"I can summon a hundred thousand men to my banner," he said. "If I call in all my garrisons, all my own troops, all those of my nobles and Royal Kin and holders-of-land-on-service, and the contingents of my vassal rulers. But if I call them all to the same place, they will starve to death in short order."
Kashtiliash looked at him somberly, tugging at his curled beard. "Surely you have royal storehouses in each region," he said. "Surely your city-governors and provincial overlords and the nobles of the lands each have their own reserves of food. In my land, there is never less than three years' supplies for court, armies, and cities in storage, at least of grain and dates, onions and salt fish."
The Hittite nodded. "Oh, yes; we too take precautions. But remember, every iku of my lands yields perhaps half of what yours does, my brother, yet takes as much labor of men and oxen to cultivate. And I cannot ship the grain of that iku of land from place to place by barge, as you do; our rivers are rivers of rock and spray, not broad paths. If I call too many beasts and carts and men from the fields, the harvest will fail and we will all starve. Then most of the soldiers must be home for planting, and still more for the harvest. Our harvests have been poor for four years, as well-not enough rain in most of Hattiland. Stores are low."
Kashtiliash tugged at his beard again. "How is Walker better-suited than we?" he asked the Islander commander.
"He can bring in his supplies by water, as you can in your land, my kinsman," Kenneth said, moving his hand down the western coast of Anatolia. "Water transport is quick and cheap. And he can draw on the whole of Great Achaea's surpluses, which are greater than Haiti-land's, because he has had years to spread new methods and crops and tools, and to build roads and grain stores."
"But he cannot sail his ships inland… ah, my kinsman, I see," Kashtiliash said, grinning in his blue-black beard. "That is what you mean."
"Yeah," Kenneth said, nodding. "We've got to get him away from his base of supply and closer to ours." A grim smile. "Let's call it the Attaturk Plan. We've been stockpiling food and fodder in selected locations since the harvest"-he tapped points marked on the routes inland from the coast toward Hattusas-"and we've got to be prepared to deny him local replenishment."
"You mean we must be prepared to burn my own lands and turn my own people out onto the roads of the winter," Tudhaliyas said. "Lest Walker feed from their storehouses and flocks."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Kathryn Hollard said gently. "Or they will be Walker's lands and Walker's people-his slaves, rather."
Kashtiliash gave her a fond glance and went on: "What I can do for you after this war, my brother, I will do. As my allies say, we cannot move grain enough to feed many from Kar-Duniash to Haiti-land, but silver, plow oxen, seed-grain, cloth, these I will send."
"The Republic will help all it can as well for rebuilding after the war," Doreen said. "We can ship in, and show you how to make, new tools for farming-how to build better roads to spread harvests around, and how to preserve food better. We can show your healers how to stop epidemics. If we can get command of the sea, we can help feed the coastal zones, as well."
Tudhaliyas nodded, looking as if his stomach pained him. "Silver and cloth are well, but we cannot eat them, and if we eat the seed corn now and do not get more…" A deep sigh. "Let it be so. You have given me the head of the rebel Kurunta, and Walker was behind him. More, the Wolf Lord is all that you say in the way of greed and evil, from what the refugees tell."
Doreen put her hand on her stomach. They were talking about deliberately creating famine.
She shivered. A hell of a lot of people were going to die because of what was decided in this room, without ever knowing why. An anvil from orbit falling and shattering their lives without purpose or cause they could see.
No, she scolded herself. A hell of a lot of people are going to die because of what Walker decided to do. He's responsible, nobody else. Self-defense is self-defense, even if it means… drastic measures.
"Perhaps only troops equipped with the fire-weapons should be called up," Tudhaliyas said. "That would help in the matter of supplies."
Kathryn shook her head. "O One Sun, we need troops of the old kind as well. They can checkmate Walker's savage allies, and they can harass his men when they spread out to forage. And the chariots can also be useful, if they are used in, a new way with new weapons."
She looked at Princess Raupasha. The Mitannian girl began to speak, growing enthusiastic, her hands tracing accompaniment through the air. Tudhaliyas grew thoughtful.
"That would please my nobles," he said at the end. "They have seen the power of the new weapons, but a landed man grows with his feet in a chariot; it is not meet or seemly for him to go to war like a peasant spearman."
Kenneth Hollard gave a grim smile. "In the Republic, we have a saying: 'The flies have conquered the honey.' We want Walker's conquests to be like that." His hand moved west. "Our fleet is moving to the Pillars, here, as well. If they can break the Tartessian hold on the straits, they can move into the Middle Sea. Much of Walker's supplies come from Sicily, this large island here. Denying it to him will strike him a heavy blow."
"If is a word like a pig covered in olive oil, tasty if you can pin it down and set it on fire," Zuduhepa said, tilting her elaborate, golden-bedecked headdress as she turned to watch Kenneth Hollard. "Let us speak further of that which your fleet can do."
"Here, ma'am," the steward said. "Galley stove's working again."
Marian Alston-Kurlelo took the cup and sipped cautiously through the drinking hole in the cover. The storm was over, technically, although the sky above was covered in scudding gray tendrils and the light of noon was a muted glow, like being inside a giant frosted-glass globe. The wind was strong out of the northwest, but no longer a gale; still cold and raw, though, and she was grateful as she felt the aching need for rest being driven back by the strong harsh coffee, and a welcome warmth spreading in her stomach.
"Thank you, Seaman Puarkelo," she said, and the boy blushed. Alston gave an inward sigh. Commander Jenkins was forward, surveying the damage. There was a fair amount of it, the bowsprit rolling loose, foretopsail yard carried away, dangling ends of broken rigging, but none of it was fundamental.
One of the ships scudding along southward in company had lost her foremast just above the tops, and Alston's eyes narrowed as she saw the busy chaos on her foredeck. Then it settled down, and a long spar began to rise needlelike through the rigging- a jury-rig, but a sound one. Jenkins was deep in conversation with his XO and the ship's carpenter as he came back to the wheels, sounding remarkably cheerful.
Well, he didn't lose any of his people, she thought. Do Jesus, it would be nice to have only one ship to worry about again.
"Ma'am," he said, saluting. She returned the gesture. "There's nothing up ahead that we can't have fixed in a day or two."
"Very satisfactory, Captain," she said. Raising her voice slightly: "A very satisfactory piece of seamanship last night, in fact, Mr. Jenkins. The Chamberlain showed very well indeed. Well done."
The exhausted, red-eyed face flushed with pleasure. Then he grew grave: "Anything from the rest of the fleet, ma'am?"
"I was just expecting-ah." Swindapa came up; she looked wearied as well, with a bandage across her forehead where a flailing line had lashed her. "Any news?"
"Total casualties are twenty-seven dead, confirmed," she said.
Damn it to hell. To be expected, in a blow that violent, in a fleet that included thousands of troops packed in like sardines. Light casualties, really. And I hate losing every God-damned one.