by David Drake
The courtyard was deserted, but the mob had left behind an amazing quantity of litter—bottles, boxes, and indefinable scraps; even a cloak, scarlet and apparently whole in the light of the wall sconces. It was as if Desoix were watching a beach just after the tide had ebbed.
Across the river, fires burned from at least a score of locations. Voices echoed, harsh as the occasional grunt of shots.
Like the tide, the mob would return.
"We've got to get out of here," Desoix mused aloud.
"She'll leave," Anne said with as much prayer in her voice as certainty. "If she stays, they'll do terrible things to . . . She knows that, she won't let it happen."
"Colonel wants me to hold if there's any chance to keep Delcorio in power," Koopman said to the night. There was a snicker of sound as he raised his face shield, but he did not look at his companions as he spoke. "What's your bet on that, Charles?"
"Something between zip and zero,"Desoix said.He was careful not to let his eyes fall on Anne or the major when he spoke; but it was no time to tell polite lies.
"'Bout what I figured too,"the Slammers officer said mildly. He was leaning on his forearms while his fingers played with a dimple in the rail. After a moment, Desoix realized that the dimple had been hammered there by a bullet.
"I don't see any way we can abandon our positions in defiance of a direct order," Major Borodin said.
The battery commander set his fingers in his thinning hair and squeezed firmly, as though that would change the blank rotation of his thoughts. He took his hands away and added hurriedly to the Slammers officer, "Of course, that has nothing to do with you, Captain. My problem is that I have to defend the city, so I'm in default of the contract if I move my guns. Well, Gun Three. But that's the only one that seems to be in danger."
"Charles, you'll protect her if we leave, won't you?" asked Anne in sudden fierceness. She pulled on Desoix's shoulder until he turned to face her worries directly. "You won't let them have her to, to escape yourself, will you?"
He cupped her chin with his left hand. "Anne," he said. "If Eunice and the President just say the word, we'll have them safely out of here within the hour. Won't we, Tyl?" he added as he turned to the Slammers officer.
"Colonel says, maybe just a week or two," Koopman said unexpectedly. When his index finger burnished the bullet scar, the muzzle of his own slung weapon chinked lightly against the rail. "Suppose Delcorio could hold out a week?"
"Suppose we could hold out five minutes if they come back hard?" Desoix snapped, furious at the infantryman's response when finally it looked as if there were a chance to clear out properly. There wasn't any doubt that Eunice Delcorio could bend her husband to her own will. She was inflexible, with none of John Delcorio's flights and falterings.
If Anne worked on her mistress, it could all turn out reasonably. Exile for Delcorio on his huge private estates; safety for Anne McGill, whose mistress wasn't the only one with whom the mob would take its pleasure.
And release for the mercenaries who were at the moment trapped in this place by ridiculous orders.
"Yeah," said Koopman with a heavy sigh. He turned at last to face his companions. "Well, I'm not going to get any of my boys wasted for nothing at all. We aren't paid to be heroes. Guess I'll go down and tell Jack to pack up to move at daylight."
The Slammers officer quirked a grin to Desoix and nodded to Anne and the major as he stepped toward the door.
"Tyl,wait . . ."Desoix said as a word rang echoes."Can you . . . Major,how many men do you have downstairs still?"
Borodin shrugged out of the brown study into which he had fallen as he watched the fires burning around him."Men?" he repeated. "Senter and Lachere is all. We're still short—"
"Tyl, can you, ah—" Desoix went on. He paused, because he didn't want to use the wrong word, since what he was about to ask was no part of the Slammers' business.
"I need to get down to the warehouses on the corniche,"Desoix said,rephrasing the question to make the request personal rather than military."All I've got here are the battery clerks and they're not, ah, trained for this. Could you detail a few men, five or six, to go along with me in case there was a problem?"
"Lieutenant," Borodin said gruffly. "What do—"
"Sir,"Desoix explained as the plan drew itself in glowing lines in his mind,the alternative sites and intersecting fields of fire. "When we get Gun Five set up, we can move Three a kilometer east on the corniche and still be in compliance. Five on the outskirts of town near Pestini's Chapel, Three on Guizer Head—and we've got everything Delcorio can demand under the contract."
"Without stationing any of our men down . . . ." Borodin said as the light dawned. He might have intended to point toward the plaza, but as his gaze turned out over the city, his voice trailed off instead. Both UDB officers stared at Tyl Koopman.
Koopman shrugged. "I'll go talk to the guys," he said.
And they had to be satisfied with that, because he said nothing more as he walked back into the building.
Chapter Seventeen
Tyl's functional company had taken over the end of a second-floor hallway abandoned by the entourage of six noble guests of the President. The hundred troopers had a great deal more room than there'd been in the City Office billet—or any normal billet.
And, though they'd lost their personal gear when the office building burned, the nobles' hasty departure meant that the soldiers could console themselves for the objects they'd lost across the river. Jewelry and rich fabrics peeked out the edges of khaki uniforms as Tyl strode past the corridor guard and into the billeting area.
Too bad about Aunt Sandra's jelly, though. He could turn over a lot of rich folks' closets and not find anything to replace that.
Troopers with makeshift bedrolls in the hallway were jumping to attention because somebody else had. The heads that popped from doorways were emptying the adjoining guest suites as effectively as if Tyl had shouted, "Fall in!"
Which was about the last thing he wanted.
"Settle down," he said with an angry wave of his arm, as if to brush away the commotion. They were all tight. The troops didn't know much, and that made them rightly nervous.
Tyl Koopman knew a good deal more,and what he'd seen from the porch wasn't the sort of knowledge to make anybody feel better about the situation.
"Captain?" said Jack Scratchard as he muscled his way into the hall.
Tyl motioned the sergeant major over. He keyed his commo helmet with the other hand and said loudly—most of the men didn't have their helmets on, and only the senior noncoms were fitted with implants—"At present, I'm expecting us to get the rest of the night's sleep here, but maybe not be around much after dawn. When I know more, you'll hear."
Scratchard joined him. The two men stepped out of the company area for the privacy they couldn't find within it. Tyl paused and called over his shoulder,"Use a little common sense in what you try to pack, all right?"
He glared at a corporal with at least a dozen vibrantly colored dresses in her arms.
The remaining six suites off the hallway were as empty as those Scratchard had appropriated. He must have decided to keep the troops bunched up a little under the present circumstances, and Tyl wasn't about to argue with him.
The doors of all the suites had been forced. As they stepped into the nearest to talk, Tyl noticed that the richly appointed room had been turned over with great care, although none of his soldiers were at present inside continuing their looting.
Loot and mud were the two constants of line service. If you couldn't get used to either one, you'd better find a rear-echelon slot somewhere.
"Talk to the Old Man?"Scratchard muttered when he was sure they were alone in the tumbled wreckage.
Tyl shrugged. "Not yet," he said. "Sent an all clear through open channels, is all. It's mostly where we left it earlier, and I don't want Central—" he wasn't comfortable saying "Hammer" or even "the Old Man" "—thinking they got to wet-nurse me."
&n
bsp; He paused, and only then got to the real business."Desoix—the UDB Number Two," he said. "He wants a few guys to cover his back while he gets a calliope outa storage down to the seafront. Got everybody but a couple clerks out with the other tubes."
The sergeant major knuckled his scalp,the ridge where his helmet rode."What's that do for us, the other calliope?" he asked.
"Bloody zip," Tyl answered with a shrug. He was in charge, but this was the sort of thing that the sergeant major had to be brought into.
Besides,nothing he'd heard about Ripper Jack Scratchard suggested that there'd be an argument on how to proceed.
"What it does," Tyl amplified, "is let them withdraw the gun they got down by the plaza. Desoix doesn't like having a crew down there, the way things're going."
Scratchard frowned. "Why can't he—" he began.
"Don't ask," Tyl said with a grimace.
The question made him think of things he'd rather forget. He thumbed in what might have been the direction of the Consistory Room and said, "It got real strange up there. Real strange."
He shook his head to rid it of the memories and added, "You know, he's the one I finally raised to get us into here before it really dropped in the pot. None of the locals were going to do squat for us."
"Doing favors is a good way t' get your ass blown away," Scratchard replied, sourly but without real emphasis. "But sure, I'll look up five guys that'd like t' see the outside again."
He grinned around the clothing strewn about them from forced clothes presses. "Don't guess it'll be too hard to look like civilians, neither."
"Ah," said Tyl. He was facing a blank wall. "Thought I might go along, lead 'em, you know."
"Like hell,"said the sergeant major with a grin that seemed to double the width of his grizzled face. "I might, except for my knees. You're going to stay bloody here, in charge like you're supposed t' be."
His lips pursed. "Kekkonan'll take 'em. He won't buy into anything he can't buy out of."
Tyl clapped the noncom on the shoulder."Round 'em up,"he said as he stepped into the hall. "I'll tell Desoix. This is the sort of thing that should've been done, you know, last week."
As he walked down the hall, the Slammers officer keyed his helmet to learn where Desoix was at the moment. Putting this sort of information on open channels didn't seem like a great idea, unless you had a lot more confidence in the Bamberg army than Tyl Koopman did.
Asking for volunteers in a business like this was a waste of time. They were veteran troops, these; men and women who would parrot "never volunteer" the way they'd been told by a thousand generations of previous veterans . . . but who knew in their hearts that it was boredom that killed.
You couldn't live in barracks, looking at the same faces every waking minute, without wanting to empty a gun into one of them just to make a change.
So the first five soldiers Scratchard asked would belt on their battle gear with enthusiasm, bitching all the time about "When's it somebody else's turn to take the tough one?" They didn't want to die, but they didn't think they would . . . and just maybe they would have gone anyway, whatever they thought the risk was, because it was too easy to imagine the ways a fort like the Palace of Government could become a killing bottle.
They were Hammer's Slammers. They'd done that to plenty others over the years.
Tyl didn't have any concern that he'd be able to hand Desoix his bodyguards, primed and ready for whatever the fire-shot night offered.
And he knew that he'd give three grades in rank to be able to go along with them himself.
Chapter Eighteen
The porch off the Consistory Room didn't have a view of anything Tyl wanted to see—the littered courtyard and, across the river, the shell of the City Offices whose windows were still outlined by the sullen glow in its interior. The porch was as close as he could come to being outside, though, and that was sufficient recommendation at the moment.
The top of the House of Grace was barely visible above the south wing of the Palace. The ghost of firelight from the office building painted the eyes and halo of the sculptured Bishop Trimer also.
Tyl didn't want company, so when the door slid open behind him, he turned his whole body.That way his slung submacbine-gun pointed,an "accident" that he knew would frighten away anyone except his own troopers—whom he could order to leave him alone.
Lieutenant Desoix's woman stopped with a little gasp in her throat, but she didn't back away.
"Via!" Tyl said in embarrassment, lifting the gun muzzle high and cursing himself in his head for the dumb idea. One of those dandies, he'd figured, or a smirking servant . . . except that the President's well-dressed advisors seemed to have pretty well disappeared, and the flunkies also.
Servants were getting thin on the ground, too.
"If you'd like to be alone? . . ." the woman said, either polite or real perceptive.
"Naw, you're fine," Tyl said, feeling clumsy and a lot the same way as he had a few months ago. Then he'd been to visit a girl he might have married if he hadn't gone off for a soldier the way he had. "You're, ah—Lady Eunice's friend, aren't you?"
"That too,"said the woman drily.She took the place Tyl offered at the railing and added, "My name's Anne McGill. And I believe you're Captain Koopman?"
"Tyl," the soldier said. "Rank's not form—" He gestured. "Out here."
She didn't look as big as she had inside. Maybe because he had his armor on now that he was standing close to her.
Maybe because he'd recently watched five big men put looted cloaks on over their guns and armor to go off with Lieutenant Desoix.
"Have you known Charles long?" she asked, calling Tyl back from a stray thought that had the woman wriggling out of her dark blue dress and offering herself to him.
He shook his head abruptly to clear the thought. Not his type, and he sure wasn't hers.
"No," he said, forgetting that she thought he'd answered with the shake of his head. "I just got in today, you see. I don't recall we ever served with the UDB before. Anyhow, mostly you don't see much of anybody's people but your own guys."
It wasn't even so much that he was horny. Screwing was just something he could really lose himself in.
Killing was that way too.
"It's dangerous out there, isn't it?" she said. She wasn't looking at the city because her face was lifted too high. From the way her capable hands washed one another, she might well have been praying.
"Out there?" Tyl repeated bitterly. "Via, it's dangerous here, and we can't do anything but bloody twiddle our thumbs."
Anne winced, as much at the violence as the words themselves.
Instantly contrite,Tyl said,"But you know,if things stay cool a little longer—no spark, you know, setting things off . . . It may all work out."
He was repeating what Colonel Hammer had told him a few minutes before, through the laser communicator now slung at his belt again. To focus on the satellite from here, he'd had to aim just over the top of the House of Grace . . . .
"When the soldiers from Two come,there'll be a spark, won't there?" she asked. She was looking at Tyl now, though he didn't expect she could see any more of his face in the darkness than he could of her. Firelight winked on her necklace of translucent beads.
The scent she wore brought another momentary rush of lust.
"Maybe not," he said, comfortable talking to somebody who might possibly believe the story he could never credit in discussions with himself. "Nobody really wants that kind a' trouble."
Not the army, that was for sure. They weren't going to push things.
"Delcorio makes a few concessions—he already gave 'em Berne, after all. The troops march around with their bayonets all polished to look pretty. And then everybody kisses and makes up."
So that Tyl Koopman could get back to the business of a war whose terms he understood.
"I hope . . ." Anne was murmuring.
She might not have finished the phrase even if they hadn't been interrupted by the d
oor sliding open behind them.
Tyl didn't recognize Eunice Delcorio at first.She was wearing a dress of mottled gray tones and he'd only seen her in scarlet in the past.With the fabric's luminors powered up, the garment would have shone with a more-than-metallic luster; but now it had neither shape nor color, and Eunice's voice guttered like that of a brittle ghost as she said, "Well, my dear, I wouldn't have interrupted you if I'd known you were entertaining a gentleman."
"Ma'am," Tyl said, bracing to attention. Eunice sounded playful, but so was a cat with a field mouse—and he didn't know what she could do to him if she wanted, it wasn't in the normal chain of command . . . .
"Captain Koopman and I were discussing the situation, Eunice," Anne said evenly. If she were embarrassed, she hid the fact; and there was no trace of fear in her voice. "You could have called me."
Eunice toyed with the hundred millimeter wand that could either page or track a paired unit. "I thought I'd find you instead, my dear," she said.
The President's wife wasn't angry, but there was fierce emotion beneath the surface sparkle. The wand slipped from her fingers to the floor.
Tyl knelt swiftly—you don't bend when you're wearing a ceramic back-and breast—and rose as quickly with the wand offered in his left hand.
Eunice batted the little device out into the courtyard. It was some seconds before it hit the stones below.
"I told the captain,"Anne said evenly,"that I was concerned about your safety in view of the trouble that's occurring here in the city."
"Well, that should be over very shortly, shouldn't it?" Eunice said. Nothing in her voice hinted at the way her body had momentarily lost control. "Marshal Dowell has gone to Two himself to expedite movement of the troops."
The technical phrase came from her full lips with a glitter that made it part of a social event. Which, in a manner of speaking, it was.
"Blood and Martyrs," Tyl said. He wasn't sure whether or not he'd spoken the curse aloud, and at this point he didn't much care.
He straightened."Ma'am,"he said,nodding stiffly to the President's wife."Ah, ma'am," with a briefer nod to Anne.
