King David's Spaceship

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE HUNTING LODGE

Twelve light-years from Makassar Malcolm Dougal cursed as he followed a winding road uphill through thick forests. The forest had been a game preserve for all the centuries since the Secession Wars had devastated Prince Samual’s World, but Dougal ignored its loveliness, as he ignored the bird songs and the calls of the corkborers.

He did not know that the trees themselves had been imported from Earth. If he had, he would have cursed them, as he cursed everything of Earth.

He wore plain kilts. His round face, always rabbit-like in appearance, was screwed into a grimace that made him look less harmless than he usually did, but still few would have guessed his occupation. He considered his appearance an asset; as he sometimes said in rare moments when he could relax with his friends, what should a secret policeman look like?

A corkborer fluttered past, and Dougal actually lashed out at it, although he usually enjoyed the antics of the small flying mammals. Others darted near in curiosity, but Dougal took no notice. As he neared the lodge he muttered more curses.

Twenty years, he thought to himself. No. Be fair. More like fifty. Damn the Empire of Man! Where was the Empire when we needed help? When we were trying to rebuild a civilization out of radioactive ash and ruined cities? And now, with our own spaceships not more than fifty years away, the Empire has come — and they won’t give us fifty years. They won’t give us any time at all.

They’ve come, and I must meet the king in secrecy in this lonely place …

It disturbed Dougal’s sense of majesty. Instead of walking up this wooded hill to a lonely log cabin, he should be approaching his sovereign across a purple carpet, or meeting him privately in the working office behind the Audience Chamber. Now those rooms could not be trusted. Nothing could be trusted. The Empire had ears everywhere.

They’ll not learn this secret!

But they might. Fear warps us all, he thought. And so I meet King David out here, and not even the royal guardsmen know where His Majesty has gone.

The king’s instructions were explicit: Dougal was to tell no one of this meeting, and His Majesty would be alone. No one, not even the guardsmen, were to know the meeting had taken place. Only two men in the universe were to know that Dougal and King David were meeting here.

More did, of course. Malcolm had provided men to cover the hunting lodge. But they were reliable men, absolutely reliable, men who could be trusted to—

“Halt!” Two men stood in the deep alcove of the lodge doorway. Dougal recognized them as guards officers out of uniform. They carried both pistols and rifles, and they stood alertly. One eyed Dougal coldly, then nodded. “Pass, my lord.”

But — why? Dougal wondered. As he entered the lodge he had an even greater shock, for the king was not alone under the high-beamed ceiling.

“Our greetings, my lord,” David said formally. “We trust you are well.”

“Thank you, yes, Sire.” Dougal bowed to the king, then to the other man.

In contrast to King David’s handsome youthfulness, the Prime Minister was old. His face was wrinkled, and his belly spilled over his waistband. Malcolm Dougal was quite aware that he would probably look much like Sir

Giles Og in thirty years — except that he did not expect to live thirty more years. His occupation made that highly improbable.

“I had understood this meeting was to be secret, Majesty,” Dougal said.

King David nodded. “It was and it is. Tell me, my lord, how many of your secret police do you have outside?”

Malcolm Dougal said nothing. The king nodded again. “And as I knew you would not let me come here alone, I saw no harm in bringing a few guardsmen as well. Trustworthy guardsmen.”

“And Sir Giles?” Malcolm asked.

“He’s the reason for the meeting. Malcolm, the budget’s no good. Sir Giles must have more money or the administration is going to collapse.”

“Raise taxes,” Dougal said.

Sir Giles’s voice was quite clear and steady, unlike his appearance. His orator’s voice and timing had been a major reason for his rise through Parliament. “I cannot in good conscience ask for higher taxes, my lord. We have the highest taxes in our history at this moment. Yet, between the wars, the mysterious expedition to-” He hesitated over the name. “To Makassar, and the growing amounts the secret police absorb, more than half the kingdom’s revenues have vanished. With such high taxes we should not have financial problems — but we do. I must know why.”

“No, “Malcolm said.

“I think we must tell him,” the king said.

“Sire! Your promise-”

King David shrugged. “I gave you my word, Malcolm. I won’t break it. Here, let’s sit down and end the formalities. There’s a lot to talk about. Get us a drink, will you, Sir Giles?”

King David sat in a rustic armchair before an open fire and waved the others to join him. He was not large, and although his features were handsome in shape and design, his face had been disfigured by an early disease, so that the gentlemen of the bedchamber had their work cut out before public appearances. He had not bothered with makeup for this meeting. The small scars gave him a rugged appearance, adding to his look of determination.

“His Majesty has told me nothing,” Sir Giles said. He brought small glasses and a bottle of grua and set them on a table near the king’s chair. “He told me only that it is vital to the realm that the large sums spent by your office continue.” Sir Giles paused. “I am a loyalist, and I appreciate the necessity for police to consolidate our new acquisitions, but I am not prepared to pay for my own enslavement, by the crown or by anyone else.”

Dougal laughed. “I do not have in mind enslaving the citizens of Haven, Sir Giles. Quite the opposite—”

“You will pardon my saying that as we do not know where the money goes, we have no evidence of your intentions—”

“The work is vital to the entire planet,” King David said. “My word on it.”

“And mine,” Dougal added.

“Not enough,” Sir Giles said. “Not enough at all.”

“I see.” Dougal regarded the Prime Minister coldly. “Neither my word nor the king’s is good enough—”

“Of course not.” The older man lifted his glass. “Your health.” They drank. “I am loyal to the dynasty, but I am also loyal to the Constitution. If you cannot entrust me with your secrets, I belong not in the government but in opposition.”

“Sir Giles has brought his resignation,” the king said.

“I see.” Dougal stared into the crackling fire. Without Sir Giles the coalition supporting the government would collapse. The coalition was needed.

Or was it? Could the king rule without a government? Malcolm dismissed the thought sadly. The secret police were efficient, but they would be unable to hold on against an enraged populace. The rights of Parliament had been easily won from King David’s father, but won easily or not they would not be lightly surrendered.

And government by terror would never produce what Prince Samual’s World needed.

Would anything?

Malcolm quickly reached a decision. “I’m going to tell you a story, Sir Giles. After you’ve heard it, you will never be far from one of my men. If you ever betray us—”

“Spare me your threats.”

“They are not threats. I hoped to persuade you not to ask to hear.”

Sir Giles sat quietly for a moment. “I almost believe you have a good reason for what you’re doing—”

“I do.”

“But I will not give up the Constitution for an unknown reason. Tell your story. But I promise you only that I will keep your secret. I do not promise to help in whatever-”

“You’ll help once you know,” Dougal said. “My only problem is knowing where to begin.” He stared into the fire. “In King John’s time Haven became the largest single state on Samual. He consolidated a number of petty princedoms and city-states, and it looked for a while as if the old dreams of a single government on this planet would be realized. But the next step was Orleans, and the Orleanists wouldn’t join. The wars went on. Eventually we developed new industries, and unification looked possible again. Except that everything was wasted on wars. Every effort at conquest of the Orleans Republic failed.”

“We nearly had them beaten,” King David mused. “One more campaign—”

“Almost,” Sir Giles said. “Until that damned Colonel MacKinnie of theirs beat us at Blanthern Pass. Iron Man MacKinnie — my lord, I am familiar with our history. What has this to do with the budget? Orleans is our duchy now—”

“It is our duchy because the Imperials came and their Marines helped us defeat Orleans,” King David said quietly.

Malcolm nodded. “Precisely. The Imperials allied with

Haven, and they are helping us establish a unified government on Samual. There’s nothing on the planet that can stand up to their weapons.” He laughed bitterly. “So after ten generations of dreaming about it, we’re getting unification handed to us.”

“But we’re getting it,” Sir Giles said. “More slowly than I like.”

“It goes slowly and it costs money,” Dougal said. “Both for a reason.”

“Yes.” The young king’s voice was hard. “Our goal is to unify the planet, not enslave it. The Imperials will do that soon enough.”

“Sire?” Sir Giles carefully set his glass on the table. “The Imperials are Haven’s ally. How can they enslave us? They’ve fewer than fifty people on the planet.”

“Allies.” Dougal was contemptuous. “Everyone assumed they would be allies, Sir Giles. And they did help us with Orleans. But my agents have found out why they did. They intend to use us to unify the planet, then bring in colonists from other worlds. Traders. Petty bureaucrats who want to be aristocrats and who’ll become our nobility. We will have damned little say in that government.”

The Prime Minister was silent for a long moment. The only sounds came from the forest, and from the popping of the logs in the fireplace. “I would not have thought it of them,” he said finally. “The Navy officers do not act like conquerors. They do not seem such villains.”

“They’re more dangerous than villains.” Dougal spoke rapidly now. “They’re fanatics. The Imperial Navy intends to unify the human race so it can never again fight an interstellar war. If they have to kill off half of mankind to justify Lysander’s title as ‘Emperor of Humanity’ they’ll do it.”

“Just as we were willing to unify Samual by conquest,” David said.

“I see that well enough,” Dougal said. “I know what motivates them. The same goal motivates me. If I’d been an Orlean citizen I hope I’d have had sense enough to see that unification was necessary, and worked to gain some status in the union. Which is what we must do for Samual within the Empire.” The policeman’s voice rose in angry tension. “And by God we’ll outwit them yet!”

Sir Giles leaned forward. “What — what are you doing? We can’t fight the Empire—”

“No. The best we have couldn’t win a single battle,” Dougal said. “But despite that, we can be our own masters yet. They have laws, Sir Giles. They have a Constitution. We can exploit that. One of their rules is that worlds that have space travel enjoy a far higher status than those that don’t. Worlds with space travel control their own domestic affairs, and have representation in the Imperial Parliament—”

“Space travel? But that’s impossible,” Sir Giles protested. His eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You are using the secret funds to build spaceships? How? We know nothing of spaceships—”

“That is the real secret,” Dougal said carefully. “And I would very much rather it remained a secret even from you. It will be the strangest secret you will ever hear, and even a hint — a hint — to the Imperial Navy would destroy all our hopes.”

“I see.” Sir Giles sat again and rested his chin on both hands. The veins on their backs showed darkly against his neat white beard. He turned to the king. “I suppose, Sire, that this hideously expensive expedition to Makassar has something to do with this? That you expect those men to spy out the secrets of spaceships from traveling in them, and bring that knowledge back to us?”

A good cover story, Dougal thought. “Yes.”

“It can’t work,” Sir Giles said. “Sire, my lord, you have not a technical background. I am many years away from my training as an engineer, but I can tell you this: there is not a factory on Prince Samual’s World that could build such a thing even were the Imperials to give us free run of their ships. We haven’t the basic tools, we don’t even know what the problems are. This scheme is madness!”

“There is more,” King David said. “We have hopes for more. We have hopes that our expedition to Makassar will return the most priceless cargo ever to come to Prince Samual’s World. A cargo of freedom.”

“How?”

“Our secret is fragile,” Dougal said. “Worse, the Imperials themselves know Makassar’s secret—”

“This talk of secrets,” Sir Giles said. “You don’t understand at all. Your expedition is no secret. The Navy knows your men went there. As to their orders to spy out the ‘secrets’ of the Navy ships, were you to tell the commandant he would be no more than amused. My lord, you do not appreciate the difficulties involved! It will be a hundred years before we are able to build spacecraft—”

“Perhaps,” Dougal said. “And perhaps not.” There was an ominous silence as Dougal coldly studied the Prime Minister’s face. “You are determined to have it all, aren’t you? You leave me few choices. Either I must tell you the rest or have you killed.”

“Lord Dougal, I forbid it!” The king’s voice was sharp and loud. “I have deliberately turned away from learning of many of the things your police have done in my name, but by Christ you will not sit here and threaten my Prime Minister!”

Dougal spread his hands. “I said I had two choices, Sire.” And another behind that, he thought. My men are outside, and the king has few guardsmen here …

“I had not known you were disloyal,” the king said. “Your thoughts are obvious to one who has grown up at court.”

“I am loyal, Sire,” Dougal protested. “Loyal to Prince Samual’s World, Haven, the dynasty, and you.”

“In that order.”

“Yes, Sire. In that order.” He stood, a small man in plain kilts, unarmed, his rabbit features almost comical, but the room was filled with menace. “Majesty, Sir Giles, there is nothing I will not do to keep this world free! We will not be ruled by outlanders! Prince Samual’s World has been our home for centuries, and what claim has. Sparta or Earth itself to rule us?” He visibly fought for control of himself.

“The secret, Sir Giles?” Dougal’s voice rose. “It is simple enough, so simple that a careless word will doom our great plan.” He smiled wryly. “And I needn’t shout it, eh?” He sat again, and lowered his voice. “There is a building on Makassar, a building which the locals believe to be no more than a temple. But inside it is an old library…”

Sir Giles listened with growing horror. It was obvious that neither Dougal nor the king appreciated the magnitude of the problem they had set themselves. When the policeman had finished talking, Sir Giles poured a drink and thought furiously. How could he tell them?

Simple enough. He couldn’t.

“There. Now do you understand? Will you aid us?” King David asked anxiously.

“Sire, your cause is noble and just,” Sir Giles said. “And certainly the knowledge that your expedition may bring back to us could change our world. But—” He paused, and felt Dougal’s cold stare. “There is more to building a spacecraft than knowledge,” Giles said. “You will grant that I know more of our technical capabilities than you. And I do not think that even with detailed plans we will be able to build a ship.”

“We can try,” Dougal said.

“And this is where all the money has gone.”

“Much of it went to finance the expedition,” Dougal said. “The rest is being invested in expansion of the Haven shipyards, and in establishing a secret military base in the Corliss Grant Hills. We have sent many young scholars there. Always there have been legends of communications without telegraph wires … and already we can do that. The devices are crude, but they work. In the shipyards we are studying metal working, ostensibly to build metal craft that will travel under the sea — but if we can make them water-tight we can make them air-tight as well, to withstand the aether of space. Sir Giles, we are doing all we can—”

And worth doing, too, Sir Giles thought. But not for the reasons you think. There is no possibility of a spaceship. Yet, if I say so, they will kill me. The guardsmen and Dougal’s secret policemen would cooperate on that. There is only one way I will leave this lodge alive.

He rose and went to the desk. “This is my resignation,” he said. He took it and threw it into the fire. “I will help you. But you will forgive me if I am not certain that you will succeed—”

“None of us are,” Dougal said. “We cannot even be certain that MacKinnie will return. But without him there is no hope at all.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN BATAV

The harbor at Batav was lined with stone steps leading to the waterfront, and patrolled by great warships flying the Temple flags and banners, saffron-robed acolytes standing in the bows to challenge newcomers. The harbor entrance was closed by a massive chain stretching between huge rafts at the ends of a log boom.

Loholo explained to the guard boats that they were from Jikar, but at MacKinnie’s orders did not tell them the ship was commanded by men from the stars. One of the patrol boats escorted them past the chain. Subao moved slowly, sails furled, the crew working the sweeps. The bottom was visible below the ship, and gangs of men stood in water to their waists to scoop out mud from the main channel.

“Convicts,” Loholo said. “You don’t want to run afoul of the priesthood here. But they do keep the harbor open. Finest harbor on Makassar.”

They were shown to a gray stone dock, a niche cut into the harbor sea wall and lined with log rafts so that the ship could be tied up without concern for the enormous tides on Makassar. Nearby another crew of convicts strained at pumps to force silt into barges. Another barge had been filled and was headed out to sea.

“The Temple priests run everything here,” Loholo said after they made Subao fast to the raft. “There’ll be one of their junior deacons along in a while to make you an offer on your trade goods. You’ll do best to stall him until you find what the local merchants will pay for part of the cargo, but you’ll have to sell some of it to Their Holinesses. If you don’t, we’ll never leave this harbor.”

MacKinnie stood on the quarterdeck of Subao and watched the traffic along the harbor street in front of him. In contrast to Jikar, there was activity, but not as much as Nathan would have expected for a large city like Batav. There were not many ships moving about in the harbor, either. Draymen unloaded a cargo vessel four rafts down from Subao, but the intervening slips were empty, and there was another large space before the next ship.

High above the harbor stood a chalk-white building, flying the banners of the Temple, great red and blue crosses on a field of black, with a stylized portrayal of the Temple itself at the fly. The old Imperial Library had been built of native granite, and had formed a part of the Vice-regal Palace. Gargoyles and cherubim were carved in stately rows around its cornice, while Corinthian columns held the four porticos at the cardinal compass points. MacKinnie had seen nothing like it on Prince Samual’s World, and found the massive strength of the building impressive despite its ugliness.

“That’s the Temple,” Brett said quietly. He was standing on the opposite corner of the quarterdeck from MacKinnie, with Kleinst and Longway eagerly asking him about the city. “God Himself built it before the Fall, when we were all star men here, and He put all wisdom and knowledge in it. But the men of Makassar were proud, and said that since they had all knowledge, they didn’t need God. In wrath, He struck at the Temple — see, you can see on the side there where part of it was rebuilt. But before He could destroy it, the priests reminded Him of His promises to our people, and He spared the Temple, but took from us the knowledge of how to use the great wisdom in the Temple. Only the priests know, and they don’t know how to translate the words of the angels when they can make them speak at all.”

Brett sniffed loudly. “That’s what the Temple priests will tell you. There was a time when they had believers in every city, and their deacons and acolytes controlled whole duchies and kingdoms. In most places, the true Christians like those in Jikar were a little band forced to hold meetings in secret. But now the Temple people don’t control much more than Batav, and it’s their followers in other cities who meet in secret and fear for their lives. All that happened in two men’s lives, or so I am told.”

“But what would have caused such a rapid transformation of the religious values of a whole society?” Longway asked with interest. “My observation has been that such changes take a long time unless they come with technological changes. We experienced a comparable collapse of the established church on Prince Samual’s World, but gunpowder and discipline and money were more at the root of it than anything else.”

“Star man, I don’t know,” Brett answered. “But strange things have happened to us for many years. The summers are shorter, and the winters colder, and the plainsmen move to the coasts and attack the cities because there is less and less to feed them and their herds in the plains. The people say that God has turned His face from Makassar.”

“Ah,” Kleinst said. Everyone turned to look at the thin-faced scholar, who appeared nearly normal for the first time since going aboard the ship. “Of course. The orbit of Makassar is highly eccentric, and its axial tilt is also high. The two have produced reasonable weather in the Southern Hemisphere for generations, but now they are getting slowly out of phase with each other. The winters will be worse and worse here, until it is the northern part which is inhabitable. Naturally the barbarians flock toward the equator.”

“And of course as they move into the more temperate areas, they destroy the civilizations there,” Longway added. “But this often produces an internal strengthening of the ruling church. Yet I have heard of cases where when there was already schism, the eroding of the civilization would cause many to turn away from the churches, or look to new ones for salvation. Yes.” They stood silently for a moment and watched the guard ship take convicts aboard.

Mary Graham brought wine and chickeest. One of the guardsmen carried the heavy tray for her. During the voyage she had developed amazing skill at producing hot meals, even when the ship was running before gales which MacLean estimated to be over sixty kilometers an hour in strength. She had trained several of the young Makassar guards to assist her, and quickly became absolute mistress of the commissary department of Subao.

“Is that the Temple?” she asked, pointing to the huge structure dominating the city.

“Yes, my lady,” Brett answered. “Five hundred priests and deacons, and two thousand guards are all quartered in the cells carved in that building. Not that their army has done them any good against the plainsmen.”

“But what can the barbarians do against Temple guards?” Mary asked. “You tell me they have no equipment, and the Temple must be wealthy if it has so many soldiers.”

“They will not fight the way the Temple wishes,” Brett answered. “The plainsmen run before the heavy-armored men, and when the Temple horses tire, the chiefs bring their clans back with ropes and many of them ride around the iron men, lacing them to their steeds, pulling them to the ground. Or the plainsmen move aside and let the iron chargers thunder past, then attack from behind.”

“Mobility against heavy cavalry,” MacKinnie muttered. “And the Temple guards are drawn away from the walls so they have no place to rest and re-form their troops.” He nodded. “But, Academician, I am concerned about the Temple. Can the priests hold this city and their relics against the enemy?”

“Not for long,” Longway answered. “If my experience on South Continent is useful, the people of the city will be weary of the fighting, now that their church is no longer thought to be the voice of God. The priests will never be able to rally enough men to hold those walls if the enemy stays at the gates.”

MacKinnie nodded. “I’ve seen the will to fight collapse before. They become concerned with their comforts and neglect their lives, and soon they will lose both. We may have arrived at a critical time.”

“But how dreadful,” Mary said. “All these people. What will happen to them?”

Brett drew a long breath before he answered. “The men will be killed. The prettier of the women will be carried off and if they are fortunate will find places in the herds of one of the warriors. The youngest boys may be taken in by a clan to be raised as plainsmen. The rest, those who would not fight when the walls were taken, will die to amuse the women of the tribes.”

Mary shuddered. “Trader, is there nothing we can do here?” she asked MacKinnie.

“I would not weep for all of the city people, my lady, Brett said. “You have not seen what they do when they find a small band of plainsmen. Life is hard out there, and men do what they have to do.”

They were interrupted by Stark and two guardsmen who had been posted at the end of the pier. “Company coming, sir,” Hal said. “Not what I expected, not those deacons you told me to look out for. Civilians, I’d say.” He pointed to the end of the pier, where two obvious magnates approached. They were guarded by half a dozen well-armed me. “Should I turn out the guard, sir?”

“No, but get as many men as you have ready at the hatches and keep these here on deck. Then come back up when you get the troops posted. Quietly; I don’t want to start trouble if there’s none coming.” MacKinnie watched the group move slowly down the stone pier.

The leader of the group was tall and thin, like a cadaver. He raised his hand, palm toward MacKinnie. “Greetings,” he said. “I hope you had a pleasant journey.”

MacKinnie frowned. He knew what the man was saying, but — suddenly he realized what he had heard. Thestranger was speaking the Imperial language. “Are there any here who understand me?” He switched quickly to a local dialect. “Peace and greetings.”

“Welcome aboard,” MacKinnie answered in what he hoped was the Imperial speech. “And what may I do for Your Honor?”

The man turned to his companion and said something quickly, then looked to MacKinnie in obvious relief. “Thank the Savior, the Navy has come to find us. Our prayers have been answered. When we heard there was a ship from Jikar, we hardly dared hope.”

MacKinnie stared at the small party. The two leaders were both tall and dark, looking nothing like the locals MacKinnie had seen. Their guards, by contrast, were all obviously natives, probably hired swordsmen.

“Come aboard, please,” MacKinnie said. “May we make your guards comfortable with wine and something to eat?”

“Thank you.”

MacKinnie nodded to Todd, sending him scurrying below to find Hal and arrange for refreshments for the guards. The two star men were helped aboard and led to the owner’s cabin below. When they were seated and wine brought, they introduced themselves.

“I am Father Deluca, and this is His Lordship Auxiliary Bishop Laraine. We are representatives of His Eminence the Archbishop Casteliano, Missionary ruler of the Church on this forsaken planet. It is a miracle you have found us.”

“I do not understand, Your Reverence,” Nathan said. “Surely you have means to call the Navy whenever you wish?”

“No, my son,” Bishop Laraine said sadly. “The barbarians have destroyed our transmitter. Brother LeMoyne might have repaired it had they not been so thorough, but in fact we were fortunate to escape with our lives. Two other members of our mission, a brother and a priest, were not so favored, God rest their souls. We made our way to this city, and here we stay, besieged by barbarians, with little gold, no communicator, and afraid even to allow these heathen to know our true mission. They burn heretics here, and they believe us to be such. Not that martyrdom is so frightening, but it would hardly accomplish anything for the faith under the circumstances.”

“I would not contradict His Reverence,” Deluca said, “but in reality these are not heathen. They believe all of the doctrines of the Church except submission to the authority of New Rome. But they also believe they have a divine inspiration, holy relics, enclosed in that Temple of theirs, and that God speaks to them from their Temple. They even have records showing that their bishops have a direct continuity with the first bishops of Makassar. I believe New Rome might rule that they could be accepted in the Church without new ordinations would their hierarchy only submit to authority.”

The bishop shook his head sadly. “What Father Deluca says is true enough, but there is no way to dispel them of their illusions. They truly believe these artifacts of theirs contain Holy Writ, which no doubt they do, there being copies of the Bible in the library, I am sure, but they believe their Temple to be a source of continuing and everlasting revelation.”

“I see,” MacKinnie told them. He drained his glass while he pondered what to tell them. Nathan had no experience at lying to the clergy, his contacts with the priestly orders being limited to one or another of the many varieties of military chaplains who had served with him, and he was vaguely disturbed. He decided on a compromise. “I don’t like to tell you this, Your Reverence, but only part of your problems have been solved by our arrival. We have no transmitter either.” He used the unfamiliar word cautiously, but no one responded. “We do have gold and we can make your stay here more secure, but it will be some time before we can get you back to Jikar. The storm season is coming on, and my native shipmaster tells me there is no way to sail westward during that part of the year. We ran before one westerly gale coming in here, and the seas were dreadful. I am told they get worse.”

Laraine showed no emotion at the words, but Father Deluca half rose from his seat, only to strike his head on the low deck beams above him. He sat down with tears in his eyes, as much from disappointment as the blow. “Then we must stay here in this awful place for another year.” He sighed heavily.

“As God wills,” Laraine said sharply. “Your offer of money is generous, my lord. His Eminence will be pleased. Will you come with us to tell him?”

“They tell me I should wait until the Temple people come to inspect my cargo,” Nathan answered. “After that, I will be honored to meet His Eminence. What does the local priesthood think you are?”

“Merchants despoiled by the barbarians,” Deluca answered. “We thought of fleeing to the nomads and trying to win converts among them, but there are few of us, and the barbarians never listen before they kill. Even the Temple has ceased to send missionaries among them. His Eminence ordered us to remain with him until we were sure there was no chance to win over the Temple hierarchy before sacrificing ourselves.”

Nathan nodded and filled the wineglasses again. It was, he thought, as well that they had lost the device they used to communicate with the Navy. If they hadn’t, he would have had to destroy it himself. The Navy must not be reminded of the library at the same time they thought of Prince Samual’s World. But perhaps these Imperials would be useful. At least he might learn something from them. “You have had no success at convincing the Temple people that their holy relics are nothing more than leftovers from the Old Empire?” he asked.

Deluca shook his head. “We brought Brother LeMoyne, who is both a librarian and trained in physics, hoping to show them, but they will not let us near their sacred relics. No one but the priesthood can touch them. And we, the representatives of the True Church, are turned away like Philistines.”

The bishop smiled. “There is a certain, ah, humor, in the situation, my lord. That we are turned away from the center of this planet’s religion. Or what was once their center, because their authority is fast going. I think now it would have been better had we worked in Jikar first, but of course we couldn’t know that.”

Hal knocked at the doorway. “Sir, those deacon people are here to examine the cargo. They say they want to talk to the master of the ship, and also the owner. There’s fees to pay for using the harbor, and they want to buy all our food and wine.”

Nathan stood, stooping carefully to avoid the deck beams. He had learned that after several painful experiences during the voyage. “If you will excuse me, I will speak to the Temple representatives,” he told them. “Please feel free to enjoy any of the facilities or refreshments. Your Excellency,” he added, bowing.

“Drive a hard bargain with them,” the bishop growled. He waved dismissal.

There were three of the robed Temple deacons on deck. There were also two uniformed guard officers, while a rank of ten swordsmen stood at rigid attention on the pier below. The guard uniforms were blue and crimson with silver decorations, the officers’ hats plumed, and the sergeant of guards carried a gold-headed baton. The discipline of the men, and their weapons, made MacKinnie realize that the Temple commanded a trained fighting force. Or at least they could obey orders. He wondered why, with their discipline, they had not destroyed the barbarians. Too rigid in their tactics, he thought, remembering Vanjynk and the battle on the tide sands.

One of the officers stepped forward from the group around Captain MacLean and Loholo. “Are you the owner of this vessel?” he demanded.

MacKinnie nodded. The officer continued, “I present you to His Excellency, Sindabaya, Junior Archdeacon of the Temple of Truth.”

“Peace and greetings,” one of the gray-robed men said. “It is customary to bow to me when receiving blessings, Trader. Are you ignorant of the proper forms, or merely a heathen?”

“Your pardon, Excellency,” MacKinnie protested. “My thoughts were on the plight of our civilization, and not the more important things at hand.” He bowed, receiving another blessing for his trouble.

“It is well. We have not seen you in Batav before, Trader, and when we last saw your shipmaster he had his own ship. Why is this?”

“Pirates, Your Excellency. In all Jikar, there are few merchant ships remaining, and few merchants to buy them, because the army of Jikar takes all the goods for the great expedition. They intend to fight their way through the barbarians before sending the fleet to destroy the nests of pirates.”

The officer who had spoken looked up hurriedly, then conversed in low tones with another robed figure before speaking. “Jikar is not large enough to put forth such an army or fleet,” he said flatly.

“Oh, this is true, sir,” MacKinnie said. “But the Guilds have made alliance with other cities, and many of the people of the plains and hills have fled to Jikar for assistance. Then, the fleet captured many pirate vessels by surprise when they dared sail too close into the harbor and were left by the tide. The water ran red for two changes of the tide after the battle on the sands, and the Guilds had a large fleet, but few with whom to man it. But when their war on the land is finished, they will turn to training the young men to be sailors, and there is talk of bringing the fleet north, east perhaps, bringing many merchant ships under the protection of fifty galleys of war. But, I thought, what use to go in such a number? Prices will be low, when there are so many goods for sale. But if now, when there are no ships from Jikar, if now I sail to Batav, and east, and south, why, then trading will be better, and my friends will remember me when the great fleet comes … Or so I thought. And I was told that the great Temple, the home of wisdom itself, was in need, and thus I brought my cargo, and my foodstuffs; I will sell them to the Temple saving only what must remain to feed my men, and I ask no more than a pittance beyond what it has cost me to bring the goods.”

The gray-robed men muttered among themselves, and their spokesman said, “Your piety is noted. What have you for the Temple?”

Despite MacKinnie’s intent to be generous, it took hours to agree on the price of the cargo. The deacons were so accustomed to haggling with traders that even when it was not necessary they bargained. Meanwhile their officers, poking into the holds and looking in the deck boxes.

The priests noted the amount of food aboard and heatedly disputed MacKinnies estimate of what he would need for Subao’s own consumption. They insisted that more had to be delivered to the Temple. MacKinnie knew from their concern with foodstuffs that the siege was more serious than the Temple would admit.

“They have to be desperate,” Longway whispered. “I’ve spoken with one of the guards. They’re taking everything edible from any ship that calls here — and there are fewer ships every month.”

Eventually the bargain was struck, and a gang of Temple slaves swarmed aboard to carry away what the Temple had purchased. The soldiers stood guard over them and searched each for stolen food or weapons. The deacons watched the soldiers and noted on wooden-backed slates what was taken and what was left aboard, how much was owed to MacKinnie, how many slaves came aboard, and how many left.

As the last of the goods was taken ashore, Sindabaya joined MacKinnie and his staff on the quarterdeck. “We guard more than the true faith,” the priest said. He waved his hand to indicate the city and the harbor. “For all time that we record, the Temple has been the source of wisdom and hope for the people of this world. When other cities fall, we hold the means to build them again. If the Temple falls, what will be the source of knowledge? When God brought men to this place from the stars above, He set the Temple to watch over them and give them truth. That is our burden, and we will not fail.”

MacKinnie watched an officer drive one of the slaves into his place in the ranks, and said nothing. Sindabaya noted Nathan’s expression and grimaced. “The world has changed. Once they went singing to their tasks. Ships brought wealth to be laid at the steps of God’s Temple. Now few ships come, and the barbarians wait outside the walls, and my officers beat the convicts as I watch. But there is no other way! They will not work without blows, and the work must be done! The Temple must be saved!” He turned to the group on the deck and raised his hand in blessing, watched them narrowly for a moment, and left the ship.

Deluca climbed carefully to the quarterdeck as MacKinnie watched the Temple party drive men and ayuks, both overloaded, down the stone streets toward the warehouses.

“Now that they have inspected your ship,"Deluca said, “it is lawful for you to leave it. Will you visit the Lord Archbishop?”

MacKinnie nodded, selecting Longway, Kleinst, and Todd to accompany them. Deluca assured them that his own merchant’s guard would be sufficient, and would escort them back to the ship after their interview.

“But you will need our guards,” Deluca told them. “The streets are no longer safe. Thieves have banded together in great numbers, and attack even armed men. Our own guards are trustworthy only when together, yet there is nothing to steal and no place to buy food with what gold can be found. The city feels no hope for the future. Only the Temple has the will to fight. The people of this city once ruled the world, but now they are ruled by the Temple.”

They walked along the broad waterfront street. MacKinnie noted the empty dockyards, warehouses with the doors standing open, and everywhere the beggars and crowds of surly men who had once been longshoremen and sailors, owners of shops, landholders of small farms outside the walls of the city. It was little better away from the waterfront. They moved through a series of narrow, twisting streets overhung with buildings, lined with nearly empty shops. Men lay in rags even in the center of the smaller streets, and often they blocked the way.

They emerged from this maze of alleys to broader streets, each with a stone-line ditch running down its center. The ditches were partially filled with refuse, but surprisingly little for so primitive a system.

“The men on Temple charity carry away the garbage,” Deluca explained, “and bring barrels of water to wash the sewage away in the few dry weeks of the year. There is heavy rain in this city almost daily, but it never lasts long. This is the cleanest city on Makassar.”

MacKinnie remembered Jikar, which was swept daily by the Guild apprentices, but said nothing. Batav was cleaner than he expected a primitive city to be, certainly more so than the garbage-strewn warrens of South Continent.

There were people in the streets. Some wandered through the ground-floor shops, although there was little to buy. Every shop had a large crucifix at its door, and a wind chime whose major feature was a replica of the Temple from which various shells and other sounding materials hung. Most of the population was small and dark, although there was a fair number of the taller, fair-haired men like Vanjynk. The tallest were still smaller than MacKinnie and the two clergymen, and here and there someone would turn to watch the group before staring off at nothing again.

Once, MacKinnie saw a group of uniformed Temple guardsmen, with a bright-yellow-robed official walking in their midst. He asked Deluca who the man was, and was told, “A tax collector. Some of them have taken minor orders beyond the deaconate, but are not full priests. They don’t allow the priesthood to work directly on squeezing the population, but a lot of them have served a trick in that occupation before they take final vows.”

They arrived at a small courtyard, behind which stood a massive stone and log house. Two swordsmen stood in the courtyard, and opened the iron gates when they saw the bishop, then went back to their posts, lounging carelessly against the gate pillars.

“Two weeks arrears in their pay,” Deluca told Nathan. “It is strange. Many men in this city have nothing to eat, and you would think they would be glad of duties where they are well fed and have at least some money, but more and more throw themselves on Temple charity, work in the streets when they work at all, and refuse honorable employment. The city has lost its heart.”

MacKinnie nodded. The barbarians were at the gates, but the men of the city either thought themselves lost already, or refused to think about it at all. Only the Temple kept the enemy at bay, providing whatever spirit Batav had been able to muster. Nathan doubted that even the iron-willed Temple believers would be able to hold things together for long.

The inside of the house was sparse, showing both the lack of funds which had furnished it, and, perhaps, the austere temperament of the Archbishop. MacKinnie was shown into the great hall, where His Eminence sat in ragged splendor, staring at the dying embers of a fire which was not really needed to heat the room.

“As we supposed, Your Eminence,” Laraine said, “the ship was from the west. And more than we dared hope, it is owned by men from the Empire, although by their accents they are from a part I have never visited. A colony world?” he asked, turning to MacKinnie.

“I didn’t ask your origin when I offered to help you, my lord,” Nathan replied. “Is it necessary to discuss mine? The Empire contains many worlds, and the citizens of some are more fortunate than those of others. But despite the contempt the Empire feels for my world, it is my ship and my gold which can save your lives. We may even be able to help you in the work you came to do.”

Deluca gasped, but before he could speak the Archbishop said, “He speaks well. Let him continue, for God often sends help in strange disguises. Our work is with the souls of all men.” The old man waved toward a chair. “I gather that you have no way of calling the Navy to assist us?”

“We were not permitted such devices, my lord.”

The Archbishop nodded. “A colony world.” He nodded again. “The Navy could do nothing even if you could call them. Once we are dead, they will send a punitive expedition, and the Imperial Traders Association will be the loudest voice in demanding vengeance for the deaths of the priests of the Lord. The Church has more than once been used as a pretext for Empire.”

“I do not understand, my lord,” MacKinnie said.

“The Emperor has no wish to conquer these worlds.” At MacKinnie’s puzzled look, the old man halted. “Bring our guests something to drink.” He turned to MacKinnie. “You know nothing of Imperial politics. Are you a member of the Church ? ”

“New Rome has not yet come to my world, my lord. We are Christians, more or less. I was baptized into the orthodox church, which I am told is acceptable to New Rome.”

“Forgive my curiosity; it was not idle. It follows that you know nothing of Imperial politics. What are you doing on Makassar?”

“My king has sent me to head a trading mission, my lord. He rules the largest civilized country on my home world, and is allied with the Imperial ambassador. The

Navy is aiding him in the subjugation of the planet.”

The Archbishop nodded. “But you are not a Trader. Nor are any of these with you. Please, do not protest. You cannot deceive a man of my years. You are a soldier, and these others, what are they, spies? It does not matter. And here you are, on this primitive planet, having come from a world which is itself primitive … and you talk of aiding us! It is admirable, but I fail to see what you can do. Still, such courage should be rewarded, if only with information.”

He paused as servants brought wine and additional chairs for the others. “This is not very good wine,” Deluca said. “But it is all we have here. The Trader has far better on his ship.”

“Wine does not make the day,” the Archbishop told them. “It is only a vehicle. Look at them, Father Deluca. Barely able to speak the Imperial language, knowing nothing of the capital and its ways, voyaging across space in ships they cannot understand … If the Church could bring men to as much faith in her teachings as these men have in themselves!” He tasted the wine and grimaced.

“You and I have the same mission, my lord Trader,” he told MacKinnie. “We are agents provocateur, sent to aid the Imperial Traders Association. The difference is that I know it, and you do not.”

“I do not understand.”

“I did not expect you to understand. You believe you are here for some other purpose, some great mission to save your own kingdom perhaps, certainly something more important than bringing back gold for your planetary king. And we are here to bring these people back to God. But both of us will serve the ITA as surely as we would if they had hired us.”

The room was still as they waited for him to continue. “The Navy will not permit the Traders simple conquest. I am sure that you know that no good military force will fight for a standard of living — their own or anyone else’s. It takes God, not gold, to put heart in a soldier. The Navyfights for a cause, for the Emperor and the Church, for New Annapolis, for the Oath of Reunion, but never for the ITA. The Navy will not simply come in here and set up kingdoms for the Traders.

“So they use us. They get us sent here, and prevent the Navy from giving us protection … but after we are slaughtered, it will be the ITA delegates who shout the loudest for vengeance. ‘Have to teach the beggars a lesson,’ they will say. And the same for you colonials … back on your planet there is opposition to the Empire. I don’t have to know where you come from to know that. And Imperialism won’t insure much loyalty. The ITA will find them troublesome. But the really troublesome people will be the most patriotic … Do you think they will not join when the ITA recruits them for a merchant army to punish this planet? To revenge you? Neatly solving two problems, the conquest of Makassar, and the removal of leaders and soldiers from wherever you come from. It is an old and tested formula and it works.”

“Why do you permit them to use you, my lord?” MacKinnie asked.

“Whatever your reasons, would you have refused to come here if you had known?” the Archbishop answered. “I thought not. Nor could I refuse to bring the Word of God to the heathen.” The old man coughed, his thin shoulders shaking violently. “Now go back to whatever plan you have, but remember the ITA. They have large resources, and they have power, but they have no virtue. One day the Navy will tire of being used and kill them all, but others will spring up in their place. There is always the ITA.”

“I thank you for your frankness, my lord. Academician, have you anything to say?” MacKinnie added, turning to Longway.

“Not at the moment. I need time to think about all this. I am much afraid the Archbishop is right. You can see the counterparts of the ITA in King David’s court. The money-grubbers are everywhere.”

“My lord,” MacKinnie asked, “if we can aid you in bringing these people to the Church, and yet give the Traders no reason to demand Navy intervention here, can you help us?”

“With what?”

“At the moment, I can’t tell you. It isn’t my secret, and I’m not sure what you can do in any event.”

“I am not unwilling to help you in principle … but before you ask it, remember to whom you speak. I am an Archbishop of the Church. I am cynical about some of the Church’s officers and many of the Imperial advisors, but do not be deceived. I am a loyal subject of the Emperor and a servant of the Church.”

MacKinnie nodded. “I would ask nothing dishonorable. We can talk about these things later; now I had better return to my ship.”

The old man stood and offered his hand, and after a moment MacKinnie knelt to kiss the great ring. As they left the saw him raise his hand in blessing, muttering words in a language MacKinnie had never heard.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE WAR MINISTER

MacKinnie stood atop the high walls of Batav and wished for binoculars. He had bought a primitive telescope, but the lenses were not good and the images were blurred, so that it was better to study the barbarians without optical aids.

He watched for five days, looking out across the low, rolling hills and cultivated fields, watching as the maris rode swiftly from gate to gate. They had camped almost within bow-shot of the city, their tents and wagons contemptuously near the city gates, and constantly they taunted the city’s defenders, daring them to come out, shouting insults and obscenities until the Temple warriors were roused to blind fury.

On the fourth day a small party of armored men rode out of the city to attack the nearest enemy camp. The heavy Temple cavalry rode through the enemy, their war-horses trampling the light-armored enemy into the turf, their swords hewing a path through the barbarians, and they shouted triumph. Nothing could stand before them in the charge. But slowly the charge faltered. The great war-horses tired, as did the men. Maris raced to the battle, group after group as the word spread, until the Temple troops were overwhelmed, surrounded. They vanished in a sea of swarthy men, and the sounds of battle died. That night the screams of dying comrades were added to the taunts hurled at the remaining Temple troops.

The day after the disaster MacKinnie asked for audience with the Temple hierarchy, claiming that he had valuable information about the war; information which he could reveal only to a high officer. Meanwhile, Stark drilled Subao’s crew, forcing them to practice with sword, pike, and shield, marching them in formation to the beat of drums, throwing javelins and firing crossbows in volley, and always marching, holding formation as they quickstepped about the pier. Their activities attracted notice from the officers of the Temple guard, and on their tenth day in Batav, a small party approached the ship.

“We are to conduct you to the Temple,” MacKinnie was told. He was ushered to the gates by the officer, then turned over to two gaily clothed attendants who guided him through lavishly decorated halls hung with tapestries and banners. The Temple was a jumble of contrasting chambers and passages, brilliant colors suddenly becoming plain stone walls, rich furnishings and then spartan utility. They climbed stone steps to a row of cells set into the wall high above the Temple courtyard. The officer scratched respectfully at the closed door of one of the cells.

“Enter.”

The officer opened the door and stood aside. A black-robed priest sat at a small table, quill pen and inkpot before him. A litter of parchments was strewn about the room, and on the wall behind the priest hung a large map of the city and countryside, roads and villages sketched in detail to a distance of fifty kilometers from the walls.

“Father Sumbavu, the outlander you asked to see,” the Temple officer said. “He calls himself Trader Captain MacKinnie.” The man stumbled over the pronunciation but managed to say the name correctly.

Nathan had been told that Father Sumbavu served as minister of war for the Temple. There were others who ranked far higher, but few had more power. Sumbavu seemed to care little for the cope and mitre of a bishop, and less for other trappings of power, but his men served him without question. Nathan noted the contrast between the sparsely furnished cell and the richly decorated rooms of the Great Hall of the Temple; Sumbavu was concerned with realities, not symbols.

The bare-walled cell was high above the outer battlements, and the narrow window looked across the city, to the wall, and beyond to the barbarian camps. Nathan could see small bands of maris riding endlessly around the gates. They stayed just out of bow-shot. Low, rolling hills, covered with grass and dotted with grainfields, stretched out to the horizon. A few roads crossed the plains, and the ruins of burned villages stood at their crossings.

The priest raised his hand perfunctorily in the ritual blessing, and MacKinnie bowed. Before he could straighten, the priest asked, “Why do you waste my time?”

“But you asked to see me, Father.”

“You asked to see a member of the hierarchy. You say you have information about the war. Now you are here. What have you to tell me?”

“Your Worship, I have some experience with fighting these barbarians. In the east, they have been driven from city gates. Although I am but a Trader, I have commanded men in battle against these plainsmen, and I wished to find if our methods have been tried. We drove them from the gates in the south.” MacKinnie stood as stiffly as a cadet on parade, waiting for the man to speak again, but there was only silence. Nathan studied the priest at length.

He could not guess Sumbavu’s age. The face showed no lines, and there was no gray in the closely cropped hair, but the hands were worn with work, and perhaps with age as well. Sumbavu returned the intense gaze. “Why do you think you can do what we cannot? We have the finest soldiers on Makassar, and they have done nothing against these hordes. We have always beaten them back in the past, but there are too many of them now.” He rose and stared out the stone window. His hands were tightly clenched, so that the knuckles turned white.

“It is not the quality of the soldiers, Your Worship, but their manner of fighting. Your guards have excellent discipline, but there are not enough of them. Your lords fight splendidly, but the cavalry is never properly supported to fight against these plainsmen. I have seen little of your cavalry — they have mostly been killed, have they not? I saw fifty of them taken.”

“Those not dead live in the city. There were not many at any time, and they have lost hope. Three times the armored servants of the Temple and the men of the great families rode out that gate. Three times they charged and nothing stood before them. And three times they were defeated, cut off, scattered, driven like straws before the winds, the few survivors riding back into the gates in shame. There are always more of the barbarians, but there are never more of the sons of the great families. And you say that you can do what our greatest warriors could not? Have you perhaps a thousand ships at your back, bringing a new army?” He looked closely at MacKinnie, then motioned to a hard wooden chair. “Enjoy what comforts I allow myself and my visitors,” he muttered. “There are few enough. And tell me how the men of the south defeated the barbarians.”

MacKinnie sat and chose his words carefully. “It is a matter of combining the foot soldiers and the mounted men so that they support each other,” he told the priest. “When they are combined properly, the barbarians cannot defeat them.”

“There are not enough soldiers,” Sumbavu said. “No matter how clever you may be, you cannot make a few win against thousands.”

“Not true, Father. We can make each man do the work of ten. And there are the idlers of the city, the hireling swordsmen, the thieves, the people of the city. They can fight.”

The priest shrugged. “If they would. But for each of them you drive into the battle you must have a loyal man to watch him and keep him from running. It is not worth it.”

“If they are treated as men, and trained properly, they can fight. We do not need many. But they cannot be treated like cattle or slaves. They must be free soldiers.”

“You propose to give arms to the people? You would destroy the Temple?”

“No. I would save it. The Temple is doomed, Father Sumbavu. You are as aware of that as I.” MacKinnie gestured toward the window. “The city will fall within the year. I have seen the empty docks, and I am told of the harbors closed against you. I see the people sleeping in the streets while the barbarians harvest the crops. You cannot drive the enemy away until he has eaten everything in your fields. Their supplies will last longer than yours. Your Temple is doomed unless you can drive away the enemy, and quickly.”

Sumbavu struggled to keep his icy calm, but his hands moved restlessly across the desk. “And only you can prevent this? You are indeed a man blessed by God. We have held this city for five hundred years. What had your ancestors done? Lived in dirt houses?”

“What I have done is of no matter. It is what we can do.”

“And how will you go about saving the city? What is your price?”

“I have no price for saving the fountain of all the wisdom on Makassar. I ask only what I will need. Weapons. Pikes and shields. Authority to recruit men. And I will have to inspect the soldiers, talk to the heavy cavalrymen. I will require a drill field to practice my men. And the men on Temple charity must be brought to it, so that they can be armed. I have no price, but I have much to do. We can save this city and the Temple if you will but listen.”

The priest spread his hands and looked intently at his palms. “Perhaps it is the will of God. There is no other plan. It can do no great harm to allow you to train this rabble, for when you and they are killed that will be all the longer our rations will last. I will see that you get what you need.”

An army formed gradually on the parade ground outside the Temple. It did not greatly resemble an army. In the first week the men had to be driven to the drill field; they stumbled through their paces, unable to understand orders and unwilling to work. But as they were given weapons and their training continued, a new sense of self-respect slowly pervaded the ragged group. Men who had recently been beggars found themselves alongside sturdy peasants from outside the walls, and mixed among them were younger sons of merchant families ruined by the siege. Under MacKinnie’s pleas and Stark’s driving, they began to hold their heads higher, to thrust their pikes into the target dummies, even to scream war cries. After the third week of training, MacKinnie called a conference.

“We don’t have long,” he told the group. “Sumbavu is anxious to know what we are doing, and I have to report to him. You want to be careful of that man. He’s a lot sharper than he looks or acts. What’s the status of our army?”

“The infantry’s so-so,” Hal reported. “The Temple troops are fine, but they don’t know what to do and they’re so sure of themselves they don’t want to learn anything new. The people’s army can carry pikes and hold up their shields if you don’t want them to do it for too long. Weak as cats, most of them. And we’ll never get any archers out of that crowd. The Temple’s got a fair number, and that’s all you’ll have.”

“Can they hold against a charge of light cavalry?” MacKinnie asked.

“Don’t know, sir. They’d never stop the heavy stuff, but they might hold against the plainsmen if they believed in themselves enough. But they have no confidence, Colonel.”

MacKinnie noticed Longway’s start at Hal’s slip, but said nothing. “What of the cavalry?” he asked Brett. “Can they fight in formation? Have they had enough of that cockiness beat out of them to make a disciplined force, or are they going to go charging out into the enemy and scatter?”

“Vanjynk and I have talked to them, Trader,” Brett replied. “But their honor is all they have left. Still, these are men who have been beaten before, and after all, it is only barbarians they fight. … But it will be difficult to call them back from victory.”

“You’ll have to,” MacKinnie said. “It’s the only chance any of us have. Those men have to be taught to charge home, form ranks again, and get back to the shield walls. Any of them that try the grandstand act will be left out there dead. Try to drive that elementary fact through their heads. And add to it the fact that if they’re killed their city falls and the whole honor system they’re so proud of goes with it. They’re fighting to preserve their honor.”

“Yes, but by means which to them are dishonorable,” Vanjynk said. “They listen to me as one of them, and I have faithfully told them what you desire. I have even come to believe it. But it is strange to them.”

MacKinnie nodded. “Strange or not, they’ll have to learn. Now what about the commissary department?”

Mary Graham smiled proudly. “That’s in good shape,” she said. “We have enough wagons now.”

“I thought we were short of animals,” MacKinnie said.

“We are, but they were hitching them all wrong,” Graham said. “They were using leather straps. I had the carpenters make proper collars from wood, and now the horses don’t tire as much. We still don’t have enough, but the ones we have can carry more.”

“Good.”

“We have the wagons, but not much grain,” she continued. “If you can protect our baggage trains, we can supply your men for a few days. There won’t be a lot to eat, but something. After that, we’ll have to find forage outside. We might even be able to harvest some grain if our farmers are protected.”

“So we have a partially disciplined force of infantry, some cavalry who may be useful and may not, some Temple archers and guardsmen who are our best soldiers but don’t understand what’s needed, and one whole hell of a lot of barbarians. An interesting situation.” He thought for a few moments, staring down at a copy of Sumbavu’s map young Todd had laboriously made, then came to a decision.

“We need a demonstration. I’ll give each of you a week to select the best men you can, men you think won’t break and run and who will obey orders. I’ll need provisions for about two days for twice that number of people, and a group of your best-disciplined cooks and camp workers,” he added to Mary. “We’re going to make a show of force against the enemy. The primary purpose will be to convince our own troops that we can beat barbarians.” He stood, dismissing the meeting. “Hal, stay with me for a moment, please.”

When the others had left, Stark said, “Sorry about the slip, Colonel. It’s too much like a campaign, and I’m not used to being a spy.”

“We’ll survive. Have you picked the headquarters group?”

“Yes, sir. Using the troops we brought with us as a steadying force we’ve got a pretty loyal company. I think they’d fight the Temple people for us if they thought they could win. Anyway we can control them. You lead them to a victory, they’ll be ours for sure.”

“Excellent. We must have that headquarters group, or when this is over there won’t be any point to it all. All right, Sergeant, you can go.”

Hal stood, grinned for a moment, and saluted. “Old times, Colonel. Different Wolves, but old times.”

MacKinnie carefully armed himself before visiting Sumbavu. He struggled into chain mail, threw a bright crimson cloak over his shoulders, donned gold bracelets and necklace, and fastened his surplice with a jeweled pin before buckling on a sword made on Prince Samual’s World. The mail and sword were similar in design to Makassar products, but better than anything they had encountered on Makassar. Their possession imparted considerable status to MacKinnie’s group. Sumbavu was standing at the battlements above his cell when MacKinnie was brought to him.

“You betray true colors, Trader,” the priest said. “You are more the soldier than the Trader, are you not?”

“In the south, Father, Traders and soldiers are the same thing. At least live Traders are. There’s little peace there.”

“Or here. It was not always thus.” The warrior-priest looked out across the great plain beyond the city wall. “There are more of them today. The grain is ready for harvest, and they are formed to protect it from our fire parties. We could burn the crop, but only at the cost of the balance of our knights. I do not think any would return to us alive.”

“Yet, there may be a way, Father,” MacKinnie said. When the priest glanced quickly at him, he continued, “I wish to take a small party outside the walls. We will not go far.”

“You may take as many of your useless mouths as you please. You have made them march with their heads up, but they are not soldiers. They will never be soldiers.”

“I need more than my peasants,” MacKinnie said. “I will require fifty archers of the Temple and fifty mounted men.”

“A fourth part of the archers? And nearly as great a part of the knights? You are mad. I will not permit it.”

“Yet, Father, it is worth doing. We will show you how the barbarians can be defeated. And we will not go far from the walls. The archers and knights can seek shelter there if my men do not hold — and there can be no loss of honor if they retreat because others failed them.”

“Where will you be?”

“With the spearmen at the van.”

“You risk your life to prove these men? You believe, then. Strange.”

MacKinnie looked across the plains, to see another band of barbarians approach the walls. There seemed to be hundreds in the one group alone.

“You will take your men into that,” Sumbavu said. “You will not come out alive.”

“But if we do? It will put heart in the others. Remember, if we do nothing, the Temple is doomed.”

“Yet if you slaughter my archers and knights the doom will fall faster. …” The priest studied the camps below, watching knots of horsemen dart toward the walls, then turn away just outside the range of the archers at the walls. He fingered his emblem, a golden temple with an ebony-black cross surmounting it, and turned suddenly.

“Do as you will. You are mad, but there are those who believe the mad have inspiration from God. It is certain that I have none.” Sumbavu turned and stalked away, age showing in the set of his shoulders.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE WALKING WALL

MacKinnie used a week training the picked men for the sally. Finally Hal reported that they were as ready as they could be in the time they had, and assembled them in the marshaling square just inside the gates. His cloak streaming behind him, Nathan mounted the small dais near the gates to address the men.

“You will win today a victory such as has never been seen on this world,” he shouted. “There will be no end to the songs of this day. Your homes will be saved, and you will come to glory. Besides, what life is there huddled behind walls? What man hides from his enemies when he can go out and kill them? Today you are all men. You will never be slaves again.”

There was a feeble cheer, led by Hal’s picked guardsmen scattered through the ranks.

“It’ll have to do,” Nathan told his sergeant. “They won’t believe much of anything until they see they can hold the enemy. But will they fight long enough to find out?”

“Don’t know, Colonel,” Stark answered. “We’ve done all we could with them, but most of the spirit was beat out of them before we got here. They might.”

“They know what to do,” MacKinnie said. “Now it’s up to us to make them do it. Get them in ranks and open the gate.”

“Yes, sir.”

The army was formed as a wedge, spear and shield soldiers at the edges, the cavalry, archers, and supply wagons inside. Picked men held the point, which was rounded to be as wide as the gate would permit. They were to march out in a column, with the sides moving swiftly on the obliques to make the triangular formation they had practiced on the Temple drill field. The crimson uniforms of the Temple archers and the gaily colored armor of the knights formed a brilliant contrast to the drab leather garments of the pikemen as they stood in ranks waiting for the gate to open. Wherever possible, the men in ranks wore breastplates, helmets, greaves, but there were not enough to equip them all. Some had only spear and shield, with a small dagger in their belts.

MacKinnie looked over his force in final inspection. He swallowed the hard knot that always formed in his stomach before action, and wondered if any soldier ever managed to avoid that tension. Then he waved, and the gate opened.

“Move out!” Stark shouted. “Keep your order. Just like on the drill field. Get in step, there.”

Young drummers scattered through the reserves tapped cadence as the small force sallied out the gate. When enough of the spearmen had emerged to form a shield wall, MacKinnie sent out the cavalry, then strode swiftly through them to reach his post near the point of the formation.

They formed ranks within the protective fire of the archers on the walls. A few of the barbarians charged toward them, but were cut down before they could reach the sallying force. The rest of the enemy stayed well out of range, watching, while thousands more rode swiftly toward the gate.

“Lot of them out there,” Stark remarked. “Looks like all of them. Too bad you don’t have another sally set up for the other gate.”

“There’s few enough troops here,” MacKinnie muttered. He was grimly watching as the last of the army emerged from the gates and swung across to form the base of the wedge. “All right, Hal, move them out.”

Stark signaled to the drummers. The cadence changed, and a drum signal echoed down the line. The men ceased to mark time and slowly marched forward, shields held level, spears thrust forward. Behind each shieldsman were two ranks of pikemen. They marched across the gently rolling plain toward the nearest enemy camp, too intent on looking ahead to know when they had left the range of the protective fire of the city walls.

The maris circled, always keeping their distance, inviting them to come away from the walls. Individual barbarians galloped toward the formation, then wheeled to ride away. They slapped their buttocks in contempt.

The individual riders changed to small groups. Then more gathered just beyond bow-shot. They moved slowly towards MacKinnie.

“Here comes the first bunch,” Stark shouted. “They’re going right around to hit young Todd’s section. Put the archers on them?”

“Two squads, Hal. Let the others fire at high angle to keep the rest away. Todd’s men can hold that group.”

“Yes, sir.”

Volleys of bolts shot from the Temple archers, cutting some of the enemy from their wooden saddles. Then the first barbarians hurtled toward the shield line, not in a wave but in scattered groups.

Before they made contact, Todd shouted orders. The drum cadence changed, and the line of men sank to one knee, spears grounded, the pikemen thrusting over their heads. The maris galloped closer, shouting, cheering.

A barbarian mare screamed as she was impaled on a spear. Other beasts whirled from the thicket of points, getting in the way of men charging behind them, stumbling within range of the thrusting pikes, until the barbarian group was milling in front of the right leg of MacKinnie’s wedge. Archers poured fire into the mass of men and beasts. The enemy shouted defiance, broke against the shield wall again, again.

“They flee, they flee!” someone shouted.

“After them!” MacKinnie heard.

“Hold your positions!” MacKinnie shouted. “By the Temple God, I’ll have the archers cut down the first man that breaks rank! Brett, keep those damned knights of yours under control!”

“Yes, sir,” he heard from among the cavalry in the center of the wedge. The knights were milling about, anxious to give chase to the fleeing enemy. The maris thundered away, wheeled to shout defiance again, then rode off when no one followed.

When calm returned, MacKinnie mounted a wagon. “You’ve driven off one small group. It wasn’t much of a battle, but you see it can be done. Now don’t let them make fools of you. If you break formation or leave the shield wall, they’ll be all over you. Stand to ranks and you’ll slaughter them. Remember, every man’s life depends on each of you. No one may break, not for cowardice, and not for glory. And by God, raise a cheer!”

This time the response was great. As MacKinnie climbed down from the wagon, he saw the driver for the first time: small, dressed in chain mail, and shouting at the top of her lungs.

“Freelady!” he called. “You have no business here.”

“You gave me the commissary to organize, Colonel. I have done it. There was no one here fit to command my ragtag group, and I will not have my word undone by incompetents. Your sergeant himself dismissed that oaf from the Temple who tried to drive my men like slaves.”

He looked at her and remembered another freelady who had been headstrong, but shook the thought from his mind. Laura hadn’t really been like Mary Graham. It was hard to imagine Laura in armor — although she might well have carried a sword. Graham’s was on the wagon box next to her. As Nathan studied his ward, one of the commissary troops came up. The cook fingered an enormous meat axe.

“You leave the lady alone,” the burly man said. “She’s a saint from heaven. You touch her, and commander or not, you die.”

“Sumba, thank you, but I don’t need protection,” Mary protested. “At least not from him.”

“That’s all right, my lady, we’ll watch them all,” the stocky cook said. MacKinnie shrugged and returned to organize the battle.

The group marched forward again, the drums measuring a slow beat. From time to time a group of the enemy would gallop toward them, firing arrows, only to be driven away by the Temple archers. The barbarians’ stubby bows were useless against even the leather of the unarmored men until they came to close range, and they did not dare come very close.

“They’ll re-form for another try,” MacKinnie said softly. “This time they’ll try a mass charge with everything they’ve got.”

Stark nodded. “The men have some confidence now, Colonel. I think they’ll hold. It was a good thing, their trying a small attack at first.”

“Clan rivalry,” Longway said from behind them. “I’ve seen it on South Continent. Each clan wants to be the first to remove the insult of your presence. But they’ll be back.”

“Night’s what worries me,” Stark said. “We going to stay out here all night?”

MacKinnie nodded. “The whole point of this demonstration is to build up the morale of the troops back in the city. Just moving out and coming back won’t do any good. We have to have a solid victory.”

“I still do not see what we are accomplishing,” Longway said. “Suppose you prove that you can take the field against the barbarians and move about in formations they can’t break. All they have to do is avoid you.”

“We’ll cross that one later,” MacKinnie muttered. “Here they come, Hal. Get the men ready.”

A flood of the enemy galloped toward them across the low plain.

“Thousands, thousands,” someone in the ranks shouted. “We’ll never stop that charge!”

“Quiet in the ranks!” Stark ordered. “Beat to arms, drummers!” The tattoo thundered through the small formation. The shieldsmen dropped to one knee again, this time the entire perimeter sinking low, with the pikemen thrusting their weapons over the tops of the shields. A small knot of reserve pikemen stood at each corner of the wedge, while Brett’s cavalry milled about. The archers fired into the oncoming horde as the cooks and camp followers struggled to load crossbows and pass them up to the bowmen. Every bolt took its target, leaving riderless horses to run aimlessly, bringing confusion to the enemy charge.

“They don’t have what you’d call much formation to them,” Stark observed coldly. “They’d do better to all come at once instead of in little bunches.”

“Insufficient discipline,” Longway said. “They’ve more than the normal on this world, but that isn’t much.”

As the drums thundered to a crescendo, the charge hit home. On all sides barbarians plunged and reared, unable to penetrate the shield walls, milling about in front of the wedges, while crossbow bolts poured out.

“Swordsmen! Swordsmen here!” MacLean shouted from his station as commander of the rear section. At his order, a dozen men with shortswords and bucklers ran to his aid, throwing themselves into a gap in the line, thrusting five dismounted barbarians out into the seething mass beyond. A knot of pikemen trotted to station behind them, while the formation closed ranks over the bodies of five shieldsmen, killed when one of their number turned to run.

The maris called to their companions, withdrew a space, and charged the weak spot in the line again.

“They’re massing back there against MacLean,” Stark reported. “Getting hard to hold.”

“Prepare the cavalry,” MacKinnie said softly. “I’ll go get MacLean ready.”

MacKinnie ran across the thirty yards separating the point from the base of the wedge. “Prepare to open ranks, Mr. MacLean.”

“Aye, Colonel. Drummers, beat the ready.” The drum notes changed subtly. “Fuglemen, pace your men!” The seaman’s voice carried through the din of battle, and they heard the orders rattle down the ranks. MacKinnie eyed the situation coolly.

“Now, Mr. MacLean.”

“Open ranks!” MacKinnie commanded. The shieldsmen side-stepped, bunching up on each other, leaving a clear gap in the center. The enemy shouted in triumph and poured toward the gap.

The rich notes of a trumpet sounded from the center of the formation. Slowly, gathering speed, ponderously, the heavy cavalrymen trotted across the wedge from their gathering place at the point.

They built up speed, lances were lowered, and they drove into the advancing enemy, using the maris’ own momentum to add to their own, sweeping everything before them, riding the enemy down under the hooves of their beasts. Brett and Vanjynk, at each end of the first wave of knights, sounded a cheer as the heavy armor of the iron men proved too much for the light-armed maris. The barbarians scattered and swordsmen poured into the gaps, running alongside the knights, slashing down the enemy, killing the dismounted. The charge pressed onward, the knights scattering to pursue the enemy. The tight formation broke up, and the maris withdrew, formed in tight knots.

“Sound recall,” MacKinnie ordered. The trumpet notes were heard again, this time plaintively, disappointed. “Sound it again.” He turned to Stark. “This is the turning point, Hal. If Vanjynk and Brett can’t control those brainless wonders, we’ve had it.”

He saw his officers shouting to the knights. Slowly they began to wheel, first one, then another, then the entire group. For a moment they paused, and MacKinnie saw that Brett was actually dressing their ranks before they rode in, proudly, contemptuously, in perfect order, their pennants fluttering from their lances, while the shield wall closed behind them over the bodies of a hundred foes.

MacKinnie drove them relentlessly on, across the plain toward the first of the nomad encampments. Twice more they withstood a massed assault from the maris, the column halting to plant spear butts in the ground. The second attack was heavy enough to cause MacKinnie to order the cavalry charge again. The armored knights broke through the concentrations of the enemy before wheeling around to recover their position within the shield wall. In each battle they left a pile of the enemy dead to be crushed beneath the wagon wheels as the column marched on.

They reached the enemy camp, a group of leather tents stretched across wooden frames, a few wagons which the barbarians pulled to safety before the army arrived. A thin wall of men with light shields stood in front of the camp. Brett and Vanjynk rode forward to MacKinnie.

“We can scatter them with a single charge!” Brett shouted. “Open the ranks.”

“No. I will not risk our cavalry in a charge beyond the shield walls. There are too few men for that, and we would never return to the city if something went wrong. We march together or we die together. Would your knights abandon us?”

“We would not leave you though you stood alone among a thousand enemies,” Vanjynk said quietly. “I have been talking to the knights. Not one of us has ever seen the like of this day. We have left more of the enemy behind us than we number. Each time we fought them before, our charge would carry them away until suddenly they swarmed about us to cut us down. We will stay with you.”

The column moved forward, cautiously but inexorably, the drums giving a slow step as the pikemen advanced. MacKinnie rotated the formation until the point was aimed directly at the enemy, then massed his reserve pikes behind the leading men. His archers were silent, their store of bolts nearly exhausted. MacKinnie spoke quietly to the Temple officer who commanded them.

“A full volley on the men to the right of our point. I want a hole driven in their formation. They can’t fight as infantry, they aren’t trained for it, and they don’t like it. We’ll break through and roll up their flanks.”

As they approached nearer, MacKinnie gave a signal. The archers fired their volley as Todd led a knot of swordsmen forward, cast javelins at the enemy in front of them, and retired behind the forest of pikes. The leading elements of the column struck just behind the javelins.tearing through the thin line by sheer momentum, before the first rank of pikemen fell into a hidden pit behind the maris. Their screams echoed up from below.

“That’s what you would have ridden into,” MacKinnie told Brett softly. “I thought there was a reason they’d stand like that. They were hoping for a full charge of cavalry.”

The barbarians broke and ran, gathering their mounts from hiding places behind the tents and galloping away. Mary Graham’s auxiliaries hauled the wounded men from the pits below, leaving five pikemen impaled on stakes set in the ground. She turned pale as she stood looking into the grisly trench, but Nathan had no time for sympathy.

“Bury them there,” MacKinnie ordered. “It’s an honorable enough grave. Send for the chaplain.” He moved about the formation placing men in line, setting the shield wall around the perimeter.

A small scouting party entered the enemy camp. They returned with excited reports. “There is much food here,” one said. “But we must enter with great care, for they have tethered scarpias on the walls and ridgepoles.” The scarpia was a warm-blooded lizard-like creature eight to twenty centimeters long. It faintly resembled the Earth scorpion, and its bite was far more deadly.

“We will camp beyond the enemy tents,” MacKinnie ordered. “Use their ridgepoles to add to our stakes, and be sure to set the stakes carefully. They may attack at night. Bring as much food as you can carry for the city.”

Under Stark’s direction, the battalion built a fortified camp, digging ditches around the perimeter, throwing the earth to the inside and placing stakes at the top of the rampart they formed. They worked in shifts, every other man using his shovel while the rest stood in ranks holding the diggers’ shields and weapons, but there was no renewal of the barbarian attack. The maris rode endlessly around the perimeter of the camp, just outside bow-shot, darting in to fire arrows and wheeling away before an answering volley could be launched. MacKinnie ordered the men to ignore the harassment.

“They’ll get close enough to fight before the night’s over,” he told them. “They can’t do us much harm from the range they’re shooting from. You’ll get your chance later.”

It was dark before the cookfires were lighted, but MacKinnie would not allow any rest until camp was completed. When the last stake was driven, the sun had set, and a thick overcast obscured the moons. From his command point atop Mary Graham’s wagon, MacKinnie could see dozens of fires dotting the plain; barbarian camps, each a band of hundreds of men.

“There are sure enough of them,” he remarked.

“I don’t see how we can win against so many,” Mary answered. “No matter how many you kill, there will always be more.”

“Not if there’s nothing to eat. They’re foraging pretty wide already. It’s only the grain crops that keep them able to stay here. Without those, they’d have to go back into the interior. We’ll drive them off all right.”

“What were you a colonel of?” she asked. “I thought you were more than just a Trader from the time I met you, and I wasn’t very surprised when your man let it slip.”

“You’ve heard of me,” he said. Out beyond the palisade, something was moving. The nearest enemy cookfire was obscured momentarily, then again.

“You mean your name is MacKinnie? Let me-” She looked up in surprise. “Iron MacKinnie? The Orleans commander? I should hate you.”

“Why?”

“My fiance was at Blanthern Pass. A subaltern in the Fifth.”

MacKinnie climbed laboriously from the wagon, surprised at how tired he was even in the low gravity of Makassar. “The Fifth were good troops.”

“Yes. They’d have won against anyone but your men, wouldn’t they? I think everyone in Haven hated and admired you at the same time after that battle.”

“It’s done. Now we’ll all loyal subjects of King David. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She moved closer to him, trying to see his face in the dim light from the cookfire. “From these millions of miles away, the big important politics of Prince Samual’s World look pretty small. Until today I was sure we’d never get back home. Even now it doesn’t seem very likely. But if anyone can do it, you can.”

Nathan laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like Hal talking to the recruits, Mary Graham. For now you’d best get the men fed, because we don’t have very long before the barbarians try their hand with a night attack. I’ll have the troops sent here in shifts so we keep a decent perimeter, and we feed the interior troops last. It’s the pikemen and shield boys we want to take care of tonight.”

“When do the knights eat?”

“After they’ve fed their mounts like any good cavalry. And after my pikemen. Your pardon, freelady, I have to see to my men.”

The night wore on. MacKinnie was relieved when no attack came before his perimeter guards were fed, but did not relax until every man was back in his place, lying at ease with his weapons, while swordsmen stood guard to peer futilely into the darkness.

“They’re coming,” he told Stark. “I’ve seen them stirring around, and there’s a feel about it. You get it, too?”

“Yes, sir. And like you say, they’re moving about some out there. We’ll hear from them before morning.”

It was nearly midnight when a sentry shouted, then vanished beneath a wave of dismounted men swarming toward the palisade.

“Trumpeter!” MacKinnie shouted. “Sound the alarm! To your feet, men!” He could see a knot of pikemen, kept awake in central reserve, rushing toward the area of the attack.

“To me! To me!” he heard Vanjynk shout. “Leave your mounts and rally to me!” Leading a party of knights with swords singing about their heads, Vanjynk charged to the perimeter, pushing aside shieldsmen struggling to their feet. The iron men stood at the top of the palisades, dealing terrible blows to the enemy attempting to climb out of the ditch. The night was filled with screams and shouts before MacKinnie had his shield wall formed properly and brought the armored men back to a central reserve.

“They’re all around the perimeter,” Stark told him. “They try one spot and then another, not much coordination to it, but nobody can rest any, Colonel.”

MacKinnie nodded agreement. “It’s a good tactic. They hope to tire us out and then cut us off from the city. It’ll cost them enough.”

In less than an hour the battle died away, leaving a quiet shattered at intervals with the groans of the wounded, but the enemy never left them alone. All night there were rushes against one part of the palisade or another, and the whistle of arrows fired randomly into the camp. Morning came slowly, to reveal hundred of enemy dead and dying filling the ditches, or stretched on the ground where they had crawled away from the battle.

Bands of nomads rode slowly around the camp, silently watching the wall of shields.

“Here’s the tricky part,” MacKinnie said. “But I think they may have had enough for now. They’ll want to see what we do next.” He carefully moved his men out before the palisade, bringing the wagons and interior troops out of the camp before abandoning the other walls. The enemy watched, but there was no attack as he marched his formation back through the enemy campsite. They burned everything they couldn’t carry away. As the maris’ possessions blazed behind them, the battalion marched in quickstep back to the city.

CHAPTERSEVENTEEN BATTLE

The war minister was angry as he faced the assembled bishops of the Temple. “He has proved that he can fight the barbarians. He has remained a day and a night outside the walls of the city. He has killed hundreds of them. For this we are grateful. But I say that it is madness to take the entire army into the field. Let him carry on his raids with the troops he used before, not strip our walls of their defenders.”

The council muttered approval. Their voices echoed softly in the great room.

MacKinnie rose to speak. He strode forward to the platform before the council table. As he approached he looked again at the council room. Its walls were hung with tapestries; above the woven hangings stone figures, representing heroes of an Empire dead so long its very existence was legend, stared down at them. On his dais high above the council table, His Utmost Holiness Willem XI dozed in starts, interest overcoming senility for moments before his head dropped again. His word was law but the council of bishops wrote his words for him, and spoke them as well more often than not.

“Worshipful sirs,” MacKinnie said, “I would do as Father Sumbavu asks if it were possible. But our expedition was a demonstration only. Without sufficient troops to replace the shieldsmen who fall in battle, and more to allow the men rest when they tire, we could never hold against the enemy for more than a day. But with enough men I can destroy their bases of supplies, bring them to battle against us, destroy many of them, and send the rest back to their wastelands. And do not be deceived, worshipful sirs. The plainsmen have studied our methods of fighting. They will even now be devising means to fight us, ways to use their great numbers and speed against us. The next battle will decide the fate of the city. Would you fight it now, or wait until hunger has reduced our ranks to shadows? Will you fight outside the walls like men, or huddled inside waiting to be slaughtered?”

“He speaks well, Sumbavu,” the Archdeacon said. He turned his blue eyes toward MacKinnie. “And how do you know you will have success? What manner of Trader are you that you know ways of fighting never seen on this world?”

“Your Reverence, my ways are but those of the Guildsmen of the south and west. We have fought these barbarians before, although never so many of them. As to success, what can be denied the army of God? If we go forth boldly, we must win, for God is with us.”

“He was with us before, but it did not save our army,” Sumbavu muttered. The old priest glanced quickly about, fearful of having spoken heresy.

“You wish to take all the knights and archers, and your beggars,” the Archdeacon said. “This I understand from watching the fighting five days ago. But why do you also demand the swordsmen of the Temple? Of what use will these be to you?”

“The armored swordsmen will guard our camp,” MacKinnie said. “They will fight in the night-time when the shieldsmen are not of such great value. They fight against the barbarians when they leave their mounts and attack us on foot. The citizen army knows only one method of fighting; they are not trained soldiers. We must have a leavening of fighting men if we are to bring the enemy to the final battle.”

“And, Sumbavu, what have you to say except that we should not allow this? What reasons have you?” the crimson-robed official asked. “He has done what you could never do.” The Archdeacon turned to the others. “For myself, I see the hand of God in this man’s coming. Who knows what instruments the Omnipotent may choose for our deliverance?”

Sumbavu measured his words carefully, speaking softly so that they leaned forward to hear him. “I do not know. Yet I do not like this. There is something of this man I do not understand, and I do not think he should be trusted with the army of the Temple.”

“Then go with him to command it,” the Archdeacon said. “For ourselves, we have heard enough. Let the Trader kill the barbarians, and may God’s blessing go with him.”

Sumbavu bowed in acceptance, but MacKinnie felt the war minister’s intense gaze even as he left the room.

MacKinnie used two more weeks preparing for the battle. His entire force of citizens and peasants was trained, with his original group dispersed through the ranks as fuglemen. Stark drilled them relentlessly in the Temple courtyard, taking them again and again through the complex maneuvers which formed squares and columns, opened and closed rank, brought their pikes to rest and present.

Brett and Vanjynk worked with the knights, shouting and cursing to try and make them understand that their great strength lay in a massed charge, and that they must return to the shield wall to regroup after each attack or they would be split apart and killed. Each evening they discussed the day’s progress, talking late into the night, then rising early to drill the men once again.

On the night before the army was to go forth, MacKinnie held another conference. He looked intently at his officers seated at the thick wooden table in front of him, and nodded in satisfaction.

“Mr. MacLean, what of my infantry?”

“Better than when we went out last, Trader. They’ve seen the way it’s done now, and Stark sweated them until they’re hardened up. Not like veteran troops, but they’ll hold. Doubling the rations didn’t hurt any.”

“That was the Trader’s doing,” Mary Graham said. “He found someone who could be bribed at the warehouse.”

MacKinnie shook his head. “Stark again, though I thought of it. I’ve never seen a commissary yet that didn’t have a couple of people on the take in it.”

“I hope there are none in mine,” Mary said indignantly.

“There are, lady, there are,” Stark interjected. “Just hope their price is high and they’re scared enough of you not to fill up the grain wagons with sand. It’s been done to campaigns before.”

“And your knights, Vanjynk?” MacKinnie asked.

“They drill well, they wheel to the trumpets, but they still do not like turning from the battle. Nor do I, but I see it must be done.” Vanjynk lifted his cup and gulped the wine. “You fight strangely on your world, star man.”

“Lay off that talk,” Stark muttered. “We have enough trouble with the Temple people without that.”

MacKinnie nodded. “Hal’s right. But tell me, will the knights obey the trumpets?”

“I believe so,” Brett answered. “They have little wish to be killed by barbarians. But there is no fear of death in these men, only of dishonor.”

“Aye, so Brett made a song about foolish knights who abandoned their commander and were shamed forever,” MacLean said. “Silly thing, but catchy. Seems to have helped.”

“If songs help, sing your lungs out,” MacKinnie told them. “The key to this whole battle is getting the heavy cavalry to bear on the barbarians while they’re bunched up. Nothing on this world can stand up to a charge from those armored ironheads, but as soon as they lose their momentum and scatter, the maris can pick them off with no trouble at all.” He turned to Mary Graham. “Do you have all the supplies we ordered?”

She nodded. “We’ve made thousands of bolts for the crossbows, and the grain wagons are ready. You don’t really have very many provisions, you know.”

“I know. You’re rolling plenty of empty wagons, though. Either we find something to put in them, or we’ll come back home for more supplies. This formation’s slow enough without heavy transport gear in the square.”

“Then we’re ready,” Mary Graham said.

“Not you. You aren’t going,” MacKinnie told her.

“Yes I am. It’s no safer in here than out there. If your battle is lost, the city is lost as well and you know it.” She looked around the room at the other men from her world. “I have a right to his protection, and I choose that he exercise it personally. Don’t I have that right?”

“An interesting point,” Longway said. “You cannot abandon her without finding a substitute guardian,” the Academician told MacKinnie. “And doubtless she is entitled to someone of her own world. Who will you leave with her? Scholar Kleinst remains in the city, but for all his great value he is hardly a suitable guardian.”

“I appear to be outmaneuvered, although why you should want to accompany an army in the field is beyond me, freelady.” MacKinnie looked at her expectantly.

“I see no reason to stay here,” she told him. “There are few enough on this godforsaken place that I can talk to, without being left with the Temple monks. Besides, I can be useful, or can you spare anyone else to manage your commissary?”

“The point is made.” Well made, he thought. She’s been nearly as useful as Hal. No one else could have organized the logistics half as well as she has. But—

He turned back to the council. “Our whole purpose in this expedition will be to either force the plainsmen into battle on our terms, or destroy their base of supply. Either will be sufficient, although I doubt they will let us simply march out and burn their harvests without a fight…” He indicated the map spread out on the table. “As far as we can tell from watching their movements, they’ve been harvesting the crops for the past three weeks. The nearest big concentration of grain is here, about thirty kilometers from the gates, assuming they use the roads and village structures. I rather think they will. From what I’ve been able to learn they often do that. We’ll make straight for that and burn what we can’t load up.”

“Then what?” MacLean asked.

“We see if they’ll fight. If they won’t, we keep marching from place to place until they’re short of rations. But they’ll fight, all right.”

“You may get more battle than you expect,” Longway said. “You’ve hurt their pride and your last expedition, and they’ll want to prove it was an accident. Next time, they’ll press home their charge with everything they have.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” MacKinnie answered slowly. “It will take them time to gather for the battle, and more to decide who leads it. By that time, we should have got to our objective and set up camp. They’ll gather troops all night, and probably try to wipe us out in the morning.”

“Then you’re trying for one big battle,” Mary said.

“Yes. One turn of the wheel, freelady. We haven’t a lot of time.” He glanced significantly at the Makassarians at the table, then stood to dismiss the meeting. “Rest well, and be ready tomorrow. They may not let us get to the first village.”

The army formed outside the city walls after first light. MacKinnie placed his men in a triangular formation again, but this time the broad base of the wedge faced forward, its point to the rear. He doubled the men on the right leg of the wedge, using all the left-handed troops he could find for the forward elements of that line, and placing a large reserve force at the rear point. When he was satisfied with his arrangements, the drums beat the slow march, and the army moved forward.

Clouds of maris rode madly around, darting toward them, withdrawing, waiting for any opening in the shield walls, patient in the knowledge that the city army could never pursue them. The slow cadence continued, wagon wheels creaked and men shouted at the oxen drawing supply wagons, while the knights in the center impatiently led their mounts. Kilometer after kilometer they marched toward the enemy camp, as more and more barbarians joined the forces riding around them. They were completely surrounded.

“Reckon the city can hold with what we’ve left them?” Stark asked, looking back at the city in the distance. “You didn’t leave them much.”

“They’ll hold,” MacKinnie replied. “The enemy has no heavy siege equipment, and as long as the walls are manned the barbarians can’t do much. Give them enough time and they could throw up ladders or even stack their saddles against the walls, but the defense can slow that down, and I don’t intend to give them any time for stunts like that. We seem to be attracting most of them to us, anyway. What’s Sumbavu doing?”

“He’s riding with the knights, Colonel. Keeping an eye on those pretty uniformed swordsmen and archers, too. He doesn’t trust you much.”

“I don’t blame him, Hal. I wouldn’t trust me much either if I were him. But what else can he do? Keep a sharp eye on him; I can’t have him interfering.”

“Yes, sir. You didn’t make much protest about his coming.”

“Maybe I didn’t mind him coming. Now watch him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The march continued, drawing to within a kilometer of the enemy tents. MacKinnie looked closely at the cluster of enemy in front of him. “They’re trying to make up their minds. They don’t want to give up all that grain without a fight. Watch that group there,” he said, pointing. “Here they come! Beat the alarm!”

The drums thundered, then went back to their steady pace. The column continued to advance until the enemy was within bow-shot. “Prepare for attack,” MacKinnie said quietly, measuring the distance to the nearest of the plainsmen. “Form the wall.” The drums beat again, and the Temple archers rushed to the perimeter, firing into the packed enemy. The charge hurtled toward the broad front of the wedge, then wheeled around to strike the left end of the line. Pikemen rushed to the corner as echelon after echelon of the enemy plunged against the left leg of the inverted wedge.

The shield wall held. A few of the barbarians leaped over the first rank to land among the pikemen, their shortswords slashing, but Temple guardsmen moved forward to cut them down. The battle was short, and when it was finished hundreds more of the enemy lay in front of the column. The men raised a cheer, cut short by the drummers’ commands to resume the march.

“Not much of a battle,” Stark commented. “Thought they’d try more than that.”

“Testing us out,” MacKinnie said. “They’ve found a way to get a few men into our lines now. They’ll try that one again. Adaptable beggars.”

“They have to be,” Brett said from behind him. MacKinnie turned to see the singer walking patiently. “I left my mount with Vanjynk,” Brett said. “You understand that there will be many more battles, each different from the last?”

“I understand. But how many more there will be depends on more than their intentions. For now, we take their supplies.”

The enemy camp was deserted. They had carried away their tents, but they had left huge piles of harvested grain. The grain piles had recently been covered with hides, but now the food was left to blow about in the wind. They had also fouled some of the harvest with excrement. Graham’s commissary workers began the tedious task of bagging and loading the harvest.

The scattered refuse of weeks of enemy life lay about them; there were also signs of what had happened to villagers unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the maris. Stark sent burial details to dispose of them.

Father Sumbavu examined the remains of a young girl. “Monsters,” he said. “Not human at all. They deserve extermination.”

“We will hardly be able to do that,” MacKinnie said. “But we may yet surprise them. Your pardon, Father, I must see to our defenses.”

Ditch, ramparts, and palisade rose around the campsite while the commissary workers began cookfires. A dozen singers strolled about. MacKinnie moved through the camp, speaking to little groups of men, encouraging them, testing their morale. It was hard to believe that only months before these had been the sullen slaves and beggars of the streets of Batav. Now they roared lustily at his jokes, shouted defiance at an enemy they could not see, and grimly held their weapons as if half afraid someone would take them. MacKinnie pitied anyone foolish enough to try.

The night was a turmoil. When both moons were high and bright, masses of barbarians stormed forward, some mounted, most on foot, probing to find a weak spot in the perimeter, constantly attacking to keep the men aroused, withdrawing from opposition but coming again and again. MacKinnie sent small detachments of his troops to the center of the camp, replacing them with others, so that each man was able to rest for part of the night. Toward dawn the attacks died away, and he let the men sleep until late in the morning. The Temple swordsmen had borne the brunt of the night attacks, and were most in need of rest. MacKinnie did not call them to breakfast until everyone else had been fed.

A mass of barbarians formed a kilometer from the camp. They were strung out in a vast semicircle between

MacKinnie’s army and the city, and MacKinnie had never seen so large a group of plainsmen before. Stark joined him as he stood atop the commissary wagon for a better view of the enemy.

“This going to be it, Colonel? “the big sergeant asked.

“Possibly. Let’s see if we can get out of this camp. They figure to hit us as soon as there are enough outside the gates to make it worthwhile.” MacKinnie shouted orders, formed the men into ranks, then motioned to a trumpeter. The notes rang out, calling his officers to him. Moments later, the main gate opened.

MacKinnie sent a heavy detachment of shieldsmen angling forward and to the left from the camp gate. A second group angled off to the right, while others marched out to form a line between them, its ends anchored with the hard-marching groups of picked men. When the left-hand group had left a large enough opening inside the wedge, the knights were sent forward until they were just behind the shield wall, at the extreme left corner of the inverted wedge the army was forming. Then MacKinnie sent the Temple archers forward, a line down each leg of his triangular formation, leaving none in the center. Whenever the maris approached the two legs of the formation, a shower of arrows greeted them, forcing them away. The enemy clustered around, moving toward the center where the resistance was least.

MacKinnie nodded in satisfaction. “Now comes the hard part,” he muttered.

A charge of the barbarians struck the center of the triangle directly in front of the camp gates. The shield wall held, but gradually fell back, stretching thinner and thinner, bowing inwardly toward the gate as the heavier formations at the ends of the line held fast. More troops were sent forward to fill the gaps, keeping a continuous line, but still the enemy pressed forward, forcing them back, back, as more of the maris joined the attack. The formation bowed still more, resembling an enormous “U” with its base almost at the palisade. Hundreds, a thousand, four thousand barbarians pressed forward toward the camp gates.

“Now!” MacKinnie shouted. The trumpet notes sounded above the shouts of battle, drums thundered. The knights formed inside their bastion; then, as the formation opened, they charged down the wing, rolling up the flank of the enemy. The shield wall quickly closed behind them; then the ends of the U drew together. Archers faced inward now, firing into the ranks of the enemy, while the heavy cavalrymen thundered over the barbarians, riding them down, breaking up all signs of organization until they rode directly into the camp gate.

MacKinnie signaled frantically to Brett. “Form them up again and be ready to protect the outer flanks!” he shouted. “The archers and spearmen can deal with the one we’ve trapped.”

The field in front of the gate was covered with blood. Barbarians pressed closer and closer together as the shield wall, bristling with pikes, closed in on them. Temple archers continued the rain of arrows into the helpless enemy, too crowded together even to use their weapons properly, the inner group not able to strike a blow. A few raced frantically out the end of the trap before the heavy knots of men MacKinnie had sent out first made contact with each other and closed all avenues of escape.

The remaining enemy outside the trap attempted to aid their fellows, to be stopped by shieldsmen facing outward slowly moving back as the inner lines moved forward. Concentrations of the enemy were broken up by charges of cavalry, the knights thundering over them and around the ends, wheeling back to enter the camp and regroup, while the Temple swordsmen defended the ramparts of the camp itself. The huge mass of doomed men in the trap could have broken through the thinner lines of the camp, or even the outer defenses of the trap, but they could not escape to fight, while the smaller numbers remaining outside were unable to help them, frantically falling upon the spears of the shield wall or trampled beneath the knights while their luckless fellows were relentlessly cut down.

The slaughter continued until midafternoon. At the end, hapless groups of the enemy threw themselves on the spears or clawed their way up the ramparts to be impaled by the swordsmen at the top, screaming desperately, their courage melted by the faceless mass of swords and the rain of arrows. As the pikemen passed over the dead, camp followers slit each throat and removed the arrows, passing them back to be fired again. Captive beasts were led through the lines into the camp to be tethered with the commissary oxen. The lines came closer together, closer, then touched. There were no more enemies in the trap.

“What do you propose for tomorrow?” Sumbavu asked the council clustered around MacKinnie’s campfire. “You have left thousands dead on the field, more cut down in flight by our knights. We can return to the city.”

“No.” MacKinnie stood, a cup of wine in his hands. “Until their supply base is destroyed, there is no safety for the city. We must continue to burn their grain.”

“It is not their grain, but ours!” Sumbavu snapped. “You cannot burn this great harvest. It must be carried back to the city. Surely this march can be delayed for a time to allow us to provision the Temple! The faithful are hungry, and they should be told of this great victory.”

“You forget, there are many more of the enemy than we have killed,” MacKinnie reminded the priest. “And we must not give them time to rest. We must pursue them endlessly until they go back to their wastelands in fear.”

“I forbid this,” Sumbavu said quietly. “We must take these stores of grain to the city. You will not burn them.”

“Then I suggest you take them yourself, Your Worship,” MacKinnie told him. “Now that we have thinned their ranks, I believe we can do without the Temple swordsmen. I will need some of the wagons to transport grain for the army, but you may have half of them, and three hundred of the camp servants as well. It is only thirty kilometers; each can carry half a hundredweight of grain. That will leave little to burn.”

“So be it. We set forth immediately.”

“At night, Your Worship?” MacKinnie asked. “Is that wise?”

“Wiser than being caught by them in the daytime. I see that you will not escort me with your army, though it would involve only a day’s march. I will so report to the council.”

“Two days’ march, Father,” MacKinnie said quietly. “One each way. Not to mention the disorganization as each man ran in to tell his fellows of the glorious victory. We would lose many days, and for what? If the enemy is to be driven from the city, it must be done now.”

“What need to drive them away, now that we have means to gather provisions?” Sumbavu snapped. “We could return, and our Temple officers learn to command the soldiers, then set forth again. It would not be so great for you and your outlanders, would it? You must win yourself, for what purpose I do not know. But I tell you again, I know you do not have the good of the Temple first in your heart, soldier of the south. Were I not guarded by the faithful of the Temple, I do not think I would return from this march alive.” He stalked off into the night, his bodyguard following him closely.

“Go pick the most useless slaves of your group,” MacKinnie told Mary Graham. “The blunderers, the tired animals and those you didn’t make new collars for, the wagons ready to fall apart, get them all out of here.”

She studied him closely. “I’d almost think that’s why you brought all that useless junk. And you added that group of convicts to my picked men … Did you expect this?”

“Freelady, just get them moving,” Stark said. “The colonel’s got enough problems.” He guided her to the granaries, then set men to loading the wagons which were to go back to the city.

Two hours later, Sumbavu was ready to depart. He stood with MacKinnie at the camp gate, watching the sky. “In an hour the moons will be gone. You have not seen the enemy?”

“No, Father,” MacKinnie told him. “But they will have men out there.”

“There is less chance they will attack me at night than by day,” the priest said. “In the dark they will not know that I have only the Temple soldiers, and they will be afraid.” He watched the setting moons in silence until darkness came over the plains.

“I leave you my blessing,” Sumbavu told MacKinnie. “Perhaps I have misjudged your intentions. May God accompany you.”

“Thank you, Father,” MacKinnie said. He ordered the gates opened and watched the guardsmen and wagons leave. Each swordsman carried a bag of grain on his back in addition to his weapons, and the carts were creaking under the load. Convicts and slaves, lured on the expedition with promises of freedom and now sent back toward the city with staggering loads on their backs, old oxen, carts with creaking wheels, all filed out with the proud guardsmen. A thousand soldiers and three hundred bearers left the camp before the gates were closed. MacKinnie returned to his tent. After a few moments, Stark and Longway joined him by his fire.

“They’ll never make ten kilometers by morning,” Stark said. “Not the way they loaded themselves.”

“I thought the priest gave them reasonable loads,” Longway said. “They did not seem excessive.”

“Sure, but the Trader gave them the pick of the loot before they set out. Wasn’t a man there wasn’t carrying five, ten kilos of junk stripped off the dead or picked up in this camp.”

“That was generous of you,” Longway said. “Extraordinarily so.”

“There will be other loot,” MacKinnie told them.

“We’ll have plenty chances to get rich, but they won’t. They’ve earned their share.”

“Or will,” Stark muttered. MacKinnie looked quickly at him, then stared at the fire in silence as Mary Graham joined the little group.

“Best get some sleep,” MacKinnie told her. “We start early in the morning, and it’s late enough now.”

“I don’t really need it,” she laughed. “I ride a cart, remember?”

“Lady, you can sleep in that cart under way, you’ll be the greatest soldier’s wife ever lived,” Stark observed. “I’d rather walk, the way those things fall into every hole in the ground.”

Mary laughed, looked around furtively, then said, “You wouldn’t think the Empire would fall if we told them how to put springs in the carts, would you? But I guess it’s too late now.” She looked around her at the camp. The spear and shield troops were asleep in place around the perimeter, their shields propped up behind the palisade, pikes and spears ready at hand, while guards patrolled outside the perimeter. “I suppose I should start the breakfast fires. No rest for the cooks.”

“Don’t bother,” MacKinnie said. “There won’t be breakfast in the morning. Another hour and I’ll roust out the men I’m taking with me. You can feed the rest when we’ve gone if the enemy gives you time. I’ll leave MacLean in command here.”

“You’re dividing your force, Trader?” Longway asked. “That seems unreasonable. How long will you be gone?”

“One day should do it, one way or another. Don’t worry about it, Academician, we won’t leave you for long.”

“What is all this?” Mary asked. “There’s something strange going on here! I don’t think I like this at all.”

“Just get some rest,” MacKinnie told her. “Or if you can’t do that, please excuse me while I sleep. We’ll have to be up early, Hal. Have the guard call me an hour before first light. My apologies, but I can’t think clearly when I’ve had no sleep, and the enemy is still far too dangerous for my mind to be fogged.” He strode to his tent and closed the flap. After a few moments, Longway went back to his quarters.

“Hal, what is wrong with him?” Mary asked. “There’s something going on, isn’t there?”

“Freelady, he doesn’t like what he’s had to do. I can’t say I like it much either, but we didn’t see any other way. Now do as he says and go to sleep. I reckon I’d better lie down a couple of hours myself.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE PRICE OF LOOT

“Time, Colonel.”

“Uh.” MacKinnie struggled to wakefulness.

“Hour before dawn,” Stark said. “Here.” He gave MacKinnie a steaming cup of tea.

Nathan drank gratefully. “Thanks.” He regretted again that there was neither coffee nor chickeest on Makassar. It might have been worse, he reflected. At least there was tea.

The night was dark. Both moons had set, and low clouds obscured most of the stars. The camp was invisible, but MacKinnie heard the men quietly coming awake. They spoke in whispers, with occasional louder curses and orders for silence breaking the low hiss of conversation. Nathan pulled on his boots and went to the cook area. His officers and noncoms were already gathering there.

He spoke to them in low tones. “I’m concerned about Father Sumbavu’s group,” he said. “We’ll take First and Second battalions and the knights out to cover them. The rest will stay here to guard the camp, with MacLean in charge. Be ready to march in ten minutes.”

“ Is it wise to divide the force?” MacLean asked.

“Wise or not, I’m doing it,” MacKinnie snapped. “I’m not accustomed to discussing my orders, Mister MacLean.”

“Sir,” MacLean answered.

“All right, move,” Stark said. He waited until the others had left. “Pretty good troops,” he said. “Not much protest at all. ’Course winning a battle yesterday didn’t hurt. Does wonders for discipline.”

When the troops were assembled, MacKinnie sent half the spearmen to the walls. The other half, with the knights, were marched out the camp gate. Once outside they turned due east, a right angle to the road to the city. There were mutters from the ranks, but no one questioned him.

When they were a kilometer from the camp MacKinnie turned the detachment toward the city, forming them into two columns of four with the cavalry inside. They marched in silence without drums, and Stark moved up and down the line to see that each man kept his equipment from rattling.

The sky turned gray, then crimson. When it was light enough to see men fifty meters away, Hal Stark caught up to MacKinnie at the head of the column. “They move pretty fast without wagons and junk,” Stark said. “Ought to be able to keep up this pace all morning.”

“We’ll need to,” MacKinnie said. He found it difficult to judge the capabilities of the native troops, and he couldn’t use his own abilities as a guide; months on Makassar had softened them, but the Samualites were generally stronger than the natives, and nearly all tasks seemed easier, exactly as Midshipman Landry had predicted.

The sun was nearly up when Stark sent for MacKinnie. When Nathan joined him at the point, Stark showed him deep tracks left by Sumbavu’s baggage carts. “Hard to tell how far they are ahead of us,” Stark said. “No more’n an hour, I’d say.”

“Loaded as they were, they can’t be too far,” MacKinnie said. “Okay, I want flankers out to both sides. They’ll slow us down, but this is good ambush terrain. And let’s make time.

They swung on in silence, now and again changing positions to send fresh men to lead the escorting flankers. It was hard work to break trail in the waist-high grass-like vegetation. The low hills of the plain closed around them, and MacKinnie rushed forward each time they topped a rise. Then, as they approached one low hill, they heard shouts from the other side. When they drew closer, the sounds resolved into the din of a battle.

“Deploy the troops,” MacKinnie said softly. “Columns of fours to each side.”

The parallel columns split apart, angling out to form two lines, then continued their advance up the hill in silence. The men readied their weapons and helped each other sling their shields properly.

“Draw swords,” MacKinnie ordered. “Double time.”

They trotted up the final ten meters to the top of the rise. The sounds of battle grew louder. Then they could see the low valley beyond.

A thousand barbarians had swarmed over Sumbavu’s column and destroyed it. There were so few survivors that at first MacKinnie saw none at all, but a few Temple swordsmen were huddled in knots of ten or twenty around the makeshift protection of the baggage carts. The maris swept toward them firing arrows and leaping on them with their swords. Even as MacKinnie and Stark watched, another tiny group of scarlet livery vanished beneath a wave of plainsmen.

“Make your charge straight through them,” MacKinnie told Vanjynk. “Cut through and go past, then wheel, dress ranks, and charge home again. Don’t stop to play with them, stay together as you’ve been taught. Now go.”

Brett and Vanjynk waved the knights forward. The heavily armored horsemen gathered momentum as they rode down the gentle hill, changed from trot to canter, building speed as they rode toward the enemy.

As soon as the knights were in motion the infantry shield wall began its advance. Drums sounded quickstep, then double time as fuglemen shouted frantic orders to dress ranks and keep in line. The wall moved forward.

The maris saw the wave of horsemen plunging toward them and leaped for their mounts, scattering the loot they had been so anxious to gain, but it was too late. The lances came down, and now that they had been seen, MacKinnie waved to the trumpeters. The notes carried easily over the dewy plains as the knights charged home. Lances shattered, swords were torn from scabbards as the knights shouted in triumph. A few remained to fight, wheeling about until they were pulled from their saddled by the lassos of the maris, or their mounts were shot from beneath them. The rest galloped past, riding the enemy down, thundering down the entire line of barbarians before wheeling at the top of the next rise.

The horsemen had broken the enemy when the shieldsmen arrived. Once again the wings of the shield line closed inward, trapping the enemy between ranks, while the knights charged home again, throwing back into the trap any of the barbarians who had attempted to escape, the momentum of their charge crushing all resistance. The plainsmen caught between the lines had no chance. They could impale themselves on the spears of the shield wall, or wait to be trampled by the knights. This time the slaughter was done quickly, for no one attempted to attack the infantry from behind. The plainsmen who escaped were glad of their lives.

They found Sumbavu at the head of the column, a group of swordsmen dead around his body. He clutched a sword with one hand and a crucifix with the other, and his eyes stared at the heavens. There were no more than fifty survivors in his entire command.

MacKinnie grimly formed his troops into columns and marched back to his camp, the carts rattling over the rutted plains, the groans of the wounded sounding over the creak of their wheels.

MacKinnie rested his men through the next day. In the late afternoon, a small party of plainsmen approached, wheeled outside arrow-shot, and waved feathered lances above their heads.

“He wants to talk to you,” Brett said. “It doesn’t happen very often with city people, but they do have ways of ending wars between clans. He’s treating you as the chief of a very powerful clan. The men behind him are family heads.”

“How do I meet him?” MacKinnie asked.

“Go outside the gate with a group of retainers. I doubt if he’ll trust you not to shoot him if he gets in close range. It’s what always happens when they deal with city people.”

“Can you talk to him? Do you speak their language?”

“You know I do, star man, and you know why. I’ll come with you if you like.”

MacKinnie took Brett and young Todd, leaving Stark and MacLean in command. Longway puffed after them, insisting, and MacKinnie invited him along. They walked out from the camp until they were near the extreme range of a crossbow, then halted, still barely within covering fire if it were needed.

Three figures detached themselves from the group, dismounted, and strode purposefully toward MacKinnie. A few feet away they grounded their lances and spread their arms wide. One spoke swiftly in a musical language MacKinnie had never heard.

“He says he comes to speak,” Brett said. “He says you fight like a great chief. He says never before have the robed fools fought so well.”

“Tell him he has fought well and we admire the courage of his men.”

Brett translated. Before the mari chief could answer, MacKinnie said, “Now tell him I am a great prince from the south, and that I have come in a ship. Tell him a thousand more ships full of men like mine are coming, with many horses, and we will cover the plains. Tell him his brave people will kill many of us, but more will come, and soon there will be many dead on these fields.”

“It is customary to exchange more compliments.”

“Give him a few. Tell him how brave his men are, and how well they fought. Then tell him what I said.”

Brett spoke at length, waited for a reply, and said, “He says he is honored to meet a great prince from the south. He says he knew you could not be from the city. He asks how you will catch him.”

“Say that we will come to his home in midwinter. We will burn his food and kill his beasts. But we do not wish to do this, for many of my strong men will die, and many of his brave warriors, and all for nothing.”

“That ought to impress him,” Brett said. He chattered to the plainsman.

This time there was a long pause, then a longer reply from the mari.

Brett listened carefully. “You’ve impressed him,” the singer said. “He’s afraid of that walking wall of yours. He can imagine your troops pounding along in the snow, and it bothers him. They don’t like to fight in the winter, and he doesn’t think you would like it much either. He wants to know why you would go to so much trouble.”

“Say I’m a madman,” MacKinnie said. “Or will that work?”

“It might. They’re familiar with fanatics.”

“Good. Then I’m a fanatic dedicated to saving the Temple.”

Brett spoke again, listened, and said “He’s about ready to believe anything about you. He asks you to speak again. That means he hasn’t any reply.”

“Tell him any way you want to,” MacKinnie answered, “but here are my terms. They can have two days to get out of here. They burn nothing else, but they may carry away whatever they can. At the end of that time, we’ll kill every one of them we find. And if they make any more hostile moves after today, we’ll follow him to the end of the continent and burn all his villages and kill all his livestock. Make sure he knows that’s not an idle threat.”

“He’s not responsible for all of the maris,” Brett said.

“Just his own clan. He can’t promise for the rest.”

“Is this the leader of the biggest group?”

“One of the largest clans, yes.”

“Then he’ll have to figure out how to drive the others out. He ought to be able to do it, but anyway that’s his problem, not mine. Tell him that.”

Brett looked pale for a moment. He seemed about to say something to MacKinnie, but Nathan’s look stopped him. He turned to the mari chief and spoke at length.

The sinewy chief answered, then another of the attendants shouted. Brett shouted back and their voices rose angrily before the chief spoke again more calmly. Finally Brett turned back to Nathan. “He’ll try. Some of the others have already left. He’ll get the rest to go along. They wanted more time, but I told them you really were a madman, that you’d taken an oath never to end the war if it didn’t end now. They’re still arguing about it, but it’s obvious they’re afraid of your army. I think they’ll go.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE HOLY RELICS

They entered the city in triumph. Although MacKinnie sent no word ahead, the wagons loaded with grain told enough; by the time the army reached the city gates, thousands had turned out to line the streets. Hundreds more spilled outside the gates and ran emotionally to greet the soldiers. The sound of their cheering was deafening.

It took nearly an hour to march up the winding streets to the Temple’s huge courtyard. MacKinnie sent a group ahead to keep the courtyard clear of civilians, and eventually brought the troops and commissary wagons inside. “There’ll be celebration enough tonight,” he told his officers. “For the moment let’s get the men fed and give them some rest.”

“We have won a great victory,” one of the knights protested. “Now we enjoy the rewards …”

“Certainly,” MacKinnie said. “The knights are excused. But we can’t totally disperse the army. The maris seem to be leaving, true enough, but we’ll need to be able to back up my threats if any of them change their minds. There’ll be plenty of revelry right here. I’ve sent for a whole warehouse of wine. One of you go invite all the Temple soldiers who had to stay behind. They were willing to go, and they ought to share in the fun.”

He dismissed the officers, but kept Stark back. “I need the headquarters company now,” MacKinnie said.

“Yes, sir. They’re ready. It’s all planned.”

“Good. Send them in. And send a runner for those Imperial churchmen.”

“Your reverence,” MacKinnie told Casteliano, “you are now in command of this Temple.”

The Archbishop was startled. “How is this?” he demanded.

“The only military forces left in this city are a couple of hundred archers, about that many swordsmen, the knights, and my army. Most of them — including the Temple swordsmen — are getting drunk out in the courtyard. The only comparatively sober troops are my headquarters company.”

“But — what does this mean?” Laraine asked.

“It means we own the place,” MacKinnie said. “Who’s to oppose us? The knights aren’t any match for the pikemen in a street fight, and the pikes will stay loyal to me for a while at least.”

“Surely you do not expect to make war on the Temple,” Laraine protested. “We have no wish to wade in blood to the high altar.”

“It shouldn’t come to that. We’ve sent a picked force to the key points. The Temple itself is already ours. Now we’ve got to tell their ruling council and that Pope of theirs who’s in charge.”

“Would your men really fight against the Temple?” Casteliano asked.

“Most of them would,” Stark said. “Remember who we recruited. They were mostly slaves, and peasants down on their luck. And they’ve won victories under the — the Trader. They’d fight for him.”

“We’d rather not,” MacKinnie said. “It’d be hard to control the looting, and there might be fires. Civil wars are never pretty—”

“No. They are not,” Casteliano said. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “And you have not yet informed the ruling council of the changed state of affairs? Good.” He turned to Laraine and Deluca. “Go quickly and get vestments. The best we have, and our most ornate trappings. Trader MacKinnie, will you lend us some of your men as attendants? And if you will have your most regal clothing brought to you that would help as well. I believe there is a way this can be done without bloodshed.”

“I hope so,” MacKinnie said. “Stark will see that you get what you need from us.”

“Excellent.” Casteliano went to the battlement and looked down at the courtyard. The guards at the gates had left their posts. Civilians, Temple swordsmen, archers, knights, commissary troops all danced in great circles, pausing only to scoop cups of wine from open barrels.

“Look there,” MacKinnie said quietly. He pointed to the wide battlemented walls above the courtyard. Grim-faced pikemen and shieldsmen stood in knots of five at all the crossings.

“I see.” Casteliano continued to stare down at the courtyard. “I also see that you brought back none of the Temple swordsmen, and not all of their archers. How did Father Sumbavu die?”

“He was killed with his men in an ambush,” MacKinnie said slowly.

“But you were not caught?”

“Sumbavu was bringing supplies back to the city. I went to his aid, but we were too late. We could avenge him, but we couldn’t save him.”

“I see. A thousand brave men, who served you well. A high price to pay for a city.”

“Damned high,” MacKinnie muttered. “God help me, there was no other way. You’ve seen those Temple fanatics. We’d have to kill every one of those soldiers before they’d let us inspect their holy relics.”

Casteliano turned from the wall. “The relics. What is your interest in those?” He inspected Nathan carefully. “Whatever your reason, you have done the Church a service, and we will not forget.”

“Thank you.”

“And now we must speak to their council. Your pardon, Trader, I must find a room where we can dress properly for the interview — and I would be most grateful if you would bring a dozen of your most loyal men.” He paused. “I doubt it will come to battle. Most of those on the council are practical men. As are we. Our demands will not be excessive, and we must be careful not to humiliate them. And of course the maris are not yet gone-”

“Precisely,” MacKinnie said.

“Thus we have reason with us,” Casteliano said. “And if that fails-”

MacKinnie gestured toward a group of pikemen on the battlements. “Then there is another argument.”

Two days later, MacKinnie begged audience with His Ultimate Holiness, Primate of all Makassar, Vicar of Christ, and Archbishop of New Rome. He was led into a small office behind the council room where Casteliano was seated in his shirtsleeves examining Temple records. The Archbishop looked up and smiled.

“It was easier than you thought, was it not?” he said.

“Yes, Your Reverence. I still find it hard to believe that we had no bloodshed. But my men remain on guard, just in case.”

“I told you there were few doctrinal differences, and these men are not only realists, but believers. If we had approached them from a Navy landing ship and demanded obedience to New Rome, we would have had to demonstrate our power, but it would have been managed. As it was, arriving in the city like beggars, they would never listen to us. How could they believe we were great lords of the True Church from the stars? But with you at our side, and your soldiers commanding their Temple, they had little choice but to listen.”

“You were highly persuasive. Your Reverence.”

“As were your actions. It was not difficult to make them see the hand of God in your victory, and His wrath in the death of Sumbavu. Did you foresee that as well?”

“No, Your Reverence.”

“It is as well. Now what may I do for you?”

“I don’t know how to begin. Yet I must have your help. I see no other way.”

“Colonel — do not be surprised, the title is commonly used by your soldiers — you hold this Temple, not me. You could depose me as easily as you created me, particularly if you supported the council against me. What is it I can do that you cannot do for yourself? Do you want to be crowned king of this city? They would do that for you.”

MacKinnie laughed. “Nothing that simple. But — but may I speak to you in confidence? Have I earned the right to ask something which, if you refuse, you will not thwart me from attempting another way?”

The Archbishop took a small strip of cloth from the table in front of him, kissed it, and placed it over his shoulders. “My son, for thousands of years the confessional has never been violated. By tradition, by the laws of God, and by the most stringent of Imperial edicts, what you tell me in confession can never be revealed. Have you something to confess?”

Nathan MacKinnie breathed deeply, stared at the old man, and thought for a moment before beginning. “All right. As you surmised, we are from a newly discovered planet which will be a colony world when they get around to classifying us. They won’t do that until we have a working planetary government, and King David’s advisors are managing to delay that. They won’t be able to hold up too much longer. We want to build a spaceship before they make us a colony world.”

“A spaceship! Just how advanced are you? What makes you think … no, how does this affect me?”

“Father, I came here to get copies of every technical work I can find in that library. Our people think we can do it if we know how. I’m a soldier, not a scientist, and I don’t know if they can do it or not, but we’ve got to try!”

The Archbishop nodded. “You would try. Tell me, Colonel MacKinnie, are you typical of the people of your planet?”

“I don’t know. In some ways, yes. Why?”

“Because, and I say it reverently, God help the colonists they sent to your world if you are. You don’t know when to give up. Yes, I’ll help you.” He thought for a few moments, then laughed. “And we’ll stay within the letter of the regulations. Although I doubt that would impress a Navy court martial if they found you smuggling copies of technical books. Makassar was classified before they discovered the library, and so far they haven’t updated it. The classification is ‘primitive.’ Therefore, any art or craft found here can be taken to any other part of the Empire.

“So, yes, we’ll help you and gladly. Think what a splendid joke on the Imperial Traders Association this will make!” He struck a small gong on the desk and told the servant who entered in response, “Go to the holy relics and bring Brother LeMoyne, if you please.”

LeMoyne was a small man with sandy hair and flashing blue eyes. He knelt perfunctorily before Casteliano, kissed his ring, and said, “And what may I do for His Ultimate Holiness other than refrain from letting New Rome know his present title?”

The Archbishop laughed. “You can see why he will never be a bishop. Tell me, can you make the holy relics speak yet?”

“The library is in amazingly good condition, Your Reverence. The Navy technicians fixed much of the equipment when they made copies of the tapes. The Old Empire used nearly indestructible plastics, and everything has been preserved with holy zeal. It only needs a power source to make it work.”

“What kind of power?” MacKinnie asked.

“Oh, any good source of current. It doesn’t take a lot. Very efficient people, the Old Imperials. They powered the whole palace from a small direct conversion unit taking heat from natural hot springs. That’s still working, but the regulators aren’t. The unit is putting out so little power now that it won’t run much of the system — but wecan get a few watts from it, after more than three hundred years! They built better than they knew in those days.”

Casteliano nodded sadly. “Their equipment was splendid. But it didn’t save them.”

“No. Anyway, in addition to the old power unit, we have a hand-powered generator the Navy left. We’ve got part of the reader working off that, and it won’t take long to get everything else in order. Uh, it would be no great trick to build a powered generator, but we couldn’t let the natives see it operate.”

“I think not for the moment,” Casteliano said. “The Church has sometimes evaded the technology transfer restrictions, but that is a serious matter, not to be done without much thought. We need the Navy’s cooperation.” He paused thoughtfully. “Trader MacKinnie would like to inspect the library if that is convenient.”

“Certainly. Now?” LeMoyne asked.

“Yes,” MacKinnie said. “And if you could send for one of my people, Kleinst—”

“Oh, he’s been down there helping me all morning,” LeMoyne said. “Does His Ultimate Holiness care to accompany us?”

Casteliano looked in dismay at the litter of parchment on his desk. “I would be delighted, but this work must be done.” He sighed. “Get thee behind me, Satan-”

LeMoyne shrugged and led MacKinnie out of the office. They went down winding stone stairways until they reached massive doorways guarded by four pikemen and a crimson-uniformed Temple officer. The pikemen snapped to attention as MacKinnie approached.

The officer looked doubtful. “He is a layman. Only the consecrated may enter—”

“Who’ll stop the colonel?” one of the pikemen asked.

“He has been sent by His Ultimate Holiness,” LeMoyne said. “Man, do you not know that if it had not been for the colonel, the maris would have the relics?”

“True,” the Temple officer said. He took torches from the wall and handed them to MacKinnie and LeMoyne, then stood aside. He did not look pleased.

There were two more guardrooms, but these were empty. Then they went down a broader stairway of marble.

“This is almost certainly Old Empire,” LeMoyne said. “After the wars, the survivors built most of the Temple structure over it. Here we are, just beyond that doorway.”

They went through. At last, MacKinnie thought. I’ve come a long way to see this—

The room was not large. It stank of fish oil from the lamps. The walls had been scrubbed unnumerable times to remove lampblack, and there was only a tiny suggestion of design or color to them.

There was not much else to see. A small box with crank handles and a seat stood in the middle of the room. Wires ran from that to a small table set against one wall. Above the table was what looked like a dark windowpane. Kleinst, wearing a dark monk’s hood, sat in front of the desk. He stood when MacKinnie entered.

Nathan looked around the room in confusion. “Where is this fabulous machinery?” he asked.

LeMoyne chuckled. “Your friend there asked the same question.” He pointed at the table. “There it is.”

“No more than that?”

LeMoyne nodded. “No more than that. You could put all the knowledge of the human race in four units like that.”

MacKinnie did not believe him, but there was no point in arguing. He turned to Kleinst. “Have you made any progress?”

The scholar’s eyes gleamed. “Yes! Would you like to see?”

“Of course-”

“The sound units?” Kleinst asked, looking to LeMoyne. When LeMoyne nodded, Kleinst sat again at the console and touched small squares on it.

A tiny voice came from the walls. MacKinnie looked around in amazement.

“And except those days be shortened, there should not be any living creature survive,” the voice said.

“Matthew,” LeMoyne said. “Whoever was last down here loaded in that. The Temple priests have been listening to it ever since. They don’t know how to change record units. The audio unit discharges the accumulators in less than an hour and the power system is so weak that it takes days to charge up again.”

MacKinnie shook his head. “Do you understand this?” he asked Kleinst.

“Yes! Or almost. It is a new concept, yet not in principle different from photographic and recording equipment we use at home. Although more compact. And I don’t understand everything about it. I don’t know if we could read the tapes and cubes if we had them back at the University.”

“And if we can’t?” MacKinnie demanded.

“Then I must learn what we need,” Kleinst said. “I have a photographic memory. It is one reason I was selected for this journey.”

“There are many blanks in storage,” LeMoyne said. “It will not be difficult to copy them. But I fear your friend is correct. The equipment needed to read these records is very complex.” He went to a small, ornately carved cabinet near the table and laughed. “They made this into a tabernacle,” he said. He opened it and took out a small block. “We could put most of what you need in two or three of these, if only you had means to read it.”

“Copying them is simple!” Kleinst exclaimed. “Once we have more electrical power we can copy — and there is everything here! Textbooks for children which tell of physical laws no one at home has understood for hundreds of years. Handbooks, maintenance manuals for equipment I can’t describe — look! Sit down there.” He pointed to the box with handles. “Sit there, and turn that crank, and I will show you marvels—”

MacKinnie shrugged and did as he was told. The box made a whining noise as he spun the handles.

The dark glass above the table came to light. A diagram of some kind of complex equipment appeared. Then words.

“See! “Kleinst shouted.

“What does it mean?” MacKinnie asked.

“I don’t know. But — with time I will. And if not, some of the younger students can be trained. We will learn.”

“We have to,” MacKinnie said.

“I don’t quite understand who you are,” LeMoyne said. “But if His Reverence is satisfied, I am.”

“How long?” MacKinnie asked. “How long until we can have copies of everything?”

LeMoyne pursed his lips. “How long can you turn that crank?”

“It’s tiring. An hour, perhaps—”

“It would be useful to build a powered unit, but that is not easily done down here. If we could move this up to where we could connect water power—”

“Impossible,” MacKinnie said. “We hold this Temple, true, but these people are volatile. If we moved the relics they’d be scandalized, and God knows what they’d do.”

“Then you had better put your own officers to guard the doors,” LeMoyne said. “We can make the copies in four hours, but—”

“But indeed. But how long for you to learn?’’ MacKinnie asked Kleinst.

“I could study for years and not learn it all—”

“We don’t have years. We have weeks at most.”

“I know,” Kleinst said. “I will do the best I can. And we will make the copies …”

“Which we may not be able to read.” MacKinnie sighed. “The winter storms are coming. And we don’t know what’s happening at home. I know you’ll do your best.”

CHAPTER TWENTY JURAMENTADO

Firelight flickered across an old man’s face.

Datu Attik’s eyes dimmed with hidden tears as he watched two juramentados complete their ritual washing. The women came forward to hold high the crimson cloths for the binding. The young men’s bodies shone in the yellow firelight.

They sang. Their death chants rang through the darkness around the camp. Otherwise there was silence. Later the others of the band, warriors and women alike, would sing death chants for these two, but for now the tribe had seen too much of death.

Eight hundred of the clan lay beneath the wheat stubble beyond the fire. Eight hundred stiffened and cold in the earth, eight hundred among the thousands who had fallen to the Temple army. How would the clan live without the young men? And now two more would join them, and one the son of the Datu.

Futile. Futile, thought Datu Attik. My son will die, and for nothing, for less than nothing, for worse than nothing. The Temple is strong. The robed fools have found new strength with their new sultan.

He ground his teeth at the memory. It had been so nearly done! The black-robed ones of the Great Temple of Batav had been defeated, done, were finished, penned into their city to starve while the maris roamed at will, ate the city’s crops, rode to the very walls in challenge and laughed at the black robes—

And then came the new sultan from the far west, a giant of a man who made walls march and destroyed the greatest force the maris had ever assembled together.

It was done, it was done, Allah’s will was done, and the maris must now return to their barren hills, but first let the city feel sorrow as the maris sorrowed. Let no man say his triumph was complete. Let the Temple mourn as Datu Attik mourned.

“No good will come of this.” The voice came from his right side, from where his second son lay at his father’s feet. “The sultan cannot be killed. My brother will make new war, and it is war we cannot win.”

“Silence. Your brother sings his farewell.” But it was true, Datu Attik thought. The sultan has said that if there is more war between the maris and the Temple, the marching walls will come to the fields in winter and pursue the maris to the end of the world.

He will do as he has said, and my sons will die, and my people will die. Why has Allah spared me to watch? Does He hate me so?

The song of the juramentados burst out and struck Attik like a blow, and the old man knew it was too late. These messengers of death could not be turned from their task, not by him or by anyone. Only their death would slow them now.

“O God Thou are Almighty, Allah Thou are Almighty, we witness that God is one God, we witness that Allah is Almighty!

“When the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled, when Hell shall blaze forth, when Paradise is near, then shall every soul know what works it hath made! Witness that Allah is One, witness that Allah is Almighty!”

Veiled women came now to aid the juramentados. They bound the young bodies tightly with scarlet cloths, tightly to hold the blood, scarlet to hide the blood from their enemies. Young, young men, his son was a young man, and now would die, but he would die for the glory of Allah—

His second son brought a kriss and Attik raised it to his lips, then passed it to the lips of his first son. “Then shall every soul know the works it hath made,” Attik chanted. “So saith Allah, so saith the Almighty, every man shall submit to the will of Allah. Witness that Allah is One, witness that Allah is Almighty.”

“Worthy is Allah to be praised.”

The death songs hung over the camp long after the juramentados vanished into the night beyond the yellow circle of firelight. They were gone, running toward the city of Batav.

Faint sounds came from the city to the campsite: sounds of song and joy; the sounds of men and women in triumph. Datu Attik heard and shook his fist toward the magnificent blaze of the Temple rising above the city walls.

Temple!

The Temple of God, the Temple which held the very voice of God! The Temple stolen by the black-robed priests of Batav, the Temple which was so nearly in the grasp of the maris. For generation upon generation the false priests of false gods had held the Temple from the faithful. Attik’s grandfather was old when he died, and the oldest men his grandfather had known in his youth could not remember when the Temple was not held by the worshippers of the Prophet Jesus.

But Attik knew. Once there had been a time when men flew above the plains of Makassar, flew up to the very stars above. It was a time when God was not angry with men, and in that time the Temple was open so that all men could hear the words of God.

Surely Allah would not forever hold his people from his Word. Surely the juramentados would find the sultan MacKinnie, and then, and then — the maris might yet take the Temple! There were yet enough, and without the sultan to lead them, the black-robes might return to their futile ways of war—

“It shall be as Allah wills,” Attik said aloud. “I submit to the will of Allah.”

Then, since he was a practical man, Attik ordered the clan to prepare for their journey. It might be well to be far from the city when the juramentados struck. The sultan had ordered them away from the city plains in three days’ time, and that time was nearly past.

If the juramentados met success, there would be time to gather the clans and return. Without their sultan the Temple priests would lose battles as they did in the past, and the Temple would fall.

The Temple for Allah, and the city of Batav for the maris. The city, that lovely city—

The sack of Batav could go on for days!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE WAR RECALLED

The celebrations continued for days. Monks’ cells in the hollow of the walls of the great Temple lay empty as even the silent orders found release from their vows. Songs of triumph rose from the massive brooding walls to blend with the Te Deum sung in the Temple Sanctuary.

MacKinnie stood atop the highest Temple battlement and looked up into the night sky toward his home a dozen light-years away. A river of stars ran across the sky, so that it was difficult to locate the star that shone on his world.

The stars belonged to the Empire of Man, and looking up at the myriad of lights MacKinnie could appreciate the problems of the Imperial Navy. How could there be peace among all those and yet each have freedom? The legendary time when Prince Samual’s World was united and there were no wars was remembered as a golden age, yet unification had remained a dream and spawned a dozen wars; and that was only one world. The Empire had hundreds, perhaps thousands — he couldn’t know. More worlds than there were nations or city-states on Samual.

“Sir?”

He turned at Stark’s approach. “Yes, Hal?”

“I brought the shipmaster.”

MacKinnie once again marveled at the varieties of man. People on Prince Samual’s World were varied enough, but nothing like what he had seen on Makassar. There were the tall, fair men like Vanjynk, and the dark, swarthy men like Loholo; the Imperial Navy even had black men and women. On Samual “black men” were legendary monsters who lived in the hills and ate children …

Loholo stood respectfully and waited for MacKinnie to speak.

“Shipmaster, I must return to Jikar. When can we sail?” MacKinnie asked.

Loholo shrugged. “She is ready now. It will be no easy journey. Much of the time the wind will be in our faces. There is better trading to the east and south … and there will be storms.”

“Aye.” MacKinnie shuddered. Now that they were ashore he could admit that he’d been terrified. But there was no other way. Or was there? “Could we sail east to get there?”

“East?” You believe the tales that Makassar is round — but you would know, star man. You would know.” Loholo shrugged, jingling the golden ornaments he wore. His curved dagger bore new jewels on the hilt, and there were new rings on his fingers. “I have known of men who believed the world round and sailed east to reach the western shores,” he said. “But I never heard of one who arrived. Trader, there are shoals west of Jikar, and there are pirates throughout the islands. Subao is faster than they, but there are many pirates. Those are the western waters I know. What else may lay between here and there—” He shrugged again to a jingle of gold. “Only God knows.”

God and the Imperial Navy, MacKinnie thought. From the maps they had shown him there was a lot of open water to the east of the main continent. Loholo was probably right. “I had thought as much,” MacKinnie said. “So there’s nothing for it. We sail in five days.”

“So soon? You will hardly have time to buy a cargo. It would be much better to wait until next season.”

“No. I must reach Jikar in two hundred days,” MacKinnie said.

Loholo chuckled. “Then you will have an uncomfortable voyage. Two thousand klamaters in two hundred days.” The sea captain laughed again. “In this season. Well, Subao can withstand that — but can you? And why leave Batav at all? You rule here. The priestly star man is Ultimate Holiness, but he came to the throne on your pikes, and did not your pikemen hold the city the old council would elect a new Holiness inside three days.”

“And that’s a fact,” Stark said. “There’s some in the new council who’d support Casteliano, but you can’t expect all them old Archdeacons to take kindly to the Imperial missionaries movin’ in on ’em like that. Mister Loholo’s right, there’d be civil war if it wasn’t that our troops hold all the strong points.”

“Which means I can’t take the whole army across the plains,” MacKinnie said. “Or if I did, I’d have to take the Imperial missionaries with me—”

“They’re not likely to come,” Stark observed.

“Exactly. And they won’t continue helping us if we take them as prisoners.” MacKinnie glanced upward at the stars and thought again of the problems of empire. “So it’s by sea. Leave the pikemen here and hope the missionaries know what to do with them. Thank you, Mister Loholo. That will be all.”

“Trader?” Loholo made no move to leave.

“Yes?”

“Trader, you promised me Subao when we returned to Jikar.”

“She’ll be yours, Mister Loholo.”

“Aye. Then with your permission I’ll get back to her. There’s still work to be done. Bottom to be scraped, new water barrels, provisions — but if there’s a place by water on this world that you want to go to, I’ll take you, even if we pass every pirate in the shallows!” Loholo fingered the golden skull ornament at his left ear. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever seen, Trader. You’ve shown us how to make ships sail better than we ever knew. You trained an army of city rabble and took them out to whip the barbarians after the Temple people gave up. Now you’re in command of the Temple and all Batav, and you want to return to Jikar! Most men would rather stay here as king — andthere’d be no nonsense about it, either. You’ve only to say the word-”

“And you could be my High Admiral, Mister Loholo?”

“No, sir. Your star man Captain MacLean would have that post, and I’m not that ambitious. Subao’s enough for me, star man. A good ship and open sea’s all my father wanted for any of his children.”

Loholo began the long descent down the stone stairway to the street below, and MacKinnie turned away to lean on the ramparts. Batav was a blaze of lights, with bonfires in all the public squares. Every one of the city’s thirty thousand souls seemed to be reveling in the streets, their numbers swollen by another thirty thousand peasants who had sought refuge within the city walls. The peasants would soon go back to their fields, and the remnants of Batav’s great feudal families, all those who survived the futile charges against the maris before MacKinnie arrived, would return to their great halls and tournaments—

And then what? “Getting control of that damned library was easier than letting loose,” MacKinnie said. “I’m concerned about the missionaries. Can they hold on after we leave?”

“I doubt it. Not without a good commander who knows how you fight.”

“Could Brett hold the Temple?” MacKinnie asked.

Stark shrugged. “He’s maybe smart enough, but they’d never trust him. He was raised a mari, sure enough, and it shows. Nobody’s going to put him in command.

“Then who can do it?”

“You.”

“And no one else, Sergeant?”

“Not that I know of, Colonel. You built this army, and you know what it can do. The others don’t think like you.”

“And that worries you?” MacKinnie asked.

“Don’t get paid to worry,” Stark said automatically. “Except-”

He’s in a strange mood, MacKinnie thought. He really is worried. I haven’t seen him that way since—

“You know,” Stark said, “Mister Loholo’s got a point, Colonel. A year ago we was down to it, looking for a place fightin’ in some petty war on South Continent and wonderin’ how to pay the rent on a flophouse until we found something. We never expected to find anything as good as we’ve got now.”

“I gave Dougal my word, and I swore allegiance to King David,” MacKinnie reminded him.

“After Haven used the goddam Empire to bake half our Wolves, Colonel! They’d never have took Orleans without the Imperial Marines … and then they turned you out like an old dog! What do we really owe Haven, Colonel? What do we owe anybody?”

MacKinnie turned to his sergeant in surprise. “We’re soldiers, Hal. It’s all either of us has ever been-”

“Soldiers for who, Colonel? You owe Haven any more’n you owe Batav? If it wasn’t for them peasant kids we trained we’d never have beat the maris. Them boys would follow you to hell, and what’s goin’ to happen to ’em if we pull up stakes and leave? And when we get back to Haven, that Dougal’s likely to slit our throats to shut us up. What use are we to him after we bring back them books or whatever it is Kleinst has got? There’s not much for us back on Samual, and that’s the size of it—” Stark turned quickly and grasped the hilt of his sword. “Watch out, Colonel, there’s somebody comin’ up the stairs.”

“Go see who it is.” There were guards posted at the foot of the stairway to MacKinnie’s penthouse, and from the sounds there was only one person approaching. Hal could deal with any single man. Nathan turned back to the battlements.

The revels continued in the city below. Drunken apprentices staggered from shop to shop, demanding that lights be placed in all dark windows on pain of having the building itself burned to provide light. Barrels of wine and ale stood at street corners, open to all comers. But through the drunken reveling MacKinnie’s peasant pikemen stood in grim, disciplined knots at the strategic points, waiting for their relief before joining the festivities …

Follow me to hell, MacKinnie thought. Why not? I found them not much better than slaves and now they’ve just defeated the worst threat this city’s ever faced.

Why the hell shouldn’t I be king? Because of another duty …

All his life MacKinnie had lived under a soldier’s code and like most dueling societies Prince Samual’s World held honor higher than life … but what was the honorable course now?

Who owns my loyalty? he wondered. Dougal, who had a dozen men and women killed to protect the secret babbled by that drunken Imperial officer? Casteliano, who’s Ultimate Holiness courtesy of my pikemen? Or those lads out there? It’s obvious what Hal thinks.

“It’s Freelady Graham, Colonel,” Stark announced.

Mary Graham had taken off her armor and had let her long brown hair fall in waves and curls to below her shoulders. A blue linen gown with tight bodice set off her small figure, and she was much lovelier than she’d been the first time MacKinnie had seen her.

“Nathan, you’re missing the party,” she said accusingly. “Can’t you ever relax, even for one evening? Let’s have some fun!”

MacKinnie was surprised by the possessive tone in her voice. Had he imagined it or — Great Saints, he thought. She’s a real beauty tonight. And with her hair let down she looks a lot like Laura. Nearly as headstrong, too. And she’s twenty-four, you’re fifty, and she’s your ward. But—

Unwanted the memories poured past his guard. There had been another girl, once. A freelady, not one of the innumerable camp followers any military commander would know. She was no more than thirty, and it was no more than three years ago …

A bleak picture formed in MacKinnie’s mind. Haven, defeated at Blanthern Pass, was on the march again, invading Orleans with inadequate troops and a dangerously thin supply line. And Iron MacKinnie’s

Wolves were ready, this time ready to end Haven’s threat to Orleans forever and aye. When this battle was done, the Orleans Committee of Public Safety could dictate any terms they wanted to David II!

The Wolves lay in ambush at Lechfeld. Two battalions waited, enough troops to force Haven’s invading force to deploy and fight. Lechfeld couldn’t be bypassed or the Haven army would be without any possible supply line. Twenty kilometers away, in dense forest, a regiment of Orleans Dragoons moved swiftly through the forest gullies, leading their horses until they reached open country. Above, behind rolling hills overlooking the Lechfeld plains, MacKinnie waited with the balance of his Wolves to close the trap — and the Haven army was moving into it.

The Committee had protested the battle plan. Converging columns were too dangerous. There was no reliable way to communicate between them, even if the University professors did believe they would have reliable wireless soon. The timing of the battle needed great precision or the Orleanists would be defeated in detail.

The Committee had protested, but MacKinnie had won that fight. He knew the capabilities of his troops to the last small unit, and his scouts would cover the battle area. There would be no surprises for Orleans; only for Haven — and the Wolves would not fight at all until Haven was in the trap.

And now they were marching in, and they were doomed.

Freelady Laura waited with him in the hills above Lechfeld. He had tried to send her to the rear before, but she came back — and except for Stark there wasn’t an officer or a noncom in his command who’d disobey the colonel’s lady even on his direct orders. Still, it was safe enough. The losses today would be Haven’s! But she was in a place of danger, and that wouldn’t do.

“Go to Lechfeld while the road’s still open,” MacKinnie had told her. “Major Armstrong is well dug in and his position won’t be exposed until the battle is over. Meet me in Lechfeld.”

She protested, but he needed a message carried, and finally she agreed to go. “We’ll be riding at the charge all the way, Laura,” he’d said. “You can’t keep up with that! We’d be separated anyway. If I can’t make you go to the rear — damn your father for letting you out of the house! — I want you safe.”

“All right. I won’t have you worrying about me when you should be directing the battle.” She sat proudly in the ambulance. The escorting cavalry saluted. Cornet Blair mounted with a flourish, proud to be chosen as protector of his colonel’s fiancee.

“And we’ll see the chaplain when the battle’s ended,” MacKinnie promised. “Ride out, Blair.”

“Sir.” Ambulance and escort rode away in a thin cloud of dust and MacKinnie gave his attention to the Haven forces below. In an hour their advance units appeared. They weren’t surprised to meet resistance at Lechfeld and fell back to wait for the rest of the column.

The Haven army deployed skirmishers, then formed a main battle line for attack, their artillery moving forward at the gallop. Trumpet calls rang across plowed fields as Haven’s last army prepared for a set piece battle.

It worried Nathan. Haven had better soldiers than that! They’d walked into a classic military trap, and they hadn’t even put out guards to their flanks and rear! But MacKinnie’s hard-riding scouts, their horses lathered with flecks of white foam, had circled the enemy. They had seen nothing. There was no significant reinforcements, no support at all for the forces moving so blindly into MacKinnie’s trap. Haven was doomed.

Why? MacKinnie wondered. It hardly mattered. Perhaps they had planned some clever counter-coup, but there was nothing, nothing at all that they or anyone could do now …

The Orleans Dragoons took the field within minutes of the time MacKinnie had set for them. They advanced and dug in, closing off the Haven column’s escape route, forming a solid anvil against which the charging Wolves would crush their enemy, and now, now it was time! “Mount ’em up, Hal! Move ’em out! Fox and Dragon troops will charge those batteries on the right flank. The rest dismount at five hundred meters and advance on foot. We’ve got them, Hal, we’ve beaten everything Haven can put into the field!”

The Wolves charged down the hill, whooping like South Continent barbarians, while the youthful trumpeters blew every call in the book. It was done. The Wolves were in perfect position to roll up Haven’s flank — and death fell from the skies. A sleek black shape roared overhead and, as it passed, Lechfeld was turned into a blackened cinder.

And again, again that thing passed overhead, and blinding beams of light stabbed out to burn the Dragoons! Now it hovered over the battlefield, playing its deadly beams across MacKinnie’s army.

“Dismount! All troops fire on that thing! Troop Commanders, fire troops in volley! Trumpeter, orders to artillery! Where the hell are those field pieces? Gunners, get those goddam cannon in action!”

Somehow they’d done it. The black shape fell from the skies, settling hard into the cornfields, and when the gray-coated troops in the sky machine came out, the Wolves cut them down and howled in triumph!

Too late. Haven’s army was still intact. The Dragoons were dead or running. Lechfeld was gone, and the Wolves had taken terrible casualties. The Haven force wheeled to face right, and for the first time in his life Nathan MacKinnie had known defeat. When the trumpeters sounded recall it was the end of his career, and the end of everything else. Laura had been in Lechfeld …

“Colonel.” Stark took his commander by the elbow. “Colonel, it don’t do no good to think about it.”

“Uh?” The bright fields of Prince Samual’s World faded. Awkwardly he turned away from the battlements and let his hands relax. The knuckles were white. “Your pardon, Mary. I was — somewhere else. You’re right, let’s go join the revels.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO GRACE AND ABSOLUTION

Mary Graham watched the mad light fade from Nathan MacKinnie’s eyes. I know, she thought. I know what he saw. When Hal tells that story, it’s like being there.

MacKinnie’s voice came from the bottom of a well of emotion. Mary tried to smile reassuringly, but that was impossible.

What must it be like, she wondered. To feel that much for someone? And what was she like, that girl he was thinking about? Hal wouldn’t say much about her. I don’t even know her name. What was she like, to make a man like MacKinnie feel that way? I’ll never have that kind of devotion from anyone.

Have I that much to give?

Yes. I do. I’ve always been sure of that, that somewhere, somehow—

A little girl’s dream.

No. Not that at all. When I was little I thought of a handsome, rich lord and now, well, yes, I’ve usually thought of him, whoever he’ll be, as rich and handsome, but mostly he’ll be a man who’ll let me be more to him than my father ever let Mother be.

She stared up into the star-studded darkness. That tiny dot is my sun, she thought. One dot among thousands, tiny, insignificant, and yet it was my whole world for all my life until just last year—

A world she no longer cared for. She had resented the restrictions Haven society put on her, but that had been a formless resentment, almost unconscious. Now she knew better. There were other ways to live, other cultures on other worlds, worlds without end, worlds after worlds, and what was Prince Samual’s World, or anyone on it?

We are what we make ourselves. And we can change whole worlds. We’re doing that now. Isn’t it enough?

She had felt the magic touch of command, of knowing that others depended on her judgement. MacKinnie had won the battles, but without her cooks and supply wagons he couldn’t have taken the field. He’d known that, and he’d trusted her, trusted her with the lives of all his men, and his troopers were more important to him than his own life-

“Your turn to be in a blue daze,” Nathan said. “What we need is some company.”

She nodded and let Nathan and Hal lead her down the stairs to the streets below, but still the pensive mood pursued her. Do we need company? she wondered. Maybe we have too much already. Hal would be happy enough to go join the revels without us …

She almost laughed aloud. A year ago that thought would have shocked her. Or at least she would have pretended, even to herself, that it did. Properly brought up young ladies didn’t have any doubts about what was proper.

Proper young ladies had dull lives.

The streets were alive with people. Where there had formerly been beggars and empty shops there were shouting throngs drowning the bitterness of months of defeat in wine and ale. The barbarians were driven from the gates!

Those who hadn’t pawned their finery during the siege now wore it. Several pawnshops had been looted, so that many others were gaily dressed in bright woolens, silks, even cotton prints. A riot of color wove complex patterns through the streets. It seemed the entire city had turned out. Even the saffron-robed members of the Temple minor orders, the gray deacons, and the black-robed full priests joined in the revelry. Only MacKinnie’s on-duty pikemen held aloof, and many of them quaffed hastily offered beakers of wine and beer.

“Seems different without them Temple swordsmen,” Hal said. “I see the Temple people are already recruitin’ more to replace the ones we lost out on the field—”

“Yes.” MacKinnie would rather that subject were dropped.

“It was terrible,” Mary said. “Father Sumbavu and a thousand swordsmen killed after our victory … I can’t understand how it happened.”

“It always happens,” MacKinnie said. “There’s always a price.”

But what really did happen? she wondered. Had MacKinnie understood Sumbavu so well that he could deliberately use the priest to destroy the Temple army? That was a bit frightening. If he knew Sumbavu that well, how much does he know about me?

What if he did send Sumbavu and all his men out to die? Was there any other way to get control of the Temple? Probably not. Was it worth the price? That’s the real question. What are we doing here? What am I doing? From what I’ve seen I’d rather live in Imperial society than my own—

But Imperial society has no use for me or any of us, women and men alike. Haven does. This mission is important to Haven, and I’m important to the mission, and that ought to be enough. It’s more than I ever dreamed of. Except that now my part of the job is done …

MacKinnie found a goblet of wine and gave it to her. It was strong, heady stuff, and she knew she shouldn’t drink all of it, but the festive mood of the streets was hard to resist, and she drank more than half. Nathan took a beaker of ale from one of his off-duty troopers. “Thanks, Hiaro,” he said. “What’ll you do now that the war’s over?”

“I don’t know, Colonel.” The little pikeman stood tall, and Stark’s merciless drillfield exercises showed in his muscles. Mary remembered when she’d first seen him: when Hiaro had joined MacKinnie’s army he was an emaciated ghost living on Temple charity, sleeping in a gutter and waiting to die. “My farm is burned, my wife and children are dead … the lord of my fields wants us to return to the land, and it seems I must do so for I am not tall enough to join the new Temple guards.”

MacKinnie drank and turned away but the fugleman pursued him. “Colonel — Trader — sir, it is rumored that you will march west with an army. There are many like me who would go with you. Some talk of remaining together and seeking employment as soldiers for another city, but we would rather go with you.”

“Thanks, Hiaro. I’ll remember,” MacKinnie said.

What is there about him that wins loyalty? Mary wondered. Not just Hiaro. Hal Stark. The other guardsmen. It’s like a tangible force. I can feel it, too, but I suppose that could be something else, something more physical. Heaven knows he’s attractive enough. And sometimes he looks at me — She drank the rest of the goblet. Someone stepped out of the crowd to fill it again.

They wandered through the brightly lit streets. Wind chimes with a Temple replica as centerpiece tinkled in every doorway. They rounded a corner, and she slipped on the rough cobblestones. MacKinnie caught her, and she leaned against him for a moment. She felt his warmth, and she didn’t want to move away. Gently he set her back on her feet, but she thought he took his time doing it, as if the physical contact wasn’t unpleasant for him.

“The pikemen could do all right as mercenaries,” Stark commented. “They can beat anything on this planet exceptin’ heavy cavalry, and with the right battle plan they might even do that. No leaders, though, so they’ll probably hire out to some idiot who’ll waste them. Nobody on this end of Makassar appreciates good infantry. Be a pity what’s goin’ to happen to them lads after all the training we gave them …”

“I got your message before, Sergeant,” MacKinnie said. His voice was cold.

“Yes, sir.”

“What message?” Mary asked.

“Hal thinks I ought to stay here as king of this city rather than return to Jikar.”

“But you can’t do that! Haven is depending on you, all of Prince Samual’s World — Nathan, you wouldn’t really do that!”

But we could, she thought. We could stay. She thought of Hiaro as she’d first seen him. And the children of Batav. The Empire wouldn’t help them. Someone should. But not us! We’ve our own world to save, and even if I don’t like Haven as much as I once did, it’s my home, and this is my duty.

“Wouldn’t I? Who’s to stop me?” he asked.

She drew away from him, then began to laugh. “Why, you are, Iron Man! I suppose you really could get away with it. The Imperial Navy wouldn’t like that, but with their Archbishop on your side you’d be all right.” She spoke tauntingly now. “Go on, Your Majesty. Forget your oaths. Why don’t you take me into the nearest building and ravish me while you’re at it? Who’s to stop you? I have no protector here. No one but you.”

MacKinnie turned away.

They were approaching a large group, peasants, soldiers off duty, knights in mail, all gathered around a cart in the center of a public square. One mailed warrior in bright surcoat stood atop the cart, his head tilted back in song.

“Look, there’s Brett,” Nathan said. “Let’s go listen.”

Two pikemen saw MacKinnie approach and efficiently cleared a way through the crowd to the wagon.

“In the public house to die, is my resolution,

Let wine to my lips be nigh, at life’s dissolution!

That will make the angels cry, with glad elocution,

’Grant this drunkard, God on high, grace and absolution!’ ”

Brett ended his song and seized a flagon of wine. As he drained it he saw MacKinnie. “Ho lads, it’s the colonel and his lady, our Lady Mary who brings food and drink and takes care of the wounded. A song for the real winner of our battles!”

“Oh mistress mine, where are you—”

He had hardly begun when he broke off and straightened in horror. “Hal! Behind you! Guard the colonel!” Brett tore his sword from its sheath and leaped from the cart.

It all happened so fast that Mary had no time to react. A short, brown man rushed through the crowd. He brandished a heavy curved knife. A bedlam of shouting erupted, but the intruder ran in deadly silence. When a pikeman moved to intercept him the kriss flashed, lopping off the soldier’s arm at the elbow. There were more shouts, of warning and terror. The kriss swung again and again, and more of MacKinnie’s warriors fell to the wine-soaked cobblestones.

“Haigh!” A soldier flung his javelin from somewhere behind her. The meter-and-a-half dart took the charging warrior below the chest, but the man plucked the javelin from his body and charged on, still dealing terrible blows to everyone in his path. Then there was no one but Stark between him and the colonel.

Hal had no time to draw his sword. Instead, he moved in front of Mary and MacKinnie. The kriss flashed again. It caught Stark on the right shoulder and battered him to the ground, but he’d bought MacKinnie time enough to draw his own weapon.

And the brown man was still coming forward, directly toward her, toward Nathan, the great curved knife held high. Nathan took his stance, his face determined but calm, no fear at all as he held the point of his sword leveled at the enemy—

And the man, impaled on the sword, still ran forward down the blade toward MacKinnie. The kriss lifted high and Mary saw death descending.

“Haigh!” Brett shouted a curse similar to the assassin’s. His broadsword flashed, catching the descending wrist to cut it off. Brett lifted his weapon again and cut viciously at the head, then again. The stocky warrior slumped, his weight tearing MacKinnie’s sword from his hand.

“Haigh!” Brett shouted again. “In time! Hal, do you live?”

“Yeah.” Stark eased himself gingerly to his feet and clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. “Man, he swings that thing hard! Caught me more with the flat than the edge, damn good thing I didn’t take off my mail after duty today … “he tested his arm. “Gonna be stiff for a week.”

“Better that than lose the arm,” Brett said quietly.

The crowd was milling about the square, and men and women were shouting, “The colonel lives!” Brett leaped to his wagon and shouted it again. “He lives. The colonel lives!”

“Glory be to God!” Someone screamed. A Temple priest began to pray loudly.

It was only then that the reaction took her. She was still shaking when MacKinnie climbed onto the wagon to show himself unhurt. He was just in time. Already pikemen were advancing with leveled weapons, ready to avenge their commander’s death with a massacre …

Nathan climbed down from the cart. A near thing, he thought. As near as ever I came to buying it.

Now that it was over he’d get the shakes. It almost always happened. When there was work to do, danger only made him calmer, but when it was over … He found Mary in the crowd. She seemed calm enough, but subdued, and he took her hand.

A hastily assembled squad of pikemen escorted them back to the Temple compound. They walked in silence to MacKinnie’s rooms, then Mary went to find the Temple physicians, while Brett and MacKinnie assisted Stark in removing his armor and the thick woolsh-hide padding beneath it. The shoulder was swollen and discolored.

“It don’t feel broke,” Stark said. He moved his arm gingerly. “But it sure don’t feel too good, either. Could you pour me some wine, Colonel?”

“Sure.” MacKinnie got the bottle and goblets. “We could all use some. Brett, who was the man?”

“A mari fanatic,” Brett said. “Sent to kill you. The juramentados are usually very high-ranking members of the clan, and they never come back alive. You should feel complimented. They think killing you is important.”

“They’re right, too,” Stark said. “Without the colonel.”

Brett nodded. “They’ll have the Temple within a year. Probably sooner.”

“Damn it, now both of you are after me,” MacKinnie said. “And what am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing you can do, Colonel,” Stark said. “You took on a job, and you wouldn’t be who you are if it was in you to throw off your duty. Still, it’s a pity. Those are good lads.”

There was a long silence. Hal broke it at last. “Maybe Brett and I, between us, could hold onto this place.”

“But-”

“You won’t be needing me to get home,” Stark said. “Not really. MacLean and Todd and Loholo can handle the ship. And there’s nothing much for me after we get back.”

Nathan still didn’t say anything.

“Damn it,” Hal said, “I don’t like splitting up any better than you do. But — Colonel, we made soldiers out of those peasants. Don’t we owe them?”

“It could be our salvation,” Brett said. “I know the maris. As you suspect, although I was not born one of them, I grew up in a mari clan, and I know them. When they hear that you are gone, they will return, and who can fight them? I cannot. Nor can Vanjynk. Yet we can control the knights, and if Hal commands here — for you, of course. We must say that we hold for you, until your return, and let Hal command in your name.”

Stark grinned wryly. “Like old times. It’s what I’ve always done. All I ever wanted to do, for that matter. And we’d have a good chance.”

“You might have time to build a good military force,” Nathan said. “Good enough to hold the maris. But what about the politics? Sergeant—”

“Colonel, don’t order me to come with you.”

I don’t think he ever interrupted me before, MacKinnie thought.

“I’ll take care of these new Wolves for you,” Stark said. “Just until you come back for us. Let’s leave it like that.”

Except we both know I’ll never get back, MacKinnie thought.

He looked at Stark, then looked away. There had always been the possibility that Stark would be killed in a battle that MacKinnie survived, but after Lechfeld it hadn’t seemed likely. After Lechfeld, Stark was all that was left of his former life. He had never considered what it would be like to be alone.

I guess now I find out, he thought.

Mary came in with two yellow-robed priests. They looked at Hal’s shoulder and exchanged glances, then bent to feel it gingerly. “I do not think it broken,” one said. “It will heal. But it may be dislocated. We will have to wrench it into place, then bind it up. That will be painful. If you will come with us-”

“I’ll go, too,” Brett said. “Just to be certain.”

MacKinnie got up as well.

Stark shook his head. “No need for you to come, Colonel. I’ll see you in the morning.”

And you’d rather I didn’t watch, MacKinnie thought. I’ve seen the Temple medical people work, they’re good at their job — and Hal won’t want me around when they start yanking at that shoulder. It’s easier to yell bloody murderif your friends aren’t around. “Right.” He watched as the priests led Hal and Brett away.

Nathan went to the door and closed it. When he turned back he saw Mary was still there, still lovely, making no move to go—

“Freelady, you shouldn’t be—”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’re shaking—”

“Yes, damn it. I—”

“So am I.” She held up her hands.

MacKinnie laughed wryly. “You’re not in my line of work. It’s always been like this, after the action is over—”

“And you wonder if I think less of you?” she asked. “Because your hands tremble?” She shuddered.

Why is she here? MacKinnie wondered. Right here, two steps away, all I have to do is—

She’s your ward and you’re fifty and she’s half your age. And damned beautiful. And what do I do now? “Do you want a drink?”

“If you’re having one—”

He poured two goblets of wine.

There was a long silence while they drank. Then Mary laughed.

“What?” Nathan asked.

“Us. You were almost killed tonight. You could be killed tomorrow. Or we both could be. And we’re standing here in the middle of this room, when — Nathan, this is foolish!”

“But-”

“But nothing! Guardians. Never be alone with a man. Nathan, that’s another world. A world so far away I can’t even imagine it — and you stopped looking at me like a daughter a long time ago …” She moved closer to him and put her hand on his arm. “We’re here, Nathan. We’re here and tonight we’re alive. Tomorrow we might not be.”

Gray dawn gave just enough light to see when

MacKinnie woke. He lay still for a moment, half remembering a dream. Then he sat upright. He was alone in the bed—

But not in the room. Mary sat in a big chair, her knees drawn up to her chin. She had covered herself with a large fur robe.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“So are you — why are you sitting there?”

“I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Are you — are you all right?” he asked.

She laughed, a soft tinkle in the gray light. “You silly goose, of course I’m all right.” She laughed again. “Why, did you think I was brooding over lost innocence? If you must know, I was thinking of how much time we wasted before tonight.”

“So was I.”

She smiled and stood. She was naked except for the fur robe, and she threw that aside. “Then let’s don’t waste any more. There won’t be a lot of privacy on Subao.”

It was fully light outside when he woke again. MacKinnie moved carefully and gently kissed her. She smiled and opened her eyes lazily.

“Good morning,” Nathan said.

“Yes. It is a good morning.” She stretched lazily. “It would be a better one for some coffee. Or chickeest. Or even that horrible tea they have here.”

“I’ll just send for some, shall I?”

She drew away in mock horror. “And scandalize your guards?”

“They would be. Or would pretend to be,” Nathan said.

“Don’t be so serious.”

“Someone has to be.”

“I suppose. And we’ve both work to do. We’d better get up.”

“To hell with the work—”

“You don’t mean that,” she said.

“Maybe I do. The harder I work, the quicker we go back. Assuming Kleinst can do anything useful to begin with, and I’m not at all sure he can. Mary — we really could stay here.”

“You’re not going to start that again, are you? Nathan, I don’t really know why we’re here. It has something to do with the library, I can guess that. And Lord Dougal said this was the most important mission in the history of Haven, important to the whole planet.”

“It is,” Nathan said. “And it’s time I told you what we’re doing here. All of you should know, so you won’t let something slip to the Imperial Navy people.” He explained the mission to her. “But I’ve come to think it’s senseless,” he finished.

“Why?”

“Why? You’ve seen their ships. How can we build anything like that?”

“What does Kleinst say, now that he’s seen the library?”

“Humph. He’s so enraptured by all the new scientific laws that he isn’t even thinking about building ships. And he doesn’t know if we can read copies of the records on Samual, even if we can take copies back. He could learn, he says. But in how many years? I think we’ve been chasing a dream, Mary. A noble dream, but nothing more than that.”

She stared at patterns of sunlight on the wall. When she spoke she was very serious. “Dream or not, we have to try,” she said. “Not just for us. For everyone. The Empire is wrong, Nathan. Their policies. Look at what they’re doing to this world. With what little we know we could save them from so much misery.”

“Or destroy them,” MacKinnie said.

“That’s strange, coming from you.”

“Oh, I’ve no love for the Imperials. I just don’t know how to do their job.”

“You don’t have to. All you have to do is your own.”

“But-”

“There really is something wrong, isn’t there?”

He nodded. “Hal won’t be coming back with us.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. He’s going to stay with Brett. He thinks he has an obligation to these peasant lads he trained. So do I.”

“He’s been with you a long time, hasn’t he?”

“Since I was a junior lieutenant,” Nathan said. “Mary, how can I leave him here? And for what? It’s not my job any longer. It’s all up to Kleinst, and he doesn’t know how to build a spaceship either.”

“Iron MacKinnie gives up,” she said. “The terrible warrior — no, I won’t mock you. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the kind of friendship you and Hal have. But the mission isn’t finished until we get home, and Nathan, be honest, what are our chances without you?”

“Not as good as if I come.” It was as if the words were wrenched from him, as if they said themselves without his willing it. “But what good are we doing?”

“Nathan, we’ve got the library. When we started even that didn’t look possible. Now we just keep doing what we can.”

“Why is this important to you?” MacKinnie asked.

“They trusted me,” she said. “For you that’s nothing new. But for me — Nathan, I can’t betray that trust.” She moved closer to him. “I hope—”

“What?”

“I’m selfish enough to hope you won’t make me choose, “she said.

There were tears at the corners of her eyes. Nathan knew she was fighting to hold them back, that she wasn’t acting.

Duty and honor and love. He’d sacrifice all three no matter what he did. But when he looked at her, he knew he had no real choice at all.