Read Online Hope Renewed by David Drake, S.M. Stirling - Free Book Online Page B

but things were getting done.
    “Good work, Muzzaf,” he said to the man riding at his side.
    The little Komarite looked up from his clipboard; there were dark circles under his eyes. “A matter of times and distances, solamnti ,” he said. “No different from calculating tonnages or profit margins.” He grinned. “A pleasure working for a man who understands numbers, at that, my lord. Too few military nobles do.”
    Few nobles have Center advising them, Raj thought. Aloud: “I say again, good work.”
    It was that: a formidable bit of organization. Railways had been around for a long time now, but there had never been enough of them, or enough uninterrupted kilometers of line, to move large forces. He’d had enough to do managing the men; Muzzaf had been invaluable once Raj explained the basic idea. This was going to change warfare forever. Not that the railways were that much faster than dogback yet, but they were untiring—and more importantly, they could carry heavy supplies long distances at the same speed as light cavalry, without draft beasts eating up their loads or dying.
    And it never hurt to acknowledge when a man did something right, either. Another thing too many nobles did was simply snap their fingers and expect things to fall into place. It was the engineers and administrators that made the Civil Government more than another feudal pigsty.
    Muzzaf grinned. “Half of it was your lady’s labors,” he said. “Without her keeping the patricians off my back . . .” He shrugged meaningfully.
    Raj nodded. Suzette Whitehall had been born in East Residence, to fifteen generations of city nobility. Nobody knew how to work the system better. It was one of her manifold talents. The wonder is she picked a hill-squireen like me, he thought with a smile. He’d been nothing in particular then, just another land-poor Descotter nobleman making his way in the professionals like his fathers before him.
    And where—
    “My lady,” he said.
    She stood with the command group, but she turned quickly at the sound of his voice. Her smile was slight, but it warmed the slanted gray eyes; Horace crouched, and Raj stepped free of the stirrups and bent over her hand. She was in Court walking-out dress, lace skirt split at the front and pinned back to show embroidered leggings, mantilla, the works. It surprised him; he’d expected her traveling gear. Fatima was beside her, carrying a tray with a bottle of Kelden Sparkler and several long-stemmed glasses, each with half a strawberry on its ice-cooled rim.
    He reached out a hand—not for the wine, it was too early for him—but for the fruit. She touched his fingers with her folded fan.
    “That’s ammunition, my knight,” she said.
    A party of officials was picking their way through the shouting chaos of soldiers and guns and dogs, heading his way. He recognized the Municipal Prefect of East Residence—the Governors didn’t allow the city an alcalle of its own, knowing the fickleness of an East Residence mob—and he looked deeply unhappy. Raj braced himself.
    “ More time lost,” he growled deep in his throat.
    Suzette touched him on the arm. “A minute, darling,” she said. “I expected this. That’s Rahol Himentez, and he had a mob stone his townhouse when the coal ran out one winter. He’s had a bee in his breeches about it ever since.”
    She swept off towards the dignitaries.
    “—winter reserves,” Raj could hear the Prefect bleating. “And the enemy’s on the Lower Drangosh, not the Upper—”
    But he stopped, and his flunkies with him, milling around as Suzette’s soothing voice cut through the plaintive whine.
    Beside him, Gerrin Staenbridge chuckled with admiration. “Cut off by the flying squadron, by the Spirit,” he said. “Commandeered my mistress to do it, too.”
    One of the other officers laughed. “Small loss to you,” he said. Staenbridge had an eye for handsome youths.
    “Well, she is the mother of my heir,” he pointed out, and