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Singh would contact his agents in Sarghad and learn what he could. Perhaps, in the end, it would work out best if there werea mercenary unit in the city. Mercenaries could always be bought. Some of history's most splendid victories were the result of carefully timed changes in a selected Merc unit's loyalties.
* * * *
Grayson Death Carlyle enjoyed being the hero. Forty hours after the end of what was already called the Battle of Sarghad, he was a guest at the Palace, having been fussed over by grooms and servants, attended by the Palace physician, and received a spectacular change of clothes. He checked the fit of the trim Guards Lieutenant uniform in the wall-sized mirror in his suite. Not bad, he decided, tugging the short jacket into place. The ornate gold chasing and piping across the dark green, triple-looped aiguillette and the ceremonial sword were a bit gaudy, but it wasn't bad at all.
He and his female prisoner had been taken to the headquarters of General Varney, Commandant of the Sarghad Militia Military District. The girl had been hustled away into the depths of the building for questioning, but the lieutenant who was officer of the day had been less certain what to do with Grayson.
Here was a young man dressed in rags and caked with mud and grime, armed with an automatic pistol and leading a MechWarrior prisoner in a blanket. The man claimed to be a stranded member of Carlyle's Commandos, and the soldiers with him claimed he had just single-handedly won the Battle of Sarghad. The officer quickly realized that immediate and confident action was called for. He called his superior officer. Let HIM decide what to make of it all!
Grayson had been passed rather quickly up the line of command from the lieutenant to a captain to a major to a colonel to General Varney's chief of staff and finally had been introduced to the General himself. None of these Militia officers had quite known what to do with him. The story was spreading through the city that an offworlder, an officer of the garrison that had betrayed Trellwan, had stayed in Sarghad and organized the heroic defense of the city.
Grayson was rapidly becoming a political issue. In the end, the army officers did the safest thing. They gave him food and much-needed sleep, brought in a doctor to tape up his ribs and attend to his reopened head wound, and presented him early the next work period to King Jeverid's military council. By the end of the period, he had had a private audience with Jeverid himself and been invited to stay in the palace as a guest of His Majesty while preparations were made for the victory celebration.
As he examined his new Guard's uniform with continuing wonderment, Grayson was still not sure whether he was supposed to be an actual member of the Palace Guard now or not. He had, not been formally inducted into anybody's army, but the uniform had been ordered at His Highness' command so that he would look the part, at least, of a hero. Bureaucratic details, the King had said, could be fussed with later.
It was amazing, Grayson thought, how quickly official government policy could be reversed. Before the battle, offworlders of any type had been persona non grata. Had he been caught by those troopers who had chased him through the alley, he would have wound up in Sarghad's prison, at best. Trellwan's constitution protected its citizens from unreasonable search, seizure, and imprisonment without cause, but his rights as a presumed hostile non-citizen would have been decidedly limited. Now, however, he was the Victor of Sarghad, the valiant Commonwealth officer who had triumphed over the common foe. The King's publicity ministers had worked overtime the night before, preparing the story for newshcets and vid broadcasts today. And tonight, there was to be a formal ceremony and dress ball at the Palace Reception Hall honoring his service to Trellwan.
The door chimed, breaking into Grayson's thoughts. Opening it, he was startled to see the elfin face and wide, dark eyes of Mara.
"My love," she said, pulling her arms around a bewildered Grayson. He had expected to see her at the celebration, of course, but not before. It struck him oddly, too, that she greeted him as "my love". Never, not even during their stolen moments of lovemaking, had she ever called him that But the thought was soon forgotten.
"Mara, how did you get in here?"
"I bribed old Salin to let me come up," she laughed. Salin was the Assistant Court Chamberlain, charged with overseeing Grayson's sartorial preparations for the banquet "I wanted to see you, wanted to have you to myself for a bit before the party began." She clung to him. "I've missed you, Gray. I heard you were trying to reach me. I'm so sorry you couldn't..."
His eyes feasted on her. If this were part and parcel of being a planetary hero, he was all for it. Mara wore a gown fashionable in Sarghadese society, an airy thing of shifting, opaque colors that turned transparent where it clung to her body. He held her close and smiled, knowing he would not arrive on time at the Reception Hall.
That evening, the pleasures of being a hero evaporated somewhat when Grayson realized he didn't have the faintest idea of what he was doing here. People he had never seen before bowed and smiled, nodded and smiled, asked after his health and complimented him on his victory. About all he could do was smile and nod and mumble something in return, as the currents of the crowd gendy washed him into its center. This was, he learned, the premier event of Trellwan's social season. Everyone who was anyone was there.
King Jeverid, was, by tradition, the last to arrive. When he finally made his entrance on the raised stage at the end of the Reception Hall opposite the stairs, the presentation began. Grayson felt even more out of place as he mounted the crimson-carpeted stairs to the King, accompanied by the flourish of the orchestra playing a triumphal march and a pair of sword-bearing Guards officers on either side of him. He'd already met the King privately, of course, and his own choreography in these precedings had been elaborately explained and rehearsed. Still, Grayson struggled with an almost unendurable premonition that he was about to trip over his own ceremonial sword.
Jeverid acknowledged him with a nod and murmured, "My son." The King seemed ancient, his skin parchment, his eyes dull. Jeverid's frail body seemed lost in the crimson cloak that was draped across his shoulders.
"Your Majesty," was Grayson's formal reply.
"Your valor has won for Trellwan a great victory," Jeverid intoned. "What's more, our strategists have determined that the object of the attack on this palace was almost certainly our capture or murder. We recognize your bravery, young Grayson, and the fact that you have single-handedly saved the Royal House of Trellwan."
"I had the help of your soldiers, Majesty."
Grayson's reply had not been in the script, and the King's advisors stirred uncomfortably. "Oh, yes. To be sure, to be sure," replied the monarch of Trellwan. "As a token of our gratitude and appreciation, young Grayson, we award you the Order of the Crimson Star."
Jeverid gestured, and a steward brought him a flat, velvet box and opened it. The King then lifted from the box an ornate starburst on a red loop of ribbon. Grayson advanced, knelt, and bowed his head while Jeverid placed the ribbon around his neck. The starburst was mounted with a small, red stone that caught and reflected the overhead light.
"Rise, Carlyle, Defender of Sarghad," said the King, setting off an echoing roar of applause from the crowd.
Jeverid set a hand on Grayson's shoulder and drew him close, speaking above the noise. "A couple of my generals want to talk to you, m'boy. Seems you impressed 'em with your... ah... tactics."