Chapter 13: Treason by Dagger and Bullet

Later Noia listened as the master of the training ship spoke to Captain Amby's junior officers, Captain Amby at his side. "Here you will learn your basic duties. We will sail down the bay, and out into the Great Eastern Ocean, and then due east for a day, then return. Listen to the bosuns -- they'll tell you what to do. The officers tell the bosuns, and I tell the officers what I want and the captain tells me what he wants. That's how things work on ships.

"As trainee officers each of you will be detailed to understudy one of my regular officers. I don't care if it turns out my officer was sleeping with your mother -- you'll never go against his orders. You will do what you are told, when you are told, or you'll find that it's not just common seaman who can be punished. I expect ignorance from them; I expect stupidity from them. I'll tolerate a little ignorance from you, but absolutely no stupidity.

"Look to your right, gentlemen."

All of the officers did as bid. "This is the ocean on a calm day in a huge harbor. There are few safer spots on the water. Do not trust your judgment, not unless you're told that you can manage a sea-going watch. Always do as you are told, without argument, without demur, until that day. Am I clear?"

The last three words were louder, like a whiplash.

The officers all chorused their assent.

Noia saw something beyond the captain then. The boats they'd recently rowed here were flowing as a steady stream towards a pier a mile or so away, along a dark coast, where the trees came right down to the water. The pier was very dark, parallel with the shore. Nothing but what looked like a few trails were visible behind it except scrub trees, brush and what looked like swamp.

It turned out that things weren't at all like they seemed. She wasn't looking at the mainland, but at two islands, nearly joined together at the northern end, the larger about two miles long and the shorter about a mile and a half long. The gap between the two islands was just a few hundred yards.

There had been three ships under construction at Harphax City. There were a hundred more along the inner ring of the two islands. There were thousands of men working there, men who lived about two miles away on the mainland. There was a small town there already and it grew steadily.

Barges and small ships flowed in a continual stream to the island, filled with the myriad things that ships required in their construction. Further, there were two steam sawmills that cut timbers for the ships as long as there was light enough to work by. They spent an entire day sitting in wagons, being led around to the various activities, of this, what Noia was sure was the greatest shipyard in the world.

The next moon was a blur. Mornings were spent at the yard. First, pouring over the plans for the ship that was being built, then traipsing over the work, seeing how those plans were being turned into concrete reality.

One of the first things was that Noia was introduced to the new ship's captain, a man named Amby. He was tall and sturdy, a little overweight, but very intense. He acknowledged that Noia was to be his junior-most lieutenant, and spent as much time in her training as he did the other officers.

Two of the ship's officers had done this before, taken a new ship from the stocks to the docks and then to sea. Now they were seniors, training new officers. Noia applied herself as she never had before, trying to absorb any and everything that she might.

Then it was launch day and everyone stood, tense but proud, as their ship slid down and into the water. For a few moments the ship bobbed before settling level in the sea. Noia felt a pang. That had been a thing of beauty! Was watching the birth of a newborn something like this? She smiled slightly. Women would be pleased; this had taken four moons, from start to this point, instead of ten. And she had only seen the last moon of the process.

Captain Amby stood in the center of his officers, as intent on the bobbing ship as the rest of them.

Finally he nodded. "It is good. Now, she is what the High King calls a 'flute.' That is a ship without stores, masts, spars and weapons. Those will take another moon, and will be done downstream. The water here is too shallow to support a fully outfitted warship.

"The rest of us, I'll see you all tomorrow at this spot, along with the rest of the crew. Mornings we will spend here with our ship, studying what is being done. Some days, like the days where we step the masts and set the spars, those will be full days. However, most afternoons will see us working aboard one of the training vessels. There is one ready for us now. That ship is for us to exercise aboard until our own is ready for sea."

If Noia thought the first moon was busy, the second was busier still. It seemed that there weren't enough palm-widths in a day to deal with everything that had to be done. She learned like she'd never learned before.

Trilium was learning the job of a ship's petty officer. He was a natural at it. The sea was unforgiving of error, and that suited Trilium well. He learned quickly; in fact Noia believed he learned more about ship handling than she had.

Tanda Sa was in a unique situation. He was a trainee officer, but he had no experience with ships or the sea before, so he was initially placed with the very youngest junior officers-in-training. It was clear that having an adult who towered two feet above the next tallest of his classmates wasn't a good idea. He too seemed to learn fast and it was Noia's hope that she could put in a good word for him and get him moved in with regular officers in training, like herself.

And the subjects! Sure, there was instruction on how to sail these ships, and that was fascinating. But, it was more or less rote. If you did this and this, such and such would happen if the wind was one direction and the way you wanted to go was another. It was fairly simple to learn the combinations and then practice them.

It was learning navigation, though, that utterly fascinated her. She learned to use a device called a sextant, which measured the height of the sun above the horizon at High Sun. That told you how far north of the equator you were. And if you compared the time High Sun occurred, compared to what time it occurred in Hostigos, you could tell how far east or west of the city you were. You could then plot the two locations on a map and that's where you were! It was the most amazing thing she'd ever imagined.

Of course, she learned not to trust just one observation of the sun. And then there were the devices that kept track of time, called clocks. There were to be two on each ship of the High King's, each requiring a key to be inserted every few palm-widths to wind the spring that made the works of the clock move and keep time. There was a whole, involved ritual with keeping the various clocks in sync between Hostigos and the ships.

Another thing that the High King and Captain Amby thought were highly important were maps. At least once a moon-quarter a trainee officer would be put in a small boat with a crew of six sailors, and they would go to some inlet or area of the islands and then start measuring depths and angles. They also learned a lot about estimating distances, both at land and at sea.

They would take their completed chart back to the captain and he would compare it with the official chart. Noia was pleased that never once did her chart differ in any important way from the master charts.

Then, at the start of her third moon of training, the officers were given permission to return to Harphax City. They weren't supposed to talk about the shipyard, but other than that, they had three days to themselves.

Trilium smiled and told Noia that he was going to find a cheap inn with some good food. He was going to eat his fill, taking his time. He would have a couple of mugs of beer with his meal, then adjourn to his room and sleep until it was time to row back to the yard.

Tanda Sa, on the other hand, was staying at the yard, intending on studying more about navigation, something he wasn't very good at. Noia tried to talk him out of his plan, but he was insistent, even when she told him that they might not get another few days off for a couple of more moons. Finally she joined Trilium in one of the boats like they'd rowed to the yard, only this boat was one of a dozen being hauled behind by what the High King's men called a "steam tugger."

Legios and the Heavy Weapons Company had been one of the last units to return to Tecpan. He'd had a lot of time to think since the ambush and now that the familiar town was just a mile down the road from the barracks area, it was hard to just sit still.

Still, there were a myriad things to do after returning from any extended period in the field and he did them. There were things that had to be checked after you'd been in battle and he did those, too.

Big Mortar had long since vanished, and it was only Short and Legios left in the headquarters office. "You should return to your quarters, Captain," the former sergeant told him. "There's not much left here for right now. There'll be plenty enough first thing in the morning."

"Thanks, Short. I appreciate it." Legios walked outside the headquarters building and glanced at the horse corrals. It was hot, but not that hot, and the town was less than a mile away. And he still wanted to think. Maybe a walk would clear his head.

He headed to town, his mind going over one explanation after another. There really was just one way to be sure. He would go to Maya and talk to her, away from her mother. He would gently ask her some penetrating questions about her mother and her mother's former lover, now a hunted man.

He just couldn't have Maya's mother arrested. It was unfair in the extreme; she could have been as much of a dupe of Storax as any of them. No, a quiet talk with Maya, away from her mother. That would be the ticket!

His mind finally made up, he picked up his pace. Lady Talu's gate was open and there were lights and sounds of talking coming from inside. Legios considered heading back to his room, but his duty and his concern drove him inside.

A servant bowed to him and waved him on. There were a half dozen people in the entry hall, drinking wine and talking. Maya saw him and ran to him, hugging him breathless. "I was so worried!" she told him, letting him go.

He chuckled. "They didn't bring a tenth enough men, Lady Maya. But we avoided contact anyway, just to be safe."

She hugged him again and kissed him on the cheek. "Come, get some wine to cut the dust of the trail!"

He realized that for a moon he'd been without a bath, without a shave, and rarely bothered to change his clothes. She came running back after a moment with a glass of some very good wine. "I probably should have gone to my room first and cleaned up. I'm afraid all I was thinking about was you," he told her.

She smiled at him. "That's what men do, Captain, when they're away from the ones they care about for any length of time!"

He nodded at the truth of it. "Could we walk? Alone?" he asked her.

She laughed lightly. "It will cause a scandal! Surely, my Captain! My virtue will be protected by your need of a bath!"

He laughed at that too, wondering how such a fine young woman could be the daughter of a woman who appeared to be a traitor against Hostigos and Mexico.

Maya linked arms with him and led him outside, around the side of the house. "We wanted a nice garden, but there is just no water to spare for it," she said sadly. "We've had to let it die. I only come now in the evening, when I can't see the ruin the sun has left."

"Maya..." Legios' voice died away.

"What, darling?"

"What do you know of Lieutenant Storax?"

"Not much. My mother thinks highly of him, though. Or she did, until he ran off to join King Xyl."

"Maya, there was no way for Storax himself to pass the word where we were marching. He had to have told someone and that person must have passed the word."

"What are you saying?" Maya asked, drawing a little back.

"I'm saying that I am to be questioned tomorrow by the town watch. I will have to tell them what I know. Please, I need to know if the person who could have passed on that information might have been Lady Talu."

He could see no expression on her face. There was something in her eyes that he didn't recognize. "Lady Talu, Captain, has the brains of desert ant -- one of the tiny red ones. She has the sexual needs of a goat. Have you talked to anyone of your suspicions?"

"No, of course not! I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to be sure, first!"

She made an odd gesture and for a second Legios didn't realize what had happened. It looked down at the dagger buried to the hilt in his stomach and then back up at Maya.

"No, Lady Talu didn't tell anyone. I know that for a fact, because I'm the spy."

Legios met her eyes, wondering what he could do. It didn't really hurt; it didn't even feel very cold. He opened his mouth to scream, but his breath caught and he suddenly felt dizzy.

He was a dead man and deserved it for being such a fool! He sagged to his knees and curled up into fetal ball on the ground.

Maya reached down, grabbed the back of his tunic, dragged him a few feet, then pulled down some dead plants on top of him, then she turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Judy sat up in bed at the knock on their bedroom door. Gamelin was faster, racing to the door, one of the new shotguns in his hand. It was Sergeant Hollar and one of the palace functionaries, and it was the latter who spoke to him. "Lord Gamelin! This man tells me that he must see you and your lady wife! At once!"

"Sergeant?" Gamelin nodded at him. Not many people knew that it was really Sergeant Baron Hollar, but he was one of them. The man wasn't here on a whim.

"Earlier, I went to see Lieutenant Short Mortar. He told me that Captain Legios had left for his rooms for the night. I went to his rooms and he wasn't there. I went to Lady Talu's, thinking he might have gone there. They told me he'd been there earlier, but had left."

"You might have missed him."

"I might have, sir. But a few heartbeats after I left, I saw Lady Maya in that coach of theirs. She was heading for the main gate."

"Lady Maya, not her mother?"

"Yes, Lord. Sir, I fear the worst."

Gamelin looked at Judy, who nodded. He agreed with Sergeant Hollar as well. "Fraxi," he commanded the servant, "please if you would, run down to Shuria's quarters and tell him I want to see him and Puma at once. They're going on a little run tonight. Sergeant, go to the Duty Officer downstairs. Tell him I want the Field Intelligence Company turned out at once. I'll be down in a finger-width."

"Yes, lord!" The sergeant saluted and ran down the corridor. Seeing that, Fraxi, the chamberlain, waddled much faster than he had before.

Gamelin turned to his wife. "I'll go. You get with Lady Becky and the investigators." He saw her expression and sighed. "By your leave, of course, Countess Judy."

She sighed. "The problem with having two people who naturally want to command sleeping in the same bed is that they both want to command. Go, you're right. I can deal with Becky and the investigators best. I don't want to see what happened, if the baron is correct."

Gamelin nodded, as he started pulling on his pants and tunic, then his boots. "The big thing will be what the baron does if he's right. He's very fond of Legios."

"For that matter, so is the rest of the Heavy Weapons Company. Didn't we just get a new captain from Brigadier Markos?"

"Yes. Galzar's Mace! If he has to assume command, I wouldn't envy him!"

"He led the men at the Wagon Box Fight," Judy reminded her husband. "He abandoned his post to do it. That is not the sort of thing a coward or a stupid man does. See that he's roused too. If Legios is down, I want this Gryllos on duty when the sun comes up tomorrow."

He nodded, then turned and ran out of the room. Judy, on the other hand, just threw on a heavy robe and went two doors down the hall. Becky was already awake, having heard the hasty steps in the hallway outside her room.

Gamelin found Vosper standing in front of the Field Intelligence Company and grimaced. They were armed with rifles. "Shotguns, Captain Vosper. Prepare to move out in half a finger-width."

"Yes, sir!" The men and women, the finest fighters in all of Mexico and Outpost, sprinted for their armory.

Gamelin turned to Shuria. "A woman left Tecpan a short while ago, in a coach. It's a very strong coach, with many horses. I want her back as soon as possible. Alive if possible, dead if there is no other way."

The odd pair looked at each other. Gamelin wasn't sure what the nonverbal communication was, but Shuria spoke to him. "Signal south, that she is not to be allowed to change horses."

"Done!"

"Tomorrow, by nightfall we will have her. Two days later, she will be sitting there." He motioned to a chair a few feet away. "Come, Puma, we have a little run."

The two of them simply vanished into the night. Gamelin shuddered. Maya was going to have a terrible surprise, sometime tomorrow!

The Field Intelligence Company, thirty men and women, none older than twenty-five, unless you counted Vosper, followed Gamelin into the night.

"Sergeant Hollar," Gamelin told the sergeant, "you may set the pace."

The sergeant had been a soldier a long time and baron or not, he was a hard man in a hurry. The pace he said was nearly as quick as the Ruthani would have run. One of the things the Field Intelligence Company was famous for, after being bloody fighters, was their ability to run that was nearly equal to the Ruthani, and their skill at desert concealment that was as good as the Ruthani.

They raced through the night. The gate to Lady Talu's house was closed and Sergeant Hollar smashed on it with both fists, a rapid tattoo. A sleepy attendant appeared and was brushed aside. Vosper went with his men to search the inside, while Hollar sent one party around one side, while he went the other.

Gamelin stood in the main courtyard, standing resolute. It didn't take but a few heartbeats before one of the younger women from the Field Intelligence Company came and saluted.

"Sir, Sergeant Hollar says to come quick. I am to find the priests of Dralm next."

"He lives?"

The young woman's eyes were wide. "Yes. Not for long, though, priest or no priest."

She was off, then, running through the gate.

Gamelin went quickly around the corner, and found Sergeant Hollar, sitting next to Legios.

Legios looked up at Gamelin and grimaced. "Sorry, Lord Count!"

"What happened?"

"Maya stabbed me. I wanted to ask her if she knew anything about her mother being a traitor. She stabbed me, then laughed about it in my face, that her mother was a fool, that she was the real spy. I'm not sure about that, but I am sure about the knife in my gut."

Gamelin looked and saw the dagger hilt. A lethal wound, to be sure. But he also knew that until the dagger was pulled out the bleeding would be at a minimum, and Legios would stay alive. He had, then, two or three days perhaps, if he was lucky. A moon-quarter if he was unlucky.

Vosper appeared. "Lady Talu was sleeping with one of the richer grain merchants. She seems surprised at the fuss. Lady Maya is not to be found, nor is their carriage."

"There were tracks, leading out the gate," someone volunteered.

"Where are those priests?" Sergeant Hollar said, sounding frustrated.

A few moments later, two men in blue robes came running up. The older of the pair looked at the wound for a finger-width before turning to Gamelin.

"Lord Count, he is sorely wounded. We need the top of large table, six feet by three feet. Remove the legs and anything else like that. Bring it here, and we will carefully move the captain onto that. Then six stout men will carry it to our hospital."

"I'm going to die," Legios said bluntly. "You don't have to worry about me."

The priest of Dralm nodded. "Young man, we all die. However, while this sort of wound was once always fatal, the High King's words have helped us in our ability to deal with them. Perhaps you will die, perhaps not. I can't lie to you, Captain, about how serious this is, but I can tell you that it is possible you will live. In order to live, Captain, you are going to have to be brave, strong, and willing to listen to what we tell you."

The priest turned to Gamelin. "The table, please, Count!"

Gamelin laughed, and waved people to do it.

Vosper spoke up. "What about Lady Talu and the servants?"

"Bind them, gag them, take them to the palace. Hold each separately. The grain merchant as well. No one is to talk to them, there are to be two guards placed on each at all times. We'll question them tomorrow."

Vosper saluted and he too was off, shouting orders.

It didn't take long to find a table. The priests of Dralm supervised sliding a heavy cloth of some sort under Legios, moving him as little as possible. There was room for eight people to carry the table. Somehow, out of the night, the two Mortar brothers appeared, they, Gamelin, Sergeant Hollar and the four senior sergeants of the Field Intelligence company carried him the mile and a bit to the hospital run by the priests.

They placed the table down and then Legios was lifted onto a bed that had wheels on it. The head priest turned to Gamelin. "We will do what we can. You must trust us, do you understand?"

Sergeant Hollar spoke up. "I'll stay with him, if that's all right, priest."

"You will stay some distance away, if your duties will permit it."

"The Baron's duties will permit it," Gamelin told the priest, his voice dry and cold.

Gamelin turned to the Mortar brothers. "You two, come with me."

Gamelin gestured at one of Field Intelligence soldiers, the woman who had fetched him. "Big, if you would, write an order to your duty officer to send two messengers with this soldier. Do not tell anyone of what has happened to Legios."

"The men deserve to know," Big said in a bass rumble that while quiet, rumbled anyway.

"They will know, tomorrow at dawn." Gamelin turned to the young woman. "You will fetch the messengers and bring them here, have them report to Sergeant Hollar. You are not to tell them where they are going or what they are going to do, beyond serving as a nobleman's messenger. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!"

Big had written down the order and handed it to her.

"Go!" Gamelin commanded.

He turned to the odd pair of brothers. "Come with me."

They started walking towards the palace. They'd gone half way when Gamelin stopped and faced them. "Soldiers die in battle. Soldiers are wounded in battle. A leader cannot be so popular that his loss sorely wounds his company. The company has to be able to reconstitute, reorganize and continue on, no matter who is lost."

"Yes, sir, we understand," Short Mortar told him.

"Brigadier Countess Judy has commanded that Captain Gryllos take command of the Heavy Weapons Company."

There was a moment of silence, then Short said, "Yes, sir!"

"Do you understand that she didn't ask me who was to take command, she didn't ask if I agreed with her decision, she simply commanded it. To be honest, if it had been up to me, I'd not have stopped there. I'd have posted the two of you to other companies. Companies of your own, with an additional pip on your collars."

"Pardon?" Big asked, confused.

"Each of you, I'm sure could do a fine job commanding the Heavy Weapons Company. The problem is, there are two of you and only one can command. I understand why Captain Legios left things the way they were, but it has to stop, do you understand? For your own good, for the good of Mexico and Hostigos."

"Count," Short Mortar said, speaking frankly, "we trained Lieutenant Smyla, who was Captain Gryllos' second in command. He's a good man, sir. And as good as he was, he talked incessantly of how good his boss was. Then he went back to the Sixth and applied some serious mortar hurt on our enemies! And Captain Gryllos encouraged him. Both of them are our kind of men, sir! The man who told him to bring the mortars to the battle, the man who told him to set up and start shooting! He's our kind of officer as well."

Big Mortar nodded. "Count, it's like running downhill. You get going fast and after that, it gets really hard to change course and impossible to stop, until you run out of hill. Short and I know we couldn't keep serving together. But neither one of us knew how to stop."

"Well, it'll stop, but not soon. Losing one senior officer isn't good, losing the three of you at once? That wouldn't be good at all. Now, the three of us are going to go find this Captain Gryllos and pound on his door in the middle of the night. We will see him dressed and the two of you will take him to Heavy Weapons and when the sun comes up, you will form the men and tell them their captain lies sorely wounded. I think you'd better say he's not expected to live."

"Captain, we've both seen men wounded like that. None of them live."

"Well, the priests of Dralm said there was a chance, so I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Not that I don't agree with you. Come, let us go ruin this Captain's sleep!"

Gryllos awoke from an exhausted sleep, and, hearing a commotion outside his door, hopped out of bed and opened it. Jumper was there, a pistol in his hand, threatening three men.

Gryllos had never met them, but Lieutenant Smyla's description of the Mortar brothers practically ensured that was who he was looking at. The third man was roughly pushed back by the huge mountain that had to be Big Mortar.

"Jumper, please," Gryllos told the boy, "I'm not sure what you're doing here, but please lower your pistol."

"I'm guarding you! They called Shuria and Puma out in the middle of the night! Already they are running south! There is treason afoot!"

"Well, two of these gentlemen, officers of Hostigos, I might add, I'm pretty sure are friends of a friend of mine. So please, Jumper, lower the pistol."

Jumper did so, and then looked hard at the third man. "Him, I know him! He is a lieutenant in the army of the High King. He came to see my grandfather!"

The third man, the one Gryllos didn't recognize, laughed and slapped his thigh. "And I remember you, too. Jumper, as I recall? You wanted to join the fighting!"

Jumper nodded.

"Well, Jumper," the third man went on, "a few things happened since the last time you saw me. Do you remember Lady Judy, who was with me then?"

Jumper nodded. "The Countess of Mexico!"

The man grinned broadly. "Well, of Tecpan, anyway. I'm pleased to say, she's my wife these days. And I did well in the war and was promoted a few times myself."

Gryllos' throat worked. He knew who was married to Lady Judy! A count! A general! Jumper had held a general and a count at gunpoint! He was ruined!

Gamelin pushed between the Mortar brothers. "Captain Gryllos, I presume?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't even know Jumper was here. He was just trying to do his duty, sir."

"Well, he did. He woke you up. Now, sir, put on your best uniform. You have half a finger-width."

Gryllos didn't bother closing the door; he just frantically changed and saluted when he was ready. Gamelin simply spun on his heel and started walking, followed by the Mortar brothers.

Gryllos knew he looked like a fool, running to catch up, because they walked very fast. Their expressions were so grim that he decided that there was a time and a place for questions, but this wasn't either one.

As they left the palace it was impossible not to notice that soldiers were forming up and marching into the night. It was also impossible not to notice that Jumper had joined the column of officers. Gryllos saw the count turn and saw the boy, smile, and say nothing. If the count said nothing, who was Gryllos to say anything?

They went out the main gate, which was closed; something it hadn't been the night before when he and Jumper had passed into the city. There was an exchange, and only a postern was opened to let them out.

They were about half way to a cluster of buildings a mile from the city gate, when Gamelin spoke again. He didn't turn; he just kept walking as he talked.

"Earlier this evening, the commander of the Heavy Weapons Company, Captain Legios, was sorely wounded, stabbed in the belly by an agent of King Xyl. The priests of Dralm say there is a chance he will live. Even if he does, he will not be able to command for several moons. You, I understand, have some experience in being seriously wounded."

"Yes, sir."

"The Countess has appointed you to command the Heavy Weapons Company. You have what is left of this night to learn everything you can from the two Lieutenants Mortar. Tomorrow at dawn you will announce to your company that you are assuming command."