General #02 - Conqueror by S. M. Stirling & David Drake

Author:S. M. Stirling & David Drake [Stirling, S. M. & Drake, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises
Published: 2003-02-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

"I'll bloody well leave, that's what I'll do," Cabot Clerett snarled, pacing the room. It was small and delicately furnished, lit by a single lamp. The silk hangings stirred slightly as he passed, wafting a scent of jasmine.

"Cabot, you can't leave in the middle of a campaign; not when your career has begun so gloriously!" Suzette said.

"Whitehall obviously won't let me out of his sight again," Cabot said. "He doesn't make mistakes twice. And all he's doing is sitting here. I'll go back and tell uncle the truth about him. Then I'll collect reinforcements, ten thousand extra men, and come back here and do it right."

"Cabot, you can't mean to leave me here?" Suzette said, her eyes large and shining.

"Only for a few months," he said, sitting beside her on the couch.

She seized his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Not even for a moment. Promise me you won't!"

* * *

"Let me out, my son," the priest said shortly.

"I'm no son of yours, you bald pimp in a skirt," the trooper growled. He was from the 1st Cruisers, a tall hulking man with a thick Namerique accent.

Savage, the priest thought. Worse than the Brigade, most of whom were at least minimally polite to the orthodox clergy.

The East Gate had a small postern exit, a narrow door in the huge main portal. A torch stood in a bracket next to it, and the flickering light caught on the rough wood and thick iron of the gate, cast shadows back from the towers on either side. A crackle of rifle-fire came from somewhere, perhaps a kilometer away. Faint shouting followed it; part of the continual cat-and-mouse game between besieger and besieged. Behind him Old Residence was mostly dark, the gasworks closed down for the duration as coal was conserved for heating and cooking. Lamps were few for the same reason, showing mellow gold against the blackness of night. The white puffs of the priest's breath reminded him to slow his breathing.

"I have a valid pass," he said, waving the document under the soldier's nose. There was a trickle of movement in and out of the city, since it was advantageous to both sides.

"Indeed you do," a voice said from behind him.

He whirled. A man stepped out of the shadow into the light of the torch; he was of medium height, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a swordsman's thick wrists. Much too dark for an ex-Squadrone, a hard square beak-nosed face with black hair cut in a bowl around his head. Major Tejan M'brust, the Descotter Companion who commanded the 1st Cruisers. The priest swallowed and extended the pass.

"Signed by Messa Whitehall, right enough," the officer said.

More of the 1st Cruiser troopers came out, standing around the cleric in an implacable ring. Their bearded faces were all slabs and angles in the torchlight; most still wore their hair long and knotted on the right side of their heads. He could smell the strong scent of sweat and dog and leather from them, like animals.

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