Of Mice and Chicks
Harry Turtledove
It is a wide country, and a steep one, and how it can be both those things at once no one is quite certain, but nonetheless no one doubts that it is. There are rivers in the valleys and castles atop the hills; here, everybody would be surprised if this were reversed, but it is not, and so nobody is. Some of the rivers have fish in them and brush growing along their banks. None of the castles has fish in it, save only when the fish is smoked or salted. Nor do the castles have brush around them, because otherwise the serfs might have time on their hands, and it just doesn't wash off.
At this point, the narrative goes, uh, went from present to past tense. Gods knew, uh, know why.
"Tell me about the rabbits again, Georgia," Lani said.
"Aw, for cryin' out loud." Georgia was a short, compact woman with a scar on her cheek who wore her mail shirt as if she'd been born with it for skin. Her face was tanned and weathered, her eyes narrow and shrewd. She looked over at Lani with affectionate annoyance. "I done told you about 'em a million times already."
"Tell me again. You know how I forget things." Lani paused. "Tell me again. You know how I forget things." She was twice Georgia's size, four times Georgia's strength, and had not a brain concealed anywhere about her person. Other things, yes, but brains? Afraid not; they must have been plumb out that day. "Tell me again. You know how I—"
"For gods' sake, how can you forget about gods-damned rabbits?" Georgia broke in. "You're riding one, you miserable dummy!"
"Well, yeah." Lani reached out a large, callused hand to pat Thumper between his fine, upstanding ears. Thumper was about the size of a horse, but since they didn't have horses in that world the comparison makes more sense to you than it would have to Lani and Georgia. Nobody, but nobody—not even Lani—would have thought about carrying a rabbit's foot around there. Trust me on that one. Lani went on, "Tell me how we're gonna raise 'em, Georgia."
"Oh, all right. Maybe it'll shut you up." Georgia lolloped along on Clumper, a war bunny much like Thumper except for an ear with a bend in it. Once upon a time, Thumper had been called Floppy, but then everything went to CD-ROMs and DVDs. "We're gonna get us a stake—I reckon six hundred pieces o' silver'll do it. We're gonna get us a stake, and we're gonna buy us a farm, and we're gonna raise rabbits to sell to other knights instead of goin' off to war ourselves. We're gonna raise 'em, and they're gonna breed—"
"They're gonna breed like bunnies! Like bunnies, Georgia!" Lani clapped her hands with excitement.
"Yeah. Like bunnies." When Georgia promised Lani's old Uncle Hugo she'd help take care of her after he kicked off, she hadn't known just how much fun it would be. Every day brought a new lesson. If Uncle Hugo hadn't dropped dead, she would've killed him. As things were, she pointed toward the castle on the hill. "Come on. That's where we're going."
"Where we're going to raise the rabbits?"
"No. Gods, but you're an idiot. We've got to fight for Baron Howard. That's the guy the castle belongs to. With what we get paid and whatever loot we grab on the field, we ought to have enough to buy us a bunny ranch. Have you got that through your thick head?"
"I sure have, Georgia," Lani said. Georgia doubted it, but Lani went on, "First we fight, then we get the rabbits. Did I say it right?"
"You said it right," Georgia admitted wearily. "But when we get up there, you keep your big mouth shut, you hear? I'll do the talking for both of us. Have you got that?"
"Yeah," Lani said, and then, "Tell me about the rabbits, Georgia." Georgia clanged the visor down on her helmet.
Baron Howard's castle was like most of the ones in that part of the country: gray stone, foursquare, towered at each corner of the outwall, with a moat full of waterweeds around it that stank to high heaven. Given the castle's sanitary arrangements, such as they were, the stench was hardly surprising.
After the portcullis went up and the drawbridge came down, Georgia and Lani's rabbits hopped into the courtyard. Baron Howard's son, a handsome—almost pretty—young man in fancy parade armor, came out of the keep and met the mercenaries there. "I'm Curls," he declared. "What can you girls do?"
Georgia gave her name. Then she said, "Lance, sword, bow—you want it dead, I'll make it dead for you."
Curls rounded on Lani. "How about you, sister?"
Lani didn't say anything. Quickly, Georgia did: "She's good with the same weapons I am."
"Well, how come she doesn't talk for herself?" the baron's son demanded.
"She ain't real bright," Georgia said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came hopping out of the old briar patch. "She ain't bright, but she'll kill anybody you reckon needs killing. Point her at 'em, turn her loose, and get the devils out of the way."
"Well, she'll have her chance." Curls strode off, clattering.
"Ooh, Georgia, he's cute," Lani breathed. "Can we keep him instead of the bunnies?" Her taste in men was as bad as it was in everything else: it would have had to improve to make it catastrophic, in other words. Georgia knew a cold-hearted serpent when she saw one. That he was a baron's son only made things worse; it turned him into a spoiled, cold-hearted serpent.
"Let's get the rabbits into the hutch," she said. "After that, I'd like to dump you in the bunny trough to get the heat out of your britches." Lani laughed, for all the world as if Georgia had been joking. She wished to the gods she were.
Once Georgia saw the rostler knew what she was doing and the hutch hands were reliable, she left Thumper and Clumper with them without too many regrets. Then, carrying their weapons and their few personal belongings, she and Lani went to get settled. The top sergeant was a weathered veteran people seemed to call Slim Jim. He was more to Georgia's taste than the baron's son; she had no interest in handsome beef if it was jerky, too.
Slim Jim led her and Lani to the women's dorm and pointed out a couple of empty straw pallets on the slate floor. Some of the other women warriors greeted them as they set down their gear. Slim Jim was just leaving when another woman came to the doorway and said, "Anybody seen Curls? I've been looking for him."
She was no warrior. She didn't fight. People fought over her. She knew it, too, knew it and reveled in it. Her dress, such as it was, clung to every curve. She wore enough perfume for a portside joyhouse the day the war galleys came in. Not even Slim Jim was immune to her. That disappointed Georgia without much surprising her. The sergeant said, "You weren't lookin' real hard, were you? He just went back to the tower after he sized up our two new gals here."
She sized up Georgia and Lani, too. Georgia she dismissed after one quick glance. Lani, on account of her size, was briefly interesting. Nobody but herself was more than briefly interesting to her. "Well, I reckon I'll just find him there, then," she said, and sashayed away with hip action she must have practiced for years. Slim Jim followed her, smiling. He would.
"Ooh, Georgia, she's mighty cute, too." Lani sounded as if she were surrounded by cuddly brown-and-white puppies.
Georgia sat down on her pallet and buried her face in her hand. "For gods' sake," she said. Lani liked girls every now and then, the only problem being that her taste in them was even more appalling than it was with men. Georgia glared up at her. "Don't mess with that one," she snarled. "Don't, you hear me? Don't! She's poison, nothin' else but."
"I didn't mean anything by it," Lani protested.
"You never mean anything by it," Georgia said. "But you can't keep your damn hands to yourself. That's how come they ran us out of Crabgrass. Remember that? Do you?" Unhappily, Lani nodded. Scowling still, Georgia went on, "So just don't. Not that one. She's a chippy, nothin' else but—teases for the fun of it. People like that are no stinking good. Just pretend she's not around, all right?"