To Conquer Chaos

XII

Up to the very last moment Yanderman thought-hoped-wished fervently that the Duke was going to be able to carry his men with him. Even in the dreadful minutes that followed realisation of failure, he found himself thinking: it might have come off, but for this damned green plague!

“Tell nobody else!” It was easy to say, and impossible to achieve. Within twenty-four hours it had been whispered through the camp: Duke Paul is sick of the mould which killed Ampier!

The medics did their best-shaving the infected area, burning the infected blanket, setting the men to kill flies with swats and sprays-and for a while Yanderman had expected a false alarm. After all, as Duke Paul himself argued, Ampier had been a sick man, badly wounded, weakened by long and free bleeding. A bull of a man like himself would toss off the infection easily.

Not true.

Shaving and antiseptics, first to be tried, failed first. Up till then the Duke had easily been able to disguise his condition-his hair and beard were so dense and matted he could simply comb over the shaven area to hide it. Then the fresh outbreaks rendered that impossible; there had to be bandages, and the staff officers had to know the minimum fact that the Duke was being attended by the medics.

All the strong liquids, all the curative powders, all the ointments, were tried in turn. They slowed the mould. For a night Yanderman would sleep peacefully, thinking the trouble was over because all day the Duke’s head had been free of the creeping evil.

But in the morning, a dozen more patches of the stuff.

They tried, at last, the desperate expedient of cauterisation, burning away the skin with hot irons while the Duke sat in his great chair, impassive except that his knuckles showed very white on his clenched fists. It was while the cauterisation was actually proceeding that they discovered the mould on the whites of his eyes …

Even then Duke Paul would not admit defeat. He still addressed his officers as though his plans were to go ahead; he still disputed with the heartsick Yanderman about the likelihood of people surviving within the barrenland.

Meantime, the news spread as the green mould spread-unstoppably, every advance reflecting a weakening of the infected body. In this case it was the entire army. Granny Jassy was plagued with requests for charms against sickness. Under their breaths at first, then openly, men voiced the opinion that this disease had been visited on the Duke because he planned to invade the barrenland.

If, at that point, the Duke had been able to go out and speak to his men as he would speak before a battle, fill them with the excitement and crazy courage he alone could inspire, the situation could have been saved. But he could not. He was in his tent, alone but for attendant medics and the ever-present secretary Kesford, his shaven, burned head turning into a nauseating mass of green mould.

It was just after midnight when a white-faced soldier called the sleepless Yanderman from bed to see the Duke at once.

As he ducked under the door-flap he could not repress a gasp of dismay. The disease had progressed with unbelievable rapidity in the last few hours.

The Duke caught the sound and gave a rasping wheeze which might have been meant for a chuckle. “I guess I look pretty repulsive by now, Yan!” he whispered. “That’s the only consolation-I can’t see myself in a mirror.”

Indeed, from under his brows to his cheekbones the orbits of his eyes were now unrelieved masses of the green mould.

“I shall die tonight, Yan,” he added abruptly, in a tone more like his normal voice. “I know. Already it’s at the surface of my brain-I can feel it, as though mice were gnawing at me.”

Yanderman tried to say something reassuring, but the Duke cut him short.

“I know,” he repeated. “That’s why I sent for you. I may only have minutes before my self-control fails me, and when that happens, the medics have my orders to act. I don’t know what it will be like when the final stage comes, but I–I find that I, Paul of Esberg, who have faced hell, cannot face this to its end. So I must turn to others-as I turn to you, Yan!”

Numbly, Yanderman waited for the words he feared. They came.

“Kesford!” the Duke whispered. At once the pale-faced secretary came alert, having to swallow hard as he forced himself to look at his master.

“Kesford, you have the draft with all those legal terms-read it over. Yan, hear what’s said and repeat it. Let me hear you repeat it!” On his couch the Duke tensed as though to-draw himself up, but he was too weak now. Beads of sweat wandered over his forehead and lost themselves among the foul greenness covering his eyes.

Kesford began to recite monotonously, a phrase at a time. “I, Jervis Yanderman, loyal subject of Esberg and of the Grand Duke Paul Manuel Victor Mark, and of his designated heir Victor Gort Fury Mark-”

Tonelessly, as though the Duke were speaking for him, Yanderman echoed each phrase.

“-do receive into my charge command of and authority over all forces of the city Esberg and all goods chattels livestock and other appurtenances whatsoever at this present time in the neighbourhood of the town known as Lagwich adjacent to the so-called barrenland situate-”

Yanderman had to wipe his face at that point. Kesford went on: “And do undertake to direct the said forces in all respects as far as my ability shall allow as my master the Grand Duke may while in life instruct me-”

Yanderman stopped there. He said in a thin voice, “No!”

“What?” Now the Duke did rise up on his couch, his horrible blind head turning to seek the source of Yanderman’s voice.

“Sir, I–I can’t undertake to lead them into the barrenland!”

“You must! You shall!”

Yanderman took an involuntary pace backward. Glancing about him helplessly, he caught the eye of the medic in his green gown standing at the head of the couch. You must. That was the message in the man’s eyes. You’ll kill him if you don’t!

Yanderman hesitated, torn between personal loyalty and his deep-rooted unwillingness to make promises he knew he could not keep. The hesitation was too long.

While he was still forming the lie, the Duke screamed. He fell back on the couch, choking and gasping for air. The words he forced out were barely comprehensible.

“Take him-traitor-Yanderman-lied to me-burn him-nail him at the city gate-curse his name and his family name-burn his house-find me a man of honour-am I the Duke or am I a mud-grubbing peasant-traitor-weakling-!”

The tirade lost itself in a bubbling sound so loathsome it was barely conceivable a human throat could utter it. Yanderman’s heart lurched. Frozen, he watched as the medic picked up from a table beside him a long thin razor-sharp knife.

“I witness-” That was Kesford, clutching his note-board as though it was a plank supporting him in time of shipwreck. “I witness this to be your duty, and affirm the Duke’s command. Sir!”-to Yanderman, turning. “Say the same!”

“I witness this to be your duty and affirm the Dukes command!” Yanderman gulped, and added to the medic, “Is there no hope now?”

“I saw Ampier die,” the medic answered, and plunged the knife home.

Mechanically Yanderman attended to the formalities; Kesford had them stored away in his capacious memory. Send to the town to recall the liberty-men; detail an honour guard for the tent, to stand with arms reversed till the funeral; detail a pyre-party to assemble fuel on a scale fit for a princely corpse; post general orders for funeral drill at dawn, a funeral as soon thereafter as possible because of the risk of keeping the body unburned; carpenters to make a coffin, tailors to make a shroud-which would have to be draped over the remains, not wrapped around them, for the medics forbade it …

An officers’ parade to pay posthumous respects, during which certain incongruous whispers were uttered regarding relief at the end of the Duke’s mad plan, resentment at his allotting command to Yanderman instead of a regular officer …

A session with Granny Jassy to try and stop her filling the men’s minds with nonsense about this being a supernatural vengeance upon the Duke, ending with the threat of scourging despite her sex and age which sent her away tight-lipped and white with fury …

And all the time frantic casting about for a way to avoid the ultimate showdown and the risk of mutiny.

The chance never came.

Or rather Yanderman was unable to make it come.

The rush of the night’s events had left him no time to spare for the process of adjusting emotionally to Duke Paul’s death. That adjustment came in one blinding second, leaving him at the mercy of his own fury and condemning him to provoke the very mutiny he was desperate to avoid.

He was inspecting the funeral guard-the entire army, of course, drawn up in open ranks by companies with arms reversed-when between two of the men he happened to glance at the rank behind, and there saw a soldier: grinning.

The sight was like a trigger to his thermite-hot rage. He stormed between the files and halted in front of the grinning soldier as he tried to compose his face.

“What’s funny, soldier?” he said softly.

The man looked woodenly ahead of him.

“Pleased that your Duke is dead, is that it? Pleased because you think now he’s not here to lead us any longer your lily-white liver will be spared the risk of venturing into the barrenland?”

All around him there were hisses of indrawn breath. Trying to watch without moving their heads, nearby men eaves-dropped.

“Well, you’re wrong!” Yanderman blazed. He spun to the sergeants accompanying him. “Two of you arrest this man! Hold him till after the funeral. We won’t dismiss on pyrelighting-” Deliberately he raised his voice to let the whole army hear. “We’ll continue! A dishonourable dismissal in full form! And a discharge to the barrenland for this coward who welcomed Duke Paul’s death as saving him from it!”

The reaction went through the parade like wind through grass.

After that, there was no backing down.

The pyre was lit at last, pouring greasy-black smoke high into the clear blue sky. With its crackling as a background to his words, Yanderman licked his lips and uttered the first command of the dismissal drill.

Here and there among the soldiers, a man did move. Checked. Looked at his immobile comrades. Went back to his place and stood, like the rest, rock-still.

He repeated the command.

“We’re not sending anyone to the barrenland!” a voice called from a distant corner of the parade, and instantly he was echoed by a stormy chorus. “Right! No! We’ll not send a man to the barrenland-it’s fit only for devils, not for men!”

Head swimming, Yanderman looked at his fellow officers. Not one of them was making any move to counter this insubordination. On most of their faces, indeed, was a look which implied, “Serve him right-he wasn’t fit to inherit the Duke’s authority!”

Only Stadham moved towards him, speaking almost without moving his lips.

“There’s no hope for it now, sir. I’ve seen this sort of thing before. We’ll be lucky to escape with our lives!”

“Esberg!” shrieked the men at the back of the parade who had first voiced the refusal. “Back to Esberg! If they won’t lead us home, we’ll go on our own!”

“Right! Yes!” Again the storm of agreement, and now the men began to break ranks, their noncoms unable to decide what to do.

“But if we go”-a piercing voice carrying above the tumult-”we might carry the green plague with us! Do you want to carry that back to your families?”

“Burn the camp, then!” came the mad howl in answer, and all at once the army was a mob. Some of them hurled their arms down and snatched brands from the Duke’s pyre to wield like torches as they led the rush; others paused long enough to hurl final insults at their officers-Yanderman was prepared for an instant to be picked up and thrown into the flames with his master-and then they were headed for the camp gates, screaming and starting fires as they went.