Conqueror

behind the podium, leaving the gold and silver Starburst once more with pride of place.

There were a few other changes. The guards at the door were in Civil Government uniform of blue swallowtail coat and maroon pants and round bowl-helmets with chainmail neckguards. The Chair of the First Citizen was occupied by a man in an officer's version of the same outfit; on a table beside him was a cushion bearing a steel mace inlaid with precious metals.

Whitehall, the Brigade noble thought. He clicked heels and inclined his head slightly; the easterner nodded. A woman sat on the consort's seat one step below him; even then, Teodore gave her a second glance that had little to do with the splendor of her East Residence court garb. Woof, he thought.

Then the general's gray eyes met his. Teodore Welf had fought in a thunderstorm once, with a blue nimbus playing over the lanceheads and armor of his men. The skin-prickling sensation was quite similar to this. He remembered the battle at the railroad bridge and along the road, the eerie feeling of being watched and anticipated and never knowing what was going to hit him next.

He shook it off. His General had given him a task to do.

* * *

'. . and so, Councilors, even now the Lord of Men is willing to forgive you for allowing a foreign interloper to seize and man the fortifications which the 591st Provisional Brigade has held against all enemies for so long. Full amnesty, conditional on the eastern troops leaving the city within twenty-four hours. We will even allow the enemy three days' grace before pursuit, or a week if they agree to leave by sea and trouble the Western Territories no more.

'Consider well,' the Brigade ambassador concluded, 'how many kilometers of wall surround this great city, and how few, how very few, the foreign troops are. Far too few to hold it against the great host of the Lord of Men, which even now makes camp outside. Take heed and take His Mightiness' mercy, before you feel his anger.'

Raj smiled thinly. Not a bad performance, he thought. A good many of the Councilors were probably sweating hard right now. This Teodore Welf certainly looked the part, with his sternly handsome young face and long blond locks falling to the shoulderplates of his armor. He'd spoken like an educated man, too-fought like one, in the skirmishes with the vanguard of the Brigadero army. The two other officers beside him were older, scarred veterans in their forties. Their speeches had been shorter, and their Spanjol much more accented.

'Most eloquent,' Raj said dryly. 'However, Lord Welf, I speak for this noble Council; as one of their member'-his family were hereditary Councilors in the Civil Government, a minor honor there-'and as duly appointed commander of the armed forces of the Civil Government of Holy Federation, under the orders of the Sole Rightful Autocrat Barholm Clerett. Against which and whom the 591st Provisional Brigade is in a state of unlawful mutiny. You are the foreigner here. General Forker was a rebellious vassal-'

In soi-disant theory the Brigade held the Western Territories as 'delegates' of the Chair; a face-saving arrangement dating back to the original invasion, when General Teodore Amalson had been persuaded to move into the Western Territories after harassing East Residence for a generation. Old Residence had already been in the hands of a 'garrison' of barbarian mercenaries for a long lifetime before that. Old Amalson had solved that problem with blunt pragmatism; he'd killed all their leaders at a banquet and massacred the rank-and-file next day.

'— and your marriage-kinsman Ingreid Manfrond is not even a vassal, being a usurper. Let me further point out that neither you Brigaderos nor any other barbarians built this city or its walls-you couldn't even keep them in repair. It has returned to its rightful rulers, and we intend to keep it. If you think you can take it away from us, you're welcome to try, with hard blows and not with words. Siegecraft is not something the Brigade has ever excelled at, and I predict you'll break your teeth on this nut before you crack it. Meanwhile you'll be camping in the mud and getting sick, while the people rise up behind you and the northern savages burn your undefended homes.

'Go back, Lord Welf,' Raj went on. 'Use your eloquence on your compatriots. Tell them to end their rebellion now, while they have their lives and land, before they're hunted fugitives cowering in caves and woods. Because the Sovereign Mighty Lord has entrusted me with the task of reducing the Western Territories and all in them to obedience. Which I will do by whatever means are necessary.'

* * *

'So, what's this Whitehall fellow like?' Ingreid Manfrond said.

Ingreid and Teodore and Carstens were alone now. Teodore put his booted feet up on the chest. The servant clucked and began unbuckling the mud-splashed greaves; another handed him a goblet of mulled Sala with spices. The commander's tent was like a small house and lavishly furnished, but it already had a frowsty smell. The young man frowned; Ingreid was a pig. And he doesn't know anything about women, he thought. The way he treats Marie is stupid. Dangerously stupid.

It wouldn't do to underestimate Ingreid, though. There was a boar's cunning in the little eyes.

'Whitehall?' Teodore said. As a relative by marriage to the General, he could leave out the honorifics in private. 'About my height, looks to be around thirty. Dark even for an easterner, but his eyes are gray. A real fighting man, I'd say, from the way he's built and from the look of his hands and face-a saddle-and-sword man, not a hilltop commander. Doesn't waste words; told me right out that if we want the city, we can come and fight him for it. And. . Lord of Men, you've got a real war on your hands. This is a man who warriors will follow.'

Ingreid grunted thoughtfully, his hand caressing the hilt of his sword. 'They say he has the demon's luck, too.'

'I don't know about that, but I saw his wife-and they say she's a witch. I can believe it.'

Ingreid shook his head. 'We'll break him,' he said, with flat conviction. 'No amount of luck means a turd when you're outnumbered twenty to one.' His shoulders hunched unconsciously, the stance of a man determined to butt his way head-first through a brick wall or die trying.

Carstens and the young officer exchanged a glance. I had him outnumbered and he killed two thousand of my best men, Teodore thought. He doubted Whitehall had lost more than a hundred or so. Of course, at that rate the Civil Government army would run out of men before the Brigade did. . but victory bought at such a price would be indistinguishable from defeat.

'What about the Civvies?' Carstens put in. 'He can't hold the city with only twenty thousand men if the natives don't cooperate with him.'

'The Council?' Teodore snorted. 'They won't crap without asking his permission, most of them. Scared of us, but more scared of him because he's in there with them. We might do something with the Priest, though. Whitehall's been leaning on the Civvie gentry pretty hard, they thought they'd watch the war like spectators at a bullfight and he's not having any of that.'

Carstens nodded. 'I've got some tame Civvie priests hanging around,' he said. 'We can get messages over the wall.'

Ingreid flipped a hand. 'You handle it then, Howyrd,' he said. 'Get me an open gate, and you're Hereditary Grand Constable.' Carstens grinned like a wolf; that would give his sons the title, if not necessarily the office.

'Land?' he said. 'I'd need more of an estate, to support that title.'

'Those Councilors must have a million or two acres between them. The ones who stick to Whitehall will lose their necks-and you get your pick, after the Seat.'

Teodore nodded thoughtfully. 'And do I have your authority to oversee the encampment?' he asked.

Both the other officers looked at him. 'Sure, if you want it,' Ingreid said.

It was routine work. Almost servant's work. . 'We're going to be here a while,' Teodore said. 'Better to get it right. I don't want us wasting men, we've already lost too many through Forker's negligence.'

'Eight camps?' Ingreid Manfrond said, peering at the map the younger man unrolled. 'Why eight?'

Teodore Welf cleared his throat. 'Less chance of sickness if we spread the troops out, Lord of Men,' he said. 'Or so the priests say.'

It was also what Mihwel Obregon's Handbook for Siege Operations said, but Teodore wasn't going to tell his monarch the idea came out of a book, and a Sponglish book at that. He hadn't taken everything in it all that seriously himself, when he read it-but since meeting the Civil Government's army, their