December. 10 A.E.-Nantucket Town, Republic of Nantucket
December, 10 A.E.-Rivendell, Kingdom of Great Achaea
February, 11 A.E.-Central Sicily, Kingdom of Great Achaea
February, 11 A.E.-Syracuse, Kingdom of Great Achaea
April, 11 A.E.-Central Anatolia, Kingdom of Hatti-land
Why in the name of God didn't we deep-six this ridiculous so-called tradition right after the Event?" Jared Cofflin demanded.
"Because keeping it up made people feel better," Martha Cofflin said succinctly. "We did condense it. Hold still."
He did, as she stuck the white mustache to his upper lip. At least he wouldn't be sweating as much in this damned Santa suit when they got outside; late December in Nantucket was God-damned cold, Gulf Stream or no Gulf Stream. The Coast Guard tug was warm enough, with the boiler right below this miniature bridge. Not far away her skipper pulled on a lanyard, doing a creditable imitation of "Jingle Bells" in a series of cheery toots from the steam whistle.
The little side-wheeler swung in alongside the T-sectioned pier at the head of Old North Wharf. A huge crowd was waiting, big white snowflakes falling on fur caps and knitted toques, children held up to see or sitting on their parents' shoulders. More snow hung on rooftops, and made a white tracery of the rigging of sloop and schooner and square-rigger across the width of the harbor. Lanterns gleamed everywhere, soft flame light in the pearly fog, and hissing torches stood high; behind them the church spires and rooftops showed like outlines in a Currier amp; Ives print.
"Ho, ho, humbug," Cofflin muttered.
Back before the Event, the Christmas Stroll had just meant more work for then-Chief of Police Jared Cofflin. At least that hadn't changed…
The crowd cheered as he shouldered his sack and walked down the gangplank. He waved back, grinning despite himself; it was mostly kids here, jumping up and down and yelling. He reached into the sack and scattered some of the little sacks of maple-sugar candy and precious chocolate, which at least kept the melee away from him. And there were things to celebrate besides getting through another year; the news from Tartessos was pretty damned good.
Amateur choirs struck up "Silent Night" as he walked up the wharf and up Main Street; it was anything but, though. The big covered market to his left where the old A amp;P had been was roaring, food stalls mainly, handing out eggnog and sausages in buns and grilled lobster tail on a stick and baked apples. A lot of mulled cider was going around, too, and these days cider had quite a kick. Main was pretty well clear of spectators except on the packed sidewalks and at every window and side street, but a big bunch of Fiernan dancers circled 'round him as he went up it; this was an important festival time for them, too, when Moon Woman danced the reluctant Sun back to warm the earth.
At least we persuaded the chariot boys not to sacrifice their horse, bull, and hound right here, he thought-and before the Alban War back home, they'd have given Sky Father a man, too, so the boss-god would be strong enough to chain the Wolf that would otherwise eat the sun and leave the world in eternal darkness.
They probably do still do that over there, when nobody's looking, treaty or no treaty.
At the head of Main he climbed the steps of the Pacific Bank. "Merry Christmas!" he called.
"Merry Christmas!" the thousands roared back-or versions of "Happy Solstice Festival" in a round dozen languages. The dancers went into a whirling, cartwheeling frenzy.
"Light 'em up!"
There were half a dozen big Christmas trees down the middle of the street, strung with an amazing assortment of ornaments pre-and post-Event; he rather liked the little carved painted horses that some of the Alban immigrants made. At his wave tapers were lit and touched to dozens of candles set on branches-and each tree had its own watcher with a bucket of water, now; those weren't electric lights…
A sleigh pulled up at the steps, and he climbed in; Martha was already there. At least this year there was enough snow to use a sleigh; you couldn't always count on that. The team that pulled it was a pair of glossy hairy-hoofed giants, Brandt Farms' contribution to the festivities. Jared Cofflin resigned himself to ho-hoing his way 'round town as the horses took off in a silver jingle of bells and thump of platter-sized hooves on packed snow. The driver whistled under his breath as they drove, but at least it wasn't a carol.
Moving through the streets, the sleigh seemed to carry its own bubble of yellow light in a world of snow-streamers. Carolers and impromptu games of street hockey and people just moving about for the pleasure of it waved.
"Dispatch came in just now," Martha murmured in his ear. "Package from Marian and 'dapa, and the details on the text of the agreement with Tartessos. And a radio from Doreen in Hattusas… that's got some significant material in it. She wants authorization for a plan with some really radical potential…"
"Ho, ho," Jared said hollowly. Chief executives, policemen, and parents had something in common-they were always on call. "Let me have it."
When he got home at last it was a relief to sink into an armchair in his own living room, with the hideous fungus off his face, sensible clothes on, a fire crackling, and a glass of eggnog of his own at his elbow while he supervised the opening of presents and the smells from the kitchen made his nose twitch. His parents had always kept the day itself for going to church, and he and Martha had kept that up once they had a brood of their own.
Marian's two enjoyed their own presents; especially what their mothers had sent back from the Tartessian lands, a sack of precious oranges and lemons-those were expensive luxuries these days-parkas and gloves of beautifully tanned lynx skins, and a pair of olive-wood bokken. What brought the real squeals was a package of letters, though.
"Uncle Jared! We've got a brother] A real baby brother]"
"Ayup," he said, as they bounced around making plans for things they would do to and with him-you'd have thought the lad was eight, not a nursing infant.
And we've got a peace with Tartessos, thank God, he thought, closing his eyes for a second and thanking God indeed. There were entirely too many new names on the fresh stone slab down by the Town Building, but fewer than he'd feared.
Please, may we get rid of Walker without paying too much of
a butcher's bill. Enough. It's Christmas; you can worry tomorrow.
"Did you get any letters, Uncle Jared?" they asked.
"Ayup," he said. "From your mothers, and from Aunt Doreen. But they were business."
"Like, let the revels begin!" John Martins said, and repeated it in the gloriously ungrammatical Achaean. Ian Arnstein had grown used to in the past few weeks and visits. Odikweos allowed it, as long as the guards were along.
It was chilly and rainy outside, rather than actually cold; but the interior of Rivendell's main hall was warm and brilliantly lit. Part of that was excellent lanterns; much of it was a half dozen wrought-iron candelabra hanging by hand-forged chains from the rafters. Those were elaborately carved, in varying styles; the walls were done with murals that Barbara Martins probably thought were Tolkienesque, but actually owed a good deal more to Disney.
Tacky beyond words, Ian Arnstein thought, taking a pull at the mulled wine. Especially the big eyes.
The ironwork wasn't, though. Not the candelabra, done in the shape of phoenixlike birds holding the candles in their beaks, nor the elaborate curvilinear dragons whose claws clamped the roaring pine logs of the hearths on either side. Floridly romantic, yes, but it had the integrity of a craftsman who worked with a skill that let him precisely realize in the real world the vision he saw alone with himself.
You took Martins a good deal more seriously, after you'd seen his work, or seen him work. That seemed to apply to his second, unauthorized occupation as well.
A roar went up from the dozen or so adults sitting down the long table as the food came in-several turkeys bred up from imports via Tartessos, and a small roast pig, with mounds of bread and vegetables on the side. The strong good smell spilled into the hall, mixing with the resin scent of the burning wood and an undertone of damp dog and wool and silt from the tumbling stream outside. A fresh warm scent of evergreen underlay it, from the big fifteen-foot fir standing amid a pile of presents in one corner.
All of the men here had the startling muscle definition that Martins showed; it went with the trade. All were younger as well, several much bulkier, but he didn't think any of them was much stronger. An equal number of women sat among them, and a round dozen children of toddler age and above tumbled about on the flagstone floor amid the dogs. Martins had his son on his lap and a daughter beside him in the big chair at the head of the table; he and his wife seemed to have adopted a good many more-a good many even by Nantucket's post-Event standard-and his followers were breeding enthusiastically as well.
"Yeah, man," he said quietly to Arnstein. "Came in about an hour ago-didn't want to mention it, while, like, you-know-who was here. Don't want to tempt him to pile up any more bad karma, you know? Figure he's used to you staying over on visits by now."
Arnstein fought down trembling eagerness while he ate, the food sitting leaden on his stomach.
"Hey, you dudes gotta remember to eat your vegetables," Martins went on earnestly, looking down-table at his followers. "Natural fibers're essential to, like, cleaning out your impurities. Too bad we ain't got any brown rice."
The journeymen and apprentices looked a little bewildered. Vegetables were poverty foods here; the great nobles ate meat and some bread and fruit, and success was defined by how closely you could imitate them. They obediently shoveled down steamed cauliflower and broccoli with cheese sauce nonetheless.
If he suggested they paint themselves blue, they'd probably do that too, Ian thought whimsically. It was interesting to speculate on what the blacksmith subculture was going to be like here in a generation or two.
He managed to make himself wait until the ice cream was carried in-even then he couldn't resist snagging a bowl-and headed up the stairs. His anticipation was enough to overcome his usual revulsion at the long-bearded carved dwarves who upbore the balustrade. In his room he turned up the lanterns on the working table and took up the leather satchel tossed carelessly on the quilt-hidden in plain sight.
The heavy coarse paper of the envelope crackled around his fingers as he broke the seals. Within was a sheet written in a hand he recognized; for a moment he simply sat with the letter in his hand. Then he set it down and read:
"King's pawn to…"
He smiled. Now, there's a cipher. A substitution code, based on their favorite responses to the listed chess moves. Cryptographers back up in the twentieth could probably break it fairly easily, with their supercomputers and staffs of experts. Walker-or even Mittler? I don't think so.
Further inside the packet was another, and he lifted out the infinitely precious treasure; not forgetting to put his ice-cream bowl on the other side of the room and wash and carefully dry his hands first with the jug-basin-towel set provided.
"Oh, excellent," he said softly.
The watermark was perfect; mainly because it was Great Achaea's royal watermark, and that of the Temple of the Threefold Hekate. The handwriting was near-perfect, too; Walker's smooth hand with the little extra pressure on the "t," a very occasional splotch where too much pressure was applied.
Got a bit of buried anger there, Walker-me-lad, bubbling under that smooth exterior. And Alice Hong's. Slants backward. Ooooh, look at those spiky i's and the little horns on the w's. Classic. Got some unassimilated trauma lurking around there, don't you, you monstrous little bitch?
"Well, come on now, Ian," he said. Now I'm channeling Doreen. This place is driving me crazy. "It's not really their writing, just a very very good imitation."
Dear Will: Hi! Got to tell you, studmuffin, the telestai really have their testicles in a twist about the latest strategic-readjustment-of-forces. You said it; we need some victories. Or at least we need to throw someone out of the sled for the wolves… and guess who I think it should be? I've got some ideas about how, too, that you'll just love.
God, that was even her style, the giggling little-girl descriptions of how she planned to "operate"… did anyone really still use words like "wee-wee" for penis? The choice of words was perfect, worth all the effort and risk of getting samples. Walker's people had been pretty good about destroying documents with important information. They'd been much less careful about casual notes concerning nothing in particular. The Walker was good, too:
Sic transit gloria His Krautness, babe. Heels have clicked for the last time; we'll get some major credit out of it, too. A King should always have at least one seriously unpopular minister around for occasions like this. It's a pity in a way, I wanted to keep our tame Kraut around a little longer, but on second thoughts it's time for him to go…
The date was in April… Yes, by God, April 1. That was the crowning touch.
"Of course, that means we have to have a victory about then for these to fit. Not a problem; if we don't by then, Odikweos won't move, nohow."
And he himself would die. Most probably exactly the way pseudo-Hong described in these precious pages. They'd been taken from real life, after all.
There were at least a hundred bodies around the gates, lying in the inevitable posture of the dead left on a battlefield-backs arched and limbs splayed as decay and gas build-up had their way with them. Brigadier McClintock grunted as he swung his binoculars back and forth. It was a common scene in Sicily, this February of the Year 11.
"What did they do, just charge right in?" he said.
"That's exactly what they did," Marian Alston-Kurlelo replied grimly, not taking her field glasses from her eyes.
The wind shifted and brought the gagging reek strongly down the road that wound up to the fort. She decided she was getting very sick of the smell of rotting human flesh combined with the bitter scents of burning. The damp freshness of the Sicilian upland winter and the bright sunlight through sky washed clean by yesterday's rain made it worse. Birds hopped and heaved and squabbled around the bodies; Walker must have given them this type of feast on a regular basis.
She shifted her attention to the countryside 'round about. Not very Sicilian, she thought.
Eagle had been through the Mediterranean several times before the Event, on training-show-the-flag voyages; a tall ship made great PR. Central Sicily in the twentieth was a wasteland of rock, scrubby maquis and scraggly crops, and the tumbled remains of worked-out mines. Makers of spaghetti Westerns used it as a good stand-in for Arizona, and it was full of crumbling gray villages where the only living things were ancient crones in black tottering along under huge bundles of brushwood. Or sitting and staring at you with hooded, bitter eyes.
Here it was a sea of branches, oak and hazelnut and pine shaggy on the sides of the hills, giving way to savannas of scattered trees and tall green grass on the flats. Some land had been cleared for contour-plowed fields of wheat and barley and clumps of fig and olive and soft fruits around the remains of a megaron-hall, an Achaean-style manor house; that was still smoldering, along with its outbuildings. She pointed a little further, to another collection of wrecked structures-most of those long, low-slung ergastulae, half-underground slave barracks surrounded by a fence of spiked bars and overlooked by the stump of a watchtower. Beside them was an ugly yellow gash on the side of the hill, pockmarked with the black mouths of tunnels, and a short thick smokestack.
"Sulfur mine," she said. "And see the collection of crosses around it?"
"Surely do," McClintock said tightly. "So the miners came up here and hit the fort after they'd finished off the overseers?"
"Overran the latifundia there first; probably a lot of the slaves from there joined them, and then they came helling up the road and tried to do the same here. The Achaeans were waiting for them, by then. Probably they were drunk… or just drunk on the prospect of getting their own back."
McClintock nodded tightly. Under Walker, the Achaeans had done their best to turn the whole island into a giant plantation, with gangs of slaves pumping out wheat and wool and cotton, sulfur and asphalt and timber for his projects. The process was far from complete, he'd had only a little more than half a decade, but it had gone a long way. They'd overrun a couple of labor camps that made even the mines look good.
"That fort would be expensive," he said after a moment. "Even with a good road, we'll have trouble getting enough artillery here and in range. They've got some of those… what are they called…"
"It's a rip-off of a French weapon called the Montigny Miltrailleuse-from the 1860s. A bunch of barrels clamped together, bullets in a plate you slide into the breech and fire with a crank. The Achaean word translates as quickshooter."
"Those, yeah, in those bunkers around the perimeter. Mortars in the courtyards-see the craters on the hill slopes? No dead ground around here. Rocket launchers… Ma'am, it'll take a regular siege. I'd need at least a battalion, and, oh, six of the five-inch rifles… take a couple of weeks."
Marian nodded. "The problem is there are dozens of forts like this. That's why they built them in the first place, to nail down the countryside."
For that matter, there were a couple of pretty large areas where the Achaean settlers had come out on top against the slaves and natives, even with the Islanders providing weapons and backup. And Syracuse was still holding out.
So we can't sit down and blast the enemy out of every fortlet.
Not if we're going to pitch in and help the expeditionary force in the Middle East anytime soon.
"Well, what do we do, then, ma'am?"
She smiled grimly. The Islanders hadn't exactly taken over Great Achaea's Sicilian colony by landing and proclaiming liberation. They had turned it into a three-cornered exercise in massacre and countermassacre, as natives and slaves and Achaeans fought each other like crabs in a bucket. It reminded her of what she'd read about Haiti during the slave uprising there in the 1790s, years of terror and madness. However discouraging the Nantucketers' problems looked, she didn't think the other factions felt particularly victorious, either.
"I'm a hammer," she said. "I see problems as nails-even big, badass nails like that." A jerk of her chin at the fort. "The chief has a different approach. That's what I'm going to Syracuse for, to give it a try. And to see what they've been doing with the Fleet in my absence."
"I'm sorry, ma'am," Hiller said.
The longboat pitched easily, the crew leaning on their oars. The Great Harbor of Syracuse stretched around them, most of the shore swampy and noisy with duck and flamingos and spoonbills, adding a silty smell of marsh to the clean salt breeze. Water shone blue-purple, shading to emerald over shoal and sandbank. The Islander fleet was further away from the enemy guns, anchored in neat rows with a busy commerce of small craft and rafts shuttling back and forth to shore.
"We hit a mine, that's all I can say," Hiller went on. "Hit a couple, but the first two were duds. The third wasn't, and it blew a hole just back from the bows you could drive an oxcart through. It's a miracle we got most of the engine-room gang out."
Marian nodded; she knew what the words hid. The sudden inrush of water, like a wet avalanche down a hull with no interior bulkheads. The crew struggling up the ladders in darkness, with the roar of water and the toning sounds of the boilers' self-destruction all around them as cold sea met hot steel…
"Lucky it was shallow and not many of their guns bore on it," he said.
"Not really luck; that's why they put the mines there."
In another history, during the eighth century before Christ, settlers from Corinth would have landed on the island they called Ortygia, and founded the city later known as Syracuse. Here it had been the seat of a local chief, until William Walker led Achaeans spearheaded by his rifle-armed troops here to conquer. The fortifications had probably started right away, and judging by the piles of stone were still going on. As she watched a ripple of smoke puffs ran along one of the slanting walls. Seconds later the dull flat booommm of heavy cannon came, and water began to gout skyward in columns of green and shattered white near the grounded ironclad. That was a small target, only the casement showing above the surface. Seconds later the ship's own broadside guns replied, their rifled barrels giving them a harder, sharper bark. Stone shattered where they struck and avalanched downward. Then the long forward six-inch gun fired, sending its heavy shell past the island and into the town proper.
"Eleven-inch Dalghrens," Killer said. "We get ammunition and supplies to the Eades at night in small boats, and volunteers, and bring others out for rest. So far she's given as good as she's got, but eventually they'll pound her to pieces, since she can't move. Quicker, if they get that damned heavy mortar moved…"
Alston's eyes went to the civilian settlement around the head of the causeway. That was fortified as well, excellent low-slung works behind a deep moat and glacis. The Islander artillery on the heights of Epipolai beyond still bore on the city below, the distant slamming-door sound of its firing echoing across the water. Then came the long whistling fall, and another tall billow of pulverized adobe, timber, stone, and people. They were densely packed in there, too; Achaean colonists had fled here from all the province around. Crowds of Sicel natives and slave rebels sprawled near the orderly tent-rows and earthworks of the Republic's Marines.
"Not a problem, if… there," Alston said, looking down at her watch.
A rocket went up from the fortress on Ortygia, bursting green. The same signal came up from the Islander works ashore, and from the bridge of the Farragut, where she patrolled off the line of anchored frigates and transports.
"Head us in for the landing grounds, if you please, Mr. Hiller."
Her command tent wasn't big enough for the delegates this time; they met on a piece of sloping ground. They'd all agreed to come unarmed, trusting to Alston's reputation for keeping strictly to the terms of agreements. Nantucketer Marines separated the three parties, Achaeans and native Sicilians and uprisen slaves.
Although the Achaeans look like they need protecting from each other, Marian noted with cold amusement as dagger glances went back and forth. Not really all Achaeans, either; lot of Walker's mercenaries are from all over.
Walker's viceroy had been one of his original followers. Danny Rodriguez's body still hung from the gallows at the edge of camp, but he'd been dead when the Marines caught him, stabbed by a member of his hareem.
Even divided as they were, the Achaeans were a miracle of unity compared to the Sicels. The slaves were as numerous as both the other groups put together, but even less organized. Still, the month of fighting had thrown up some natural leaders…
"Greetings," she said.
An interpreter put that in Achaean, and all the respective groups had at least one person who could turn that into whatever.
"We are all come here under sign of truce to arrange an end to this war."
One of the Achaeans shot to his feet. "The King of Men will put an end to the war, and to you invaders!"
Alston put her hands on her webbing belt. "He hasn't shown much interest in doing so," she replied dryly. "His armies are in the Hittite lands, and his fleet is keeping to its bases, to defend his seat of power and his palace. He has abandoned you."
The Achaean snarled; he was wearing the remains of Walker's gray uniform. Some of the other Greeks around him nodded, though.
Ah. Doreen was right.
The problem with tying down a conquest by land grants was that it gave the settlers a vested interest. They'd fight to defend it, yes… but they'd also negotiate to defend it, if fighting didn't look too successful. These men had families and farms and homes to think of; and the first gruesome results of the uprising that had accompanied the Islander invasion were enough to make anyone thoughtful.
A Sicel chief rose next, a lean brown little man in a loincloth and cloak of goatskin, with long tangled black hair. His folk looked a lot like Tartessians, in a primitive sort of way, and spoke a language related to the Iberians'-about as close as Italian would be, would have been, to Spanish.
"Why should we talk peace when the invaders still stand on the Lady's holy soil? Let them get gone, or die." His eyes moved over to the slave rebels with whom he'd found himself in uneasy alliance. "The ones they have brought here, they can go, too."
Shouts and threats boiled free. Not many of the slaves had anywhere to go. Either their homes had been overrun by Walker's men, or they'd been sold by hostile neighbors not interested in seeing them back.
Marian waited a moment, then nodded. Swindapa picked up the powered megaphone and held the microphone near the output diaphragm. Feedback squeal stabbed into ears; forewarned, Marian kept her response to a slight flinch. Overhead the Liberator plowed the air in a slow circle, vastly more intimidating to eyes that didn't know how much of her bulk was fabric and gasbag.
"Silence!" she said into the quiet that followed.
A strong earthy smell came up the hill to her, and a reek of fear sweat. Most of these men had been fighting for weeks now, and going in terror of their lives-of seeing their womenfolk and children raped or burned alive before their eyes, as well. It showed; and their nerve wasn't what it might have been either.
"You-" She pointed to the Sicel. "Dakenterar. Your people are no longer numerous enough to hold this island by themselves. The Achaeans are as many as you, and their slaves twice as many."
Those were the proportions the Intelligence people had gotten from Foreign Affairs; the Arnsteins' numbers were pretty reliable. Of course, the whole population was a good deal smaller than it had been a month ago, but the reductions seemed to have been roughly similar all 'round.
"You Achaeans," she said. "If you continue to fight us, you can't hope to win. A few forts may hold out, but most of you will die; and even those who live will lose everything." She smiled unpleasantly. "We have a saying: If you want to know the enemies in your household, count your slaves."
To the slaves: "You've won your freedom. Now is the time to see about winning new lives."
One of the rebels laughed. "Why not go on until the masters are our slaves?" he said, in Greek even she could tell was broken. So were his teeth, and stained brown. "Then we will have all their good things."
"Because you can't fight without us, and we won't help you do that-unless the Achaeans decide to fight to the death."
"Never will we betray our lord!"
That was the Achaean soldier who'd spoken first. Two of his neighbors exchanged glances, then grabbed a leg each. Daggers flashed; Marian flung up a hand to hold the Marines back as the lethal brawl spread among the Achaeans. It was over quickly; three bodies lying limp, and another moaning and clutching a bleeding head.
Walker had sworn men who were personally loyal to him, but Achaea hadn't been a nation even before he came and vastly expanded it-the whole notion would be alien to these people. Only a few of the Kings and great nobles even thought of the Achaean lands as a unit at all. For the rest, local loyalties were to kin and place; and Walker hadn't had time to build up the sort of dynastic legitimacy that an established royal family here could call on. Another generation or two, and his system might have set down deep roots…
But as it is, he hasn't. And oh, does that make a difference! Not while he's winning, but given a defeat, and an enemy on his soil… Plus his best troops were in Anatolia or Greece, not this backwater.
"Hear my word," she went on. "Here is my proposal. We are willing to let the Achaeans here live… so long as they promise to take no more part in this war and open their fortresses. They can keep their lands and goods as well."
That brought shouts of rage from the Sicels and slave rebels as well. She turned to them and made a soothing gesture; the Marines brought their rifles around to present the points of the bayonets.
"The lands of the King and the dead and those who don't live here, those are forfeit." Which would be a good two-thirds of the island. "Every slave who wants one can have a farm, or the tools of his trade; and so that nobody need fear his neighbor, let it be proclaimed that the taking of folk into slavery shall never be allowed here again. There will be land for you Sicels, too; not as much as you might want, but it's better than being hunted like game through the mountains or caught and sent to the mines, isn't it?"
The Sicel chiefs looked interested. They all came from the wildest parts of the mountains; the coastal tribes where most of the settlers were located had been wiped out long ago…
"But who shall till our fields?" a well-dressed Achaean asked in bewilderment. "If there are no slaves?"
Marian held up her hands and moved the fingers. "We have another saying: He who does not work, does not eat. You have your machines and the strength of your hands. For those who have more land than they can work, some of your former slaves might want to rent land, in return for tools and beasts and seed-grain. Or Sicels from the highlands, where making a living is so hard."
They weren't looking happy about that, but most of the bigger slaveowners had been absentees, or had died in the first explosive flare of the uprising because they and their retainers were so heavily outnumbered. The rest were farmers with moderate holdings or townsmen; Walker had handed out a lot of quarter sections, a hundred and sixty acres. That was riches by the standards of the Bronze Age, but he'd also had nineteenth-century farm equipment manufactured. A family could make a good living without killing themselves.
"More important-who shall rule?" another man asked.
Okay, let's see if we can get this across, she thought, and took a deep breath. "We don't wish to rule here. We suggest that each of your factions elect-get together and choose by show of hands"-none of these languages had a word for vote, but an assembly of the tribe's warriors was a familiar institution- "a man, a consul. The three consuls will rule, and each district should hold an assembly which-
It took all day just to get the idea across. Probably the Sicilian Republic would dissolve in chaos as soon as the small Islander garrison departed-she was going to use a couple of battalions of Alban auxiliaries for that, as long as she needed Syracuse as a base.
Then again, it might not; and it would serve Nantucket's purpose either way.
Spring came late to the uplands of central Anatolia, but when it did it came with a rush. Kenneth Hollard inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the flowering cherry trees and the fresh green of the grass underfoot; the breeze was from the south, carrying a kiss of warmth. It was good to walk freely, out of the fusty closeness of winter quarters, to air out the body and the soul.
Even better with a girl, he thought.
Raupasha's hand rested shyly in his. A dusting of the blossoms rested on her raven hair and the dark linen shoulders of her robe. He smiled down into the scarred, lovely face. Sabala sniffed at them, then raced off to make lunging snaps at butterflies.
"I did not dream a great warrior could be so… so sweet," she said a bit breathlessly, after they broke the clinch and walked on.
I didn't dream I could be so goddamned horny and not mind waiting… well, not mind it much, he thought. And: By God, an Islander upbringing gets you mileage here. Men here didn't have much technique; they didn't really need it.
As if to confirm his thought, Raupasha went on: "It is so strange, this custom you have of men and women arranging their own marriages… doesn't it lead to much foolishness, as youth lacks the wisdom of age?"
He nodded. "We marry later than your folk, usually. But yes, about as much unhappiness as any other way… but we have a saying, that it's better to be ruled by your own mistakes than someone else's wisdom."
That shocked her a little; he could see her frown. "But… then, how can a man be sure his bride is a virgin? If she has gone about seeking a man on her own."
He chuckled gently. The question made complete sense, in her terms; for that matter, his own ancestors-unless they happened to be Fiernan Bohulugi, or Trobriand Islanders-would have agreed with it.
"We don't think more of virginity in a woman than in a man," he said. Most of us, at least. "And as for married women, people can either trust each other, or they can't."
"In that case," she said, halting again and putting her arms around his neck.
A few minutes later her fingers were scrabbling open the buckle of his webbing belt with desperate eagerness. He pulled the hem of her robe upward and she raised her arms to free it, gasping as his mouth sought a breast and they both sank toward the soft spring grass-
Arrooooooown. Arroooooown.
"Oh, God dammit to hell, what now?"
That was the charioteer's horn, the agreed signal of something important. Raupasha broke away, smoothing her hair and rumpled gown, flushed and smiling as they walked back toward the vehicle; he ground his teeth and walked carefully.
All winter to get over the trauma, and now that she has, we get interrupted!
A mounted Hittite messenger waited beside the chariot; his mount was lathered, and he sweat-stained and tired.
"Lord Kenn'et," he said, and extended a leather tube.
Kenneth broke the seal and tapped the paper out into his hands, unrolling it and reading quickly. Part of it was written in Akkadian, but in Roman letters. Raupasha's smile died as she looked at his face; hers was grave and waiting as he looked up.
"What news, lo-, Ken," she said. "Is Walker moving?"
"Yes," he said. His fist crumpled the paper. "But that's not the whole of it." Her brows went up. "Pharaoh has denounced the treaty with the Hittites. Evidently he thinks this would be a good time to get revenge for the Battle of Kadesh. A bit startling and a bit late, seeing that that was forty years ago, but…" He shrugged.
Raupasha blinked, turning from an eighteen-year-old in love to the ruler who'd commanded a chariot squadron behind enemy lines. For a moment her living eye was as blank as the molded leather one in the mask that covered the scarred part of her face.
"But how can we turn aside to the south, if Walker moves in from the west?"
"We can't," Hollard said grimly. "Tudhaliyas has called up his southern levies and vassals. They'll have to hold Pharaoh."
"But they are troops without firearms!"
He nodded. "Possibly the commodore can send help from Sicily."
"If not…'
"If not, Ramses may walk all the way to the walls of Hattusas."
"Or to the Euphrates, and cut us here off from Kar-Duniash, which is nearly as bad."
They looked at each other and stepped into the chariot. "Iridmi!" Raupasha called crisply. "To the camp-and do not spare the team."