that'll be good enough.'
'I agree,' added the third of the officers. That was Robret Crann. In age somewhere between Thatcher and Bratten, he was much heavier built than the other two general officers. He gave Thatcher a somewhat reproving glance. 'I've been here longer than either Kirn or Ulrich. Personally, I've always found Emeralds easy enough to get along with. Sure, they use three words when one would do, and it always takes them an hour to get to the point. But they're not that impractical, when you get right down to it.'
The look of reproof segued into a sly smile. 'As any commander who's been swindled by an Emerald supplies provisioner can testify.'
That brought a little laugh into the room from everyone, even though Thatcher's face was half-scowling. The famous metaphysical penchant of Emeralds did not extend to their merchants, who were stone-cold empiricists to a man.
Demansk planted his hands on his knees and straightened up on his couch. 'Ulrich?'
The young officer hesitated for not more than a second. 'I'll do it. Even though-' His young face, every line and angle of which practically exuded vigor, was not that of a happy man.
Demansk chuckled. 'Relax, son. I'll be very surprised if the Island campaign is the last chance you'll ever have to prove your mettle in the field. Besides, you've already done that anyway-it's the reason you're the youngest brigade commander since… well, since me. And you didn't have my family connections. That promotion was won on the field, and well deserved.'
He rose, took a few steps, and clapped Bratten on the shoulder. 'The truth is, the experience will be good for you. You know it as well as I do.'
After a moment, Ulrich nodded. Although the rank he held was, in military terms, that of a general commanding a brigade, the formal Vanbert term for it was actually magistrate in arms. Above the level of battalion commander-whose rank was either 'battlemaster' or simply 'battalion,' depending on whether the man who held the command was promoted from the ranks or received his appointment directly from the Council-the Confederacy of Vanbert drew no sharp lines between military and civil posts. Depending on the circumstances of the moment, a Vanbert leader was expected to be able to exercise competent authority in any field of political or martial endeavor.
Ulrich Bratten was one of the rare cases of a man who had risen to high command exclusively through his military ability. A fact which was explained, of course, by his ancestry. The 'Confederacy' of Vanbert was theoretically a realm of equal nations, with no distinction made between the original twelve tribes and the various auxiliary nations which had been accreted to it over the centuries. The practical reality was different. With few exceptions, membership in the Council was reserved for those noblemen who could trace their ancestry back to the 'First Twelve.'
Of course, in the modern Confederacy, 'tracing their ancestry' was a lot more complicated than it had been in former times. Here as in so many ways, Emerald philosophy and rhetoric had shaped the culture of their conquerors. The distinction between Being and Becoming had been the first to fall, once Emerald dialecticians got their hands on it.
'You'll need to hire a genealogist,' murmured Robret Crann. The sly smile was back on his pudgy face. 'I can recommend a very good one, by the way.'
Ulrich scowled. Crann and Thatcher both enjoyed teasing the young general about his lowly origins. In Thatcher's case, the teasing had at least a solid basis. Thatcher, like Demansk, came from one of the Confederacy's long-established elite families.
Crann's claim to 'noble Twelve blood,' on the other hand, was stretched about as thinly as the tunic over his potbelly. If it hadn't been for his undoubted military skills, the claim would probably never have been accepted at all by the Council's Registrar, despite the size of the bribe. Everything about Robret Crann, from his penchant for gourmandizing down to his heavy accent, practically shrieked: peasant from the east! parvenu! lowly soldier risen above his station!
But… however grudgingly, the Registrar had not challenged the claim. Vanbert was practical, if nothing else. Officers like Crann were almost invariably popular with the soldiers, and nobody really wanted to irritate the army. Marcomann's dictatorship had been occasioned, among other things, by the festering resentment among his troops at the continuing prejudice against the poor easterners who filled most of its lower ranks.
'That's settled, then,' said Demansk. He glanced at the hourglass on a small table in the corner of the room. 'And it's time. Let's do it.'
Demansk probably wouldn't have had any trouble himself smashing down Willech's door. But, since he had the largest soldier in Crann's regiment assigned to the task, he let him do it. The six-and-a-half-foot-tall giant, with the weight of full armor added to his own, went through the door like so much wet paper. He didn't even seem to break stride.
The other eight men in the squad followed on his heels, pouring into the Governor's luxurious suite like greatbeasts stampeding into a mansion. Demansk heard Willech shout something incoherent, heard a cough and a sigh, another shout-more like a shriek-from Willech, and then came into the room behind his soldiers. Doing his best to move ponderously, as suited a solemn magistrate about his duty, rather than sauntering gaily. Demansk had known Willech since they were both children romping in the corridors of Vanbert's public buildings. He'd detested the seven-year-old boy; the decades which had elapsed since had done nothing except give adult comprehension to the reasons for the detestation.
The first thing he saw, entering the room, was one of Willech's bodyguards. The regular soldier assigned the duty on a daily basis, this one. Demansk was sorry to see it, though not surprised. The soldier was lying on his back, clutching a spear wound in his belly. Blood was gushing through the fingers and spilling onto the plush red- violet carpeting. That had been the cough and sigh he'd heard.
The other bodyguard was Willech's personal one. No soldier, he, but a retired veteran of the arenas. The scar-faced ex-gladiator was standing in a corner of the room, pinned there by two squad members pressing their assegais against his ribs. His hands were raised pacifically, his sword lying on the floor not far from his feet.
Clearly enough, with the reflexes and mercenary nature of such a man, he'd made no attempt to stop the soldiers once he saw the force piling into the room. Willech be damned. Even if his master still hadn't regained his wits, judging from the continued screeching coming out of his mouth, his professional bodyguard had figured it out within a second. A change in power. Time to find a new job.
After a glance, Demansk ignored him. He gave another glance at Willech himself. The Governor was standing up, having apparently risen from a richly-upholstered stool spilled over behind him. The small writing desk at which he'd been working was spilled the other way.
There was nothing 'hard and tight' about Willech's face now. The Governor's usually pale complexion was flushed so heavily that he seemed on the verge of outright apoplexy. His small hands were clutched into fists, which he was waving in front of him like an Emerald-style bare-handed fighter-except no real pugilist would have done it so awkwardly. So far, at least, the words coming out of his mouth were too incoherent to make any sense of. More like an animal's bay of fright and fury than a man's cry of distress.
That'll change, quick enough, thought Demansk. I'd better get the witnesses in, take advantage of that moment between pure fury and rational thought.
He turned and beckoned the two men standing in the corridor beyond. Both of them were elderly, with the stoop-shouldered appearance of scribes who had spent a lifetime hunched over state documents. The appearance was not far from the truth. The old men were actually magistrates of the city, not mere scribes. But Vanbert law, especially on a local and regional level, primarily involved the settlement of complex property claims. A magistrate on that level of the judicial pyramid spent most of his life consulting records and precedents.
Nervously, gingerly, the two entered the room. One of them gasped faintly, seeing the dying soldier on the floor. The other just looked away, his prim face contained and withdrawn. Neither of the men was there by choice. Demansk had selected them, in fact, precisely because they had the reputation for being among the few incorruptible judges in Solinga. That, and the fact that both of them were 'First Twelve' by ancestry. He wanted no one claiming later that the witnesses were either bribed or, what was even worse, scatterbrained Emeralds.
The timing was perfect. Willech's words finally stumbled into something approximating coherence. Of a very profane nature, of course.
