by Helen Gosney
Hibbon nodded. That had been apparent when he’d tested Rowan, and it was a good trait in a Guardsman. Brave, but sensible.
“Young Rowan promised his Pa that he’d not start any fights, and he’d not go out of his way to be fighting, but of course he’s entitled to defend himself,” Telli finished with a smile.
Hibbon nodded.
“Aye, of course he is. I think the recruits are in for an interesting time with this lad. Truly, I think we all are…”
**********
3. “…No better than half-civilised savages at best.”
Rowan had found it strange sleeping in the barracks with the eleven other new recruits. He’d always had his own little room at home, the one that overlooked the paddock at the side of the house. He was a light sleeper too, always had been, and the assorted snorings and snufflings of the recruits often woke him up during the night. A couple of times he’d been tempted to hold a pillow over the face of a particularly loud offender. Not long enough to harm him of course, but so he’d learn not to bloody snort like that.
His sheer delight at being accepted by the Guard was quickly tempered by the realisation that he was by far the youngest lad there; most of the boys were sixteen and they made sure that he knew it. He’d simply smiled at them, thinking happily that when they were old men in their thirties he’d still only be in his twenties.
Some of the lads mocked him for his soft lilting Siannen accent, but he ignored that too, which of course only annoyed them more. He had a good ear for language, as his father had said, and he was quite a good mimic, but he saw no reason to suddenly start speaking like a Wirran. A Siannen accent was good enough for his father and his kin, and it was good enough for him.
Physically, he was as tall as any of them, and taller than quite a few; while he wasn’t as heavily built as most of them, he was fit and well muscled and deceptively strong. Fitter and stronger than any of them, as they found out to their cost. And utterly fearless. He was used to the hard and often dangerous life of a forester after all, and he’d been surprised at just how soft and unfit the Wirran lads were. He certainly didn’t go looking for trouble, but he wouldn’t run away from it either.
He’d been in a few scuffles through no fault of his own and at one on one, or even two on one, he acquitted himself well against the older boys. A few times it was three on one and he suffered a couple of black eyes and bloody noses, but his attackers didn’t get off scot-free either. Finally it all sorted itself out as he earned the respect of the older lads. Or it did until it was time for him to rebraid his long hair.
He got up very early, well before breakfast, washed his hair and brushed it nearly dry. He’d done the narrow braids woven close to the sides of his head and was about to start on the six-strand braid at the back. It’d taken him a surprisingly short time to do the job, but of course he’d had a bit of practice at it.
“Mano, look… it’s doing its bloody hair,” one of the recruits whispered sleepily to his friend.
Rowan’s hearing was as acute as any other forester’s and of course he heard this clearly. He decided to take no notice.
“Aye, Terril, why don’t we go and give him a hand, eh?” Mano replied.
“Why not? We could just sort of shorten it a bit, it’d be less work for him…”
Rowan heard their footsteps on the floorboards, knew they were too close for him to do much before they got to him. He carefully fingered the hunting knife at his hip, but hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He thought the Guard would probably frown on that sort of thing. His lapse in concentration almost cost him dearly as the older boys grabbed his arms and bent them painfully behind his back.
“Now we’ll give our pretty little lassie a nice haircut, like all the rest of us have got. It’s not right he can have his hair long like that,” Terril sneered, staring at the glossy auburn hair that fell below Rowan’s waist, “It’s bloody girl’s hair, not fit for a man.”
“Don’t touch it. Just bloody leave me be,” Rowan said, trying hard to keep his fiery temper under control. Bullying was simply not tolerated by the foresters and he saw no reason why it should be any different here.
“Not going to touch it, little lassie. We’re going to cut it for you, make you look like a proper damned Guardsman even if you don’t bloody sound like one,” Mano sniggered.
A third lad, Beorl, joined them. He grabbed the arm that Mano held and twisted it a bit more. Rowan bit his lip as he tried not to cry out.
“Now, here we are…” Mano waved a knife in front of Rowan’s face.
“No! No, don’t cut it! Please! ‘Tis a sign of respect for the forest. You mustn’t cut it!” Rowan said desperately as he tried to get free.
“A sign of respect for the forest, eh? Have you ever heard such nonsense in all your lives, lads? What do you say?” Mano’s knife flashed as he waved it closer to Rowan’s head.
“Cut it! Cut it! Cut it!” his two friends chanted.
“You heard them, little forester. Cut it, it is…” Mano stepped closer, a big smile on his face.
Rowan had joined the Guard nearly six weeks after everyone else, so friendships and alliances had already been made. He was a quiet polite lad, but no shrinking violet and he was very good at everything he’d tried so far. He hadn’t bragged at all, but yes, of course he was pleased that he could manage to do everything at least as well as, and in most cases better than, the older and more experienced lads who’d started before him. What the other lads didn’t know was that he’d been out with his clan’s hunters and trackers since he was six, and they’d taught him a lot. Certainly he knew quite a few things that the Wirrans didn’t. Perhaps the most important was that if you were going to do something, then get on with it and do it. Don’t natter on about it and don’t leave the job half done. And of course their other teachings were useful too.
As Mano reached for the long fall of his hair, Rowan twisted his body… so… kneed Beorl hard in the groin, elbowed Terril solidly in the ear and turned to face his last tormenter. His fragile grasp on his fiery temper had evaporated as Mano had grabbed his hair and waved the knife dangerously close to it. For now, he didn’t care what the Guard might frown on.
“If you cut my hair, it’ll be the last thing you ever cut,” he said, his soft lilting voice sounding oddly menacing.
Mano stared in shock at his two friends whimpering on the floor. Gods, this lad was quick and strong, and he didn’t mess about either. All the same, Mano felt he still had the upper hand here.
“Well, little laddie, I’ve still got a big handful of your hair like this… it’s bloody long, isn’t it? But not for much longer… see this nice big knife in my other hand? Now keep still, or I’ll cut it off right at your scalp. I might anyway, while I’m at it,” he sneered.
Rowan did indeed become very still. Suddenly he smiled, a charming smile that lit his handsome young face.
“I think you’ll find you need a hand that still works properly to do that, Mano,” he said very softly.
Mano stared at him and then down at his own hand.
Rowan held a very sharp hunting knife to the centre of his hand and it was rock-steady. He was exerting just enough pressure to dent the skin. A fraction more and he’d draw blood… like that. Mano yelped and dropped his own knife, letting go of Rowan’s hair as he felt the pain of the shallow cut just below his knuckles.
“You… you forester bastard!” he hissed.
Rowan smiled at him again.
“Half right, Mano. Forester, certainly, and proud of it, but my parents were wed. Can you say the same?” he said calmly, though his eyes burned with anger, “Oh, and I’d advise you very strongly not to try that again. If you do, I’ll cut your hand off.”
Mano looked at him in horror. He couldn’t… he wouldn’t actually… would he? These damned foresters were no better than half-civilised savages at best, Mano’s mother had always said, and it looked like she was right.
**********
They did
try again, once, as a salve to their wounded pride. They waited until Rowan was asleep, sound asleep, and this time there were four of them. Mano, Terril, a still tender and somewhat reluctant Beorl, and another lad, Pim. Pim was a very big lad of almost seventeen and he knew he had a physical advantage over the much younger Siannen. Yes, the lad was surprisingly strong and well muscled, but after all, he was still only barely fourteen.
“I’ll hold him this time,” Pim whispered, “He won’t get away.”
“He’s bloody quick,” Terril said, “Very bloody quick.”
He’s got damned good hearing as well, Rowan thought, his light sleep disturbed by their whispers as much as by their big shuffling feet. With his left hand he reached over to the knife on the little chest beside his bed and put it under his pillow. He put the apple he’d saved for his horse in a convenient place and left his right hand laying languidly on the grey blanket that covered him.
As Pim reached down to grab Rowan’s arm and force it behind him again, he found his own hand gripped by a smaller, surprisingly strong and callused one. He stared in horror as the tip of a knife scratched a neat bloody line across his wrist.
“Now, I’ll only have to bring the knife down just here, like this… and…” without looking, Rowan crashed the heavy hunting knife onto the apple on his bedside chest. It fell neatly into two almost equal pieces. Rowan didn’t think his horse would mind. “Now, what’s it to be? Your hand, or maybe just a couple of fingers if I happen to change my mind, or are you going to stop this bloody nonsense? I promise you, I won’t let you cut my hair. And if you should somehow manage to do it anyway, you will regret it more than you ever thought possible. ‘Tis as simple as that. So, ‘tis time to call a truce. I don’t want to hurt you, but I certainly will if you try to cut my braid,” he said very softly.
The Wirran lads gaped at him. His young face was very serious and very determined. There was no doubt he meant exactly what he said, no matter what the consequences might be.
“You’re a bloody lunatic!” Pim almost squeaked, his eyes flickering between the apple and the bloodied line on his wrist.
“No, I’m a forester and we don’t take kindly to folk trying to cut our hair,” Rowan said quietly, “I told Mano that, and now I’m telling you. You really should try and remember it.”
“You shouldn’t even be in the Wirran Guard, you… you Siannen bastard! You should have stayed in your cursed bloody forests!” Beorl sneered from his place behind the others.
Rowan shrugged.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But here I am, so get used to it,” he said. His voice was as quiet as always, but his eyes were fiery. He’d had more than enough of this.
“They’ll throw you out the Gate if they know what you’ve done to Pim…” Terril muttered viciously.
Rowan shrugged again.
“They won’t have to. I’ll walk out the Gate myself if they say I must cut my hair. But they haven’t said that and they won’t,” he said, “And as for Pim… what the hell was a great big lump like him doing grabbing a poor, innocent, pretty young lad like me in the middle of the bloody night? What was I supposed to do?”
Pim stared at Rowan and blanched. He was a very handsome young fellow and the recruits had made much of it. ‘Pretty’ was the least of what they’d called him.
“But I… I didn’t… I wouldn’t…” he gabbled desperately.
Rowan raised a mocking eyebrow at him.
“You bastard!” Pim shouted and leapt for him, his own knife in his hand.
Rowan sidestepped neatly and elbowed Pim hard in the midriff, driving up between his ribs and forcing the air out of his lungs. He said something in Siannen that would have upset Pim even further if he’d but understood. He looked down at the big lad flopping on the floor like a stranded fish, gasping and wheezing for air, glanced at his shocked cronies and said very quietly, “Enough of this. Go away and find someone else to bully, because I’ll not put up with it. Just bloody leave me be. Now, I need my beauty sleep and you lot need it even more. Here’s Pim’s knife. Just go away.”
Most of the other recruits had woken with all of the commotion and they sat up in their narrow iron beds as Pim got shakily to his feet and slunk away with his friends.
“Leave him alone, you bloody bullies,” somebody said in the darkness, “You’re damned lucky it’s Sergeant Athon on duty tonight and he’s as deaf as a post.”
There were several ‘ayes’ and a ‘whatever you got, you deserved, Pim. Now shut up about it.’
“Just leave the lad be and let us all get some damned sleep!” another muttered.
Rowan smiled to himself as he made himself comfortable again. Gods, this cursed bed is awful, he thought, but maybe these idiots might have finally learned a lesson tonight. And that lesson is that only a complete fool tries to belittle a forester’s braid, much less cut it. He had no words for those who tried it twice. Nothing polite anyway. His braid represented his love and respect for the forest and it represented his family and his clan… his home. Nothing would ever change that, and certainly not some ignorant overweight Wirrans with the manners of a gnat. He’d still keep his knife by the bed of course. Rowan turned over carefully and went back to sleep.
**********
The Horsemaster of the Guard garrison at Den Sorl watched the newest batch of recruits as they trotted their mounts bareback in a big circle around him. Just as well these troop horses are patient and well used to learner riders, he thought, but of course this wouldn’t stop any of them from unceremoniously dumping the lads if they had a mind to. The Captain of the garrison came over to him, easily avoiding a shambling bay horse with a rider who had curly blonde hair and all the grace of a sack of turnips.
“Ye Gods, Trav,” said the Captain, “This lot seems worse than the last.” He watched the bouncing, bumping lads with a jaundiced eye.
“Aye, some of them certainly are. Never seen a horse in their lives, I think…” the Horsemaster replied, his attention on one particular lad who’d drawn the short straw today and had the aptly-named Devil as his mount. They wouldn’t normally use Devil with the recruits, but some of the quieter horses seemed to have been unfit one way or another lately, and the half-broken colts in the yards outside simply weren’t suitable. And of course the older recruits were out training with the troopers in the field. None of the experienced troopers were keen on riding Devil either, so there he’d been, standing deceptively quietly in the stable, one of the few truly sound horses left apart from the Captain and Horsemaster’s own stallions, when the newest batch of lads were almost all mounted. And so they’d drawn straws to decide who got to ride Devil –or rather who didn’t get to ride him.
“What do you think about young Red over there?” he asked curiously.
There was something about this young fellow. He was a quiet, obedient lad, well-mannered, and he worked hard, but… Trav thought about the way every horse in the place came to the front of its box to watch the forester lad walk through the stable. Coll said the same thing had happened when he’d shown Rowan around on his first day here. It was strange. He’d asked Rowan about it and the boy had shrugged and said, “They always do that, Sir… always have, as long as I can remember…” Trav had thought he’d been about to say something else, but one of the other recruits had needed help and the moment had gone.
Captain Telli followed the line of the Horsemaster’s gaze to where a slim lad with dark red hair neatly tied back in the traditional braid of the foresters of the neighbouring province of Sian was sitting easily on the back of a big black stallion.
“Ah, yes, I know that lad. I believe the other lads gave him a hard time because he’s younger than them, and he speaks differently, and of course he’s got that long braid. Well, I’m not about to tell any forester, not even a young fellow like that, that he must cut off his hair. I’d as soon tell a dwarf he must shave his beard. So long as his hair’s neat and tidy – and it is - it simply doesn’t matter, and if it doesn’t matter to
me, why the hell should it matter to the boys? They’re idiots, some of them, truly. But you know what boys can be like… The poor lad has had a couple of black eyes and bloody noses, but he’s not said a word about it.” Telli grinned suddenly. “Some of the others have walked into doors lately too, I’ve noticed. Anyway, it all seems to have sorted itself out now… as his father said, that young man is a lot tougher than he looks, he can look out for himself. He’s used to hard work too, not like some of these other louts… Hmm… he rides well, doesn’t he…” his voice trailed away as he suddenly looked very hard at the big black horse trotting so calmly along, lifting its great hooves high with each long elegant stride.
“Hang on a minute… isn’t that Devil he’s riding?” he said in disbelief.
“Mmm… I think we might have to rename him Lamb after this,” Trav laughed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You know as well as I do that Devil’s unseated everyone in this entire garrison at one time or another. And I do mean everyone!” he laughed again. “But not this lad. Oh, Devil tried a half-hearted buck or two, just for the look of the thing I think, but… well, you can see for yourself…”
They watched the red-haired lad more closely as the Horsemaster told the recruits to canter. Several lads including the one with the curly blonde hair promptly fell off onto their backsides and most of the rest grabbed a handful of their horse’s mane and looked very worried. Devil smoothly changed gait, arched his neck and pricked his ears, and generally showed them all what a magnificent specimen of horseflesh he truly was. Good troop horses were hard to come by, and when Devil was feeling cooperative he was a very good troop horse indeed, and so the garrison put up with his… little foibles.
Something small and hairy and noisy raced across the parade ground and in among the horses. The dog that belonged to the baker’s wife had tried to chase one of the stable cats again, and ended up being chased himself. Again. It wasn’t a very clever dog. Now it thought it might try its luck at chasing horses.