Swords and Saddles (13 page)

“No, sir.” Garret squinted at the city around them. “We’re actually already there, it’s just not the same there.”

“Corporal Fuller is impressed by the local blacksmiths.”

“What about ammunition, captain?”

“It turns out Private Merrick worked in a powder mill as a boy. He even remembers the right proportions for the ingredients. These people have a lot of livestock so getting saltpeter won’t be a problem, and charcoal is easy enough to come by. We just have to explain what sulfur is and see if the locals can provide that. Our saddlemaker is busy showing the Asterans how to make stirrups. We’ll have to see how long we can keep the advantages of stirrups and gunpowder confined to Astera.”

Lieutenant Garret looked impressed and concerned. “You seem to have thought out what we need to do, to stay here a long time.”

“It’s my job to think things out, lieutenant.” Benton sighed. “And we both have to assume that we’re going to be here quite a while. A few of the men were married. I still haven’t worked out how to tell them we’re on permanent campaign.”

“Maybe we’ll be like Odysseus, sir, and have some strange adventures but make it home eventually.”

“Maybe.”

#

The negotiations were hard, rendered difficult both by the still limited language both sides shared and by the Asterans’ apparent insistence on driving what they thought a fair bargain. At one point, as Garret and Costoni spent an extended conversation trying to figure out what each other meant, Benton saw Odwan Freya giving him a hard look and comprehended that he had been gazing at her for a while without realizing it.

Now Freya said some things, and Costoni said some things, and Garret went back and forth with them for a while before turning a worried glance on Benton. “Captain, I’m pretty certain that they’re insisting that Odwan Freya is not part of the deal.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Ancient treaties were often sealed by marriages or, uh, other arrangements, sir.”

Benton’s reaction must have showed, because the Asterans seemed to lose some of their tense watchfulness. “Tell her - No, I have to say this directly to her. Odwan Freya, please accept my apologies for any implied inappropriate interest on my part. I would never…make your person a part of any agreement. You are the leader of these people and a free woman, and I would not so insult you as to barter for you. My country recently fought a terrible war, one which only ended five years ago, and in which many thousands of men died in order to establish the principle that no human being should ever belong to another, ever be bought or sold or treated as property. I am sworn to uphold those principles in my professional duties, and I personally believe deeply in them.”

He had no idea how much of that Odwan Freya and the other Asterans had understood, but enough seemed to have gotten across. Freya nodded to him, then surprised Benton by rendering him a passable imitation of a regulation salute. Benton returned the gesture, knowing neither of them had made it in a subservient way, but as mutual gestures of respect among equals.

#

The people here did not campaign in the cold season, so the company settled in to wait out the frigid fury of the plains winter in a degree of comfort unheard of for them. The men remained baffled as to where they were, but content to be living in comparative luxury among a citizenry who almost worshiped them. Benton continued to apply himself to learning the Asterans’ language, but found that just as Garret had said the Asterans seemed more adept at learning English. Aside from getting home, the security situation concerned Benton the most, so he questioned Freya about it as her grasp of his language improved.

“The army that was attacking Astera, the Wikosans.” Wikosa occupied roughly the same location as Kansas City had in Benton’s world. “Do you know why they attacked us without talking first?”

“Bad people, Wikosans,” Freya responded.

“But why did they assume we were enemies? Why did they try to ride us down?”

Freya seemed to think about the question this time before answering. “You get off horse. All walk, make long, thin line. Not many of you. They think, ride over you. Easy. Then bwam, bwam! Smoke and fire, like demons.”

Of course. Like the British infantry square, troops armed with pikes or spears would have had to be tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder, in order to defend against a mounted charge. Modern firearms changed that, but the hostile horsemen hadn’t known of such weapons. To them the thin line of dismounted cavalry must have looked extremely vulnerable.

The more they learned about Astera the more Benton realized that whichever fate had led them here had at least sent them to a people deserving of rescue. Astera had grown large and fairly well-off during the period when the last empire kept the peace on the plains. Trade had flowed along the road running east and west, and there had been major routes going north and south accessible through Wikosa. The surrounding area had boasted numerous farms and fields with a variety of livestock. But since the collapse of the empire Astera had suffered from the loss of trade and the unstable security outside its walls. Nonetheless, the city had remained a bastion of learning, order and civilization in a region where such things had become all too rare.

The Wikosans, on the other hand, had tried to maintain their city’s wealth by plundering surrounding regions, something which had worked in the short term but now required them to range farther and farther afield since the communities near them had been looted dry.

“Cap’n, sir?” Sergeant Tyndall asked awkwardly a few weeks after their arrival. “We got a situation that needs handling. Private Murphy keeps asking me when we’re going to hold church services.”

He should have realized the troopers of Irish descent would worry about that more than the others. “Have you found any Catholic priests, sergeant?”

“No, sir. What do I tell Murphy and the others?”

“Let me talk to the Odwan, first.” He wasn’t surprised to learn from Freya that the Catholic church didn’t exist as such in this world, or at least in this part of this world, but on the other hand the Asterans had no objection to others practicing their own beliefs as long as such beliefs didn’t involve human sacrifice. Benton informed his troopers that they could hold services as they wished and that he would officiate at any of them if asked.

The next crisis was one Benton had assumed was inevitable. Sergeant Tyndall escorted Private Bannock into Benton’s quarters, the Asteran “Sergeant” Belisa hovering in the background with an unreadable expression. With a worried glance at Tyndall, Bannock saluted. “Captain, request permission to marry, sir.”

“What happened, sergeant?” Benton asked Tyndall.

“Thanks to Bannock, one of the city girls is in a family way, captain. Belisa tells me the girl’s family is okay with that, as long as Bannock does his duty by her.”

The Asteran nodded soberly. “He binds to her, and her only. Marriage? Yes. Or he pays child-price.”

“What’s child-price?”

“Enough to take care of child until grown.”

Private Bannock owned little but the uniform on his back, and that was technically the property of the U.S. Government. Benton gave Bannock a sharp look. “You plan on marrying her? Do you understand that this will be a legal marriage that you can’t just ride away from?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you have any idea what I’ll do to you if I find out you have in any way mistreated that girl or acted in any way which might disappoint the people of this city in our company or damage the reputation of the United States Cavalry?”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. I’ll treat her right, sir.”

“Permission granted.”

The cavalry company hunkered down within the city as winter hit hard, the winds howling from the north and snow drifts piling up against the walls of the city so deep in places that groups of citizens were sent out to clear them before anyone could use the drifts as ramps to enter the city.

His language skills improving daily, Benton found he could speak more and more naturally with Freya in a strange mix of English and the Asteran tongue. The Odwan had proven skilled at working out any conflicts among the cavalry and the city, mediating in a way which had impressed Benton. Lieutenant Garret, when not helping to supervise the company and its efforts to become self-sufficient, spent a lot of time in the city’s library, puzzling his way through documents some of which were written in languages the Asterans themselves had little command of.

Unfortunately, the more they learned the more obvious it was that one company of cavalry couldn’t miraculously solve all of the problems here. The Asterans had been able to use diplomacy to play different potential foes off of each other. This had limited attacks on the city, but as the experience with the Wikosans had shown even the most Byzantine diplomacy had its limits when it couldn’t be backed up by sufficient power. Astera’s position remained perilous, cut off from trade and with many crops and much livestock lost to the same Wikosans who had attacked the city. It would take time to get a gunpowder mill set up and a steady source of sulfur identified, and until then the cavalry was limited to the ammunition they had brought with them. The idea of equipping the Asterans with rifles manufactured here had been raised early on, but the city simply didn’t have enough of the right metals and tools to even produce more than a few such weapons on a hand-crafted basis over the winter.

On a crisp day in what Benton thought was January, a once-more awkward Sergeant Tyndall stopped by. “Begging your pardon, cap’n. But there’s something I’ve been wondering. You see, sir, there’s a lot about this place that’s different, and sometimes it takes a while to figure if different is good different or bad different or just something you can make either way.”

Benton nodded solemnly. “I suppose that’s right, sergeant.”

“Well, cap’n, an old Indian once told me that when the great spirit gives you a horse, you don’t go around looking for another dog instead. What I mean is, even if something isn’t the way you always thought things should be, maybe it’s still okay.”

“Is that about Belisa, sergeant?”

Tyndall’s face flushed red. “Yes, sir, cap’n.”

“Do you want to know if it’s okay to get to know her better?”

“I think I already know her real well, cap’n. Not to imply anything improper. No, sir.” The sergeant let exasperation show. “But, cap’n, come campaign season, if the Asteran army goes out, Belisa goes with it. She’s made it real clear that won’t change. At first I was thinking, all right, Tyndall, you’ll rescue the lady if she needs it. But I’ve watched Belisa training and practice fighting an’ all, and now I’m thinking it’s just as likely she might be the one rescuing me. And I don’t know what to think about all that, sir. Her fighting in a battle and being real good at it. She’s a fine top sergeant as well as a fine woman, cap’n. But that ain’t what I was brought up thinking a woman should be.”

It was the sort of question he had thought would have arisen more than it already had. “Sergeant, I’ve already given considerable consideration to just that question. I believe it comes down to this. You appreciate the woman who Belisa is. If she were a different woman, would you think the same of her?”

Tyndall scratched his head. “I don’t know for sure, cap’n. Maybe not. She wouldn’t be Belisa. Now, she wasn’t raised a Christian, either, but that don’t bother me. The Good Lord understands that kind of thing, and Belisa seems a better Christian than many a church-goer I’ve seen, if you take my meaning, sir.”

“Then, Sergeant,” Benton advised, “I’d tell you to take Belisa as she is. She’s not what we were raised to expect, but she is, as you say, a fine woman. Maybe changing what we expect isn’t a bad idea.”

Grinning, Tyndall nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That’s the truth, isn’t it? Though she’s not the only fine woman here. Not by a long shot. That Odwan Freya, she’d make a fine officer’s lady. Hell, I mean she’s a fine officer in her own right. Oh, damnation, what I mean is –“

“I understand, sergeant.” After Tyndall had left, Benton sat thinking, surprised at his own reactions to the sergeant’s words about Freya. She was a fine lady, indeed, and the more he learned of her the more he thought of her. But his inadvertent implication at the negotiations that he might use her need for the cavalry’s support to force her favors had been bothering Benton ever since then. Surely Freya had not forgotten, either. As an officer and as a gentleman, he could not allow her to believe that he ever intended demanding her self as a price for the protection the cavalry company provided the city.

Only a few days later, Freya asked him to speak privately with her. The weather was mild that day, so she led the way to the city walls, where they could stand on a rampart isolated from anyone else and speak knowing that no one was close enough to overhear.

Freya leaned on the wall, looking east. She wasn’t dressed for battle, but wearing one of the outfits in which she usually conducted business, a white blouse embroidered with depictions of horses which seemed to bear some ancestral debt to the drawings in the ruins south of here, dark trousers with more embroidery in many colors, a long over-skirt split almost all the way up the center and back so it fell gracefully at rest but didn’t hinder movement or riding, and over all a high-collar, knee-length coat with more needle-work, this time of warriors and battles moving among signs and emblems of various kinds. It wasn’t like any outfit which Benton had ever seen a woman wear, yet he found it very pleasing to the eye. “We must speak of war,” Freya said. “The Wikosans plan to attack Astera again, as soon as the threat of freezing storms lessens, but before we expect them.”

“Your scouts told you this?”

“Yes. Scouts. Spies. I think both words are right. They say the army will be at least ten decires strong.”

“Decires? I thought that was a military rank.”

“Decires are also those who lead decires.” Freya held up her hands, all fingers spread, then closed all but two.