"Thank you, thank you," Suzette said. Her servants bore out the glittering heap of gifts. "You have nothing to fear, messas, nothing at all. The proclaimed terms are open for everybody."
The crowd of women looked at her desperately, willing themselves to believe. Most of them were civilian landowners' wives, with a fair sprinkling of Brigaderos magnates' spouses; they came in a clump, for mutual protection. She smiled at them, willing gracious reassurance. They seemed to take some comfort that the fearsome Raj Whitehall had brought an actual wedded wife along with him; it made him seem less of the ogre who had slashed the neighboring Squadron into oblivion in one summer's campaign.
"But," she went on, "your husbands really will have to come in themselves. Or I can't answer for what will happen to you and your families. And that is the final word."
Suzette sighed and sank back on her chair as the whispering clump left the room; it was an upper chamber of the little manor house. She fanned herself against the mingled odor of perfume and fear, until the sea-breeze dispelled it and left only a hint of camp-stink in its place. This was the second time the Whitehalls had stayed here. The jumping-off camp for the Southern Territories campaign had been on this spot, although the Brigade had been neutral in that war. Those memories were far from uniformly happy.
At her feet, Fatima cor Staenbridge strummed her sitar. The cor meant that she had been legally freed from chattel-slave status; it was followed by her patron's name, because that relationship carried a number of obligations.
"Strange," she said, in Sponglish that now carried only a trace of throaty Arabic accent "They come to plead for their men, yes?"
"Yes," Suzette said. "It's a tradition, rather out of date, but the customs here on Stern Isle are like the clothes, a generation behind East Residence. I take it they wouldn't have done so back in the Colony?"
Fatima laughed. She was dressed in the long pleated skirt, embroidered jacket and lace mantilla of an East Residence matron of the middle classes, but she had the oval face and plump prettiness of Border Arab stock from the desert oases south of Komar. After two children, only her consistent practice of her people's dancing—what outlanders called belly-dancing—kept her opulence within bounds.
"Muslim general throw them to his men as abandoned women," she said. "Muslim man cut off his wife's nose rather than take life from her hands after she see enemy with face uncovered."
"Interesting," Suzette said.
And rather appalling. Our own men are bad enough, most of them, sometimes.
One of the few men she knew who had little or no false pride of that sort was Gerrin Staenbridge—which was understandable, all things considered. It made him disconcertingly hard to fool, more so even than Raj, and Raj had grown disturbingly, delightfully insightful over the past four years. She glanced down at Fatima; the Arab girl had had an interesting life so far as well. The rather bizarre menage a trois she'd fallen into seemed to suit all parties, though. Gerrin got the children he'd wanted, and which a nobleman needed; he and Bartin both got a willing woman at the very, very occasional times they desired one—Bartin more often than Gerrin, but then he was much younger; and Fatima acquired the legal status of an acknowledged mistress and mother of acknowledged heirs to a wealthy nobleman.
Certainly better than what the other women of El Djem were undergoing now; most of them were probably dead. If Fatima ever desired something more passionate than the avuncular/brotherly relationship she had with Gerrin and Bartin, she never showed it. Of course, she was harem-raised. And the despised daughter of a minor concubine at that.
"I have a problem," she said. "With young Cabot."
Fatima sat erect, bright-eyed. Suzette and Raj had stood Starparents to her children, a close bond, and had sponsored her into the Church. "Anything I can do, my lady. I poison his food?"
"No, no," Suzette laughed. Actually, my dear, when I need poisons I have Ndella or Abdullah. "I need advice about him. He grovels at my feet, but he talks to you, occasionally; you're more nearly his age, and you aren't born Messa."
"He want you, and he hate Raj," Fatima said. "His uncle would send Raj the bowstring—" she fell back into Arabic for that phrase "—if he did not need him so much."
Suzette nodded. The Arab girl continued more slowly: "His uncle hate and fear Raj. Cabot, he hate and envy Raj. Envy his victory in war, envy that the soldiers love and fear Raj as he were All—, ah, as he were the Spirit of Man." She frowned. "He would not be bad young man, if he not an enemy."
The East Residence patrician chuckled: "My dear girl, you've lived among us of the Civil Government for years and not noticed that the definition of a bad man is someone who belongs to the other faction?"
"Oh," Fatima said, with her urchin grin, "Arab think that way too." More seriously, she continued: "The Sultan al'Residance, he would kill Raj for spite. Young Cabot, he would be Raj if he could. Want his fame, want his glory, his followers. Want his woman—not just open her legs, but have her love. He want all. That why he must think bad of Raj, but can't be away from him either; he think to learn from him, then take all that is his. But maybe in deepest heart, he love Raj like other soldiers do, and hate himself for love."
"You," Suzette said, chucking Fatima under the chin, "are a remarkably perceptive young lady."
"I learn from you, Lady Whitehall. Gerrin talk to me a lot too, and I learn," she replied. Her head tilted to one side. "Why is it, lady, that man who want bed woman all the time, very much, what's the word?"
"Muymach."
"Ah. Muymach man, often not want to talk to woman? Like, oh, Kaltin?"
"Kaltin Gruder's a loyal Companion," Suzette said. Who hates my guts, but that's neither here nor there. Kaltin Gruder had lost a brother and acquired scars external and mental in Raj's service, but he remained very . . . straightforward. Intelligent, but not subtle.
"Yes, a man-of-men. I friend with his concubine; they say he like bull in bed, but they lonely—he never talk to them. Back home," she went on, "man never talk to woman, not even father to daughter."
"And I have the best of both worlds," Suzette said with a fond smile for an absent man. "Do keep talking to Cabot," she went on. "You've been very helpful."
She touched a handbell. The door opened and a man looked through; for effect with the locals, he was dressed in his native costume of jellabah and ha'aik, with a long curved dagger and sheath of chased silver thrust through his belt. The Star amulet around his neck was protective camouflage; Abdullah al'Azziz had been born a Druze, and was authorized by the tenants of his own faith to feign the religion of any region in which he lived. Suzette had seen him imitate an Arab sheik of Al Kebir, a Sufi dervish, a fiercely orthodox Star Spirit-worshipping Borderer from the southeastern marchlands of the Civil Government, an East Residence shopkeeper, and a wandering scholar from Lion City in the Western Territories. No, not imitate, be those things. Though she had saved him and his family from slavery, she suspected that the man served her as much for the opportunity to use his talents as much from gratitude.
"Who's next, Abdullah?" She switched to Arabic; hers was far better than Fatima's Sponglish, and the tongue was little known this far west outside enclaves of Colonial merchants.
"A lord of the Brigade, saaidya," he said. "And the merchant Reggiri of Wager Bay."
"Ah," Suzette said, frowning. "The Brigadero, my Abdullah; does he give his name?"
"No, lady. He is of middle years, with more grey than black in his beard, and wears a bandana, thus." The Druze covered his lower face. "He seeks to show humility but walks like a man of power; also a man who rides much. The guards hold him in an outer room."
"I'll bet they do," Suzette murmured.
Reggiri has the information we need, she thought. He'd been most generous with information before the invasion of the Southern Territories, information he'd gotten through his trading contacts. Crucial information about Squadron movements. Of course, she thought coldly, he was paid in full, one way or another, after that little supper-party of his I attended. Doubtless he'd like another installment.
Decision crystallized. "Bring the Brigadero. Send refreshment and entertainment to Messer Reggiri and tell him . . . ah, tell him my chaplain and I are Entering my sins at the Terminal." He would laugh at that. Let him. He would be far from the first man she'd had the final and most satisfying laugh on.
The Brigadero entered between three of the 5th Descott troopers assigned as her personal bodyguards. He was a stocky man, not tall for one of the barbarians, and wrapped in a long cloak. Together with the bandana and broad-brimmed leather hat, it was almost comically sinister. Conspicuous, but effective concealment for all that.
"Thank you, Corporal Saynchez," she said. "You searched him for weapons, of course."
"Yis, m'lady," the noncom said in thick County brogue. "Says ye'll know him an' wouldna thank ussn fer barin' his face."
"You can leave, now. Wait outside."
"No, m'lady," the man said. He stood three paces to the rear of the stranger, with drawn pistol trained. The other two rested their bayoneted rifles about a handspan from his kidneys.
A dozen generations of East Residence patricians freighted her words with ice:
"Did you hear me, corporal?"
"Yis, m'lady."
"Then wait out in the hall."
"No, m'lady. Might be 'n daggerman, er sommat loik that. Messer Raj, he said t' see ye safe."
The stolid yeoman face under the round helmet didn't alter an iota in the searchlight of her glare. Suzette sighed inwardly; she was part of the 5th's mythology now, the Messer's beautiful lady who went everywhere with him, bound up troopers' wounds . . . flattering as hell and extremely confining. This bunch would obey any order except one that put her in danger.
"Very well, corporal . . . Billi Saynchez, isn't it? Of Moggersford, transferred from the 7th Descott Rangers last year?" She smiled, and the young trooper swallowed as if his collar was too tight as he nodded. "Now, if you would stand off to one side, in the corner there? And you, messer, whoever you are, pull up that stool."
She rang the handbell again; her servants came and placed kave, biscuits and brandy. Fatima looked up at her for a moment with shining eyes; she'd told her patroness once that the cruelest thing about harem life was that nothing ever happened.
Softly, she began to sing to the sitar, a murmur of noise that would drown out the conversation to anyone more than a few paces away. It was a reiver's ballad from the debatable lands below the Oxhead mountains, the long border between the sea and the Drangosh where Borderer and Bedouin fought a duel of raid and counter-raid nearly as old as man on Bellevue. Suzette had heard a version sung in south-country Sponglish with the names and identities reversed. The Colonial's started:
O woe is me for the merry life
I led beyond the Bar
And trebble woe for my winsome wife
That weeps at Shalimar.
"The girl speaks no Namerique," she said in that language. "And I don't speak to men with masked faces."
"Lady Whitehall," the man said. He lowered the bandana; the hat would hide him from view from the rear. "A pleasure to see you once again."
"And the same for me, Colonel Boyce," she said softly. The square-cut beard was greyer than she remembered, but the little blue eyes were still cool and shrewd.
"No names . . . and the circumstances are less fortunate than our last meeting." Boyce had been rather more than a friendly neutral as commander of the Brigade forces on Stern Isle when Raj passed through to the Southern Territories.
"I've been relieved of command, as of last week. Colonel Courtet is now in charge of Stern Isle, or at least of Wager Bay, since that's all the idiot has been able to keep."
"Would you have been able to hold more, against my husband?"
"No, I would have surrendered on demand," Boyce said. "Which is why the local command council deposed me, the fools. The Stern Isle garrison was here to keep the natives down and guard against Squadron pirates. With the Southern Territories in Civil Government hands, we're indefensible against a determined attack. Outer Dark, we're an island with no naval protection!"
They have taken away my long jezail,
My shield and saber fine,
I am sold for a slave to the Central Bail
For lifting of the kine.
"Do have some kave," Suzette said, pouring for them both. "That's very intelligent of you, I'm sure," she went on. "I expect you'll be taking the amnesty, then?"
"Only if nothing better offers," he said. "Two sugar, thank you. The terms of the amnesty specify that those who surrender don't have to take active part in operations against the Brigade."
"I take it you also object to the provision for the surrender of two-thirds of landed property?" she murmured, taking a brandy snifter in her other hand.
"By the Spirit of Man of . . . the Spirit, I do, Messa! So will my sons, some day; they'll find that real estate wears better than patriotism."
"Let me see if I understand you, Messer Boyce," Suzette said. "Your main properties lie on the mainland, don't they?" He nodded. "If the Brigade wins this war, you stand to recover the mainland properties at least—even if you take the amnesty, and even if we retain this island. On the other hand, if you aid us openly, those lands will be forfeit to the General. Unless we win. You're telling me you expect us to win? And want to be on the winning side, of course."
"Of course." Boyce sat silent for a moment, and the throaty Arabic music rang louder.
The steer may low within the byre
The serf may tend his grain,
For there'll be neither loot nor fire
Till I escape again.
"Messa," he went on slowly, "I know you call my people barbarians. The Squadron are—were, rather. The Guards are, since they haven't had our contact with the Midworld Sea; the Stalwarts most assuredly are. We of the Brigade have ruled the Western Territories for a long, long time, though. Give us credit for learning something. Give me credit, at least.
"Yes," he continued, "I think your Messer Raj—" he used the troops' nickname "—may win this war. May. It seems unlikely from the numbers, but I've visited the Civil Government. I know its potential strength when there's a strong Governor with an able commander. That's happened now, and we, well, I wouldn't trust General Forker to lead a sailor into a whorehouse, to be blunt. Most of the possible replacements are worse, we've managed to turn Carson Barracks into a stew of intrigue as bad as East Residence, only with less sense of long-term interests. Most of all, I've seen Raj Whitehall. I've studied his campaigns in the east, and I had a ringside seat for the destruction of the Squadron.
"You may win. Even if you don't, the war will be long and bloody. If we kick you out, we'll still be so weakened the Stalwarts will roll over us like a rug. We're having more and more trouble holding the border against them anyway."
He leaned forward, the blunt swordsman's fingers incongruous on the delicate china.
"And win or lose, the worst thing that could happen to us is a long war. If we win, the Stalwarts will pick our bones. If we lose, the Western Territories may be so weakened that you can't hold them against the northern savages either. And in any case, if we lose after a long struggle we may just . . . vanish as a people, the way it's happening to the Squadron. Ordinary nations can lose their nobles and soldiers and priests—" he snapped his fingers "—and they'll produce a new set of 'em in a few generations, even if they have to throw off a foreign yoke first. We of the Brigade, we haven't had a peasant class of our own since we left the Base Area. If we lose our lands and positions, we lose everything."
And God have mercy on the serf
When once my fetters fall
And Heaven defend the noble's garth
When I am loosed from thrall.
Suzette looked at him with new respect "So since you know that General Whitehall can't be beaten easily, you think a swift Civil Government victory is the best thing for your people?"
"Exactly, my lady. You'll need us. Need our fighting men, not least. In a generation or two, who knows?" He hesitated. "I wouldn't describe myself as an idealist, Lady Whitehall. Let's say I value civilization, if nothing else because it's so much more comfortable than sitting in a drafty log hall eating bad food and listening to worse poetry. The more thoughtful members of the Brigade have always considered themselves guardians of the culture we took over. General Whitehall claims to be defending civilization by uniting it. The Stalwarts have taken a third of our mainland possessions since my grandfather's time—they're like ants. As I said, I'm interested in preserving my sons' heritage."
"And your lands," Suzette said.
It's woe to bend the stubborn back
In a coal-mine's inky bourne
It's woe to hear the leg-bar clack
And jingle when I turn!
"And my lands. All of them, not one-third. The information I have is worth it."
"Why come to me?"
"Too many eyes on your husband, my lady. Too many patriotic fools ready to kill a middle-aged traitor; my excessively honorable sons, for starters. I don't want to see them buried in a ditch and my grandchildren sold as slaves; on the other hand, I don't want them to kill me, either. They'll quiet down when it's over."
Suzette sat in silence, setting down the empty kave cup and sipping at her brandy. Beads of sweat ran down from the Brigade noble's hairline, but his features were very steady.
But for the sorrow and the shame,
The brand on me and mine,
I'll pay you back in the leaping flame
And loss of the butchered kine.
"Corporal!" she called. The Descotter gunmen came over at the trot, weapons poised.
"M'lady," Saynchez said, bracing to attention.
"This man is to be put under arrest . . . there's a vacant room with an iron door in the cellars here, isn't there?"
"Yis, m'lady."
For every sheep I spared before—
In charity set free—
If I may reach my hold once more
I'll reive an honest three.
"Take him there. Let nobody see his face. He's to have food, water and bedding, but nobody, and I mean nobody, is to enter his cell or have conversation with him until I or General Whitehall authorize it. You will see that he's guarded by men who know how to keep their mouths shut. Do you understand?"
"Yis, m'lady." Corporal Saynchez quivered with eagerness, like a war-dog just before the charge is sounded "T'barb 'ull vanish offn t'earth."
For every time I raised the lowe
That scarred the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
I'll light the land with twain!
"Abdullah," she called, when the soldiers had gone. Not quite at a run, and their hobnails grinding on the pavement.
"Saaidya."
"Messer Whitehall should be back in—" she looked out the window; Miniluna was three-quarters, and a hand's breadth above the horizon "—five hours. Please set a table for three in the lower alcove in time for him. Serve us yourself, please." That room had a stair to the cellars. "And take this to Messer Reggiri."
She pulled a ring from her finger; it was in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail, ruby-studded. "Tell him," she went on, after a pause for thought, "that I will give him a better gift than this, and a sweeter. But not here, in Wager Bay; and that I trust his discretion absolutely."
The dog runs better if you dangle the bone, she thought coolly. Her mind felt sharp as crystal, completely alive. The puzzle in her brain was not solved, but the pieces were there, and she could feel her consciousness turning and considering them. She had no genius for war; that was Raj's domain, and no human living could match him. At plot and counterplot and the ways of devious treachery, she was his third arm. She would give him what he needed to know, and he would wring victory out of it.
Spur hard your dog to Abazai,
Young lord of face so fair—
Lie close, lie close as Borderers lie,
Fat herds below Bonair!
"And Cabot?" she said, in answer to an unasked question. "I don't know. There's a great many things I don't know."
The one I'll shoot at the twilight-tide,
At dawn I'll drive the other;
The serf shall mourn for hoof and hide
The March-lord for his brother.
"But I do know what my Raj can do, if he has the tools he needs to work with. What he needs. And I'll bring him what he needs, whether he knows it or not."
'Tis war, red war, I'll give you then,
War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,
And a thief of the Bani Kahil.
And if I fall to your hand afresh
I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pigs flesh
And hang me in the skin!