Gold Throne in Shadow

by M. C. Planck

  “No,” said the latest applicant, a young woman with curly black hair. She was Mary Ann to Lalania’s Ginger, cute, petite, and stubborn. “You may not turn me away, Brother.”

  “Huh?” he said, confused.

  “Yes, Brother,” she repeated, politely ignoring his gibbering idiocy, “I am entitled to the word, though it is impolite to use it in mixed company. But I am a priestess of the Bright Lady, I am reporting for duty, and you may not turn me away.”

  “We have not heard of this, Sister,” Svengusta smoothly intervened. “You are among friends of the Church, so you may speak freely.”

  The girl looked dubious, but she had a case to make, and it spilled out of her in a rush.

  “Your regiment has no healer. It is the duty of the Church to send two healers with each draft.”

  “Two were sent,” Svengusta gently interrupted her. Christopher was relieved that the old priest was going to handle this, so he just shut up and listened.

  “Of which I should have been one,” the priestess answered. “I had already received my orders and made my peace with my family. I was to go to the draft. But Brother Christopher was sent in my stead. As unfair as that was, I did not complain.” In the way of these priests, she amended her statement so that it conformed to the truth. “Much.” Then she continued, uninterrupted. “But now the regiment has none instead of two. The draft is not optional. One is not allowed to choose to leave it, once sent. Though the Cardinal rules otherwise, I am bound by honor to replace the one who failed you.” It was obvious who she meant, even if she did not name names, for fear of speaking ill of the dead.

  “Unfair?” Christopher asked, too surprised to remain quiet. “You wanted to be drafted?” That seemed highly irrational.

  She at least blushed. “I do not seek war. But it is an open secret that promotions go first to those who served most. All of the men have been drafted once, before they became priests. All of our senior clergy served as healers in a draft, and most of them are men because some fools think war is easier the second time around. I would not have my career crippled merely because I am a woman.”

  Christopher was openly grinning by the end of her speech. A true feminist polemic, delivered from a perky college coed. But she was right, of course. Even Christopher could see that. Vicar Rana was the highest-ranking woman in the Church, and she was crusty enough to have served in ten drafts.

  “We must dance the steps we draw,” Svengusta said placatingly. “What the Saint rules, he rules for the good of us all.”

  “On the other hand, I could really use some help,” Christopher said. This would get Karl off his back about promoting Torme. “Can we argue this? Can we win this case, Sven?”

  “We?” said the old priest, subtly reminding Christopher that they now served different masters, before he took the sting away by laughing. “I suppose I could use the help, too. Your boys are several times the number of clumsy but heavily armed bravos that I normally am responsible for.”

  “I will press my own case, Brothers,” the priestess said, “if you but give me leave to do so.”

  Christopher was sure he’d changed the nature of the service the draftees normally endured. He didn’t expect to lose half his men over the next three years, so the economics that had driven the Church’s first decision didn’t really apply anymore.

  “Yes, Sister,” he said, “I do, and I will give you arguments to take with you. Tell Faren I will pledge to revive any of his priests who fall in my service, so he risks little.”

  “Will you also restore them to the priesthood?” asked Svengusta. The old man never failed to see to the heart of the matter. Raising a person to the first-rank cost five times as much as returning them to life.

  “Sure,” Christopher said, blithely promising to pay debts he might never incur.

  The priestess looked slightly surprised, as if she hadn’t expected to win so easily. “I will take your words to the Cathedral, my lord Curate,” now that she was done arguing with him he got his fancy title back, “and return to do my duty. I am the Patera Disa, of Samerhaven.” Now that they were all in agreement, she would give her name.

  “Isn’t that next to Carrhill?” Christopher asked. He’d spent a lot time looking over the Cathedral’s map collection, such as it was.

  “Yes, my lord Curate, it is,” she answered.

  “Stop calling me that,” he said automatically. “Tell Faren that, too. I’m being sent to Carrhill, so I can use all the local knowledge I can get.” But of course Faren already knew that.

  “My knowledge of that county is limited.” She blushed. “Mostly peasant’s gossip. But I will serve you faithfully, no matter where your regiment is sent.” He had forgotten that Carrhill was considered an easy posting, and so his comment made her look like she had only come forward once it looked safe.

  “I’m sure you will,” he said, trying to be diplomatic and certain he was failing. She’d just have to get used to him, like everybody else. That wasn’t as unfair as it sounded. After all, he’d done his share of getting used to them.

  The headaches of trying to get his army back on its feet consumed him with long lists of costs, schedules, plans, and schematics, and he barely noticed when Disa returned and took up her post. Svengusta undertook to teach her what was expected of a combat healer, as he had once taught Christopher. Gregor and Karl were always out looking at horses, Lalania promptly disappeared with the last of the ranked visitors, Charles was thrilled with the task of educating Torme on the bookkeeping, Kennet had wrangled some kind of duty that left him in Knockford town every day and Dynae’s bed every night, and even Helga had too many girls to boss around to waste time in chitchat, so two whole weeks flew by until the flow of strangers and problems fell to a trickle, and he could seriously begin to consider marching to Carrhill to take up his own post.

  Karl had efficiently dealt with the influx of ordinary rabble, swelling Christopher’s industrial payroll and Tom’s militia by the dozen. But now he had something he needed Christopher’s personal attention for, a group of rough-edged older men standing in a poorly disciplined line.

  “Christopher,” he asked, “how close to the line do you wish to walk?”

  Christopher eyed the gang and answered, “Pretty close. What did you have in mind?”

  “These men are leftovers from previous drafts, gone to drink and petty villainy.” Karl was unsparing. “But I think I can refurbish them, and I think you can accept them as draftees, since they are still technically citizens of our lands. You cannot pay them outright, but if you put gold on account for them, then I believe they will serve you well.”

  “How much?” Christopher asked, getting right to the point.

  “A pound of gold a year would be generous. Although there is no chance of booty or advancement,” Karl was repeating this for the benefit of the men, “you will also be providing them with food, shelter, arms, and the possibility of revival.” Raising the men who fell on the battlefield made one very popular with soldiers. “It is better prospects than they deserve and, not incidentally, a chance to serve their Church and Saint.”

  Another twenty hardened veterans would be quite welcome in his army. But this seemed suspiciously close to breaking the rules.

  Karl misread his concern. “You need not pay them anything until the end of their term,” Karl said. “They’ll take your word for it, as I and the others have. You wear the White, after all.”

  Those were terms Christopher found hard to turn down. He nodded his acquiescence, but Karl wasn’t done with him.

  “Then you should see what color they wear.”

  “You really think that means that much?” Christopher asked, surprised at Karl’s reliance on magic.

  Karl cocked an eyebrow but was unwilling to argue in front of the men. Christopher sighed and did what was expected of him.

  Speaking a phrase in Celestial, he pointed to each man in turn. As he did so, an aura around each swam into view, a magical revelation of the m
an’s current moral development. They were all green, as he had expected: men of honor, if not necessarily principle. One was aqua, halfway to blue, a welcoming sense of rectitude to Christopher’s eyes but probably a source of aggravation to his fellows. Many had streaks of yellow, glittering like pyrite in copper, yet not enough to brand them as concerned solely with their own gain.

  “I accept you,” Christopher told them, “based on Karl’s recommendation, and in case it wasn’t perfectly clear, I will reject you on his word as well.”

  Karl dismissed the men, sending them off to find quarters. Before he followed them out, he spoke to Christopher.

  “Of course it means that much. Though affiliations can be disguised, it is impossible that such measures would be available to these men. We must guard against changelings and the weakness of ordinary human nature, but that is always true. I do not understand your objection, or why you took from Master Flayn what you will not take from Saint Krellyan.”

  Christopher had to think about it before he realized that Karl was referring to a loyal servant.

  “I know what motivates Fae,” he said. “I’m teaching her new things.”

  Karl shrugged. “The same applies to these men. They should be paying you for the chance to face the monsters of the Wild with a rifle in their hands.”

  “I don’t think they would see it like that,” Christopher laughed.

  “No,” Karl said, almost cracking a grin, “I don’t suppose they would either. But they will cost you less than the horses they ride, so do not begrudge their pay.”

  That would be another bucket of money shoveled out the door. And now it was time to go to town and see how much he was spending on guns.

  Karl was impressed with the carbines and immediately filched the entire production for his cavalry. “They’ll be our shock force,” he said, “firepower on demand. When can you make forty more?” The cavalry regiment had already doubled, filled out by promising candidates from the draftees.

  “I was just going to make them for the officers,” Jhom objected.

  “That’s an excellent idea, too,” Karl agreed. “One or two in each squad of twenty will stiffen the line against sudden charges.”

  Christopher had nothing to add. “What he said,” he told Jhom. The horsemen would need shorter-barreled guns, anyway. “Put the carbines in the front of the production line.”

  “Even ahead of the new machinery?” Jhom was just a barrel of problems.

  “Yes,” Christopher decided. “Delay the new rifles for the current regiment. But you cannot stint on guns for the next regiment, or grenades. Especially not grenades.”

  “Those come off a different line,” Jhom explained. “Now that we smelt iron faster than we can cast it, there will be no delay there. Your cannons will also be on hand in a timely fashion.”

  “Ammunition?” Karl prompted.

  “For that you must see to your witch,” Jhom sniffed. “Casting lead into molds is simple enough for even women to do, so I have transferred that entire operation to her.”

  Christopher couldn’t complain. The machine shop needed all the relief it could get, and Fae could certainly take care of herself. It was probably her idea anyway, an expansion of her empire at the expense of the clueless smith.

  And how her empire had expanded. The women in her employ had tripled, she was having a new building erected to match her existing one, and she had turned her old workshop and apartment into more industrial space. She was living in Flayn’s shop now, and Christopher had to admit the downstairs made an impressive corporate office, even while he flinched at how much she must be spending on all that fine furniture.

  “We need to do another bond issue,” he told her, trying not to be nettled by her cool professional air.

  “I can print them in three days,” she promised. “It would be efficient, however, to print the second run at the same time, if you do intend to do one.”

  “That is a lot of valuable paper to leave lying around,” Karl frowned.

  “I have asked for soldiers,” Fae answered him, “but your officers have turned me down. Perhaps you should personally inspect my security arrangements and decide for yourself?”

  Christopher was hard-pressed to imagine anything more boring or less suited to his talents. And he was eager to escape. Fae, always provocative, was more so today. Maybe the romance of spring was affecting her, too.

  “I’ve got to see Tom, so can I leave you two at this?” he almost begged.

  “As you wish,” she said.

  As he stepped out the door with relief, he briefly considered if this was fair to Karl. But the man was made of steel. Not even Fae could break him.

  Tom, on the other hand, was only human, which explained his unfortunate relationship with the witch. The man was out at the moment, so Christopher stood in Tom’s fine house and awkwardly tried to chat with Tom’s homely wife. The woman seemed far more relaxed than the last time he had seen her. Back then, she had been impressed to the point of muteness with his lowly first-rank. Now that he had a serious title, she wasn’t awed at all.

  She’d been eating pretty well, too, he privately observed, and then it made sense.

  “Are congratulations in order?” he asked her, and she blushed in pride.

  “Yes, my lord, and thank you.”

  Christopher unconsciously shook his head, thinking of the trouble Tom would be in if he got Fae equally prideful. In one of those moments of feminine intuition, perhaps empowered by her expectant state, the mother-to-be read his mind with uncanny accuracy.

  “Never you mind that,” she said with a sly smile. “I’ve given him something that tart never can. My Tom’s a handsome man, and I can’t blame him for a bit of pretty, but he’ll be home tonight, and every night.” She patted her belly with serene confidence.

  Christopher was too surprised to think about being polite. “You mean wizards can’t get pregnant?” he blurted out. Had Fae traded away the possibility of a family for her power?

  “Not off a mortal man, my lord. Everyone knows that.”

  “Oh,” Christopher said, and then stood there stupidly until Tom came home.

  “Light of my life, mother of my dynasty, what’s for dinner?” the young man cried and lifted the woman easily into the air for a kiss.

  “And my love to you, too, my lord Curate, though I’ll withhold the kiss if it’ll not offend you.” Grinning irrepressibly, he bowed to Christopher in his kitchen, while his wife clucked happily, tossing things into boiling pots.

  “I wanted to see how my roads were coming along,” Christopher said, “but obviously you’ve got other projects in the works.”

  “I can do two things at once,” Tom laughed, and his wife threw a carrot at his head in outrage. “But let us retreat to the main hall of the glorious mansion you’ve bought me and discuss manly things over a beer.

  “All is in hand, my lord,” Tom assured him somewhat more seriously after draining half a mug in one shot. “It turns out that roads are mostly comprised of labor. Which I no longer have a shortage of. My men would like to know when they get their guns, but for now they’ll do with just your word.”

  “Probably not for a year or more,” Christopher winced.

  “They’ll hold as long as you need. In truth it’s me that drives the eager wagon. I’ve always wanted to be a High Commander, with swaggering bravos under my heel.”

  “So if I give you the command of the militia of the entire town, you’ll swell up and explode?”

  Tom smiled happily at him. “Like a puff pastry in the wrong oven. But will you really give away rifles to just anyone?”

  “Not yet,” Christopher admitted, “but eventually, I would like to see at least half the men in the town able to rally to its defense.”

  “If these weapons are what your lads say they are,” Tom said, “that would be a stout defense indeed.”

  “And probably under the command of the Vicar,” Christopher said, “instead of me. Is that going to b
e a problem for you?”

  “I can charm that old dragon as easily as I can whistle,” Tom smiled, “or more honestly, I can certainly charm her better than you.”

  That was undeniable, and Christopher had to grin.

  “Speaking of charming,” he lowered his voice, “are you still being a fool?”

  “The weather’s cooled off as of late,” Tom admitted, “not that I’ve minded. But I’ve been careful not to provoke any wrathful scorning, so I think you have nothing to fear on that account.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Christopher said, although Fae in Tom’s bed was probably less likely to cause trouble than any other place she could be.

  “I’ll not ask,” Tom said seriously, “why you’ll take fealty from a pretty bird but won’t hear her sing. It’s not my place. But others take note, and an answer might be handy to have.”

  “I have a wife,” Christopher said.

  “That’s not entirely an answer. Yet you wear the White, and your word is your bond, so I suppose it will do. Why you gave your wife a vow of chastity is another question altogether, one men will likely not ask. Questions like that have a way of sparking foolish notions in others,” he said with a broad wink, as his wife brought a plate of rolls to the table. She would have thrown one at his head, but bread was too expensive for that.

  6

  HARD DUTY

  After a long and cheerful dinner Christopher rounded up his posse at the church to head for home. But Karl was missing. A ghost of a worry brushed through his mind. Without any purchase in fact, it drifted away.

  Until he got to the shop, to see Karl standing in front of the glass door, the handle still in his hand, and a peculiar look on his face.

  “Not you, too,” Christopher said. Not that he really had a right to complain about what adults did in their free time.