More Greek sounding gibberish passed between Frederickson and the scar faced man. Sharpe tried to follow along, but the stabbing pain behind his two day old bandaged forehead had returned, distracting him. He barely picked out "England," "France," and "Greece" interjected into William's queries; all of which only elicited negative grunts or shakes of the head. "America?" "India?" "China?" "Van Diemen's Land?" By their tone, the returning words needed no translation, for they obviously meant no, no, no, and no. William left off the polite interrogation, and reached under his hat to scratch the stubble on his near bald head. Tzimiskes rolled his shoulders a bit in what might have been a shrug and then started to rattle off his own questions.
Harper lightly nudged Sharpe. "All this talk is making me a wee thirsty, major."
Sharpe smirked, deciding a nip of something might ease the throbbing in his skull, so he called out. "Companies, at ease! Not the picquets!" he quickly added. His ears caught the sound of rifles and muskets being lowered to rest butts upon the dirt. "Sergeant Rossner, kindly supervise the issuing of a rum ration for everyone. And be sure the first sip goes to our guest here."
The jibber jabber trailed off as Corporal Harris carefully marched four small bumpers out to the parley and handed them out. The man sniffed at his a moment, then smiled, catching the undeniably strong odor of alcohol. Sharpe returned the smile. "To King George," he toasted, not knowing what else to say.
"Wherever that crazy German farmer is," Harper muttered grumpily.
In answer, Tzimiskes suddenly spat on the ground, lifted both arms in the air, and recited something. "Praise be to Phos," Frederickson translated. "Must be his King or god." Only then did the man dressed as William the Conqueror take a sip.
"We might as well do the same," Sharpe suggested.
"I bloody well will not praise some pagan god," Harper sputtered.
"Stiff necked papist bastard," Sharpe retorted.
"When in Rome, Shergeant Major," Frederickson advised much more politely. "When in Rome."
So all three men also spat on the ground before they took a sip of the body and soul warming rum. Tzimiskes nodded his head in approval before turning back to the woods and shouting out. Soon enough another man, this one a bit younger, stepped out. He too wore a crazy medieval costume. And over his shoulder he carried a leather sack that he handed to the first. The new man's name turned out a mouthful at "Proklos Mouzalon."
Tzimiskes pulled forth dried apples, figs, olives, smoked pork, and hard yellow cheese from the sack. Traveller's fare. Food fit for men marching to war. He also produced a small flask that contained a thick, sweet wine. The bounty was shared with the trio of riflemen. This time only Mouzalon, the newcomer to the parley, spat before drinking.
"Glad we don't have to do that with every sip," Sharpe commented wryly, the food and liquor having putt him and more importantly his head wound in a better mood.
"While thesh buggers've never heard of Greece, their food and wine, let alone language, tell me otherwise, Major," Frederickson pointed out.
"We're more lost than Jonah inside the Whale, sirs," Harper said. "So what in Jesus' name do we do?"
Having been lost more times than he carried to remember, Sharpe thought that an excellent question. However he lacked a satisfactory answer. "Survive," he answered simply. Once safe, there would be time to worry about when or whether they'd ever be able to rejoin the army; if he would ever see Jane's sweet face again; if Harper would ever hold Isabella and two week old Richard again. He stifled a morose sigh. "Captain Frederickson, ask Tzimiskes here if he has any ideas on where we should go?"
"Not near hish woman and children for shtarters," the one eyed Captain quipped before digging back into his school boy memories of Greek. He yammered with the two knights for several minutes before coming back up for a breath of English air. "Sheems there's a town a couple days march to the shouth where we might find lodging if the mayor is willing to take our lot in. Neilos knows we are fighters by our shpears, though he finds our lack of armor confusing."
"Spears?" Harper snorted in surprise. "Is he blind?"
Sharpe himself blinked twice hard to cover his shock, for clearly the man must've meant their rifles.
"Yes, shpears," Frederickson said knowingly. "And his people frequently hire coin fighters. If they like what they shee out of us, he thinks they might offer us a contract. Especially as he knows his Avtokrator, which means Autocrat or Emperor, plans to march to war this coming spring. He shesh its only Autumn here now."
Sharpe nodded his head, not even bothering to think about the implications of what a change to the time of year meant. The Rifles might be ugly, villainous, foul-mouthed men, but on the battlefield they were kings and victory their coin. They could fight and they could march. And if his sneaking suspicion was correct, they'd be the only ones fighting with powder and ball. God, how he'd make them pay for their service. He fought hard to keep a vicious grin from spreading across his face.
Recognizing that look of an officer being too clever by half, Harper's instinctive response was to dampen the fire before it could spread. "You can't be thinking of taking'em up on this … Major?" Harper said doubtfully.
"For now, Sergeant Major, let's just get to this blasted town," Sharpe answered. "We've only one more day's rations. We should've already been marching back to the fortress and blasted Captain Bampflyde's ships. Just like the damn navy to leave the army in a tight spot," he snarled. "Captain Frederickson, tell Tzimiskes if he'll guide us, we'll gladly go to this town of his."
The picquets had finally been called back in and Mouzalon with a few other riders already sent ahead to prepare the town called Imbros for their arrival, when Sharpe called the hundred and seventy four men together. "Lads, I don't need to tell you we're more lost than two virgins fumbling around in the dark on their wedding night. If we can find a chance to get back to the army, we'll take it, no matter what. But till then we need to stay alive and it looks like we may have found a friend here in this Greek Videssos noble Neilos Tzimiskes. There's a town not too far off we can march to, and we'll all feel better with a warm roof over our heads and some hot food in our bellies."
"And wine and women," a voice with a yankee doodle accent cried out, identifying it as Private Taylor, the only actual American enrolled in either of the two companies of the 60th Royal American Rifles Regiment, who made the quip.
"Only if they're willing," Sharpe growled dangerously. "We treat this country as friendly territory. No stealing, no poaching, no prodding the farmer's daughter. Any man caught doing so will be lucky if I bother to take the time to hang him. We don't want these Videssosians treating us like the guerillas treated the French in Spain. Savvy?"
"We don't have much silver, Major. How we is gonna pay fer foods and stuff?" another man asked.
"Smart question, Higgins. Their Ava … tokator…"
"What the hell's a Avi-whatzit?" someone yelled.
"Their King," Sharpe hadn't wanted to say 'Emperor,' which is what William had translated that mouthful to mean, for after years of fighting old Boney, he wasn't about to refer to their future possible employer by that title. "hires foreign troops for both garrison duty and to fight wars. So if nothing better shows itself, I suppose we'll just have to do that then." He waited for any of them to complain about violating their oaths to King George, but none did. It shouldn't have surprised him for the vast majority of his men were Irish, German, Spanish, criminals who'd enlisted one step ahead of the sheriff, or so poor back in England that the deadly life of a private on the Peninsula had been a step up. "And one last thing, maybe the most important, as mad as this may sound, myself and Captain Frederickson suspect that these Greek sounding bastards have never seen gunfire before. They think your rifles are funny looking spears. So we march with bayonets fixed and only pull triggers when an officer tells you to. Understood?"