"Consider it done, ser."
"Oh, and turn captured dogs and weapons over to the servants," Raj said. "They won't be any use for fighting, but they can plunder and burn well enough, which is our job right now."
"Immediately, ser."
"We'll start pulling back as soon as we meet the 2nd, cleaning up the southern rim as we go." The basin that held El Djem was a flattened oval lying east-west; the bulk of the habitations were on the north edge, where artesian springs were most abundant. A lesser scattering rimmed the southern edge; the water that seeped to the surface in the low center of the
playa
was too salty for food crops, but it supported rich spicebush plantations. "When the last load's assembled here—or sooner, depending—we pull back to Fort Blair and then Komar, mission accomplished. Understood?"
Gerrin was lounging against a pillar. "Good, provided the enemy cooperates."
"Mought wish they wouldn't, ser," da Cruz said. "New draft, I'd admire to see how they shape under some weight."
M'lewis spoke up unexpectedly, from where he sat crouched on his haunches trimming a hangnail with his skinning knife. "Mebbe so," he said. The others looked at him, and he responded with a shifty, snaggle-toothed smile. "Summat of the newlies, they thinkin' Messer Captain's a luck-piece, turn bullets to water. Foin while it lasts, make 'em take chances, though, mebbe turn arse when the red wine's served for really."
"Not much we can do about that," Raj said, pushing back the shimmering vision of a firing-line dissolving as men ran, abandoning their comrades . . . no, abandoning strangers they had not learned to depend on, officers they did not know enough to trust. Raj knew his own motivations, knew that he would carry out his mission
whatever
the consequences, but he would not have been an effective leader if he did not realize that most soldiers were governed by different imperatives.
Somewhere in the building behind them wood crashed. Voices shouted, in a yelping exultant falsetto, "
Aur! Aur
!"
"Spirit of Man of the Stars," Kaltin muttered. "It's those
damned
irregulars again. Bloody weasels in a henhouse."
Raj sighed wearily, rubbing a hand over his face and unbuckling his helmet. Tepid sweat trickled greasily from the cork and sponge lining. "They've been willing to listen to reason, somewhat," he said.
"Summat, ser," M'lewis added, "after the boys told 'em what they thought of spoilin' loot." The officers nodded; their Descotters could be a trifle rough—they were soldiers, after all, not schoolgirls on an outing—but they were good lads at heart. "Got a good nose for hidey-holes, true told, once they blood's cooled a bit. Few of the
kaypadros
were goin' around with them, gleanin'-loik."
More crashing, the rhythmic sound of metal on wood. Then another chorus of screams, women's voices among them this time; a single shot, and a brief clash of steel. Shouts, the shrill yelping of the borderers and deep-chested Descotter bellows.
"Well, I think that's the Caid in his little hideaway," Evrard said, looking around and through the unshuttered floor-to-ceiling windows. "But damned—"
Raj looked back; the irregulars were kicking an elderly man along, one dressed in an expensive-looking robe. His beard was dyed green, sign of one who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy City of Sinar; where the first ships from Old Earth had landed, bearing a fragment of the Ka'bah from the ruins of burning Mecca. They swung open-handed blows at him, spitting in his face; one ripped out a handful of the beard. The Caid cried out, a prayer in Arabic.
"—if there's going to be much left."
The borderers were shouting as well:
"This for our priest you flayed in his church—
"Scream, dog! Scream as my brother did when the Bedouin burned him alive!"
Raj slapped a hand against the fluted limestone of the pillar beside him. "Well, they didn't
have
to volunteer," he said. The irregulars were invaluable at raid-and-ambush work, and they were certainly fighting men . . . but they were not any
sort
of soldiers, and the ones who'd come this far into hostile country were likely to have exceptional motivation.
Ripping cloth, and more breathless cries of pain and fear. A jeering borderman's voice, "These are your bitches, dog? Hai, an old dog like you doesn't need them!"
He glanced in through the windows again. The Caid was down on hands and knees, and one of the irregulars was sitting on his back as if on a riding dog, slashing behind him with the Caid's own ceremonial nine-thonged whip of authority. The jagged pieces of steel on the ends of the thongs were fully functional as well as symbolic, however.
Spirit of Man, what a way to make a living
,
Raj thought with weary disgust.
"This dog won't answer to the lash," the "rider" joked.
"A cull-dog!" somebody else laughed, darting in with the sleeve of his robe rolled back and a knife in his hands. "Cull-dogs must be
castrated
."
The commanders did not precisely look away, but there was no particular need to watch what was effectively out of their control. Thus they missed the first flicker of movement through the doors, and nobody heard the slap of bare feet on the sandstone floor because the Caid's dying scream was loud enough to stun their ears for a second. It did not last long; a man whose testicles have been completely severed bleeds out into unconsciousness quite quickly. Barton Foley was startled enough to jump backward with a yell as the girl ran into him, head down. He shouted, his voice cracking; the girl gave a breathless shriek, staring about wildly as weapons were returned to scabbards and holsters. Her hands stayed gripped in the harness of Ensign Foley's shoulder-strapped baldric. A torn-open vest was her only clothing apart from the thick hair that fell past her waist; she looked to be about sixteen, plumply pretty in the Arab fashion.
Boots rang on the stone behind her, not the soft-soled gear the irregulars wore. The first trooper out onto the veranda had a bayonet in his hand and his rifle slung muzzle-down across his back; four deep fingernail gouges ran across his face, and from the wide fixed stare he was fully aware that he had just missed having one eye scooped out to dangle on his cheek.
"The bitch," he said, in a strangely distant voice, panting. "The bitchcunt, we had 'er down, she clawed me, I'm gonna cut 'er four
ways
,
the
bitch
."
The girl ignored Foley's tentative attempts to push her away. When the trooper started forward she swung herself behind the young Descotter, gripping his harness again and holding him like a shield in front of her with hysterical strength, jumping up with hair billowing to shout Arabic curses and spit at the trooper over his shoulder. Frustrated, the soldier checked his rush just as his weight was going onto the balls of his feet and tried to angle around the younger man, snatching with his free hand.
Gerrin Staenbridge moved sideways, putting his palm over the girl's mouth. She tried to bite; the big hand clamped, and he barked two words in Arabic that left her standing silent except for the quick gasping of her breath. The trooper with the bayonet hardly seemed to notice.
"Get out a my
ways
,
pretty boy," he snarled.
Foley freed his shoulders with a jerk, straightened and set hands on hips, looking down his thin hooked nose.
"What was that, trooper?" he drawled, in a tone reminiscent of Captain Staenbridge's on inspection days.
The man blinked, looked around. A little of the glazed look faded from his eyes, and he straightened. The point of the bayonet turned down towards the ground, and his left hand fumbled automatically at the undone buttons of his jacket.
"Ah, beggin' yer pardon, ser," he said, making a sloppy salute. "That cunt, she's mine. We got 'er." Three more troopers had followed the first: one was limping, and another sucking at the ball of his thumb where sharp teeth had taken out a thimble-sized lump of flesh. "Jest step aside, ser, and we'll take care of it."
Foley cast a glance back at the fear-wide eyes of the girl and then helplessly at Staenbridge. The older man stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't think so, soldier," he said smoothly. "There's plenty more over in the mosque, and less menace to your eyes."
The trooper's fingers tightened on the bayonet, and he began shaking again with frustration and the terror of near-blinding transmuted into rage.
"Ser, it's
gleanin's
,
it's our
right
."
That was dangerous, when a Descott man started to talk of his rights. "An' beggin' yer pardon, ser, but what the fuck do yer two want wit' 'er?"
Staenbridge relaxed, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and offered one to the soldier with a smile, not ignoring the gap in rank but treating the matter as between one fighting man and another. The trooper took it awkwardly in one hand, then had to sheath his bayonet to light it.
"Look, soldier . . . Trooper Hylio Henyarson, isn't it? Mamorres parish?" The man had blue eyes, rare anywhere and almost unheard of in Descott County. He nodded, and the Senior Lieutenant continued: "Do you like wine?"
"
Ci, ferrementi, seyor
,"
the trooper said, bewildered: "Yes, of course, ser."
"Beer?"
"Summat."
"
Slyowtz
?"
An enthusiastic nod; the plum brandy was by way of a Descotter national drink.
"Honey mead?"
"
Nao
,
it leaves a funny taste at 't back a me throat, ser."
"But you drink it now and then?"
"Well, of course, ser—" The trooper stopped with his mouth open, frowning in dissatisfaction and visibly searching for an answer, as the officer indicated the girl with a silent
well, then
.
While he thought, Gerrin bent and pulled two bottles from the personal gear piled on the edge of the verandah; they were half-liter, of thick green glass with lithographed labels bearing the outline of a spray of plum blossom, sealed with wired corks and wax.
"Tell you what, soldier . . . I'll
trade
you for her."
"Holy Avatars of the Spirit," one of the troopers behind Hylio whispered, licking his lips.
Holdor Tennan straightened up from his seat on the verandah railing and put companionable arms around the shoulders of two of the others. "Hey, dog-brothers," he said, "I happen to know Sergeant Salton over there at the mosque is keeping some of the best back for last, and for a couple of hits of that liquor, with a little persuasion . . ."
Hylio looked back at his friends, whose eyes were fixed on the bottles;
Slyowtz
and a woman each were obviously looking a lot more appealing than sloppy seconds after him and a grudge-producing pissing match with a company commander. They might have backed him anyway, on principle, but the bottles were a face-saving gesture for Hylio and a generous one at that, showing a commander careful of his men's honor.
"Ah, crash and coredump 'er," he said. "They're all pink insides, anyhow. Watch the nails, ser."
"But . . . but
Gerrin
,"
Foley said. "What
will
we do with her?" The girl had backed up against a pillar, one hand holding her vest closed and the other spread over her crotch.
Staenbridge smiled fondly at him, but spoke to the girl first, in slow careful Arabic, hands moving to indicate where the troopers had stood, and then the mosque. She swallowed and nodded, glancing back and forth between him and Foley, then accepted a cloak from the older man's hands.
"Continue your education, Barton dear," he said, laying an affectionate arm around the youth's shoulders. "After all, you'll need to marry and carry on your family name, someday, so you need to know something of women: I get along quite well with my wife, one week every six months when I'm back in the County. First lesson, don't hurt them; honey catches more flies than vinegar, and there's no rush."
He nodded pleasantly to the other Companions. "See you later, gentlemen. Come, Fatima." Foley's ears were red to the tips as they walked away toward their billet.
"You know," Raj said to the others, "that was a very pretty piece of officer's work."
Discipline was essential, but so were aggression and self-confidence; that was why the elite of the Civil Government's army was recruited from places like Descott County, or from the
barbaricum
beyond the frontiers, rather than the spirit-broken peons of the central provinces. Men trained to kill, and proud enough to advance into fire rather than admit fear, were never easy to control.
"Frankly, I'm a bit surprised," Evrard said.
"You didn't know Gerrin when we were stationed on the western border, Evvie," Kaltin replied.
Da Cruz spat meditatively out into the plaza. "Messer Staenbridge knows his business," the senior noncom said. "But he needs sommone t'point him in the general direction, loik. Or he lets things slide a little at a time, and goes mean with it." He dusted off the thighs of his uniform, saluted. "You knows how to work with
him
.
ser."
"Think I'll do a tour of the vedettes," Kaltin said. "Keep their minds off how all their buddies are drinking and fucking while they roast in the sun."
Antin M'lewis watched the others depart, all but the Captain;
he
stayed, standing with his arms crossed and watching out over the captured hamlet as if he were seeing visions.
Don't cross 'im
,
the man from Bufford parish reminded himself. There was something spooky about the young commander, but he knew how to reward good service . . . and to punish. Just as well to hitch your cart to a rising star; it would never be dull, he decided, and possibly very profitable indeed. Not safe, of course, but then neither would staying home have been, shovelling muck and branding cattle and likely as not ending with iron in his belly for something truly stupid: a cuckold mocked at a feast, a moved boundary stone, straying stock.
He reached into a pouch and fingered the dice, looking meditatively at the mosque. Headquarters noncom billet there . . . and him a new-minted corporal. The dice flicked up into the air. M'lewis decided he could wait for the women; not that he didn't like a piece as well as the next, but he was no three-ball man, and in his experience they didn't grow shut again. It had been a source of amazement to him for years how mellow, how suggestible, how trusting men were right after they'd had their ashes hauled. Probably they'd just
love
a friendly game.