Maera went back to the window. Yozef waited, sitting on the bed’s edge. He saw her stiffen, and she faced him again. “Is it just healing, Yozef? I’ve told you how my headaches and fevers have gone away since we married. It wasn’t just good fortune or changing my moods, was it? It’s not just the healing that’s changed.”
He had wondered how long Maera would take to make the connection. Her being Maera, he wasn’t surprised it had taken only minutes.
“Again, I can’t be sure, but since I don’t get sick and you haven’t since we’ve been married, I think it’s a possibility you won’t get sick.”
“Ever?”
“Never,” said Yozef. “If that’s true, then neither will you get the tumor sickness you said one of your aunts died of. My people call it ‘cancer.’”
“Anything else you want to hit me with, Yozef?” Maera said with barely hidden sarcasm. “Will I be able to fly or live forever?”
“I wouldn’t plan on getting rid of the carriages just yet,” replied Yozef, then he waited for her to follow up on the second part of her question. She didn’t, to his relief, because he didn’t want to add the possibility of extended life spans, something that he couldn’t predict and wouldn’t have clues about for many years and that would present an even greater complication, if it happened.
Maera walked from the window to the bed and sat on Yozef’s lap, putting one arm around his shoulders and looking him straight in the face. “It’s going to take me time to absorb all this and understand what I’m feeling. At the moment, it’s a combination of fear of what I don’t understand, worry about how other people would respond if they learned of this, wondering whether somehow all this goes against God’s will, a residue of wondering if you really are insane, and awe at what it all means.”
The next morning, as soon as they both were awake, they went to a bedroom window. The sun peeked over the eastern hills, and its rays shone through the glass. Maera unwrapped the bandage. Blood had seeped through, though no more than had been there the previous night. When the last of the cloth lifted away, they could see the cut: a thin line already closed, no blood seeping out. Maera probed the surrounding reddish tissue gently with a finger.
“It’s a little warm and only a little sensitive. Most of the pain is gone, with barely a mild ache to the arm.” She looked at Yozef with a sense of wonder. “I’m beginning to believe everything you told me last night. It’s like a tale with magic you tell children, except it’s real. And you’re right; we need to keep it between us, until a time comes when we can reveal it, if that ever happens.”
Yozef sighed with relief. As rational and bright as he knew his wife to be, he’d had doubts how she would receive what he’d told her. However, there was still one problem.
“Within our household, it will be difficult, but I think we can manage it, although at some point it will likely become evident to those closest to us that there is something unusual about the Kolskos. There’s another worry. If it’s true that I passed on to you the ability to heal quickly when we coupled, then I—”
“Bronwyn!” blurted Maera.
Yozef nodded, his face grim. “And her sister, their husband, and—”
“Aragorn!” exclaimed Maera.
Yozef nodded. “At least, they’re on a farm and don’t interact daily with other people, but it is a farm, and accidents happen. Not getting ill should attract no attention, but it’s only a matter of time before there’s an injury requiring medicants.”
“What about bringing them into our confidence? Alert them what to expect and to be circumspect?” Maera suggested.
“Tell them what?” asked Yozef. “I don’t know them well enough to predict how they’d react. What if they go straight to the theophists or medicants?”
Maera shook her head. “We’ll have to hope no attention comes to them about this. If it does, we’ll handle it when it happens.”
It wasn’t a solution that satisfied either of them.
Yozef didn’t mention Buna, the woman of his other brief affair and the owner of a seamstress shop. Buna was past childbearing age, and he hoped he remembered that women she employed did most of the work. It was a reasonable risk that Buna would not be injured severely enough for her fast healing to draw attention.
Yozef felt satisfied with Maera’s reaction to the revelations, which temporarily relieved one concern and let him return all of his attention to the Narthani and how the clans could prepare for whatever came next.
CHAPTER 26: PLANNING
Although many of the clans had taken steps to prepare for further Narthani actions, most steps targeted weapons and ammunition, food and medical supplies, and training. While Yozef didn’t want to push too many things at once on the Caedelli, when the initially agreed-on actions were underway, he felt it was time to address several other important issues that the clans might not appreciate. He waited until there was a scheduled meeting with Culich, Pedr Kennrick, Vortig Luwis, and Denes, and until they finished the agenda items. Maera also attended, after Yozef suggested that there was no reason she couldn’t resume her earlier duties as recorder for the meetings.
Contingencies
“That seems to be enough discussion on how we’re doing with training,” said Culich. “That was the last item on the list. Is there anything else?”
“Yes, Culich, I have two items I believe are important,” said Yozef. “One is the need for better maps, and the other is what you would call ‘possible plans.’ There’s no exact single word in Caedelli for what I’m referring to, so I’ll use the word from my own language—contingencies.”
Yozef wondered how the Keelan leaders would react to contingency planning. It sounded logical when most people thought about it, but depending on the depth of looking for possible events, it could sound pretty weird. He remembered articles cropping up in the United States every few years about Pentagon’s contingency planning, everything from invading Albania to a zombie apocalypse. The media either sensationalized it or made fun of stupid things the military concerned itself with, never bothering to understand the purpose of such planning, which was not the stated objectives but to create skeletal plans that could be adapted to unpredicted real-world events. He remembered someone mentioning how the Pentagon used to have a department that did nothing but contingency planning, which started a shell game of renaming the office and moving it around the Pentagon to hide it from the media.
It was time to see how the Keelanders reacted.
“It refers to anticipating what future actions you might need to take and putting together plans for how to accomplish what you would need to do. Clan Keelan is already doing something like this with food storage and plans to move the people into more defensible sites, should it be necessary. However, what I’m referring to is looking at the different possible actions the Narthani will take and how we will respond.”
“Aren’t we already doing this?” Luwis complained.
“In general, yes. I’m talking about more specific possibilities and what we would need to do in each case. What if the Narthani land an army near Salford and move toward Caernford? Or, instead of Caernford, they move west toward Gwillamer or east toward Mittack. How would our responses differ to the three possibilities? What if they attack Stent by land or Pewitt by sea? Those provinces are on the other side of Caedellium, and it would take a sixday or more for the Alliance to get help there. If it did, how would that weaken the defenses back here?”
“That’s absurd!” exclaimed Luwis. “There’s an endless number of possibilities. We couldn’t conceivably plan for them all.”
“Maybe not in details, no,” said Denes. “But many possibilities would lead us to take similar actions. In Yozef’s first example, whichever of the clans farthest away was attacked, wouldn’t our responses be the same or similar?”
“Right!” said Yozef, jumping on Denes’s grasp of a key point. “If we make a plan for what we’d do if the Narthani attack Pewitt, then wouldn’t our response be similar,
even almost identical, if they attack Stent or Swavebroke? We don’t need every little detail, just the major decisions and requirements.”
Yozef hurried on before the others could interject.
“If we have enough such plans, let’s call them contingency plans, then no matter what the Narthani do, we can go to a contingency plan that most closely matches. Although a plan would have to be adapted, we would have a scaffold to build on.”
Culich had listened without comment until now. “I can see the use of such ‘contingency plans,’ but it sounds like a lot of work, and who would do it? None of us here has that kind of time.”
“That’s a problem,” admitted Yozef. “I don’t how much of this we could do for it to be useful. Still, I think it’s worth trying. I suggest each of us individually or in pairs look at a few different scenarios and see what we come up with. Then we could bring in other people to take what we’ve done and adapt those plans to other scenarios. Naturally, we’d have to review the first plans that the new people develop, but hopefully they could eventually continue with only occasional supervision.”
“Who would these other men be?” asked Kennrick.
“That would be other men and women,” said Yozef. “Most will be men, but we need to become accustomed to including capable women to do any work that helps the clan prepare. That’s any work and any role, except the main fighting units. Does anyone doubt that Maera could do this work? I suspect she’s not the only Keelan woman of sufficient ability.”
Maera had listened to the men without making a comment about the discussion. She still wasn’t used to being an active participant in men’s meetings, no matter how much confidence Yozef expressed to her. Customs and habits died hard.
“I suppose,” Luwis said, in a tone Yozef interpreted as dubious and not wanting to get into an argument with Maera, which itself supported Yozef’s point.
“Anyway, we just need to leave that possibility open,” said Yozef, satisfied that he’d gotten a foot in the door. Maera had already made a list of women she thought could contribute to such planning, including two sisters at St. Tomo’s Abbey and a third cousin, Riona Klofyn, whom Maera couldn’t stand personally but whom she said was sharp as a honed knife.
Yozef hadn’t mentioned that he thought such contingency planning would help the mind-sets of men who were likely to be leaders in fights to come. Leading and decision-making required learning to consider many factors, including logistics, intelligence, and terrain.
“Pedr and Vortig,” said Yozef, using their first names, a recent familiarity, “you must have assistants and people you know who could do this work. If we work on the example plans, they could be involved and learn enough to take a bigger role.”
Kennrick nodded enthusiastically. “My middle son. He lost the lower part of a leg from a stupid wagon race two years ago. He does much of the family’s accounts, but he chafes at not being able to fight. He’s bright enough and certainly would be diligent in working on these contingency plans. Even if the plans don’t prove advantageous, I’d be inclined to put him working on them, if only to give him a chance to feel useful.”
“He sounds like a good candidate,” said Yozef. “Although don’t rule out that he might contribute to fighting, if it comes to that. Any clan members might find themselves fighting or leading from defensive positions, and firing behind walls or barricades doesn’t require running.”
“As we proved at St. Sidryn’s,” said Denes, a satisfied set to his face.
Luwis didn’t look happy. His forehead wrinkled, and he chewed on the side of his tongue, as if coming to a decision he didn’t like. “My daughter Isla,” he said reluctantly. “I confess I haven’t known what to do with her. Even with Maera as an example, customs are customs, and I’m not the most flexible of men.”
Culich and Kennrick both laughed at his statement of the obvious.
“You’ve convinced me,” said Culich, still smiling and with an arm over Luwis’s shoulder. “It’s your idea, Yozef, so I’ll let you work out the example plan details with the others.”
“Actually, I thought of letting Maera do the organizing.”
Maera stiffened in her chair. Yozef had said nothing to her about such a role.
“Clever,” said Culich. “You think women should be involved, and Maera will have a better chance at recruiting them than a man would. I still think most will be men.” He looked at his daughter. “You understand that ability and hard work will be the most important factors in recruiting.”
“Of course, Father.”
“Talk with Pedr, Vortig, and Denes and get their candidates. I assume Yozef will propose a list of initial ‘contingencies’?”
“I’ll do that and give you a list to look at by tomorrow,” Yozef confirmed.
Culich glanced at Maera, who furiously wrote notes, her quill racing over a sheet. He waited until she pulled the quill away
The hetman looked again at Yozef. “You said you had another item?”
Maps
“We need far better maps. I know you have extensive maps for Keelan Province, but we need the most detailed maps possible for all the provinces. This is part of the contingency planning, to have detailed knowledge of every place we might have to go on the island. Ideally, this project would involve all the clans. And by detailed, I mean there is no such thing as too much detail: every hill; rivulet of water; pond; boggy area; every bridge and its condition, meaning what load can it carry and what’s the fastest way to destroy it, if necessary; the vegetation, meaning the type and size of trees. If there’s a creek that’s seasonal, we need to know approximately when there will be water in it, where there are reliable fords, no matter the water level, and we must be sure it shows up on every map of the area. The thing is, we will never know what piece of information is critical until we need it. Therefore, no detail is too small in the information-gathering stage. Later, we can winnow out all but the most important facts.
“When we have maps we’re reasonably satisfied with, they need to be distributed to relevant leaders, of both fighting men and noncombatants. There can’t be different versions of maps. If an order comes to take some action, the order might include map information. The recipient of the order needs to look at a map and the coordinates and know he is looking at the same map as the person giving the order.”
All four men nodded their understanding and agreement, almost from the first words out of Yozef’s mouth.
Good, he thought, no convincing needed for this one. No reason to get into details yet about relief maps, fake maps to let the Narthani “capture,” or anything else I can think of.
Yozef felt relieved when Kennrick took the lead.
“This is something I can look into, Culich. I already oversee the registrar offices and records, and most registrar agents have experience in surveying, so it should only be an extension of what they already do.”
“One difference may be that the maps need to include altitude, how high a point of land is above sea level,” said Yozef. “One type of map we’ll make is called a topographic map, which has lines indicating altitudes.”
Yozef laid on the table a hand-drawn example. “Here is a crude map of the Caernford area. Don’t take it as accurate. I just drew it to demonstrate a topographic map. See these wavy dotted lines? They represent one-hundred-foot altitude differences between lines. If you look east of Caernford on the map, you see lines indicating where the land is one hundred feet higher than at the previous line. As you get into the hills, the lines get closer together.”
“As the hills become steeper,” said Denes.
“Right. Once you are used to looking at such maps, you can get a quick picture of the terrain.”
“I can see the usefulness,” said Kennrick, “though our registrars don’t usually concern themselves with altitude, only straight distances.”
“That’s okay. I can show them methods of measuring height differences. One way is called triangulation, where points on the ground are
at the vertices of a chain or network of triangles. By measuring angles, the sides of a triangle can be computed or measured directly. Those measurements are then used as sides of adjoining or related triangles. It’s tedious work but can be very accurate, if care is taken.
“The second method involves levels like a carpenter uses. A bubble level is attached to a cross-haired eyepiece that can be magnifying or not. Once the eyepiece is on level, the surveyor looks at a calibrated pole placed some distance away. From where the eyepiece crosshairs lie on the pole, you know how much higher or lower a pole is, compared to the spot with the eyepiece. Again, this can be tedious, but with care, extremely accurate relative heights can be determined.”
“I don’t think the tedium will be a problem,” said Kennrick, smiling. “One of the qualifications of a registrar is obsessive care in handling numbers, maps, and records. I expect many of them will take to this new task with enthusiasm.”
Kennrick’s smile faded. “However, I have to caution that getting maps for all of Caedellium will be a problem. Some clans are unlikely to either share mapping data or allow Keelan registrars into their provinces.”
Luwis and Denes both cursed, but Culich seemed unperturbed.
I guess he expected this, thought Yozef. He’s more used to dealing directly with the other hetmen.
“I’ll communicate with the other hetmen about this,” said Culich. “I think once ten or so of the clans agree, the others will be forced to cooperate. If necessary, some form of pressure can be applied, such as delays in sharing cannon or the resulting maps. Yozef, do you think it sufficient to have registrars carry out work on improving maps or do we need more men?”
“Culich, I suggest that we start with a few registrars and add some selected other people to learn the type of surveying I’m talking about. I’ll work with them until they understand what I think we need.”
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 35
