Warlord (18 page)

"All right, boys," he continued, forcing a smile. "Everyone loves us here. Just remember why." He pointed south. "
They
don't love us, and they're not going to be throwing flowers, either." There was a murmur, not displeased but slightly sobered.
Good
.
"Enjoy yourselves, but remember we're heading out on Starday next. A day to play, a day to recover and a day to go Enter your sins—" he pointed to the city temple, towering in traceries of glass and stone on the opposite side of the plaza "—in the Terminal booths and wash your grimy souls. Then we earn our pay. Spirit of Man of the Stars pervade you. Up the 5th! Descott Forever!"

"DESCOTT FOREVER!"

"Trumpeter, sound Dismissed to Quarters."

Suzette, Lady Whitehall paused on the steps of the tribunate; the plaza was dimly lit by the glow from the windows above her, and the municipal lanterns set high in brackets on the public buildings roundabout. The chanting of a MainFrame service came from the Temple, and the paving stones were being swept and shoveled by City convict gangs, swept free of bougainvillea and roses, dogshit and fruit rinds and shattered bottles. Lights were coming on all over the city, and she could hear the tinkle of water in fountains, and the plangent sounds of
gittars
,
and singing; Komar was still celebrating what it nervously hoped would be deliverance.

Captain Stanson cantered his Alsatian up to the steps, sweeping off his silvered helmet and bowing; there were hyacinths woven in his hair.

"Ah, my dear," he said, kissing her hand. "A lovely evening for the loveliest of ladies. I've found the most enchanting little place, and reserved a table for two."

"I'm sure you and Merta will enjoy it," she replied, with an ironic lift of her eyebrow, gently tugging on her hand.

Stanson's face fell. "But, I mean, I had planned . . ."

"Table for two, bed for three? Very sorry, my dear, but that's
your
particular fantasy." She pulled harder on her hand, slipping the other under her sash to the hard lump of her derringer. It remained there, when he released her fingers. "The Prancing Bitch is offering a free first-time, they'd probably give you a very good discount on that."

"You lying slut!" Amazement struggled with rage. "You . . . you promised— You lying whore!"

"Tsk, tsk, my poor Helmt, all your life at Court and you believed a
promise
?
And the word you're looking for, under the circumstances, is 'tease,' not 'whore.'" Suzette watched a baffled curiosity overcome anger, for a moment:
that surprises me
,
she thought distantly.

"Why?" he said.

"Well, you see, Helmt, I don't need you any more, that's all."

He jerked the dog's head around and heeled it savagely; with a whining bark, it sprang across the pavement, nearly running down the sweepers. Suzette made a moue and tapped a finger against her lips.

"A mistake, perhaps," she murmured. "But occasional fits of truthfulness are so enjoyable."

"Everyone's here," Gerrin said, as Suzette slipped through the door and seated herself at the foot of the table.

Raj glanced around the table. The Companions had grown to nine, not counting him or his wife: Gerrin Staenbridge and Foley, of course, and the Gruder brothers. Another Lieutenant from Kaltin Gruder's Company, Mekkle Thiddo by name, Raj and he were cousins of a sort and near-neighbors back home; two gentlemen-rankers from Thiddo's platoon, Holdor Tennan and Fitzin Sherrek, younger sons of bonnet-squires who were clients of the Whitehall family.

"M'lewis isn't, ser," da Cruz said. Several of the others winced. Descotters were less class-conscious than most, nobody objected to da Cruz's membership; he came of respectable yeoman stock. The scruffy trooper was something else again, even
gentry
from the Bufford parish district of the County were not well-regarded.

"Probably out picking pockets," Kaltin muttered.

"I hope so," his brother Evrard said: both of them were sensible enough to listen to their noncoms, but a platoon leader was closer to the enlisted men's grapevine. "If he's just drunk . . . well, sober he could talk a Renunciate Nun flat. Drunk he wouldn't know a sow from his sister, and either would do willing or no."

"He's on an errand for me," Raj said, seating himself at the log ebony table. There was a wall fountain behind him, a blaze of colored tile against the stark white marble of the walls—and a useful plashing that made it unlikely anyone listening at a peephole would get much of a quiet conversation. "Now, Companions, we've got a situation here."

"Arserapin' right," da Cruz said. An informal etiquette had already established itself for these meetings, rather different from the one they used when wearing their official hats. "What keyed me, was the way the
townsfolk
were poppin' off t' welcomes us. Especial the Messers, they was sweatin' happy to see us, but commonfolk, too. The
whores
is givin' it away. Only reason fer that I kin see, they're certain-sure the ragheads was comin' over the wall, real soon now, least we didn't stop "em."

"My thoughts exactly," Raj said. Sweet Spirit, I could use a bath and a neckrub and twenty hours' sleep in a bed.

Gerrin Staenbridge frowned. "This town's as close to impregnable as any its size can be," he said in a slightly pedantic tone; siegecraft was a hobby of his. "It's only fallen, what, twice—"

"Three times, once in a civil war," Foley interjected.

"
Thank
you, Barton," Gerrin said. "To continue, there's over fifty fixed pieces on the walls—muzzle loaders, but good ones—and a garrison of, what, three battalions of regular infantry." There were a few snorts at that. The foot soldiers of the Civil Government were conscripted from the peons of the central Counties around East Residence, and even the barbarian mercenaries who made up a third of the army ranked higher. "I know, I know, but they
are
trained soldiers with Armory guns. If all they have to do is sit in bunkers and fire out the slits at the ragheads as they run up, well, really now."

At least they didn't send them down here with flintlocks
,
Raj thought, tapping at his pad with a graphite stick. Not uncommon, in the interior Counties; the trade guns made for export to the savages were much cheaper. A knock sounded; Evrard sprang up to open it with his hand on his pistol, and Antin M'lewis stepped through. He slid into a seat down the table, grinning through his bad teeth and looking somehow furtive even now.
It's amazing. When he's trying to cheat somebody, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. It's when he
relaxes
you put your hand on your valuables
.

Kaltin took up the argument. "And even if the garrison isn't worth much, there's forty thousand people within the walls; you saw the way it's built." A maze of laneways, twisting and turning between blank stone walls. "This is a rich city, too, with a secure water supply. Holy Avatars of the Spirit—"

Raj forced himself not to wince; technically, that term included
him
,
now.
I
am not worthy
!
something cried within himself. He forced it down, like the tiredness and the sore butt that came of too long in the saddle.

"—you'd need twenty thousand men and a siege train to take this place."

"M'lewis?" Raj said. "What did you find?"

"Best dam' party I ever missed on m'own, Messers," he said. "Couldn't pay fer booze 'r cooze if yer wanted to. . . . Beggin' yer pardon, Lady. Anyways, I finds out what yer wanted."

Raj nodded. "I got suspicious when I saw a beggar saluting us from an alleyway," he said dryly. "More remarkable than girls with flowers, if less sightly."

"Bought 'im a drink, ser. Well, passed on one I's given, loik. Private in the 23rd Foot; they's here, with t'81st Rifles an' the Kelden County Foot."

"Wait a minute," Kaltin said. "Those aren't the units that were supposed to be here!"

"Ay-up. Moved in last month, ser. Ain't gots they land grants settled yet, either. Sellin' they uniforms, beggin', workin' at that'ere cotton mill, which is worse to my way a—

Another knock at the door. The Companions exchanged glances, and Kaltin and his brother bracketed the entranceway. Foley reached over his shoulder for the shotgun in its leather scabbard and drew it, clicking the breach open for a second and snapping it shut, then laying the weapon in his lap under the table.

Raj was lighting a cigarette as Muzzaf Kirpatik walked through the opened door and threw himself on his knees. That startled the Gruder brothers, but not so much that they did not seat the muzzles of their revolvers in his ears and half-carry him forward to their commander's end of the table. Hands plucked his weapons away as they moved, frisking him thoroughly. The pepperpot revolver, two derringers, a long knife from one boot, a stiletto punch-dagger down the collar of his robe . . . 
Indeed, a man of affairs
,
Raj thought.

"Forgive me, lord," the local said brokenly; the singsong southern accent was more noticeable, and he tried to bend his head to the marble tiles of the floor.

Raj blew smoke. "It might be easier if I knew for what," he said.

"I have betrayed you—I have betrayed the Spirit of Man of the Stars, may I be damned to . . . well, forgiven—I have betrayed the Civil Government."

Kaltin Gruder thumbed back the hammer of his revolver. "Spying for the ragheads?" he said, in a voice as metallic as that sound.

"No, no! The Tribune arranged with . . ." a visible internal struggle " . . . with authorities in East Residence, I think the Chancellor . . ."

"
Tzetzas
,"
the Companions chorused.

"Watch your language," Suzette observed.

" . . . to transfer the garrison. It is the land grants, you see, until title is cleared the rents are still collected but the soldiers get nothing, nothing!"

Raj nodded sickly. There was never enough money in the central government Fisc to pay the foot soldiers directly, not and keep the more important cavalry units supplied . . . not to mention the mercenaries from outside the Civil Government, who wanted good hard cash in sound coin, no bank drafts please. Revenue melted on the way from the Counties to the capital, and on the way back out for disbursements; instead, the infantrymen were each assigned a farm. Worked by tenants, so that they had time to drill, although many ended up spending more time helping in the fields than marching. If the unit was transferred, the soldiers were supposed to be settled into equivalent holdings immediately. Even when it worked the way it was supposed to morale dropped hideously every time an infantry regiment moved.

Kaltin was nodding thoughtfully. "You know, one of the infantry Captains was wearing a uniform coat tailored from Azanian
torofib
."
That was a fiber spun to line its nests by a burrowing pseudoinsect that lived in the savannahs inland from the Zanj coast. "The real thing. He didn't buy
that
on an infantry officer's pay. I couldn't afford it, myself." And the Gruder estates pastured ten thousand head of pedigreed Angoras.

"But . . ." Evrard burst out, "that's . . . that's
despicable
!"
The others looked at him pityingly; he had been out from Descott less than a year.

Gerrin shrugged. "That's Tzetzas," he amplified.

Muzzaf nodded, tears streaking his face. "The Legate suggested it, but he's the Chancellor's appointee. That was before Tewfik moved, nobody thought there would be more than raids on the outlying settlements."

"What was your share?"

"I . . . acted as agent, to collect the rents. Five percent to me; out of . . . three thousand silver FedCreds. A quarter to the officers, and the rest to the Legate, I don't know how he split that with the Chancellor." Brokenly: "My lord, I did not know . . . it seemed that all the others were doing it, and they said Komar would still be safe. The Spirit of Man and of the Stars and the Civil Government have been good to me, my lord: now I see you are Their true servant. I have served a corrupt man in corruption—let me serve you in honesty!"

"
Merida
,"
Raj said quietly.
Shit
.
"So much for our secure base. How many actual troops are there in this town?"

He looked at Muzzaf: a man of mixed blood, probably bitterly determined to make his loyalty unquestioned, as many such were. Who could blame him, for following the lead the Legate and Chancellor gave? An able man as well, invaluable if his remorse was lasting and not a mere fit . . . 

"Ahh, there is the Legate's personal guard, mercenaries from Asaura County." A few snorts; that was in the mountains north and east of the plateau-and-canyon country of Descott, part of the Civil Government only by courtesy. The County Legate of Descott was chosen by the area's gentry, in practice if not theory; the County Legate of Asaura was appointed in East Residence and stayed there, if he had any sense. Even Descotters considered Asaurans backward, but they were much in demand as elite infantry.

"Well, good enough fighters, except that when they're drunk, which is usually, they cut every throat in sight and rape the corpses," Mekkle Thiddo said. "How many of them?"

"About a hundred. Then, there is the town militia, but they are for manning the guns, only. And one of the infantry Captains, he has been maintaining two hundred of his men at his own expense, I think that the others forced him to go along with the billeting scheme by threats. And perhaps as many again, among the retainers of the Messers in town, but they are not organized."

"Not nearly enough to hold the walls," Raj said. Heads turned toward him, eyes full of unspoken questions. And

observe. 
 

—he was looking through his own viewpoint, seeing the hands on the table before him move as they would when he shrugged.

"Well," he said/might say, "there's nothing we can do about it but pray; the Legate's in charge here. We'll just have to be sure we don't
need
a secure base, let the
enemy
worry about that—"

POM-POM-POM—the quickfirer shells slashed into the mass of screaming humans and animals that jammed the gates of Komar. It was dark, lit only by the moons and the fires that were turning the buildings of the White City crimson and black. White-hot metal slashed dogs and oxen and men into things that fell twitching, to be trampled underfoot; others were pushed off the edge of the bridge, into a moat whose bottom bristled with angle-iron stakes.