The House Chaplain had been unusually brief at his oration, a prayer sprinkled with classical references that left a few people on the dais scratching their heads. Chief Justice Melville Fuller was speaking now, his nasal Maine accent making his formal invocation sound like a foreign language. His delivery was so flat that it took a moment after he had finished to realize that his most recent words had been:

"… preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States?"

Roosevelt's ringing "I shall!" was such a contrast that several people jumped, startled despite the inevitability of the response…

"And furthermore," Roosevelt continued, facing the crowd and projecting his voice in the eager strains which had carried over battlefields, "I shall endeavor to bring about a continuance of the march to greatness that was the mission of my predecessors in the glorious office."

For the first time the applause was more than polite, and the crowd standing below moved forward to hear as he continued his speech. "No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and I say that reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness of our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with so large a measure of well-being and happiness…"

He has them now, thought Villa, just as he did when we stood at the top of San Juan Hill amid the stink of blood and powder, and I cheered him with the rest of the men. This Easterner with the vigor of the West is going to take this country and stitch it together, from Alaska in the North to Sonora and my Chihuahua in the South, and he will make it one, and make it proud. He is going to take on the best of the Democrats and the worst of his own party, and he will vanquish them both and they will never know why or how, and the most able of them will follow him, will give up everything else as I did, will make themselves better men in the process as I did. When I retire to my hacienda in Chihuahua, as I will someday, flattering men will say I was destined for greatness. The men who remember the miner with the knife, the bandito I once was, they are all dead now, and maybe nobody but me will know that the smooth-talking men are lying. I could have joined the ones in the hills, been their Teddy Roosevelt perhaps, worked against all I now hold dear. Whatever I could have been, I am the man you trusted your flank to at San Juan Hill, and I will defend you through shot and shell and congressional committees and whatever else the world sends…

The President finished his speech and paused for effect, his famous grin wide on his face.

And I will hail you in the way of my tradition, so when the news gets back to Chihuahua they will know I have not become entirely a creature of this filthy Northern city of pale people.

Francisco seized Theodore's hand in his own and raised it high, shouting with all his might the same phrase that had rung out over the battlefield by the Santiago road.

"Viva Theodore Roosevelt!"

And the Glory of Them

Susan Shwartz

Bohemond stood with his knights near God's table. In sad truth, the table was a ramshackle bit of carpentry rendered temporarily splendid by a bolt of brocaded silk liberated after Antioch's fall from a man-at-arms who wouldn't have appreciated it anyhow; and Bohemond didn't so much stand as try not to lean on his nephew Tancred, but if that old death's head Count Raymond de Saint Gilles could get through one of Adhemar's services without sitting down, Bohemond was damned if he'd show weakness-even if hehad taken a cut in the final battle for the city that damn near had made a Greek official of him.

The wound hurt like Greek fire, which was, frankly, a subject he didn't like thinking of. It was one thing to roast a spy or two and make his men yell "Voici Mardi Gras." But that damnable clinging stuff you didn't dare get close enough to cut away-it would take a Greek to come up with such a thing, dishonor at long range, and a Greek like that fox Emperor Alexius to use it.

Bohemond was hardly the only one to wobble through the mass. None of the peers who'd taken Antioch were particularly steady on their feet.

The Papal Legate elevated the Host. It looked like a giant eye and smelled like bread. The men tracked it with hollow eyes, more a case of hunger than piety.

His Grace Adhemar of Puy had imposed yet another of his favorite three-day fasts. So communion would be the first food anyone had had for three days unless some sly bastard had sneaked off to gorge on some of the spoil from the city. If Bohemond had had a moment alone since they raised his banner-as purple as the Emperor's-near the citadel that had yet to fall, he'd probably have tried to sneak a little food himself. He'd have bet his second sword his nephew Tancred's belly didn't growl with emptiness. But, he told himself, hole-in-corner gluttony was hardly the feast worthy of a Prince who had won his city by the sword. The time for wine and fat roasts would come.

Are you surprised, Father? You told me, if I wanted an Empire, I would have to fight for it.

Marcus Bohemondus, named after the giant in the folk tale, son of Robert, called the fox, crossed himself, then swiped his hand over his face. Sweet Jesu, he was tired. Fasts too damn often and scant rations the rest of the time were a hell of a thing to heal on, let alone if a man had to fight four wars at once.

He counted them out. One against Kerbogha, camped beneath the city walls right where Bohemond had camped less than a month ago. A second against those stubborn bastards who'd holed up in the citadel after the rest of Antioch fell. A third, and a disgraceful one, against those pigeon-hearts among the Franks who tried to escape the siege by sliding down the walls on ropes-by God, he'd make the next cowarddance at the rope's end! And finally, a secret war against Alexius of Constantinople and anyone-like Raymond-who thought that the wily Emperor of the Greeks who'd deserted them had a right to the city Bohemond had bled to take for himself.

I wonder if the wine in that chalice-not that it's worth drinking-will set Adhemar reeling. Now that would be a sight.

Just that day, Peter the Hermit and Herluin had ridden back through the gates with the not-completely-unexpected news that the emir Kerbogha had rejected peace terms. So, it all boiled down, like last week's stew (assuming the plague of locusts Bohemond called his men hadhad meat to stew last week) to a fight. God wills it, God save the right, but Bohemond was glad he had sharp swords, good armor, and some damn useful spies to rely on.

He only hoped Kerbogha had bigger stones than Yaghi Siyan, whose head stank on a post above the stinking city engulfed by stinking camps. When they'd arrived here over a damn nasty hill passage, the plain before the city had looked like it was full of milk and honey. They'd eaten all the food, and now it was full of carrion instead. Not even the stinking Tafurs could haul the bodies out fast enough, and when Bohemond had tried to talk withle roiTafur, who'd become in some strange fashion a vassal of his, that crazed death's head on legs had damn near raised his scythe to him.

Yaghi Siyan's son had tried to use the citadel to retake the city and failed. So he'd been deposed by Achmed ibn Merwine, another of those damned unpronounceable names. Son of a pagan whore could fight, though.