After the Downfall

When Nornat saw that he meant it literally, he swung down from his mount. The animal lowered its head and started cropping grass. Nornat crouched by Hasso. The Lenello smelled of sweat and leather and iron and horse – all familiar military scents. Hasso made lines of pebbles and twigs. Then he made a column and aimed it at a line. “You charge, and – “ He stopped, waiting to see whether Nornat would get it.

And Nornat did. His eyes lit up. “We charge, and we smash right through, and we tear the guts out of whatever’s in our way!” He straightened up in a single smooth motion, which impressed the hell out of Hasso – that mailshirt wasn’t light. “Carsoli! Sanfrat! Come over here! You’ve got to take a look at this!” he yelled.

Carsoli was a big man. Sanfrat was bigger, so big that only a brewery-wagon horse could haul him around. Hasso didn’t like feeling like a dink among the Lenelli, but he didn’t know what the devil he could do about it, either.

Nornat explained his idea at least as well as he could have himself – probably better, because Nornat was a working cavalry officer with a working cavalry officer’s appreciation of problems. “What do you think, boys?” he asked when he finished.

“I don’t know,” Carsoli said; by his tone, he didn’t like it but didn’t want to stick his neck out, either.

“Stinking Grenye won’t be looking for it – that’s for sure,” Sanfrat said. “Ought to win us a battle or two just from surprise.” He might be big – hell, he was enormous – but he wasn’t slow or stodgy.

“What did Marshal Lugo have to say? You were talking about it with him, weren’t you?” Nornat was quick on the uptake, too.

Hasso wished he could lie, but knew he’d get found out if he tried. “He does not like it. He says the old way to fight is good enough.”

Sanfrat snorted. “I’m surprised he ever lost his cherry. He would’ve said playing with himself was good enough.”

Nornat laughed. So did Hasso. He’d never known any soldiers who didn’t have pungent opinions about their superiors. Even the Ivans joked about their commissars after they got captured. Carsoli bared his teeth in a sort of a smile, but that was all. Hasso feared the marshal would hear about the gibe in nothing flat.

“How do we” – Hasso gestured – “get around the marshal?”

“Just talk to the king,” Nornat answered. “He’ll listen to you, or I think he will. I’ll talk to him, too, by the goddess. And you’re friends with Orosei, right?”

“Mm – maybe.” Hasso didn’t know if he would go that far. He and the master-at-arms had a strong mutual respect, the kind two tough men who knew each could maim the other tended to acquire. Whether that equaled friendship wasn’t so obvious.

“Well, try him,” the cavalry captain said. “He likes your throws. I was watching when the two of you tangled. I lost some money, because I thought he’d pound you into the ground. But he’s game for new things, so chances are he’d go for this column fighting. And I don’t care what his rank is – he has Bottero’s ear.”

Carsoli looked about ready to burst, like a man who needed to run for the jakes. Hasso caught Sanfrat’s eye, then flicked his gaze back to the dubious officer. Sanfrat got it without anything more than that. He didn’t even nod. He just smiled a little, crookedly. Something would keep Carsoli from blabbing to Lugo right away. Something immense and muscular and blond, most likely.

Hasso’s smile was as crooked as Sanfrat’s. He would have handled things the same way in the Wehrmacht. Yes, people were people, whether they carried Schmeissers or lances, rode horses or panzers.

Were the Grenye people, too? Hasso hadn’t worried about Jews in his own world; he didn’t worry much about the Grenye here. They were the enemy. What more did a soldier need to know about them?

Orosei lifted his mug of beer in salute to Hasso, who sat across the table from him in the buttery. Hasso had been using bits of stale bread and raisins to demonstrate his idea. “I like it,” Orosei told him. “You can stab right through the line that way. And once you do, the bastards on the other side won’t know what the demon to try next.”

“That is how I see it,” Hasso agreed. “Marshal Lugo does not think so, though.”

“Lugo doesn’t think, and that’s about the size of it.” The master-at-arms didn’t bother lowering his voice. If Lugo decided he was insulted, he would have to challenge. Here as in the Reich, the challenged party got to choose the weapons. Orosei was sudden death on two legs with any weapon or none. Lugo was brave enough and tough enough, but he wasn’t in the master-at-arms’ class. Orosei went on, “We can do this. It wouldn’t be hard. We really can – and we ought to.”

“We see things the same way, then,” Hasso said.