The Tears of the Sun (20 page)

“And if they tell you and your new friends to take a hike?”

Fred smiled grimly. “If the people—which includes women and refugees—want someone else, well, Hell, I can live with it. I won't starve and I'm not afraid of working for a living, and neither is my wife . . . this is her, Virginia Thurston, by the way. She comes from southeast of us, east of the Rockies on the High Plains. The CUT ran her out of her home; they're doing their job there too, and their job is being evil sons of bitches.”

Rudi cut in: “And sure, I'll give Fred a job like that if you don't want him.” He snapped his fingers. “There aren't so many good men who are true to their word about that I'd want to waste one. Carry on; just making that clear.”

The speaker nodded at him and turned back to Fred: “But you want us to be part of a
kingdom
?”

Fred nodded crisply in turn. “Yes. The High Kingdom of Montival. My Dad wanted to put America back together. He was a great man, he made a country out of chaos and plague and people terrified they were going to die. A lot of you wouldn't be here today if he hadn't been that sort of man. Hell,
I
wouldn't. He went back into Seattle to get my mom out when he came back from the scouting mission to Idaho and found things had gone to shit. But by the end of his life, he hadn't even put all of
Idaho
back together. Part of Idaho, and a few chunks of what used to be Washington State and Nevada. He didn't want to make war on ordinary people to do it, either. I know Rudi Mackenzie . . . High King Artos, the redhead on the horse over there. We went all the way to the Atlantic together. Some real strange shit came down.”

“
Tell
us!” someone said. “The way that witch . . . she's his mom, right? The way she put us all to sleep . . . and held off that Seeker asshole . . .”

“It's a new world. The rules changed at the Change. But the High King can do some of what Dad wanted done—put a big chunk of the country back together. In a different way, sure. But it's one that a whole lot of people have already
agreed
to. So the names are different, big fat fucking hairy deal. It'll mean no more wars among ourselves, no more marching around and burning farms and getting your head knocked in because . . . someone . . . wants to be first in line at the Parade of the Assholes. He's promised, and I believe it, that we'll be able to run our own affairs the way we please. We'll have our own laws, and our own army to back it up. All we have to do is admit that everyone else gets the same privilege, and if they want to dance naked in the woods with antlers on their heads”—there was a general laugh at that—“that's between them and the mosquitoes. We'll put joining the High Kingdom to a vote too. I'm for it.”

“I'm for getting back home, Goddammit,” someone called. “I want to get back to my girl and the farm and anyone else can call themselves kings or barons or Chiefs or bossmen or the fucking Wizard of Oz as far as I'm concerned. They leave me alone, I'll leave them alone.”

“Right,” Fred said, nodding vigorously at the roar of assent. “Are there any crazy bastards here who
want
a war? We're all soldiers. We know what fighting really means. Sometimes you have to do it, but that doesn't mean anyone who doesn't have his head up his ass goes
looking
for one. Not just because it sucks for us, but because of the risks to everyone else back home too. Martin's not only got us into a war
here
, he's got the Dominions and the Midwesterners into the fight. The Canuks and the Iowans and their friends are marching right now. Marching towards our
homes
while we're dicking around on other people's ground.”

“Is that really true? And do they mean it?” a soldier asked anxiously.

“People,
believe
it. Do you think all these Mackenzies could get together and put a story over on you?”

“Hell, no,” the sergeant said thoughtfully. “A lot of the time they can't agree on the time of day. They argue for the fun of it, like it was a poker game. Sometimes they argue and then switch sides and argue the other way'round just for something to do. Someone would have talked to us. It's true, or at least they all believe it is, and they're not stupid.”

“Right. I saw the Midwesterners forming up outside Des Moines with my own eyes, and people, there are a hell of a lot of them and they're not stopping for shit. The CUT killed their Bossman and tried to kill his whole family; his widow's running the show there now and she's out for blood, and the rest of them are baying on that track like hounds after a cougar.”

“
We
didn't kill her man,” someone pointed out.

“Sure, the Prophet's boys are first on the menu . . . but they and Martin are joined at the hip. He's already pulled troops out of this theatre to go east, you must have heard about that before you got captured. Are you all that hot and bothered to go get killed to defend
Corwin
? Or seeing your neighbors and cousins marched off to do it?”

A brabble started to break out, and Fred held up a hand. “I'm not telling you to make up your minds right away. Go think it over. Anyone who wants to come with me . . . that'll be a hard row to hoe. It'll be dangerous and in more ways than one. You can stay here and be safe and get three squares and a place to flop whatever happens and whoever wins, if that's what you want to do. Like I said, think it over. You're free men; make your own decision.”

He stood, looking at them steadily. The gathering had turned from a drill-parade formation to a circle of interested men. Now it began to break up into groups arguing or talking, softly at first and then more loudly as they walked away. And some
weren't
leaving, around a hundred.

Fred waited impassively until it was plain who was doing what. Sergeant Saunders, the man he'd talked to first, was the highest-ranking.

He looked at the sergeant and raised an eyebrow; that was a habit of his father's he'd picked up.

“Sir, I don't know about anyone else here, but I'm volunteering to follow you. I believe you and that makes Martin a murderer and a traitor who's sold us to the CUT. Word about that's been going round . . . and I don't like the way a couple of people who got too loud about it disappeared, either. Shit, that's a big fat fucking load of proof that it's true right there. I want to be able to speak my mind without looking over my shoulder and wondering who I can trust! That's no way for free men to live.”

“Good man,” Fred said, keeping the smile off his face; the last thing he needed was to look like a grinning kid.

Then he raised his voice a little more. “That what the rest of you think?”

Murmurs, and then a chorus of
Yessirs
.

“OK, think about this a little more, people. If Martin gets his hands on you, he'll have you executed as traitors to
him
, sure as God, sure as fate. It's win or die if you enlist with me. And I have the High King's word he'll
try
to avoid having us fighting our own people, use us against the CUT's men . . . but there's no guarantee there.”

Heads turned to Rudi; he shrugged and turned both hands up. “I do promise I'll try. I don't give oath I'll always succeed because I don't promise what I know I can't do. That comes back to bite you on the arse, sure and it does, and you end up paying when you can least afford it. As your commander here said, there are no guarantees in war. If you enlist with him, you enlist with
me
, and soldiers under my command do what they're told whether they like it or not, and it will be
not
quite a lot of the time.”

Saunders laughed. “That sounds familiar, sir. I'm in. This needs doing. I don't expect to like it. I don't expect an egg in my beer.”

A few edged out from the back, but that left over ninety; about as many as had refused to even listen to him.

“Get the men organized by squads, Sergeant,” Fred said.

“They mostly are already, sir. I can shift the others 'round.”

“Do it. And collect any personal possessions from barracks right away. I don't want a battle here. Oh, and one last thing. All of you remember, if you sign up, you don't get to change your mind while this war's on. Anyone who tries is a deserter and gets what deserters usually do. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“He can't
hear
you!” Sergeant Saunders said.

“Get them moving, Sergeant.”

 

Several hours later the tents were going up much nearer Sutterdown. They were standard US (of Boise) issue; so was the hoop armor and curved oval shields with the thunderbolt and eagle, the short swords and daggers, the heavy throwing spears stacked while the men worked. It had all been captured with them, and there was more than enough. They'd even been able to match individuals to their own gear for the most part, though Boise soldiers were taught how to modify equipment to fit. Fred smiled as one of them patted the worn, sweat-stained bone hilt of a short stabbing sword in passing, like someone greeting a favorite hound. They hadn't looked beatendown in the POW camp, but they were walking noticeably taller now, with no fence around them and weapons to hand.

“One thing,” he said to Rudi.

The High King of Montival was busy; a messenger handed him sheaves of papers, and he flipped through them in a way that looked casual but wasn't. Every so often he'd drop his hand to the Sword and close his eyes for an instant.

“Fred?” Rudi said without looking up.

“You said you couldn't make them believe anything . . . but you
could
, couldn't you?”

“Ah,” Rudi said, handing over the sheaf of reports.

His right hand went to the crystal pommel of the Sword, moving his palm on it with a caressing motion. The blue-gray eyes went blank for a moment, as if he was looking at something within and taking the weight and heft of it.

“Now that, my friend, is an interesting question. Perhaps not, with so many. Perhaps yes, because what you said
is
the truth, and the Sword of the Lady reveals truth as surely as it cuts bone. But I
will
not use the Sword so. That is my choice, and let that be my responsibility, for good or ill.”

Fred was conscious of a feeling of relief; when Virginia blew out her cheeks it was an audible mark of the same emotion.

Rudi laughed. “It's exactly that way I feel about the matter, do you see? For it shows that I am still . . . myself.”

“I doubt you're as reassured as the rest of us, Rudi. Oh, and I think it would be a good idea, once I get the men in order, to let them go back and talk to their friends in the POW camp, individually or in small groups. Walking ambassadors, right?”

“And to be sure, you're more than a pretty face, Fred.”

Fred frowned. “It's not enough, though. I need something to convince the waverers, the ones in the middle who're of two minds and who just don't
want
to believe something so skanky could have put Martin in charge. And more officers would help. We need a
lot
of defections to even the odds.”

Rudi grinned at him. “
Air mo chùram.
Which is to say, it's on my mind, Fred. Now as to where to use these men of yours when they're ready . . . I was thinking of adding them to my Royal Guard, so I was.”

Fred nodded slowly. “They'll appreciate the gesture, Rudi.”

“Not that it means following at my arse all the time, mind you. More a matter of stiffening the battle line at crucial points and being the ones who rush around to the hottest fires.”

“Sounds like . . . useful work.”

“Sure and if you'd said
fun
I'd have called for the healers of souls.”

As he turned away, Virginia slapped her husband on the shoulder. “Turns out you were right about how to handle your folks,” she said. “Just don't let it go to your head, you hear?”

Fred laughed shortly. “One platoon? I don't think that's too likely.”

BOISE
PROVISIONAL CAPITAL, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(FORMERLY BOISE, IDAHO)
AUGUST 8, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

 

 

 

G
eneral-President Martin Thurston looked down from the gatehouse. His aides glanced at each other; one was annoyed, the other sweating in a terror he could not have named even to himself. Martin knew it.

I know everything,
some corner of his mind thought. The joy was unbearable yet detached.
I
am
knowing. I need not do, only be.
The detachment was the joy.

Existence spiraled downward. Beyond matter, beyond the decay of the last particle, there was only information. All that had ever known, all that had ever been, all that had ever thought. Falling inward towards nothing. It was gross material
things
no more; in some unimaginable future of cycle upon cycle it would
never have been
made of mere things. Only thought, from the flash as the high-dimensional membranes met at the beginning of a universe to the cold death of proton decay at its end and the cycle commenced again, a universe not merely permeated by mind but one that
was
Mind. Thought that was thought about thought, endless repetitions spiraling into—

“Sir.”

The vision crashed away in a stab of unbearable sorrow. Thurston turned with a snarl, his eyes locking with the officer's. The man stumbled backward with a scream, the reek of his sweat harshly, hideously
material
in a way that made the ruler's stomach knot; yet even vomiting was itself foul, contaminating. How could you vomit away the gross stuff of your
self
? One of the guards jumped forward in a clatter of armor and put his big curved shield between the man's back and the top of the stone stairs at his heel, grunting as the officer's weight came on the semicylinder of plywood and sheet metal and leather.