Ring of Fire IV Read online

  John let his implication trail off. But, after a long pause, his partner finished the sentence for him.

  “Instead of a prophet.”

  * * *

  Lucilius Bassus was a canny old soldier. Kurt knew the type. The man wanted, above all, to achieve his assigned mission—the final pacification of Judea—with as little further fuss as possible. Bald, clean-shaven and a bit shriveled, wearing a white toga with red trim, the general eyed Kurt carefully while introducing his second in command, Lucius Flavius Silva, then offering Kurt a seat in his command tent.

  Bassus raised an eyebrow but said nothing when Kurt motioned for Sarah to sit beside him on another camp stool. The rest of the Milda party remained outside, under a flag of truce, watching the highly ordered busy-ness of a disciplined Roman camp. Scowling, Lucius Flavius Silva remained standing in full leather armor, as his commander seated himself on a cushioned bench.

  “I was told that your factotum would be a male priest,” Bassus said, as servants mixed wine with water and served goblets. Sarah refused, with a soft smile.

  “Father Braun is no longer with us,” Kurt answered. While his Latin was improving, he still glanced at Sarah. She gave a slight nod. No correction needed, so far. “Our priest left suddenly, hurrying north, to Ephesus. This noblewoman has consented to help you…” he stumbled over the words. The correct grammar.

  Sarah finished for him. “To help you, great Lucilius Bassus, to communicate with your loyal German auxiliaries,” she said, gesturing an open hand toward Kurt.

  That was the story the two of them had concocted, yesterday, after word came that the general had arrived in the Galilee with six fresh cohorts. The core of his legion, ready to advance and wipe out this infestation of strange barbarians. Only the messenger brought a codicil, that Bassus was willing to talk, first.

  It’s all one big misunderstanding, went the fabulous lie that Sarah translated into flawless Latin.

  These aren’t enemies. They are fierce German mercenaries who were attached to the Fifth Legion and left behind to garrison this area, when the Fifth returned to Macedonia. Apparently without properly informing the mighty Tenth.

  It’s not our fault that your centurion, Sextus Callus, attacked us, killing our Roman liaison officer and forcing us to defend ourselves!

  Kurt left it to Sarah to spin out an elaborated version, while he tried to convey a best impression upon Bassus—that of a tough and wily, though semi-literate, soldier who cared, above all, about sparing his men further bloodshed, and getting them back to a distant homeland someday, with honor and pay.

  Exactly like you, old man.

  In terms of casualties, the Judean Revolt had been the worst war in Roman history. Moreover, while plunder from the Temple was being paraded before Vespasian and Titus, back home in the Forum, only the battered Tenth Legion Fulminata remained to do mopping up—eliminating half a dozen holdout fortresses still held by Jewish zealots. Saving the toughest nut—Masada—for last.

  Kurt had feared the worst. A vengeful commander, prideful and overflowing with fury over the defeats that his subordinates suffered in these northern hills, starting with the small garrison that formerly resided where Milda now stood—charged with preparing a thousand slaves for transport to the wharves of Akko—all taken away by the Mouth of Hell.

  Deprived of that expected income, Sextus Callus had come aggressively, ruthlessly, and obstinately—responding to every failure with double strength. The final loss, two weeks ago, cost Rome almost two entire cohorts, assailing the smooth walls of the Hell Mouth with siege ladders, arbalests, and catapults, in the face of pikes and limited gunfire. And better cavalry than they ever saw. Though far too few guns and horses to make the hardened, stubborn enemy flee.

  Tough bastards, Sergeant Kuipers finally acknowledged, with soldierly respect, after the Sadducee prince Ezra and his band slammed upon the Roman rear, just in the nick of time, leaving only a handful of legionaries alive. Ezra had wasted no time, directing his Galilean recruits to arm themselves with captured weapons and armor.

  Even victories stink to high heaven, wretched and odious to any decent person’s senses. Only this time, while bodies were gathered for burning, with respect to Roman custom, Kurt’s thoughts had roiled around how little gunpowder remained, a mere volley or two, with production slowed to a crawl as the new dam filled too slowly, behind Milda’s rebuilt water mill.

  There was so much to do, like expanding the smithie enough to make cannon…even recasting a church bell into a single two-pounder would be better than nothing, which is what we now have. If they could find one—he wasn’t sure if church bells even existed in this day and age.

  Or training locals to hold a pike without flinching and letting down the man next to you. Plus planning how to feed Milda’s expanding population of ragged refugees. Teaching local farmers advanced, seventeenth-century technologies like the mold board plow, the horse collar, the wheelbarrow, could double production and eliminate any excuse for slavery—that is, if war could be kept off their backs.

  And there were expeditions to send forth. Samuel Burns—now perhaps the only native English speaker on the planet—led a wagon and some guards to trade for sulfur, by the shores of the Dead Sea. Georg Stahl, the bravest merchant, volunteered to head east and find the Parthian trade route, seeking copper for a new distillery. While mad Johann Blisterfeld yammered about making a printing press and taking it (someday) to Alexandria, of all crazy ideas.

  Finally, as if Kurt had too little cause to fret, there was Braun, raving that he had to run off. To Ephesus, of all places! Pursuing an angry old man who Braun deemed to be more dangerous than all the world’s legions.

  “All I did was read to him from the Epistles. And some of Revelations,” the priest said, coming to realize what he had done, two full days after Sarah’s uncle and brother departed on stolen horses.

  The implications only dawned on Kurt himself some days after Braun departed. In fact, they made his head spin so fast that he pushed the entire matter out of his mind. Survival first. Survival first.

  Now Kurt watched the Roman general’s eyes, while Sarah spun their contrived tale. How the Fifth Legion must have neglected to inform the Tenth that German auxiliaries were holding these hills for Rome. (Shameful!) And how all their records and documentation had burned in the fighting. And that (alas, regrettably) Kurt had always left to others the tedious details of business—others who were now dead. And how he counted on Roman honor to live up to the mercenary’s contract anyway! And how his men had not been paid in months, and would the general kindly see to making up the arrears?

  What a ridiculously bold fabrication! And yet, on the plus side, what alternative explanation could there be, for a small army of Germans to appear in this far land? The savage folk who had destroyed the legions of Quinctillius Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, a few decades before. And hence Rome’s most respected source of fierce auxiliaries?

  He’s not buying it, Kurt realized, watching the old general’s face.

  On the other hand, he is weighing the costs.

  So, Lucilius Bassus, what are your options? You can bring the whole legion against us, an entrenched force of uncertain size, with weapons rumored to include hurled thunderbolts. And risk losing so many men that the Jewish Revolt might reignite across this land.

  Or you could decide to be pragmatic. Accept a way to save face and salvage something from all this.

  Sarah finished. In the ensuing silence, Kurt saw Lucius Flavius Silva scowling—even seething—exactly what Kurt would have expected of the man, whose infamy came down fifteen hundred years. But Silva wasn’t the one who mattered. Not while Lucilius Bassus lived.

  That figure sat completely still. At least a minute stretched. And another.

  Finally, the general stood up and took a step forward, with outstretched arm.

  “Dear comrade, please accept my deep regrets over the rash mistakes of Sextus Callus and his foolish centurions. This was entire
ly my fault. I should have sent Silva here, who can count his toes without referring to a wax board and who can tell a foe from an ally. Isn’t that right, Silva?”

  The younger officer blinked, then nodded. Though Kurt thought he could hear the grinding of teeth.

  “Yes, General.”

  Kurt took the offered hand of Lucilius Bassus, not palm to palm but each gripping the other’s forearm, bringing both men close to each other. Almost eye-to-eye. And the old man’s grip was like iron. Only Sarah’s presence, just behind him, gave Kurt the strength he needed to maintain that gaze contact…till Lucilius Bassus grunted, nodded, and let go.

  “And now,” the general asked. “I would appreciate your advice, Baron von Wolfschild, as to how I can turn my back upon the Galilee while duty calls my legion south.”

  * * *

  “C’est tout la? Mais il n’est pas complet!” Jean-Baptiste complained after finishing the last page of the manuscript. “How can it end there? This will infuriate everyone, across the continent, demanding to know what happens next!”

  Hercule nodded.

  “I think, mon cher ami, that is the desired result.”

  The thirteen-year-old—though a veteran of war and privation—still had innocent eyes that now widened in delighted realization.

  “Ah. The work of a devil, indeed. Readers will champ eagerly to buy the next issue. And some will fantasize stories of their own, that diverge, like the branchings of a river delta. Perhaps some will even write them, following the young Englishman to the Dead Sea, for example. Or Father Braun to Turkey and Greece, chasing after that mysterious old man. Do you have a clue who it might be?”

  “I have suspicions. But I will leave that for you to divine. Or the author to reveal for himself.”

  “Bastard,” Jean-Baptiste sallied. An accusation that Hercule accepted with a nod. In fact, though, he had read an earlier draft. The original version that contained some more details.

  James, had been the elderly Jew’s name. A Jew…and a Christian…and a powder keg. Omitting that name was one of just a few places where John Flannery had put his foot down, demanding that vagueness replace specificity, for survival’s sake.

  Discretion, Hercule thought. In my other life, I apparently had none. Though I should not be ashamed of it. My modest fame on that timeline was colorful, at least. But here, with this second chance, I must school myself, if my work is to achieve real importance.

  He blew out the candle, plunging their tiny attic room into darkness. Beyond the little window, he could see by moonlight the mighty towers of Grantville, one of them four stories high, and in his minds-eye he envisioned the sky city of Manhattan. The fabulous Paris of Zola and Rostand and Bardot.

  There were muted, rustling sounds as the gay couple in the apartment below settled down for the night. Here in Grantville, that didn’t seem to be a problem. And it drew Hercule to ponder the accounts told by his own biographers, so varied, so contradictory. I cannot have been all of those things. Some must be mistaken. Anyway, I do like girls. Though, I also hate whenever anyone says don’t-do-that.

  He shook his head. Life was open before him. Only that mattered. Stay bold! But maybe act less out of reflex. Make fewer mistakes.

  From the pallet nearby, a soft voice asked:

  “Have you read any of your own plays, yet?”

  Exasperation.

  “We agreed not to do that.”

  A long pause.

  “I went and read one of yours,” Jean-Baptiste admitted. “L’Autre Monde. The one about visiting the Moon? It’s really good! I guess you always had it in you to be a science fiction author.”

  Such admiration in his voice. Oh, the irony.

  “I also tried to read one of mine,” the boy went on.

  “Bien? Alors then, what did you think?”

  “It was all manners and people playing tricks on each other in drawing rooms and trying to get sex. No action at all. I didn’t understand or like it much.”

  “Well, you’re just a kid. Your balls probably haven’t dropped yet.”

  “You’re only three years older!”

  “But I was a soldier.”

  “So was I!”

  “Drummer boy.”

  “Yeah? Well you have a great big—”

  “Don’t say it,” Hercule warned, with a flash of the old, cold rage.

  “I’m sorry,” Jean Baptiste murmured in a small voice. And Hercule remembered his oath, never to let the lad come to harm.

  “Forget-about-it,” he growled, in English. “Anyway, I agree with you.”

  “About what?”

  “That we can both do better, this time around. Write better. Aim higher.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t gonna read what we—”

  “Well, I lied. I read it all.”

  Silence, then, in hushed tones…

  “Is it true, then? Did you invent science fiction?”

  “Invent…Nah. That other me wrote silly stuff, mostly.”

  Hercule stared at the ceiling, envisioning a very different moon and sun and planets, all aswarm with fanciful creatures.

  “But fun,” he added in a very low voice. “Way, way fun.”

  He turned his head toward Jean-Baptiste. To that dim shadow across the little room, he almost said: “You have far more talent with words and drama and characters than I’ll ever have. While I’m crazy enough to imagine or dare anything. Just think of what we could write together, combining your strengths with mine.”

  But the words went unspoken.

  Instead he commanded, gruffly, like a big brother.

  “Allez dormir.” Go to sleep.

  Silence reigned for a time. Though the quiet had texture, as electric music played softly, somewhere across town. There were motor sounds, a brief glimmer of headlights passing in the night. Far distant, he thought there might be the drone of an aeroplane. Miracles, brought to this gritty, hopeless world from a marvelous future. A future now bound to change.

  “Good night, Cyrano,” his young friend whispered, breaking open their secret, for an instant.

  And—also for a moment—he answered in kind.

  “Sleep tight, Molière.”

  Kinderspiel

  Charles E. Gannon

  [The author wishes to express his profound gratitude to that tireless and peerless researcher, Virginia DeMarce, to whom this story owes the largest measure of its authenticity.]

  April 1635, south of Ulm, Swabia

  “Colonel, riders coming.”

  Thomas North, one of the two colonels of the Hibernian Mercenary Battalion, turned in his saddle and squinted.

  Sure enough, just as his batman Finan had reported, two mounted figures were catching up with them, following along the same route: south on the Swabian Jakobsweg—arguably the most reliable way south from Ulm to Biberach, even though it wasn’t a road. Or more accurately, because it was now mid-April, the Jakobsweg was the most reliable path because it wasn’t a road. Leaving Ulm yesterday, North and his rump platoon had witnessed three wagons hopelessly mired in the spring mud, the struggling teamsters up to their hips in the brown ooze.

  North’s senior lieutenant, Hastings, leaned closer. “Orders, sir?”

  “Take a fire team into the brush on the left. And don’t get bloody eager, Lieutenant: these two aren’t trouble.”

  “Too few of them?”

  “Too obvious. But you never know when wolves might be shadowing unsuspecting sheep. Off with you, now.”

  Hastings tossed his reins to Finan, dismounted, and gathered his fire team from the front of the formation, ensuring that his actions were unobservable by the oncoming riders. The hastily assembled group disappeared into the sparse undergrowth.

  Several of the other Hibernians saw Hastings’ small screening force vanishing and hefted their .40-.72 black-powder Winchesters higher into a ready cradle posture.

  “Easy, men,” said Thomas in a gruff but even tone that was, for him, a soothing croon.r />
  That was the same moment that the taller and wider-shouldered of the two riders stopped and put up a hand, whether in greeting or invitation to parley, North couldn’t be sure.

  But the larger of the two resumed his approach without waiting for Thomas’ gesture to do so, making the rider clearly suicidal. Or insane.

  Shortly thereafter, North discovered that insanity was indeed the cause of the unbeckoned approach and that the oncoming rider had no hope of ever recovering his wits. By dint of his origins, his madness was endemic and permanent.

  In short, he was an American.

  And not just any American. As soon as the rider called a greeting, “Hello, Colonel North,” Thomas knew who it was: Larry Quinn. Now Major Larry Quinn, if recent scuttlebutt was to be believed.

  North waved at the bushes to his right; Lieutenant Hastings and his men emerged.

  Quinn approached, riding up along the short column of North’s men, exchanging nods of recognition with those he had met when he accompanied the Hibernians to retrieve a Mughal princeling from Austria two years ago. The men had seemed to like Larry well enough then, and the smiles now were genuine and lingered after he passed.

  North rested his hands on his saddle horn—riding with a Western saddle had been another up-time habit he had happily acquired—and studied the slightly younger man. Immediately after the mission to Austria, he had seen a fair amount of Quinn: the powers that had then guided the fate of the State of Thuringia-Franconia—Mike Stearns and Ed Piazza—had made him the regular liaison to the Hibernians.

  But then, Quinn all but disappeared. He was rarely seen even in Grantville’s favorite watering hole, the Thuringen Gardens. Word had it that he had shifted away from his military duties and become a scholar, studying law with an elderly up-timer whose name seemed especially appropriate to an educator of jurisprudence: Riddle.