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of them.
    This happened directly in front of Khristo and Nikko. Who clamped their teeth together and pressed their lips shut, which made the thing, when finally it came tearing up out of them, a great bursting explosion indeed. First, as control slipped away, a series of strangled snorts. Then, at last, helplessly, they collapsed against each other and roared.
    Veiko could have ignored it, with little enough loss of face, for everyone knows that giggling teenagers must, at all costs, be ignored. But he did not. He turned slowly, like a man of great power and dignity, and stared at them.
    Khristo, older, understood the warning and shut up. Nikko went on with it a little, the issue altering subtly to encompass his “right” to laugh. Then changed again. So that, by some fleeting alchemy of communication, it was now very plain that Nikko was laughing at Veiko and not at the misadventures of a stray hen.
    But the hen did its part. Everyone was to agree on that point at least. For, as Colonel Veiko stared, the hen ran back and forth, just beyond arm’s length of the milling troopers, cackling with fury and outraged dignity. Raucous, infuriated, absurd.
    Thus there were two outraged dignities, and the relation between them, a cartoon moment, made itself evident to Nikko and he laughed even harder. His brother almost saved his life by belting him in the ribs with a sharp elbow—a time-honored blow; antidote, in classrooms, at funerals, to impossible laughter. Nikko stopped, sighing once or twice in the aftermath and wiping his eyes.
    Behind Veiko, the troop was very quiet. He could feel their silence. Slowly, he walked the few paces that separated him from the brothers, then stood close enough so that they could smell the mastica on his breath, a sharp odor of licorice and raw alcohol. They always drank before they marched.
    “Christ and king,” he said. It was what they said.
    It was what they believed in. It was, in this instance, a challenge.
    “Christ and king,” Khristo answered promptly. He’d heard what was in the voice—something itching to get out, something inside Veiko that could, at any moment, be born, be alive and running free in the street.
    “Christ and king.” Nikko echoed his brother, perhaps in a bit of a mumble. He was confused. He knew what a challenge was, on the boats, in the schoolyard, and he knew the appropriate response, which was anything but submission.
    Anything .
    But here the provocation was coming from an adult, a man of some standing in the community no matter what one thought of his damn feathers and banners. Between Nikko and the other kids his age it was just a snarly thing, cub feints, a quick flash, perhaps a few punches were thrown and then it was over. But this—this was domination for its own sake, a nasty reek of the adult world, unjust, mean-spirited, and it made Nikko angry.
    Veiko saw it happen—the tightening of the mouth, the slight flush along the cheekbones—and it pleased him. And he let Nikko know it pleased him. Showed him a face that most of the world never saw: a victorious little smirk of a face that said, See how I got the best of you and all I did was say three words .
    The troop re-formed itself. Veiko squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, thrust his lead marching leg into the air.
    “Forward!”
    From Nikko: “Yes sir, Colonel Dog Prick!”
    Not too loud.
    Just loud enough.
    An audible mumble particularly native to fifteen-year-olds— you can choose to hear this or not hear it , that’s up to you. A harsh insult— khuy sobachiy —but by a great deal not the worst thing you could say in a language that provided its user with a vast range of oath and invective. It was a small dog, the phrase suggested, but an excited one—dancing on its hind legs in expectation of affection or table scraps.
    Veiko chose to hear it. Stopped the troop. Backed up until he was even with Nikko and, in the same motion, swept his hand backward across Nikko’s face. It