Frays In The Weave

Keen was mobilizing for war, and he was part of that now. Strange. A life in the uniform, and yet he"d never really believed he would ever live to see a war. They trained the best to enforce peace, and maybe that was the reason. The best. He wasn"t so sure about that any longer.

Even though the exercises were no longer a disaster the new brigade was still a far cry from the professional soldiers he took for granted. He had his core, the men he"d led murdering their own citizens. A few hundred determined men and as professional as anyone else. Maybe not as well trained, but they absorbed all he could throw at them with a vigour that almost scared him.

What a disgusting way of growing up. Boys, they had still been boys and now they were men bent on vengeance. Some, he suspected, on revenge. He drew a deep breath and let out the air again. Time to abuse his men again. He would make soldiers of them. Too many had the looks of warriors and large units of infantry could not afford that kind of individualism.

Taking his reins in one hand he rode out into the training grounds. Green officers led green soldiers in formation across the dirt and gravel. Soon enough he"d trust them to move together in field manoeuvres That, he knew, would be something different. Uneven ground, small hills and crops of trees to break up whatever experience they"d gained here.

He smiled. At least the rains had forced them to learn how to handle pools of water. They may not look much like an obstacle, but a line of pike men soon became a disarrayed horde as those walking through water slowed down. Now they kept the formation intact. Bruises and a few cuts had taught them that.

At the far end of the training grounds he saw a small group of soldiers involved in exercises of a very different kind. Outworlders, the eight men left behind to make certain those at the sky port didn"t come back in arms.

Trindai stared at the men and women in that unit in their outlandish armour They were running and jumping around the three outworlder flying vessels left on the field. He didn"t really understand exactly why they trained their movements, but he had a feeling it was supposed to be combat among buildings. Certain enough that he had ordered a mock town built some distance away. It was a new way of training, and he intended to use every sc.r.a.p of advantage he could steal.

Soon he oversaw rank after rank of men trying to grasp how to change formation. They were getting better, much better. Tomorrow, or maybe the day after that he would march them into the fields further west. Then they would certainly look like idiots again, but that was only part of their education. Before he marched south they"d be able to keep ranks unless they were climbing mountains.

#

"How are we proceeding?"

Olvar de Saiden looked up from his desk.

Mairild returned his glare. Olvar behind a desk was a comical sight. His body simply didn"t look like it was used to sitting in the first place, and as he never bothered with ordering furniture large enough for him he always gave the impression of a giant playing with toys.

He wasn"t, of course. Some work required paper and solitude, and she had intruded on his. Still, information, she needed as much of it as possible to do her own part in the coming war.

"Markand"s south of Krante now. We"ll be able to communicate with him for another two eightdays or so," Olvar said.

"And Tenanrild?"

"She says wagon loads are already on their way. Good thing you came up with that idea."

"Thank you," Mairild said. "Any idea how long it will take to set up the new farwriters?"

Olvar rose and walked to a large map behind his desk. "Crews, mostly, will be the problem. I think we can have the towers built in less than an eightday after the carpenters get in place. We don"t have that many crews though." He stabbed at a point south of highway"s end. "Three within an eightday. Another five shortly after. After that I can"t promise anything."

Mairild looked at where he pointed. Eight towers. It would do wonders to their line of communications. Not enough though. They would need more, a lot more.

"I know," Olvar said as if he had read her thoughts. "I"ll get the guards trained at least. Garkain has promised more carpenters at least. Women mostly, and they"re really not up for the heavy work. Well, at least the towers will be better built when they get them raised."

Mairild nodded. The Minister of Crafts had delivered miracles, and now he apparently tried to outdo himself once more. "I"ll have the new crews trained in time then," she said. "If the constructions are going to be a bit late we could as well use that extra time to make certain the operators know the codes."

Olvar smiled back. A huge smile. "Don"t want to get our messages wrong, do we?"

Mairild shivered. "They"re told rather to request a resend than to make a guess. No, we don"t want those messages wrong. Besides, there"s little else we"re going to send that far south. They won"t be as busy as the rest. I hope," she added.

Olvar grinned. It was a grin you could use to scare children, or merchants. "I have convinced Glarien to abstain from the new opportunities created until after we get this war over with."

"He wasn"t too happy, I guess."

"He was too interested in his continued good health so he forgot to be unhappy," Olvar responded. "And I made it perfectly clear it would deteriorate with astonishing speed if he tried anything."

That was a threat from anyone. From Olvar it was the next thing to brandishing a weapon. Yes, he certainly was the perfect Minister of War now. Horrifying. Hopefully the papacy would find out just how horrifying. She did have second thoughts. What about after the war? Would Olvar become too enchanted with his new powers? He was a warmonger by instinct and a very dangerous man.

Mairild stepped closer to the map. South. All the way to Mintosa. If they hugged the coast and sailed east before crossing the Narrow Sea, they had a chance to fall upon Chach undetected. A chance. And after they made landfall?

"Cavalry is a problem, but then it always was. We won"t have enough trained for anything better than a light screen," Olvar said. "That is the good news I"m afraid."

"How so?"

"With trade in decline for several years Garkain really had to sc.r.a.pe his resources dry. Production of crossbows has been abysmal. A hundred, at most."

Mairild wasn"t an expert on weapons and their use in ma.s.sed numbers. Still it sounded rather on the low side even to her. "How many do we need?"

"Six or seven hundred to begin with. I would prefer a thousand. Anyway, we have an even worse problem. There simply isn"t any way to make enough quarrels."

He was lying. She could see it in his eyes. "Tell me what you"re thinking!"

"Erkateren."

One word. One single word and a nightmare for them both. "After what we did to them I don"t think they"d agree to make weapons for us," she said avoiding the real reason for her fear.

Olvar was never one to shy away from his fears though. "They would, if we paid them enough. What happens when someone finds out we go to war with magecrafted weapons?"

She tried to shy away from the forbidden. Too close now. Olvar didn"t know just how long she had traded that dance. "I guess we couldn"t afford their price. Besides, why pour our coins into artistically crafted ammunition?"

"They can harden the wood with the arts. If we win the field the soldiers could go out and collect the quarrels."

"You would have our men looting the dead?"

"I"ll have our men eating the dead if it wins us this war!" he barked in reply. "We either remove the threats of battlemages permanently or we"ll end up with them outside the very walls here. If I don"t have enough crossbowmen their archers will slaughter our phalanxes."

Mairild had heard the theories. "I"ll see what I can do," she said.

"Thank you. I"ll a.s.sign some miracle worker to start train the number of crossbowmen we need even if we don"t have the weapons."

Mairild knew he would find someone he could scare into doing the impossible, and then he"d scare that person into doing it well.

The meeting was at an end and she had work to do, some laws to break, and after that she would violate one of the few tenets held sacred. She had done that a few times before but never as blatantly. Mairild nodded, turned on her heels and left the study.

She sighed. This one was certain to become known. With luck she"d survive the war, but after that her life was forfeit. It seemed she had run out of ways to cheat death. Well, it was for the best of Keen. She would face the Holy Inquisition when the day came.

And that left thinking of things to do and things to plan. A lot of the latter of a private nature. Her children, all of them grown and with children of their own, needed warning. The fathers, at least two of them she would give time to escape as well. The third could die for all she cared.

One husband buried. She never remarried—for good reasons. The spy master was best off without that kind of possible hostages. At least that was how she had reasoned and yet her body bore her two daughters and three sons during the long years she had served with the council. It was strange how life played out its threads in the end.