Behind them rose the cheering of the host. For some, the cheer would be their last word-no bad way to go.
Do you see that, Father? First, a princedom, and now this public glory.
Adhemar would counsel him to avoid the sin of pride. He would try not to show just how proud he was.
And please God he could manage not to burst out laughing.
The pagans formed up in a double line from the citadel's gates. Even in surrender, they were splendidly tricked out in fine silks and gleaming mail and swords the knights would make them surrender unless Bohemond stepped in. The wailing of those weird pipes they carried and the rapid beating of their round drums erupted all about the citadel as their commander walked through the gates.
So this was Achmed ibn Merwine: a bronzed man, silk-robed, long-eyed, his face half-veiled. As Bohemond waited, he unhelmed and removed the scarf that hid his face.
"You!" Bohemond gave in to the great shout of laughter he'd felt building since Tancred almost fell off his horse and bounded forward.
"Some soldiers told me you were the true commander, the only leader, of the Franks. And then I met you and saw for myself that, truly, you would not be defeated."
"And they were right," Bohemond said. It wasn't his fault if this emir wanted to rub salt in Raymond de Saint Gilles' wounds, now, was it?
"I cannot endure the destruction of more of my men. Or of this city. It is written that you shall rule Antioch, and thus…" The man removed his sword from his belt, knelt, and offered it to Bohemond.
He took it, drew it and heard the sweet rush of fine steel cutting air, then held it over the enemy commander, who was certainly no djinni.
"So," he asked, "what shall it be? We can give you safe conduct out of here-no doubt Kerbogha will receive you. Or will you stay with us and be baptized in the True Faith?"
Achmed ibn Merwine saluted Bohemond, heart, lips, and brow, the way he had the night before. "My lord, I offer you another godson named Bohemond. If you are willing to stand with me before the altar."
Heedless of Tancred's sudden watchfulness or Raymond's glare, Bohemond strode forward.
"I would be honored," he said.
He raised the emir, drew him into an embrace.
"My son," he intoned formally, and damned near broke his hand thumping him on the back, thanks to the fine steel sewn into ibn Merwine's fancy coat. Despite the ache in his hand, he could feel laughter under the silk and the steel.
Another one from whom I'll have to guard my back, thought Bohemond, Prince of Antioch. The sounds of rejoicing rose all around him. The killing would probably resume tomorrow.
Twelve Legions of Angels
R. M. Meluch
"What the hell am I reading here?" The Reichsmarschall turned back to the cover page of the offensive manuscript.Twelve Legions of Angels the damned thing was titled. Small eyes glinted blue tracer rounds at the Oberstleutnant who had brought it. "What is this slop?"
The Oberstleutnant blanched. May have made a mistake coming here. Still, he had drawn the short straw. Nowhere to go but forward. "It is a work of-oh, what to call it? — speculative fiction,I suppose."
"It's sedition! Why did you bring this to me? Turn the swine over to the Gestapo!"
"The swine is one of ours."
The small eyes grew as wide as they could. "German?"
"No, Herr Reichsmarschall. Air man."
The flare of anger subsided to a troubled scowl. The Gestapo thugs were out of the question now. The Luftwaffe took care of its own problems. "English?"
The Oberstleutnant gave a brisk nod. "Former C in C of the RAF Fighter Command. Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding-retired. The RAF sacked him directly after Dunkirk."
The scowl deepened. Dunkirk. Not Hermann Goering's finest hour. He had let the British Expeditionary Force escape across the Channel-even with the lack of British air cover.
That lack got the RAF flyboys rightly spat upon in their own streets, while all of England exalted the miracle of the boats.
Always astonishing what the British will call a miracle. They had abandoned thousands of French allies on the beach, and though they had managed to ferry a quarter million British soldiers across the Channel, it was still a bloody retreat! Those quarter million soldiers had not been enough to turn away Goering's Eagle Attack! Nor that of the Sealion. Queer sort of miracle, that.
"Why was this Dowding relieved from command?" Goering demanded.
"The RAF forced him into retirement for refusing to send Spitfires to France."
"Do you mean he had Spitfires to send and he didn't? His best aircraft? Was he trying to help the Reich?"
"No, Herr Reichsmarschall. The opposite according to this." The Oberstleutnant gave the manuscript a gingerly tap. "It was part of his strategy."
"Oh,strategy was it."
"From what I could read. This seems to be a treatise on how Herr Dowding would have run the British air campaign."
"Another armchair expert." Goering sniffed.
"He flew in France," the Oberstleutnant advised quietly.
"Old enough to retire and he was still flying?"
"In the Great War, Herr Reichsmarschall."
"Ah." Had all of Hermann's attention now. A shared history there. The Blue Max gleamed under the Reichsmarschall's chins. He could sense an instant warmth toward this brother under the cowling. An addled, idiot brother on the wrong side, but a brother all the same, from a time when real men flew in open cockpits, the wind and prop wash bitter in their faces, grit clattering against goggles, when your kite could turn on a thought, and there were no parachutes.
The Fat One became magnanimous. Victors could afford to be. He looked forward to marshaling a combined force of Spitfires and Messerschmitts against the Bolshevik menace.
A clack of heels in the doorway demanded attention. An adjutant: "It's time, Herr Reichsmarschall." Further questions regarding angels, however many of them, must wait.
Out to the balcony festooned with red, white, and black buntings, to take up a place flanking the Fuhrer and the British king.
Crowds surged like the stormy ocean with thunderoussieg heils.
Down below, within the palace gates, a semicircle of VIPs stood up from their chairs.
Beyond that, the Mall stretched like a runway between fields of raised salutes. And here came the airplanes.
The procession extended twenty-five miles for the flyover at Buckingham Palace on this, the first anniversary of the end of theKanalkampf, the conflict which the losing side had called the Battle of Britain.
You saw them first, a blot upon the sky. Then their roar shook the ground, the kind that throttled your throat, shook the heart in your chest.
Pride of place went to Hitler's bombers. The HE 111s' cut-out wing roots gave them a distinctive silhouette, unlike the JU 88s, looking from the ground unnervingly like British Blenheims. Their radial engines' clatter gave them their German accent.
Only then came the ME 109s, radiators whistling. Hard- lined, vicious shapes, ingeschwader strength, they peppered the low cast sky for miles.
A lull, then, on the horizon with a signature purring you need only hear once to know immediately, advanced British Rolls Royce engines-aschwarm of Hurricanes in Nazi colors. Stable gun platforms, those. The Hurricanes had delivered a convincing punch to their erstwhile adversaries, and they could take a beating. Shooting them was like shooting a wicker basket. But the Hurri was not a nimble crate. With Spitfires cleared from the sky, the ME 109s had chewed them up.