Storm Rising

The fire popped and hissed as the flames found a particularly knotty piece of wood. Wood. My scholars have a good idea for shelters which requires a minimum of wood, and that is good news.

These new barracks began with four walls of the same bricks he was building the defensive bulwarks with; heaped up against them, pounded earth, reaching to the rafters. There would be no windows and only two doors, one at either end. The roof frame and roof timbers would be of wood, but the roof itself would be thick thatch, of the kind that country cottages around here used. Each building would look rather like a haystack atop a low hillock. If snow started to build up on the roof to a dangerous weight, it would be easy to send men up to clean it off, but a certain amount of snow would insulate against cold winds. His builders liked the plan, for a fireplace in each of the outer walls that did not contain a door could easily heat the entire building efficiently.

We can start those as soon as the defensive walls are up. Thatch; that's straw, and there's certainly plenty of that. I can probably hire thatchers from the town. Brick he had in abundance, and plenty of earth. If we have the time before snow starts to fall, I can build more of those structures with no fireplaces and only one door to use as warehouses for the foodstuffs, then take the wood from the warehouses we tossed up and reuse it elsewhere.

Could these same buildings be used for army kitchens? He'd have to ask his people. Or better still, could he put a kitchen in each barracks, and use the heat from cooking to help heat the barracks?

And what are we going to do about bathhouses? His men were accustomed to keeping themselves healthy, and that meant clean. Perhaps he could find enough materials to build a few traditional bathhouses with steam rooms and have the men use them in tightly-scheduled shifts. But how are we going to heat them, and heat the water?

And the latrines, the privies; how far along were the builders on those? His men who knew about such things had assured him that they would have adequate arrangements before the first hard freeze, arrangements that would not poison the local water supplies. Would they? Was there a progress report on his desk yet? He couldn't remember.

He almost got up to find out, but the warmth of the fire seduced him. If there was a report on his desk, it would still be there later, and if there wasn't, it wouldn't materialize.

Not like the old days, when one might have. The old days—huh. The 'old days' were less than six moons ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and he was a different man then. He had already done things that Grand Duke Tremane would never have considered.

I have burned all my bridges.

The walls would be done in a few days. Then work could start on the barracks. He wanted to get everything done at once, and despite the number of men he had, there still weren't enough—and—

And we have gold. We have gold! Why can't I just hire some of the locals? Why shouldn't I? I've seen boys standing about, looking for work. Maybe there are only boys and old men and women, but not all the work will need strength. Oh, damn. We have gold, but I need to keep it in reserve if I can, to pay my own troops. Besides, how do I get those people to work for us? Not all that long ago, we were the enemy. How do I manage to get the townspeople and my men to work together? How?

His thoughts stopped as he realized that he was planning for a long future. These new barracks weren't meant to last for a season or a year; his builders had given him plans for structures that would last for years. His sanitary men were planning for decades of use.

Oh, a long future be damned. Well, of course, they're giving me plans for good barracks. The winter is going to be worse than anything we have ever seen. Tents or flimsy structures made to last a season won't cope with the kind of winter storms we're going to see. And one of the worst things that could happen would be for our facilities to freeze up; if we overbuild, that won't happen. Probably. Maybe.

Better to concentrate on how he could hire some of the locals, how he might be able to keep the people of the town and the men of the Imperial Army from going for each other's throats. If he could just find a way to get them to work together—that was how the Empire had forged all the disparate people of its conquered lands into a whole in the first place. Young men from all over the Empire were conscripted into the ranks of the army, where they served out their terms beside young men from places they might not even have heard of before. By the time their terms were over, they all returned to their homes unable to think of men from places they didn't know as barbarians or foreigners, and capable of thinking in larger terms than just their own villages.

I can't conscript the townsfolk, more's the pity. For one thing, they wouldn't stand for it. For another, there's no one worth conscripting. Ancar took every able-bodied man away for his own army.

'Sir!' One of the aides was at the open door, calling anxiously into the gloom. Of course, he couldn't see Tremane from the door, hidden as he was in the oversized armchair. 'Commander, are you here?'

'Over here.' Tremane stood up and turned to face the door, and saw relief spread over the aide's features.

'Sir, there's a delegation here from the town, and they are rather insistent. They say they must talk to you now.' He made a gesture of helplessness. 'They wouldn't leave a message or talk to anyone other than you.'

Of course they wouldn't, they never have. The townsfolk didn't seem to grasp the