“But after you’ve dispatched those gallopers, I want you and all the rest of the squadron to start getting ready for a march of about two weeks. If we ever come back here at all, it won’t be for some time, like as not, so pack up everything. The cooks and the eeahtrohsee have been paid for thirty more days, so bring them and the other specialists along, also. Tell the smith to pack everything that he can squeeze into that traveling forge I bought him, and the cooks are to strip the kitchens and snag any edibles they can beg, borrow or steal from wherever.
“You’d better send over a detail now to cut our horses out of the permanent herd and another detail to the depot to harness teams and hitch them to our wagons, then drive them back here to be loaded. Set my servants to packing my own effects, and if the sub-strahteegos sends over a small, heavy chest, put it in my largest trunk.”
He might have said more, but a pounding of approaching hoofbeats heralded the arrival of Captain-of-squadron Opokomees Ehrrikos, his face streaming salt sweat and twisted by a frown of worry. Flinging himself from the saddle of the heaving horse, he ran up the steps and burst into the room, gasping, “Bralos, the old man is even now on his way to arrest you for inciting to mutiny. One of my boys was on an errand to army headquarters and saw and heard them forming up a strong party of both horse- and foot-guards, plus a company of foot-archers. Chief Pawl was there and was ordered to add a troop of his Horseclansmen to the party, but he politely told them to do their own dirty work, that he was not down here nor his men either to help overweening dotards conduct vendettas against their own officers. My boy says that at that, some of the old man’s own horse-guard officers had to physically keep him from drawing steel and going after Chief Pawl. It’s a crying shame they did it, too; Pawl would’ve minced his lights nicely.
“Well, good God, man, what are you dawdling for, get your arse in a saddle, I’ll delay them for as long as I can …”
“Hymos,” said Bralos calmly, “send out those gallopers, now, to the sub-strahteegos and Senior Captain Thoheeks Portos; you need not now send to the other two, since they obviously have been otherwise apprised. Set all of the other wheels in motion, if you please. I’ll stay here and chat with my comrade until it is necessary for me to go elsewhere.”
Sub-strahteegos Thoheeks Tomos Gonsalos stalked into the army headquarters building, his face fire-red and streaming sweat, his brick-colored beard and moustaches bristling. Just behind him came Captain-of-squadron Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn and several of his sub-chiefs, Senior Captain-of-brigade Thoheeks Portos, Captain-of-pikes Guhsz Hehluh and Captain-of-foot Ahzprinos. No guardsman still in his right mind would have essayed to try to stop or even to slow such an aggregation of grim-faced senior officers. And none did.
Before their dogged onslaught, members of the headquarters staff scattered like a covey of quail. Before they all could flit away, Portos reached out a big, hard hand and snagged a junior lieutenant by his flabby biceps, terrified him with a look that smacked of a quick, bloody death, then put him to the question.
“Where is Captain-of-squadron Vahrohnos Bralos?”
“In … in … out in the rear court, See … See … Senior C-Captain,” the unfortunate quavered, his voice cracking several times.
“And where is the Grand Strahteegos?” demanded Portos.
“He … he is … he is there, t-too. To oversee the … the first f-flogging, and it p-please your grace.” The man sniffled, and when Portos hurled him into a heap in a corner, he wet his crotch and began to shudder and sob, then, suddenly, retch up his last meal. Sub-chief Myk Vawn, as he passed the wretched officer, wrinkled up his nose, suspecting that the next-to-last meal had found another means of egress from the staff officer.
Before the party had reached the back of the building, they heard the drums begin to roll, and before they all were outside, they heard the regular, whistling cracks of the whip commence. But these last continued only until Portos grabbed the weighted tip of the lash on the backswing and jerked the surprised wielder from off his feet.
The Grand Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos jumped up from his chair, upsetting it, the small table and the bowl of fresh grapes he had been sharing with the boy, Ilios, who himself voiced a shrill shriek, though not leaving the cushioned chair.
“What is this, Mutiny Day, gentlemen?” burst out Pahvlos. “You, Captain Portos, give that man back his whip and let’s get on with the punishment. This will be but the first of many, of course, but I mean to have that pig singing nicely before this day be done. Next week, when everything has been arranged, I mean to see the bastard’s spine and shoulder blades and ribs, before I see his traitorous neck stretched.”
Disgustedly, Tomos Gonsalos snatched the whip from Portos and flung it high atop the roof of the building. “You old fool,” he said to Pahvlos. ‘Don’t you know your kind of senseless super-discipline and sadism is well on the way to tearing Council’s army apart at the seams? Do you even care? Or it that really your aim, to dissolve the army first, then the Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee? Would you be king, is that it? Or …” He frowned for a moment, trying to recall just how the High Lord had phrased it in his most recent, most secret letter, then he had it. “Or do you serve other, more sinister interests, my lord? Are they perhaps far-southern interests?”
The Grand Strahteegos continued to stare his indignation and rage at the group, but from out the corner of his eye, Tomos Gonsalos saw the cryptic verbal barb find lodging in the bumboy, Ilios, who started as if touched with a red-hot iron.
But now Portos stalked forward and faced his furious commander, stating flatly, “You had no right to do any more than arrest Captain Vahrohnos Bralos and hold him in custody until he was brought to face the officers’ panel, and you know it full well, my lord Thoheeks. You are, by this heinous act, yourself guilty of criminal activity … and you know that, too, my lord Thoheeks.”
“This man,” declared the Grand Strahteegos, “freed a common sergeant who had tried to cross the perimeter contrary to my promulgated orders, had fought with and grievously injured some of the obedient men who stopped him, and was therefore undergoing punishment on the wooden horse. This man not only freed the malefactor, but he had three of my fine foot-guards beaten severely by his troops, then bound them and placed them, most unjustly, on the punishment horse, leaving them there to scream and writhe in agony until someone decided that no one man alone could make so much noise and came finally to their rescue.”
“I knew you’d bring that up,” said Pawl Vawn, “and I investigated the matter early on. The sergeant’s wife was near death of the fever, and word was sent to him that she was calling for him. What else was a loving husband to do, stupid rules or no stupid rules?”