Lord of Janissaries (26 page)

“To the best of my knowledge,” Lucius said. “I have no reason to doubt it. You are pleased with the gift, then?”

“I am indeed,” Rick said. He frowned. What was this going to cost? “I am pleased that Marselius remembered my interest.”

“He has written down every word you spoke,” Lucius said. “I know, for he dictated them to me.”

“May I see?” Gwen asked.

Rick was reluctant to let the parchment scroll out of his hands. He knew that was silly. He couldn’t read it, and he’d need her help. He gave it to Gwen and watched to see that she didn’t damage it, but she held it as tenderly as she might hold a baby.

“There are other documents,” Lucius said. “One seems to be the story of how a group of soldiers came to this world from another.”

“Where are these documents?” Rick demanded.

“Prefect Marselius has them,” Lucius said. “They, too, could be gifts for you.”

“Your friend is generous,” Rick said.

“What does he want in exchange?” Gwen asked.

Rick frowned at her, but Lucius didn’t seem upset. “Your friendship,” Lucius said. “And an alliance.”

“Alliance?”

“Perhaps I should begin with what has happened since you left.” Lucius shifted in his chair.

“Jamiy,” Rick shouted. “Tea, please.”

“Sir.”

“So what has happened?” Rick asked.

“The legions of the western provinces have proclaimed Marselius as Caesar,” Lucius said. “I see this does not surprise you, and indeed it was inevitable if Marselius did not wish to be recalled to Rome and executed. The soldiers you released from captivity had no more pleasant expectation, and Marselius was popular with the other troops as well— and they could see the Demon Star. They have heard the tales. We all have. They believed Marselius when he told them what he had learned from you of the times of trouble to come. Few of the province, citizen or soldier, believe that our present Caesar will know what to do—or indeed care.

“Naturally, Marselius first sent for his family. His son and grandchildren were on the family estate near Rome. I was tutor to the household, as I have been for thirty years. For the past year, I have been working in the libraries of the friends of Marselius and his son. The letter that ordered young Publius—I call him young Publius, although he is a man older than you, my lord—the letter that ordered young Publius to join his father also instructed me to take many documents including that history by Claudius.” Lucius sighed. “I fear we have betrayed many trusts, but Marselius assures me that the parchments will be replaced for all those who survive the coming times.”

Jamiy brought in a pot of tea and three stone cups. As he put the tray down, Rick studied Gwen. She didn’t seem overjoyed by the news of the documents. Rick wished he could think of a good reason to have her leave. I could simply order her out, he thought.
I don’t have to be polite to anyone—well, except Tylara and her father. What is she hiding from me
? “Jamiy.”

“Sir.”

“Tell Major Mason that our new guests have brought important documents, and that I would like him to see that they are given to no one but me. No matter who might ask for them, they come to me and no one else. Is this understood?”

“Sir.” Jamiy stamped to attention.

“Excellent. Dismissed. Lucius, your story is fascinating. But has Marselius a chance? Will not Caesar bring the other legions against him?”

“Certainly he will try,” Lucius said. “But neither Caesar nor the army likes winter campaigns. They will wait for spring. By spring Marselius will have a surprise for Caesar.” He grinned toothlessly. “Marselius has freed many slaves, and is training them to make and use those long spears you call ‘pikes.’ He has studied your methods well, and is also training crossbowmen since only your hill clans use the longbow.”

“A surprise for Caesar indeed—”

“A surprise for you,” Gwen said. “What advantage will you have now?”

“You need none,” Lucius said. “Marselius offers alliance with you.”

“A trap to get you back onto the plains,” Gwen said.

Rick switched to English to say, “Gwen, teach your grandmother to suck eggs. And please stop interrupting. I want to know everything I can about the situation, and you are not helping.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I seem to be scared all the time lately. I don’t want—I’ll shut up, Rick. And I am sorry.”

“We know that you have no reason to trust Marselius,” Lucius said. “But he does not expect you to send your soldiers to help him. What he wishes is assurance that you will not raid the western provinces. We will pay you well for that. Marselius intends to plant many of the parklands and game preserves in grain. He will build storage places in the high hills. We will keep much, but there will be enough to send you more than you could take by raiding the Empire.”

“Do you have caves to store it in?” Gwen asked.

“Few, Lady.” Lucius looked thoughtful. “The older documents all stress the importance of caves as the only safe place when the fire and the deadly rains fall. There are caves in the northern hills, and others near Rome. Perhaps we can take those. But there is no chance at all if we must fight your hill tribes as well.”

It can work
, Rick thought.
For that matter, I could do more. Once Marselius is involved in a civil war, I could join him. The army would follow me, and with allies in the Empire, I could take Rome itself. A civilized place, with real potential. Who could stop me
? “And he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”

William took all of England with less going for him, and the English were better for it. Well, better in the long run. They didn’t see it that way at the time. “So stark a man,” the chronicles say of him. “So very stern was he, and hot, that no man durst do anything against his will.” But even his enemies said that a man could cross England with his bosom full of gold. I could govern better than Caesar . . .

No, I’m no conqueror, and the face of battle is not a lovely sight. I’d rather be a teacher—and we don’t have to fight anymore.
“It is not my decision alone,” Rick said. “But I will counsel Drumold to accept this offer. And to make another. There is land in the hills below our mountains. The Romans do little with it because they have better. Yet we have crofters with no land at all, and our best is no better than those hills. Let us work that land in peace, and it may be that we will have gifts for Marselius in exchange for the gifts he offers.”

“Rick, you can’t turn down tribute,” Gwen said in English.

“I don’t intend to,” Rick answered. “But trade’s a lot more stabilizing than tribute.” He turned to Lucius. “There will be many details, but I believe we can agree. With the Demon Star coming near, there will be slaughter and death enough. We need not add more.”

2

Rick used charcoal to add another equation to the list on his whitewashed wall. He wished he had been a better physics student. He couldn’t remember the basic equations of harmonic motion, and he wasn’t sure he had derived them correctly. “Newton was one smart cookie,” he muttered to himself.

The wall was covered with equations and notes and memoranda. One whole section listed things urgently needed, such as paper, and better lamps, and an adequate supply of pens and ink—all of which would be needed so that he could copy out a table of logarithms from his pocket calculator before its batteries failed. Another held the best data he had been able to obtain on crop yields. Next to that were diagrams of plow designs and crop-rotation schemes.

There were endless details. The work would never be finished; but it was more satisfying work than building the army had been. The raid had bought time, but now he could do something lasting. Tamaerthon could become a center of learning, a place whose security rested on something more solid than military power. If only he had decent light to work by . . .

When he heard the knock at his door, he turned with relief. The work was satisfying, but conversation was a welcome diversion.

Caradoc stood uncertainly in the doorway. “Come in,” Rick invited. “There’s good wine in the flask on the table.”

“Thank you.” Caradoc poured a cup of wine and looked curiously at Rick’s charcoaled equations and the diagrams of the Tran system. Rick knew that Gwen had been teaching Caradoc to read, and the archer commander had shown a lot of interest in Rick’s work in the past. Today, though, he said nothing.

Rick frowned. “Some problem, Captain? Speak up, man.”

“I am concerned for the lady Gwen,” Caradoc said. “She sits and stares at the fire, and wants no one with her. It cannot be good that she wishes always to be alone.”

“Don’t let her be. Stay with her.”

“Lord, I try, but she has an evil temper.”

“That she does.” Lately she had taken to throwing things. Rick had long since given up trying to talk to her. He looked at his chalked calendar. Tylara had grown increasingly moody as well. Certainly the long winter had a lot to do with that, but she seemed to be brooding over something else as well—something she wouldn’t discuss. I’m surrounded by unhappy women, he thought. Just when things are going so well.

Whatever Tylara’s problem, though, there was a simple explanation for Gwen’s moods. “Her time comes near,” Rick said. “I do not have personal experience, but I am told that all women are hateful for their last days before a child is born. Especially a first child.”

And
, he thought,
it would be particularly tough for Gwen
. She didn’t even know when the baby would come. The local day on Tran was slightly more than twenty-one hours long, and the gestation period seemed to have stabilized at two hunred ninety local days, as opposed to two hunred seventy on Earth; but would that be true for Gwen? No one knew. Straight mathematics; multiply two hunred seventy by twenty-four and divide by twenty-one, and you’d get three hundred days. How much of human physiology responded to hours passed, and how much to the day-night cycle? And was Earth’s moon involved? Women’s menstrual cycles seemed to coincide with Luna, but Tran’s double moons were small and much closer than Earth’s. Did they have an influence?

“You care for Gwen, don’t you?” Rick asked.

“Yes, Lord. And before the raid, I believed she cared for me. Now I do not know.”

“She mourns her husband,” Rick said. “But you are right. She is too much alone. I’ll speak with her about it.”

* * *

“Your boyfriend’s worried about you,” Rick said.

Gwen sat close to the fire. She looked up without smiling. “Oh, leave me alone!”

“For God’s sake, Gwen, snap out of it!”

“Why?”

“Do you think your problems are unique?” Rick demanded.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I put my foot in it that time,” Rick said. “Look, I’ve talked with the midwives. And Yanulf. They think everything’s normal—”

“The medical experts,” Gwen sneered.

“Well, they’ve delivered a lot of babies,” Rick said.

“Sure. And lost a lot of mothers. Rick, I’m scared out of my mind!”

“Sure you are,” Rick said. “Mind if I sit down?”

“Suit yourself.”

“Thanks. Look, I’ve probably started a population explosion here, but I’ve taught them the beginnings of the germ theory of disease,” Rick said.

“You couldn’t have. I’ve tried,” Gwen said.

“You didn’t go about it the right way. I told them diseases were caused by little tiny devils, and that blessed soap and boiled holy water would drive them away. They can accept that.” He looked thoughtful. “You know, I may be right about a population explosion. It happened that way on Earth.”

Before the end of the nineteenth century, women often died of “childbed fever.” But then came Ignaz Semmelweis with his theory that childbed fever was caused by physicians’ dirty hands. His colleagues forced him to resign for saying it was their fault, but though he ended his days in a madhouse eventually enough of them believed him—after that most women lived to raise their children and have more. “There’s no way we won’t change things here,” Rick said. “It isn’t easy, but I’m trying to look ahead. Maybe we can avoid some of the problems we had on Earth.”

“Maybe we can’t.”

“Look, dammit, snap out of it,” Rick said. “You’re working yourself into a depression. Keep it up and you’ll get to me, too.”