dangerous young women, but Jesamine grabbed her by her filthy smock and pulled her back. “Tell me how long ago the Zhaithan were here, or by the Twins, girl, I’ll beat it out of you. And I’m a concubine woman, so you better believe I know how to give a beating.”
The slave girl’s eyes became as wide as saucers. “Please, lady, I can’t…”
“Oh, yes, you can. Now, how long?”
“Not long. Maybe a half hour. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“And the black horsemen took her?”
“Yes, the black horsemen. Please let me go.”
Jesamine let go her grip on the girl’s shift, and she scuttled away. Cordelia took a deep breath. “This is bad, right?”
Jesamine looked slowly around as though she expected other Zhaithan to be lurking. “It’s definitely not good.”
“So what do we do?”
Jesamine sighed. It was the sigh of one who was always being asked what to do and always being expected to make the decisions. Cordelia felt a pang of unaccustomed guilt. She would have liked to be decisive, but she was a stranger and knew very little. So she was ignorant of the ways of the Mosul—what did Jesamine expect? Cordelia had only been their prisoner for a matter of days. She did not like the way it made her dependent on Jesamine, but there was nothing she could do about it. Finally, Jesamine helplessly spread her hands. “We have to get back to Phaall’s and lay low, at least until another option presents itself. That’s all I can think of right now.”
“I thought Phaall’s was the place we were running from.”
Jesamine was growing irritable. “Didn’t they ever teach you in Albany that flexibility is the key? It’s a slim hope, but if we go back to Phaall’s, we’re on Teuton turf and that might afford a bit of protection. Maybe we can use these new powers of ours to figure out a means of escape.” Cordelia saw Jesamine have a visible idea. “Wait here and keep watch. I’m going to look for something inside the shack.”
“Is that wise?”
“If I can find what I’m looking for, it might improve the odds.”
“Suppose someone sees you?”
“That’s why you’re keeping watch. Lean against the shack and try and look casual. If anyone comes, kick the wall behind you. They’re so thin, I’ll hear you immediately.”
With that, she slipped through the unlocked door and disappeared inside. Cordelia leaned against the wall and tried to appear as inconspicuous as possible. A troop of Mamaluke lancers rode past in white capes and winged helmets. From their posture she could tell that they were tired and had ridden a long way. Their capes were dusty, and the plumes on their helmets drooped, and although one of them whistled at her, the majority showed no interest. By the time they were past, Jesamine was out of the shack with a bottle of green liquid that she quickly hid under her kaftan. “That was weird.”
“What was weird?”
“The place hasn’t been touched. Usually when the Zhaithan arrest someone in their own home, they search the place and smash everything in the process. The shack was exactly as it was the last time I visited her. A cooking pot was still on the stove, and all that anyone had done was to douse the fire.”
“Theory?”
Jesamine shook her head. “It beats me.”
“So back to Phaall’s?”
“Back to Phaall’s.”
“The long way round again?”
Jesamine grimaced. “You want to go past the cursed parade ground again?”
That was the last thing that Cordelia wanted. As far as she was concerned, the parade ground was the epicenter of all the horror that was choking the Mosul camp like some psychic miasma. “Not in the least.”
“Then let’s take a look at the roadblock. I mean, we’re on our way home. They might just accept our pass and wave us through.”
Cordelia and Jesamine walked in silence until they were within about a hundred feet of the checkpoint, and then Jesamine stopped, half turned, and pretended to be removing some imaginary smut from her kaftan. Cordelia played along and helped her. The checkpoint was manned by just two regular military policeman in drab olive uniforms and their distinctive orange helmets. They were checking passes and inspecting soldiers’ dog tags, but without any special show of zeal or enthusiasm, and no one was pulled out of line while the two women watched. Mercifully, no suspiciously supervising Zhaithan were in attendance. “I think we might take a chance on it. It all looks pretty lax.”
Cordelia had misgivings, but she followed Jesamine anyway. The traffic though the checkpoint was reasonably heavy, and, as the girls had observed from a distance, the MPs were slack to the point of casual in the way they were carrying out their inspections. They waited in a line of assorted pedestrians for two or three minutes, until it was their turn to be scrutinized. One of the MPs looked them up and down, pleased for the diversion of two good-looking women, although they were so totally swathed that Cordelia wasn’t sure how the man could tell. “And where are you girls going?”
“We’re the property of Colonel Phaall, and we’re on our way back to his quarters.”
The MP leered. “So the Colonel gets two of you, does he?”
Jesamine placed a hand on her hip, tightening the fabric of the kaftan so her shape was more overtly visible. “The officers get it all, don’t they?”
The MP nodded. “Now that’s the truth, girl, and no mistake.”
Unfortunately, Jesamine’s ploy of showing her form had also revealed the form of the bottle, and the MP’s eyes went straight to it. He obviously saw the chance for a piece of alcoholic contraband that might be negotiated down to his own personal loot. “Now, what you got there, dearie?”
Jesamine instantly became coy and girlish. “Just a bottle, sir.”
“Out with it, girl.”
“It’s just a bottle of cheap ’shine.”
The MP became more belligerent. “I said out with it.”
Jesamine reluctantly pulled out the bottle she had brought from T’saya’s cook shack. The MP took it from her, held it up to the light, and then removed the cork and sniffed the contents. “This doesn’t look like any ’shine I ever saw.”
“There’s just some herbs and stuff in it.”
The MP sniffed again. “Smells like a psychedelic to me.” He passed the bottle to his companion. “Doesn’t that smell like a psychedelic to you?”
The second MP sniffed and frowned. “Sure smells like something.”
Cordelia knew they were in trouble. What the hell had Jesamine brought the damned bottle for anyway? Was it the psychedelic with which T’saya had induced her visions? Jesamine tried to be even more girlish. “You boys could just t
ake it as a gift and check it out for yourselves.”
For a moment, it seemed as though the ploy was going to work. The two MPs exchanged glances. For a moment they were both on the fence, undecided, and then the first flopped on the side of by-the-book duty. “Sorry, girls. I don’t know what the hell this stuff is, and I can’t take a chance. I could let a bottle of ’shine slide, but this shit’s weird.”
Jesamine tried not to sound completely desperate. “It’s just ’shine with flavoring. It’s the new thing among the Mosul. Seemingly they picked up the taste in Italia.”
“Italia? Now I know you’re shitting me.”
“I swear.”
The first MP’s face hardened, and he shook his head. “This is going to have to be booted up to the Ministry. I’ve got to look out for my own ass.”
A crudely wired telegraph was mounted on a post by the checkpoint. It was one of the kind that did not even send words or code but simply rang an electric bell somewhere else by way of an alert. One of the MPs cranked the handle. “You girls are going to have to wait until the Ministry men get here and see what they think about all this.”
While the guards were at the telegraph. Cordelia stood close and whispered quickly to Jesamine. “What does this mean?”
“It means we’re fucking fried.”
The telegraph-summoned Zhaithan took a full half hour to arrive, and, in that time, Cordelia lost count of the times that she had considered simply running but had then looked again at the MPs’ breechloaders and calculated how far she might get before she took a bullet in the back. The two Zhaithan who finally showed were definitely not elite. No black horsemen, these. They wore the red-trimmed black tunics, but they lacked the capes, the spiked and turban-swathed helmets, and had no sheathed ceremonial daggers on their belts. They did carry fairly modern carbines over their shoulders, however, and one had a swagger stick under his arm, while both showed at least the start of the sinister Zhaithan arrogance. A part of this arrogance manifested itself as an unwillingness to talk to Cordelia and Jesamine directly. Instead, while the second MP, with his breechloader now unslung, watched the girls, the Zhaithan and the first MP stood off at a distance, examining the bottle and Jesamine’s pass and presumably discussing the contents of the former and the validity of the latter. Finally the conversation appeared to be complete, and the Zhaithan approached the girls.