Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  Douglas undressed and crawled into his bunk, ready for the relief of sleep, and grateful for the gift Speir had given him. He could still hear the cricket song from his cracked-open window. Next door, Ellis had a bedfellow; the sound of thumps and groans on the other side of the wall was both homely and mildly arousing. But even the arousal was absorbed into the warm dark cloud of sleep that was coming for him, and Douglas sighed out the last vestige of thought and let go.

  ~*~

  For several days Speir had kept a bag packed by the door of her quarters, and two days ago had arranged to ride the shuttle with the units going back to the capital when the service course ended. It was a good thing, too; the last day of the service course was as hectic as the first, filled to bursting with drills and evaluations and queues and messages. The last event of the afternoon was the ceremonial parade review, complete with drums and skirlers and color-bearers; the junior officers wore, some for the first time, the dress uniform of their future service, and led the drill passes of the men and women they had taught.

  Barklay, flanked by his guest officers and his senior staff, was resplendent in full army blacks. Usually he contented himself with wearing the formal dark greens of his general’s rank, but today he walked in an abandonment of magnificence, lending a richness to his polished buttons and his red-silk linings that effortlessly outshone the splendor of everyone around him. Yet even his splendor was an invitation, and Speir no less than everyone in the vicinity felt the inward response. You could almost see people bend toward him, to share with him the fierce pride of the whole corpus of defenders gathered on the parade ground. They were part of a thing worth being proud of, and Speir stood a little straighter, and breathed a little quicker, as the drums struck up the invitatory cadence and the chant began.

  The drill formations came to completion just as the chant reached its first refrain:

  On heights beheld

  Our cura.

  The words were old, and once had been even older; the modern sense of responsibility and care skimmed like waterbugs over an unfathomed lake of meaning. In the same way, the voices who made the chant today seemed to enter into an ancient flow, raised to particularity by the flickering shadows of the cloud-scudded sky and the breeze that plucked at their hoods. With motion arrested, the company could put their whole breath into sustaining the plumb note as the cantors pursued the verse. In mirror to the voices, the skirlers held a choir of round reeded notes, shifting in smooth chords beneath the bubbled rill of the leader with his smallest, highest chanter-flute. And soaking to the bottom of it all was the undulating buzzed throb of the snares: all of it a storm of song breaking over the green.

  A strand of Speir’s hair was loosened by the sharp breeze, but she kept formation and ignored it, though it stung and tickled her cheek. At her back stood the unit she led, sharing in her proud immobility. They were so placed as to have a very good view of the proceedings; she could see, across the ground and further down, both Douglas and Stevens at the head of their respective units, both looking nearly as imposing as Barklay in their army blacks. Barklay she saw in profile to her right, eyes bright and fixed on the color-bearers as they passed again up the course. The breeze in a sudden blast lifted the Ilonian banner with a snap, and the black cock, the stylized emblem of the island’s shape, fluttered against its red ground as if freshly ready to fight.

  The banner passed, and as the wind’s flourish released it, Speir caught sight of Commander Jarrow in the rank of senior officers. He too was looking at Barklay, for once his expression unguarded, and his look was one of implacable loathing.

  If Speir had ever felt an urge to think Douglas’s worries unfounded, she dropped it now. The sun broke free of the grasping clouds and shone hot on their dark uniforms; but a chill touched her spine, and would not be assuaged.

  ~*~

  It was perhaps a merciful thing that the morning sendoff of their guests kept them all too busy for her to have any private conversation with Douglas before she left. Speir was thus prevented from reviving Douglas’s worry by sharing her new insight, or having her own worry magnified to eclipse his. As it was, she kept her objectivity and went down to give Jarrow his last briefing with as much curiosity as concern.

  He greeted her with the same politeness he had used to her since they started working together, and listened with care and attention to her report on the final evaluations of the service course. Speir had liked working with Dury, who was quiet and serious; Jarrow was neither loud nor ebullient, but he was altogether different: Speir was reminded of the old tale of the tailor fae who was cheated by a patron and revenged himself by measuring precisely the man’s life-thread according to his short payment, and then cutting it.

  And yet. Speir said: “Is there anything else I may assist you with, sir, before I leave?” and he looked up from the tablet she’d given him with a curiously vulnerable expression, his eyes, like a bird’s, suddenly animated by the human contact.

  What do you have against Barklay? Speir wanted to ask him direct. But she’d never had much luck with direct questions. Nor with subterfuge, either. That left looking and listening.

  “I am very well provided for, I think—thank you, Lieutenant,” Jarrow said. “You have been most helpful. Did I understand you haven’t been a junior officer very long?”

  “A few months, sir,” Speir said.

  “You’ve made good use of the time.” Jarrow fixed her with his aquiline eye. “You are related to Jamis Leam, I think.”

  “He’s my father,” Speir said, startled. “Do you know him?—but of course. You worked at HQ.”

  “I did,” Jarrow said. “I didn’t get to know your father well before his retirement, but I was well aware of his reputation.” Jarrow waited, but Speir gave him only a look of polite interest. “A very open and honest fellow. No one would ever suspect him of a talent for spycraft. Which made him most valuable, I believe.”

  Speir received this calmly. She had heard it before.

  “I daresay he was anxious to instill the principles of his vocation in his child,” Jarrow pressed.

  “So far as her total resistance would allow,” Speir said, provoking Jarrow to a dry smile.

  “Fair enough, Lieutenant. Now let me show you one of the lessons I have planned. I want to see what you make of it.” He fiddled with his com-deck and brought up a projection of a map; it looked like a portion of the south coast.

  “Now,” Jarrow said, “how would you arrange the defensive lines for this stretch of coast?”

  Speir reached for the projection and turned it sidewise, to examine the three-dimensional map closer. “Well,” she said slowly, “I’d want to look at the weather patterns coming in from both directions. The most exposed terrain appears to be here—” she pointed to a spot on the coast— “and also here; but if the prevailing winds are unfriendly to an attack by sea, I’d put the bulk of my defense into anti-aircraft at these points…and look up the annual isomaps for this area to see where to dispose my supply lines.”

  “Very good,” Jarrow said musingly. “That is very close to what was actually done.”

  “You mean this is a real map, sir?” Speir said, with uncontained shock.

  “It’s a real map. I got permission to challenge my students with a real practical problem. Unless you think that’s ill-advised?” he added, and Speir heard the half-buried steel in his voice. Speir felt driven back upon her honesty.

  “Not ill-advised, sir,” she said. “But certainly unusual. We are not often allowed access to such classified data before we graduate.”

  “So I understand,” Jarrow said. “But General Barklay signed off on it with hardly a blink. I think he enjoys bucking protocol.”

  The look on Jarrow’s face, and the note in his voice, would have seemed like dry admiration, if Speir had not seen him the day before on the parade ground.

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” Speir said.

  “Mm.” He gave her a hooded glance. “Barklay
takes very few into his confidence, I notice. One or two of his alumni seniors, and a few of his junior rota captains.” Jarrow seemed to glance down, but Speir was not fooled: he was watching her physical reaction to his words. She willed herself to relax. “Lieutenant Douglas, for example. He’s a friend of yours, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir,” Speir said, deciding to keep her answer ambiguous.

  Jarrow looked up. “But confidence is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. My batman hears such a variety of rumors, half of them can’t be true. I imagine one learns to let it all flow downstream.”

  “Yes, sir,” Speir said. “Just like the weather. It’s a very good lesson, sir. I look forward to helping you teach it.”

  Even weather has its uses, Jarrow’s smile said. “And I look forward to your assistance, Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Speir walked away from the classroom block in a state of perplexity. Jarrow’s approach to her had been anything but subtle. Either Jarrow was not particularly skilled in spycraft himself, or he had known exactly which approach was likely to answer with her. And she didn’t have the experience—of Jarrow or of intelligence gathering—to know which. This is why I wanted to be a soldier, Speir told her father in her mind. I hate this kind of thing.

  But she wished, almost for the first time, that she could ask his advice as a military intelligencer. It was unlikely, however, that she would be able to. The last report she’d had from the Med House had not been good. Her father had become subject to waking nightmares, memories from earlier experiences in the war shredding off and torturing him one last time as they disintegrated. He was rarely in the present, the report had said.

  Speir had been warned this was going to happen; it was one reason why her father had eagerly agreed to take a berth at a secure veterans’ facility. He hadn’t wanted to compromise the security of classified information as his mental functions fell, and he’d wanted to be in the hands of people who had some experience dealing with casualties of war. Which was pretty much everybody, Speir thought ruefully.

  Well, she’d go and see him, and it would become the new normal—a new and more harrowing normal all the time, but they had already made peace with that fact together. But she wished she could ask him about Jarrow.

  Wrapped in thought, Speir almost didn’t see Barklay as he emerged from his outer office.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” he said, saluting her Ryswyckian-fashion.

  She stopped and saluted him back. “Good morning, sir.”

  “I know you’re headed out with the capital-bound units, but can you give me a short briefing first?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Barklay led her into his office, and took his seat at his desk. She stood at comfortable attention before him. “What would you like to know, sir?”

  “I want to know how Commander Jarrow is getting on with his preparations for the summer term.” Barklay’s expression, as he looked up at her, was impenetrably bland. He doesn’t take many into his confidence, Jarrow had said, and he was right; Douglas would be able to interpret this exchange much better than Speir could. As it was, Speir had no way of knowing how much Barklay knew about Jarrow’s animosity. Did he know the reason for it as well?

  She repeated to Barklay the substance of her last briefing to Jarrow, and then told him about the lesson Jarrow had showed her.

  “Yes,” Barklay said, “it’s a very innovative lesson. Exactly the kind of thing I like to see in my instructors.”

  Jarrow had been right about that too, jaundiced though his view of that fact might be.

  It occurred to Speir suddenly that it was Barklay Douglas was worried about; not Jarrow. Jarrow’s animus must be a factor already taken in Barklay’s calculations. And if Jarrow was in communication with the highest command…Speir sighed to herself. It was probably useless to warn Barklay to be careful. Douglas had probably already tried it.

  But for a moment, their eyes met, and the contact seemed to skip over the chasm of intervening communication: Barklay seemed suddenly boyish before her, full of restless energy and incipient petulance. “You need a mother, sir,” Speir sighed—and was appalled to realize that she’d said it out loud.

  Barklay, unoffended, gave a sad little chuckle. “I had one,” he said, “before the war took her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Speir said, recovering her balance at this reference to their commonality. After a moment she added: “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant, go on.” Barklay chuckled again and settled back in his chair.

  She turned to go, and was halfway to the door when he stopped her. “Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir?” Speir said, turning around.

  His eyes searched her with an odd keen look. She didn’t know what he was looking for, or what he had concluded when he finally answered.

  “Nothing,” Barklay said. “Enjoy your break.”

  4

  “They don’t need me just yet,” Marag said.

  They were taking their ease with cups of tea at Barklay’s conference table, Barklay relaxed in his usual place at the head, and Marag at his right hand, as so often. It was early morning, and the rank of white drapes was beginning to take on the pearl-blue glow of the dawn outside. Inside, Barklay had turned up the lights on his desk and the table, and the contrasting warmth of light in the grain of the heavily-varnished wood seemed to create an illusion of refuge.

  “I pray wisdom they don’t,” Barklay said, with quiet emphasis. “I need you more than Amity does. Not,” he added, “that you wouldn’t be a boon to their counsels, of course.”

  Marag sketched a little bow with an incline of his head.

  “Though I wish they’d devote less time to the placement of long-range missiles, and more to developing proper intelligence, which we might actually use—” It was an old complaint, and one which Barklay had poured into Selkirk’s ears more than once, back when Selkirk was still listening to him as he rose through the ranks at Central Command. Before—

  Marag looked at him sharply. “Then you didn’t see the dispatch that came from—” He shut his mouth suddenly, and Barklay gave him a grim smile.

  “They haven’t cut me out of the clearance channels just yet,” he said. “I’m glad to see they’re building on intelligence projects that were begun years ago, but I’ll wait before concluding that the real priorities are there. One can’t always tell whether the window-dressing is for the Berenians’ benefit, or for ours.”

  “One can be too clever for one’s own good,” Marag agreed with a sigh.

  That was certainly true enough. Barklay lifted the delicate cup and imbibed the gentle steam and hot stringent tea. “What think you of the Bernhelm project, then?”

  Marag glanced at him sharply, a strain collecting round his eyes, as if in unease at hearing Barklay mention it so baldly. His answer was cautious. “Ambitious.”

  Barklay grunted.

  “What think you of it, sir?”

  Barklay pressed his lips together and set his tea down for a moment. “I am not sure I would choose for my ambition a direct personal strike at Emmerich du Rau.”

  “They do say he is the source and drive of the Berenians’ current strength. We grow tired of this war of blockade and attrition, I think. Best to strike at the head before whatever he’s planning comes to fruit, may be.”

  “This is why we need proper intelligence,” Barklay said irritably. “We shouldn’t have to guess at what he’s planning: we ought to know. We ought to know how every last talle in their coffers is being spent. We ought to know what com towers are passing the most activity. Where their internal supply lines are being laid.”

  “But do we have the personnel for that kind of widespread operation?” Marag opened his hand in calm argument.

  “Do we have the personnel for launching an offensive at Bernhelm Palace?” Barklay countered, dryly.

  “I could mention that in my dispatches to the tactical council,” Marag said, an
answering humor playing at his lips, “but I doubt it would be well received.”

  “Especially if you let fall that I said so,” Barklay said. “In any case, I think it is a bad idea. If du Rau is indeed the master he seems to be—” and having known him, Barklay knew there was no if about it— “striking at him is the last thing we ought to do. The only thing worse than an inimical Berenia is an unstable and inimical Berenia. Which is certainly what Berenia would be without him. The Berenian Executive Committee had to call a full Assembly just to approve his accession ten years ago—and he has no heirs except those cunning relicts of the House Alliance. Who, as no one seems to recall, were the instigators of the war in the first place.” Barklay took a breath. Just thinking about this was enough to get him wound up. “Without du Rau, they’d throw caution overboard and attack us, and probably each other by turns, Berenia still would have no water, and we’d be left in no better case than we started.”

  “What would you do instead?” Amusement pricked Marag’s brows. “Invite du Rau to the arena on his country’s behalf?”

  “Oh, if only one could,” Barklay sighed. He cast his gaze out again, where the dawn light was growing stronger, and stroked his finger absently along the inside curve of his teacup’s handle. But it’s not just intelligence we’re lacking, he thought. It was coherence of soul; and Barklay feared he was no more equipped to provide it than anyone else in the leadership. Less, in fact. He had already proved that, long ago.

  A chime sounded at his com-deck. Barklay and Marag sighed together.

  “And so the day begins,” Barklay said, with a small groan as he rose from the table. “Thank you for the brief, Captain,” he added, picking up the tablet Marag had brought with him to Barklay’s office.