By Fire Above_A Signal Airship Novel

by Robyn Bennis

  Mercifully, the duke gave a final nod to the king and tur-ned to leave—turned his back fully on the royal personage, in fact.

  “Oh, and Jack,” the king said, seeming to remember something when the duke was nearly out of the room, by the back door. “I’m told that the farmers are displeased with the latest round of conscription.”

  Josette took note of the king’s “I.” Not the royal “we,” which he perhaps withheld for close friends and dukes who owned a fifth of his country.

  The duke stopped at the door and looked back. He considered it for a second, then gave a laugh that echoed through the chamber. “Even if that were true,” he said, “who would ever know?”

  The king scrunched up his face, his bushy gray eyebrows coming together in the middle. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and said, “They would, for a start.”

  The duke chuckled politely, made a pale imitation of a bow, and said, “Your Majesty,” as he left.

  The king’s gaze swung around to Josette, and she remembered to look slightly away this time. “You go up in one of those balloons?” he asked.

  She swallowed, and remembered Bernat’s comment about how she could be, and what that might lead to. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Ah,” the king said, running a finger across his mustache. “Though, now that I recall, I believe they are called airships, and not balloons.” There was that “I” again.

  She looked slightly up. They shared a small, secret smile. “That is correct, Your Majesty,” she said.

  Moments passed in silence, while he contemplated his next comment. “And how are you faring at it? When I had you made captain of an airship, they told me I was making a mistake. They told me a woman couldn’t handle the strain.”

  She laughed, very softly, and said, “I’m holding up quite well, Your Majesty.”

  “I hear that you are.” He shifted on the throne, leaning an elbow on the armrest. “And what do you think about the latest round of conscription?”

  Though the king was being friendlier than she expected, she worried that this question was a trap. “It cannot be denied that the people are displeased,” she said, carefully. “But I’m sure they recognize the necessity.”

  The king sniffed in a rather unkingly manner. “No doubt they do,” he said. “It is, as you say, a necessity. But it’s the sort of necessity a more dignified nation would at least have the decency to be ashamed of. Did you pass any of my vassals on your way in, who struck you as ashamed?”

  She tried to think of something diplomatic to say. “The nobility remain enthusiastic about the prosecution of the war, Your Majesty. As far as I can see.”

  The king laughed. “Of course they would. They’ve got people to do their dying for them.”

  She said nothing, for she had the strangest impression that the king was using her as a means of speaking with himself.

  He said, “There’s nothing exceptionally bad about the aristocrats of Garnia, you know, except that they’re all convinced they’re the best of us.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Her answer, as empty as it was, seemed to give him pause. “But then, I’m one to speak, eh?”

  She said nothing, imagining spikes and silver platters.

  “I can sit here and pretend to be a noble, civil person, because I have people like you to do all the ignoble, uncivil things that are necessary to carry out my decisions. What do you think about that, Captain Dupre?”

  She cleared her dry throat and said, “I’m not sure it’s always wise for someone in my position to have an opinion on these things, Your Majesty.”

  Thank God that tickled him, for otherwise she might be sunk. He chuckled softly and said, “Wise not to speak it, you mean.”

  She only tipped her head and remained silent, which seemed to tickle him all the more.

  “They tell me, Captain, that you wish me to keep Durum in mind during the peace negotiations, after the war is over.”

  Josette steeled herself. “They are incorrect, Your Majesty.”

  The king’s gray eyebrows rose into wide arches, high on his forehead. “Oh?” was all he said.

  She looked him full in the eye, if only for a moment. “I wish you to retake Durum, Your Majesty. By force.”

  “My, my,” he said, strumming his fingers on the throne. “I think someone’s going to be very cross at you, when this interview concludes. Indulge me, Captain. Why should we spend blood and resources on an expedition with so little to be gained?”

  “There’s more to be gained than only the town, Your Majesty.” She didn’t even say the name, for fear its unfamiliarity would draw attention to its insignificance. “The new battalion training at the signal base is a shambles.”

  “Is it?” he asked.

  She could almost feel the pike sliding into her severed neck. “Yes, Your Majesty. Their training won’t do much to help that, either. They don’t have the motivation or the mindset to be proper soldiers, and the only way to make something like soldiers out of them is to blood them—to give them a victory, if only a small one. Durum is not a difficult target. It can be taken in a matter of weeks, and the experience will be worth more than any amount of training. We can send one battalion of these boys to the front with a victory, with confidence, and have some good news to put in the papers. Durum has a rich history, Your Majesty. It flourished under…” She realized too late the direction she was headed in.

  “It flourished under Vinzhalian rule, and withered under ours, as I recall,” the king said.

  Josette did her best to move on. “Be that as it may, at some point Vinzhalia is likely to try another attack on Arle, and Durum is well-positioned as an outpost.”

  The king stared at her for a while, and then said, “I’ll think on it. Good day, Captain.”

  “Your Majesty,” Josette said, as she bowed and backed out of the room, never turning her back to him.

  The doors were closed in front of her, and finally she could relax. She turned to find Bernat lying on a couch at the back end of the antechamber.

  “Why the hell are you lying down, Bernie?”

  “We insisted on it, ma’am,” one of the attendants explained, “for fear he might hit his head if he fainted.”

  Indeed, the veins were bulging in Bernat’s face, his eyes were wide as dinner plates, and his skin shone with sweat. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked. “I thought you were about to be flayed.”

  “Your idea was too chancy,” she said, shrugging by way of apology. “If we lose after drawing the war out this long, the Vins may be disinclined to give us anything back, no matter how insignificant. They’d keep Durum just to be petty, just because we asked for it. Even if he does decide against my plan, he’ll still remember Durum at the bargaining table, as a chance to fulfill the favor he denied me today. So you see, there really wasn’t any risk at all.”

  Bernat was briefly stunned into silence. When he came out of it, he said, “No risk, except that you’d be flayed alive. And the certainty that you’d lose Duke Royama’s favor. That man spent a lot of money on you, and now you’re asking the king to divert troops from the territory he’s desperately trying to hold onto.”

  She shrugged again. “He can disinvite me from his next social event.”

  “Oh, Josette. You have no idea what you’ve done.” He looked as if he might go into pulmonary spasms at any moment. “Nothing could possibly make this day any—”

  And then Roland walked into the antechamber.

  “Oh, at least let me get it out before you run me through with your goddamn irony!” Bernat screamed at his brother, to Roland’s absolute perplexity.

  “I came as soon as I heard there was a disaster,” Roland said, kneeling in front of Bernat’s couch. “Who did this to him?”

  “She did it!” Bernat cried, pointing an accusing finger at Josette. Roland turned to look at her, though he was more hesitant to meet her eye than she had been to meet the king’s.

  “I asked the king to
retake Durum,” she said in a much smaller voice than she’d intended.

  Roland nearly had occasion to make use of the fainting couch alongside his brother. “Good God!” he cried. After being politely shushed by one of the attendants, he went on more quietly, “Well, you’ve lost Duke Royama’s favor, and there’s no getting it back. You’re lucky the luftgas and steamjack parts he promised you haven’t arrived yet, or he’d have your skin in payment. How did the king react?”

  She took a step toward him, but stopped herself from taking more. “Not … angrily. Do you … do you suppose there’s any hope of an accord?”

  Roland’s eyes flitted up, finally meeting hers. It seemed to take quite an effort of will, but he kept that contact as he spoke. “I should think that would depend entirely on you.” He might have gone on, but he had to step away from the couch, to stop Bernat from hitting him with his cane.

  If he had gone on, perhaps in another moment Josette would have begged his forgiveness. As it was, she only cleared her throat and said, “I’ll … keep that in mind.”

  With that, Roland bowed and left the room.

  8

  MISTRAL’S LUFTGAS AND steamjack parts never arrived, of course. Bernat had tried to tell her, but she’d held out hope until the matter could no longer be denied, and only then consented to have the bags filled with inflammable air.

  And so Mistral was as ready to fly as could possibly be arranged, with gas that would explode at a spark, and a steamjack that caught fire if not constantly attended to. She waited only on her orders.

  The battalion training at the signal base was in no better condition. The soldiers had completed their abbreviated training and were preparing to board trains for the front the next day, and no word had yet come from the king to change their destination.

  Bernat had even less to do than usual, so he walked about the companies as they prepared to leave. Here and there, he recognized the face of a lad who’d entered university the year he graduated, and he simply couldn’t resolve the notion that those snotty little pipsqueaks were soldiers now. He could believe it of himself only because he had become so used to violence, and so inclined to use it whenever convenient, and because of the cold sweat he broke into whenever he thought of going back into battle.

  But to think of these lads in battle seemed impossible, and simply unfair on top of it all. It was one thing to conscript farmers’ sons, who already expected a life of toil, disease, and early death. It was quite another to pluck a promising boy from his education and aspirations, and tell him to slay Vins for three dinars a week. If there were any justice in the world, a man of learning wouldn’t have to get out of bed for such a meager salary.

  But out of bed they were, and making a mess of packing for their next morning’s departure. In fairness to them, Bernat couldn’t comprehend how the army expected them to fit all of their equipment into their narrow haversacks. By his accounting, the average infantryman was expected to carry a shaving kit, sewing kit, mess kit, mess tin, oiled overcoat, pipe clay, shoe polish, belt polish, button polish, button board, polishing brush, coat brush, grooming brush, toothbrush, towel, canteen, drinking can, tent rope, tent fabric, tent pegs, bed roll, cartridge box, forty rounds ball cartridge, forty rounds loose ball, powder horn, powder flask, musket cleaning and worming kit, turn-screw, spare flint, practice flint, knife, bayonet, shovel, shako cover, flintlock cover, two collars, two linen shirts, two pairs cotton socks, one pair woolen socks, two pairs knickers, one pair gaiters, one pocket handkerchief, four days tobacco ration, four days tea ration, four days pickled vegetable ration, four days rice and barley ration, two days meat ration, patent field stove, patent field lamp, patent self-igniting matches, patent water filter, patent tooth powder, and patent miracle blister ointment.

  On top of that were any personal items the lads wanted to take with them. In this battalion, that meant books. Indeed, these must have been the most literate enlisted soldiers in the entire army, for there wasn’t a man among them who couldn’t read and write. This was much to the army’s chagrin, for a large fraction of the boys had already written letters to the Ministry of the Army, to the newspapers, and even to the governing aristocrats in their home counties, complaining about the harsh conditions of their training and the ill-treatment by their superiors. By these endeavors, a few had even succeeded in being excused of their service, but most succeeded only in making themselves a nuisance.

  And they had opinions. Good God, did they have opinions. It didn’t seem proper for a common solider to have opinions, let alone give voice to them, and yet here they were exchanging views, pretending expertise on subjects ranging from Gesshin’s treatise on ethical conflict to General Fieren’s strategies in Quah.

  “You know, this is why these wars are still going on,” one of the youngest lads said, pointing to the medley of equipment spread out on the ground before him.

  “Because of your lamp?” another asked. “What, is there a genie in it?”

  Bernat slowed his stroll, the better to eavesdrop.

  The first lad picked up the lamp and said, “No, because some goddamn fat industrialist is making a fortune selling this useless rubbish to the army.” He threw the lamp against the ground, where it smashed into his tin of boot polish. “Couldn’t make his goddamn fortune if there wasn’t a goddamn war on, could he?” He picked up the lamp and threw it again, hard enough to pop open the machine-crimped seam on the paraffin reservoir. When the boy saw the paraffin leaking out, something seemed to break inside of him. He fell over, his face in the grass, and sobbed.

  The boy he’d been complaining to put his full attention into fitting the equipment into his haversack. Another boy left his packing work to comfort the crying lad.

  Bernat walked on through the encampment all the more briskly, though it was hell on his leg. As he walked, he looked at his feet, but saw only the sobbing face of that blubbering boy—a soldier in the king’s army.

  *   *   *

  JOSETTE SAT HUNCHED over the desk reserved for her in the administrative offices, just off the main shed. The desk was covered to a depth of five sheets with documents of trivial administrative importance, and atop them all were the beginnings of two handwritten letters. One began, “Roland, I love you and I’m sorry,” while the other started off, “Roland, I am sorry to say I don’t love you.”

  These few words constituted everything she’d written thus far. She consoled herself that this was a tricky job that required quality over quantity, and went on staring at the two letters, as she had stared at them for at least an hour out of every day for the past week.

  The new chief mechanic walked in on her work, and she wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or annoyed. She quickly slid the letters under a stack of paperwork and said, “Ah, Mister Megusi. Anything to report?”

  The mechanic had his hat off and crumpled in front of his chest, and made a small deferential bow—which Josette couldn’t help but compare to the carefree ways of the late Gears. “I’ve been over the steamjack a dozen times, sir, and there ain’t a lot to do. Your lass did as good a job as is humanly possible, in fixing her up.”

  “I could have told you that without looking at it, Mister Megusi. Private Grey has proven an invaluable asset.”

  “Yes, sir. My only reservation is that she’ll be aiming for my job.” And he laughed heartily—a bit too heartily to be perfectly endearing, truth be told. “Still, I wouldn’t recommend running the engine above three-quarters power for any length of time, and not above one-quarter without both of us on duty to keep the steamjack from…”

  “Blowing us all to hell?”

  “Yes, sir, that exactly.” He fidgeted, hardly looking up for fear of her reaction. “Without the right parts, there’s only so much an overhaul can do. Some of it just needs replacing.”

  “There are no replacements. Revolutionary new design means not a lot of spare parts floating around. I’ve already explained to Kember and Hanon that the engine needs to be h
andled with care. Make sure you talk to them yourself, though. I want them to understand the danger. I don’t intend to lose my ship because the officer of the watch gets a notion that our peril has been exaggerated.” In truth, she didn’t have to worry about Kember, but she could hardly send her chief mechanic out to give a lecture to the first officer alone.

  “I’ll do my best to make it clear, sir,” Megusi said, and left her.

  She went back to staring at her letters, waiting on the burst of inspiration that might complete them.

  “Right in there, sir,” a voice from the corridor said after some minutes, and the last face she expected to see appeared from around the doorframe.

  “Captain Emery,” she said, leaping to her feet. “Sorry, Major Emery. Congratulations on your promotion.”

  The now-major laughed and said, “Whichever. Good to see you, Dupre.” Even as she started to salute, he shifted a package under his arm and offered her a hand instead, though he was now two full ranks above her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, shaking his hand. “They haven’t thrown you back into the signal corps, have they?”

  He looked wistful at the thought. “No, nothing as fortunate as that. They’ve made me junior major of the 132nd.” He lowered his voice, “Not exactly a crack outfit, are they?”

  Josette nodded gravely. “They’re calling themselves the Fighting Philosophers, though everyone else seems to prefer ‘The Fangless Fops.’ What does a junior major do, anyway? I’ve never been entirely clear on that.”

  Emery chuckled as he reached up to scratch at his neck. “I’m not entirely clear myself. Administrative duties, I suppose, on the colonel’s staff. I’m told there’s a possibility of independent command, if the battalion is ever divided into thirds or more, though I can’t imagine when that would ever happen.”

  “Well, it’s your own fault,” Josette said. “If you hadn’t been so good at your job, you’d still be commanding Ibis.”

  “Speaking of being good at one’s job…” Emery swung the package out from under his arm and presented it to Josette with both hands. “The fellows at the Ministry of the Army said that since I was going this way, and since we’d served together, I ought to have the honor of presenting you with this gift from the king.”