The cheers were long and heartfelt. Twenty-four-hour flush toilets again, by damn, Cofflin thought, grinning. That was one thing few people could get used to doing without. And the composting sewage works is so useful. The engineer and the carpenter waved and smiled themselves.
“Civilization, brick by brick,” he said to the two men and their workers, as the gathering broke up.
“Plank by plank,” Macy said, looking pridefully at the structure.
“Gear by gear,” Leaton said with equal conviction. “And those cogwheels are six feet across, the main ones. The bevel gears weigh a hundred and fifty pounds each.”
“Good piece of work,” Cofflin said, clapping them each on the shoulder. “Now, when can we get the whole project wrapped?”
Whump.
Walker fired the last shot and held the shotgun to his face, blowing into the open breech. The first rifled slug had killed the aurochs, but he’d put the whole six-round magazine into the beast, all at the head. What was left looked as if something very large had chewed on it, and then spat it out again. The locals were suitably impressed.
He walked around the animal. It had stood a good seven feet at the shoulder, and the hump was still level with his eyes now that it had collapsed upright. “Wild cattle” didn’t give any idea of its size and ferocity; it made a bull bison look like a Jersey milker. Sort of like a cross between a cow and a rhinoceros, he thought. Blood pooled out on the sere yellow leaves and dead grass that carpeted the little clearing. The oak trees roundabout still bore a few leaves, but mostly their huge gnarled limbs reached for the sky like a giant’s arthritic fingers from the massive moss-covered trunks. It was chilly enough that the Iraiina were all wearing thick leggings and double tunics as well as their usual kilts and cloaks. The American wore mackinaw and ski pants, and a cap with earflaps. He didn’t want to blend in too much. A touch of mystery helped with his purposes.
All hail the wizard-chief, he thought.
Thumbing more shells into the breech of the shotgun, he looked around. Some of the Iraiina chiefs looked as though they’d prefer to be running just as far and as fast as they could; they made covert signs with their fingers, spat aside, stared out of pale faces. The half-dozen young warriors who’d sworn service with him looked terrified but even more proud as they drew knives and advanced to begin skinning and butchering the ton-weight of animal. After a moment one of them came over to him with a slice of the heart; the man’s arms were red to the elbow.
“Yours is the hunter’s right, lord,” he said to Walker.
“My thanks, Ohotolarix,” Walker said and took a piece between his teeth, cutting it off with his belt knife and chewing the hot rank meat.
Tough as boot leather, he thought. The chiefs’ followers were building a fire. He chewed with relish. Well begun, half done.
“There’s nothing men have ever made more beautiful,” Cofflin murmured.
“Men in the generic sense, yes,” Martha said, nodding agreement with the sentiment.
It was raining outside, freezing rain that turned to glistening treacherous black ice underfoot; the big sheet-metal building drummed to the beat of it. Even with the steam-powered compressor thumping and shedding heat in one corner, the interior was chilly. The huge shed had been built for storing boats overwinter; now it was used for building them. Saws whined and drills whirled, filling the air with the fresh sappy scent of cut wood. The ribs of the schooner curled up from the keelson like the skeleton of some sleek sea beast cast ashore, embraced by the cradle that held them in place while the frame was spiked and treenailed together. The interior braces were mostly in place, and the shell of planks was starting to go on. A crew heaved at a line as they watched, and a big curved shape of oak went up on a pulley rigged from the roof and swung down to where the deck would be. Other hands reached up and guided it down. Already the half-built ship looked as if it yearned for the water, to turn its sharp prow southward and race for the unknown seas.
“How does she shape?” Cofflin called up. “Everything looks good from here.”
Marian Alston came out from behind a rib and climbed down the board staircase stiffly, limping over to them with a roll of plans in one hand.
“Shapes like the beauty she is,” she said. “We’ll have her ready to come down the slipway by the beginning of February, and then we can fit her out and mount her sticks and start on the next.”
“Fast work,” Cofflin said.
“The next one will go a lot faster, with what we’ve learned. And Leaton’s made up some more compressed-air power tools. It’d take a year, if we were usin’ hand methods only.”
“Decided what to call her yet?” he said.
“Well, that’s not entirely my say-so���” Alston began.
Cofflin snorted. “The hell it isn’t, after what you did.”
“Frederick Douglass, I thought. He worked as a caulker in a shipyard for a while, you know, before he got free. And Harriet Tubman for number two.”
Martha nodded. “Excellent choices, Marian,” she said, sighing and sinking back on an upturned bucket. Her stomach curved out the loose dress she wore. “More sore ankles.”
“You work too much, Martha,” Alston said.
“Hell, those are my lines,” Cofflin grinned. He tilted his head up and looked at the bulk of the schooner. “I envy you something��� straightforward like this.”
“Speaking of straightforward,” Alston said, tapping the rolled plans into her other hand, “I’ll need to make some promotions when we commission the schooners. Bump Ortiz and Hendriksson to lieutenant commander and give them each a couple of ensigns and lieutenants. I have my eye on some of the upperclassmen for that.”
“Sounds good,” Cofflin said. Alston was always conscientious about recognizing the supremacy of the civil authorities, and he didn’t interfere in her bailiwick. “I assume your second-in-command agrees?”
“Certainly. I’d like to move Sandy up to commander as well, for symmetry’s sake. For that matter I’m going to be leaving her in command of Eagle a good deal of the time, when we get to Britain.”
Cofflin nodded. “Again, no problem. We can put together some sort of ceremony, I suppose. I wish everything went as easily.”
“Don’t tell me-y’all’ve just come from another Constitutional Committee meeting?”
“Almost as bad,” Cofflin said, shuddering slightly for effect. “Finance.” He dug in one pocket of his parka. “Here. Three bucks.”
He flipped the coin to Alston. She caught it; it was gold, about the size of. a dime, with LIBERTY on one side beneath an eagle’s wings, and Republic of Nantucket: 1 A.E. on the other. The picture inside that was a lighthouse-specifically, Brant Point lighthouse at the northwestern entrance to the harbor.
“I thought you were going to use the Unitarian Church tower?” she said. “Don’t tell me���”
“All the other denominations objected. One-tenth of an ounce fine gold, though, eighteen-karat-smelted down from jewelry. Starbuck swears gold-based money’ll work. God knows we need a currency. Swapping is so damned awkward.”
“Useful for trade, once the locals get the idea.” She looked down at the coin. “Can’t say ‘queer as a three-dollar bill’ anymore, can we?”
“Ah��� hadn’t thought of that.” He gave a dry chuckle; it was funny, when you thought about it. “Starbuck’s bad enough on Finance, but everyone on the Constitutional Committee has a bee in their bonnet.”
“We need a constitution, and that’s more important than this.” She jerked her head at the schooner. “Much as I hate to admit it.”
They both sat on stacks of boards, and began to massage their injured legs with an identical gesture. “The Twin Gimps,” Alston said.
Cofflin snorted. “You could spend more time on the Constitutional Committee, then,” he said. “Since it’s so damn important.”
“A cobbler should stick to her last and a sailor to her ship. I just don’t have your capacity to
endure fools,” she said, with a slight momentary smile he’d learned was her equivalent of a grin. “Didn’t I get the Arnsteins to enroll? Aren’t they a help?”
“Too much. Every time I turn around they’re telling us how the Republic of Venice or the Hanseatic League or ancient Athens did it-Ian’s always trying to pin some unpronounceable Greek name on everything we do, at that. It’s as intimidating as hell. Then Sam Macy loses his temper with them, and I have to smooth it over.”
“Thus getting your own way,” Martha pointed out. “Politics may not be your trade, dear, but you’re learning it.”
Damn, but it’s��� energizing��� being married to someone smarter than you are, he thought.
“How’s it look, basically?” Alston asked, leaning forward to get out of the way of someone carrying two buckets of hot tar on the ends of a shoulder yoke. The strong scent made Martha hold her breath for a moment.
“Oh, a republic with a chief executive-everyone seems to like the name-and a Council, reporting to the Town Meeting and with appointments subject to confirmation, and the Meeting to pass laws and review and vote on all the major decisions,” Cofflin said. “That’s the bare bones. Right now we’re thrashing out whether the militia should be separate from the Coast Guard, and whether the commander of that should be called an admiral or not. Want to be an admiral?”
“Only if I can wear one of those fancy fore-and-aft hats and gold braid,” Alston said dryly.
“Talk of calling you people the Republic of Nantucket Navy, too.”
That brought her upright and indignant, as he expected. “Look, Cofflin-” She saw his grin, and relaxed. “Sorry, but tell them Guard people would rather barbecue their mothers. No offense-I know you were a squid.”
“None taken,” he said. “And they’re debating whether the Town Meeting can amend the constitution with a simple majority or not; Arnstein’s strong for a two-thirds vote two years running. Goes on about something the Athenian Assembly did.” He lifted a brow. “Hung some admirals for losing a battle, it was.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Alston said. “Christ, you know how a crowd can get, ‘specially when someone tells them what they all want to hear.”
“You could come and tell the committee���” he said.
“You’ve got a fund of low cunning, Jared, you know that?” she said. “Maybe. If I’ve got time. After Christmas.”
“So at this point, you just pack up and go home,” William Walker said.
Shaumsrix scowled; he was an experienced war chief by Iraiina standards. “Of course. We can’t take the fort, we don’t have enough men, and if we wait here too long many will get sick in this cold and wet. Or nearby chiefs will come and overfall us with numbers we can’t match, even though this chief is at feud with all his neighbors. We’ve taken many cattle and sheep, and horses, yes-I admit that your riders let us surprise them that way. Now we should go home and guard against their revenge.”
Walker leaned his hands on the pommel of his saddle and looked around at his own followers. Most of them were mounted; chariot ponies broke to the saddle easily enough, and at thirteen hands were big enough to carry a man if he changed off every so often. They stamped and fretted a little, their newly shod hooves squelching in the damp earth, breath blowing white from their flaring nostrils into the chilly air of late fall.
“Time for our next surprise, boys,” he said. “Break out the axes.”
An ox-wagon creaked up behind them. Not the local kind, two solid wheels and two beasts; this was as close as he could get to a Boer trek wagon or a Conestoga, with eight yoke pulling it via a stout iron chain. It wasn’t fast, but it could carry a couple of tons of weight pretty well anywhere.
“More magic?” the Iraiina said fearfully.
“Just a little applied mechanics,” Walker said. Shaumsrix made a sign with his fingers.
It took all that day and most of the next to set the engine up. At last Walker stepped forward and took the lanyard. A swift tug���
Thack-WHUMP. The long arm of the trebuchet whipped upward.
It was nothing but an application of the lever: the short arm carried a timber box full of rocks, the long a sling at its end to throw rocks or other projectiles. The bigger medieval examples had been able to throw a ton of weight half a mile. This was a bit smaller, but ample for his needs.
“Devil’s in the details,” Walker snorted to himself, watching the barrel of lard wrapped in burning rags arching up into the blue November sky. At least we’ve got some decent weather for a change. Most of the time he’d been wading in mud while he worked on the damn thing back at base.
He leveled the binoculars and watched. The target was a round earthwork dunthaurikaz, a little fortlet with perhaps a dozen big huts inside, and a stockade surrounding it made of upright logs rammed into the top of the earthwork. Pathetic even compared to the Western forts he’d seen on TV when he was a kid, but nearly invulnerable by here-and-now standards. The defenders had been standing on the platform behind the ramparts, shooting an occasional arrow and yelling insults. He could understand them, more or less; their language and the Iraiina tongue weren’t far apart-about like the difference between BBC English and what a small-town Texan spoke. The screams of fear as the barrel flew toward them were understandable anywhere. It struck near the sharpened points of the logs and snapped two off as it shattered. Burning tallow flung in all directions, spattering. Wood began to catch.
“Haul away, boys!” he called.
Four horses were waiting. They were local chariot ponies, but he’d had proper horse-collar harnesses made up, not the choking throat-strap yoke these people used. A strong rope ran back from them to the pulleys, and the longer throwing arm began to swing downward with a creaking of its raw timbers, hauling up the great box of rocks on the other end. John did a good job on the ironwork, he thought. But then, the blacksmith always did a good job, it was a habit with him��� and Walker had done enough work with him back on the island to know exactly what he was capable of, and how fast.
The crew snapped the iron hook into the loop bolted into the arm. Ohotolarix came up beside him.
“Lord, that thing is a marvel-but we don’t want to burn all the loot, do we?”
The young Iraiina swaggered, hand on his new steel sword, but there was plenty of deference in the way he spoke to his new chief.
“Good point,” Walker said. To the crew at the trebuchet: “Give ‘em a stone this time, men.”
Four of them lifted a three-hundred-pounder into the heavy leather sling. McAndrews adjusted the stop ropes, frowning in concentration.
“That ought to do it, sir.”
“Go for it.”
The tall black jerked at the cord that tripped the release. Thack-WHUMP. The rounded boulder spun through the air. For a wonder-aiming this thing was by guess and by God-it struck not far away from where the barrel had. Four logs snapped across, raw white splinters showing in their heartwood, and a man arched out to land crumpled in the wet pastureland between the fort and the invaders. The chiefs and warriors who’d agreed to come along on this raid shrieked and beat their axes on their shields in glee.
“Reload.”
“We’ll batter them to sausage meat, lord!” Ohotolarix said with wild enthusiasm.
These people are like kids, Walker thought, not for the first time. One minute they were all agog over a novelty, then next sulking in the corner or stamping and waving their fists in quick anger��� not what you’d call dependable. On the other hand, they can learn. At least the younger ones.
“No we won’t,” Walker said. “Because they can figure that out themselves, and any minute now���”
The narrow gate of the fort was hauled open. Hands thrust a gangway through, over the muddy ditch that surrounded the settlement, and two chariots thundered across. Behind them ran forty or so men, all the adult free males in this chiefs following, bellowing their war cries. The Iraiina whooped themselves, and ran to meet
their foes.
“Remember what I told you!” Walker barked. “Shoulder to shoulder! March!”
His own little band tramped forward, spears lowered and crossbows ready, swinging around the clot of combat where chieftains hurled javelins and taunts from their war-cars and footmen met in milling, deadly chaos. Grossly outnumbered to begin with, none of the enemy fought long. Walker met one of the last, an axman bleeding but still wolf-swift. The tomahawk chopped at him, trailing red drops. He brought his katana up in a looping curve to meet it, and the ashwood slid off steel. The American planted his feet and swung, drawing the cut across the native’s neck. The contorted fork-bearded face went slack and dribbled blood, then collapsed. A few others, perhaps seven or eight, threw down their weapons.
“Don’t kill them!” Walker yelled, pointing his blade to the warriors who’d surrendered. “I want prisoners.”
“Well struck, lord!” Ohotolarix said. His own short sword was red. “Now we plunder!”
The flanking move had done more than end the fight quickly; it had also put Walker’s band nearest the gate. “Double-time!” he shouted. First plunder, then burn.
The inside of the fortress was stink and chaos; the locals had driven much of their stock inside, and brought themselves from steadings all around, packing it far beyond its usual capacity. Hairy little cattle bawled and surged in panic; sheep milled in clots; women and children ran likewise. One or two of the mothers had already cut their children’s throats and plunged daggers into their own chests, or hung themselves from the carved rafter ends of their houses.
“You, you, you, get those fires out!” Walker barked. “The rest of you, round these people up! They’re no use to us dead. Get their stuff over there.”
He pointed to the��� porch, he decided��� of the biggest building in the fort. Almost certainly the fallen chief’s dwelling; the roof ran out a dozen feet or so beyond the wall, supported on wooden pillars, and there was a raised floor a bit out of the mud, covered with the same cut reeds used inside.
Island in the Sea of Time Page 44