Noble Beginnings

by D. W. Jackson

  Meanwhile, the younger male fighters were either mysteriously absent or breaking their backs working to impress Vernis. The former were the ones whose families wanted to keep them out of harm's way. He understood the drive to protect their children but it was still a problem, and one he had no clue how to solve without causing a huge mess. It wasn’t just people he didn’t know either, he heard Marcus muttering to a few friends about how Iain had been locked in his room and forbidden to leave without supervision until the muster ended.

  It was when Dorran watched these youngsters that he felt the strongest stirrings of panic in his chest. He found himself hoping against hope that Thea might reverse her ruling on female fighters in the muster, if only these children, some of them only twelve or thirteen years old were all they were able to send than there was little chance of survival for them. Then again, he argued with himself as he watched Marcus fight a sporting Kell, would women that were poorly trained in fighting be any better of an option? They were older than many of those being considered at the moment, to be sure, but would likely not prove much more useful as fighters. He wondered how many women were trained in more than the basics of self-defense, and how he would feel were he Marcus's age and wondering whether or not he would be allowed to serve his homeland. It was hard for him to step outside himself and think of it with a new light. As hard as he might try he knew he would never truly understand their feelings on the matter.

  As he watched them from a distance one afternoon, thinking along these lines, he was surprised to hear his own name mentioned by one of them. Quietly disengaging from a queue waiting to fight two paired assailants, he headed slowly in their direction, hoping to overhear their conversation. He knew eavesdropping was wrong but sometimes curiosity got the better of everyone.

  "Nah, that's not how it works," one of them, a boy named Den, was saying self-importantly. His back was to Dorran, so that he couldn't see his expression. "Experience is too important, we won't be serving under him right away." He paused, and his head dipped slightly before he continued. "He might start out as a troop commander, though..."

  "I'd want to fight under him," someone else said, and several of the others nodded vigorously.

  "Do you really think we'll be fighting at all?" Marcus asked, raising his voice and looking over at Kell, the nearest of the adults assigned to watch them. "Ma says we're not old enough, that they can't let us go, but we are trained, so I'm not so sure, and everyone knows there's nowhere near enough fighters around anyway."

  Kell shrugged, face impassive. "You might or you might not. It's out of your hands, so maybe talk less and train more, yeah. So that in the event you have to fight you don’t just feed the buzzards on your first foray."

  Marcus stuck out his tongue briefly at the companions who echoed Kell's words in mocking tones, and brought his training sword into the ready position. "All right, then, let me take you on!" he said. "The more I can prove myself the better, right?"

  Dorran was shocked to hear his name discussed as a potential for leadership, even if it was by the youngest of possible soldiers. He briefly imagined the idea of leading these boys, many of which he had known for years, into a fight against real opponents. His stomach lurched unpleasantly at the thought. He found himself sidling over to Tam, who was watching Vernis give instructions to the youngest of the fighters with a conflicted expression. "How many of these boys have families?" he asked quietly.

  "Most," he said. "Some of them don't, but that Marcus boy? He's the only son of the miller. Runs half a mile to get here every day, he says, brags that his mother's already given up on him being anything but a soldier but he has no reason to be that way." The man sighed, shaking his head. "When this muster is called, boys like Marcus will be the lucky ones, and the only way even they will survive their first battle is through dumb luck. And having enough other incompetent fighters in the field."

  Dorran sneaked the man a sidelong glance. He looked as though a drop of acid had fallen onto his tongue as he continued, grumbling, "Well, that's the case for every battle you don't need to be the best fighter on the field, just better than the one in front of you. Isn't that how the saying goes?"

  "You really hate battle, don't you?" Dorran asked quietly, respectfully; any man, young or old, who had been on a battlefield had earned enough honor in Dorran's eyes to excuse any but the worst cynicism. "Are you planning to go again?"

  "Of course," the man answered at once. "If I can take anyone, most of all a child not even old enough to shave, out of danger until he's old enough to risk his life properly, I will."

  Dorran watched as Marcus was overpowered by Kell for the fourth time running. Whereas many fighters would have been frustrated by such an exercise, Marcus pounded his instructor on the back, retrieved his sword, and was back to ready position within a minute. Even from this distance, he could see the determination in his eyes.

  "I know what you mean," he said. "Even if it is only saving them for later. When it comes to the people who train here, like Marcus, the delay could be the difference between surviving your first battle or not."

  "You can say that about every other soldier, too," Tam pointed out, voice mildly acerbic. "Especially nowadays. And speaking of that, what about you? Are you coming with us, or will you sit this one out? I fear if you do the latter, you'll be in for a heavy shortage of male company."

  Dorran shrugged. "I don't know yet, unfortunately. It's Mother's decision more than anything. Though I'm old enough and I've trained enough, I'm not sure Mother saving me for later will do much good. Most of all I don’t believe she will let me go even if I were to beg."

  "Waiting on your mother's orders, eh?" Vernis said, shaking his head in mild disapproval. "Maybe that should be your own decision?"

  Dorran snorted quietly. "I don't think that's how it works when you're the son of the Duchess. We may be intending to fight for the King, but I think we'd be hard-pressed to find a commander ready to take me on against her wishes."

  Tam shrugged. "Well, I guess that's true enough."

  "What about the women, though?" Dorran asked, wanting the old man's opinion.

  "Most of 'em aren't trained to fight," Tam answered bluntly. "Don't see how that's any better than the boys."

  "They're older..."

  "True. But for the boys, it's only a matter of time at this point," he pointed out quietly. "Or at least, that's what it's starting to look like."

  Dorran looked at Marcus as he jumped once in triumph after landing a hit on Kell's side; Kell was smiling sardonically at him, but still seemed pleased with the boy's progress. "That's...rather a grim way of looking at it," he said, keeping his voice low.

  Tam raised an eyebrow. "Really? You tell me, boy. Your father and grandfather ending up dead on a battlefield and all, do you really expect something different for yourself? War is a bloody thing and even those who come back home aren’t really the same person as they were before. No matter how you look at it the second those boys touch the battlefield who they were will die."

  The answer to that question was engrained in too deeply at this point to avoid. "No," Dorran admitted.

  Tam stared at him for a long moment, then turned his gaze to a corner of the ceiling and sighed. "See, even in my time, we never figured it would get this bad. I always thought that if I just survived enough battles, I'd get to come home and see my children and grandchildren. I didn't expect that I'd get called back even when my hair was old and gray. I also didn’t expect that my friends would be called back even though they're ailing, or that my grandkids would…" he broke off, glaring at the ceiling.

  Dorran's heart sank. "You have family entering the muster?"

  "One grandson a few towns over, only a year or so older than these young'uns, now," Tam said, sighing gruffly. "I felt like sending my oldest girl a letter of condolence when he came along. I knew when he was born it was only a matter of time."

  Dorran scuffed at the floor. "I'm sorry," he offered.

  Tam made a f
ace. "See, that's what I mean. Is that all we're good for, now? An apology in advance?"

  “I didn’t mean…” Dorran stammered.

  Tam patted him softly on the shoulder. “I know boy, it’s no more your fault than it is the duchess’s. It’s the idiot king’s order that has sent so many of us to our deaths. And for what? A dusty throne, that has long since lost all of its power?”

  Tams words echoed in his mind for the rest of the day. Is that all Farlan had to look forward to. Were they nothing more than a breeding ground for death? Was a birth of a boy no longer something to celebrate but only a future soldier one will have to watch go to war and die one day? An apology in advance, it would make a good motto for the people of Farlan.

  One evening a day or two later, he was surprised by a knock on his door. When he opened it, he found Nora on the other side. She looked as calm and collected as ever, but he immediately wondered why she was there.

  "Brother. May I come in?" she nodded to the tray in her hands, soup and hard, flat bread. "I brought our supper."

  "Of course," he said, taken aback, as she swept in and set the tray down on his desk. "Sit wherever you like," he added belatedly as she looked around. She elected to perch at the foot of his bed, her bowl of soup balanced on one knee. She began eating right away, and he noted that her style of eating quick and neat was vaguely reminiscent of Myriel's. He also noticed that his sister, who had always been pale and small, looked skinnier than ever. He walked over to his desk, picked up his own bowl and bread, and looked down at them. His stomach was rumbling hungrily, but he was well used to that. He dipped a corner of the bread into the soup and took a bite, chewing well to make the food last longer.

  "How are you doing?" he asked her, with more feeling than he usually would. "Are you holding up under the rationing all right?"

  She nodded. "It's no great concern. I would imagine it would be worse for you, with the way you exert yourself both physically and emotionally."

  He raised an eyebrow. "You train in fighting sometimes."

  "Perhaps, but it's not the same. Anyway..." She paused, then: "Have you had any girls recently?" she suddenly asked out of nowhere, and Dorran almost choked in his surprise.

  He swallowed, then coughed, then spluttered, "What?"

  "Any girls, the ones at the barracks or the castle, or Lyrre. Had any of them?"

  "You mean...?" She continued looking at him patiently, and he felt himself turning bright red. "Why are you asking?" he demanded desperately.

  "Because it could be important," she said simply. "Couldn't it? Mother hasn't told you yet whether you're going with the muster or not, after all."

  He looked her over. "She told you that?"

  Nora gave him a small, rare grin. "Not in so many words. But you just did."

  "Ah!" Nora had played that game with him several times when they were younger, and he felt the same surge of annoyance he always had at it, and it was even worse now that she'd played him perfectly. "Fine. No, I haven't," he grumbled.

  "For how long?" she demanded.

  He crossed his arms, thinking that it was wrong that someone six inches shorter than him could make him feel tiny. "Months," he admitted. "At least two or three months. Probably more like five."

  Nora sat back and casually scooped a spoonful of soup into her mouth. "I'm impressed," she said. "But aren't you worried about not leaving behind an heir if you go away?"

  "Are you kidding?" Dorran said. "What good would an infant heir do? You and Addie are more than enough to keep Farlan running if something happens to both Mother and me."

  There was a peculiar glint in Nora's eyes as she pondered his answer. "You do realize that the only reason Thea came to rule Farlan is that there weren't any other heirs available, right?" she said. "You've been the next in line for the duchy seat since you were born behind Father, when he was still alive. But that's not something you seem to be keeping in mind."

  Dorran shrugged. "I always figured it would be something I worried about when I returned from battle." He replaced the when with if in his head, but decided that there was no reason to put that to his little sister, no matter how blunt she herself might be.

  "Hmm." Nora looked him up and down. "Have you given any thought to marrying before leaving?"

  Dorran fought the urge to answer with a squawk. "No, I have not," he said resolutely. "And I don't plan to."

  "Are you sure?" she asked. "I can think of several candidates off the top of my head who would be more than happy to have you, and one of them is closer to home than you might think."

  Dorran's intuition took a leap, though admittedly not a very long one. "You mean Lyrre, don't you?" he asked, and she nodded. "No," he said simply. "I'm not interested. I mean, I suppose that if Mother ordered me, I would...and she's very pretty, but..." he trailed off helplessly. "No. Just no."

  Nora looked vaguely amused. "I see. Well, have you considered informing Lyrre of that? Or asking Mother about it?"

  "Not until right now," Dorran admitted. "I have wondered whether bringing her here was an elaborate ploy to marry me off, but I thought it didn't make sense, with the muster so close. What am I supposed to do celebrate my wedding day while my friends go off to die?"

  Nora shrugged. "You make a point."

  Dorran set aside his now-empty bowl and leaned back slightly, watching her warily. "Why are you asking me all this?"

  "I just...wanted to see what you were thinking about in all this," she said. "Mother threw you into the mix of court life at a rather turbulent time, and I have to admit that you're a bit of a wild card."

  "That and I suspect you enjoy just being able to ask blunt questions like that," he said, only half teasing.

  "Maybe a bit," she said unrepentantly. "I'm sure you understand why that sort of thing doesn't tend to go well with the other nobles, but I enjoy it. But more seriously," she said, her face hardening from its expression of amusement, "you're a bit of a wild card in all this. You may be a fighter, but you're still the Duchess's firstborn son and sole male heir. I have a vague idea of what the various nobles think of you, and a few thoughts about Mother's plans, but I don't know much about what you think yourself."

  Dorran made a face. "What do I think? I think that part of me would really prefer to stay on a battlefield, where stabbing someone in the back is something that can be performed literally and is occasionally stopped by chain mail."

  Nora was quiet for a long moment at that. "You know," she said quietly, "I'd be the first to admit that politics can be dangerous. But when it gets right down to it..." She looked him straight in the eyes, and he thought he could see a flicker of vulnerability in her own. "Do you really want to end up in similar positions as Father and Grandfather?"

  Dorran sighed. "You're not the first person to ask me something along those lines lately," he admitted. "'Do I want to follow in their footsteps?' 'What are my plans for the future?' I'm starting to wonder how long it'll be before somebody just asks me if I'm looking forward to dying in battle."

  "Are you?" Nora asked, keeping her face carefully blank, and he grinned appreciatively at her.

  "No, that's not really something I hope to accomplish in the near future," he told her, then sighed slightly. "Though I'm beginning to wonder exactly how much my will factors in to that."

  "It depends on your choices, I think," Nora told him, and he couldn't help but agree inwardly as she stood and took his plates. "Well, Brother," she continued, "thank you for letting me share this meal with you. You've given me valuable information to think over."

  "Have I?" he said nonchalantly. "Well, you've given me plenty to think over as well. Thank you for coming by."

  She gave him a polite smile. "It was my pleasure. Good night."

  She shut the door behind her, and Dorran sat back in his chair and stared at the faint engraved patterns on the old wood, wondering about the importance of their conversation. One of the tricks one of his sisters had mentioned to him once about motivation was that focusin
g on what motivations made a conversation topic more likely was more important than the topics themselves. Or something like that, he thought, though he hadn't had much patience for such things when he was younger. Still, though, he wondered at the fact that Nora would come all the way up to his chambers just to have a slightly rambling conversation.

  She was feeling me out, he thought. That, at least, seemed fairly obvious. But for what?

  To see if he hoped to get married before leaving? The possibility that Thea wanted him to marry Lyrre and had sent Nora to him to test the waters crossed his mind, but he dismissed it almost at once as not either woman's style. He had the feeling, as he often did, that Nora was working on her own. Unlike Addie or Thea, she was willing to stoop to slightly eccentric methods of information collection. Not for the first time, he was glad he'd given his sister knife lessons when they were younger. She seemed the most likely of his three family members to put herself in situations where she would suddenly need the ability to defend herself.

  But if she had been investigating him herself, what was she looking for, and who, if anyone, did she intend to report what she found to? Dorran pondered it for a long while, but eventually gave up. Too many questions floated in his mind so he did the only thing he could think of, he changed into his nightclothes, tightened the piece of rope he wore as a belt at night to stop his stomach from rumbling, and crawled under the covers for a night of nightmares featuring Lyrre hunting him with a bow, clad in a wedding gown. The dream was far more terrifying than it sounded something which he would inwardly blame on his younger sister the next morning.

  CHAPTER XII

  He didn't see much of any of his family outside of councils after that. Time whittled itself away as the approach of the muster's departure got closer and closer, and everyone in and around the castle seemed to be getting progressively busier. Even Myriel's appearances had become more intermittent; after coaxing a few hints from her about her other duties, he had put his foot down several times until she had agreed that she would only come to tend to his chambers when she had nothing better to be doing, including resting. He suspected, from the frequency with which she continued to come by, that she was either following someone else's orders due to her frequent presence or they had very different definition of better thing to do.