March To The Sea

"I wouldn't go quite that far," the prince said, "but it should certainly make tacking a lot easier. You'll be able to sail much closer to the wind, too, so you won't have to tack as often, either. It'll still be easier to sail with the wind, but this ought to simplify things for you. A lot."

"So you can sail across the sea," Flain said.

"If there are any materials to build your ships," Til added.

Roger took another bite of coll. "Poertena believes we can purchase and ca

"Still, that seems u

"True," Roger agreed. "But there doesn't seem to be an alternative."

"Well, if the Boman weren't squatting on the forests, you could get all the masts and lumber you wanted," Wes Til pointed out. "For that matter, there's a huge stockpile in D'Sley. We've sent small raids over to recover raw materials, but the Boman are onto us now. They don't want to destroy the naval supplies, either—they may be barbarians, but they understand the decadent concept of money, and they intend to sell them at some point, no doubt. But taking any more would require an army."

"Hmmm," Roger said. "We weren't aware of that. It must be making the discussion with Eleanora interesting."

"Indeed," Flain agreed. "What are they discussing, do you know?"

"Eleanora wanted to meet the person who organized the D'Sley sealift."

"Ayeiii!" Til said. "When you mentioned that they were meeting with Fullea Li'it I hoped you were jesting."

"Why?" Despreaux asked. "Is there something wrong with her?"

"She's just—" The councilor paused, searching for a word.

"She is very direct," Teel Sla'at said with a laugh. "She speaks her mind. And D'Sley wasn't nearly so open with their women as we are, so a D'Sley woman speaking her mind is . . . unusual."

"She's also stubborn as a turom," Til put in.

"Then that ought to be an interesting meeting," Roger said with a smile.

"Fullea will press for your support in retaking D'Sley," Til said.

"There's no need for us to participate in that," Despreaux said. "We've done our fighting already."

"You have Bogess and Rus From to lead you," Roger pointed out, picking up another slice of orange root. "How does this do if you saute it?"

"Quite well, actually," Flain answered. "But it's more piquant with the coll fish if it's raw. The problem is that no one trusts Bogess' understanding of the weapons or the tactics. Not like they trust you and Captain Pahner."

"Ha!" Roger laughed. "You'd trust unknown aliens over a known general?"

"We would when that's the reaction of the general's own army," Til said quietly. "And the reaction of the general himself. I doubt that the Council is going to be willing to leave the safety of the walls without the support of you Marines, your commander, and your 'powered armor.' "

"Bloody hell." Roger shook his head. "We're not here to fight your wars for you."

"Oh, I think we could fight our own wars, thank you," Flain said just a bit tartly, but then he paused and gave the Mardukan equivalent of a sigh. "Or we could, if we could build the support for it," he admitted unhappily, "and it will require some impetus to convince the populace that leaving the safety of the walls is the best plan. Which it is, since hiding behind the walls is a death sentence for the city, whether it comes by starvation or assault."

"Hmmm," Roger said, finishing off his fish. "Convincing populaces is one of Eleanora's specialties."

"That it is," Despreaux said. "I think that the meeting with the D'Sley contingent is going to be interesting."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"So you are a female." Sam Tre's tone made the statement a question, and a fairly tentative one, at that. Despite his role as escort to the redoubtable Fullea Li'it, the D'Sley nobleman seemed confused at finding himself carrying on a serious conversation with a human woman, especially one who'd been represented as one of Prince Roger's senior officers.

"Yes," O'Casey said sweetly. "I am."

"And the 'Chief of Staff,' " the D'Sley female reclining on both left elbows across the low table said. "Fascinating."

"And your companion? Kostas, you are a senior officer also?" Tre asked.

"I don't think so," the valet replied with a smile.

"He's one of our logistics and supply experts," O'Casey said tactfully.

"That's one way of putting it," Matsugae said, picking at his rubbery basik. "Tastes like chicken and twice as many ways to prepare it," he muttered, then looked back up at his host with a slightly apologetic smile. "Excuse me. I can't help noticing the food, which is fair enough I suppose. For want of a better explanation, I'm the cook for this expedition."

"He's in charge of support for the Marines," O'Casey corrected. "He was Roger's body servant, and was pressed into service for his present job. Which, I might add, he's performed admirably."

"Ah," Fullea said. "So we have a D'Sley nobleman, a female chief of staff, a D'Sley fisherman's widow, and a human cook." She grunted in laughter until Eleanora was afraid she would choke. "This is quite a party."

"I wish you had cooked, Kostas Matsugae," Tre said. "You're correct—there are many good ways to do basik, and this isn't one of them."

"I fear I made a poor choice of restaurants," Fullea admitted ruefully. "I'm learning as fast as I can, but hosting important di

"You're a fisherman's wife?" O'Casey asked.

"I was," the D'Sley woman replied. "Not a poor fisherman; he owned his own boat and shares in his brother's cargo barge. But not . . . rich. Not a noble by any stretch, nor a man of means."

"And he was killed by the Boman?" Matsugae asked.

"Earlier, actually," the widow said. She made a gesture of resignation. "Swept off the deck by a line. Never found the body."

" ' . . . The men who go down to the sea in ships,' " O'Casey quoted softly. "I'm sorry."

"The sea gives and takes away," Fullea said. "But the problem was his brother. Tareim felt he should take over the business. I was, after all, just a woman, even if I had been advising my husband for years. In fact, he'd far surpassed Tareim in gain, and it wasn't because my husband was an astute businessman. But Tareim didn't want to hear that. He didn't want to hear anything which might have made him 'subservient' to a mere woman, and the law favored him. There was little I could do, when he took over, except watch everything start coming apart, and things kept right on going from bad to worse until I . . . persuaded him to let me advise him. After which the business recovered."

"Our device translated that as 'persuaded,' " the chief of staff observed, toying with her wineglass. She supposed, given the restaurant's obviously costly fixtures and the jewelry of the other patrons, that the wine must be an expensive vintage, but it was also thin and tasteless as vinegar. "Would that be an accurate translation?"

"The term she actually used has overtones of gentle persuasion," Tre agreed. "However, in the context, it can be assumed that the reverse was true."

"I had two thugs accost him and threaten to break both his false-arms if he didn't put me back in control." The widow made a dismissive gesture. "Of course, they never said they were working for me. In fact, they didn't know they were. I'd hired them through a friend of my husband's, and they believed they were from a moneyman Tareim owed money to. Since part of the arrangement that put me back in charge also put me in direct contact with the moneyman and left me controlling all of Tareim's payments to him, no one was ever the wiser."