Conqueror

The fair brows rose in silent enquiry.

'Cabot Clerett. I'd like-'

CHAPTER FOUR

The longboat's keel grounded on the beach, grating through the coarse sand. Sailors leaped overside into water waist-deep, heaving their shoulders against the planks of its hull. Raj vaulted to the sand, ignoring the water that seethed around his ankles, and swept his wife up in his arms to carry her beyond the high-tide mark. Miniluna and Maxiluna were both up, leaving a ghostly gloaming almost bright enough to read by even as the sun slipped below the horizon.

Offshore on a sea colored dark purple with sunset the fleet raised spars and sails tinted crimson by the dying light. Three-masted merchantmen for the most part, with a squadron of six paddle-wheel steam warships patrolling offshore like low-slung wolves. Not that there was much to fear; unlike the Squadron, who had been notable pirates, the Brigade didn't have much of a navy. Some of the smaller transports had been beached to unload their cargo; the rest were offloading into skiffs and rowboats. Except for the dogs. The half-ton animals were simply being pushed off the sides, usually with a muzzle on and fifteen or twenty men doing the pushing. Mournful howls rang across the water; once they were in, the intelligent beasts followed their masters' boats to shore. A few who'd been on the expedition against the Squadron jumped in on their own.

As Horace did; the big black hound shook himself, spattering Raj and Suzette equally, flopped down on the sand, put his head on his paws and went to sleep. Raj laughed; so did Suzette, close to his ear. He jumped when she ran her tongue into it briefly.

'When you start ignoring me even when I'm in your arms, my sweet. .' she said playfully.

He walked a few steps further and set her down. In linen riding clothes, with a Colonial-made repeating carbine across her back, Suzette Whitehall did not look much like a Court lady of East Residence. But she looked very good to Raj, very good indeed.

'To work,' he said.

The camp was already fully set up, a square half a kilometer on a side and ringed with ditch and earth embankment, and a palisaded firing-step on top. Within was a regular network of dirt lanes, flanked by the leather tents of the eight-man squads which were the basic unit of the Civil Government's armies. Broader lanes separated battalions, each with its Officers Row and shrine-tent for the unit standards. The two main north-south and east- west roadways met in the center at a broad open plaza, and in the center of that was a local landowners house that would be the commander's quarters. Dog-lines to the east, thunderous with barking as the evening mash was served; artillery park to the west; stores piled up mountainously under tarpaulins. .

'Nicely done,' he said. And exactly where we camped the last time, he thought, with a complex of emotions.

A tall rangy man with a moustache pulled up-on a riding steer, an unusual choice of mount. Especially for a man with a Colonel's eighteen-rayed gold and silver star on his helmet and shoulder-patches. The inflamed rims around his eyes told why; he was violently allergic to dogs. A misfortune for a nobleman, disastrous for a nobleman set on a military career. Unless one was willing to settle for the despised infantry, of course. Probably a source of anguish to the man, but extremely convenient to Raj Whitehall. Usually the infantry got the dregs of the officer corps, men without either the connections or the ability to make a career in the mounted units.

'Nicely done, Jorg,' Raj repeated, as the man swung down.

Jorg Menyez shrugged. 'We've had three days, and I haven't wasted the time we spent stuck down there around Port Murchison,' he said. They saluted and exchanged the embhrazo. 'Spirit of Man but I'm glad to be out of the Territories! Nineteen battalions of infantry, five of cavalry, thirty guns, reporting as ordered, seyhor! And campgrounds, food, fodder and firewood for five more battalions of mounted troops.' He bowed over Suzette's hand. 'Enchanted, Messa.'

'Excellent,' Raj said again. It was damned good to have subordinates you could rely on to get their job done without hand-holding. That had taken years.

indeed, Center said.

'All the old kompaydres together again, eh?' Jorg went on, as Gerrin Staenbridge came up. His eyes widened slightly as Ludwig Bellamy joined them, dripping.

'Sinkhole,' the ex-member of the Squadron said, and sneezed.

'Make that sixty field guns, now,' Grammek Dinnalsyn noted. 'We brought another thirty, and some mortars. They may be useful.'

'Staff meeting at dinner,' Raj said. He toed Horace in the flank. 'Up, you son of a bitch.'

The hound sighed, yawned and stretched before rising.

* * *

'To fallen comrades,' Bartin Foley said, rising and offering the toast as junior officer present. The remainder were battalion commanders and up, two dozen men who would form the core of the Western Territories Expeditionary Force from this day on. Plus the Honored Messer Fidal Historiomo, the head of the Administrative Department team who would handle civil control, but he had been notably quiet.

'Fallen comrades,' the others replied, raising their wineglasses as the servants cleared away the desserts which had followed the roast suckling pig and vegetables.

Raj rose in his turn. 'Messers, the Governor!'

'The Governor!' Then they all stood. 'To victory!' At that the wineglasses went cascading out the tall glass doors which stood open around three sides of the commandeered villa's dining room. A mild curse from one of the sentries followed the tinkle and crash of shattering crystal. A louder one followed, from his NCO.

The ladies withdrew in a flutter of fans and lace-draped headdresses; ladies by courtesy, for the most part, of course. Except Suzette, and she stayed. Nobody looked surprised at that, except possibly Cabot Clerett, and he had been looking at her with a sandbagged expression all evening as she teased him gently out of shyness. The servants set out liqueurs and kave, and withdrew.

Raj rose and walked to a map-board on an easel that had probably served the local squire's daughter when she dabbled in watercolors, before the Civil Government armada landed. Now it held a tacked map of Stern Isle, a blunt wedge shape of about thirty thousand square kilometers. The bottom of the wedge pointed south, and the Expeditionary Force was encamped on the northern coast. It was an excellent map; the Civil Governments cartographic service was one of its major advantages over its barbarian opponents. Center could give him more data, in any form it pleased. . although some of it was a thousand years old, the time-lag since Bellevue's surveillance satellites had died.

Silence fell as he took up a pointer. 'All right, messers,' he said quietly. 'Most of you have campaigned with me before; those who haven't, know my reputation.'

Which was why there had been a flurry of resignations and shifts of posting among the commands of units assigned to him. The first time he'd led an army in the field he'd broken one in six officers out of the service before the campaign even started. This time there had been plenty of officers volunteering for the slots opened; in fact, there had been duels and massive bribery to get into the Expeditionary Force. That had not happened the first time, out on the eastern frontier. The type who wanted to join a field force under Raj Whitehall's command presented their own problems, of course.

Better to be forced to restrain the fiery war-dog than prod the reluctant ox, he thought, and went on:

'Let me sketch out the general situation. We have eleven thousand Regular infantry, about seven thousand Regular cavalry, since some of the battalions are overstrength, and about a thousand tribal auxiliaries. Mostly mounted. Including six hundred Skinners, who will be useful while there's fighting and a cursed nuisance the rest of the time.' There were a few chuckles at that. 'The Skinners will join us when and if we move to the mainland-leaving them on this island for any length of time would wreck it.

'The Brigade territories have a total population of about thirty million.' Less than a third what the Civil Government did, but still a vast number for thirty-one battalions to attack. 'Of those, the overwhelming majority are civilians.'