The Heretic (General)

3

Observe:

Mahaut did not die.

There were times she wished she had. The pain was impossible, especially after the shock wore off and her body grasped in its thoughtless but no less living manner the completion of agony, the outrage, that had been perpetrated upon it. For days she lay in all-clenching hurt, half-comatose, half-inflamed suffering. Her eyes were closed, her teeth grinding.

There was the smell as her body rotted for company. Always the moment when any who visited her, even those prepared, those who knew what to expect, flinched at the stench.

Except for the Scout. He had come with her brother to visit and had seemed not disgusted by, or piteous, but—this was the strange thing—angry. Angry that this was happening to her.

It was a feeling she shared.

“I will not let this happen again.” She’d heard his voice in her delirium, wasn’t even sure whom he was speaking to. To her it sounded like a dialog, but with one listener and speaker located in such a way that he was impossible to hear.

I am dreaming, she thought at one point. A fever dream.

But such lucid moments were few and far between.

“There has to be something, thrice-damn it. I can’t let what happened to my mother go on and on in the Land bring needless death to—”

A pause.

“Yes, she does look a bit like her. What of it?”

A pause.

“I do not expect to save every person, or every woman. At least not at first. Just her.”

A pause.

“I am aware she is married.”

A pause.

“Why don’t you just consider it an experiment? You foresee no long-term imbalances, so let me do this with the knowledge you have given me. In exchange, I will see to those breechloaders.

A pause.

Then a laugh. And something else he’d said, something she later couldn’t believe she’d heard, had to believe was blurred by her fever into incomprehensibility. “Anyway, Zentrum is the local enemy. Zentrum works for death, even if he doesn’t know. I want to work for life. I couldn’t save my mother, so let me save her.”

Then curses and orders to servants. The others, the servants, responded to his voice; it was no longer a one-way overheard dialog, but the words she remembered were his.

The Scout is caring for me. He has taken me as his charge.

“I want all of these bandages boiled, do you hear me! Better let me do it, as a matter of fact. I do not want the wound touched without instruments that have not been boiled. Not once, not ever. I will set my Scouts on you if you do it. You know they are one step away from a Redlander. They might boil you alive.

“And I will provide salve for the wound. Take this nightmare sludge away and bury it. Better yet, feed it to the carnadons at the lake. They are getting to be a menace, and it will kill them straight off!

“Yes, I’ll be consulting with her physician, as well. He won’t give you any trouble about following my orders after he and I have a good talk. I’ll tell him about my Scouts, too, and their very large cook pot.”

She rotted. But only to a point. Something was strong within her, something that was not her will, but was a blind urge to overcome, to thrust out the creeping death. She took no credit for it. She often just wanted to die.

And she received the new bandages every day of impossibly clean and white linen—no cloth in the Land had ever been so well-washed, she thought—and the salve the Scout had concocted and brought.

So many others died of much less, and she believed for time that she was undeserving, that being alive, getting better, was punishment. It was punishment for letting him, the one who had shot her—oh, she remembered the squinting eyes, the careful aim, she knew him—take the girl.

Take the girl alive into the Redlands.

I should have shot Loreilei, Mahaut told herself. And if not with the gun, well, then I was close enough to even put an arrow in her eye.

Better her niece were dead than what lay in store for her in the Redlands.

And so Mahaut had taken her own healing as Zentrum’s judgment upon her, as the punishment of the Law for the stupid mistake of believing that the Blaskoye would have any mercy whatsoever. That if he did not release the girl, he would at least have the decency to kill her on his way out.

But he had not done so.

And then the pain of her wound slowly abated from mind-burning to endurable. The smell lessened in pungency. The maggots the Scout lieutenant had so carefully picked from her flesh week after week one day did not return. And the scar tissue began to form its jagged welt of remembrance.

And it was the Scout who told her that the ball was still within her, that he could not extract it without risking her death.

Then the other news: that the ball had likely destroyed her womb. That it would be a miracle if she could have children now.

The dreams began. Of the minié ball pushing through her flesh. Pushing deeper, deeper into her, like some unholy nishterlaub seed that had been planted deep.

No. The Blaskoye’s seed. His loathsome seed. And in the dreams, she was pregnant with the Redlander’s bastard. A creature, not a child, a parasite that ate her from within. That whispered to her from the inside, where only she could hear, “I am his, and you are his, and you will take me to him, drag yourself to him, so that I can be born, so that he can draw me from you as he might a weapon from a wound.”

Edgar, her husband, had taken one look at her and had not returned to see her. He was rumored to have journeyed to Garangipore to see about a crop on family land there and oversee the transfer of grain to the barges. She supposed she was still married to him, that he wouldn’t cast her off in this state. She was certain the family had told him about her now barren womb.

Her mother and father could not bear to witness what had happened to the one they had known as an innocent child, and had only occasionally visited after an initial flurry. Only Xander, her brother, came and kept coming. And the other, the lieutenant. Abel Dashian.

Why?

She’d asked herself that several times, and had no answer. She had even asked him, at one point demanded, that he go and never return. But he hadn’t answered, and he hadn’t obeyed.

Finally she had told him about the dreams. She’d told him in hopes that this would disgust him, make him hate her for a traitor to both womankind and to the Land, to Zentrum Himself.

But he’d only listened and nodded.

“I think I understand what it’s like to have thoughts, things you can’t control, rattling around in your mind,” he’d said.

And she’d asked, “How could you?”

And he’d answered, “Oh, you might be surprised.” But had said no more on the subject. “What will you do when you get better?” he’d asked.

This had set her to quiet thinking for quite some time. She hadn’t even considered the matter before. But now it appeared she might live, might walk, might one day get rid of the bedsores on her back and shoulders, stand up and be able to take a shit without soiling her linens. One not inconceivably distant day. And then what?

Edgar? She’d been bought cheap. Her father’s position and a not inconsiderable dowry from her mother’s family had been the attraction. Those must have been the prime attractions, for she’d always known herself to be not homely, but boyish in her ways. This she blamed on her father and her brother, for drawing her in on the play battles, the fights with wooden swords and knives, and most of all the archery and the sharpshooting. It hadn’t helped when they found that she was by far the best shot in the family.

And she blamed her mother for letting them do it. For never sitting her down and telling her that this is not what young ladies do. For perpetually believing she’d outgrow her urge to—

Say it.

To fight. To battle. To overcome a foe. To conquer within the small domain she ruled.

These were not the sentiments a woman should possess. Not in this town, in any case, military brat or no.

She knew what she ought to want. To beguile. To ensnare. To fulfill. To complete.

These were the traits of a woman.

She’d worked at it, become competent in the arts. Dress. Comportment.

But she never stopped beating the boys at their own games, and liking it.

Until the one came along who put a bullet in her gut and showed her that she could not beat all boys at all games.

For a while, she’d believed she’d met her match in Edgar. He had not put up with her willfulness, had showed a cool disdain for her uppity nature.

And yet he had clearly liked her, and liked her a lot—to the point she’d had to fight him off before the betrothal, claw him away, until she was ready for it, for him in that way.

“Nobody ever denies me,” he’d said. “But you deny me, and it just makes me long for you more.”

And so they’d gone on with him insulting her, and yet always returning, and driving off the few other suitors who had had the temerity to risk this one, the carnadon girl who would bite your head off as soon as look at you if you dared to suggest she was weak or changeable or was any other of the traits that made up and defined a woman.

Despite it all, she’d been flabbergasted when Edgar had asked her to marry him.

She still wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been thinking, for they’d gone for one another’s throats on the wedding night itself when she’d refused him what he believed was his manly due.

Oh, not the sex. She’d given that willingly enough, and liked it, too, for that, too, proved to be a kind of battle.

No, the other. When he told her she would have to give up her bow and arrows. When he told her he would now see her light-skinned and not tanned from the sun, and what was more, she would show herself to others, reveal her new class and status by the clothes she wore, which would have to change.

It would all have to change, for he intended to show them all, all the others, that he was the one who could tame her, tame the wild DeArmanville girl.

Did she not know she’d become quite a legend?

And by winning her, he had won a bet, a rather large wager, with a friend that no one, ever, would tame that woman.

So it was all a sort of rich boy joke, according to him. But now that he had her, the joke was over, for both of them, and life must begin. Respectable life. Doing things the way they had always been done.

Had he not known her before? Had he thought her entire way of being in the world would disappear from the sheer act of marriage under the Law and Zentrum?

They’d fought. Endlessly. And of course he could not bloody her lip, twist an arm, or bruise her body, without the aid of a servant or two to restrain her, which proved far too embarrassing to him to do more than once or twice.

She was a much better fighter than he, and—if she’d had a mind—could repeatedly have beaten him to a bloody pulp.

The sex had remained good, got even better, until, after two years, the good sex was all there was other than the hatred.

No child resulted. Of course he blamed her.

Now that was gone. At least, she thought it must be gone along with her torn flesh. She had no doubt that in appearance, her vagina would seem little more than the extension of the mass of scar that was forming upon her inner thigh and belly. Unless, of course, she could convince him he was hurting her, opening the wound once more, by f*cking her.

Edgar was the sort who would go for that.

But she knew herself that it would become just too…wearying to keep up. She’d laugh one day instead of cry, and he’d be on to the fact that she was enjoying herself once more, and that would ruin everything for him.

Yet he would not divorce her. Jacobsons didn’t divorce. It was almost unheard of in Treville, in any case.

So the solution would be—living apart. But how could she manage that?

Because she still would want and need. She could feel it now. She was still a woman, despite her ravaged womb. And if Edgar wouldn’t have her and she could take no other lover…

Why didn’t he kill me? Why did he aim low? Did he know he was letting me live? Allowing me to crawl the earth, with me knowing I did so only because of his passing whim?

It was going to be a long and painful life, any way she looked at it.

Then the day came when she could stand. He was there at the moment she did so, Abel. He was the one who helped her to her feet, who braced her from behind as she slowly learned to use her legs again.

There would always be the limp, yes. Always the reminder to the world of what she knew she was inside now. Torn. Broken. Barren. But she learned to walk again.

* * *

I calculate that this representation is an accurate interpolation to nine-six point seven-three-five hundreds of a percentage point, said Center.

Observe what? Abel thought. What did you want me to learn, to see? Her state of mind? Why did you show me this, Center?

I think he’s pointing out the fact that you are falling in love with her, lad, Raj said.

And how this may become a problem, Center added.

Shut up, both of you. Let’s see to the breechloaders.

* * *

“So you understand, muzzle loading is the issue,” Abel said to the priest.

Raf Golitsin sat back in the chair in his small office. They were in the rear of the armory, which itself was one of the four primary structures in the temple compound of Hestinga. It was where the muskets came from.

Abel had passed through what had seemed an erupting hot spring of heat and activity on his way back to the office. He’d been blindfolded by Golitsin, as was required of all nonclerical entrants to the area, but Golitsin had used muslin gauze, which was the understood blindfold of choice for officials who were in small danger of misusing priestly secrets. Abel had seen all.

The firing mechanisms of the muskets in for repair were dismantled to a degree Abel had not imagined possible. Flaws were annealed in glowing forges. Other parts were filed, planed, oiled. Barrel bands were pulled from rifle stock, and barrels themselves were dismantled, reamed. Rifling was done with an enormous handcranked screw, itself made of a metal of a hardness Abel had never seen before. Golitsin called it a drillpress and die.

The stocks were lovingly reconditioned. Some were willow-wood, but most were made from the hardwood maple of the Delta.

A local cambium-producing flora, not related to Earth’s maples genetically, but similar in dendrological characteristics, Center said.

And in the rear was the rebuild shop, where all came back together to produce the reconditioned rifle. Here the most skilled priest-smiths worked, checking each component and, in a final step, test firing and calibrating sights using complicated instruments that, anywhere else, would have been considered utterly nishterlaub, and probably poisonous to the touch, as well.

They closed the door to Golitsin’s office—a wooden interior door, rather than beads, was a necessity here to keep out the noise of the shop—and Abel, still excited from what he’d just witnessed—From the possibilities, most of all, he thought—proceeded to lay out his plans for a new kind of gun that would help them stem another Blaskoye invasion.

“It comes down to this: reloading is slow and you die,” Abel continued. “You have to put in the powder, put in the ball, ram them down the barrel. Put your primer cap over the nipple so that its fire will ignite the gunpowder within the barrel. And only then can you aim and fire. And hope you’ve done it all right. And then start all over again as fast your love of life demands of you, because they are coming right for you, the ones who want to kill you, while you are doing this.”

“So you need to make the steps quicker,” said Golitsin. “Or combine them.”

“Yes,” Abel said. “And here is my idea.”

Or the idea that was delivered to me from the stars, Abel thought. The stars that are suns, and the planets that circle them filled with other men who have discovered and lost this knowledge a hundred, a thousand times. I can barely conceive of this after a lifetime’s instruction, so I won’t tell you that, my friend Golitsin. You’ll think I’m crazy, as I may well be.

“First of all, the cartridge. It needs to combine the percussion cap. And we have to get rid of this biting off and pouring. I’ll show you my idea—”

Abel took out the scroll. On it was the cartridge design he had copied from memory, from the picture that Center had placed in his mind.

“I see, I see,” Golitsin said. “A cylinder. One end the cap, the other the minié ball.”

“Yes,” Abel said. “The paper cartridge should be the diameter of the rifle bore. It should fit snugly, but not so tightly it can’t slide into place. They must be extremely uniform.”

“We can wrap them around a dowel,” Golitsin said, scratching his head. “We can hold them together with glue, I suppose. I’ll have to work up a prototype for you to take a look at.”

He grunted in consternation. “But this will be pointless without a way to load it. You can’t ram it down the barrel from the muzzle.”

Abel smiled. Golitsin was getting it. He was understanding the problem, and so approaching the solution. Raf Golitsin was a very intelligent man, but if he could get it, many others might, as well.

“We are going to load it from the rear of the barrel,” Abel said. He broke out the second scroll with his drawings on it. “It will require a new mechanism.”

“A new…mechanism?”

“Yes,” said Abel.

“Use of nishterlaub remains is sanctioned only for piecemeal work. Combinations are forbidden,” Golitsin said from rote memory. “A mechanism is a combination of simple machines. You know this, of course. It’s a basic Thursday school lesson.”

“What I know,” Abel said. “What I know: we are faced with an enemy concentrated in overwhelming numbers. No one is going to send help. Cascade is corrupt. Ingres barely has a force of Regulars, and no Militia to speak of. Lindron feels secure and will do nothing until it is too late.”

“This is heresy, Abel,” said Golitsin. “You are asking me to commit heresy.”

“This is survival.”

He waited. He could see the eagerness on Golitsin’s face, the desire to know how. The need to try something new. He could also see that this longing was at war with a thousand Thursday school lectures.

Golitsin blinked twice as if to clear his eyes, shook his head. The inner war was over. All that remained was to discover the outcome.

“All right, show me,” said Golitsin. “I’d rather burn for the knowing of it than live as a fool.”

Abel put a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

“We can always hope,” the priest said with a forlorn sigh. “Show me.”

After a moment, Abel rolled out the scroll.

“The breech lock,” he said, “is a very simple concept. It’s the execution that may be the problem. But seeing what you have in place here in your shop, I think you may be able to handle it.”

* * *

“The point of using the women is not to prove anything,” said Abel, “but to increase our firepower.”

Joab shook his head. Abel had reported to him in his office to detail the assignment of Scout tasks, but had decided that now was the time to bring up this innovation with his father.

It was not an innovation that Center had insisted upon, although he had not rejected the idea. He’d merely said it would “alter certain equations that might lead to interesting variables to consider.”

It was something Abel felt he had to push for, after he’d seen the women fight at Lilleheim. They were throwing away a resource in a war where the forces of the Land were being purposely undermined and thinned.

I agree with your reasoning, Raj had said with a laugh. But maybe your motivations are not so pure as you purport them to be.

“No,” Joab said. “Absolutely not. Look at what happened at Lilleheim. That woman brought out her little coterie of—I don’t know what to call them. Women who aren’t content with one cock to lead a man around with, but who have got to have their own, to yank themselves here and there with, I suppose. And she got thirteen wives and daughters of some very prominent men killed in the bargain.“

“They fought like carnadons,” Abel said. “We need their numbers. Plus, they have almost all been around military men in some way or another. They are our sisters and our wives. They’ve absorbed many skills, and they know how we do things.”

“It could have been worse,” Joab mused. “Rape. Torture. The Blaskoye using the women against us the way they used the children.”

“We are at war, Father,” Abel replied. “If they beat us, they’re going to do those things anyway. And right before our eyes.”

“Try telling that to Tarl Magiorre, whose daughter lay dead on that thrice-damned nameless knoll,” Joab said.

“Yes,” Abel said with a bitter laugh. “And try telling it to Edgar Jacobson.”

Joab considered his son. Abel was not sure how much he knew, or how much he’d guessed, about Abel’s own interest in Dame Jacobson. But one thing he’d learned about his father over his years of serving under him was that there wasn’t much that went on in his district that he didn’t at least have some inkling about, especially when it came to the military families.

“Jacobson should have controlled her,” Joab said. “The women’s auxiliary exists for washing, mending, doing a soldier’s chores when he is better occupied with fighting. And, well, at least creating the hope of a good f*ck afterward. The Scouts have always had their retinue of women following them about, as you know.”

“Oh, yes.” Abel shook his head. “Some would follow them into the Redlands if they could.”

“I have no doubt,” Joab replied. “They perform a function, a useful function. But not as warriors. Not as fighters.”

“Not ideally,” Abel said. “But we live in far from ideal times.”

“I simply won’t allow it,” Joab said. “And I especially won’t allow her to continue with it, which is what I know you are really after.”

“Who do you mean?”

“You know what I’m talking about, Lieutenant, and don’t say you don’t,” his father said testily. Then he shook his head, sighed. “She’s a married woman, Abel. From a good family, married into a good family. This cannot end well.”

“I know who she is,” Abel said. “I respect it. As much as she does.”

“Besides, from what I hear—well, she’s rather damaged goods. I mean that in very literal sense. That wound…” Joab looked down, shook his head sadly.

“You’re being unkind, Father.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Joab replied. He again met Abel’s eyes and seemed genuinely chagrined. “But when one’s only son looks to be on the verge of throwing his manhood away on something—all right, someone—like that, it brings out the beast in a father. He’ll take the low road, if that’s what’s required.”

Abel considered. There was always the question of how much he could tell his father. Raj and Center were adamant. He must reveal nothing. If he did, they would not merely go away; they would kill him if they could. Raj, he was not so sure about. He had no doubt Center would do just that. His affection for Center was genuine, but it was rather like affection for a pet carnadon. You must never allow yourself to believe your feelings were returned.

“It may not matter, all this concern over status and position,” Abel said. “The Blaskoye have grown very strong. They seem determined to spread into the Land, to take it from us. They are gathering for that purpose. Every sign points to it: the incursions, the sack of Lilleheim, the increased raids. The way that they turn the corruption of Cascade to their advantage.” How to say it? “Father, do you not think what we both agree is a coming war might change, well, everything. The Land. The Law?”

Careful, lad, Raj murmured. See that where you’re going with this is not over a cliff.

“And will the nature of men and women change? Will what is right and good under Zentrum?” Joab laughed. “I think not. Some things flow and change. Some things are written in stone.” He put a hand on Abel’s shoulder. “You sound like a man who is trying to convince himself that something he wishes with all his heart were true actually was true. I understand that.”

A pensive look, a shadow, passed across Joab’s face.

He’s thinking about Mother, Abel thought.

“But we are men who deal in reality, not wishes and fantasy,” he said. He pointed toward the outspread papyrus map scroll on the big table in his office. “The Blaskoye will try again soon, but it will be far worse than Lilleheim.”

“I agree.”

“We have drawn their ire by our own competence, I’m afraid. Cascade has paid them off. Ingres is protected to the west by Treville itself. Lindron District is too well defended and anyway too long and wide to take with a west-to-east invasion. Twenty leagues of flat land with walls and flooded rice paddies favors organized foot, not savages on dontback.”

“Yes, they’ll move on Lindron last, when they’re certain of it.”

“Which leaves the northern districts and us.”

“Agreed,” Abel said. “But I would add one thing. You said they are drawn by ire at our competence. I would say that they are very angry at one commander in particular: you. They want your head. It is the way the Redlanders think. From them, a single charismatic leader rises and fights his way, or tricks his way, into leading a band, a tribe. Sometimes he even grabs for himself a godlike status.”

“Utter heresy.”

“Yes, I know,” said Abel. “You know this, but they don’t know. They understand us as badly as we understand them. For them, there is no Law of Zentrum. No Thursday school lessons. Whatever poor excuse for being something other than meat and dust that they have—well, that must be the way the world is for everyone, they believe. Their gods are the gods. Those gods’ rules are the only way men can rightly behave. So they figure we have exactly the same motives, that we are exactly the same men as they. They figure that if they shoot the dont in the head, the rest of the beast will collapse.”

“And you’re saying I’m the head.”

“To them, you are the godhead on Treville District,” Abel replied. “I believe they are particularly targeting you, Father.”

Joab sat back, took a long sip of wine. “Great,” he said, shaking his head. “Do they not realize that any competent officer can do as I do, that one will do so if he is called to take my place?”

“I’m not so sure you’re right about that,” Abel said. “But they surely do not understand how we organize and build in redundancy. Or even what organization means in a farming society such as ours. They are herders. But they’re learning. You saw it. They were much better commanded at Lilleheim than we’ve ever seen them before.”

“Agreed.”

“They may be organized enough to move in two directions at once.”

“How do you mean?”

“A feint,” said Abel. “To draw you out. You in particular. To draw the Regulars into a dry plain, say, where they can use their donts and overrun the Regulars, destroy the Militia. They don’t want to attack us in the town, not really, because they lose all advantage, and we gain several, not the least of which is fighting on our own turf. They have no villages, much less towns, of course.”

“You may be right,” Joab said. He paused in the midst of his thought and then displayed the slightest smile. His voice grew more heated with what was evidently conviction—and a plan. “In fact, I think there’s a good chance that you are. But where and when? I want to do more than guess.”

Oh no, Abel thought, realizing, before he could formulate it exactly, what his father had in mind. He’s had an idea that he believes will solve two of his problems. Damn it, he may be right.

“We’ve been reacting since Lilleheim,” Joab said. “It’s time to start acting. But we need more information.”

“That’s what the Scouts are for,” Abel said weakly.

“You’re a Scout. I’m sending you.”

“But I’m on detached duty with the Regulars,” Abel replied. “By your orders, I might add.”

“Yes.” Joab nodded. “Exactly. I need Sharplett nearby, to deal with threats. No, you will go. Long reconnaissance. Take four squads, and a command group.”

“That’s half the Scouts.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to get me dispositions on the Blaskoye,” Joab said. “Real information. You say they are getting organized, and I believe you. For years we couldn’t estimate strength or likelihood of attack because they were diffuse and haphazard in their ways. Organization leads to predictability.”

“How long, Commander?”

“I’ll give you two three-moons.”

Ninety-two days, Center said.

“Where?”

“Awul-alwaha, the Great Oasis, would be a good bet,” Joab said. “No one has seen it in our lifetimes.”

“I’ll need maps. A dont train. I’ll need to make maps.”

“Of course.”

“Weldletter.”

This took Joab back for a moment, and it was Abel’s turn to smile. Weldletter was Joab’s best cartographer. His father would hate to let the man go. But it made eminent sense, and Joab would know it.

“Bastard,” Joab muttered. “All right. Take him.”

“I’ll need a week to prepare.”

“You have three days,” Joab said. “Take the pre-positioned supplies at the Upper Cliffs.”

“Sharplett will boil over.”

“Let me deal with Sharplett,” said Joab. “And one more thing.”

“What?”

“Absolute secrecy,” he said. “I am convinced the Blaskoye have ears and eyes in Treville. No word is to get out, on pain of the lash and the stockade. Impress it on your men.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joab leaned over the map, looked Abel in the eyes. “Especially no word to the women. This auxiliary. No one.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I’m sure you do,” Joab replied. “Now you’d better get to it.”

Abel tapped a shoulder in salute, then turned to depart. He controlled his expression, but could not keep the flush from his face. He was steaming, gritting his teeth and about to gouge his palms with his own fingertips. But just as he reached the door, Joab spoke again, softer now, not in the tones of a commander but in those of a father.

“A wager,” his father said. Abel stopped.

He didn’t turn back around to face Joab. “What?”

“My bet is that it will be gone like a fever when you return. She may come to her senses. You might. One of you probably will.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you may be returning from relative safety into great danger,” Joab said. “Those Jacobsons play for keeps.”

Abel nodded. He let himself breathe out.

His father continued in the same low, soft voice. “But so do I,” he said. “So do I.”

* * *

Observe:

One day Mahaut crossed the room by herself, went to stand by the window, parted the curtains, and felt the sun on her face.

She wanted to tell him, waited, even sent word. But then the note came back that he was away with the Scouts, that it was an extended expedition, and that it wasn’t known when he would return.

So she tried to forget him. But a strange thing happened. The dreams began to change. Oh, there was always the bullet within her, the splay of lead. But sometimes now it was not his, the Blaskoye’s, bastard child, but was her own and no one the father. And when this happened in the dreams, Abel was there. Standing somewhere nearby, quiet. Always with his own guns, that short-barreled musket and the flare-muzzled dragon blunderbuss pistol with the scrollwork and rotating flintlock. And she would ask him what he was doing, and he would answer “Waiting,” and she would ask him what he was waiting for, and he would say “For the baby,” and she would know he meant the bullet.

“Why?” she would ask.

“Because I need it,” he said.

“Why do you need it?” she would ask again.

And he would look not at her, but away, into the distance. And he would finally answer “I need it to shoot him with it. It’s the only bullet that will kill him. And I aim to kill him.”

And she would wake from those dreams with her heart beating wildly, and—

—she had to now admit, must admit—

Flush with desire.

He’d better not get himself killed out there, she thought, not yet.

Because I have to tell him I love him.

* * *

Interpolation ninety-nine point one percent accurate, Center said. Now is that sufficient for interpretation of the probable mental state and the intended actions of the subject?

Yes, it is, Center, Abel thought. Yes, I hear you, Mahaut.

* * *

“You know, I keep thinking about women when I work on guns,” Golitsin said. They were once again in the back of his smithery in the Hestinga temple compound, and Golitsin was pulling a newly reburbished musket from a dont leather scabbard. Abel got a glimpse of some odd complication on the top of the barrel, but Golitsin quickly covered both ends of the barrel with his palms.

“Why just think of women,” Abel replied. “Since you like them so much, you know we have a few whores in Hestinga—and lots more in Garangipore.”

“I’m well aware,” Golitsin answered. “It’s a constant temptation. But Zilkovsky would find out. He wouldn’t stop me but he would be…disappointed.” Golitsin shook his head ruefully. “I couldn’t stand that.” He looked at Abel and his expression brightened. “Speaking of which, I hear you have given in to a temptation of your own.”

Abel was startled by the pronouncement. He’d understood that the news of his time spent with Mahaut had gotten around in certain quarters—how could it not?—but for a priest to know of it, even a priest as worldly as Golitsin, seemed strange and perhaps even dangerous.

“We’ve done nothing,” Abel replied.

“But you’ve thought about it. A lot.” This was not a question.

“Yes.”

Golitsin shrugged. “I take an interest in affairs outside the compound,” said the priest with a wink. “Especially since I can’t indulge in them. Zilkovsky might take my forge away. I can’t have that.”

“No, I guess not.”

“But what are you thinking, Abel?”

“I may love her,” he said.

“So what?” replied the priest. “Many a man has loved the wife of another. Most do not do anything about it, whether out of fear or prudence, I can’t say. Probably both.”

Abel considered. What had he been doing with Mahaut? Center and Raj had openly wondered about this very question. Yet he knew, whatever his motives, that he was doing the right thing, for both himself and for Mahaut.

And she will live. I am responsible for that, he thought. Not fate, not Zentrum. Me. I saved her.

“I would have left her alone if I’d really believed she wanted me to,” Abel said. “She decided I should stay. I did the rest. Now it’s too late.”

“That’s no excuse. Women are weak.”

“Not Mahaut DeArmanville. She is strong. I’ve seen proof of that.”

“Mahaut Jacobson.”

“Yes,” Abel said. “So what do you have to show me there, brother? You’ve done it? A breeched rifle?”

Golitsin smiled wryly. “Not quite. I have a ways to go on that project. But I do have something else, something you didn’t draw out in the sand for me, either. My own idea. Since you have opened the sluice gate, I’ve been thinking of other changes we might make.” He turned the musket over in his hands and showed Abel the top of the barrel and tang. “For instance, what is the best way to true a gun’s sights, do you think?”

“Shoot a Blaskoye, of course,” Abel replied with a grim smile. “If you miss, try a little to the left and then a little to the right. If that doesn’t work, charge and gut him with the bayonet. That will also get you the elevation.”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Golitsin replied. “Your joke is too close to the truth. What we usually do in the shop is take a straight wooden dowel that’s about ten feet long and fit it down a barrel. We color the tip or wind it with yarn, then line up the sights on that splotch of color. Then we take it on range to fine tune the elevation and windage.”

“Now that sounds like a lot of work.”

“Yes, and all for naught in most circumstances,” Golitsin replied. “I started thinking about why our notch-shaped sights are so damn useless in combat.” Golitsin chuckled. “It’s the brightness, the constant change as your eye tries to adjust.”

“Maybe. All sights are notches, are they not?”

“They are,” Golitsin said, “until now.” He thrust the musket toward Abel but still did not take his hands off the barrel. They were covering the sights. “What you need is a sight that cuts down on ambient light. And then it came to me.”

“What?”

“The solution, of course,” Golitsin replied. “It’s very simple.”

“Okay, give,” said Abel.

“Circular front and rear sights,” said the priest. “Have the shooter look not through a jerky notch-shaped opening, but through a fully ringed aperture. Perfect for a soldier sighting in on the human torso.”

Golitsin took his hand off the tip of the barrel to reveal a small ring sitting on a tiny rod. The front sight. Then he removed his rear palm to reveal a ring and rod assembly that was slightly bigger than that on the barrel’s tip. He handed the gun to Abel, who sighted down its length.

“Line the circles up on one another,” Golitsin said. “I had my priest-smiths test it, but I want reports from actual battle.”

“That can be arranged,” Abel replied.

Golitsin nodded. “One thing I know for certain,” he said with a shake of his head.

“What’s that?”

“These new sights are utter and complete nishterlaub.” He took the gun back from Abel, fingered the metal rings, then looked up at Abel with a smile. “Nishterlaub—and fun as hell to come up with and manufacture,” he concluded with an uneasy laugh. “Dashian, what have you done to me?”

“Sorry, friend.”

“Don’t be.” Golitsin shook his head. “Whatever happens, don’t be sorry. It would be disrespectful toward me.” He looked Abel in the eyes. “I chose to follow you down this road. Never forget that. It was my choice.”

“And how long on the rear-loaders?” Abel asked.

“Hard to say. Days, not weeks,” the priest replied. “It is like with the sights. Now that I have the general idea, it’s only a matter of working out the details.” Golitsin smiled his crooked smile. “And getting used to the idea that I am now a heretic, of course.”