David Drake - General 02 - The Hammer

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THE GENERAL, Volume Two
by S.M. Stirling and David Drake
THE GENESIS OF THE GENERAL SERIES . . .
When I met Steve Stirling for the first time about five years ago, I was so
impressed by his breadth and depth of interests that I told Jim Baen that
Steve was a writer to watch out for. Jim did, and Baen Books became Steve's
publisher.
Steve and I wondered how the two of us would work together in collaboration.
Jim provided the opportunity: THE GENERAL. I researched the life of the great
Byzantine general Belisarius, then wrote approximately 20,000 words of
background and plot set on a human-settled planet which had sunk to roughly
the technological level of 19th century America. I outlined in meticulous
detail the battles by which my hero reunited his world.
"The Forge [Book One of THE GENERAL] . . . is quite simply one of the best
novels to bear my name."
Then it was Steve's turn. I waited nervously. I'd invested a great deal of my
self as well as my time in that outline, and one thing I was sure was that the
finished novel wouldn't be quite the way I would have written it
I was wrong: The Forge is exactly the way I would have written it, if I'd had
Steve's knowledge base in addition to my own. The Forge is quite simply one of
the best novels to bear my name -- but the main credit for that goes to Steve
Stirling, who translated my outline into life and vibrancy.
-- David Drake
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APPENDIX
REGULAR CAVALRY
IRREGULAR CAVALRY
INFANTRY
ARTILLERY
ORGANIZATION
RECRUITMENT, PAY, AND RATIONS
UNIFORM
WEAPONS
NAVAL FORCES
CHAPTER ONE
"Raj?" Thom muttered. Then, slightly shocked: "Raj!"
The two young men stared at each other for a moment. Raj Whitehall felt his
skin ridging in horror; nothing had changed here in nearly two years. Nothing
at all since that moment when Thom Poplanich had frozen into immobility in the
round mirrored room that was the body of the being that called itself Sector
Command and Control Unit AZ12-b14-c000 Mk. XIV. Thom still had the unhealed
shaving nick on his thin olive cheek, the tear in his floppy tweed trousers
made by a ricochet when Raj tried to shoot his way out with his ceremonial
revolver. Whereas for Raj . . . a lifetime. Thom had remained here; Center had
sent Raj Whitehall out to be its agent in the fallen world.
"Raj, you're -- "
"Older. Two years older. Everyone's older except you, Thom," Raj said gently,
forcing calm into his voice.
He had been forcing calm ever since he made himself go down once more into the
catacombs beneath the East Residence. This place was something that did not
belong in the prosaic world, in the one thousand one hundred and fifth year of
the Fall. Forcing himself not to run at the remembered scent, the absolute
neutrality of filtered air, like nothing else in the world . . . The eerie
not-floor that somehow supported him without touching his bootsoles, the
perfect mirror of the walls that reflected one thing and not another. His hand
clutched the grip of his five-shot revolver, not for any good the weapon might
do but for the comfort of the honest iron and wood.
This was where his life had changed twenty months ago; the shock in Thom's
eyes made him aware of it again, that and the fresh-faced youthfulness of the
friend who had been older and wiser and more knowing in the ways of the City.
Raj brought up an image of himself as he had been, and as he was: still tall
and raw-boned, 190 centimeters, broad-shouldered and long-limbed. The brown,
high-cheeked, hook-nosed face was more lined now, and there was something in
the eyes . . . .
"What's happened to me?" Thom asked shakily.
"Nothing. Center is -- "
thom poplanich has had access to all knowledge in the human universe as of the
fall of the Federation, Center said in a slightly waspish mental voice; there
was no tone to it, but there was some inner equivalent of inflection, in
addition, he has the services of a Sector Command and Control Unit
AZ12-b14-c000 Mk. XIV to guide him through it. surely this is more than
nothing.
"That's right," Thom said, some of the tension easing out of his voice; he
licked his lips, and Raj wordlessly handed over his canteen. His friend
uncorked it and drank gratefully; it was water cut one-quarter with wine and a
slice of lime thrown in. Raj had come properly prepared this time; just a
pistol for the rats and native spersauroids, a rope and an old jacket.
"That's right, it's been showing me. . . . Raj, what's happened to Bellevue
since we lost FTL travel is like a scale model of what happened to the
Federation -- "
Thom was never religious before, Raj thought. In fact, Thom had scoffed at his
friend's simple belief in the Holy Federation, and the scriptural tales of the
days before the Fall from the Stars, when all men were one with the Spirit and
there was neither poverty nor age nor death. Now he talked of ancient things
as if they were as real and tangible as the prosaic modern world of gaslights
and carriages.
" -- Center says there's some sort of natural centrifugal effect at work,
breaking things down smaller and smaller -- "
observe Center said.
***
-- and men and women howled, milling across the great square. Some of the
buildings around it had the glossy look of UnFallen Man, huge things that
looked to be built impossibly of crystal and lacework. Others were more
conventional, stone and brick, columns and domes, although not in any style he
knew, and ancient-looking beyond words; a great reflecting pool ran down the
center, ending in a spikelike monument. A single small moon hung yellow in the
night sky, but the lights below bathed the faces of the crowd brighter than
daylight, brighter even than the arc-lights at a Gubernatorial Levee. A man
was speaking from a dais on one side of the pool; some UnFallen technological
magic threw his head and shoulders hill-huge across one of the great buildings
behind him. His voice boomed like a god's, and the crowd shrieked back in an
agony of adoration and fear.
Suddenly there was a commotion at one side of the mass of humanity. Troops
were pushing into the crowd, heading for the speaker; in dreamlike oddity they
were primitively equipped, with helmets and long clubs, and shields that
looked like glass but could not be, from the battering they were taking.
Locked in a phalanx, they pushed through, a bubble of order in the milling
chaos. Then the man on the dais pointed and shouted a command. Bottles and
rocks flew toward the soldiers, then a wave of human bodies. What followed was
like heavy surf breaking on a reef, but here it was the reef that crumbled.
When the mob withdrew, the shield-bearers lay scattered . . . many scattered
in separate pieces.
What looked like flying boxes darted out over the crowd. Streaks of fire
lanced out from one, trailing smoke toward the man giving the speech. The
timber framework of the dais exploded into a ball of orange flame, and more
fire-lances slashed down into the crowd. Suddenly the supernal lights went
out, and the buildings were dark except for the light of fires, light enough
to see the thousands trampled to death as the crowd fled . . .
-- and the viewpoint was in a room. The walls were lined with technology,
flat screens and readouts such as you might see on any altar in the Civil
Government, but functioning, incomprehensible pictures and columns of figures,
the whole giving off a subliminal hum of life. Two men floated in the center
of the room as if it were underwater; they were dressed in tight blue
overalls, the uniform of Holy Federation as preserved in the ancient Canonical
Handbook. The younger man was speaking, an urgent whisper. The language was
Old Namerique, a tongue that survived only in fragments and in the debased
form the western barbarians used, but somehow Raj understood it:
"Admiral Kenner, we've got to cut off the rot in that sector. We must, sir.
One quick raid, we drop off a Bethe missile on delay, and take out the Tanaki
Net. It's like cauterizing a wound, sir."
The older man nodded, his face stony. "Make it so, Commodore," he said,
jackknifing to grab a handhold and touch a screen. "I've keyed the release
codes in to your access."
"Thank you very much, sir," the younger man said. The Admiral had just enough
time to look around and meet the knife . . .
-- and Raj was watching East Residence from far above; not the city of his
own day, but the ancient town with its broad grassy avenues and dreamlike
towers. Then light sparked at its center, sun-bright, and spheres of cloud
rippled out across the cityscape in its wake. A cloud rose towering,
mushroom-shaped . . .
-- and he was in the streets of East Residence, seeing familiar buildings
but turned tumbled and weed-grown. Men in the uniform of his own service
fought a desultory street-battle, seeming more intent on plundering the few
remaining shops and homes. Two tumbled in combat below his motionless
eye-point, faces distorted as they struggled hand-to-hand with rifles braced
against each other. Then one twisted aside and smashed the butt across the
other's face, reversing and driving the long bayonet through his belly. He did
not bother to withdraw it before he went through the victim's pockets,
ignoring the twitchings and feeble pawings of the dying man . . .
-- and the Governor's Palace was a grassy mound grown with oaks; Raj
recognized it only because of the shape of the harbor below, a long oval
running east-west. You could still see the pattern of the streets through the
forest, and here and there a snag of walls, or the humped shapes of the
defensive earthworks. The sound of children running and playing echoed through
the open parkland. In the foreground two men crouched by a fire; one was
skillfully chipping a spearhead from a piece of glass, with the wooden shaft
and a bundle of sinew for binding lying near. The other was butchering a
carcass for roasting, working with slivers of glass and a stone hammer for
breaking the bones. Both men were naked save for hide loincloths and shaggy as
bears; it was a moment before Raj realized the body they were butchering was
also human . . . .
***
Raj shuddered; visions of things that had been, that were, that still might
be. "That's what men come to without the Spirit," he said.
Thom blinked at him. "Well, that's one way of putting it," he agreed.
Raj nodded, swallowing and looking away. "Yeah. I, ah, well, I asked Center if
I could see you, because we're -- the Expeditionary Force is leaving for the
Southern Territories. The Governor -- Barholm; his uncle Vernier died and
Barholm's in the Chair -- is set on retaking them. I'm certainly going with
the army . . . and I'll probably be commanding it."
It was Thom's turn to be shocked. "Congratulations . . . but isn't that a bit
of a jump for a Captain, even if he is one of the new Governor's Guards?"
Raj smiled, rueful and bitter. "Things have sort of changed, Thom," he said.
He saw his friend stiffen and a faint almost-glimmer slide across his eyes.
Raj Whitehall needed no vision from Center to see what Thom Poplanich was
being shown. Raj's memory provided that, and his dreams more often than he
liked.
The line breaking at El Djem as the fugitives took them in the back. Suzette
wild-eyed, shouting They're dead, they're all dead to his question. The
milling bulk of red-robed Colonists around the final laager, his own voice
shouting Fall back one step and volley! over and over again, raw and hoarse,
the choking cloud of powder smoke as the cannon cut loose, and the nightmare
retreat through the desert. Governor Vernier dying, and Barholm and Lady Anne
Clerett at the foot of the bed amid the ministers and priests and doctors;
Anne's face, like something perched in a tree watching a sick sheep. Sandoral,
and the Colonist battalions marching over the ridge in perfect order under
their green banners, down into the gunsmoke where two hundred cannon dueled.
The heaps of dead before his trenches, and that last moment when he knew they
weren't going to break and then they did -- wondering where the Colonist
ruler, the Settler, had escaped to, until the Skinner mercenary brought him
Jamal's head grinning at some private joke of death.
"So there are advantages to being a hostage, you see," Raj said with envious
sadness.
thom poplanich is not a hostage, Center corrected, with the passionless
pedantry that was its most frequent tone, to release him now would threaten
the plan to reunite Bellevue, to rebuild the Tanaki Spatial Displacement
System, and if necessary to rebuild the Federation from here.
Thom smiled, looking up slightly; when he spoke, Raj recognized the tone of a
long-standing argument.
"That'll take generations; centuries, even. Provided that it doesn't fail,
which you admit is more probable than not"
the shortest journey ends at one false step, Center replied.
Thom laughed, cutting off the chuckle at his friend's bewilderment. "There
used to be a saying that the longest journey -- oh, never mind, it doesn't
translate well into Sponglish anyway." He shrugged, the expressive
"unavoidable -- circumstance" resignation of an East Residence dweller.
"Since Center has elected you its instrument in the crusade, what do you think
of the idea, Raj?" he asked.
Raj ran his hand through the short black curls that covered his head.
"I don't know, Thom, I honestly don't. I'm a soldier, not a priest; it's what
I was born for."
For five hundred years the Whitehalls had fought the Civil Government's wars,
dying in them often enough, and leaving only an urn of ashes or a sword to be
brought home to their ancestral lands in Descott County.
"But you know me, too old-fashioned and country-bred to have an original
thought. I serve the Spirit of Man of the Stars and the Holy Federation; and
since I'm a soldier, I serve them as a soldier must, in the field and under
arms. I . . . I don't think I deserve an angel for a counselor, not really. If
that's what Center is." It was certainly a computer, and such had been the
immaterial servants of Holy Federation, right enough. "I just know I have to
do my best.
"I used to think that war was glory. Now . . . the only thing to say for it is
that it shows you what men are. I've made some good friends over the past
year, damn good. And I think I've got some aptitude for this shit; what that
says about me, I don't know. But I have to try."
Thom held out his hand; Raj squeezed it in his. "I know you always will do
your best," Thom said. "Spirit, how I envied you that single-mindedness." He
laughed shortly. "Starless Dark, this isn't so bad; I was a scholar by
temperament anyway; just my bad luck I was the old Governor's nephew. You
might say we both had the misfortune to get what we asked for."
Raj made himself meet his friend's eyes. "Thom, there's one last thing. About
-- "
"Des, yes. Center told me." Thom met the gaze. "He was my brother; he was also
an idiot. Letting himself be sucked into that scheme to overthrow Barholm was
suicide, Raj. He ran onto your sword."
Actually I burned him alive, Raj thought, swallowing and remembering the sound
and the smell from the room below. Him and about a hundred others. Most of
them had deserved it, although not the hapless troopers who'd gotten caught up
in the coup attempt. Des Poplanich had been no more guilty, so naive he didn't
even know he was a puppet. And Spirit knew Barholm had done enough to deserve
enemies . . . .
"That'll leave Ehwardo as the head of the family -- since I'm effectively
dead down here," Thom went on; that was his first cousin, and the only adult
male Poplanich left. "Raj . . . look out for him if you can?"
"I'll try. He's never shown any interest in politics, or anything but
commanding the House battalion, anyway. I've got some capital with the Chair .
. . I will try." He drew himself up and saluted, fist to brow. "Goodbye, Thom.
I'll be back, if I can."
Even as he turned, Thom Poplanich was freezing into immobility, a statue in
the perfect mirrored sphere, nothing alive but his mind.
***
"Great Spirit, Raj, the War Council meeting is starting in five minutes; where
have you -- " Suzette halted, forced a smile.
Her eyes flicked over the dirt and ancient dust on her husband's clothes.
In the tunnels, she knew with a chill. Raj had never told her exactly how Thom
Poplanich had disappeared down there with his oldest friend . . . which meant
he had told nobody.
Barholm thinks Raj shot him in the back and left the body, she knew. Which
shows how much our esteemed Governor knows about my husband.
Suzette would have done that -- Thom had been getting too dangerous to know,
with the succession uncertain and so many of the old nobility still loyal to
the House of Poplanich -- but her family had been City dwellers, court nobles
until they lost their lands a generation ago. The Whitehall estates were
secure and far enough from East Residence to afford luxuries like honor.
"Well, no matter," she said brightly. "Come on, you useless girls, attend to
the master! You don't have time for a real change, darling, but do get that
rag off!"
"They'll have to wait for me, then -- or more likely they won't," Raj said
harshly; the new lines graven from either side of his nose to the corners of
his mouth deepened. Then he forced relaxation and smiled at her. "I've had
other things on my mind," he said more gently.
The maids descended on him in a twittering horde of perfume and rustling linen
and soft hands; there were a lot more of them, now that he had bought the
rights to the old House Poplanich section of the Palace. Four courtyards, a
reception hall, a dining room with enough seating for a forty-guest banquet,
servants' quarters . . . and this pleasant terrace with glass-door walls
overlooking the gardens. There was a view through tall cypress trees, down
across velvety lawns and marble statuary -- mostly religious, spaceships and
terminals -- fountains, topiary and winding paths of colored gravel. The air
was cool and fresh from last night's late spring rain, clearer than usual in
this smoky city; a tumbled majesty of red-tiled roofs and low square towers
spread down to the great warehouses and the docks to the south, a distant
surf-roar of noise from the streets.
"Just the jacket," he grunted. Two of the maids knelt and did their best with
damp cloths on his boots; others stripped off his coat, brought the
walking-out uniform tunic with its epaulets, buckled him into it, fastened the
belt and shoulder-strap with the dress saber and ivory-handled revolver,
dropped the sash with its orders and decorations over his head, combed his
hair, handed him the dress gloves and gilded plumed helmet -- both of those
were seldom worn but it was de rigueur to carry them at Court functions . . .
.
"At least I don't have to wear those damned tights and codpiece," he grumbled.
Full-dress uniform was not required for business meetings. Pity poor Barholm,
he thought ironically. The Governor had to wear twenty pounds of gold
embroidery every time he got out of bed. Of course, he probably enjoys it --
he spent enough time scheming to get it.
"Oh, I think they bring out your . . . assets quite well, my sweet," Suzette
said, sinking into her chair and considering him with her chin on one fist
Raj gave an unwilling snort of laughter, meeting the tilted green mockery of
his wife's eyes. His heart gave a little lurch as he watched her, even then;
Suzette Emmenalle Forstin Hogor Wenqui Whitehall had that effect on most men.
Small, scarcely up to his shoulder, greyhound-slim and graceful, breeding
showing like light through fine porcelain. And alive, so alive . . .
"Will you take it?" she asked quietly.
"Probably. Spirit of Man knows nobody else with any experience wants the
Expeditionary Force. This is a formality, really . . . unless I screw up."
"Can you do it?"
Raj slapped his gloves into the palm of one hand. "I think so." One more thing
I love about you. You never give me an optimistic lie, and you think, my
angel.
"A lot depends . . . We don't know enough about the Squadron. The Ministry of
Barbarians hasn't been expending enough effort in that direction. Orbit of
Righteousness! We've had little enough contact with them for a couple of
generations now. At least the Governor has picked the right man for the civil
side."
Suzette's brows arched a question.
"Just heard," he said. Was that Center? Sometimes I can't tell, these days.
"Mihwel Berg; he's from Cyudad Gut, his family trades heavily all through the
central Midworld Sea, he's got friends and relatives outside the Civil
Government area too. He'll be invaluable . . . if he cooperates."
She came over to him, put her hands on his shoulders and stood tiptoe; he bent
to take the kiss. Suddenly she gripped him fiercely.
"You can do it," she said, whispering in his ear. "You -- sometimes I think
the rumors are true, you know, and the Spirit has touched you."
He straightened, giving her a crooked grin and a salute.
***
Messa Suzette Whitehall stood as he left, blinking in thought and tapping her
thumb against her chin.
"Leave me," she said to the maids. "Not you, Ndella," she added to a tall
gawky Zanj woman as the others made their curtsy and rustled out. When they
were alone: "Fetch kave, and get me Abdullah and . . . hmmm, Fatima. Bring
them yourself. Be discreet."
"Messa."
The black left with silent efficiency. Suzette had been raised in a great
household of East Residence, and she had her own ideas on how to manage here
in the Palace. Raj would have been glad to find their servants from
Hillchapel, the Whitehall family estate, but Descotters were too awkward in
the city and free servants too easily corrupted, in her opinion. Like most,
she bought her household staff, but unlike most she gave it personal
attention. Only those from outside the Civil Government, with neither friends
nor family here, only the strong, healthy, and intelligent, and only after
careful personal examination. She saw to their training, and education in some
cases. Each was paid a small wage, with promise of eventual manumission and
enough for a dowry or a shop or a farm. The only punishment was the threat of
sale.
Most people underestimated slaves, even more than men underestimated women.
And they talked in front of their servants as if they were deaf, too.
Ndella entered bearing a tray. A man in nondescript but respectable clothing
followed her, pewter-buckled shoes and dull-gold pants, black coat and plain
linen cravat. A plumply pretty young woman carrying a year-old child followed
him; she was dressed in the pleated skirt, embroidered jacket and lace
mantilla of a respectable city matron, perhaps a bureaucrat or artisan's wife,
but her looks were pure Arab. The child was darker, and even barely walking
had something of the heavy-boned solidity of a Descotter.
"Peace be with you," Suzette said in fluent Arabic, a tongue they all had in
common, and a little safer than Sponglish.
"And upon you, peace," they replied. Ndella served the others and then sank
back on her heels. The tantalizing odor of fresh-brewed kave tinged the flower
and incense scents of the room; bees murmured in the lilac bushes outside the
window.
"Abdullah," she said.
"Saaidya," the Druze replied, rising quickly to check outside the window and
back through the door before returning to the table. He had been born Abdullah
al'-Azziz; technically, he would have been Abdullah cor Wenqui -- freedman
of the Wenqui family -- if the records of that transaction had been in the
register. "I have prepared a preliminary report on Messer Berg; his home,
connections, wealth, and opinions."
The little Druze pulled a small role of paper from one sleeve of his jacket
and handed it to her.
"My summation: Messer Berg is indeed the most promising man for the post.
However, he was appointed primarily because he is in disfavor with Chancellor
Tzetzas; a little matter of percentages from intervening fees in a tax-farming
bid. He is furthermore under suspicion from the Anti-Viral Cleansers" -- the
investigative arm of the Church -- "because relatives of his, living in
Brigade territory, have converted to the cult of Spirit of Man of This Earth.
All in all, this is a hardship posting for him, a punishment. He may recoup
his position either by brilliant success -- he probably considers this
unlikely, sharing the general opinion of the military probabilities -- or by
ruining Messer Whitehall, thus gaining the favor of Tzetzas."
She nodded. It was quite possible he could somehow contrive the expedition's
ruin; and escape blame for it, too.
"Thank you, Abdullah," she said sincerely, tucking the sheaf of notes into her
own sleeve. He bowed, smiling. Pleasure at her gratitude, and at the
excitement of the task.
"Ndella," she continued.
The Zanj bobbed her head. Her flat black face was exotic to East Residence
eyes, and Suzette had added gold snake-coils for her arms and neck to heighten
the effect. People in the Civil Government rarely encountered Zanj, and knew
them mostly through highly biased accounts from the Colony. The Colonists were
commercial rivals of the southern continent's city-states, there were frequent
military clashes -- full-fledged war quite recently, which was how Ndella
had ended up on a Sandoral auction-block -- and the orthodox Sunni Muslims
of the Colony detested the Reformed Baha'i heresy the Zanj practiced. To hear
the Colonists talk, all Zanj were depraved savages who ate their young and
mated with anything, carnosauroids included.
So nobody in East Residence would be likely to suspect that Ndella, for
example, was literate in four languages . . . .
"Messa Whitehall, I have now access to Messer Berg's Palace household; a few
matters of healing, and, ah" -- she coughed discreetly -- "I have become
very good friends with one of the household servants, an undercook." Ndella
liked girls, usually a matter of indifference but here rather useful.
"Lorhetta has been adding the capoyam to Messer Berg's chili, on the
understanding it improves his digestion and temper.
"Add the beyem," she went on, briefly showing a small glass vial, "to anything
he drinks, and . . . heart failure. Perfectly safe for those not sensitized by
the capoyam. Undetectable."
. . . and nobody would be likely to suspect Ndella was a doctor, either.
Women could learn medicine in the Civil Government, although most who did were
also Renunciate Sisters, but the Colony was very restrictive. Everyone would
assume the Zanj were even more so.
"Excellent," Suzette said. "Thank you, my friends."
Abdullah and the black woman took the hint, leaving quickly. Fatima released
her squirming son; the boy ran half a dozen steps and grabbed the cushions of
the opposite couch. He turned his head to give the two women a toothless grin
of delight, then hauled himself along the settee hand-over-hand, until he came
face to face with the house cat sleeping curled up on a cushion at the end.
The animal opened yellow eyes and submitted to pats and gurgling cries of
pleasure for a moment before fleeing; the baby went on all fours and began a
determined pursuit.
Fatima turned back to Suzette with the same bright-eyed interest she had shown
for the last half hour; the hint had been delivered, however. She had a child
to consider.
Suzette put aside envy; there was no time, not now, later . . . "Young Barton
seems to thrive," Suzette said.
Fatima sighed. "Only if his father does," she replied, a little more subdued.
Suzette leaned back, nodding and sipping at her kave. Her own point had been
conceded. Whichever one is his father, she thought. But both of them are Raj's
men.
The Arab girl had nearly taken out the eye of a 5th Descott trooper while he
and his squad tried to rape her, back in El Djem, the Colonial border-hamlet
where she had grown up as a very minor daughter of a minor concubine of the
town's mayor. Fatima bint Caid, she had been then; Fatima cor Staenbridge, she
was now. Two of Raj's officers had rescued her from an unpleasant death by the
trooper's bayonet -- on a whim more than anything else, being lovers
themselves -- and she managed to make it back to the Civil Government border
with the 5th during the chaotic nightmare of the retreat through the desert. A
prudent career move, given the options available to an ex-virgin with no
family in the Colony's strict Islamic society.
She had been pregnant as well; by Gerrin or Barton, but it was the heirless
Gerrin Staenbridge who had manumitted her and adopted the child. Which made
her a free commoner technically, with a nice little annuity and excellent
prospects as mother of a nobleman's heir; besides that, she was still the --
very occasional -- mistress of both men, and well-liked. Gerrin Staenbridge
and Barton Foley were both Companions now, their fortunes as one with Raj's;
Gerrin was his right-hand man. "You have been very kind to me, Messa Suzette,"
Fatima said, in a quiet tone.
That was true enough; Raj and she had stood Star-parent to young Barton
Staenbridge, which was a lifetime tie and taken seriously by the Civil
Government's nobility. And Suzette had eased her path socially, as well. A
mistress could not be received formally, even if she was the mother of an
acknowledged son, but informal acceptance was possible -- if the consensus
of the Messas, the gentlewomen, favored it. Suzette had seen that it did, and
she had the ear of Lady Anne, the Governor's wife.
"I anxious am -- sorry, am anxious to repay your kindness," she said,
dropping back into the Sponglish she had made such an effort to learn.
Suzette leaned over and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, my dear --
it's just that sometimes we have to . . . look out for the men. Now, what I'd
like you to do is drop by on Tanha Heyterez." Berg's mistress, and rather a
neglected one, according to rumor. "She's a country girl, just in from
Kendrun, and doesn't know anyone here." Hence likely to be desperately lonely
and ready to talk. "She needs a friend . . . and Berg needs to be brought
around to helping -- himself, too -- rather than hindering.
"So what I need to know," she went on, lowering her voice, "is everything
about Messer Berg. Particularly the things his woman would know: what he
fears, what he likes, what his tastes are."
Fatima nodded slowly. "I understand, Messa Whitehall," she said formally. Then
she grinned, an urchin expression that made her face look its eighteen years
again. "I have a problem, though. Barton and Gerrin, they don't want me to
come on campaign with them this time. Gerrin wants me to go back to his lands,
stay with his wife."
"Why not?" Suzette asked. Since a childless wife could be divorced at will,
the lady in question ought to be fairly grateful; now that Staenbridge had an
heir, she was safe. Nor was there likely to be much jealousy, since, from what
Suzette had learned, Gerrin's wife had known his tastes before the wedding.
"Boring!" Fatima said. "Besides, I want be there if they're hurt."
Suzette nodded understanding; she had always followed the drum herself. It was
bad enough to send Raj off to battle; to be a thousand kilometers away, not
even knowing for months -- she shuddered slightly. And he needs me.
"I can't interfere in Messer Staenbridge's household," she pointed out gently.
"Oh, I take care of that. I got Gerrin to promise I could come as long as I
healthy -- now he and Barton trying to get me pregnant again so I have to
stay home."
"You don't like that?" Suzette said, surprised.
"Oh, I like the trying, just don't want it to work."
They laughed together, Suzette a little harder than she had expected. There
had been few enough chances for humor, in the past few months here in the
Palace. Maneuvering against Chancellor Tzetzas was not something you could do
with less than your whole intent, even if you were a good friend of the
Governor's wife.
"That I can help with," Suzette said, wiping her eyes. "Or rather Ndella can,
when I tell her to." She quieted. "I'll be glad to get out of East Residence
again," she said. "Out where you can see things coming."
Which was odd, she thought, sitting in silence after the young Arab girl had
left. Back in her own girlhood -- sometimes she had to remind herself she
was still four years shy of thirty -- Suzette had never looked uphill to the
Palace without a stab of envy. That was her birthright, the legacy of the
Wenqui gens; forty generations of East Residence nobility, ever since the
Governors had come, fleeing the military takeovers in the Old Residence.
Poverty had kept her out, and the need to care for Father after Mother died
coughing her lungs out, leaving Suzette chatelaine of a dying house at
fourteen.
Poor Father. Always with his books and a few old cronies, never even noticing.
Not noticing when she had to sell off the furniture and the paintings and the
rugs to feed them and pay the doddering ancient servants she hadn't the heart
to dismiss, when the pitiful rents from their last few farms had to go to keep
the townhouse from being sold under their feet. All the years of scrimping and
wheedling to get invitations, lessons, research, the coldly calculated
dalliances, all aimed at precisely this. A big suite in the Palace apartments,
wealth, recognition, to be a known and feared player in the ancient, stylized
minuet of intrigue . . .
All wasted, my love, she thought with a warm irony. Whom had she been hoping
to meet at Alois Orehuela's garden-party? She couldn't even remember that now.
Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall had been just another name on a stolen
guest-list, another uncouth Descotter squire down from the northeastern hills,
doubtless with a tail of bandits-in-uniform dangling after him and barely able
to tell which fork to eat the fish with . . . and then I saw you, looking like
a sword in a silverware set and all that training and effort I went through
was for nothing.
"No, not quite for nothing," she mused softly to herself, walking to the
windows and out onto the terrace.
Leaning on the railing she could look down toward the graceful but
square-built barracks that flanked the main gates. Insect-tiny with distance,
the Guard was changing, figures wheeling and halting on the checkered colored
brick of the plaza. Faintly the cool brass of trumpets and the rough beat of
drums sounded; the blue-and-gold Star banner of Holy Federation was lowered
and raised, salutes and ritual words were exchanged.
"Here there are so many enemies you can't fight face to face, with gun and
sword and soldier's honor," she whispered. Her face grew bleak as the edge of
a knife. "So I'll do it for you, my love. Whether you ever know it or not."
CHAPTER TWO
The four Companions rose from the benches and saluted as the door to the
Whitehall apartments opened; a pair of 5th Descott troopers snapped to
attention and raised bayoneted rifles to the present. Raj grunted in
acknowledgment and returned the gesture; these were old comrades, veterans of
the Komar campaign and the Battle of Sandoral out on the eastern frontier. His
Companions, to use the archaic phrase they had resurrected in what was only
half a joke.
"We'd better hurry, gentlemen," he said shortly.
They fell in behind him, left hands resting on the hilts of their sabers. The
whole party fell unconsciously into step, the iron hobnails and heel-plates of
their riding boots echoing on the marble flags of the corridor. Like most of
the East Residence, this section consisted of two-story blocks set around
courtyards; they clattered up a flight of stairs and into an entry hall, where
whispering knots of officers and courtiers parted to make room. Brigadier
Whitehall was well known, after last year's triumph in the east, and the
suppression of the coup attempt that followed. So were his Companions; for
that matter, the almost ostentatious plainness of their issue uniforms, maroon
pants and blue tail-coats and round helmets, stood out in a Residence crowd.
Kaltin Gruder was the first to speak; he was still limping slightly, from a
bullet through the thigh during the battles on the Drangosh. He had been
something of a dandy, before he met Raj Whitehall; the Komar raid had left him
one brother shorter and covered the right side of his face with lines of scar
tissue.
"The 7th's still a bit shaky," he said. The 7th Descott Rangers was his new
command. "Lot of replacements, after the casualties."
摘要：

THEGENERAL,VolumeTwobyS.M.StirlingandDavidDrakeTHEGENESISOFTHEGENERALSERIES...WhenImetSteveStirlingforthefirsttimeaboutfiveyearsago,IwassoimpressedbyhisbreadthanddepthofintereststhatItoldJimBaenthatStevewasawritertowatchoutfor.Jimdid,andBaenBooksbecameSteve'spublisher.SteveandIwonderedhowthetwoofusw...

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