Carnifex

4/7/468 AC, Main Parade Field, Isla Real

"I've seen you under fire, Sergeant Major, and I've never seen you look nervous like today."

"Sir . . . fuck you, sir," McNamara answered. "T'isn't every day a man gets married. And it's almost never a man marries a woman like Artemisia. If I'm nervous . . . "

"You have a right to be, Mac," Carrera answered, gently. "I just like pulling your leg and needling you. Because, you know, if I didn't know you were watching me, there's a half dozen times, over the years, that I'd have been gibbering. By God, I've a right to needle you. If only for the goddamned bed thumping that's kept me up every night but the last few."

To that McNamara had no answer, but only a sort of a question. "It worries me, sir, you know? I'm pushing sixty. She's less t'an half my age. I've got to, you know . . . get the gettin' while the gettin's good. T'e day's not long off . . . "

"My ass."

* * *

A white tent sat not far from where McNamara and Carrera traded jibes and worries. In the tent Lourdes and a bevy of bridesmaids fussed and fluttered around Artemisia Jimenez, fluffing, primping, and generally polishing. She looked amazing.

"Does my ass look fat in this, Lourdes?" Artemisia asked, worriedly.

Lourdes looked. I should have such an ass, she thought. Then she looked again. "No, Arti, your rear end is not fat. But unless I'm much mistaken you've grown a bra cup size. How many months along are you."

Artemisia smiled wickedly. "Six weeks. I had to, don't you see? He might have backed out."

"Does Mac know?"

"I was going to tell him tonight. Otherwise, he'll be so worried about me . . . hell, this is John McNamara we're talking about; he'd be so embarrassed at our being caught jumping the gun; he'd probably blow his lines. And those, he must get right."

"And besides," Lourdes said, drily, "if he screws this up enough to delay the wedding, you'll need a new dress, won't you?"

Artemisia dimpled. "So you see my point in not upsetting him, right?"

* * *

"You've upset the signifers and some of the tribunes," Carrera said, pointing with his chin at two sets of bleachers filled to overflowing with sixty or more junior officers, all in dress whites and every man wearing a black armband.

"Young punks," McNamara said, when he saw.

"It's a compliment, Sergeant Major. Take it that way."

"I suppose so," he admitted, with bad grace. "T'ough if t'ey t'tought about it, t'ey'd realize t'eir lives are about to get a lot more pleasant when I have somet'ing to do besides ride t'eir asses."

"That's one way to look at it," Carrera agreed. "They really ought—" He hushed suddenly, even as the crowd did (for ringing the field there were thousands of legionaries, plus their families, who had come to watch).

Artemisia, escorted by her uncle, Xavier, brilliant in his dress whites, had emerged from the tent. Lourdes followed, as did another eleven girls, about half and half Arti's close in-laws and the girls she had competed against for Miss Balboa. In the bleachers, sixty signifers and junior tribunes looked at the procession and suddenly had the same thought: Well . . . there are some other opportunities out there.

"You are such a lucky bastard, Top. I believe that's the only woman I've ever seen to match my Linda."

The band of the Legion del Cid, mercifully sans drums and bagpipes, picked up the wedding march.

* * *

Oh, God, I'm so nervous, thought Artemisia as she led her party forward along the carpets laid to protect her shoes and dress from the grass. What if I'm not a good wife? What if he gets tired of me? What if . . . ?

Stop being an idiot, Arti, you and he are perfect together. It's going to be wonderful.

But what if my tits sag after the baby comes?

Then you get pregnant again and reinflate them.

But what if he get tired of my cooking?

Then you hire a cook. Lourdes already said that Patricio's gift to us is "impressive and of many parts." Besides, John's salary with the Legion, plus his retired pay from the FS Army, is huge by Balboan standards. And I can work, too. And then, too, Uncle Xavier is going to contribute.

But what if—?

* * *

"I'm sooo glad t'at's over, sir," McNamara whispered.

Carrera answered, "Men don't not enjoy the ceremony, generally, Top, but endure it because of the state it formalizes. By the way, did you know you're going to be a daddy?"

Mac sighed, embarrassed. "She hasn't told me, but, yeah . . . I kinda figured it out."

Smiling, Carrera chided, "Bad, wicked, naughty sergeant major. Bad, wicked, evil, naughty, bad, bad, bad sergeant major. You should be ashamed. Oh . . . and Lourdes and I would like to stand as godparents, if that's okay with you and Arti."

"We'd be honored, sir."

* * *

"You got to be focking shittin' me, sir. I mean . . . well . . . we knew Lourdes had set up the honeymoon but . . . "

Carrera just smiled as there, on the parade field, a smallish airship descended and lowered ropes to half a dozen waiting heavy-duty recovery trucks packed to the brim with sandbags. Chartering the thing had cost a not-inconsiderable fortune but for his sergeant major, no expense was too great.

"Shitting you about what, Top?" Carrera asked. "You and I are just simple soldiers. This kind of thing—an airship honeymoon to tour all of Colombia del Norte—seems too much to us. But she is . . . was Miss Balboa and she will, by God, have a honeymoon to set the continent wild."

McNamara scoffed. "T'at ain't it, you sneaky bastard. I know you. You ain't t'at nice. What you're doing is sending us on a whirlwind recruitin' tour, ain't you?"

Rather than deny it, exactly, Carrera answered, "Siegel's going with you as a sort of aide de camp. You and he and Arti are going to entertain every goddamned General Staff in Colombia Latina on your trip."

"T'at's nonsense, boss, no offense. T'ose arrogant assholes won't even talk to no non-com. Not even one wit' Miss Balboa on his arm."

"Who says you're a non-com?" Carrera asked. He pointed at Siegel, standing not far away. Siegel came running bearing a carved silverwood box about two feet in length and perhaps four inches on a side. Siegel, wearing a huge smirk, stopped, standing at attention and holding the box out. Carrera opened it and drew from it a baton, about eighteen inches in length and an inch in diameter. The baton was gold colored, as were all sergeants major's batons. This one, however, was encircled by harpy eagles spiraling down its length. They looked like, and were, solid gold. There was a jewelry store in Ciudad Balboa that really wanted to keep in the Legion's good graces.

The crowd hushed. Rumors had suggested something like this. At the central reviewing stand Tom Christian announced, "Attention to orders."

"You see, Top," Carrera explained, "there was such a thing as a praetorian prefect. Then, too, the origin of your rank, back on Old Earth, was "Sergeant Major-General . . . "

* * *

What was probably the most finely tuned, spotlessly clean armored vehicle not merely on this world, but on two worlds and in the history of two worlds, pulled up by the gazebo. The band picked up the Wedding March again while Mac and Artemisia, both still in white, walked to it. They were pelted by rice and chorley seed the entire way.

At the tank, McNamara put his hands on Arti's still-narrow waist and lifted her to a cushion thoughtfully placed behind the turret. He then scrambled up to stand atop the tank where he bent to lift his new wife to her feet. Gently—no mean feat given the nature of Volgan-built tanks—the armored vehicle trundled off to just underneath the airship. There, they dismounted in reverse order and began to ascend the gangway the airship had lowered. They stopped twice on the way up, Artemisia with tears in her eyes, to wave to the crowd.

Waving back, crying, Lourdes whispered to her husband, "Weddings do something to me. They make me horny. Take me home and fuck me. Now."

"Orders are orders," Carrera answered, reaching over gently to wipe away the tears flowing from Lourdes' huge brown eyes. "And those orders, my lovely wife, are always a joy to obey."