More noise under the lean-to.
'… All right. All
Several cheers along the plank, and the pie was cut, the first big slice passed over to Baj to be hand-held, running blue juices.
Then, silence at his first bite through rich crust into sugared sweetness, crowded tart little blueberries crushing to syrup.
Baj swallowed… and said, 'Wonderful.'
Cheers again from the soldiers, pleased at his pleasure – and Sergeant Givens passed four more pieces of pie, then drew more beer.
'… That could have gone worse,' Richard said – as, hands stained blue (and their mouths, even after second jacks drunk) – they walked down Cavalry Street to the Lines. 'Could have gone worse, and might have gone worse if some hadn't already heard that Sylvia'd seen us… and sworn us. Camp news is faster than falcons.'
'That old man,' Patience said. 'Sergeant Givens… As I recall, always busy with some scheme involving Supply. And usually mildly drunk.'
'But delicious pie,' Baj said. 'Unless, after so long, any pie would be delicious.'
'No. It was very good.' Nancy licked her fingers. 'Wasn't that good, Errol?'
A tongue-click and rare smile.
… The supply-sergeant's unpleasant corporal was waiting at their place past the Line, standing beside a bulky stack of blankets, woven cloth, hides, furs, muk-boots, mittens, and fur cloaks. 'Listen up… While you people and so-forth were seen drinkin' beer – nothin' better to do – all this was finished-up an' delivered. Issue ordered for you by the Ma'am this mornin' –
Nancy and Patience knelt to go through the clothing, though Patience said, 'I won't need any of this.'
'This is a good issue.' Nancy held up immense caribou trousers, huge muk-overboots – their fur-side in – and a wolf-fur parky and mittens to match.
'Richard…' She handed them over.
'If anything fits,' Richard said, '- it will be a first for the Guards.'
… But everything did fit.
'The General's command is why,' Richard said, posing even larger in furs. 'And ordered this morning, just after she rode back to camp.'
'So never a question,' Baj said, too warm in a fisher-lined caribou parky, '- that what had been planned would be done, and that we were going with them. A settled thing, apparently.'
'Generals,' Patience said, 'being chosen after all, for decision.'
Dressed, they were all richly bundled, except for Patience. For her, after distribution to the rest of them – Errol's issue, cut roughly down for him, as complete as the others' – there was left only a pair of fine woolen mittens, a pair of small, furred muk-boots, and a long, hooded coat, thick-wooled and generous enough to wrap Patience double-breasted, before fastening with fat round horn buttons (apparently moved and reattached), and colored as the Wolf-blood soldiers' cloaks were colored, in pretty bands dyed red and black and yellow.
'That's an Infantry Colonel's change-of-season coat,' Richard said, '- but cut shorter for you. Sylvia must have ordered it particularly.'
'Took pity on my blue tatters, I suppose.'
'No,' Nancy said, '- she has no pity. Likely, she thought you weren't able to warm yourself as well as once you could. Wanted to be sure you'd be useful on the ice.'
'Then,' Patience said, '- the bitch can kiss my ass for being right. I'm
'No, dear.' Richard touched her shoulder. 'You are the best made by Boston.'
That day, and the hard-traveling days that followed – marching farther east to pass miles of bog, then turning north to the Wall – Baj first tasted the military life, tedious, routined, strenuous and oddly comforting.
Though these soldiers and their officers were all Persons, often odd, many furred and fanged to at least some extent by tiny bits twisted from animal co-sires, and planted in their mothers – still, they were soldiers, veterans of the trade, and allowed Baj to understand both his fathers better.
Kipchaks, North Mexicans, or Middle Kingdom's armored infantry – they still were brothers in arms to these Moonriser guardsmen, and Baj could feel something of what Toghrul Khan, of what Sam Monroe had felt in command of such forces. Forces formidable… and oddly innocent. Regiments of dangerous children.
There was a comfort in the surrounding armed and armored troops – though all were Persons, many of whom spoke only poor book-English… while some, perhaps incapable, did not speak at all. Still there was a comfort, a fellow feeling, as if all made a greater One. And the notion came – though of course illogical – that these formations were a family indestructable by any enemy.
Pedro Darry, in a rare serious moment, had once mentioned to Baj and Newton that men and women had a natural tendency – natural as short-summer flowers bending toward the sun – to bend, themselves, toward the nearest strength of arms, wealth, or wits… Traveling with the Guard, Baj found that was so, and took some care to maintain a certain easy distance from the pleasures of lean-to fellow feeling, barley beer and pie. Took care to remember that he, Nancy, and his friends, only lived and breathed because a general found them more useful than not.
The companies, still skirting huge stretches of bog, moved as Richard had moved north through the mountains, at a steady pace – never hurrying, never dawdling (wonderful old copybook word) – the infantry just keeping up with the cavalry mounts' ground-eating amble… Except for the wheedling pipes of march, everything, from 'Out an' Up' to 'Down an' Shut It,' was ordered through the day on infantry bugle and cavalry trumpet sounding together, then thumped at the finish with a drum. In a service always professionally tense for assault, these rhythms of habit seemed to Baj a soothing medicine – as if guaranteeing a tomorrow the same as today.
He felt, sometimes – at leisure, usually – when there was a chess game to lose, when he and Nancy… murmuring, murmuring in blankets, rested in each other's arms after making love behind stinking bales, Baj felt at those times as if his fathers stood together, watching, exchanging between them an amused glance of hard-won experience observing… inexperience. At those times, so fleeting, it seemed to him their ghosts were at ease, at home with soldiers (of whatever kind) marching toward battle.
And with battle in mind, Baj resumed Nancy's lessons – and took lessons from Patience, whose left arm and shoulder grew swiftly stronger. Lessons in bitter winds – first with lean-to bracing-sticks for swords (costing many bruises), and then with their blades (costing minor cuts, and blood), being cautious to parry with the flat, to save their fine edges.
These bouts – at dawn or sunset, the light always chancy – drew soldiers as summer blossoms drew summer bummer-bees, and Baj grew used to rude comments as they fought Over-the-ditch, since any weapons brandishing – even for training – was forbidden in the camp.
Baj, Nancy, and Patience fought to blood and bruising until their swords seemed to leap out of the scabbards at any place of practice, the blades themselves appearing to become more wicked, as if they learned as their owners did… In those bouts, Patience's skill became more and more evident, despite her white hair – as behind those black eyes, there seemed a second Patience come to fence, young, swift, and merciless.
Baj often thought of poetry as they marched east, then north to pipes and drums, Tail-end Charlies to a strolling squadron of farting moose, but he wrote none – the days of poetry seemed past – except for a lyric shaped for Nancy, and scribbled on brown regimental roll-paper with a lead-point pencil.
She'd read it, mouthing the words to herself – something he'd noticed she always did, as if reading needed reminding as it went along. Read it, then raised her elegant head, and looked at him. 'I love you, Baj,' she'd said, '- but love the man who wrote this, more.'
