by Boykin, Alma
Perhaps Godown wanted to remind Pjtor of the season he’d missed. The sun seemed summer-bright in the sky and the air hung wet and warm, also far more like summer than autumn. The men of the western forests bowed low, then dropped to their knees before Pjtor. Their leader, a man dressed in leather and furs with a beard the color of copper, spread his arms. “Oh great emperor, blessed of Godown, ruler of NovRodi and protector of the faithful, hear your miserable servants and grant us mercy for our poor gifts to you.”
Pjtor struggled to recall what he was supposed to say. He’d never done this before damn it! Sara had always insisted on taking the furs and gold herself. Then he recalled the basic words. “Rise, oh servants of Godown, for all who labor to help the faithful are worthy in the eyes of Godown and his ministers. Nothing done for the Holy One, the maker of forest and plain, is unworthy when done with a good heart.”
The men stood, their intent gaze reminding Pjtor of hunting cats and other predators. Well, he was as a great plains cat to their spotted forest cousins. “Many thanks are due you for your labors. Have you ought that you desire? If so it shall be granted, if legal and within the power of man.” The caveat seemed important.
“Oh most Imperial Master, your humble servants ask that priests of Godown be sent to us, for we have not had the sacraments of bread and oil for a year and more. Of weapons and salt and metal we have what we desire.”
In other words, you already stripped my store houses and bought up everything portable. Pjtor knew that much already, and that too was traditional. They’d bought some provisions when they’d come in the summer, and more now that harvest was done. But their other words . . . Pjtor took a deep breath to clear his mind and vision. “Has your bishop not found men sufficient to send priests to you?”
“He does not say, most Imperial Master, only that it would be better for us to move closer to him and to St. Eliaz monastery, where we could farm as well as worship.” He spat. “There is no farming in the forest, not by your great ancestors’ laws and by the will of Godown.”
The red cleared from Pjtor’s vision but not from his mind. Damn, the bishop knew better than that. Not only was clearing the land for farms against forest law, but nothing could grow in the first place, which was why that area had been deemed perpetual forest and opened for hunting and very limited settlement. And to settle on a monastery farm would mean losing the freedom to travel and hunt, so no wonder the men preferred to disobey the bishop and risk their souls. Although, Pjtor suspected they’d found a few of the independent priests who would anoint their children and offer pardon, if not provide the Sacraments. Right. The time is past for taking the church administration in hand and stopping this kind of thing. They’d have priests.
“You shall have priests, men of strong faith to return with you and to offer up proper liturgy and praise to Godown.”
And they did. Pjtor himself went to the churches and monasteries closest to Muskava that afternoon and the next day, found ten men able and willing to travel, and sent them west along with supplies both religious and practical. The western men swore their loyalty to Pjtor and he suspected they meant it, unlike the unlamented Chosen Guard. The furs and gold would buy weapons and time, but not until the spring. Pjtor selected a few choice pelts for himself and let Strella and Tamsin take some for the household, then buyers locked the rest away.
Now that Little Pjtor had been weaned, his parents came together once more as man and wife. Tamsin remained pretty and compliant, but distant, preferring to stay in the homefold and appalled by Pjtor’s first new rule for court: woman could attend some banquets. “My lord master and husband, such a thing is unheard of,” she’d protested when he told her. “It is immodest and dangerous. The homefold is safety and shelter, our proper sphere and protection. Godown made the greater world for men, and the homefold for women. So has it always been.”
“No, it has not,” he said. He was warming his hands over the soapstone and iron stove in the corner as servants set out a small snack for him. He’d been out with his soldiers and was cold. “Women have lived and worked beside men and do. Not just in New Dalfa or the Eastern Empire, but here, in NovRodi, on the farms and the rural manors.” He wondered what Princess Elizabeth von Sarmas would say about being confined to the homefold. Probably something any soldier would say, and it would scorch the paint and risk igniting the very logs of the walls.
“Godown made the homefold for women and we should stay here unless there is great need or for worship.” As far as she was concerned, that was that, or so her husband took her words to mean. That was fine with him. Strella delighted in the opportunity to see and be seen, and to eat with others, to see people and hear music. Strella also liked what he had brought back from New Dalfa for her. Tamsin had thanked him but refused to put on the clothes, saying they were too nice to wear or that the patterns did not suit her. He suspected the death of her brother had something to do with it, and that the cloth came from abroad. Pjtor rather liked the “plaad” pattern, especially the dark blue and deep red that Strella had made an over-dress of. All the women agreed that the shimmy had possibilities, at least for summer, and it was not that different in some ways from the usual white underdress women wore to protect Holy Day clothes.
Winter settled in, locking Muskava and the closest cities in and keeping the Harriers and others out. Pjtor went to worship, studied the Writ, and met with his advisors. He’d added Franklin Green with the rank of general, since Anderson preferred to advise rather than fight unless necessary. Also Timofee Paulson, another foreigner who had come to visit, had married, and remained interested in things nautical. He, like Green, had left the eastern lands for reasons they preferred not to discuss, probably woman trouble or so Pjtor guessed, but they both swore to serve him faithfully and they knew their business.
Pjtor and the men studied the maps. Green swept one hand across the southern part of the map. They’d been studying the Harriers’ supposed homeland and their way of fighting. Green shook his head as he pointed to the stack of all the reports from over the past fifteen years. “If I did not know better, Imperial Master, I’d swear that the damned Harriers were like hill-bugs, with nests down here, instead of being born like men. You gain a kilometer of ground from them, and they swarm you the next year even worse.”
Pjtor stroked his mustache, playing with one tip as had become his habit. “One would think so. I—” Did he want to tell them his idea? They might think he was foolish for such a thought. But it might also be their answer. “We need to empty that hill. And I think, I think it is here.” He spread his hand over the area west of the Sweetwater Sea. “The prisoners we’re ransomed, and stories from several hundred years ago, say there is a city out in this area, built on a Lander foundation, yes, but not entirely, and that it is protected by fortifications on several rivers around the Sweetwater Sea.” He met each man’s eyes in turn. “Shortly before my father died, may Godown give him rest, he had spies go down there, working through the Spice Kings’ trade network. I found three reports that came back after he died that were filed away, never read.”
He tapped the lake that connected to the Sea, upstream on the Dawn River. “You cannot sail from the lake to the Sea. There is a waterfall, a large one. But the forests there have good wood, I know, and it might be possible to build there, then drag the hulls the few kilometers overland to the Sweetwater Sea. The Harriers do have a small fort on the north end of the little lake as well as one where the river meets the Sweetwater Sea. But if we could capture it, build ships, at least a few, and also catch and hold part of the shore of the Sweetwater Sea, we could chase them out of the sea. That opens up access to the city, which does exist according to the spies, and to trade south, with the Spice Kings, and if we can sail through the islands and up to the Sweetwater Sea . . .” We could stop paying so much and cut out a lot of overland trade, or increase it. If everything works and if the Harriers’ patrons do not show up on our door.
Admiral Paulson took his pipe
out of his mouth. “It could be done, but it would be better, Imperial Master, to build the ships on the water. Dragging them . . . that requires enormous amounts of labor.”
“Labor we will have if we can get that far south,” Captain Anderson reminded the sailor. “Half the forest peasants will be willing to sell their lands, spare children, family treasures, probably a few wives as well if they could get access to the land down there if it is as good as story has it.”
“It supports grazing grass, so it should support food grasses. If not, well, it will feed horses and mules and cattle. It already does, just not yours, Imperial Master,” General Green observed with a sigh. Good horses and strong mules to pull artillery were scarcer than cloudberries in July.
The men studied the map. “Two years,” Green grunted at last. “First year to solidify your grip here,” he tapped the great fortress on the Dawn bend. “And to establish true depots and to scout. Next year we attack the little lake and grab it as soon as the ice breaks, and your shipbuilders follow. We can’t take them quite by surprise, Imperial Master, but we can make them wonder.”
Geert lifted the corner of the map. “By your leave?”
“Yes.”
Geert moved the map of the Sweetwater Sea and rolling plains to the side, revealing the larger copy of the big map. “If the city is in here,” he circled an area with his finger that was marked as having Lander remains, a lot of Lander remains. “For the Harriers to get help from the Turklavi as you call them may be more difficult than we think. I’ve met two men who sailed this area and came back to tell about it, Pjtor Adamson. This arm of the sea here?” He pointed to the Split Sea, as the map called it. “Has fire mountains on both sides, some living, some cold, but all very rugged, with nasty, poisoned land in places. And the gap is not wide but it is deep. It is certainly possible that the Turklavi could cross with enough soldiers, guns, and men to cause major trouble, but as hard as the Easterners are punishing them in the west, well, my lord, they may not want to risk moving soldiers, assuming they even can. No one knows anything about this area, here, east of the Dividing Range. It is grass, but beyond that?” He shrugged.
Paulson ran a hand over his long black braid. “I have heard that there is a great Lander city there that forms the heart of the Turkowi power, where they first came from, but, that was from a follower of St. Mou, and they blame everything from the Great Fires to stubbed toes on the Landers.”
Pjtor had heard a few priests of that belief, but knew of no saints who had taught such things. Of course, how much had been lost in the terrible years when the Harriers and Turklavi first swept east and drove the people out of the grainlands to the south? Probably more than anyone wanted to believe. He envied the men of New Dalfa and other places, but Godown had made the people of NovRodi to suffer for reasons only He knew, and that was that. But not for much longer. Perhaps Godown had simply been waiting for the others to grow wiser before granting Pjtor’s people access to their weapons and secrets. Probably, considering the havoc Pjtor’s own great grandfather would have committed within NovRodi if he’d had the gonnes and cannons of the east!
“Two years, then, Godown permitting and willing,” Pjtor agreed. “Green, start looking at how best to strengthen that fort, and what we need to begin moving down there, as quietly as possible.”
Green shook his head, as did Paulson. “Loudly, Imperial Master. Make them wonder what is going on, and focus their attention there and not south.”
“This would be a good time to tell Lord Arkmandii and Lord Tabor’s son to go push their borders west if they can.” Paulson sighed. “The young Tabor’s been a pain in the ass enough as it is. If the Harriers focus on the heretics and not on your soldiers and ship builders, Imperial Master, it might benefit both groups.”
“Because the heretics will get to find out directly from Godown that they are wrong, and might just take some Harriers with them? No,” Pjtor cut off the comments. “I know what you meant.”
Damn, he wanted those ships now. Two years, anything could happen in two years. But he was not a Lander emperor, could not command ships and crews to appear from the starry sky and smite his enemies. He tried to imagine such a thing, but his mind failed. So be it. He would concentrate on the western edges, on the heretics and the Harriers, and draw his plans for ships for the Sweetwater Sea. And for the guns he’d need, and the men to sail the ships. And see about a second son, in case it was not Godown’s will that he, Pjtor, live to see his grandchildren.
Pjtor watched and waited, idly checking his big black horse. The stud shook before throwing his head back as if he smelled dardogs. He might, Pjtor knew. This early in spring, before the great grazing herds began moving, the pack hunters would chase anything that looked edible, even by daylight. Dear Godown, but they were taking such a risk, sailing now! Chunks of ice still bobbed in the Dawn River, and if the crest of the flood remained at least a week away, judging by the sun angle, well, the high water rushing past looked impressive enough to satisfy anyone. At least it had stopped carrying off good trees. Lord Alicorn still looked as if he wanted to order the peasants trudging along behind them to set out catch-chains for any passing timber, as he had upstream. But that meant getting someone across the river, and Pjtor had serious doubts about climbing the dirt cliff opposite them. It had to be at least four meters high, and as they watched, a chunk crumbled and fell into the water with a splash barely heard over the brown water’s roar.
“How much of my wheat land is going south?” Alicorn grumbled.
Pjtor pretended not to have heard the question, so he wouldn’t have to punish Alicorn for not using his proper titles and for the man’s disrespectful tone. Instead he watched the horizon, looking for any thread of smoke or dust. Not that he anticipated seeing dust for the next few days at least. The snow had melted, leaving standing water almost everywhere the ground had the least little bit of lowness. At sunrise and sunset, the endless grasslands looked like a mirror, shining as bright as the rising and setting sun. Blood-biters would soon be a problem, although not until the nights stopped being so cold.
Satisfied that they did not have visible company, Pjtor waved, urging the men on. The big ox-drawn sledge-carts creaked and sighed into motion. Instead of narrow snow runners, they sported skids almost as broad as Pjtor was tall, allowing them to slide over the wet grass and bog more easily. Not too easily though, and when they got stuck it took twenty and more men as well as the oxen to drag them out of the mire. At least the men of NovRodi could move. The Harriers could not. He was counting on that, and on the fact that no one in their right mind would dare use the river until the water fell. But he had a secret.
He knew that the river had begun falling, dropping from its first rise because of the killer cold following behind him. In two days at most the land would freeze, but probably not for long. He smiled grimly. Thanks be to Godown that the past two years had been bountiful and quiet, because they would lose all the early crops. He hoped that the heart of the cold would not come this far south, or he would lose men as well. The sun-flashers, heliographs the Easterners called them, had sped the warning out of the far northern regions. At first Pjtor had thought Green was touched in the head for wanting the mirror men to report weather. Now he understood, although he still wondered about some of Green’s ideas and terms. Well, if that was the man’s only eccentricity, it had to be one of the most harmless and most useful Pjtor had encountered. A bit like Alicorn’s obsession with pulling trees out of the river.
Where were his ships? They should be coming downstream fast enough to catch him and Alicorn and the rest of the men. Pjtor needed them now, beside him, so he could assure himself that this had not been a fool’s dream. The horse twitched, tossing his head again, and Pjtor wanted to strike him for bad behavior.
Alicorn appeared at Pjtor’s side carrying three long metal poles and slightly short of breath. Each pole had a rope and barbed tip on it, and a crossbar set almost a normal-man’s arm’s length from the base o
f the point. “Vulfs, Imperial Master. Like dardogs but bigger, coming with the wind. Here,” he handed Pjtor the spears. “Aim for just behind the shoulder and don’t let them get behind you, my Imperial Master. They’ll swarm you.”
Pjtor slid two of the spears into loops in the saddle and swallowed hard. Now he could hear the sound of animals calling, sounds that began deep and rose, not a howl but like the baying of the large, ugly brown spotted hunting dogs from Hämäl. The horse reared and Pjtor let him, then turned him toward the sound. The peasants and soldiers had formed a circle, horses, sheep, oxen and wagons in the middle with armed men surrounding them, pikes and spears out, gonnes loaded, ready to fire by ranks just as they would if attacked by men. As smart as dardogs could be, Pjtor wondered if vulfs thought. Then he had no time to wonder.
Sweet Godown, the beasts were huge! At least a dozen dog-like beasts galloped toward them, easily the size of a pony, their shoulders probably coming to Pjtor’s knee. “First rank fire,” he yelled.
Bang the first volley sounded. Two vulfs dropped and a few more staggered as the rest charged forward, slamming into the bristle of spears and pikes. Animals howled, men screamed, a few of the second rank fired, and two of the big beasts broke through. Pjtor and Alicorn raced for them, spears ready. Alicorn struck first, launching his spear hard and low, catching a brown and grey vulf behind the shoulder, in the chest. The spear broke, as planned, and the wounded animal dragged the remains behind him. Each bit of grass caught at the metal shaft, pulling on the barbed head and tearing the wound larger as well as slowing the beast’s charge.