Queenmaker 14-15
Chapter Fourteen
I’d expected, I admitted to myself, a relatively modern mining complex. I was wrong.
The scene before me, half-shrouded in darkness, was an ecological nightmare. A giant pit, reaching down into the bowels of the world; a series of entrances to deeper tunnels, all looking as if one good explosion would collapse the openings and doom whoever was below to a slow and painful death. Slaves, their feet shackled, moved back and forth, carrying ore from the mines to the buildings near us. They looked surprisingly healthy, for men who had to be breathing in dust and God alone knew what else. I guessed they’d been taken from nearby settlements and towns – perhaps convicted of some crime, perhaps snatched off the streets – and sent to die. A handful of men looked much older, staggering along as though they were on their last legs. I feared they wouldn’t live to see next week.
“Fuck,” Horst breathed.
I swept my gaze over the mining complex. A handful of buildings looked surprisingly new; others looked old, as if they’d been on the verge of being abandoned before the miners found new seams of gold. Houdon had talked down the gold mine as much as possible, while quietly developing the seams in hopes of buying their independence; Cuthbert, damn the man, hadn’t bothered with a pretence of legality when he’d swept in and taken the mine for himself. It was possible a sudden influx of gold would ruin him, in the long term, but I doubted it would happen in my lifetime. It had taken several decades for Spain to discover the downsides of vast wealthy from the Americas – indeed, I wasn’t sure they’d ever realised it at all. And Cuthbert’s new wealth wasn’t anything like on such a scale.
“Not many defences,” I noted. There were a handful of guards on duty – they looked more like thugs than elite soldiers – and I guessed there were more hiding out of sight, but the defences were curiously weak. Or perhaps not. There were enough men in view to keep the slaves under control and drive off bandits and raiders, just not enough to stand off a full-scale assault. If I’d been in charge, I’d have built far tougher defences. “I wonder why.”
“We are quite some distance from Damansara,” Horst pointed out. “The only troops that would normally come so far are cavalry and the typical cavalry unit couldn’t break through the defences. Anything bigger would be easy to spot well before it reached the mine.”
“And they’d risk destroying the mine,” Fallon added. “Right?”
I shrugged. There was no way we could destroy the seams of gold, but it would be easy enough to tear down the buildings, collapse the tunnels and a handful of other things that would delay any attempts to reopen the mine. Give us a week or two and we could have the entire complex booby-trapped, perhaps even poisoned to the point they’d give it up as a bad job … no, that wasn’t going to happen. The gold called to them like shit called to flies. I didn’t care that much about the mine – it made very little difference, in the short term, who held it – but both Cuthbert and Houdon did. They’d reclaim the mine as soon as possible. I knew it.
In fact, I was counting on it.
“They’ve got a gunpowder mill too,” Horst added. “We’ll have to be careful.”
I felt a flicker of guilt, although it hadn’t been me who’d introduced gunpowder. That had been the mysterious Emily … Gunpowder wasn’t the best mining explosive in the world, but it was so much better than picks and shovels … everyone was delighted, apart from the slaves and who gave a damn about them? I did. My ancestors demanded I free the slaves and I intended to do just that, then give them the tools they needed to keep their freedom. And then …
“Deploy your men,” I ordered. The defenders thought they could stand off a cavalry unit. No cavalry commander in his right mind would try to charge the walls – and his horses would balk if he did. But the defenders weren’t ready for mounted infantry, with rifles and grenades and mortars and a bunch of other surprises. “You know what to do.”
Horst nodded. “You stay here, sir,” he said. “We can handle it.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then sighed inwardly and closed it. I’d promised Horst I’d make a soldier out of him and it looked like I’d succeeded, to the point he was willing to tell me to stay behind instead of risking my neck. It was galling to think I couldn’t go into battle now, even though I’d proved myself time and time again. But Horst was right. Losing him would be bad. Losing me would be disastrous. I’d done what I could to build up an officer cadre, men who considered war a profession rather than the sport of kings and warlords, but I had no illusions. The army was in its infancy. It would be all too easy to revert to bad habits if it lost me.
Fallon touched my arm. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “He knows what he’s doing.”
I nodded and forced myself to watch as the infantry dismounted, drew their weapons and advanced in rough order, their movements displaying the squeamish determination of largely-untried men. Some had fought before, in skirmishes and patrols and even as part of the counter-coup, but far too many were untried. We’d done what we could to prepare them – and we’d worked hard to develop their reputation – but this was their first major test as an offensive unit. I hoped the enemy hadn’t worked out what the men were trained to do. If they had …
My lips quirked. Cavalry had been the unquestioned kings of the mobile battlefield, but they couldn’t take cities or even – as much as they might wish to deny it – win battles on their own. Infantry could and did take cities, but they marched so slowly by local standards that any sort of blitzkrieg was unthinkable. The warlord would have had to be blind – and all his supporters would have to be blind to – to miss me marching an army towards the mine. Figuring out my target would be as easy as drawing a line on the map. But the mounted infantry moved so fast I could get inside the enemy decision loop and strike the target before it was too late.
Horst led his men from the front, his riflemen raking the makeshift walls with bullets – most of which missed, I was sure, although it didn’t matter as long as the enemy were forced to keep their heads down – while his sappers hit the wall itself. The explosion punched a hole large enough to take two or three tanks – the cynical side of my mind noted that if I’d had a real tank I could just have driven right through the walls – and the men flowed forward, cheering as they plunged into the compounded. The mortars opened fire a moment later, dropping shells on the enemy barracks. I snorted in cold amusement. They really shouldn’t have made it so easy to tell the difference between the military barracks and the slave compounds.
I raised my gaze. Most of the visible slaves, thankfully, had hit the deck. A handful were attacking their overseers, even though they were unarmed. The overseers themselves were either trying to retreat or throwing down their weapons, begging for mercy as my men secured the pit. They didn’t seem to be having much luck. The former slaves were tearing them apart. I couldn’t blame them. If I’d been trapped in a slave camp and forced to work till I dropped dead, I’d have wanted a little revenge too.
The shooting died away. The handful of surviving overseers were taken into custody, save for two who managed to get over the far wall and vanished into the darkness. I hoped they had the sense to flee straight to the city, rather than wandering aimlessly through the countryside. The locals would kill the bastards, the moment they realised who and what they were. But then, who knew how Cuthbert would treat them? Shooting the bearer of bad news was a bad idea, yet there were aristocrats who thought it was a very good idea indeed.
Horst returned, looking pleased with himself. “Sir, the mine is ours,” he said. “We have the manager in custody.”
I nodded. “Good work,” I said. I’d make sure to praise all the mounted infantry as I passed and, when I got back home, have bards hired to write songs honouring their deeds. It sounded absurd, to a modern ear, but it worked. “Did you take the paperwork too?”
“Yes, sir,” Horst said. “They didn’t even try to destroy it.”
“They didn’t know we were coming,” I agreed. “Let’s see what we have …”
The air seemed to grow thick with dust as we made our way through the gash in the walls and into the compound. I found myself coughing and wheezing as the wind shifted, blowing dust into my eyes and a ghastly stench into my nostrils. The prisoners, lying on the ground, stared at me fearfully; the slaves, the former slaves, looked as if they didn’t know if I were a liberator or just another slavemaster, coming to take them for my own. They were a curious lot, part of my mind noted. They didn’t look like common criminals who’d been sentenced to die. I put the thought aside as we walked into the main building. The air wasn’t much better indoors.
“Check the paperwork,” I told Fallon. She had grown up a merchant’s daughter. She’d probably be better at assessing the documents than anyone else. “I’ll see you in a moment.”
“Check.”
I nodded as Horst showed me into the manager’s office. The manager was tied to a chair, a nasty bruise clearly visible on one cheek. I guessed he’d mouthed off to the soldiers and been put firmly in his place, something that would have been a court martial offense back home but not here. He looked surprisingly delicate, for someone who ran a slave camp, but … I snorted. The odds were good he was an aristocrat born and bred.
“This is an outrage,” he protested, when he saw me. “This is …”
“This mine is now in my hands,” I told him, bluntly. “If you cooperate, you will be returned to your master. If not, you will be put to work in the mines you used to run.”
I met his eyes. “Who are the slaves?”
“Men from Houdon,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to cooperate or if he was just too scared to think clearly. “They’re here to keep them from causing trouble.”
I glanced at Horst. “Get the slaves unshackled, then find the leader,” I ordered. “I need to talk to him.”
The manager started to protest. I cut him off again. “Tell me about the mine,” I said. “What do you do here?”
I kept a sharp eye on him as he stammered a response. The best question to ask, when you’re interrogating someone, is the one to which you already know the answer. I knew enough about the mine, and I could fill in enough of the blanks, to be fairly sure I could pick out a lie, if he dared try to lie to me. He didn’t seem anything like clear-thinking enough to come up with anything resembling a lie, not even an understatement … he babbled on and on, boasting about how much gold they’d taken from the ground and shipped north to the warlord’s city, enough money to fund a giant army. I rolled my eyes as the babbling became a little more incoherent. Cuthbert would be discovering the joys of inflation soon, if he wasn’t already. An increase in his gold reserves would probably mean an increase in prices too.
“Right,” I said, finally. The manager probably wasn’t worth much as a hostage, but who knew? I was reluctant to give men their parole and send them home to collect their ransom money – apparently, this was honoured more often than I would expect – but no one would think twice if I sent the manager home. It didn’t matter, not to me, if the ransom was paid or not. All that mattered was that word of our presence would reach his master. “How much do you think you’re worth?”
He paled, his lips working silently for a long moment. I suspected that was a bad sign. There was no proper currency in the kingdom, despite my best efforts, and … he might be the mine’s manager, but I doubted he was that important. It wasn’t a post that could be given to someone with a power base of their own, no matter what oaths he swore; the gold would, I suspected, provide an irresistible temptation. And yet, if the manager was a close relative of the warlord himself …
“He’ll pay for me,” the manager stammered, finally. “He’ll pay … ten gold bars.”
I had to fight to keep the scorn and disbelief off my face. Gold bars were the closest thing the kingdom had to a stable currency – the dimensions of the bars, and their content, was the one thing everyone agreed on – but ten gold bars for him? That was a joke … it had to be. Unless the manager was a very close relative of the warlord … no, that wasn’t likely. If he was, he would have told me at once. What better way to ensure he survived long enough to be used as a bargaining chip?
“Ten gold bars,” I said, doing my best impression of a stupid greenie lieutenant who’d just been sent off on a snipe hunt. I was sure I hadn’t looked quite so gormless when I really had been a junior officer, but who knew? I’d made my fair share of embarrassing mistakes. “I think that sounds a reasonable price.”
He smiled, quickly. I wondered, idly, which of us was fooling the other. He was appealing to my greed – ten gold bars; I could retire on ten gold bars – and I was pretending to go along with it, but … did he think I was a complete idiot? Or … did he think I thought the mine had produced enough gold, under his stewardship, for ten gold bars to seem a reasonable price? I found it hard to care. I was entirely sure he planned to renounce his parole, when he reached the city, and come up with some technicality that would justify it. But it was all part of my plan.
“We’ll provide you with a horse,” I said, cheerfully. It was nearly dawn. “You will go straight to Houdon and start collecting your ransom. We’ll expect it – or you – back here within two weeks, or you will be named and shamed as a coward and oathbreaker.”
The manager smiled, again. He thought he had me. Two weeks … more than enough time for the warlord to gather his troops and march on the mine. He probably thought I was the most gullible idiot in the history of the world, although – I had to admit – mercenaries were greedy as hell and everyone thought I was a mercenary. Or did he think I was being a little too obliging? If someone gave me everything I wanted and needed on a silver platter, I would have been a little bit suspicious too.
“You can stay here until dawn,” I told him. There was no point in letting him gallop off in the darkness and break his fool neck. “Don’t leave the room” – a jest; I had no intention of untying him – “and wait for me to come see you off.”
He nodded. “Yes, My Lord.”
And you can take your tongue off my ass now, I thought. Flattery would have gotten him up the chain, if I was any judge. It wasn’t enough for the aristocrats to be the lords and masters of creation. They had to be flattered in a manner that made me cringe. I’d seen it on Earth – Saddam had been flattered so much it was no wonder he thought himself a near-god – and I’d seen it here. I won’t change my mind because you don’t kiss my boot a few hundred times.
Fallon was in the records room, studying the files. “They brought out more gold than I expected,” she said, without looking up. “There’s also a slight glitch in the numbers. I think the manager was quietly skimming.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I said. I was no accountant – I tried to have as little to do with paperback as possible – but even to my untrained eye the ledgers looked tailor-made to hide corruption. The system was so inefficient it was quite possible they’d lose a ton of gold – or at least the records of its existence – quite by accident. An investigator would have to go through each and every document just to be sure they’d accounted for everything. “No wonder he put his ransom so high.”
“A gold bar?”
“Ten gold bars,” I said. Fallon gaped at me. “Either he’s a fool, or he thinks I’m one.”
“It’s him,” Fallon said. She looked back at the documents, her eyes running down a dusty ledger. “Although, if he’s the one skimming, he’s not as stupid as I thought. Offering a huge ransom might just get him out and away before someone else looks at the paperwork, realises what he’s been going, and has him arrested.”
“Probably,” I agreed. I’d been told that an accountant insisting on being the sole person in charge of the paperwork was a huge red flag. It was a warning sign they were stealing money from their employers. “But as long as he tells his master what we’ve done, it really doesn’t matter.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I was a captain in the militia,” Captain Alonzo explained to me. “And then the city was taken and I wound up here, along with many of my men.”
I gritted my teeth. In Iraq, we had neither employed nor detained the former soldiers who’d fought – and lost – for Saddam. Stripped of their salaries and positions, and allowed to go home and simmer in resentment and frustration, the insurgents had had no trouble recruiting them to their cause. Warlord Cuthbert, it seemed, was smart enough not to make the same mistake as a bunch of overeducated and inexperienced men thousands of miles from the combat zone. He’d taken the city, arrested the council and militiamen and effectively enslaved them. Ruthless, but effective. There’d be thousands of people who wanted to resist the occupation, and drive the warlord’s troops out of their city, yet there were limits to what they could do without trained and experienced leaders.
And they provide the manpower for his mine, I thought. I’d sent the manager on his way before I’d spoken to any of the former slaves. The bastard had ridden off like the hounds of hell were after him. Cuthbert has managed to make the war pay.
“I see,” I said, carefully. “How many men do you have?”
Alonzo scowled. “There were over a thousand, back before the occupation,” he said. “Now … two hundred or so here, three hundred if we count others who were sent to the pit, and no more. There may be entire underground circles back home, but …”
I nodded in understanding. The warlord’s troops controlled the city. He’d probably had a network of spies already and he’d inherited more, when he’d crushed the council and suborned the aristocracy. There might be hundreds of would-be resistance fighters, but getting them organised was going to be a nightmare. Given time, we could have done it. I didn’t think we had time.
“Cards on the table,” I said, bluntly. “We’re fighting a total war. I intend to lure the enemy army into a trap, then destroy it in open battle. To do that, I need to liberate Houdon and turn it into a base. Are you prepared to help me?”
Alonzo blinked. “Destroy his army?”
I nodded. I understood his surprise. A year ago, castles and cities had been the centre of gravity, the targets that needed to be occupied – or reduced – to win the war. Now, it was the enemy’s army that needed to be destroyed. War was changing, for better or worse, and we needed to change with it. If George McClellan had realised his target was the Confederacy’s army, rather than Richmond, the Civil War might have been a hell of a lot shorter.
“It can be done,” I said. Set-piece battles were relatively rare, from what I’d heard. That was going to change too. “But are you going to help me?”
There was a long pause. “And what do you intend to do with my city?”
“Her Majesty has confirmed the independence of Damansara,” I said. “I have no doubt she’ll extend the same recognition to Houdon, once the warlords have been defeated.”
Alonzo looked as though he’d bitten into a lemon. I could guess what he was thinking. If the city was liberated, rather than liberating itself, the liberator would be in a very strong position to control, or at least influence, the city. It would be harder to organise resistance if their independence was circumscribed, rather than crushed, and harder still to convince a distant monarch – whose armies really had liberated the city – that they should be granted their independence. Damansara, thanks to me, was a tough target. Houdon was much less capable of defending itself.
But if you refuse this offer, I asked silently, you run the risk of the city being liberated without you.
I sighed inwardly and waited. I’d dealt with a great many local community leaders, some of whom had had genuine power and influence and some who’d been little more than con artists trying to dupe the ignorant Americans into giving them money and prestige. They were always limited in what they could offer – if they made promises their people were unwilling to keep, they’d get their throats cut very quickly – and they were reluctant to commit themselves completely. And yet, what choice did Alonzo have? The only other option was to abandon his city and head south.
“I expect your oath you’ll petition Her Majesty to uphold our independence,” Alonzo said, finally. Despite his words, it was a surrender and we both knew it. “What do you have in mind?”
I leaned forward. “Tell me about the city,” I said. Alonzo’s information would be a few weeks out of date, but it was a good place to start. “And the occupation forces.”
Alonzo talked, slowly at first and then with increasing enthusiasm. I listened carefully, making a handful of notes and asking questions whenever I needed more detail. There were limits to how much could have changed, in the last few weeks, I hoped; there just hadn’t been time to reinforce the walls, or set up traps, or any of the other things we’d done to prepare Damansara for a siege. But … Cuthbert really had moved a shitload of supplies into the city. If we did try to lay siege ourselves, it would take months – if not years – to force the city to surrender. And storming the walls would lead to bloody slaughter.
We have to take the city in a single blow, I thought. Cuthbert was adapting better to the new world than I cared to admit. If I laid siege to Houdon, it was at least possible he’d refuse to take the bait. Barring bad luck or treachery, the city could hold for months. And that means we need to be clever.
I closed my eyes for a long moment, contemplating the map. The manager would reach the city in a day or so. I’d had a pair of horsemen follow him, just to be sure, but it would be quite some time before they reported back. Assuming Cuthbert reacted promptly, he could get his troops to the mine in three to four days … unless, of course, he’d raised a mounted infantry unit of his own. It wasn’t impossible.
“Get your men organised,” I told him. We’d captured some weapons and enough gunpowder to train the former slaves how to use them, as well as destroy as much as possible before we abandoned the mine. If we won, it could be reopened; if we lost, it would be someone else’s problem. “We’ll need to get them in place soon.”
Alonzo frowned. “What do you have in mind?”
I hesitated. What he didn’t know he couldn’t tell. I had no reason to distrust him, and I doubted the manager had gone to the trouble of planting spies amongst the slaves, but I knew through grim experience that the more people who knew a secret, the greater the chance of someone letting it slip. They might not mean to betray the secret, but … loose lips sink ships.
“Later,” I promised. “You’ll be briefed when we’re on the march.”
Alonzo nodded – he didn’t look pleased – and left the room. I watched him go, uncomfortably aware he was a two-edged sword. He could be very helpful, and he had every reason to be helpful, but he could also turn in my hands very quickly. His goals didn’t quite agree with mine, or Helen’s. If he thought we were planning to betray him, he’d try to get his betrayal in first.
Fallon entered, looking tired. “I got a message from the detached unit,” she said. “They ran down and defeated a cavalry patrol. They’re bringing their prisoners and the bodies back now.”
I nodded. Cuthbert’s patrols were easy to spot. They were capable of thrashing rebellious peasants, as long as they were careful not to let themselves get surrounded, but didn’t have anything like the firepower they needed to defeat my mounted infantry. Picking them off, one by one, would only heighten the impression we were turning the mine into a base and sweeping the countryside, inflaming the peasants to the point they rose against their masters. I didn’t care if it happened or not – my target was the city, not the countryside – but I had my hopes. The uprising might just cause a number of vassals to rethink their positions.
“We need their equipment intact,” I said, more to myself than to her. The militiamen needed the weapons. We needed something else. “Did we get the gold underway?”
Fallon nodded. “It’ll be buried as planned,” she said. “What’ll happen to it afterwards?”
I shrugged. It would be an interesting argument. My men – and I – could claim it was ours, on the grounds we’d captured it; Alonzo’s men could claim it was theirs, on the grounds they’d been the ones who’d dug it out of the ground and passed it to the smelters. I didn’t intend to worry about it, not now. We’d share the wealth when the war was over, if we survived. Any man who died in my service would have his money passed to his heirs.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, instead. “Are you well?”
“I’m pregnant, not unwell,” Fallon said, sharply. “I have a bunch of spells protecting the baby too. I’ll be fine.”
“The next trick will be a great deal harder,” I reminded her. “If you want to head back …”
“You need me to do it,” Fallon said. “Right?”
“We can do it without you,” I said, although I feared that wasn’t true. There were too many things that could go wrong and, if they went wrong at just the right moment, the entire operation would be worse than useless. “I just worry …”
“I’m pregnant, not unwell,” Fallon repeated. “Women have been having babies since time out of mind. Trust me to know what I’m doing.”
I bit down the urge to point out Fallon had been a virgin before I met her – and this was her first pregnancy. She’d spent a lot of time with her mother, when we’d returned to Damansara, and I was sure the older woman had told her daughter a lot about childbirth and childrearing, but … I still worried. Cleo had had a rough pregnancy, the first time, and she’d had the advantage of modern medicine. Here … I was no doctor, let alone a nurse or a midwife, yet I was far more qualified than the average chirurgeon. It was a truly terrifying thought. I knew just enough to be all too aware of my own ignorance.
And she’ll have the very best mundane and magical care this world can offer, I thought, grimly. She’ll be fine.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I said, putting my thoughts into words. “But I do worry.”
“You just put your manhood in me and came,” Fallon teased. “I’m the one who has to carry the child. I should be worrying.”
“I’ll do the worrying,” I told her. If that was all I could do, I’d do it. “You concentrate on having the baby.”
She nodded and gave me a quick hug, then turned and left. I sighed inwardly. It still hurt to think of my young boys, lost forever … it struck me, suddenly, that I could barely remember their faces. They’d been sweet kids, and … well, teenagers, but … I tried to recall Cleo’s face, then told myself not to be silly. Cleo had cheated on me. I didn’t owe her anything. God knew, she was probably cursing me for vanishing … how long would it take, I wondered, for me to be declared officially dead? She probably thought I’d driven off into the sunset, changed my name and left her with the kids. And …
I swallowed. My father had run out on his kids. And I’d done the same.
Accidentally, I told myself. It didn’t make it any better. There were times when the motives simply didn’t matter. This was one of them. My kids will grow up thinking I abandoned them, that I was just another loser daddy who walked out ...
I gritted my teeth, then stood and forced myself to leave the building and walk through the compound. The former slaves were training on the makeshift field outside, preparing for the coming battle. A handful of administrators were chained to the fence, watched by my men … there was no point in ransoming them, I thought, so we’d leave them behind when we abandoned the mine. Horst was directing a handful of volunteers as they moved gunpowder into the tunnels, ready to collapse the mines when we left. I nodded to him, then stared down into the nightmarish pit. I dreaded to think what would happen if it rained. The mine would become a disaster zone very quickly.
They probably have some contingency plans to pump the shafts, I guessed. The slaves couldn’t carry the water out quickly enough to save the mines.
The day wore on. I heard reports from the network of magicians, and scouts roaming the countryside, and waited – as the day turned to night – for news from the city. It didn’t look as if Cuthbert knew what we’d done, at least not yet. The army laying siege to Damansara didn’t appear to be preparing to pack up and leave … I allowed myself a tight smile. The longer they waited, the harder it would be to stop me from putting my plan into action. And yet …
“We captured two more patrols,” Horst said, the following morning. Our sleep hadn’t been particularly good, not least because I was unable to share a bed with Fallon. “How long will it take them to notice?”
I shrugged. “Say … a day or two to realise the first patrol is overdue, then a couple more to realise they’re all overdue?”
Horst looked unconvinced. “You’d think they’d notice quicker.”
“You’re thinking in terms of a city, and a relatively small battleground,” I said. I was nervous too, but I was doing my best not to show it. I’d miss the waiting when the enemy commander finally made his move. “Here … we have the great outdoors, where you can ride for hours without seeing a single town or hamlet. They’ll be used to the concept of the troops being late by now, at least for a few days. But when none of them come back …”
I grinned at him. “The unit passed its first combat test,” I reminded him. “I hope the men are pleased.”
“Relieved, more like,” Horst said. He’d grown into a far more capable commanding officer than I’d would have expected, when we’d first met. He’d got the hang of taking care of his subordinates, but his way of doing it was a little … skewed. I still cringed when he’d offered to take me to the brothel. “There’s no way back now, is there?”
“To where?” There really was no way back for me, but him? “Do you want to go back to the City Guard?”
Horst shook his head. “No,” he said. “But … I do miss my family.”
“They could move to Roxanna,” I offered, although I knew it wouldn’t be easy. The concept of the nuclear family just didn’t exist here. You were part of an extended network of families or you were a man alone, alone and vulnerable. “Or you could find someone in the city.”
Horst snorted. “I’m a great nobleman now, am I?”
“You could be,” I said. Helen had promised she’d knight anyone whose conduct, during the war, was above and beyond the call of duty. Horst qualified, if anyone did. I’d make damn sure he was mentioned in dispatches, talked up in the broadsheets and honoured in song by the minstrels. “If you get knighted, you’ll have girls breaking down your door.”
“Hah.” Horst snorted. I might as well have promised him a billion dollars. It was the sort of thing that just didn’t happen to commoners, not outside song and story. But … I could make it happen. “Do you think the plan is going to work?”
“I think so,” I said. “If it looks like we’re going to fail, we can back off and vanish.”
Horst cocked his head. “A little dishonourable, isn’t it?”
I shot him a surprised look. “Do you care?”
He hesitated. “It’ll bite us too, won’t it?”
“Perhaps,” I admitted. Once they worked out what we’d done, they’d have no trouble at least trying it themselves. “But we can handle it.”
My thoughts darkened. There was little honour in war. The kings and princes and warlords I’d met might view war as a game, but they cared nothing for the commoners who were maimed, raped or killed in the fighting. I’d seen atrocities here that matched anything committed by Al Qaida or the Islamic State, atrocities that would be far worse if the locals had access to modern technology. My world had avoided the use of nuclear weapons after World War Two, fearing the escalation their use represented. Here …
If they had access to nukes, or chemical weapons, or biological, they’d use them, I thought, grimly. It wasn’t that they were ruthless, although they were; it was that they simply didn’t care. The lives of the peasants were about as important as the dust under their feet. Their honour only covers themselves.
Fallon knocked. “Elliot,” she said. “We just got a note from the city. The enemy army is marching out now.”
A few hours ago, I mentally corrected. It didn’t matter. It would take at least three days for the enemy to reach the mine. We’d be on our way well before then. It’s time.
I stood. “Prepare the troops,” I ordered. The plan looked good on paper. Now, we were about to see how well it worked in practice. “We march in two hours.”
Horst nodded. “Yes, sir.”
