To Conquer Chaos (6 page)

XI

“Of course I believe you, even if no one else does!” Idris insisted. But a little imp of doubt rode snickering on the words, and Conrad’s heart sank.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You think this is just another of my stories. I’ve told you so many tales you think I can’t keep my life and my dreams apart any longer.”

In her eyes he could read that his guess was correct, but he had no chance to hear her confirm or deny it, for at that moment the kitchen door of the house, which she had been holding ajar while speaking to him, was snatched fully open.

“Idris!” Her mother’s bony-knuckled hand fell on the girl’s shoulder and pulled her back. “If I’d known you were talking to Conrad I wouldn’t have let you come to the door!”

Past the woman’s acid face Conrad saw the interior of the kitchen. There was a man standing there, legs astraddle on the tiled floor—tall, brawny, finely dressed, watching the scene with some curiosity.

“Now you listen to me, Idle Conrad!” the mother shrilled. “Idris doesn’t want you plaguing her any more, understand? And I don’t want you around here either—my daughter’s meant for someone better than a no-good stewer of soap! If I catch you at this door again except to fetch the ashes, I’ll lay about you with a broomstick, is that clear?”

Yes. It was all too clear to Conrad. It was clear to anyone in Lagwich who had a girl with an ambitious mother and who was not already formally betrothed. That man standing behind Idris there, with a sneer on his face, now lifting a hand to twist his fine black mustachios—that was a prize in the sight of Idris’s mother. All the mothers of the town seemed to regard the arrival of the army as a glorified marrying expedition, and there was already an unspoken competition to be the first to have a daughter pledged to one of the Duke’s soldiery.

Conrad looked at Idris. Idris looked at the Esberg soldier, at her mother, then back at Conrad, and could not meet his eyes. She lowered her gaze to the floor and her cheeks grew red.

Wordlessly, Conrad turned away, and the door was slammed behind him.

The whole universe
must
be conspiring against him—either that, or he was going out of his mind. He
had
killed the
thing
from the barrenland … hadn’t he? Yet when he came back there was no carcass to bear him witness—only the broken vat and the pile of ash, tossed now and scattered by the wind. They had wanted to beat him for tricking them; as it turned out, they were content to laugh, and drove him away to hide by himself and yield to unstoppable weeping.

Was his life ever going to be worth living?

He walked moodily down the streets, kicking at pebbles, dodging out of sight whenever he heard young people approaching. He saw several groups of soldiers on their way to visit with families for the day, proud, overweening, mocking this little town simply by the way they walked.

Arrogant bastards,
Conrad thought bitterly. All of them, from their Duke down to the lowliest chowhand, acted as though being born in Esberg made them the next thing to gods.

Maybe it would be better to go to the barrenland—his father had wished him there often enough …

Go to the barrenland?

He stopped in mid-stride. As though the lightning of an idea had welded shut a circuit in his mind, he found himself remembering clues picked up from gossip of the past few days.

Go to the barrenland! Of course! If he was ever to shake the dust of Lagwich from his shoes, he might best do it now, while opportunity offered. The chance might never come again.

Next morning he rose very quietly so as not to disturb his father—who as usual had come home late, full of beer, and who now snored as though he might never wake. He had gone last evening to the stream and cleansed himself as thoroughly as for a harvest-day. Now he sorted out from the bag which held his entire clothing the least tattered and most presentable garments he owned; some of them dated back to his early teens and were ridiculously tight on his full-grown body, but they would have to serve.

Then he collected from its hiding-place a sack of the fine white soap which he had put away in accordance with his plan to sell soap at the army camp. The plan had come to nothing of course. The loss of two of his vats alone meant that he had no surplus to spare from the town’s requirements; moreover, since the disastrous episode of the disappearing carcass there had been some houses where he could not face calling for ash or grease—the occupants were too ready to lash him with taunts.

But this little batch of good soap wasn’t for sale. It was just evidence of his ability as a soap-maker. He wasn’t sure how to use it—maybe it would be best to march smartly up to the camp and say he wanted to give it to the Duke …

He postponed a decision. He would have to play it by ear.

When he sneaked out of the house, he sensed even through the veil of excitement and tension his decision generated that the mood of the town had changed overnight. He didn’t care any longer what became of Lagwich and its people. But—no doubt of it: something serious was wrong.

Puzzled, he made his way through the streets, more boldly as he discovered that the people up and about so far had their minds on something other than jeering at him. He cast his memory back, hunting a reason. There had been some sort of commotion during the night, he recalled vaguely—shouting in the streets and the tramping of feet—but he’d stirred, half-waking, and assumed it was merely the military police taking a drunk in charge, the sort of thing he’d heard a dozen times in the past few days.

The biggest shock, and the measure of how wrong he’d been about last night’s uproar, came when Waygan forgot to gibe at him as he passed the gate, but called to know if he was going to the army camp.

Almost, Conrad spat out the defiant answer that rose to his lips: “Yes—to join them and let Lagwich go to hell!” But he checked himself in time; it would be too easy for Waygan to remember to be rude as usual and ask what made him think the Duke would want a layabout like him.

He confined himself to a cautious nod and a heft of his sack. Then a point which he had so far overlooked struck him, and he blurted out a question.

“There are no soldiers in town this morning, are there?”

Frowning, staring towards where wisps of smoke indicated the camp-site, Waygan confirmed the suggestion. “Something’s gone amiss, and I’d dearly like to know what it is. First they come clamoring in the middle of the night and call all their men back to camp—now this morning they turn away with insults everyone who goes to peddle goods. … I’m beginning to think they weren’t so friendly disposed after all.”

He waved Conrad out of the gate. Heart thumping, the youth complied. So they were turning trade away today! It wasn’t possible that he’d delayed too long—was it? He wouldn’t be able to stand it if, after finally summoning the courage to make a break with Lagwich, it turned out his chance was gone!

It cost him all his self-control to keep from hurrying until he was out of Waygan’s sight. Then he burst into a frantic run.

The camp was an impressive change for so short a time to have wrought in the local landscape. Palisaded all around, with a ditch and a rampart, with gates knocked together from lengths of wood carried by the soldiers and tents set up orderly by streets inside, it was three times the size of Lagwich. Conrad rested his sack and stared, his mouth going dry. How in the world was he to find the—the gall to march in and demand to be recruited?

“Hey, you!” A sharp voice rang out behind him. Conrad spun to find two outpost guards with levelled guns coming towards him.

“What are you doing here, boy?” snapped the taller.

Conrad swallowed hard and tried to make his garb of miscellaneous castoffs look dignified. He said, “I’m the best soapmaker in Lagwich. I’m tired of the place and I want to join the Duke’s army.”

“He wants to join it—hear that?” Guffawing, the shorter guard elbowed his companion in the ribs. “Makes a change, doesn’t it? Well, he can have my place any time he asks!”

“Shut up!” the tall one snapped. Addressing Conrad again, and emphasizing his words with waves of his gun-muzzle, he said, “Listen, boy—you picked a bad day. You take that sack right back to the town and be grateful you’re near home.”

Finding a moment’s worth of boldness deep inside him, Conrad stood his ground. He said, “What’s wrong? Has something bad happened at the camp?”

The guards exchanged glances. After a pause, the shorter one said, “No business of yours, boy. And you’re lucky, like my friend told you. Now get on your way.”

Still Conrad hesitated. The tall guard lost patience and barked at him. “Move, or you’ll never move again!”

So something was very wrong indeed. Slowly Conrad raised his sack to his shoulder, sick with disappointment. He moved away as the guards directed, but not back towards Lagwich—vaguely in the direction of the soap-vats. He wouldn’t be able to face returning to the town till he’d digested the bitter pill of this setback.

Suddenly there was a shrill and distant blast on a horn, and he tensed, taking it for Waygan’s danger signal. But the sound hadn’t come from Lagwich—there was a man dimly visible at the nearest gate of the camp, blowing on a shiny metal bugle. The noise made Conrad’s scalp prickle.

But at least it got rid of the two outpost guards. At the first note they had shouldered their guns and headed incontinently for the camp.

At the sight of their retreating backs, Conrad felt a fresh stiffening of his resolution. Was he to let a couple of chance-encountered soldiers undo all his hopes? Not in a lifetime! He was going to stay out here in sight of the camp, watching and waiting for things to return to normal, then seize a favourable opening to get the ear of—of Yanderman, perhaps, who would remember him from their first meeting. Of course: that was the way to get a hearing. He should have thought of it at once.

He looked about for a convenient vantage point from which he could keep an eye on events, and settled in the shade of a tree on top of a rise not far away. Peering down, he could make out that there was some turmoil in the camp—men going and coming, officers shouting orders so fiercely that their voices, though not their words, drifted up to him.

Vindictively he hoped that whatever was going on the man with the black mustachios whom he’d seen in Idris’s kitchen was right in line for the biggest trouble. Then he made a moody correction. He didn’t care about the man with mustachios. He didn’t care about Idris, either, or anyone else in Lagwich. He was through with them for good and all.

For a long while—at least an hour—nothing much happened down at the camp. The shouted orders ceased; judging by the red and black formation of banners in the centre of the camp-site there was some sort of parade or review in progress. It was distinctly uninteresting to gaze at it from this distance, so Conrad let his attention stray to the sun-hot glimmer of the barrenland stretching over the horizon.

Go to the barrenland …?
Was
it true that it was the purpose of Duke Paul’s venture to march into the barrenland and empty it of terror? Conrad shivered as he considered that consequence of his decision. Now if the barrenland were as he could picture it in his visions—green and pleasant, full of friendly smiling people in gaudy clothes who commanded such powers as one might only dream of …

His mind drifted off in the familiar half-delightful, half-terrifying manner to which he had been accustomed since childhood, conjuring up the spectacle of an impossible world.

It was only the sudden crackle of gunfire that brought him back to the present. With a start, he swung to look at the camp again. The orderly ranked banners had vanished. From near where they had been a thick column of greasy black smoke was swelling into the air. Shrieks mingled with the shots. The sun glinted on bright metal as on broken water. Gasping, Conrad jumped to his feet.

And the nearest gate of the camp flung open to release a flood of shouting men on the countryside—a mob, less organised than ants whose nest has been disturbed, heedless of their officers, their arms, anything.

Was this the stuff of which Duke Paul’s army was made? Conrad stared in horror, while in the wake of the fleeing men flames leapt up randomly to consume the neat rows of tents.

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.