Queenmaker 7
Chapter Seven
“I want you and your troop to scout ahead of us,” I told Sir Ransom. “If there are any problems, from enemy pickets to dropped bridges, I want to know about them.”
Sir Ransom nodded. I studied him thoughtfully. He was supposed to be a good and capable cavalry officer, with enough common sense to break off and run if he encountered something he couldn’t handle, but I feared what he’d do once he was out of my sight. He wanted glory and I was sure he’d do whatever it took to win it, even if it meant going against my direct orders. And there was little I could do about it. I couldn’t ride with him, I couldn’t send a trusted subordinate to accompany him, I couldn’t even hammer the message home without turning him against me. The young man was a prideful ass.
“We cannot afford surprises,” I told him, firmly. “You must inform me the moment you run into trouble.”
He bowed, then left the office as I dismissed him. I scowled at his back, then turned my attention to the map. It was better than the last set of maps, but I knew not to take it too seriously. Some places were depicted as being right next to each other, even though they were dozens of miles apart, and others were so far out of proportion it was easy to believe they were larger than the biggest city in America. I’d done everything I could to hire teams of proper surveyors and mapmakers, but there were limits. The warlords – of course – hadn’t allowed us to map their territory.
But at least we were able to talk to refugees, I thought. The maps still weren’t very good, but we weren’t advancing completely into the unknown. We know more about their territory than they might wish.
I sighed inwardly. I’d spent the last few hours mustering the troops, issuing orders and working frantically to patch up the holes in my organisational structure. My plans had looked good on paper – plans always did – but real life had cruelly exposed all the problems that my planning hadn’t taken into account. I had officers who were supposed to be in two places at once, infantrymen who were confused about when and where they should report to their officers and a logistics system that – if I’d been back home – would have earned me an instant court martial and dishonourable discharge, if my CO didn’t simply shoot me in the face and blame it on the enemy. It was astonishing how much supplies an army needed, particularly one that wasn’t allowed to live off the land. And if I didn’t keep my army fed, I wouldn’t be able to keep them from looting.
And that will turn hearts and minds against us, I reflected sourly. The locals regarded soldiers as little better than hordes of locusts, regardless of which side they were on. I was doing what I could to change that perception, but it would be a long time before the peasants and tradesmen started to regard soldier as a honourable occupation. And until then they will happily betray us to the warlords in hopes we’ll kill each other off.
I finished scanning the paperwork – I hoped and prayed the logistics train would hold up long enough to get the army to Damansara – and then headed outside. The makeshift army camp – it looked terrifyingly fragile, by local standards – was heaving with life, thousands of men and hundreds of horses moving around as they formed up into units and marched out to join the units readying themselves for the march. I pretended to ignore the long line of soldiers outside the brothel, trying to get laid one last time before they started the march upcountry. I’d put the brothels under military control, ensuring they had far better hygiene than the average whorehouse back home, but I was still in two minds about the whole affair. I knew my men would be trying to get laid, with or without my approval, and yet I wasn’t sure how many of the whores had really entered the whorehouses willingly. They were well paid and yet … I shook my head. I’d banished their pimps and given them the chance to leave. They still could, when they’d saved enough money to open their own shops. I’d heard some of them had been quite successful.
And yet … I put the thought out of my head as I made my way across the training ground to the artillery range. The cannoneers were already hooking their guns to horses, readying themselves for the march. Behind them, the supply wagons were being checked and checked again. I swept my eyes over the cannons, makeshift machine guns and mortars, scowling inwardly as the officers saluted. I’d have to have a word with them about that later. The enemy rifles were probably no more accurate than our own – a lone rifleman would have trouble hitting the broadside of a barn – but their archers were surprisingly good. The last thing I needed was an arrow through the head and if my officers kept saluting me, they’d mark me out as a target.
Particularly as I don’t look like a typical officer, I reflected. The average aristocratic officer looked like a dandy out of a regency romance, decked out in bright colours to ensure everyone knew who he was. That was going to change in a hurry, I was sure. I’d already given orders to my gunners to shoot at anyone who looked like a human peacock. If the enemy scouts have any sense at all, they’ll work out who I am from the salutes.
“Sir,” Colonel Hammersmith said. He was a burly man, born on the wrong side of the blanket. He’d had trouble finding any sort of employment until I’d come along and offended social propriety by offering him a job. “We are ready to march on your command.”
I nodded, taking a moment to sweep my eyes up and down the crude formation. I’d taken pains to ensure the artillery had an escort, just to be sure they had time to deploy if they ran into trouble. Unhitching cannons and bringing them to bear on their targets was a cumbersome task at the best of times, harder still if the enemy was charging the guns in a bid to overrun them before they could open fire. I had no idea how my gunners would react, when someone tried to re-enact the Charge of the Light Brigade. Would they remain calm, unlimber their guns and open fire, or would they panic and run? There were limits to how realistic we could make the training and very few of my men were blooded in real combat …
“Very good,” I said. I trusted him to know his job, but I had to check. “Did you practice deploying while on the move?”
“Yes, sir,” Hammersmith said. If he had any doubts, he didn’t show them. “We can bring the guns to bear very quickly.”
I nodded, and headed onwards. There was no way to be sure how his troops would react when they got their first taste of combat. I knew someone who’d done very well in basic training and wet himself the first time real enemies started shooting at him. No matter how hard you pushed the training, it was still training and you weren’t really trying to kill the trainees. Drill Instructors weren’t real monsters … the thought made me smile as I rounded the corner and inspected the riflemen, drilling frantically in preparation for the march. It looked as if they were mastering their trade and yet … I sighed inwardly, unwilling to think about it. I’d worked hard to train my subordinates, to raise a whole corps of training officers and instructors who knew how to prepare men for combat, but far too many of them hadn’t seen the elephant. And others had been quite unsuitable for the role. I’d dismissed four and hanged two and yet, their malign influence lingered on. It would be years, at best, before new recruits learnt to trust in the system.
The air seemed to tingle around me as I neared the spellcasters and knocked politely on the door. The majority of my magicians were young women, too weak in the magical arts to be given proper training … or so I’d been told. I had my doubts. Fallon was advancing in leaps and bounds, now I’d hired a private tutor. I wished I had a few more powerful magicians attached to the army, even though … I didn’t want to think about the warlock who’d kidnapped me only a few short months ago. It felt … I wouldn’t have minded if I’d been bested in unarmed combat, but magic … it felt as if I’d been fighting with Superman. No matter how hard I trained, there was no way I’d ever match him. And if Superman had been real, our society would have developed one hell of an inferiority complex.
“Sir,” Lady Jayne said. She was older than the average magician, more of a den mother and chaperone than a military officer. I’d given her a provisional rank, hoping her department could be more formalised later on. “We’re ready to march too.”
My lips quirked. The magicians – male and female alike – would be riding in coaches, rather than horseback or marching on their own two feet. It would provoke envy and resentment, I was sure, yet better that than the alternatives. If the infantry decided to harass the women … it would be terminally unwise, but men on deployment tended to lose common sense when they were feeling deprived. It would end badly, if I let it. I didn’t intend to let anything get out of control …
“Good,” I said, dismissing the thought. “Do you have everything you need?”
“I think so,” Lady Jayne said. “I’ve consulted with magicians in Damansara and they insist they can supply us with everything we need, if we run short.”
I nodded. There’d been a long argument, during the planning sessions, about drawing supplies from the city. Damansara was becoming a factory town, after all, and its weapons were some of the best in the known world. In theory, the city could give us everything we needed. In practice, I wasn’t so sure. It was unwise to become completely dependent on one’s friends and the city wasn’t exactly our friend. The City Fathers, given time, would come to regard Queen Helen as a threat to their independence, just like the warlords. And they would be reluctant to supply us with anything they might be used against them.
“As long as you have what you need for the march, and the first engagements,” I said. “We can bring up more if we need them.”
I glance from magician to magician, feeling a twinge of … not unease, not really, but absurdity. Many of them were teenage girls, not real soldiers. It felt absurd to even consider sending them into battle. And yet, I had no choice. I needed them to handle communications so I could coordinate my forces and remain in touch with the queen. I’d just have to hope they could handle the job.
“They’ll be ready,” Lady Jayne assured me. “And we can defend ourselves if need be.”
I hoped she was right. I feared she wasn’t. The girls in front of me, eying me with a mix of interest, calculation and dismissal, were almost completely untrained. I’d felt the power of a far greater sorcerer and even he had been minor, compared to some of the greats. Or so I’d been told. The stories seemed wild, so wild I could barely believe … and yet, some of them were true. There had been a network of portals linking the major cities together, only a few months ago. No one was quite sure why the network had collapsed, or what was happening further west. What few stories we’d heard had been difficult to believe.
“Remember your orders,” I said. “If you run into trouble, retreat at once.”
The girls looked unimpressed. I hoped they’d have the sense to listen. They weren’t that powerful. I doubted anyone would try to take them alive either, once they realised what the girls actually were. Perhaps it would have been wiser to spread claims they were my private harem, that I’d dragged them along so I didn’t have to go a day without sex. It would have been believable – I’d had to dismiss an officer who turned up with enough baggage for a small army – but they’d never have forgiven me. Besides, it would have made them targets.
I nodded to them, then turned and left the building. They’d be ready to ride with the army and that was all that mattered. It was a shame they couldn’t do much more – their fireballs were devastating, but hardly game-changing – but I had to make do with what I had. I put the thought out of my mind as I made my way down to the infantry training grounds, where the men were marching up and down. My staff appeared to be doing a very good job.
But too many men haven’t seen the elephant, I reminded myself, once again. How many are going to break and run when the bullets start flying?
The thought haunted me as I walked back to the garrison and peered at my small army of clerks. The staff – mostly young women – barely noticed as I stepped past them. It felt wrong to construct a bureaucratic edifice – I’d always felt the army bureaucracy was a greater enemy than terrorists, insurgents and enemy soldiers – but I had no choice. The bigger the army, the more bureaucracy you needed to maintain it. It was going to be a struggle, in the months and years to come, to keep the bureaucrats from strangling the life out of the army.
And these young women won’t be going to war, I thought, coldly. They won’t ever know what’s important.
I sighed inwardly as I stepped into my office and stopped, dead. Fallon was sitting on my desk, waiting for me. I tried not to wince. We might be lovers, and we were going to get married, but that didn’t mean she was allowed to walk into my office without permission. People would talk. It wouldn’t be long before they started asking if the only reason she got the job was because she was sleeping with me. I’d seen it happen back home, even though my society was – on paper – far more equal. I knew one female officer who’d been damn good at her job and still had people wondering if she’d slept her way to her post. Bastards.
“We need to talk,” she said. A shiver ran down my spine. It always boded ill when someone started a conversation with that. “You’re marching out tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. There was no point in denying it. “You need to stay here …”
“No.” Fallon stood and met my eyes. “I’m coming with you.”
I hesitated, suddenly unsure what to say. There was no way I could guarantee her safety if she marched out with me. I wanted her to stay home, where she’d be safe. And yet …
“You’re pregnant,” I said, finally. “If you march to war, the baby …”
“The baby will be fine,” Fallon said, cutting me off. “I should be coming with you.”
I hesitated, again. Technically, I had the power to tell her she was staying behind and make it stick. Our relationship was complex, to say the least, but … I doubted it would survive if I ordered her to do as I said. She was hardly the sort of woman to accept her future husband’s orders without question. And yet …
“There will be a very real risk to you specifically,” I said, finally. Warlord Cuthbert might ransom the rest of the girls, if they fell into his clutches, but Fallon was probably on his kill list. The warlords hated me personally and, unlike Helen, there was nothing to be gained by keeping Fallon alive. They’d kill her just to make me suffer. “If they capture you …”
Fallon glared. I felt the air tingle around me. “I knew the risks when I joined up,” she said, tartly. “They haven’t changed …”
“Back then, you were just another young woman with a talent for magic,” I reminded her. “Now, you’re going to be my wife.”
“And what sort of wife would I be if I let you go into danger without me?” Fallon looked me up and down. “Do I actually have a role here, in the mansion?”
I hesitated, once again. The hell of it was that she had a point. A regular aristocratic wife was the mistress of the household, her husband’s regent when he went off to the war. The idea of one of them sitting around looking pretty was absurd, particularly after she’d had a child or two. She had the training to handle everything, the training Fallon lacked. I wanted to point out she could continue her studies, or serving the queen, but … the words refused to form. I didn’t really want to let her out of my sight either.
“It will be dangerous,” I said, finally. I really wasn’t keen on the idea of risking the baby and yet, I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t listen if I told her to stay. “And we’ll have to avoid being too affectionate, on the march.”
Fallon grinned. “You mean I won’t have to kiss you? How … terrible.”
I had to smile, despite my fears. “I’m sure you’ll survive,” I said, dryly. I would have to tell Helen I was taking Fallon, then make arrangements for her to ride with the magicians. “We leave at first light.”
“I’ll be ready,” Fallon said. “I’ve already packed.”
