Conqueror (99 page)

He was a little surprised. Those fair MilGov complexions were extremely pretty, but he'd doubted they could take the Eastern sun.

"Good timing," Raj said.

Ludwig Bellamy and Teodore Welf looked more like twins than ever, down to the thick coating of gray-white dust on their faces and the dark streaks of sweat through it.

"Rail convoys on schedule?" Bellamy asked.

They moved forward under the awning and collected bowls of soup and a bannock each; the line parted to let them through, but it was the same food as the troopers were waiting for. The medical staff—priest-doctors and nuns—was manning the pots, since there weren't any wounded to care for so far. Suzette dashed by, stopping long enough to thrust a cup of watered wine into Raj's hand. The others were dipping water out of a bucket; Ludwig waited politely until the others had drunk, then dumped the remainder over his head.

"I
needed
that," he said; the grin made you realize he wasn't yet thirty.

Neither am I,
Raj remembered with slight surprise. He felt older, though.

Aloud, he went on: "I'll give Barholm Clerett that, he does get the trains running on time. We're expecting the last in at any moment. How are your men?"

"They'll be ready to fight after a night's sleep; and the dogs are mostly sound-footed. We took your advice and commandeered a big pack of remounts from the East Residence reserve before we left." Bellamy looked around. "You haven't been wasting time here."

There were few civilians left on the streets of Sandoral. Instead they swarmed with soldiers and dogs, wagons and carts, and an ordered chaos of movement under the harsh southern sun. The garrison infantry were doing most of the hauling and pushing, but they looked better fed, and far better dressed. A thud and plume of smoke and dust marked another house being demolished for building materials; off in the distance sounded the
heep . . . heep
of troops being drilled and a crackle of musketry practice. The artillery park filled most of the square, guns nose-to-trail with their limbers waiting behind, and Dinnalsyn's gunners giving them a last going-over.

"Speak of the devil," Bartin Foley said, smiling fondly.

A bugle sounded, and the color party of the 5th Descott came trotting into the square, the battalion banner floating beside the blue and silver Starburst of Holy Federation. Gerrin Staenbridge heeled his mount over to the clump of officers and saluted with an ironic flourish.

"
Mi heneral
, the remainder of your force, reporting as ordered." He looked around in his turn. "I see you've started the party without me."

"Just laying in the drinks and rehearsing the band, Gerrin," Raj said. "No problem getting under way?"

"No, but there might have been if I'd lingered. Our good Chancellor Tzetzas isn't happy about having the field army so far from home, at all, at all. If I hadn't taken the last of the trains, I suspect the bureaucrats would have followed me all the way here to argue with you about it."

Raj laughed harshly. "Not with Ali so close," he said. "Although our good Commandant Osterville is almost as much of a pest, in his way. And he
is
here."

"Speak of the devil," Foley said again, his voice flat as gunmetal this time.

He took Staenbridge's arm and began whispering rapidly, gesturing with the hook on his left arm. Raj caught his own name and
Suzette
once or twice.

The Commandant of Sandoral and District was pushing his way through the thronging mass in the square; not looking very happy, and unhappier by the minute at the lack of deference, from Raj's veterans and from what were supposedly his own troops.

"Whitehall," he said. "General Whitehall," he amended; Raj's face was politely blank, but several of the Companions had dropped their hands to pistol-butts or the hilts of their sabers.

"Where the Starless Dark have you been?"

Raj straightened, finished the wine, and dipped his bannock into the stew. "Well, Commandant, I've been rather busy—getting ready for the war, you see."

Somebody chuckled, and Osterville turned a mottled color. "I'll thank you to accompany me to my headquarters," he said. "We've got several things to discuss."

"If you want to talk,
Colonel
, you'll talk here and now. Because as I mentioned, there is a war impending."

Words burst from the smaller man. "You're
destroying
my city!" he barked. "I've received petitions from every man of rank in the district—"

Raj raised an eyebrow. "I don't doubt you have," he said. "Let them petition Ali. That's the alternative, and I think they'd like his methods even less than mine. In any case, as you've made clear, you're the supreme civil authority in this area; relations with the local nobility are your responsibility."

The Commandant opened his mouth and closed it again. He snapped his fingers, and an aide put a sheaf of documents in his hand.

"Perhaps you've been too
busy
," he said, "to read these dispatches from the Capital? They've been coming over the semaphore by the dozens."

Raj mopped his bowl with the heel of the bannock and plucked the papers out of the smaller man's hand. He glanced through them, chewed, swallowed.

"Oh, I've been reading them," he said.

He ripped the thick sheaf through with casual strength, tossing the fragments into the dry hot wind. They fluttered off like gulls, and one of the newly arrived dogs of the 5th snapped inquiringly at a piece as it went by.

"I have the
Governor's
authority, signed by the Sovereign Mighty Lord himself. I received it in person, from his own hands. What are a few waggling flags to
that
?"

He tossed the last of the papers to the cobbles. "And now, Colonel Osterville, if you don't have any more problems . . ."

"But I do have
this
," Osterville said. The document he produced was thick parchment, impressively sealed with lead and ribbons.

Raj raised an eyebrow. "You have a decree from the Chair, a Vermilion Order, swaying the wide earth?" he asked, using the formal terminology.

"Not exactly," Osterville said. "But you will note it's from Chancellor Tzetzas, in the Governor's name, requiring you to cease and desist from interfering with private properties and instead attend to your assigned mission."

"From the Chancellor?" Raj said, examining the parchment. He crumpled it experimentally. It was first-quality sheepskin parchment, soft and supple. "By courier, I suppose?"

Osterville nodded toward a man in his entourage. Raj looked at him, and then around.

"M'lewis. Deal with this as it deserves," he said.

"Where are the jakes?" the Scout Captain said, putting down his bowl and unfastening his sword belt.

Like most Civil Government cities, Sandoral had public lavatories, simple brick boxes connected to storm-flushed sewers. M'lewis strode over to the nearest, and back a minute later. He was holding the now brown-streaked and stinking parchment by one corner between thumb and finger. Shocked silence gripped the Commandant's party as he walked over to the courier, unfastened the flap of his message pouch, and dropped the soiled parchment inside.

"Just so the Chancellor understands exactly what weight I attach to his attempts to interfere with my mission and the Governor's authority," Raj said.

"You're mad," Osterville said softly. "Mad. Nobody—Tzetzas will eat your
heart
."

Raj's smile sent Osterville back a step. "Perhaps I am mad, Colonel. Perhaps I'm the Sword of the Spirit of Man. In either case, I'm in charge here." He produced a document of his own. "And this is your own confirmation, directing your troops to cooperate in the transport of the civilians."

He held it up, and one of the Companions leaned over to read it with interest.

"That! That was that witch, she—" On the edge of ruin, Osterville pulled himself back. He'd been about to say something that would be a public provocation to a challenge. He ran a hand through his hair. "Where is
she
? I haven't seen her since . . ."

Raj laughed, an iron sound. "Colonel Osterville, I've answered your official inquiries. You can scarcely expect me to stretch business to the point of giving you an itinerary for my wife. Now, if you'll pardon me—"

He turned, and the officers followed him. Gerrin Staenbridge paused, holding his gauntlets in one hand and tapping them into the palm of the other. For a moment Osterville feared he would slap them across his face in challenge, but the hard dark features were relaxed in a smile. He held the order Osterville had signed—the order that Suzette Whitehall had somehow charmed out of him. He read it, pursing his lips, then looked up at Osterville with an expression of feline malice before he spoke one word.

"Sucker."

It was the hour before dawn, a little chilly even in summer in the clear dry southern air. The massed ranks of the army knelt as the Sysup-Suffragen of Sandoral paced by, with acolytes swinging censers that spread aromatic blue smoke across the men. He reached out his Star-headed staff in blessing as he passed the colors of each unit, and the men extended both hands out, palms down, in the gesture of reverence. Behind the hierarch came four priests bearing a litter on which rested a cube of something clearer than crystal and taller than a man. Light swirled in it, growing and flaring until the watchers bowed their heads and closed their eyes in awe. It shone through the closed lids, through hands flung up before faces, then died away amid a murmur of awe.

Raj touched his amulet as he rose. "The Spirit is with us," he said.
Or at least Center is. What a cynic I've become.
 

realist,
Center corrected.

Is there a difference? 

He turned to the command group. Which included, from necessity, Colonel Osterville.

"Gentlemen, my congratulations. You've managed a very complex operation in record time and with surprisingly little confusion; my particular thanks to Colonels Menyez and Dinnalsyn. Now it's time to show the wogs that two can play the invasion game. Colonel Osterville, I presume you'll wish to accompany the field force rather than remain in Sandoral?"

"I certainly will. Furthermore, I insist that the cavalry battalions of the Sandoral garrison be under my command."

Raj nodded. "By all means, Colonel. By all means."

Osterville shot him a suspicious glance, and found his face blandly unrevealing. He tugged at his mustachio thoughtfully.

colonel osterville is attempting to intuit the reason for your ready agreement,
Center pointed out.
probability of success 12%±3.
 

"Colonel Menyez, you will command the city garrison. I'm leaving you the 17th, the 24th, the garrison infantry, and three batteries of field guns. You'll also have the guns of the fixed defenses, of course."

Dinnalsyn looked up. "I've tested the militia artillery crews who volunteered to stay," he said. "Not bad at all, and the ammunition's plentiful."

Jorg Menyez nodded thoughtfully. "Any cavalry? The garrison units can stand behind a parapet and shoot, and the 17th and 24th can do anything cavalry can except ride and charge with the saber, but I could use a mobile reserve."

"I'll leave you three companies of the 5th Descott," Raj said. "That'll have to do. The field force will comprise three columns.

"The remainder of the 5th, the 1st and 2nd Mounted Cruisers, the 3/591, 4/591, and 5/591, and the main artillery reserve of thirty guns will go with me. Colonel Osterville, you'll command your garrison cavalry and two batteries. Major Gruder, you'll have the 7th Descott Rangers, the 1st Rogor Slashers, the Maximilliano Dragoons, and Poplanich's Own. Major Zahpata, you'll take your 18th Komar Borderers, the City of Delrio, and the Novy Haifa Dragoons. Plus two batteries of field guns each.

"We'll be advancing fast, close enough for mutual support; no wheeled transport except for the guns and the ammunition reserve. Spread out, live off the land; spare lives when you can, but burn and destroy everything else, so long as you can do it quickly. Let the semaphore posts stand long enough to get off messages. Portable plunder will be transferred to the central group, and from there back here to Sandoral for eventual division; do
not
allow the men to weigh themselves down with choice bits. When Tewfik comes looking for us, we're going to need every bit of mobility we can get.