Sebastian of Mars (18 page)

“You saw that?”

“All too much of it,” he said, making a
disgusted face. Then he became serious. “That kissing business
isn’t for me. Can we trust her?”

“Of course.”

“We can always go on our own. There’s a
contingent of F’rar replacements leaving tomorrow, and they’re
looking for cooks. We could sign on.”

“How do you know this?”

“While you were smooching, I was walking the
street. It’s easy to hide in this town, if you know how, and it’s
easy to find out what’s what. I watched a couple of soldiers
playing dice, and found out in five minutes everything I needed to
know.”

“You’re a good fellow.”

He nodded. “And I can tell you that your
Charlotte at least didn’t lie about this barn. It’s locked in the
front and almost never used. A good hiding place.”

“We’ll wait for her tonight, then.”

“Fine. But I’ll be ready to run if I see any
more mushy stuff.”

He made mock kissing
noises, and moved away deftly, laughing, when I tried to swat
him.

I
arose from a deep
and pleasant dream, in which Charlotte and I were reunited, and
finally married, and she was my Queen and we lived in the palace in
Wells with a kit of our own. I didn’t want to leave it. But someone
was whispering in my ear, and shaking me, and the dream dissolved
around my head and I smelled old hay and rust.

I opened my eyes.

“I thought you’d never wake up!” Darwin
admonished. “It’s nearly midnight, and your girlfriend hasn’t
showed up. They’re still enlisting cooks in the Army. I think we
should go.”

Still bleary from sleep, I uncurled and sat
up. “She hasn’t come?”

“No.”

The dream was gone, a thousand shards
dissipating to nothing.

“If we’re going to enlist, we have to do it
now! They leave at dawn!”

I stared at the opening at the back of the
barn, filled only with night.

“I suppose you’re right, Darwin.”

“Good. Then let’s be off. I’ll go ahead and
sign us up.”

“Fine.”

He left, and as I gathered up my things and
prepared to leave, Charlotte was there, filling the doorway not
with darkness but with the light of my dream.

She hurried in, her arms laden with a basket
overflowing with food.

“I couldn’t get away until father went to
sleep,” she explained. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m thankful you came.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”
Charlotte asked.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll be gone tomorrow
morning.”

She nodded sadly. “If you stay in Robinson
you’ll be caught. I know it. This is a dangerous place, too small
to hide in.” She looked into my eyes. “Let me go with you.”

“You know that’s impossible. Your father
would send people after you, and then both of us would be
taken.”

She was looking past me, as if trying to see
part of my recent dream. I took her in my arms and kissed her.

“You must go soon.”

When the kiss ended she looked into my eyes
as if she were looking into my soul. “I love you, Sebastian.”

“I’ve always loved you.”

“We are betrothed, and someday we will be
married,” she whispered in my ear, after a long time. “I know
it.”

“Yes.”

And then I said
nothing, but kissed her again, before she had to leave.

I
n the morning she
was gone, but Darwin was there, with the rising sun.

“Get moving,” he said. “We have to join the
camp in twenty minutes, or they’ll leave without us.”

“You signed us up?”

“They were desperate for anyone who can cook
anything at all. All of the real cooks have long since fled the
area, or are dead. Believe me, we qualify. I told them you’re my
big brother.”

I smiled. “Good enough.”

“And where is the Missy?” he asked, with mock
innocence.

“You weren’t –”

“I stayed away until I saw her leave.”

“I didn’t tell you yesterday, but we are
betrothed.”

His eyes widened in astonishment. “You know
who her father is?”

“I know her father. He is a traitor, but she
is not. And she is smart enough to stay behind.” Feeling suddenly
weary, and tired of explaining myself, I snapped, “Let’s go,” and
pushed past the little fellow, out into the daylight, which,
without Charlotte, looked sallow and empty.

He hurried after, and showed me the way.

O
urs was a ragtag
army, to be sure.

Though fourteen hundred strong, this was
worse than a rear guard. Composed of conscripted old men and mere
boys, as well as a sprinkling of F’rar reservists and one cruel but
stupid lieutenant who, it was rumored, had been a major but been
caught with the wrong general’s wife, it was a desultory lot at
best. There were not enough uniforms – and second-hand ones, at
that – to go around, and many of our group marched in their work or
farm clothes. Moral, as well as discipline, was poor, though the
occasional flogging administered by Lieutenant Cleft, two the first
day, kept things in some sort of order.

Darwin and I quickly learned that besides our
cooking chores, we were expected to pilfer, as this army had very
little in the way of provisions. The occasional abandoned (or not)
farmhouse was quickly emptied of any eggs and chickens on hand, and
after a few days Darwin especially was very good at learning which
roots were edible and which to avoid. I had to warn him not to get
too good at what we were doing, for it seemed that our own cook
lines grew daily, a measure of how bad the rest of the food was. I
learned to use Tyron’s gift of spices sparingly. No one bothered us
as long as we did our jobs and kept providing something – anything
– for these unfortunate fellows to eat.

But this poor state of affairs did not last
long, and within a week, when we had reached the rear of the real
army, I began to realize how Frane was able to keep her iron grip
on her army. It was a cruelly gray day, with cold rain in the
morning which made slick red mud in the afternoon under slate
colored clouds and what I thought was the distant boom of
thunder.

I soon learned otherwise.

Cleft himself came slowly down our line,
reviewing his “troops.” He was a short feline with a jutting jaw
and chest, and a curious bald spot on his head over his right ear.
His fur was as dark gray as the day itself, and his piggishly small
eyes swept over us as he walked, paws behind his back. Here and
there a cat would be pulled from the line as Cleft pointed to him,
and hustled away.

I tried to look straight ahead when he
passed, but he caught my eye, pointed, and said, “Him. And the
little runt, too. They’re the cooks, right?”

His adjutant, a toady in an overlarge red
tunic, said, in a mewling voice, “Yes, Lieutenant. The best
ones.”

“Shouldn’t we keep the best ones?” Cleft
asked, turning a beady eye on the adjutant.

“Well, ah . . . General Soames asked for our
best.”

At the mention of the general’s name Cleft
stiffened. “It’s
Soames
we serve now?”

“Ah, um, yes, Lieutenant, and I thought you
would want to please the general and give him what he requests
–”

“
Enough!
Take them,” Cleft snapped,
and moved on, as Darwin and I were pulled roughly from the line and
put with the other choices. As our group grew, I noticed that there
was a new man in charge of us, with a proper uniform on, a crisp
crimson tunic and spit shined boots untouched by mud; he stayed on
a small dais that had been provided for him and looked us over as
if we were germs under a microscope. His horse, a beautiful jet
black, brushed and groomed, stood tethered next to him on its own
platform.

No filth for this fellow, and when I caught
Darwin’s eye he nodded.

“Quite the soldier,” Darwin whispered.

“Silence in the ranks!” a stout sergeant who
had appeared roared. “Silence in the ranks or we’ll beat you all
black and blue!”

That quieted Darwin, and everyone else.

After an hour of standing like cattle, we
were formed into ranks and marched out. I noticed the officer climb
his mount without touching the ground, and the horse moved forward
reluctantly into the mud, with the officer offering it words of
affection.

The man next to me sniggered at this sight,
and the sergeant was instantly at his elbow.

“You find something amusing?” he roared into
the suddenly frightened feline’s ear.

“N-N-No!” the man stammered.

“Just what are you?” the sergeant
insisted.

“C-C-Carpenter, sir!”

The sergeant leaned closer. “Which paw do you
hold your hammer in?”

“W-W-What?”

“I said:
which paw do you hold your hammer
in?
”

The line had stopped, but the officer in
charge, I noted, rode demurely on, ignoring the commotion behind
him.

The man next to me stuttered: “L-L-Left,
sir!”

“I’m not a sir, I’m a sergeant! Show me your
right paw!”

The man held out his trembling right paw.

With a swift, grunting but smooth motion, the
sergeant drew out his sword and brought it swiftly down in a
blinding arc, cutting off the man’s right paw.

The fellow screamed, watching his severed paw
fall to the ground.

“You’re
still
a left-pawed carpenter!”
the sergeant screamed, wiping his bloody sword on the man’s dirty
tunic and then sheathing it.

The wounded carpenter fell to one knee,
mewling.

“Medic!” the sergeant ordered in a
matter-of-fact voice, and in a moment a white-smocked doctor
appeared.

“Patch him up, and get him ready for
service,” the sergeant ordered, walking away.

As he reached the front of the column he
screamed, “March!”

We had soon caught up to the riding officer,
who never once turned around. I now had a new man marching beside
me.

Ahead of me, Darwin turned quickly around,
and caught my eye, and looked, for the first time since I had met
him, frightened.

We passed other examples of Frane’s terror –
felines strung up on high poles, lashed tight, begging for water.
To either side of the muddy road, the poles were spaced in equal
lengths as far as the eye could see. Some were empty, some held
half-decayed dead bodies which were picked at by hovering carrion
birds.

Once, our sergeant walked down our line and
shouted, “Most of these fellows were local gentry, some former
soldiers like yourselves who sought a new life. Well, you can see
they’ve found a new life! Don’t let it be yours! It’s up to
you!”

The day darkened, and rain came, chilled and
dripping, and I watched while some of the strung-up prisoners
turned their mouths upward, trying to catch a few beads of moisture
in their parched mouths. I became used to the sound of mewling
wails, and begging for death.

Somewhere toward the end of the day, as the
gray sky was beginning to darken, the sergeant once again walked
down the line, pulling out a man here, one there. He plucked Darwin
out, and then myself.

“Cooks, correct?” he snapped, and we nodded
and followed him.

There were twelve of us, and the others were
eventually taken away, leaving only Darwin and I.

The sergeant became almost effusive. “An army
marches on its stomach – you’ve heard that, I suppose? Well, you’re
lucky fellows. You may be lucky enough to eat some of the Captain’s
leavings – after you’ve cooked them for him, of course.” He gave a
short laugh, which soured. “The rest of us will be eating the
normal filth.”

We stopped in front of a tent which had been
erected, four-cornered, feline-high, with a fringed awning, striped
in red and white and clean as snow. The sergeant saluted the junior
officer guarding it and turned abruptly, leaving us.

“Follow,” the junior officer said languidly.
Without waiting for a response he turned and we went after him to
another tent, this one open-sided, which had been erected a short
distance away. We followed him out of the rain and were warmed by a
long brazier filled with newly burning coals. Next to it was a
table piled with small plucked birds. I counted twenty.

“The captain would like these roasted, but
not dry. Vegetables will be brought later. His guests will arrive
at seven sharp, and they will want to eat immediately.

“What time is it now?” I asked
innocently.

“I have no idea,” he said, without looking at
me, and walked out.

“You have a little more than an hour,” a
voice now said, in a bland tone, and Darwin and I turned to see a
rail-thin female enter the tent. Her face was a taut as her words
were terse. “The vegetables will be boiled, but I’ll attend to most
of that.”

“You are?” I asked.

“Your boss,” she answered, a flicker of fire
lighting up her eyes above her unsmiling mouth.

“Of course,” I said.

Darwin had already
begun attending to the fowl, and I joined him.

T
he sergeant had been correct – we did get to share in
the meal, if only to lick the bones that were returned on the
greasy plates. Nine officers, at least one of them of high rank,
who I found out later was General Soames himself, had entered the
Captain’s tent. They were fatter when they emerged, hours later,
after much wine had been served. The laughter, I noted, got louder
and more raucous as the evening wore on and more wine was opened.
In the wee hours of the morning it was over, and Darwin and I were
allowed to sleep, under the cook tent and out of the rain, which
was a blessing, in the shadow of the cleaned plates and warm coals
of the dying fire.

The next morning I was awakened in the bare
light of dawn by the toe of a polished black boot which nudged me
as if I were a dog.

“You,” a voice said, flatly.

I uncurled and stretched, yawning, as I got
up to face the junior officer.