The steady stream of obscenities from Hinsen he had learned to ignore, but to now hear the man desperately praying out loud was totally unexpected and thus unnerving.
Yet he could understand. He looked off to what he assumed must be east and touched the Bible in his breast pocket.
There were two moons in the sky.
As darkness fell the stars had come out, and that had been bad enough, for nothing in the heavens was right. The gentle splash of what should have been the Milky Way was now a brilliant shimmering band shaped like a wheel, which filled half the sky with such a glow that it was almost possible to read his Bible from the light.
When the stars first came out, Sergeant Barry had come along and said they must be south of the equator. Vincent heard a couple of former sailors over in Company B scoff at that, but he clung to what Barry had said.
And then the moon had appeared. But it was too small, far too small, and did not look right at all. To the left of it another moon appeared scant minutes later, and now all about him was in an uproar.
Some like Hinsen were openly on their knees, praying at the top of their lungs. Others, some of whom he knew to be battle-hardened veterans, were weeping, calling for home or loved ones, while here and there a voice was shouting for Colonel Keane to get them out and take them home.
Vincent looked over to the beached ship, and though he had come to dispel the man, he was glad that Captain Cromwell was still aboard, for more than one man was blaming the situation on him, and calling for a lynching.
There was nothing to be done, Vincent realized. If Keane knew the answer, he would be out and around telling them, but over in officer country he saw the colonel and the other officers talking, raising their heads to look about the encampment, and then in bewilderment to the twin moons that were moving rapidly into the sky.
"Thou shall not be afraid of the terror by night," Vincent whispered, touching his Bible. He turned back toward the circle of fires around the camp.
Shocked, he cocked his rifle and brought it up. There was a light moving toward him. In all the confusion no one had noticed it, and it was coming straight at him.
"Sergeant of the guard!"
His voice could be barely heard above the confusion.
"Sergeant of the guard!"
Vincent looked over his
shoulder,
desperate for some help, but all around him was confusion.
The light was drawing closer.
By the starlight he could see a lone man bearing a torch, standing rigidly before him, not twenty yards away.
"Sergeant Barry!" Vincent cried.
Still no response.
He had to do something. He was supposed to be on sentry duty, and Barry had roared at him more than once about staying exactly where he was put. He just couldn't run back to one of the officers; they might think he was running away.
He had to do something.
Taking a deep breath, he clambered up over the breastworks. Lowering his rifle to the advance position, he started out across the field toward the solitary figure.
Could he shoot this man? Vincent wondered. Since the start of the war he had wrestled with that. To kill was the greatest sin, the elders had taught him. But to him the enslavement of fellow men was just as heinous. For that reason he had finally resolved to run away and join the army, hoping nevertheless that in the confusion of a battle he would never see a reb that he would be forced to aim at.
But as far as he could tell, these men weren't rebs. What now? Even as he advanced he decided that come what may
he would not shoot, but nevertheless, as if in spite of himself, he kept his gun cocked and pointed.
Gradually the silhouette took on features. The man was short and rotund. He was dressed in a simple pullover shirt that fell to his knees and had a wide flowing black beard that cascaded down nearly to his waist.
Vincent stopped, his leveled bayonet pointed squarely at the man's oversized stomach.
"Identify
yourself
, friend or foe," Vincent squeaked out.
The man before him started to break into a grin, and held his two arms out to either side, still smiling.
"Go on, tell me who you are," Vincent whispered.
Ever so slowly the man thumped his chest with his right hand.
"Kalencka."
Vincent let the point of his bayonet drop. How could he stick this man? The fellow was grinning at him.
"Who the hell is out there?"
"It's me, Sergeant Barry!"
"Damn you, soldier, who the hell is me!"
"Private Hawthorne. I've got one of them out here."
"Well, goddammit, private, bring the prisoner in!"
"You heard him," Vincent said softly. "You've got to come in with me," and motioning with his rifle he indicated that the stranger should lead the way.
"Kalencka."
"I guess that's his name," Emil said softly.
Andrew nodded and sat down on his camp chair. Exhausted, he tried to focus his attention. It seemed that all discipline in the regiment was near to breaking. He could hear Schuder roaring out commands, but still there was the shouting. Damn it all, he was terrified himself. There could only be one explanation to all of this, but his mind recoiled at the enormity of it all.
Somehow they were no longer on earth. What other explanation was possible at this point? But each time he tried to come to grips with the thought, he felt as if he wanted to crawl away, fall asleep, and pray that when he awoke he would either be dead from the storm or somehow back in the world he knew and could understand.
The crack of a carbine snapped his thoughts back. The camp fell silent.
"All right, you ignorant, whining, lazy bastards!"
Schuder roared. "You're nothing but fresh fish, the whole damned lot of you. And I thought the 35th had men in it. You're crying like green boys being led to see the elephant. Now goddammit, act like men, or so help me I'll thrash the next man who so much as peeps, mit god I'll do it!"
Andrew held his breath. The sergeant major was the most feared man in the regiment, and he could only hope the fear of Schuder would be greater than the unknown that confronted them.
There were a couple of low murmurs.
"I heard you, Fredricks, you little milksop, you whinny coward."
There was a loud snap and a grunt of pain, and Andrew winced. He hoped his officers all had the good sense not to be looking; otherwise there'd be hell to pay for Schuder.
"All right then, you bastards, we understand each other. Now back to your posts."
Seconds later the tent flap opened and Schuder strode in and saluted.
"The camp is back in order, sir."
"I could hear that, Hans," Andrew said, suddenly realizing that Hans's little display had braced him back up as well.
"All right, then." Andrew turned his attention back to the man who called himself Kalencka.
"Kalencka is your name?"
The man nodded and tapped himself on the chest. Smiling, he stepped forward and touched Andrew, his eyebrows raised in an exaggerated quizzical manner.
"Keane."
Kalencka looked at him and smiled.
"Cane."
"Close enough," Andrew laughed.
"Doctor, what do you think?"
"It's too uncanny, son," Weiss replied. "Some years ago I went to
Lodz to visit my uncle and his family."
"In
Russia, isn't it?" Hans asked.
Kalencka turned to face Hans.
"Rus!"
Emil looked at Kalencka and nodded eagerly.
"Da, Rus!"
Kal grinned at him.
"Da, Rus," and with a broad sweep of his arms he turned around.
"Suzdal, Rus," Kalencka said.
"Da, da."
Standing up, Emil reached into his haversack and pulled out a bottle, uncorked it, and held it out.
"Vodka," Emil said.
Kalencka grinned broadly, even as he gingerly took the bottle and peered at it cautiously. Understanding, Emil took it back, put the bottle to his lips, and took a healthy slug. Smiling, he offered it back, and the peasant followed suit, took a couple of gulps, and a quizzical expression formed on his face as Emil took the bottle back.
"Gin," Emil said, pointing to the bottle, "and not your rotgut variety either."
"Major darling, I've been feeling a bit of a chill meself," O'Donald said hopefully.
"We all need a shot or two," Andrew said, and with a look of remorse, Emil gazed fondly at the bottle and handed it over to the artilleryman.
"Gin," Kalencka said with a broad grin.
Grabbing the bottle back from O'Donald, while it was still at the major's lips, Emil passed it back to Kalencka.
"Don't ask me to explain how," Emil said softly. "As I was saying, when I went to
Lodz some years back I saw thousands of peasants dressed almost like this one. And damn my eyes, Andrew, this man's speaking Russian or something awful close to it."
"And you can speak it too?" Andrew asked hopefully.
"A couple of words, that's all.
Enough to talk my way past the goyim."
"The what?"
Emil shook his head and grinned.
"Ah, you Americans.
Never mind."
Emil looked up at Kalencka, who was starting to get a little bleary-eyed.
"Kal, gin."
"Da, da.
Gin."
"Well, colonel, I guess we'd better start the language lessons."
Kal looked about at the men and smiled. These were the best damned spirits he'd ever had, and for the first time in his life he thanked Ivor Weak Eyes. Perhaps these foxes weren't so bad after all.
"Beautiful morning, isn't it, son?"
Andrew turned to see Emil emerging from the shadows.
"Quiet. It's just so peaceful and quiet," Andrew replied. He looked about and smiled softly. In the trenches this was always his favorite time. It'd still be dark enough so you could climb out, stretch your legs, and just listen to the gentle quiet before dawn. At those moments it'd seemed as if the war were a million miles away.
"Maybe it's the same right now on another world," Emil replied evenly.
"Just where in heaven are we?" Andrew asked.
The doctor smiled sadly and shook his head, while looking up to the sky.
"I don't know how or why," he replied, his voice carrying a slight sense of awe. "But I think wherever our war is, it's somewhere out there. We're not on earth, that's for certain. The sky alone proves that."
"But those people," Andrew started, pointing to the camp-fires that shimmered in a glowing arc around them.
"God alone knows the answer, colonel. But we've had that Kal with us for three days now. The language is
Russian,
or a form of it at least. You know that and so do I."
"Seems like something out of the tenth, maybe eleventh century, I'd venture," Andrew said, as if to
himself
.
"But how, dammit?
How? From what little I've been able to learn from Kal, he talks about a Primary Chronicle that tells of his people crossing here in a river of light. Now, I remember that the Primary Chronicle is a history of the early Russians. But we aren't in
Russia. The sky and that strange red sun prove that. So tell me, Emil, where are we?"
Emil reached up and laid his hand on Andrew's shoulder.
"That is not your concern, if I might be so bold," Emil said sharply.
"And what does that mean?" Andrew replied, feeling somewhat irritated by the doctor's tone.
"Andrew, you're pondering an impossible. Chances are we'll never know the how of it, or the why. Even if we did, chances are we still couldn't change it. Your job now is to lead.
To find a way for us to survive on this world.
If an answer ever comes, we'll cross that then. But we can't stay here surrounded forever. For the time being we must find a place to live."
Emil stopped for a moment, and with a smile reached into his tunic and pulled out a flask and offered it.
Without comment Andrew uncorked it and took a long pull.
"Somehow we've got to make an accommodation with those people out there. You no longer command a regiment— you're the general in
charge,
and a diplomat now as well."
"So you're telling me to stop worrying and do my job, is that it?" Andrew said coldly.
"Just that you historian types want to know all the answers," Emil responded with a chuckle.
Andrew turned away for a moment. He knew the old doctor was right. For three days the regiment had been here, dug in and terrified. And the terror had been in him as well. Only iron discipline had kept him going, following the mechanical routines of running a regiment. In the evening he sat with Kal, trying to master the language. But when he was alone the cold terror would start to creep in.
Just what was he going to do?
"Worry about keeping us alive," Emil said softly as if reading his thoughts. "Let me spend my time figuring out the hows and whys of it all."
Andrew turned back to the doctor and smiled.
"Where the hell is that Hans?
Time for the men to get up.
After roll, let's you and me sit down with Kal," and capping the bottle he tossed it back to the doctor.
"Boyar, I Keane see your boyar."
At least that's what Kal thought he heard. Cursed strange how they tried to speak the mother tongue. He looked at Andrew and smiled.
"You Cane, see Ivor, talk friendship. I go back to Ivor and talk peace for you," Kal ventured back in English.
Andrew smiled and nodded in an exaggerated manner. Kal could not help but chuckle inwardly. In three days he'd learned far more of their language than he was willing to let on. Of all the Suzdalians, in fact of all the Rus, he alone could communicate with them. Ivor would really need him now.
For years he'd lived at the edge of Ivor's table, making up bad verse for the scraps of comfort offered to him. And, more than once he'd feared that Ivor might think him just a little too smart for a peasant and have him garroted. It'd been a dangerous game he played, all with one final hope.
That when the Tugars came, he and his family would be exempt from the sacrifice, as were the rest of the nobility.
Continue to play dumb, he thought. Just play dumb and learn quietly from these bluecoats. Already he'd seen enough to leave him filled with terror. One of the young bluecoats, the one called Vincent, had shown him how his metal rod could kill an enemy many paces away. Ivor in his fear might try to destroy them and take the metal rods. But if that happened, Kal realized, he'd be out of a job as translator. No, peace would be essential, for him to serve as the go-between and thus secure himself in Ivor's court.
He looked about the tent and smiled his best stupid grin.
"Da, da, yes, friend, bluecoats and Rus, good.
Kal talk peace for Rus, for bluecoats."
"Well then, let's get started," Andrew announced, and standing up he beckoned for Kal to follow.
"Kal, take this," Emil said, extending his hand.
Kal took the strange object which he had seen on the faces of Cane, Emil, and a number of other bluecoats.
"For Ivor," Emil said.
"He called the man Weak Eyes," Emil said, looking over at Andrew. "I've got a couple of extra pairs of glasses. Most likely nothing near what the man needs, but it might sway him a bit."
Emil took the glasses from Kal's hands and showed him how to put them on. Kal gasped with amazement, peering around curiously, and then took them off.
"Make Ivor's eyes better," Emil said.
"Gift from Cane and me."
The peasant looked at the glasses in awe and nodded.
Stepping out into the reddish light of the noonday sun,
the three walked toward the battlement walls. Three days had made the position impregnable, Kal could easily see that. The triangular fort was ringed by an earthen wall, as high as a man could reach, with an eight-foot-deep ditch in front. Even now the men were still working, building platforms for the monstrous metal tubes, one for each corner, and the fourth now mounted on an earthen mound in the center of the camp. Even if these men did not have the smoke killers, they'd be near impossible to destroy, Kal thought, looking about the encampment.
For above even their weapons Kal could not help but notice how the boyar Cane so easily controlled his men. There was something strange here. Cane would chat with even the youngest, tike Vincent, who behaved as if he were a noble. But with merely a soft-spoken word from Cane, all would rush to form their strange lines, standing as straight as their metal tubes.
Another word spoken and five hundred knives would flash out and be attached to the tubes. Another word and all the tubes would be pointed a certain way. Here was a strange power, Kal realized, but a power that strangely did not come from the lash, as he had always assumed power must.
This was not as the world should be. Peasants are to be driven by the lash and fear. Nobles defer to the boyar, but among
themselves
fight and brawl for prestige and position. And the priests—there were no priests here. No gold robes that all but the boyar must bow to as they spoke the words of submission to
Perm, his son Kesus, and the sacrifice of the Tugars.
Still pondering these questions, Kal struggled up to the top of the parapet, Keane at his side.
"Kal."
Kal turned to look back to the colonel.
In Andrew's hand was a small metal flask, which he offered to the peasant.
"Boyar Ivor?"
Kal asked.
"Nyet.
For Kal," Andrew said, smiling.
Cheerfully the peasant took the flask, and with a wink tucked it into his tunic. With a sweeping gesture, he bent over, his right hand touching the ground. Straightening back up, he slid down the embankment and started back to the Suzdalian camp.
He looked back once more to the one armed boyar in the blue coat. He could not help but like the man.
"Father, the guards report that Kalencka has just come through the south gate. Mikhail has come back with him as well."
Ivor stood up, and tossing a half-eaten pheasant aside he wiped his greasy hands on the front of his tunic.
"It's about time that idiot showed up," and he slapped his son on the shoulder.
"Andrei, that peasant better have their secrets, and some sort of an agreement," Ivor growled.
"Perhaps they could be of some service after all," Andrei ventured.
"If we know their magic, why keep them?"
Ivor didn't venture anything beyond that, even to his son. The threat of the church was only all too real. The church was supposedly neutral in the eternal bickerings between the dozen kingdoms of Rus. Already he was starting to regret his confrontation of the other night. Push the patriarch Rasnar too far and the church might weigh in on the side of his rivals, declaring him heretic. Most likely some of the boyars would not turn on him because of the church and it would still leave him with many of his own landholders feeling nervous. Rasnar had been strangely quiet since their return, and that was
cause
enough for worry right there.
Walking over to the narrow window of his feasting room, Ivor looked across the great square to the cathedral of the Blessed Light of Perm. Most likely that bastard was looking over here at him, pondering the same questions, he thought darkly.
This problem with the bluecoats had to be settled. He could already sense they were near impossible to destroy, and that was part of the reason Rasnar was pushing him on to try it. Many of his warriors, knights, and peasant levies would die in the attempt, leaving him the weaker. As the most powerful of the boyars, he would suffer, leaving him vulnerable against the
others,
and still there would be no guarantee that he would know their secrets.
There was the other problem as well. Thousands of peasants and many of his nobility were still out there, watching the bluecoat camp, leaving his marches with Novrod the weaker. And finally there was the simple question of his prestige. If he did not come out of this looking as if he had won, more than one noble would be willing to ally with Rasnar in a bid for power.
Picking up a half-filled tankard, he drained off the contents, then, leaning back, emitted a long sonorous belch.
"Ah, that's better, damn me. Now let's hear what this peasant has to say. Bring him to me."
Kalencka was ushered into the room, with Mikhail at his side.
"Oh mighty Ivor, I come back with important news," Kalencka said, bowing low.
"Have you learned their magic, then?" Ivor ventured.
"That I have done, most noble one," Kalencka replied.
"And?"
"It is a magic they alone can wield," the peasant replied, keeping his features in a grim countenance. "They have a secret powder that they only can use. If anyone else dares to touch it, he is burned, if he has not permission."
Ivor pulled on his beard.
"But they are in awe of your power as well, my lord Ivor," Kalencka continued, looking straight at his lord with unblinking eyes. "They wish an alliance under your power, to serve you in return for the right to live here and acknowledge you as their boyar."
Kal still held Ivor with his gaze.
"Perhaps we could lull them and then surprise and annihilate them," Mikhail ventured.
"A laudable plan, my worthy noble," Kal said evenly, "but there is still the powder."
Mikhail looked at Kalencka darkly.
"It is a good plan," Ivor said out loud, wishing to show his warlike spirit.
"A good plan, of course," Kal agreed, "but, my lord Ivor, they could add to your power against the Novrodians. Already they've indicated a desire to help you in such matters."
"Will they do this?" Ivor asked.
"Of course, my lord.
But it'll take some time, my lord. They are weak from their great journey and desire first to build homes for themselves, and then they will serve."
"Weak, eh?"
Ivor mumbled.
"But even weak they still have the magic powder."
Ivor turned away. Damn it all, this required too much thinking. Why couldn't these blue devils simply be armed like other men? Then he could charge in with lance and ax, smash some heads, and give his nobles a good time. Instead there'd have to be thinking done on this one, and Ivor dreaded the prospect.
"Tell their boyar to come to Suzdal to meet with me. In the city he will be more awed by my power." And perhaps I can take him prisoner alone, Ivor thought, a smile lighting his features.