Imager’s Battalion ip-6

by L. E. Modesitt

  42

  Vendrei came and went, leaving a cloud-covered sky that promised a downpour on Samedi, but ended up only offering scattered showers. Quaeryt found a waterproof and took a squad from Major Arion’s company and rode west to inspect and study the Bovarian defenses surrounding Villerive. Unlike the other river towns, there were neither swamps, marshes, nor forests blocking the approaches to the city on the south side of the River Aluse. In fact, the southern section of Villerive, located on largely flat and slightly raised ground, did not appear that much larger than Caernyn. It was encircled by a recently constructed set of earthworks that extended little more than a mille from one end to the other. Still, an earthen berm nearly two yards high suggested considerable effort, and several score catapults behind it implied the strong possibility of Antiagon Fire. The level ground made the danger from muskets, and possible hidden pits, greater as well. Yet the sheer openness of the approach made Quaeryt question why Kharst had chosen Villerive as a position to hold. When he returned to Ralaes, he and Meinyt discussed the defenses with Skarpa, but none of them had been able to discern what else lay behind that recently constructed berm.

  The intermittent rain stopped sometime on Samedi night so that by the time Quaeryt finished breakfast on Solayi and headed to the onetime plaques room in the inn to meet with Skarpa and Meinyt, the clear sky and warmth promised a steamy day.

  Meinyt was already in the plaques room. Skarpa was not.

  The older subcommander looked to Quaeryt. “Wager we’ll attack Villerive tomorrow. The commander looks worried, and that ass-saving bastard Deucalon will want things as easy as possible for his troopers.”

  “So we attack first, and Deucalon holds back. The Bovarians move more reinforcements across the bridge to stop us, and then Deucalon attacks?”

  “Something like that.” Meinyt fingered his chin. “Hope your imagers can do what they’ve done before.”

  Quaeryt smiled wryly. “We’ll need to do more.” Not that you know exactly what more to do, since the Bovarians have remained holed up behind their earthworks.

  “You will indeed,” said Skarpa, closing the door behind himself and motioning to the chairs around the battered dark oak table. “We’re to attack tomorrow. Marshal Deucalon has not ordered or suggested a specific plan for us. He has ordered us to make a strong enough push to fully occupy the Bovarians.”

  Meinyt glanced sideways at Quaeryt, with an “I told you so” look.

  “You both have studied the maps and the defenses. Does either of you have any other thoughts? Any concerns?”

  Who wouldn’t have concerns? Still, there was nothing he could do about them. Quaeryt shook his head.

  Meinyt frowned. “They’ve only got earthworks, so far as I can see.”

  “You’re wondering why they’re picking a city that’s not walled?” asked Skarpa.

  “It had occurred to me, sir.”

  “When was the last time anyone managed to make an attack more than two hundred milles inside Bovaria? For that matter, are there any walled cities in Telaryn except Ferravyl?”

  Quaeryt did not mention that some of the older towns, such as Cloisonyt and Montagne, had vestiges of ancient walls remaining.

  “Kharst didn’t ever anticipate an attack this far inside Bovaria,” said Skarpa. “And you can’t build stone walls overnight … not even with imagers. Anything else?”

  Both subcommanders shook their heads.

  “Then we’ll proceed as planned, with each regiment and Fifth Battalion assaulting a different stretch of earthworks so that the defenders can’t concentrate their forces. I’ve already sent a dispatch. Deucalon’s just a few milles east of us on the other side of the river. We’ve got courier boats to cross now.” Skarpa glanced at Quaeryt. “I imagine there will be space for a few private dispatches.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There is one other matter.”

  Quaeryt caught the twinkle in the commander’s eyes. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would consider…”

  “… conducting services this evening?” finished Quaeryt.

  Skarpa nodded.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “You always do. Still say you’re the best chorister I’ve ever heard.”

  After leaving Skarpa, Quaeryt returned to his small chamber in the inn, where he quickly read over the letter he had written the night before, especially one section …

  After we took Ralaes, we discovered once more the methods by which Rex Kharst enforces control over his High Holders. Commander Skarpa summoned a meeting of senior officers, and as we began, assassins with small crossbows attacked the officers. Through sheer chance … none of our commanders or subcommanders were injured, and we captured two of the assassins. We discovered from them that Kharst maintains several companies of such assassins and that one of their duties is to deal with recalcitrant High Holders. While it is clear that any successful ruler must find a way to maintain order and control over High Holders, it would strike me that a quieter and more subtle form of control might be better suited to a ruler, and that perhaps one that incorporated knowledge and persuasion, leaving a quiet but completely effective force as a last resort … Those problems, if they should exist at all, are in the future. Before long we will be facing the Bovarian forces at Villerive …

  He nodded. That would have to do. He added a few sentences of affection and concern, then sealed it and tucked it inside his uniform before heading downstairs. After locating the dispatch orderly, he handed over the letter and a silver, then went to meet with Zhelan.

  First he went over the plans for the assault on south Villerive with Zhelan and the company officers, emphasizing the key points in Bovarian to the Khellan majors, then accompanied Zhelan and each officer on an inspection of his company. After that, several glasses later, he returned to the South River Inn and briefed the imager undercaptains, then sent them off to practice another skill that he hoped would prove useful with the earthworks.

  Finally, he retired to his chamber to try to come up with yet another homily for the evening services. For a time, he just stood and looked out the window. Finally, he pulled out the small thin book about Rholan and began to page through it, reading phrases and sections until one section finally caught his attention and interest.

  The problem with justice is that it is always defined with regard to who offers the definition. Rholan avoided this problem simply by refusing to address it and by defining it as what men and women should do. The definition of justice by a High Holder, however, is likely to differ greatly from what a grower or a peasant regards as justice. A peasant regards it as just that he and his family have enough to eat; the High Holder insists that it is just that sustenance be grown or paid for by those who consume it, while the factor feels that it is only just that he retain a portion of whatever food is traded because he facilitated the exchange. Yet is it just that a man and his family starve because of flood or drought? Is it just that all the effort a High Holder puts into maintaining order and providing seed and storage go for naught because others are hungry? What portion of a harvest is a just portion for a factor to take in return for finding a buyer where the grower cannot? Those scholars who study the exchange of goods claim that justice can only be found in what terms a fair seller and a fair buyer agree upon. But in a time of famine, those who have golds will have food, and those who do not will starve. Is that justice? In a time of war, those who have blades and the skill to wield them best will have golds and food. Is that justice? Yet without the order provided by those with arms, all will suffer, and there will certainly be no justice.

  So far as I know, Rholan seldom, if ever, addressed such a question, except in generalities, and with humor, and that may be why he will be remembered, and why I have chosen to remain, if you will, nameless.

  Quaeryt couldn’t help but ask, Who was the writer who knew and understood Rholan so well? So far as he could tell, the book didn’t offer any clues, not in
all the times he’d read it and leafed through the pages. Even at the end of all the text, in the lower left-hand corner of the page there was only a jumble of letters, “T(N)of D.” Had that meant, “The End” or did it signify something else?

  Nor was justice an apt subject for troopers about to attack a town, where, as Rholan had said, the only “justice” was provided by the edge of a sabre.

  He finally came to yet another section that offered a certain … possibility.

  Rholan traveled much, although his journeys were seldom that long, and most, if not all, of his travels remained within Tela. He often commented, both in conversation and in his public utterances, upon roads, using them both factually and metaphorically. Upon one occasion at table he observed that all too many wide and smooth roads leading from towns or holdings soon deteriorated into the meanest of ways once the traveler was beyond the eyeshot of those in power. As he so often did, however, he reversed that observation by declaring that a traveler need be most cautious when the meanest of ways turned within a few hundred yards to a splendid road. That proclaimed more clearly than anything that those in power were self-centered and egotistical because only the road they could see mattered to them, and not the roads they could not see and would never travel.

  Quaeryt closed the book and sat down at the small table, trying to turn what he read into a semblance of a homily. Two glasses later, he was still struggling, but he finally had something workable, if not ideal, just before he had to join the other officers in the public room.

  That evening, after dinner, at slightly before half past sixth glass, Quaeryt approached the door in the South River Inn leading out onto the courtyard porch.

  Skarpa stood beside the door, with a slight smile on his face. “Both courtyards are filled. I hope your voice is in good fettle.”

  “So do I.” That meant image-projecting his voice, but that wasn’t tiring, and he would have a night’s sleep before they advanced on Villerive.

  He stepped out onto the porch, and the conversations died away. He let the silence draw out for a bit, then image-projected his voice. “We gather together in the spirit of the Nameless and to affirm the quest for goodness and mercy in all that we do.”

  Then came the opening hymn, again the only one he knew by heart-“Glory to the Nameless”-followed by the confession beginning with, “We name not You, for naming presumes, and we presume not upon the Creator of all that was, is, and will be…”

  As always the confessional words that followed were difficult for Quaeryt, but he did lead the response that followed, “In peace and harmony.”

  He waited for a long moment, and then spoke. “Good evening, and all evenings are good evenings under the Nameless, but we say that so often that, for many, it is like saying a day is a day, an evening an evening, and all roads lead somewhere. When I thought that, I wondered what Rholan had thought about roads, since he walked and rode many in his time. Then I recalled what he had said. He claimed that whether a road was good or not so good depended on how you looked at it. Were you considering where a road stopped as its end or its beginning? Now … if we’re walking a road, and it stops, we think we’ve come to the end. But what of the man who steps out of the woods and sees where we thought the road ended? He sees it as a beginning. In that way, whether a road is an end or a beginning depends on where you’re going. That’s true of every man here.

  “Before long, we will be heading west, toward Villerive and then toward Nordeau and Variana. If we are to be successful, we must consider the road we travel, the road we must fight to travel, as a beginning, and not as an end. It must be the beginning of a better time for all of Lydar …

  “Why do I say this? Some of you may know that Rex Kharst sent out his own men to burn the crops of his own holders for fear that we might benefit from them. His own holders, and his men burned crops we could not have used. Some others of you may know that he has sent assassins with crossbows to kill our officers, but these assassins were not trained to kill Telaryn officers. They were trained to kill anyone in Bovaria-not in Telaryn, but Bovaria-from High Holders to important factors who uttered a word against the rex. Rex Kharst does not have a few assassins; he has companies of them.

  “We did not start to travel this road. In order to attack us, Rex Kharst sent his troopers down the very road we travel in the opposite direction. If we do not travel this road all the way to Variana, and beyond, then you, and your children, and your children’s children will live in fear that, at some time, another rex will burn your crops and worse. For as Rholan said many years ago, a road is measured by its quality and the goodness of not only those who create it, but those who must travel it … and we are traveling it to return goodness to Lydar…”

  As he went on to finish the service, Quaeryt realized that he had twisted Rholan’s words, although, from what he’d read of the Unnamer, he doubted that Rholan would have found too much fault.

  Still … it bothered him, for all of Skarpa’s nod when Quaeryt spoke the last words of his final words that followed the closing hymn.

  “As we have come together to seek meaning and renewal, let us go forth this evening renewed in hope and in harmony with that which was, is, and ever shall be.”

  43

  When the sun cleared the eastern horizon on Lundi morning, Quaeryt and Fifth Battalion were riding westward on a narrow lane that circled a series of fields and would turn northward, less than a mille ahead, back toward the river and the western end of the earthworks around the southern part of Villerive. Because Fifth Battalion had the farthest to travel, Quaeryt and first company had been the first to leave Ralaes, shortly after daybreak.

  Quaeryt studied the fields to his right, most holding some sort of bean plants that were near harvesting and stood waist-high. He would have preferred maize, because the taller plants would have concealed their movements, but then he doubted that his force would have gained much advantage from not being seen until later. The Bovarians had to know they were coming.

  “Have the scouts reported anything more about where the defenders might be located?” asked Zhelan. “Or any areas where there might be fewer?”

  “All they have reported is that the Bovarians have enough archers to keep them from getting too close to the earthworks. They could discover no pits or traps beyond two hundred yards, and there appeared to be few or none between one and two hundred yards.”

  Zhelan glanced back at the undercaptains, then looked straight ahead. “In how many places will the imagers be able to weaken the defenses?”

  “Three, at least.”

  Although Skarpa was in favor of what Quaeryt would have called a measured and inexorable attack on Villerive, he had suggested that Meinyt and Quaeryt proceed as their men, their opposition, and circumstance allowed. Quaeryt intended to use imaging to change those circumstances.

  He studied the lane ahead, where it curved northward toward the western end of the earthworks, and the fields of more beans that ran almost to the hurriedly built revetments. With the haze hanging over the fields and the woods farther east, Quaeryt couldn’t even feel the heat of the sun on his back.

  He turned in the saddle as Threkhyl eased his mount forward.

  “Sir … a question, if you would?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You don’t care how we do this, sir?” asked Threkhyl. “In dealing with the earthworks? So long as we flatten them?”

  “Whatever takes the least effort for you,” replied Quaeryt, his thoughts more on what lay behind the earthworks. “That way, you can open a wider gap. That will leave less cover for the defenders and more space for the troopers.”

  “Yes, sir. I think we can do the same thing if we image the earth back, especially if they have trenches behind.”

  “You can try it, but it’s got to be low enough for the troopers to go through without being slowed.”

  “Yes, sir. We can do that.” Threkhyl let his mount drop back.

  Another quint passed, and Fifth Batt
alion left the narrow way that had already dwindled to little more than a path and began to form up some 250 yards away from the earthworks, companies abreast with a five-man front. The area Quaeryt had picked was located just before the earthworks turned sharply north toward the low bluff that marked the edge of the river. The section of earthworks that ran north was less than fifty yards long, while the target area for Fifth Battalion ran roughly from east-southeast to west-northwest, so that the troopers would not be attacking into the morning sun. The earthworks before Quaeryt showed only two catapults rising above the defenses, not that there might not be smaller ones as well. He could see a few defenders here and there, but try as he might, he could make out no sign of muskets, or any sort of variation in the front of the earthworks that might conceal musketeers.

  He heard bells or chimes clanging and thought he saw a few heads bobbing behind the earthworks, suggesting that the far side of the revetments were likely stepped, so that the defenders had some height, with trenches behind the space for supplies and others manning the earthen walls.

  Zhelan and Quaeryt had decided on literally walking the mounts toward the earthworks, at least until the defenders reacted, whether with volleys by archers or a musket barrage or an attack from behind the earthworks. The longer the battalion could maintain a slow approach, the more likely the troopers could avoid stakes and hidden ditches or other pitfalls. That also meant that the imagers could get closer before having to image, and that would save their strength.

  Of course, the Bovarians could put an immediate stop to that by attacking first.

  “Sir … look at the bean plants,” said Zhelan.

  Quaeryt looked, but all he saw was greenery. “What should I be seeing?”