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want to, and I what the hell s the point in quibbling? I brought them. But
damn it
 My university will be more impor-tant than you know, Rick said.  We can
change this world. Should we risk all that merely to kill Sarakos?
 My love, I know there is no other like you, Tylara said. There was no banter
in her voice at all.  But can not the lady Gwen and the man Warner teach much
of what you could?
There went my last argument, Rick thought. Oh, damn it.  Yes. They can, he
said. God help me, she s right. And nobody else can stop Parsons and Sarakos.
Can I? Sarakos is no problem. His medium and heavy cavalry don t sound as
effective as the Roman heavy troopers, and my pikemen have a lot more
confidence now. But I still need massed for-mations, and Parsons has the
mortar and at least a dozen riflemen more than enough to scatter the pikes for
Sarakos s heavies Skirmishing archers could take Parsons, if we could get him
on a decent killing ground. But he s too damn smart to be caught that way.
He ll always have enough local cavalry with him to keep the archers at a
distance. So how to get the Earth troops separated from the rest of the army
 You have a plan, she said.  I have seen that look before.
 Something Warner said. Tylara, even if every-thing works properly, a lot of
people are going to be killed 
 More than will die if we do nothing?
 No. Not nearly so many. He sighed and took her in his arms.  I could have
had my pick of a hundred women, he said.  I could have a hundred women. So of
course I have to be in love with you. He kissed her. They stood close for a
long time.
Then she pushed him gently away.  In spring, she said.  And for now we must
send food for Camithon s army before he loses more men and beasts to hunger.
 Yes. And a thousand other details. Summon the western clansmen and start
drilling them in the new tactics. More pikes and arrows. Baggage and grain
carts.
Politics. Keeping the clans working to-gether was hard enough; now they d have
Protector Camithon and the boy king to worry about as well.
And more details yet. Patrols to seal the passes and keep secret as long as
possible the fact that Tamaerthon was arming for war. A second iron cur-tain
so that when
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JANISSARIES
spies inevitably found that the clans were mobilizing they still wouldn t be
able to report that they were drilling with pikes. And inside that the
greatest secret of all.
 Why do you smile? Tylara asked.
 It would take long to explain, Rick said. How could he tell her he d thought
of calling his inner circle  The Manhattan Project ? But of course he couldn t
use that name. It would signal Parsons as clearly as would a report that
someone in
Tamaer-thon was gathering tons of manure and sulfur.
They d need a secure area to leach saltpeter from manure. His scholarship
wasn t good enough to make sulfa drugs or penicillin, but something sim-ple
like that would be no problem at all. Saltpeter 75 percent, charcoal 15
percent, sulfur 10
percent: fif-teen to three to two, a formula tested in war s cal-dron for
centuries.
And they d need a gristmill with no metal parts in which to grind it.
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And there d be a thousand more details. The bus-iness of war. They sing
ballads about heroes, but the details are what win campaigns.
Or lose them.
PART EIGHT:
JANISSARIES
1
Gwen s delivery had been difficult. The baby was large and she was small. She
was many hours in difficult labor, and afterwards was laid up for weeks. She
remembered few details. One vividly stayed in her mind: the moment when
Yanulf laid her baby on her breast. That couldn t have been more than a few
seconds after the boy was born.
She didn t remember telling Yanulf that the boy was to be called  Les, but
she didn t regret that. Someday she d be able to tell Les of his father and
give him the
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JANISSARIES
message the pilot had left for his child.
It took a long time to regain strength. For weeks she could only nurse her son
once a day. Fortu-nately two other children had been born a few days before
Les, both to robust clanswomen with milk to spare. Later Gwen wondered if this
had not been the origin of the ancient custom of godparents; without other
women s aid, Les would have died.
Gradually she became aware of life outside her lodge. At first she took little [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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