Seasons of War

appropriate for a guard to his commander. It wasn’t quite the appropriate thing, but it came near enough for the general to take its sense. Sinja walked behind the man to a low table where a bottle of wine stood open, two perfect porcelain wine bowls glowing white at its side. Balasar waved the attendant away and poured the wine himself. Sinja accepted a bowl and sat across from him.
    ‘It was nicely done,’ Sinja said, gesturing with his free hand toward the city. ‘Well-managed and quick.’
    Balasar looked up, almost as if noticing the streets and warehouses for the first time. Sinja thought a hint of a smile touched the general’s lips, but it was gone as soon as it came. The wine was rich and left Sinja’s mouth feeling almost clean.
    ‘It was competent,’ Balasar agreed. ‘But it can’t have been easy. For you and your men.’
    ‘I didn’t lose one of them,’ Sinja said. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a campaign start where we took a city and didn’t lose anyone.’
    ‘This is a different sort of war than the usual,’ Balasar said. And there, in the pale eyes, Sinja saw the ghosts. The general wasn’t at ease, however casual he chose to be with his wine. It was an interesting fact, and Sinja put it at the back of his mind. ‘I wanted to ask after your men.’
    ‘Have there been complaints?’
    ‘Not at all. Every report suggests that they did their work admirably. But this wasn’t the adventure they expected.’
    ‘They expected the women they raped to look less like their sisters, that’s truth,’ Sinja said. ‘And honestly, I expect we’ll lose some. I don’t know how it is in Galt, sir, but when I’ve taken a green company into battle the first time, we always lose some.’
    ‘Inexperience,’ Balasar said, agreeing.
    ‘No, sir. I don’t mean the enemy spits a few, though that’s usually true as well. I mean there are always a few who came into the work with epics in their heads. Great battles, honor, glory. All that pig shit. Once they see what a battlefield or a sacked town really looks like, they wake up. Half these boys are still licking off the caul. Some of them will think better and sneak off.’
    ‘And how do you plan to address the problem?’
    ‘Let them go,’ Sinja said and shrugged. ‘We haven’t seen a fight yet, but before this is finished, we will. When it happens I’d rather have twenty soldiers than thirty men looking for a reason to retreat.’
    The general frowned, but he also nodded. At the edge of the pier, half a hundred seagulls took to the air at once, their cries louder than the waves. They wheeled once over the ships and then settled again, just where they had been.
    ‘Unless you have a different opinion, sir,’ Sinja said.
    ‘Do this,’ Balasar said, looking up from under his brow. ‘Go to them. Explain to them that I will never turn against my men. But if they leave me . . . if they leave my service, they aren’t my men any longer. And if I find them again, I won’t be lenient.’
    Sinja scratched his chin, the stubble just growing in, and felt a smile growing in his mind.
    ‘I can see that they understand, sir,’ he said. ‘And it might stop some of the ones who’d choose to hang up their swords. But if there’s someone you feel isn’t loyal, one of my men that you think isn’t yours, I’d recommend you kill him now. There’s no room on a campaign like this for someone who’ll take up arms against the man that pays his wage.’
    Balasar nodded, leaning back in his chair.
    ‘I think we understand each other,’ he said.
    ‘Let’s be certain,’ Sinja said, and put his hands open and palms-down on the table between them. ‘I’m a mercenary, and to judge by that pile of silk and cedar chests you’re about to ship back to Galt, you’re the man who’s got the money to pay my contract. If I’ve given you reason to think there’s more happening than that, I’d rather we cleared it up now.’
    Balasar chuckled. It was a warm sound. That was good.
    ‘Are you ever subtle?’ Balasar asked.
    ‘If I’m paid to be,’ Sinja said. ‘I’ve had a bad experience working for someone who thought I might look better with a knife-shaped hole in my belly, sir, and I’d rather not repeat it. Have I done something to make you question my intentions?’
    Balasar considered him. Sinja met his gaze.
    ‘Yes,’ Balasar said. ‘You have. But it’s nothing I would be comfortable hanging you for. Not yet at least. The poet,