David Drake - Warlord

Raj scowled. "Now wait a minute, Suzette-Lady-Whitehall," he began, stripping off the confining dress tunic and throwing aside the silk shirt beneath. "Where in the Outer Dark do you think you're going? Unless you want to take another ride up to Hillchapel and stay with Uncle Alois." Raj's father's brother was managing the family estates in Descott County while the younger Whitehall fulfilled the family tradition of service.

"I'm going with you, of course," Suzette said.

He turned, and found her wearing nothing but that slight enigmatic smile. "I ride as well as you, after all," she said, letting one eye drop in a slow wink. Her fingers touched lightly on the tight, sweat-damp skin of his shoulders and traced downward over the hard rippled muscle of his chest and stomach, toying with the belt buckle. Her fingers felt cool and delicate; there was a faint scent of hyacinths in her hair.

"And every second trooper," she continued, unbuttoning the trousers, "is going to have his poopsie or pretty-boy along, not to mention servants. Should you have to go alone?" She knelt to remove the skintight fabric. "You know," she whispered, looking up at him and moistening her lips, "unkind people used to say that when I wore riding clothes I looked like a pretty-boy. Did you?"

* * *

"Spirit of the Stars!" Raj shouted, leaping out of bed with a glance at the clock over the fireplace. "It's been better than an hour, the couriers will all be here."

The apartments rated a hot water shower; he washed and dressed with feverish haste, trying and failing to scowl. Suzette curved her lips and set her chin on her hands, lying on her stomach and swinging her feet up behind her; it made her look absurdly young.

"It won't hurt them to mill about for a while," she said lazily; she rinsed off quickly and threw herself back on the bed, towelling and pulling pieces of clothing towards herself. Dressing without standing; the process was distracting enough that Raj misbuttoned his tunic; their eyes met, and they laughed in unison.

"Get yourself covered, for the Spirit's sake," he said, redoing the garment. "Or none of us will ever get any work done."

"Which units are you and Stanson taking?" she asked, winding the cumberbund of her riding clothes around her waist. That hid the holster of the little two-barreled derringer; Raj hid a grimace of distaste at the sight of it. A gambler's weapon.

"Well, Stanson's taking the 2nd Gendarmerie Battalion," Raj said with a snort. He stopped to examine himself for a moment in the long mirror, part of the luxury of the bedroom. Buckling on the helmet and feeling the leather-lined neck guard rustle across his shoulders was like stepping across a barrier, away from this quiet room with its subdued elegance. The figure tapping his gauntlets into his palm did not belong in palaces.

Suzette raised a brow, as she stamped a foot into a tooled-leather riding boot with high heels. "It's a very fashionable unit," she said. "Overstrength by fifty men, and beautifully equipped."

"Poodles," Raj said briefly.

His wife sat back and rested her elbows on her knees. "Alsatians," she said. "They're mounted on Alsatians."

Raj quirked a smile. "How did I ever manage to pick someone with your combination of qualities?" he said.

"Oh, you didn't," Suzette said calmly. "I picked you, and mean to keep you. . but about the 2nd?" There was genuine interest behind the question; she had started reading his military texts as soon as they returned from the honeymoon and he took up his duties.

"Palace poodles," he continued. "The 2nd aren't just Residence Area troops, they practically never leave East Residence."

"Father used to take me out to the Gendarmerie Picnics, when I was a little girl," Suzette said reflectively. "When they were on maneuvers up in the Bay Hills."

He looked around for a second, saw brief reflective melancholy on her face. Odd , he thought. How seldom Suzie's talked about her childhood . Suzette, Lady Whitehall, nee Wenqui, was twenty-six, a year older than her husband, and looked younger, but it was usually difficult to imagine her as a child .

Aloud: "That's a hunting park. And most of the 2nd are either city toughs, or scions doing some military service where it won't take them too far from the races, the theater, or their favorite cathouses. They've got beautiful gear because the scions compete with each other to rig their units out pretty for parades. About the only real soldiers in it are some long-service NCO's, and most of them are past it; the scions sponsor them in to polish the drill, and it's a retirement post for good men."

"They're useless?" Suzette asked.

"No, not useless. Reliable enough putting down strikes and riots."

For a moment the room vanished, and he was walking down a flight of outdoor stairs in the naval harbor, a vision of memory more vivid than Center's. The rank of Gendarmerie troopers was walking ahead of him, in their white "field" uniforms. Reload ! over the screams of the mob-the people-below. Metallic clicks, tinging as the spent brass and paper cartridges bounced on marble and the fresh rounds clacked home. By platoons, volley fire-fire ! And the CRASH of two hundred rifles, the rippling and thrashing along the line of the crowd where the heavy 11mm bullets struck. The bodies on the steps were dead, mostly; the blood flowed in little rivulets that made the bottoms of his boots stick to the stone with little tak-tak sounds.

"— and they'll die bravely enough. I'm going to take a Descott Hills unit with Field Force experience; the-"

observe.

* * *

Faces this time, a comparison left-right between the Company officers of the 12th Residence Battalion, the unit he had meant to take, and another. Faces thin and square, fox-mean and bovine, with a murmured commentary from Center on each.

* * *

"Darling! Are you all right?"

Raj staggered slightly, took his hand down from his forehead. "Why, certainly, sweetheart. Why?"

"You looked so. . so strange for a moment," his wife said, raw anxiety in her voice.

" Aya, dummerlin ," he said, shocked back into dialect for a moment. "It's all right, I was just. . ah, lost in thought. I'd decided to take the 12th, but I've changed my mind. It'll be the 5th Descott Guards, instead."

Suzette stepped back, the immediate concern fading from her face. "But. . darling, they're understrength."

Raj nodded. "But they've got a better set of Company commanders, and that will be crucial. It's a raiding mission, they'll have to split up into smaller groups and perform on their own, without always having me there to hold their hands."

Suzette's fingers tapped her chin. "You do know, Raj, that they're understrength because those officers are pocketing the pay and rations of the men who aren't there?"

Raj nodded. "Well, of course," he said, grinning. "I have been in East Residence for four years, my sweet. That proves they're sharper than the 12th, doesn't it?"

"But they're still short two hundred men," Suzette said thoughtfully. "Perhaps an order to draft replacements?"

Raj shrugged ruefully. Center, this had better work , he thought, then corrected himself for doubting. . the Spirit of Man of the Stars? An angel, at least. "I'd look pretty silly, asking the Vice-Governor for that," he said. "After asking for the 5th in the first place."

" You might," Suzette said. "Men care about things like that. I'll talk to Anne, and I don't think she'll feel silly at all, when she talks to the Reassignments officer. I will not- " her voice took on an icy clarity "-have you endangered needlessly, Raj."

He inclined his helmeted head. "It's good of you to have made a friend of her, back when Barholm wasn't the heir," he said seriously. "And smart, too."