A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 28

Vadya went round all of the troops (including the Sietter troops and the little play troop of el Jien van Vail) and listened to what they wanted. He went back to the Generals' strategic staff and el Maien van Sietter ran the lines of supply through his fingers like fishing lines in a shoal of mackerel. He laid it all out for them not quite as they said they wanted it but exactly as he knew they needed it. Then he rode round to Fourth and Tenth Sietter himself, riding all day and all night to get to them. He walked through them, their future sworn Lord, his husky voice praising common troopers and young officers, his hand gripping a shoulder or shaking a hand and arm, his rare smile sweet over his juniors, their two commanding officers.

Tashka could see the whole thing in her mind: nine H'las troops, two Sietter and little Ninth Vail to either side of her; the whole Sietter line falling back in front of them to the second line; the second line only a few miles from Arventa.

"Paper!" she said fiercely to Hanya Lein, who had come to ask for his orders.

He groped hesitantly in his black and blue silk surcoat although he knew he was carrying no paper. He looked blankly at her, holding out his empty hand.

"Pen and ink?" she shoved Challenger's reins in his hand, her face was pinched with desperation. Someone limped up with a stub of a pencil. She breathed a sigh of relief, drew her dagger and started sharpening the pencil with quick efficient strokes.

"Lein," she said, her eyes focussed on the pencil, "pull all the men into that field to rest, in a properly defended circle. Have the wounded seen to and send back to fetch any wounded we have left behind. Tell Inien, Shaada and Jien to meet us here in one half hour."

She dragged off her silk surcoat and her mailcoat and squatted on the ground, pulling out a creased old letter from the breast pocket of her surcoat. The letter had a bit of space at the bottom of it and on the back of one page and there was the paper it had been wrapped in. She rested the paper on her mailcoat and began sketching maps on this crumpled sheet with an old bloodstain in one corner. She was so completely focussed that she did not even lift her head when he said: "Sir, it is done," and led Challenger and his own bay horse away.

Four hours later, messengers began riding in at the gallop. She was sitting on some cushions at her box-desk in the exact same spot where she had dismounted from Challenger. Sixth H'las were collected in the meadow off to one side. Batren was putting salve on her cut face, wiping off her head and limbs and massaging her shoulders and back while she wrote. She had ordered the troop not to set up camp, to prepare to move forward yet again. She was desperately writing out several sets of orders addressed to the other troops in the line, using the ream of spare paper which she had dragged out of her box-desk and flung in a heap on the ground beside her. The messengers gave her reports from their troops which she flicked through at lightning speed, nodding her head as if these only confirmed things that she already knew. She handed them orders already written, telling them to go straight back at full speed on fresh horses which she bade her Captains find for them at any cost. She even told one to take her own Jewel.

Hanya, Basra, Alaara and the new Captain Mada Jien came to talk to her. She waved her hand at the grass about her as if they were at the table in her tent. Batren hurriedly threw some rugs on the ground and they sat heavily around her. She put before her four Captains the original crumpled bits of paper on which she had first scribbled her plan of action.

"They are breaking up before us," she said. "They did not expect us to be on them so soon. I know the second line is not yet at full strength. They are waiting for a shipment of arms to come down the river but it has been held up by a dispute with the bargemen."

It would be Hanya el Jien's work. On his way back from enjoying the winter sports in P'shan he would have called in at one of the Master arms dealers' warehouses, perhaps enquiring about a couple of special sets of weapons as wedding gifts for friends who had married in haste before going away to war.

The Master dealer would have come rushing down from his office when he heard who was in his warehouse: Lord Hanya el Jien who with his sister was so renowned among the merchants tangled in their fingers' ends although as younger children they were so little considered by the aristocracy. The merchant would have offered Hanya a bowl of tea, wine, whatsoever he wished in his private office.

Once they were alone together Hanya would have said carelessly: "'It must be costing exceptionally dear to send arms to Sietter across country and down the river instead of through the Maier Pass, even if ar't able to get full price for them. I hope you and your colleagues will not have to reduce the bargemen's wages, which might lead to a dispute and hold up those shipments. That would be disastrous for Lord van Sietter's cause. By the road, I have acquired some letters of credit in your name, do come to talk to me about them - at your convenience."

Tashka continued: "There will be a panic in the second line when the first line retreats back through them. I have got messengers to run to the troops either side of us, tell them to hold the ground they have won and send messengers to the troops either side of them again, and so down the whole line. In this way I learned that almost all of us broke through with the same ease. Some of the troops pulled back, those I have instructed to come forward again. Fourth H'las had more trouble than the rest of us but Seventh and Third have gone to their aid and they are also now on the road to Arventa.

"We have not time to report to the Generals' strategic staff and wait on their orders. We must take this opportunity. I have used my van H'las designation to take command of the line and ordered all troops to push forward once more, with the intention: to engage with the second line of defence. We must break up the second line which I estimate we will be engaging with the morrow. They are: here, here and here." She bent over her stained old letter and pushed a grimy long finger at the diagrams sketched out over it.

"How do you know that?" Mada Jien demanded, forgetting his rank in his astonishment. Tashka's blue eyes lifted in outrage and he blushed, "b-but of course sir," he said hurriedly.

"You may see that eight troops might quite well engage what is in this line," Tashka continued confidently. "Meanwhile, five of our troops, that will be Fourth Sietter, Tenth Sietter, ourselves, Ninth and Seventh, may slip through the battle lines and march on Arventa. We will take the two Sietter troops since if we can break the line their knowledge of the usual lines of communication and supply in Arventa will be of use to us.

"van Sietter himself is currently in Arventa. If he get to court it will be a question whether he may involve us in some legal battle where our valour may not prevail. If we can get him in Arventa, victory is ours."

The four junior officers looked into each others' eyes. Their faces were suddenly tense with yearning: one last desperate effort and then peace. Whether it would be the long sad peace of victory or the terrible bleak peace of defeat, they felt they could not go on now without it.

Then they stooped to study the battle plans again and work out the details of the strategy their young Commander had drafted.

Hanya suddenly took one of the pieces of paper off Tashka's box-desk and folded it quickly over so that the writing at the top of it was hidden. Tashka lifted her head to look in his eyes, startled, took the paper back, unfolded it and stared at the long curling words of passion in Vadya's extravagant handwriting. She raised her head once more and the four Captains sitting in front of her looked quickly away.

Hanya suddenly sniggered. Tashka let out a startled snort of laughter. They all grinned sheepishly at each other. Tashka put the plan back down, carefully folding it over as Hanya had done. She lifted her head to explain in more detail what their precise orders were, caught Hanya's eye and laughter spurted from her mouth.

"I swear," Hanya laughed, "I never saw a Commander addressed so in my life before!"

"Shut it!" Tashka begged, biting at one thin finger and grinning at him. "Do not tell me that slut Vaie never got such words from you!"

"I did once see," Basra put in daringly, "a Captain look on a Commander with such eyes that he would have been court-martialled had the Lord General not been his father by marriage."

"Ours is a political marriage!" Tashka protested.

"Oh! Is that what it is?" Basra exclaimed. "So those nights I heard you in his tent, that was just to secure the succession, was it?"

"Yes," Hanya added, "and when he moved his tent to your Quarter, even though it was Third's turn, that was just part of his duty of care to protect you as his Lady wife, was it?"

Tashka's eyes started in her head. "You dogs!" she exclaimed, springing up and jumping on Hanya. They rocked in a close embrace, too exhausted and laughing too much, to wrestle.

She kicked at Basra, he dodged her booted feet, sniggering and saying: "We are so grateful for your unselfish devotion to securing the succession."

Then they suddenly realised that Alaara Shaada and Mada Jien were staring at them with astonished eyes. Hanya awkwardly let Tashka go. She stood up, brushed down the front of her jumper with a frown in her eyes and flicked a hand over her cropped hair. Basra looked away into the woods ahead of them, a salacious grin still lurking on his lips.

Tashka's slanted blue eye flashed in a wicked wink at Hanya, for a fleeting moment Mada Jien saw why the troopers who had known her before the war would grin and roll their eyes if they were asked about Commander-Lord el Maien of Sixth H'las. She said: "Oh well, if you had the chance to engage Commander-Lord el Gaiel in ... intimate manoeuvres, would you give him the go-by?"

"How can you!" they cried, giggling with embarrassment. "He is our senior officer and future sworn Lord! el Maien, you have the morals of a virgin slut's cat! Shut it!"

"Senior officer, puh, what does that matter?" Tashka said airily and then, realising whom she was talking to, went into a rare blush. Her thin face flushed suddenly with colour and her eyes looked uncertainly aside while her mouth pouted with a kissable tuck in it. Shaada gave a gasp. "Uh ... yes, your precise orders," she said grumpily. "Gentle men, this is serious business. Hear me."

But they were all rolling on the rugs laughing. It was several minutes before they could settle down to hear what their orders were. Every time she started to address them one of them would start sniggering and all four would be rolling around the rugs in the spring sunshine, holding their sides and crying with laughter as she scolded them with the laugh curling up her own beautiful rose-petal mouth.