Harry Turtledove - Rulers of the Darkness

Vatran shook his head. "For one thing, his Majesty doesn't give a fart if all the Algarvian captives he's got- well, all but one- freeze to death while he's parading 'em."

"I know that," Rathar said impatiently. "But he wouldn't care to go up on a reviewing stand and watch 'em in the middle of a snowstorm."

"Mm, maybe not," Vatran allowed. "Still and all, though, if he put things off, it'd give the redheads longer to find out what we're about."

That made Rathar nod, however little he wanted to. "Aye, you're right," he said. "If we have to do it, we'd best get it over with as soon as may be. If the king will-"

Vatran gave him a shot in the ribs with an elbow. The general had known him a long time, but that didn't excuse such uncouth familiarity. Rathar started to say so, in no certain terms. Then he too saw King Swemmel coming up, surrounded by a squad of hard-faced bodyguards. He bowed very low. "Your Majesty," he murmured. Beside him, Vatran did the same.

"Marshal. General," Swemmel said. He wore a tunic and cloak of military cut but royal splendor: even in the wan winter sunlight, their threadwork of cloth-of-gold, their encrusting pearls and rubies and polished, faceted chunks of jet glittered dazzlingly. So did the heavy crown on his head. He waved. "We are pleased with the aspect of this, our city of Herborn."

"Your Majesty?" This time, Rathar exclaimed in astonishment. Swemmel's guards caught the tone. Their faces went harder yet. Several of them growled, down deep in their throats, like any wolves. They knew lese majesty when they heard it.

But the king, for once, felt expansive enough to overlook it. He waved again. "Aye, we are pleased," he repeated. "Most of all are we pleased with that." He pointed to the tallest surviving tower of the duke's palace, the palace that had been Raniero's till not long before. Unkerlant's banner- white, black, and crimson- fluttered above it.

"Ah." Rathar nodded, as he had to Vatran. Now he understood what Swemmel meant. Hoping to take advantage of his sovereign's good humor, he asked, "Your Majesty, may I say a word?"

Swemmel's bodyguards growled again. Whatever Rathar was about to say, they could tell it would be something their master didn't care to hear. King Swemmel could tell as much, too. "Say on," he replied, icy warning in his voice.

Most of the king's courtiers would have found something harmless to ask him after that response. Doing anything else took more nerve than facing the Algarvians in battle. But Rathar would speak his mind every now and then, and did so now: "Your Majesty, what you have planned for the end of the parade-"

"Shall go forward," King Swemmel broke in. "It is our will. Our will shall assuredly be done."

"It will make the war harder to fight from now on," Rathar said. "We'll see no quarter, not anymore." He glanced over to Vatran. Vatran plainly wished he hadn't. But the white-haired general nodded agreement.

Swemmel snapped his fingers. "There is no quarter between us and Algarve now," he said. "There has been none since Mezentio treacherously hurled his armies across our border."

That held some truth. But Rathar wondered if Swemmel remembered he'd also been planning to attack the redheads, back three summers before. Much of Mezentio's treachery lay in striking first. With peasant stubbornness, Rathar tried once more: "Your Majesty…"

Slowly and deliberately, his contempt as vast as it was regal, King Swemmel turned his back. His guards didn't just growl. They snarled. Without looking at Rathar again, the king said what he'd said before: "Our will shall assuredly be done." He strode off, not giving his marshal any chance to reply. Some of the guards looked as if they wanted to blaze Rathar for his presumption.

Once they were out of earshot, General Vatran said, "Well, you tried."

"I know." Rathar kicked at the ground. It was icy; he almost fell when his booted foot slid more than he'd expected. "I wish he would have listened. Sometimes he does."

"But not today," Vatran said.

"No, not today." Rathar kicked again, more carefully this time. "But we're the ones who'll have to pay the price because he didn't."

"Hard to imagine how we could pay a price much bigger than we're paying now," Vatran said, which also held its share of truth and more.

Broadsheets summoned the people of Herborn to the parade route. Unkerlanter soldiers with megaphones also ordered them out of their homes- those who still had homes standing, at any rate. Watching the men and women coming up to line the street, Rathar wondered how many, not so long before, had waved gold-and-green flags and cheered then-King Raniero. More than a few: of that he was certain. The smart ones would already have burnt those, and whatever else gold and green they owned. If Swemmel's inspectors found such things, it would go hard on whoever had them.

Rathar's own place was on the reviewing stand, at his sovereign's side. It stood not far from the ducal palace, on the edge of Herborn's central square. That square was smaller than Cottbus', but large enough and to spare. Grelzers lined the square, too, though guards kept them well away from the reviewing stand.

King Swemmel imperiously raised his arm. "Let us begin!" he cried.

A band began the triumphal parade. Horns and drums blared out the Unkerlanter national hymn. Rathar wondered if the musicians would follow that with the hymn of the Duchy of Grelz, but they didn't. Maybe Swemmel didn't want the folk of Herborn thinking about being Grelzers at all, whether inhabitants of a separate duchy or of a separate kingdom. Maybe he just wanted them to think of themselves as belonging to the kingdom of Unkerlant- and maybe he was shrewd to want them to think of themselves so.

Instead of the hymn for the Duchy of Grelz, the band played a medley of patriotic songs that had grown popular in these parts since the Algarvians overran the region. Somebody, Rathar remembered, had said they were written by a local peasant or irregular or something of the sort. He wondered if that was true. It struck him as being too pat for plausibility, and so likelier a tale that came from Cottbus. Swemmel was shrewd enough to come up with something like that, and paid plenty of writers to come up with such things for him.

After the musicians came a regiment of behemoths, their armor clattering upon them, their heavy strides shaking the ground- the timbers of the reviewing stand vibrated beneath Rathar's feet. Nothing could have been better calculated to overawe folk who still had doubts about whom they wanted to rule over them. What the locals wanted didn't count for much, of course. King Swemmel had returned, and did not intend to be dislodged again.

And after the behemoths came a great shambling mob of Algarvian captives, herded along by spruced-up Unkerlanter soldiers. A herald bellowed scornfully: "Behold the conquering heroes!" Scrawny, unshaven, filthy, some of them bandaged, all of them in shabby, tattered tunics and kilts, they looked like what they were: men who'd fought a war as hard and as long as they could, fought it and lost it.

In high good humor, Swemmel turned to Rathar and said, "Our mines and quarries shall have labor to spare for years to come."

"Aye, your Majesty," the marshal said abstractedly. He was watching the dragons overhead more than the luckless captives. Several of them broke off their spirals and flew east. No Algarvian dragons appeared above Herborn. If any tried to come over the town, the dragons painted rock-gray drove them back.

No Grelzer captives appeared on the streets of Herborn. If Grelzers hadn't been able to sneak out of the fight and find civilian clothes, they'd seldom left it alive.

An elegant troop of unicorn cavalry followed the mass of Algarvian captives. They were beautiful to look upon, even if not much use in the field. And after them strode the high-ranking Algarvian officers Swemmel's soldiers had captured in the Herborn pocket: colonels and brigadiers and generals. They were better dressed and better fed than their countrymen of lower estate, but if anything seemed even glummer.