Will cast about desperately in his memory, trying to remember even a shred of detail about King Herbert. He’d done something … but what?
‘He was …’ he hesitated, pretending to gather his thoughts, ‘…the king.’ That much he was sure of, and he glanced at Halt to see if he could stop now. Halt merely smiled and made a rolling gesture with his hand that meant go on.
‘He was the king … a hundred and fifty years ago,’ Will said, trying to sound certain of his facts. The Ranger smiled at him, gesturing for him to continue yet again.
‘Ummm … well, I seem to recall that he was the one who founded the Ranger Corps,’ he said hopefully and Halt raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
‘Really? You recall that, do you?’ he said and Will had a horrible moment where he realised that Halt had merely said the Rangers were founded during his reign, not necessarily by him.
‘Ahhh, well, when I say he founded the Rangers I actually mean he was the king when the Ranger Corps was founded,’ he said.
‘A hundred and fifty years ago?’ Halt prompted.
Will nodded emphatically. ‘That’s right.’
‘Well, that’s remarkable, seeing how I just told you those facts a minute or so ago,’ the Ranger said, his eyebrows coming down like thunderclouds over his eyes. Will thought it might be better if he said nothing. Finally, the Ranger said, in a milder tone:
‘Boy, if you don’t know something, don’t try to bluff your way through it. Simply tell me “I don’t know”, is that clear?’
‘Yes, Halt,’ Will said, eyes downcast. There was a silence, then he said, ‘Halt?’
‘Yes?’
‘About King Herbert … I don’t really know,’ Will admitted. The Ranger made a small snorting noise.
‘Well, I never would have guessed,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you’ll remember when I tell you that he was the one who drove the northern clans back over the border into the Highlands?’
And, of course, the moment he mentioned it, Will did remember. But he thought it might be impolitic to say that he did. King Herbert was known as the ‘Father of Modern Araluen’. He had banded the fifty fiefs together into a powerful union to defeat the northern clans. Will could see a way to regain a little credit in Halt’s eyes now. If he mentioned the ‘Father of Modern Araluen’ title, maybe the Ranger would …
‘He’s sometimes known as the Father of Modern Araluen,’ Halt was saying, and Will realised he’d left it too late. ‘He created the union between the fifty fiefs that’s still our structure today.’
‘I sort of remember that now,’ Will put in. He thought the addition of ‘sort of’ helped it sound as if he wasn’t just being wise after the event. Halt looked at him, one eyebrow raised, then continued.
‘At the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the Kingdom needed an effective intelligence force.’
‘An intelligent force?’ said Will.
‘Not intelligent. Intelligence. Although it does help if your intelligence force is also intelligent. Intelligence is knowledge of what your enemies, or your potential enemies, are up to. What they’re planning. What they’re thinking. If you know that sort of thing in advance, you can usually come up with a plan to stop them. That’s why he founded the Rangers – to keep the Kingdom informed. To act as the eyes and ears of the Kingdom.’
‘How do you do that?’ Will asked, his interest aroused now. Halt noted the change in tone and a momentary gleam of approval touched his eyes.
‘We keep our eyes and ears open. We patrol the Kingdom – and beyond. We listen. We observe. We report back.’
Will nodded to himself, thinking. Then he asked: ‘Is that the reason why you can make yourselves invisible?’
Again, the Ranger felt that moment of approval and satisfaction. But he made sure the boy didn’t notice it.
‘We can’t make ourselves invisible,’ he said. ‘People just think we can. What we do is make ourselves very hard to see. It takes years of learning and practice to do it properly – but you already have some of the skills required.’
Will looked up, surprised. ‘I do?’
‘When you crossed the castle yard last night, you used the shadows and the movement of the wind to conceal yourself, didn’t you?’
Will nodded. ‘Yes.’ He’d never met anyone before who actually understood his skill for moving without being seen. Halt continued.
‘We use the same principles: to blend into the background. To use it to conceal us. To become part of it.’
‘I see,’ said Will slowly.
‘The trick is to make sure that nobody else does,’ Halt told him. For a moment, Will thought the Ranger had made a joke. But when he looked up, Halt was as grim-faced as ever.
‘How many Rangers are there?’ he asked. Halt and the Baron had referred more than once to the Ranger Corps, but Will had only ever seen one – and that was Halt.
‘King Herbert established the Corps at fifty. One for each of the fifty fiefdoms. I’m based here. My colleagues are based at the other forty-nine castles throughout the Kingdom.
‘In addition to providing intelligence about potential enemies, Rangers are the law keepers,’ said Halt. ‘We patrol the fiefdom assigned to us and make sure that the laws are being obeyed.’
‘I thought Baron Arald did that?’ Will put in. Halt shook his head.
‘The Baron is a judge,’ he said. ‘People bring their complaints to him so he can settle them. Rangers enforce the law. We take the law out to the people. If a crime has been committed, we look for evidence. We’re particularly suited to that role since people often don’t realise we’re around. We investigate to see who’s responsible.’
‘What happens then?’ Will asked. Halt gave a small shrug.
‘Sometimes we report back to the baron of the fief and he’ll have the person arrested and charged. Sometimes, if it’s a matter of urgency, we just … deal with it.’
‘What do we do?’ Will asked, before he could stop himself. Halt gave him a long, considering look.
‘Not too much if we’ve only been an apprentice for a few hours,’ he replied. ‘Those of us who’ve been Rangers for twenty years or more tend to know what to do without asking.’
‘Oh,’ said Will, suitably chastened. Halt continued.
‘Then, in times of war, we act as special troops – guiding the armies, scouting before them, going behind enemy lines to cause the enemy grief and so on.’ He glanced down at the boy. ‘It’s a bit more exciting than working on a farm.’ Will nodded. Perhaps life as a Ranger’s apprentice was going to have its appeal after all.
‘What sort of enemies?’ he asked. After all, Castle Redmont had been at peace for as long as he could remember.
‘Enemies from within and without,’ Halt told him. ‘People like the Skandian sea raiders – or Morgarath and his Wargals.’
Will shivered, recalling some of the more lurid stories about Morgarath, the Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night. Halt nodded sombrely as he saw Will’s reaction.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Morgarath and his Wargals are definitely people to be worried about. That’s why the Rangers keep an eye on them. We like to know if they’re gathering, if they’re getting ready for war.’
‘Still,’ said Will, as much to reassure himself as for any other reason, ‘the last time they attacked, the barons’ armies made mincemeat out of them.’
‘That’s true,’ Halt agreed. ‘But only because they’d been warned of the attack …’ He paused and looked meaningfully at Will.
‘By a Ranger?’ the boy asked.
‘Correct. It was a Ranger who brought word that Morgarath’s Wargals were on their way … then led the cavalry across a secret ford so they could flank the enemy.’
‘It was a great victory,’ Will said.
‘It certainly was. And all due to a Ranger’s alertness and skill, and knowledge of back trails and secret paths.’
‘My father died in that battle,’ Will added in a quieter voice,
and Halt cast a curious look at him.
‘Is that so?’ he said.
‘He was a hero. A mighty knight,’ Will continued. The Ranger paused, almost as if he were deciding whether to say something or not. Then he simply replied:
‘I wasn’t aware of that.’
Will was conscious of a sense of disappointment. For a moment, he’d had a feeling that Halt knew something about his father, that he could tell him the story of his heroic death. He shrugged to himself.
‘That was why I was so keen to go to Battleschool,’ he said finally. ‘To follow in his footsteps.’
‘You have other talents,’ Halt told him and Will remembered the Baron saying much the same thing to him the previous night.
‘Halt …’ he said. The Ranger nodded for him to continue. ‘I was sort of wondering … the Baron said you chose me?’
Halt nodded again, saying nothing.
‘And both of you say I have other qualities – qualities that make me suitable to be a Ranger apprentice …’
‘That’s right,’ Halt said.
‘Well … what are they?’
The Ranger leaned back, linking his hands behind his head.
‘You’re agile. That’s good in a Ranger,’ he began. ‘And, as we’ve discussed, you can move quietly. That’s very important. You’re fast on your feet. And you’re inquisitive …’
‘Inquisitive? How do you mean?’ asked Will. Halt looked at him sternly.
‘Always asking questions. Always wanting to know answers,’ he explained. ‘That was why I had the Baron test you with that piece of paper.’
‘But when did you first notice me? I mean, when did you first think of selecting me?’ Will wanted to know.
‘Oh,’ said Halt, ‘I suppose it was when I watched you steal those cakes from Master Chubb’s kitchen.’
Will’s jaw dropped open with amazement.
‘You watched me? But that was ages ago!’ He had a sudden thought. ‘Where were you?’
‘In the kitchen,’ said Halt. ‘You were too busy to notice me when you came in.’
Will shook his head in wonder. He had been sure there was nobody in the kitchen. Then he remembered once again how Halt, wrapped in his cloak, could become virtually invisible. There was more to being a Ranger, he realised, than how to cook and clean.
‘I was impressed with your skill,’ said Halt. ‘But there was one thing that impressed me far more.’
‘What was that?’ asked Will.
‘Later, when Master Chubb questioned you, I saw you hesitate. You were going to deny having stolen the cakes. Then I saw you admit it. Remember? He hit you on the head with his wooden spoon.’
Will grinned and rubbed his head thoughtfully. He could still hear the CRACK! made by the spoon hitting his head.
‘I wondered if I should have lied,’ he admitted. Halt shook his head very slowly.
‘Oh no, Will. If you’d lied, you never would have become my apprentice.’ He stood up and stretched, turning to go indoors to the stew simmering on the stove.
‘Now let’s eat,’ he said.
Horace dropped his pack on the floor of the dormitory and fell across his bed, groaning with relief.
Every muscle in his body ached. He had no idea that he could feel so sore, so worn out. He had no idea that there were so many muscles in the human body that could feel this way. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was going to get through the three years of Battleschool training. He’d been a cadet for less than a week and already he was a total physical wreck.
When he’d applied for Battleschool Horace had a vague notion of glittering, armour-clad knights doing battle, while lesser folk stood by and watched in awed admiration. Quite a few of those lesser folk, in his mental picture, had been attractive girls – Jenny, his yearmate in the Ward, had been prominent among them. To him, Battleschool had been a place of glamour and adventure, and Battleschool cadets were people that others looked up to and envied.
The reality was something else. So far, Battleschool cadets were people who rose before the dawn and spent the hour before breakfast doing a severe course of physical training: running, lifting weights, standing in lines of ten or more to lift and hold heavy logs over their heads. Exhausted by all of this, they were then returned to their quarters, where they had the opportunity to take a brief shower – the water was cold – before making sure the dormitory and ablutions block were absolutely spotless. Quarters inspection came after that and it was painstaking. Sir Karel, the wily old knight who carried out the inspection, knew every trick in the book when it came to taking short cuts in cleaning the dormitory, making your bed and stowing your kit. The slightest infringement on the part of one of the twenty boys in the dormitory would mean all their kit would be scattered across the floor, their beds turned over, the rubbish bins emptied on the floor and they would have to turn to and start again – in the time when they should have been having breakfast.
As a consequence, new cadets only tried once to pull the wool over Sir Karel’s eyes. Breakfast was nothing special. In fact, in Horace’s opinion, it was downright basic. But if you missed it, it was a long, hard morning until the lunch hour which, in keeping with the spartan life in Battleschool, was only twenty minutes long.
After breakfast, there were classes for two hours in military history, the theory of tactics and so on, then the cadets were usually required to run the obstacle course – a series of obstacles designed to test speed, agility, balance and strength. There was a minimum time standard for the course. It had to be completed in under five minutes, and any cadet who failed to do so was immediately sent back to the start to try again. It was rare that anyone completed the course without falling at least once, and the course was littered with mud pools, water hazards and pits filled with nameless but unpleasant matter whose origin Horace didn’t want to even think about it.
Lunch followed the obstacle course, but if you’d fallen during the run, you had to clean up before entering the mess hall – another of those famous cold showers – and that usually took half the time set aside for the meal break. As a consequence, Horace’s overwhelming impressions of the first week of Battleschool were a combination of aching muscles and gnawing hunger.
There were more classes after lunch, then physical jerks in the castle yard under the eye of one of the senior year cadets. Then the class would form up and perform close order drill until the end of the school day, when they would have two hours to themselves, to clean and repair gear and prepare lessons for the following day’s classes.
Unless, of course, someone had transgressed during the course of the day, or in some way caused displeasure to one of their instructors or observers. In which case, they would all be invited to load their packs with rocks and set out on a twelve-kilometre run, along a course mapped out through the surrounding countryside. Invariably, the course was nowhere near any of the level roads or tracks in the area. It meant running through broken, uneven ground, up hills and across streams, through heavily overgrown thickets where hanging vines and thick underbrush would claw at you and try to pull you down.
Horace had just completed one such run. Earlier in the day, one of his classmates had been spotted in Tactics I, passing a note to a friend. Unfortunately, the note was not in the form of text but was an unflattering caricature of the long-nosed instructor who took the class. Equally unfortunately, the boy possessed considerable skill as a cartoonist and the drawing was instantly recognisable.
As a result, Horace and his class had been invited to fill those packs and start running.
He’d gradually felt himself pulling away from the rest of the boys as they laboured up the first hill. Even after a few days, the strict regime of the Battleschool was beginning to show results with Horace. He was fitter than he’d ever been in his life. Added to that was the fact that he had natural ability as an athlete. Though he was unaware of it, he ran with balance and grace, where the others seemed to struggle. As the run progressed, he found himself
far in front of the others. He pounded on, head up and breathing evenly through his nostrils. So far, he hadn’t had much chance to get to know his new classmates. He’d seen most of them around the castle or the village over the years, of course, but growing up in the Ward had tended to isolate him from the normal, day-to-day life of the castle and village. Ward children couldn’t help but feel different to the others. And it was a feeling that the boys and girls with parents still living reciprocated.
The Choosing ceremony was peculiar to Ward members only. Horace was one of twenty new recruits that year, the other nineteen coming through what was considered the normal process – parental influence, patronage or recommendation from their teachers. As a result, he was regarded as something of a curiosity, and the other boys had so far made no overtures of friendship or even any real attempt to get to know him. Still, he thought, smiling with grim satisfaction, he had beaten them all in the run. None of the others were back yet. He’d shown them, all right.
The door at the end of the dormitory crashed back on its hinges and heavy boots sounded on the bare floorboards. Horace raised himself on one elbow and groaned inwardly.
Bryn, Alda and Jerome were marching towards him between the neat rows of perfectly made beds. They were second year cadets and they seemed to have decided that their life’s work was to make Horace’s life miserable. Quickly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, but not quickly enough.
‘What are you doing lying in bed?’ Alda yelled at him. ‘Who told you it was lights out?’
Bryn and Jerome grinned. They enjoyed Alda’s verbal sallies. They weren’t anywhere near as original. But they made up with their lack of verbal invention with a heavy reliance on the physical side of things.
‘Twenty pushups!’ Bryn ordered. ‘Now!’
Horace hesitated a moment. He was actually bigger than any of them. If it came to a confrontation, he was sure he could beat any one of them. But they were three. And besides, they had the authority of tradition behind them. As far as he knew, it was normal practice for second year to treat first year cadets like this, and he could imagine the scorn of his classmates if he were to complain to authority about it. Nobody likes a crybaby, he told himself as he began to drop to the ground. But Bryn had seen the hesitation and perhaps even the fleeting light of rebellion in his eyes.
Ranger's Apprentice 1 & 2 Bindup Page 6