John Ringo: Unto the Breach

The harem manager was twenty-six, long-legged, blonde and beautiful with the darkest blue eyes Mike had ever seen. She was, however, “too old” to be in the harem of an Uzbek shiek that had “given” her to him. Mike, suddenly faced with having a harem of girls from the local area, had gone to Uzbekistan looking for someone like her. Well, he’d sought a manager. A young lady that spoke seven languages, trained as an accountant and manager and an extreme sexual masochist had been a bit of a surprise. As had her approach to the harem.

She had pointed out that the harem was for far more than sex. The girls of the harem were supposed to act as counselors, people on whom Mike could dump the problems and stresses of being, effectively, a feudal lord.

She admitted that it was going to take her a while to train the girls, but in the meantime she fit the bill perfectly. When Mike had a problem, he had learned to not hesitate talking to her about it. When she had a suggestion, they were generally very good, especially when it was about handling people. And when she didn’t even understand what he was talking about, she would still listen carefully and help him to fully “verbalize” the problem. All in all he decided that Anastasia had been one hell of a catch.

“Good place to read?” Mike asked as he negotiated the door. The rucksack was a standard Keldara combat ruck, Swiss-made with integral bracing, multiple sections and all the rest of the modern bells and whistles. But it wasn’t the easiest thing to get through a door.

“The light is good,” Anastasia said, flowing gracefully to her feet and clapping her hands. Petro, the son of the groundsman, came through the far door immediately. “But I was, in fact, waiting for you, Kildar. Petro will take your rucksack. I will have Tinata come up to your room with a light supper after your shower.”

“How long have you been waiting?” Mike asked, helping Petro, who was barely fifteen and overwhelmed by the heavy-ass ruck, to get the mother on his back. The boy’s knees barely sank; he was strong for his age. But he would have had a hell of a time getting the hundred and fifty pound ruck off the floor.

“About five minutes,” Anastasia said, smiling. “Not long.”

“I hate to think I’m that predictable,” Mike replied, rolling his shoulders. “I’m not a person who should be predictable. People can use that, you know.”

“I think that you are only predictable to those who love you and know you well,” the harem manager said, smiling. “And I know you well. Now, go take your shower and by the time you are done Tinata will be ready with supper.”

“Just as a question,” Mike said, “why Tinata?” He had to admit that the comfortable and placid Tinata was a good choice. He wasn’t really up for complex conversation at the moment. All he wanted was to get something to eat and maybe a quick screw then get some rest.

“Because she is right for you, now,” Anastasia said, shrugging. “I don’t question your military decisions or understand them.”

“And I shouldn’t question yours, huh?” Mike said, grinning. “Okay, Tinata it is.”

Mike swung up onto the gelding and settled into the saddle.

He’d ridden when he was a kid and sort of enjoyed it but until he’d moved to the Valley he’d given it up for over twenty years.

However, due to the pressure of circumstances, the Rite of Cardane being the circumstances, Mike had decided that learning to ride again was a good idea. Reality was that horses were flighty, smelly, cantankerous creatures. But chicks dug them and the Rite was really about the lady, not the Kildar, in Mike’s opinion.

Since relearning, though, he’d started to ride a good bit. It was a reasonable alternative to driving around in an SUV when he was checking out the farm. He also preferred to use a horse for the Keldara’s various ceremonies and festivals. It just… fit better, somehow.

The Keldara were embracing aspects of the 21 stCentury with enthusiasm. On the shoulder of the hills to the south was a new brewery that, while archaic looking on the outside, was as advanced as anything to be found in Europe or the United States. Computerized temperature controllers and hydrometers, automated bottling systems, the works. In the bowels of the caravanserai, young ladies who a year before had been hand-weaving cloth for clothing and hand sewing same were using computers to analyze voice intercepts, running satellite communications gear and managing one of the most advanced battlefield networks to be found in the world. And those ladies weren’t just punching buttons; they were learning the basic theory behind the systems, how to fix them, how to trouble-shoot, how to repair. Programming and debugging. Cracking and counter-hacking.

Most of the real “smart-work”, Mike had to admit, was done by the women. The men…

The Keldara men had also embraced aspects of the 21 stCentury. The team members at least. But the aspects they’d embraced made him want to shake his head. Oh, they were just fine with thermal imagery scopes, vibration trackers and such. But show them a circuit diagram and they tended to scratch their heads.

On the other hand, put an Xbox controller in their hands…

But the reality was that in their souls, the Keldara were still very medieval, even barbaric. Give them a generation or two and they might go soft. Might. They’d survived Mongols and Ottomans, Russian Tsars and Communism and still kept their soul. They’d just have to see what the internet was going to do to them.

For now the seasonal ceremonies remained so true to an ancient core that, somehow, turning up in a Ford Expedition just didn’t seem… right.

On the other hand, there was the matter of dress. Mike had one really… uhm… fancy riding outfit. Fancy was the only way to describe it. But he reserved that for the Rite of Cardane. Otherwise he preferred to dress, an ride, Western.

Thus he was wearing a pair of jeans, nice ones admittedly, and cowboy boots, okay those were about six hundred bucks, to the festival. Everyone else would be in their “Sunday Go To Meetin`’ ” clothes so he’d be slightly underdressed. But anything was better than that damned riding costume for the Rite.

He tucked the reins into one hand and gave the gelding his head. He knew he didn’t have to kick or otherwise suggest the Braz Curly get going. The gelding liked going down the hill to the small hamlet of the Keldara. The younger girls of the Keldara tended to pamper him to the point where getting him to leave was the hard part. Irana Tsar, or as Mike preferred to call him “Dumbasss”, was really popular with the younger girls of the Keldara. They all wanted to mount Illyria — the “gray” palfrey that was currently eating hay in the stables — one day and follow Irana up to the caravanserai.

That damned Rite. Mike wished he’d never heard of it. He really wished he hadn’t worked so hard to make it “special.” Dumbass was getting fat from being plied with special cakes, apples, sweets and anything else the girls could filch to feed the pig.

Mike reined in on the road down. The road from the caravanserai was steeper than any similar road would be allowed to be in the US, very nearly a 9% grade. It was easy enough to ascend on a horse, you just leaned forward. Going down, through, was tricky. There was a technique for taking a grade like that fast, one that Mike hoped he never had to try. He could ride, he wasn’t a horseman. There’s a difference.

Dumbass, though, had gotten used to the grade and handled it easily. He wanted to trot — cakes and brushing was waiting — but Mike kept him to a walk.

There were two switchbacks on the drive — each positioned to be swept by fire from the caravanserai — before it reached the main road. The main road was fairly flat through the Valley, winding along the west side past the caravanserai. Going north it passed over the mountains and eventually swept west over some nasty passes to Tblisi. The drive was kidney-pounding once you left the Valley. Mike had actually driven improvements, all paid out of his own pocket, up to the pass to the north. But that was as far as he was paying for. After that he had to put up with the road. It was horrible but one of these days he was going to get a damned helicopter.