Monstrous Regiment

sir!”
    Polly stared at Jackrum, and then realized the words had, in fact, come from her own mouth.
    Froc raised her eyebrows.
    “What is your name again?” she said.
    “Corporal Perks, sir!” said Polly, saluting.
    She watched Froc’s face settle into an expression of condescending benevolence. If she uses the words “my dear,” I shall swear , she thought.
    “Well, my dear—”
    “Not your dear, sir or madam,” said Polly. In the theater of her mind, The Duchess Inn burned to a cinder and her old life peeled away, black as charcoal, and she was flying, ballistic, too fast and too high and unable to stop. “I am a soldier, General. I signed up. I kissed the Duchess. I don’t think generals call their soldiers ‘my dear,’ do they?”
    Froc coughed. The smile remained, but had the decency to be a bit more restrained.
    “And private soldiers don’t talk like that to generals, young lady, so we’ll let that pass, shall we?” she said.
    “Just here, in this room, I don’t know what passes and what stays, sir,” said Polly. “But it seems to me that if you are still a general then I’m still a corporal, sir. I can’t speak for the others, but the reason I’m holding out, General, is that I kissed the Duchess and she knew what I was and she…didn’t turn away, if you understand me.”
    “Well said, Perks,” said Jackrum.
    Polly plunged on. “Sir, a day or two ago I’d have rescued my brother and gone off home and I’d have thought it a job well done. I just wanted to be safe. But now I see there’s no safety while there’s all this…this stupidity. So I think I’ve got to stay and be a part of it. Er…try to make it less stupid, I mean. And I want to be me, not Oliver. I kissed the Duchess. We all did. You can’t tell us we didn’t and you can’t tell us it doesn’t count, because it’s between us and her—”
    “You all kissed the Duchess,” said a voice. It had an…echo.
You all kissed the Duchess
    “Did you think that meant nothing? That it was just a kiss?”
Did you think it meant nothing
just a kiss
    The whispered words washed against the walls like surf, and came back stronger, in harmonies.
Did you kiss meant nothing meant a
kiss just think a kiss meant a kiss
    Wazzer was standing up.
    The squad stood petrified as she walked unsteadily past them.
    Her eyes focused on Polly, and then looked down at her own legs.
    “So good to have a body again,” she said. “I wonder what all the fuss is about…”
So good a body
the fuss is I wonder the fuss
    Something was in Wazzer’s face. Her features were all there, all correct, her nose was as pointed and as red, her cheekbones as hollow…but there were subtle changes.
    She held up a hand and flexed her fingers.
    “Ah,” she said. “So…” There was no echo this time, but the voice was stronger and deeper. No one would ever have said that Wazzer’s voice had been attractive, but this one was.
    She turned to Jackrum, who dropped onto his fat knees and whipped off his shako.
    “Sergeant Jackrum, I know that you know who I am. You have waded through seas of blood for me. Perhaps we should have done better things with your life, but at least your sins were soldier’s sins, and not the worst of them, at that. You are hereby promoted to sergeant major, and a better candidate for the job I have never met. You are steeped in deviousness, cunning, and casual criminality, Sergeant Jackrum. You should do well.”
    Jackrum, eyes cast down, raised a knuckle to his forehead.
    “…Not worthy, Your Grace,” he muttered.
    “Of course you aren’t.” The Duchess looked around. “Now, where is my army…ah.”
    There was no hesitancy now, and none of Wazzer’s cowering and downcast eyes. She positioned herself directly in front of Froc, who was staring with her mouth open.
    “General Froc, you must do one final service for me.”
    The general glared. “Who the hell are you?”
    “You need to ask? As always, Jackrum thinks faster than you. You know me. I am the Duchess Annagovia.”
    “But you are—” one of the other officers began, but Froc held up a hand again.
    “The voice…is familiar,” she said in a faraway whisper.
    “Yes. You remember the ball. I remember it, too. Forty years ago. You were the youngest captain ever. We danced, stiffly in my case. I asked you how long you had been a captain, and you said—”
    “—‘Three days,’” breathed Froc with her eyes shut.
    “And we ate Brandy Pillows, and