Clan and Crown

24

They rode hard through foothills covered with thorny scrub. Just before midday, the stark battlements of Castle Armagh loomed up ahead. Ganton- spurred his horse and rode up alongside Rick. "Not the most comfortable of places, but yet a welcome sight," he said.

"Aye, Majesty." Forty miles in the saddle. Major Assburns. Not a joke to tell the king, but bloody hell my arse is sore!

"Your County is peaceful," Ganton said. "I had half thought so small a party might meet up with robbers."

"It could have been," Rick acknowledged. The party they'd taken to visit Lord Ajacias in the Sutmarg had been enormous: Guards, Mounted Archers, Yanulf's train of scribes and priests and acolytes, musicians, courtiers… The intention had been to eat up Ajacias's substance, and they'd done that. There were only ten in the group riding to Armagh. The others had been sent back to the capital, or up the Littlescarp to aid Murphy, or, like Yanulf, followed at a more leisurely pace.

"Perhaps messengers already await us at Ar-'magh," Ganton suggested. "From the University."

"Possible," Rick conceded.

"By Yatar, I like this!" Ganton shouted. "To ride hard, all day and half the night! To eat venison roasted over a camp fire, and sleep in furs on the ground- hardships, but we do this as friends, without advisors, without endless ceremony. I have not felt so alive since-since I led men to battle!"

"It can be a good feeling." Until the battle's over, and you have to look at the butcher's bill.

"I wish we had gone with the Lord Mason," Ganton said.

Rick shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. "If the Lord Mason and the Guard cannot relieve the Lord Murphy, we two would be of little use."

Ganton nodded seriously. "Aye. We must needs send an army, and only you and I can arrange that, so we are needed here. I know this, but it galls me to send my friends where I cannot go."

"Me too, sire. But it's part of leadership, to learn to be sensible. The semaphore will tell us when Mason gets back to Castle Dravan and is on his way here. Meantime, we have plenty to do."

"Aye." Ganton stood in his stirrups and turned. "Hanzar!" he shouted. "Ride ahead and tell them the Wanax of Drantos comes to guest with the Eqeta of Cheim."

Rick shifted his weight again. At least one of his problems was about to solve itself. In an hour he'd get a hot bath, and there was still half a tube of Preparation H…

Sergeant Chester Waibrook came out of the low doorway followed- by two Guardsmen. Their backs were bent under the load of heavy crates wrapped in mylar sheeting. Walbrook sent the Guards ahead with acolyte torchbearers, then ticked off entries in his notebook. Finally he nodded to Rick. "That's the lot of it, sir."

Rick turned to the blue robed priest. "You may seal the caves."

Apelles motioned to his acolytes.

Rick suppressed a grin. Somebody's got to work. Who should it be, me? Not that I won't get my chance, with Mason coming in tomorrow. And the Grand Council of Drantos to meet in another ten-day. First things first, get this ammunition off to Castle Dravan. It'll be needed.

The door was heavy wood with heavily greased thick ironwork, set firmly into carved stone lintels deep in the bowels of Castle Armagh. "This is fine work," Rick said. "I have not seen its like in Drantos."

Apelles nodded. "I too was impressed, lord, and wished to have another like it, but alas, when I inquired, I found that is not to be. The mason was from the southern Roman provinces, the lands south of Tamaerthon where Roman law is weak. He had got a Roman matron with child, but fled before he could be brought before the magistrates. How he came here I know not, but so I was told."

"And now?"

Apelles shook his head sadly. "He had learned nothing, for he bedded the daughter of the local village chief. Her father and brothers killed him."

Sergeant Walbrook chuckled. "It happens. Too bad, though. That's a good storage place for the ammunition." He eyed Apelles, then changed to English. "Captain, are you sure you want these locals to guard our ammo?"

"You have a better plan? Want to sit guard over it yourself?"

"No, sir."

"It would be soft duty, but I can't spare troops for that," Rick said. "And the rest of this place is theirs anyway." He turned to Apelles. "We can go now."

Apelles motioned to the acolytes. Two carried torches and led the way uphill. The rest fell in behind Rick, Walbrook, and Apelles. Mason would have a fit, Rick thought.

The acolytes led the way up, then turned sharply left and down again. The smell of ammonia, always present in the caves, grew stronger. The trail narrowed. It was still a full yard wide, but seemed narrower because to their left was a sheer drop into black nothingness too deep for Rick's flashlight to illuminate.

Across the ten-yard gap was a rock wall covered with a bulbous slimy mass hung over with icicles and ammonia droplets. There was a slight wind through the cave, enough to bring in fresh air; otherwise they would not have been able to breathe because of the ammonia.

"Hard to believe that damn iceplant reaches all the way up to the surface," Walbrook said. "I reckon we're three hundred feet down."

"Yeah, the root system is amazing," Rick agreed. "I'm even more amazed at how it makes ice." The local name for the plant was "The Protector." It was sacred to Yatar; legend had it that the nearer the rogue star came to Tran, the more efficient the icemaking capabilities of the Protector. That was interesting enough that Rick had asked for weekly measurements, but so far the data were insufficient for any real conclusions.

The acolytes hurried them through this area. The entrance and main corridor of the cave were far too large-to be kept secret, but somewhere nearby the cave branched into a labyrinth of ammonia-filled passages that only Yatar's servants could enter. Grain and meat were stored there in the ice, gifts to Yatar-gifts to be returned from Yatar to his people during the worst seasons of The Time.

"We have not guarded weapons before," Apelles said. He paused a moment as if making up his mind. "And I am told it would be more fitting that those consecrated to Vothan One-eye guard your weapons."

"I have heard this also," Rick said. Not least from the Vothan priesthood. "But the servants of Yatar have always held the Caves of the Protector, and have distributed the gifts of Yatar fairly and with honor. How should I change what has always served the people and the god alike?"

Apelles bowed to acknowledge the compliment.

Sharp lad, Rick thought. Get my opinion now, while nobody's listening. Next he'll try to get me to say it in public. He's learning his bureaucratic skills- and I can't even complain, since we brought in Roman scribes to teach them how to set up a bureaucracy.

Christ, I hate paperwork! But we can't live without it. It takes a quart of wheat every day to feed a man. A bushel of oats to feed a war horse. The food has to come from somewhere. Food, wagons, weapons, ammunition-all the details of keeping an army in the field, and then there's food for all the peasants growing madweed. We're getting very dependent on this bureaucracy, which means the priests of Yatar. So long as Yanulf is in charge of the Yatar cult in Drantos, that's all right. But he won't live forever…

As they reached the cave entrance, a junior acolyte ran up to them. "Master Apelles," he shouted. "Master, you are to tell the Lord Rick that the Lady Tylara has arrived."

Tylara was lovely. She ran toward him, but before she could reach him they were intercepted by a tiny dark-haired bombshell. "Daddy!" she screamed. Rick scooped Isobel up and held her high, while she laughed, and her hounds bared their canine teeth and growled that anyone, even the master, would so treat their charge.

"She's grown so," Rick said.

"They do, lord," Erinia the nursemaid said. She sniffed, her comment on men who let their children grow up without them.

"And the boy?" Rick asked.

"He sleeps, lord," Erinia said. "As well, after a ride like today's." She spoke with a thick Tamaerthan accent, and her manners were of the clans, not the households of Drantos. There would be no point in asking her to fetch the boy; she'd let him see his son when he woke, and not before.

There was no talking with Tylara, either, not while Isobel was there. She clutched at Rick and laughed, and when he put her down she held his legs.

So little time, Rick thought. So damned little time to spend with them, and so much to do.

"How could I not come?" Tylara said when they were alone at last. "Dravan is our home, and these Westmen menace it. Should I then stay in Tamaerthon?"

Rick laughed. "I hoped you would come." He went to her.

She returned his kisses, then pushed his hands firmly away. "Later. First we talk alone. Then with the Wanax. And then we bathe." She kissed him again. "It will not be so long…

"Long enough." He went back to the writing table where her last letters lay. "The University," he said. "You say it may not be safe."

She shrugged. "The minor clans and lawless ones see much wealth and few soldiers in a town bordered by wild hills and lochs. They dream of more booty taken in hours than they will see in their lives. Can you blame them for those dreams?"

"Maybe not, but we can't let it happen. Is it safe there?"

"For the moment. Until Mac Clallan Muir must withdraw his men. Rick, that may not be so long, unless you have gold and grain to send. If they are to feed their children, the dunnhie wassails must go and work their lands. My father cannot forever keep them as Guardsmen, and he cannot send other clans whose chiefs have no love for this place where crofters are taught to defeat warriors."

"I know. I suppose the first thing is to send some Drantos troops to help keep watch. Only I'd want to send Chelm soldiers, and we'll need them all against the Westmen. I'll need Caradoc and his archers in the west, too."

"Strip away Caradoc's archers, and your University will no last the season," Tylara said. "Your star-men will needs be alert all the time, and even so there are few enough of them to face a thousand hillmen."

"The University must survive, Tylara."

She had been ready to reply, but something in his voice stopped her. "At the expense of our lands?

"At all expense. Tylara, every six hundred years this planet, all of it, all its peoples, are knocked back into a dark age. That has to stop. Has to, and the University is the only way."

"Then we must find ways to protect our University," she said. "It too will be part of our children's rightful inheritance. We must preserve Chelm as well- and I doubt not that I have for a husband the only man alive who can do all that."

The rooms were perfect duplicates of Rick's office suite in Castle Dravan: small office with writing desk, larger conference room with slab table and side boards with wine cruets. The walls either had maps painted on them, or were smooth-surfaced and whitewashed for writing. A charcoal brazier stood in one corner, and a rack for cloaks and weapons in another. Apelles had even duplicated the carvings on the chairs…

"Within a ten-day we meet with the Grand Council," Rick said. "And before that, we'll meet with Lucius and Octavia and Drumold. But you're my council."

Tylara nodded agreement from her place at the other end of the table. Between them sat Elliot, Gwen, Warner, and Art Mason. "This is not the Council of Chelm," Tylara said. "Nor any lawful group. Yet-"

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. This was a meeting of the starmen who held the power of gods. For a moment she seemed very vulnerable.

"I think you'll like Octavia," Gwen said. "That is, if you can get Ganton to spare her for a couple of hours." They all grinned at that; they'd hardly seen her since she arrived with Gwen and Warner.

First came reports. University research projects. The quest for movable type- "-but I wouldn't print any books yet," Gwen concluded.

"Why not?" Rick asked.

"Because the Shalnuksis can't possibly misunderstand their significance," Gwen said. "They'd know they were faced with a major outbreak of technology. God knows what they'd do."

"They may anyway," Rick said.

"Also, do you want to just throw all these changes at Tran?" Gwen asked. "You're going to lose control of the situation anyway-"

Rick saw Tylara's frown.

"— and some changes are more unsettling than others."

"I'll think about it. Meanwhile, keep working on it," Rick said. He sighed heavily. "We haven't a lot of — time. Next order of business. Elliot, you were with Parsons. He tried to run things by force. I've used a different policy. What do the men think of my way, now that Parsons is dead?"

"Cap'n, I was dead wrong about you, and I've said so," Elliot said.

"I'm not after an apology, Sergeant Major. I want an assessment of the situation."

"Sir." He looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Colonel Parsons had not yet attempted to plant surinomaz, but it's reasonable to suppose he'd have done no better at that than he did in holding the land," Elliot said. "While he was in command, we lost Corporal Hartford to guerrilla activity. Five more troopers were severely wounded. A total of twenty-three successfully deserted.

"Since you took command, Private Reznick has been killed in action, and three others have been severely wounded, all in battles. There have been no losses to guerrillas. Ten former deserters, eleven counting Mr. Mason, have returned to duty, and nobody has run off. Troop morale is high. We have over six hundred acres in surinomaz, and I guess there's no revolt brewing out there even if the peasants aren't too happy about growing the stuff." He shrugged. "On the evidence, your way works."

"And the men realize that?"

"Most," Elliot said. "All that count."

Meaning there are things you aren't telling me, Rick thought. But no point to that now. "The key to 'my method' has been to cooperate with the legitimate rulers here."

"You have done more than this. You have become one of us," Tylara said.

"The point is, I've tried to regularize our positions. One key to that is Wanax Ganton. Another has been the triple alliance of Drantos, Tamaerthon, and Rome."

"I would place your friendship with Yanulf and the Priesthood of Yatar at equal importance," Tylara said. "Especially as The Time approaches. Husband, no one has more admiration for you than I. I also know that you do not recite your accomplishments to gather praise from us. What is it you wish to say?"

"I have a policy question," Rick said. "But I wanted everybody to look at it from the right direction. The question is-what do we do about Ganton?"

"What should we do?" Gwen asked. "I mean, what are the choices?"

"You've watched him with Octavia. That's the first question, do we encourage this match? Beyond that. Do we want him to be Caesar?"

"Does he want to be?" Gwen asked. "Not that it would be automatic. The position isn't really hereditary."

"True," Rick said. "Look, here's the situation. The Westmen are coming down off their plains. Lots of them. They're pretty good troops. Probably can't take castles-" he looked to Mason for confirmation.

"Not by storm," Mason said. "Not stone ones, anyway. But they can wipe up anything else. Murphy had the best ditch, logs, and earth system I've seen on this planet, and he wouldn't have been able to hold much longer-would have lost already if it hadn't been for the battle rifles."

"So what'd you do with him?" Warner asked.

"He's set up in that castle Harkon used to have," Mason said. "With a lot of peasants to guard. He'll be okay until the food runs out."

"So we can hold castles, but not the land," Warner said. "So how do we feed those people?"

"Going to be worse than that," Mason said. "Below the Littlescarp things are too wet. Up on the high plains, that hot wind that comes down from the desert is drying things out."

"Probably the source of some of our rain," Warner mused.

"Could be," Mason said. "But for sure it won't do the crops much good. I don't know what the climate's going to be like, but up in the high plains it's been the driest spring anyone can remember."

Gwen was studying the map on the far wall. "Could we abandon the high plains?"

"It is my land," Tylara said. "Mine and Rick's."

"It's nobody's land if there's nothing to eat," Rick said.

"Captain, you have to hold it anyway," Mason said. "Otherwise the Westmen will ride right across to the Littlescarp and come down into Drantos proper. I'd rather fight them up there where they don't have so much room to spread out."

"The legends are relatively clear," Gwen said. "The Westmen swept all the way to the gates of Rome during one of the times of turmoil. Possibly the last one."

"So we'll have to stop them. Only who commands?" Rick asked. "Me?"

"You can't," Elliot said. "The Shalnuksis are coming, and you've got to deal with them. And somebody's got to keep the surinomaz crop growing-"

"There's the University situation, too," Gwen said. "It really is getting serious."

"Tylara told me," Rick said.

"Yes, the minor clans see much booty and little danger," Tylara said.

"Which makes for sticky diplomacy with Mac Clallan Muir, and you'll be personally needed," Gwen said.

"More than that, Captain," Elliot said. "If you send a sizable army up into drought country, the logistics are going to get sticky. With Apelles and his clerks to help I can probably handle most of the administration, but somebody's got to enforce our decrees. There's nobody except you to stand up to the barons."

"Can Caradoc command?" Warner asked.

"I suppose he must go," Gwen said.

"Yes, he'll be needed out there, but he can't be commander," Rick said. "He hasn't enough rank yet. We can groom him for promotion after this. But it'll be a long campaign."

"Then you certainly cannot go," Gwen said.

"Yeah," Rick said. "But more than one empire has come apart because it couldn't solve the problem of nomad light cavalry. We've got better armor and equipment, but Murphy says there'll be a lot of Westmen. It'll take discipline to beat them."

"For a long war that requires discipline, count not on Drantos warriors," Tylara said. "Even those of Chelm."

"That's the problem. The Westmen won't fight until they've got an advantage. We can win every ten-day and get nowhere, but any defeat can be disaster," Rick said. At Manzikert the Byzantines won the day but at dusk became scattered. They were cut up in detail. After that Alp Arslan's Turks ravaged Asia Minor so thoroughly that when the Crusaders went through a generation later they found brambles growing in what had once been thriving cities.

"If you want disciplined troops, you need Romans," Gwen said. "You could ask Caesar for a legion or two. Oh-of course! There are only two men in Drantos who could command Romans. You and young Ganton. And if he leads Roman soldiers in a successful battle, then he really is eligible to become Caesar."

Tylara looked at Gwen in surprise, then nodded agreement. "So this is what you meant when you began. When you asked what we are to do with Wanax Ganton." She shook her head slowly. "To ask such a question is high treason-my lord, you have been with Ganton these past four ten-days. You must know better than we what we must do. As you always do."

"I don't know," Rick said. "But I don't see we've much choice. Can we put together a disciplined force without Romans?"

"Only if you lead it," Tylara said. The others nodded agreement.

"So we need Romans. Can anyone command except the Wanax?"

"Only Publius," Tylara said. "He might command both Romans and our bheromen." Rick winced, and Tylara nodded agreement. "Aye, he is quarrelsome and likes not 'barbarians.' And I think he will like even less this conceit of Ganton as Caesar."

"There's an understatement," Gwen said. "But you won't get Publius to come west anyway. He's got all he can do as Marselius's proconsul."

"I agree," Tylara said. "But though Romans will obey their officers, the bheromen will not follow Roman legates. And we cannot trust the defense of our western lands to Romans alone."

"What's the rest of it, Captain?" Warner asked. "You obviously thought this far already." Elliot gave Larry Warner a sour look, but still nodded agreement.

"First thing, if we've got Roman armies in the west, we want Dravan held by somebody trustworthy, which means Tylara."

There were murmurs of agreement.

They all agree. Why not? They won't be separated from their families. Well, Caradoc will. And Reznick's kids won't ever see him again. We didn't even ask them. Rick lifted a small bag onto the table. "These are Reznick's personal effects," he said. "Some of the stuff goes to his wives."

"What'll happen to them?" Warner asked.

"Dirdre wants to take the kids and go stay with Murphy," Rick said. He shrugged. "She thinks the kids will do better with their father's partner. There's nothing left for her back south, and she's not happy here."

"That's Honeypie," Warner said. "What about Marva?"

"She has no plans."

"They don't have any status here in Drantos," Gwen said. "Both would be welcome at the University, where it's not so important-"

"We'll ask Marva. Dirdre's pretty well decided," Rick said. He opened the bag. "The point is, most of his personal gear goes to Dirdre and Marva, but we decide who gets star weapons." He took out a.45 Colt automatic and opened the action. "Unless somebody objects, this goes to Tylara. She'll need it."

Rick hadn't expected any objections, and there weren't any. He slid it down the table. Mason caught it and handed it on to Tylara. She let it rest on the table in front of her.

"Lafe had another personal weapon," Rick said. "This Browning automatic. I think we ought to give it to Ganton." He worked the action a couple of times. "Nice piece. Elliot, do you think the troops will object?"

"I was just wondering about that, Captain," Elliot said. "No, I don't think so. It makes sense, the way you've got things set up. We can probably outdraw him anyway…"

"There is perhaps a better way," Tylara said. "Have the Ladies Dirdre and Marva give it to Wanax Ganton in the name of Lord Murphy. If he accepts it before the Council it will settle the question of their nobility-and by inference, that of all the consorts of starmen."

"He's sure not going to refuse," Rick said. "You don't mind this wholesale elevation of commoners?"

Tylara laughed. "What was I, except the daughter of Mac Clallan Muir, until I married the Eqeta of Chelm? Of all on Tran, I am least likely to object to giving widows their rights."

"All right. That's two problems done. One more. The University. I'll send some Drantos troops up- maybe their officers can become students. But I'm also going to ask Marselius for a cohort of Romans."

Everyone looked at Tylara. She spread her hands. "I like not legions coming west, and I like this no more. Romans in Tamaerthon! But I see the need, and I believe my father and my brother will also. But there may be trouble with the other clans."

"Maybe some of them would like to volunteer for the war," Mason said. "Come west with Caradoc."

"Why would they go?" Warner asked.

"Loot." Mason reached into his pocket and came out with a length of intricately plaited golden wire. "The Westmen carry everything they own, and most have some gold."

"That is well conceived," Tylara said. "It may be that no small number of landless ones will come." She laughed. "I think they will cause no problems in Chelm!"

They'd sure as hell better not, Rick thought.

"Might even settle some of them up there," Mason said. "There's lots of good land gone to ruin. Be more by the time the Westmen get done. Not much rain this year, but it's good land even so. Parts are a lot like Tamaerthon."

"That takes care of some of the hotheads," Warner said. "But what we really need is to unify Tamaerthon under Mac Clallan Muir."

"It will not be," Tylara said. "There is too much jealousy. Lord Rick has brought a crown to the clans, but he cannot give it to my father. Nor can he take it himself."

"Not and work with Ganton," Elliot agreed.

Another problem, Rick thought. Like a ticking time bomb. Cross that one when we come to it. "We are agreed, then?" he asked. "Then I'll send for the others." One meeting done, two to go.