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CHAPTER FIVE

"Damned hot," Tejan M'Brust said, using an end of his neckerchief to wipe his face.


"No shit," Ludwig Bellamy replied.


He reined aside to the verge of the road, his dog stepping wearily over the ditch and hanging its head, panting, under the shade of a plane tree.


The troopers' dogs were panting too, a massed sound like hundreds of wheezing bellows as they rode by in column of fours. A knee-high fog of dust rose from the crushed rock surface of the road; he sneezed and hawked and spat to one side. The Descotter followed suit and offered him a canteen, water with vinegar. It cut the gummy saliva and dust nicely. Bellamy drank and watched the 1st and 2nd Mounted Cruisers go by, the dogs at a fast ambling walk. Both units were under strength—they'd paid a substantial butcher's bill in the Western Territories and hadn't had time to recruit back to full roster yet—but they shaped well, to his critical eye. A few were even talking or joking as they rode, though most slumped a little, reins in one hand and eyes fixed on the rump of the dog ahead. The unit dressing was crisp, though.


"They're shaping better than the Brigaderos," M'Brust said, echoing his thought. "I don't think there's a regular cavalry unit better, my oath I don't. Not even the 5th Descott."


Ludwig nodded, grinning tiredly. His people, the Squadron, were accounted wilder than the Brigade; they'd come down from the Base Area later, and the Southern Territories they'd conquered had been a backwater. But these battalions had been longer under Messer Raj's discipline and were first-rate material to begin with, once they had childish notions about charging with cold steel knocked out of them.


For a moment the skin between his shoulders crawled, as he remembered the Squadron host advancing into volley-fire and massed artillery. The chanting, the waving banners, the sun bright on a hundred thousand swords . . . and Raj Whitehall waiting, his men a thin blue line looking as fragile and ordered as a snowflake by comparison. Waiting, then raising his sword and chopping it downward. . . .


He shook it off, removed his helmet and let the air dry his sweat-damp hair. To their left the land rose in rocky hills, dry and shimmering with heat in the summer sun. To the right were gentle slopes, citrus orchards, and then open grain-fields with peons bending over their sickles as they reaped. The dusty yellow of the wheat was like flashes of gold through the glossy green leaves of the fruit trees. More to the point, between road and orchards passed a rock-lined irrigation channel, and a slow current of water. It was dry and intensely hot here in the southern foothills of the Oxheads—the land was sloping down toward the sand deserts of the borderlands—and the sight and sound of the water was intoxicating. He squinted at the sun, then remembered to take out his watch and click open the cover; in the Southern Territories, even wealthy nobles hadn't carried them. There was no point; nobody needed to know the time that precisely, and they were impossible to keep repaired, anyway.


Civilization. "Benter," he said to the younger brother who was his aide. "Twenty minutes. Water the dogs."


He turned and heeled his dog westwards down the line of march; behind him the cool brassy notes of the trumpet sounded, and the signalers of each company passed it back. When it reached the rear of the column the last unit halted first—you had to do it that way, or the whole mass would collide with each other, like a drunken centipede. His lips quirked at the memory of his father trying to halt a mass of Squadron warriors on the move, back when he was a boy. That had taken the better part of an hour, even with the paid, full-time fighters of the household guard.


The three Cruiser battalions of ex-Brigaderos were full strength . . . except for their stragglers. Teodore Welf rode up, red in the face from the heat and from embarrassment.


"Major Bellamy," he said, saluting.


"Major Welf," Ludwig replied, glancing past him.


They spoke Sponglish, although the Squadron and Brigade dialects of Namerique were fairly close: regulations, and it was best to stay in the habit, since more than half the officers in their units were seconded Civil Government natives like M'Brust.


Men and dogs had collapsed in the road. Others were leading their animals from the wayside to the ditch, walking slowly with their legs straddled. A few had trotted over despite their saddle sores and lay with their heads and shoulders buried in the life-giving coolness. Ludwig frowned and jerked his head toward them.


Teodore cursed and drew his sword, spurring to the ditch. "Up and out of there, you slugs!" he shouted. The flat of the weapon whacked down on shoulders. "Purify it first, damn your arse! You can't fight with the runs!"


The soldiers stood, dripping. Officers rode up, as dust-caked as their men, and the troopers formed lines. Some led the dogs downstream; others scooped their canteens full and added the blessed purifying chlorine powder; it was a rite shared by the Spirit of Man of This Earth cult they followed and the Star Church of the Civil Government, but not all commanders were equally pious. Messer Raj insisted on the full canonical treatment—water for human drinking to be purified by powder or by ten minutes at a hard rolling boil, with no exceptions.


The Spirit favored him for it, too. It wasn't uncommon for armies in the field to lose five men to dysentery for every one killed in combat. That didn't happen to troops under Raj's command.


Welf trotted back. "Sorry, Ludwig," he said. "The Western Territories aren't this hot."


Ludwig nodded. The Western Territories were damned cold and rainy, to his way of thinking—his own ancestors had plowed through them on their way to the southern side of the Midworld Sea, and he was glad of it. Of course, even the Western Territories were warm and dry compared to the Base Area, which explained why the Brigade had stopped there; they'd been the first of the Military Governments to pull up stakes and move south.


"And your fine gentlemen aren't used to sweating this hard," he replied, smiling to take the sting out of it.


"True enough," Welf said. He flexed the arm that had been broken by a Civil Government bullet outside Old Residence, nearly two years ago. "I'd never have dared drive them this hard, back . . . well, back then."


Ludwig nodded. Even the troopers had been nobles of a sort back home, with a few hundred hectares and peons to do the work. Of course, that had its compensations: plenty of leisure to practice and hunt. So they were fine riders, and mostly good shots. The Brigade had armed its men with muzzle loaders, but rifled percussion muskets, not the flintlock smoothbores that had been the best his people could make or maintain.


"How's my fair cousin?" Teodore went on.


"Marie? Still pregnant, according to the last letter," Ludwig said. "Thank the Spirit. Otherwise she'd be trying to outdo Messa Whitehall and riding with us."


Teodore shuddered elaborately. He turned to watch a dog-cart creak up, loaded with sunstruck Cruisers, their dogs on leading-ropes behind. "Throw some water on those!" he ordered.


Ludwig put his helmet back on. The leather-backed chainmail of the pentail thumped on his neck, and sweat from the sponge-and-cork lining ran into his hair and down his cheeks, greasy and stale.


"I'm beginning to wish we'd taken the train," he said.


"Getting there's half the fun," Teodore replied, blinking red-rimmed blue eyes.


* * *

A trainload of artillery began to pull out of the East Residence station, guns and men riding on flatcars, the draft dogs in boxcars farther back from the engine. As soon as it cleared the switchpoint, the remainder of the 5th Descott jogged forward, breaking into platoons as they swarmed into the last two trains.


"Alo sinstra, waymanos!" By the left, forward march. Ten minutes, and the final platoon was loaded into its boxcar.


Gerrin Staenbridge looked around. "The last?" he said.


Muzzaf Kerpatik looked just as exhausted as he did. "The very last, mi colonel," he said.


Staenbridge ran a hand over his chin, the sword-calluses rasping against the blueblack stubble. "Hard to believe." Sleep. Razors. Food. He didn't believe in those anymore, either.


Some sort of Palace flunky-in-uniform was wading toward him over the tracks and the litter of the three-day emergency. They'd been operating in battle mode: throw anything that breaks or isn't needed out of the way and think about cleaning up later. That included a fair bit of broken-down rolling stock, as well as dead dogs, dead draft oxen, about fifty tons of coal that had spilled in odd spots and wasn't worth the time and effort of collecting, and spare gear. Central Rail stevedore-slaves, dockworkers, and press-ganged clerks lay about in various stages of collapse.


But no soldiers. Every man, dog, gun, and round of ammunition was on its way east. Spirit of man, I could sleep for a week. 


If that flunky meant what he thought it did—another message from some hysterical fool in the Palace who wanted his hand held—he'd be talking for a week. The people up on the First Hill hadn't grown any less terrified of Ali over the last couple of days, and they were still given to brainstorms, most of which started and ended with keeping more troops around to protect their own precious personal fundaments. If he'd wanted to listen to bleating, he would have stayed at home on the family estate and herded sheep.


"See you in Sandoral," he said to the little Komarite, and ran for the second train.


It was moving as he clamped his saber hand on an iron bracket and swung up onto the rear platform. This car had been tacked on at the last minute; it was the type used to carry railroad company guards through bandit country, with bunks and a cookstove inside. He'd found it parked on a siding, and be damned if he wasn't going to keep it all to himself; that way he'd stand some chance of getting a little sleep in the fifty hours or so it would take to get to Sandoral. There was some hardtack and dried sausage in his duffel—


The smell of curry startled him as he opened the rear door of the guardcar; his stomach growled a reminder of how long it had been since he ate. Fatima cor Staenbridge—the cor meant freedwoman—glanced around from the little stove.


"Ready in a minute, Gerrin," she said.


He opened his mouth to roar, thought better of it, and sat down, sighing and unbuckling his sword belt. My own damned fault. He'd rescued the girl during the sack of El Djem more or less on impulse; rather, she'd picked Bartin Foley to rescue her from a gang of Descotter troopers bent on gang rape, and he'd helped out. He'd kept her on impulse, too; Bartin had needed some experience with women—a nobleman had to marry and carry on his line eventually, whatever his personal tastes. She'd managed to keep up in the nightmare retreat through the desert, after Tewfik mousetrapped them, which demanded some respect; she'd also gotten pregnant—whether by him or Bartin was a moot point and no matter—which was more than the wife he visited once a year for duty's sake had managed to do.


"Imp," he said.


She stuck out her tongue at him and handed him the plate. Spirit, she's still only twenty. He'd freed her, of course, and acknowledged the child—two, now—his wife hadn't objected at all, since by Civil Government law he could divorce her for not giving him an heir. The children had to stay with her back on the estate most of the time after they were weaned, of course, as was fitting.


He began shoveling down the fiery curry, washing it down with water and a surprisingly drinkable red. Drinkable compared to ration issue, that was. And to think I was accounted a gourmet once, he thought. Polo, hunting, balls, theater, fine uniforms and parades and good restaurants, handsome youths, witty conversation . . . surprising how little he'd missed them, in the five years since Raj Whitehall had been given command of the 5th Descott and sent out to teach the wogs not to raid the Civil Government borders.


I resented him then, he mused. Gerrin had been senior . . . but he'd needed a commander to bring out his best. A furious perfection of willpower possessed Raj; Gerrin could recognize it without in the least desiring to have it himself. And it's never been boring. Back then, he'd been so bored he'd fiddled the battalion accounts out of sheer ennui.


He finished the plate. Fatima was sitting on the edge of the bunk, eyes demurely cast down; a good imitation of humility. What an actress. The stage lost something when she was born Colonial. Natural talent, he supposed, plus being hand-in-glove with Suzette Whitehall in her impressionable years.


Gerrin sighed again. As far as he was concerned, sex with women was like eating plain boiled rice without butter or salt—possible, but . . . On the other hand. A soldier learned to make do with what was at hand; when all you had was boiled rice, that was what you ate.


* * *

The mournful sound of the locomotive whistle echoed through the night. It was evening, and twilight was falling over the rolling hills of the Upper Hemmar River. To their right the last sunlight glittered on the surface of the river below, like a ribbon of hammered silver tracing its way through the darkening fields. The same light caught the three-meter wings of a pterosauroid as it soared over the water, gilding the naked skin and the short plush white fur of its body. Higher, the hills were dusty-green with olive trees, or carpeted with vines in their summer lushness. Terraced fields of barley were brown-gold on the lower slopes; cypresses and eucalyptus lined the dusty white streaks of roadway and surrounded the whitewashed adobe of villas.


Raj looked up from the maps. Center could provide better, holographic projections with all the information you needed, but he'd been raised with paper and it still had something the visions lacked. His father had taught him to read maps, going around Hillchapel—the Whitehall family estate, back in Smythe Parish, Descott County—with compass and the Ordinance Survey, until he learned to see the ground and the markings as one.


"Sentahvo for your thoughts, my heart," Suzette said.


She had her gittar in her lap, gently plucking at the strings.


"Thinking about Descott, and Hillchapel," Raj said. "Damn, but it's been a long time since we've seen it."


Suzette nodded. She'd fitted in surprisingly well; if she considered it a bleak stone barn in the middle of a wilderness, she'd never said so. Well, compared to East Residence, that was what it was; a kerosene lamp was a luxury, in Descott. Most of the County was upland volcanic wilderness, thin forest and thinner stony pasture where you needed ten hectares to feed a sheep. Bandit country too, and bad for killer sauroids.


He missed it.


"This is as domestic as we get, I'm afraid," Suzette said lightly.


Raj glanced around the railroad car. It had been fitted with table and chairs; there was a commode behind a blanket screen, a couple of skins of wine-and-water hanging from the wall, a lantern overhead, and a box of field rations—Suzette's version, and a vast improvement on Army issue. One of his aides was snoring on the floor.


In a car behind, the troopers were singing—they probably thought of it as singing, at least—in a roaring chorus:


* * *

"We're marchin' on relief over burnin' desert sands
Six hundred fightin' Descotters, t' Colonel, an' t'band
Ho! Git awa', ye bullock-man—ye've heard t'bugle blowed
The Fightin' Fifth is comin', down the Drangosh Road—" 



"We're luckier than they are," Suzette said, lifting her head and looking off into the gathering night. "We're together, at least. . . . Their women have to sit and wonder. And every time someone rides up to the farmhouse door it might be a messenger with a bundled rifle and saber that's all they'll see of a lost husband, or a son."


"It's not much of a married life I've given you," Raj said.


Suzette smiled at him. "I wouldn't exchange it for any other," she replied. "I don't think you're one of those who're allowed to have a normal life, anyway."


"Not yet, at least," Raj said. Never, went unspoken between them.


It wasn't as if Barholm would give Raj an honored retirement, even, as a reward for victory.


i have found it unwise to use the term never, Center said.


Suzette's fingers strummed the gittar again. Raj pulled the greatcoat around his shoulders and let his head fall back. Just a moment, he thought. A moment's rest. 


* * *

"Git yer arses out offen t'floor," the sergeant barked. "We'll be there anytimes."


Corporal Robbi M'Telgez blinked awake.


"Jist when I waz gittin' t'hang a sleepin' on these things," he said mournfully, picking straw out of his hair and yawning in the hot close darkness of the boxcar, thick with the smell of sweat.


The train was slowing, swaying more from side to side. All around was the flat irrigated plain of the Upper Drangosh. M'Telgez put his eye to the slats in the boxcar; it was good-looking country, dry but fit to sprout shoelaces where there was water. The wheat and barley were in, the fields being plowed for a summer crop of corn or millet; cotton and sugarcane and indigo were all well up, and there were orchards in plenty as well, mostly dates and citrus.


Good land fer the gentry, hell on farmers, he thought idly. Rich land meant poor men to work it; they'd all be peons around here. Hotter n' blazes, too. 


They passed through a belt of country places, retreats for rich cityfolk built in an open, airy style that looked indecent somehow compared with the foursquare solidity of the houses he was accustomed to—but then, Descott was a long way north of this, and highland country too. He didn't suppose it got cold here even in winter. Then there were shanties on both sides of the rail line, crude booths of straw and reeds. He swore softly when he saw who was in them, besides refugee peasants from the countryside. Among them were men in Civil Government uniforms, only infantry, but still . . . they looked hungry. 


"Ain't they supposed to pay 'em when they calls 'em in from t'farms?" he said.


The troop sergeant laughed sourly. "Wuz ye born yesstiday, M'Telgez?"


Trooper Smeet put his eye to a crack. "Good's a place t' croak as any," he said mournfully. "We'll a' git kilt, ye know. I hadda dream—"


The rest of the platoon threw bits of hardtack and cold bacon-rind and anything else handy.


"Ye keep sayin' thayt long 'nuff, it'll happen, yer bastid," M'Telgez said disgustedly.


Smeet grinned; he was missing his two front teeth, and his face was a brown wrinkled map of twenty years' service. "Ye knows a way 't live ferever, loik?"


Just inside the city walls the train screeched to a stop; he braced himself against the planking and shaded his eyes as the doors were thrown open.


"Come on," the sergeant yelled again.


The boxcars emptied rapidly, the men stretching, the dogs barking with hysterical relief. It was just as hot outside, with the dry baking heat that he remembered from the first campaign down here five years ago, but at least you could breathe in the open. M'Telgez unsnapped the lead-chain of his mount and spent a moment soothing her.


"Sooo, quiet now, Pochita, ye bitch," he said. A tongue the size of a washcloth and rough as industrial abrasive lapped at his face. "Quiet—down, girl."


Out of the corner of his eye he could see Messer Raj and the company commander and the captain in charge of the Scouts—M'lewis and his Forty Thieves were along, best to double-strap your pouch—talking earnestly. He worked faster, sliding his rifle into the scabbard at the right front of his saddle, tightening the girth and breast-straps, checking the neck-bandolier and the fastening on the saber hanging from the other side. He slid the blade free a handspan and tested the edge, then checked the loads on the revolver he had tucked into one boot-top.


Messer Raj would have a job of work for them to do, and no mistake. He'd been in the 5th Descott for five years now, and that was one thing you could rely on.


* * *

"Nice to be loved," Bartin Foley said.


"Not when they get in the way," Raj replied.


They rode at the head of the column, slowly. Cheering civilians packed the sidewalks, hysteria in their voices. Rose petals and rice showered down on the troops, as if they were a party of groomsmen bringing a bride home from her father's house. Individuals darted out to offer bottles of wine to the soldiers or, even more dangerous, food to the dogs. What do they think's going to happen when they stick a roast in a war-dog's face? Raj thought, turning in the saddle to see one of the crowd reeling back and clutching a gashed-open forearm. The crowd-stink was as palpable as the blurring waves of heat that radiated back from the whitewashed adobe of the buildings and soaked the uniform coat beneath his armpits.


The noise was spooking all the dogs, a solid roar between the whitewashed, blank-walled, flat-roofed houses.


"Trumpeter!" Raj snarled. "Sound Draw."


The sharp notes cut through the white-noise background of the crowd, as they were designed to cut through the clamor of battle. Two hundred hands slapped down on the saber hilts slung to the offside of their saddles; two hundred blades came free in a single slithering rasp, then flashed as they were brought back to rest over the shoulder. The dogs knew the calls as well as the men, and they snarled in unison, a chilling bass rumble. Long wet fangs glistened, each backed by half a ton of carnivore. War-dogs were bred for aggressiveness and trained to kill, and the bristling snake-headed posture of these indicated they were perfectly ready to do just that.


The crowd screamed and surged away; there would be deaths in the trampling . . . but not nearly as many as there would be if Ali sacked the city, which was what was going to happen if they kept getting in his way. Overhead, doors slammed shut as the wrought-iron balconies emptied. Raj heeled Horace into a trot; the bugler signaled again, and the whole column rocked into motion behind him. The iron wheels of the splatgun battery clattered behind them.


"Well, that'll make us less popular, mi heneral," Bartin said.


"Popularity be damned," Raj replied, feeling some of the tension drain out of his shoulders.


They broke into the Plaza Real, the square that formed the center of all Civil Government cities. The usual buildings fronted it: the Star Temple with its gilded dome, the arcaded Government House, the townhouses of wealthy landowners and merchants . . . and the cavalry barracks, conveniently to hand in case of trouble. Highly unusual were the tents and shanties that had gone up all over the square, crowding right up to the ornamental fountain and gardens in its center; the sour smoke of their cooking fires lingered, and the stink of an overloaded sewer system.


"Refugees," Raj said grimly. "Must be fifty or sixty thousand of them inside the walls."


"Sandoral has fifty thousand people in normal times," Suzette said. "With that many more . . ."


Raj nodded. "We'll definitely have to do something about that."


They drew rein before the barracks, a series of two-story buildings connected by walls and iron-grille gates, enclosing a central parade ground. They smelled even worse than the rest of the city, not just the inevitable aroma of dogshit that was inescapable where cavalry were stationed, but the fetid stink of overcrowding and neglect. They looked neglected—gates awry, stucco flaking in damp patches from the walls. But with the units as under strength as his intelligence had it, they shouldn't be crowded—and washing was hanging from the windows, women and children too numerous for camp followers leaning out and pointing, or lounging in the doorways.


"Captain Foley," Raj said. "Dismount the men, rifles, and a watchstander and troop here. Then accompany me, if you please."


The bugle sang. The men sheathed their sabers and pulled the Armory rifles out of the scabbards. Another call, and the dogs sank to a crouch; the men stepped free of the stirrups and bent to loop their reins over the hitching rail and watering trough that lined the plaza side of the garrison buildings. A long clicking sounded as they loaded their weapons; the 5th Descott didn't carry guns for show, and when they made a threat they meant it.


An officer came out of the main gate, fastening his sword belt. Raj ran an eye over him: thirty or so, but with an older man's belly straining against the sash and belt, unshaven, the blue uniform coat stained under the armpits. He didn't expect soldiers to waste time trying to look strack in the field, but in garrison keeping neat reminded them that they were soldiers; it was a sign of self-respect. They had running water here, for the Spirit's sake! And every eight-man section of cavalry troopers was allowed one soldier's servant to handle routine fatigues.


Also an officer should set an example.


Just about what I expected, in short, Raj thought, a cold anger tightening its hand under his breastbone. He returned the stranger's salute.


"Captain Hamelio Pinochet, 47th Santanner Dragoons," the man said.


"Heneralissimo Raj Whitehall," Raj replied. "I'm here to take command, Captain."


The unfortunate officer swallowed, attempting to brace to attention. "Ah, mi heneral, you'll understand, with the emergency and the refugees—"


"I understand perfectly, Captain." With housing at a premium, somebody had seen the profit potential in renting out the military's spare space. "Lead on."


Milling civilians looked at them curiously as they walked through the long barracks halls; each had space for a hundred men's cots, with rooms for the lieutenants and a suite for the company commander, plus a ready room and mess. Right now they were crowded with twice that number or more of refugees; from their clothes, well enough off to be making a fortune for whoever was running this scam. A swelling murmur ran through them as Raj passed. By the time they reached the buildings still in military use, it had preceded them a little; enough for protesting feminine squeals to be fading as women were hustled out of the barracks, and for the soldiers to have made emergency repairs. Not much in the way of repairs. Gear was piled in heaps all over the floors, few of the men were in full uniform, and there were still cards and dice lying in some corners. The troopers stood braced at the foot of their cots, visibly willing their vital functions to cease.


Raj ignored them for a moment. Instead he stripped a rifle out of the rack by the locker at the head of a cot and worked the action. "No rust here, at least," he said mildly. Then:


"Captain Pinochet, how many men are on muster here? You're rated at four battalions." Twenty-four hundred men or so, in theory.


"Ah . . . about one thousand, sir. Most of the officers aren't, ah . . ."


"Present at the moment, yes," Raj said. "Fall the men in, if you please, Captain."


Raj crossed his arms and waited while the bugles rang. It took a very long time for the garrison troops to sort out their equipment. Starless Dark knows what shape the infantry's in, he thought with a mental wince. This was the elite cavalry.


"Ten'hut."


The noncom's bark brought the men to a ragged attention as Raj strode out; the banner of the 5th Descott was at his back, and his personal blazon. The two companies of the 5th tramped out at the double, and fell in at his back with the smooth economy of endless practice, the uniform crash of their hobnails sounding across the drillground and echoing back from the barracks and stables that ringed it.


Raj waited for a minute. "Men," he said at last, "I'm going to keep this short and sweet."


He pointed over his shoulder. "There's a bloody great wog army coming up the Drangosh; they're about five days' march that way. I've got troops coming in from the west, but we're going to need every man who can ride and shoot. That means you. Every soldier, that is. I'll be back in a few hours, and I expect to see you looking and acting like soldiers by then." He paused again.


"Captain Pinochet, please send runners to the remaining battalion officers of this command. You may inform them that any man holding the Governor's commission not present when I return may consider himself dismissed from the service." He turned his head to the bugler. "Sound dismissed to quarters."


The garrison left much more quickly than they'd assembled. Raj nodded once, tapping a thumb against his chin. "I think they're getting the message," he said. "Now for Osterville."


* * *

Antin M'lewis was muttering under his breath. Raj knew the song without needing to hear words or tunes: it was an old Army ditty whose chorus went Lovely loot/That's the thing makes the boys git up an' shoot! 


Commandant Osterville's house was a looter's dream. The outer gates were gilded wrought iron, the inner Zanj ebony studded with miniature silver sauroid heads. A chandelier of Kolobassian crystal hung overhead, to light the three-story atrium. Floor and sweeping staircases were of marble; the walls held gilt-framed mirrors and paintings; man-high alabaster urns held trailing bougainvillea . . . Punkahs swayed, moving air cooled by fountains playing over fretted stone and scented by orange-blossom.


The majordomo bowed himself out of the way—a plump eunuch with a Colonial accent. Poor bastard can't help it, Raj thought; but they always put his teeth on edge. Osterville had put on weight and lost a lot of hair since Raj had seen him last. He'd always been ambitious, and Capital-smooth; now he had a sour pinch to his mouth and lines between there and his nostrils. Which were turned up as if at a bad smell. There was a crowd of hangers-on by him, aides and flunkies and the battalion commanders of the garrison.


"Whitehall," Osterville said frigidly. "What the devil do you think you're doing, coming in here and giving orders outside the chain of command?"


There was a murmur of indignation from the flunkies; but the battalion commanders stayed stony-silent, with a slight unconscious withdrawal, as if Osterville had something contagious. Raj gave them a swift glance. None of them had been living on their pay here—not with Osterville's example before them, not if Abdullah's reports were true—but they didn't love the Commandant for it. Especially not now that their careers and lives were on the line.


Raj reached into his jacket. "Commandant Osterville. By Gubernatorial Rescript, I have been given command of all Civil Government troops in this area. I hereby notify you that I am assuming control."


Osterville read through the note. "I acknowledge your overall authority," he said after a moment.


Raj could see the wheels turning behind the narrow black eyes. Whitehall's in disfavor. Even if he wins, he'll be removed. 


"But this document does not give you authority to interfere in the internal command structure of the units under my authority as district commandant. You may give your orders to me, and I will carry them out as I see fit."


Divided command . . . Behind Raj, the Scout Troop—the Forty Thieves—tensed; they hadn't followed the exchange, not really, but they could read the hostility in the air well enough.


M'lewis had recruited the Scouts himself. None of them were men likely to hesitate if ordered to arrest the Commandant . . . or to take him and the others out back and shoot them, if it came to that. Osterville looked past Raj and his complexion turned a muddy gray.


Disaster, Raj knew. A good chance of a firefight right here in the city, or at least wholesale passive resistance by the garrison troops. This mission balanced on a knife edge as it was . . .


. . . and Osterville wouldn't back down. Not openly; whatever else the man was, he wasn't that type of coward.


Suzette moved forward. "Hernan, Hernan," she said, tapping him on the arm with her fan. "Last time I was in Sandoral there were more interesting things than a lot of smelly soldiers." She wrinkled her nose. "Don't tell me you've become a complete provincial out here, my dear. And you were such a gay blade back in the City." When someone in the Civil Government put a capital on it that way, only one city could be meant.


Osterville bowed over her hand.


"I've been trapped on a troop train for three days. Couldn't you find a decent meal for a poor, benighted gentlewoman so far from home? And fill me in on what passes for society out here? And find me a decent bath and somewhere to change out of these impossible clothes?"


Osterville was giving a good impression of a man who had just been struck between the eyes with a bag full of wet sand, but he rallied; after all, he had been at Court for the better part of a decade.


"Enchanted, Messa," he said suavely. "Business, however . . ."


Suzette made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, Raj just wants some help unloading trains." She tucked her hand under his arm. "Please?"


Osterville snapped his fingers at an aide. "Luiz, draw that up; here, I'll sign it. Certainly, certainly, my dear Messa Suzette . . . trains, you say? Logistics, clerks' work."


Raj stood silently as they strolled away across the intaglio floor. His head moved back to the officers who'd been attending Osterville, with the smooth tracking motion of a track-mounted fortress gun.


"Messers," he said flatly. "I remind you that you'll be needed with your units later this afternoon in the main cavalry barracks. Good day to you. Captain M'lewis, if you please."


He turned on his heel. Faintly, he could hear:


". . . quite acceptable dessert wines, but far too sweet for table. But I've found a mountain vintage from this village in the Oxheads . . ."


 


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Framed