by David Drake
Which meant that the bullies, the enforcers, had gotten word that the main stairs would be blocked when the tide cleared the plaza—although Scratchard and apparently a lot of civilians had been caught unaware. That could mean a lot of things: none of them particularly good, and none of them, thank the Lord, the business of Tyl Koopman or Hammer's Slammers.
He caught sight of a uniform of the right color. Sergeant Major Scratchard muscled his way through the crowd, his rank in his eyes and his grizzled hair. His khaki coveralls were neat and clean, but there were shiny patches over the shoulders where body armor had rubbed the big man's uniform against his collarbone.
Tyl hadn't recognized the name, but sight of the man rang a bell in his mind. He swung away from the pillar and, gripping the hand the noncom extended to him, said, "Sergeant Major Scratchard? Would that be Ripper Jack?"
Scratchard's professional smile broadened into something as real and firm as his handshake."Cap'n Koopman, then?Yeah,when I was younger,sir . . . Maybe when I was younger."
He shifted his right leg and the hand holding Tyl's,just enough to point without apprising the civilians around of the gesture.
Scratchard wore a knife along his right calf. Most of the sheathed blade was hidden within his boot but the hand-filling grip was strapped to mid-calf. "Pistols jam on you, happen," the big man half bragged,half explained. "This'n never did."
His face hardened. "Though they got me pretty much retired to Admin now with my bum knees."
"Didn't look that quiet a billet just now,"Tyl said, pitching his voice lower than the civilians, scurrying on their own errands, could have overheard. "Down in the plaza just now, the enforcers in cloaks . . . And I was talking to a UDB lieutenant landed the same time I did."
"Yeah,you could maybe figure that,"Scratchard said in a voice too quietly controlled to be really neutral. "Open your leg pocket, sir, and stand real close."
Tyl, his face still, ran a finger across the seal of the bellows pocket on the right leg of his coveralls . He and the noncom pressed against one of the door pillars, their backs momentarily to the crowd moving past them. He felt the weight of what Scratchard had slipped into his pocket.
Tyl didn't need to finger the object to know that he'd been given a service pistol, a 1cm powergun. In the right hands, it could do as much damage as a shotgun loaded with buck.
Tyl's were the right hands. He wouldn't have been in the Slammers if they weren't. But the implications . . . .
"We're issuing sidearms in Bamberg City, then?" he asked without any emotional loading.
Scratchard, an enlisted man reporting to an officer, said stiffly,"Sir, while I was in charge of the Transit Detachment, I gave orders that none of the troopers on port leave were to leave barracks in groups of less than three. And no, sidearms aren't officially approved. But I won't have men under my charge disarmed when I sure as blazes wouldn't be disarmed myself. You can change the procedures if you like."
"Yes, Sergeant Major, I can," Tyl said with just enough iron to emphasize that he was well aware of their respective ranks. "And if I see any reason to do so, I will."
He smiled, returning the conversation to the footing where he wanted to keep it. "For now, let's get me to the barracks and see just what it is the colonel has on line."
Pray to the Lord that there'd be orders to take over E Company again.
Scratchard hesitated, looking first toward the east,then the western lock doors. "Ah, sir," he said. "We're billeted in the City Offices—" he pointed toward the eastern end of the mall,the side toward the huge House of Grace."Central's cut orders for you to carry the Transit Detachment over to Two for further assignment . . . but you know, nothing that can't wait another couple days. We've still got half a dozen other troopers due back from furlough."
"All right,"Tyl said, to show that he wasn't going to insist on making a decision before he'd heard Scratchard's appraisal of the situation. "What else?"
"Well,sir,"said the noncom."President Delcorio really wants to see the ranking Slammers officer in the city. Didn't call the message over, his nephew brought it this morning. I told him you were in orbit, due down as soon as the port cleared—'cause I'm bloody not the guy to handle that sort of thing. I checked with Central, see if they'd courier somebody over from Two, but they didn't want . . . ."
Tyl understood why Colonel Hammer would have turned down Scratchard's request.It was obvious what President Delcorio wanted to discuss . . . and it wasn't something that Hammer wanted to make a matter of official regimental policy by sending over a staff officer.
The Slammers hadn't been hired to keep public order in Bamberg City, and Colonel Hammer wanted all the time he could get before he had to officially make a decision that might involve the Bonding Authority either way.
"Central said you should handle it for now,"Scratchard concluded. "And I sure think somebody ought to report to the President ASAP."
"Via," muttered Tyl Koopman.
Well, he couldn't say that he hadn't been given a responsible job when he returned from furlough.
He shrugged his shoulders, settling the pack more comfortably. "Right," he said. "Let's do it then, Sergeant Major."
"Palace of Government," Scratchard said in evident relief, pointing west in the direction the procession had been headed. He stepped off with a stiff-legged stride that reminded Tyl that the noncom had complained about his knees.
The crowd had thinned enough that the Slammers officer could trust other pedestrians to avoid him even if he glanced away from his direction of movement."You goby Jack when you're with friends?" he asked,looking at the bigger
man.
"Yes sir, I do," Scratchard replied.
He grinned, and though the expression wasn't quite natural, the noncom was working on it.
Mercenary units were always outnumbered by the indigenous populations that hired them—or they were hired to put down. Mercenaries depended on better equipment, better training—and on each other, because everything else in the world could be right and you were still dead if the man who should have covered your back let you down.
Tyl and Scratchard both wanted—needed—there to be a good relationship between them. It didn't look like they'd be together long . . . but life itself was temporary, and that wasn't a reason not to make things work as well as they could while it lasted.
"This way,"said Scratchard as the two soldiers emerged from the mall crossing the river. "Give you a bit of a view, and we don't fight with trucks."
There was a ramp from the mall down to interlocking vehicular streets—one of them paralleling the river, the plaza, and then sweeping west along the corniche. The other was a parklike boulevard which tied into the first after separating the gold-domed cathedral from a large, three-story building whose wings enclosed a central courtyard open in the direction of the river.
"That's the . . .?" Tyl said, trying to remember the name.
"Palace of Government, yeah," Scratchard replied easily. He was taking them along the pedestrian walk atop the levee.
Glancing over the railing to his right, Tyl was shocked to see the water was within two meters of the top of the levee. He could climb directly aboard the scores of barges moored there, silently awaiting for the locks to open. All he'd have to do was swing his legs over the guard rail.
"Via!" he said, looking from the river to the street and the buildings beyond it. "What happens if it comes up another couple meters? All that down there floods, right?"
"They've got flood shutters on all the lower floors," Scratchard explained/ agreed. "They say it happened seventy-odd years ago when everything came together—tides and a storm that backed up the outlet channels up-coast. But they know what they're doing, their engineers."
He paused, then added in a tone of disgust, "Their politicians, now . . . But I don't suppose they know their asses from a hole in the ground, any of 'em anywhere."
He didn't expect an argument from an officer of Hammer's Slammers; and Tyl Koopman wasn'
t about to give him one.
Bamberg City was clean, prosperous. The odor of toasted tobacco leaf permeated it, despite the fact that the ranks of hogsheads on the waiting barges were all vacuum-sealed; but that was a sweet smell very different from the reeks that were the normal concomitant of bulk agriculture.
Nothing wrong here but the human beings.
A flagpole stood in the courtyard of the Palace of Government. Its twelve-man honor guard wore uniforms of the same blue and gold as the fabric of the drooping banner.
In front of the cathedral were more than a thousand of the men in cross-marked white robes. They were still chanting and blocking vehicles, though the gaps in the ranks of staff-armed choristers permitted pedestrians to enter the cathedral building. The dome towered above this side of the river, though it in turn was dwarfed by the House of Grace opposite.
There was a pedestrian bridge from the embankment to the courtyard of the Palace of Government, crossing the vehicular road. As they joined the traffic on it, heavy because of the way vehicles were being backed up by the tail end of the procession, Tyl asked, "Who wears white here? The ones who hold Easter on Christmas?"
"Umm,"said the sergeant major.Then on com'stone reminded Tyl of the pistol that weighted his pocket—and the reason it was there.
In a barely audible voice, Scratchard went on, "Those are orderlies from the House of Grace. They, ah, usually turn out for major religious events."
Neither of the mercenaries spoke again until they had reached the nearly empty courtyard of the government building. Then, while the honor guard was still out of earshot, Tyl said, "Jack, they don't look to me like they empty bedpans."
"Them?"responded the big sergeant major."They do whatever Bishop Trimer tells them to do, sir."
He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the massed orderlies. His eyes held only flat appraisal, as if he were estimating range and the length of the burst he was about to fire.
"Anything at all," he concluded.
Tyl Koopman didn't pursue the matter as he and Scratchard—the latter limping noticeably—walked across the courtyard toward the entrance of the Palace of Government.
He could feel the eyes of the honor guard following them with contempt. It didn't bother him much, anymore.
Five years in the Slammers had taught him that parade-ground soldiers always felt that way about killers in uniform.
Chapter Six
The flood shutters of the Palace of Government were closed, and Charles Desoix wasn't naive enough to think that the thick steel plates had been set against the chance of a storm surge. Bamberg City had really come apart in the two weeks he was gone.
Or just maybe it was starting to come together, but President John Delcorio wasn't going to be part of the new order.
Desoix threw a sharp salute to the head of the honor guard. The Bamberg officer returned it while the men of his section presented arms.
Striding with his shoulders back,Desoix proceeded toward the front entrance—the only opening on the first two stories of the palace that wasn't shuttered.
As Desoix looked at it, the saluting was protective coloration. It was purely common sense to want the respect of the people around you . . . and when you've wangled billets for yourself and your men in the comfort of the Palace of Government, that meant getting along with the Executive Guard.
By thumbing an epaulet loop, Desoix brightened the gray-spattered markings of his uniform to metallic silver—and it was easy to learn to salute, as easy as learning to hold the sight picture that would send a bolt of cyan death downrange at a trigger's squeeze. There was no point in not making it easy on yourself.
He thought of making a suggestion to the Slammers officer who'd just arrived, but . . . Tyl Koopman seemed a good sort and as able as one of Colonel Hammer's company commanders could be expected to be.
But Koopman also seemed the sort of man who might be happier with his troops in the police barracks beneath the City Offices than he would be in the ambiance of the Palace.
The captain in command of the guards at the entrance was named Sanchez; he roomed next door to Desoix in the officers' quarters in the West Wing. Instead of saluting again, Desoix took the man's hand and said, "Well, Rene, I'm glad to be back on a civilized planet again . . . but what on earth has been going on in the city since I left?"
The Guard captain made a sour face and looked around at the sergeant and ten men of his section. Everyone in the Executive Guard was at least sponsored by one of the top families on the planet. Not a few of them were members of those families, asserting a tradition of service without the potential rigors of being stationed on Two if the Crusade got under way.
"Well, you know the people," Sanchez said, a gentleman speaking among gentlemen. "The recent taxes haven't been popular, since there are rumors that they have more to do with Lady Eunice's wardrobe than with propagation of Christ's message. Nothing that we need worry about."
Desoix raised an eyebrow. The Executive Guard carried assault rifles whose gilding made them as ornamental as the gold brocade on the men's azure uniforms . . . but there were magazines in the rifles today. That was as unusual as the flood shutters being in place.
"Ah, you can't really stay neutral if things get . . . out of hand, can you?" the UDB officer asked. He didn't like to suggest that he and Sanchez were on different standards; but that was better than using "we" when the word might seem to commit the United Defense Batteries.
The guardsman's face chilled. "We'll follow orders, of course," he said. "But it isn't the business of the army to get involved in the squabbles of the mob: or to attempt to change the will of the people."
"Exactly," said Desoix, nodding enthusiastic agreement. "Exactly."
He was still nodding as he strode into the entrance rotunda. He hoped he'd covered his slip with Sanchez well enough.
But he certainly had learned where the army—or at least the Executive Guard stood on the subject of the riots in the streets.
There was a small, separately guarded elevator off the rotunda which opened directly onto the Consistory Room on the third floor. Desoix hesitated. The pager inset into his left cuff had lighted red with Major Borodin's anxiety, and Desoix knew what his commander wanted without admitting his presence by answering.
It would be a very good idea to take the elevator. Borodin was awkward in the company of President Delcorio and his noble advisors; the major, the battery, and the situation would all benefit from the presence of Lieutenant Charles Desoix.
But Desoix had some personal priorities as well, and . . . .
There was traffic up and down the central staircase—servants and minor functionaries, but not as many of them as usual. They had an air of nervousness rather than their normal haughty superiority.
When the door of the small meeting room near the elevator moved, Desoix saw Anne McGill through the opening.
Desoix strode toward her, smiling outwardly and more relieved than he could admit within. He wasn't the type who could ever admit being afraid that a woman wouldn't want to see him again—or that he cared enough about her that it would matter.
The panel, dark wood placed between heavy engaged columns of pink and gray marble, closed again when he moved toward it. She'd kept it ajar, watching for his arrival, and had flashed a sight of herself to signal Desoix closer.
But Lady Anne McGill, companion and confidante of the President's wife, had no wish to advertise her presence here in the rotunda.
Desoix tapped on the door. He heard the lock click before the panel opened, hiding Anne behind it from anyone outside. Maybe her ambivalence was part of the attraction, he thought as he stepped into a conference room. There was a small, massively built table, chairs for six, and space for that many more people to stand if they knew one another well.
All the room held at the moment was the odor of heavy tobaccos,so omni present on Bamberia that Desoix noticed it only because he'd been off-planet for two weeks . . . and Anne McGill in layers
of silk chiffon which covered her like mist, hiding everything while everything remained suggested.
Desoix put his arms around her.
"Charles, it's very dangerous," she said, turning so that his lips met her cheek.
He nuzzled her ear and, when she caught his right hand, he reached for her breast with his left.
"Ah . . ." he said as a different level of risk occurred to him. "Your husband's still stationed on Two, isn't he?"
"Of course," Anne muttered scornfully.
She was no longer fighting off his hands, but she was relaxing only slightly and that at a subconscious level."You don't think Bertrand would be here when things are like this, do you? There's a Consistory Meeting every morning now, but things are getting worse. Anyone can see that. Eunice says that they're all cowards, all the men, even her husband."
She let her lips meet his. Her body gave a shudder and she gripped Desoix to her as fiercely as her tension a moment before had attempted to repel him."You should be upstairs now,"she whispered as she turned her head again."They need you and your major, he's very upset."
"My call unit would have told me that if I'd asked it," the UDB officer said as he shifted the grip of his hands. Anne was a big woman, large boned and with a tendency toward fat that she repressed fiercely with exercise and various diets. She wore nothing beneath the bottom layer of chiffon except the smooth skin which Desoix caressed. His hand ran up her thigh to squeeze the fat of her buttock against the firm muscle beneath.
"Then don't be long . . ." Anne whispered as she reached for the fly of his trousers.
Desoix didn't know quite what she meant by that.
But he knew that it didn't matter as he backed his mistress against the table, lifting the chiffon dress to spill over the wood where there would be no risk of staining the fabric.