Lord of Janissaries Page 17

  “To what purpose?” Rick demanded. “We have taken more grain and loot than we have wagons to carry it in. It will take a ten-day and more to transport what we have back to the passes, and we will be fortunate to get it all into The Garioch before the snows begin. Seizing more wouldn’t help us, only harm the Romans—and when the Demon Sun is closest, we may have need of them as friends.”

  “Caesar will never befriend us,” Drumold said.

  “Perhaps not, but only a fool gives his enemies reason to hate him, and I am no fool.”

  “No one says you are,” Balquhain protested.

  “Then let them do this my way, as they have sworn.” And let me go back to the hills without a useless battle. I don’t suppose it’s possible to live the rest of my life without another fight like this. It takes a quart of wheat to feed a full-grown man for a day. The fifty thousand bushels of wheat we’ve taken can’t possibly last us two winters. But there’s no more to do this year, and for that I’m grateful. Glory’s a heady drink, but the bar bill’s damned high.

  The chiefs had accepted the decision, but they had another complaint, too. Rick had distributed the loot among the soldiers rather than giving it to the chiefs to parcel out. They felt he was trying to undermine their authority.

  They were right. He’d bought the loyalty of the common soldiers and noncoms, but incurred the hatred of many of the officers. The result was that he had to wear armor and endure the itch. Considering what he’d got for it, Rick thought the price worth paying.

  * * *

  The cavalry escorted the Roman prefect into the camp on the third night of the march. Freshly shaved and in clean clothing, he looked very different from the last time Rick had seen him—but he’d wisely refrained from wearing jewelry. His sword had been bound into its scabbard so that it couldn’t be drawn, but they had let him keep it.

  “I had not thought to see you again,” Rick said. “I had even thought those troops you’ve kept ten miles south of me might be planning an attack.”

  “If your information is that good, you also know I have fewer than two thousand men,” Marselius said. “I have come to see if you will honor your word and release my legionaries. Also I wished to hear this curious story you said it would be worth much to know.”

  “Then you will not be disappointed,” Rick said. “But will Caesar not have your head? Surely he will say you have not done all you could to punish us for invading his realm.”

  “Caesar will have my head no matter what I do,” Marselius said. “He will not deal lightly with a prefect who allowed barbarians—your pardon, but that is what he will consider you—to escape unharmed with the loot of a Roman city.” He shrugged and lifted a goblet of wine in salute. “But Rome will not be well served by wasting the balance of my troops. Your cavalry scouts would give ample warning of my approach, and if we could not face your longbows and longer spears before, how can we now? I have never seen weapons like those spears. You call them pikes?”

  “Yes.”

  “An interesting weapon,” Marselius said. “I have not read of its like. Although there are stories of a time when Romans fought on foot and carried throwing spears, the records say nothing of these pikes.” The Roman governor eyed Rick curiously. “In our earlier meeting, you spoke of ‘the Rome you knew,’ as if you were not certain it was the same as our Rome. Do you know of Roman history, then?”

  “More than you know,” Rick said. “Rome was once a nation of free men. Its citizens were its army, and a Roman citizen did not bow to any man.”

  “Are you then a Republican?” Marselius asked.

  “You know of the Republic?” Rick asked.

  “There are tales. In books, mostly. Caesar does not encourage Romans to read those books, but I have seen copies. Livius, and Claudius Nero Caesar, and—”

  “The history written by the Emperor Claudius! It survives here?”

  “Yes—”

  “I would pay nearly anything for a copy,” Rick said.

  “It is written in an ancient language few can read—”

  “I have an officer who reads Latin.” I’d forgotten where I am, Rick thought. A treasure like that. On Earth, Claudius’ histories were lost centuries ago. I wonder what other lost documents they have in this new Rome. “Do you know that the Emperor Claudius lived on another world?” Rick asked. “That your city of Rome is but a copy, and there stands on another world lit by another sun the original city of the Tiber?”

  “How do you know of this?” Marselius demanded. “I have always suspected, but the priests say it is not true, for God created but one world and anoints but one true king, who is Caesar—” he hesitated. “Christ came but once, and to but one world. The priests are certain of it. But I have never been certain that world was ours.”

  “It was not,” Rick said. He wondered how much he should tell the prefect. If the Romans immediately began intensive farming of all their land, they could store up enough food to save part of their population. Otherwise nearly all would die.

  There was no point in telling him about starships and the Shalnuksis. That still left a lot. “I come from a land far to the south and so far west that one could sail for weeks before reaching it,” Rick said. “There we have many old documents, and there we know that the stories of the worlds are true. If you wish a sign, look to the skies. The Demon Star comes close, and soon there will be fire and flood and famine in the land.”

  The Roman’s eyes narrowed. “I have heard such tales,” he said. “And I have heard another, that you come from farther away than the other side of the world.”

  Now who’s been talking? Rick spread his hands. “The old legends are true,” he said. “As to the other story, I do not gainsay it, but I make no such claim. Now listen and I will tell you of the times to come. They are times to make brave men fear.”

  PART SEVEN

  SCHOLARS

  1

  Snow lay deep in the passes of Tamaerthon. Rick could hear the winds from the north scream past the walls of his lodge.

  There were no palaces in Tamaerthon. Drumold’s lodge home, over a hundred feet long and half that wide, with walls of earth and stone ten feet thick, was the largest structure the hill country boasted. When the army returned from the raid on the Empire, the tribesmen built a lodge for Rick within the stone fortress circle and close by Drumold’s. It was nearly as large as the chief’s, which meant that the great hall was nearly impossible to heat, and Rick spent most of his time in the smaller room he had built to use as an office. It had whitewashed walls he could write on with charcoal.

  He had intended to work there, but he found that very difficult. There was no glass. The best they had for windows was thin, oiled parchment; there was no good light even in daytime. He began to understand why the Northmen had slept late and spent their evenings at drinking bouts and listening to bards recite. What else could they do?

  He desperately needed to plan for spring, but that was difficult. No one in Tar Tageral was skilled at making parchment, and the ink was terrible. He could make notes by scrawling on the whitewashed walls with charcoal, or using his ballpoint pen to write on a precious page of his notebook. But when pen and notebook were gone, there would be no others.

  At first he’d thought it would be easy to bring technology to Tran. Now he knew better. He had to concentrate on tools; in fact, tools to make tools, and often that meant going back to first principles. Wire, for example. He knew that ancient jewelers had made small quantities of wire by painstakingly hammering it. About the time gunpowder was invented, the Venetians discovered the art of drawing wire through holes in an iron plate. The craftsman sat on a swing powered by a water wheel and seized the wire with tongs, letting his weight on the swing aid the work. But how thick a plate? How do you drill holes in iron? And where do you get the copper bar stock to make wire from?

  And steel. Knowing that steel was iron with just the right amount of carbon was all very well, but how much is the right amount? And how do yo
u experiment if you can’t operate a forge and you don’t want the smiths to think you a fool?

  There were dozens of similar problems, and they gave him a headache. For relaxation, he invented the English custom of tea parties. Of course they didn’t have tea here, but they had a plant whose boiled leaves made a caffeine drink. Rick was getting used to the somewhat bitter flavor—and teatime was a good way to spend an afternoon. He was drunk in the evenings more often than he liked.

  Sometimes he would invite twenty or thirty people; sometimes none but Gwen, if she cared to join him. He was not unhappy if she chose to stay in her rooms at the far end of the great hall from his “office.” She had grown increasingly moody and uncommunicative as her time approached, and her gloom and that of the weather in combination were more than enough to depress him.

  But each afternoon he would have tea in his great hall. Any diversion was welcome.

  * * *

  Corporal Mason brushed snow from his sheepskin greatcoat and dashed for the hearth fire. He warmed his hands thankfully before turning to the others. “Cap’n, its cold out there,” he said.

  Tylara laughed. “This is a mild winter. The Firestealer has plunged into the True Sun, but the ice in the middle of the lochs is barely thick enough to walk on.”

  “Thank God I wasn’t here for a bad winter,” Mason said.

  “Each winter will be milder,” Gwen said. “And each summer hotter.” She clutched her teacup close to her swollen belly and stared into the fire.

  “Aye,” Tylara said. “The Demon Star is visible a full hour after sunrise, though both suns are in the sky.”

  “I’ve lost track of how many Earth days we’ve been here,” Gwen said. She patted her swollen belly. “About eight months, obviously. We’ve missed Christmas.”

  “It’s probably local Christmastide for the Romans,” Rick said. “Or is it? I don’t remember when the Catholic Church officially adopted Winterset as the day for Christmas. Anyway, we can have our own.”

  “We’ll have to share,” Gwen said. “Yanulf is making preparations for his own ceremony . . . I suppose to ensure that spring will come.”

  “No,” Tylara said. “We have long known that spring will come whether we coax the Firestealer out of the True Sun or no. But should we not give thanks for the signs that winter will end?”

  Mason shivered exaggeratedly. “God knows that’s something to be thankful for,” he said. He took a seat near the fire. “Be glad when spring’s here.”

  “Not half as much as I will,” Rick said. He grinned at Tylara.

  Her answering smile was warm. “We always celebrate the return of spring. This year will be double joyful.”

  “Even for your father?” Rick teased.

  She laughed. “It is only his way, to complain that the dowry will impoverish him. He will drink as much at our wedding as any three others.”

  Rick looked curiously at Gwen. Caradoc, who had been invaluable during the battle and now was commander of the archer company that was Rick’s personal guard, was often in Rick’s great hall. Usually he had business there, but sometimes what he wanted to discuss was trivial. He always managed to say a few words to Gwen before he left.

  Would the spring ceremony be a double wedding? Officially, Gwen was the widow of an Earth soldier; the story provided an acceptable explanation of her condition. Only peasant women had illegitimate children. Since no one knew precisely when by local time Gwen’s husband had been “killed,” it was decided that her period of mourning would end at the same time as Tylara’s.

  “Spring’s a long time away,” Rick said. “Too long. For now, let’s have an old-fashioned Christmas. No turkey here, but we can have a goose—”

  A distant trumpet sounded.

  “That’s the lads down in the lower village,” Mason said. “Reckon I’d better go see what it’s about.”

  “You don’t have to go out in that cold,” Rick said. “That wasn’t an alarm—”

  “It’s all right, Cap’n,” Mason said. “I’m glad of something useful to do. I’ve been getting cabin fever.” He got up and put on his heavy coat. The wind blew flurries of snow into the great hall when he went out.

  * * *

  The letter was on thick parchment. It was brought to Rick in his office.

  The Roman had spoken the same language as Tylara, and she had told Rick that there was one universal tongue from the Five Kingdoms to Rustengo. But the letter was written in Latin—Rick could read enough of it to know that. He sent for Gwen and handed her the parchment. “Can you read that?”

  “Just barely. I had three years in high school.” She sat near the fire and read laboriously.

  “ ‘From Caius Marius Marselius, onetime Prefect of the West, to Lord Rick, war leader of the tribes of Tamaerthon, greetings. Peace be with you and your house. This letter is sent by the hands of Lucius, my freedman and friend, who brings you—’ I think that’s ‘gifts’—‘and a message which I hope—’ I don’t know that verb. It’s future tense. From the content I’d guess it was ‘will heed.’ Anyway. He says, ‘Lucius has power to speak for me.’ It’s signed with a lot of flourishes.” She handed Rick the parchment.

  He looked at it curiously. “No way to tell if it’s genuine. But I suppose it is. Who’d fake it?” He nodded to his freedman attendant, a young NCO who’d escaped from a Roman slave barracks and fled to the hills. “Send their leader in, and see that the others are given food and drink and a fire. They are my guests.”

  “Sir!” Jamiy stamped to attention, did an aboutface, and left the room.

  Gwen giggled. Rick looked wryly at her.

  “Well, it’s funny, that’s all,” she said.

  “I tend to agree,” Rick said. “Blame Mason. He’s the one who’s been teaching them military manners—mostly learned from watching old British Army movies, I think. It amuses him.” And he thought, it’s not really so funny. There’s a point to military ceremonial. Under the circumstances, I’m not so sure Mason’s wrong. We’ll probably have to fight again. Even if I manage to wriggle out of it, I’ll need disciplined forces.

  The visitor was wrapped in woolen clothing so that only his nose and eyes showed. When he took off his scarves—three of them, counting the one wrapped around his face—and the hooded cloak and the thick gloves, Rick saw that he was quite elderly and very thin. His beard and long hair were nearly white, and he had almost no teeth.

  Dentistry, Rick thought. Have to invent that from scratch. Thank God my teeth are in good shape, but that won’t last. If I live long enough, I’ll lose them all. Dentistry’s another benefit of civilization you take for granted until you haven’t got it.

  “Were you able to read my master’s letter?” the elderly man asked.

  “Yes. What is your message?”

  “Do you object if I sit? My bones are old, and the cold has made them brittle.”

  “Please do.” Rick indicated a chair near the fireplace. “The matter must be urgent, to bring you here at Winterset.”

  Lucius sat heavily and huddled forward for warmth. “It is that. But first—” He reached down to a leather case he carried and took out a thick roll of parchment. He held that near the fire to warm it until it would unroll slightly, then held it out to Rick. “Marselius thought you might prize this,” he said.

  Rick took it curiously. The letters were handprinted in a block form and easily recognized. He read slowly. “Ego Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus—” He broke off, staring. “Is this truly a copy of the great history by the Emperor Claudius?”

  “To the best of my knowledge,” Lucius said. “I have no reason to doubt it. You are pleased with the gift, then?”

  “I am indeed,” Rick said. He frowned. What was this going to cost? “I am pleased that Marselius remembered my interest.”

  “He has written down every word you spoke,” Lucius said. “I know, for he dictated them to me.”

  “May I see?” Gwen asked.

  Rick was reluctant to
let the parchment scroll out of his hands. He knew that was silly. He couldn’t read it, and he’d need her help. He gave it to Gwen and watched to see that she didn’t damage it, but she held it as tenderly as she might hold a baby.

  “There are other documents,” Lucius said. “One seems to be the story of how a group of soldiers came to this world from another.”

  “Where are these documents?” Rick demanded.

  “Prefect Marselius has them,” Lucius said. “They, too, could be gifts for you.”

  “Your friend is generous,” Rick said.

  “What does he want in exchange?” Gwen asked.

  Rick frowned at her, but Lucius didn’t seem upset. “Your friendship,” Lucius said. “And an alliance.”

  “Alliance?”

  “Perhaps I should begin with what has happened since you left.” Lucius shifted in his chair.

  “Jamiy,” Rick shouted. “Tea, please.”

  “Sir.”

  “So what has happened?” Rick asked.

  “The legions of the western provinces have proclaimed Marselius as Caesar,” Lucius said. “I see this does not surprise you, and indeed it was inevitable if Marselius did not wish to be recalled to Rome and executed. The soldiers you released from captivity had no more pleasant expectation, and Marselius was popular with the other troops as well— and they could see the Demon Star. They have heard the tales. We all have. They believed Marselius when he told them what he had learned from you of the times of trouble to come. Few of the province, citizen or soldier, believe that our present Caesar will know what to do—or indeed care.

  “Naturally, Marselius first sent for his family. His son and grandchildren were on the family estate near Rome. I was tutor to the household, as I have been for thirty years. For the past year, I have been working in the libraries of the friends of Marselius and his son. The letter that ordered young Publius—I call him young Publius, although he is a man older than you, my lord—the letter that ordered young Publius to join his father also instructed me to take many documents including that history by Claudius.” Lucius sighed. “I fear we have betrayed many trusts, but Marselius assures me that the parchments will be replaced for all those who survive the coming times.”