A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess

by Ron Miller

  “They look all right to me,” says the first soldier.

  “But look, it says here that there’s only one of them, a, ah, C. ah, J. Puh . . . Pam . . . Pams . . .”

  “Pamsly,” offers the puppeteer, helpfully.

  “Pamsly. So who’s that?” he says, pointing at Rykkla.

  “That’s my sister. Mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers are all covered by my passport. They told you that, didn’t they?”

  “Uh, well, yeah, they told me that. She’s your sister, huh? How do I know that?”

  “Ask her.”

  “Hey, you, are you this Pam . . . Pam . . .”

  “Pamsly,” offered Rykkla, helpfully.

  “ . . . Pamsly’s sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look much like her.”

  “That’s only because she doesn’t resemble me.”

  “Oh, well, I see. Well, yes . . . But what about him?” he asks, triumphantly pointing at Thud.

  “What about him?”

  “Are you going to tell me he’s a relative?”

  “Are you trying to be insulting?”

  “What? . . . no, ma’m, but . . .”

  “I can bring horses across the border, can’t I?”

  “Sure, but. . .”

  “And I can bring mules, and oxen and cows, can’t I?”

  “‘In a reasonable number for household use,’” quotes the soldier.

  “I can, indeed, bring across any kind of draft animal, can’t I?”

  “But that ain’t no draft animal!”

  “What is a draft animal, then?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s a draft animal?” repeats Pamsly coaxingly, as patient as a schoolteacher.

  “Uh . . . well . . . it’s an animal what pulls things, I guess.”

  “And isn’t this,” she says, pointing at Thud, “pulling something?”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .” he replies, wavering under her logic.

  “Then what is it?”

  “What do you mean?” The soldier squirms. He had quit school precisely to avoid confrontations like this.

  “It isn’t human is it?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I sure ain’t ever seen nothing like it before,” puts in the first soldier.

  “Well, neither have I, but if he ain’t human, what is he?”

  “He’s a Kobold,” answers Pamsly.

  “A Kobold!” cries the first soldier. “Man, I know what Kobolds are! Kobolds . . .”

  “I ain’t stupid. I know what they are, too,” the second soldier replies with a bravado belied by his bugging eyes and slack jaw. Pamsly presses her point.

  “Well, since you agree that he’s a Kobold then you must also agree that he’s not human, since he can’t be both, and if he isn’t human and he’s pulling my wagon then he must be a draft animal, right?”

  “She’s got a point, Flem.”

  “I dunno. Maybe we oughta check with the sergeant.”

  “Why not?” agrees Pamsly, “he’d probably enjoy a long hike on this cold, wet, muddy morning. You can offer him some of that nice-looking coffee you have there.”

  “The lady’s making a point again, Flem.”

  “I still ain’t sure that’s no draft animal, Boog.”

  At this moment, possessed by a sudden inspiration, Thud produces a bizarre imitation of a whinny and stamps the ground. The thump collapses the tripod holding the tin pot of water over the fire, completing its extinguishment.

  “Whoa, Thud!” cries Pamsly, pulling back on the reins. “He’s getting impatient. One of you boys got a sugar cube you can give him?”

  “No, ma’m!”

  “He gets excited, I don’t know if I can control him!”

  Thud goes heeeennnkmmmmhmmmhmm! and stamps the ground again.

  “C’mon, Flem, let ‘em on through! They ain’t spies or nothing!”

  “You ain’t spies or nothing are you?” asks Flem.

  “Of course not.”

  “Pass then. Boog, get that gate up!”

  Rykkla and Thud part company from C. J. Pamsly at Biela-Slatina, where a family of gypsies, to whom she is distantly related, are waiting for her. There is going to be a wedding and reunion and the puppeteer urges her new friends to stay for the celebration and feast but, as tempting as the food and drink sounds, Rykkla is anxious to be on her way to the capital. They make their farewells on the outskirts of the village, where the road forks to the southwest after bridging the Moltus River, which this far north is a very narrow, often shallow stream. Rykkla gave Pamsly the promised letter of introduction to her uncle, and the puppeteer in turn promises to head back to Flekke as soon as her cousin’s wedding is concluded. For several minutes the circus girl and the giant watch as the jingling, rocking wagon, pulled by the resentful pony, wobbles into the town. They are tempted to follow, but at last turne and cross the bridge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  UNWANTED NEWS

  “We’re moving the court to the castle at Strabane,” announces Payne Roelt.

  “What?” cries the king. “Strabane? That’s a dreadful place! Whatever can you be thinking of?”

  Roelt glares at the king for a moment, as though a petulant child has just interrupted an adult conversation, then turns away. “As I was saying, General, we must move the court. This army’s a bad thing; I don’t trust it.”

  “I wouldn’t bother about it,” advises Praxx. “It has no leader, no motivation. It’s a collection of mercenaries. Why should they trouble us for no reward? Princess Bronwyn’s not among them, we know that for a certainty, and has not yet made any appearance. What reason can there be other than that she’s dead? What can she gain by this delay? No, she’s no longer with us, and without her to motivate it the ‘army’ will disband itself soon enough.”

  “I don’t know, Praxx. There’s something that bothers me.”

  “You worry too much. There’s nothing she can do to you now.”

  “I’ve thinks that before, Praxx.”

  “You’re becoming superstitious,” replies the general, who can imagine nothing more reprehensible in a human being. Payne will be embracing religion next.

  “Nevertheless, I’ve offered a reward for her, dead or alive, over the king’s signature. The decree denounces her for the traitor she is and makes it more than clear that anyone harboring her or withholding any information as to her whereabouts will be branded a traitor as well, and can expect the usual punishment.”

  “You’ll never see her again, Lord Roelt, dead or alive.”

  “I hope not, but I’d still feel better in Strabane. Blavek is indefensible. Besides, I’m looking for a place to . . . retire, I suppose you might say.”

  “Retire?”

  “I’ve realized that there’s nothing left for me in Tamlaght. I can put everything remaining in this country up at public auction and not get a hundred crowns for it.” He looks at his hands as they lay in his laps, the fingers curled like dying spiders, half regretting that there actually might be a hundred crowns in Tamlaght that he might not be able to obtain. The thought vaguely irks him. “No, Praxx, there’re more reasons for leaving Blavek than that army in the east. This country is going to collapse like a punctured balloon. Crotoy is hovering over its dying body like a vulture. If the court abandons the capital it would be a signal that the heart have stopped beating; Crotoy would invade unhesitatingly. And how can Tamlaght defend itself? Every poenig in the country is in my own coffers, safely hidden away. There’d be no way to pay an army, let alone feed or arm it. Besides, the economy’s been destroyed; there’s no more industry and virtually no more agriculture. Crotoy can take this country with no more than a stern voice and a rubber-band gun.”

  “Surely Crotoy wouldn’t stand for your presence even in Strabane?”

  “No, but I’ll be the least of their worries for the time being. Strabane is just temporary.”

  Praxx sinks back in his overstuffed chair. For some
reason, he had not until this very moment realized the full scope, the enormity of what Payne Roelt has accomplished, or exactly how much it lacked any motive other than personal gain. Lord Payne Roelt had mugged an entire country and left it to die.

  “I really hate Strabane,” bleats the king from his own chair, where he sat with his knees drawn up to one of his chins, lower lip protruding petulantly. Ferenc has acquired a doughy quality that is enhanced by an oily sheen of perspiration. “And I don’t see why I have to go there if I don’t want to. I am the king and I wish someone around here would remember that occasionally. Don’t you care at all what I think?”

  “No,” replies Payne.

  There is a discreet tap at the door and Praxx answers it. He is gone for a few moments and when he returns, Payne knows immediately that something is wrong.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “That army,” replies the general, doing something that for him is unprecedented: he sloppily pours a glass of sherry and downs it in a single swallow. “That army, it’s begun to move!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  REUNIONS

  Bronwyn had at first some considerable difficulty in getting an audience with Duke Mathias. The guards at the entrance to the encampment only saw what they with good reason interpreted as a pair of extremely dirty, ragged-looking tramps. The emaciated old man looks as though he is in the last stages of starvation and the female with him is a rather hard-looking cookie as tall as any of the men and more than half as rangy.

  In spite of their orders, and mostly in deference to the appearance of the girl’s companion, they kindly offer to send the two around to the camp kitchen for a sandwich or soup before being sent along their way and are surprised and not a little offended to have the younger of the two tramps, a brazen, self-important hussy, become unnecessarily high-handed about their offer. She insists on showing them a ring bearing a device they have never before seen (they are mercenaries from Mostaza and have never even heard of the Tedeschiiys), some gewgaw or other she has no doubt either stolen or gotten in return for bestowing her favors on some luckless soldier. When this possibility is suggested, the girl flies into a rage and has to be physically restrained when she attacks the questioning sentry.

  There seems to be nothing left to do but to turn her over to the Officer of the Watch. He, too, fails to recognize the Princess Bronwyn but does acknowledge the design on her ring, which he assumes has been stolen. She refuses to surrender it to him and laughs at his threats. Loath to use violence on even such a bedraggled and low-class female, the officer orders her restrained until he can get the advice of his own commander. Since it is by now well after midnight there is little that the officer is either willing or able to do; the issue is far from important enough to disturb any of his superiors.

  Thus it is that Bronwyn and Wittenoom spend their first night with her army locked in a makeshift guardhouse, and it is thus that Duke Mathias finds them in the morning. The princess has in the intervening five hours lost not one ounce of steam pressure. The Duke’s immense surprise at discovering that Bronwyn is not only alive but for some mysterious reason locked in a wagon in his own camp is significantly tempered by having to bear the full brunt of her anger.

  “Bronwyn, my dear,” he is finally able to say, “I had no idea you are even still alive, let alone here in my own camp! How was I to know? How were my men supposed to know who you are? I can barely recognize you myself! They were only doing their duty. I can’t punish them the way you’re suggesting for having done that!”

  “What d’you mean, ‘your own camp’?” she asks, ignoring everything else.

  “Let’s not get onto that old subject again, shall we?”

  “Then you agree with me?”

  “Agree about what?”

  “That this is my army to lead as I see fit?”

  “Now look . . .”

  “What were you going to do, thinking that I was dead? I don’t see anything that looks much like an army girding itself for battle. What have you been doing all these weeks?”

  “That’s not fair. We lost a good quarter of our ships and men in the storm. None of the ships survived unscathed; there are wrecks scattered all up and down a hundred miles of coastline and more. It’s taken all that time just to reassemble the army. Your own ship, the Sommer B., had most of our ammunition and explosives on board.”

  “And Payne Roelt and my brother have left you alone all this time?”

  “We’ve been constantly watched, but otherwise we’ve not been interfered with. We suspect that Roelt and his satellites also think that you are dead and that without you we have no real reason to attack them.”

  “It’s true then?”

  “What?”

  “That you were going to abandon the invasion because you thought I was dead?”

  “There’s no point in pretending that it hadn’t crossed my mind. I mean, what would the point of it be? These men are all mercenaries; who is going to pay them? As you are so fond of reminding me, this whole thing is really your affair.”

  “Then if you do agree with me, I don’t see that there’s room for any further argument. I’m here now and I don’t see any reason for not going ahead as originally planned.”

  Realizing that he was lost, the Duke reiterates a compromise he had once before made with her: “All right, look here: you know nothing about military matters, nothing about running an army, tactics, strategy, administration, all of that . . . I do. I think your rightful position ought to be that of the owner of a ship, and mine that of the captain. You tell me what your goals are and I’ll see that they’re carried out. You are, however, to let me do this in my own way, as I see fit; you’re not to interfere in the actual running of the army.”

  “That makes sense. Of course I agree.”

  “Fine! Look, I’ll have some clothing issued for you and the professor and tents assigned to you, as well as batmen and whatever else you might need. And I’ll have food brought, too. You both look like you’re starving. Why don’t you get those things taken care of and settled, and then, in the morning, we’ll see what we need to do?”

  Bronwyn agrees and is led away by one of the Duke’s subalterns. She is given a roomy wall tent, a kind of canvas cabin large enough for her to walk around in erect, and a duplicate set of the uniforms she had possessed when departing from Lesser Piotr, so long ago!, as well as a chest containing all of the standard miscellaneous peripheral equipment, including toiletries, that is normally issued to every officer. The professor had been too anxious to see what of his precious scientific devices might have survived and postponed both seeing his quarters and changing clothes.

  A light meal is delivered, which she eats in her tent, inhaling the food almost without tasting it, glad that she is eating alone without having to waste time on politeness or consideration of the sensibilities of companions.

  The princess orders a tub of hot water, and after this is brought to her tent and filled she strips from herself the by now almost unrecognizable sailor’s costume, which she has not had off more than half a dozen times since leaving Hartal, and threw it from the tent, shouting orders through the canvas to have the bundle of hateful rags burnt. She lowers herself into the metal tub, which is only just large enough for her to sit in, which she does slowly and carefully, luxuriating in the gradual ascent of the scalding high-water mark. She lathers herself thoroughly with the harsh military soap, feeling as though she ought to be scraping dirt from herself with a blade, or chipping it away with a trowel. She scrubs lather into her hair until her scalp tingles, then rinses with the extra buckets of still-steaming water that have been left beside the tub. She then repeats the process two more times. Standing up, she burnishes herself with an abrasive towel until her skin nearly matches her hair and is as tender as a sunburn.

  She extinguishes her lantern and, stretching out on her cot, she enjoys the fresh scent of her body for the first time in weeks and the silky caress of the balmy night air. She feels a sen
se of relief and satisfaction and accomplishment that flows over her like a thick, warm honey and before she has a chance to really enjoy it, is asleep.

  She is awakened before dawn the next morning by reveille. Dawn is still only a colorless tint in the east and the morning air is surprisingly cold; she wraps herself in her blanket and goes to the door of her tent. At her order, her batman, as small, smoothly rounded and efficient as a ball bearing, who is of course already dressed, alert and waiting, brings a mirror to her (how such a thing has survived she doesn’t bother to guess, nor how it can be considered a legitimate and useful part of an army’s baggage; but it is there nevertheless: a sliver of silvered glass five feet tall and six inches wide). Dismissing the man, she props the mirror against the center pole of her tent. She unwraps the blanket and drops it across the cot. She looks curiously at the image reflected in the glass; it seems only oddly unfamiliar. The princess is two years older than when she began her adventure: she is now twenty plus a few months. Can such a short interval have made all of the differences she sees in the mirror? She is at one and the same time sleeker and harder; her long lines flowing hydrodynamically from head to foot, as though she has been designed by a marine architect who specializes in yachts or racing sculls. She presses a finger into thigh and waist and stomach, feeling a resiliency like hard rubber. The boniness of her face is emphasized by the final disappearance of much of its youthful softening, as well as by her shorter hair, which now reaches just below her ears when it is loose (though at the moment it is tied by a ribbon at the nape in a jaunty queue). Her scalp seems as though it is covered with a glossy, copper skullcap, or by a hemisphere of polished mahoghany. Her cheekbones are prominent, slanting shelves over the shadowed alcoves of her cheeks and the line of her jaw is as straight and square as a brick. Her long raptor’s nose and strong chin look more arrogant than ever. Her chlorine-green eyes look larger than usual yet also older and sadder and wiser, as though the green is that of ancient glacial ice. She doesn’t mind them looking older, but sadder and wiser disturbs her. How can her eyes look so profound if she doesn’t feel that way? Where is all the wisdom they are reflecting?