Walter Williams - Conventions of War

Sula went up to the High City on a day when chill drizzle had turned the funicular’s flagstone terrace dark and wet. She wanted to inspect the empty Ngeni Palace and make certain it was adequate for hiding the Bogo Boys and the other strike troops who were scheduled to come up the cliff.

PJ seemed more cheerful than usual. “I’m happy to show you the old place,” he said, “but when are you going to need it?”

Sula hesitated, sensing something behind his words. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been evicted. Some Naxid clan has requisitioned the property. I got the notice two days ago, and they gave me ten days to get myself and my belongings out.” He gave her a brilliant smile. “I can be useful now. I don’t have to live in the High City. I can move to the Lower Town and become a soldier in the secret army.”

Already calculations were flooding through her mind. “Can we check the weather report?” she asked.

He led her to a desk, and with a few commands she discovered that the cold drizzle would last for another two days, then be pushed away by a high pressure front from the southwest. There would be at least four days of beautiful, sunny, summery weather.

There’s our window,she thought. She hoped six days would be enough.

She straightened and looked at him. “I hope you’ll employ our trucking firm to move your belongings to your new lodgings.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have any belongings to speak of. Not since my father lost all our money.”

“You’ve forgotten the pile of weaponry that Sidney gave us, and that’s still in storage.”

“Oh.” PJ’s eyes widened.

“And surely Clan Ngeni doesn’t want all their furniture and other possessions to go to the Naxids? Or have the Naxids insisted that everything remain?”

PJ looked as if he hadn’t considered this. “No,” he said. “I suppose I can take anything.”

“Then we’ll remove your clan’s stuff for you. And I’ll need to look at the palace after all-assuming, of course, that you don’t mind if we use the place for one last operation.”

“Certainly. Of course.” Anxiety crossed PJ’s expression. “But I really can join the secret army after I’ve left the High City?”

She looked at him. “PJ,” she said, “you’vealways been in the secret army. You were my first recruit.”

He was flustered and, she thought, pleased. “Well yes. Thank you. But I mean a real soldier.”

“You’ve always been a real soldier.”

Surprised delight flushed PJ’s cheeks. “I’ve only wanted to be…to be worthy.”

“You’re more than worthy,” Sula said. “And as far as I’m concerned, better off without her.”

Her words brought an uncomfortable sadness to PJ’s long face. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “She was so bright and lively, and I…” He fell silent.

Something he’d said came to Sula’s mind.

“PJ,” she said, “you mentioned that your father lost your family’s money.”

“Yes. Gambling, and-” He sighed. “-other sorts of gambling too-unwise investments. Stocks and futures and debentures, whatever those are. My father hid the losses for a long time, and I had a very pleasant life for a while, with cars and clothes and entertainments and…” He groped for words. “…the usual. But it was all borrowed money. So I turned thirty-five and then…” He threw out his hands. “Then it was all gone.”

Sula was surprised. She had always assumed PJ lost his money in debauchery. Instead he’d lived a perfectly normal life for a member of his class, oblivious to everything around him, until suddenly his life wasn’t there any longer, and he became the object of pity and contempt that his relatives had tried to sell to Clan Martinez, only to have him rejected by the woman he loved and bundled into marriage with someone else.

Perhaps, she thought, her own life had been easier, since she’d never had any money to begin with.

“I’m sorry, PJ,” she said.

The expression on his face was hopeless. “I know the marriage to Sempronia was supposed to be all about money,” he said. “But I was too useless and ridiculous to take seriously, and-” His eyes were starry with tears. He turned away. “Let’s look at the palace, shall we? I have the key right here.”

Sula followed him across the court and through the cavernous, empty house, filled with silence and ghosts, and gathering dust. She wanted to comfort him, but knew she was the wrong woman for the job.

He was another casualty of Martinez’s ambitions. As was she.

Three days of frenzied work followed, and the long-limbed, stumbling, uncoordinated giant that was the secret army began to pull itself free from the muck in which it hid itself and prepare to take its first great strides. Trucks rolled up to the High City, carrying away Ngeni furniture, replacing it with paint, canvas, medical supplies, and mountaineering gear. Sula rode the trucks along the streets of the High City, making notes on a map of which palaces had guards, and therefore held someone worth guarding. She wondered what would happen to the guards during an emergency, whether they’d stick at their posts or rush to the fighting. She supposed she’d find out on the day.

Storage cabinets were opened and Team 491’s formidable arsenal removed and placed in willing hands. Friends on the police opened a warehouse and over four hundred modern automatic rifles, an equal number of sidearms, ammunition, sets of body armor, and grenades and their launchers became the possession of the secret army. The police didn’t even have to be bribed.

A pair of the scouts watching the prisons were captured, and apparently provided to the Naxids the false information with which they’d been primed. Through the friendly contacts the cliques maintained with agents of law enforcement, Sula learned that the prison guards had been quietly reinforced and that police and Fleet personnel were shifted out of the city center to react to any mass breakout attempts.

The Naxids were apparently satisfied that they were about to spring a trap. So was the White Ghost. Time would tell which of them was right.

At last there came a moment when the last message had been sent, the last weapon readied, the last plan made, revised, and remade. Then, as the sun touched the horizon, Sula walked into the safe house she shared with Casimir and found him dressed in his long Chesko coat with the triangular mirrors, the shining boots, the long walking stick with its glittering globe of rock crystal.

The room had a strange scent of lavender, and she paused in the door in astonishment. He turned to her, the skirts of his coat swirling, and made an elaborate bow.

“Welcome, Lady Sula,” he said. “We’re going out tonight.”

“You’re mad,” Sula said. “Do you realize how much-”

“Everything’s taken care of,” Casimir said. “The soldiers are doing all the work, and the general can relax.” He took a step to one side and revealed the green moire gown that he’d draped on the bed. “I’ve provided more suitable clothing for an evening out.”

Sula closed the door behind her and took a few dazed steps into the room. “Casimir,” she said, “I’m a completewreck. I haven’t slept in days. I’m keeping myself going on coffee and sugar. I can’t doanything like this.”

“I have drawn a relaxing bath,” he said. He made an elaborate show of looking at his sleeve display. “Our car will pick us up in half an hour.”

Wondering, Sula walked into the bathroom, shed her clothing, and stepped into the lavender-scented bath. She lay back in the lukewarm water and commanded the hot water tap to open. She added hot water until steam was rising from the surface of the water, then lay back and closed her eyes. It was only an instant before she jerked awake to Casimir’s knock.