by Kate Elliott
“We’re bringing a training master down from Clan Hall, by the name of Arda. The senior fawkners are Askar, Verena, and Geddi. Now, Steward Govard will assign work duties and sleeping billets to those of you who wish to try your luck.”
He stepped from under Scar’s shade, and whistled. The eagle thrust and with a hammer of vast wings beat aloft, caught the wisp of a current, rode it to a better thermal, and shot up into the sky. Govard took his place, and Joss retreated to the marshal’s cote. Askar had left for the city, but others filed in with a thousand tasks left undone that needed his sanction. The morning wore on and on. He downed another two cups of rice wine, poured a third, but set it aside untouched.
Siras stuck his head in. “Marshal? The bell rang for meal. Will you want to eat in the hall or have me bring you a tray here?”
“Gods!” He stared longingly at the third cup of wine. “Can someone clear out these writing things? Who is meant to straighten this chamber?”
Siras shrugged, looking embarrassed. “I’m assigned to you for the moment, Marshal.”
“Surely you should be patrolling, Siras. Don’t you have a young eagle?”
“Fortune is his name. He vanished just after you and the outlanders drove out Yordenas and his crew. The fawkners told me Fortune’s overdue for nesting, so they think he’s flown to Heaven’s Ridge.” He wore the optimistic vigor of youth easily, but when he thought of his eagle, the line of his mouth cut downward and his gaze tightened. “Wouldn’t I know if he was dead?”
“The fawkners here know their business,” said Joss. “Heaven’s Ridge it is, and so you’re assigned to me for the interim, I take it. No doubt you’d rather be patrolling.”
The lad grinned winningly. “They do say it’s the best way to learn. That is, to follow around a more experienced reeve.” His gaze drifted to the full cup, and flashed away, and Joss wondered if someone had told him to monitor the new marshal’s drinking. It was the kind of thing the commander out of Clan Hall would happily command; she had a gift for sticking the salted knife into an already open wound.
He sighed. “I’ll go to the hall and eat with everyone else. That’s the custom.”
At first the senior reeves who were left hesitated to join him at the marshal’s table, but he waved them over with a pleasant smile to cover his irritation. In his short tenure as marshal, Yordenas had corrupted the traditions of the reeve hall even down to so small but significant a habit as the marshal taking his meals with the reeves so he could gauge the temper of the hall through hearing the complaints, troubles, gossip, and good tidings that circulated around the tables where everyone ate.
“What’s our strength today?” he asked when the senior reeves had settled onto the benches around him with their gruel, salted fish, and soft goat cheese.
Medard was a young man—by Joss’s estimation, that meant anyone under thirty—with a mean streak a mey wide. “Get rid of Toban. That hells-rotted vermin walked hand in hand with Yordenas and the worst of his bootlickers, and now he whimpers that he’d no choice but to cozy up to them in order to spy for the sake of the rest of us, those of us who suffered. Or the ones like Dovit and Teren who just disappeared.”
“I didn’t see you leading the resistance,” said Darga, an older woman with a blade of iron in her gaze. “You went running Yordenas’s errands up in the Barrens every chance he gave you.”
“To stay alive! I tell you, that cursed Horas wanted nothing more than to murder me, with the blessing of his sniveling comrades. He would have done it, too, if I hadn’t kept myself away from the hall. I ran no errands for Yordenas!” He was flushed with indignation. “You just ask in some of those villages up in the Barrens, who was it who presided over their assizes when no one else would step in? That was me!”
“Here, now,” said Joss. “What’s past is past. As it says in the tale, ‘no use trying to build with a charred log.’ Toban will be given a chance to do the duty assigned him. If he scants it or neglects it, then we’ll censure him with what the dereliction has earned. We have lost too many reeves as it is, some dead and others flown off.”
“Where does a rogue reeve and his eagle make their perch?” Darga asked. “Who will take them in?”
“I don’t know,” said Joss. “That’s why we need Toban under supervision, doing such tasks as he can be trusted with and thereby freeing up other reeves for patrol. We’re dealing with a desperate situation in the north. We have to find out what is happening, who these people are who are attacking throughout the Hundred. We have to maintain constant communication with Clan Hall, and the other halls if we can. We must be prepared for anything.”
A girl with the slave mark tattooed at her left eye ran into the hall, sweating and out of breath. Every person there hesitated, with spoon half raised to mouth or cup to lip, sentences cut off, laughter choked down. They were like dogs and children who have been kicked once too often: expecting the worst.
She grabbed hold of her braid as if for courage, and quick-stepped up to the head table. “Marshal.” The squeak of her tiny voice made Medard snort and folk at nearby tables titter.
Joss rose to survey the hall until every voice was stilled and no one moved. The girl wasn’t much more than ten or twelve, a fawkner’s assistant’s slave by the look of her clothing, someone to sweep the floors and fetch and carry.
“Go on,” he said, trying out a kindly smile. “Do you have a message for me?”
She whispered in that scrap of a mouse’s voice. “An eagle’s dropped in. Carrying a—” Her voice faded, and he barely caught the last two words. “—Qin soldier.”
“Aui!” He straightened.
“The hells!” muttered Medard. “I don’t trust those outlanders with their funny eyes and their strut. I hope you’re not going to make us eat with one of them.”
Joss laughed, although he wanted to slug the horse’s ass. “That’s funny, I recall one of the Qin soldiers remarking the same thing. I wonder why that might be.”
With a grin to point the sting, he left before Medard could decide whether a retort was worth the risk of insulting his new marshal. Siras scrambled after.
As Joss walked alongside the girl, he considered his position within the reeve hall as an outsider brought in to restore order. He couldn’t decide if the night’s dance with Verena would earn approval or disdain from the hall at large, and so far no one was ready to challenge him to his face. Medard’s carping seemed of a piece with his personality, nothing serious. So far.
Out on the parade ground, a fawkner and his assistant had raced up to take charge of the newly arrived eagle on its high perch. The reeve was unhooking a Qin soldier from the harness that allowed a reeve to haul a passenger hooked in front.
When he saw Joss approaching, the Qin soldier spoke a word to the reeve and then came over. “Marshal Joss!”
“Tohon, greetings of the day to you. I’m surprised a man of your position among the Qin was chosen for messenger duty.” He grinned, because the other man was a little white about the eyes, like a panicked horse.
Tohon was a man willing to laugh at himself, as well as being a superb scout. “I was the only one brave enough to volunteer. Hu! A good horse under me is all I need! Not wings. Still.” He eyed the eagle, whose feathers were ruffled as it decided whether to settle in or take off. He glanced heavenward, to the eagles circling above. “It’s amazing how much you can see from up there.”
“True enough. A man of your skills can truly appreciate it. What’s your report?”
“We are tracking down the remnants of the Star army as it runs north. We need more reeves out on patrol. They can spot soldiers hiding, or those lagging back. I will tell you this.” He scraped a hand through hair mussed by the wind. He was a man somewhat older than Joss, stocky, fit, and as tough as they came. Entirely ruthless, Joss suspected, when it came to the honor and safety of his captain. “There are refugees everywhere. They wander down the roads, they get in our way, they beg for help or throw rocks at us. Wh
at do you want us to do with them?” He paused, and when Joss did not reply right away, went on. “We cannot restore order when so many landsmen wander away from their homes. Also, soldiers from the army can walk among the refugees and pretend to be what they are not.”
Joss rubbed his forehead. “Eiya! A heavy list of complications. Let me think on it.”
Tohon’s grin flashed. “My boys need me back by evening. I thought I would piss myself, I was so scared at first, but then I got to staring so much I forgot where I was. Hu! The land looks different from up there.”
“That it does. I’ll not keep you longer than I have to. Meanwhile, if you go to the eating hall, a reeve named Medard will get you something to eat.”
BACK AT THE marshal’s cote, Joss sent Siras to fetch Volias. While he waited he downed the third cup of wine, then composed himself with a satisfied smile, having hatched his revenge.
Volias slithered in with a smirk on his ugly face. “Medard’s spouting. You gave him a real kick in the ass by sending that Qin bastard in to ask for food. Especially that one fellow, their special scout. That cursed smile of his makes me nervous, and I swear to you he figured your angle the moment he walked into the eating hall, he’s that canny, and it amused him to tweak a few ears. He pretended not to know how to use a spoon! I don’t think Medard likes you better for making his ears red.”
“Medard doesn’t need to like me,” said Joss equably, just barely able to suppress a smile.
Volias glanced suspiciously around the chamber, which was no neater than it had been this morning. And the wine cup was empty.
Joss slid an unused cup—there were four more on the tray—over to the ceramic bottle. He picked it up and tipped it. There was just enough to fill a new cup. He set down the bottle and pushed the cup toward Volias. Siras, hovering by the door, made a move toward the desk, as if to take the bottle away for refilling, and then with the graceless charm of a young man who hasn’t learned to disguise his thoughts, made himself stop and sit down beside the open door. No doubt they had given him instructions: Don’t let the marshal drink too much.
“For me?” Volias picked up the cup, held it briefly beneath his nose to take in the aroma, then downed it in a gulp. Setting the cup down, he licked his lips. “Not bad. I trust I’m about to hear something I won’t like.”
“Sit down.” Joss indicated a pillow.
“I’ll stand.”
A sense of glee filled Joss, but he kept his voice level. “The most significant problem the Qin and the militia have encountered seems to be refugees. There are far too many folk uprooted and displaced by the recent incursion. Disruption will lead to trouble if order isn’t restored. I need you to get out there, identify a few collection points, and arrange for the militia and the Qin to send refugees to those points. We’ll need a temporary assizes at each one. All these people out wandering on the roads will merely create more trouble.”
Volias snorted. “That came out smoothly. Getting your revenge on me?”
Joss felt the sweetness of this petty victory. He smiled, as at a woman he was seeking to win over. “I wish it were so, but the truth is, you’ve the experience to do a proper job.”
“Smile that pretty smile all you want,” said Volias, “and I hope you end up sucking on it for a cursed long time, because I know it will turn sour. Still, I admit I’ll be glad to be out of this pus-hole.”
Siras grunted as though he had swallowed a nasty-tasting grub. Out in the marshal’s garden, voices rose as two men laughed at a shared joke; they were coming closer. Siras glanced out the crack in the door that let him see outside, but he shrugged and did not rise, so with no great surprise Joss watched as the door was slid open and Askar walked in with the informality of a man accustomed to his voice being heard.
“Heya!” Askar looked at the table as he wiped his hands on a linen scrap. “Any chance there’s wine, Marshal?”
Siras leaped up, grabbed the ceramic bottle, and left.
“No surprise but that the mess this place is in, it builds a strong thirst,” remarked the fawkner, ignoring Volias’s smirk. “And I do have a tale to tell.”
He patted his lips with the cloth, then wiped his brow. “I’m back from Olossi. Cursed merchants and guildsmen running around like ants with their hill smashed. So it happens, Marshal, that I went to the temple of Sapanasu, and explained your situation, and cursed if the hierophant didn’t tell me they would be best pleased to send a clerk to be at your disposal.”
“Surely that’s good news,” said Joss.
“Wait for it,” murmured Volias, who had the instincts of a stoat when broken eggs are about to be revealed.
“Which they did say they would do as soon as they have cleared all the contract work to do with the burning of the outer city and the tangle of contracts and legal claims that the siege has brought to Olossi’s assizes.”
“That could take weeks!”
“Sure enough. They were quick about dismissing me, too, leaving me with my hair on fire, I don’t mind telling you. I had to go cool my head with a few drinks.”
“Too bad the marshal couldn’t have joined you,” said Volias with a foul smile.
Joss curled a hand into a fist, but he let it go. “Then we’ll wait a week, to be polite. I’ll go next week myself, once the worst of the disorder in Olossi is put to rest. They’ll not be so quick to push aside my request if I come in person.”
Volias opened his ugly mouth, no doubt to make a retort about some attractive clerk being taken with Joss’s charms, but Askar cut him off in the manner of a man who hasn’t heard a thing.
“So there I was, drinking in the Demon’s Whip, which is not the kind of establishment you might think it is from the name, and a hierodule walks right up to me and says I’m to come to the delta, to Ushara’s temple. She says the Hieros has a message to be delivered personally to a representative of Argent Hall so I can bring it personally to the marshal. Naturally, I went. The Hieros is not a woman to cross, and it seems some crossing has been done. She wants to see you immediately.” He scratched his neck.
Volias snorted. “I would think Joss here is one of the foremost devotees of the Merciless One. I can’t imagine how he would have come to offend the holy Hieros, as he never seems to turn down any offer made to him.”
Cursed if the old fawkner wasn’t the finest kind of fellow, able to sail right past that idiot comment by Volias as if it had never been spoken.
“It’s about that Devouring girl who tended to Marshal Alyon in his final illness, and then stayed and kept house—or so some claimed—for Marshal Yordenas during his vile tenure. But perhaps you don’t know who she is.”
“I know who she is.” Joss was amazed at how cool his voice sounded. He picked up his cup and shook it, hoping there were a few drops to wet his throat, but he was dry.
“It’s like this,” said Askar, sketching gestures in the air as folk did to start a tale. “The young woman was sold to the temple as a girl, as happens, and was trained as a hierodule. Then just before the northerners besieged Olossi, her brother bought out her debt. I wasn’t told the particulars, but the Hieros was forced to accept the payment he offered and therefore to let the girl walk free. Any fool with eyes could see the transaction made the Hieros unhappy, that her hand had been forced. Now it transpires the payment the brother offered didn’t belong to him at all. She had to give it up to its rightful owner, and so she wants her hierodule back. And the brother punished for cheating the temple.”
“What’s this to do with me?” asked Joss, as his thoughts tumbled. When had he seen her last? About two weeks ago, twenty-four days. She’d been riding away from Olossi with packhorses and gear. By the Herald! What were the last words she’d said to him? “Had I known you were so full of yourself, I’d have known I need only wait until you fill up with the poison of self-love and strangle on it.”
Desperate, he found the teapot and poured cold ginger tea into his empty wine cup. The powerful flavor—it had been steep
ing all day—made his eyes sting.
She’d done her part in saving Olossi from the army that had marched out of the north and east. She’d earned the reward she’d asked for: to leave Olo’osson with her brother before the battle was fought. But it seemed she wasn’t a free woman after all. It seemed she still had obligations here.
“What’s it to do with you?” mused Askar. “That I don’t know, Marshal. The Hieros wants to talk to you particularly. She’s not so willing to bring the council of Olossi into the matter, maybe due to this outlander, Captain Anji, who stands so high among them now. Anyway, our eagles can search quickly for the woman she’s wanting back.”
“The Hieros wants me to find her.” The taste of ginger still buzzed on Joss’s lips.
“There are reeves here who could recognize her,” said Askar. “No need for you to go out on patrol.”
“I’ll go to the temple, and see what the Hieros wants. There’s the pursuit of the northerners to keep on eye on, and this matter of refugees. Knowing that the marshal of Argent Hall is himself out in the field overseeing the efforts may help the locals feel something is truly being done for their security. You fawkners and stewards have things well in hand here. I can’t do much more with my office until a clerk is released by the temple of Sapanasu.” He drained the tea and set down the cup.
Volias stared at him, eyes wrinkled with puzzlement, and it was clear the Snake could not figure out where to prod. It all made too much cursed sense. Joss grinned. Rising, he grabbed a knife, his baton, and after a moment’s consideration a pair of loose jesses. Siras came into the room with a full bottle of warmed wine, the smell enough to make you sigh with pleasure.
“Siras, can you see that a light travel pack is made up for me? I’ll be out for some days. Volias, too, for that matter.”
The young man looked startled. “Yes, Marshal. I’ll tell the factors at once.”
Joss walked out to the porch, Volias trailing at his heels while Askar remained inside to pour himself a cup. The sun was out, bright with the morning, but the headache that had been trembling above Joss’s eyebrows was receding as he walked into the marshal’s garden and looked for flowers to present to Verena as a thanking gift. An eagle skimmed low, shadow shuddering along the ground. He bent his head back, shading his eyes to see at least twenty eagles gliding high above: reeveless eagles come to choose a new reeve for themselves. And there were more out there.