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Doreen Arnstein gave a slight sardonic snort and kept writing. Ke
"Not a fu
It was snowing again outside the shutters of the ex-Hittite villa. He could feel the force of the icy wind out of the northern mountains. It came sweeping down and onto the high plateau of central Anatolia and driving drafty fingers in here, despite tapestries and rugs.
"Damn," he said softly. "But I wish he'd come on after the fight."
"Well, it's a bit close to the ragged edge we were, at the time."
"He was closer. All the intel says so, and I could taste it. And he wanted to, too, I could feel that as well. Every time he hit us-when he was personally in command, I mean-it was like getting whacked upside the head with a crowbar. Then he just turned around and walked away when he had us rocked back on our heels."
"It was the smart move," O'Rourke said. "As you say, he was run ragged by then… not least thanks to Princess Rau-pasha and the others."
"Yeah. You know what a
"The complete evil of the man, is it?"
"No, Paddy. That's why I hate him. What irritates me is that if he wasn't such an armor-plated swine, he'd be a really valuable leader… and we need those, God knows we do."
"If only the fellah hadn't had his conscience surgically removed, the pity and the black shame of it. But I can't see him taking out his own garbage for the compost wagon, like the chief or the commodore."
"There is that," Hollard said, looking at the map again and trying to force his enemy's intentions out of it by sheer will. Where? When? How?
"It's a map, not an oracle, Brigadier sir," O'Rourke said. His voice grew a little dreamy. "By the way, have you been givin' any thought to what you'll do after the war?"
"Hmmmm," Hollard said. I suppose I should, he thought with surprise. The Corps will be cut back drastically once we've won. Be a bit dull, drilling and the occasional skull-thumping expedition against some Sun People chief.
"You know, I haven't, not really."
"Not thinking of settling down here, then? Or taking up the pioneering life back home?"
Ke
"If you two gentlemen don't mind, we do have to win the war first…"
Doreen Arnstein was going over the papers at the head of the table, each pile arranged with her usual neatness and a cup of cocoa at hand; even near term her pregnancy didn't show much under the thick ankle-length wool robe. She spoke without looking up, her glasses on the end of her nose as she made a note in her small, precise hand.
And why is she smiling more? The official reports were that Ian was alive and in Walkeropolis, no more. She must know more than I do. Which was exactly as it should be, of course.
Ken stayed in front of the map drawn on the plaster of the wall, looking at the pins and wondering how many of them corresponded to something real.
"God-damn, but I miss the Emancipator," he said. "We should never have risked her on a bombing run-far too useful shuffling high-priority stuff around."
A stamp-clash of feet and hands on wood and metal came from the corridor outside as the sentries brought their rifles to present arms in salute. The other Allied leaders trooped in; Tudhaliyas, Tawatma
She's walking better, he thought. The-young woman, not "girl." Kathryn was right to ream me out about that-was in the dark wolfskin jacket that had become something of a trademark, beating snow off it with her knitted cap, looking slim and dark and dashing.
Clemens said the left leg ought to recover full function, and the hand nearly so. Still a heavy limp, but less pain. But the scar tissue will always be more sensitive to heat and cold, or to drying out. It must have cost her considerably to come here through the weather outside.
He could see most of her face; the molded black-leather mask only covered the affected areas, a triangle from brow over the left eye and down to the corner of her mouth. That mouth turned up in a smile as she saw him, the lines of endurance melting to unaffected pleasure. He forced the silly grin back…
… and yeah, it's logical to have mood swings after a trauma like that. The problem was, how exactly did you convince someone you weren't just courting her out of a misplaced sense of personal honor? Especially when you are a bit of a prig.
Everyone sat, and also eagerly accepted the cups of hot cocoa an aide dealt out from the big pot warming over a spirit lamp in a corner of the big room.
Big market there after the war, he thought, half-amused at the sharp-nosed Yankee profiteer buried somewhere in his subconscious.
For that matter, Tudhaliyas and his queen were casting an occasional envious glance at the little tile stove. Even a Great King spent the winters here being miserably chilly when he was out of bed. Enough braziers to heat a fair-sized room also courted carbon monoxide poisoning, unless you left the windows wide open, which sort of defeated the purpose. Ke
"Let's get going," Doreen said.
Most of it was as boring as policy meetings always were; figures and estimates, troop dispositions and training, the endless question of how to keep the refugees fed; some of them had been moved all the way down to Carchemish to be within reach of grain barged up the Euphrates.
"So in the end," Tudhaliyas said, "What we have gained is a chance to do everything over again this coming year, with both sides stronger and my country a battleground once more."
"Better a battleground than spear-won land of the Achaeans," Zuduhepa said sharply.
Kashtiliash blinked, not quite used to a woman showing such outspoke
He wasn't looking forward to next year's campaign either. Raupasha didn't flinch when anyone looked at her any more, but God knew what another set of battles would do; he'd bribed her attendants to tell him about the nightmares and crying jags.
Doreen tapped the wooden handle of her steel-nib pen against the surface of a report. "We have gained time, which is the most precious thing of all," she said. "Remember, the war here in Haiti-land is only one front…"
The usual translation difficulties stopped them for a while, searching for a word for "sector."
"… sector, division, part, then, of a larger struggle."
"So you say," Tudhaliyas said. "We fight Great Achaea, not Tartessos."
"As a matter of fact," Doreen said, smiling…
Smugly, Hollard decided. But a nice smug, if you're on her side.