“Let’s go back,” Smitty said suddenly. “I’ve seen more of this miserable place than I ever wanted to.”
“Suits me fine,” Rollant answered. “The traitors were so proud of Marthasville. They thought it was a big thing. Only goes to show they didn’t really know what a big thing is.”
When they got to the glideway depot, Lieutenant Joram collared both of them. “We’re moving west again soon. Get the men out of the dives and onto the carpets, fast as you can.”
In the end, they all went together. One man, or even two, was too likely to be ignored, maybe to get knocked over the head. Anybody who tried to take out Joram, Rollant, and Smitty at once would have a fight on his hands, though.
They hauled blind-drunk soldiers out of taverns and poured them onto the waiting carpets. They hauled soldiers out of brothels, too: some smug and sated, others frustrated because they were taken away before they could worship the Sweet One. One of those tried to slug Joram. Instead of ordering him held for court-martial, the company commander knocked him cold, slung him over his shoulder, and lugged him back to the depot.
Some of the women in the brothels were Detinans, not blonds. That surprised Rollant, who’d assumed every harlot in the north came from his own people. His being there in a uniform with three stripes on his sleeve surprised the whores, too. One of the Detinans, perhaps the best-looking woman in the waiting room in the place he and Smitty went to while Joram was dealing with the coldcocked soldier, called out to him: “You want to try something you never did before, Yellowhair?” She stood up and waggled her hips to show exactly what she meant. The silk shift she wore was so thin, so transparent, Rollant wondered why she’d bothered putting it on. On the other hand, she might have looked even more naked with it than she would have without it.
Staring at her, he almost forgot the question she’d asked. Only when the other women jeered at him did he remember and shake his head. “I’m here to get men from my company out, not to dally myself,” he managed.
That brought more jeers and catcalls. “You’ve got a lot of gods-damned nerve, taking business away from us like that,” a blond harlot said.
“By the Sweet One’s… teeth, haven’t you got enough?” Rollant asked.
“Come upstairs with me,” urged the Detinan woman in the transparent shift. Rollant shook his head again, even if his eyes never left her. She saw that-she couldn’t very well help seeing it. A slow smile spread across her face. Her lips were very red, very inviting. She said, “On the house, Yellowhair. Come on. It’ll be something different for both of us. Is it true what they say about blond men?” She was looking at him, too, but not at his face.
“On the house?” Three other women lounging on the couches in the waiting room said it at the same time, in identical tones of astonishment. By that astonishment, Rollant guessed how big a compliment he’d just got. In a brothel, what could be more perverse than lying with a man for nothing?
Somehow, Rollant shook his head once more. “I’m-I’m a married man,” he said.
That might have been the funniest thing the whores ever heard. They clung to one another, howling with laughter. Smitty spoke up: “If he doesn’t want you, sweetheart, I’ll take you up on that.”
“Corporal!” Rollant said. “We haven’t got time.”
“I won’t take long,” Smitty said blandly.
But the Detinan harlot shook her head. “Not unless you pay me the going rate, soldier. There’s nothing special about you.”
“Hells there’s not,” Smitty said, angry now. “Just let me-” He took a step forward. Rollant grabbed him as two very large, very muscular bouncers sprang into the waiting room.
“Get away!” Rollant told them. He had to wrestle with Smitty, who was furious and not making the slightest effort to hide it. “Calm down, gods damn it!” Rollant said. “We didn’t come in for that anyway.”
“All right. You’re right.” Smitty quit trying to break away from him. “Odds are I’d end up poxed anyway.”
The harlots all screeched furiously. The bouncers advanced on Smitty. They both carried stout bludgeons. Rollant let go of his comrade. Smitty’s shortsword hissed from the scabbard. So did Rollant’s. The bouncers stopped. “Good thinking,” Rollant told them. “We’re all free Detinans here, right? We can all speak our minds, right?”
One of the bouncers jerked his thumb toward the door. “I’m speaking my mind: get the hells out of here.”
“Have we got all our men out of the rooms here?” Rollant asked Smitty.
“Yes, Sergeant, we do. They’re waiting for us in the hall.” By the respect in Smitty’s voice, Rollant might have been Marshal Bart. That must have irked the bouncers, who were doubtless men from Peachtree Province. It didn’t irk them quite enough to make them do anything but glower, though, which was lucky-for them. After the worst false King Geoffrey’s soldiers could do to him, Rollant didn’t fear a couple of whorehouse toughs.
He and Smitty led the unsatisfied customers from the brothel back to the glideway terminal. The men in gray climbed up onto the carpets, some resigned to leaving, others glum. An hour passed, and nothing happened. “Gods damn it, Sergeant, we could’ve had our fun,” one of the frustrated soldiers complained.
“I had my orders,” Rollant said with a shrug. “You’re not happy, take it up with Lieutenant Joram.” The soldier stopped grumbling. Nobody wanted to complain to Joram. He’d been a sergeant too long; the men knew what sort of firepot would burst if they pushed him too far.
Sooner or later, they may start thinking that way about me. Rollant liked the idea. He didn’t think it was all that likely to come true, though. Joram could roar like the Thunderer come down to earth. That had never been Rollant’s way. In the north, blonds who roared at Detinans ended up gruesomely dead, and the lesson had stuck. He seemed to manage just the same.
The glideway carpet started west and south. Rollant settled himself against the motion. Palmetto Province ahead. He’d left a fugitive serf. He was coming back a conqueror. “And a sergeant,” he said softly. Yes, he’d already won a lot of battles. The carpet picked up speed.
XII
“Tell it to me again,” Ned of the Forest said. “I want to make sure I’ve got it straight.”
“All right, Lord Ned.” The man who’d come north from southern Dothan nodded. He looked weary. He had the right to look that way, too: he’d traveled hard, and dodged the southrons’ patrols till he finally reached country King Geoffrey’s men ruled. “I seen them southron sons of bitches ride out. They ain’t that far in back of me, neither. If they wasn’t looping around to hit you some funny way or other, reckon they would’ve got here ahead of me.”
“Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men, you’re talking about,” Ned said, to nail it down tight. “All of Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men.”
“That’s about the size of it.” The fellow who’d brought the news nodded again. “Hells of a lot of bastards in gray uniforms, every gods-damned one of ’em riding a white unicorn.” He didn’t even seem to notice his accidental near-rhyme.
Ned of the Forest wasn’t inclined to play literary critic, either. “That’s not good news,” he said-an understatement if ever there was one. Hard-Riding Jimmy’s force of unicorn-riders badly outnumbered his own. To make things worse, every southron carried one of those quick-shooting crossbows that made him much more deadly than anyone with an ordinary weapon. Ned plucked at his chin beard, then asked, “They have any footsoldiers with ’em?”