MR 24

[KingSize]

. . . with one white-gloved hand extended.
Oh no, she thought. But he’s cleverer than Vimes thinks he is, and he
can control
his temper. And, suddenly, I’m everyone’s mascot.
‘For the good of our great countries,’ said Heinrich, ‘it is suggested
that we
publicly shake the hand of friendship.’ He smiled again, or at least
allowed the
corners of his mouth to turn up.
Because she could think of no other way out, Polly took the huge hand
and
obediently shook it.
‘Oh, ver’ good,’ said Otto, grasping his picture box. ‘I can only take
zer vun, of
course, because unfortunately I shall have to use flash. Just vun
moment . . .’
Polly was learning that an art form which happens in a fraction of a
second
nevertheless needs a long time to take place, allowing a smile to
freeze into a mad
grimace or, in the worst cases, a death rictus. Otto muttered to
himself as he adjusted
the equipment. Heinrich and Polly maintained the grip and stared at
the picture box.
‘So,’ muttered the Prince, ‘the soldier boy isn’t a soldier boy. That
is your good
luck!’
Polly kept her fixed grin. ‘Do you often menace frightened women?’ she
said.
‘Oh, that was nothing! You are only a peasant girl, after all! What do
you know of
life? And you showed spirit!’
‘Everyone say chiz!’ Otto commanded. ‘Vun, two, three . . . oh, bug—’
By the time the after-images had died away, Otto was back on his feet
again. ‘Vun
day I hope to find a filter zat vorks,’ he muttered. ‘Thank you,
everyvun.’
‘That was for peace and goodwill between nations,’ said Polly, smiling
sweetly
and letting go of the Prince’s hand. She took a step back. ‘And this,
your highness, is
for me . . .’
Actually, she didn’t kick. Life was a process of finding out how far
you could go,
and you could probably go too far in finding out how far you could go.
But a mere
twitch of a leg was enough, just to see the idiot collapse in the
ridiculous, knockkneed,
protective crouch.
She marched away, singing inside. This was not a fairy-tale castle and
there was no
such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to
kick the
handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.
And now, there was one other little thing.
The sun was setting before Polly found Jackrum again, and blood-red
light shone
through the high windows of the keep’s biggest kitchen. He was sitting
alone at a long
table by the fire, in full uniform, and he was eating a slab of thick
bread plastered with
pork dripping. A mug of beer was not far from his other hand. He
looked up as she
approached, and nodded companionably towards another chair. Around
them, women
ran to and fro. ‘Pork drippin’ with salt and pepper, and a mug of
beer,’ he said. That’s
the ticket. You can keep your cuisine. Want a slice?’ He waved a hand
at one of the
kitchen girls who was dancing attendance on him.
‘Not right now, sarge.’
‘Sure?’ said Jackrum. ‘There’s an old sayin’: kissing don’t last,
cooking do. I hope
that it’s one you don’t have cause to reflect upon.’
Polly sat down. ‘Kissing is lasting so far,’ she said.
‘Shufti get sorted out?’ said Jackrum. He finished the beer, snapped
his fingers at
the serving girl, and pointed to the empty mug.
‘To her own satisfaction, sarge.’
‘Fair enough. You can’t get fairer. So what next, Perks?’
‘Dunno, sarge. I’ll go with Wa— with Alice and the army and see what
happens.’
‘Best of luck. Look after ‘em, Perks, ‘cos I ain’t coming,’ said
Jackrum.
‘Sarge?’ said Polly, shocked.
‘Well, looks like we’re going to be short by one war at present, eh?
Anyway, this is
it. The end of the road. I’ve done my bit. Can’t go on now. Shot me
quiver with the
general, and I dare say he will be glad to see the back of me.
Besides, old age is
creepin’ on. I killed five poor devils when we attacked today, and
afterwards I found
meself wonderin’ why. Not good, that. Time to get out before I blunt
me own edge.’
‘You’re sure, sarge?’
‘Yeah. Seems to me the ol’ “my country right or wrong” thing has had
its day.
Time to put my feet up and find out what it is we’ve been fighting
for. Sure you won’t
have any dripping? It’s got crunchy bits. That’s what I call style, in
dripping.’
Polly waved away the proffered slab of grease-smeared bread, and sat
in silence
while Jackrum engulfed it.
‘Funny thing, really,’ she said, at last.
‘What’s that, Perks?’
‘Finding out that it’s not about you. You think you’re the hero, and
it turns out
you’re really part of someone else’s story. Wazz— Alice will be the
one they
remember. We just had to get her here.’
Jackrum said nothing but, as Polly would have predicted, pulled his
crumpled bag
of chewing tobacco out of his pocket. She slipped a hand in her own
pocket and
pulled out a small packet. Pockets, she thought. We’ve got to hang on
to pockets. A
soldier needs pockets.
‘Try this, sarge,’ she said. ‘Go on, open it.’
It was a small, soft leather pouch, with a drawstring. Jackrum held it
up so that it
twisted this way and that.
‘Well, Perks, upon my oath I am not a swearing man—’ he began.
‘No, you’re not. I’ve noticed,’ said Polly. ‘But that grubby old paper
was getting
on my nerves. Why didn’t you ever get a proper pouch made for
yourself? One of the
saddlers here sewed that up for me in half an hour.’
‘Well, that’s life, isn’t it?’ said Jackrum. ‘Every day you think “ye
gods, it’s about
time I had a new bag”, but then it all gets so busy you end up using
the old one. Thank
you, Perks.’
‘Oh, I thought, “What can I give the man who has^verything?” and that
was all I
could afford,’ said Polly. ‘But you don’t have everything, sarge.
Sarge? You don’t, do
you?’
She sensed him freeze over.
‘You stop right there, Perks,’ he said, lowering his voice.
‘I just thought you might like to show someone that locket of yours,
sarge,’ said
Polly cheerfully. ‘The one round your neck. And don’t glare at me,
sarge. Oh, yeah, I
could walk away and I’d never be sure, really sure, and maybe you’d
never show it to
anyone else, ever, or tell them the story, and one day we’ll both be
dead and . . . well,
what a waste, eh?’
Jackrum glared.
‘Upon your oath, you are not a dishonest man,’ said Polly. ‘Good one,
sarge. You
told people every day.’
Around them, beyond the dome, the kitchen buzzed with the busyness of
women.
Women always seemed to be doing things with their hands - holding
babies, or pans,
or plates, or wool, or a brush, or a needle. Even when they were
talking, busyness was
happening.
‘No one would believe yer,’ said Jackrum, at last.
‘Who would I want to tell?’ said Polly. ‘And you’re right. No one
would believe
me. I’d believe you, though.’
Jackrum stared into his fresh mug of beer, as if trying to see the
future in the foam.
He seemed to reach a decision, pulled the gold chain out of his
noisome vest,
unfastened the locket, and gently snapped it open.
‘There you go,’ he said, passing it across. ‘Much good may it do you.’
There was a miniature painting in each side of the locket: a dark-
haired girl, and a
blond young man in the uniform of the Ins-and-Outs.
‘Good one of you,’ said Polly.
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ said Jackrum.
‘No, honestly,’ said Polly. ‘I look at the picture, and look at
you . . . I can see that
face in her face. Paler, of course. Not so . . . full. And who was the
boy?’
‘William, his name was,’ said Jackrum.
‘Your sweetheart?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you followed him into the army . . .’
‘Oh, yeah. Same old story. I was a big strong girl, and . . . well,
you can see the
picture. The artist did his best, but I was never an oil painting.
Barely a watercolour,
really. Where I came from, what a man looked for in a future wife was
someone who
could lift a pig under each arm. And a couple of days later I was
lifting a pig under
each arm, helping my dad, and one of my clogs came off in the muck and
the ol’ man
was yelling at me and I thought: the hell with this, Willie never
yelled. Got hold of
some men’s clothes, never you mind how, cut my hair right off, kissed
the Duchess,
and was a Chosen Man within three months.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s what we used to call a corporal,’ said Jackrum. ‘Chosen Man.
Yeah, I smiled
about that, too. And I was on my way. The army’s a piece of piss
compared to
running a pig farm and looking after three lazy brothers.’
‘How long ago was that, sarge?’
‘Couldn’t say, really. I swear I don’t know how old I am, and that’s
the truth,’ said
Jackrum. ‘Lied about my age so often I ended up believing me.’ She
began, very
carefully, to transfer the chewing tobacco into the new bag.
‘And your young man?’ said Polly quietly.
‘Oh, we had great times, great times,’ said Jackrum, stopping for a
moment to stare
at nothing. ‘He never got promoted on account of his stutter, but I
had a good shouty
voice and officers like that. But Willie never minded, not even when I
made it to
sergeant. And then he got killed at Sepple, right next to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to be, you didn’t kill him,’ said Jackrum evenly. ‘But
I stepped
over his body and skewered the bugger that did. Wasn’t his fault.
Wasn’t my fault.
We were soldiers. And then a few months later I had a bit of a
surprise, and he was
called William, too, just like his father. Good job iMiad a bit of
leave, eh? Me gran
raised him for me, put him to a trade as an armourer over in Scritz.
Good trade, that.
No one kills a good armourer. They tell me he looks just like his dad.
A captain I met
once had bought a bloody good sword off him. Showed it to me, not
knowin’ the
hist’ry, o’ course. Damn good sword. It had scrollwork on the hilt and
everything,
very classy. He’s married with four kids now, I heard. Got a carriage
and pair,
servants, big house . . . yeah, I see you’re paying attention . . .’
‘Wazzer - well, Wazzer and the Duchess said—’
‘Yeah, yeah, they talked about Scritz, and a sword,’ said Jackrum.
‘That’s when I
knew it wasn’t just me watchin’ over you lads. I knew you’d survive.
The old girl
needed you.’
‘So you’ve got to go there, sarge.’
‘Got to? Who says? I’ve served the old girl the whole of my life, and
she’s got no
call on me now. I’m my own man, always have been.’
‘Are you, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Are you crying, Perks?’
‘Well . . . it’s a bit sad, sarge.’
‘Oh, I dare say I sobbed a bit too, once in a while,’ said Jackrum,
still tucking the
tobacco into the new pouch. ‘But when all’s said and done, I’ve had a
good life. Saw
the cavalry break at the Battle of Slomp. I was part of the Thin Red
Line that turned
aside the Heavy Brigade at Sheep’s Drift, I saved the Imperial flag
from four real
bastards at Raladan, and I’ve been to a lot of foreign countries and
met some very
interesting people, who I mostly subsequently killed before they could
do me over
good and proper. Lost a lover, still got a son . . . there’s many a
woman who’s faced
worse, believe me.’
‘And . . . you spotted other girls . . .’
‘Hah! Became a kind of hobby, really. Most of ‘em were frightened
little things,
running away from god knows what. They got found out soon enough. And
there
were plenty like Shufti, chasin’ their lad. But there were a few who
had what I call the
twinkle. A bit of fire, maybe. They just needed pointing in the right
direction. I gave
them a leg up, you might say. A sergeant’s a powerful man, sometimes.
A word here,
a nod there, sometimes even doctorin’ some paperwork, a whisper in the
dark—’
‘—a pair of socks,’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, that sort of thing,’ said Jackrum, grinning. ‘Always a big
concern to them,
the whole latrine business. Least of your worries, I used to say. In
peace no one cares,
in battle everyone takes a piss the same way, and damn quickly, too.
Oh, I helped
‘em. I was their whatsit, their eminence grease, and grease it was,
too, slidin’ them to
the top. Jackrum’s Little Lads, I called ‘em.’
‘And they never suspected?’
‘What, suspect Jolly Jack Jackrum, so full of rum and vinegar?’ said
Jackrum, the
old evil grin coming back. ‘Jack Jackrum, who could stop a bar fight
by belchin’? No,
sir! I dare say some of ‘em suspected something, maybe, I dare say
they worked out
that there was something going on somewhere, but I was just the big
fat sergeant who
knew everyone and everything and drank everything, too.’
Polly dabbed at her eyes. ‘What are you going to do now, then, if you
don’t go to
Scritz?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a bit put by,’ said Jackrum. ‘More than a bit, in point
of actual fact.
Pillage, plunder, loot. . . it all adds up, what ever you call it. I
didn’t piss it all up
against a wall like the other lads, right? I expect I can remember
most of the bleedin’
places I buried it. Always thought I might open an inn, or maybe a
knocking shop . . .
oh, a proper high class place, you don’t have to look at me like that,
nothin’ like that
stinking tent. No, I’m talkin’ about one with a chef and chandeliers
and a lot of red
velvet, very exclusive. I’d get some nobby lady to front it and I’d be
the bouncer and
run the bar. Here’s a tip, lad, for your future career, and it’s one
some of the other
Little Lads learned for ‘emselves: sometimes it’ll help if you visits
one of them
naughty places, otherwise the men’ll wonder about you. I always used
to take a book
to read and advise the young lady to get some sleep, ‘cos they does a
tough job.’
Polly let that pass, but said: ‘You don’t want to go back and see your
grandchildren?’
‘Wouldn’t wish meself on him, lad,’ said Jackrum firmly. ‘Wouldn’t
dare. My
boy’s a well-respected man in the town! What’ve I got to offer? He’ll
not want some
fat ol’ biddy banging on his back door and gobbing baccy juice all
over the place and
telling him she’s his mother!’
Polly looked at the fire for a moment, and felt the idea creep into
her mind. ‘What
about a distinguished sergeant major, shiny with braid, loaded with
medals, arriving at
the front door in a grand coach and telling him he’s his father?’ she
said.
Jackrum stared.
‘Tides of war, and all that,’ Polly went on, mind suddenly racing.
‘Young love.
Duty calls. Families scattered. Hopeless searching. Decades pass. Fond
memories.
Then . . . oh, an overheard conversation in a bar, yeah, that’d work.
Hope springs. A
new search. Greasing palms. The recollections of old women. At last,
an address—’
‘What’re you saying, Perks?’
‘You’re a liar, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘Best I’ve ever heard. One last
lie pays for all!
Why not? You could show him the locket. You could tell him about the
girl you left
behind you . . .’
Jackrum looked away, but said: ‘You’re a shining bastard of a thinker,
Perks. And
where would I get a grand coach, anyway?’
‘Oh, sarge! Today? There are . . . men in high places who’ll give you
anything you
ask for, right now. You know that. Especially if it means they’d see
the back of you.
You never put the bite on them for anything much. If I was you, sarge,
I’d cash in a
few favours while you can. That’s the Ins-and-Outs, sarge. Take the
cheese while it’s
there, ‘cos kissin’ don’t last.’
Jackrum took a deep, long breath. ‘I’ll think about it, Perks. Now you
push off, all
right?’
Polly stood up. ‘Think hard, sarge, eh? Like you said, anyone who’s
got anyone
left is ahead of the game right now. Four grandchildren? I’d be a
proud kid if I had a
grandad who could spit tobacco juice far enough to hit a fly on the
opposite wall.’
‘I’m warning you, Perks.’
‘It was just a thought, sarge.’
‘Yeah . . . right,’ Jackrum growled.
‘Thanks for getting us through it, sarge.’
Jackrum didn’t turn round.
‘I’ll be going, then, sarge.’
‘Perks!’ said Jackrum, as she reached the door. Polly stepped back
into the room.
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘I . . . expected better of ‘em, really. I thought they’d be better at
it than men.
Trouble was, they were better than men at being like men. They do say
the army can
make a man of you, eh? So . . . whatever it is you are going to do
next, do it as you.
Good or bad, do it as you. Too many lies and there’s no truth to go
back to.’
‘Will do, sarge.’
‘That’s an order, Perks. Oh . . . and Perks?’
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘Thanks, Perks.’
Polly paused when she got to the door. Jackrum had turned her chair to
the fire,
and had settled back. Around him, the kitchen worked.
Six months passed. The world wasn’t perfect, but it was still turning.
Polly had kept the newspaper articles. They weren’t accurate, not in
the detail,
because the writer told . . . stories, not what was actually
happening. They were like
paintings, when you had been there and had seen the real thing. But it
was true about
the march on the castle, with Wazzer on a white horse in front,
carrying the flag. And
it was true about people coming out of their houses and joining the
march, so that
what arrived at the gates was not an army but a sort of disciplined
mob, shouting and
cheering. And it was true that the guards had taken one look at it and
had seriously
reconsidered their future, and that the gates had swung open even
before the horse had
clattered on to the drawbridge. There was no fighting, no fighting at
all. The shoe had
dropped. The country had breathed out.
Polly didn’t think it was true that the painting of the Duchess, alone
on its easel in
the big, empty throne room, had smiled when Wazzer walked towards it.
Polly had
been there and didn’t see it happen, but lots of people swore it had,
and you might end
up wondering what the truth really was, or whether there were lots of
different kinds
of truth.
Anyway, it had worked. And then . . .
. . . they went home. A lot of soldiers did, under the fragile truce.
The first snows
were already falling and, if people had wanted a war, then the winter
had given them
one. It came with lances of ice and arrows of hunger, it filled the
passes with snow, it
made the world as distant as the moon . . .
That was when the old dwarf mines had opened up, and pony after pony
emerged.
It had always been said there were dwarf tunnels everywhere, and not
just tunnels;
secret canals under the mountains, docks, flights of locks that could
lift a barge a mile
high in busy darkness, far below the gales on the mountain tops.
They brought, indeed, cabbage and potatoes and roots and apples and
barrels of fat,
things that kept. And winter was defeated, and the snowmelt roared
down the valleys,
and the Kneck scrawled its random wiggles across the flat silt of the
valley.
They’d gone home, and Polly wondered if they’d ever really been away.
Were we
soldiers? she wondered. They’d been cheered on the road to
PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHans-JosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg, and had
been
much better treated than their rank deserved, and even had a special
uniform designed
for them. But the vision of Gummy Abbens kept rising in her mind . . .
We weren’t soldiers, she decided. We were girls in uniform. We were
like a lucky
charm. We were mascots. We weren’t real, we were always a symbol of
something.
We’d done very well, for women. And we were temporary.
Tonker and Lofty were never going to be dragged back to the school
now, and
they’d gone their own way. Wazzer had joined the general’s household,
and had a
room of her own, and quietness, and made herself useful and was never
beaten. She’d
written Polly a letter, in tiny spiky handwriting. She seemed happy; a
world without
beatings was heaven. Jade and her beau had wandered off to do
something more
interesting, as trolls very sensibly did. Shufti. . . had been on a
timetable of her own.
Maladicta had disappeared. And Igorina had set up by herself in the
capital, dealing
with women’s problems, or at least those women’s problems that weren’t
men. And
senior officers had given them medals, and watched them go with fixed,
faint smiles.
Kisses don’t last.
And, now, it wasn’t that good things were happening, it was just that
bad things
had stopped. The old women still grumbled, but they were left to
grumble. No one
had any directions, no one had a map, no one was quite certain who was
in charge.
There were arguments and debates on every street corner. It was
frightening and
exhilarating. Every day was an exploration. Polly had worn a pair of
Paul’s old
trousers to clean the floor of the big bar, and had got barely a
‘hurrumph’ from
anyone. Oh, and the Girls’ Working School had burned down, and on the
same day
two slim masked figures had robbed a bank. Polly had grinned when she
heard that.
Shufti had moved into The Duchess. Her baby was called Jack. Paul
doted on it. And
now . . .
Someone had been drawing in the gents’ privy again. Polly couldn’t
wash it off, so
she contented herself with correcting the anatomy. Then she swooshed
the place clean
- at least, clean by pub urinal standards - with a couple of buckets
and ticked off the
chore, just as she did every morning. When she arrived back in the bar
there were a
group of worried men there, talking to her father. They looked mildly
frightened when
she strode in.
‘What’s happening?’ she said.
Her father nodded to Gummy Abbens, and everyone stepped back a little.
What
with the spittle and the bad breach, you never wanted a conversation
with Gummy to
be particularly intimate.
‘The swede-eatersh is at it again!’ he said. ‘They’re gonna invade
‘cos the Prince
saysh we belong to him now!’
‘It’s all down to him being the Duchess’s distant cousin,’ said
Polly’s father.
‘But I heard it still wasn’t settled!’ said Polly. ‘Anyway, there’s
still a truce!’
‘Sheems like he’s shettling it,’ said Gummy.
The rest of the day passed at an accelerated pace. There were groups
of people
talking urgently in the streets, and a crowd around the gates to the
town hall. Every so
often a clerk would come out and nail another communique on the gates;
the crowd
would close over it like a hand, open again like a flower. Polly
elbowed her way to
the front, ignoring the mutterings around her, and scanned the sheets.
The same old stuff. They were recruiting again. The same old words.
The same old
croakings of long dead soldiers, inviting the living to join them.
General Froc might
be female, but he was also, as Blouse would have said, ‘a bit of an
old woman’. Either
that or the heaviness of those epaulettes had weighed her down.
Kissing don’t last. Oh, the Duchess had come alive before them and
turned the
world upside down for a space and maybe they had all decided to be
better people,
and out of certain oblivion had come a space to breathe.
But then . . . had it really happened? Even Polly sometimes wondered,
and she had
been there. Was it just a voice in their heads, some kind of
hallucination? Weren’t
soldiers in desperate straits famous for seeing visions of gods and
angels? And
somewhere in the course of the long winter the miracle had faded, and
people had said
‘yes, but we’ve got to be practical’.
All we were given was a chance, thought Polly. No miracle, no rescue,
no magic.
Just a chance.
She walked back to the inn, her mind buzzing. When she got there, a
package was
waiting. It was quite long, and heavy.
‘It came all the way from Scritz on the cart,’ said Shufti excitedly.
She’d been
working in the kitchen. It had become, now, her kitchen. ‘I wonder
what it can be?’
she said pointedly.
Polly levered the lid off the rough wooden crate, and found that it
was full of straw
with an envelope lying on top of it. She opened it.
Inside was an iconograph. It looked expensively done, a stiff family
group with
curtains and a potted palm in the background to give everything a bit
of style. On the
left was a middle-aged man looking proud; on the right was a woman of
about the
same age, looking rather puzzled but nevertheless pleased because her
husband was
happy; and here and there, staring at the viewer with variations of
smile and squint,
and expressions extending from interest to a sudden recollection that
they should have
gone to the toilet before posing, were children ranging from tall and
gangly to small
and smugly sweet.
And sitting on a chair in the middle, the focus of it all, was
Sergeant-major
Jackrum, shining like the sun.
Polly stared, and then turned the picture over. On the back was
written, in big
black letters: ‘SM Jackrum’s Last Stand!’ and, underneath, ‘Don’t need
these.’
She smiled, and pulled aside the straw. In the middle of the box,
wrapped in cloth,
were a couple of cutlasses.
‘Is that old Jackrum?’ said Shufti, picking up the picture.
‘Yes. He’s found his son,’ said Polly, unwinding a blade. Shufti
shuddered when
she saw it.
‘Evil things,’ she said.
‘Things, anyway,’ said Polly. She laid both the cutlasses on the
table, and was
about to lift the box out of the way when she saw something small in
the straw at the
bottom. It was oblong, and wrapped in thin leather.
It was a notebook, with a cheap binding and musty yellowing pages.
‘What’s that?’ said Shufti.
‘I think . . . yes, it’s his address book,’ said Polly, flicking
through the pages.
This is it, she thought. It’s all here. Generals and majors and
captains, oh my.
There must be . . . hundreds. Maybe a^ thousand! Names, real names,
promotions,
dates . . . everything . . .
She pulled out a white pasteboard oblong that had been inserted like a
bookmark. It
showed a rather florid coat of arms and bore the printed legend:
William De Worde
EDITOR, THE TIMES OF ANKH-MORPORK
‘The Truth Shall Make Ye Frep’
Gleam Street, Ankh-Morpork e-mail: W...@Times.AM
Someone had crossed out the ‘p’ in ‘frep’ and pencilled in an ‘e’
above it.
It was a sudden strange fancy . . .
How many ways can you fight a war? Polly wondered. We have the clacks
now. I
know a man who writes things down. The world turns. Plucky little
countries seeking
self-determination . . . could be useful to big countries with plans
of their own.
Time to grab the cheese.
Polly’s expression as she stared at the wall would have frightened a
number of
important people. They would have been even more concerned at the fact
that she
spent the next several hours writing things down, because it occurred
to Polly that
General Froc had not got where she was today by being stupid and
therefore she could
profit from following her example. She copied out the entire notebook,
and sealed it
in an old jam jar which she hid in the roof of the stables. She wrote
a few letters. And
she got her uniform out of the wardrobe and inspected it critically.
The uniforms that had been made for them had a special, additional
quality that
could only be called . . . girlie. They had more braid, they were
better tailored, and
they had a long skirt with a bum roll rather than trousers. The shakos
had plumes, too.
Her tunic had a sergeant’s stripes. It had been a joke. A sergeant of
women. The
world had been turned upside down, after all.
They’d been mascots, good-luck charms . . . And, perhaps, on the march
to
PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJoseph-BernhardtWilhelmsberg a joke was
what
everyone needed. But, maybe, when the world turns upside down, you can
turn a joke
upside down too. Thank you, Gummy, even though you didn’t know what it
was you
were teaching me. When they’re laughing at you, their guard is down.
When their
guard is down, you can kick them in the fracas.
She examined herself in the mirror. Her hair, now, was just long
enough to be a
nuisance without being long enough to be attractive, so she brushed it
and left it at
that. She put the uniform on, but with the skirt over her trousers,
and tried to put aside
the nagging feeling that she was dressing up as a woman.
There. She looked completely harmless. She looked slightly less
harmless with
both cutlasses and one of the horsebows on her back, especially if you
knew that the
inn’s dartboards now had deep holes in the bullseyes from all the
practising.
She crept along the hall to the window that overlooked the inn yard.
Paul was up a
ladder, repainting the sign. Her father was steadying the ladder and
calling out
instructions in his normal way, which was to call out the instruction
just a second or
two after you’d already started doing it. And Shufti, although Polly
was the only one
in The Duchess who still called her that and knew why, was watching
them, holding
Jack. It made a lovely picture. For a moment, she wished she had a
locket.
The Duchess was smaller than she’d thought. But if you had to protect
it by
standing in the doorway with a sword, you were too late. Caring for
small things had
to start with caring for big things, and maybe the world wasn’t big
enough.