“You’re hurt—”
“Are you okay, is Jared—”
They looked at each other and smiled for one long instant; despite the shots and chaos and the baby’s wailing. Then Giernas’s face tensed and he crumpled back against the wall, one big hand clutching his thigh.
“Give me my rifle,” he said, in a voice made curt by pain. “I’ll... cover us. Take a look at it. Bandages in the haversack.”
The Cloud Shadow people were hunters and warriors; she handed him the weapon before she knelt to rip the fabric open. Eddie kept his back to them, eyes never ceasing their movement. Giernas kept his on the square, thumbing back the hammer of his weapon, though even the gentle touch of his wife’s fingers sent tendrils of cold fire reaching up into his groin and belly.
“The blood flows but it does not spurt,” she said. “The bone is not broken and the bullet went through the big muscle of the thigh, high up, here. But it must be cleansed soon-dirty cloth carried into the wound, maybe.”
“Just—”
The last two of their party ran up. “We’d better get out of here,” Jaditwara gasped. “The palisade is burning.”
Sue bent beside his leg; Spring Indigo sank back and gave Jared her breast.
“Good job, sister,” Sue said. “I’ll irrigate and sew later ...”
“Later,” Giernas agreed; he could feel the sweat pouring down his face; he forced the giddiness away. “Get me a stick or something. We’ve got to get this thing in hand.”
Tunnnngg.
Everyone on the bridge of the
Eades
flinched involuntarily as another of the heavy cannonballs struck, the vicious whining
smmmmack
that followed was as unbearable as fingernails on slate. Beneath it went a crunching, grating sound that shivered up through the soles of their feet, the sound of a galley’s light pine hull ground into pieces under the copper-sheathed oak of the ironclad’s keel. The screams of the hundred-odd men in its crew were present only in thought.
The three portside broadside guns ran out, letting in a brief stab of light before they fired and added more to the choking cloud of smoke. Return fire smashed into the side; timbers groaned and buckled, and one burst in a spray of splinters. Corpsmen rushed forward to bandage and haul the wounded below; crewfolk scattered sand to keep the deck from growing slippery.
“Rudder amidships,” Marian said.
Outside the slit the low roofs and seawall of Tartessos showed, rose-pink stone and whitewash and umber tile. There were fires along the docks now, and black pillars rising into the fading blue of the sky.
“Ma’am, two feet in the hold. We’ve got the pumps unplugged and we’re gaining on it.”
“Very well,” she said.
Below the bridge there was a long grumbling thunder as the bow six-inch rifle was run out. Massive cranked arms opened the portlid and the muzzle came into view. She slitted her eyes against the long spear of flame; her numbed ears ignored the huge
thud
of its discharge, and she thought she could see the black speck of the shell in flight. The results when the hundred-and-fifty-pound steel forging struck and exploded were unmistakable; the stern of a docked ship vanished, to reappear as boards and timber falling out of the sky. The merchantman began to settle ...
“Helm,” she said. “Come right to one-four-zero.”
“Command?” the helmsman said.
“Right, one-four-zero,” she said, louder.
We’ll all of us be just a bit less keen of hearing from now on.
“We’ve done enough. Time to go home.”
Peter Giernas watched as Eddie and Jaditwara lifted Perks from the travois and carried him onto the captured ship.
“Pewks!”
Jared cried, stretching out chubby arms.
“Pewks!”
“Happier than he was to see me,” Peter Giernas grumbled.
He lay back in the chair with his injured leg propped on a coil of thick rope; overhead a sail was stretched across the mizzen boom of the ship they’d renamed
Sea-Ranger,
giving a welcome shade. The big schooner was looking a lot neater ... unlike the Tartessian settlement not far from the riverside; about half of that had burned, including the whole circuit of the palisade. The massive black-oak logs still smoldered, and the great central pole had fallen in the night, like a whip of fire. The smell of burning mingled oddly with the spring freshness of the riverside greenery.
Chief Antelope came up the gangway behind the two Islanders carrying the dog. Perks’s ears came up and his tongue lolled happily as they set him down beside his master; Spring Indigo kept a hand on her child, in case his prying fingers found the bandages irresistible. He’d already made his father howl with an unexpected grab, and there had to be
some
limit to the wolf-dog’s forbearance.
“I greet you,” Giernas said to the chief. He had some scorch marks himself, and a crusted cut on the ribs.
“I greet you,” the tribesman said gravely, squatting on his hams.
The usual translation difficulties came next, but at last Giernas managed to grasp what the Indian was driving at.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you should destroy the place completely. Make the people inside come out and give up, yes ... you’ll want hostages when their leader and his warriors get back.”
And won’t that be some homecoming,
he thought with a trace of glee, looking down at his son and woman where they sat on the deck beside him.
“But if we don’t,” Antelope replied, “how can we ... make things as they were? Maybe they’ll build their Big House again!”
Giernas hesitated. This man wasn’t really a friend; they couldn’t even talk without skull-splitting effort. But they’d fought together—
“Things will never be as they were, here,” he said. “Too much has changed already; the sickness, the horses, and other new things. Also ... these strangers are not the last who will come.”
“Your people?” Antelope said, with a trace of suspicion.
“Perhaps. Maybe later, to trade and hunt here. But if not mine ...” He waved around at the ship. “My people know how to build these ships. Others have learned, and more will learn. You have a fine land here, but you are few and you lack ... the arts that make for strength. Others will come, like the Tartessians—strong, hungry peoples, numerous and ...”
He looked at Eddie, where he was standing at the rail with an arm around Jaditwara’s waist.
“... numerous and ... heedless. You should be ready for them. To be ready, you need the Tartessians ... what you can learn from them.”
Chief Antelope’s brows furrowed.
I hope that does you some good,
he thought. Then the Indian spoke, and Giernas’s sun-faded eyebrows shot up.
“You should stay. You could show us what we need; and your heart is good.”
He flushed.
Well, that’s flattering as hell,
he thought, and shook his head. “No, my friend; I have my own home and my own people to go to.”
Shouts rose from the banks of the river. Giernas looked up, blinked, reached for his binoculars and swore softly as the motion jarred his injured leg. His first glance had been right; it was a standard Islander craft, a double-ended whaleboat of the type Guard frigates or large merchantmen carried, mounting a stubby lugsail. As he watched, that was struck and six oars a side flashed out and dipped in unison. They kept the mast up; besides Old Glory, it carried a white truce pennant.
Yup, that’s the Guard,
he thought, bewildered; blue sailor suits and flat caps, cutlasses and pistols. And they’re
probably wondering what a Tartessian ship is doing flying our flag.
He looked up at the masthead; it was nice not to be the only one wondering what the hell was going on.
The whaleboat came alongside and an officer came up the companionway, looking around and then gaping at the burned-out Tartessian settlement.
“Permission to come aboard?” she asked. “Ensign Ellen Hanson, RNCGS
Winthrop.”
“Permission granted,” Giernas said, and returned her salute. “Lieutenant Peter Giernas, Ranger Service. Pardon me for not rising, Ensign, but a Tartie put a bullet through my leg day before yesterday.”
“Then you don’t know ... the war with Tartessos is over, sir!”
“We’ve been a bit out of touch,” Giernas said. He looked around and smiled grimly. “But yeah, we were under the impression it was over, too.”
Marian Alston-Kurlelo rose as Isketerol entered the conference room of the tent. Not entirely by accident, a VCR was running on a table in one corner, showing a tape of Tartessos from overhead during the bombardment by the
Eades.
The way the Tartessian King had been shown into the harbor of Cadiz Base past the ranked frigates, the ironclad, and the steam ram hadn’t been accidental at all. The honor guard formed an alley-way to the tent and snapped to present arms. Their officer drew the tent flap aside:
“The King of Tartessos, ma’am, and his aide.”
“Let them in out of the wet, by all means, Lieutenant.”
Rain hissed down outside and dripped from the cloaks of the Iberian King and his young aide....
No, that’s his son—Sarsental,
Alston decided, as they shed their sopping cloaks and the double flaps fell behind them. The cast-iron stove in the center of the room threw a grateful warmth, cutting the raw chill of the day. It was only an hour past noon, but already dim enough that the kerosene lantern swinging from the ridgepole of the tent was welcome.
His father looked dour, as if he hadn’t been sleeping much; under a precocious gravity, Sarsental was taking everything in wide-eyed and eager, looking at her with awed interest, and at Swindapa....
Do Jesus, the little bastard’s undressing her in the twinkle of a mind’s eye, Alston thought, amused. Can’t fault his eye for a fine fox, at least, or his brass.
“Greetings,” she said calmly. “Be welcome for the duration of this truce.”
Swindapa brought four cups of cocoa from a pot on the stove and set them on the table, then sat herself and tapped a stack of file folders.
“I hope you do not mind that I brought my son,” Isketerol said. “It is well for him to learn of these things.”
“Not at all,” Alston said. “As it turns out, it’s fortunate that you did. Shall we to business?”
The youngster—he looked a little older than the sixteen years she knew he had--concealed surprise and outrage. Marian gave him a brief smile:
“We’re not a ceremonious people,” she said. “And I less than most of us.”
“As polite as the blade of an ax,” Isketerol agreed. “Well, it cuts what it’s swung at, well enough ...”
“I suppose you’re here because of that,” she said, nodding toward the screen. Silent shells burst along the docks of Tartessos City, and fires raged.
The lines grew deeper in Isketerol’s face. “That, and the news that the territories south of the Pillars are in revolt.” He sighed. “The fruit of much effort and work is being wasted.”
Marian nodded. “I warned you of it, the last time we spoke,” she said. “I also offered you terms.”
Isketerol’s teeth showed slightly, in what might have been a smile. “A King is the guardian of his people’s honor, and their pride,” he said. “I could not betray oaths and allies so easily.”
“A good many people have died and towns have burned for the sake of that pride,” she said grimly.
But it does argue he’ll keep an agreement with us.
“Is it enough?”
The Iberian’s fist clenched on the table. “You Islanders talk much of civilization—but it was you who made allies of the highlanders, who know only to burn and torture and kill.”
Alston shook her head.
“We armed
them. We made no agreements or alliances.”
“Ah,” Isketerol said, thoughtful.
She could see the drift of those thoughts:
The
Amurrukan
will not seek to prevent me pacifying the wild tribes once more.
“And you wouldn’t have had so many problems with runaways and uprisings, if you hadn’t had so many slaves who were ready to take any chance to strike back at you,” she pointed out.
Isketerol shrugged: “Who would go down into the silver mines of the Black Mountains, who was not a slave in fear of the lash? Or work in the road gangs, or another man’s fields? Not everyone can be a freeholder or master of his own workshop ... but enough of that. I am ready to treat for terms.” A wry gesture. “It is also the duty of a King to know when he must humble his pride, to preserve the kingdom’s life.”
Alston glanced at Sarsental. “Your father is a wise man,” she said. Then to the King: “The terms will be harsher than last time,” she said. “I’m here because the Republic sent me, and so are my sailors and Marines, but our allies ...”
“... are here for loot,” Isketerol nodded. “Yes. But my own people have suffered much; we can spare less.”
Marian shrugged-he’d been the one to prolong the war—and slid a map across the table. It showed a chunk of coastline from Cadiz to Gibraltar shaded, and a similar patch on the northern coast of Morocco from Tangier to Ceuta.
“I thought you were not here for land,” Isketerol said dryly; anger flickered in his eyes.
“That was the last time. Now we have thousands of refugees to care for. Some we’ll send back to Nantucket; some can find employment in Alba; most we’ll settle here in this strip around our bases, together with some of our own people and our allies—we’ ll give them all sixty-four acres and a mule. That’ll make it easier for us to keep an eye on you. What we’re demanding is a good deal less than the area we actually control now. And before you say that’s intolerable, consider the alternatives.”
Which is that your jury-rigged empire falls into its component pieces. And it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to conquer it again as it was the first time.
Should we have held out until you were wrecked, damn the delay, to weaken a potential enemy in the long run? Oh, well, not my decision, thank you Lord Jesus.