Hope Rearmed

by David Drake

  Another long rustle and hum from the crowd. “As courtesy and the ancient customs of our community demand, The Most Excellent Major Clerett will speak first, listing the terms and demands of the Civil Government. The heads of the guilds, and High Colonel Strezman, will reply and the guilds will express their will to the syndics.”

  More ceremonies followed; blessings from Star Spirit and This Earth priests—the liturgies differed only in detail, but the Brigade cult was given pride of place—before Cabot Clerett stepped to the speaker’s position.

  He paused to remove his helmet and tuck it under one arm, then lifted the other palm out, slowly. It was an effective gesture, but he had the benefit of training by the best rhetoricians available in East Residence. He looked down on the sea of upturned faces, face underlit by the torches that brought out highlights in his curly black hair, face stern and sharp-boned.

  “People of Lion City!” he called, in a voice pitched slightly higher than usual to carry. Training put the full power of strong young lungs behind it, and kept it from sounding shrill; his Spanjol was accented but fluent. “Hear the terms which are most generously granted to you; for wisdom lies not in rash fury, but in reasoned council and moderation. I offer—”

  Gerrin stirred behind him; that was supposed to be “General Whitehall offers. The young emissary was sticking to the agreed text, but substituting his own name or something like “the Civil Government” or “His Supremacy, my uncle” whenever Raj’s name was called for. They were flanking Cabot to the left and right and a step to the rear, leaving the bannerman directly behind him to show the Civil Government’s flag. Heavy silk hissed against the polished stanauro wood of the pole; the breeze was from the ocean, carrying scents of tar and stagnant water and a hint of clean seawater beyond. Out beyond the seawall to their left red lights glowed, reflected furnace-light on the smoke from the war-steamers’ furnaces.

  Raj kept his attention on the crowd and the leaders, checking only that the terms were as he’d specified. Cabot’s voice rose in an excellent imitation of passion at the conclusion; Bartin Foley had written it, cribbing from his studies of Old Namerique classical drama. Not much of that had survived the Fall—most of the stored data had died with the computers—but fragments had been written down from memory by the first generation, and fragments of that had survived the eleven hundred years since. He finished the promises; now on to the threats.

  “Therefore, you men of Lion City, take pity on your town, and on your own people, while yet my soldiers—” Cabot’s voice rolled out.

  “My soldiers, you little fastardo?” Gerrin muttered. His voice was almost inaudible, but Raj was very close. Close enough to nudge the other man with his boot unnoticed.

  “—are in my command; avoid deadly murder, spoil and villainy, such as accompany a sack; yield peacefully. For if not, look to see the blood-drenched soldiers with foul hands defile the thighs of your shrill-shrieking daughters; your fathers taken by the silver beards, and their most reverend heads dashed to the walls; your naked infants spitted on bayonets; while the mad mothers with their howls break the clouds in anguish!”

  Cabot stopped, clicked heels and stepped back. The sea of faces rippled as men turned to speak to their neighbors. A voice called out from the ranks of the laborers:

  “It ain’t our war! This General Raj, he’s treated peaceful people right well out in the country, from what they say. What have we ever got from the Brigade but taxes and a boot up our bums? Open the gates!”

  “Open the gates! Open the gates!” A claque took up the chant.

  Out of the corner of his eye Raj could see High Colonel Strezman’s tight-held jaw. He murmured an order to an aide, who hopped off the podium; seconds later a squad of Brigade soldiers was heading for the man who’d spoken. There was a moment’s commotion as the laborers closed ranks, and then thrust the man scrambling backward between their legs to lose himself in the crowd. Before the rifle-butts could force a way, a squad of civic militia shifted nearer. The Brigadero officer in charge of the squad looked over his shoulder at Strezman, then turned his men around and retired, followed by jeers and catcalls, but not by rocks.

  Not yet, Raj thought.

  Strezman shifted, and de Roors led him to the speaker’s position.

  “Silence!” he shouted.

  When the murmuring grew, Strezman signed to the aide and a ten-man section of dragoons threw their rifles to their shoulders and fired into the air. And immediately reloaded, Raj noted.

  Silence came at last. “Civilians of Lion City,” Strezman began. His Spanjol was more heavily accented than Cabot’s had been, with a Namerique clang to it.

  Not too tactful, Raj thought. Civilian meant “second-class citizen” at best in the Brigade lands. Only slightly more polite than grisuh, civvie.

  “In his wisdom,” Strezman continued, “His Mightiness, General Forker, Lord of Men—” that fell flat, and he ignored scattered jeers.

  I imagine Strezman isn’t too thrilled about Forker’s little hostage play, Raj thought. The man seemed to be something of a soldier, in his way, and the intelligence report indicated he was a Brigade noble of the old school.

  “—has sent a strong garrison to defend your city from the butcher Whitehall and his host.” More murmurings from the crowds, and a voice called:

  “Yeah, he butchered a whole lot of you dog-sucker barbarians down in the Southern Territories.” Another, from a different section of the crowd:

  “And restored Holy Federation Church, you heretic bastard!”

  The crowd’s growl was ugly. The militia shuffled, looking to the syndics. The armed retainers of the rich and the Colonists closed around their masters. Spots of red burned on Strezman’s cheeks; this time there was a flash of armored gauntlet as he gave his orders. The Brigade troops marched out in front of the podium and brought their rifles up to face the crowd in a menacing row. Men surged away from their aiming point.

  De Roors walked hastily to the High Colonel’s side and waved his arms for silence. Strezman gave him a curt nod and went on, as the soldiers went to port arms.

  “We have four thousand men, all veterans of the northern frontier, and plenty of powder and shot for small arms and the cannon on the walls both. Whitehall can’t stay here long; the Brigade’s armies are mustering, and they outnumber his pitiful force by five or ten to one. Unless he moves, he’ll be caught between the relieving armies and the walls of Lion City.”

  Accurate enough, Raj thought. If hostile. He hoped there weren’t too many more like Strezman in the Brigade’s upper ranks.

  “Whitehall will have to march away soon, if we defy him. He doesn’t have heavy guns either.

  “The Brigade—His Mightiness the General—have allowed you a high degree of self-government within these walls,” Strezman went on; from his tone, he thought that a mistake. “In order that the walls and your civic militia could be of help in time of war. That you are even entertaining this madman Whitehall’s offer is a sign that policy may have been mistaken. If you were so foolish as to accept it, after the war is over and the Civil Government’s little force is crushed, you will be next. His Mightiness won’t leave one stone standing on another, or one citizen alive. Furthermore, I and my command will fight regardless of your decisions, so all that treason would gain you is to transfer the battle from outside the defenses to your own hearths.”

  Strezman stood for a moment, the firelight breaking off his armor, then stepped back. “Carry on,” he said to de Roors; gesture and voice were full of contempt for civilian sloppiness and indecision.

  Speaker followed speaker; most seemed to be for holding out, although quite a few hedged so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell which course they favored. A few were so incoherent or drunk that the maundering was inadvertent. At last the representative of the Colonists took the podium; he was a plump man in a dazzling turban of torofib, clasped with a ruby and a spray of iridescent sauroid feathers. A scimitar and pistol were thrust through the
sash of his long coat, but the voice that addressed the crowd was practiced and smooth.

  “Fellow citizens,” the Colonist began. “Let me assure you that the Jamaat-al-Islami—”

  League of Islam, Raj translated mentally. That would be the local association of Colonists.

  “—will fight by your side. We know this banchut Whitehall, our kin have told us of him—bandit, murderer, defiler of holy places! Our warehouses contain enough food to feed the whole city for a year and a day. There is nothing to fear from siege. We must defy the infi—the invader Whitehall. Were his followers within the walls, no man’s goods would be safe, nor the honor of his women.”

  A man walked into the light below the podium; he was dressed in workman’s clothes, old but not ragged, and there were bone buckles on his shoes. An artisan, not wealthy but no dezpohblado either.

  “Your goods will be safe, you mean, Haffiz bin-Daud,” he said. “I—” de Roors was making motions. “I’m one of the Sailmaker’s Syndics, Filipe de Roors,” the man on the pavement snapped. “I’ve as much right to talk as any riche hombe.” His face went back to the Arab. “And as for the honor of our women, how safe was Therhesa Donelli from your man Khaled al’Assad?”

  Another of the dignitaries on the dais pushed forward; he was an old man, richly dressed, with a nose like a beak and wattles beneath his chin. He waved his three-cornered hat angrily.

  “Mind your place, Placeedo, and stick to the issues,” he warned. “That case was settled and compensation awarded.”

  The sailmaker Placeedo crossed his arms and looked over his shoulder. Voices out of the darkness spoke for him:

  “Compensation? Our daughters ain’t hoors!”

  “You riche hombes is in bed with the Spirit-deniers and the barb heretics too!”

  “Riche hombe bastards squeeze us and use the barb soldiers if we complain; now they expect us to die to keep them in silk.”

  “Yes, and they bring in slaves and peons to do skilled work against the law, to break our guilds!”

  Evidently that was a long-standing sore point; the bellow of the crowd rilled the night, and de Roors had to wave repeatedly to reduce the noise enough that he could be heard.

  “Citizens! An army is at our gates, and we must not be divided among ourselves. Syndic Placeedo Anarenz, is there anything more you wish to say?”

  “Yes, alcalle de Roors. My question is addressed to syndic Haffiz bin-Daud of the Jamaat-al-Islami. He says his countrymen have enough in the warehouses. Will he give his word of honor that the grain will be dispensed free during the siege? Or even at the prices of a month ago? Will the city feed the families of men thrown out of work because the gates are closed and the Gubernio Civil’s fleet blockades the harbor? There are men here whose women and children go hungry tonight because trade is disturbed. Poor men have no savings, no warehouses of food and cloth and fuel. Winter is coming, and it’s hard enough for us in peacetime. Well?”

  Haffiz made a magnificent gesture. “Of course we—”

  Before he could speak further, a rush of other men in turbans and robes surrounded him, arguing furiously and windmilling their arms. From the snatches of hissed Arabic Raj could tell that whatever politic generosity he’d had in mind was not unanimously favored by his compatriots.

  The sailmaker’s syndic smiled and turned, gesturing to the crowd. A chant came up:

  “Open the gates! Open the gates!” Anarenz grinned broadly; that turned into a frown and frantic waving as other calls came in on the heels of the first.

  “Kill the rich! Kill the rich! Dig up their bones!”

  “Down with the heretics!”

  This time a scattering of rocks did fly. Amid the uproar and confusion, Raj saw the old syndic go to the edge of the platform. He gave an order to a man standing there, a Stalwart mercenary in a livery uniform. The man slipped away into the night. A few seconds later, something came whirring in out of the dark and went thuck into Anarenz’s shoulder-blade: it was a throwing axe, the same type that Captain Lodoviko had used to save his life back on Stern Isle. This one would end the sailmaker’s, unless he got to a healer and soon.

  Shots rang out, and the voices rose to a surf-roar of noise. Many of the dignitaries on the podium deck dove to the floorboards, and some ran around the other side of the fountain that protruded through the middle, taking shelter behind its carvings of downdraggers and sea sauroids. Cabot Clerett stayed statuesquely erect, his cloak held closed with one hand. As would have been expected of any escort, Raj and Staenbridge closed up around the bannerman and the officer.

  “This may be about to come apart,” Gerrin said tightly.

  Raj shook his head, eyes moving over the tossing sea of motion below. The militia had—mostly—turned about and faced the crowd with their weapons. Bands of house retainers made dashes into the edge of it, arresting or clubbing men down, apparently according to some sort of plan; he saw Anarenz carried off in a cloak by a dozen men who were apparently his friends, and the crowd slowing pursuit enough for him to escape.

  “I think they’ll get things back under control,” Raj said.

  “Silence in the ranks,” Cabot said distantly, his eyes fixed on something beyond the current danger.

  A kettledrum beat, and there was a massed thunder of paws. A column of Brigaderos cavalry burst into the square, with men scattering back ahead of it; they spread out along one edge facing in, their dogs snarling in a long flash of white teeth and their swords bright in their hands.

  Silence gradually returned, with the massed growling a distant thunder in the background. De Roors stepped up to the podium. “Let the vote be tallied!” he said.

  It went swiftly; votes were by guild, with the rich merchant and manufacturer guilds casting a vote each, as many as the mechanics’ organizations with their huge memberships, and the single vote of the laborers. Those whose leaders were absent were voted automatically by de Roors, as alcalle of the town.

  He turned to Cabot and bowed. “Most Excellent, with profound regret—I must ask you to leave our city. March on, for Lion City holds its walls against all attack.”

  “Move it up to a trot,” Raj said, as soon as they were beyond the gate.

  “Sir,” Cabot replied stiffly. “Our dignity—”

  “—isn’t worth our asses,” Raj said, grinning. “Trot, and then gallop, if you please, messers.”

  He touched his heels to Horace. The Civil Government banner flared out above them, the gold and silver of the Starburst glowing beneath the moons.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fatima cor Staenbridge twisted her hands together in the waxed-linen apron that covered the front of her body. The operating tent was silent with a deep tension, a dread that knew what it awaited. Doctors, priests and Renunciate Sisters, waited with their assistants beside the tables; beside them were laid out saws and chisels, scalpels and curiously-shaped knives, catgut and curved needles and piles of boiled-linen bandages. Jars of blessed distilled water cut with carbolic acid waited beside the tables, and more in sprayers along with iodine and mold-powder. And bottles of liquid opium, with the measuring-glasses beside them. Most battalions had priest-healers attached. The ones with the Expeditionary Force had served together long enough that General Whitehall had organized them into a corps under a Sysup-Abbot.

  “Will it be bad?” Mitchi asked. “Kaltin told me not to worry.”

  Kaltin Gruder’s concubine was about nineteen, with long bright-red hair now bound up on her head; the milk complexion, freckles and bright-green eyes showed it was natural. She and Fatima waited at the head of the other helpers; Civil Government armies had fewer camp followers than most, and those led by Raj Whitehall fewer still—one servant to every eight cavalry troopers, others for officers, and the inevitable spill-over of tolerated non-regulation types. Raj insisted that everyone without assigned military duties do something useful, and Suzette had organized the more reliable women for hospital duty in the past two campaigns, with Fatima as her deput
y.

  “It will be worse than last year,” Fatima said. Mitchi had been a gift from the merchant Reggiri just before the Expeditionary Force left Stern Isle for the Squadron lands. The casualties in the Southern Territories had been light. Light for the Civil Government force.

  “I hope, not as bad as Sandoral,” Fatima went on. Softly: “I pray, not so bad as that.” The tubs at the foot of the operating tables had been full that day, full of amputated limbs.

  She knew the litany now, from experience; bring the wounded in, and sort them. A dog-sized dose of opium for the hopeless, and take them to the terminal section. Bandage the lightly wounded and put them aside for later attention. For the serious ones—probe for bullets, debride all foreign matter out, suture arteries and veins, disinfect and bandage. Sew flaps of muscle back into place and hope they healed straight. Compound fractures were common, bone smashed to splinters by the heavy fat lead slugs most weapons used. For those, amputate and hope that gangrene didn’t set in. Dose with opium before surgery, but there was no time to wait and sometimes it didn’t work. Then strong hands must hold the body down to the table, and the surgeon cut as fast as possible, racing shock and pain-induced heart failure as well as blood loss.

  A hand tugged at Mitchi’s sleeve. “Is there going to be shooting?” a small voice asked in Namerique.

  They both looked down in surprise. It was the girl Kaltin had brought back. She’d been very quiet and given to shivering fits and nightmares and didn’t like to be alone.

  “Not near here, Jaine,” Fatima said gently. “We safe here.”

  The child blinked, looking around as if fear had woken her from a daze. “There was a lot of shooting when Mom and Da went away,” she said. “We left the farm and went to a place in the woods with a lot of other people. Da said we’d be safe there, but then there was shooting and they went away. They told me to wait and hide under the bundles.”