“. . . Dessert?”
She handed him another bowl, this one full of berries, what looked like cream, and something else.
“Mulberries with clotted goat cream and honey.”
“Caswell, if I wasn’t the commander, I’d propose marriage to you.”
There were cheers all around, then he looked up and saw her body language. Apparently, that was not something she was comfortable with.
“This is great stuff,” he said. “Are you archiving the recipes?”
Alexander said, “I have them all, sir. Photos of every edible plant they bring in, butchering processes, write-ups on preparation and seasonings.”
“Oh, good.” Yes, having an admin type and combat photographer was working out to their advantage. He worried about her fatigue and memory issues, though.
They finished as it got dark, and he realized it had been hard physical labor for him as well as the others. He’d enjoyed it, felt he’d accomplished something, but was tired and ready to crash.
Spencer said, “Okay, this next part is going to be a bit irregular, since we’re short on the personnel we need, but, Platoon, atenSHUN.”
Everyone rose, and it seemed they’d been ready. The guests followed the lead and stood as well, except the injured. Having no idea what was going on, Sean rose, too.
“First Lieutenant Sean Elliott, front and center.”
He walked over to Spencer, who saluted and said, “Well, sir, this should be done by at least a major, but we don’t have one. But, it’s your anniversary date back home, which makes you a captain. We don’t have any bars, so Ortiz donated a spare insigne, Alexander plucked it and hand embroidered it with thread from one of Dalton’s old socks, so you may want to sterilize it.” He held up a velcro tab with two respectably stitched bars on it.
There were chuckles, as Spencer reached forward, ripped off the Velcro 1LT tab and stuck on the bars.
“I . . . thank you,” he said. He really had no response. Yeah, it was, and he’d have promoted on schedule assuming nothing went wrong, and it didn’t really matter here.
“Really, thank you all,” he said. “Your support is everything I have.”
He stopped, because his heart was pounding and he was tearing up.
Spencer saluted him, he returned it, and stepped back out into the dark.
Oglesby chattered away, and he was curious as to the translation. For now, he wanted to be alone somewhere he could stop being the commander for an hour or two, but his fingers kept brushing the tracks on his chest.
These were the finest soldiers he could have ever hoped to serve with.
CHAPTER 31
The Romans sent another delegation, peaceful, and after some outside discussion, it was agreed they’d cooperate on some ventures, such as a charcoal burn down by the river. The Romans wanted more access to the salt up in the hills, and knew where iron ore could be found. Martin Spencer was excited at that prospect. The lathe had restored some of his faith in his abilities. It was one thing to know how to do something, another entirely to actually do it. They needed a forge. He was starting with the advantage of some hammers, and it was still a daunting idea.
Relations remained cool. The Romans kept their distance out of respect for the guns, and pitched leather wall tents down by the river woods. The Gadorth wanted to avoid the Romans, and had seen what rifles could do. They paddled across from their settlement on rafts. The Urushu were very cheerful with the Americans, but that wasn’t returned. Ten people with finite resources couldn’t be too gregarious or generous.
He still had the gladius from the dead Roman, those weeks back. As swords went, it was very functional, but not pretty. He’d seen much nicer reproductions. It had character, though. He could trace the wrought iron grain of it. As modern edged tools went, it was a piece of shit, but with enough of these and discipline to match, Rome had conquered the known world, and had been so influential he could talk to them without much difficulty.
Back home, it would be worth a fortune in any condition. Here, it was still priceless, until he could produce better steel.
The decorative work on the sheath wasn’t that great, either. He’d seen Pakistani-made knives with better stamping and fitting.
Still, it was a war trophy he appreciated.
He avoided, mostly, thinking about home by throwing himself into work. He was XO, NCOIC, assistant heavy lifter, cultural attaché and hoped to add “village blacksmith” to that.
The charcoal burn was something he knew of but had never done. With Urushu and Gadorth help, the Romans scoured the woods for downed timber from inch thick on up. With their mattocks and spades, and he, Barker and two shovels, they cleared a patch of ground, and turfed it down a foot to remove rocks.
“Petrae boom!” one of the Romans explained, in obvious onomatopoeia and gestures. He nodded. A big fire was to follow, and moisture-laden rocks would be entertaining but unhelpful.
The wood they broke and cut, with help from Martin, Dalton, Barker and Trinidad, into foot long pieces that they stacked upright four high in a circle, with an outside perimeter to brace it, about ten feet across. There was a central log to support it, which they used as a depth marker for the mound. The mound was covered in a foot of earth from the center almost to the ground at the edge, with a small gap.
Barker impressed all parties by lighting a fire with a propane torch. Once there was a nice mound of coals, one of the smallest Romans shoveled them all up, carried them over the dirt cover, and dropped into the central chimney where the center log had been removed.
It was nightfall, and they’d been eating cheese and dried fish all day. Martin’s guts were in a constant state of irritation now, and he munched some rice cake with bone meal in it. It tasted like chalk. It helped the burn.
From there it turned into a drinking contest, with raw but drinkable Roman wine out of actual animal skins. He shrugged and took a gulp from the neck of something furry.
The wine was awful. Sour wasn’t enough of a descriptor. It was bitter, slimy and tasted of leather.
Between drinks they had to seal cracks in the crust, to keep air out.
“The charcoal is supposed to cook,” he explained to Dalton. “You’re cooking out all the impurities and leaving just carbon.”
“That’s why the small air gap at the bottom only?”
“Right. And notice where they’re standing and holding hides? That’s to limit wind. Once it’s all carburized, we’ll douse the whole thing, first in dirt, then water.”
The night was a haze of carousing and work, interspersed with naps. As the pile slumped, a hole would open in the crust, and flame would jet out into the greedy oxygen. Someone would shout, and the nearest men would pile dirt onto the crack to seal it. Sometimes that would dislodge another crack and start the process again.
In between guzzles of bad wine, they managed to swap dirty jokes with the Romans.
He managed to get one to provide him the essential phrase, and he waited until the crew boss shouted, “Imple foramen!” Fill that hole!
“Ipsa dixit!” That’s what she said!
There were laughs. He followed up with, “What do you call that useless piece of skin above the vagina?”
Once the riddle was translated, he said, “Matrona!” and that got laughs, too. Then one of the Romans said something about the difference between a local woman and a latrine being that the latrine had a smaller hole and smelled better. Wow, that one dated back that far?
“I understand only half of legionary parents are married. Your fathers were married, but your mothers were not.”
That got howls of mock outrage, and someone asked if the Americans ever fucked their women in the other hole, or were they afraid of getting them pregnant?
About 0400 he realized Caswell and Ortiz were standing back but in sight, holding weapons. Yeah, he wasn’t up for anything himself, being fatigued and drunk, and no one trusted those Roman bastards.
Then someone called out and it
was a frantic scramble with shovels and hands to close the bottom of the pile, and start splashing water into any burn-throughs before sealing them with more dirt.
Just about sunrise, the Roman in charge pronounced himself happy with the burn and dismissed his element back to their tents. Martin took that as leave to stagger back up the hill, through the gate, over the footbridge to grandmother’s house, or rather, his hooch, and pass out on top of his sleeping bag, fully dressed.
His last thought as he faded was that they should name the cabin “Grandmother’s House.”
* * *
Jenny Caswell barely made it through dinner and was ready to collapse. Alexander followed her to the cabin.
She asked, “You’re crashing, too?”
Alexander said, “Yes, I’m on watch at midnight. It’s getting harder for me.”
“I wish there was more I could do.” Alexander’s thyroid issues required more sleep than before. She felt sorry for the poor woman. They ducked in the real door and inside. The door even had a cat flap for Cal. They shifted around and got onto their respective pallets, and started pulling off boots.
Alexander said, “The sweetbreads seem to be helping a little. I don’t see how they’re a delicacy, though. They were nasty at first, now bland.”
“Good. It’s interesting how much effect certain foods have.”
Alexander shrugged in the dim. “Well, cutting down on starch has helped my weight.”
“That’s more likely the exercise.”
The older woman shrugged again. “That, too.”
“Did you notice how hungover Spencer is?” she asked.
“Yes, his eyes are as red as Oglesby’s skin.”
“He deserved it.” Yes, she felt schadenfreude.
“Oh? Did he drink that much?”
“Yes, but he was swapping alleged humor with the Romans. All demeaning jokes about women. Get a man drunk and you find out what he really thinks about other people.”
“I don’t take jokes like that personally.”
“To joke about it they have to be thinking it.”
“I’ve made jokes about men before. What’s eight inches and white? Nothing. Why is it hard to parallel park? When you’ve been told since you were sixteen that this is eight inches.” She held a thumb and finger apart as she shuffled down into her bag.
“It’s not the same. He’s in a position of authority and privilege. Humor works against the dominant class, from it it only reinforces inequality.”
“I don’t think I follow.”
“Think about medieval jesters. They could mock the ruling class.”
“I still don’t follow.”
It was hard to explain to someone who didn’t want to get it, who was sick.
She moved on. “Well, let’s change subjects. We’re coming up on a year.”
“Yeah. I guess we’re definitely not going home.” Alexander sounded cold, emotionless. She really loved her family, Jenny could tell, and they were gone.
“So now we have the rest of our lives.”
“It sounds more like a sentence.”
A life sentence, she thought. “In some ways, I guess it is. What do we do?”
“I guess we need to decide if we’re going to be some sexless military unit, or get involved with families.”
“You mean relationships, right?”
“Yes, since I’m sterile. It would still be nice to have someone to sleep and cuddle with.”
“I don’t have much experience with that.”
Alexander said, “Yeah, I figured.”
She probably didn’t mean that the way it sounded.
“I mean, I’ve had lovers, but no one I lived with.”
“I understood. We’re all sort of living together now. Just without the sex and warmth. All the bad parts of barracks and roommates, and none of the good parts of family.”
Jenny said, “I don’t know what I’ll do. The Urushu are aesthetically handsome enough, but they don’t understand sanitation the way we do. The Romans . . . I really don’t like them.”
“And the men here?”
She shrugged in the dark. “Well, Oglesby creeps me out. Spencer’s old and creepy. Doc is Doc, he always seems embarrassed if it’s not professional. Barker’s a decent guy, but really not my type. Dalton . . . that wouldn’t work. Ortiz is possible, but he’s still got some of that Latin machismo I don’t care much for. Trinidad . . . also a good guy who’s not my type. I’m afraid if I showed interest in the LT, it would be taken the wrong way, and he’s not a good personality type.”
“He’s entitled to a family, too.”
“Sure. But I don’t think it can be me. I really never thought any male in the military was going to work for me. You?”
Alexander stretched back on her rack. “Elliott? Decent looking, but I think he thinks of me as this old lady. You said it about Doc. And he’s physically lean and handsome, but his features really don’t attract me. He’s got very pronounced lips. They just . . . no. Dalton’s an annoying younger brother, and so is Oglesby. Trinidad . . . I just don’t feel anything there. Ortiz maybe. Barker’s almost an older brother, even though I’m older.”
“Spencer?”
“Yeah, I think that’s where I’ve assumed it’s going. But I want to see my kids, and my cats, and my husband. I don’t want to settle down here.”
As if on cue, Cal ducked his head under the door and chirruped. He padded onto Alexander’s bedding and settled down to purr. She reached down and skritched him.
Jenny said, “I’m still concerned that if we don’t have someone, we’ll be seen as fair game.”
“If they haven’t raped us yet, I don’t think they’re going to. They might fight each other if we start showing interest, though. And we’d make a terrible couple.”
“Yes, and even if it wasn’t a cliché about feminists being dykes, I’d avoid that suggestion. And I don’t swing that way.”
Alexander said, “I wasn’t suggesting it. It was just the remaining local option. So either we become bitter old hags, or find some trainable cabana boys among the Urushu and raise them right.”
“I guess. It just doesn’t interest me.”
“We have Cal,” she said, and suddenly was sobbing.
“We do. So we’re crazy cat ladies who are so poor we can only afford one cat to share.”
“Oh, gods, that sounds bad. He’s letting me pet him.”
Jenny leaned over slowly to look and said, “Oh . . . yes he is! Awesome.” Alexander was skritching his ears. He seemed a bit unsure, but half brain-melted from the attention. He was a huge cat compared to domestics, probably thirty pounds.
Alexander “I have a pet. That’s more than I could have hoped for.”
“Don’t tell the others. They’ll get jealous.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Jenny asked, “Why didn’t you sleep last night?”
Sighing, Alexander explained, “I get overly fatigued, and it’s thyroid related as well, affects my L-Tyrosine and melatonin levels among others. Gods, I still remember those terms. And extreme frustration.”
Frustration. She understood that.
Delicately she asked, “Do you need some alone time, Hon?”
“It won’t help.”
“You could at least take the edge off.”
Alexander sounded like she was reading from a script. “Thyroid issues screw with cortisol levels. I can’t get any kind of endorphin rush. Nothing happens.”
“I’m . . . sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I. Eventually it kills me. I may make it to sixty, lethargic and fat.”
Jenny didn’t know if that was better than the alternative of another fifty years or more. With her family history, she’d probably live a long time, eventually becoming some wise, weird elder for the Urushu to venerate. If the Romans didn’t decide to make her a trophy by force before that.
There wasn’t much else she could offer. They all had problems, collectively and individually.
Patriarchal society seemed to follow from organization. Once there was a unified leadership structure, men moved into it.
She’d never liked Libertarianism, but it seemed that might be the system with the best potential for equality. If it could be socially moderated away from privileged white males, it might work. But of course, that couldn’t happen, and it would never be popular.
She carefully reached over and petted the cat, too. He was good company in the dark.
Felix Trinidad was a trained intel specialist. He had little to do here, but he couldn’t help but keep track of happenings.
The last couple of weeks, the number of Urushu women visiting the camp had increased. It had gone from an average of two every week to six. Their medical issues were usually quite simple, and some were unhurt. They excused their presence as cooks and support, as near as Oglesby could translate for him.
Interesting.
The next week eight of them rotated through.
He sought out the LT. Elliott was looking over a tablet and frowning. Felix noted a mention of Romans, then made a point of not looking at it while addressing him.
“Sir, did you notice the increase in women visitors?”
“A bit. They’re here for cooking and such, as I understand it. I think we’ve reached another level of trust.”
“That’s one way to put it. I think they’re looking for mates.”
“I guess that’s possible.” The man’s expression said he knew that was exactly it and trying to be reticent.
“Did you notice they’re mostly young? Fifteen to twenty, at a guess.”
“I actually hadn’t. I try not to pay too much attention to them individually, just to their numbers and movement. Thanks for the information, though.”
“Any specifics you want me to look for or inquire about?”
“Please. Anything. If you can discreetly ask, do so. If not, I’m sure it’ll come out in time.”
That wasn’t very specific, but it seemed he was worried about threats, not mates. That was reasonable.
“Hooah, sir.”
Today he was helping Spencer work on that forge of his, and it was past being a joke. The man was a decent mechanic, from all stories, but the forge seemed like something that would never happen.