Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
And then came the regicide. As all there recalled, the cowardly assassination of Denland’s royal family had been news that cut through the heart of Lascanne’s people like a scythe.
Without warning, a friendly neighbour had been gripped by madness, casting off the cautioning reins of monarchy and adopting a proletariat government that turned its hate-filled eyes on Lascanne.
To justify its existence, Mrs Melchance explained, the Republic of Denland felt bound to destroy that which was not like itself. A flourishing and happy monarchy next door might give its newly
enslaved subjects hope.
That was why they must fight, the old woman told them, with tears in her eyes. The whole Lascanne way of life hung in the balance. If the monsters of republicanism and their Denlandish slaves
prevailed, then Lascanne’s centuries of history would be rewritten in a day.
And she showed them the pages of a geography text that had been repurposed as a map of the warfront. She showed them where the lines were drawn. Here was the broad expanse of the Couchant front,
the high country that formed the borderlands between Denland and Lascanne. There the war was being prosecuted in lightning manoeuvres by the dashing royal cavalry sweeping across the plateaus, or
in pitched skirmishes in the canyons. Over there the great bulk of both nations’ forces struggled, each reaching desperately to establish a new foothold on the native ground of the other.
Regarding the Levant front, its dark swamps and desperation, Mrs Melchance said almost nothing, and yet a knowledge of it came seeping into the minds of the recruits like damp. The horrors of
that inimical place were already the stuff of nightmares to them, even looking upon a simple and stylized depiction of it here on out-of-date maps.
Her mind full of hard, stale crusts of history, Emily was on her way to the refectory when she was called out.
‘Oi,
miss!
’ a harsh voice yelled at her, and she turned to see three of her classmates glowering at her. She recognized the woman who had shouted as Sally
something-or-other, a burly creature whose uniform shirt strained over her large belly, and whose arms were heavy with muscle from a life of toil. Two women of more slender proportions, but the
same unpleasant expressions, flanked her menacingly.
‘Were you addressing me?’ Emily asked them coldly.
‘Was I addressing her?’ Sally mocked. ‘How posh you do talk,
miss.
Think you’re the bloody arse of the earth, don’t you?’
Emily made herself calm as she realized what they wanted. This was their own little republican struggle, she supposed, inevitable as history.
‘Go away,’ she told them disdainfully, and Sally jeered back at her.
‘Won’t you say please, posh miss? I thought it was proper to say please.’
‘Please, go away.’ Emily kept her hands at her sides, but she was tensing up inwardly. She guessed that she could say anything and everything, and there would still be hell to pay at
the end of it. If only the major, or Bowler, would appear round the corner. Nobody did, though. This once, the world had left her to her own devices.
‘Know what?’ Sally said. ‘I’m going to teach you how much better you are than me. I’m fed up of you going about with your nose in the air, thinking you’re
such a bloody gentlewoman. Maybe you’ll change your mind once I’ve mashed it a bit.’
‘What have you got against me?’ Emily asked.
She’s working her courage up
, she realized unexpectedly. Sally was far larger than her but, even so, the woman had to talk
a fight up. It gave Emily a sliver of hope.
‘You nobs! You know how long I was in service? Fifteen bloody years! And soon as the Draft comes along, I get chucked out here without a word of bloody thanks, cos they’re too bloody
scared to send their own. Bloody cast-off, that’s what I was.’
‘Me too,’ said one of the other women. ‘I’d a son, too. They promised they’d find someone to look after him, but I know them. He’s only nine and he
can’t look after himself, can he? But I reckon they had him out the door the moment they’d packed me off here!’
‘What is this to do with me?’ Emily said. ‘I came here, didn’t I? I didn’t send anyone in my place. Your grievances are with the households you came from, not with
me.’
‘Oh, grievances,’ Sally mocked. ‘Yeah, well.’ She shook her head ponderously. ‘They ain’t here and you are.’ And with that piece of philosophy she
lumbered forward with a surprising turn of speed and reached out to grab. She caught Emily off guard with her attack, despite all her preparation. One hand nipped at the collar of Emily’s
jacket; the other grasped her hair and pulled.
She had fought before, this Sally. She was not new to the sport, but she was only used to fighting other women. The short-cut hair slipped from her fingers, and Emily cuffed her weakly across
the face and fell back before her, tugging herself free. In a quick shrug she had her jacket off and on the ground, facing the larger woman in her shirtsleeves.
Sally lumbered towards her, face ugly, and Emily moved backwards and around in a wide circle. She kept an eye on the other two, but they seemed content to watch their friend do all the work. For
a big woman, Sally moved well, and twice her great hands almost latched on to Emily. The third time one did, clasping about the smaller woman’s wrist and hauling her in so that Emily bounced
off the woman’s belly. Sally slapped her across the face and shoulder, hard enough to make her head ring, and Emily tried to get an arm up to return the favour and banged Sally under the chin
with her elbow instead. The big woman bit her tongue savagely and cursed. She still held Emily’s wrist, and shook her hard, rattling her back and forth before going for her hair again, trying
vainly to get a grip.
Emily slapped her hard across the face, forehand and backhand, and then raked her nails into the other woman’s cheek, but Sally cuffed her firmly across the jaw and shook her like a dog,
her grip unshakeable. She gave up on the hair and tried to hook Emily’s shirt collar.
This isn’t going to work.
Emily realized that she was losing badly, and she also realized that she was fighting like a woman; they both were.
I’m not a woman, I’m
a soldier.
She was dressed like one, shorn like one, she would fight like one. She bunched her free hand into a fist and punched the larger woman right in the eye.
She had not expected it to hurt
her
so much, given how much men were always punching each other. It must have had some effect on her target, though, for Sally squawked and let go, and
Emily hit her again under the chin, pain be damned, and then stamped on her foot for good measure. Sally collapsed backwards, floundering madly, and Emily got in a kick that landed somewhere
painful.
Then she stood back and waited, her breath heaving in and out, while the bigger woman clambered to her feet. Sally was staring at her, face purple and angry, and Emily felt the moment teeter in
the balance. Scenarios were being played out in the minds of Sally’s supporters as they judged whether they were going to pitch in or not.
‘You see?’ she got out between breaths. ‘I’m no better. I’m just like you. And I’ll fight. I’ll fight all of you. But I don’t want to. Because
you’re right, it’s none of it fair. None of us wanted to be here.’
She expected her words to fall flat, and for hostilities to be resumed forthwith, but instead Sally stared at her angrily, then nodded just once. There was no love there, precious little respect
even, but there was something that had been absent before the fight. It was little enough, between them, but enough for some forbearance. After a moment, the big woman spat a gob of blood onto the
ground and stomped away, with one of the two women following her.
I never knew I could do this. What put it in me?
Perhaps this willingness to fight despite the odds was what Mr Northway had seen in her.
But haven’t I always been fighting?
she considered, still catching her breath.
After Father died, it has been one long struggle for me. So why not this? After all, fighting is
for soldiers.
She looked at the one woman remaining, and was surprised by a broad grin.
‘You sure you’re a gentlewoman?’ the woman asked.
‘Last I looked. A very minor one.’ Her hand hurt abominably, and she set off for the refectory to get some cold water for it.
‘Hey!’ the woman called after her. ‘You know what you said about not sending someone else in your place.’
‘Yes?’
‘I understood it.’ She fell into place beside Emily. She was a tall girl, auburn hair now in the regulation cut, long of limb and slender, and she had an easy smile. ‘Hell, I
wasn’t even in service when I got the Draft.’
‘No?’
‘I was locked up.’
‘Locked up?’ Emily raised an eyebrow at her. ‘In prison?’
‘Sure. A tiny misunderstanding. Say, what’s your name, my lady?’
‘Nobody’s lady. Emily; Emily Marshwic.’
‘Well, Emily, I reckon you’re a good sort, even though you’re posh. Good to meet you. I’m Elise.’
*
Elise was a well-liked girl. Having her approval meant that Emily became, if not popular, then at least tolerated. More than that, it gave Emily someone to talk to, someone to
tell her worries and frustrations to.
She told Elise all about Grammaine, the house, the servants, the history. She told her about her sisters Mary and Alice, and all her concerns about them: how could they possibly cope without
her? The one subject she did not touch on, because she was so unsure about it herself, was Mr Northway.
‘So, do you have family back home?’
‘I don’t even have a “back home”,’ Elise revealed. ‘My folks packed me off as soon as, and I’ve not seem them since. They had enough others to look
after. No room for one more mouth that’s old enough to feed herself. I was in service myself for a bit, till they chucked me out. I’d gotten a little too friendly with the under-butler
– and the youngest son. Well, they’d got too friendly with me, and how was I supposed to say no? But that’s never how they see it once the thing gets out. After that I tried all
sorts, never really settled on anything.’
‘You’re . . . all alone?’ Around them were the quiet sounds of the dormitory just before lights out. Conversations, a few giggles, whispered gossip and gasps of
astonishment.
‘On and off.’ Elise shrugged. ‘This Draft business’s turned out to be all right, really. I get meals and a roof, and people to talk to. I’m learning a trade.
I’d like to see them put me back on the streets after this, with me knowing guns and things.’
She was a bold, brassy woman, unashamed of her past or her future. She seemed so very comfortable with who she was. Emily had not dreamed such people existed. She was beginning to realize that
the belligerent Sally had been right to call her out. She knew so little about the world.
‘But . . . I thought
I
had to fight for things,’ Emily confessed, ‘but at least I had people, a home . . .’
Elise grinned at her. ‘Sounds nice, this home of yours. Reckon there’d be a place for me there after the war?’
‘Perhaps. Assuming I ever see it again. But surely you must have
somebody.
’ The thought was bothering Emily. ‘Friends? A sweetheart, perhaps?’
‘Oh,
men!
’ Elise laughed, turning the heads of the women nearest. ‘I wondered what you were getting at. Oh, I’ve had
men
, Ems.’
Emily put her hand to her mouth, scandalized and fascinated all at once. It was horribly wrong, this kind of talk, but for all that – because of that, even – it was
interesting.
‘But . . . you weren’t married.’
‘They didn’t make the man that could marry me,’ Elise boasted. ‘A few of them offered, but they never meant it. That’s men for you.’ She leant close to Emily,
glancing around to ensure secrecy. ‘Matter of fact I’ve had a few rumpled nights here, believe it or not.’
‘
Here?
Not with Sergeant Bowler, please.’
‘That bag of lard? God protect me. No, I talked my way into Demaine’s bed, though.’
Emily opened her mouth a few times before she managed, ‘Demaine, but—’
‘What, so his legs are missing? The important bits are still there. I just love the way he knows what he’s talking about so much. I always did like little men who knew who they
were.’ Another broad, utterly unashamed grin. ‘So, your ladyship, any young lords in your life?’
Emily thought of Mr Northway, and fended away the image. Giles Scavian came to mind as well – and at his back the golden light of the King.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said, and Elise agreed.
‘It always is.’
*
A few scant days were all that was left of their training. The women at Gravenfield were almost finished, almost ready to be rated as soldiers. They could shoot and they could
read a map. They knew where Denland was, and why they were fighting it. Some could ride, and some could follow tracks, and a handful had been trained as cannon crew. Emily had been placed in none
of these latter groups, although she was already a better horsewoman than most of the other recruits. She had requested it, but her name had never been included on the lists.
They were just finishing a morning gunnery class with Sergeant Demaine. He had ordered a wire to be tied at a slant between two posts, and one of the recruits released targets that slid
joltingly down it, while the firing line attempted to put shots into them. The success rate had been sporadic. A fair number of them still winced at the discharge of the musket, instinctively
pulling it out of line. One or two were simply hopeless shots.
‘All right, all right, that will have to be enough, and God protect the lot of you,’ Demaine called out. ‘Off for your luncheon, then. I hear you’ll be running round the
grounds this afternoon, so keep your strength up.’
The class began to move off the lawn and in through Demaine’s office, with Elise squeezing the sergeant’s arm as she passed him, their affair being public knowledge by now. Demaine
glanced up at her and then barked, ‘Not you, Marshwic. Got something different for you. Stay behind.’