"
Slaughter
?"
Raj asked. "Of
sicklefeet
?
Messer, you mean you were keeping those vermin around
deliberately
?"
Raj looked at him, a tall slender man with a narrow face and eyes so black that the pupil merged with the iris; thirty, and in good hard condition, the way you'd expect an enthusiastic hunter to be. "In Descott County, there's a
bounty
on them."
"Ah. Descott." There was a freight of meaning in the single syllable, in the hard-edged accent of the Home Counties. "Well,
Messer
Captain,"—he stressed the honorific as if Raj was a member of the gentry class only by courtesy "—this is
Harzon
County, don't you know."
A slight tension at his back, as the other officers heard the implied insult to their birth County.
Is
this man insane
?
Raj wondered, forcing back the pounding at his temples. No, he decided, watching the eyes that held no trace of fear or doubt; it was the face of someone who could not
imagine
contradiction or opposition on his own territory. No doubt this Trahn could drop the purchase price of Hillchapel across a gaming table and laugh at the loss, but it required an arrogance of truly interesting proportions to act this way with three hundred killers at Raj's back. A Descott squire could be stiff-necked enough behind the ramparts of his manor . . . but the biggest landowner in the hills wouldn't have
this
sort of gall.
Of course, they still practiced the vendetta back home, and not just between social equals, either; a sniper behind a rock could vanish into the canyon lands, and who could say it wasn't bandits?
There are times I'm glad I come from the backwoods
,
Raj decided. Lieutenant Gruder's voice broke in again.
"Sir, you should see this." There was something strange in the tone. "We found it when we paunched the last sicklefoot."
Raj turned in the saddle; Horace kept up his curious sniffing at the muzzle of Minh's wolfhound. The other dog was uncertain how to handle it, unwilling to reciprocate and too well-trained to back.
A trooper was riding beside the younger Gruder, his face as green as his commander's. He had a scrap of bloody sauroid hide in his hands, with a lump of something half-digested on it. It took a minute's stare to realize it was a leg; of a child about six, from the size, still wearing the remains of a hide shoe. Home-made, a peasant's moccasin, but with blue beaded flowers on the toe. Raj swallowed, looked from the trooper to Minh.
"Well?" he said.
"I
told
you, Messer, it was expensive to keep the beasts in the neighborhood." A shrug. "They got two other brats, and chopped up a team of perfectly good plow oxen, and the Spirit of Man of the Stars alone knows how many sheep. Crafty devils, and good sport."
Raj heeled his mount forward, to within hands-reach of the landowner. Horace shouldered into the wolfhound, which tried to push back and rebounded from the bigger dog's weight; the hound's lips were drawn back just enough to show his teeth, and he raised his head to look down on Minh's slender mount. Raj reached out, grabbed the wrist of the hand that had begun to swing the dogwhip towards him.
"Now that,
Messer
,"
the officer said, "was unwise. It might be construed as an assault on a serving officer, highly illegal." The muscles of his forearm tightened; Minh tried to jerk free, found himself in a grip as unyielding as a vise. He looked down, and his eyes widened slightly as he took in the thickness of Raj's wrists; the Descotter was a big man, but they would have been impressive on someone half again his size. The fingers clamped inward, and Raj felt bones bend towards their breaking points.
What? he said inwardly. No disastrous consequences?
none that i can calculate,
Center replied dispassionately,
act as you think advisable.
Minh was snarling himself, white about the lips and sweat beading on his forehead.
"I . . . apologize!" he said tightly. Raj squeezed again, then slacked at the sickening rush of pleasure he felt, as fear invaded the other's eyes for what was probably the first time in decades.
"Accepted, Messer," Raj grated, working his hand. It had been years since he last slipped his tether like that, and he did not like to think about what the consequences had been then. A thought struck him. "Your estate, Messer; it includes a town?" That was a legal term rather than a descriptive one, but it usually meant something bigger than a village.
"Yes," Minh said, with the glazed look of one who cannot
believe
what is happening to him. "At the ford over the Toluravir." That was a left bank tributary of the Hemmar, and they had to cross in any event, heading south for the passes over the Oxheads and into the border Counties.
"Expect two Battalions and complement, for billeting, sundown tomorrow," he said crisply. Minh's face fell slightly; the soldiers would pay for their supplies, but they would do so in Government script . . . re-claimable in East Residence, two weeks travel away. A banker would take the paper, at a 10% discount. And it would empty storehouses that would otherwise have turned a healthy profit. "Now, if you'll give us the road, Messer?"
The first thing that Raj noticed as he rode down the expedition's column of march was Suzette stepping down from Captain Stanson's carriage. She waved gaily to him, before turning and extending her hand. Stanson bent over it as she laid fingers on his palm, touching it to his lips; standard courtesy, from an officer to a Messa, a lady of the Messer class. Horace gave a short complaining whuffle-whine as Raj reined in with a brutal jerk at the bridle. Suzette's dog Harbie was tied to the rear hitch of the passenger vehicle on a leading rein.
"Oh, Raj!" his wife said, with a glow. "Messer Stanson so
kindly
invited me to ride with him and Merta."
"Good evening, Captain Stanson," Raj said shortly. The co-commander of the expedition was leaning back against the curved rear seat of his carriage; the top was down, on this fine spring day. The redheaded girl—
Merta
,
Raj remembered, she had been a seamstress or something of that sort in East Residence—huddled against the other side of the vehicle.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Messer," he continued: a social pleasantry, for which social rather than military rank was appropriate. Stanson looked cool and elegant in his spotless white uniform with the gold trim, slender and tough and pretty as a fangmouth. Raj was acutely conscious of his own state, all the bright-work on his uniform browned with varnish as he had ordered for the 5th, soaked with sweat and sweat-caked dirt besides, smelling of powder and dog. He held out his hand, noticing the rims of black under the nails.
"Oh, no problem," Stanson said, leaning over from the carriage and shaking it. "We had such a
marvelous
time discussing the old days. We met each other back when, you know."
"Yes," Raj grated. "I know."
Back when Suzette had been a desperate hanger-on to the fringes of polite society, nobody to bring her out for the first season but an aunt as shabby-genteel as herself. While this young spark had been doing the rounds of the parties and spending his father's rents, and Raj . . . Raj had been dividing his time between the armsman and his tutors and lonely hunts in the high hills, dreaming of winning a commission, glory, something beyond the endless sameness.
"Messer Stanson has very kindly invited us to dinner," Suzette said, a bare hint of wasp-warning in her voice.
"Yes, we can discuss the new draft," Stanson said.
"New draft?" Raj said.
God, I'm tired
,
he thought.
"Yes, the Master of Soldiers, East Residence Area, saw fit to send us along about two hundred odds and sods in the way of reinforcements. Countersigned by the Vice-Governor's office." He produced the personnel order; Suzette's eyes dropped slightly.
Anne
,
Raj knew. "We'll have to decided how to split them up."
"Oh,
Helmt
,"
Suzette said pettishly, using his first name. "I thought you were going to tell me how you arranged for old Ebnzar's barge to sink at the water picnic!" She slapped at his hand lightly with her gloves. "You
know
you've got more men than you can use; besides, they look so fine, all on those beautiful Alsatians, wouldn't it be a pity to spoil it?"
Stanson smiled genially and patted her hand where it lay on the door of the carriage. "Of course, my dear Suzette, by all means." He raised his eyes to Raj. "You
will
be able to join us, fellow soldier?"
"Sorry," Raj said with an abrupt jerk of his head. "I'll have to call an officer's meeting, handle the details." With patently forced courtesy: "But by all means, Suzette, don't let me detain you; the meeting should last until 1100 or so. And if we could return the courtesy in a day or two?"
"Done," Stanson said, ignoring the patent insincerity. "Day after tomorrow it is." He turned to Suzette. "And tonight, do wear that fetching tweed riding outfit; quite dashing, my dear."
"Ser—" da Cruz began.
"I know, I know," Raj said shortly; he had changed and sponge-bathed in an echoing silence as Suzette dressed for her dinner party.
Now he looked about him; it was two hours past sundown, with Miniluna nearly full. Light enough to see the neat tent lines of the 5th, laid out as they were every night, and the mathematical arrangement of their campfires. An axe was falling on wood, somewhere, and some of the men were singing at their evening meal. A mounted squad trotted by, on their way out to night-patrol veddette duty; the duty corporal saluted smartly as he passed, and Raj returned it.
"It's the new draft. We're getting them all."
Master Sergeant da Cruz looked as if he had bitten into an orange and found it half-sour. "They isn't no prizes, ser," he said. "Only 'bout one in two's a Descott man, and a mort of 'em, they looks loik their sergeants was happier for their space 'n their company. And first and fifth companies is so unnerstrength, we put enough in to bring them up they'll be one-third replacements."
Raj nodded. All the companies in the 5th Descott Guards had originally been recruited from the personal retainers of some County nobleman or other; yeoman-tenants and
vakaro
herdsmen putting on uniform to follow their squire in the Governor's service, as they might have against bandits or raiders or in a feud at home. Over the years brother had followed brother and son father, and throwing strangers into those close-knit unities was asking for trouble. For that matter, moving men around from the other companies to ensure a better mix of old hand and newcomer would be almost as bad.
"I'll discuss it with the company commanders," Raj said.
Duty is release from care
,
he thought to himself, quoting scripture. "But sound out the men, find a few due for promotion who'd be willing to move into the first and fifth companies as corporals, platoon sergeants, that sort of thing." The officers who had been shorting their companies preferred to keep dead noncoms on the strength, since their pay was higher. "Then we can keep those two from being overrun with newbies, at least."
Da Cruz nodded. "Ser." A pause. "There's also a matter of a discipline offense. Seein's yer gave the foraging order, I suggested to Senior Lieut'nat Staenbridge as you'd like to deal with it, beggin' yer pardon for the liberty, ser."
"All right, let's see to it."
The Senior Lieutenants' tents were pitched at the head of their company streets; two-room tents, a bedchamber at the rear just large enough for a cot and an office/sitting chamber collapsible at the front, filled by a collapsible table and a couple of chairs. Staenbridge and his aide were sitting at the table beneath the open flap doing paperwork when Raj arrived; they rose smartly and saluted, fist touching brow and shooting straight up in allegiance to the Stars. A hangdog looking trooper was standing before them, with evidence piled around his feet, and a few other figures were lurking at the edge of the circle of light cast by the lantern on the tentpole. And a full squad lined up with their rifles at port.
Raj returned the salute. "Evening, Gerrin," he said, putting things on an informal basis as for as the officers were concerned.
"Raj," the other man replied. His smile was slight but genuine; they had settled into a truce of wary mutual respect without much liking.
In fact, I have a
sneaking suspicion I'd be much like him if I was stuck at company command level for a while with no prospect of anything else
,
Raj thought. One thing they
did
have in common was a like of getting the job done; Staenbridge had just gotten discouraged enough to forget what the job
was
.
With a genuine military task at hand, things were going much better.
"Ensign Foley," Raj continued. Regularizing the boy's rank had seemed the most sensible thing to do. And hell, there were worse ways of learning the trade than as a military apprentice, and his birth was perfectly acceptable. The youth nodded and brought out some papers.
"You have a problem, Gerrin?" Raj continued.
"No," the other man answered. "One of my troopers has a problem. Sergeant?"
"Trooper Antin M'lewis, front and center!" da Cruz barked.
The soldier was rather thin for a Descott man, with a reddish tinge to his bowl-cut black hair, limping a bit on one leg that also sported a rip in its red trouser leg. Piled behind him were two pig carcasses, neatly gutted and with the edible organs inside the body cavity in burlap bags. Another burlap sack beside sagged open, showing onions, dried apples and figs, a loaf of dark-crusted bread and a clay jug. "Yer other sods, too!" Two nondescript soldier's servants; every eight-man squad was officially allowed one in the field, but the ratio was generally exceeded.
"He's in third of the first," Gerrin said. "Salman"—Nkita Salman, the Lieutenant of the first company's third platoon—"is out on veddette duty, so I'm the one that called you." He raised his voice slightly. "Complainants, step forward." A farmer, old enough to be stooped, in his Starday-go-to-church linen shirt and kerchief, with wooden clogs on his feet.