Since she wasn’t going to stay standing out in the dark: that left only one real way to go. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door to the Hall and once again braved the mass of slumbering men within its confines.
She had to be careful where she put her feet as she headed for the foyer on her way to first the inner, and then outer doors of the Keep.
Chapter 18: A Good Night’s Sleep
It was a tired and droopy-looking Falon who limped back into her militia camp with the moon high above her. The Night
The Gatesman had been as irritating and full of himself as before, but at least she’d had the chance for another look at the soldiers standing guard outside the ironbound inner door to the keep.
She figured no one had ever been more eager to lay out her bedroll and curl up on the damp earth underneath a wagon than she was.
To her surprise, her father’s campaign pack was already in its customary place near the front right wheel of the wagon, and her bedding had been laid out for her.
Grateful to Duncan and Ernest, the only two people she figured who could have cared enough to do this for her, she smiled and promised to do something nice to make it up to them in return.
She very much wanted to strip out of her muddy clothing before climbing between the sheets, and if she were a boy she would have. However, as she was really a girl and she just didn’t have the strength to walk all the way out of the muster yards and into the forest just to change her clothes—nor was she going to risk changing right beside the wagon—she just sighed.
If she had to wash her bedroll and blanket the next day, then that’s all there was for it. Taking off her boots, she then crawled into bed.
Morning came with the light of the sun shining directly into her eye. She stood it for as long as she was able before throwing an arm over her face and rolling over. Unfortunately, this alerted her erstwhile wagon companions.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Duncan joked his feet coming to rest beside her head.
Adjusting her arm just enough to let one eye peak out, she squinted at him. “I’m still asleep,” she told him with total certainty, before rolling back over. This illogical statement earned her a blessed half minute of total silence.
“He says he’s asleep,” Duncan said after the half minute, not coincidentally shattering her near return to sleep with his loud, boorish voice.
“Too tired for some sizzling hot bacon and a pair of eggs over easy on a fresh piece of flat bread?” Ernest asked with mock dismay.
“Oh you complete and utter arse-wipes,” she groaned, the scent of fresh cooked bacon wafting into her nostrils as soon as Ernest leaned down to hold the food mere feet from her face.
“Well I guess that just means there’s more for the two of us, Dun,” Ernest said semi-seriously.
“Why I do believe so, Ern,” Duncan agreed, putting on a terrible attempt at an upper class noble accent.
“Jerks,” Falon declared, sitting up and throwing her pillow at the two of them. “Hands off my bacon, or someone’s going to get cut,” she warned grabbing the belt containing her Shri-Kriv and its sheath in a threatening manner.
“Oooh, I’m scared, Ern,” Duncan scoffed.
“Me too, Dun,” Ernest replied with an overly dramatic tremor to his voice.
“Hand over that flat bread or bleed,” she scowled, half pulling the knife out of its sheath. Despite her best attempt at a deadly serious face, after a moment just sitting there with a belt and a half drawn Shri-Kriv she broke down with a large smirk and a guffaw.
“Here ye go, yer Lordship,” Ernest said, presenting the flat bread with its eggs and bacon with a flourish, a mock terrified expression pasted on his face.
“Don’t hurt us,” Duncan mock cried, throwing his hands up toward his face as if toward a blow. Which was complete lunacy in and of itself, since she would have been hard pressed reaching his knee cap from where she was sitting under the wagon.
“If you two jokers are quite done,” Falon grinned at them.
“Never let it be said that yer two humble servants, Duncan and Ernest, be anything less than terrified of the Mighty Falon Boar Knife,” Ernest said tossing her pillow back onto her bedding.
Falon glared at him, “Sure, go ahead and mock.”
“Not the Boar Knife,” Duncan said fake terror in his voice, “anything but that, Ern!”
“I’m ignoring you now,” Falon said dryly, and proceeded to do just that as she tucked into the best breakfast she’d had since leaving home. Even the flat bread was fresh! It was something that she never would have considered a treat until home and hearth were left long behind.
The two boys just laughed at her and fell into a bit of good-natured comparison of the Muster Field and its many camps, while she did her best to ignore them and wolf down her meal.
“Ah,” she sighed leaning against a wagon wheel with her belly feeling pleasantly full, “that was good.”
Breaking off their former conversation as if on some prearranged signal the two boys turned on Falon with matching grins on their faces, “So Fal, tell us,” Duncan said enthusiastically, “what’s it like in the Castle!”
“And did ye see any girls,” Ernest added. The two boys shared an eager look and then turned their smiling faces on her.
“Nope. No girls,” she did her best to put on a crestfallen look. On the inside she was gloating. Well…maybe it was more a relief than anything else. Then she saw disappointed looks on their faces and decided that it was definitely gloating. She didn’t even feel the urge to correct them about the Castle comment. After all the worry and stresses of last night and having to go over to the Keep alone, it was nice to have something to brag about. “I did get to see several handsomely turned out guards, a Hall full of men and boys, and then a Page took me upstairs and…” she paused for dramatic effect.
The two boys looked at her with wide eyes.
“I got to meet the Lord himself,” she said triumphantly.
“Wow, Fal,” Ernest breathed, his reaction everything she could have hoped for.
“That there’s awesome,” Duncan breathed.
“Yeah, tell us what he looked like,” Ernest exclaimed, followed by an enthusiastic nod of agreement from his older brother.
Chapter 19: Coming to Terms
“What exactly does a Lieutenant do?” Falon wondered under her breath. Her face screwed up as she tried and failed to recall anything specific she might have learned or heard before. Her shoulders slumped. Maybe if she had really been a brother this wouldn’t be such an impossible task. What business did she have leading armies of men?
Silently fuming she turned around and kicked the wagon wheel nearest her. She was fuming because if she didn’t, she was very much afraid the enormity of her task would crush her under its weight.
Taking a couple deep breaths, she tried to relate her new task: figuring out how to be a Lieutenant, along with pretending to be a boy and figure out this whole warrior thing good enough to pass and…she had reined herself in. A Lieutenant was somewhere between a Sergeant and a Captain; that was a good place to start. She would just treat this like knitting work and—no, she was terrible at knitting. She needed a better analogy.
Then it came to her: cooking! She would treat this new job of hers like making a special dish, and the very first thing one needed to do when cooking was find the recipe. She pulled up short in the midst of her thoughts and stamped the ground with her left foot. That was the whole problem; she didn’t have a recipe for this situation!
Then she shrugged at the absurdity of her entire train of thought and cracked a smile. It was a small smile, the barest hint of a good natured expression, but it was there and she refused to let go of it. She remembered having once made a cherry pie without a recipe; it couldn’t be any harder than that! Her spirits sank a little when she recalled that her first such pie had actually caught fire.
She would just start by figuring out which ingredients were needed and go from
there. She could work out the proper order of things as she went along.
Relieved to have a plan of attack, she strode over to Vance and Aodhan, the militia headmen from East Wick and West Wick, respectively. They were standing in front of a large campfire—and in the middle of some sort of serious discussion when she approached.
Seeing her next to them, the two men stopped their conversation and looked expectantly at her. “Yes?” asked Vance the Smith.
“Falon,” Aodhan acknowledged, inclining his head.
Screwing up her courage, Falon looked up at them for a moment before addressing Vance, with whom she was more familiar. “I’d like to go over the camp and how it’s been pitched—err, I mean set up,” she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
The two men just looked at her without blinking. The weight of their regard was quite unsettling, and it was all she could do not to wilt.
“If it’s no trouble, that is,” she stuttered, as the urge to fill the sudden silence became overwhelming. Falon could almost feel her insides sinking into a small pit in her midsection.
“I’m surprised ye’re taking an interest now that we’re in the Muster yards,” Vance said as his brow wrinkled.
Aodhan raised a hand and Vance fell silent. “It be no trouble at all Blacksmith,” he said, speaking to Vance as if Falon wasn’t even present before turning back to her, and Falon flushed under the weight of his renewed regard.
“Glaisne,” Aodhan called over his shoulder in a loud, carrying voice, and silence seemed to follow his call. At that moment, Falon wished she could melt down into the bottom of her boots. This was not going at all how she had expected. Not that she had been entirely sure how ‘this’ would have happened, but reality was still failing to meet her vague expectations.
“Aye, Headman,” Glaisne said as he made his way to the group, looking to his village leader and ignoring both Vance and Falon as if they weren’t even there.
Aodhan nodded gravely. “Take young Falon around to observe the manner in which this camp be set up.”
“Aye, Headman,” Glaisne replied, shooting her a hard look out the corner of his eye.
Right then Falon wished she could just shrivel up and die; their answer to her trying to be a leader was to have the young man she had the most difficulty with show her around the camp as if she had never seen it set up before. She probably should have worded her request better.
“Be about it then, boy,” the West Wick headman barked, turning back to Vance as if the two of them were no longer present.
“Come along,” Glaisne said tightly, giving a toss of his head. Staring down at her feet, Falon went to follow. Clearly this whole being a leader thing was going to need lots of work. Before she knew it they had come to a stop in front of the wagons.
“And over here we be having the finest pair of wagons in the Wicks,” Glaisne pointed at them flatly.
Falon shot him a look and frowned. “I’d like to think I know as much about our wagons as anyone here,” she said stiffly.
“I have me an order to carry out, thou rich snot,” Glaisne said grimly as he strode away, “so let’s walk.”
“Hold up a bit,” Falon grunted, staring spitefully at his back, “I’m a ‘rich snot,’ is it? What is it I ever did to you that makes you hate me so much?” she demanded angrily.
Coming to a complete stop and taking several angry breaths, Glaisne suddenly whirled around and shoved a large finger under her nose.
“Thou come here with us as if we should pamper thy every need, then thou tries to act as if thou art some leader,” he spat off to the side, a large wad of spit only missing her by a foot, “and ye have the trite to ask me what thou did?”
Falon’s eyes narrowed as he blood began to boil. “Pampered, is it? I sleep in the wet and cold, just like the rest of us.”
Glaisne shook his head, as if tossing off such inconsequential things like facts. “Bad enough thou sleep nice and dry under that wagon every night—at least it belongs to thy Papa,” he snarled, all but spitting the words out. “But now, Falon Half Blood The Great and Pampered, thinks to run around calling me woman Nyia a whore!”
Falon reared back in surprise but Glaisne’s big, fat finger followed her.
“I never said that she was a whore,” she denied, swatting his finger away, “and get your finger out of my face!” Her second swat managed to knock his finger—and the hand that it belonged to—out away from her nose.
Glaisne’s finger came back, but this time as part of a fist that plowed into her face. Coming to with her hind end planted in the mud, Falon stared up at him in shock.
“Thou may not have used the exact word but I know the true meaning of what thou says, and so dost thou,” Glaisne said standing over her with clenched fists. Surprised at being attacked in the middle of the camp, where fighting was supposedly forbidden, Falon suddenly realized everyone was looking the other way, even the Headmen—deliberately. “I’ve had to bust heads to keep it from spreading beyond the few loudmouths in this camp, else her reputation be ruined,” he growled.
With Glaisne standing over her and the rest of the camp looking the other way, Falon felt a flash of fear but then her face hardened as she pushed the feeling away.
“I’m sorry if this comes as something of a shock to you, but you’re not her first,” Falon shot, fighting the urge of her lip to quiver as she got her arms underneath her to push herself up. “If telling the truth is somehow wrong then you’re just going to have to beat me up,” she finished defiantly.
She’d just regained her feet when he cocked his fist back.
“With pleasure,” he growled, and his fist crashed into her nose.
It was the last thing she remembered before hitting the dirt for the second time that day. “Stay away from my woman, Half Blood. And think twice—or thrice—before trying to sully her reputation again. I din’na care what she’s done before me; it’s what’s in her heart now that I care for, and thy spiteful words are set to try and break both it and her.” So saying, his boot slammed into her gut and he left here there, clutching her stomach and gasping.
Writhing on the ground, Falon curled up to protect herself as best she could from further punishment, and flinched when she heard Glaisne’s lowered voice next to her ear, “I know how to remove a Thorn from my side. Thou wilt keep thy tongue silent—and thy person far—from my Nyia…lest the whole camp comes to learn thy little secret, Muirghealsdotter.”
He stood to his full height and raised his voice, “There’s thy look at our camp setup.” So saying, he spat on her before walking away.
Chapter 20: Gathering your Dignity
Her stomach heaved and the remains of her breakfast were soon on display in the mud before her. Laying there curled up into a ball and feeling sorry for herself, Falon was only half aware when Vance the Blacksmith squatted down beside her.
“It’s time to get up and regain yer dignity lad,” he said kindly.
Falon looked up at him in disbelief. “So much for your no fighting rule,” she glared up at him.
Vance’s face hardened. “Never fear, Glaisne will get what’s coming to him for not showing you around the camp,” he said evenly.
“But not for beating me up, is that it?” she hissed, her eyes looking over to track the abusive young man, who she saw was now kneeling in the grass in front of Aodhan, his Headman.
“Lords, Religion and Family are the three things any man worth his salt learns to tread lightly around,” Vance said grimly, “just because he’s taken yer woman away from ye, doesn’t mean ye have the right to besmirch her reputation without fear of reprisal. Yer father’s shadow does not fall that far.”
“My what?!” Falon shouted, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“If ye want to talk trash about another man’s woman, then ye’ll have to deal with the fallout the same as if ye were any other young man, Falon Rankin,” Vance stood abruptly, “but have no fear; his actions will be punished. The knotted
rope is the price he’ll pay for defying his leaders in this camp.”
The knotted rope Falon realized with shock. That wasn’t a light punishment by any measure, and then the import of what Vance had said sank in. “You’ll beat him with the rope for defiance, but not for daring beating up one of his supposed leaders,” Falon rallied incredulously.
Vance raised his eyebrows. “If ye’re looking for sympathy then ye’ve come to the wrong place. When I look down at ye there in the muck, I don’t see a leader; what I see is nothing more than a sniveling young boy with an over-loud mouth, needing to be taught a lesson in the ways of men.”
“I said nothing more than the truth!” she flared.
The blacksmith just shook his head. “This is to be war we’re about,” he said flatly, “and in the field a man…learns things about himself that he might otherwise never have to face. So pick yerself up, dust yerself off and if ye really want to be a leader then act like one, rather than a spoiled little boy who’s upset he got whipped.”
Falon just stared after him as he walked away. She hadn’t been acting entitled! All she had done was say the truth about that two timing little hussy! She worked her jaw angrily, and heard something click before a sudden pain flared as she opened her mouth too wide.
Darn that Glaisne, and fry those Headsmen, she thought hatefully. Who do they think they are anyway? She wiped the worst of the mud off her clothes as she sat up, and scowled down at the earth. Closing her eyes, she took a moment to gather the ragged remains of her shredded dignity.
Of course, that was the very moment fate had decided would be the perfect time for her to be discovered sitting in the muddy earth beside the wagon.
“Mister Falon Rankin, as I live and breathe,” chuckled a young male voice.
“Go away, John,” she said tightly, unable to believe the little Page had chosen this exact moment to pop back into her life.
The Blooding Page 15