‘That sounds like clear win for our side, Sergeant,’ Gunda declared.
‘It gets better, boy,’ the sergeant said, leaning back in his chair and taking a long drink from his beer tankard. ‘Them high-toned Palvani all went back t’ their fancy meetin’ place an’ made speeches t’ each other for a week or so, an’ then two more of them eastern provinces joined up with the others, an’ the limp-brains in the gummint suddenly woke up. The way things was a-goin’, in about another month or so there wouldn’t be no Empire no more. They all come a-runnin’ back t’ the army compounds an’ tole our commanders that they’d pay as much as the soljers wanted, but the commanders come right back an’ tole ‘em, “We don’t march until we see the money”. That started a bunch of new screamin’, but the Palvani knowed by then that our commanders meant exactly what they’d said, so the gummint finally gave in an’ paid the soljers what they had a-comin’ to ‘em, an’ that ended that.’
‘How did the war turn out, Sergeant?’ Narasan asked curiously.
Sergeant Wilmer snorted. ‘It warn’t no real war, boy,’ he replied. ‘When them dukes an’ barons an’ such off t’ the east saw ten armies a-marchin’ in their direction, they went belly-up right then and there.’ The old sergeant took another drink from his beer tankard and looked around at the young boys gathered in front of him in the day-lounge as the gusty wind outside spattered the windows with hard-driven rain. ‘When you young gentlemen start receiving your formal education, your teachers are likely to tell you an entirely different story,’ he told them quite seriously, dropping his colorful dialect, ‘but what I just told you was what really happened. My sergeant told me the story when I wasn’t much older than you boys are now, and he was here when it actually happened. Every now and then, teachers try to clean up the past, but usually the real events are pretty much down and dirty. The real world out there isn’t nearly as nice as some people would prefer it to be, so don’t swallow everything your high-born teachers tell you without taking a long hard look at it yourselves.’
Narasan stored that notion away for future reference as he pulled on his cape and left the day-lounge to go on home to his family’s quarters.
Narasan had heard that some army commanders lived in palaces and pretended to be members of the nobility, but Narasan’s father disapproved of that, since it wasn’t very honorable.
Narasan’s father was a lean, but well-muscled man in his early forties. The burden of command weighed heavily upon him, and his glossy black hair was touched with silver at the temples. There was much work involved in the command of an army, but Narasan’s father always listened when his son came to him with questions.
When Narasan reached home, he went to his father’s book-lined study. Sergeant Wilmer’s story had disturbed him just a bit, since it put a whole new light on his intended career. ‘Have you got a moment, father?’ he asked.
‘You seem troubled, son,’ his father replied, setting aside the document he’d been reading. ‘What’s bothering you?’
‘Well, when it started raining hard this afternoon, our instructor sent us to the day-lounge to get us in out of the weather, and old Sergeant Wilmer was there. Sometimes he talks real funny, doesn’t he?’
Narasan’s father smiled slightly. ‘It’s a pose, my boy. He talks that way right at first to get your attention. I take it that he told you the story about the origins of our army.’
‘How did you know that, father?’
‘He’s been telling that story to army children for a long time now. Sooner or later, every army boy hears Wilmer’s account of where we came from quite a long time ago.’
‘I thought he was just making it up.’
‘It wasn’t fiction, Narasan. Wilmer’s account comes very close to what really happened back then. The armies of that era were attached to the imperial government, and they did detach themselves during a dispute with the Palvanum about the pay-scale of the non-commissioned soldiers. We want our sons to know exactly how it came about, so we turn Wilmer loose on every class of our children.’ He leaned back in his chair, and the light from the candle on his desk touched his silvery hair. ‘Every member of our supposedly noble Palvanum has his own agenda for how the government should spend the money in the treasury, and paying the armies is usually way down at the bottom of the list.’
‘That isn’t fair at all, is it?’
‘Fairness has always been an alien concept for the Palvanum, Narasan. When there’s a war in the works, the Palvani all make glowing speeches about the bravery of Trogite soldiers, but when peace rolls around again, they’d rather not think about us. Basically, that’s why we went into business for ourselves. That’s the whole point of Sergeant Wilmer’s story.’
On a sudden impulse, Narasan broached a subject that had been bothering him for several months. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything about this, father, but Gunda and I were talking after Padan’s father was killed in that war last winter, and we sort of thought that maybe some day we might want to pick a fight with the army that killed him to get even with them for what they’d done. It’s been worrying at me ever since we talked about it. Would something like that be honorable? I mean, soldiers do get killed when there’s a war, and it sort of seemed to me at first that holding grudges like that might be kind of improper.’
Narasan’s father shook his head. ‘A soldier’s first loyalty should always be to his comrades. That’s where honor begins, my boy. Right, now, I’m waiting for the opportunity to kick the daylights out of the army that killed your friend’s father myself.’
‘You’re going to whomp them?’ Narasan asked eagerly.
‘I see that you paid close attention to Sergeant Wilmer, Narasan,’ his father said with a broad grin. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. I am going to whomp them. I’ll whomp them so hard that their grandchildren will run and hide every time somebody mentions my name. It won’t make me very popular with certain members of the Palvanum, since that particular army’s one of their favorites, but that’s just too bad.’
‘Aren’t there any honest men in the government, father?’
‘ “Honest” and “government” probably shouldn’t show up in the same sentence, Narasan. They’re contradictory terms.’