Warlord (59 page)

It was more than that, or the clothes or the prestige of a great lady of East Residence, that gathered the crowd, though. Even from here, even after all these years Raj could feel the magnetism; the dour middle-aged politician beside him did too.

Raj took another sip of the plum brandy, somewhat larger this time. Boyce smiled and shook his head and looked away.

"
There are times I'm glad to be fifty,
" he murmured to himself in Namerique. Then in his smooth capital-dialect Sponglish: "I'm happy to see that the diplomatic envoys of the Civil Government have been well-treated here . . . even if there are so many of them."

"Yes," Raj said, equally bland. "It's important that we reach the Lion City area with no unfortunate incidents. The Stalwarts are so difficult to deal with, little sense of civilized restraint."

That was the
official
reason the Expeditionary Force was here, that they were going to "discuss" the status of some port cities in the Western Territories held by the Stalwarts after several decades of war with the Brigade. Claimed by the Civil Government, of course, but not held by it for better than six hundred years.
If I can make him believe that, I can sell pork to the Colonists,
Raj thought.

Boyce smiled whitely in the vast pepper-and-salt bush of his beard. "Indeed. It's unfortunate that my government has had so little success in its diplomatic dealings with the Stalwarts."

Almost as little as in its military dealings,
Raj noted. The Brigade had a more advanced military structure than the Stalwarts, but there was something to be said for several score thousand shrieking berserkers, too.

"Yes, conditions are unsettled. I understand there's trouble down in the Southern Territories, too."

Boyce raised a shaggy eyebrow. "Well, there's been rumors of trouble on Sadler's Island," he said; that was just off the west coast of the main peninsula that made up most of the Squadron lands. "But no, I wouldn't say there's been much trouble. Apart from that I couldn't say at all; my government has excellent relations with the Squadron—we are relatives and fellow-believers, after all—and I wouldn't dream of interfering in their affairs in any way."

In other words, letting us land here is as far as they'll go. 
 

"A pleasure to meet you, young man," Boyce said, shaking Raj's hand; the grip was unexpectedly firm. "I'm sure you'll go far."

"And you likewise, Messer Boyce," Raj replied.

"Oh, I've gone just as far as I want," Boyce said. "Staying there is the problem." He bowed slightly to Raj and left, heading for the buffet and several cronies.

"Ah, Raj darling," Suzette said. It was her Court voice, smooth as buttered rum. "
Look
who Messer Berg has caught for me."

"Messer Hadolfo Reggiri, at your service," the man said. He was ordinary enough, well-dressed in a conservative southern provinces style, plain silk cravat and dark jacket with only a little jewelry. Slimmer than Berg, a little gray in the black of his hair and mustache, with the weathered look of a man who spent much time at sea.

"Hadolfo and I were at the Cyudad Gut town Academy together," Berg said expansively; his face was flushed a little with the wine. "He was always more adventurous than I, alas—he's been here on Stern Isle these twenty years, trading and doing very well."

"Trading in . . . ? "Suzette asked.

Reggiri looked at her, blinking. Normally a shrewd face, Raj thought, probably closed and secretive; you would have to be, trading in these waters, where there was little law. Now he looked as if he had been hit between the eyes with a rifle butt, quite hard.

"Ah, Messa—ah, saltpeter and rosauroid hides, mostly; wine, grain, dried fruit, wool, ironware, slaves—but mostly nitre and hides."

Aha.
Raj felt his ears prickle. There were only two really good sources of saltpeter west of the Colony. One was in crusts in some soils of Diva County, part of the Civil Government . . . and the other was in caves on the desert fringe of the Southern Territories. Back before the Squadron took them, that had been one of the district's main sources of tax revenue, a government monopoly. Doubtless something of that sort now, too; Southern Territories saltpeter was exported to powder mills all over the Midworld Sea, even to East Residence, since it was cheaper than the domestic product. And rosauroids came from the central rocky hills just south of Port Murchison; their hides had high concentrations of silica, and were much in demand for factories, as power belting for transmission from steam engine drive shafts.

Anyone who dealt widely in those products would know a
lot
about the Squadron. He could tell the Squadron a great deal, too; and would, if he was thinking straight. A Civil Government administration in the Southern Territories would make the saltpeter a monopoly again, as sure as Tzetzas stole.

"Hadolfo . . . Messer Reggiri has been kind enough to invite me and Messer Berg to dinner at his country place," Suzette said. Her slim fingers rested on Raj's forearm. "Do say yes, my dear. We'll need an escort of course, but it's
quite
safe and only a few kilometers away."

"By all means," Raj grated. "I'm afraid I can't come, far too busy, but by all means . . ." Berg glowed, preening before his old friend. "Kaltin!" the General called.

"Messer Raj?" the younger officer said.

I wish they wouldn't keep
calling
me that,
Raj thought, gritting his teeth against the need to lash out "Do me a favor, would you, and take . . . oh, a company, and M'lewis, and escort Messa Whitehall and Administrator Berg to this gentleman's manor? They'll be staying for dinner—and I'm sure you'll be welcome as well?"

Reggiri nodded without even taking his eyes off Suzette.

"I'd be glad to," Gruder lied coldly.

"And now if you'll excuse me:—my dear, make my apologies to our guests—I have a great deal to do."
At least I inflicted M'lewis on him,
Raj thought vindictively. He tossed back the slyowtz. M'lewis had the morals of a dactosauroid and the effrontery of a dockside rat . . . 

The camp had settled into late-night routine by the time Raj was finished with the last of the personnel reports
. Damn, this is like being a mayor of a city,
he thought. Worse; most County capitals in the Civil Government had fewer people than the twenty-thousand-odd concentrated here. He was working in his tent; if the men slept under canvas so would he.
And I used to be able to know the names of every man I commanded,
he continued, pouring himself another glass of slyowtz and lighting a cigarette.
Now I'm damned lucky if I can remember the officers and a few hundred more.
 

He took the glass and leaned on the tentpole, looking down the main avenue of the camp. There was little traffic, it was quiet enough to hear the
laplaplap
of waves down by the beach. Most of the troops were sleeping as men did after a hard day's work, glad enough of a hot meal and solid dry ground with room to stretch out. The camp had already taken on the universal smell of an army on the move: sweat and dogshit and greased iron and woodsmoke. Both moons were out and full, low on the horizon, silvering the sea and giving enough light to read by even without the coal-oil lantern hanging from the roof behind him. He took a long drag on the tobacco, holding it until it bit the lungs in a peculiar pleasure-pain, then blew it out at the moons.

The Canonical Handbook said that the True Earth had only one moon, smaller than either Miniluna or Maxiluna . . . there were whole schools of theology which debated whether that was literal, revealed Truth or mere allegory, like the Personal Computer that was supposed to watch over every soul, or the wars in heaven between the angels of the Apple of Knowledge and the Ibemmeraphim. Or whether this had once been the True Earth and so had only one moon, later split into two at the Fall, although that was dangerously close to the Spirit of This Earth heresy.

"I know," he murmured, taking another mouthful of the plum brandy. It burned, like white fire along his gullet, and he exhaled with a hard
sshhha.
"I've seen the True Earth and the Single Moon. I
have
a personal angel, access to all the wisdom of the Spirit's Mind."

"Sir?" The guard officer was a figure in shadow.

"Nothing, son. As you were."

exercise more care,
Center said coldly in the back of his mind.

Quiet,
he replied. "We all have our Operating Code, try and edit it as we will."
You too, I suppose.
 

Faintly he heard the sound of a challenge and response from the main gate, and the squeal as the spike-studded logs were pulled aside. The muffled thumping of paws sounded down the deserted alleyways; another challenge came from a roving internal patrol, close enough to be separated into words.

"Who goes?"

"Escort party a' th' 7th Descott, returnin'," he heard.

"Advance and be recognized . . . Pass, friend."

But there were too few, far less than the company that had gone out. Eight men, a squad, and a ninth on a big shambling Chow. Administrator Mihwel Berg, sliding off with a sulky look on his face as he stalked into the puddle of yellow lamplight outside Raj's tent. His own was nearby, here in officer country.

"Messer Berg," Raj said. "Where are the others?"

Berg's thin face looked as if he had bitten into a lemon, and bloodshot eyes blinked behind his glasses. "Back there. With
my friend
Messer Reggiri. Your
wife
decided it was too late for anyone to come back, but
I
made it well enough." The bureaucrat glared at him like a rabbit turning on a hunting sauroid. "What do you propose to do about it?"

"Do?" Raj said. "Finish this bottle. Come on in, half drunk is only half done."

The remaining hundred and fifteen men of the escort company came into camp an hour after the dawn service. Most of the troops were at drill or fatigues, but there were enough left in the 7th's billet area to groan and whistle their envy at the escorts. The men were riding their usual dogs, mostly Descotter farmbreds, but each was leading two or three others on checkreins. The led dogs were Ridgebacks, a short-muzzled, long-legged breed easily distinguished by the odd upright curl of hair along the spine that gave the breed its name. These were pedigree animals, clean-limbed, bitches and geldings of two or three years and broken to the saddle; the breed was famous for its endurance in hot weather, and each animal was worth a year's pay for a cavalry trooper, possibly more. Their pack-saddles held coils of sausage, flagons of wine and boxes of cigarettes, sacks of Zanjian kave beans and cured hams from the Stalwart territories.

Gruder, M'lewis, and the company commander, Tejan M'brust, had extra dogs as well. They were also each accompanied by a woman on a palfrey-dog. The girls—none of them looked over seventeen—wore the collars that Brigade law required of slaves, but theirs were of thin chased silver. They carried light parasols to shade their complexions, necessary since two were blondes and one a redhead, and any of them would have fetched five hundred gold FedCreds in East Residence; not to mention their clothes and jewelry, and the twin suitcases each had on a packdog.

The officers reined in in front of the command tent and saluted; all of them were stone-faced, and Gruder did not meet Raj's eyes.

"Sir!" he barked. "Returning as ordered. Permission to report to my command, sir?"

"Nothing to report, Major?" Raj asked.

"No, sir."

"Dismissed."

He heeled his dog around with unnecessary violence; the slave-girl squeaked and clutched at the pommel of her saddle as her mount followed his. Suzette dismounted and handed Harbie's reins to a groom.

"What, no presents for me?" Raj said softly, with a stark grin.

There were spots of red on her cheeks, but her eyes met his steadily as she offered a sheaf of paper. Raj took it and looked down at the first page. Then he grunted as if belly-punched.

"Fellow soldiers," Raj began.

A long slow roar built up through the crowd, a huge semicircle of blue jackets and brown faces, spotted with the green-and-gold of Poplanich's Own, the gorgets of the 17th Hemmar Valley Cuirassiers, and the multicolored blaze of the barbarian mercenaries. A corner of the berm and the gentle slope leading up to it gave seating sufficient that most of the army could see him and the Companions seated on the improvised dais. The officers of the force were down in front where they could hear him; many of the men could too, and there was a rippling murmur as his words were relayed back to the rear ranks. Only the officers could see the map on the easel behind him, but that was not much of a drawback.

The cheer had started with the men who'd served under him in the east, then spread to the others. Da Cruz had told him—with an innocent expression—that the story of the hardtack had gotten out.

Spirit damn it, shut up, he thought. I may be leading you all to death, for Spirit's sake. 

"Fellow soldiers," he continued, when the noise had died down. "You all know that we're embarked on a dangerous mission. Well, I'm glad to say I have some good news for you; it's still dangerous, but it's not suicide. The Squadrones—I have this on the best of authorities—the Squadron still has its head tucked up its behind—they don't know we're coming!"

This time the cheer was a roar.

"The Squadron's Admiral thinks everything he's heard about us is just smoke and mirrors, rumors like the ones that come up every couple of years since the last expedition failed." Raj leaned forward, grinning like a sauroid and tapping one fist into a palm. "Isn't he going to be surprised?"

The soldiers howled laughter. "In fact, the pick of the Squadron levy, ten thousand men, sailed three weeks ago for Sadler Island, to put down a revolt." His swagger-stick traced the course, from Port Murchison away around the western coast of the north-pointing peninsula. "Under Commodore Curds Auburn, the Admiral's brother and his best general. With all their fleet, every war-galley they have in commission. The biggest threat to this force was being intercepted at sea—and now it's gone. The Spirit has put its protecting hands over us."