Sir Thursday (22 page)

It was a fine-looking raft, but it didn’t look big enough for three Not-Horses, a Denizen, and two Piper’s children.

“Get all the harness and gear off the mounts and onto the raft,” said Jarrow. He too looked at the setting sun. “We’ll give them a quick brush and oiling before they go.”

“Where will they go, sir?” asked Fred. He had become very attached to his Not-Horse, who according to the name engraved on its steel toe-caps was called Skwidge.

“They’ll find their way to friends,” said Jarrow. He took the saddlebags off his mount and dropped them on the raft, which was now half in the water. “Hurry up! We have to be away from the tile border before the village moves!”

The sun was little more than a sliver, barely visible on
the horizon, between the Star Fort and the Inner Bastion, when the last Not-Horse went on its way with a farewell whinny. Arthur and Fred hastily threw their brushes and cleaning clothes on the raft and started to push it completely into the lake.

“Put your backs into it!” urged Jarrow, once more looking at the setting sun. But the raft, despite being two-thirds in the water, with the barrels on the far end already floating, was stuck fast in the mud.

Arthur and Fred got down lower and really heaved, and this time Jarrow joined them. The raft slid a few inches but stopped again.

“What’s that noise?” gasped Arthur, in between shoves. He could hear a high-pitched whistling, like an ultrasonic dentist’s drill.

“Tile moving!” shouted Jarrow. “Into the water, quick!”

He grabbed Arthur and Fred and dragged them away from the raft and into the lake. Within a few steps it was up to the chests of the Piper’s children, but Jarrow kept dragging them on, even though Arthur and Fred had their heads back and were gasping for air, their feet scrabbling to touch the ground as their heavy Horde hauberks and gear threatened to drag them beneath the water.

J
ust as Arthur and Fred thought they were going to drown, which was no improvement over death by dismemberment when the tile changed, the high-pitched whistle stopped. Jarrow stopped too and turned around, but he didn’t immediately head for the shore.

“Help!” gurgled Arthur.

“Can’t reach the ground,” gasped Fred.

Jarrow still didn’t do anything but stare back at the shore. Then he slowly dragged Arthur and Fred back out and dropped them next to the raft. After a frenzied minute of coughing and gasping, the two boys recovered enough to notice that the raft was intact—and the bucolic village was still there.

Jarrow stood near them, flicking through his Ephemeris, the pages held close so he could read them in the twilight.

“The tile didn’t move,” said Arthur.

“No,” said Jarrow. He shook his head. “But it should have. This is very serious. Only tectonic strategy has kept the New Nithlings from massing an overwhelming force
against us for a decisive battle…We had best get to the Citadel at once!”

He threw himself against the raft with new fervor, weakly assisted by Arthur and Fred. This time, their makeshift vessel slid all the way into the lake and bobbed about almost as well as a proper boat. Or at least a proper boat that permanently suffered from a fifteen-degree list to starboard.

Though it was slightly less than a mile across the lake, Arthur and Fred were very tired before they had gotten halfway. Jarrow kept up a punishing paddling pace and would not let them rest.

“Sir, if we could take a few minutes—” Arthur began to ask.

“Paddle!” shouted Jarrow. “You are soldiers of the Architect. Paddle!”

Arthur paddled. His arms and shoulders hurt so much that he had to bite his lip to stop himself from whimpering, but he kept paddling. Fred kept paddling too, but Arthur didn’t really notice. His world had become small, containing only pain, the paddle, and the water he had to cleave and push.

The moon began its shaky ascent as they approached one of the outer bastions that thrust out into the lake, small waves lapping the stone wall that faced the earthen
embankment. The moonlight caught their helmets and hauberks, and that caught the attention of the sentries.

“Who goes there?” came the cry across the water, accompanied by the flare of a quick-match as someone readied a musket or small cannon to fire.

“Lieutenant Jarrow of the Horde and two troopers!” shouted Jarrow. “Requesting permission to land at the water-dock.”

“Cease paddling and await our word!”

Jarrow stopped paddling. Arthur almost couldn’t stop, his muscles set in a repetitive pattern. When he did lift the oar out of the water and lay it down across the raft, it took several seconds to get his hands to unclench.

“Advance to the water-gate!”

“Commence paddling!” ordered Jarrow.

Arthur and Fred mechanically took up their oars again and dipped them into the water. The raft, having stopped, was very difficult to get moving again. Fortunately it was not far to the water-gate, a grilled gate of old iron some thirty yards farther along the bastion’s lake wall.

This portcullis was raised just enough to allow them to get the raft and themselves through and into a flooded chamber within the bastion. The grille came crashing and splashing back down as soon as they were inside.

There was just enough room inside to paddle the raft
to a spot between two small boats, which were tied up against a low wooden quay or wharf.

There was a reception party arrayed along the wharf: a lieutenant, a corporal, and two dozen Denizens in regimental scarlet, with bayonets fixed to their Nothing-powder muskets. Jarrow climbed up and, after an exchange of salutes and the presenting of arms, talked quickly with the other lieutenant. Arthur and Fred wearily gathered up all the gear and Not-Horse harnesses.

“Gold! Green! Leave that!” instructed Jarrow. “We have to report to Marshal Noon’s headquarters. You’re the last two Piper’s children to arrive.”

Arthur and Fred looked at each other and happily dropped the saddles, saddlebags, and other gear. Then they helped each other climb up onto the dock, remembering to salute the other lieutenant.

“Better get ’em in Regimentals before they go to the marshal,” said the other officer. “Unless they’re permanent troopers.”

“They aren’t yet,” said Jarrow. He clapped Arthur and Fred on their sore backs, and they both nearly fell over from the sudden pain. “But they have the makings. Let’s be off. Troopers, atten-hut! By the left, quick march!”

Jarrow obviously knew the Citadel well. From the water-gate, he led them up a ramp and out onto the top of
the bastion. They marched along its length, passing sentries and cannons, all staring out. Then they passed through a guardhouse with some formality between Jarrow and the officer of the watch, continued down another ramp and along a covered walkway lined with small cannons on swivels, climbed up through another guardhouse, went down a spiral staircase, marched across a cleared space between the third and second defense lines, entered another bastion, and ultimately found themselves in a Quartermaster’s Store that was so identical to the one at Fort Transformation that the two weary Piper’s children wondered if they’d ever left.

In the space of fifteen minutes their Horde hauberks and helmets were stripped off and replaced by the much lighter and more comfortable scarlet tunics, black trousers, and pillbox hats of the Regiment. They were issued familiar white belts with pouch and bayonet frog, and bayonets but not muskets.

“Only got powder for the sharpshooters,” said the Quartermaster Sergeant, a grizzled Denizen who had at some time been shot through the cheeks with a Nothing-laced bullet, so the wound would not completely heal. As he spoke, air sucked through the holes and made it hard to understand his speech.

Jarrow did not change, presumably because he was
a permanent Horde officer, but he did take the time to give his armor and boots a quick clean, earning the Quartermaster Sergeant’s approval for doing it himself. Then he waited patiently while Arthur and Fred got sorted out. When they started to examine their bayonets, he called them to attention and marched them out again.

This time, they left the outer bastions behind, crossing the bare area to the second line and taking a zigzag path along various ramps, through several guardhouses, and up four sets of stairs. On the far side of the second defense line, they crossed an even wider expanse of bare earth and a greater complexity of ramps, stairs, and guardhouses before exiting the third-line bastion to arrive at the bottom of a narrow stair that wound its way up the side of the white stone hill.

“Where are we going, sir?” asked Fred.

“Marshal Noon’s headquarters are in the Star Fort,” said Jarrow. “Up these stairs, now!”

The hill was not as high as Arthur had thought it was when he’d been out on the lake. Perhaps no more than three hundred feet. He felt so much better after shedding the heavy weight of the hauberk, helmet, and lightning-charged tulwar that it was almost a pleasure to climb the steps, though he knew he would be sore later. His time in the Army of the Architect had helped him discover
numerous muscles he had not previously known he had; unfortunately this discovery was always painful.

The bastions of the Star Fort were smaller versions of the ones in the lower defense lines. At the top of the stairs, Jarrow called out and did not proceed until he was answered by the sentry. Then, clearly illuminated by the greenish moonlight, they marched across the bare earth, crossed a ditch on a gangplank, and entered a sally port in the face of the bastion.

“Reckon you could find your way out of here?” asked Fred a little later, as they waited for Jarrow to finish talking to yet another lieutenant in yet another guard room—though this one was nicer than the ones below, as it had panelled wood walls rather than bare stone, and a blue-and-red carpet on the floor.

“No,” said Arthur. That thought had occurred to him too, probably because it was quite possible he, unlike Fred, might really need to get out again.

“You’re going into Marshal Noon’s reception room,” said Jarrow, turning back to them. “Apparently there’s already a number of Piper’s children waiting, and the marshal will address you soon. Remember to stand at attention at all times unless ordered otherwise, and do not speak unless you are spoken to. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!” shouted Fred and Arthur.

Jarrow winced.

“You don’t have to shout like that here. Save it for the parade ground. You’ve done well, Green, and you too, Gold. Good luck for the future. I hope we serve together again.”

He shook hands with them and was gone. Arthur and Fred turned nervously to the other door. A corporal grinned at them and opened it, gesturing for them to go inside.

Arthur felt an anxious, fluttering pain in his stomach. It didn’t look like this was going to be the prelude to Sir Thursday revealing his identity and doing something horrible to him. But he was nervous about whatever was to come, for it was an unknown, both to his soldier self and his secret role as the Rightful Heir.

They marched in together in perfect step. The room was large but not as expansive as the round-table room in Monday’s Dayroom. This room was much more spartan. It had a polished timber floor, with a spindly-legged desk in one corner, a black lacquered standing screen with maps pinned to it, several weapons mounted on the walls, and the preserved head of a monster—possibly a fish, as it looked like it might have come off a thirty-foot-long piranha. There were also twenty Piper’s children in two ranks of ten, standing at ease. Most were in scarlet Regimentals, but there were four Legionaries in dress armor, three
gray-coated Artillerists, and two Borderers in green. They all turned their heads to look as Fred and Arthur entered the room and marched over to form up on the left of the parade.

“Wait for it,” whispered Arthur as they neared the ranks. “Fred and Ray, halt! Left turn!”

They executed the movements perfectly. The other Piper’s children looked to the front again. All except for one of the Borderers, who stepped back behind the parade and sidled down the line. Then she came over and stood at attention next to Arthur.

“Hist! Arthur!”

Arthur slid his eyes to the left. The Borderer, a corporal no less, was Suzy!

Arthur’s head moved two inches in sheer surprise before he whipped it back in place. Even so, his eyes nearly left their sockets with the effort of peering at his friend. He felt incredibly relieved by her appearance and at the same time his anxiety ratcheted up a notch. Suzy’s arrivals normally anticipated serious mayhem and difficulties only by minutes.

“Suzy! They let you join after all?” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “And you’ve already made corporal?”

“Not exactly,” said Suzy. “It’s a bit complicated, but
basically I got here, and they had a bit of trouble working out what to do with me. For a couple of hours they were going to shoot me as a spy. But it turns out I
was
in the Army before. I did my hitch four hundred years ago and been in the Reserve ever since! Not that I can remember it, though a few bits and pieces are coming back now. I told them I’d just got cleaned between the ears and was a bit confused, and then this order came for all Piper’s children to report, no exceptions, so the major who was in charge said ‘good riddance’ and sent me along. The important thing is, Arthur, I’ve got the—”

“Atten-hut!”

An immaculate Regimental Sergeant-Major, her scarlet sleeves adorned with laurel wreaths and crossed swords, had entered the room. She marched over to the Piper’s children, ramrod-straight, her boots clicking in perfect rhythm on the floor, a silver-pointed ebony pace-stick under her arm.

“Close up that gap, soldier!” she snapped, pointing to the hole Suzy had left. She halted in front of the two lines, did an about-turn, and saluted the Denizen who had just followed her in.

He was considerably less splendid than the RSM, wearing what looked like exactly the same kind of Regimental private’s uniform as Arthur’s, with the addition of two
black epaulettes that were each adorned with a circle of six tiny golden swords. This struck Arthur as odd, since the
Recruit’s Companion
said a marshal was only supposed to have five. The only other alteration to the private’s uniform was that instead of a pillbox hat he wore a kind of black beret with a golden sword badge pinned to it. The badge looked too big for the beret, depicting a very old-fashioned hand and a half sword, with a serpent coiled around the hilt.