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TWENTY-SEVEN

I

Kalvan watched from the top of the Great Battery as the recently re-supplied Hostigi artillery raked red furrows into the Sacred Squares of Hos-Ktemnos. After Soton and the Zarthani Knights had retired, Kalvan had put Count Phrames in command of the cavalry with orders to hit the Squares from the rear. The time had come for him to return to the role of supreme commander, rather than the more exciting one of cavalry general.

As he watched an eight-pound ball roll through the Ktemnoi ranks, knocking men aside like bowling pins, Kalvan wondered just how much more punishment the Sacred Squares could take before retiring. Their claws were not yet blunted, he noted, as a cluster of Hostigi horsemen drew handgun fire from below. A couple went down; the rest dismounted and came toward Kalvan.

Prince Ptosphes, in his battered armor, was in the lead. Blood had trickled from a scalp wound down into his beard and caked there. He was carrying an antique battle-axe instead of a sword and his face was downcast.

"Welcome, father. Are you all right?"

Ptosphes looked around wide-eyes, as though waking from a dream. "I am still alive?"

"Yes. We are on the verge of a great victory."

"It is all yours, Your Majesty. Not mine. I failed you again, letting the Knights drive my command from the field. I am sorry—"

"You owe me no apologies, father. I couldn't expect you to hold the Knights for the entire battle. No man could have done any better with the forces you had."

In a low, toneless voice, Ptosphes said, "Phrames did."

Kalvan pretended he hadn't heard, then turned the conversation to a topic in which they both were in accord. "Have you heard anything about Rylla and the baby?"

"No. Has—she died?"

"No! She's gone into labor. At least she had, according to the last message I received from Brother Mytron several candles ago."

"Praise Yirtta Allmother! May the Goddess keep a watch over Rylla and the baby."

"Amen," Kalvan said. Under his breath, Kalvan heard Ptosphes add, "A better watch than She kept over her mother."

"Other messengers from Mytron could have been killed or lost their way, but I'm beginning to wonder..." Kalvan kept the rest of his worries to himself. If Mytron was hiding bad news to keep his Great King and Prince in shape to win their battle, the priest might soon find himself guest of honor at a hide-pinning party. But, why assume the worst?

Why indeed? Nonetheless, Kalvan knew that if he could have sold his soul for Rylla's safety, he would have signed on the spot. If the deal had also included ten rifled sixteen-pounders and a thousand shells with reliable fuses, he wouldn't have bothered reading the fine print.

"I had hoped to die before I gave way to the Knights again," Ptosphes said with a moan. "But Galzar did not hear my prayer."

"Do not despair, father. You were not the only one today who gave way before the Holy Host. Harmakros was forced to give up the Great Battery."

Which Harmakros probably could have held if he hadn't had to wait so long for Chartiphon to commit the Ktethroni reserve. Memo: Find an honorable way of kicking Chartiphon upstairs to where he will no longer be commanding in the field.  

The Duke appeared to be developing General Longstreet's problem: obeying orders in his own sweet time. Robert E. Lee had tolerated Longstreet and probably lost a war because of it; Kalvan I of Hos-Hostigos, on the other hand—

From below the rise the Ktemnoi trumpets reverberated. They had a deep bellowing tone, like the ancient bucinae of the Roman Legions.

Ptosphes hefted his axe. "That's their signal for a charge. They must know it is madness now."

Maybe, but what a magnificent lunacy, he thought.

Ptosphes' voice was lost in the rumble of musket volleys from below and answering fire from both muskets and artillery from above.

The Sacred Square of the Princedom of Imbraz was the one heading straight towards Kalvan. The musket bullets whistled about him, spanged off rocks, thunked into the ground and occasionally made the unmistakable smack of sinking into flesh. Ptosphes let out a yell as a bullet struck the head of his axe, jarring his whole arm. A Hostigi heavy gun fired; Kalvan saw the white smoke-puff of a shellburst in the oncoming Square. Galzar's Teeth would be a lot sharper for about ten or twelve more rounds—

Case shot smashed into the front ranks of the Imbrazi Square from several guns at once. Bodies and parts of bodies, weapons and hunks of armor flew in all directions. The front ranks were a mob, but they were an armed and dangerous mob—and they were still coming on.

Kalvan shot one arquebusier, felt a hammer blow across his ribs as another hit him with a glancing bullet, shot that man, then dropped his empty pistols and drew his sword. A billman swung a mighty blow in an attempt to part Kalvan's helmet, but misjudged his distance and sank the billhead into the earth. Kalvan slashed at him, but the soldier jerked up his weapon. The bill shaft knocked Kalvan's sword up and to the side, while another billman ran in, too close to swing at but not too close to thrust hard enough to dent Kalvan's breastplate—

Ptosphes charged from Kalvan's right side, swinging his axe and shouting what sounded like war cries. The first billman had his bill chopped in two with one blow, his arm chopped off with the next, his helmet and head split with the third. The old Prince was fighting like a man possessed. His fierce charge gave Kalvan a chance to run in under the second man's guard, as he raised his bill hook, and stab him in the face. He fell, and both Great King and Prince gave ground with more concern for haste than dignity.

To the left the Imbrazi seemed to be carrying everything before them, although it was now bills and clubbed muskets, with nobody stopping to reload. Kalvan backed a way to the right without looking behind him until he tripped over a corpse and fell hard enough to knock the wind out of himself.

He sat up to see Ptosphes crouched beside him, shielding him and looking anxious. On the other side was Harmakros, lying behind a dead horse and carefully picking off Imbrazi with two pistols and a musketoon. A cluster of his troopers lay just behind him, reloading the weapons as fast as he emptied them and passing them back to him.

Improbably, Harmakros was smoking one of the royal stogies from the box Kalvan had presented him for his good work at the Heights of Chothros.

Then Kalvan's ears rang to the sound of massed musketry and the war cries of the Ktethroni pikemen as their countercharge went in. The dragoon pikemen were fitting themselves into the Ktethroni lines wherever they could, while the arquebusiers and musketeers darted along the flanks and between the files, firing their smoothbores as targets presented themselves.

Kalvan decided he'd better mount up and show himself, even if it meant withdrawing a short distance. Otherwise, someone would be sure to start a rumor that the Great King was dead or captured or missing or carried off by ravens—or something. He could imagine a number of consequences of such a rumor, all of them unpleasant.

It took less than fifteen minutes for the Ktethroni to halt the Sacred Squares and another fifteen to drive them back downhill. By the time they'd done that, Phrames was hitting the Squares from the rear. Kalvan waited until he saw that Phrames had thickened up his cavalry cordon enough to block any attempts to break out, then ordered the trumpeters to ride down with their helmets under a sword and sound for a parley.

Ptosphes stared.

"They can't get away, and I suspect their captains know it," Kalvan said. "I'll offer reasonable terms—honorable ransoms for the nobles and captains, good treatment for the men, an escort out of Hostigi territory after they're disarmed. It will be as big a victory as killing them all—and cheaper, too."

"Shouldn't we wait until the prisoner guards return?"

That would give the Army of Hos-Hostigos fresh fireseed, which it desperately needed, and six or seven hundred fresh cavalry, which it needed almost as badly. The victory was going to be sweet, but tallying the losses—well, many more victories this costly and there wouldn't be an Army.

"If we wait," Kalvan said, "the rain will hit and that may give the Ktemnoi ideas about trying to break out with cold steel, oath or no oath. The sky over the Bald Eagles had turned black in the last half hour, and it was no longer just his weary imagination that he saw lightning flashes.

Ptosphes signed. "Very well. If you've gone mad, I'll pretend to go mad along with you so that people won't talk."

"Or they may think the Great King's madness is catching," he replied. Kalvan couldn't admit now or perhaps ever his real reason for the parley. He didn't want to kill any more of these men. They were too good—too much like the army he wanted to lead someday, that he would have to lead someday if he was to survive here-and-now. Already, almost a third of their number were casualties and with here-and-now medicine in its infancy most of the seriously wounded would die shortly.

Down the hill, bills and muskets were being lowered and helmets hoisted, while someone lowered a pole that held a Square's banner. Kalvan and Ptosphes took off their helmets and lifted them on their swords, then gathered Major Nicomoth and the escort troop of the Royal Horseguards and rode down the hill.

A large man in three-quarter armor that showed fine workmanship under the powder smoke rode out to greet them.

"Prince Anaxon...?"

The man's face seemed to work briefly at the mention of that name. "No, he's missing. He led the first charge..."

"What about Prince Anaphon, his brother?" Kalvan asked.

"Wounded...a bad leg wound. One of our Uncle Wolf's is treating him. Our Great King will be heartsick when he learns that his brave nephews—" He shut up, as he suddenly realized what he was saying. "I am Baron Phygron, Captain-General of the Sacred Square of Sephrax and Marshal of the Second Great Square of Hos-Ktemnos. Do you speak for the ruler of Hos-Hostigos?"

Kalvan grinned and held up his signet ring, ignoring Ptosphes and Nicomoth's startled gasps. "I am the Great King of Hos-Hostigos. In my Own name and that of the Princes, nobles, subjects and peoples allied with me in the defense of the True Gods, I offer you terms."

Baron Phygron swallowed and pushed up his visor. "May I hear those terms, Sir Kalvan?"

"The correct term of address is 'Your Majesty,'" Prince Ptosphes added with steel in his voice.

Kalvan nodded. "If I am not 'Your Majesty,' then obviously I can't be the Great King of Hos-Hostigos. If you are going to argue over names, we shall have no time to discuss more important matters, such as the surrender of your Squares. I assure you that there is no other alternative for them but complete annihilation."

Phygron looked like a man who wished the earth would open up and swallow him. "I do not admit that. But, King—I mean, Your Majesty—"

A musket blasted forth out of the Ktemnoi ranks, followed by two others. Major Nicomoth twisted toward Kalvan, one eye staring, the other replaced by a red-rimmed hole. Then he toppled from his saddle.

Kalvan heard shouts of "Treachery!" and "Down Styphon!" from the Hostigi lines, then another shout:

"They've killed the King!"

There the fat was in the fire, or would be if he didn't get back uphill and show those damned fools that he was still alive. In the twilight before an oncoming storm it was an easy mistake for tired men to confuse Nicomoth for their Great King, since he and Nicomoth were not only about the same size and wearing similar armor but were now riding similar horses. If a king was going to go gallivanting into battle like a junior officer, it only made sense not to wear gilded armor and plumes to attract enemy fire.

Sometimes it could lead to problems.

Kalvan turned his mount and dug in his spurs. As he did, Baron Phygron clutched at his chest as three bullets punched through his armor—rifle bullets, they had to be, to be accurate at this range! He was going to have to speak to Verkan about discipline among the Mounted Rifles...

If I get back to Hostigi lines alive, that is. The Ktemnoi were cursing, shaking their fists and drawing swords. Kalvan and Ptosphes waited until the Horseguards were on the move, put their heads down and their heels in, and then galloped up the hill. At any moment Kalvan expected to feel a bullet smash into his back, or at least into his horse. Surprisingly, they reached their own lines in one piece, with less than a dozen Horseguard missing.

This, in Kalvan's mind, exonerated the Ktemnoi, although he doubted his generals—much less his common soldiers—would see it that way. To their minds it was clear-cut treachery and someone would have to pay. Kalvan was afraid it was going to be the wrong someone.

As they reined in, a heavy gun fired, followed closely by the distant rumble of thunder. Then the smoothbores started up again, an irregular spattering from the Ktemnoi as they desperately let fly, followed by solid volleys from the Hostigi. He suspected the lull in the fighting had allowed more fireseed to be brought up to the front lines...

Kalvan closed his eyes and wished he could close his ears to screams of dying men and horses. "Dralm-damnit!"

Ptosphes gripped his arm. "Kalvan, it was my fault, not yours. I should never have allowed you to approach the Ktemnoi battle line. It was my duty to parlay with the Ktemnoi—"

Kalvan shook his head. "It's not your fault. I jumped the gun! I wanted to end the slaughter. I wasn't even thinking about assassins wearing Ktemnoi uniforms. Maybe Styphon's Own Guard salted among the Squares to maintain discipline. When Phygron identified me, they saw an opportunity."

"Still, I should have stopped you, Your Majesty." Ptosphes looked even more down in the mouth than usual. "If I hadn't been thinking about my loss—"

"No. Forget it, father. I'm sure they would have recognized me—or you—sooner or later." Kalvan wasn't at all sure of the truth of those words, but he needed to switch Ptosphes off from this train of thought or he'd soon be blaming himself for every death on the battlefield. And there were going to be a lot of them after this snafu played itself out.

Side by side, they rode back toward the Great Battery.

 

 

II

The moon came out just after Verkan Vall sighted the Mounted Rifles' campfires. Trust my men to be as good at scrounging little comforts such as dry wood as at fighting or at caring for their dead and wounded. In the far distance he could hear the popping of smoothbores; it sounded like the shots were coming from the Grove of the Badger King. Somebody was mopping up the last of the Knights' light cavalry. As long as they didn't call on the Mounted Rifles for backup, he was happy to leave them to their work.

He rode slowly toward the fires, hoping the moonlight would keep his horse from stepping on dead bodies even if it did not do anything about his exhaustion. He felt that he needed about a week's uninterrupted sleep, preferably with Dalla—except that then it wouldn't be uninterrupted...

A sentry challenged him. "Halt! Who's there?"

"Colonel Verkan of the Mounted Rifles."

The man looked at him close up, nodded his head, saying, "Pass, Colonel."

It won't be long before we'll be needing codes and passwords, Verkan thought as he rode into the firelight. The faces it displayed were almost as dead as those he'd seen on the corpses, except for the red-rimmed eyes and the slowly working jaws as they munched salt pork and hard cheese. Someone took his horse's bridle and two other someones helped him dismount, which saved him the embarrassment of falling flat on his face.

Neither firelight nor moonlight lit the open ground between the foot of the slope and the woods. Verkan was just as happy about that. Before nightfall he'd seen enough of that field to last him a thousand-year lifetime. For hundreds of yards a man could walk from body to body without ever touching the muddy ground. Six thousand of the Sacred Squares lay there; about a third as many had escaped, including the Ktemnoi Royal Princes. According to one of his agents with the Holy Host—despite rumors to the contrary—both the Princes were still alive. Another fifteen hundred Ktemnoi had been taken prisoner after the Hostigi had worked off their fury at the treachery and both sides were too exhausted to lift their weapons in the downpour.

That was only the beginning of the casualty list for the Holy Host: three thousand of Styphon's Own Guard dead to a man (the Hostigi had left no wounded alive, nor taken any of Styphon's Red Hand prisoners), over three thousand Order Foot, a thousand to fifteen hundred Zarthani Knights, most of Leonnestros' Pistoleers and Royal Guard (along with Leonnestros himself), thousands of mercenaries dead and two thousand Holy Warriors who would never again fight for Styphon or anyone else.

Nor were all the bodies down there Styphoni—of course.

Half the Mounted Riflemen were casualties, close to two-thirds of Harmakros' Army of Observation, half of Phrames' troopers. Count Euphrades of Ulthor who'd charged a little too far, all his plots and schemes now forever beyond the reach even of hypno-truth drugs, unless one encountered him in his next incarnation. Thousands of Ptosphes' men, and far too many of the Hostigi regular infantry. Verkan recalled, toward the last the standards of five regiments flying over a body of men hardly large enough to make two. Much of the fighting nobility of Ulthor, Nyklos, Sashta and Sask were dead or wounded, and as for the Nostori—Verkan doubted there was enough left of the cavalry, infantry and militia put together to make a single respectable battalion.

Eleven or twelve thousand Hostigi casualties was the estimate Verkan had heard, and it matched his own. Many of the wounded would not last a ten-day. Too many more such victories and Kalvan would come to ruin; no matter how many more opponents he smashed as thoroughly as he'd crushed the Holy Host and the Harphaxi before them. The Styphoni casualties might run to twenty thousand dead, wounded or missing—with another eight thousand taken prisoner. Some of the wounded would recover, but still Soton would be lucky to take a third of the Host he'd taken north with him back to Hos-Ktemnos!

And they would get away; the Hostigi were not only exhausted, but very nearly out of fireseed. In fact, Hos-Hostigos was practically where Old Hostigos had been pre-Kalvan—not enough fireseed in the entire Princedom to load all the artillery at once.

Great King Cleitharses the Scholar would have his sons back, but not his High Marshal or much else of what he'd sent north. Cleitharses would probably throw a royal snit, and Styphon's House's support within Hos-Ktemnos would be diminished and shaken—especially when the butcher's bill of Phyrax became public knowledge. He and his Princes would certainly have no illusions that making war on behalf of Styphon's House was a cheap way to win friends in the Inner Circle or annex new territory.

Nor Verkan thought would there were be many smiles in the Inner Circle when that news arrived.

Over the crackling of the fire and the distant moans of the dying, Verkan heard a horse approaching. Kalvan or a messenger, probably. He forced himself to his feet, saw the rider take shape at the edges of the firelight, and then noticed that both mount and rider seemed oddly shrunken. The rider reined in and Verkan recognized young Aspasthar.

"Good evening, Colonel Verkan," the boy said. "I bear a message for the Great King. Do you know where he is?"

"Out there, somewhere," Verkan said, pointing along the ridge. He'd last seen Kalvan riding that way and hadn't seen him riding back, although it would have been easy to miss a whole regiment in the darkness before the moon came out. "If you'll tell me what the message it, I'll carry it. You don't want to be riding around in the dark on that pony by yourself."

Too late, Verkan realized he'd just mortally insulted the lad. Aspasthar bristled like a cat with its fur stroked the wrong way. "It is a message for the Great King's ears alone, Colonel. I cannot entrust it—"

Verkan felt his stomach drop to the level of his bootsoles. There was only one message he could think of that would be for Kalvan's ears only, and he'd be damned if his friend was going to learn about his wife's death from some pipsqueak—

Aspasthar underestimated the speed of Verkan's speed and the length of his arms; well, he wasn't the first to make that mistake. Suddenly the page found himself hauled from the saddle and dangling with his collar firmly griped in two strong hands and his feet well clear of the ground. He kicked futilely at Verkan's shins, then used a number of words that suggested the boy had been associating with too many cavalry troopers.

Verkan waited until the lad ran out of breath, conscious of the snickers of the Riflemen, and not quite sure he wasn't making an awful fool of himself. "Let's compromise, Aspasthar. You tell me the message privately and I'll ride with you to find the Great King."

The peace offering fell flat. The boy took a deep breath and shouted: "Colonel Verkan has no honor, but his brave Riflemen do, so I will tell them. Great Queen Rylla is safe and well and delivered of a daughter!"

The Riflemen cheered.

Verkan's hands opened by sheer reflex, dropping Aspasthar to the ground. He bounced up in a moment, grinning impudently and bushing off his trousers. Verkan stood stiffly, now sure that he'd made a fool of himself, then was cheering along with everyone else. Someone started beating a drum, two or three men leaped to their feet and started a Sastragathi war dance, a few soldiers fired their guns into the air, someone else began to sing Marching Through Harphax in a voice that had to be drunk with fatigue because there wasn't anything stronger than water within miles—

"Long live Queen Rylla and the Princess of Hostigos!" shouted Verkan. He heard the cheering taken up as the word spread, and suddenly he felt as if he could ride twenty miles and fight another battle at the end of the ride. He knew the feeling was purely an adrenaline fantasy, but he did think his new strength might last long enough to find Kalvan.

"Aspasthar, if you don't mind the company of a man without honor—"

The lad bowed with positively courtly grace. "I have cast doubts on my own honor by doubting yours, Colonel." Then he was wide-eyed and eager again. "Don't worry about Redpoll, Colonel. He's very sure-footed."

 

 

III

The musketry was dying down as Harmakros' irregulars drove out the last of the Zarthani Knights' auxiliary horse-archers, the rearguard of the Holy Host. So far Kalvan could see only two or three small fires in the village; the heavy rain had soaked the thatch and shingles enough so that they would not burn easily. Not that either side was actually trying to set the village on fire, although the Ruthani mounted bowmen were devilishly hard to kill. Still, they were only fighting to give the survivors of the Holy Host a head start, while Harmakros was mostly trying to keep them from returning to Phyrax Field.

Torches glowed on the battlefield itself, where the Hostigi search parties were collecting enemy wounded. They also had orders to keep away the local peasantry until the fallen weapons and armor were gathered up, but so far the peasants didn't appear to be a problem. Maybe the sheer size and slaughter of the battle had scared them away; the usual here-and-now battle involved fewer men than were contained in one of the wings of either of today's two armies.

Against the torchlight Kalvan could see a rider making his way up the ridge. As he reached the crest, Kalvan recognized Phrames, undoing his red scarf. That scarf had been one of Rylla's name-day gifts to Phrames; on any other man it might have been a calculated insult to Kalvan, but on Phrames it was a symbol of his loyalty to his Great Queen.

"Well done, Phrames. In another moon you can have Rylla embroider the arms of Beshta on that scarf." Kalvan's mind shied away from the thought that even now there might not be any Rylla.

The silence was so long that Kalvan wondered if perhaps he'd overestimated the wits Phrames had left after today's fighting. The moon was disappearing again and another thunderstorm seemed to be building in the southwest, so he couldn't make out the Count's expression.

Then he heard Phrames clear his throat. "Your Majesty—Kalvan. I—I am your servant in—all things. Then a soft laugh. "But don't you think this is selling the colt before the mare has even been brought to stud?"

"No. We are going to have to remove Balthar's head—if it is still on his shoulders. We haven't found his body, and most of the Beshtans ran like the blazes as soon as it was safe to do so. I suspect he'll be giving Our Royal Executioner some business, and all his kin and ministers—"

"Don't forget his tax gatherers."

"Especially his tax collectors. That means nobody of the House of Beshta left except his brother Balthames, who is going to have to remain content with Sashta, or he'll join his brother. That leaves the Princedom of Beshta vacant, and if there's anybody else who deserves it more, I'd like to hear who you think he is—"

"There are many, Your Majesty. Harmakros, Alkides, Hestophes, even Prince Sarrask—"

"Yes, Harmakros and Alkides were invaluable. So was Sarrask. But it was you who held the left wing together after Ptosphes' retreat."

Kalvan held up his hand to block further argument. "I know the First Prince did everything that was humanly possible. But you performed a miracle. If the Knights had rolled up the left wing and hit our center on the flank—well, right now we would not be having this discussion. Nor would there be a Great King of Hos-Hostigos to reward his brave and loyal subjects. Furthermore, to win this war with Styphon's House, Hos-Hostigos is going to need all the miracle workers we can get.

"Also, announcing the new Prince of Beshta before we've settled accounts with the old one has a few other advantages. First, it will keep people from worrying that I'm the kind of Great King who likes to collect vacant Princedoms. I understand they are not popular." An understatement if there ever was one. "We will expect a share of the vacant estates and the treasury, but that is traditional.

"Second, you're popular in Beshta, Phrames. The people and even some of the nobles may rise up against Balthar as soon as they know whom they're rising for. That may save Us the trouble of his execution. It will certainly save Us a good deal of fighting and some lives. If We asked the Beshtans to rise without naming a new Prince, it might look as if We like starting rebellions. That would Us even more unpopular. But naming a successor to a prince attainted for treason—again, that's traditional."

"There is wisdom in all that you say, Your Majesty, but— What's that?"

It sounded as if the battle were starting all over again for a moment—gunshots and shouts, then Kalvan recognized cheers. A short while later he recognized two familiar riders approaching at a trot, both carrying torches. One was Verkan, the other Aspasthar, and both of them had grins that practically met at the backs of their heads.

"The Great Queen and baby are safe!" hollered Aspasthar.

Kalvan was struck speechless.

Aspasthar gentled his pony, then dismounted to kneel before Kalvan.

"Yes, Sire. Both Queen Rylla and the new Princess of Hos-Hostigos are well."

"How—how did they choose you as messenger?"

Aspasthar blushed. "Your Majesty, they didn't exactly—you see, I was listening outside the birthing chamber. When I heard everybody being so happy, I knew what had happened. With all the excitement, I thought it might take a while before they told someone else to ride to you, and I was certain that you would want to know right away, so I got on Redpoll and rode off. But I became lost and had to ask Colonel Verkan for help—"

"And insult my honor into the bargain," Verkan added laughing. He told the rest of the story while Aspasthar blushed even brighter.

Kalvan wanted to run around waving his arms and shouting at the top of his lungs, but he did have his royal dignity to preserve. The boy also had a reward coming.

"Aspasthar. You have earned yourself a good-news bearer's reward. Ten Hostigos Crowns. It shall be paid to you tomorrow, and then you will take it to your—to Baron Harmakros and give nine Crowns of it to him for safekeeping. You are also to say that it is the Great King's command that you be thoroughly thrashed for riding out as you did with no authority or permission, putting yourself in danger and insulting Colonel Verkan as well!"

Aspasthar only had to gulp twice before he stammered, "Y-Yes, Your M-M-Majesty!"

Kalvan turned away and took a few stumbling steps. If there is anybody to thank—thank you for Rylla and our daughter. Now, what to name her— 

Kalvan took the offered jug and swigged from it without thinking. For a moment, he felt as if he'd swallowed a mouthful from one of the Foundry crucibles. Nothing was this strong except high-proof corn liquor! Had they gone and invented distilling behind his back while he was off fighting the war?

He sniffed the neck of the jug. Not bourbon, not rye or any other kind of whiskey—just good winter wine. It was only fatigue and battle strain and not having eaten anything for twelve hours that made the winter wine taste so potent.

"Aspasthar demonstrated good sense in one thing," Verkan said. "The lad tied two jugs to Redpoll's saddle, and took some cheese and sausage as well. Probably stole them from the kitchen, of course. Drink up, Your Majesty."

Kalvan took another sip, then felt rain on his face and shook his head. If he drank any more, he'd either have to be carried back to Tarr-Hostigos or else stand here in the rain like a barnyard turkey, his mouth upturned until the rain filled it and he drowned.

 

 

IV

Very little of the morning sunlight penetrated into the keep and Kalvan had to hold up his torch to find his way up the narrow stone stairway. The door to the birthing chamber was closed when Kalvan reached the top of the stairs. One of the midwives and a maidservant were slumped on a bench outside the door; another maidservant was sprawled on a pallet under the bench, snoring like a small thunderstorm. The door opened a crack and the bulldog face of old Amasphalya, the chief midwife, peered out.

"You can't come in, Your Majesty. Both Rylla and the baby are asleep, and they need the sleep more than they need you."

Kalvan felt his mouth open and shut several times without any sound coming out. He was glad the antechamber was dark and the three women asleep, because he knew he must be making a thoroughly non-royal spectacle of himself.

He thought briefly of battering rams. He thought somewhat less briefly of summoning Brother Mytron and having him negotiate a passage for the Great King. Then he remembered that Mytron was also enjoying a well-deserved sleep after a day not as dangerous but certainly as long as his King's.

He was thinking that he really didn't know what to do next when he heard Rylla's voice from inside the chamber. "By Yirtta, Amasphalya, let him in! That's an order."

"Your Majesty—"

"Let him in! Or I'm going to get out of bed and open the door myself."

Kalvan would have very much liked a camera to record the expression on Amasphalya's face. If nothing else, he could have used the picture to blackmail her into better manners the next time she decided that she outranked a Great King.

Then he gave out a great whoop of laughter. Until now he'd only been told that Rylla was alive and healthy; in his exhaustion he'd had moments of believing that everyone was lying to him. Now he'd heard her voice, and more than her voice, her old familiar impatience with fools.

Amasphalya sighed and stepped out of Kalvan's path without opening the door any wider. Kalvan kicked it open all the way and ran to the bed. He kissed Rylla several times and ran his hands through her hair before he realized how fortunate he'd been to hear her voice before seeing her; she looked like a stranger, with dark circles under her eyes, pain-carved lines in her pale face and hair matted to the consistency of barbed wire.

No, not a stranger. Just a woman who'd been through a long hard labor, and he'd delivered numerous women in labor to the hospital in his squad car and seen what they looked like when they arrived—twice, even helping deliver babies. But he hadn't been married to any of them.

"Kalvan, look!"

He looked to where a too thin, too pale hand was pointing. At first he saw nothing but a pile of furs and linen, then—

"By Galzar's Mace! I didn't know babies came that big."

Rylla laughed and Amasphalya was bold enough to say, "Oh, she was a fine big lass, that's for certain. Almost three ingots. It's no great wonder that she was hard in coming, but all's well now. She's already eaten once and—"

Kalvan wasn't listening. In fact, as he stared down at his nine pounds of daughter, he wouldn't have heard Dralm himself coming to announce that Balph had burned to the ground and Styphon's House was surrendering unconditionally to the will of Great King Kalvan. All his attention was on the baby, red-faced and wrinkled as she was, with a snub nose that looked more like Rylla's than his—

Under her father's scrutiny, the Princess of Hostigos opened large blue eyes that were her mother's and nobody else's. Then she opened her mouth and let out an earsplitting howl.

"She wants another meal, the greedy thing," clucked Amasphalya. "I'd best summon the wet nurse."

She bustled off to do that, while Kalvan held out his thumb to the baby. Her fingers curled firmly around it, but she went on squalling. He grinned.

"I suppose it's going to be a while before she can be impressed by Great Kings or anybody else who can't provide nourishment."

Rylla smiled and silently gripped his free hand. "Kalvan, you don't believe the gods will mind if we name the baby now like they do in the Cold Lands where you came from?"

Kalvan shook his head. Due to the high infant mortality, most here-and-now babies were not given proper names until they reached their third year, which was when their families celebrated their first Name Day. This was because of the high infant mortality rate here-and-now; he'd heard that in the Trygath it ran as high as fifty percent. Often, their Name Day wasn't on their real birthday, not even the one supplied by the lunar and solar Zarthani calendars.

It also meant that when someone gave his or her age you had to mentally add another three years to get their real age—or close to it! Some families didn't even keep track of the moon or day—just the year. Hestophes liked to say he was born in the first false spring of the Year of the Big Moon. It always got a big laugh.

Kalvan had discussed naming the baby before he realized all the implications. Now, he was stuck with it. You'd better live a long time, little one, he admonished his newborn daughter. "No, I can't see Allfather Dralm being unhappy because we named our baby after your mother."

Rylla smiled. "Little Demia. I like that her name honors a mother I never knew."

Kalvan smiled too and squeezed her hand. Then the door opened again as Amasphalya led a hefty peasant woman into the chamber. Kalvan was looking her over to make sure she'd bathed properly, when he saw two men silhouetted in the doorway. Something about them looked familiar—

"Count Phrames. Colonel Verkan. Welcome. Come in."

The two soldiers followed the wet nurse. Amasphalya took a deep breath, then appeared to think better of whatever she'd been about to say. Instead she looked toward the ceiling with an expression that was clearly a silent prayer to the Goddess to guard Rylla and the baby, since her own best efforts to keep the birthing chamber free of fathers and other useless men had failed.

Kalvan straightened up, although he was so weak that for a moment he wondered if he would need to ask for help. Something seemed to have happened to his spine.

"How is the army?"

"Harmakros, Ptosphes and Sarrask have things well in hand," Verkan said.

"I don't know what that Sarrask is made of," Phrames added. "He fought all day, worked all night; now he and his guardsmen are having a drinking party with some camp followers and some captured beer!"

"Maybe he wants to forget the battle," Verkan said softly. "The gods know I wish I could."

Phrames looked oddly at the Rifleman for a moment, the nodded slowly. "It could be." Obviously, the idea of Sarrask of Sask having some virtues was still novel, but no longer unthinkable.

The baby's howls had died to an occasional squeak or gurgle as she snuggled against the wet nurse's breast and went to work on her meal. Kalvan found himself swaying on his feet, even after Phrames put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Come with me, Your Majesty. We've arranged a bed for you in the shrine-house. Many of the wounded are under tents in the courtyard and Verkan has twenty of his Riflemen guarding the shrine-house. You'll be able to sleep in peace."

Sleep sounded like an excellent idea, but he wanted to say goodnight to Rylla. He shook off Phrames' hand, turned, swayed so violently that he nearly fell—and saw that Rylla was asleep again.

A very excellent idea, for everybody. Kalvan cautiously placed one foot in front of another, then felt Phrames gripping him by one arm and Verkan by the other as they led him toward the door.

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