Epiphany of the Long Sun (56 page)

"Absolutely not!"

"We could sit alternately, if you like," Silk persevered. "You could rest a while, then return it to me."

She shook her head, her lips tight; and Silk put down the stool, empty, between them.

The Companions had ridden in threes and had appeared to be scanning the crowd; having kept a rough count, Silk felt sure there had been no more than two hundred. The troopers behind them bore no lances and were neither so regular in size nor so well mounted; but they rode ten abreast, led by an officer in a dusty old cloak on the finest horse that he had ever seen.

"Generalissimo Siyuf," Saba muttered. "She's related to the Rani on her father's side, as well as her mother's."

"Your supreme military commander."

Saba nodded. "A military genius."

Surveying that hawk-like profile, he decided it might well be true, and was certainly true enough to make Siyuf a valuable ally; genius or not, she radiated resolution and intelligence. He could not help wondering what she had been told about him, and what she thought of him now, the insecure young ruler of a foreign city; the urge to comb his untidy hair with his fingers, as he would have in a conversation with Quetzal, was practically irresistible. For half a second, his eyes locked with hers.

Then Saba saluted, and her salute was returned negligently by Siyuf; at once Oosik saluted her, in accord with the protocol agreed to Tarsday. Behind her, rank after rank of disciplined young women drew sabers and faced right, seemingly oblivious to the swirling dust and biting wind.

"Generalissimo Siyuf rides at the head of her own regiment. She joined eighteen years ago as a brevet lieutenant, and it's known now as the Generalissimo's Auxiliary Light Horse…"

Saba fell silent; shivering, Silk murmured, "Yes?"

"Your people aren't cheering, Caldé. Not nearly enough. The Generalissimo won't be pleased."

He seized the opportunity. "Perhaps they're afraid they may panic your horses." It had been juvenile, but for a minute or more he enjoyed it.

A wide break in what had threatened to become an infinite succession of mounted troopers apparently marked the end of the Generalissimo's Auxiliary Light Horse. It was followed by the yellow, brown, and red flag of Trivigaunte, borne by an officer on horseback and escorted by an honor guard clearly drawn from the Companion Cavalry, and the banner by the band whose martial music had been the first indication that the Rani's troops were near. The musicians, marching with the precision of a picture in a drill book, were all men and all bearded; the onlookers' cheers increased noticeably as they passed.

"They're really very good," Silk told Saba, hoping to restore friendly relations. "Very skillful indeed, and our people seem to love their music."

"I'm an old campaigner, Caldé."

Privately wondering what the campaigns had been, and how Generalissimo Siyuf had revealed her military genius in them, Silk ventured, "So I understand."

"Your people are cheering because they're men. You think we keep our men chained in the cellar, but most of our support troops are men."

"With beards," Silk commented; it seemed safe.

"Exactly. You shave yours off to make yourself look more like a woman. I'm not criticizing you for it, in your position I'd do the same thing. But we don't let our men do it at home. They can trim their beards with scissors if they want to, and these support troops are required to. But they can't shave, or pull the hairs out."

Silk felt himself wince and hoped she had not noticed it.

"We've only let them use scissors for about twenty years," she continued. "When I was a lieutenant they couldn't, and you saw a good many with beards below their waists. We let them tuck them into their belts, and some people felt that was going too far. The idea is that a beard makes it easy to cut a man's throat. You grab it and jerk his head up."

"I see," Silk said. Mentally, he cancelled the beard he had only just resolved to grow.

"These are Princess Silah's Own Dragoons. You'll notice-"

Oosik interrupted. "I do not mean to begin an argument, General, but I question that it is actually done. If it is, it cannot be done often. Men are much stronger than women."

Saba indicated the mounted troopers passing before them. "Horses are stronger than women, Generalissimo."

Silk chuckled.

"Don't you believe me, Caldé?" Saba was holding back a smile. "It's true, I swear, in our city. We've been breeding chargers since Pas laid his first brick, and our horses are stronger than women and-"

"Wiser than men," Silk finished for her. "I don't doubt it for a moment."

"Who is?" inquired a new voice. "Everyone, I think."

Silk turned to look as Generalissimo Siyuf stepped onto the reviewing platform. "Here you are." He offered his hand. "I was afraid you'd be delayed. It's an honor to greet you at last, and a great pleasure. Welcome to Viron. I'm Caldé Silk."

She shook his hand awkwardly, unsmiling; her own was hard and dry, not quite as strong as he had anticipated. "It is my joy to see your lively city, Caldé Silk. Most of my life I have spend in the south. Your Viron is not more than a name on my maps, one week ago. My parade is bad, I know. When they must march they cannot be drilled. When they fight it is the same."

Silk assured her that he had been enormously impressed by what he had seen, and introduced her to Quetzal and Oosik.

"We will see your troops after mine," she told Oosik. "We pass them waiting. Ah, you have a stool for me, Caldé. Thank you." She seated herself between Silk and Saba. "This is most welcome. I have been up since three, in the saddle since five. I have tire two horses. I must have a fresh one for this."

"It was very good of you to join us after you'd marched," Silk told her sincerely. "We've all heard great things about you. We were anxious to meet you."

Siyuf's eyes were on her troops. "I do not come for you, Caldé Silk. I come for me. Soon we fight together. Is this right? Or does this mean you will fight me and I you?"

"No. That's perfecfly correct. Together, we'll fight the Ayuntamiento, if we must. I'd much rather we didn't have to."

"And I. Both." Siyuf pulled her cap down and drew her streaked old cloak over her knees.

For a time, no one spoke. Silk pretended to watch the parade as cavalry gave way to infantry, attractive young women who saluted the reviewing platform by holding their slug guns vertically at their left shoulders and marching with a stiff stride that reminded him of sibyls dancing at a sacrifice.

Mostly, he studied Siyuf and reexamined her remarks, and his own. Her cap was clean and well-shaped, but by no means new, her cloak frankly soiled; no doubt she had changed horses as she had said, but she had not changed clothes. Her boots were slightly scuffed, her spurs (he risked a surreptitious glance at Saba's feet) markedly larger than her subordinate's.

She had not hesitated to claim the empty stool. Silk tried to put himself in the place of one of the expressionless women marching past. Would they feel ashamed of their Generalissimo? Would they think her weak?

Would he, if he were somehow a member of Siyuf's horde? After arguing the point with himself; he decided that he would not. Sitting when others had to stand was one of the surest signs of rank, and her clothes proclaimed that she need answer to no one, that no bullying sergeant or trumpeting colonel dared rebuke her. In imagination, Silk soared from the platform to a gondola of the airship, and from it scanned the parade. There was the reviewing platform, on it various dignitaries of Viron and Trivigaunte. Who was in charge? Who commanded the rest?

It was unquestionably Siyuf, who was seated with Quetzal and himself to her left and Saba and Oosik to her fight-the civil authorities, religious and civic, on one side in other words; and the military, Trivigaunti and Vironese, on the other. When Viron's own troopers marched past, they would receive the same impression.

"Is it always so cold here in the north?" Siyuf pulled her cloak more tightly about her.

"No," Silk told her. "We had a very long summer this year, and a very warm one."

"I wish we have come to your city then, Caldé. When I was small my teachers told me this north was cold. I learn to write it on examinations, but I do not believe. Why should it be so?"

"I have no idea." Silk considered. "I learned it just as you did, and I don't believe I ever thought of questioning it. To tell you the truth, I accepted just about everything I was taught, including many things I ought to have questioned."

"The sun." Siyuf pointed up without looking upward. "This begin at the east and end at the west. That is only because we say it so, I know. Here you may speak different. But from East Pole to West Pole or West Pole to East. Your day in Viron is soon our day in Trivigaunte. Is that true?"

"Yes," Silk said. "Of course."

"Then what do you do to make your day so cold?"

Saba laughed, and Silk and Oosik joined her.

Quetzal seemed not to have heard, contemplating the ranked women passing before him through half-closed eyes. Studying him sidelong, Silk sensed a need, a longing, that he himself did not feel, and puzzled over it until he recalled that Saba had said that sacrifices were not offered in her city. The Chapter would be different there, quite possibly known by another name; each of the marching women was, in that case, a potential convert to Viron's more dignified mode of worship. No wonder then that Quetzal eyed them so hungrily. To amend the religious thinking of even a few would be a signal accomplishment and a glorious conclusion to his long, meritorious career. Furthermore, there were thousands and thousands of them, the vast majority still young, still malleable, as Saba for example was not.

As if the comparison had stirred her to speech, Saba asked, "What do you think, Generalissimo? A fine body of women?"

Oosik declared that he had been favorably impressed.

"How old are they?" Silk inquired suddenly; he had not intended to speak.

"We take them at seventeen," Saba told him. "There's a year of training before they're assigned to permanent units. After that we keep them four years."

"Do you mean that they have to become troopers? What if one doesn't want to?"

Saba pointed. "See that one with the big feet? And her over there, the tall one with a stripe?"

"At the end of the line? Yes, I see her."

Saba pointed again. "There, that little fat one. None of them wanted to."

"I see. I'm surprised you know these troopers so well, General. Is this group a part of your airship's crew?"

"No, Caldé." Saba glanced across Siyuf's head with the suppressed smile he had noticed earlier. "In weather like this we need everybody on board. I picked them by chance, but that's the truth about them. Who'd want to be a trooper?"

Silk glanced at Oosik, who was looking at him; troopers in Viron served voluntarily.

Another band, then hundreds of saddleless horses herded by mounted men. Seeing Silk's puzzled expression, Saba explained, "They're remounts. When a trooper's horse is shot, she has to fight on foot unless there's a remount for her."

Siyuf looked up at him. "Do you not have remounts for your own cavalry?" He found her steady eyes disconcerting.

Oosik said quickly, "Our practice is to issue two horses to each mounted trooper. He is responsible for their care, and is to ride them alternately unless one goes lame. In peacetime he rides one on one day and the other on the next."

"You, Generalissimo. Were you a horse officer? We say cavalrywoman, but I do not think you will say that here. A cavalryman, I think?"

Oosik made her a small bow. "Correct, Generalissimo. No, I was not, nor are most of our officers. We have only one mounted company per brigade, though the second has two at present. My son is a cavalryman, however."

For the first time, Siyuf smiled; seeing it, Silk could readily imagine her subordinates risking their lives to earn that smile. She said, "I hope to meet him. Tomorrow or the day after. We shall speak of horses."

"He will be honored, Generalissimo. Unfortunately he is unwell at present."

"I see." She turned back to the parade, and her voice became indifferent. "It is sad that boys must fight here."

Mules hauling cannon followed the horse herd. "I expected camels," Silk told her.

"Horses and camels do not make friends," she said absently. "It is best we hold them apart. Mules are more…" She snapped her fingers.

"Easygoing," Saba supplied. "They don't mind camels as much as most horses do."

"Does it really take eight to pull one of these big guns?"

"On your street of fine stones? No. But over our desert where is no road, many more sometimes. Then one must lend to another its mules and wait. I have seen sixteen unable to pull a single howitzer from the mud. That was not on this march, or we would not be here."

Saba asked, "Didn't you notice the mixed gun crews, Caldé? I expected you to ask about them."

Already the last cannon was rumbling past. After it came a long triple line of small carts with male drivers; each cart was drawn by a pair of mules.

Silk said, "I'm accustomed to working with women, General. With Maytera Marble and Maytera Mint at my manteion, before I became Caldé-with Maytera Rose as well until she left us. Your mixed crews seem more normal to me than," he groped for an inoffensive phrase, ending lamely, "than the other thing, just women or just men."

"Men drive the mules and hump shells. They do those almost as well as women could. Women lay the guns and fire them."

Siyuf asked, "Where is General Mint? Did you not call her Mother Mint just now? Or are there two of this name?"

"No, they're the same person. She's a sibyl as well as a general, just as I'm an augur as well as Caldé." Silk was tempted to add that he hoped to drop the first soon.

"She marches with her troops today?"

"I'm afraid not." A bare-faced lie would serve best, but he was unwilling to provide one. "We're still engaged with the enemy, Generalissimo."

If Siyuf suspected, nothing in her face revealed it. "I am sorry I do not meet her. Next you see camels."