“I-I,” Falon vacillated between shame and outrage.
The Imperial took a breath and when he released it, along with the air went the tension in his body.
“Don’t take this wrong,” Darius told her patiently, “but farmers never want to give up food for their masters and overlords, let alone the empty bellies of their soldiers. Food taken today, even offset against taxes or the promise of repayment later for a family that will have a hard enough time getting through the winter as it is, isn’t much of an exchange.”
Falon closed her eyes and tried to put her empathy for the woman and her children out her head and focus on her duties as a Warrior and a Lieutenant. She sympathized with the woman’s plight, but she knew that her own situation was very much different than the goodwife’s.
“So why don’t we only take as much as we need and as much as they can spare?” she opened her eyes and asked carefully.
“Often times what we need and what they can spare are quite far apart,” Darius replied.
“So someone has to go hungry?” Falon said biting her lip. She had read about foraging food from the countryside in her Father’s journal, but the reality was quite different from his dry accounts. She now realized that the few, sparse and overly simple lines in those pages had probably been written that way on purpose.
“We fight so that they might live,” Darius said simply. “An army marches on its stomach and if a few families have empty bellies this winter, it’s a hard price but one that has to be accepted.
“I know it has to be that way,” Falon said bitterly, “but why?”
“If we starve, there won’t be anyone to fight off the barbarians at the gates,” Darius said matter-of-factly. “As our Prince isn’t willing to pay for our food with coin out of his pocket, all we can do is issue scripts redeemable for coins or as prepayment for taxes. After that it’s up to the local lords and the King’s tax collectors to sort out.”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” Falon said heavily.
“It’s not,” Darius said flatly, “but simply put, an army that isn’t fed is an army that won’t fight. These people can either risk going hungry or die in the full knowledge that at least they did so with a full stomach!”
“You seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject,” Falon observed sadly, “is it the same in the Imperial lands?”
“From what I’ve seen,” Darius observed, “the Empire is better run, so it takes longer for an Imperial Army to get to the point of living off the land like this but it does happen. All we can do is write scripts for what we’ve taken, load up the food, and move on.” His face turned dire, “Which is something that the previous foraging party seems to have failed to do. Although I wouldn’t put much past that farm wife, so we should certainly check before taking anything she says as the gods’ gospel truth.”
“You don’t think she’d lie about something like that,” Falon said, wishing she actually felt some of the disbelief her head said she should be feeling but wasn’t.
“She lied about the animals and she doesn’t seem the sharpest chip off the block,” Darius shrugged. “Possibly she’s stupid enough to think setting two of the Prince’s war bands on one another to be great fun.”
“That hardly seems likely,” Falon scoffed.
“Most likely,” Darius agreed, “but never discount the depths of human stupidity; I’ve been surprised more than once.”
Falon snorted with suppressed laughter. “Alright, you’re the man with the experience here,” Falon finally agreed, “so what should we do next?”
“Let’s round up the men and go pay this other unit a little visit,” he said simply.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Falon agreed with anticipation. She might only be a girl and thus little skilled in the art of war, but even if Captain Smyth hadn’t told her specifically, she would like to think she was smart enough to take the advice of those who did have the skill.
Chapter 18: An impromptu training session for the Lieutenant
“Fall in and line up,” Darius bellowed, and the men started forming up into the pair of lines which was all this narrow, muddy side trail could manage.
Despite the Sergeant cum Training Master’s calming, distracting, and at times harsh and derisive words, Falon found herself almost eager for an encounter with Sergeant Gearalt.
Placing a foot in the stirrup, she swung up onto the horse which had been gifted to her by Lord Lamont. Falon’s horse, which she’d privately wanted to name Dream because of his smooth gait, but settled on Cloud Breaker as the more tough and warrior sounding option, danced underneath her for a few second before settling. Clouds look smooth and fluffy, and it was a perfectly good name for a horse, she had decided.
It didn’t matter if everyone else tended to call him Breaker after the way he liked to snort menacingly and step on unwary toes; he was a dream to ride. So Falon and Clouds got along just fine. She might not know much about the military, but she’d been riding her father’s warhorse, Phantom, since she was old enough to sneak on his back.
For a brief second the young woman felt a surge of loss at the knowledge that Krissy had had to sell old Phantom, before she pushed it aside.
“Ready, Lieutenant,” Darius said snappily, interrupting her ruminations with a loud barking voice.
Falon suppressed a startle and tightened her lips.
“Or at least as close to it as this sorry bunch is up to yet,” he added in a low voice that no one except the two of them could hear.
With wary eyes, she scanned the assembled warriors. No one had dropped his spear and they seemed more or less assembled in line, with only a few places where the formation bent like a snake.
For a group of recent peasant farmers, with possibly a few poorer tradesmen thrown tossed in leaven the mix, she thought they looked to be in fairly good order herself. Then again, only about half of them had any sort of armor and what armor and weapons they had was certainly a mixed bag.
Seeing where she was looking and somehow divining her thoughts, Darius stroked his chin. “Only about half the men have spears, and that’s something I’d like to change as soon as we can,” he said with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t think anyone is going to be willing to give up a sword for a spear,” Falon blinked, “or even an axe, warhammer or mace…”’
Darius’s mouth worked like he was about to spit. “More of your people’s dunderheaded nonsense,” he scowled, “uniformity of arms and armor is vital to any proper military force, at least at the Century level—you’d call it a Company,” he allowed.
“Good luck,” Falon sighed, trying to imagine getting Duncan or Ernest to put down a sword in favor of a spear. The spear was the epitome of a peasant’s weapon and one of the most common arms to see in a Militia Levy, as it required only a relatively small bit of metal for the spear head and a long wooden shaft that was easy enough for most people to find. “If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
“If they want to carry the extra weight, let them keep the hodgepodge,” Darius said sourly. He had obviously run into the prevailing attitude that a real warrior had real weapons, which meant the best thing he could buy, borrow or plunder off a battlefield, “But everyone and their brother will be trained to fight in spear formation.”
Falon looked down at him quizzically, “I’ve seen you practice putting the men with spears in the front lines and the men without them in the back. Why not just keep doing that?” she asked. “I mean, it seems unlikely we’ll get more spearheads before our next battle, at the least.” She didn’t add that these men had already fought in one battle and while not everyone had armor, at least no one was wielding a scythe or sickle and everyone seemed to have at least one good solid weapon.
“Matching weapons and matching armor are not just vital, they are key,” Darius declared. “It not only simplifies the training regimen, it increases our combat effectiveness in battle as well as other important intangibles.”
“Like wh
at?” Falon asked, eager to learn. She needed to know everything she could soak up if she was to continue this charade that she was the son of a Squire. These were the sorts of things her father should have already taught her if she had been born a brother.
“It builds identity and morale, both of which are in sore need of shoring up at the moment,” Darius said with the certainty of a man who knew his trade. “Also, take a look at the Prince’s Royal Armsmen; what do you see?”
“They are all seasoned warriors?” Falon replied cautiously.
“No,” Darius said, shaking his head and Falon knew she had just failed a test. “They all have similar arms and armor, as well as a matching tabard letting everyone know they are an elite unit.”
“Yes, but I don’t see we could get our hands on enough mail and swords to make such company,’’ Falon pointed out. “We may be under our Lord’s Charter but we’re still made up of commoners without any great amount of early training or monies.”
“Thus, we start with spears and leather,” Darius sighed. “But I refuse to allow our half of this battalion to be nothing but sword fodder the first time we go from fighting Militia Levies to real soldiers, like those groups of professional men-at-arms I’ve seen your Prince hire into his royal Prince’s Own.”
“What about the other half?” Falon asked, genuinely curious. “They also have a mixed assortment of men and arms.”
Darius shrugged. “Captain Smythe is a seasoned campaigner; he’ll whip them into shape,” he said without concern. Besides, you’ll also note that he’s retained all the Lamont guards, plus each and every man with any real war skills who’s signed up to the Battalion, since your recruiting drive.
Falon flushed with embarrassment and guilt over the memory of the ‘drive’. Having Darius so casually call it her recruiting drive was almost crushing. If he and Aodhan and all the rest hadn’t been so matter-of-fact about it, she wasn’t sure she could have gone through with it. As it was, she still felt bad.
“Over half his men are seasoned…I guess you’d call them warriors, but true professionals in any rate. Also nearly half his men have swords, and of the ones with axes and warhammers and the like, they bear them with real skill,” he looked at her pointedly. “You’ll also note that most of his men are in some kind of armor.”
“So he’s been taking the cream and left us with the rest,” Falon said irritably.
“Not just that; even the former militia he’s taken into the company were all strong farm boys, and regardless of how they’ve come in, before we separated the battalion for foraging I saw that they’d been given leather armor and a sturdy weapon,” Darius said. “The Captain’s a hardy campaigner, I’m sure, but unless being Knighted comes with a large cash reward I doubt he had any great reserve of coins set aside.”’
Falon had started to look away but at those words jerked back around her eyes narrowing. “You mean…he’s been equipping his half of the Battalion with superior weapons and armor,” she said, her surprise at the news rapidly melting into a nodding acceptance, “with company funds?”
“He gets the best, we get the rest,” Darius said with a world weary attitude about the whole matter. “I suspect he’s trying to form up an elite unit based around a core of former Lamont Guards.”
“You provide for the men under you,” Falon agreed, nodding slowly as she was still trying to process the information. “I’m just surprised that I hadn’t noticed is all,” she said, trying to cover for her lack of observation and military understanding. Not that she thought he wouldn’t see through it, but it would appear even odder than if she didn’t try. Hopefully he’d just pass it, her lack of military knowledge, off as just one more way the Stag-lands differed from his native Imperium. “Well we’ll just have to do our best. It’s all that’s to be done, I suppose.”
“Training, training and more training are always the right answers,” Darius said with a grin. “None of which is here nor there; I think our men and the farm wife are starting to get antsy.”
“Earth and Field,” Falon swore, thinking about how in their strategizing and shooting the breeze the other ‘Prince’s Men’ might have gotten away.
“If you would do the honors, Sergeant,” Falon said formally.
“Move it out by twos!” Darius cried.
Chapter 19: Harsh Encounters
“It seems we’ve found them, Sergeant Darius,” Falon said with fierce expression on her face, as a group of men and their broken down wagon came into view.
“We have, haven’t we?” Darius agreed, sounding less than pleased.
The young Lieutenant looked down at him in surprise. “You sound unhappy about it,” she said with censure.
“If the Squire will permit me to say something?” Darius asked.
Falon looked down at him quizzically. He almost never called her Squire…something was up. “You can speak whatever’s on your mind; I rely on you quite heavily, and you know that,” she said slowly, wondering if and if so for what reason he’d dropped her rank as an Officer in favor of her one as a ‘gentleman.’
“I’d hoped that my delay, for a little furthering of your education as an Officer back at the farm, would see this group to slip through our fingers,” Darius said evenly.
Falon’s mouth fell open and she fought the urge to color. Both for being embarrassed at it being openly admitted that as an Lieutenant she needed her Sergeant’s instruction as well as at the plain admission that the Imperial had been dragging his heels.
“Why would you want them to get away?” she asked, taken aback and not really sure if she should feel angry or not, even as the steady progression of the 2nd Company brought its leaders, Falon and Darius, to the point that they could clearly make out the group before them as well as their large and powerfully built Sergeant. It was Sergeant Gearalt and his Foraging Band. Or rather, Foraging Squad, Falon mentally corrected herself, as he’d been very clear on that point.
“Our boys are former farmers and a week or two of mixed training on the road, followed by a battle and then another week, isn’t enough time to turn farm hands into soldiers,” Darius muttered low enough that the nearest men behind them couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“So?” Falon asked irritably.
Darius looked at her like she was stupid. “So, Gearalt’s men are poachers, cutthroats and hired killers,” Darius replied, his voice low and deadly, “and we can’t afford any setbacks or we might as well hire all new men for the company.”
“I think you underestimate both yourself and the men you’ve been training,” Falon said, sitting up tall and straight in her saddle as Sergeant Gearalt started marching toward them. “And besides, we out number them at least four or five to one.”
Darius just looked at her his lack of conviction at her words plain. “Quantity has a quality all of its own, I suppose,” he said flatly, and then muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, ‘assuming they don’t break and run.’
Falon just had time for one last parting dig before the Sergeant of the official Foraging Squad reached them, “We’re all part of the same Battalion and I’m a ranking office,” she declared just loudly enough for the men behind her to hear, “we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Get to the bottom of what?” growled Gearalt as he stomped up to her.
Falon stared down her nose at him; from the safety of the saddle of her horse even a teenage girl was taller than a tall man.
“Lieutenant,” Falon said frostily.
“What?” Gearalt asked in a dangerous voice.
Falon could feel her left leg start to quiver and it took effort not to let the sudden thrill of fear that coursed through her show up on her face. She sternly reminded herself that to this man she wasn’t an untrained girl facing a powerfully built warrior of a man; she was a Lieutenant in his Lordship’s army with a small army at her back, and Darius—an Imperial swordsman—at her side.
“Courtesy is all the separates us from the com
mon beasts, and I am an Lieutenant,” Falon said, fighting a quiver from entering her voice, “your Lieutenant.”
Gearalt threw his head back and laughed. “You’re no Lieutenant of mine, youngling,” the Sergeant scoffed, “I answer to Smythe, not you. And as for the animals, my sword is what separates me from them—when I cut their heads off!”
“By order of his Lordship,” Falon said sharply, her blood heating, “I am—”
“Run back to mama’s skirts, runt,” Gearalt said, lowering his voice enough that only those in the immediate vicinity could hear him. It was still too many for Falon’s liking, but at least he wasn’t making it an issue for all the men on both sides to hear—yet. “I don’t know why Smythe kept you when it’s clear you did such a good job as a leader that your own men left you for dead on the battlefield. But I answer to the Captain; if you have a problem with that, then take it up with him or run all the way back to Swan Keep and tattle to his Lordship. Either way, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Falon’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to figure out the appropriate response to a man the Captain had instructed her to listen to and all but ordered her to obey when it came to foraging. She had to blink back tears at his words; after all, she had been left for dead.
While she was still deciding whether she had to eat the insult and lose status in the eyes of her men, or ride into him with Cloud Breaker and start a fight she was certain to lose, Darius stepped forward.
“Lieutenant, if you could see to the men and be ready for the tallying of the goods in the wagon for when we get back, I’d be much obliged. My fellow sergeant and I need to have a little chat,” Darius said, his politely worded suggestion threaded with enough iron to build a battering ram. “There’s a few things regarding independent operations and the chain of command that need settling.”
“Yes but…” Falon said.
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 13