Part 11 (1/2)

”He should, sir. He has all the files.”

That didn't mean he'd read them, or that he cared. Winter mulled that over.

”I meant to thank you, sir,” Bobby said.

”For that?” Winter said. ”It was just a trick.”

”A clever trick, though. The men will be grateful.”

”Just wait until d'Vries screams his head off tomorrow. That grat.i.tude may be short-lived.” Winter sighed. ”Sorry. I'm not in the best of moods. Did you need to see me for some reason?”

”Just to say that, sir. And to ask if you wanted your dinner brought in.”

”I suppose.” Winter looked at the little tent, with the desk full of daily reports and the bed haunted by unpleasant memories. Bobby seemed to read her mind.

”You're welcome to eat with us, sir.”

Winter made a face. ”I wouldn't want to put anybody off.”

”You wouldn't-”

”Oh, come on. You must know how it is. You can't have the same kind of talk when the sergeant is listening in.” That was how it had always been in Davis' company, anyway, although Winter had rarely been a part of the conversation.

”Come and join us,” Bobby said. ”I think you'll feel better for a little talk, sir.”

Winter chuckled. ”Only if you promise to stop calling me *sir,' Bobby.”

”Yessir!” Bobby snapped to attention, eyes s.h.i.+ning, and Winter couldn't help but laugh.

a a a Dinner was cooking when they emerged. In theory, the company was subdivided into six sections of twenty men, each led by a corporal. These units were more commonly called ”pots,” since the main feature of each one was the iron cookpot in which the communal meals were brewed. In the Seventh, the boundaries between the pots were apparently pretty fluid, and all six vessels were gathered around a common fire. The men ate from whichever they liked and sat where they wanted, on the ground, on rocks, or on empty boxes of supplies. Mostly they gathered in circles, talking, laughing, and playing at dice or cards.

Bobby led Winter to one such circle, where she recognized Corporal Folsom among seven or eight other men. They opened up obligingly to make a s.p.a.ce on a makes.h.i.+ft bench of hardtack crates, and someone handed Winter a bowl full of the steaming broth that was the standard evening meal when time and supplies allowed. Chunks of mutton floated in it, and the surface was slick and s.h.i.+ny with grease. Winter accepted a cracker of hardtack from another man and let it absorb the juice until it was soft and sodden, then gobbled it down. She hadn't realized she was so hungry.

At first Winter's fears seemed to be justified. The men had been talking and laughing until she arrived, but under the eyes of their sergeant they ate in awkward silence. Bobby called for a round of introductions, which produced a half dozen names that Winter promptly forgot. Then another silence fell, more uncomfortable than the first.

It was Corporal Folsom, oddly, who provided the first crack in the wall. He broke his usual quiet to comment, apropos of nothing, ”Didn't realize there'd be so many streams here. They always told me Khandar was a desert.”

Bobby seized eagerly on this sc.r.a.p of conversation. ”I heard the same thing. When you read about it, it's always sand dunes and camels. I haven't even seen a camel yet.”

”This is the wet part,” Winter offered. ”We're only a dozen miles from the coast, so it gets a little rain now and then. And we're coming up on the Tsel valley. If you walked twenty or thirty miles south, you'd be in the Lesser Desol, and there'd be no water for days in any direction.”

”What about camels?” said one of the soldiers, whose name was either George or Gerry.

”No camels,” Winter said. ”Not here. Camels aren't native to Khandar, actually. The Desoltai use them, but they live out in the Great Desol, to the east of the Tsel.”

”Are they the ones who wear steel masks all the time?” said another man.

Winter laughed. ”Not all of them, just their leader. He calls himself Malik-dan-Belial, which means *Steel Ghost.' n.o.body knows what he really looks like.”

”Seems like a pretty cowardly way to go about to me,” another soldier said. ”What about this city we're marching toward, Ashe-Katarion? Is it as big as Vordan?”

”Not even close. Barely a town, really.”

”Any chance of getting a decent drink?” someone said, and there was a round of laughter.

Winter smiled. ”There was the last time I was there, but that was before the Redeemers turned up. A bunch of crazy priests. Apparently they don't like drinking, or good food, or anything that's any fun.”

There was a sn.i.g.g.e.r. ”Sounds just like our lot, then.”

”Maybe in a Sworn Church,” someone else offered. ”In depot the Free Chaplain could drink half a squad under the table.”

They went on in that vein, and bit by bit the tension melted away. Most of the men were taller than Winter, so as often as not she was looking up into their broad, well-scrubbed faces, but for all that she suddenly felt how much older she actually was. There wasn't a man in the circle older than eighteen. They were all boys, barely off their farms or away from the Vordan City tenements, and underneath their smiles and bravado there was a nervous core that Winter recognized.

And she was the one they looked to for rea.s.surance. She was the one who knew how things worked, here in Khandar and in the army. It was simultaneously touching and terrifying, bringing with it the full realization of what they expected of her. When they got to the subject of how she'd extracted them from drill that morning, none of them thanked her, as Bobby had. They seemed to consider it a matter of course, part of the duties of a sergeant, to stand between the rankers and the insanities of the higher echelons. There were quite a few j.a.pes at the expense of d'Vries. The first was offered hesitantly, but when Winter laughed as loud as the rest of them, that hurdle fell away as well.

”So what about this Colonel Vhalnich?” said the one Winter was almost certain now was George. He was a large young man with mousy hair and freckles. ”The talk says he's mad.”

”He must have done something horrible, to get this command,” said Nathan. He was short and bespectacled, and considered himself something of an expert on matters military.

”I heard he volunteered,” said one of the others, whose name Winter still hadn't caught.

”Then he must be mad,” George said.

”What do you think, Sergeant?” Nathan said.

Winter shrugged uncomfortably. ”I've never met the colonel, but Captain d'Ivoire is an Old Colonial. He won't let this Vhalnich do anything too crazy.”

”So where the h.e.l.l are we marching, then?” George said.

Opinions differed on that point. Nathan was certain that the Redeemers would flee for the hills as soon as it became clear that the Vordanai were in earnest. George continued to insist that Colonel Vhalnich was going to get them all killed, although he seemed curiously unconcerned by the prospect. Bobby said that they were merely providing an escort for the prince, who would negotiate with the rebels until they reached a settlement. But it was Folsom who provided the most thoughtful answer. When the big corporal cleared his throat, the circle fell silent.

”I figure,” he said, ”Colonel Vhalnich's got to show that he tried, doesn't he? He can't just take us all back home to Vordan. He's got to fight at least once, or else the ministers will have a fit. That's where we're going.” He shrugged. ”That's what I figure, anyway.”

After that, they got back on the subject of Lieutenant d'Vries, and Winter took the opportunity to excuse herself. She tapped Bobby on the shoulder as she stood, and the boy looked up at her.

”Can I have a word?” Winter said.

They walked away from the little circle. The sun had gone down and the sky was darkening fast, already purple-gray. Winter stared upward pensively, where the stars were beginning to glitter. To someone raised in the smoky, torch-lit warrens of Vordan City, the nights of Khandar had been a revelation. Instead of the occasional twinkle, the stars marched across the sky in their uncounted thousands, and when the moon rose it seemed clear enough that she could reach out and touch it.

It had been a long time since she'd noticed the night sky like that. But it occurred to her that Bobby and the other recruits would only just have seen it for the first time. She wondered if any of them had spent a night staring up slack-jawed in wonder, as she had.

She wanted to thank the corporal for dragging her out of her tent, but she couldn't think of a way to begin. When she glanced at Bobby's face, shadowed as it was in the fading light, it was clear that the boy understood. Winter gave a grateful sigh.

”I had an idea,” she said, ”while we were talking. It might get us into trouble, though.”

”Let's hear it,” Bobby said cheerfully.

”The key is going to be timing.” Winter chewed her lip thoughtfully. ”We'll need to spread the word tonight, so we can get everyone rounded up quick once the march ends tomorrow . . .”

a a a ”Load!”