“No thank you, sir. I’d like to try and get fit, and return to my unit.”
The general looked as if he’d just bitten into a slug in his salad. He made a quick recovery. “Intelligence is where you can really make a contribution to the war effort, young man. However, I am open to other requests.”
“Very well, sir. I’d like to add a severely injured rat to my staff. We need someone who understand rats, sir. They’re valuable military assets. It’s due to them and the courage of my troops that I owe what success we had. It is my feeling that the rats should be paid. They’d be much better motivated then.”
The general blinked. “Yes. Well. We shall have to see what can be done. The bats that we are about to introduce will make a great deal of difference too, eh.”
A little later when the general and his entourage had left, Ariel emerged. “Why did you agree?” she asked, helping herself to a grape.
Fitz shrugged. It was a painful experience. “Because . . . God knows if either of us will ever be fit to fight again. And, well, the Maggots always attacked where we were weakest. They obviously have good intelligence. We also need it. And maybe at Military Headquarters I can get something done about idiots like Colonel Brown and General Bulcher. Maybe we can make the system work.”
Ariel chuckled. “‘Tis the HAR army we speak of, Fitz. Methinks it will be ‘once more into their breeches’ and bite their bollocks.”
Fitz grinned. It hurt his face. “We’ll try it my way first, okay?” He looked at the order that the general had left behind.
It was signed: H. Cartup-Kreutzler.
He stared at the signature for a long time. He began to understand just why he’d been posted to “Fort Despair.” Or why the orders for relief had been delayed. And just what his posting to “Intelligence” might be. It wouldn’t stop him. But it would make for interesting times, ahead.
Ariel shrugged in her turn when he pointed it out. “Methinks we’ll end up doing things in my way after all. ‘Tis the only way the army works.”
* * *
A few minutes later, they had another visitor. An elderly woman, this was, wearing what looked like a laboratory coat. She was holding an antique-looking item in her hands. A brass object of some sort. At first, Fitz though it was an oddly shaped teakettle, until he realized it was an oil lamp.
The woman placed the lamp on a small table next to the bed and gazed down at Fitz. He couldn’t read the expression in her face. There was something there . . . Amusement, maybe, combined with satisfaction. Hard to tell.
Then the woman spotted Ariel’s nose poking out from under the covers. She smiled, and murmured some verses under her breath. Fitz could just barely make out the words.
* * *
“The culminating pleasure that we treasure beyond measure,
Is the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done.”
* * *
Fitz cleared his throat. “May I help you, Ms. ah . . . ?”
“Just think of me as John Wellington Wells. A dealer in magic and spells. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.”
She started to turn away, gesturing with a finger at the oil lamp. “A gift I brought for you.” Her eyes went back to Ariel, whose entire head was now sticking out of the covers. “I’m glad to see it will be trebly appreciated.”
And with that, she headed out the door. On her way through, Fitz heard her murmuring: “The genie out of the bottle, indeed.”
* * *
When she was gone, Ariel popped out from under the blankets. “You humans are a daft lot, but that is the first one I have ever heard quote Gilbert and Sullivan.” She scrutinized the gift on the nearby table with a rat’s usual intentness when the possibility of loot arose. “What’s that?”
Fitz shrugged. “Nothing you’ll be interested in. Me neither, actually. It’s an antique kind of lamp.”
Ariel was puzzled. “What for? When you want light, you flip a switch. When you want light and can’t get it—like in a tunnel in a Maggot raid—that silly thing will be useless. Won’t even make a good bludgeon.”