“He does know how to entertain.”
Quaeryt turned to find Phargos at his elbow. “I do believe he does, but that may be the least of his talents.”
“Quite so.” Phargos smiled.
Quaeryt took another small sip of the ice wine. He would enjoy the refreshments … and listen. He’d already talked too much.
46
By midmorning on Solayi, Quaeryt was seated in the shade on a bench under an apple tree, one not exactly a dwarf, but a tree that had been carefully pruned to a size in keeping with the limited space available within the palace grounds, if limited meant an extent more than a half mille from east to west and a third of a mille north to south. His forehead was damp, not so much from the air or the rain that had fallen on the previous day, but because of his efforts in attempting various imaging approaches to creating some sort of shield to protect himself against direct attacks. He’d always relied upon avoiding any direct confrontation, but the events of the last few months had made it clearer and clearer that such an approach was not sufficient for the situation in which he found himself.
You put yourself there.
He had, but … over the long run, the alternatives would have been worse.
Over the long run, you’ll be dead anyway. Everyone is.
That thought didn’t offer much consolation, and, besides, he was where he was, not somewhere else.
He’d tried imaging a net of colorless silk, and ended up with a pile of silk threads. He’d attempted an invisible net like that of a spiderweb, anchoring it between the trees, but it had immediately dragged down the branches, and he’d imaged it away.
What’s as light as the air that you could harden?
“Clouds … fog…” he murmured.
He straightened on the park bench and concentrated on creating a shield of fog—hard misty fog.
The air before him seemed to shiver … almost rippling … and then tiny ice pellets appeared in midair and cascaded down onto the path between the trees, and a wave of chill air washed over him.
For a moment, he felt light-headed, but that passed. He decided to wait for a time to regain his strength and turned his thoughts to another part of his problems—the governor. Everyone seemingly liked the man. He was warm and charming. He spoke well. He certainly took good care of his men, and they all felt he was an outstanding leader. With the strange exception of the timber holders, and possibly a few northers or High Holders in the north, Rescalyn appeared to be extremely effective as a governor, and even the seamstress who had to have been a member of the Sisters had offered testimony to that effectiveness.
Yet … Quaeryt had an uneasy feeling about Rescalyn.
The governor definitely knew what was happening in the regiment … down to who was friendly with whom—and he’d learned with whom Quaeryt had talked at the mess in less than a matter of days. He’d also opened all the obvious records to Quaeryt without the slightest qualm or hesitation and made it clear that Quaeryt was free to look anywhere.
The scholar/imager shook his head, then straightened.
Time to try something else. But what?
What else was as light as air or lighter?
Smoke?
How could he make smoke into a shield? Especially an invisible one that he could carry all the time?
What about the air itself? Could he just—somehow—harden it?
But how?
What if he visualized the air as tiny shields, hooked together, so that when something struck them, the hooks stiffened?
He concentrated, focusing on the air a yard in front of him. He didn’t see anything, but felt as though he were carrying a weight. He stepped forward and extended his hand, palm first. His palm ran into a barrier, one he couldn’t see.
He couldn’t help but grin. He offered a side kick with his boot, but the barrier remained firm enough that the kick shivered back through his leg. He took out his belt knife and pressed it against the barrier. He didn’t thrust it, fearing that the tip of the blade might slip or break. Even with his weight behind the knife, the barrier seemed impenetrable to the blade, and he sheathed it carefully.
At the same time, he felt as though he had been running, and his heart was pounding in his chest. He let go of the feeling of the hooks, and the unseen weight lifted from him. He took one deep breath, and then another, blotting the sweat from his forehead as he did.
When his breathing returned to normal, he tried hardening the air again, this time making the hooks looser. The unseen barrier was far easier to hold, but it bent and the knife cut through it, slowly, as if it were going through soft cheese or even fresh bread.
He was soaked and dripping sweat when he finally settled back onto the bench, breathing heavily. If he hardened the air enough to stop an arrow or a blade, or especially a crossbow bolt, he would be exhausted in less than half a quint. If he didn’t, and held what he could with perhaps as much effort as walking, the air slowed things, but didn’t stop them. An even “looser” or lighter shield took almost no effort, but barely slowed anything.
Something like the second kind of air shield might keep an arrow from going through you … maybe. Or slow a sabre stroke enough for you to dodge.
He just sat there on the bench for a time. He didn’t have any other ideas.
But then … maybe if he practiced the shields, the way the soldiers drilled, day after day … maybe he could build up what the shields could do. In any case, he was exhausted, and there wasn’t much else he could do at the moment.
His thoughts drifted back to the reception the night before.
He’d definitely revealed too much in his brief encounter with Mistress Eluisa. But you’ve always had a weakness for intelligent and talented women. And you’ve met so few.
How was a near-penniless scholar who could come up with a few extra coppers and silvers through imaging ever going to meet someone like that? Watching Eluisa play and talking to her for a few moments … or receiving a letter or two from Vaelora … those were the few times he’d even come into momentary contact with such women, and such incidents would be few and far between unless his circumstances changed.
… or unless you change them.
He smiled ruefully. Accomplishing anything along those lines, when he had little ability in trade or in fighting, was going to take some doing.
Finally he stood. He needed to wash up and rest before dinner … and after that he might as well take in services and hear whatever Phargos had to offer with his homily.
47
By midday on Lundi, Quaeryt was riding beside Major Skarpa on the river road, heading northwest from Tilbora, with five companies following them. Fastened behind his saddle was a cylindrical kit bag that had been left in his quarters on Solayi afternoon and that held a spare set of browns and other items that he would need for the time—not ever spelled out, except in general terms along the lines of “as long as it takes to give you a good understanding”—he was supposed to accompany the companies of Sixth Battalion. Those generalities didn’t give him the best feelings about what Rescalyn had in mind.
It might have been the first day of Erntyn, the second month of harvest, but the air was hot and heavy, and Quaeryt kept having to blot his forehead and the back of his neck. Part of that was because of the effort he was making to hold very light imaging shields, although he had figured how to link them to his saddle so that he didn’t have to keep creating new ones as he rode.
When everything finally appeared settled into a routine, Quaeryt looked to Skarpa and said, “When I talked to the governor for a few moments on Samedi, it was clear that he seems to know anything that goes on in the regiment.”
“Good marshals and commanders do. Even as governor, he still holds the rank of marshal. He meets with the regiment commander daily, and he joins the commander’s meetings with each battalion major at least once a week. He doesn’t ever go around the chain of command. He’ll let the commander ask most of the questions, but those meetings aren’t a
formality. Both he and the commander ask solid questions. Afterward we often get suggestions from the commander, things like differences in training or possible shifts in junior officers.…” Skarpa laughed. “I can usually guess which suggestion is from Commander Myskyl and which is from the governor. Either way, they’re usually right. Not always. If I can explain why it’s not a good idea, the commander doesn’t press. He just wants his officers to think things through. So does the marshal.”
“What did you think about the reception on Samedi? Does he have them often, or it is something he seldom does?”
“The governor has one every few weeks, and there are always a few majors at each reception. I hadn’t been to one in about a year. It was pleasant enough. Good food, but the receptions are almost like an informal inspection.”
Somehow, Quaeryt doubted that his presence and that of Skarpa at the same reception had been any sort of coincidence.
“What did you think, scholar?”
“I thought both the governor and the lady were very impressive. In different ways, of course.”
“She’s a pretty woman. You talked to her. I saw.”
“Just for a few moments, about Variana and Bovaria, and the music she played. The governor is quietly protective.”
“He might be. His wife died years ago. They never had any children, and he never found anyone else. That’s what Phargos told me. He’d know.”
“I haven’t seen the governor at services.”
“He doesn’t attend often. He talks to Phargos, though.”
“How did Rescalyn become governor?”
Skarpa laughed. “He was the submarshal under Fhayt, but went back to Solis with Lord Chayar. Then, after Fhayt made that mess with the Pharsi women—do you know about that?”
“I heard that there was trouble between the local women and soldiers. One thing led to another and Fhayt leveled part of Tilbora.”
“That’s about right. It happened a year or so before Lord Chayar died. Even back then, Straesyr was princeps, but he was in the north, talking to the factors around Noira. Fhayt was always a little hotheaded, and Straesyr usually calmed him down, but … he wasn’t there. People got hurt, and some more soldiers got killed. The Pharsi mostly moved south, and their tariffs went with them, and Fhayt increased tariffs—”
“Tariffs are higher here? Because of the war? To pay back the cost?”
“That’s what Phargos says. In another three years, they go back to the rates for the rest of Telaryn.”
Is that why the southers are so calm?
“Chayar was furious, but then some brigands attacked Fhayt while he was on his way to meet with a High Holder, and that made Lord Chayar even more angry. Word was that an attack and an uprising together showed incompetence and stupidity. He sent Rescalyn to replace Fhayt, but he did give Fhayt a stipend. That was if he returned to Solis immediately. If he didn’t, he’d be tried for treason and incompetence. It didn’t matter. He died of the flux on the trip back.” Skarpa’s last words were laconically ironic.
“And Straesyr remained as princeps?”
“He’s good at it, they say. He was a submarshal in charge of supplies and the like. He can talk to the merchanters and the crafters’ guilds. He probably would have been a better governor than Fhayt, but Fhayt was a good battlefield commander.”
“Some field commanders aren’t so good once they leave the field.”
“Some aren’t good in the field. Rescalyn’s gotten rid of those. There’s one good thing about all these little battles with the hill types. We can see which of the undercaptains are good and which aren’t, and sometimes pick the good ones when they’re still squad leaders.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but I’m a scholar, not a soldier,” Quaeryt admitted. “How good are the hill fighters?”
“Good? I wouldn’t call them good. They’re sneaky. Always setting ambushes and traps. You have to keep your eyes open all the time. It took a while to get used to that.” Skarpa laughed again. “That’s another reason for all the maneuver training when companies come back from the hills. The governor doesn’t want the officers and men to forget how they’ll need to fight against the Bovarians or the Antiagons.”
Quaeryt nodded. “What do you think I’ll learn on your patrols?”
“How to keep your eyes open and watch for the smallest signs.”
“I meant about Tilbor.”
“They’re people like people anywhere, except the hill folk are more selfish and meaner. They think everything they see should belong to them. Don’t think a thing about putting a shaft through anyone who wanders into their woods, or what they claim as theirs.”
“Are they good with bows?”
“I wish they weren’t. We usually lose a few men on every rotation, more officers and squad leaders than rankers. They single them out.”
“You’re still here, after all that?”
Skarpa offered a crooked grin. “I said you need to keep your eyes and ears open for any little thing that’s different.”
And you’re supposed to know what’s different when you’ve never even been here before?
Quaeryt was feeling more uneasy with each mille that he rode from Tilbora.
48
The sun was slanting into his face late on Meredi afternoon as Quaeryt rode beside Captain Meinyt up a dusty road rising gradually to the top of a low rise. For the past day, the battalion had ridden due north from the Albhor River largely through croplands. The wide valley behind them held hundreds of moderately sized fields, each one cultivated by a family, with most of the crop going, Quaeryt suspected, to High Holder Dymaetyn, the local High Holder, according to Meinyt. The rise they traveled was mostly pasture, with scattered brush and trees, but all trees and brush growth had been cleared fifty yards back on each side of the road.
Meinyt’s company was the second one in the column, behind more than a hundred mounts, and Quaeryt’s kerchief came away from his face tan with sweat and dust.
“You’re sweating all the time, scholar. Your mare’s the one doing the work, not you,” said Meinyt with a laugh.
“I’m a scholar, not a mounted officer. This is work for me,” parried Quaeryt as he blotted his forehead and neck once again. He couldn’t say for certain, but he thought he was finding it just a touch easier to carry the light shields he imaged for longer and longer—almost a glass at a time. It was still work.
“You should have been here last summer. It was really beastly, almost as hot as Solis, and there was never any wind. In Solis, or Tilbora, at least you can find places where there’s a sea breeze. Here, in between the high hills and the lowlands, when it gets hot, it gets really hot.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t here.”
“The winter’s worse,” continued Meinyt cheerfully. “The clouds are so thick there’s never any sun, and when there is it doesn’t warm anything up. The snow gets deeper and deeper, and, sometimes, for the last part of Ianus, we can barely get couriers between Boralieu and Tilbora.”
From the top of the rise, looking to the left of the road and to the west, Quaeryt could see another valley below, if not nearly so wide as the last, which held a smaller rise about two-thirds of the way across the valley toward the steeper—and largely forested—hills to the west.
“There’s Boralieu,” announced Meinyt.
Quaeryt blotted his forehead again and studied the “outpost.” It scarcely fit his conception of an outpost, looking more like a smaller version of the Telaryn Palace, except the walls were of a reddish brown stone, possibly sandstone, which was far easier to cut and quarry than granite or graystone. Even so, the walls had to be several hundred yards from end to end, and there were certainly a number of stone structures within the walls.
“How many companies are stationed here at any one time?”
“They’re really not stationed … they’re rotated in and out every month, even in winter, except sometimes there’s no rotation in the last weeks of Ianus and the first weeks of F
evier. The standing complement is two battalions, sometimes three, and a company of engineers.”
Ten companies? Close to twelve hundred men at the least? “How many outposts are there in the hill country?”
“Three others, but the others are smaller, just two companies of mounted foot and the engineers.”
“I’d heard about the hill brigands, but I didn’t realize that there was so much trouble here.”
“It’s not that there’s so much. It’s that they’re so scattered. You’d wear down the mounts and men trying to cover all the Boran Hills.”
“Are there any other hill areas in Tilbor that have so many problems?”
“There are a few holders in the northern woods, but we’ve only got a couple of battalions up there, and that seems to be enough. The High Holders there are more helpful in dealing with brigandage and lawlessness.”
Quaeryt nodded, but noted Meinyt’s views differed somewhat from what he’d heard from both Straesyr and Rescalyn. “And the companies at all the outposts are in addition to the ones at the Telaryn Palace?” He wanted to make sure he understood exactly how many companies there were and where they were.
“Well … they’re all part of the regiment … there are six battalions always at the palace, and that doesn’t count those at the outposts. The reason the companies at the outposts are rotated monthly is so all the companies get to deal with the troublemakers and so that no one has to stay more than a month at a time at any outpost.”
Quaeryt kept his mental mathematics to himself. “That way everyone is kept ready to deal with the hill types, and it doesn’t fall too heavily on one or two battalions.”
“Mostly,” replied Meinyt dryly. “Some of us end up doing a bit more. My company is always stationed at the northwest outpost in Ianus.”
“That’s why you were talking about dealing with brigands in the snow.”
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