Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  "Suh," he said dully.

  "Good work here, son. I'm puttin' yo' down for a month's furlough, an' a 'recommended' on yo' promotions record."

  "Suh." The reply was almost as dull, then a more enthusiastic "Suh!" as the words sank past pain and exhaustion.

  "Dismissed," Andrew continued; he saluted, and the Janissary began a snapping reply, winced and completed the gesture slowly but in regulation wise before wheeling and marching off.

  "Now," the Draka commander said, turning his attention to the two troopers who held the prisoner. The Finn was reviving, bore no obvious wounds beyond the battering to be expected; an adolescent, with a shock of flax-colored hair and gray eyes. No noticeable difference in dilation, so any concussion would be mild.

  "You," he said in Finnish, pidgin but understandable. "Where they go? How many?"

  The partisan tried to spit, but his mouth was too dry and his lips still too numb; it dribbled down his own chin, cutting a track through soot-grime.

  Andrew lowered his bunched fist, hearing the slight click as the metal inserts in his gloves touched each other. Too crude, far too crude. His eyes went to the Janissaries holding the guerrilla: Dieter, yes, one of the new replacements. German, might even have fought on the other side; they had been taking them young, toward the end. Quiet, did his work and kept to himself, very little in his personal file. The other was… Ecevit. Turk: there were a lot of volunteers from those provinces; hook-nosed, hairy and thick-bodied, enlisted before the War. Capable but too impulsive for promotion beyond squad leader, and—

  "Ecevit," he said musingly.

  "Sari"

  "As I recall, yo've something of a taste fo' blond boys." The trooper straightened, suppressing a hopeful grin. 'This one looks as if he'll wash up nicely. Bring him to Interrogation tomorrow, alive, able to talk, and in a more cooperative frame of mind. Understand, soldier?"

  "Yaz, sar!" the soldier said. "Many thanks, effendi!"

  The Finn must have understood some English too, because he began to scream as the two Janissaries dragged him away.

  "Rough an' ready, but effective," Sannie van Reenan said with in a dry murmur. "Perhaps Intelligence work was yo' callin', aftah all."

  "I'm…" he paused to look at the wreckage about them—"somewhat annoyed," he finished. "And maybe

  it is, Strategos, I couldn't fuck it up worse'n I've done this, could I?"

  "Spare me the guilt, such a bourgeois emotion," Sannie said, with a snap in her tone. More softly: "Actually, your jungleboys did quite well, heah."

  "That they did," Andrew said, meeting her eyes. "Yo" know, they really don't care much fo' that particular nickname." A slow drag on the cigarette hollowed his cheeks and cast the harsh planes of his face in outline; for a moment, you could see the skull behind the flesh. "An" frankly, neither do I."

  "Point taken," Sannie said with a nod. "Now, about that proposition I was speakin' of, before this little shauri started." She waited with hunter's patience while his mind fought back past the last two hours; he was the sort of man who concentrated with his whole being—a valuable trait if controlled. "We're thinkin' of formin', hmmmm, specialized hunter teams, to deal with… certain types of problem. Fo' example, Yankee agents formin' links with bushman groups. We have some information on this particular one, an' expect more. There'll have to be a coordinatin' officer, and a fluctuatin' unit structure; part Intelligence work, part bushman-huntin, part liaison. Security will have to cooperate closely, of course."

  Or present its behind for the appropriate political shrapnel, went unspoken between them.

  "Ahhh, an' this particular case would be a trial run?" Andrew asked.

  Sannie smiled at the interest in his voice. "Indeed, it would, nephew mine. Indeed it would."

  Chapter Six

  Chateau Retour: Touraine Province. Loire valley west of Tours. Est 1945. National Highway N17.0n Val d'Anjou Wine Tour route. Winner. Plantation Garden Competition. 1968: Regional Estate Management prize. 1958. 1964.

  Area: 3.000 hectares

  Population: free 8-12. serf

  Notable features: Established immediately after the Eurasian War as part of a group settlement by veterans of the Archonal Guard Legion. This plantation is noted for flowers, early vegetables and its wines, principally a light and almost perfumed red made from the Cabernet Franc grape. The manor is a modified pre-war Chateau of Renaissance date: the village is largely purpose-built, but there is an interesting small Gothic church on the grounds. Viewing by arrangement only.

  Proprietors: Edward and Tanya von Shrakenberg. Edward von Shr. is of the Nova Cartago branch of that family, while Tanya von Shr. was born on the original von Shrakenberg estate of Oakenwald, south of Archona. and raised in Syria Province.

  Plantations of the West

  A Guide (1970 ed.)

  Landholders League Publications

  New Territories Press

  Orleans,1970

  LYON, PROVINCE OF BURGUNDIADETENTION CENTER XVII

  TO:CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION,

  TOURAINE PROVINCE

  APRIL, 1947

  The car was not crowded, even with seven and an assortment of bags and parcels; the interior was open, folding metal seats in the rear and two bucket chairs at the front, a view through the front windows to the coffle of serfs huddled on the floor of the truck ahead. Marya crossed herself and waved to them as she climbed through the clutter to her seat, composing herself neatly out of long habit, feet and knees together, skirt folded about them and hands clasped in her lap. The car smelled of machine oil and leather, wickerwork and a stuffy heat that brought a prickle of sweat to her upper lip.

  The driver was a thin-faced Frenchman in overalls, wearing a cap pulled down over his eyes and cuffs with a long chain looped through the steering wheel; the man beside him was uncuffed, with an automatic shotgun across his knees and a leather vest full of loops for the fat shells. A serf, European, a thin strong young man with a dark face and old-looking green eyes; a Jew, Marya thought. Polish or Lithuanian or from the Ukraine. She ventured a smile; he looked her up and down with cold disinterest and turned back to the front, his right hand stroking lightly across the receiver of his weapon.

  The women sat in the rear, with the other serf: a big man, even sitting down with his kettle belly spilling into his lap; African-dark, wide-featured and wide-shouldered, the arms below his shortsleeved cotton shirt thick and corded with muscle. Grizzled tight-curled hair and muttonchop whiskers, shrewd black eyes with yellowed whites. A rifle was resting upright by his side. Not the T-6 assault rifles the Domination had used in the Eurasian War; this was a full-bore semiautomatic model, dark wood and blued steel and a look the nun recognized, of machinery that is old but lovingly cared for.

  He smiled with strong square yellow teeth as they chuffed into motion, but he did not speak; there was a moment of backing and circling as the convoy lined up for the gate. The engine had the silence of automotive steam, but the heavy vehicle still quivered with the subliminal feeling of life, rocked slightly as a uniformed figure hopped up on the running board. A woman's face leaned in the window, green military-style uniform and cloth-covered steel helmet; a Citizen officer of the Security Directorate's internal-security troops. Order Police; Therese buried her face in her sister's shoulder, and the other serfs covered their eyes and bowed. There was another rocking as she stepped down, a brief sound of boots on pavement.

  Marya could hear a murmur of voices, then Tanya's weary drawl:

  "No, Tetrarch, I don't have clearance papers fo' two armed serfs. I'm violatin' the law and armin' all my fieldhands. Didn't we go through this all three hours ago? Or didn't the duty officer log it?"

  The nun raised her head and craned to see through one of the windows. The Security officer saluted and returned a file-folder through the opened door of the other car. A lochos of green-uniformed troopers behind her, shaven-skulled and neck-tattooed; the Domination did not waste elite troops on that sort of duty. The Tetrar
ch shouted, and one swung up the barrier while two more threw their shoulders against the steel gate. It groaned open, and the light seemed to brighten as the cars accelerated smoothly and turned into the road outside.

  Yasmin shivered and shook her shoulders. "Doan' like that place," she said. "An I sho' doan' like them chain-dogs. They look at yo' an' they gotta impalin' stake in they eyes."

  The middle-aged man beside her brought the rifle across his knees, slapped in a magazine and jacked the action with a metallic wrick-clank. "Headhunters," he said in agreement, turned and spat out the open window behind him. "Greencoats,tloshohene dogs; stay clear of "em." He looked up at the women across the body of the car, and grinned broadly. "Name's Tom," he said. "Late o' th' 15th Janissary, an' father to thisshere uppity wench, fo' mah sins. Listen to what-all she say, this time. Usually nohow good for anything but sassin' and bed-wenchin' with her betters."

  Marya nodded warily, with a shock of alarm, feeling Chantal stiffen beside her. Therese was paying no attention, eyes dreamy, humming under her breath. Better for her that way.

  Janissary, Marya thought with distaste. Serf soldier. Volunteers—she could understand why many would choose such a way out of the dull drudge's life of a Draka factory- or plantation-hand… though not the courage with which they fought. And they had a merited reputation for relentless brutality. She shivered inwardly. They would be confined with him for hours; they were bound and he was armed. Although… she glanced at Yasmin. Her father? And even a Janissary could hate the green-coated secret police troopers. Remember the publicans, she reminded herself. Roman tax collectors had not been well regarded in Judea in the Lord's time on earth, either. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

  She nodded in return, swiveling to watch the city go by. Much had changed, in the six months of her imprisonment. Central Detention had been a fortress then, wire and firing-trenches and dug-in armored vehicles; all that was gone, save for two concrete machine-gun bunkers beside each gate. The road outside the wall had been repaired, and the cleared firezone beyond was being converted to a park by labor-squads and construction machinery; piles of earth and sand, benches of brick and marble, fountains, pavements, a flatbed steamtruck loaded with young trees, springing up from burlap balls of root and earth. The city beyond was changing, too. There had been a fair amount of street fighting when Lyon fell two years ago; more damage after the surrender, when the Domination turned its troops loose for a three-day sack that killed more than the artillery and air-bombardments.

  Marya forced that out of memory: days spent crouching thigh-deep in a sewer, furnace-hot air roaring overhead as the buildings burned, and the fever the filthy water brought… No, consider what this meant. Less Resistance activity, obviously; that was bad, very bad that it should happen so quickly.

  Now the ruined buildings and rubble were mostly gone, cleared gaps where they had been and new structures going up, buildings in the low-slung gaudily-decorated Draka style. There were more Citizens, walking on the streets or driving little four-wheel runabouts, many in civilian dress; armed, but from what she had heard, Draka always were, even in their homelands. The native French were less numerous than she remembered, fewer of them in rags, more in grey issue-overalls or the sort of warm, drab outfit she had been given in the serf-dealer's rooms. That might account for much; it had been years since rations were enough to still hunger, even to sustain health.

  The man's voice broke in on her thoughts. "Not a bad-lookin' town, pity I's too ol' an' useless to git in on thisshere war, git me some lootin'."

  "Oh, poppa," Yasmin said in resigned exasperation. "That ain't nohow polite, these folks is from around hereabouts."

  She pulled up a wicker basket from under her seat and began to open it. "Who's fo' somethin' to—" The ex-Janissary's hand shot into the basket, came out with a sandwich made from a split loaf of French bread; pink ham and onions and peppers showed around the edges. "—eat," Yasmin finished.

  Marya had absorbed the byplay in silence. The food brought an involuntary spurt of saliva to her mouth, and she could feel her ex-cellmates stirring beside her. Yasmin tucked a careful linen napkin into the high collar of her silk jacket and began unloading the basket; sandwiches and slices of thick crusty bread with real butter, tart cheese, olives and tomatoes, sugar-dusted biscuits and real fruit, a thermos of coffee and a bottle of the violet-scented wine of Bourgueil. The dark girl coaxed a peach into Therese's hand, laughing at the little sound of pleasure she made as she bit; they were a country-orchard variety, small, tart and intensely flavored. Chantal put a hand on her sister's shoulder and leaned back into the padded wall of the vehicle.

  "You are a soldier, sir?" she asked slowly in her careful English. "Or do you also belong to the von Shrakenbergs?"

  Marya could read the expression of polite interest; Chantal was Gathering Intelligence, in the recesses of her own mind. Carefully, carefully, she thought; but it was a sign of something more than rage born of despair, at least. You could come to know someone well, after four months together in a crowded cell. A wave of pity overtook her; at least her own faith was not so tied to the fortunes of war. God promised no victories over material enemies, His Kingdom was not of this fallen earth… but poor Chantal had given her heart to a prophet who promised a tangible paradise. The Marxist heresy was sinful and godless, but the Frenchwoman's belief had been deep and sincere, rooted in love of the poor who Christ also had held dear, her hatred a hatred of injustice as well as simply of the rich.

  Be cautious, my friend. It was ironic, here a Pole was being the calculating and rational one, cautioning a Frenchwoman against romantic gestures…

  "Doan" need to 'sir' me," the man replied, his voice a slow deep rumble. "Yaz 'n no. I's Janissary. Born on Oakenwald, that Mistis Tanya's pa's place, down in th' Old Territories, way south. I go fo' Janissary back in, Allah, that be 1911, '12. Masta Everard, Tanya's pa, he officer in mah legion, th' 15th."

  He flipped the rifle up, holding it out by the barrel to show a small ivory inset near the buttplate; the head of a hyena, biting down on a human thighbone.

  "We the Devil Dogs, th' bone-makers," he said proudly. "Thisshere mah original piece; fight all through th' Great War, beatin' the rag-heads; Syria, Persia, Bulgaria. Aftah that, we'se in The Stan." He paused at his audience's blank looks. "Afghanistan. Hoo, 'deedy; we make our bones theah, sho'ly did." His smile slid away. "Left plenty bones, too. Damn few come out what went in, damn few." More softly: "Damn few, sho'ly."

  "Well," he continued brightly. "That where I loses th' foot." He shifted his right leg, knocked it against a strut with a hollow sound. "Step onna landmine, 'n lemme tell yaz—"

  "Oh, poppa, not more of yo' war stories," Yasmin broke in, rolling her eyes and turning to the others. "They disgustin'."

  The man grinned slyly and glanced sidelong at his daughter: "Hell, jes' losin' a foot not so bad. I's rememberin' a sergeant, supply sergeant that was, rag-heads caught him, and we found him with his—"

  "Poppa!"

  He laughed again, and reached out one huge hand to stroke the knuckles gently down her cheek. "Alright, sweetlin', jes' jokin'."

  "So," he continued, taking a meditative bite of the sandwich, "coulda took retirement, laak a twenty-year man. Didn' seem mucha life fo' a young man, though. Done seen too many old Janissary, nothin' to do but drink an' knife each othah over cards 'n whores down at the caserne. Yo' can go home, though. Janissary always belong to th' State, cain't never be sold, or whupped 'cept by our own officer, but iffn yo' volunteer, they rent you back. As guard, foreman, like that-there. Masta Everard, he settin' up Evendim, that his place in Syria; he younger son, 'n Masta Karl gettin' Oakenwald. I go with Masta Everard, he know me, y'see?

  "I's settle down nice; get me a wench, Fatima." An affectionate sadness. "She got no sense, but she a good woman, I doan' want no other while she 'live. She die birthin' back befo' this new war come; mah boys gone fo' Janissary too—they in th' 15th now too, out east fightin' down the slope-eye
s, someplace called Korea. Yasmin heah mah las' chile, 'n she go with Mistis Tanya, so I comes too. Yo' Frenchies got lotsa book-learnin", but yo' needs us't'learn the Draka. Some folks here is pretty sensible—got me a nice little widow-wench 'n cottage—others altogethah useless 'n triflin'."

  He shifted his grip on the rifle, holding the heavy weapon by the stock and prodding the driver lightly in the back of the neck. "Like Jacques here; I's got mah eye on yo', boy. Doan' forget it." The rough voice went cold for a moment, and then he flicked the rifle upright beside him and relaxed once more. "Issac—th' skinny boy with th' bird-gun—he a smart one. Doan' talk much, though."

  "Like yo', poppa," Yasmin said dryly as she repacked the basket, handing him a bottle of dark German beer. Her father snorted amusement, flicked the cap off with one horn-hard thumb and turned sideways to watch the passing scene, the rifle cradled in the crook of his arm.

  "I," the girl continued, fastidiously wiping her hands on her napkin and then using it to clean Therese's chin, "am second indoor servant."

  It was said with a slight unconscious preening; the ex-Janissary's glance was fond and proud. Even slaves must have their accomplishments, Marya thought. Then: be careful, this is real power, here and now.

  "Iff'n yo' got any questions, come right to me." She sighed and tossed back the loose black mane of hair. "Sometimes doan' know rightly how to start, with yo' Frenchies. Doan sass back; doan' sulk or disobey. There's ways 'n ways of gettin' around the Mastahs, but goin' straight up agin' they will ain't accomplishin' nothin' but grief fo' us all. Remembah all us serfs is family; talk as y'wants, do as y'wants iff'n yo's the only one to suffer, but doan do anythin' what gets us all traced up to the whuppin' post or worse. Iff'n yo' finds someone's doin' a crazy, like tryin' to hide weapons or sneak off to the bushmen, come tell me an' we'll decide amongst ouahselfs what to do."

  Yasmin smiled and nodded toward the cuffs. "Soon's we gets back to Chateau Retour"—she pronounced the French words carefully—"we'll get those-there off; the Big House doan' cuff or hobble on the plantation, 'cept as a punishment. Now," she continued briskly, "the overseers, Masta Donaldson, Mistis Wentworth"—she shrugged—"they overseers, whats cain I say? Not too bad, 'n the Mastah 'n Mistis keep a close eye on 'em. Mistis Tanya, she downright easy goin', fo' a Draka, long as yo' doan' cross her. Masta Edward, her man, he pretty much the same 'cept when his head painin' him."