Red Rowan: Book 3: Return of the Reluctant Hero

by Helen Gosney

  Fess stared at him in surprise.

  “But, but why not?” he managed.

  “Because I want to give you one,” Rowan said, “And I want to give one to Cade as well.”

  Fess’s eyes widened further.

  “But Rowan, we couldn’t accept.”

  “Why not?” Rowan asked reasonably.

  “Er, well, it’s your livelihood now, breeding horses. You can’t just give them away like that. And what about Griff and Honi?”

  Rowan laughed.

  “Don’t fret yourself, laddie.”

  “But…”

  “Fess, I promise I’m not about to bankrupt Griff and Honi, or myself. I’ll just have to drive a bit harder bargain when I sell the rest of them, that’s all. Now, enough. If you can’t come up with a damned good reason, then I suggest we go and have a look at the older ones. They’re not quite ready yet, but they’re not far off,” Rowan smiled at his old friend.

  Fess racked his brains for a while, but couldn’t really come up with anything that Rowan might accept. He shook his head ruefully.

  “Lead on then, Rowan lad, let’s go and see them,” he said with a smile.

  “Good lad. Now, not this lot of old hayburners…” Rowan waved a negligent hand at a paddock containing a couple of dozen fine-looking young horses.

  “What’s wrong with them? They look pretty damned good to me,” Fess said in surprise.

  Rowan nodded.

  “Aye, they are too, to be truthful. There’s nothing wrong with them at all. But they’re not as good as these over here…”

  Fess stared again as Rowan vaulted a fence. Perhaps a dozen superb young horses cantered over to him and crowded around him, each jostling the others as they sought his attention. Rowan stroked them all and smiled up at his friend who’d climbed the fence and was now perched on its top rail.

  “Well? What do you think? And do you fancy a black or a grey? Or a bay for that matter?” Rowan knew better than to offer Fess the pretty roan mare or the handsome young chestnut stallion that took everyone’s eye. The Wirran Guard only accepted dark coloured horses - blacks, dark bays and browns, with a few greys generally ridden for ceremonial purposes. Of course Mica had been far more than that, but he was the exception to the general rule in more ways than one.

  “Definitely a grey. There was a suggestion from one of the troopers, I don’t even know exactly who it was now, that the Captain of Den Siddon should always ride a grey to honour Mica,” Fess said.

  It was Rowan’s turn to stare in stunned silence for a moment.

  “To… to honour Mica?” he managed.

  “Aye. Don’t you like the idea?”

  “I… I’m overwhelmed, Fess. If it wasn’t for Mica, I’d never have survived Messton, and if it wasn’t for him and Soot I’d never have got home to Sian afterwards… You know that as well as I do…”

  “Aye, and that’s why my 2i/c will be riding a black,” Fess said quietly. He could see that it meant a lot to Rowan.

  “Thank you, Fess. I’m truly honoured. I never thought…” he broke off and said nothing for a few moments as he pulled himself together a bit. “So… a grey for you and a black for Cade… should be a stallion of course… hmm… Storm or Ashen for you, I think, and… umm… Ebony or Midnight for Cade…” He came over to the fence followed by two lovely darkly dappled greys and two equally superb blacks.

  “Gods! They look just like Mica and Soot!” Fess said.

  “Aye, they do, and they’re the best of this lot. They’re among the best we’ve bred so far,” Rowan said, stroking a velvety black muzzle absently, “Shall I ride them for you, and then you can try them and see which you prefer?”

  Fess nodded, still stunned by Rowan’s offer.

  Rowan rode the horses one after the other as Fess watched, entranced. They were all magnificent, their paces and manners superb as they seemed almost to dance as they trotted and cantered in circles and figures of eight.

  “Gods, Rowan, they all look wonderful.”

  Rowan smiled at him.

  “Thank you. They’re the best of them. Your turn now. “

  “Aye, thanks, I’d better try them. You could make a damned cow dance,” Fess said with a grin, “But I think I’ll need a bridle for them. I’m not a bloody Whisperer like you!”

  “Sorry, lad, I forgot!” Rowan said as he hurried off to get one for his friend. “You know, I’ve not tried dancing with a cow, but I’ve ridden a few in my time and they’re very hard on the backside, believe me,” he laughed as he came back with a bridle in his hand.

  Fess swung onto Ashen’s back and trotted him around as Rowan had done. The grey tossed its head and pranced a bit, but settled quickly and Fess was amazed at the smoothness of its paces. The other grey stallion, Storm, performed just as well and Fess found himself in a quandary.

  “I don’t bloody know which one, Rowan,” he said unhappily, “They’re both superb, just as good as Mica himself.”

  Rowan shook his head.

  “Not yet, they’re not,” he said, “They still need a bit of time, but they will be damned nearly, I think. They’re both battletrained further than the basics that most troop horses know, but they just need a little bit longer, and of course they haven’t learnt the above ground stuff that Mica and Soot can do yet. That takes a while, but I can teach them for you if you like…it really just comes down to which one you like. Ashen is a bit feistier, but you had no trouble with him. Truly, I think there’s nothing between them.”

  “Do you want to keep one of them, Rowan? I’d be happy with either of them. More than happy,” Fess said.

  “So would I, Fess, if I do decide to keep one. I’m not sure if I will yet, so don’t let that worry you. No, ‘tis up to you to decide. Why don’t you try one of them for a few days, then the other, and then make up your mind?”

  Fess walked around both horses again. There truly was nothing between them.

  “No, Rowan. I’ll have Storm, if you’re sure that you don’t mind. Thank you, I’m… overwhelmed,” he said happily as he hugged Rowan.

  “’Tis my pleasure, Fess. If you find you’re not happy with him, you can swap him,” Rowan said, pleased that Fess was so delighted, “So, what made you choose Storm?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s stupid… but he’s a little bit taller and I’m a tiny bit taller than you, so…” Fess shrugged.

  Rowan laughed.

  “’Tis as good a reason as any, Fess lad. Truly, that’s all there is between them, a half an inch or so. Now, which one for Cade, do you think?”

  It was decided that Ebony would probably best suit Cade, but Griff had the idea that Rowan should take the best horses to sell in Den Siddon when he felt they were ready, so Cade would be able to take his pick. The garrisons always needed good troop horses, so the others wouldn’t be hard to sell. And while the Guard wouldn’t be interested in the roan mare or the chestnut stallion, someone else surely would be. It seemed a good idea, and so it was done.

  **********

  2. “…somebody has to be the bloody hero.”

  It was late when Fess and Rowan finally got back to the garrison at Den Siddon. Rowan had brought the best of his young horses with him so that he could finish their training, just as Griff had suggested, and they’d stabled them in the city for the night so they wouldn’t rouse all the troops when they returned. He’d bring them to the garrison’s horseyards in the next day or so. They swore the troopers at the Gate and in the stables to secrecy so they could spring their surprise on the Commandant in the morning. They knew they were being childish, but that wouldn’t stop them.

  “Will you come back to the Cottage now, Rowan?”

  Rowan shook his head slowly. He’d finally come to terms with Zara’s death and the battles at Messton and Trill that had affected him so deeply, but… No, not tonight, he thought.

  “No, thanks all the same Fess. It’ll only disturb your brood and Bella won’t thank either one of us for that. ‘Tis the barrac
ks for me tonight, I think.”

  “Then I’d better come with you.”

  “I do remember the way, Fess.”

  “Aye, I’m sure you do, but they’ll be like dogs with two tails when they see you,” Fess grinned, “They’ll give it away to the old boy unless I tell them to shut up a bit.”

  “Truly?” Rowan said, surprised. He looked at Fess carefully. He seemed quite serious about it.

  “Aye, truly. Get used to it, Rowan. You’re the only one who still can’t see what you did at Messton and Trill… I know it was your job…” he added, knowing what Rowan would say, “But look at it this way: somebody has to be the bloody hero, else what would all the song-makers and tale-tellers do? And you’re it, lad.”

  Rowan sighed a very large sigh.

  “Dammit. I should have stayed here after all and put a stop to this bloody nonsense… still, I suppose I don’t have to be happy about it, just gracious,” he looked across at the big barracks building. “Well, here we are. Maybe I should have come back sooner.”

  Fess shook his head.

  “No, Rowan. It doesn’t matter. We knew you’d be back when you were ready.”

  Rowan smiled at his friend.

  “Did you indeed? ‘Tis more than I did, sometimes, truly. Let’s go then… front door or the back way?”

  Fess laughed.

  “I’d like to say the back way, but it’s probably best if the men think we’ve forgotten that little secret. As if we could, with all the years we spent in those damned barracks ourselves. Not the recruits’ floor, though, the old boy would hear them even from over in his Cottage.”

  “They talk and carry on half the night at the best of times. I’d get no damned sleep at all,” Rowan said with a grin.

  They laughed as they ran up the steps to the barracks. It wasn’t quite Lights Out, but they knew the men would be there and not still rattling around the garrison. Fess put a finger to his lips as they slipped past a couple of very surprised sergeants.

  “Here we are, Rowan lad. Just let me put my face in the door first, I think.”

  The men in the barracks were startled, to say the least of it, when their Captain put his curly blonde head around the door with no warning at all, but they leapt to their feet and saluted him smartly.

  “Thank you, lads,” he said, “I’m sorry to sneak in on you like this, but… Well, I’ve got someone here who I don’t want the Commandant to know about just yet. So can you just keep it quiet please? Not a word to anyone.”

  “Just stick him in the dungeon if you don’t want the old boy to know, Sir!” a voice from somewhere down the back laughed. Fess couldn’t quite make out who it was.

  “I’ll stick YOU in the bloody dungeon, young Bryn. And is that damned pest Thom still here too?” Rowan said as he stepped through the door.

  Sergeants Bryn Harssen and Thom Blunt gawped at him, struck dumb for probably the first time in years. The rest of the troopers stared at him too. He hadn’t been in Den Siddon for nearly eight years, not since he’d led his ragtag band of survivors home from the carnage of Messton. He’d been as ragged and filthy and shattered then as all the others, but now he looked just the same as he always had, apart from his silver hair.

  The men stood straighter and saluted him as one. A couple of them were veterans of the battle and of course all the troopers knew the story of it.

  “You bloody silly ratbags! I’m a damned civilian now,” he said.

  They cheered and shouted his name, overjoyed to have him back with them at last, but there was an odd sense of awe about them too. Rowan shook his head a little. Time to put a stop to this, he thought, I’ll be damned if I’m going to have a year or more of it.

  “Thank you, lads, but you truly are silly buggers. I’m the same man I always was… I still put my trousers on one leg at a time. Please don’t treat me any differently to anyone else, and please, just call me Rowan.”

  They cheered again and mobbed him.

  Fess blinked away an odd mistiness in his eyes.

  “Do it quietly, lads. This is supposed to be a damned secret for now.”

  **********

  Rowan rolled over carefully in his hard barracks bed, wondering as he often had why they were so narrow when most Guardsmen were a lot broader and heavier than he was. A nice forest floor would be more comfortable.

  He was glad he’d come back though. Now that he was finally here and had spoken with the men he felt a lot better, but he knew it wouldn’t stop the nightmares that still plagued him. And it seemed that Pa and Fess and everyone else had the right of it, though he still couldn’t really see that simply doing his job all those years ago made him any better than anyone else. Just shut up, Rowan, he thought. Accept it with good grace at last.

  “Thom, if you don’t stop bloody talking and calling me ‘Sir’, I’ll have to come down there and thump you,” he said into the darkened barracks. Truly, it was more like a room full of naughty children than a barracks, he thought: naughty children with a secret that they were bursting to share.

  “Aye, Sir,” came the automatic reply, just as he’d known it would. Rowan rattled his bed a bit and scuffed his boots on the floor, trying hard not to laugh.

  “Er… er… good night, Sir… um… er… Rowan,” Thom almost squeaked, completely forgetting that if Rowan had wanted to thump him, the first thing he’d have known of it was the thump itself.

  Maybe this hero business does have a good side to it after all, Rowan mused as the troopers nearly choked themselves in their efforts not to make a noise.

  “Good night, lads,” he said and went to sleep more quickly than he’d thought he would, back here.

  **********

  The next morning Fess strode into the Commandant’s office, saluting smartly to the man sitting there looking glumly at a pile of paperwork.

  “Good morning, Sir,” he said brightly.

  “Oh, good morning, Fess. You’re back safely from your little holiday, then? Why are you looking so bloody cheerful today when you know damned well I’m going to give you at least half of these reports to attend to?” Commandant Telli Carlson said gruffly, “Probably more.”

  Even that horrible thought wasn’t enough to wipe the grin from Fess’s face.

  “Thanks, Telli. That’s just what I need to get me back into it. But, um… I need your advice on a small matter…” he said, trying hard not to laugh.

  “Oh, aye? Out with it then!”

  “Ah. Well… er…”

  “Stop bloody dithering, Fess! What exactly is it that you can’t make a damned decision on?” Telli wasn’t normally a grumpy man, but sometimes he missed the days of simply being the Captain of a little garrison out in the Woopsies. This ‘being Commandant’ business was all very well in its own way, but…

  “Well, um… I’ve got a fellow here who… er… wants to train with our lads…”

  “What!” Telli couldn’t believe it. “Tell him to… no! Better not tell him that, I suppose. Tell him to join up if he wants to do that. Bloody cheek!”

  “Well, the thing is, Sir, he’s… well, he’s a bit old for a recruit…”

  “A bit old…? A bit bloody old? What is this, ‘Irritate The Commandant Day’? Where is this cursed man? I’ll tell him myself if you’re so bloody useless all of a sudden, Fess. What the hell’s got into you?”

  “He always was a bit bloody useless…” someone said in the soft lilting accent of Sian. “Couldn’t even ride properly, if I remember rightly…”

  A tall, broadshouldered man stepped through the door, as graceful and light on his feet as a great cat.

  “What the…? Rowan! Rowan, lad… it’s so good to see you! Come here…” Telli hugged his friend and former recruit, then stepped back to look at him.

  Rowan seemed almost unchanged since he’d last seen him: as lean, fit and hard-muscled as ever; of course he had a broken nose and a couple of scars on his face now, but he was still a very handsome man and his strangely coloured green-brown ey
es were sparkling with mischief… but his thick forester’s braid was gleaming silver, not the glossy dark auburn Telli remembered.

  “Gods, lad!” he said, “You’re greyer than I am!”

  Rowan shrugged.

  “Aye, it seems to be the way of it,” he said. Fess and Rowan’s family knew what had happened at Plausant Bron, but nobody else did except those who’d been there.

  “And you want to train with the lads…?” Telli turned to Fess and glared at him. “You silly bugger, Fess. Why didn’t you just say so?”

  Rowan and Fess looked at each other and laughed.

  “’Tis more fun this way,” Fess said happily.

  Telli glared at him again and then grinned. He’d always liked these two, ever since they’d been recruits together at his little garrison of Den Sorl. And that wasn’t yesterday, he thought wryly. It seemed they still liked to confuse and confound people if they could. Silly buggers.

  “Don’t you get enough hard work in the forest, lad? You certainly look fit enough to me,” he said, looking at Rowan’s strong lean physique with a discerning eye.

  Rowan smiled at him.

  “Aye, I’m fit enough I think. I’m breeding and training horses, and I’m out in the forest with the hunters quite a bit. And sometimes I even swing an axe in the forest too. But I’d like a bit more practice with the blade… I’ve, er, um… it seems a shame not to use it well… and, er…”

  Telli looked at him, his eyes narrowed. Foresters were hopeless liars, simply no good at it at all, and Rowan was no exception in spite of all the years he’d spent in Wirran.

  “What’s this all about, you silly pair of buggers? What’s going on that I don’t know about?”

  Rowan looked at Fess again.

  “You tell him, Fess. ‘Tis your damned stupid idea after all.”

  “Aye, it is too.” Fess laughed and hurried on as he saw that Telli was likely to throw his heavy inkwell at him in a moment, “Well, you see… I’ve talked Rowan into defending the Champions’ Trophy next year.”

  Whatever Telli had expected, it obviously wasn’t that. His eyes widened as he looked at Rowan again. The silver hair belied the youthful face, he realised as he tried to work it out in his head. Just ask him, you old fool, he thought, he won’t give a damn.