Otto and the four from Opal, and Hagop and the three from Beryl. Such was the Company’s history. Pick up a man here, enlist two there, keep on keeping on.
* * *
Southward and southward. Through Rebosa, where the Company had seen service briefly, and where Otto and Hagop had enlisted. They found their city changed immensely and yet not at all. They had no trouble leaving it behind. They brought in another man there, a nephew, who quickly earned the name Smiley because of his consistent sullenness and sarcastic turn of phrase.
Then Padora, and on, to that great crossroads of trade routes where I was born and where I enlisted just before the Company ended its service there. I was young and foolish when I did. Yes. But I did get to see the far reaches of the world.
I ordered a day of rest at the vast caravan camp outside the city wall, along the westward road, while I went into town and indulged myself, walking streets I had run as a kid. Like Otto said about Rebosa, the same and yet dramatically changed. The difference, of course, was inside me.
I stalked through the old neighborhood, past the old tenement. I saw no one I knew—unless a woman glimpsed briefly, who looked like my grandmother, was my sister. I did not confront her, nor ask. To those people I am dead.
A return as imperial legate would not change that.
* * *
We stood before the last imperial mile marker. Lady was trying to convince the lieutenant commanding our guards that his mission was complete, that imperial soldiers crossing the frontier might be construed as an unacceptable provocation.
Sometimes her people are too loyal.
A half-dozen border militiamen, equally divided between sides, clad identically and obviously old friends, stood around a short distance away, discussing us in murmurs of awe. The rest of us fidgeted.
It seemed ages since I had been beyond imperial frontiers. I found the prospect vaguely unsettling.
“You know what we’re doing, Croaker?” Goblin asked.
“What’s that?”
“We’re travelling backward in time.”
Backward in time. Backward into our own history. A simple enough statement, but an important thought.
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Let me go stir the pot. Else we’ll never get moving.”
I joined Lady, who gave me a nasty look. I pasted on my sweetest smile and said, “Look here. I’m over on the other side of the line. You got a problem, Lieutenant?”
He bobbed his head. He was more in awe of my rank and title, unearned though they were, than he was of the woman who was supposed to be his boss. And that was because he believed he owed her certain duties even she could not overrule.
“The Company has openings for a few good men with military experience,” I said. “Now that we’re out of the empire and don’t have to have the imperial permission, we’re actively recruiting.”
He caught on real fast, skipped across beside me, gave Lady a big grin.
“There is one thing,” I said. “You come over here and do it, you’re going to have to take the oath to the Company, same as anybody else. Meaning you can’t pledge yourself to any higher loyalty.”
Lady gave him a nasty-sweet smile. He stepped back across, figuring he’d better do some serious thinking before he committed himself.
I told Lady, “That goes for everybody. I would not presume before. But if you come out of the empire and continue to ride with us it will be under the same conditions accepted by everyone else.”
Such a look she gave me. “But I’m just a woman.…”
“Not a precedent, friend. It didn’t happen often. The world don’t have much room for female adventurers. But women have marched with the Company.” Turning to the lieutenant, I said, “And if you sign on, your oath will be taken as genuine. First time you get an order and look to her for advice on yes or no, out you go. Alone in a foreign land.” It was one of my more assertive days.
Lady muttered some very unladylike sniggen
* * *
Southward and southward. Through Rebosa, where the Company had seen service briefly, and where Otto and Hagop had enlisted. They found their city changed immensely and yet not at all. They had no trouble leaving it behind. They brought in another man there, a nephew, who quickly earned the name Smiley because of his consistent sullenness and sarcastic turn of phrase.
Then Padora, and on, to that great crossroads of trade routes where I was born and where I enlisted just before the Company ended its service there. I was young and foolish when I did. Yes. But I did get to see the far reaches of the world.
I ordered a day of rest at the vast caravan camp outside the city wall, along the westward road, while I went into town and indulged myself, walking streets I had run as a kid. Like Otto said about Rebosa, the same and yet dramatically changed. The difference, of course, was inside me.
I stalked through the old neighborhood, past the old tenement. I saw no one I knew—unless a woman glimpsed briefly, who looked like my grandmother, was my sister. I did not confront her, nor ask. To those people I am dead.
A return as imperial legate would not change that.
* * *
We stood before the last imperial mile marker. Lady was trying to convince the lieutenant commanding our guards that his mission was complete, that imperial soldiers crossing the frontier might be construed as an unacceptable provocation.
Sometimes her people are too loyal.
A half-dozen border militiamen, equally divided between sides, clad identically and obviously old friends, stood around a short distance away, discussing us in murmurs of awe. The rest of us fidgeted.
It seemed ages since I had been beyond imperial frontiers. I found the prospect vaguely unsettling.
“You know what we’re doing, Croaker?” Goblin asked.
“What’s that?”
“We’re travelling backward in time.”
Backward in time. Backward into our own history. A simple enough statement, but an important thought.
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Let me go stir the pot. Else we’ll never get moving.”
I joined Lady, who gave me a nasty look. I pasted on my sweetest smile and said, “Look here. I’m over on the other side of the line. You got a problem, Lieutenant?”
He bobbed his head. He was more in awe of my rank and title, unearned though they were, than he was of the woman who was supposed to be his boss. And that was because he believed he owed her certain duties even she could not overrule.
“The Company has openings for a few good men with military experience,” I said. “Now that we’re out of the empire and don’t have to have the imperial permission, we’re actively recruiting.”
He caught on real fast, skipped across beside me, gave Lady a big grin.
“There is one thing,” I said. “You come over here and do it, you’re going to have to take the oath to the Company, same as anybody else. Meaning you can’t pledge yourself to any higher loyalty.”
Lady gave him a nasty-sweet smile. He stepped back across, figuring he’d better do some serious thinking before he committed himself.
I told Lady, “That goes for everybody. I would not presume before. But if you come out of the empire and continue to ride with us it will be under the same conditions accepted by everyone else.”
Such a look she gave me. “But I’m just a woman.…”
“Not a precedent, friend. It didn’t happen often. The world don’t have much room for female adventurers. But women have marched with the Company.” Turning to the lieutenant, I said, “And if you sign on, your oath will be taken as genuine. First time you get an order and look to her for advice on yes or no, out you go. Alone in a foreign land.” It was one of my more assertive days.
Lady muttered some very unladylike sniggen
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