Natasha nodded graciously. "My thanks. We appreciate your trouble and invite you to share our hospitality at the Dacha for a while. Vladimir Petrovich was pleased that you accepted his commission."
"Yeah, well, I stung him pretty good on the fee." Cass snickered. Bernie knew there was going to be trouble sooner or latter. Cass was acting like he was still up-time and still a football star.
"Natalia Petrovna, we will take our leave of you for the moment," Bernie said. "My friend and I need to have a talk. If you will excuse us?"
Natasha inclined her head. "Certainly, Bernie. Perhaps we shall see you and Cass at dinner?" Bernie suppressed a groan. Cass, Natasha, dinner . . . what was wrong with that combination? Bernie didn't want to think about it.
* * *
Dinner, to say the most he could about it, was strained. Cass seemed to be playing the part of "the ugly American" to the hilt. Bernie was seriously considering knocking him out. Soon. Maybe twice.
"Yeah," Cass was saying, "winding up back here before the world got civilized was sort of hard. Wars all over the damn place, the food sucks, and there's all this religious bullshit, too." The religious bullshit, in the form of Father Pter Stephanovich, was having dinner with them. Pete was a nice guy. "Every time you turn around someone is in your face about religion. Who freaking cares, I ask you? Who freaking cares?" Pete cared. Bernie knew that.
Natasha's face was cold as she regarded Cass. "Indeed. And are you Americans godless? I have had one of those 'hamburgers' you speak of. Bernie built a 'charcoal grill' and cooked them for us. Quite frankly, I do not find that they are particularly appetizing."
Cass leered a bit, and Bernie was more and more sure he was going to have to hit him. Then Cass laughed raucously and snorted beer up his nose.
When all the spewing and coughing was finally over, Bernie looked at Cass. He was pretty drunk. "I think I've had enough, Cass. I'm going to crash. You ready?"
Cass was a little bleary from the vodka he had consumed, but wasn't ready for sleep, apparently. "No, dude. I don't think so. You go on. I'll just keep the lady company."
Natasha's already cold face froze. Bernie could see it happening. "I, myself, am quite tired. You gentlemen feel free to enjoy . . . whatever it is that you enjoy. Until the morning, then." Natasha rose and swept from the room, casting a telling glance over her shoulder. Aunt Sofia's glance was even more telling.
Bernie got the message. Cass had to learn to behave properly.
* * *
"That one will get himself killed," Vladislav Vasl'yevich murmured. "Soon, I expect."
"Not by us, though, and preferably not in Russia. Let some other nation do the world the service." Natasha agreed with his assessment. Cass Lowry was a barbarian. "I know he's already said things that would be reason for a duel. Certainly most would already have been punished for those remarks. But the czar will want to meet him, just as he met Bernie and Russia needs what he knows. Vladislav Vasl'yevich, we need to avoid any incident. You'll have to restrain yourself and your men."
"At least Bernie did not intentionally insult. This one, though." Vladislav shook his head ruefully. "He is a different type of man. He thinks himself a boyar's son, protected by his father's position. He seems to think that everyone in Muscovy is a peasant."
* * *
Cass was a bit drunk. Not much, just enough to take the edge off. He was wondering what the fuck was Bernie's problem. Had the little shit gone native? Could have happened, he figured. Bernie had been all alone with a bunch of down-time barbs for over a frigging year. "What is your problem, man? They're just down-timers. They need us, we don't need them. Ain't you figured that out yet? Hell, even up-time kids are getting rich."
"So what are you doing here, Cass? Since you're so rich, I mean?" Bernie shot him a look.
Cass flushed. "Cheap shot, man. The breaks haven't been going my way. It's Stearns' fault. Treating the down-timers like they're real Americans and selling us out to the Swedes like he done." Cass knew if it weren't for Stearns, all the up-timers would be rich and powerful with dozens of girls and solid gold crappers. But Stearns was giving it all away.
"Cass, we're not in high school anymore. There's not a cop you can call." Bernie stared at him intently. "Some breaks are coming your way, sure enough. Broken arms, broken legs and a busted head. The lady you were hitting on is a frigging knyazhna, Cass. That's Russian for princess. Don't think for a minute that her guards won't cut off your dick and feed it and the rest of you to the pigs."
"What the hell is your problem, Bernie boy? Afraid of the competition?" Cass pulled his new Peace Maker and pointed it casually in Bernie's direction. Just to make a point. Besides he liked the gun and how it made him feel strong and dangerous. It was modeled loosely on the Colt Peacemaker but made in a down-time gun shop. "Anyone wants to cut me, they had better bring a whole lot more fire power than these candy-asses have." Bernie froze. At first Cass thought he had made his point, but Bernie wasn't really looking scared. Mostly he was looking pissed. What the fuck was Bernie's problem anyway?
Slowly, it occurred to Cass that pointing a loaded gun at Bernie might be pushing it a bit more than he'd meant to, at least right off the bat. He really hadn't meant to piss Bernie off, not till he got the lay of the land, anyway. Especially, he hadn't meant to let Bernie boy know that he was competition. "Hey man, it's no big deal. If you got dibs on her, I'll back off." Cass put away his gun and left the brown-nosing asshole. He need to walk off the booze a bit, anyway.
Cass knew he was smarter than Bernie. He hadn't done well in school, but didn't mean he was stupid. School just bored the shit out of him. Besides, he was a football star. He didn't need to bust his hump in English class. He knew he could pick up what Bernie was doing pretty quick. He could probably push Bernie out, if he wanted to. But he wasn't going to put up with much crap from the dumb-ass down-timers. Not him. Not ever.
* * *
Cass winced at the bright sunshine when he walked out the door three mornings later. "Oh, man, that hurts."
"Think you might want to be a little more careful with the booze?" Bernie's smirk was insulting. "Sun shining off snow can really dazzle you, but the biggest part of your problem is your hangover. Three days and three hangovers. No wonder it hurts."
"Maybe," Cass muttered. Drinking was about the only thing he was enjoying. Well, that and the girls. Every place they stayed had servant girls. Even staying away from the bitch princess wasn't hard, not when you had all those girls around.
Bernie put on his heavy coat. "You ready? Let's get a move on. This trip is taking forever. I wish the car was running, I really do. Steering and braking with no power while being towed behind a team of horses is a real pain."
"What did you expect? The thing sat on blocks for fucking years, man." Cass snorted. "Let's go. Get to this dacha place and see if you can get it running."
Hours in the carriage with only a couple of troops who didn't speak English was a real bore. But Cass didn't want to ride on one of the carts out in the open and especially didn't want to be on horseback. Too cold for that, by half. It was the usual order today. Out ahead of everyone, a double column of ten guards on horseback spread out. Then came the rolling stock. First came the fancy-ass sleigh that Bernie's girl was in. Cass hated to admit it, but it was actually kind of neat. Boxy, but still sort of streamlined and buffed to a high gloss. Then Bernie was freezing his ass off in that damned old junker of his. Cass was behind Bernie's car in his carriage. Then all the carts with all the stuff the Yaroslavich dude had sent. At the end of the line there were six more guards. Plus guards in some of the rolling stock.
* * *
Bernie patted the dash. "Oh, yeah. Once I get it running it will be able to do thirty miles an hour at least. Even on these roads and pulling a bunch of stuff."
Vladislav Vasl'yevich was riding beside Bernie's car just then. Partly because he was actually interested in how it worked and could see lots of military applications for these motorized veh
icles. Mostly, though, over the course of a day's travel, he would spend time all along the column. He checked everything, several times a day, to make sure everything was working and looked for trouble before it happened.
Vladislav had seen and reported on hundreds of military applications in the time that Bernie had been at the dacha. He hadn't exactly been ignored. The czar now had a 30-06. It was hand-made with gold engraving, but there was a very limited supply of bullets. There were people making new guns, flintlocks, but only in small numbers, as experiments. There were the war games in the Kremlin, but darn little in the field. The military had been, in Vladislav's opinion, slow to consider the potential usefulness of the up-timer's innovations in weapons and tactics.
"I wouldn't mind seeing that . . ." Vladislav stopped at the shout from the front of the column and shots ringing out. "Bandits. To the knyazhna." He looked around to assess the situation.
The road here curved from southeast to east. The bandits had either been spotted by the guards out in front or had jumped the gun. Probably spotted, that shout had been Petr Kadian. It was a large party, it must be. This many trained solders wouldn't be easy to overcome. From the noise, there were probably around thirty or forty bandits. Most were hitting the front of the column, and the outriders on the north side, which was the inside of the curve. That meant that Vladislav's men were more spread than the bandits were and the bandits could react a little faster. Vladislav noted in passing that Bernie was trying to get his 30-06 out of the back seat of the car. That could help, depending on how Bernie held up in combat.
Surprisingly, the other outlander, Cass, was out of his carriage and running toward Bernie's car. "Get down, you idiot." Vladislav shouted. "Get down before you get shot."
What was the idiot doing, Vladislav wondered. He was playing with the back of Bernie's car. The back of the car opened like a great mouth, hiding Cass from Vladislav's view.
There hadn't been bandits in this area for years. It was too well patrolled. Not out of fear of bandits, but to provide warning of an attack by Poland. Vladislav waved to the Embassy Bureau troops who were bringing up the rear. "To the knyazhna. Don't worry about the carts, protect Natalia Petrovna and Bernie." They could probably replace the stuff in the carts if they had to, but they had to protect Natasha Petrovna and Bernie. Vladislav shot one of the bandits and dropped the pistol. He drew the second. He always carried one in each boot and two in his belt.
"Yeeeehaaaw!"
Vladislav looked around, startled by the scream. Cass had reappeared from the back of Bernie's car and was carrying a long gun of some sort. He was running at the woods on the north side of the road, screaming like a banshee. Clickety boom, came the noise. And again. Clicktey boom. Clicktey boom. Two bandits were down, one with most of his head blown away. Vladislav watched as Cass cut to the right. Clickety boom. Cut left. Clickety boom. Cass ran in some sort of wild pattern that the attackers couldn't follow. Neither could Vladislav.
Crack. A different noise sounded. One of the bandits fell from a horse. Since most of the bandits had been on foot, Vladislav figured he was probably their leader. They should have been paying attention to Bernie, who knelt behind his car taking well-aimed shots at the attackers. Vladislav could see his head and shoulders. The bandits would be lucky to see his head, or the 30-06 that was killing them. It would take a special miracle to actually hit a target that small.
Vladislav looked around again. The situation wasn't as bad as it had at first appeared. The attackers had been spotted before most of the column was in the trap. Bernie had apparently gotten their leader who was trying to shift his troops. And Cass, the madman, was spreading panic in their ranks. Vladislav's men were pushing against their northwestern flank and pinning most of them away from the body of the column. Vladislav wanted to charge the bandits; to use the loss of their leader and the panic. A charge now, even with the few men he had, would break them and send them running. If these were all there were. But, what if there was another group? His job was to protect the knyazhna and Bernie, not to leave them unprotected while he went on a boar hunt.
Clickety . . . click. The madman was out of ammunition and out of position, as well. Cass was well into the trees. Vladislav knew he was going to lose men he couldn't afford if he rescued the maniac. Yet keeping the up-timers alive was vital. While he was considering his options, there was another new sound.
Blam. Blam. Apparently, the madman had another gun. Vladislav's guards were now in control of the fight. Cass' mad dash toward them, added to Bernie's cool, continuous fire had thrown the attackers into confusion and depleted their numbers. They were falling back. "Hold," Vladislav shouted. "Don't chase them. Hold your positions." Vladislav hated to do it, but their job was to protect, not chase. "Back," he shouted. "Back."
* * *
Cass let the adrenalin leak away from his system. He'd been an avid hunter since he was ten and a halfback all though high school. Since the Ring of Fire, he had hunted wild boar a lot. Moving fast, moving through woods, and shooting things were all things he did quite well. The being shot at was a lot less fun. He was scared shitless every damned time. When he had agreed to bring the car from Grantville, he'd put the guns in the trunk because he figured that the down-timers wouldn't know to look there. He'd used quite a bit of Vladimir's advance to buy guns. He reloaded the shotgun and the Peace Maker, as much for something to do with his hands as anything else. His hands were shaking a bit.
* * *
Bernie had done a bit too good a job on the commander, or boss bandit. The rest were run-of-the-mill bandits, collected for this. They knew very little. Just that they had been hired and paid unusually well to attack this particular group. They were to kill everyone, take as much as they could carry and burn the rest. His equipage and clothing suggested that the commander might be Polish, but anyone could have hired him. The troops were spending quite a bit of time talking about Cass' "broken field running," as Bernie called it. It made up some for the things he had been saying since he arrived. If he could learn manners, he could be an asset.
"Vas'ka Kadnitsa will probably recover." Bernie washed his hands. "But I wish we had a real doctor." He didn't specify what he meant by a real doctor. Another example of Bernie learning manners. By now, even the doctors at the dacha acknowledged that they needed to go study with the up-timer doctors in Grantville. Bernie knew it, Natasha knew it, Vladislav knew it. There was no reason to harp on it.
"I have sent a man to the nearest village to report and bring more troops," Vladislav reported. "About all we know is that it wasn't a random attack. It could have been the Poles trying to deny us access to up-timer knowledge. That will be what most people will assume. On the other hand, it could well have been a faction in the court, Perhaps someone who opposes the income tax or the constitution."
Vladislav paused a moment, then his curiosity overcame him. "Bernie, what was that long gun Cass used?"
"A pump-action shotgun." Bernie grinned, albeit mirthlessly. As though he knew that more information would be requested, he continued. "It's a smooth bore weapon that can fire a solid shot or a bunch of smaller pellets every time it's fired. Cass was apparently using buckshot. It spreads, so you don't need to be all that accurate and is heavy enough to take a man down at close range."
A scout rode up. He and Vladislav conferred for a moment. "We will camp a mile or so up the road. There is a good spot that can be made quite defensible. I don't want to do any more traveling than we have to, not before we are reinforced."
Bernie and Natasha nodded. He was the captain and knew what he was doing.
* * *
Dinner had been served outside and Natasha had gone to her tent. Cass had watched Natasha move around all afternoon. She was a stone fox, that was for sure. A rich one, judging by her clothes. They must have cost a bundle. She must have a lot; look at what her brother was paying him. Cass took another drink of the vodka. He'd been drinking all afternoon. First to stop the shakes and calm down. Then to ha
ve something to think about besides how scared he had been while the fight was going on. By now he had decided he hadn't been scared, just excited.
There went old Bernie boy. What a suck-up he'd turned out to be. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir. Putting up with crap Cass wouldn't put up with, that's for sure. The girl was in her tent. What a prick tease. She's been asking for it. Probably taking off her clothes. Cass imagined that for a while, imagined it really well. I bet she's a lulu, he thought, once you get her going. And I bet I could get her going.
* * *
Vladislav kept a close eye on Cass. A dangerous man in a fight, that one was, and a drunkard. It was a volatile combination. The camp was defensible, at any rate. Which left only the uncultured outlander to worry about. He hadn't let loose of the shotgun all day. And had been passing out insults ever since the battle. After-combat jitters, perhaps. Trying to convince everyone, especially himself, that he wasn't scared. Vladislav had seen the reaction before. Then Cass had gotten quiet. Vladislav expected trouble. Soon.
The madman stood up and began to walk toward Natasha's tent. Bernie stepped in front of him. "Hey, man. What's going on?"