They’d been mascots, good-luck charms . . . And, perhaps, on the march to PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJoseph-BernhardtWilhelmsberg a joke was what everyone needed. But, maybe, when the world turns upside down, you can turn a joke upside down too. Thank you, Gummy, even though you didn’t know what it was you were teaching me. When they’re laughing at you, their guard is down. When their guard is down, you can kick them in the fracas.
She examined herself in the mirror. Her hair, now, was just long enough to be a nuisance without being long enough to be attractive, so she brushed it and left it at that. She put the uniform on, but with the skirt over her trousers, and tried to put aside the nagging feeling that she was dressing up as a woman.
There. She looked completely harmless. She looked slightly less harmless with both cutlasses and one of the horsebows on her back, especially if you knew that the inn’s dartboards now had deep holes in the bullseyes from all the practising.
She crept along the hall to the window that overlooked the inn yard. Paul was up a ladder, repainting the sign. Her father was steadying the ladder and calling out instructions in his normal way, which was to call out the instruction just a second or two after you’d already started doing it. And Shufti, although Polly was the only one in The Duchess who still called her that and knew why, was watching them, holding Jack. It made a lovely picture. For a moment, she wished she had a locket.
The Duchess was smaller than she’d thought. But if you had to protect it by standing in the doorway with a sword, you were too late. Caring for small things had to start with caring for big things, and maybe the world wasn’t big enough.
The note she left on her dressing table read: ‘Shufti, I hope you and Jack are happy here. Paul, you look after her. Dad, I’ve never taken any wages, but I need a horse. I’ll try to have it sent back. I love you all. If I don’t come back, burn this letter and look in the roof of the stables.’
She dropped out of the window, saddled up a horse in the stables, and let herself out of the back gate. She didn’t mount up until she was out of earshot, and then rode down to the river.
Spring was pouring through the country. Sap was rising. In the woods, a ton of timber was growing every minute. Everywhere, birds were singing.
There was a guard on the ferry. He eyed her nervously as she led the horse aboard, and then grinned.’ ‘Morning, miss!’ he said cheerfully.
Oh, well . . . time to start. Polly marched in front of the puzzled man.
‘Are you trying to be smart?’ she demanded, inches from his face.
‘No, miss—’
‘That’s sergeant, mister!’ said Polly. ‘Let’s try again, shall we? I said, are you trying to be smart?’
‘No, sergeant!’
Polly leaned until her nose was an inch from his. ‘Why not?’
The grin faded. This was not a soldier on the fast track to promotion. ‘Huh?’ he managed.
‘If you are not trying to be smart, mister, you’re happy to be stupid!’ shouted Polly. ‘And I’m up to here with stupid, understand?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘But what, soldier?’
‘Yeah, but . . . well . . . but . . . nothing, sergeant,’ said the soldier.
‘That’s good.’ Polly nodded at the ferrymen. ‘Time to go?’ she suggested, but in the tones of an order.
‘Couple of people just coming down the road, sergeant,’ said one of them, a faster man with an uptake.
They waited. There were, in fact, three people. One of them was Maladicta, in full uniform.
Polly said nothing until the ferry was out in mid-stream. The vampire gave her the kind of smile only a vampire can give. It would have been sheepish, if sheep had different teeth.
‘Thought I’d try again,’ she said.
‘We’ll find Blouse,’ said Polly.
‘He’s a major now,’ said Maladicta. ‘And happy as a flea because they’ve named a kind of fingerless glove after him, I heard. What do we want him for?’
‘He knows about the clacks. He knows about other ways war can be fought. And I know . . . people,’ said Polly.
‘Ah. Do you mean the “Upon my oath, I am not a lying man, but I know people” kind of people?’
‘Those were the kind of people I had in mind, yes.’ The river slapped against the side of the ferry.
‘Good,’ said Maladicta.
‘I don’t know where it’s going to lead, though,’ said Polly.
‘Ah. Even better.’
At which point, Polly decided that she knew enough of the truth to be going on with. The enemy wasn’t men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin’ stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.
She looked at the other two passengers who’d sidled aboard. They were country lads in ragged, ill-fitting clothes, keeping away from her and staring intently at the deck. But one glance was enough. The world turned upside down, and history repeated. For some reason, that suddenly made her feel very happy.
‘Going to join up, lads?’ she said, cheerily.
There was some mumbling on the theme of ‘yes’.
‘Good. Then stand up straight,’ said Polly. ‘Let’s have a look at you. Chins up. Ah. Well done. Shame you didn’t practise walking in trousers, and I notice you didn’t bring an extra pair of socks.’
They stared, mouths open.
‘What are your names?’ said Polly. ‘Your real names, please?’
‘Er . . . Rosemary,’ one of them began.
‘I’m Mary,’ said the other. ‘I heard girls were joining, but everyone laughed, so I thought I’d better pretend to—’
‘Oh, you can join as men if you want,’ said Polly. ‘We need a few good men.’
The girls looked at one another.
‘You get better swear words,’ said Polly. ‘And the trousers are useful. But it’s your choice.’
‘A choice?’ said Rosemary.
‘Certainly,’ said Polly. She put a hand on a shoulder of each girl, winked at Maladicta and added: ‘You are my little lads – or not, as the case may be – and I will look after . . . you.’
And the new day was a great big fish.