Her feet skidded this way and that as the teenage girl fought to keep from sprawling face-first into the mud.
“You can do it, Fal,” Ernest snickered from beside her, and just when she was about to keel over backwards she felt a steadying hand on her elbow.
“Let go,” she cursed, jerking her arm free as soon as she had regained her balance.
Ernest snorted and Falon rounded on him.
“Laugh it up, Ernest Farmer,” she ground out, glaring up at the boy from where he was sitting snug as a bug in a rug on the back of Bucket the Magnificent. The fact that he looked just as wet and miserable as she felt was an inconvenient truth that she firmly tossed out of her mind as unworthy of consideration. “Why don’t you try to march in this mud sometime?!”
“If you need to take a turn riding the donkey,” he offered, starting to swing his good leg over the top of Bucket’s neck.
Falon loosed a growl of feminine rage.
“Yeah, because we saw how good that worked for you last time you insisted to give it a try,” she snapped and turned away, jerking her foot out of its muddy prison. “Get back up on your high horse, but stop laughing at those of us down here in the mud!”
“Sorry, Lieutenant Rankin,” Ernest said, covering his mouth with the back of his hand to cover what was certain to be a dung-eating grin.
Putting her nose in the air, Falon jerked her other foot out of the mud and womanfully resisted the urge to tear another verbal stripe off his hide; after all, she was a leader now and needed to act like it.
Mentally reminded of her new—and hopefully temporary—station in life as both a Lieutenant and a Squire, Falon grimly looked down at her feet and once again renewed the struggle forward through the muddy path that used to be called a road.
Losing all contact with anything outside her cold and tired body, the young Lieutenant did her best to numb her brain and plod forward like a good little minion. Then a particularly cold drop of water fell from her mustachios onto her chin.
“Gah!” she cried grabbing hold of the fake mustache glued to her face and jerked on it hard enough to bring tears to her eyes—just like the half a dozen other times she’d tried to get rid of the foul thing it would come off. Whatever glue or special magical adhesive Madame Tulla had used to stick it there was apparently unaffected by water. Falon silently cursed the boys who had talked her into ‘getting a beard’—even if it had been a requirement for Darius’s teaching. “At least no one’s going to suspect a girl of having one of these terrible things stuck to her face,” she muttered under her breath rebelliously.
Right at that moment she couldn’t have cared less about maintaining the illusion of male-dom. The hairs scratched her face and it made her lip itch something terrible. She suspected it was something in the glue, and that she was mildly allergic to it.
She decided she had been foolish to go through with it, and glanced up at Ernest’s face where most of his own mustache and goat-beard had already fallen out. As she watched, he idly picked at his face and another hair fell out.
If only she hadn’t been so vain and insistent on a ‘fake’ beard, and saddled herself with one of Tulla’s glued on fake imposters, she too could be almost free of the wretched, ugly, itchy thing. She was just going to have to wait until it loosened up enough to come off on its own.
“You’d think being a Squire would have changed things,” Falon complained bitterly, speaking to no one and nothing in particular. She kicked a dirt clod, expecting it to roll out of the way only to discover the ‘clod’ was really a mud strewn rock when her toes exploded into pain.
Hopping along, nursing her foot and more than ever feeling the need to air her grievances with the world, she continued her previous line of complaint, “But nooo,” she emphasized the last word, “I don’t get to learn anything new or interesting. Instead I’m stuck with the exact same jobs I was back when I was ‘just’ a Lieutenant—except now I’m doing it while wading through calf-high mud!”
“Calf-high, Fal,” Ernest said, jolting her back into reality and putting a sudden blush on her face. She hadn’t realized she was speaking so loudly.
He looked down at the mud which was barely above her ankles critically and she felt even more foolish than before.
“Well…it is in places,” she said defensively, silently furious with herself over being caught out and determined not to show it. “Just not right here,” she muttered.
Ernest rolled his eyes but let her particularly weak argument pass, in favor of twitting her on another subject. “Complain about the mud if ye must, Falon,” Ernest advised her, “but the apprentice what complains his master’s tasks are too light is bound to have work heaped upon him as sure as light follows the sun. I would mind yer tongue before someone other than me hears it and word gets back to Smythe.”
“I’m a Squire, not an Apprentice,” Falon sniffed and then added with a malice brought on by the wet and miserable conditions, “besides, what would you know about being an Apprentice, Ernest Farmer?”
Ernest flushed and then turned pale. “I know that on the Farm, my da would have me working from sun up to sun down if I spake the way you do,” he retorted angrily.
Falon turned her head away abruptly, determined not to look at the loud mouthed busy body trying to stick his nose into her business. She even made it several steps before her lack of attention to where she was stepping caught up to her and her feet shot to either side.
She cried out in pain as her legs continued to fly apart until they put her into the sideways splits. Muscles strained as they were pulled farther apart than they were used and she instinctively leaned forward, trying to recover her balance. But in the process of doing so, she fell face-first into the mud.
Above and behind her Ernest roared with laughed.
Struggling furiously in the slick congealed contents of the road, Falon spat earth and other unmentionable substances out of her mouth before regaining her feet. Her hands, face and clothes were covered in mud—even the infernal fake beard was coated with the substance!
She wanted to scream in order to release some of the pent-up disgust and humiliation inside her. Only the reminder that that boys didn’t scream because they fell down in the mud kept her from doing so.
Wiping her face to try and get some mud off only caused it to smear around even worse than before.
“Wait until we get to camp and change clothes,” Ernest advised, the hand over his mouth doing little to disguise his mirth at her muddy comeuppance.
“Leave me alone,” Falon shouted at him, feeling on the verge of tears. Now she was going to have to walk the rest of the day all caked in mud. As if cold and wet hadn’t been bad enough, now the gods had decided to punish her. Was it for daring to be a girl in a man’s world, and leading men when she had no business leading anything of the sort?
Ernest opened his mouth but she was too distressed to hear what came out of it. Picking up her feet, she walked ahead of him and Bucket as fast as her legs would carry her.
Chapter 14: Muddy and Miserable are no fit reason to take it easy
Horse hooves pounded the earth in the telltale rhythm of a trot, and a young man on a horse pulled up next to her in a spray of mud and water.
Falon glared at the older boy with a messenger’s satchel and would have said something about rudeness, except that she was already so dirty it wouldn’t have made any real difference. Still, it was the principle of the thing; you didn’t go letting your horse spray every random passerby, as it wasn’t very courteous.
“You there, boy,” the rider said looking down at her impatiently as he demanded her attention.
“Yes,” Falon answered flatly. She just wanted this encounter over as quickly as possible so she could once again focus on numbing her mind to the monotonous misery that was marching in the rain.
“I need to find Lieutenant Falon,” the young rider said self-importantly.
Falon eyed him and shook her head. Irritating young men seem
to grow on trees these days, she thought with a spiteful glare in Ernest’s direction.
Seeing the direction of Falon’s look, the rider turned to Ernest astride Bucket.
“Are you Lieutenant Falon?” the messenger asked. “I have an urgent message from Captain Smythe!”
Falon’s ears perked up at this ‘urgent message’ business.
“Sorry,” Ernest said shaking his head, “you were already speaking with him.”
“You,” the young man—who looked roughly Duncan’s age—said, clearly aghast, “you’re Lieutenant Falon?”
“Yes, I’m me,” she said sourly. Then she perked up as she realized the message might involve getting out of the rain, “You have a message from the Captain?”
“He specifically told me the Lieutenant has a horse,” the rider protested, looking her up and down with patent disbelief.
“So?” Falon asked evenly.
“So you’re on foot and all covered in mud,” he protested, as if unable to believe his own eyes or her and Ernest’s words.
With mud-streaked hands, Falon untied her sash of office and pulled it from around her waist. Then, careful not to get any more of the blue fabric dirty, she showed him the still-clean side.
“But you’re on foot,” he repeated dumbly.
“My horse threw a shoe,” she lied. It was a long story, but the short version was that the Captain’s gifted horse, which Falon was to ride, had been conscripted to pack foodstuffs alongside the other—far-too-few—pack animals. Falon had decided it was more important to preserve and transport their food than it was to appear a right-and-proper Lieutenant.
Darius had been more than a little perturbed by her decision, as apparently the Imperial army forced a man to carry more in the way of dried goods and food than her kingdom’s equivalent. She hadn’t cared, and instead was simply grateful that they hadn’t been forced to sell or leave anything behind.
“You need to get that looked at,” the rider said with a condescending smirk that left her in no doubt that he believed she couldn’t be trusted on her feet.
“Is that so?” Falon said, putting a dangerous edge in her voice and silently daring him to gainsay her. She may have looked like a mud-streaked field monster, but that was none of this boy’s business.
The messenger flicked her a cocky smile that said he knew something she didn’t. “You are instructed by the Captain to ride to the battalion flag as quickly as possible,” he said in a sing-song voice that made it clear he had the Captain’s words perfectly memorized.
Falon swore under her breath, “Earth and Field.” Without waiting for her reply, the messenger touched heels to his steed and wheeling his mount around before taking off.
“Lord of the Field,” Falon groaned, looking back along the line of weary, waterlogged men, to where her horse was tethered to the back of their lone, half-rotten cart. It was going to take forever and a day to get back there, unload her horse, figure out what to do with the supplies and then ride back to Smythe. On the other hand, it was almost as unthinkable to disobey her Captain’s—and Knight’s—command and come afoot, but that was looking more and more like what she was going to have to do.
“Here you go, Fal,” Ernest said, swinging down from Bucket’s back and wincing ever so slightly when he put pressure on his damaged knee.
“What are you doing, Ernest?” Falon demanded.
“You need to ride up to see the Captain,” Ernest replied matter-of-factly. He led Bucket the pair of steps necessary to get over to her and offered her the reins, “So ride.”
“Your leg,” she protested halfheartedly.
“It’ll keep,” he assured her, “besides, the Wenches all said I need to walk on it to keep it limber and work the joint.”
Falon opened her mouth to protest further but Ernest smiled wryly.
“Just go, Lieutenant Rankin,” he instructed her, “and do us proud when ye see the Captain.”
“Not very likely,” Falon said in a low voice, imagining the reaction when she showed up at the flag on her donkey Bucket when she’d been all but specifically told to she was to ride her horse. Still, it couldn’t be helped; either she would show up on time astride Bucket, or late atop her gifted horse.
“We all have to take our lumps at one time or another,” Ernest said unsympathetically.
“Thanks,” she quipped dryly, to which Ernest smiled innocently.
Climbing onto Bucket, she urged the donkey into action. Because of the rain, and his donkey personality, it took longer than she would have liked to get him moving but in the end he did and she would be able to arrive at the Battalion Flag astride a mount.
Chapter 15: A Knightly Scolding
“I believe you were instructed by his Lordship to actually ride the Lordly gift he bequeathed you,” Smythe growled at her.
“Yes, Sir Smythe,” Falon said, hoping the use of his new Knightly station would help soften the blow she was about to receive.
Smythe looked at her sharply.
“I mean, Captain,” she corrected quickly.
“I don’t need a tongue polishing up my backside, Lieutenant,” Smythe said sharply, “and if I did desire such a polishing she’d be female and already skilled at the art—neither of which thou are,” he added, slipping into his native brogue right at the end.
Falon turned beet-red and squirmed.
“And that’s another thing,” he frowned at her.
Still feeling mortified, Falon just looked at him in confusion.
“You’re not a boy anymore and it’s time to start acting like it,” Smythe scowled at her, “this isn’t the home hearth fire, and I’m not thy sister or thy mother.”
“I don’t understand,” Falon squeaked, barely able to force the words out.
“I guess I’m a Knight now and maybe I use more genteel language, but by the same token you’re a man now; act like it!” he growled.
“Whatever you say, Sir,” she said quickly. “I’ll be more responsible,” she swore, thinking he was talking about the horse and trying to figure out how she was going to redistribute the supplies.
“I want you to find a maid and do whatever it takes,” Smythe lectured, “because it’s just not proper for a leader of fighting men to turn pink and squeak like a distressed little a church mouse at the merest mention of a female.”
Falon blanched and felt like she was about to die.
“You understand?” he asked flatly.
“It won’t happen again,” she whispered, uncertain she could actually keep her word.
“Good,” Smythe snorted, “and make sure you get back to riding that horse—today! That’s not just a suggestion; it’s part of your training and Squire-ly duty, so no more shirking.”
“Yes, Captain,” she exclaimed in surprise.
Smythe growled at her and started to raise a fist before shaking his head and turning away.
“Will that be all, Captain?” Falon asked cautiously, hoping against hope she could beat a hasty retreat.
“No, it’s not,” the newly-knighted Captain barked, causing Falon to straighten instinctively. “Thanks to the rain, we’re bogged down in all this mud,” Smythe said, and Falon thanked all the gods and goddesses that he’d fallen into the tone of voice he used when he was in teaching mode. Then he paused, waiting for her reply.
“It’s been pouring for three days straight,” she noted.
Smythe made a sound of disappointment but continued. “It has,” he said simply, “however, if this keeps up the road will become nearly impassable for the infantry. Our battalion in particular struggles into camp after dusk every day and can’t leave camp until at least an hour after dawn. It seems that even though our Captain and unit,” he snorted sardonically as he referred to himself, “were personally selected by the Prince for this campaign, we’re destined to march at the very back of the army.”
“Can we appeal to his Highness?” Falon asked cautiously.
“At this pace we’ll show up in the nort
h out of food and with barely a handful of broken-down warriors,” Smythe continued, ignoring her words, “which is why I suggested our Battalion could be better used to help supply the army on our journey north.”
Smythe turned to her with a flinty smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Not wanting to reach into his own pocket to pay for the resupply of the Fighting Swans—at least not before we reach Dog Keep in the frozen north and possibly even after that,” Smythe smiled with heavy irony, “the Lord Marshal, our beloved Prince, has ordered us to assist the foragers in any way possible.”
“Foraging?” Falon said with surprise. Her mind instantly went back to her last encounter with Sergeant in charge of the then Company’s foraging squad.
“Is that going to be a problem for you, Lieutenant?” Smythe asked sweetly.
“Not for me, Captain,” Falon stiffened, “I was just wondering if Gearalt was still in charge of our foraging unit.”
“The former Swan Armsman still holds that post, having volunteered and had his rank regularized,” Smythe acknowledged with a flinty look in her direction.
Falon felt a sinking sensation in her middle. Her past encounters with the Sergeant and his men hadn’t exactly been the most cordial. She gave herself a shake; there was nothing to be done for it but to woman up and struggle on.
“I’m eager to learn, Sir,” Falon said instead of half a dozen other equally truthful but far less politic answers. “I have a great Sergeant to assist me in Training Master Darius.”
The Captain looked at her through narrowed eyes before grunting wordlessly. Falon returned his narrow eyed look with a blank and dutiful expression. “We will break the Battalion into two groups,” the Captain said, clearly dismissing the matter, “I will take half the battalion to the more westerly direction, which is closest to the Raven border while you will take the side roads to the east.”
Falon nodded stoically. She was a woman receiving her marching orders and was ready to carry them out. Even if she hadn’t the faintest clue how one went about foraging, that’s why the gods invented Sergeants.
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 11