CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Roger glanced at the fresh bloodstains on the floor as he approached the throne. Some things never seemed to change in Marshad, he reflected. Or not, at least, without a little nudge from the outside.

"Tinker!" He smiled at the throne's new occupant. "You seem to have come up in the world."

Kheder Bijan did not return his expression of pleasure.

"You are to bow to a ruler, Prince Roger," he said. "I would suggest that you get used to it."

"You know," Roger said, glancing at the full platoon of Marines behind him, "I can understand how Radj Hoomas made the mistake of underestimating us, but I'm surprised at you. Surely you don't think you can bully us? Although, if you really are that stupid, I imagine that explains why we haven't received any of our agreed upon equipment yet. You were supposed to have the barleyrice, dianda, and shields to us three days ago, Bijan. Where are they?"

"You humans are so incredibly arrogant," the new ruler observed. "Do you think that we're simple provincials? That there was only one javelin in the quiver? Fools. You're all fools."

"Perhaps," Roger said with a thin smile. "But we're starting to be angry fools, Bijan. Where's our gear?"

"You're not getting any gear, human," the ruler snorted. "Nor are you going anywhere. I have far too much to do to lose my most important contingent of troops. Become accustomed to these walls."

Roger cocked his head and smiled quizzically.

"Okay, what neat trick do you have up your sleeve now, spy?" he asked brightly.

"You will address me as `Your Majesty,' human! Or I will withhold the antidote to the miz poison you ate the first night you were here!"

"Unfortunately, we didn't have any poison," and Roger told him. "I'm fairly sure of that. For one thing, we're still alive."

"It was in your dishes at the banquet," the former spy scoffed. "It is visible as small flecks of leaf, but it's virtually tasteless. And it only takes one dose. Only a fool would have missed it, but you ate it nonetheless. Since then, we've been keeping you alive with the antidote. If you don't have it, you'll die, basik!"

"Hold it," and Roger said, thinking back. "Little green leaves? Taste like raw sewage?"

"They're tasteless," Bijan said. "But, yes, they would have been bright green."

"Uh-huh," and Roger said, trying not to smile. "And, let me guess—the antidote has been in all the food you've been giving us since, right?"

"Correct," Bijan sneered. "And if you don't have it, you'll die. It starts within a day, but it takes days of agony to end. So I suggest that you avoid it at all costs. But enough discussion of this, we must plan the next conquest and—"

"I don't think so," Roger interrupted with a chuckle. "Haven't you been keeping up with recent news, Bijan?"

"What are you talking about?" the new ruler asked. "I've been doing many things . . ." he continued suspiciously.

"But obviously not keeping up with who's been cooking my meals for the last few days," Roger purred like a smiling tiger.

Bijan gazed at him for a few seconds, then gestured to one of the guards standing by the throne. There was a brief, whispered discussion, and the guard left.

"Sir," Julian said, leaning forward behind Roger, "is this a good idea?"

"Yeah, it is." Roger never took his eyes off of Kheder Bijan. "In fact, send somebody to collect up T'Leen Sul. That seems like a capable family. Oh, and tell Captain Pahner that it looks like we're going to be staying a little longer then we'd planned."

He stopped talking as the guard returned to the throne room. The guardsman crossed to the new ruler and said a few words, and Roger had become sufficiently familiar with Mardukan body language to tell Bijan was suddenly one worried scummy.

The new king turned to the prince and placed his true-hands on the arms of the throne.

"Uh . . ."

"We're not Mardukans, Bijan," and Roger told him with a deliberately Mardukan laugh. "In fact, I'll tell you a little secret, Tinker. We're not from anywhere on this planet. We have no similarity to anything on it, we're not vulnerable to the same poisons you are, and we most especially aren't basik."

"Ah, Prince Roger, there seems—" the ruler began.

"Bijan?" Roger interrupted, as the door opened to admit Pahner.

"Yes?"

"Say goodbye, Bijan."

Including the representatives from Voitan and all the surrounding city-states, there must have been two or three hundred diplomats, alone, in Marshad. The exact number was open to some debate, since no one had ever gotten a definitive count, but there were certainly enough to make the goodbyes both long and fulsome. Roger smiled and shook hands, smiled and waved, smiled and bowed.

"He's getting good at this," Pahner said quietly. "I hope he doesn't get to liking it too much."

"I don't think he's a Caesar, Captain," Eleanora said, just as quietly. "Or even a Yavolov. Besides, he has Cord beside him muttering `You, too, are mortal.'"

"I don't really think he is either," the Marine said, then grunted in laughter. "And you know what? I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't matter, anyway."

He surveyed the troops surrounding the prince. You always knew the ones who should be in the Regiment, even before RIP. They were the ones who always looked out. Even when they joked, they were the ones who watched others, and not just whoever they were talking to. The ones who saw their whole surroundings in one gulp. The ones who were human anti-assassin missiles.

Sometimes those weren't the ones who made it. Sometimes, rarely, you got those who were straight plodders. And sometimes even the missiles lost their edge. He'd felt that in the company before leaving Earth. Too many of the troops hadn't cared; it was only the prince, for God's sake.

Not now. The survivors were like a Voitan blade. They'd been tempered over and over, folded and refolded. And, at their core, it wasn't Pahner or even the sergeant major who'd given them their true temper. It was the prince—the trace element that made them hard and flexible. That was where their loyalty lay now. Wholly. Whether it had been his admission of fault, or his swift and decisive removal of the spy who, more than anyone, the company blamed for putting them in the noose of Marshad, or the realization that he'd removed Bijan not simply out of vengeance but because he'd finally learned the responsibility that came with power, as well, the captain didn't know. But whatever it was, it had worked. This was no longer the company of Captain Armand Pahner, escorting a useless prince; it was a detachment of Bronze Battalion, The Empress' Own, Colonel Roger MacClintock, commanding, and the captain smiled.

"Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!" 

Roger thanked the representative from Sadan for his kind words. The broad, well-watered Hadur River valley was heavily settled, and the trade routes ran far and wide. And throughout that entire region the word had spread over the last several weeks that you didn't want to mess with the basik. Sadan was the city-state furthest along the route, and its representative had already promised that not only was the way open through his lands, but also in the lands beyond.

Roger looked up at the flar-ta loaded with wounded. The two beasts were crowded with stretchers, but most of the Marines in the stretchers were recovering from leg wounds. They'd be back on their feet in a week, and getting used to marching again, he thought, and smiled at one of the exceptions.

"Denat, you lazy bum. You just wanted to ride!"

"You just wait until I get out of this stretcher," the tribesman said. "I'll kick your butt."

"That's no way to address the Prince," Cord said severely, and Roger looked over his shoulder at his asi.

"He's permitted. By your laws, Moseyev would be asi to him, so I give him leave to be a lousy patient." The prince reached up to clap the towering shaman on the shoulder. "But it's good to have you behind me again. I missed you."

"And well you should have," Cord sniffed. "It's past time to begin your teaching again. But I had a fine time in the barracks. Great fun." The still-recovering Mardukan had emerged coated in red, as had Matsugae and Poertena.

"It's still good to have you back," Roger said, and passed up the line of flar-ta and Marines, touching an occasional arm, helping to adjust a shield or commenting on a recovery, until he reached the head of the column, where he smiled broadly at T'Leen Sul.

The Mardukan nodded to him. The human expression was accepted now throughout the Hadur region, and the new council head clapped his lower hands in resignation.

"It won't be the same here without you," he said.

"You'll do fine," Roger said. "The land distribution was more than equitable, although you and I both know there'll be complaints anyway. But the trade from Voitan will soon mean you can relieve the tax burden and still maintain the public works."

"Any other points I should remember, O Prince?" the Mardukan asked dryly. "Should I, perhaps, think about a fund to restart the forges? Reduce the crops of dianda and balance it with barleyrice? Remember to use my chamber bucket and not the floor?"

"Yeah," Roger chuckled. "Something like that." He looked back along the line, where the natives of Pasule were pressing forward to offer baskets of food to the Marines.

Roger looked up and smiled as the sergeant major walked up the line of packbeasts but the smile slid off his face at her expression.

"What?" the prince asked.

"D'Estrees picked up a transmission," said the sergeant major. "No direction and it was only a tiny snip of encryption. But it looks like somebody found the shuttles and reported them to the port."

"Grand," Roger snarled. He glared up at the clouds for a moment, then looked back at Kosutic. "You've told the Old Man?"

"Yep."

"And he said?"

"He said it may be a good thing you and Elenora talked him into telling our friends along the way the truth," the sergeant major said with a small, crooked smile. "Something about covering our back trail."

"That was the idea," Roger agreed, then sighed. "I just hope we don't really need it in the end."

"You and me both, Your Highness."

"All right, SMaj," the prince said, and punched her lightly on the shoulder. "Guess we'll just have to improvise, adapt, and overcome."

"Like always, Sir," Kosutic agreed, and moved off to complete her own final check.

Roger watched her go, then turned to look to the northeast, where the mountains which were probably their next major obstacle loomed. They were reported to be high, dry, frozen and impassable. Of course, that was the judgment of a species which would find the Amazon drought stricken.

"I guess it's time to get this train a-moving," he murmured, and grasped Patty's armored head glacis, stepped on her knee, and lifted himself onto her back. Another mahout had been killed, so somebody had to drive, and he plucked the mahout stick from his belt and lifted it.

The line of drivers behind him, Marine and Mardukan, lifted their sticks in response. Everyone was ready to go, and Roger looked to Captain Pahner, who waved in reply.

"Okay," the prince said to the pack beast. "Time to head upcountry."

"Move 'em out!" he shouted. He pressed the forked head of the stick into the tender flesh under the armored collar, and as the flar-ta lurched into motion, he looked up at the mountains once more.

They weren't going to be fun.