Lord of Janissaries (20 page)

There was a lot she could tell him, but Les had warned her against it. There was nothing he could do anyway. What could anyone do? Her original plan had been to find a hiding place, somewhere she could blend in and wait—

But she couldn’t do that alone, and when she was honest with herself, she was ashamed of wanting to. These people were human, they weren’t merely subjects of an anthropological study. And they faced starvation or worse. But she wished she had as much confidence in Rick as Tylara had. There was a scratching at her door. “Yes?” she called.

Caradoc came in. “We are leaving, Lady.” He stood nervously at the door.

“Have you no one else to say farewells to?” she asked.

“No, Lady.”

“I’ve told you a dozen times, my name is Gwen—”

“Aye.” He hesitated. “Gwen. A lovely name. Will you wish me well?”

“Of course.” She wasn’t sure of what to say. This wasn’t the first indication she’d had that Caradoc was interested in her—more than interested. She wondered why. She certainly wasn’t pretty in her present condition, and as captain of one of the archery regiments, Caradoc could have his pick of a dozen girls.

But he seemed fascinated by Gwen and spent as much time with her as he could. He treated her like a goddess, and that was flattering—and he was a very attractive man.

She wanted to hate men. All of them. But she was lonely, and the need to have someone of her own was a physical ache. “Come back, Caradoc,” she said. “Come back to me.”

“I will.” He hesitated, then came closer to her. “I will.”

She took two steps forward into his open arms. She let him hold her, but she felt her distended belly pressing against him and she was afraid, afraid to care for anyone again, and she hated herself for wanting to.

PART SIX

WAR LEADER

1

Most of the outbuildings and slave quarters had been burned, but the villa still stood. Rick was surprised that it remained. Despite everything he could do, it was difficult to convince the camp followers that their purpose was to loot, not pillage and rapine. He had trouble enough keeping the army itself from breaking ranks and joining in, and only constant threats to abandon them thirty miles inside the imperial boundary stones kept them in line.

A hundred candles burned inside the villa, and most of his officer corps were getting drunk in the main hall. For that matter, there was plenty of wine in the smaller room where Rick assembled the senior commanders.

“They won’t be fit for anything in the morning,” Rick complained. “Listen to them out there.”

“They’ll be all right,” Drumold said. “ ’Tis their way of celebrating.”

“They ought to be ashamed, not celebrating,” Rick said.

“We won,” Balquhain protested.

Tylara looked at her brother in contempt. “Won a fight you were not supposed to be in,” she said. “Drove away the local militia and lost three men-at-arms doing it. Were you not told to wait for the army?”

“I do not run from a fight,” Balquhain protested.

“The next time, you will,” Rick said. “Or I’ll send you back as escort for the wagon train.”

“You’ll not dare—”

“He dares,” Drumold said. “We hae all sworn on oath to fight as Rick commands. We will keep that oath.”

“I will ride with the scouts in the morning,” Tylara said. “If you do not understand what Rick wants from you, I do.”

Both Rick and Balquhain spoke at once. “There’s no need for that—”

“There is,” Tylara said. “The maps brought back today were wretched. You’ll need better.” She eyed Rick defiantly.

The problem was, she was right. Dozens of medieval armies were defeated because they hadn’t an elementary notion of the terrain they operated in. Rick had laughed in contempt when he read how the crusade commanders hadn’t even known where their own columns were, but now he was beginning to appreciate their problems. There were almost no maps, and nobody in his army thought a map was as important as any other weapon.

Nobody but Tylara. She’d had experience with maps in her western country, and she had a good eye for distance and detail. Her troops would obey her, too, which meant that a detachment she led would actually scout instead of stop at frequent intervals for loot. But dammit—

There wasn’t a lot of choice. They were deep in the imperial province, and if they marched on without locating the local garrison, they’d all be killed. “Tylara will take the scouts tomorrow,” Rick said. “Balquhain will stay with the heavy cavalry.”

Balquhain opened his mouth to protest, but he saw his father’s look and subsided.

“That’s an important job,” Rick said. “They’ll take orders only from you or your father.”

The heavy cavalrymen were a pain in the arse, and he’d be better off sending them home, but that was out of the question. The trouble was, all the armored men were aristocrats, and that meant they had silly notions about the obligation of the aristocracy to get out front and fight for their honor—which would mean that most of his officer corps would be slaughtered in the first five minutes of real combat, and that would demoralize the infantry. Somehow he’d have to keep his two hundred armored horsemen out of it until the pikes and arrows had settled the matter. “Drumold, I think you should entrust your banner to your son. We’ll give the mailed knights the honor of protecting it.”

Drumold nodded seriously, and Balquhain seemed satisfied. Tylara concealed a grin from her brother. Sometimes Rick thought she was the only one in the army who paid attention to his lectures on tactics.

* * *

They marched in oblique order. The First Pike Regiment, a block of a thousand, was ahead and to the right. Behind and left of them was the First Archers, then the Second Pikes, his main body and two thousand strong. The Second Archers and Third Pikes, another thousand-man block, followed on the road. Rick kept the heavy cavalry force with him, just behind the First Pikes. That way he could keep an eye on them. If anyone was likely to do something stupid, it would be his armored ironheads.

The wagons and pack horses came last. They were escorted by a screen of mounted archers acting as MPs under Mason’s command. It had taken some doing to convince Drumold and his subchiefs that carrying food
into
the Empire would be a good idea. There’d been shouting and sulking. By now Rick was getting very good at pretending rage. He shuddered at the alternative; the army would have to break up into foraging groups every time they wanted a meal.

Tylara’s scouts fanned ahead of the column. Rick wished he could go with her, but he didn’t dare. The troops looked more like an army than a mob, but they still thought they needed his magic star weapons to protect them. They had no real confidence in themselves, and that could just be fatal.

* * *

Caius Marius Marselius, Caesar’s Prefect of the Western Marches, was annoyed. He’d hoped to avoid trouble for two more years, after which he would retire to his estates near Rome and let someone else worry about the province. He was not surprised when a local militiaman reported an invasion of hill barbarians, but he was definitely annoyed.

He was also careful. The militia officer had seen only light cavalry, but he thought there might be a larger body of barbarians behind the cavalry screen. He’d been unable to get through to find out.

That was unusual enough to make Marselius take notice. Normally these tribesmen came in like a flood, looted whatever they could, and ran. They had not thought of security. Marselius wondered if a Roman officer had defected and was now leading the barbarians. He couldn’t think of anyone, but it was possible.

“We’ll have to go into the hills and teach them a lesson,” he told his legates. “It’s been ten years since we had an expedition beyond the borders. High time.”

The senior legate looked at him curiously. Marselius smiled faintly. He knew what the man was thinking. Initiative was not encouraged in Caesar’s prefects. An outstanding officer might be contemplating rebellion. Caesar needed no generals who commanded greater respect from their legions than Caesar held.

And perhaps the legate was right. Marselius knew he was no threat to Caesar. He wanted only to retire. But would Caesar believe that?

The Empire would fall to that kind of suspicion someday. Marselius was convinced of it. When prefects were afraid to carry out their plain duty—

“Whether we follow them to the hills or not, we will want to destroy these barbarians,” he said. “Not merely defeat them, but kill so many that they will tremble at the very thought of Caesar. For this we will require the full legion. Send for the reservists, call up the local knights, and bring in the detachments from Caracorum and Malevenutum. We will strike when they are all assembled.”

“That will give the barbarians time to gather loot. Many of the landholders will be ruined, and they will protest to Rome,” the senior legate said.

“Let them. There are few patricians in the border hills. God’s breath, must I live in perpetual fear of Caesar’s wrath?”

The legate did not answer. He did not need to.

Four days later, Marselius listened to the reports with growing amazement. The barbarians had not stopped to loot the foothill country. They had marched straight into the province.

“By nightfall they will be at the villa of Patroclus Sempronius,” the scout commander reported.

“So far?” This was ruin. Sempronius was a cousin of the empress. Worse, the considerable town of Sentinius was just beyond. Caesar would never, never forgive the prefect who allowed a Roman city to be sacked by barbarians. They would have to be stopped, and quickly.

“How many legionaries do we have?” he asked the legate.

“Three thousand, Prefect.”

That would include all the regulars and a considerable number of the reservists under their local leaders. Marselius sighed with regret: he could remember when a full four thousand regulars were kept in the camps. Ten years of peace in this province had robbed it of half that number. Caesar didn’t care to keep armies larger than necessary, for fear they would rebel.

“Three thousand should be more than enough,” Marselius said.

The legate grinned agreement. “They are only barbarians. They have no armor and few horses. What can they do against our knights?”

“What indeed? Sound the trumpets. Before the True Sun sets, I want the legion between Sentinius and these tribesmen. We will attack them in the morning when two shadows show clearly.”