George Mills Part 41

Now, still dazed, Mills used his good friend as a kind of fort-Fort Khoraghisinian, Camp Khory-arranging his old friend's body about him like a rampart and flattening himself behind it. The melee continued about and above him, a strange, pointless and issueless battle which Mills dreamily contemplated from the s.h.i.+eldy security of his pal's corpse. He had not bothered-or thought: he was still stunned, still bound by the low conscientiousness of shock-to rub the dung from his eyes and his steaming, teary vision was distorted, not blurred or dulled so much as squeezed and biased with a queer, buckled clarity, like someone's behind strong new prescription lenses. He perceived the incredible sharpness of blunt objects and instruments, so that rocks seemed th.o.r.n.y to him, cudgels torn from trees serrated, ordinary belts and bits of clothing-b.u.t.tons, shoelace-sawtoothed. All about him he perceived the cusp of detail. The faces of his companions a.s.sumed a sort of tooled devastation. Their awled eyes and axey chins and spiky noses. Their scalpeled teeth and the hair on their heads brambly as barbed wire. Their nettled flesh, the fierce briery and cutting edge of their expressions. Even the sky-it was a bright day-seemed capable of stinging. Only the fighting had no point.

The combatants engaged and disengaged tempestuously, almost restlessly. They flung themselves upon and away from each other as if impatiently seeking something specific and valuable in one another. They were. Their opponent's weakness like buried treasure. If an adversary seemed capable of absorbing a body blow, his challenger quickly withdrew it, administered instead sharp kicks to the s.h.i.+ns, the groin. If he withstood these his a.s.sailant abandoned him, changed tactics, sought a more vulnerable victim, great fistfuls of whose hair he might pull at almost as if he were riding bareback at full gallop and clinging to the mane to keep from falling. (Mills wondering how he, the a.s.sailant, could bear the pain, the sword edge sharpness of the hairy, gla.s.sy shards. He looked for stigmata, b.l.o.o.d.y palms.) Meanwhile the Soup Man barked out commands, abuse, encouragements.

"Are you blind? Don't you see Suleiman has fallen? That he's rolled to the sidelines? Go after him. Put him out of the picture.

"You, Taurus Konia, you foul mistress of a mildewed eunuch, you sleazeball, you slimy slop jar of an excuse for a man, bite bite the scuzzy son of a b.i.t.c.h! the scuzzy son of a b.i.t.c.h!

"That's it, that's the way, Mills, that's the way to do it. Khoraghisinian's dead. Use him, use use him! Hide in your buddy, use him, live off the land! Did you rob him yet? What? No? What are you waiting for? him! Hide in your buddy, use him, live off the land! Did you rob him yet? What? No? What are you waiting for?

"What are the rest of you Muslims waiting for? A comrade has fallen. Have you forgotten the bribegold he carries in case he's taken prisoner? And what about the rations that must still be on him? It's not yet lunchtime, the muezzin hasn't yet called us to midday prayer. His cinch is still good and would make a glorious noose. Are you just going to stand there and let Mills gobble up all the spoils? Rush him. Rush him, you p.u.s.s.ies! Rush him, you p.u.s.s.ies!"

Which brought him out of his daze. Which refocused his eyes. Which detranced him and canceled his la.s.situde, his tourist's glum stun, his protective shock like a blast of first aid.

The Janissaries were coming for him and, still behind the fallen Khoraghisinian, he brought himself up on his hands and knees and began to lunge and lurch about like an animal--not like a dog or anything even remotely domestic, nor, for that matter, even like an animal in the wild. Rather he seemed to them, must have seemed to them, like someone stricken with a dazzling terror. But terror would not have stopped them, not even if it had been accompanied-as it was was accompanied-by anything so spectacular as the noises now issuing from George Mills's mouth, if an instrument ordinary as a human mouth could be said to be capable of producing such sounds. Surely, they thought as they pulled up short of the galvanically compelled man loose and lurching now as live wire, he produces those noises in his vitals, his organs, his liver and lungs, his spleen and kidneys and guts and glands. accompanied-by anything so spectacular as the noises now issuing from George Mills's mouth, if an instrument ordinary as a human mouth could be said to be capable of producing such sounds. Surely, they thought as they pulled up short of the galvanically compelled man loose and lurching now as live wire, he produces those noises in his vitals, his organs, his liver and lungs, his spleen and kidneys and guts and glands.

"After him," the Soup Man bellows. "Do you think he's haunted?" But even the commander's horse s.h.i.+es.

The Janissaries do not think he's haunted. They recognize the animal a.n.a.log they had previously perceived. Mills is not terrified. He is outraged. His brutality now is the brutality of bereavement, his b.e.s.t.i.a.lity somehow, well, maternal. maternal. As though Khoraghisinian were his cub, Khoraghisinian's corpse something to be defended to the death, all affined biological kindred's interdictive, no-trespa.s.s taboo. As though Khoraghisinian were his cub, Khoraghisinian's corpse something to be defended to the death, all affined biological kindred's interdictive, no-trespa.s.s taboo.

"The bribegold, the bribegold!" the Soup Man calls out. "He carries it too. Fan out, surround him. Smother the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

And a few of the Janissaries begin to drift away from the main body. Slowly.

They sweep so widely about the flanks of Khoraghisinian's tautly drawn bow of a form that they seem almost to disperse. Silently, and so very gradually, they sneak-shuffle past him so Mills, glaring round at them, seems to freeze their motion with a glance as if they were subjects in a boy's game. As soon as he looks elsewhere they are on tiptoe again. Even the Soup Man is silent. Even his horse does not stir. Someone snickers and Mills darts a look behind him, but this time the troopers don't even bother to suspend their motion. He sees that he is encircled. Taurus Konia holds a dagger in his hand. Suleiman grins from the sidelines where somehow he has managed to survive his tormentors. The Soup Man watches impa.s.sively. And sees-- Mills not so much standing, regaining his feet, as actually rearing, rampant as a furious figure in heraldry. He seems suddenly so fierce he might be mortally wounded perhaps, or seized by a peremptory madness. The dung he has not even bothered to remove has dried on his face, a.s.sumes some tribal quality of ultimate warpaint. A few bare twigs hang from his nose like an extra row of teeth.

This is the Christian, Christian, his fellow recruits think, the fastidious Englishman. his fellow recruits think, the fastidious Englishman. How he is transformed! How he is transformed!

But he does not apprehend his effect. If Mills is posturing he does not know it. For all the redeemed clarity of his vision, he is unaware of how he must appear to them, is not so much furious or fierce or outraged or maddened or even exalted by his terror as simply alarmed. That they are suddenly so wary-he sees this-he attributes to the complexity of their situation. He has observed their fitful skirmishes, the way they have sought quick advantage, their trial-and-error, upperhand experiments, their sudden disengagements, the violent storms and subsidences of their almost tropical hostility. Their to's and fro's like compa.s.s work. If they are wary now, he thinks, it is of each other, not of him. He they could dispose of in minutes, seconds. What threat could one Englishman-and that one a Mills, a forty-second or so generated, underwilled survivor on the strength not of strength but of loyalty, good behavior, all the quiet citizen virtues-possibly pose to these elite Paradise Dispatchers?

So their wariness-and this bothers George, seems to proviso and moderate still further this already mitigated man-is only a sort of extemporized battle plan. First they will will kill him. Easy work. No sooner said than done. What are the odds? Twenty against one? Twenty-five? He is momentarily outraged-more Englishness; perhaps his fellow recruits have his number after all-by the sheer unfairness of his situation. Even the Soup Man, who has complimented him, who has given him high marks for his alertness (though to tell the truth he had not quite taken in at the time what his commander had meant), has sanctioned his slaughter. (And this English too, his complacent pride not so much in distinguis.h.i.+ng himself as in pleasing a superior.) So. They will kill him. Steal his bribegold, Khoraghisinian's. Harvest their corpses for anything of value--matches, a heel of bread, rope, the oranges both carry. What holds them back is what comes next. The free-for-all, that winner-take-all frenzy of their terrible tontine arrangements. Surely, Mills thinks, this is why they stare at him, glance furtively at one another. They are sizing each other up, remembering the power in that one's fingers, this one's arms. Dead reckoning will, viciousness. Savages, Mills thinks. They're savages. kill him. Easy work. No sooner said than done. What are the odds? Twenty against one? Twenty-five? He is momentarily outraged-more Englishness; perhaps his fellow recruits have his number after all-by the sheer unfairness of his situation. Even the Soup Man, who has complimented him, who has given him high marks for his alertness (though to tell the truth he had not quite taken in at the time what his commander had meant), has sanctioned his slaughter. (And this English too, his complacent pride not so much in distinguis.h.i.+ng himself as in pleasing a superior.) So. They will kill him. Steal his bribegold, Khoraghisinian's. Harvest their corpses for anything of value--matches, a heel of bread, rope, the oranges both carry. What holds them back is what comes next. The free-for-all, that winner-take-all frenzy of their terrible tontine arrangements. Surely, Mills thinks, this is why they stare at him, glance furtively at one another. They are sizing each other up, remembering the power in that one's fingers, this one's arms. Dead reckoning will, viciousness. Savages, Mills thinks. They're savages.

The Soup Man sees Mills squat over Khoraghisinian's body, the dead man momentarily disappearing beneath the flowing cape George Mills wears. He sees Mills's quick movements but they're obscured by his robe and he cannot make them out. Quite suddenly there is blood, but it seems almost of a different color and viscidity than that which flows from the wounds of punctured men. He can't tell, but it seems cooler.

Mills is standing. He turns in what seems to the troopers a magic circle. Khoraghisinian's entrails lie gleaming in his left hand. The s.h.i.+t-encrusted bribegold s.h.i.+nes in his right. He holds out both.

"We were friends," he intones. He speaks extra slowly in his new, barely mastered tongue so that he may be understood. He turns so that all might hear him. He means to mollify them with guts and gold and stench. He means to curry favor, to bribe them with atrocity. "We were friends," he says again of the man whose body he has just mutilated. "At the last minute, at the last minute I remembered something he told me once when we were on fire guard. 'Bribegold must be well hidden.' We were friends. He was wily. I frisked his s.h.i.+ft and groped his robes. I did his duds like a dowser. 'Well hidden,' he said. And it came to me he must have swallowed it. See," Mills says and he raises his arms still higher, bringing his palms together in which Khoraghisinian's bowels slosh, collision and s.h.i.+ft like so much damp, dark, swollen seaweed beneath his offering, the surgical, amputate bribegold steaming like carrots in soup. hidden,' he said. And it came to me he must have swallowed it. See," Mills says and he raises his arms still higher, bringing his palms together in which Khoraghisinian's bowels slosh, collision and s.h.i.+ft like so much damp, dark, swollen seaweed beneath his offering, the surgical, amputate bribegold steaming like carrots in soup.

It is just then that the muezzin calls from his tower and the Janissaries sink to their bellies as if shot. Only Mills, the pagan, gentile infidel, fails to prostrate himself at once. Then he too lowers himself, but he cannot remember the prayers. All that rings in his head is a nursery rhyme from childhood. He recites, first to himself and then aloud, "Little Jack Horner."

It was meaningless as the violence in Punch-and-Judy shows. One man had fallen that day. Hardly anyone had escaped injury. There were no doctors. They didn't take prisoners and they didn't have doctors.

"Sir!" Mills says smartly as he reports to the Meat Cut.

The Soup Man and Latrine Scrub drift over. Seeing that it is Mills who has been singled out, other officers join the group. The Superior and Inferior Scullions, two Water Carriers, a Cook and Pastry Cook, the Salad Man and three Steam Table Men. There are a handful of noncommissioned officers as well--Waiters and Dining Room Orderlies, Dishwashers and Busboys.

Mills waits for the Meat Cut's instructions, and though he does not know what the man will say to him he knows it won't be pleasant. Perhaps he will be ordered to dredge latrines. Or work the potato gardens. Or clean prayer rugs. Or groom the mascot. Or stuff the mattresses. Or bathe officers.

Neither the officers nor the troopers have forgotten-or for that matter understood-his actions on the day of the practical when first he sneezed Khoraghisinian to death and then prospected his friend's body, as he himself doesn't understand much of the hocus-pocus of his position or the official status of the Corps. As he barely understands the parodic kitchen or menial nomenclatures of the officers' t.i.tles. Steam Table Men, Meat Cuts, Pastry Cooks, Inferior Scullions, Latrine Scrubs, Butcher Boys and all the rest. As he barely understands the reasons for eschewing ordnance, guns, bows and arrows, weapons even the most modest armies have at their disposal, savage tribes do. Or comprehends even the mission of the Janissaries. There has not been a major engagement in years, and although there have been "incidents," most of these have been political, demonstrative in nature, militant, b.l.o.o.d.y and editorial, often in support of the Sultan's policies but just as frequently in opposition. (He knows now that Mahmud II is not an emperor at all but a sultan and somehow this knowledge has altered something important in his life. He had been the loyal subject of a king. The King had had his reasons-which Mills not only retrospectively understands but actually respects-to question his loyalty and had tricked him into what George thought of-Ottoman Empire had sounded grand to him, Ottoman Emperor had-as a lateral subordination, a sort of transfer of allegiance, collateral and fixed as the equivalency of currencies or the official provisions for exchanging prisoners, diplomats. But the subject of a sultan? For all that he has seen Yildiz Palace, George feels somehow desertized, sand-abandoned, wrapped in Persian rug, the lavish and decadent wall hangings of a tent. And though, except for patrols, bivouacs and marches, he can't have been away from the fort for ten weeks altogether, he feels oddly nomadic. It is because he works for a sultan, sheiks and pashas, and thinks of the solid fortress, the brick barracks in which he sleeps, as an oasis, of the water he drinks, though it's sweet and plentiful as water from any English lake, as collected, trapped, sluiced toward his mouth and throat and belly by gates and gravity, by a sort of clever and desperately engineered husbandry. Somehow, since the Emperor became a sultan, he is always parched now.) Nor is their function ceremonial. They rarely parade and when they do it is chiefly before the reviewing stands of other Janissaries. Never do they make a contingent in the pomp and pageantry of the Court. Their officers (for all the queer deference of their official designations) do not much talk to them or offer explanations, so they have no very clear idea either of short-or long-term goals. Newspapers and periodicals are not permitted inside the fort, and all they really know about what is expected of them relates to style, history. Whenever the Soup Man addresses the Janissaries (since the day of their b.l.o.o.d.y practical the one-time recruits are full-fledged Janissaries, integrated with troops who have spent years in the Corps), it is to remind them of their odd traditions, the queer pantheon of their heroic bullies.

"Remember," he says, "G.o.dukuksbabis who slaughtered all the cows in the village of Szarzt. Pray for Tchambourb, of blessed memory, who villained the women of Urfa and drove their goats twelve miles through dangerous country to drown them in the Euphrates. Recall Abl Erzuz who captured the children of Tiflis, stripped them of their clothing, and led them on a forced march up the icy, precipitate slopes of Mount Ararat, where they fell thousands of feet to their deaths in nameless creva.s.ses and lost, lonely fissures. Celebrate Van and all his glorious brother Janissaries who stole everything of value in the city of Plovdiv and bequeathed a life of poverty to all its inhabitants."

On one occasion even Mills has been singled out.

"Think," the Soup Man had said in what pa.s.sed among them for public occasions, the boring convocations of garrison life, "of George Mills, who sniffled a man to death and then ransacked his guts for booty, who plundered a pal's bowels as a highwayman might go through his pockets. Think of Mills, whose blows were blows blows and for whom another man's flesh was of no more consequence than a handkerchief. Think of Mills's ingenuity and cough your enemies into submission. Drown them in your blood, smart their wounds with your tears. Disease and contagion them. Give them your colds and your cancers and, when you fall, fall on and for whom another man's flesh was of no more consequence than a handkerchief. Think of Mills's ingenuity and cough your enemies into submission. Drown them in your blood, smart their wounds with your tears. Disease and contagion them. Give them your colds and your cancers and, when you fall, fall on them. them. Rupture them with your weight. Recall George Mills, my treasures, and remember that cruelty is as real a legacy as the family silver." Rupture them with your weight. Recall George Mills, my treasures, and remember that cruelty is as real a legacy as the family silver."

Fearing reprisal, he'd shuddered. But there was no reprisal, is none. True enough, he gets the s.h.i.+t details, but since when has a Mills been without s.h.i.+t details? So, to answer Bufesqueu once more, he was was in the spirit of things and, if he couldn't claim actually to in the spirit of things and, if he couldn't claim actually to enjoy enjoy the jobs that fell to him-he loathed them, they insulted his nostrils as much as the prayer cycles in which he found himself-there was that ancient business of the family curse, his old hereditary hards.h.i.+ps like recipes in his keeping. Perhaps what he prayed for down on that rug was for them to keep it coming, to keep the pressure on, to keep it up. Perhaps all he wanted out of life was to do his duty. (He was not yet twenty-one years old.) It was, he understood, what most men wanted, the difference between himself and others being that he left it to others to define that duty. Demanded they define it. As if, like any truly despairing man, he would do anything, anything at all, just to get the chance to thunder his smug, contemptuous the jobs that fell to him-he loathed them, they insulted his nostrils as much as the prayer cycles in which he found himself-there was that ancient business of the family curse, his old hereditary hards.h.i.+ps like recipes in his keeping. Perhaps what he prayed for down on that rug was for them to keep it coming, to keep the pressure on, to keep it up. Perhaps all he wanted out of life was to do his duty. (He was not yet twenty-one years old.) It was, he understood, what most men wanted, the difference between himself and others being that he left it to others to define that duty. Demanded they define it. As if, like any truly despairing man, he would do anything, anything at all, just to get the chance to thunder his smug, contemptuous There, you see? There, you see? at them. He was, that is, at home only in his outrage. And he almost hoped aloud as he awaited the Meat Cut's orders that it would be an officer this time, that it would be the Meat Cut himself whom he'd have to follow, soap in hand, to the huge soup kettles in the barracks square. at them. He was, that is, at home only in his outrage. And he almost hoped aloud as he awaited the Meat Cut's orders that it would be an officer this time, that it would be the Meat Cut himself whom he'd have to follow, soap in hand, to the huge soup kettles in the barracks square.

Imagining the conversation: "Tonight is the eve of the Rabaran, Mills."

"Sir! The eve of the Rabaran, The eve of the Rabaran, sir! sir!"

"In my village, when I was a boy, husbands would bathe their wives, wives their husbands, parents children, children pets. Even the old, even the poor, had their bath partners. It was a community scour, Mills. I was still Christian then of course and had no more understanding of this ceremony than the Muslims had of our saints and martyrs. Indeed, I was a sneaky, oafish sort of boy, not even a very good Christian, and I took the occasion to satisfy my l.u.s.tful curiosity. Together with other gentiles of my age and sort, I snuck off to the river, where many Muslim families went for their ritual cleansing. There we would deploy ourselves behind boulders and trees and spy on the women as they unpinned their chadors, chadors, the young girls who rubbed handfuls of lather into their clefts. I didn't understand then that even if we'd been discovered they'd never have driven us off, that we'd have been invited to find our own bath partners and join them. That on the eve of the Rabaran the cleanliness that must not be hidden from G.o.d need not be hidden from men, even from foolish, curious children. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Mills?" the young girls who rubbed handfuls of lather into their clefts. I didn't understand then that even if we'd been discovered they'd never have driven us off, that we'd have been invited to find our own bath partners and join them. That on the eve of the Rabaran the cleanliness that must not be hidden from G.o.d need not be hidden from men, even from foolish, curious children. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Mills?"

"Sir! I understand what you're telling me, I understand what you're telling me, sir! sir!"

"That there's nothing shameful in a holy scour. That the cleanser is blessed as the cleansed. That it's a privilege to brisk and s.h.i.+ne another's affairs, to polish his business as one would one's own."

"Sir! I understand, I understand, sir! sir!"

"Of course you do. Others mightn't, but you you do." do."

"Sir! I do, do, sir! sir!"

"Who stuck his hands past the wrists into a colleague's intestines. Now there's no need to blush. There's no reason to go all girly on me, George."

"Sir! No reason, No reason, sir! sir!"

"Of course not. You were doing your duty. You were doing your duty in his his duty. Do I have it? Is that about it?" duty. Do I have it? Is that about it?"

"Sir! You have it. That's about it, You have it. That's about it, sir! sir!"

"Well of course. And we understand that if it weren't the eve of the Rabaran I wouldn't be asking you you to bathe me?" to bathe me?"

"Sir! We understand, We understand, sir! sir!"

"And that even if it is Rabaran eve we still wouldn't ask if these were places we could comfortably reach ourselves?"

"Sir! We understand, We understand, sir! sir!"

"And that I choose you only because you've been there before?"

Requiring that he-the Meat Cut-speak to him in ways that even the King George IV himself would never speak to him. And requiring that Mills answer in ways that King George wouldn't, indeed couldn't, ever permit himself to demand. Already aggrieved. Hoping if it weren't the Meat Cut then some lesser officer, or noncommissioned officer perhaps-a Waiter or Busboy-or even someone from the ranks, a Paradise Dispatcher like himself. Or something to do with the mascot-maybe the mascot was his best bet-Mills commanded to entertain it, to throw sticks for the old blind dog and fetch them himself when the arthritic animal wouldn't move. (And could imagine that that conversation too, not conversation, really, just plain boorish ragging: "Would you look at the b.l.o.o.d.y-minded beast? Do you see him frolic? Did you e'er see such pep? When Shep goes we won't even have to replace him. What do you think, Konia? Mills for mascot when old Shep gets demobbed?" "There's advantages and disadvantages." "Well I conversation too, not conversation, really, just plain boorish ragging: "Would you look at the b.l.o.o.d.y-minded beast? Do you see him frolic? Did you e'er see such pep? When Shep goes we won't even have to replace him. What do you think, Konia? Mills for mascot when old Shep gets demobbed?" "There's advantages and disadvantages." "Well I see see the advantage. Shep could fetch good as any when he was healthy, but he never did get the hang of throwing. What disadvantage could there be?" "Well, there's his age." "His age?" "A human's lifespan is seven to one compared with a dog's. Shep's ninety right now in human terms. Suppose Mills the advantage. Shep could fetch good as any when he was healthy, but he never did get the hang of throwing. What disadvantage could there be?" "Well, there's his age." "His age?" "A human's lifespan is seven to one compared with a dog's. Shep's ninety right now in human terms. Suppose Mills is is made mascot, suppose he enjoys it, suppose he takes it in his head he's only made mascot, suppose he enjoys it, suppose he takes it in his head he's only technically technically human, that only some rare vagary of Nature put him in pants in the first place? My G.o.d, don't you see? He could will himself beast. He's already five sixths of the way there. On a dog's diet he could live to be three hundred and fifty!" "There's that," Konia's collaborator admits. "There's more." "More, Konia?" "This one don't have Shep's temperament. He's vicious." Because he's a living legend by now, so accredited ever since the day the Soup Man chose to single him out for his deeds-of yes, human, that only some rare vagary of Nature put him in pants in the first place? My G.o.d, don't you see? He could will himself beast. He's already five sixths of the way there. On a dog's diet he could live to be three hundred and fifty!" "There's that," Konia's collaborator admits. "There's more." "More, Konia?" "This one don't have Shep's temperament. He's vicious." Because he's a living legend by now, so accredited ever since the day the Soup Man chose to single him out for his deeds-of yes, deeds, deeds, lifted forever beyond anything as normal as actions or reactions-which is all they were finally: reactions, hard, simple, knee-jerk-and into rhetoric, semiofficial shoptalk, regulation Lister bag company scuttleb.u.t.t whenever men stopped by for a cool drink of water-along with Van and Abl Erzuz and Tchambourb and G.o.dukuksbabis and all the rest of that Star Chamber lot of cutthroat bullies.) lifted forever beyond anything as normal as actions or reactions-which is all they were finally: reactions, hard, simple, knee-jerk-and into rhetoric, semiofficial shoptalk, regulation Lister bag company scuttleb.u.t.t whenever men stopped by for a cool drink of water-along with Van and Abl Erzuz and Tchambourb and G.o.dukuksbabis and all the rest of that Star Chamber lot of cutthroat bullies.) A living legend? A living joke.

Okay, he thinks. Swell. Why not? So be it. I'm your man. Fine. I'm your dogsbody. Of course. You want me to bath down the whole naked, G.o.dd.a.m.n garrison? Every last mutt and horse on campus and all the slops in all the tripe barrels and offal buckets, too, by running them bit by f.u.c.king bit through the blue collar saliva in my poor man's mouth? Sir! Sir! If that's what you want, If that's what you want, sir! sir!

And is as close at this moment to harboring a pure revolutionary thought as anyone in the entire history of the world.

And is still waiting on the Meat Cut for the man's command, which he still hopes will be as devastating as the officer can make it, and prays that he still has whatever it takes neither to blench nor blink when he finally hears it.

He finally hears it.

He blenches. He blinks.

"Mills," says the Meat Cut. "I say, George, why don't you take the rest of the day off and go into town for a bit? Take your friend with you."

"Sir? Into town, sir? Town? Town?"

"Dress uniforms. To show the flag. Take your pal, you know, the one that survived. Bufesqueu. Take Bufesqueu."

It didn't need newspapers, it didn't need periodicals, it didn't need chalk talks or elaborate background briefings by the officers. It didn't even need the barracks wisdom and t.i.ttle-tattle of a Bufesqueu for Mills to understand that they had just been condemned to death. There were no provisions in the military code for Janissaries to be discharged. (There were Paradise Dispatchers in Mills's own company in their seventies and eighties.) The reasons were obvious and, in an odd way, peculiarly compa.s.sionate.

It was not just that a veteran Janissary, celibate, old, failing and without family, ill equipped to do business in the outside world, would be lost as a civilian. He would be torn to shreds. This much came through the crazy pep talks of the Soup Man. They were despised as much as they were feared. This was their glory, their elitism.

And Mills well enough understood their ultimate mission. They all did. It was not so much to protect the state as to suppress the people. Indeed-those frequent demonstrations against the government-it was to suppress the state as well. (Though Mills had never seen it, there was something that terrified people and government both: the symbolic moment of Janissary rage when the troopers hauled the tremendous cauldrons in which they boiled soup out of the mess and into the square and upended them.) At the height of their strength two centuries earlier there had been upward of a hundred and thirty thousand troops in the Corps. Now there were barely five thousand, all of them concentrated in the huge and possibly impenetrable fortress where Mills had trained and until now lived as a prisoner. But this was the point. Not that their ranks had been diminished by a hundred and twenty-five thousand men, but that with two hundred years to work it out, a hostile government had been unable to abolish an organization of just five thousand that it openly feared and had little use for--except on those occasions when it meant to punish the people.

So they would be killed. Certainly Mills would be. He was the living legend after all. At least so far. Bufesqueu himself had said as much.

"How do they know?" Mills asked.

"How do we get has.h.i.+sh? How do we get halvah? halvah? Where do the fas.h.i.+ons come from the fellows like to wear at parties? How do we get the forbidden boozes? Where do the rifles come from?" Where do the fas.h.i.+ons come from the fellows like to wear at parties? How do we get the forbidden boozes? Where do the rifles come from?"

"We don't have rifles."

"We don't, no. The officers do. To use against us if we make trouble." And when George looked at him in disbelief, Bufesqueu went on. "Kiddo, kiddo, it's a Byzantine world. There's plots and intrigues under every fez. There's bucks to be made and merchants to make them. You want to know the real reason our outfit still exists?"

"We're the greatest fighting force in the world."

"The real real reason." reason."

"That is is the real reason. Man for man and hand to hand no one can touch us." the real reason. Man for man and hand to hand no one can touch us."

"Listen to this bird," Bufesqueu said. "He's marching off to a town where the first guy to spot him will already be thinking not how to kill him but how best to dispose of his body after he's dead, and his heart's in his head and his head's up his a.s.s. What, you're a snowman? You got coals for eyes? Open them up, you're melting. Kickbacks! Kickbacks!"

"Kickbacks?"

"Sure kickbacks, of course kickbacks! Kickback kickbucks! The fix is in. The fix has always been in. The two-hundred-year-old fix. The peddlers vigorish the Busboy, the Busboy kicks back to the Steam Table Man, the Steam Table gives to the Meat Cut, the Meat Cut slices off a piece for the Soup Man, the Soup Man ladles it out to the Grand Vizier, the Grand Vizier sees to the Sultan and the Sultan gave at the office. And that's why we continue to exist! You know what's the best business there is?"

"I don't know anything," George Mills said.

"The best business there is is a deprived, captive population. A prison's a good business. A garrison like ours is. Mom and Pop stores on desert islands."

"If you're so smart why ain't you rich?"

"I am rich. They say they let you keep Khoraghisinian's bribegold."

"They say I captured it in a fair fight," Mills said gloomily.

"More snowmen."

"But me? How would they know about me?"

"In town you mean? The good people who want to kill you, who want to hide your face?"

"Yes."

"George, George, those walls only look look impenetrable." impenetrable."

"Money talks."

"Talks? It sings soprano. But it didn't need any money to make you famous. Penny dreadfuls tell your story. There's broadsides and chapbooks and solos for cello. The ruthless, Christian Janissary from Blighty Limey Land. The folks hate you, Mills!"

"I'm done for."

"Nah, I have a plan."

They were caparisoned, their formal uniforms more like frock than battle dress. In their flaring knee-length skirts and high bodices they seemed rather like warriors on vases, urns. Percale as sheet or pillowslip, even their fabrics felt sumptuary, voluptuous. Though he had the reputation, Mills did not feel vicious. And if he'd had no knowledge of what Bufesqueu had described as the Janissary's Byzantine arrangements-indeed, he'd only first heard of them moments before-he felt, in his Attic, high-stepper uniform, more raiment than clothing, more gown than garment, oddly venal, sharp and shady. (Already memorizing it, figuring ways it could be rendered.) But then, recalling his jeopardy-Bufesqueu he figured was there for the ride, along as a witness, no more (suspicion reinforcing his new Tammany heart)-chiefly he felt foolish, vulnerable as a traffic cop. "Oh yes?" Mills said. "A plan?"

They were on the open plain that ringed their fort-men watched from the ramparts and parapets-land that had once been valuable and held some of the city's most venerable buildings. As recently as Mills's induction the year before, a sort of grandstand and playing field had stood there, but over the years, as the original defilement became a parade ground, the parade ground an entrenchment, the entrenchment a breastworks, the breastworks a camp, the camp a fortification and the fortification the fortress that the Janissaries now permanently occupied, there had been a sort of piecemeal retreat, gradual as balding, of the old residences and public buildings. Now, however, they left the open area and entered the city proper, slicing into it through a failing neighborhood. Here, Mills guessed, the vendors and profiteers lived whom Bufesqueu said supplied his colleagues with their black market contraband. (I didn't know, he thought. Sitting aloof and ignorant on my double bribegold. Starving for halvah halvah and they didn't even tell me, wouldn't, not even Bufesqueu. Sent to and they didn't even tell me, wouldn't, not even Bufesqueu. Sent to halvah halvah Coventry.) Coventry.) A few women and old men returning from market spotted them and were already whispering among themselves, gesturing and, so far at least, only vaguely pointing in their direction. Boys saw them, watched silently, their faces expressionless. Dogs barked. "It better be good," Mills said into his hand as if he were coughing.

"Trust me," Bufesqueu said.

"Sure," Mills said, out of sight now of the Janissaries on the battlements but still closely scrutinized by Bufesqueu.

"When I give the word," Bufesqueu said.

"Sure," Mills said, "the word." (And thought: The word will be Mills. Hey, everybody, here's George Mills that you heard so much about. Come and get it!) "Just watch me," Bufesqueu said. "When I give the signal."

"When you drop the handkerchief?" Mills said.

Bufesqueu glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Just watch me," he said.

They might have been strolling in the park, Bufesqueu slowing his pace and Mills slackening his own in order not to get out in front of him, when Bufesqueu suddenly began to run full out, shouting as he came. "Blitzpounce!" he shouted. "Thrustrus.h.!.+ Raid-grapple!" They were Janissary commands for attack and Bufesqueu was yelling them at the top of his lungs. "Flakshoot!" he screamed. "Swipeslam! Flailshove! Harrywaste!"