Lydia shook her head angrily. “Never! The system is terrible—it doesn’t give us any kind of justice based on the issues.”
“But you’re going to pay me for it anyway.” Ken couldn’t help a little smile.
“Well… all the new technology just keeps outstripping the laws on the books. We have to have something to go by until society catches up with us.”
Ken nodded. “Exactly. I’ll take your case.”
Smoke, rain, sleet and fog obscured the formations on the battlefield, but Ken could see that the royal artillery, with its light, snapping sounds, was tearing viciously into the motionless rebel line. On the rebel right, English dragoons and the Clan Campbell were advancing to the first stone wall of Culwhiniac. The Campbells, afoot as classic Highlanders, began to dismantle the wall for the mounted dragoons. At the next wall they would be met with a hail of fire from the rebel right.
Ken recalled, breathlessly, the kind of troops his Highlanders were; they had been the last feudal army to assemble in Britain. They wore kilts and plaids, and they carried muskets and claymores and dirks and targs. Their only effective tactic was the legendary charge of wild, screaming, furious clansmen down upon their enemy and the panic it sometimes caused.
It had not worked at the real battle.
The rebel artillery ceased firing. The Prince’s guns had been in poor condition and his gunners inexperienced; they had silenced themselves early in the actual conflict, and the computer had silenced them again on that basis here. Ken gave the attack order to his restless warriors, keying in the cry, “Claymore!”
The first line of Scots rebels raced forward across the moor with cries that sounded in the arena’s speaker system. A great roar of excitement rose from the spectators seated in the giant oval, even breaking through Ken’s concentration as his fingers danced over the keys. Then, blinking sweat from his eyes, he suddenly saw a chance for advantage.
The computer had been programmed to include all the historic personalities who were known on the particular day in question, their behavior and that of the ranks in general. Also, of course, Ken’s opponent would be using his own knowledge of the battle to strengthen his advantages, though in this case the royal victory had been quick and easy. He was probably not making any significant changes. On the rebel right, where the Fitz-James Horse and the Life Guards were waiting behind a stone wall, Ken saw a chance to rewrite the conflict.
Historically, the skewed angle of the rebel line had caused the charging Highlanders to run somewhat to the left instead of straight at their enemies. The Macdonalds, on the left, had been slaughtered or driven back by artillery and musket fire even before they reached the enemy because of the great distance they had to cross. Just to the right of center, however, the charging Erasers, Appin Stewarts and Camerons had overcompensated by running too far to their right. This had cut off the charge of their allied Atholl men, who were charging down the moor with one of the stone walls next to them on the right wing of the line. They were driven into the wall by their Cameron fellows. There the enemy Campbells had turned the rebel flank, lined the stone wall and fired their muskets point-blank into the blunted Atholl attack.
Ken had already straightened his line, and the Highland charge before his eyes was running dead ahead, though the orderly musket fire and artillery fire from the royal lines sliced into it savagely. On the right, however, the Campbells were just beginning to line up along the stone wall. Afraid he was too late, Ken had the Prince send a messenger running to the rebel horse. Just in time, they, too, leaped their own wall and charged the Campbells and the English Dragoons.
To defend themselves, the Campbells turned to face forward, allowing the Atholl regiment, with the rest of the Highland line, to finish their great charge.
Now came a terrible moment for Ken, who was tense and nearly drained already and still drawing on reserves of energy. Just like a real commander, he had made certain choices and given certain orders. Also like a real commander, he could only wait and watch as his orders were carried out, looking through the rain and smoke and fog for any other order that he thought might help.
On the left, the Macdonalds had closed with the royal line, which they had never done historically. The battle was in the balance now. If the charge failed to break the royal line, the rebels had no second tactic.
In the center, Clan Chattan had closed with the English in the face of a furious fire of grape and the steady, disciplined, relentless volleys of English muskets. Even so, the Scots broke the first line and fell upon the second—upon their bayonets, which outfought the claymores when properly used. The English center held.
On the left, the Macdonalds simultaneously drove a shock wave into the English right, also under murderously heavy fire and disciplined lines of bayonets.
Ken raised his head to look through smoke toward the rear of his enemy. Historically, the Duke of Cumberland had sent the Kingston’s Horse Regiment and two regiments of infantry from his rear around his right flank to smash the Macdonalds. Yes, Ken could see them moving. He could do nothing about it.
The day before the game, Ken had taken Lydia out for brunch. Giving one’s client an encouraging talk before a game was part of the psychology of being a Master Gamer, and though he was uncomfortable with her, he wanted to be strictly professional. The conversation was awkwardly polite.
“I don’t like to sound ungrateful,” she said over coffee once the plates had been removed. “I know you’ll do your best for me. I just wish we had laws that made the games unnecessary.”
“I agree it would be better for everybody,” said Ken with a shrug. “It’s also impossible to rush the process. Science and technology are rolling right along, and the legislators have to be caught up before they can pass decent laws.”
Lydia sighed and nodded. “So… how have you been?”
Ken remained motionless, looking down at the table in front of him for as long as he could. This was the last time he would be able to talk to her for a long time, maybe forever. He decided to sacrifice pleasantry for honesty.
“I miss your daughter. Very badly.”
“She’s fine. She doesn’t need you.”
“I helped raise her for three years. And it’s not as though she remembers her father or that he’s around somewhere. I’d just like to see her sometimes. Take her places.”
“She doesn’t need you. It’s not like you think.”
“You don’t know what I think,” Ken said angrily. “You never let me tell you. Every time I tried to talk about her, you just told me I was wrong. After years of telling me you couldn’t read my mind, you suddenly decided you could when it served your own selfish purposes. Thanks a lot.”
“You’re not her father, you know.”
“Have you told her you won’t let me see her?”
“She hasn’t asked.”
“So you’re just letting her wait to see if I come to visit her and letting her assume that when I don’t, it’s because I don’t care about her. You don’t even have the guts to tell her it’s your decision, do you?”
“Forget it, Ken. Thanks for brunch.” Lydia slid out of her chair and walked away quickly, slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder.
Ken’s thoughts raced wildly. AA9, he thought. Johnny AA9. I’ll never see that little girl again. Maybe I can help that frozen little fetus, at least. Maybe.
Ken’s only chance was on the right. The men of Atholl, led by the Prince’s fine but disfavored general, Lord George Murray, had also pierced the front line of Barrel’s regiment. That regiment was courageous, however, and was virtually the only one that had withstood the Highland charge in the last battle between these armies that had led to the rebel victory at Falkirk. Yet the odds were now just uncertain enough to offer hope.
Breathing hard and fast, Ken ordered his second line to charge. This was a group of Lowland Scots, Irish and dismounted cavalry regiments, the last because enough horses could not be found. In the real battle they had been o
f no consequence, and the computer would not figure them to have great combat power. They charged, however, before the Macdonalds were smashed by the enemy cavalry, before the Campbells and Dragoons overwhelmed the weaker rebel horse, and before the rebel center began to flee and obstruct the force of the second charge.
The Camerons and the Atholl men had driven the remnants of the royal front line back. Yet the royal lines stood three regiments deep, and the regiments of Sempill and Wolfe in the second line now poured their musket fire onto the clansmen.
Those Highlanders, however, rallied when their second line came charging up behind them. Again the shock of the Highland charge drove back the English line, with horrible casualties. If the rebels were to win, this was the spot that would bring victory.
Ken, still working fast over the keyboard, watched with clenched teeth as Kingston’s Horse drove into the Macdonalds and scattered them. They fled, to be ridden down by the English. With grim satisfaction, Ken noted that Kingston’s Horse gave chase, as would the English infantry behind them. They would take themselves out of the battle.
On the rebel right, beyond the stone walls and away from the rest of the battle, the numbers of the Campbells and the numbers and discipline of the dragoons broke the rebel horse. Ken sent the Prince out to rally his Life Guards and then realized that no one could do so against those odds. With both flanks collapsing, Ken had nowhere to send the Prince except after the Atholl men, into the battle itself.
Finally the improbable happened. The men of Atholl, still led by Lord Murray, burst around the right of Wolfe’s regiment, where it had been anchored against the stone wall. The Prince charged after them, calling stragglers forward still. With the right of the line broken, the clansmen ranged across the center ran forward again, enraged by the fever of battle and encouraged by the partial success.
Courage in a common soldier was always a variable and unpredictable quality. At Falkirk, Barrel’s had been almost the only royal regiment to withstand the Highland charge; historically, at Culloden, they had all stood fast and carried the day. The computer calculated the fragility of human courage and either provided it or withdrew it, according to its own complex judgment of the battle at any given stage.
Though the royal army had taken both flanks of the rebels, and though the dragoons on Ken’s right were in position to return and fall upon the rear of his men and destroy them, the computer suddenly broke the morale of the royal flank that had been turned. The men of Semphill’s Border Scots and Wolfe’s regiment turned and fled yet another time from the triumphant, screaming Highlanders chasing after them. The royal army was still in the better position overall, but panic was contagious, and the royal lines collapsed like dominoes in a repeat of Falkirk. Cumberland could not contact and control the widespread wings of his army, but the Prince was now riding with his own most successful troops and was able to keep them together.
As the royal formation collapsed, Cumberland withdrew. A moment later the holograms all froze in place. Ken read across the little video screen over his keyboard, “Victory Conditions: House of Stuart.”
Ken let out a long breath and slumped back in his seat. Exhaustion overtook him now that the game was ended. The crowd about him was cheering wildly. He closed his eyes, chest heaving, and indulged himself in a grin. Lydia would have her way, at least until the courts got to work.
A Guild attendant took Ken to the reception room in an electric cart, as was customary. Ken thanked him and hopped out, feigning more energy than he felt. As the crowd parted before him, waving and calling congratulations, he reflected that the bounce in his step resulted more from rubbery knees than from his exhilaration.
If he had lost, of course, he wouldn’t have any bounce at all.
Ken made his way to the refreshment table where a smiling young female attendant had a cup of red punch to hand him. He downed it quickly and then stood with his back to the table, accepting hand after hand of good cheer, all from privileged spectators whose position with the Guild had in some way gained them entrance to the private reception.
One hand, suddenly, thrust a sealed envelope into his hand. Ken looked up into Lydia’s face.
“Thanks. I do appreciate it,” she said quietly. “That’s a check for the balance of your fee.”
“I’m glad I could help. Really. Thank you.” Ken was uncomfortably aware of the grinning strangers milling around them.
“I still despise this method of reaching decisions. It proves nothing about the issues at hand. It’s totally arbitrary.” Lydia spun quickly and disappeared into the crowd.
“It’s supposed to be arbitrary,” Ken said lamely after her. Then he looked around at the crowd of people surrounding him, waiting with big smiles for some snappy comeback from their idol.
“Well.” He smiled and shrugged. “Justice is justice… Isn’t it?”
Editor's Introduction to:
NO TRUCE WITH KINGS
by Poul Anderson
The virtue of prudence is not much discussed today; yet it lies at the heart of one of the fundamental issues of our time, the conflict between ethics of intention and ethics of responsibility. The “intentionists” argue thus: “what I intend is good, and I do what I intend; therefore my actions are good.” Their opponents say “what you intend is of little matter; it is the result of your action that must be judged. Just because you thought you were doing good does not excuse you. You must take forethought and act prudently, with due regard to the consequences of your action.”
Much evil has been done for the sake of evil goals. Genghis Khan built a pyramid of over a million skulls. His Mongol horsemen devastated whole nations. Poland and Hungary were nearly depopulated. The lands that sustained the Persian civilization were returned to desert and have not recovered to the present day; nor were the Mongols the only evil empire in history.
For all that, it can be argued that as much harm has been done from noble motives as from evil ones. Evil is eventually self-limited. The Mongol royalty drank themselves into inactivity. One will eventually tire of rapine and pillage. In contrast, there is no limit to the resources of those who wish to do good. The more selfless they are the more tireless they become. There is no oppression worse than the rule of a theory.
I first met Poul Anderson at the Seattle World Science Fiction Convention in 1961. We hit it off instantly, and from that time on have been close friends.
A year later Poul told me of a story he was writing. “I’m partly doing it for you. The do-gooders get their comeuppance,” he said. I could hardly wait.
The result was the Hugo-winning “No Truce With Kings,” which may very well be the finest story Poul has ever done.
NO TRUCE WITH KINGS
by Poul Anderson
“Song, Charlie! Give’s a song!”
“Yay, Charlie!”
The whole mess was drunk, and the junior officers at the far end of the table were only somewhat noisier than their seniors near the colonel. Rugs and hangings could not much muffle the racket, shouts, stamping boots, thump of fists on oak and clash of cups raised aloft that rang from wall to stony wall. High up among shadows that hid the rafters they hung from, the regimental banners stirred in a draft, as if to join the chaos. Below, the light of bracketed lanterns and bellowing fireplace winked on trophies and weapons.
Autumn comes early on Echo Summit, and it was storming outside, wind-hoot past the watchtowers and rain-rush in the courtyards, an undertone that walked through the buildings and down all corridors as if the story were true that the unit’s dead came out of the cemetery each September Nineteenth night and tried to join the celebration but had forgotten how. No one let it bother him, here or in the enlisted barracks, except maybe the hex major. The Third Division, the Catamounts, was known as the most riotous gang in the Army of the Pacific States of America; and of its regiments, the Rolling Stones, who held Fort Nakamura, were the wildest.
“Go on, boy! Lead off. You’ve got the closest thing to a voice in the whol
e goddamn Sierra,” Colonel Mackenzie called. He loosened the collar of his black dress tunic and lounged back, legs asprawl, pipe in one hand and beaker of whiskey in the other: a thickset man with blue wrinkle-meshed eyes in a battered face, his cropped hair turned gray but his mustache still arrogantly red.
“Charlie is my darlin’, my darlin’, my darlin’,” sang Captain Hulse. He stopped as the noise abated a little. Young Lieutenant Amadeo got up, grinned, and launched into one they well knew.
“I am a Catamountain, I guard a border pass.
And every time I venture out, the cold will freeze m–”
“Colonel, sir. Begging your pardon.” Mackenzie twisted around and looked into the face of Sergeant Irwin. The man’s expression shocked him. “Yes?”
“I am a bloody hero, a decorated vet:
The Order of the Purple Shaft, with pineapple clusters yet!”
“Message just come in, sir. Major Speyer asks to see you right away.”
Speyer, who didn’t like being drunk, had volunteered for duty tonight; otherwise men drew lots for it on a holiday. Remembering the last word from San Francisco, Mackenzie grew chill.
The mess bawled forth the chorus, not noticing when the colonel knocked out his pipe and rose.
“The guns go boom! Hey, tiddley boom!
The rockets vroom, the arrows zoom.
From slug to slug is damn small room.
Get me out of here and back to the good old womb!
(Hey, doodle dee day!)”
All right-thinking Catamounts maintained that they could operate better with the booze sloshing up to their eardrums than any other outfit cold sober. Mackenzie ignored the tingle in his veins; forgot it. He walked a straight line to the door, automatically taking his sidearm off the rack as he passed by. The song pursued him into the hall.
There Will Be War Volume IV Page 31