Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  “Aye, sir.” They had both taken his authority for granted; Douglas would not have had time to register his subconscious disquiet, but for Stevens’s sudden grasp on his shoulder. “Douglas—”

  It would be a wrong move, Douglas thought instinctively, to brush off whatever Stevens was about to say. “Yes?”

  “Before this—Speir said at breakfast—that you would need me.” Stevens’s eyes were wide and keen with something that was not quite compassion and not quite gratitude: Douglas was aware all at once of what his confrontation with Selkirk must have looked like to the Ryswyck rank and file. And he knew that very little of the council’s closed session would remain a mystery for long. Nothing was ever a secret at Ryswyck. Selkirk wanted Douglas for a shield, to absorb the blowback of Barklay’s scandal. A risky move, and probably the only one left to him.

  “Just so you know,” Stevens went on firmly, “you have me.”

  Something in Douglas turned over, a feather-rustling harbinger of a grievous need, not yet a real feeling. Fifteen days to fight a war on two fronts. He might not live long enough for the feeling to arrive. He felt a wry grin tug at one side of his mouth.

  “It’s not even lunch yet, Stevens,” he said. “Tell me that at dinner, may be.”

  A flicker of an answering grin caught at Stevens’s face as he let Douglas slip from his grasp, going.

  ~*~

  Douglas’s conversation with Marag was similarly conducted on the run. Marag had anticipated Douglas’s needs so far as to give him a chit with an inventory of the stock that was being loaded on the shuttle for Colmhaven, and a hastily-scratched list of immediate known needs for Ryswyck’s own defense. “Barklay said we need a mobile comms booster in case of damage to the tower,” Douglas said, adding it to the list; his handwriting lurched with his quick strides down the arena walkway.

  “Ask for two of them,” Marag advised. Douglas politely pretended not to hear the strain in his voice at the mention of Barklay’s name.

  “Someone needs to send an evac order to Ryswyck farm,” Douglas said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Thank you. By the way, I’ve told Stevens and I’m telling you—I’m meeting with Selkirk shortly and unless he has another idea I’m putting you, Stevens, and Beathas on an executive council for the school. The senior staff reports to the three of you for this defense operation, and there’ll be a meeting to plan that out after Selkirk and Barklay leave for the capital.”

  When Marag didn’t answer right away, Douglas added, “Tell Beathas. And if both of you can make the rota captains’ meeting in the mess hall in a quarter hour, I’d be obliged. I’ll try to be there myself.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Marag said quietly.

  “Thank you,” Douglas said, and left it at that.

  Marag and Douglas parted at the main hall, which was still busy with cadets and junior officers bent on various errands. The proportion of those who had changed from Ryswyckian uniforms into fatigues was increasing rapidly. Good, Douglas thought. Keep them moving. We’ll lose less morale that way.

  The outer office was being set up with comm stations; two spare consoles had been dug out and dusted off and Lieutenant Rose, half out of the doorway on his way to his next task, was giving hasty instructions to the cadets who were connecting the equipment. There was a pause when Douglas passed through, cadets and Rose alike uncertain whether to stop and salute. Douglas gave them a short nod and a murmured, “Comrades,” without slowing, and they went back to their work.

  Barklay’s office door was open, and inside Douglas saw that Selkirk and Barklay were huddled intently at one end of the conference table. He slowed, but Selkirk spotted him and waved him in, still listening to Barklay. Barklay broke off and looked around at Douglas. Douglas kept his eyes on Selkirk: and realized in that moment what he had already known by instinct, that he could not look directly at Barklay and keep his grief successfully partitioned away.

  “You can have two,” Selkirk said to Barklay.

  Barklay took his gaze away from Douglas’s face. “All right,” he said, and then, quieter, “All right. I’ll call the assembly and then clear my quarters.” He got up and left the room, walking wide around Douglas as if a palpable boundary surrounded him.

  When he was gone Selkirk leaned back in his chair and regarded Douglas where he stood. “Report.”

  “My lord. I have for you a preliminary list of Ryswyck’s requirements for defense conditions.” He laid it on the table before Selkirk. Selkirk took it up, scanned down it, and set it aside.

  “How many companies can this campus host?” he asked.

  Douglas had already done this arithmetic in his head. “Three comfortably; four at need; six at a stretch, my lord.”

  “Preliminary personnel assessment?”

  “For Ryswyck as a defensive installation, I propose a senior council of Captain Stevens as executive, Captain Marag as supply, and Commodore Beathas as tactical officers. The senior staff and the junior cadre can handle operations.”

  “Which brings us to your role,” Selkirk said, with unsmiling irony. “Obviously I can’t evacuate the staff and student body of Ryswyck and replace them with a full battalion and staff complement at this short notice. Take note, I would if I could. Nor do I have time to ensure that this installation is stable, functional, and able to cooperate with the rest of my forces. So I’m making that your problem. Ryswyck is now its own division. Its staff, officers, and cadets answer to you—through your proposed council if you wish—and you answer directly to me. And to remove any ambiguity about that fact I’m creating you an admiral-at-large of the combined forces of Ryswyck Division. Congratulations, Admiral Douglas.”

  For an instant, every molecule of air in the room seemed to polarize as if under a great magnetic strain. Then Douglas haled in a hard breath. “But I’m not—” and then, “It wouldn’t be—” and, “That’s—” absurd. He managed to swallow the word, but Selkirk’s mouth tugged sideways as if it were spoken, all the same.

  “Quite. You’ll stand together or you’ll fall together. Including General Barklay. I’ve put his mission under the auspices of Ryswyck Division as well. I think Barklay’s only regret is that he can’t stay here to serve under your command.” Douglas caught another breath and pressed his lips hard together; and after a brief moment Selkirk called off the bait. “I am taking your counsel very seriously, Douglas. Ryswyck Academy is now my responsibility. You want it to assimilate, I want it to dissolve. We don’t have time to attempt either one, so I’m taking the best choice in the array before me. You will be representing me to the forces you support. And you will be responsible to sustain the troops I send here to defend our southwestern flank. This is not play authority I am giving you.”

  Douglas’s face and hands were hot; the rest of him chilled. “No, my lord.” Thank wisdom his voice was still steady.

  “You will tell me if you find a gap in your advisory structure,” Selkirk said, his eyes holding Douglas’s.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Fleek and Taronas will serve as my adjutants for your operation. Your council can address supply and personnel requests through them, or who they designate.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Your division will hold comm and supply lines open, until it becomes necessary to close them. At need you will advise my troop commanders on the ground conditions of this sector.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I think you understand the strategy we are pursuing down here.”

  “We’re to entrap invading Berenian forces here to keep them from landing further east. Preferably we don’t allow them to flank us from the west. Keep them driven up against Amity’s fire at the inlet.”

  “Yes. Good. I will want your report every two hours to check our progress.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Barklay had said Selkirk was a trustworthy commander. Selkirk had lived up to the description
, up until grief had sidetracked him. Douglas had made the same mistake on a smaller scale, and now they were both forced to assimilate both the grief and the mistakes on the run. Here in Barklay’s office, with all the lights on at full blaze, Douglas felt prismed together with Selkirk in a tight-pressed lamination of all the painful exchanges he’d known in the place where he stood. There was no escaping up the tower from this.

  “No questions at present, my lord.”

  “Good,” Selkirk said, evenly. “Dismissed, Admiral.”

  ~*~

  Speir set her packed duffel by the door of her quarters and lifted her tablet to check her lists for the sixth time. In another five minutes, she expected Ell to come and tell her that the cargo was loaded and they could board the escort shuttle. She was anxious to be off. She didn’t want time to think, though once they were en route it would be hard to avoid. For a brief moment she felt topsy-turvy, as if this were the place of disaster and they were escaping to a place of order. Then the world re-limned itself again and she caught her breath.

  Her eyes slid down the req list without reading it. When the soft knock came, she lifted her head.

  “It’s me,” Douglas said. Then he sidled inside and closed the door quietly behind him. His subdued movements forestalled her salute; his bare epaulets only magnified her awareness of his new and grave responsibility. Of his old ribbons on her own shoulders.

  “How are you making it?” he asked, with a gesture at her tablet.

  “Smoothly so far. I’m packed; the unit is packed; and the requisition lists are being filled as we speak. We’ll be in the air in five or ten minutes. I told them to grab something from the mess to eat on the shuttle.”

  Douglas nodded.

  “And you?” Speir asked. A dozen questions occurred to her, none of which she could ask him now; and she could see him choosing carefully what he might be able to tell her. Finally he shrugged.

  “All right. I’ve just come from a meeting with the rota captains, and Barklay’s called a full assembly before he and Selkirk depart. We’ve got full comms back now; they’re busy untangling all the crossed messages between Central Command and Amity and here. I’ve pulled all the IDs for you and the unit and sent a request to Central Records to activate their directives.”

  “That’s well bethought.” Unlike Speir, many in their unit no doubt had immediate family for whom it was a much-needed courtesy. “I’ll tell them to give me any updates they have, and pass them on to you before we leave.”

  He nodded again. “I’ll take them, and batch them up when we get a chance to pull the directives for all the Ryswyckians.” Then he sighed. “Selkirk’s left it to me to organize the staff. That’s the next meeting after the assembly. I made up a council and put Stevens, Beathas, and Marag on it.”

  “Be careful of Marag. I think he’ll hold it together, but he was badly mauled.”

  “I know,” Douglas said. “Did he say anything, when he was with you?”

  “No,” Speir sighed. “He very carefully didn’t.”

  “He’ll have plenty to occupy him serving as supply officer. For good and ill,” he added grimly. “And I made Stevens the executive.”

  “He’ll be good at that. And he can carry your boots for you,” Speir teased him gently, and their eyes met.

  “Lest I take myself too seriously,” Douglas said, casting his gaze down. “I need my friend to laugh at me.”

  “I’m not so much laughing at you,” she said, “as leavening your natural nobility.”

  He looked up with a real smile then, which revealed, as nothing else could, the strain in his face.

  “Oh, Douglas,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

  His smile turned rueful. “I came here to ask you that.”

  “You’re in more need than I,” she said.

  “You’re the one going into harm’s way,” he pointed out.

  “And you’re the one sending me there,” she said, firmly. “I think the greater burden is yours. Besides,” she added, “harm’s way will come to you soon enough.”

  It was so obviously the truth that Douglas did not even answer. They stood looking at one another silently. There was too much to say; there was nothing to say. There was herself, and her friend, and the wide compass of the world around them. The center of the universe is everywhere, said the sage: even here, at their quiet last farewell.

  “I’ve thought of something you can do for me,” Speir said suddenly.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Will you burn a light for Inslee and the others, on my behalf?”

  Douglas took in a breath and nodded. “Yes. I will.”

  She steeled herself for her next question. “Have you spoken with Barklay?”

  He winced, then cast his gaze across the room, toward the lamp. “Not yet. It’ll have to be done, I suppose.” His voice was very soft.

  Quiet in her turn, she said: “He’s not going to protest Selkirk taking Ryswyck from him and giving it to you.”

  He stood mute, his face a mask of grief. Speir reached out and laid her palm on his chest; he closed his eyes briefly and leaned lightly into the touch.

  After a moment she let her hand fall away. “What’s Selkirk going to do with him?”

  He gave her a look: You know I can’t talk about that. “There may be something for Barklay to do,” he said carefully.

  “Did he offer himself for dirty ops and certain death?” Speir said, unable to keep the dry edge out of her voice.

  His only answer was an equally dry twist of the mouth.

  She sighed. “I thought he looked fey during the briefing.”

  “He was fey long before the briefing,” Douglas said. “He….” But he shook his head and didn’t continue.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  His eyes came directly to hers. “Yes. You do know,” he said.

  It wasn’t an accusation. It didn’t need to be. “I’m sorry, Douglas,” she whispered, against the ache in her throat.

  He shook his head; then, not satisfied with that, he reached for her and gathered her in.

  She hugged him back, the tablet in her hand clapping against the back of his fatigue jacket. She felt his breath in her hair and the warmth of his voice: “Thank you.”

  Tension fell from her. He wasn’t accusing her; he was thanking her. She made a small sound against his chest, and he held her still closer. “All’s well,” he murmured. “All’s well. That’s one thing you don’t have to carry alone now.”

  There was scarcely room to nod in his tight embrace. She clasped him harder, and for a moment the center of the world buoyed and slowed in its spin.

  Into this poised silence, the knock Speir had been expecting came at her door. She and Douglas pulled apart as one and exchanged fierce and hasty kisses on the corners of one another’s lips. But before he could lift his head she slipped her hand up to hold the back of his neck, so that she could press her lips to his brow as well. My soul’s child; my chosen family; my next of kin. He stood still, his eyes closed, and let her.

  Then Douglas was turning to let Ell in. “Sir,” Ell acknowledged, eyes wide.

  “Lieutenant.” Douglas slipped past him, clasping his shoulder briefly as he passed. Ell was their own age, but in that moment he seemed much younger, as if contact with the air of Douglas’s authority threw them both into sharp contrast. Douglas paused in the gray light of the doorway, his eyes going briefly to Speir’s, and she knew without having to be told that he would not be able to go out and see them off. Wisdom speed you. Lights shine upon you.

  “Captain,” he said softly, and was gone.

  ~*~

  Barklay didn’t have time to clear his quarters properly, so he made a clean sweep of all the clothing in his drawer-chest and stuffed it in his duffel, along with a bagful of his personal items from the bath. He had changed swiftly into fatigues, and now took his half-dress green uniform, folded and still warm from wearing, shoved it in on top, and pulled the draws
tring tight. His other uniforms still hung in the closet; no time to sort those. He slid them to the far side of the rack, over the box of his memorabilia, which he dragged out briefly to throw in every other personal item in the room, and pushed it back in with his boot.

  Finished, he scanned the result from the doorway. The room looked abandoned; not clean and impersonal, as he had hoped. He thought of Douglas sleeping here. Don’t think of me in this place. Make it all your own and forget me. Douglas hadn’t looked directly at him since he’d sat down at Selkirk’s council table: that didn’t augur a peaceful forgetting. May be the Berenians would keep him busy enough to sleep unhaunted. But not too busy, pray wisdom. Not too busy.

  Barklay went into his office, dropping his duffel by the doorway. He needed to pull more lists of vital data for Douglas, and clear out any other personal items while he was at it. He glanced at the clock: ten minutes before the assembly in the mess hall.

  But he had hardly got started before a light step made him look up.

  Truth stood framed by the open door, boots in firm stance, grey eyes intent. Captain’s insignia on her shoulders.

  He swallowed once, twice. “Captain Speir,” he said finally.

  “We’re just going,” she said, even-voiced. “May I come in, sir?”

  He gestured eagerly, and she came in, not to stop before his desk, but all the way around to stand looking down at him where he sat in his chair. Her gaze was clear and unescapable. It was not warm. He couldn’t think how to begin.

  “I surmise you’ve volunteered yourself for some kind of lone suicidal mission,” she said.

  Barklay drew a hardy breath. “I may not be—”

  “It had damn well better be a useful mission, Barklay,” she cut him off, flatly. “Or it will just be a waste of your and everyone else’s time. You are not excused from bearing witness to courtesy. It’s just that you can’t elevate the outcome.”