Lord of Janissaries (64 page)

They rode hard through foothills covered with thorny scrub. Just before midday, the stark battlements of Castle Armagh loomed up ahead. Ganton spurred his horse and rode up alongside Rick. “Not the most comfortable of places, but yet a welcome sight,” he said.

“Aye, Majesty.” Forty miles in the saddle. Major Assburns. Not a joke to tell the king, but bloody hell my arse is sore!

“Your County is peaceful,” Ganton said. “I had half-thought so small a party might meet up with robbers.”

“It could have been,” Rick acknowledged. The party they’d taken to visit Lord Ajacias in the Sutmarg had been enormous: guards, Mounted Archers, Yanulf’s train of scribes and priests and acolytes, musicians, courtiers . . . The intention had been to eat up Ajacias’ substance, and they’d done that. There were only ten in the group riding to Armagh. The others had been sent back to the capital, or up the Littlescarp to aid Murphy, or, like Yanulf, followed at a more leisurely pace.

“Perhaps messengers already await us at Armagh,” Ganton suggested. “From the University.”

“Possible,” Rick conceded.

“By Yatar, I like this!” Ganton shouted. “To ride hard, all day and half the night! To eat venison roasted over a campfire, and sleep in furs on the ground—hardships, but we do this as friends, without advisors, without endless ceremony. I have not felt so alive since—since I led men to battle!”

“It can be a good feeling.” Until the battle’s over, and you have to look at the butcher’s bill.

“I wish we had gone with the Lord Mason,” Ganton said.

Rick shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. “If the Lord Mason and the Guard cannot relieve the Lord Murphy, we two would be of little use.”

Ganton nodded seriously. “Aye. We must needs send an army, and only you and I can arrange that, so we are needed here. I know this, but it galls me to send my friends where I cannot go.”

“Me too, sire. But it’s part of leadership, to learn to be sensible. The semaphore will tell us when Mason gets back to Castle Dravan and is on his way here. Meantime, we have plenty to do.”

“Aye.” Ganton stood in his stirrups and turned. “Hanzar!” he shouted. “Ride ahead and tell them the Wanax of Drantos comes to guest with the Eqeta of Chelm.”

Rick shifted his weight again. At least one of his problems was about to solve itself. In an hour he’d get a hot bath, and there was still half a tube of Preparation H . . .

* * *

Sergeant Chester Walbrook came out of the low doorway followed by two guardsmen. Their backs were bent under the load of heavy crates wrapped in mylar sheeting. Walbrook sent the guards ahead with acolyte torchbearers, then ticked off entries in his notebook. Finally he nodded to Rick. “That’s the lot of it, sir.”

Rick turned to the blue robed priest. “You may seal the caves.”

Apelles motioned to his acolytes.

Rick suppressed a grin. Somebody’s got to work. Who should it be, me? Not that I won’t get my chance, with Mason coming in tomorrow. And the Grand Council of Drantos to meet in another ten-day. First things first, get this ammunition off to Castle Dravan. It’ll be needed.

The door was heavy wood with heavily greased thick ironwork, set firmly into carved stone lintels deep in the bowels of Castle Armagh. “This is fine work,” Rick said. “I have not seen its like in Drantos.”

Apelles nodded. “I too was impressed, Lord, and wished to have another like it, but alas, when I inquired, I found that is not to be. The mason was from the southern Roman provinces, the lands south of Tamaerthon where Roman law is weak. He had got a Roman matron with child, but fled before he could be brought before the magistrates. How he came here I know not, but so I was told.”

“And now?”

Apelles shook his head sadly. “He had learned nothing, for he bedded the daughter of the local village chief. Her father and brothers killed him.”

Sergeant Walbrook chuckled. “It happens. Too bad, though. That’s a good storage place for the ammunition.” He eyed Apelles, then changed to English. “Captain, are you sure you want these locals to guard our ammo?”

“You have a better plan? Want to sit guard over it yourself?”

“No, sir—”

“It would be soft duty, but I can’t spare troops for that,” Rick said. “And the rest of this place is theirs anyway.” He turned to Apelles. “We can go now.”

Apelles motioned to the acolytes. Two carried torches and led the way uphill. The rest fell in behind Rick, Walbrook, and Apelles. Mason would have a fit, Rick thought.

The acolytes led the way up, then turned sharply left and down again. The smell of ammonia, always present in the caves, grew stronger. The trail narrowed. It was still a full yard wide, but seemed narrower because to their left was a sheer drop into black nothingness too deep for Rick’s flashlight to illuminate.

Across the ten-yard gap was a rock wall covered with a bulbous slimy mass hung over with icicles and ammonia droplets. There was a slight wind through the cave, enough to bring in fresh air; otherwise they would not have been able to breath because of the ammonia.

“Hard to believe that damn iceplant reaches all the way up to the surface,” Walbrook said. “I reckon we’re three hundred feet down.”

“Yeah, the root system is amazing,” Rick agreed. “I’m even more amazed at how it makes ice.” The local name for the plant was “The Protector.” It was sacred to Yatar; legend had it that the nearer the rogue star came to Tran, the more efficient the icemaking capabilities of the Protector. That was interesting enough that Rick had asked for weekly measurements, but so far the data were insufficient for any real conclusions.

The acolytes hurried them through this area. The entrance and main corridor of the cave were far too large to be kept secret, but somewhere nearby the cave branched into a labyrinth of ammonia-filled passages that only Yatar’s servants could enter. Grain and meat were stored there in the ice, gifts to Yatar—gifts to be returned from Yatar to his people during the worst seasons of the Time.

“We have not guarded weapons before,” Apelles said. He paused a moment as if making up his mind. “And I am told it would be more fitting that those consecrated to Vothan One-eye guard your weapons.”

“I have heard this also,” Rick said. Not least from the Vothan priesthood. “But the servants of Yatar have always held the Caves of the Protector, and have distributed the gifts of Yatar fairly and with honor. How should I change what has always served the people and the god alike?”

Apelles bowed to acknowledge the compliment.

Sharp lad, Rick thought. Get my opinion now, while nobody’s listening. Next he’ll try to get me to say it in public. He’s learning his bureaucratic skills—and I can’t even complain, since we brought in Roman scribes to
teach
them how to set up a bureaucracy.

Christ, I hate paperwork! But we can’t live without it. It takes a quart of wheat every day to feed a man. A bushel of oats to feed a war horse. The food has to come from somewhere. Food, wagons, weapons, ammunition—all the details of keeping an army in the field, and then there’s food for all the peasants growing madweed. We’re getting very dependent on this bureaucracy, which means the priests of Yatar. So long as Yanulf is in charge of the Yatar cult in Drantos, that’s all right. But he won’t live forever . . .

As they reached the cave entrance, a junior acolyte ran up to them. “Master Apelles,” he shouted. “Master, you are to tell the Lord Rick that the Lady Tylara has arrived.”

* * *

Tylara was lovely. She ran toward him, but before she could reach him they were intercepted by a tiny dark-haired bombshell. “Daddy!” she screamed. Rick scooped Isobel up and held her high, while she laughed, and her hounds bared their canine teeth and growled that anyone, even the master, would so treat their charge.

“She’s grown so,” Rick said.

“They do, Lord,” Erinia the nursemaid said. She sniffed, her comment on men who let their children grow up without them.

“And the boy?” Rick asked.

“He sleeps, Lord,” Erinia said. “As well, after a ride like today’s.” She spoke with a thick Tamaerthan accent, and her manners were of the clans, not the households of Drantos. There would be no point in asking her to fetch the boy; she’d let him see his son when he woke, and not before.

There was no talking with Tylara, either, not while Isobel was there. She clutched at Rick and laughed, and when he put her down she held his legs.

So little time, Rick thought. So damned little time to spend with them, and so much to do.

* * *

“How could I not come?” Tylara said when they were alone at last. “Dravan is our home, and these Westmen menace it. Should I then stay in Tamaerthon?”

Rick laughed. “I hoped you would come.” He went to her.

She returned his kisses, then pushed his hands firmly away. “Later. First we talk alone. Then with the Wanax. And then we bathe.” She kissed him again. “It will no be so long . . .”

“Long enough.” He went back to the writing table where her last letters lay. “The University,” he said. “You say it may not be safe.”

She shrugged. “The minor clans and lawless ones see much wealth and few soldiers in a town bordered by wild hills and lochs. They dream of more booty taken in hours than they will see in their lives. Can you blame them for those dreams?”

“Maybe not, but we can’t let it happen. Is it safe there?”

“For the moment. Until Mac Clallan Muir must withdraw his men. Rick, that may not be so long, unless you have gold and grain to send. If they are to feed their children, the dunnhie wassails must go and work their lands. My father cannot forever keep them as guardsmen, and he cannot send other clans whose chiefs have no love for this place where crofters are taught to defeat warriors.”

“I know. I suppose the first thing is to send some Drantos troops to help keep watch. Only I’d want to send Chelm soldiers, and we’ll need them all against the Westmen. I’ll need Caradoc and his archers in the west, too.”

“Strip away Caradoc’s archers, and your University will no last the season,” Tylara said. “Your starmen will needs be alert all the time, and even so there are few enough of them to face a thousand hillmen.”

“The University must survive, Tylara.”

She had been ready to reply more sharply, but something in his voice made her say merely, “At the expense of our lands?”

“At all expense. Tylara, every six hundred years this planet, all of it, all its peoples, are knocked back into a dark age. That has to stop. Has to, and the University is the only way.”

“Then we must find ways to protect our University,” she said. “It too will be part of our children’s rightful inheritance. We must preserve Chelm as well—and I doubt not that I have for a husband the only man alive who can do all that.”

* * *

The rooms were perfect duplicates of Rick’s office suite in Castle Dravan: small office with writing desk, larger conference room with slab table and sideboards with wine cruets. The walls either had maps painted on them, or were smooth-surfaced and whitewashed for writing. A charcoal brazier stood in one corner, and a rack for cloaks and weapons in another. Apelles had even duplicated the carvings on the chairs . . .

“Within a ten-day we meet with the Grand Council,” Rick said. “And before that, we’ll meet with Lucius and Octavia and Drumold. But you’re
my
council.”

Tylara nodded agreement from her place at the other end of the table. Between them sat Elliot, Gwen, Warner, and Art Mason. “This is not the Council of Chelm,” Tylara said. “Nor any lawful group. Yet—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. This was a meeting of the starmen who held the power of gods. For a moment she seemed very vulnerable.

“I think you’ll like Octavia,” Gwen said. “That is, if you can get Ganton to spare her for a couple of hours.” They all grinned at that; they’d hardly seen her since she arrived with Gwen and Warner.

First came reports. University research projects. The quest for movable type—

“—but I wouldn’t print any books yet,” Gwen concluded.

“Why not?” Rick asked.

“Because the
Shalnuksis
can’t possibly misunderstand their significance,” Gwen said. “They’d
know
they were faced with a major outbreak of technology. God knows what they’d do.”

“They may know anyway,” Rick said.

“Also, do you want to just throw all these changes at Tran?” Gwen asked. “You’re going to lose control of the situation anyway—”

Rick saw Tylara’s frown.

“—and some changes are more unsettling than others.”

“I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, keep working on it,” Rick said. He sighed heavily. “We haven’t a lot of time. Next order of business. Elliot, you were with Parsons. He tried to run things by force. I’ve used a different policy. What do the men think of my way, now that Parsons is dead?”

“Cap’n, I was dead wrong about you, and I’ve said so,” Elliot said.

“I’m not after an apology, Sergeant Major. I want an assessment of the situation.”

“Sir.” He looked at the ceiling for a moment. “Colonel Parsons had not yet attempted to plant
surinomaz
, but it’s reasonable to suppose he’d have done no better at that than he did in holding the land,” Elliot said. “While he was in command, we lost Corporal Hartford to guerrilla activity. Five more troopers were severely wounded. A total of twenty-three successfully deserted.

“Since you took command, Private Reznick has been killed in action, and three others have been severely wounded, all in battles. There have been no losses to guerrillas. Ten former deserters, eleven counting Mr. Mason, have returned to duty, and nobody has run off. Troop morale is high. We have over six hundred acres in
surinomaz
, and I guess there’s no revolt brewing out there even if the peasants aren’t too happy about growing the stuff.” He shrugged. “On the evidence, your way works.”

“And the men realize that?”

“Most,” Elliot said. “All that count.”

Meaning there are things you aren’t telling me, Rick thought. But no point to that now. “The key to ‘my way’ has been to cooperate with the legitimate rulers here.”

“You have done more than this. You have become one of us,” Tylara said.