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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“ONE MORE SUCH VICTORY
AND WE ARE UNDONE.”

Bart Saxon sat beside the bed, gazing out the window, and tried to come to grips with it all.

It wasn’t easy.

God, I’m a teacher, not a soldier. Wonder how many times I’m going to have to think that over the next few years? Please, God. If You’re listening—if You exist—don’t let me ever see anything like this again. Please.

He wouldn’t have made it without Cal, he thought. He’d been so far out of his depth, so lost . . .

Never had a friend like him before, he thought. Never had a brother, either. Now I’ve got both. So I guess some good comes out of just about anything.

He looked down from the window on a harbor clogged with floating bodies. So many bodies. Tran’s aquatic predators and scavengers had penetrated the inner lagoon, and every so often one of those bodies—or a part of one of them—disappeared in a swirl of water.

It was low tide, and burned out galleys lay beached in Palazzo San Marco, surrounded by still more bodies, heaped in windrows where wave and tide had piled them. Working parties of prisoners, guarded by Nikeisian militia, many of them walking wounded, worked to collect the dead men. There were far too many of them to treat with anything like decorum or respect, nor was there anywhere to bury so many. Nikeis normally cremated its dead, but there was neither wood nor time for that, either. The working parties simply loaded them onto barges to be towed out beyond the outer lagoon and dumped over the side in weighted nets.

Some of Nikeis had burned, as well, despite its stone construction and the driving rain. At least the storm had blown itself out, leaving beautiful blue skies and white clouds, a gentle breeze, that only made the ghastly carnage even worse by contrast.

He couldn’t see the North Channel from here. Even if he could have, distance would have blurred the details, and he was just as happy about that. The murderous mortar barrage had broken the attack’s back, but at the cost of enormous casualties. Not all of them had been pirates or Riccigionans or Fivers, either. No one really knew how many men had died out there. Saxon doubted anyone ever would know. But it had to be in the thousands. Just thinking about it was enough to make him shiver, but the timing had been brilliant. The terror and, above all, the suddenness, of the savage onslaught when the battle had seemed all but won, had been utterly decisive. The fight had run out of the attackers like water, and they’d surrendered in droves as soon as they were promised their lives by the victors.

Thousands of them had been killed and more thousands wounded, and Nikeis and Colonel Galloway’s men and allies didn’t begin to have enough medical capacity to deal with that many casualties. Even if they’d had the manpower, a lot of men who might have made it back on Earth wouldn’t make it here. That much was obvious. And all the medics and the priests could do was drug those men into merciful unconsciousness and keep them there.

And while you’re feeling sorry for them, what about all the Nikeisians they killed, Bart?

His mouth tightened. Civilian casualties had actually been amazingly low, given the intensity of the carnage. It helped that there’d never been any fighting on Isola di Sant’Andrea or Isola di Santa Cecilia and very little on Isola di San Marco, beyond the Palazzo itself and the flanking palaces. Something like seventy-five percent of Nikeis’ people had lived on those three islands—and San Giorgio—and as many civilians as possible had been evacuated to the upper town before the attack, as well. North Channel had always been the most likely point of attack. That was how Galloway had known where to position his mortars.

But however light civilian casualties had been, the militia and the city’s ship crews had paid a savage price . . . and even “amazingly low” was cold comfort to the families who had lost loved ones. Or who’d almost lost them, even if they hadn’t known they were “loved ones.”

He turned back from the window at that thought. A part of him thought he ought to be out there, helping to cope with the carnage. But he didn’t have the skills they needed. He would have been just one more strong back, and he had—

The girl—no, the young woman—in the bed beside the window stirred. Her eyes opened, a bit unfocused and confused. She blinked, and a hand rose to her forehead. Then she turned her head on the pillow.

“Lord Bart?” she murmured.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “It’s me.”

“What—?” She blinked again.

“You have a concussion—what your people call a nebbia mentale.” He hoped he’d pronounced that correctly. “Lord McCleve says you’ll be fine.” Actually McCleve had said she ought to be fine, but damned if he was going to tell her that. “You’re just going to have to rest. You may have to take it easy for a long time, but you’ll be fine, Lucia.”

She started to stir, then stopped with a mouth-twisting gasp of pain. The hand from her forehead flew to her side, and her eyes widened.

“Oh, yeah. That, too.” He quirked a smile at her and touched the side of her face with his own hand. “You got your fool self shot with a crossbow saving my hide.”

She lay very still, and not just because of the pain, staring at him, and he stroked her face.

“Things are different here from the way they are back on Earth,” he told her, picking his way through the conclusion he’d wrestled his way to while she lay unconscious. “Someday I’ll tell you about some of the ways that’s true. But back on Earth, someone your age would still be considered a child.”

“I am ten years old . . . almost!” she said. “I am of marrying age! I’ve had my courses for—”

She broke off, face coloring, and he laughed softly.

“Trust me, Lucia. No one who saw you going for an armored soldier twice your size armed with only a dagger will ever think of you as ‘a child’ again. I certainly won’t.”

She looked at him, rebellious eyes trying to focus, then reached up to the hand on her face.

“Do you mean—?”

“I don’t know exactly what I mean,” he told her. “I only know the two of us have to figure out what we feel.” Her expression tightened, and he shook his head quickly. “I know what I think I feel, Lucia, and I think I know what you think you feel.” God, what a lot of “thinks” to cram into one sentence! She’s going to think I’m an idiot. “But we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, and I’m from an entirely different world. We need to be sure you aren’t, well—”

Infatuato?” she suggested, and laughed, despite the pain in her head and side, and his expression. “Oh, Lord Bart! I have seen much of that already in my life. Much of it directed at me! It is not what I feel when I look at you.”

“Well, maybe it isn’t.” He smiled wryly, reminding himself that Lucia Michaeli had been training as a courtesan long before he crossed her horizon. “But it’s important for me to be sure of that, Lucia. And to go slowly with this. It’s important to me in a lot of ways and for a lot of reasons. Do you understand?”

“No,” she told him, but she smiled as she said it. “I do not understand. I do not want to understand. But I am, of course, far too dutiful to argue with my future husband about it.”

Dutiful?” It was his turn to laugh out loud. “Signorina Michaeli, I suspect that you are neither dutiful nor very truthful, unless it suits your purposes!”

“No,” she said again. “But I pretend very well, Lord Bart.”

* * *

“No, Heir of Caesar,” the young Tamaerthan said firmly. “I regret that Lord Rick is not yet available.”

Haerther met Publius’ eyes levelly, with all of a Tamaerthan’s refusal to kowtow to Rome. But there was more than reflex defiance in those eyes this morning, Publius saw. There was worry and a fierce protectiveness.

“I understand,” he said, and saw something very like surprise join all the other emotions in Haerther’s eyes when he chose not to press matters. “Inform him, when he is available, that I think it is urgent he and I speak.”

“Of course, Heir of Caesar. May I tell him what it is you wish to speak of?”

“Many things,” Publius said. “None of them so vital that I need disturb his rest when he has borne so much for all of us.”

Haerther’s eyes flared wide at that, and then he bowed deeply.

“I will tell him your very words, Heir of Caesar,” he promised.

Publius nodded in reply, then turned and left the palace the Doge had assigned to Rick with Caius Julius at his side. As they stepped into the courtyard, Publius glanced casually about. No one was in close proximity.

“I think it is time I spoke with Major Baker once more,” he said softly. “Discreetly, of course, Tribune.”

“Of course, Heir of Caesar,” Caius Julius murmured.

* * *

Wind howled over a rain-lashed sea where mountainous waves pounded a disintegrating raft of galleys. He stood on one of those galleys, flayed by the wind, battered and soaked by the rain, and all about him men fought and cursed, bled and died. And killed.

Blood was everywhere, hot and steaming in the rain. Men screamed, writhing in agony, begging for their mothers—for anyone—to stop the pain. Crossbow bolts, javelins, swords and axes sheared and bit in brutal butchery, but no weapon came near him. No, he was inviolate. He walked through that horrific maelstrom untouched and untouchable. It was only other men who bled and died. Who lay on those blood-soaked, rain-lashed decks, trying to hold intestines inside opened bellies. Who raised frail, pitiful hands against the deathblow before it ended their lives.

But if he could not be touched, he could hear. He could hear the screams, the wet sounds of edged steel in human flesh. He could hear the wind howl, the waves crash, the clash of weapons, the crackle of rifle and pistol fire. He could hear the sudden explosions of mortar rounds, coming silently out of the night to detonate like hell’s own hatred while men blew apart in bloody ruin or plunged shrieking into the angry sea as white phosphorus consumed them.

And he could hear the voices screaming his name. He could—

He jerked awake and his own strangled cry of horror echoed in his ears.

He sat up slowly in the comfortable bed and looked around the airy, sun-shot bedchamber. Elegant furniture and beautiful mosaics surrounded him. The open window’s curtains flapped gently on the breeze, and he heard the peaceful coo of pigeons and the distant cries of gulls and other seabirds through it.

And none of it could drown those other sounds, because those sounds came from deep inside him and the knowledge of what he had done.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked at the bottle of McCleve’s best on the bedside table. His stomach heaved. There’d been three of those bottles, once. He’d emptied one of them before he finally passed out. He thought he remembered dropping another, as well. Remembered the half-full bottle shattering on the stone floor. There was no sign of either of them. Haerther, no doubt. Or Mason. Probably both, since they’d managed to get him into bed, too.

Still covering for me, he thought, bending over, burying his face in his hands. God help me, even after this, they’re still covering for me.

He drew a deep breath and forced himself to stand. His head pounded, and something had crawled into his mouth and died there, but he made himself walk across to the window. Light-sensitive eyes squinted as he pulled back the curtain, looked out over the inner lagoon.

His belly twisted with threatened nausea as he saw the fresh proof of his handiwork. Dozens of boats moved across the laughing blue water, crews with bandannas tied over their mouths and noses heaving bodies out of its embrace. And those gulls whose cries had wakened him wheeled in circles above them . . . or landed on the drifting corpses to peck and tear at dead men’s flesh.

He dropped the curtain and wheeled away from the window, eyes shut once more. Tylara. He needed Tylara. He needed—

I need to go home, he told himself flatly. I need to admit—finally—how fucking far out of my depth I am. This isn’t me. It’s not who I am. Not who I can be anymore. His eyes burned. They can’t put this on me anymore. I can’t put it on myself. Because I’ll screw it up. An entire goddammed planet! And . . . I’ll . . . screw . . . it . . . up.

Just as he’d screwed up here.

We should have just emptied the damned containers and left. The Nikeisians could have told the Fivers and the Riccigionans we were gone—could have let them look for themselves! But, no, we had to—I had to—stand and fight, didn’t I? And I underestimated the numbers, and I underestimated the goddamn weather, and I overestimated how frigging brilliant “Captain General Rick” is, and I got—God, how many?—people killed.

Including my friend.

He bent his head again, and this time the tears came as he remembered Richard Martins, standing in front of him, left arm in a bloody sling with a hand he might never use again. There’d been tears in Martins’ eyes, too, as he stood in the torchlit darkness with the fading storm still raging behind him.

“I’m sorry, Colonel,” the young man had said, his public school reserve nowhere to be seen. “God, I’m so sorry. None of us would have made it without him. We tried—we tried. But—”

His voice had broken, and Rick had shaken his head.

“Not your fault,” he’d heard himself say. “It happens. And it was my call. My fault.”

“Colonel, you couldn’t have known!” Martins had protested. “There was no way we could have told you. And if you hadn’t—”

“I can tell myself that just as well as you can, Lieutenant.” His voice had been harsher. “It may even be true. But I still killed him; you didn’t.”

Martins had started to say something more, then closed his mouth at an almost imperceptible headshake from Clyde Baker. Rick had pretended he hadn’t seen it.

“Colonel,” Baker had said, “you’ve been on your feet for close to twenty-four hours. Get some rest.”

“A hell of a lot of other people have been on their feet even longer!” Rick had snapped, glaring at the Brit.

“Indeed.” Baker had looked back levelly. “But rather fewer of them will need to make the decisions you will. Leave this bit to us.”

And so you came up here and you got so drunk you don’t even remember them putting you to bed, he thought scathingly. You got drunk because of how desperately you didn’t want to think of Larry out there on those goddammed galleys when you ordered Walbrook to open fire.

He made himself straighten, look around for clothes, ignore the siren song of the bottle. There were no closets, neither his armor nor his rifle were anywhere in evidence, but his holstered .45 lay beside the bottle on the bedside table. For one long, terrible instant, his fingers longed to curl around the grip, but he made himself turn away from that, too. He couldn’t do it to Tylara or the kids.

He finally admitted he had no option and rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened.

“Yes, My Lord?” Haerther said, no sign of contempt in his clear eyes.

“I need to dress,” Rick said. “And then I suppose I need something to eat.”

* * *

“Forgive me, Lord Rick, but the Heir of Caesar is here.”

“I see.” Rick pinched the bridge of his nose, then sighed. Haerther had told him about Publius’ earlier visit, even told him what Publius had said, but he’d shoved that thought down. Not until after he’d eaten, he’d told himself. It could wait until then. Of course, he’d only picked at his breakfast, but he actually felt a bit better, physically, at least. Until he thought about facing Publius, anyway.

Can’t put it off forever, he thought. Besides, you might as well tell him and get it over with.

“Ask him to join me,” he said, waving at the dining chamber.

“He is not alone, My Lord,” Haerther said. “Lord Bart and Major Baker are with him.”

Rick’s eyebrows rose as he felt an actual stir of curiosity. He stepped on it firmly. It wasn’t his job anymore.

“Very well. In that case, ask all of them to join me.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

The door opened again, moments later, and Publius, Baker, and Saxon came through it.

“Hail, Heir of Caesar,” Rick said, standing to greet them.

“Hail . . . friend,” Publius replied. Rick’s eyes narrowed at the unusual familiarity, but he let it pass as he turned to the other two.

“Major. Mr. Saxon,” he said.

“Colonel,” Baker responded for both of them.

“Sit,” Rick invited, waving at the chairs Haerther had found, and sat back down himself as they settled. “I’m glad you came this morning,” he lied. “There are things I need to say to you. To all of you.”

“I thought there might be,” Publius said. “But first, I believe Lord Bart has something to say to you.”

“Oh?” Rick looked at Saxon.

“Yes, Colonel.” There was something different about Saxon, Rick realized. He seemed . . . almost buoyant, despite all the death and destruction about them. For a moment, at least; then his expression sobered and he leaned forward slightly. “You asked me why I’m really here,” he said. “It’s time I told you.”

“Mr. Saxon—”

“No, Colonel.” Saxon cut him off. “This is important. You need to hear it. And I might as well admit that Publius already got some of it out of me.”

Rick looked quickly at the Roman, but Publius only gazed back with a bland expression. Somehow, Rick found it easy to believe the Heir of Caesar had gotten Saxon to talk. But Rick didn’t want to hear it. He was so tired of secrets, and secret missions that other people thought up and left him to carry out, however many people he had to kill along the way. And yet . . .

“All right, Mr. Saxon,” he sighed. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Saxon said. “We are here to assist you in crop production for the Shalnuksis. That’s true. But you were right to be suspicious, because it’s also a cover story. I was told that if the real mission was revealed to the wrong people, I and a whole lot of people would be killed and the planet might be bombed back into the Stone Age. Or worse. But the truth is, my assignment’s a contradiction. I’m supposed to educate the local population, but to hide it from the Galactics. Agzaral will do what he can to prevent the bombardment, but he couldn’t promise anything. He did tell me the Shalnuksis can be bribed and they’d rather not sterilize the planet because of the costs involved—and because they’d lose the madweed, of course. But I was also told I was an insurance policy in case you failed, particularly because Agzaral thought you weren’t doing very well when he sent us out.”

“Okay, that’s your assignment.” Rick leaned forward, his interest sharpening almost despite himself. “But I still don’t understand why Agzaral went to all this effort to send you here. From my perspective, he took an incredible risk to send you, the others, and the containers. Every single thing Les ever said to Gwen and me was about how important it was that we hide any tech advances here on Tran. That he and Agzaral and their friends saw us as a backstop for Earth but that anything we did had to be done by stealth. Had to be hidden, at least until the Shalnuksis leave. And now he sends you here with three frigging container loads of high tech? What you brought may—hell, probably will—launch the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution, and both world wars all at the same time! And if we don’t kill each other off, the Shalnuksis will sure as hell do it for us if they figure out what you’ve got out there! Why the hell should he decide to take that chance?”

“Colonel, I wasn’t there when they sent you out. I don’t doubt hiding was the plan then. But that was fourteen years ago, and Agzaral’s thinking seems to have changed in the meantime.”

“Why?” Rick asked bluntly.

“Because all of humanity is at risk now,” Saxon replied equally bluntly, and Rick shoved back in his chair in shock.

“You mean here and on Earth.”

“No, Sir. I mean everywhere.”

Rick darted a quick look at Publius, but the Roman appeared extraordinarily calm, and Rick looked back at Saxon.

“Explain that.”

“Agzaral didn’t have time to tell me everything,” Saxon said, and Rick snorted harshly as he remembered his own conversations with the inspector. “But he did tell me there’s some sort of quiet rebellion among the humans in the Galactic Confederation. Earth’s technology advances are worrying the High Commission even more, and a lot of the humans serving the Confederation—Agzaral called them ‘Janissaries’—think the Commission is hardening on bombing Earth back into the Stone Age . . . at least. Apparently, the faction on the Commission that wants to solve the ‘wild human problem’ once and for all is gaining momentum, and that means the Janissaries who don’t want that to happen are making plans to try to stop it by force, if they have to.”

“Jesus.” Rick looked back and forth between Publius and Baker, then back at Saxon. “You’re talking some kind of rebellion?”

“I don’t know,” Saxon admitted. “I just know Agzaral seemed both excited and scared by the possibilities. But I don’t think he has a choice anymore. He says there’s a section in the Confederation, one that’s gaining strength, that thinks all humans are too dangerous, too disturbing to their status quo, to keep around. That the High Council may just decide to exterminate all of us to put an end to all the arguing. But that’s his worst-case scenario, and he’s the kind who plays the game on a lot of levels. In his worst-case scenario, we—us, here on Tran—are his last ditch effort to keep the species alive if it does turn into a rebellion and the Confederation decides to wipe out all of ‘its’ humans at the same time it blasts Earth. But in his best-case scenario, we’re the trump card that changes humans from slaves to voting members of the Confederation.”

“By acquiring interstellar flight on our own,” Rick said, and Saxon looked a bit surprised. But he also nodded.

“Yes, Sir.”

“That much we already knew, courtesy of Les.” Rick shrugged. “I don’t know how likely it is, but Gwen and Tylara and I have been playing for that from the beginning, and with six hundred years between Shalnuksi visits—”

“I think Inspector Agzaral is afraid we may not have six hundred years,” Saxon interrupted. Rick looked at him, and it was Saxon’s turn to shrug. “Nobody outside the High Commission knows what the timetable for any decision about Earth really is, but Agzaral says there are indications that the timing is closing in. We might be talking about decades, or a few centuries—I get the impression the Confederation isn’t exactly what you might call flexible—but it’s also possible it could happen tomorrow. He wants us ready to claim membership in the Confederation as soon as possible, but that’s not the same thing as wanting us to actually assert that claim.”

Damn all twisty-minded interstellar Machiavellians to hell, Rick thought, rubbing one eyebrow.

“He wants us—what? Lurking in the wings? An ace up his sleeve that he can play if things go south with the High Commission or this human rebellion you’re talking about heats up?”

“Something like that. He says there are more humans than any other single species out there, because we do so many jobs for the Galactics. I think he wants those humans—all humans—to eventually be free and equals in the Confederation.”

“Which means developing interstellar flight here on Tran.” Rick shook his head in disbelief. “In time to do any good on this accelerating timetable of his?” He laughed incredulously. “What makes him think we can do that? Hell, I’ve barely kept our heads above water for the last fourteen years!”

“He says he and his . . . accomplices have placed references in the library of scientific material we brought from Earth to be a breadcrumb trail that will eventually enable us to build starships of our own. A lot sooner than we could do it on our own.” He shrugged. “That’s one of the things I’m supposed to be kicking off, God help me.”

“Who else knows about that?”

“Out there?” Saxon waved at the ceiling and the stars beyond it. “I don’t have any idea. Here on Tran? Cal and Spirit may suspect, but Agzaral and Lee told them only the cover story.”

“Then I suppose you’ve just become the most important man on the planet. Maybe in the whole damned universe.”

“No, Sir. I haven’t.” Saxon looked at him levelly. “You have.”

“No,” Rick said flatly.

“Colonel, listen to me.” Saxon leaned towards him. “It’s not just spaceflight. Agzaral says the only chance for a successful entry into the Confederation is if the planet is united.”

“United. Politically united?” Rick barked a hard, bitter caw of a laugh. “Jesus, now he wants to turn us into Mamelukes!”

“Mamelukes?” Publius repeated the strange word carefully, and Rick jerked an angry, exhausted nod.

“Mamelukes,” he said, recalling a conversation—at least a century ago—in Taranto with Major Baker. “You heard the word Agzaral used—Janissaries?” he asked, and Publius nodded. “Well, Janissaries were slave soldiers back on Earth. They were more than just soldiers, eventually—bureaucrats and ministers of the emperor they served—but they were still slaves.

“Only then there were the Mamelukes. They were slaves, too, but they evolved into a powerful military caste, and eventually, they wound up ruling vast empires of their own. They were still technically slaves, but they were also noblemen and even emperors in their own right, and the system they created lasted for over a thousand years. That’s what Agzaral has in mind. And he needs us to unify Tran politically to pull it off.”

Rick shook his head, thinking about all the warring rival factions. It had taken everything he had, and cost more than he could stand, just to survive. And now Agzaral wanted him to unify the frigging planet?

“I’m afraid so,” Saxon said. “They won’t even consider membership for a planet—for a star system—that doesn’t have a unified, single government that can speak for it. And that the Confederation can lay down terms for membership to.”

“I don’t care.” Rick’s voice was even flatter. “I’m done.”

“No, Lord Rick,” Publius said, speaking for the first time since Saxon had begun. “You are not.”

“The hell I’m not!” Rick glared at him, then jabbed an angry forefinger at the window and the bodies beyond it. “I’m through, Publius. Through! Let somebody else do all the killing. I’ve spent fourteen goddamned years just trying to keep my feet under me, keep the people I care about alive, and I just proved I’m not really very good at that, am I?”

He heard the quiver in his own voice, but he didn’t care.

“I’ll get you back to the Empire. Hell, I’ll keep the University going, give Mr. Saxon here a place to hang his hat while he invents interstellar flight! But that’s it. I came to this world with over thirty men—my men! I think about thirteen of them are still alive. That’s not a very good proportion, and I will be damned if I get the rest of them killed!”

“You have no choice.” Publius’ voice was almost compassionate.

Almost.

“While I was raised a Christian,” the Roman continued, “I was also forced to study Greek and Roman legends. I recall the details of the Titanomacy and Prometheus only too well. You star lords are the Titans. And that one”—Publius pointed at Saxon—“is Prometheus. He brings the fire, the knowledge of the gods.”

“As I recall, things didn’t go well for Prometheus.”

“Yes, he suffered. But eventually he was freed by Hercules, during one of his twelve labors.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“I know that. But it changes nothing.”

“I’m not Hercules!” Rick snapped. “And I’m tired. I’m tired of always having to watch my back. I’m tired of fighting every goddamned time I turn around. I’m tired of seeing people I care about die. And I’m tired of being the one who decides who lives and who dies when half the damned time I’m guessing about what I’m doing! So, no, I’m not Hercules. I’m Cincinnatus.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Except I can’t even do that right, can I? I can’t just retire to my farm, because half the lords in Drantos want me dead and my farm is full of madweed. But I can damned well stay on it, defend what I care about, and let the rest of the world, the rest of the galaxy, take care of itself for a change!”

“You can play the part of Achilles and hide in your tent, if you desire. For a time,” Publius said. “But not forever, my friend. Achilles retired from battle because he was full of pride, but you have little of that. Far less than I, for example. No, in your case it is doubt and despair that drive you like the Furies. You have just won one of the greatest battles in the history of Tran, and possibly the most important one ever fought here. But it means little to you. You say you are tired? I believe that. Yet even though we are very different men, you and I, I can recognize what is truly consuming you, and it is not just fatigue of the body. Your soul is weary. Perhaps that is because you are a better man than I. I do not know about that, but this I do know: Bishop Polycarp would agree that there are prices to be paid for giving in to the sin of despair.”

“Worse than the ones I’ve already paid?” Rick asked bitterly.

“I think . . . yes,” Publius said softly. “You can hide in your tent for a time, but while you do that someone else—someone like Major Baker, or Major Mason, or I, will be forced to become Patroclus. We will die trying to do what only you can do, and then you will be compelled to step forward anyway, knowing that we did.”

Rick stared at him, his heart like a stone, and Publius shook his head.

“No man can outrun his fate, even if he has the feet of Mercury, and this is your fate. It may be hard, but it is yours. Your men followed you here willingly. The people of Nikeis looked to you to save them, and my legionnaires were inspired to fight and die at your side. None of them were here to fight because of this man or what is in those boxes. They were here to fight alongside the man who, will he or won’t he, must become—has already become—the Warlord of Tran, not simply Drantos, to free us from the capriciousness of false gods.”

The Roman shook his head again, holding Rick’s gaze.

“I think, my friend, that perhaps you are the only man on Tran who has not already realized that. Or perhaps I should say who has not already accepted that. The rest of us have known for years.”

“He’s right, Colonel,” Baker said, speaking for the first time. Rick glanced at him, and the Brit shrugged. “I’m a soldier, Colonel. All I ever wanted to be, all I ever expected to be. All I ever trained to be. You aren’t, but what you are is something more important than that. You’re a commander. You’re not thinking about battles, Colonel Galloway. You’re thinking about wars, and about what comes after the wars, and I could never have built the alliances, the relationships, you have. You think you aren’t up to the job?” It was Baker’s turn to bark a laugh. “For a bloody ‘amateur,’ you just performed brilliantly. You may not see that, but I damned well do. If you aren’t up to the job, then nobody else is, and this isn’t the sort of task we can leave to someone who isn’t up to its weight. No matter how unfair to you that may be. I’ll be your military commander, if that will take some of that weight off you. Your Major Mason and I, we’ll command in the field, go where you need us, do what must be done. But we can’t do the rest of your job. The only one who can do it is you.”

Rick looked back and forth between him and Publius.

“How long has this conspiracy of yours been in the works, Publius?”

“You planted the germ of the idea on the day you told my father of the coming Time and he realized how you must have arrived on Tran. Then there were the ancient texts and their warnings. These new arrivals”—he waved one hand at Baker and Saxon—“have only accelerated our plans, Lord Rick. They have not changed them.”

“What plans?”

“We are at war with the gods. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are at war with us, and have been for millennia. We know that Rome will be one of the first targets should the skyfire fall again—perhaps the second one, after you. Yet legends hold that when men unite, when they stand together, sometimes they can defeat even gods. I do not understand all of the changes Lord Bart has described to me, but I do not need to. The changes of the Time alone will be terrible enough. All I need to know is that what the sky demons propose to do to us will be even worse. To survive that—to have any hope of surviving that—we must stand together. And my father realized from the very beginning that only someone from outside our squabbles and our historic rivalries and hatreds can unite us. We must stand together . . . ”

“‘Or we shall certainly hang separately . . . ’” Rick murmured.

Quid est?”

“A group of men said something like that on Earth over two hundred years ago. They also said ‘give me liberty or give me death,’ and they banded together to free a new country from what was probably the most powerful military in the world. That country is where I was born. Now I’ve learned that after we were brought to Tran, that same nation won a half-century conflict—what we called a Cold War—against another powerful nation that spat on the very idea of individual liberty. Major Baker here told me about a leader who stood up to what he called an evil empire . . . and won.”

“I do not know if we can do the same,” Publius said. “I suspect the odds we face are worse than the ones he faced. But I also think we have no choice other than to try, and you are the only one everyone—Rome, Drantos, Nikeis, even the Five, in the fullness of time—will agree to follow. It will not be easy, and some of us will follow only if we are compelled to, but we will follow. So the only question is whether or not you will lead us.”

Rick looked at the other three. Quiet wrapped itself about the chamber, perfected and not interrupted by the distant murmur of voices, street traffic, and seabirds, and he felt the weight crushing down upon him.

I’m not Hercules, he thought. I’m Atlas, with the entire damned world on my back. And in the end, whatever else happens, I’ll be Rodin’s Caryatid, crushed under its weight. And do I have the right to take Tylara there with me? Or will I find out she’s been in agreement with Publius and Marselius from the beginning?

“I’ll . . . think about it,” he told them finally. “That’s all I’ll promise, all I can promise. But . . . I’ll think about it.”

* * *

“Your pardon, Lord Rick,” Haerther said, “but it is time.”

“I know,” Rick sighed, and straightened from where he stood, leaning against the window frame, looking down on the harbor and the wreckage of battle. The familiar weight of chain mail and flak vest pressed down upon him like a shadow of the greater burden waiting for him to take it up.

He absently patted the butt of his holstered .45, lips quirking as he considered how Art Mason would react if he’d dared to leave the weapon behind. He turned from the window, and Haerther examined him critically. The squire reached out and adjusted the strap of Rick’s shoulder holster, then nodded in satisfaction and opened the chamber door for him.

I don’t want to do this, Rick thought. But I have to. Whatever I finally decide about . . . anything else, I have to do this.

He stepped through the door into the borrowed palace’s great hall and paused as Publius turned to face him. A dozen others were also present—Art Mason, Clyde Baker, Caius Julius, Publius’ bodyguard—but Publius reached out to clasp forearms with him in the Roman fashion.

“Hail Rick, Friend of Caesar and defender of the alliance,” he said. “I thought we should see to our wounded together.”

“I agree,” Rick said, and the two of them walked out of the palace, surrounded by the others, and across the square to the larger structure which had been converted into Sergeant McCleve’s field hospital. One of the acolytes of the new United Church who served as medical corpsmen met them at the door.

“Greetings, Lord Rick. Hail, Heir of Caesar.” The acolyte bowed to both of them. “I regret that Lord McCleve is in surgery. He will join you as soon as he may. In the meantime, he has asked me to be your escort.”

“Thank you,” Rick murmured, and the acolyte beckoned for them to follow him into a large hall which had been converted into a ward.

Rick stopped beside the bed nearest the door. The Roman legionnaire in it attempted to rise when he saw Rick and Publius.

“As you were,” Rick said gently. “You’ve earned your rest.”

He noticed that the young soldier’s right arm was heavily bandaged and splinted.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Well enough,” the Roman replied. His eyes were heavy and his words slurred a bit. “I hope your doctor McCleve can save my arm. It was crushed in the fighting in the North Channel.”

Rick’s mouth tightened as he realized this youngster had been with Warner on the ship raft. He started to say something about that, then stopped himself as he saw the soldier’s eyes droop before he fought them back open again.

Painkillers. Maybe the madweed-derived one, he thought.

“If anyone can save your arm, Doc McCleve can,” he said instead.

“If not, I know it will be restored on the last day. I only hope I can remain in service to the Alliance.”

Rick could actually hear the capitalization of “Alliance” in the legionnaire’s voice. I’m standing here with Publius, and the kid says Alliance, not Rome. Is Publius right about all this crap? God help me, is he right?

The continued their tour of the ward. Nikeisian militia, Tamaerthan warriors, Roman soldiers, even mercs lay side by side. Those who were conscious seemed genuinely pleased and enheartened at the thought that Rick and Publius had come to visit them. Yet Rick was even more aware of the stretcher bearers who passed them periodically, taking still figures with blanket-covered faces out or bringing recently triaged patients in. Everywhere, acolytes were busy treating the wounded. Some prayed with those who needed help, but too many prayed quietly with those who would soon be taken outside.

Eventually, they moved from the common ward to the private rooms. Rick stepped into the first one and paused as he saw Sergeant McCleve. The doctor was bent over the bed, but he straightened at Rick and Publius’ entrance, and Rick saw Jimmy Harrison lying in it, unconscious.

“Sorry, Colonel,” McCleve said. “When I got out of surgery, they told me you were headed this way, so I figured I’d come ahead and check in on Jimmy while I waited for you here.”

“How’s he doing?” Rick asked.

“Not good. He’s got a bad bruise on his chest from a javelin, but his vest stopped that. It’s the only reason he’s still alive. But what has me worried is the bruising to his brain, not his chest. According to Goodman and Signorina Torricelli, they hit him with a damned brick, and I believe it. If he’d been wearing a helmet instead of just a damned beret, maybe—” The medic cut himself off and shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he’s got a depressed skull fracture, but without x-rays I can’t tell how bad it really is, and I don’t like how long he’s been unconscious.”

“Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know. He’s in a coma. I can keep him alive with IV fluids and other techniques, but the longer he’s comatose, the more likely we are to see something like pneumonia set in, and that could be the real killer. We’re in better shape for antibiotics than we were before Major Baker and Mr. Saxon got here, but we’ve also got one hell of a lot more wounded to spread them between. And even if he doesn’t get pneumonia, I don’t know what mental capacity he’ll have after taking a hit like that. He could be fine, but—”

The doctor shrugged again and Rick nodded.

Tran’s a rough place to have a mental disability, he thought. If he does, what will his wife and kids do when they find out? I’ll have to make sure he gets a pension that’s tied to him but still takes care of them if he dies. Will angels sing for Jimmy?

“Do your best, Doc. Anything you need—anything—you tell me or Major Mason.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Rick laid a hand lightly on Harrison’s lax shoulder. Then he turned and headed for the next room on his list.

* * *

An hour or so later, Rick descended the stairs from the hospital’s upper floor with Publius. He’d been a little surprised when the Roman walked every step of the way with him. He didn’t normally think of Publius as a fountain of humanity, yet the heir to the Roman throne had shown another side as they visited the wounded. Perhaps it was simply a case of his playing the part he knew was demanded of a military commander, but Rick thought it went deeper than that.

A sense of obligation, at least, he decided. Maybe even genuine compassion. That’s a quality I never associated with him before! But maybe there’s more to him than I thought. I’ve always known he’s smart, but until he and Baker and Saxon dropped that damned conspiracy on me, I hadn’t really thought about how much he worries about his responsibilities, not just his position. Of course, protecting the position sort of requires the discharge of the responsibilities, I guess.

He smiled at that thought, amused despite his exhaustion and the decision looming before him, as they crossed the main ward again, headed for the exit.

Baker and Mason had excused themselves to attend to their duties some time before, and Rick envied them. He didn’t doubt they really were as busy as a pair of one-armed paper hangers. God knew he’d dropped enough of the responsibility for dealing with the battle’s aftermath on the two of them! But in many ways, he would have preferred to be dealing with those himself. At least it would have kept him busy . . . and spared him from this face-to-face confrontation with the human cost of his decisions.

They reached the door, and Rick paused. Bart Saxon stood just inside the door, waiting for them. Rick raised an eyebrow at him, but Publius had obviously expected the other star man’s presence. The Roman only waved for Rick to precede both of them out the door, so he stepped through it—and froze.

“Tennnn-hut!” Master Sergeant Bisso bellowed, and Rick heard hundreds of boots slam together.

Mason, Baker, Martins, and young Cargill stood in a row just outside the door, and assembled on the quay beyond them were hundreds—thousands—of men. It looked as if everyone not currently on guard duty was there. Mercenaries, Gurkhas, Drantos musketeers, Tamaerthan archers, Roman legionnaires, Nikeisian militia—all of them, in orderly ranks. And beyond them, the surviving sailors and marines of the Roman and Nikeisian galleys.

“Preeeeeeeesent, Arms!

Weapons and hands rose as every one of those assembled men saluted, each nation in its own fashion. A combined band of drummers and trumpeters played an inspired, if rough, flourish, and a Nikeisian militia drummer boy kept time with the other drummers in the band.

I’m going to get Mason for this, Rick thought, but he realized he was smiling as he returned the salute.

Then the music stopped. A Roman centurion—Rick remembered he was first spear of Publius’ cohort, stepped forward and extended his right hand high in the air, palm forward.

Ave! Ave, Galloway Imperator!” He shouted. “Hail, Imperator!”

Rick’s smile disappeared.

My God. This has to be Publius’ doing or was it the troops’ idea? He darted a look at Publius, but the Roman only looked back levelly. Either way, he damned well knew about it. Christ, what do I do now?

He remembered the day Roman legionnaires had proclaimed Ganton Imperator on another field of battle. It wasn’t the same as emperor, but only one who’d been proclaimed Imperator could claim the purple.

Ave, Imperator!” the cry thundered up, not a single centurion now, but the massed voice of the entire formation, and he knew. It was the troops’ idea. It was coming from the men he’d lead into the holocaust. It was coming from them, and he felt the terrifying future roaring towards him, like the storm which had ravaged Nikeis, and knew now that he couldn’t avoid it.

Fear of that future ripped through him, but not just fear. Not in the face of those voices. Because there was too much pride. Not in himself, but in them, and if they could give so much, if they could die because he led them, then he had no choice but to lead them, wherever that journey took all of them in the end.

Ave, Galloway. Ave!

The cry went up not just from the troops, but from every window and balcony that overlooked the quay. Rick stood there, eyes burning, his face a stone, as he felt that weight settling upon his shoulders and prayed for the strength to bear it.

AVE, GALLOWAY!”

“Bring this world together, my friend,” he heard Publius say through the rhythmically shouting voices.

“GALLOWAY, IMPERATOR!”

“Free the stars,” Saxon said from his other side, and Rick Galloway raised his head, nostrils flaring, as the cry rang through the city.

“AVE! AVE, GALLOWAY IMPERATOR!


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Framed