Against the Tide of Years (27 page)

And Jaditwara . . .
she’s just so goddam
strange. A tall, slim, blond Fiernan—she had the Spear Mark. Hard to tell
what
her motivations were; she’d just said that the stars told her Moon Woman wanted her to do it, and as far as she was concerned that was that. But Jesus, she could draw! No way they were going to let a Pre-Event camera and rationed film go along on this, and the Island-made equivalents were far too heavy and cumbersome.

“Good thing the Meeting wasn’t held in Fogarty’s Cove,” Sue said.

Peter nodded, looking around the warm, crowded room. He had friends in Fogarty’s Cove—that and looking at some horses was why he was here—but most of the Long Island settlers were against anything that distracted from pushing the frontier further west up-Island.

The taproom of the Wild Rose Chance was pretty full. They’d had a week of mild weather, but the March rain outside was near-as-damn sleet, and people near the door yelled whenever someone came in, bringing a little of it with them. Further in, that wasn’t a problem; the big fireplace along the south wall was blazing. The air was thick with the good smells of roasting meat, baking bread, woodsmoke, and leather coats drying on pegs around the wall.

The staff were busy ladling and carving and running in and out of the kitchens with things that required more cooking than the hearth could provide; the bar was four-deep too.

“Hey, Judy!” Peter called. “Some of that mulled cider!”

“Here,” she said. “And here.” She unloaded plates for the others. “And I hope you all remember it when you’re freezing and chewing on acorns in the middle of a snowstorm next winter, God-knows-where.”

“That’s a promise,” Peter said.

 

“Bin’HOtse-khwon,”
Swindapa said, putting aside the sheet of daily returns from the flotilla that she’d finished reviewing.

Darling,
Marian translated mentally.

“Mmm, sugar?”she said, looking up from the cabin table, where she had been pricking the map. They’d been making good time from Mauritius Base on their return; the crews were well shaken down and the wind steady . . . steady so far, at least. Two and three hundred miles a day from noon to noon, and hardly a need to touch the lines.

“What will we do, when Walker has been put down and the war is over?”

The Fiernan was sitting on the semicircular couch that lined the stern windows. Those were open, slid back to let in the mild, silky warmth of the sea air above Capricorn, and strands of her yellow hair floated free in the breeze. Alston gave an inner sigh of pleasure at the sight, drawing a deep breath full of sea, salt, tar, and wood, of morning.
Woman, you are dead lucky.

Behind the frigate ran her wake, a curling V of white against aching-blue sea. The sun was in the east, adding the slightest tinge of red to the foam of the wake, and to the sails of the ships following behind. It was very quiet, under the continuous creak-and-groan of a wooden vessel speaking to itself; the rush of water along the hull, the constant humming song of wind in the rigging, an occasional crisp order-and-response from the deck above, the cry of a seabird. Above that came the high piping of children’s voices through the quarterdeck skylight; with the expeditionary regiment’s marines and civilians landed at Ur, they’d brought Heather and Lucy on the
Chamberlain.

Alston glanced upward and smiled. “Well, watch the children grow. Look after the Guard, of course. Design some more ships.” Her grin grew wider. “Spend a lot of time making out.”

“Oh, yes,” Swindapa said happily.

“I was thinking, though,” her partner went on. “Perhaps we could get a place in the country, as well as Guard House? That’s the Town’s, really. I’d like to raise horses, and it would be a place for our . . . what do you call it . . . retirement.”

Alston chuckled a little ruefully. She was eighteen years older than her lover, almost to the day.
She means
my
retirement, of course.
Although she didn’t expect Swindapa to stay in the Guard after she herself mustered out. She was a fine officer and loved the sea, but being a fighting sailor was something she did only because it was needful.
And
I
don’t intend to stay on after my usefulness ends,
she told herself. One part of command was knowing when to let go.

“I thought you wanted to study more astronomy and mathematics?” she said. That was big a part of the Fiernan Bohulugi religion, and in her quiet way Swindapa was pious.

“That, too. Doreen will be back then. She wants to start some classes.”

“Sounds good, then. We can pick up a place on Long Island, maybe.” Not a raw grant; clearing temperate-zone climax forest was full-time work. Still, they’d invested their pay well, and developed land did come on the market.

That’s actually a pretty good idea. I wouldn’t mind having a garden to putter in when I’m old and gray and baking cookies for the grandchildren.
“I warn you, though, I’m always going to need some salt water now and then!”

“How not?” Swindapa grinned. “We’ll get a place with a pier and a boat. And maybe we should adopt again. I’d like a little boy, too. Maybe more? A house lives with children in it.”

“Mmmm, let’s think about that,” Alston said. Swindapa’s enthusiasm for babies was a bit alarming—even more so than her newfound passion for horses. There wouldn’t be any real problem. Even though the flood of Alban War orphans had died down, there was still a steady trickle; she could probably arrange it through her relatives in Alba.

The ship’s bell struck. Alston and her partner stood and put on their billed caps before heading out and up the companionway to the fantail.

“Captain on deck!”

“As you were,” Alston said, returning the salutes. “Lieutenant Jenkins has the deck.”

“It’s freshening, ma’am,” the second-in-command of the ship said. “Coming a little more out of the north, too, and tending eastward, I think. I don’t much like it, somehow.”

Alston nodded, looking up and squinting a little.
Hmmm.
She felt the motion of the ship beneath her, looked at sea and near-cloudless sky, tasted the wind. Not quite as . . . soothing . . . as it had been. Swindapa nodded slightly as their eyes met; they went over to the low deckhouse forward of the wheels and down the three steps into it.

“Carry on,” she said to the watch there; this was the radio shack, as well as holding map tables, digital clock, log readout, the new mechanical chronometer, and the barometer. “Give me the hourly readings.”

Her eyebrows went up a little as she read them and then took a look at the current level.
Either the glass has broken or that’s bad news.
She flicked the instrument with a finger.
Nope. Bad news.

“Signal to flotilla; two points to the east and make all sail,” she said. Out on the deck, she stepped over to the wheels.

“Thus, thus,” she said, giving the helm the new course. To the lieutenant: “Mr. Jenkins, topgallants and royals, if you please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He went to the rail and relayed the order; she could hear it echo across the deck until the mast captains’ voices called, “Lay aloft and loose topgallants and royals!”

The ship heeled as more canvas blossomed out high above their heads, thuttering and cracking, and the standing rigging funneled the force of the wind to the hull. At Jenkins’s unspoken question, she went on:

“I want sea room, Mr. Jenkins; we’re too damned close to the southern end of Madagascar, if it comes on to blow.”

“Rig for rough weather, ma’am?” he said.

“By all means. Lieutenant Commander Swindapa, message to the flotilla:
Prepare for heavy weather, be ready to strike sail.
” The orders went out, and she added, “Oh, and get those two imps of satan down from the maintop.”

He grinned a little at that and called to the tops. A dark head and a red one peered over the railing of the triangular platform, with one of the crew hovering behind them, ready to grab.

“Mom!” came a faint call; then, in a treble imitation of the lookout: “On deck, there! Can we slide down a backstay?”

“No, you cannot!”

The wind blew away the muttered complaints.
They probably
could
slide down a backstay,
she thought; they were nimble as apes after three months at sea.
But not for a while; best to be cautious.
After a moment, her mouth quirked. The definition of “cautious” had undergone some radical mutations, back here in the Bronze Age.

 

 

“L
ot of work,” Kathryn Hollard said, looking up at the bulky three-step shape of the water-purifying works. “Worth it,” Clemens said fervently. “Come along—you should see this.”

The base hospital’s priority had been high enough that it was more or less finished. The walls were thick adobe brick, whitewashed inside, with a number of bays off a long I-shaped block and smooth tile floors. Light came from tall, narrow windows high in the walls, under the cross-timbers that supported the low-sloped tile roof. The wards were airy and cool; adobe made good insulation. Mostly they smelled of fresh mortar and new wood, and of disinfectant; but Major Hollard wrinkled her nose slightly as Clemens led her into one of the bays. An orderly pushed past with a basket of soiled cloth pads.

“Sorry, but there’s only so much you can do when diarrhea hits.”

They walked down the line of beds; a few near the door were Marines; the others, several dozen locals. Their faces were alike, though, drained and pale. Another orderly was pushing a wheeled cart down the row of bedsteads, stopping at each to make the occupant down a glass of what looked like water. Several of the locals were alive enough to try and reject the dose, squirming in mute terror. Their hair and beards had been shaved, a dreadful shaming thing to a Babylonian of this era.

“What is it?” Hollard asked.

“It’s the reason we spent so much time on that slow-sand filter setup. Specifically? Damned if I know. It’s a form of bacterial dysentery; I think I’ve isolated the causative agent. It’s not cholera, but it works a lot like it. Rehydration with sugar-and-salt-laced water works fine, or by IV for the worst cases. A fair number died before we realized what was happening. The locals are afraid of our
magic;
I had to get a guard detail to bring some of these men in. That’s what I thought you might help me with.”

“You need a couple of squads?” Hollard asked.

Clemens shook his head, frustration turning his naturally sunny expression to a scowl. “No, what I need is
help
. More hands. I need some people who can be taught basics—changing bedpans, giving them the solution, getting them to the jakes if they’re ambulatory. It would help if they could speak Akkadian. I thought of using some of the laborers, but they’re too frightened—and the peasants . . . well, the term ‘thick hick’ might have been invented for them. They’re even more ignorant and parochial than an Alban fresh off the boat.”

Kathryn nodded. “I’m not surprised. Albans have to look after themselves, mostly. These peasants, they’re pretty firmly under the thumbs of their bosses, and they
don’t
encourage them to think, from what I’ve seen.” Suddenly she grinned and snapped her fingers. “Tell you what—I think I can do something for you. Come on.”

She turned and strode decisively away. Clemens followed, walking a little faster than he liked to keep up with the tall woman’s stride, squinting under the brim of his floppy canvas campaign hat.

The tent they came to was theoretically the officers’ mess; in practice, a lot of the work of the camp was done there, especially with most of the permanent buildings still under construction. Tables and benches stood under an awning, with the sides drawn up to let what breeze there was circulate. Clemens stopped and pointed to several plates of bread, cheese, and cold meat.

“There!” he said. “That’s what I mean!”

Colonel Hollard and a pair of other officers were sitting talking to the councilor for foreign affairs and his assistant, with stacks of papers in front of them. The commander of the First Marine Regiment looked up at the doctor’s outburst.

“What is, Lieutenant?” he asked mildly.

“That sort of thing is why we’re having this problem with dysentery,” he said. “Sir,” he added after a moment, remembering hasty classes in military courtesy.

“I thought it was the water?”

“It’s
usually
the water. But the locals
won’t
dig the latrines deep enough, or remember to throw in dirt after they use them. Flies to feces to food—it’s a wonder we don’t have more than a couple of dozen down as it is.”

“A wonder and your good work, Doctor,” Hollard said. “What’s this in aid of, Kat?”

Kathryn grinned, sat, and tossed her hat down, reaching for a pitcher of the weak, cloudy local beer and a straw. The Babylonians drank it that way, to avoid sucking in the sediment.

“Now I see why they avoid the water, after what Jus has been showing me,” she said. “This rush of runny guts is overburdening his sick bay, and he needs some help. I thought it might kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

“Ah, yes, the king’s embarrassing generosity,” Ian Arnstein said, stroking his beard.

Rumor made the councilor an absentminded polymath genius. Clemens hadn’t seen much of him, apart from a few dinings-in with the commodore, but he suddenly wondered how much of that was a pose. The russet-brown eyes under the shaggy brows were disconcertingly shrewd.

“Generosity, Councilor?” he said.

Doreen Arnstein sighed, in chorus with Colonel Hollard; they looked at each other and chuckled. The Marine commander took it up: “King Shuriash decided to be
really
hospitable, so he just sent us two hundred palace servants,” he said dryly. “Slaves, to be precise.”