Warlord (6 page)

"Your Exaltedness."

A crisp military bow from this man; in conservative landowner's Court dress, his plain blue robe showing the tips of riding boots polished but worn. There were places worn shiny on his belt, as well, where a holster and saber-tache would hook. A thin eagle face, black eyes above high cheeks and a nose hooked enough for a Colonist or a Descotter. The usher brayed:

"Messer Mustaf Agrood Naxim, Hereditary Watch-keeper of Deep Fountain, County of Sna Barbra."

Raj pricked up a soldier's ears. That was on the upper Drangosh River, far to the southeast, not a hundred kilometers from Sandoral. On the border of territory controlled by the Colony, and yes, the man had the look of a borderer.

"My lord," Naxim said briskly. "The blessings of the Spirit of Man of the Stars be upon you." The border folk were notoriously orthodox. "Your wisdom—and that of His Supremacy, of course—is our shield. Yet Your Exaltedness cannot be everywhere, and it is my duty to tell you that your servants have been shamefully neglectful on the frontiers of my county. Within the last year, two villages on my lands alone . . ."

"Bandits are your responsibility, man," Barholm said impatiently.

Naxim lowered his eyes and continued. "My lord, these are no bandits, they are regular troops of the Colony and household retainers of Colonial noblemen, acting under orders. They brought artillery on the last raid! My lord, they burn and kill and carry off free folk as slaves. They trample the irrigation canals and cut down orchards to let in the desert! Those farmers are Your Exaltedness's barrier against the Muslim, and . . ."

"And you are authorized to fortify your manors and raise a militia for exactly that purpose," Barholm said. "The Civil Government remits taxes to the extent of . . . how much?"

The Minister of Finance turned to confer with his aids. Tzetzas' voice came smooth as water over tile in a courtyard garden. "To the extent . . . this is for the County of Sna Barbra alone, Your Exaltedness . . . of fifty thousand silver credits annually. That is the land tax; adding in the loss of the hearth tax, poll tax, salt monopoly, excise tax, water rates, billeting and tax-in-kind for garrisons, assumption tax . . . as much again, my lord."

"Well." Barholm sat back, steepling his fingers.

Naxim's eyes closed, and his lips moved in prayer for a moment. "Your Exaltedness, Sna Barbra—and the other border counties—finance from their own resources ten battalions, mounted and armed, the beacon system . . ."

"And yet you come whining to Us for help at the least trouble."

"My lord, we can deal with bandits, bedouin, even the amirs of the over-frontier, even the
ghazi
fanatics who come from all over the Colony to plague us . . . but we cannot deal with the regular armies of the Settler!"

"Take your petition to the Chancellor," Barholm continued coldly. "If further detachments of regular troops must be sent to the southeast, then the tax remittances must be reconsidered or altered. There are many calls on Our resources." Naxim bowed silently—

observe. 
 

Naxim sat a lean-muzzled riding dog with a sand-colored coat, on a ridge overlooking a broad dry valley. Behind him were nearly a thousand troops; not regulars, but well-equipped and looking as tough as any Raj had seen, riding the same long-legged mongrels as the nobleman. Many wore turbans, with veils drawn across their faces, most were in long billowing robes, but a Star medallion gleamed on every chest, and there was a Hierarch Starpriest riding at Naxim's side. The snowpeaks of the Oxhead Mountains towered behind, floating on the horizon.

"Lord Naxim," the priest was saying, pointing down the rocky slopes. "You cannot let the infidel pass!" There was a growl from the men behind him, a clank and rustle of equipment, whines from the mounts.

An army was passing below, an army in scarlet and green, with the crescent banner of Islam before it. Ordered ranks of dog-dragoons under their regimental flags, infantry in solid blocks around the ox wagons of the supply column. Couriers dashed about on light agile Dobermans, and a galloper-battery of one-powder quick firing guns clattered along, drawn by Ridgebacks.

"I cannot stop them," Naxim said, slowly beating one gloved hand on his thigh. "They come twenty thousand strong."

"You could harry them, ambush their foragers . . ."

"As we have done before," Naxim growled. He spat on the sandy ground. "When we had support from the regulars. Where are they now? Drunk in barracks and pissing out our taxes! Should we leave our homes to be burnt and flee to the hills, when it will accomplish nothing?"

A rumble of assent came from the armed men. The priest bent his head and wept, clutching his medallion.

"The Ambassadors of the Free Canton of the Halvardi!"

Barholm crooked a finger; Raj leaned forward, whispering. "Lord, they're the eastern mountain tribe, the one that controls the best passes through to the Skinners in the northern steppes. And for the Skinners to come south, southwest into the Peninsula, southeast into the Colony."

The Vice-Governor nodded, and smiled affably at the dozen or so barbarians grouped before him. It was obvious even at a dozen meters that they greased their hair with butter, and never washed it; the hair was mostly blond, and both sexes wore it in long braids that fell to their waists on either side. They were dressed in jackets and pants of cowhide, adorned with horns and feathers and beads, draped about with enough edged weapons to arm a company, although they had been persuaded to leave the crossbows and halberds outside the Hall. Two brought a litter heaped with gifts forward; round yellow cheeses, wood carvings, small cedar kegs of beer, and some spectacularly beautiful fercat pelts, pure white and a meter long.

A shaman capered before them, waving a cross and ceremonial wooden house with a small jeweled bird within; he chanted, an eerie nasal
kuku-kuku
that sent not a few hands reaching for their amulets. The Supreme Hierarch Starpriest glared from the midst of a group of her ecclesiastical bureaucrats, but tradition and treaty kept foreigners not settled in the Civil Government outside the Church's jurisdiction. A hired diplomat paced beside the horn-helmed figure of the Halvardi chieftain, and he
was
a citizen, conspicuously holding a Star medallion to show he had not been tainted by his employers.

The Halvardi chief bowed slightly, raised both hands and began to chant: the hired diplomat translated line for line from
Zvetchietz
,
the mountain tongue. To Raj it had a monotonous sameness, a
hburni-burni-hrji
sound endlessly repeated.

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"—Lizsauroid-Slayer Fren-kel, chief of the Houses of the Halvardi—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
greets the Great Chief of the Rich Houses—"

An aside: "Such is their rude way of acknowledging Your Exaltedness"
hburni-burni-hrji
 

"—thanks him for the continued ah—" he glanced aside at the Halvardi, who evidently knew the Sponglish of civilization, or at least enough to keep a translation honest "—tribute for barring the passes against Skinner raiding parties—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
and also for the additional bribes to allow the Skinners through to burn and pillage the Colonist territories around Lake Quofur—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
which they have done. However—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
Jamal, the Settler of the Colony—"

All the Halvardi spat at the name, and the watching ushers winced.

"—has sworn to send an army into the mountains—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
kill or castrate every Halvardi of fighting age—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"—and seize the passes for Islam. Worse, he is sending—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"
—
his one-eyed general Tewfik to do it."

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"In which case—"

hburni-burni-hrji 
 

"—
you
had better do something yourself."

Barholm frowned. "You," he said, addressing the diplomat. "Are you empowered to negotiate?"

"Yes, Your Exaltedness, provided that the chief and his council agree and finalize it," he said. A grimace. "The shaman has to cut open a sheep, too." He made a gesture that anyone around Court knew, thumb and two fingers rubbed together:
bribe him
.

"Take them over to the Minister of War," Barholm said decisively. "This is serious." He signed to the usher.

"This audience is at an end!" the megaphone bellowed. "All hail, his Exaltedness, Vice-Governor Barholm!"

"Be seated, gentlemen. My dear," Barholm added to his wife Anne.

The conference room dated to the reign of Negrin III, three centuries before; the walls were pale stone, delicately painted with scenes of reeds and flying dactlysaroids and birds, daringly unreligious unless you counted the single obligatory star up in one corner. The conference table was a relic of preFall days, a long oval of plastic that no force known to modern man could scratch or scar. Raj seated himself at the end furthest from the Vice-Governor, nodding to Anne with a smile. She responded with one of her own, cool and enigmatic. Anne, Lady Clerett, was a tall woman, an inch or so taller than her husband, and from her figure she had kept up the dancer's training. In her thirties, but with an ageless look; long dark-red hair that fell to her waist, braided with silver, conservatively dressed in wide pleated trousers and tunic of maroon silk that set off the green of her eyes.

You could see how she had captivated a younger Barholm; it took a closer acquaintance to understand how she had maintained that hold, gone from kept courtesan to official mistress to Church-wedded wife, despite all the cries of scandal and political liability. Raj remembered her on the Plaza Balcony, during the riots, standing calmly and looking down at the sea of upturned faces; he had stood beside her, in an agony of indecision over whether he should force her within. Then she had raised her glass to the crowd and laughed, while torches and bricks fell short and the occasional bullet spanged off the ornamental stonework.

She'd smiled at him then, too, as she turned and walked back into the dubious safety of the Palace. Smiled, and said: "I always
did
perform best with an enthusiastic audience." Laughing at the shock on his face . . . She was a very good friend of Raj's wife, Suzette, who was
still
the only lady of rank who would receive her. Raj suspected that social blockade would be broken with a ruthlessness even greater than that of the society matrons, when Barholm ascended his uncle's Chair. There were weapons sharper than a snub, and Anne would have no hesitation whatsoever in using them.

"Lady Anne," he murmured. This was a semi-formal occasion; greetings went from most junior to the second-senior present. Then to the others, the men with formal power: "General Klostermann." Commander of Eastern Forces, the second-most important field command. Commander of Residence Area Forces was the most important, of course. Which was why the Vice-Governor kept it firmly in his own hands. "Chancellor Tzetzas." Lidded eyes and perfect courtesy. "Captain Stanson." A brisk nod. "And Delegate Hortanz." The hired diplomat of the Halvardi.

Servants ghosted in, set out trays of wine, kave, nibblements on trays, left with the silent self-effacement of the Palace staff. A military aide brought the big relief-map and spread it out on the table; such were a priceless asset of the Civil Government's military, rivaled only in the Colony and unknown elsewhere.

"Well, there it is," General Klostermann said sourly, when Barholm had nodded the meeting open for business. He was a middle-aged man, weathered by the savage winters and summer heat of his command. There were deep crinkles beside the slanted hazel eyes that looked out the gallery windows, down into a courtyard of fountains and flowerbeds. "Tewfik's closer to the Halvardi than I am, and they've got the farmlands around Lake Quofur to draw on. He can reinforce and we can't, and that's the truth. If we'd kept the roads up better . . ."

Tzetzas frowned. "General," he said quietly, "the Civil Government's resources are limited, though one would wish otherwise. One inquires if the distinguished general would prefer to have roads and no pay for his troops?"

"That's late often enough," Klostermann said. "My lord." Turning to Barholm, "Your Exaltedness, perhaps we could send the Halvardi a subsidy; arms, maybe, or some engineering officers to fortify the passes?"

Barholm leaned back and sipped moodily at his kave. He looked down at the cup, blinked. "No, we don't
want
to make the Halvardi stronger, we want to
keep
them dependent on us. Klostermann, surely we could send
something
in the way of troops?"

"Ah, your Exaltedness . . . well, perhaps a couple of companies of Daud's Dragoons?"

Tzetzas laughed. "One is confident they would feel at home, being mostly barbarians themselves."

The general visibly forced himself not to scowl at the Chancellor, who was not a safe man to antagonize. "They may be irregulars, but they can ride and shoot."

"Not fast enough to stop the sort of force Tewfik will bring," Stanson said, prodding at the map.

"Ah, if
something
could be sent, relations with the Halvardi could be improved considerably," Delegate Hortanz said. He made a refined gesture. "In which case, the, ahh, subsidy for this year could be forgone . . . perhaps distributed to worthier causes?" His eyes crossed Chancellor Tzetzas', a byplay lost on none of the others.

Raj looked down at the map. It showed the eastern portions of the Midworld Sea and the western provinces of the Colony, the lands of civilization. The Civil Government held the thumb-shaped peninsula on the northeastern shore, and areas to the north and south; they shaded out into vaguely tributary provinces inhabited mostly by tribal peoples. The mapmaker had been remarkably optimistic; the Skinners, for example, were listed as "vassal tribes."