"Then, this time, please let me walk you there."

She managed to smile, despite the horrifying circumstances. "I won't leave you barefoot in the rain, Adam Hazzard," she said. "Not on a night like this."

There is a kind of urban living, I have discovered, in which poverty and luxury mix together, and become indistinguishable. That was the case with the rooms in which Calyxa Blake lived. She occupied several chambers in a building that had been divided up into dark but rentable spaces by some absent and inattentive Owner. The rooms were confining, the windows minuscule, the ceilings perilously low. She could not have spent much money on the furnishings, which were shabby, threadbare, nicked, and splintered-I had seen better furniture abandoned at Montreal curbsides.

But if her book-cases were humble, they were bowed under the weight of surprisingly many books-almost as many as there had been in the library of the Duncan and Crowley Estate back in Williams Ford. It seemed to me a treasure more estimable than any fine sofa or plush footstool, and worth all the rough economies surrounding it.

We entered dripping from the effects of the storm, which continued to beat its wings against the windows of Calyxa's snug if threadbare retreat. As soon as she had thrown the several latches behind her and lit the nearest lamp she began unselfconsciously to strip off her sodden clothes. I looked away, blushing. "You too," she said. "No exceptions for Western prudishness-you're dripping all over everything."

"I have nothing else to wear!"

"I'll find you something. Undress yourself-those pants won't dry while you're wearing them."

That extraordinary statement was inarguably true; and I did as she suggested, while she went to another room in search of something to cover herself, and me. She came back wearing a kind of Chinese robe, with fanciful Dragons embroidered on it, and carrying a similar garment, along with a towel, which she handed to me.

I dried myself willingly but balked at the robe. "I think this is a woman's item."

"It's a silk robe. All the better Chinese persons wear them, men included. You can buy them down at the dockside-cheap, when the boats come in, if you know the right vendor. Put it on, please."

I obeyed, though not without feeling slightly ridiculous. But the robe was comfortable, and supplied just the right degree of warmth and concealment. I was content with it, I decided, as long as some Blake brother didn't break down the door and shoot me, for dying in such a garment might provoke awkward questions.

Calyxa started a fire in the kitchen stove and put a kettle on to boil. While she worked I examined her book-cases more closely. I hoped to find an unfamiliar title by Mr. Charles Curtis Easton, which I could borrow. But Calyxa's taste didn't run in that direction. Few of the books were fiction, and even fewer bore the Dominion Stamp of Approval. I guessed the authority of the Dominion was more powerful out West than in these border lands, which had so often changed hands with the Dutch. Here were titles and authors altogether unfamiliar to me. Some were in French, and could not be decrypted. Of the English titles, I selected one called American History Since the Fall of the Cities, by Arwal Parmentier. It had been published in England-a country which, though sparsely inhabited, had a long history of its own, and whose allegiance to Mitteleuropa was more formal than devotional. I took the volume closer to a lamp, opened it at random, and read this paragraph: The ascent of the Aristocracy should not be understood solely as a response to the near-exhaustion of oil, platinum, iridium, and other essential resources of the Technological Efflorescence. The trend to oligarchy predated that crisis and contributed to it. Even before the Fall of the Cities the global economy had become what our farmers call a "Monoculture," streamlined and relatively efficient, but without the useful diversity fostered in prior times by the existence of National Borders and Local Regulation of Business. Long before plague, starvation, and childlessness reduced the population so dramatically, wealth had already begun to concentrate in the hands of a minority of powerful Owners. The Crisis of Scarcity, therefore, when it came, was met not with a careful or prepared response, but by a determined grasp of power on the part of the Oligarchs and a retreat into religious dogmatism and clerical authority by the frightened and disenfranchised populace.

It was quickly obvious to me why this volume had not received the Stamp of Approval, and I moved to replace it on the shelf, but not before Calyxa, returning from the kitchen with a cup of tea in each hand, saw me handling it. "Do you read, Adam Hazzard?" She seemed surprised.

"I do-as often as I can."

"Really! Have you read Parmentier?"

I confessed I hadn't had the pleasure. Political Philosophy was not a subject I had pursued, I told her.

"Too bad. Parmentier is ruthless on Aristocracy. All my friends read him. Who do you read, then?"

"I admire the work of Mr. Charles Curtis Easton."

"I don't know the name."

"He's a novelist. Perhaps I can introduce you to his work sometime."

"Perhaps," Calyxa said, and we sat down on the sofa. She took a sip of tea, and seemed more or less at ease, considering that she had just seen her homicidal brother shot in the head, and had spent the evening leaping about the rooftops of Montreal. Then she put down her cup and said, "Look at your feet-you're bleeding all over the carpet."

I apologized.

"It's not the carpet I'm concerned about! Here, lie back and put your feet on this towel."

I did so, and she fetched a medicine for me-an ointment that smelled of alcohol and camphor, and burned on application, but soon began to feel soothing. She examined my feet closely, then wrapped them in a linty bandage. "And you left your boots behind," she said.

"Yes."

"That wasn't wise. Army-issue boots. Job will recognize them for what they are. He'll know I was with an American soldier, and it won't improve his temper."

Shooting his brother in the head had probably angered him right up to the hilt, I thought, and the boots wouldn't add much of a fillip to it; but I took Calyxa's concern seriously. "I'm sorry to say this, Calyxa, and I don't mean to insult your family, but I begin to wish I had shot both of them."

"I wish you had, too, but the opportunity failed to present itself. Your poor feet! We'll fix them up a little more, come morning, and replace your boots with something better before you have to march back to your regiment."

I hadn't thought that far ahead, and the prospect was daunting, but she didn't dwell on it. "Adam Hazzard, I thank you for all you've done for me today. I was afraid of your motives at first, but Evangelica was right-you're just as simple as you look. I want to reward you," and here she put her arm around my shoulder, and drew my head closer to hers, and kissed me lightly on the cheek, "and I want to reward you in the best possible way, but it's not practical right at the moment-"

My skin still tingled where her lips had been. "You don't need to explain! I would never question your virtue, or make any claim on it, just because I helped you fend off your brothers!" (And I readjusted my Chinese robe to disguise any testimony to the contrary on the part of my masculine nature.) "It isn't that. I do want to thank you, Adam. It would be my pleasure, as well as yours. Do you understand me? But the time is not propitious."

"Of course it isn't, with the gunplay and all."

"What I mean is-"

"It's enough that I can sit and talk with you. I wanted your friendship, and now I have it-that's my reward."

"J'ai mes regles, espece de bouseaux ignorant! " she said, a little impatiently, and I took this to be another testimonial to her gratitude to me, which was irrepressible. I expected nothing from her, but I hinted that a second kiss would not be unwelcome ... and she gave me that, and I returned it, and I was as happy as I had ever been, despite all the rooftop calisthenics and bloody violence. Such is Love in a time of War.

I slept on the sofa, and she woke me in the morning. She examined my feet again, and said the injuries inflicted by the sharp tiles of the Montreal roofs were not as bad as they might have been, and she re-wrapped the bandages, and added a layer of leather, one for each foot, to function as soles, and more bandages, so that I could walk out of doors without re-injuring myself. "That ought to get you where we're going," she said.

She wanted to replace my boots with something better than bandages, and she wanted to find out what the ultimate outcome of the events at the tavern had been. She said she knew a place where both those needs might be addressed. She put on a large sun-hat, to conceal her face if she crossed paths with a Blake brother, and I took her arm, and we stepped out into the sunny morning.

Last night's tempest had washed the air clean, and the ferocious wind had been domesticated into a pleasant breeze. If not for the danger, and the pain in my feet, our stroll would have been entirely enjoyable. But it was brief, and it ended at the door of a basement shop on a street I didn't recognize. The shop, a tannery and bootery, was closed-by law, because it was Sunday. Nevertheless Calyxa knocked loudly. "I know the owner," she said.

The owner turned out to be a bearded and irritable man who would not have been out of place at the table she had occupied in the tavern last night, except that his attention to his clothing was more particular. He looked at Calyxa curiously, and at me with an undisguised mixture of loathing and distaste. "Let us in, Emil, I don't want to dawdle here," she said; and he waved us inside reluctantly.

His shop was a cellar, rank with the smell of tannin and glue, but he had some very nice boots on display. "Can you fit my friend?" Calyxa asked.

"Anything for you," Emil said slowly, "you know that, but surely-"

"He needs something supple and sturdy on his feet. He lost his boots doing me a favor."

"Don't his army masters give him boots? Tu es folle d'amener un soldat americain ici!"

"Il m'a sauve la vie. On peut lui faire confiance. En plus, il n'est pas tres intelligent. S'il te plait, ne le tue pas-fais-le pour moi!"

This exchange, whatever it meant, mollified Emil a little, and he agreed to measure my feet, and when he had done that he searched among his stock of pre-made boots, and showed me a fine pair of deerskins, calf-high and golden-brown. I was sure I couldn't afford them.

"This has to do with your savage brothers," Emil said to Calyxa. "I heard about what happened at the tavern last night."

Calyxa became more attentive. "What do you know about Job and Utty?"

"Job was badly creased by a bullet. He lost a lot of blood, but his skull wasn't cracked, and the story I heard is that he'll survive it. Utty threatened to shoot a few people just for show, but Job's wound distracted him. They left the tavern for the charity clinic-I expect Job's still there, unless he had the grace to die during the night. That's all I know, except that the military police took notice, and they're holding a warrant on both men."

Calyxa smiled as if this were welcome news, and I suppose it was; but sooner or later, it seemed to me, the Blake brothers would be back, angrier than ever, and I was afraid for her.

The boots were expensive even at Emil's grudging discount. I was reluctant to spend the money-I was saving for a typewriter-but I didn't want to appear tight in front of Calyxa, and I did need boots; so I paid the proprietor his ransom.

And I was not sorry. Even to my injured feet the deerhide boots felt like an upholstered corner of Heaven. I had never owned boots that fit me so neatly. The men of my company would be envious, I thought, and they would mock my vanity, and call me dainty; but I decided I would endure all that without complaint, for the boots comforted my feet and reminded me of Calyxa.

She and I walked a little farther, but the day was passing quickly, and I couldn't stay away from camp much longer. We parted at the great iron bridge. Calyxa asked whether I might be back next weekend, and I promised I would try to see her, if the military situation allowed, and that I would think of her constantly in the meantime.

"I hope you do come back."

"I will," I vowed.

"Don't forget to bring your pistol," she said; then she kissed me and kissed me again.

* At first I had been shocked by the sight of Montreal women wearing trousers rather than skirts-in Williams Ford no respectable female wore trousers past the age of ten-but social customs vary by location, as Julian had taught me, and clothes signify differently in different parts of the world. I had lately begun to take pride in my ability to accept such unusual behavior as female trouser-wearing, and I considered myself a sophisticate, far in advance of my old crowd of Williams Ford lease-boys.

* "Bush runners" are men who operate in the wilds of the Laurentians and up into the rocky wastelands of Labrador, living on the margins of the law. Some of them form guerilla bands, and might align themselves temporarily with the Americans or the Mitteleuropans; but their main business is horse thievery, smuggling, and opportunistic pillage.

* Or an even stronger word, best understood under the generous allowances of Cultural Relativism, and not printable here.

* Calyxa, unlike myself, was fluent in French, and sometimes fell into that language at odd moments. French has always been a mystery to me, and remains so; but I have taken pains to make sure her words are accurately transcribed.

7.

I kept my promise, and returned many times to the City of Montreal that summer, and became better acquainted with Calyxa and with the city in which she lived. I won't weary the reader with a description of all our encounters (some were too intimate to record, in any case), but I will say that we were not further troubled by the Blake Brothers-not that season, anyhow.

Camp life was easy for a time. My feet healed quickly, thanks to light work and those supple deerhide boots. The Dutch sallies became less frequent, and the only fighting for a while (locally, I mean) was between our scouting parties and a few enemy pickets. Contradictory rumors continued to emerge from the Saguenay campaign, however: a great victory-a great defeat-many Mitteleuropans killed-scores of Americans sent to early graves-but none of that could be confirmed, due to the slow pace of communications and the unwillingness of high staff to share intelligence with soldiers of the line. But around Thanksgiving we had a substantial hint that things had not gone well. A new regiment of draftees and recruits-soft, naive lease-boys, as I now saw them, mostly drawn from the estates and freehold farms of Maine and Vermont-arrived in camp. They were quickly trained in the business of garrisoning Montreal City and maintaining its defenses, which freed up those of us with battle experience for that most dreaded of military maneuvers: a Winter Campaign.

"Galligasken would never have approved of this," Sam said when our regimental orders were finally cut. "The orders must have come down from the Executive Palace itself. This smells of Deklan Comstock's meddling and impatience. The news of some defeat nettled him, so he ordered all his forces into a strategically absurd retaliation-I'd bet money on it."

But there was no arguing with orders. We packed our ditty-bags and slung our Pittsburgh rifles, a whole division of us, and we were carted to the docks and loaded into steam-driven boats for the journey down the St. Lawrence to the Saguenay. There wasn't time to say goodbye to Calyxa, so I wrote a hasty letter, and posted it from the quayside, telling her I would be away at the front for an undisclosed time, and that I loved her and thought of her constantly, and that I hoped the Blake Brothers wouldn't hunt her down and kill her while I was gone.

The boats on which we rode burned wood rather than coal, and their smudge hung over the river and followed us in the wind, a poignant, earthy smell.

I had never been out on a boat before. The River Pine back in Williams Ford was too swift and shallow for navigation. I had seen boats, of course, especially since our arrival in Montreal, and they had fascinated me with their elephantine grace and their negotiations with the unpredictable and oft-stormy St. Lawrence. Consequently I spent much time at the rail of this little vessel as it traveled, experiencing what Julian called the "Relativistic Illusion" that the boat itself was stationary, and that it was the land around it that had gone into motion, writhing to the west like a snake with a war in its tail.

We had been issued woolen coats to protect us from the weather, but the day was fine and sunny, though autumn had the countryside in its final grip. We approached and passed the great fortifications at Quebec City, and followed the North Channel beyond Ile d'Orleans, where the river grew much wider and began to carry the tang of salt. The foliage along the north bank was umber and scarlet where it had not already abandoned itself to the wind. Denuded branches cast skeletal silhouettes against a dusty blue sky, and crows swept the forest-top in wheeling masses. Autumn is the only season with a hook in the human heart, Julian had once said (or quoted). This fanciful figure of speech ran through my mind right then-the only season with a hook in the heart-and because it was autumn, and because the land was vast and empty, and the air was chill and smelled of woodsmoke, the poetic words seemed to make sense, and were apt.

About then Julian came to stand beside me at the rail, while the other soldiers milled about on deck or went below to try their luck at mess. "Last night I dreamed I was on a ship," he said, the long light falling on his face as the wind tousled the hair that flowed out beneath his cap.

"A ship like this one?"

"A better one, Adam. A three-masted schooner, like the ones that sail up the Narrows to Manhattan. When I was a child my mother used to take me to the foot of Forty-second Street to see those ships. I liked the idea that the ships came from faraway places-the Mediterranean Republics, or Nippon, or Ecuador, as it might be-and I liked to pretend some spirit of those places still clung to them-I convinced myself I could smell it, a whiff of spice above the stink of creosote and rotting fish."

"Those must be very fine ships," I said.

"But in my dream the ship was leaving New York Harbor, not arriving. She had just caught the wind in her sails-'took the bone in her teeth,' as sailors say; and she was passing under the old Verrazano Bridge. I knew I was being carried away somewhere ... not to a safe place, exactly, but to a different place than I was accustomed to, where I might change into someone else." He smiled sheepishly, though there was a haunted look in his eye. "I don't suppose that makes sense."

I said I guessed it didn't, and I didn't believe in prophetic dreams any more than Julian believed in Heaven; but something about the melancholy way he spoke made me think his dream must be another Poetic Metaphor, like that figure of speech involving hooks and hearts-the kind of riddle that cuts close to the tear ducts in its nonsense.

Around dusk we sailed past the Dutch fort at Tadoussac. It had been taken by American forces, and among the soldiers on deck a cheer went up at the sight of the Thirteen Stripes and Sixty Stars flying above those battle-scarred and broken walls on the high headland. What did not please us so much was the litter of broken ships clinging to that stark shore. Half-sunken hulls gutted by artillery fire stood sentinel over islands of charred debris trapped by the whorl of the river. Here there had been fighting of the fiercest kind, both ashore and afloat; and it was a dire and oppressive place by the fading light of day.

We reached the craggy mouth of the Saguenay shortly thereafter, and our flotilla of troop-ships, their wood-fired engines straining, sailed up that "fjord,"* making a scant few knots against the current. Most of us tried to sleep in the narrow bunks that had been assigned to us. But we kept our arms close, and come morning we could hear the distant sounds of war.

They landed us at the Siege of Chicoutimi, and we spent three weeks in the trenches.

The companies of our Regiment were kept close together, to prevent our morale from being deflated by the long-term infantrymen who had fought their way here from Tadoussac over the course of the summer, and whose losses had been staggering. It had been a badly-planned and deadly campaign, and the Staff had not been spared the effects of its winnowing. It was rare to see an officer at Chicoutimi even as old as Sam Godwin. High rank and hasty promotions had been handed out to boys no older than myself, and commanders' tents had become kindergartens from which one graduated to the grave.

The "siege," in fact, was a stalemate. Our entrenchments had encountered their entrenchments, and it was all we could do to keep the daily killing at an equitable level-no grander goal could be imagined. We controlled the Saguenay right up to River-of-Rats, but the Mitteleuropans held Chicoutimi in a firm grip, and their supply lines were secure all the way to the railhead at Lake Saint John, where the Stadhouders had established farms, mills, mines, refineries, shipworks, and a flourishing community of workers and owners. No matter what artillery we dragged upriver to attack them, they could float some equivalent weapon downstream to repulse us. And because of their greater numbers, we were in constant danger of being outflanked.

On top of all that, winter was coming fast. Cold weather had already driven off the Black Flies, but that was the only good thing about it. Our lines were a wasteland devoid of trees or vegetation. We had dug our trenches and redans out of the soil, which in this neighborhood was thick with the debris of the Efflorescence of Oil-bricks, broken foundation-stones, and that tarry crumble with which the ancients paved their roads. Our entrenching tools turned up human bones from time to time. The bones were not useful to us,* but the bricks were largely sound, and we worked them into our defenses. Some of the more ambitious men made entire brick fortifications, with mud for mortar, but these barricades were a two-edged sword: fine against rifle fire but dangerously unstable when artillery shells exploded nearby. Craftsmanship was everything, and men with bricklaying experience were in high demand for their advice, at least until the ground froze over, making it impossible to dig bricks or mortar them. These are the subtler arts of war.

We had nothing to eat but trail rations, and little enough of that. It was difficult even to keep warm. There were days when all we had to burn were fragments of rotted wood and asphalt. And there was no relief by night, for the Dutch loved to shell us during the hours of darkness, and our artillery companies were obliged to return fire. By the end of three weeks the lack of sleep, constant cold, and inadequate rations had turned us all into automatons, shuffling through frozen or muddy trenches according to orders given by distant madmen or local commanders no older than ourselves. Major Lampret was with us-the stories of his cowardice and self-regard had made it mandatory that he travel to the front lines, or lose all credibility with the men-and he conducted Sunday services on three occasions, each event less well-attended than the one before. His rivalry with Julian still simmered, and I expect Lampret wished he had demoted or even imprisoned "Private Commongold" when the opportunity presented itself; but Julian was well-liked, and Lampret could not do anything against him. Sam knew that Lampret had a spy among us, and he had concluded that the informer was most likely Private Langers, our entrepreneurial colporteur, who had been seen conferring with Lampret on several occasions; and certainly there was nothing about Langers's moral character that would make the charge implausible. But Langers was careful, and no money or favors were seen to change hands.

The last Camp Meeting held by Major Lampret drew a larger audience, but that was because we were ordered to it. We stood in a circle on cleared ground, under cloudy skies, in a spitting snow, as grim news was announced. General Galligasken had been injured by shrapnel from an enemy shell, even though his headquarters had been set up out of the range of conventional artillery-perhaps a Chinese Cannon was responsible. The General still lived, but he had been taken down to Tadoussac for emergency treatment, and he would probably lose an arm, if he survived. His replacement was a new General from New York City named Reddick. A pawn of the Executive, Sam whispered, and a lackey of the Dominion as well. This was bad news indeed.

There was worse to come. Reddick in his enthusiasm had ordered an all out dawn attack. We were to sleep on our arms, and be prepared for heavy action come morning.

The quartermaster issued us double rations-a welcome change, though as a "last supper" it did little to dispel the gloom-and fresh rounds of ammunition. We were more convincingly cheered by the arrival of a new division of cavalry, men armed with Trench Sweepers of the type that had proved so effective in the Battle of Mascouche. Perhaps we were not doomed after all. That faint hope sustained us.

The sky was red with dawn when all the bugles sounded and all our artillery fired at once, announcing the attack.

We deployed by regiments, and ours was in the vanguard. I asked Sam what the strategy might be, but he couldn't tell: the armies were too large for one man to survey them, and this battle was being coordinated by staff in the rear. Telegraph cables had been laid to help Reddick communicate with field commanders, and there were messengers and horsemen to carry intelligence back and forth. But this was a clumsy way to manage something as fluid as a massive battle, Sam said, so most of the initiative would be in the hands of regimental captains. Julian asked pointedly, and loudly, whether Major Lampret would deign to involve himself in the attack, or whether he would supervise, in a spiritual sense, from behind. Lampret overheard this comment-as he was no doubt meant to-and announced to the assembly that he would take up a rifle if there was one to spare. This won him a few scattered hurrahs; though his face, when he made the offer, was chalk-white, and he gave Julian a long daggered stare.

Then we were in the thick of it. I will spare the reader the ghastly minutiae of that awful morning, except to say that our company was reduced to half its numbers before an hour had passed; and I saw so much of what ought to have remained inside the human body, but hadn't, that I passed beyond revulsion into a kind of emotionless efficiency. The roar of battle was all but deafening, and if not for the organizing genius of flags and bugles I suppose we would have abandoned all order and fought for our lives, individually.

Here, as in Mascouche, it was the Trench Sweeper that made the difference. I had learned to recognize the sound of those heavy rifles-a sort of deadly, prolonged cough-and so had the Dutch troops, who dreaded it. The Army of the Laurentians began to make a striking advance as soon as those weapons were brought to bear, though I was still not sure what our ultimate objective might be. But General Reddick ordered a pursuit of the fleeing enemy, and we had no choice but to oblige.

The battle passed out of the cratered no-man's-land of trenches and abandoned redoubts as the Mitteleuropans fell back to prepared positions on forested, hilly land. The order for pursuit rang out from all quarters, and Sam (who had been slightly wounded in the thigh, but stanched the bleeding with a cotton handkerchief) guessed that Reddick intended to destroy the Dutch army in detail, if our cavalry could flank them and get in their rear. To this end our regiment was ordered into the trees, to keep the enemy moving, and acquire any loose supplies or animals they left behind, and capture or kill any stragglers.

It was a bold plan, and we might have been a useful part of it, except for the consequences of a single bullet.

Our company commander was Captain Paley Glasswood, formerly a New York City counter clerk, who was at least ten years younger than Sam Godwin-perhaps about Major Lampret's age-but senior in rank to most of us. Today he led us through a volley of fierce but (as it then seemed) ineffective sniper fire, into the woods, and across a stream, and along the bow of a gentle ridge, then down into a forested valley, never encountering the enemy even once; and we marched for more than two hours in this fashion, patient but puzzled, before the Captain stopped and said in a ringing voice: "I'm tired, boys, and the stars are awfully bright."

Then he sat down on a log, sighing and mumbling.

We were hours from darkness, though the day was gloomy, with little squirts of snow now and again, so his comment about the stars surprised everyone. Sam went up to Captain Glasswood to ask him what was the matter, but got no response. Then he examined the left side of the Captain's head and grimaced. "Oh, Hell! Here, Adam-help me lay him down."

Captain Glasswood made no protest as we stretched him out on the cold forest floor under a canopy of creaking pines. The Captain's gaze was distant, and the pupil of one eye had grown as large as a Comstock dollar. He looked at me solemnly as I cradled him down to the ground. "Oh, now, Maria, don't cry," he said in a petulant voice. "I haven't been to Lucille's since Tuesday."

"What's the matter with him?" I asked.

Sam, who had been holding the Captain's head, lifted up his palm and showed me streaks of clotted red. "Apparently he was shot," he said with disgust.

"Shot where?"

"In the skull. Through the ear, by the look of it."

That was a dreadful thing, I thought, to be shot in the ear. The idea of it made me shudder, despite all I had seen today. "I didn't hear any rifle fire."