"Still," Andrew said, "I think that peasant is smarter than the entire lot of them, maybe sharper than all of us as well. I wouldn't be surprised if for every word he acknowledges knowing he's picked up ten on the side."
"What is it that those two are whispering about?" Ivor asked, looking at his two guests with a jaundiced eye.
"My lord wishes to know if you will accept his offer as stated," Kal said, looking back at Andrew.
Andrew sat silent, fixing Ivor with his gaze.
"We shall want our own land, on the river, between the sea and this city. If we wish to leave, we must be free to do so."
Kal listened carefully to what was being said. He thought he understood correctly the part about the land. How was he going to get past this one? So far he'd played it off successfully, letting each side hear what he wanted, speaking in a gray area and making each think that the other was eager for an understanding.
But the land issue would be tough. No one demanded land of a boyar, it was given. He knew as well that the bluecoats wished to stay together and to live alone while Ivor wanted them separated and scattered.
Kal looked over at Ivor.
"They are eager to be your vassals."
He hoped that Ivor would make some concession for that.
"Then tell them that they will be broken into small groups and assigned to serve under my border watchers."
Kal gulped, for there was no way he could get around this arrangement.
In the background, Kal heard a muffled shout, and the unmistakable sound of steel striking steel.
Ivor, ever the warrior, reacted in an instant. Kicking back from the table, he swung out his two-handed sword and raced for the door.
Barely had he reached it when the low rounded portal smashed in on its hinges. Kal, knowing what was coming, dived under the table and scurried for the far corner of the room.
Dance with the wolves and get bitten if the music stops, he thought ruefully.
"Mikhail, you bastard!" Ivor roared.
Ivor fought desperately to hold the door but gave back before the crush. As Mikhail cleared the doorway, swinging his two-handed ax low, other warriors piled in after him.
There was a thunderous explosion. Startled, Kal looked up to see Andrew holding a short metal tube, with smoke powering out.
There was a moment of stunned silence as all turned to face Andrew. The man next to Mikhail crumpled to the ground, blood pouring from his mouth.
"Those who die killing demons go to paradise," Mikhail roared.
With a wild shout his cohorts poured into the room after him.
"Ivor, to me!" Andrew shouted. The boyar, still trading blows with his brother, looked back to the bluecoat. Realizing that he was about to be surrounded by men pressing in to either side, Ivor broke off and rushed back to the far corner of the room, where Andrew and Emil stood back to back.
There was another roar, and another, and two more warriors were pitched to the ground, the one next to Mikhail spraying those about him with a shower of blood and brains.
"Emil, take the gun!" And tossing the revolver to the doctor, Andrew unsheathed his blade and pressed up to Ivor's side. A warrior, nerving himself, rushed in on Andrew, battle-ax raised high. Turning, Andrew jumped aside, and with raised point drove his weapons into his opponent's throat. The pistol barked again, knocking another man over.
"Two rounds! Hold them!" Andrew shouted.
"For what, damn it?" Emil cried, and the pistol barked again, bowling over a man coming straight at him with lowered spear.
Screaming with rage, Ivor cut at his brother, who warily kept to the side of the room, putting Emil between himself and his attacker.
The pistol exploded again, bowling over a man who had leaped atop the table with a crossbow. The weapon snapped off as he pitched over, driving the dart into the ceiling.
"Goddammit!" Emil roared, hurling the now empty revolver at the next warrior approaching him. The warrior went down, a chair shattering across his back. Kal stood up, holding the broken back of the chair, and reached down and scooped up the empty revolver.
Closing his eyes, he squeezed the trigger as another warrior closed in. The weapon clicked on an empty chamber, but the warrior it was pointed at stopped dead in his tracks anyhow, his face pale with fear.
"The magic is gone!" Mikhail shouted. "Finish them!"
There was a moment of silence as if both sides were somehow taking measure of the other. Warily, another warrior closed in on Andrew, who, not waiting for the attack, leaped forward, catching the man in the face, driving his blade through bone and muscle. His victim fell back, screaming.
Suddenly there was an echo of gunfire from out in the hallway.
"Hans, in here!" Andrew roared.
A volley of musketry tore down the hallway. There was a wild explosion of action as the warriors still pressing into the room turned to face their new foe.
"Present, fire!" Another volley echoed out, and the attackers, with wild shouts of panic, broke and poured out of the room. Mikhail, shouting with rage, made one last blow toward Ivor and, turning, fled from the room, Ivor storming after him.
Andrew, running after the boyar, slammed him up against the wall.
"My men will shoot you!" Andrew screamed.
Ivor, his face contorted with rage, started to turn on Andrew, but Kal rushed forward, shouting an explanation.
"Colonel!"
"In here, Hans."
Pointing his carbine at chest level, Hans pushed his way into the room. When he saw Andrew a slight smile crossed his lips.
"A little fun in here, I see," he said grimly, poking one of the bodies with the toe of his boot.
Hans stuck his head back out the door.
"Well done, boys. Let the others chase the dogs down." He came back into the room.
Andrew patted the sergeant on the shoulder.
"Saw about thirty of these heathens stroll into the palace looking rather grim, so I thought it'd be best for me and some of the boys to kind of follow behind just to make sure everything was all right," Hans said softly, looking about the smoke-filled room.
The palace was now in an uproar as Ivor's guards, rousing themselves at last, came pouring into the corridor.
Kal came up to stand by Andrew's side. Nervously he extended the pistol, handle first.
Smiling, Andrew took the weapon and holstered it, and then looked over to Ivor. Andrew could not help but notice the shocked look in Ivor's eyes at the sight of Kal holding the weapon.
"Kal."
"Yes, Cane."
"Tell your Ivor we want land, and a place to live, or we'll take our services elsewhere," Andrew said quietly.
"And Kal, make sure you translate correctly," he added, smiling.
The peasant forced a weak smile and turning to Ivor started to speak rapidly.
"From the looks of things," Andrew said evenly, looking back over to Emil, "he's going to need us as much as we need him."
Chapter 5
"Here it comes, colonel!"
Smiling at Private Hawthorne's excitement, Andrew stepped out of his cabin and started down toward the river, keeping a stately pace, his new orderly, barely able to contain his schoolboy enthusiasm, walking beside him. He could feel the excitement of the moment as well, but dignity demanded that he show an outward calm. As he walked through the encampment he felt a quiet sense of pride at all that had been accomplished.
It had been four weeks since the fateful meeting with Ivor. Mikhail, in his attempt to kill Ivor, if anything guaranteed the existence of the regiment, for at least the time being. Andrew had left the palace with a grant of land, which they might choose, along with a steady supply of food, in return for protection against Mikhail, who had fled to Novrod, where Boyar Boros had offered him protection.
With O'Donald and Emil they had picked their site out with care. Emil had insisted that a fresh stream, emitting from a spring, was essential for their water. O'Donald wanted a clear field of fire
for the artillery, Tobias a deep anchorage for the Ogunquit. Then there was the question of wood supply for the cabins, and firewood. They had to be close enough to Suzdal for trade, but far enough away so that if Ivor plotted a move against them there'd be enough warning.
It had taken several long hard days of riding back and forth across the countryside to pick the site, which in the end was the place where they had paused for a rest on that first march toward the city. Andrew looked about him and smiled inwardly. He had selected well.
Fort Lincoln, as they had named their new home, was positioned on a low bluff looking out over the Neiper River . They had laid out a square perimeter a hundred and fifty yards on a side. The men, who had practiced such work for survival before Petersburg , had set to the digging with a will. A ditch fifteen feet across and eight feet deep had been excavated the length of the perimeter, the earth piled up to form a parapet topped with sentry posts. Firing platforms for the infantry, which were flanked on the four corners by massive salients for artillery, were set so that all approaches could be swept by a deadly hail of fire.
Singling out the men who had been lumberjacks back in Maine, he had sent them into the high stands of pines to start harvesting the thousands of logs needed for the town, while the rest of the men started in with the digging.
Once the fortification was completed the men had turned their attention to living quarters, using the stacks of logs that had been snaked down from the woods above the new town. Company streets were laid out in the standard checkerboard pattern. As if looking for a sense of home in a foreign land the men insisted that there be a town square, a request which Andrew readily agreed to.
The Presbyterians in the company had already erected a small log church on the north side of the square, while the Methodists under Captain Bob Fletcher of Company B were already talking of building a sawmill so they could build a proper clapboard church on some ground staked out to the south of the square.
Andrew had designated the east side of the square as the living area for officers, staff, Kal and his family, and Miss O'Reilly and for the infirmary. Her cabin had been one of the first to go up, and the men of Fletcher's company, who had volunteered to build it, had lavished the simple structure with loving detail, managing to somehow trade for some panes of glass so she could have a real window. Kal's wife, Ludmilla, was soon a regular guest there, and curtains had been added to the window, with a plot of transplanted flowers lining the snake rail fence the men had put up around her new home.
Across the square on the west side, volunteers were already laying out the foundation for a regular town meeting hall, to go up alongside the planned armory, their efforts yet another attempt to recreate home in this strange and distant land.
Almost all the soldiers' cabins had been finished, and homey touches were starting to crop up. Street signs had come first, with all the old traditional names—Maple, Oak, Church, and Main. The martial names were there as well, Grant, Sherman, Antietam, and for the main north-south thoroughfare the honored name of Gettysburg, where the regiment had known its finest hour.
In the free time Andrew granted after a day of labor on fortifications, cutting lumber, and the myriad of tasks needed to settle in, the men had started to show their creative skills.
Several had turned their attention to woodcarving, as if inspired by the Suzdalians' exotic carvings. American eagles were popular as adornments over the doors of the small soldiers' huts, as were carvings of women, ships, and even a map of Maine.
Nearly every day a delegation of men came to Andrew looking for his approval for a project. To his delight, Jacobsen and Gates, both from Company C, had come to him only that morning. Jacobsen pointed out that he knew how to make paper, while Gates suggested that he might be able to carve out a set of type and thus start a newspaper. Andrew readily gave both of them permission to try their hand at it and exempted them from all duties except the daily drill.
Outside Fort Lincoln, another town had started to spring up as well. Unlike the encampment, this was a haphazard affair that Andrew was coming to realize was the typical approach of the Suzdalians.
Merchants had quickly set up shops, first under nothing more than tattered awnings, which over the weeks were converted into rough-hewn cabins. Now there were several hundred living in the informal village, their shops and homes lining the path which had been cut up to the main road to Suzdal.
Fortunately for the regiment, the rate of exchange was excellent. Most of the men had some coins on them, or greenbacks, which the Suzdalians honored with enthusiasm, if for no other reason than their value as ornaments and curiosities coming from the hands of the men who were now known as Yankees.
Gold and silver were already part of the Suzdalian economy, and a man lucky enough to have a handful of silver dollars or a gold twenty-dollar piece was considered to be fabulously wealthy. Beyond money, most anything the men owned was highly sought after. An issue of Harper's Illustrated Weekly had almost triggered a riot when a private had pulled it out of his haversack and offered it in trade for a bearskin. With that revelation the men had taken of late to cutting out pictures and even the newsprint for trade.
Andrew had been forced almost immediately to issue the strictest of orders against any trade involving powder, bullets, even the percussion caps for the muskets, which the Suzdalians looked upon with superstitious wonder.
The issue of powder had really worried him, since several merchants had appeared one night, offering significant sums in gold for nothing but a single cartridge. Fortunately they had approached Sergeant Barry, who had spurned the offer and reported the incident. Knowing that the mystery of powder was important to their survival, he had paraded the entire regiment immediately and placed down a law that any man caught in such a trade would receive six months in the yet-to-be-constructed guardhouse for such an action.
Fortunately the men had taken the warning to heart, knowing it was in their best interest. But as an additional precaution all men were to turn in their loose rounds and were issued two ten-round sealed packages for immediate use, which were to be checked daily by their company officers.
He had attempted to place injunctions against another form of trade as well, especially after seeing a woman sauntering outside the north gate wearing an infantryman's kepi hat.
Emil had dragged the entire regiment out on parade that night and given them a bone-chilling lecture about what might be caught, spiced with dire warnings about the ultimate effects. Andrew knew that it was useless. Several men in the regiment were down with a social disease and still under treatment with mercury by Emil. He had called them in for a special talk and made it quite clear that if a single Suzdalian contracted anything he'd have them whipped about the camp and would consider turning them over to Ivor for justice. The threat was empty in that respect, but the last thing they needed was to start an epidemic which could be traced directly back to the regiment in short order.
Emil had already been in a boil about that and disease in general, so horrified was he by the medieval conditions of the Suzdalians. Nothing had happned yet, and he could only hope that Emil's precautions would spare them.
The water coming down from the hill and running near the north wall was crystalline pure. At Emil's insistent demands the Suzdalians who had set up camp outside the gate were forbidden to wash in the stream, and only to draw water where the rest of the regiment drew theirs.
Emil had run around frantic in the first couple of weeks, personally overseeing the location of the regimental sinks, shouting about proper sanitation, inspecting the men for lice, and demanding weekly baths in the Neiper River. The men bore his orders with good-natured grumbling, having realized after two years' experience that somehow this physician's requirements had spared them the dreadful disease rate of the rest of the Union Army.
So far the men had been as healthy as any regiment could expect to be. One man had died, injured when a falling tree had backlashed, crushing him to the ground.
> He was the first to rest on what they now called Cemetery Hill, and Andrew had noticed the impact it had on the Suzdalians to see that a Yankee could bleed and die the same way they could. It seemed that after his death the Suzdalians who came to gaze at the camp were not so filled with superstitious fear.
A high-pitched shriek rent the air and roused Andrew from his thoughts. Falling in with the other soldiers rushing by, he climbed the riverside parapet and looked out over the flowing Neiper.
From around the bend in the river the Ogunquit was now in view. The ship moved briskly against the current, smoke pouring from its single stack.
Hundreds of Suzdalians lined the riverbank shouting with wonder at the sight of a ship moving against the current, without oars, its masts bare-poled.
Kal, wide-eyed with wonder, came up to Emil.
"How do you do this?" he exclaimed.
"Ah, it's not magic, my friend, just a machine, like the other machines I told you about."
"You Yankees and your machines," Kal mumbled in awe.
A jet of steam escaped from the ship, and a second later the sound of the high-pitched whistle echoed past the camp yet again.
"Go ahead, my lads, give 'em a salute!" O'Donald roared, and in response to his command one of the Napoleons on the encampment wall kicked back with a thunderous roar that mingled with the triumphant shouts of the men from the 35th.
"Tobias will be insufferable now," Emil said, coming up to Andrew's side.
Tobias had argued vehemently in favor of locating the camp right where the ship had come to rest, but even he was finally forced to admit that the site Andrew had selected for their encampment was far more hospitable than the windswept dunes that had been their first landfall in this new world.
Anything that could be moved had first been stripped from the vessel. Tons of equipment for the North Carolina campaign had been stored belowdecks, and as the ship's manifest had been brought ashore Andrew found himself breathing an inner sigh of relief.
There were rations enough for six months, along with half a million rounds of rifle ammunition and two thousand rounds for the field pieces. There were thousands of yards of rope, hundreds of uniforms and shoes, lamps, coal oil, tents, shovels, picks, axes, medicine, including ether, and the myriad personal effects of six hundred men and one woman.
Rally Cry Page 10
