Chapter 7

There was blood on Mara’s tampon the next morning, but none had leaked out onto the bed or anywhere else. Mara was ecstatic! She could hardly wait to get to Fort Mentor to tell the other women about the tampon. From the way Mara was acting, the tampon was a real winner, and it seemed like women would join the Army just to get access to the tampon.

All of the women grabbed a box of tampons to have available for their next bleeding cycle. I would bet that the word on the miraculous device would spread like wildfire. A number of women showed up that afternoon wanting to know how they could get some tampons. I gave them a price which I figured that a local store would charge, and each one walked away with a box of tampons after receiving a sales pitch on the advantages of joining the People’s Army.

The next day a woman and her husband showed up wanting to join the Army. Our pay rate was better than what they could get anywhere else. It turned out that they were Catholics, but they wanted to join even after seeing the women in their uniforms that looked like men’s clothes. I guess that was a case of economics winning over religion. I sent them to Lt. Jamin to get the necessary clothes and weapons.

That was the way it went for the next few weeks. Women showed up to purchase tampons, since we were the only source and they went away with the Army recruiting pitch. A few came back, and a few husbands came with them. We only had one case where a woman refused to join us after she saw other women dressed like men. That was 1 in 19. This was a comfortable growth rate that we could handle.

I decided to make an Army career more enticing by making the tampons a free issue item so that the women did not have to pay for them. That was a small thing as far as Mentor was concerned, but a big thing as far as the women were concerned. Martino set out immediately to find shops willing to sell the tampons. That turned out to be an easy job.

Once the tampon market was established, we looked into the market for condoms. Wow! That immediately touched a nerve with the Catholic Church. Now we were doing something that everybody, men and women, could have an opinion on. It took a week for the Church to find out officially that we were selling condoms, and that was pretty fast action for the Church to act on anything.

The Church’s first action was to send a low ranking cleric to Fort Mentor with a reminder that the Church was against birth control and an order to stop selling the condoms. He was sent to me, and I let him wait an hour before I saw him. Of course, I knew why the cleric wanted to see me. I had learned that trick from Duke Marno’s man, and I thought to give it a try here. I was trying to make a point of how little regard I had for a Church order.

Finally, the cleric was ushered in, and I listened politely to what he had to say. At the end of his spiel, I announced that the People’s Army did not hold with the foolish practices of the Catholic Church. We would continue to sell the condoms as long as there was a demand for them. The cleric warned me of repercussions, but I held firm. After a few more minutes, the cleric left my office in annoyance. He could not understand my total disregard of a threat of excommunication.

No doubt, there would be repercussions. As soon as word got out that anybody who remained a member of the People’s Army would be excommunicated, we would have a large number of resignations. That did not bother me because I could see a normal progression of events.

Any woman who left the Army would lose her source of free tampons. She would try to buy them from one of the civilian sources, but that would not last long because the shops who bought tampons from us, the only source, would be ordered by the Church to stop doing business with us. All of a sudden, most of the women in Silano would be cut off from tampons. They would then come back to us to buy the tampons that they could get nowhere else, but we would stop retail sales of tampons. Therefore, within six months or so, the only way a woman could get tampons was by being a member of the People’s Army. What would the Catholic Church do then?

At last, we had the Church where we wanted them. For practical fact, they were in a no-win situation. Mentor was in a great mood. This was the situation that he was looking for, and it had come well ahead of schedule. The situation changed overnight when Duke Marno received a written order signed by the Pope to put us out of business.

Okay, we were now going to have to fight the duke’s thugs, and we were outnumbered. The only way we could fight with a hope of winning was to fight with our crossbows from inside Fort Mentor. We now only had 53 troopers on active duty because all but three of the former Catholics had decided not to stay, and they were all women.

Mentor began modifying Fort Mentor with more cellars. These were outfitted as apartments for the families that were forced to move in with us so that the Army and all of their relatives and dependents now lived together. A special cellar was constructed as a play area for the children. A soccer pitch was even constructed to give everybody a place for exercise. There were now so many cellars that a bank of elevators had to be installed to allow convenient access to all of them.

Mentor also reinforced the walls of Fort Mentor to prevent damage by a battering ram. He put in a number of arrow slits to allow us to shoot our crossbows from the inside of the fort and not have to go outside. We were now as ready to fight as we were ever going to be. Mentor would supply us with food and water, and I figured that our biggest problem was going to be keeping the younger children entertained.

The next day, a delegation of the duke’s men and a couple of clerics showed up. There was a thunderous banging on our door when they arrived. One of the duke’s men was wearing Herald’s regalia and was the obvious spokesman for the group.

“You in there, you have been found to be heretical and blasphemous; therefore, you are hereby ordered to surrender yourselves to the sacred Catholic Church’s justice. Come out now or face an assault. You have five minutes to put aside your arms and surrender to the Church’s authority.”

I was standing on the other side of the door, so I figured that I might as well answer the Herald. “There is no chance that we will surrender to the demands of a foul and corrupt organization that claims to speak for God. Go away now or we will dump piss upon your heads. That is all that you will get from us except for death if you try to break in. I have said all that I am going to say to you. Now, go away before you bore us to death.”

That produced some laughter from our side of the door, but a shouting of mighty prayers from the two clerics as they implored God to make us see reason, at least their version of reason. I told everybody else to ignore the clowns outside our door and to return to their regular duties. “I am headed for my office, but if they are still there in about half an hour, I will go through with my threat of pissing on them.” That produced a cheer that I know was heard outside.

Well the delegation did hang around for a little while longer, but they did leave before I had a chance to piss on them. That was all we heard for the rest of the day, but I figured that we would face some of Duke Marno’s thugs tomorrow.

During the night, Mentor added two small balconies to our second floor. The wall around each balcony had crenelations to offer some protection for the eventual assault with arrows. Each balcony had room for three crossbowmen and a man with a forked pole to push away scaling ladders.

We were up the next morning bright and early to eat an excellent breakfast and to get ready for the coming assault. All of us were wearing our standard uniform with the protective armor underneath. I wasn’t expecting trouble before mid-morning, so we did the usual cleanup and such while we waited for the duke’s men to show up. Everybody had an a job assignment and was in position by 9:30.

Three crossbowmen were in position on each balcony, and there was a fourth man with each group with the forked stick. I didn’t expect those two men to have much to do, but they were there as an extra precaution. Also, they were acting as lookouts to warn us if the enemy tried something unexpected.

Fort Mentor was on a corner so that it had two sides exposed to streets where the major action would surely take place. The other two sides were separated from the adjacent buildings by a fire break that was only about a foot wide. There was just no room in either place for mischief unless the adjacent buildings were knocked down and cleared away first.

It was a little past 10:00 AM when the lookouts shouted that a column of troops were approaching. Ha! Duke Marno was so sure of a quick victory that he was present. He was riding a beautiful horse, and I hoped that the horse escaped without injury. I noticed that the duke was smart enough to ride at the rear of the column.

We let a Herald approach our door and knock more decorously than previously. Just in case of treachery that I wouldn’t put past Duke Marno, I showed up on the right-hand balcony to answer the Herald’s announcement. “People of the People’s Army, listen to my plea. Abandon this foolish show of defiance and be welcomed back into the fold. Otherwise, your only choice is death! This is your only chance to surrender.

“Our sovereign Duke Marno has graciously agreed to give you your lives if you swear fealty to him and abandon your false leader. Remember, this is your only chance.”

I could not resist interrupting at this point in the oration, for that was what it was. “Okay, you are offering safety to the Catholics, but what about the Jews and agnostics? What will happen to them?”

“I suppose that they will die, since they are not God’s children.”

“Why, you good for nothing cretin, all lives are sacred and important. How dare you claim to be a Christian and think of some people like that? Get out of here right now. The slightest pause brings you very close to death.” With that, I stalked back into the walls of Fort Mentor. I could hear my people cheering my words, and that made me feel damned good!

The Herald acted very affronted that I had not let him complete his spiel, but he did leave before I ordered him shot. Once the Herald was safely out of the way, a battering ram was brought up to our door. This was a monster log with a bronze ram’s head attached to the striking surface. There were 10 wheels supporting the apparatus that the ram was hanging from, and the whole outfit must have been very expensive and very heavy.