Excerpt: The Byzantine Wars

“Well,” puffed von Zelig, standing at the top of the rise and overlooking the tents that stretched in long, even lines across the field, “that was pretty damn good for our first day, hey? How do you think the new recruits did?”

“I think the ones from the Rheinland are going to be praying for your death tonight,” gasped Holst, grasping at a stitch in his side. They’d just climbed up a mountain, and Holst did not share his Captain’s enthusiasm for high viewpoints, which were a great place to survey the troops but were inevitably - by definition - to be found at the top of miserable cliff faces and crags. He’d been raised on the plains in lower Austerlitz and like many lowlanders, he was not a fan of steep.

“As long as they’re up in the morning for target practice, I don’t much give a damn. Hey, while we’re up here, I have an idea.”

“No, I refuse.”

“You haven’t even heard it!”

“If it’s anything like that idea you had to go swimming with Lieutenant St-Brigid -”

“I didn’t know the wind would come up like that, now, did I? And anyways, if it was a bad idea, the Lieutenant should have pointed it out. It was his bloody ship. And NO, this is a good idea. This is one of my patented Alarick von Zelig Amazing Ideas. Like verifying our cartography against the local folks’, which totally saved us ten miles of slogging through mud this afternoon. One of those.”

“Fine. What’s your idea?”

“I’m thinking you and Immanuel should ride ahead tomorrow to the next village along the road and let them know about the cannon practice, and order some beer. Show the kids the cannons, that sort of thing. That way we make it more like a party and less like an assault, hey?”

“Great idea,” he said, with trepidation.

“Hmm. As you know, I have excellent people skills, and there’s something in your voice and posture that tells me you’re not too keen on it.”

“I like it in theory, just not in the particular.”

“To whit, you particularly riding hard for twenty miles at the head of a column, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Captain, I REALLY protest, said Reinhold, coming up from behind him. He’d taken the longer, slower way up, due to having had his ankle twisted in an unfortunate accident this morning while helping some new raw duffers unload the cannon.

“Okay. Totally noted. We’re still doing it.”

“Joking aside, sir – ”

“I know, I know, your ankle. Does Immanuel have any Polish?”

“Not enough to be able to tell ‘enemy cannon fire’ apart from ‘friendly cannon fire,’ I don’t think,” said Holst slowly. “But maybe I could – ”

“No, I want you and Genevieve to figure out the problem with the blocking mechanisms on the 54 cannon tomorrow – you’re good at tricky things like that, and anyways, your division’s missing 1/5 its complement of powder thanks to that goddamn crane breaking this morning.”

They all winced a little at that. It had been a long, LONG morning.

“No, I tell you what – I’ll take Mr Falkas with me tomorrow.”

The lieutenants were silent; for all they were happy to joke with their captain about the trials and tribulations of troop formations, they were not sure how to broach the topic of his relationship with the young man which, despite all his protestations to the contrary, was just as unpleasant as theirs and far more tempestuous. They weren’t sure if he was fooling himself, or trying to fool them, or simply trying to bully reality into changing through sheer force of will.

“That’s what we’ll do,” he said, with a look of pleasant determination. They exchanged grimaces as they followed him back down the hill towards the fires and tents of the camp. They’d seen that look before. It was a dangerous, terrible look, and it was going to get someone in trouble.