One of his men shrugged. "A few minutes back, they all moved out."
He pointed down the corridor that led toward the Guard billets. "I called the sar'ent major, but he said hold what we got, he and the rest a' the company'd be with us any time now."
"Let's go, then!" said Pedro Delcorio, trotting in the direction of the gesture.
Desoix followed, because that was what he'd set out to do. He hunched himself to settle his armor again. When he felt cold, as now, he seemed to shrink within the ceramic shell.
"Carry on,"Koopman said to his guard squad.As the Slammers officer strode along behind the other two men, Desoix heard him speaking into his commo helmet in a low voice.
The barracks of the Executive Guard occupied the back corridor of the Palace's south wing. It had its own double gate of scissor-hinged brass bars over a panel of imported hardwood, both portions polished daily by servants.
The bars were open,the panel—steel-cored,Desoix now noticed—ajar. Captain Sanchez and the squad he'd commanded in the rotunda stood in the opening, arguing with other Guardsmen in the corridor beyond. When they heard the sound of boots approaching, they whirled. Several of them aimed their rifles.
Charles Desoix froze, raising his hands and moving them out from his sides. He had been close to death a number of times already this night.
But never closer than now.
"What do you men think you're doing?"Pedro demanded in a voice tremulous with rage. "Don't you recognize me? I'm—"
"No!" Sanchez snapped to the man at his side. The leveled assault rifle wavered but did not fire—as both Desoix and the Guards captain had expected.
"Wha . . .?" Delcorio said in bewilderment.
"Rene, it's me," Desoix called in an easy voice. He sidled a step so that Sanchez could see him clearly past the President's nephew. Walking forward was possible suicide. "Charles, you know? We came to discuss the present situation with Colonel Drescher."
The words rolled off Desoix's tongue, amazing him with their blandness and fluency. Whatever else that scene upstairs with Anne had done, it had burned the capacity to be shocked out of him for a time.
Drescher stepped forward when his name was spoken. He had been the other half of the argument in the gateway. The lower ranking Guardsmen grounded their weapons as if embarrassed to be touching real hardware in the presence of their commander.
"Master Desoix," said Drescher, "we're very busy just now. I have nothing to discuss with you or any of John Delcorio's by-blows."
"What?" Pedro Delcorio shouted, able this time to get the full syllable out in his rage.
Koopman put a hand,his left hand,on the young civilian's shoulder and shifted him back a step without being too obvious about the force required.
Desoix walked forward, turning his spread arms into gestures as he said, "Sir, it's become possible to quell the rioting without further bloodshed or the need for additional troops. We'd like to discuss the matter with you for a moment."
As if Drescher's deliberate ignorance of his military rank didn't bother him, Desoix added with an ingratiating smile, "It will make you the hero of the day, sir. Of the century."
"And who's that?" Drescher said, waving his swagger stick in the direction of the Slammers officer. "Your trained dog, Desoix?"
Recent events had shocked the Guard Commandant into denial so deep that he was being more insulting than usual to prove that civilization and the rule of law still maintained in his presence. Charles Desoix knew that, but Tyl Koopman with a submachine-gun under his arm—
"Nosir,"said the Slammers officer."I'm Captain Koopmanof Hammer'sRegiment. My unit's part of the defense team."
"Sir," Desoix said in the pause that followed Koopman's response and sudden awareness of what the mercenary's response could have been."The mob will have gathered in the plaza by dawn. By sealing the three exits, we can bring their, ah, leaders, to a reasonable accommodation with the government."
"The government of the State," said Drescher icily, cutting through Desoix's planned next phrase, "is what God and the people choose it to be. The Executive Guard would not presume to interfere with that choice."
"Colonel," Desoix said. He could feel his eyes widening, but he didn't see the Guardsmen in front of him. In his mind, a dozen men were raping Anne McGill while shrill-voiced women urged them on. "If they attack the Palace, there'll be a bloodbath."
"Then it's necessary to evacuate the Palace, isn't it?" Drescher replied. "Now, if you gentle—"
"Don't you boys take oaths?" Koopman asked curiously. There wasn't any apparent emotion in his tone. "Don't they matter to you?"
Colonel Drescher went white. "You foreign mercenaries have a vision of Bamberg politics,"he said,"that a native can only describe as bizarre."His voice sounded as though he would have been screaming if his lungs held enough air. "Now get away from here!"
Charles Desoix bowed low."Gentlemen,"he murmured to his companions as he turned. "We have no further business here."
They didn't look behind them as they marched to where the corridor jogged and the wall gave them cover against a burst of shots into their backs. Pedro Delcorio was shaking.
So was Koopman, but it showed itself as a lilt in his voice as he said, "Well, they're frightened. Can't blame 'em, can we, Charles? And they'd not have been much use, just stand there and nobody who'd seen 'em in their prettiness was going to be much scared, eh?"
Adrenalin was babbling through the lips of the Slammers officer. His right hand was working in front of him where the Guardsmen couldn't see it, clenching and unclenching, because if it didn't move, it was going to find its home on the grip of his submachine-gun . . . .
Anne was waiting around the comer. She looked at the faces of the three men and closed her eyes.
"Anne, we can't—" Desoix began. He was sure there had to be something he could say that would keep her from the suicide she'd threatened, at the hands of the mob or more abruptly here with a rope or the gun he knew she kept in her bedroom.
"Sure we can," said Tyl Koopman. His voice had no emotion, and his eyes had an eerie, thousand-meter stare.
"You've got a calliope aimed at both side stairs, sure, they won't buck that, one burst and that's over. And me and the boys, sure, we'll take the main stairs, those lock gates, they're like vaults, no problem."
"Then it's all right?" Anne said in amazement.Her beautiful face was lighting as if she were watching a theophany. "You can still save us, Charles?"
She touched her fingertips to his chest, assuring herself of her lover's continuing humanity.
"I—" said Charles Desoix. He looked at the Slammers officer, then back into the eyes of Anne McGill.
They'd have to do something about Major Borodin—literally put the old man under restraint. Maybe Delcorio still had a few servants around who could handle that.
"I—" Desoix repeated.
Then he squared his shoulders and said, "Certainly, darling, Tyl and I can handle it without the help of those fools."