“It’s naught but a minor irritation,” the limping warrior said stoutly. “I’m sure it’ll pass soon enough; the cold weather always affects me and makes my feet itch to be out and doing something.”
Falon gave the man a level look. If they weren’t already out and doing more than their fair share of the marching and fighting, then she’d eat her officer’s sash!
“Perhaps you should go and lay down in the wagon anyway,” she said finally.
“That would be worse than suffering through the march every day, begging the gentleman’s pardon,” he added quickly. “I need to keep moving and the pain lets me know that I’m still alive,” he explained with a grimace of pain as his foot landed on a rock of some kind. “If I was stuck in a wagon with nothing to do and no way to stretch my joints, why, I’d take root for sure!”
“I’m not sure,” Falon said frankly, worrying her lip between her teeth as she thought it over.
“When I plant myself in the ground, I want to do it where I can watch over the old place and surrounded by family,” the old man said with conviction. “Besides, if I get stuck up here I’d never make through the first winter—I’d be a goner for sure!”
Falon’s mouth opened to retort but she quickly closed it before rethinking the matter. “I’ll talk with the Wenches and the Sergeant to see what I can do,” she said lamely. After all, what could she do for this man that she and a whole houseful of sisters couldn’t do for her own father? “Carry on,” she added and then flushed, feeling like a fraud.
To cover her embarrassment, she put heels to Cloud Breaker and urged him forward and away from any more embarrassing conversations.
“Trouble?” Darius asked, lifting a brow as she came thundering up and then pulled her horse to stop beside him.
“Yes,” she said flatly.
Darius looked at her with open concern.
“Oh it’s nothing we can do anything about, even if we had all the time in the world and no battles to fight,” she said with a pang as she thought of her own father.
“Now you’ve really got me worried,” Darius said turning his head to face her fully.
Falon waved a hand in the air.
“It’s nothing. Well not nothing,” she paused to take a deep breath and compose herself, “one of the men is having foot issues.”
“So send him to the Wench,” Darius said, sounding puzzled.
“It’s not that kind of foot problem; he’s got…growths,” she explained.
“Growths?” Darius said drawing back with concern.
“You know,” she said with irritation, “he’s about to take root.”
“Is this some kind of local saying I’m not familiar with,” the Imperial asked after a moment.
“You know,” she said in response to his blank look, “the rooting sickness?”
“Some kind of fungal disease?” Darius asked. “Do we need a general boiling of the socks, and to have a cream of some sort compounded for the men?”
Falon sighed, as apparently they weren’t familiar with the rooting sickness in the Empire. “No, it only affects the Old Blood,” Falon said, and did her best to explain what it was, and how the rooting sickness took hold of a person.
“They turn into trees?” Darius sounded flabbergasted and looked at her as if to make sure she wasn’t pulling his leg. “People here actually turn into trees? What kind of curse is this?!”
“Only the Old Blood population can take root,” Falon corrected him. “The New Blood people aren’t affected—except maybe their children. So it’s not really about where you live,” she hesitated, “at least, I don’t think so. We could check and see if the Ravens have to deal with the rooting sickness too, but if your people in the Empire don’t have to deal with it then you’re probably safe.”
“Bizarre,” Darius breathed, looking relieved at the knowledge that he couldn’t ‘catch’ the rooting sickness. “I’ve heard of many strange races in the Empire, and an equal number of diseases, but never of grown fighting men turning into trees!”
Falon grinned, “Oh? So you’ve heard of women or men that aren’t full-grown turning into trees then; is that what you’re saying?” she snickered.
Darius turned pink and then red. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he protested and then snorted. The hint of laughter in his voice indicated that the tense moment of before had passed and the unsettling news now absorbed.
Falon breathed a hidden sigh of relief. She didn’t know what would happen if she had to place him on report…or worse, threaten him with the rope. She didn’t know how the men would take it—or if she’d still have a Sergeant around afterwards.
Falon also didn’t think that her half of the Battalion would survive for long if he was really at odds with her.
The baron’s castle got larger and larger as they approached, until they could clearly see the large snow covered field out in front of it.
“Now that’s a Castle,” Falon looked over her shoulder and raised her voice as she pointed out Ice Finger to her new messenger-cum-valet. The keep alone was nearly half again the size of Swan Keep, and it was surrounded by a twenty foot crenelated wall with a strong-looking gate.
“They get bigger than that?” Ernest asked with disbelief, pushing Bucket up to within less than shouting range. “Why, that has to be the home of a Duke at least!”
“Oh, they get bigger,” Falon said breezily, or at least as breezily as a girl who’d never actually seen anything bigger in her own life. She had read about some, though.
Ernest looked at her and shook his head.
“It’s true,” Falon defended, “they say the King’s Castle is a proper citadel with a palace, two keeps, and three walls like the one you see here at Ice Finger.”
“You’d never see anything like this on the farm, eh Ern?” Duncan called out and breaking ranks to hurry forward.
“Back in line, you,” Darius said, giving Duncan a growl and a hard look.
The older farmer’s son blinked, jerked, and then realizing his Sergeant was serious, he skittered back into line.
The men around laughed mockingly and Falon could make out that they were giving him a hard time, even though they were just too far away to make out any actual words, and Falon allowed herself a smirk.
After Darius was done staring at Duncan, he looked ahead and then turned his regard on her. Despite herself, Falon straightened up in the saddle.
The Imperial narrowed his eyes and looked like he was about to say something and then didn’t. Grunting, he turned away to look at something else and Falon felt as if she had just received a reprieve—although, from what she wasn’t sure.
Hoofs pounded against the dirt behind them and when Falon looked, she saw a messenger dressed in blue and bearing the Royal insignia on his tabard.
“Make way,” the rider declared importantly, even though her Swans were quick to move to the other side of the road as far as they could get to let him through. “Make way! Who is the officer in charge of this rabble?” the man asked as soon as he was within spitting distance.
Falon bristled, her hackles rising at the term. “That’s me,” she paused and then added, “rider.” She would see just how much he liked it when the shoe was on the other foot.
“I am an official messenger of the Prince, carrying a marked package!” the man in blue said, rearing back and sounding affronted.
“And I’m a Lieutenant in the Fighting Swans,” Falon glared.
“A message from me is the same as words out of the mouth of the Prince Marshal himself,” the messenger said stiffly.
“My respects to the Prince,” Falon bit out, realizing at the last moment that bearding the messenger was one thing, but even appearing to do the same to the Prince was something entirely different.
The messenger shifted smugly in his saddle and nodded condescendingly toward her, almost as if he was the Prince and she his vassal!
Falon’s eyes narrowed. “Although,” she said her eyes narr
owing, “I think the men you’re looking for must be somewhere in front of us.”
The rider suddenly looked disconcerted. “But you just said this was the Swan detachment?” he said with surprise.
“You said you were looking for rabble, did you not?” she asked sweetly, then continuing before he had a chance to respond, “well the only rabble I know of are those barbarian louts with the drums. If you look, I’m sure you’ll find them somewhere to the north, as I don’t know an army in the Prince’s host that could be considered anything other than trained fighting men!”
The rider paled and then turned red in the face. “You insult the Prince himself with your impertinent words,” he snarled with outrage.
“No, rider,” Falon snapped back, “it’s you who insult the Prince—the Prince and myself! For these are no untrained Militia you see before you; we are warriors. This band fought valiantly on the field against Prince Hughes and now, every day, we test our mettle against the savages who press our van.”
“You are not the only company in the vanguard,” the rider said angrily.
“No, we are merely the first band behind the scouts,” Falon sniffed, and then looked down her nose at the increasingly furious messenger. “Your package if you please, rider.”
“I am a gentleman and you shall address me as such, peasant,” the messenger said angrily, “Morgan Cu-Neville, the bastard son of Lord Cu-Neville, of the same name, and don’t think your impertinence won’t be reported verbatim to his Highness himself!”
Falon blinked, taken aback by the man’s ferocity—as well as the fact he seemed so proud that he was a bastard—then her face hardened. “I am Falon Rankin,” she said, stiffening her spine and matching the rider’s heated stare with a somewhat less-heated one of her own, “of the Twin Orchard Rankins. Our estate may be small but I certainly wasn’t a peasant even before,” she leaned forward her eyes boring into Morgan Cu-Neville’s, “Sir Smythe took me on as his Squire.”
She leaned back knowing she had to defend herself but at the same time hating the fact that by telling people where she was from, she could bring trouble down on the heads of her struggling family.
The messenger’s anger turned calculating. “A know-nothing rube from a no-nothing estate,” Morgan Cu-Neville scoffed. “I now recall hearing word of a jumped up Squireson given a command above his station,” he raked her with his eyes and she obviously came up wanting.
“The package if you please,” she said tightly. Surprised—nay, almost shocked—to find her hand creeping toward the hilt of her sword. She hesitated and then let her hand drop.
Cu-Neville sneered. “I’d challenge you now but you’re nothing more than an underfed boy child, playing dress-up in daddy’s clothes,” the messenger said.
“Don’t let that stop you,” Falon snapped, once again shocked to realize it was her speaking. The only way she could explain it was that too much time around thick-headed warrior men rotted an otherwise reasonable person’s brain, giving her all sorts of outrageous notions. Man poisoning, that’s what I’ve been struck with, she thought with outrage. Something like boy cooties only ten times worse.
“If you survive the barbarians, perhaps I’ll come to call on you as a gentleman must. I won’t have it said a Cu-Neville put down an officer of the Prince like a pig led to slaughter—at least not until after his Highness’s army was no longer under threat of attack,” Morgan the messenger said evenly, his burning eyes belying his level tone.
“Then for the third and final time, your package and be gone with you,” Falon snapped.
Messenger Morgan Cu-Neville rolled his eyes. “The package is not yours, it’s there to show that I am not to be held as a spy and executed if captured,” he replied.
Falon just looked at him blankly and one corner of the man’s mouth lifted. She waited impatiently for him to continue.
“You are directed to pitch your tents on the outermost portion of the north side of the field, to make room for the those units that cannot fit in the castle’s barracks,” he said with a superior air.
Falon gritted her teeth. “Tell the Prince we hear and obey,” she said savagely, disappointed at once again being overlooked by his Highness and the generals, but mostly angry at the messenger for being such a complete and utter heel.
“You’ve received your commands,” Moran Cu-Neville said, turning the head of his mount and showing her his horse’s heels.
“That went well,” Darius observed after a moment.
“Really?” Falon brightened fractionally.
“No…not really,” Darius grunted.
“Oh,” Falon slumped.
Around them men who had overheard the conversation started muttering discontentedly.
“He shouldn’t have spoken to the Lieutenant that way,” one of the men said in a rising voice. He was hushed as soon as the men saw her looking over their way.
She frowned as men ducked their heads and looked embarrassed, but as soon as she looked away the muttering continued and she could see it spreading back down the line.
In a way she was warmed by her men’s indignation, but in another she was less than happy. “We’re still getting the least desirable assignments in the entire army,” she complained.
“Yep,” Darius agreed.
Falon took a deep breath. “Should I be worried?” she asked.
Darius gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment and single eye narrowed. “I’d be more worried if I didn’t know that we’re considered the least experienced and most expendable unit in the army,” he finally muttered, low enough there was no risk of being overheard. “Why wouldn’t they put us where they have?”
“What!?” Falon blurted in surprise.
Darius looked up at her as if surprised to see her there and turned a hand palm up. “Oh we’re much improved over what they think, but really in a situation like this you either put your best soldiers or your worst out where they can get lopped off,” he explained matter-of-factly.
Falon took a minute to absorb this.
“I get why you would send your best warriors forward,” she said, “but why would you send your least?”
Darius looked pleased. “You send your best so that you don’t take many losses, or to inflict maximum damage to your foes,” Darius replied.
“And for your worst?” Falon said impatiently.
“Those are the men you send when you know that no matter what you do, you’re going to take losses. So you send your least valuable soldiers out to bleed, so that your front-liners are rested and un-winnowed by the kind of pinprick attacks we’ve had to deal with on the way here,” he explained.
“But the savages haven’t only been attacking the front of the army,” Falon pointed out. “The rest of the companies and battalions have been hit too.”
“But not nearly as hard as we have—or as often,” Darius disagreed.
There was a long moment of uneasy silence, or at least uneasy on her part. Darius didn’t appear uneasy, he looked watchful and underneath that, if she had to say anything he appeared…tense.
Falon cleared her throat as they marched onto the field, and the Sergeant didn’t seem about to give any instructions to the men. Normally he was the first to start detailing the limits of the camp and assigning duties by file, to be carried out under the super vision of the file leaders.
“Best we keep the men busy then, to keep their minds off any questions about our disposition now and during the march,” Falon said lamely.
“Of course, Lieutenant,” he said, snapping off a quite salute he headed off with a spring to his step and started chivying the men.
He left behind a troubled young woman; one who was wondering why it had been she who had to get the process of selecting a campsite and getting it set up started, and not the Imperial who normally did better without her help than with it.
Chapter 35: Seeing Smythe
Falon was ushered into the Captain’s tent by a pair of beefy men-at-arms.
“A
h, my favorite Squire,” Smythe said in greeting and then turned back to the man seated on the three-legged foldable camp stool. “Bide a minute,” he told her, lifting a finger for emphasis.
Fighting the urge to let loose a rebellious comment about being his only Squire—as far as she knew—Falon held her peace.
Falon waited while the man, a scout of some kind, finished telling the Captain about the terrain around the castle. After they were finished, the Captain turned to Falon.
“It’s been too long since we had a chance for a face to face, Lieutenant,” Smythe said gravely, “how goes your half of the battalion? The men are in good spirits?”
“As well as can be expected, Sir,” Falon said formally, something in the Captain’s expression not lending itself to anything less.
“Good. Good,” Smythe nodded as he repeated himself, “if there’s anything I need to be made aware of, this is the time,” he said shortly, and then turned to the corner of his tent. “Doolie,” he snapped, “put down that armor and come pay attention.”
Falon blinked as a gangly-looking boy unfolded himself from a pile of the Captain’s armor in the corner of the tent. He couldn’t have been much younger than her, and the young woman guessed his age at something like fourteen. He was just old enough to hit a major growth spurt and start to fill out into the man he would become.
Chiding herself for failing to have noticed the gangly-looking youth in the corner—despite standing there silently for the better part of two minutes while the scout reported to the Captain—she took a deep breath.
“Well, some of the men have been complaining about having more than their share of time at the front of the van,” she said shortening the word ‘vanguard’ to its more typical, everyday use.
“Men will complain,” Smythe said agreeably enough, “however, the first half of the Battalion—as well as their Captain—has been marching right behind them the whole way. It’s your duty as an Officer to see to their complaints and deal with them. Comes with the territory,” he paused, not sounding at all concerned with her report and then looked at her expectantly, “anything else the men are grumbling about?”
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 28