Conqueror

He swore again when they finally pulled up in front of the forward HQ building. The stone facing looked as if it had been chewed. Men were sitting in the windows, or leaning against the walls, looking a little lost. Another stood in the main entranceway. A tall man, his face black as a Zanjian's with powder-smoke. Suzette Whitehall stood beside him with her arm around his waist.

Ludwig Bellamy drew rein and saluted. 'Mi heneral,' he said.

Raj grinned, a ghastly expression in the sooty expanse of his face. When he removed his helmet, there was a lighter streak along the upper part of his forehead.

'Took you long enough,' he said.

Bellamy motioned a man forward; he dismounted and laid a flag at Raj's feet. 'It's the flag of Howyrd Carstens, Grand Constable of the Brigade,' he said. 'We would have brought the head, but. .' Ludwig shrugged. A 75mm shell had landed close enough to Carstens that there really wasn't much left besides the signet ring they'd identified him with.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

'It seems a good deal of trouble to go to, to hang me healthy,' Teodore Welf said; his voice was low, because it hurt to breathe deeply.

He was sitting propped up in the big four-poster bed, swathed in bandages from neck to waist, one arm immobilized in splints. A priest-doctor in the ear-to-ear tonsure of a Spirit of Man of This Earth cleric stood by the bedside, glaring at Raj and Suzette and the Companions; he was of the Brigade nobleman's own household, allowed in during the after-battle truce. It was a cold spring night, and rain beat at the diamond-pane windows, but a kerosene lamp and a cheerful fire kept the bedroom warm. The flames lit the inlaid furniture and tapestries; also the hard faces of the fighting men behind Raj.

'I'm a thrifty man,' Raj said, in Namerique almost as good as Teodore's Sponglish. 'I've no intention of hanging you, or anything else unpleasant.'

'Excellent, your excellency: I've had a surfeit of unpleasantness just lately,' the young nobleman said. 'Did you take Howyrd, too?'

'The Grand Constable? I'm afraid he died holding the rearguard.'

Welf sighed. 'Spirit have mercy on the Brigade,' he said.

'I doubt that the Spirit will, just now, since the Spirit has tasked me with reuniting civilization and you're trying to stop me,' Raj said.

The young Brigade noble looked at him; his eyes went a little wider when he saw the flat sincerity in Raj's.

'Particularly since the Spirit has given you Ingreid Manfrond for a ruler,' Raj concluded.

Teodore was a young man, and still shaken by the wounds and the drugs the surgeons had given him. His agreement almost slipped out.

Raj nodded. 'We'll talk more when you're feeling better,' he said, and raised a brow at the priest.

The cleric bowed his head grudgingly. 'Lord Welf will live,' he said. 'Fractured ribs, broken arm and collarbone, and tissue damage. Much blood loss, but he will walk in a month. The arm, longer.'

A servant came in with a tray bearing tea and a steaming bowl of broth, dodging with a squeak as she met the high-ranking party going out through the same entranceway. Nothing spilled on the tray despite her skittering sideways, a feat which required considerable dexterity and some risk of dumping the hot liquids on her own head. Raj absently nodded approval as they tramped down the corridor. It wasn't far to his own quarters; Teodore Welf was one ace he intended to keep quite close to his chest.

'I suppose you've got some use for him?' Gerrin Staenbridge said, as they seated themselves around the table. Orderlies set out a cold meal and withdrew. 'Apart from making sure that Ingreid doesn't have the use of him, that is.'

Raj nodded. 'Any number of uses. For one thing, while he's here he can't replace Manfrond-which would be a very bad bargain for us.'

Staenbridge laughed, then winced; there was a bandage around his own head. 'I imagine he's not too charitably inclined toward the Lord of Men right now,' he said. 'About as much we were toward our good Colonel Osterville down in the Southern Territories.'

Kaltin Gruder drew the edge of his palm across his neck with an appropriate sound. Gerrin nodded.

'I might have done that, if we'd had a war down there after you left,' he said to Raj. 'He'd have gotten us all killed.'

Raj nodded. 'Young Teodore probably does feel like that,' he said judiciously. 'Something we can make use of later, perhaps. Now, to business.'

Jorg Menyez opened a file. 'Ten percent casualties. Fifteen if you count wounded who'll be unfit-for-service for a month or more. Unevenly distributed, of course-some of the infantry battalions that held the north wall are down to company size or less.'

'The 5th's got five hundred effectives,' Staenbridge said grimly.

Raj nodded thoughtfully. 'Ingreid lost. . at least twenty-five thousand,' he said.

'Plus five thousand prisoners,' Ludwig interjected, around a mouthful of sandwich. 'From their rearguard, mostly-they fought long enough to let the rest get back to their camps, but we had them surrounded by then. None of them surrendered until Carstens died, by the way.'

'All of which leaves us with about seventeen thousand effectives, and Ingreid with nearly sixty thousand,' Raj said. If the Brigade hadn't had fortified camps to retreat to he would have pursued in the hope of harrying them into rout. He certainly wasn't going to throw away a victory by assaulting their earthworks and palisades.

'Still long odds, but their morale can't be very good. What I propose-'

A challenge and response came from the guards outside the door, and then a knock. Raj looked up in surprise.

'Message from Colonel Clerett, mi heneral,' the lieutenant in charge of the guard detail said.

'Well, bring it in,' Raj said. He'd left standing instructions to have anything from Cabot Clerett brought to him at once.

'Ah-' the young officer cleared his throat. 'It's addressed to Messa Whitehall.'

'Well, then give it to her,' Raj said calmly. He kept his face under careful control; there was no point in frightening the lieutenant.

The younger man handed the letter to Raj's wife with a bow and left with thankful speed. Suzette turned the square of heavy paper over in her fingers, raising one slim brow. It was a standard dispatch envelope, sealed by folding and winding a thread around two metal studs set in the paper, then dropping hot wax on the junction and stamping it with the sender's seal. Silently she dropped it to the table, put one finger on it and slid it over the mahogany toward Raj.

A bleak smile lit his face as he drew his dagger and flicked the thin edge of Al Kebir steel under the wax. The paper crackled as he opened it. There was nothing relevant in the first paragraphs. . the others looked up at his grunt of interest.

'Our dashing Cabot fought an action outside Las Plumhas,' he said. A sketch-map accompanied the description. 'He's got the four thousand cavalry with him, and twenty-seven guns. Met about ten thousand of the Brigaderos, and thrashed them soundly.'

Nice job of work, he thought critically. Got them attacking with a feigned retreat- barbs usually fell for that-and then rolled them up when they stalled against his gun line. Our boy has been to school.

'What!'

The roar of anger brought the others bolt upright in surprise; Raj was normally a calm man. His fist crashed down, making the cutlery dance and jingle.

'The little fastardo! The clot-brained, arrogant, purblind little snot!' Raj's voice choked off; there were no words adequate for his feelings.