March Upcountry

“Okay, what neat trick do you have up your sleeve now, spy?” he asked brightly.

“You will address me as ‘Your Majesty,’ human! Or I will withhold the antidote to the miz poison you ate the first night you were here!”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have any poison,” and Roger told him. “I’m fairly sure of that. For one thing, we’re still alive.”

“It was in your dishes at the banquet,” the former spy scoffed. “It is visible as small flecks of leaf, but it’s virtually tasteless. And it only takes one dose. Only a fool would have missed it, but you ate it nonetheless. Since then, we’ve been keeping you alive with the antidote. If you don’t have it, you’ll die, basik!”

“Hold it,” and Roger said, thinking back. “Little green leaves? Taste like raw sewage?”

“They’re tasteless,” Bijan said. “But, yes, they would have been bright green.”

“Uh-huh,” and Roger said, trying not to smile. “And, let me guess—the antidote has been in all the food you’ve been giving us since, right?”

“Correct,” Bijan sneered. “And if you don’t have it, you’ll die. It starts within a day, but it takes days of agony to end. So I suggest that you avoid it at all costs. But enough discussion of this, we must plan the next conquest and—”

“I don’t think so,” Roger interrupted with a chuckle. “Haven’t you been keeping up with recent news, Bijan?”

“What are you talking about?” the new ruler asked. “I’ve been doing many things . . .” he continued suspiciously.

“But obviously not keeping up with who’s been cooking my meals for the last few days,” Roger purred like a smiling tiger.

Bijan gazed at him for a few seconds, then gestured to one of the guards standing by the throne. There was a brief, whispered discussion, and the guard left.

“Sir,” Julian said, leaning forward behind Roger, “is this a good idea?”

“Yeah, it is.” Roger never took his eyes off of Kheder Bijan. “In fact, send somebody to collect up T’Leen Sul. That seems like a capable family. Oh, and tell Captain Pahner that it looks like we’re going to be staying a little longer then we’d planned.”

He stopped talking as the guard returned to the throne room. The guardsman crossed to the new ruler and said a few words, and Roger had become sufficiently familiar with Mardukan body language to tell Bijan was suddenly one worried scummy.

The new king turned to the prince and placed his true-hands on the arms of the throne.

“Uh . . .”

“We’re not Mardukans, Bijan,” and Roger told him with a deliberately Mardukan laugh. “In fact, I’ll tell you a little secret, Tinker. We’re not from anywhere on this planet. We have no similarity to anything on it, we’re not vulnerable to the same poisons you are, and we most especially aren’t basik.”

“Ah, Prince Roger, there seems—” the ruler began.

“Bijan?” Roger interrupted, as the door opened to admit Pahner.

“Yes?”

“Say goodbye, Bijan.”

Including the representatives from Voitan and all the surrounding city-states, there must have been two or three hundred diplomats, alone, in Marshad. The exact number was open to some debate, since no one had ever gotten a definitive count, but there were certainly enough to make the goodbyes both long and fulsome. Roger smiled and shook hands, smiled and waved, smiled and bowed.

“He’s getting good at this,” Pahner said quietly. “I hope he doesn’t get to liking it too much.”

“I don’t think he’s a Caesar, Captain,” Eleanora said, just as quietly. “Or even a Yavolov. Besides, he has Cord beside him muttering ‘You, too, are mortal.’”

“I don’t really think he is either,” the Marine said, then grunted in laughter. “And you know what? I’m beginning to think that it wouldn’t matter, anyway.”

He surveyed the troops surrounding the prince. You always knew the ones who should be in the Regiment, even before RIP. They were the ones who always looked out. Even when they joked, they were the ones who watched others, and not just whoever they were talking to. The ones who saw their whole surroundings in one gulp. The ones who were human anti-assassin missiles.

Sometimes those weren’t the ones who made it. Sometimes, rarely, you got those who were straight plodders. And sometimes even the missiles lost their edge. He’d felt that in the company before leaving Earth. Too many of the troops hadn’t cared; it was only the prince, for God’s sake.

Not now. The survivors were like a Voitan blade. They’d been tempered over and over, folded and refolded. And, at their core, it wasn’t Pahner or even the sergeant major who’d given them their true temper. It was the prince—the trace element that made them hard and flexible. That was where their loyalty lay now. Wholly. Whether it had been his admission of fault, or his swift and decisive removal of the spy who, more than anyone, the company blamed for putting them in the noose of Marshad, or the realization that he’d removed Bijan not simply out of vengeance but because he’d finally learned the responsibility that came with power, as well, the captain didn’t know. But whatever it was, it had worked. This was no longer the company of Captain Armand Pahner, escorting a useless prince; it was a detachment of Bronze Battalion, The Empress’ Own, Colonel Roger MacClintock, commanding, and the captain smiled.

“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Roger thanked the representative from Sadan for his kind words. The broad, well-watered Hadur River valley was heavily settled, and the trade routes ran far and wide. And throughout that entire region the word had spread over the last several weeks that you didn’t want to mess with the basik. Sadan was the city-state furthest along the route, and its representative had already promised that not only was the way open through his lands, but also in the lands beyond.

Roger looked up at the flar-ta loaded with wounded. The two beasts were crowded with stretchers, but most of the Marines in the stretchers were recovering from leg wounds. They’d be back on their feet in a week, and getting used to marching again, he thought, and smiled at one of the exceptions.

“Denat, you lazy bum. You just wanted to ride!”

“You just wait until I get out of this stretcher,” the tribesman said. “I’ll kick your butt.”

“That’s no way to address the Prince,” Cord said severely, and Roger looked over his shoulder at his asi.

“He’s permitted. By your laws, Moseyev would be asi to him, so I give him leave to be a lousy patient.” The prince reached up to clap the towering shaman on the shoulder. “But it’s good to have you behind me again. I missed you.”

“And well you should have,” Cord sniffed. “It’s past time to begin your teaching again. But I had a fine time in the barracks. Great fun.” The still-recovering Mardukan had emerged coated in red, as had Matsugae and Poertena.

“It’s still good to have you back,” Roger said, and passed up the line of flar-ta and Marines, touching an occasional arm, helping to adjust a shield or commenting on a recovery, until he reached the head of the column, where he smiled broadly at T’Leen Sul.

The Mardukan nodded to him. The human expression was accepted now throughout the Hadur region, and the new council head clapped his lower hands in resignation.

“It won’t be the same here without you,” he said.

“You’ll do fine,” Roger said. “The land distribution was more than equitable, although you and I both know there’ll be complaints anyway. But the trade from Voitan will soon mean you can relieve the tax burden and still maintain the public works.”

“Any other points I should remember, O Prince?” the Mardukan asked dryly. “Should I, perhaps, think about a fund to restart the forges? Reduce the crops of dianda and balance it with barleyrice?