Warlord

'Waste of time, ferramente, going all the way past Port Murchison and then walking back,' he said, stroking one finger down a waxed black moustache. 'We should sail straight into Port Murchison and kill the sons of whores, not flounce about in the bloody bundu. They outnumber us, so we should take them by surprise. Sir.'

Gerrin Staenbridge laughed. 'Advice from the depths of your many years of combat experience?' he said. Dalhouse let his right hand drop to the hilt of his saber and took a half-step forward.

'Messers,' Raj said patiently. Don't provoke him, Gerrin, he thought. I know he's a fool and a fop, but the Palace wants him in. 'Messer Major Dalhouse,' he continued, 'last year we fought the wogs out east. They had an army every bit as good as ours, much bigger, and commanded by Prince Tewfik. So I used the only advantage we had, position, and dug in where they had to come to us.

'Now,' he said genially, 'we're fighting the Squadron, who are the people the phrase 'dumb barb' was invented to describe. Fighting them, our advantages are our weapons, our organization, our discipline. We know what they'll do; they'll rush in like a pack of sicklefeet around a cow. Their advantages are their numbers and ferocity.' Suddenly he leaned forward, pushing his face into the junior officer's.

His voice went flat. 'So I'm not too entranced by the idea of wallowing into a blindsided street fight at close range, Messer Major Dalhouse. I do not intend to imitate a mob of racing enthusiasts in an after-game brawl. I prefer an open-field battle of maneuver to start with, I really do.'

Dalhouse looked around. Most of the other officers were staring at him with the shocked almost- consideration they would have given a man who had just been run over by a hansom cab. Young Barton Foley had slipped the leather sheath-cover off his hook and was stropping the razor edge of the interior against a ceramic honing stick. Dalhouse began a sneer. He stopped as he met the young Companion's eyes, flushed darkly under his native olive, and fell silent.

'Now,' Raj went on, voice mild and slightly under-pitched once more. 'Dinnalsyn?'

Major Dinnalsyn nodded. 'Seyhor,' he said: Sir, with the flat East Residence accent of a City man. The artillery recruited many such, like the engineers and the navy. 'Thirty standard fieldpieces, ready to go.' Seventy-five-millimeter rifled breechloaders; the Squadron didn't use field guns at all, only fortress guns and muzzle-loaders on warships. It was something of an innovation to appoint an over-all artillery commander, but Grammek Dinnalsyn was a man he trusted. 'We stripped out first-rate pieces from other units and dumped anything that looked chancy on them.'

'Menyez?'

Jorg's long melancholy face sank deeper into gloom as he ran a hand through his thinning russet hair, damp from the almost-rain. He was from the northwestern provinces, Kelden County, and an infantry specialist by choice. Rare-cavalry was the prestige arm, and the Menyezes were very rich-but he was allergic to dogs.

'The foot regiments are all up to strength. Not too many of them are fresh meat, and they're fully equipped,' he said. That was something; away from dangerous frontier posts some infantry commanders equipped their battalions with flintlocks originally made for trade in the trans-border barbaricum. His would all be furnished with standard Armory breechloaders. 'Apart from that, they're about as usual, except for my 17th and the 24th Valentia.'

Tzetzas had been very reluctant to let him take even those two infantry battalions from the force he'd had in the Army of the Upper Drangosh, out east. A matter of expense, since Civil Government infantry units were supposed to live off farms granted by the fisc, in the neighborhood of their garrisons; the enlisted men were paid only when on the move or in the field, between permanent postings. Cavalry and mercenaries received regular pay in hard cash, but they were the elite troops; infantry were press- ganged from the peons of the central counties, and usually fit only for second-line duties. Barholm had seen little difference between one infantry unit and the next. So would Raj have done, before he saw what Menyez could do with them.

'Making bricks without straw, that's the Army,' Raj said resignedly. 'Settling in all right with the Slashers, Mekkle?'

The young man grinned shyly. His family were what Descotters called bonnet-squires: possessors of an ancient name and half a dozen small farms, along with several hundred hectares of third-rate grazing; freeholders, but there were yeoman tenants who had more livestock and cash. Not many prospects, living on a Lieutenant's pay, although he had a fair education. Raj doesn't care about your birth, only what you can do, he thought. You worked harder under him than a mine-slave, but he'd bought back land his grandfather had lost, and married Maria. .

'The 1st Rogor Slashers are ready for action, sir,' he said. 'Took some getting used to-they're not as, hmmm, unflappable as Descotters'-the Slashers were recruited from the southern border-'and they don't like to sweat much, out of the field, but they'll fight, Spirit knows.'

'Good, keep at them. Southerners tend to have more dash than sense. All right, Messers. Dismissed.'

He saluted; the Companions leaving for their units stayed a moment longer, and they all slapped fists together in a pyramid of arms.

'Hell or plunder, dog-brothers,' da Cruz said, the old Descott County war cry, and the officers dispersed to their commands.

Ehwardo Poplanich lingered for a moment. 'Hmmm,' he said, clearing his throat. 'Sir?'

'Yes, Major?' Raj asked.

'I'd. . like to thank you, on behalf of the men,' he said quickly. At Raj's raised eyebrow: 'I heard rumors, convincing rumors, that Poplanich's Own was to be disbanded after the. . problem last year. I'm happy for the men's sake; they're used to serving together.'

Raj nodded. The special uniform, dark-green with gold piping, told that story. Poplanich's Own was recruited from the family's estates, from among the more prosperous tenants-in-chief and bailiffs and such, and the family coffers paid for their initial equipment, against a remittance of land-tax. It was not an uncommon arrangement, particularly a few generations back, and it had the advantage of helping build unit esprit. Of course it also had its political risks, with a family that had fallen from power and favor but not from some political popularity among the older nobility.

Especially after Des Poplanich was fool enough to let himself be put forward as a figurehead for a coup attempt, Raj thought brutally. It was amazing that a man as smart as Thom had had a brother so politically naive. He remembered the screams when the flame-fougasse he improvised went off in the tower basement. The screams, and then the smell. 'I did point out it would be a shame to waste a loyal unit,' he said mildly. Ehwardo's personal fate had also hung in the balance, but Raj liked the fact that he thought first of his command.

'Yes. And'-in a rush-'I never believed those rumors about you having something to do with Thom's disappearance. He was your friend.'

Raj nodded, his face implacable. 'He was. However, Des was not. And I did kill him. With regret, but I did it.'

The man who thought himself the last living Poplanich met his eyes. 'I know. Messer Whitehall-' He stopped and looked both ways before lowering his voice. 'I'll be honest with you; I don't approve of many of the Governor's policies, and I approve even less of some of his ministers. The Poplanich gens have a better claim to the Chair, too, although I wouldn't take that job if the Spirit of Man came down from the Stars and handed it to me. But Barholm isn't the sort of disaster that has to be deChaired at all costs; and the Civil Government can't afford an internal war. That above all.'

He extended his hand, and Raj gripped it for a moment. That'll look bad if anyone's watching, he thought. And: To the Starless Dark with that.

'Those noncoms you lent me did a world of good,' Poplanich added.

Raj smiled grimly. 'This isn't a border skirmish we're going off to,' he said. Poplanich's Own had been a central-provinces garrison unit until the change of dynasties, and doing routine patrol work up north since then. Ehwardo was conscientious about his profession-not a universal characteristic among well-born officers with a patrimonial unit-but inexperienced, despite being a few years older than Raj.

'It's perked up the men in more ways than one,' Poplanich said. 'A little regional rivalry; your veterans thought my people raw, and were pretty plain about it. The troopers are eager to show you can be a fighting man