Leaf and Branch (New Druids Series Vol 1 & 2)

by Donald D. Allan

  Earlier this morning, he went to the Protector's spacious offices and chambers to request an audience in order to discuss the finer details of the mission, but to his feigned surprise, he had been stopped by the Protector's own secretary and deferred to seek the Advisor instead. He expressed his displeasure at the slight, making sure to be heard, stating loudly that a man of his position, as head of the Lord Protector's Guard, had unobstructed access to the Protector, and more importantly he should never be tasked with something so trivial. He hoped he fooled whoever was listening. The smirks from the secretary and later from the Advisor all led him to believe they bought his act of displeasure. Of course he knew the truth of it all, the game to keep the Protector's involvement at arm's length and to continue his efforts to discredit the Bairstow brothers. And so, he played his part and frowned when required, acted surprised when expected, and when the Advisor finally revealed to him what the true nature of the mission actually was, he gasped in shock and eagerly agreed to be sworn to absolute secrecy. Interestingly, the Advisor confirmed that the gold had been found. The turnaround should be quick and he would be home before Yule. He left the Protector's spacious offices laughing in private.

  Brent's horse took that moment to shuffle sideways a step and attempted to lower its head to graze on the grass that grew thick beside the road and Brent quickly jerked the reins back. The horse chuffed and gave up its sly attempt and then, cheekily, turned its head to look back at its rider. Brent ignored his horse. It has far too much character, he thought. Then to spite himself he patted the strong neck, and the horse looked away. Brent turned his head to look to the parapet above the gate and quickly spied the unmistakable form of his brother gazing down at him from the heights. There was no need to acknowledge him and he turned to look far down the road. The heat from the day was already rising, and he felt sweat trickle down his back inside his leathers and chain. He, like his men, was dressed simply for the road, but they wore their armour and adornments that marked them as men of the Lord Protector's Guard and the Army of the Realm. There was little chance that they would meet with hostiles on the road, but they were prepared nonetheless. His brother had routine patrols that kept the peace in the Realm and the King's Roads were safe, especially for military men.

  Brent reserved some concern about how the two groups of men would get along. Already he could hear the men passing insults between each other and jostling for position within their ranks. The men of the Army were pissed at the task they felt beneath them and the Guardsmen were angry at having to leave the comfort of the castle. This was unheard of, after all, for Guard and Army to mix like this and Brent knew it would be challenging to keep the peace. These men fought each other routinely in pubs. He did not know Major Gillespie, and when his brother had expressed his concern about his nature on hearing his name, Brent knew he was being set up further by the Protector. Gillespie was not one of his brother's trusted men in the Army and the Marshall had intentionally halted any possibility of Gillespie being further promoted on account of acts of misconduct and insubordination.

  Brent sighed internally. His own men were not to be trusted either, he knew. The selection of the men had been left to the major, and they were all of a similar ilk. Changing the men at such short notice would expose that he knew far too much and so he had accepted them all without fuss, other than a few simple 'tut–tuts' to the Advisor to express his concern when he had been shown the list of men. He knew this was part of the Protector's design to rush this quickly and place men the Protector trusted into the group. Brent watched as the sergeant from the Army berated a guardsman, questioning whether he knew the front end of a horse from the rear end. Brent eyed the head of his horse and was thankful that his brother had insisted over the years he maintain his horsemanship skills. The Guardsmen would soon be suffering, much to the Army men's humour – and his own, he had to admit.

  The men in the Lord Protector's Guard were not equal to the men of the Army. It was like comparing two kinds of fruit. In some ways the Guard was better than the Army. They were highly trained men specific to a variety of close in weapons and hand–to–hand combat. They were skirmishers trained to fight in narrow corridors and rooms – to protect the Lord Protector even at the expense of their own lives, if required. They were sworn to that. What they were not was horsemen, or cavalry, or archers or any of the other skill sets so common to the men in the Army. His men could ride horses – anyone could. No, the problem was fighting on them. That took years of training and his men simply didn't have it. Training to fight on horses was the purview of the Army. The Army men were soldiers first, trained to fight in lines on the field or high on horseback, all while maintaining the discipline of the line of offense or defense. The common saying was that the Guard was water and the Army stone. An apt analogy, thought Brent. His job would be to find a way to get them to work together.

  And so, after consulting with Gillespie, Brent had ordered the Guard to cart duty. Some would ride but be rotated through on the carts throughout the journey. There would be grumbling from the Army. The cart detail was deemed the sweet spot on the road. It allowed for riding in comfort and was much preferred over sitting on horseback for hours. After a time he would change that rotation, but only after the Guard grew more familiar with working with the horses. Even camp detail would be harsh and foreign to the Guard, except for what they remembered from their earlier days in the Army. All Guardsmen came from the Army ranks. Typically they were the best the Army had to offer – or sometimes the worst, but they were quickly turned out. And the Army regulars hated them for it. Elitist prigs, they called them, or worse. And there is truth to that, Brent admitted to himself.

  Now it was the Army's chance to shine. Life on the road was a common task for them and they would enjoy watching the discomfort of the Guard. Brent had already warned Gillespie that he would not tolerate any dissension in the ranks. Punishment would be swift and harsh. They had to get along. They had to be as quick as they could on this mission. Their orders were clear – they were to return before the New Year – at all costs.

  In truth, he knew there was no need to rush to Jaipers. The garrison in Jaipers was led, his brother told him, by a good and trustworthy man. The coins would be safe until his arrival and Brent should have been afforded the time to properly organise and prepare for this journey. But his orders were made all too clear: he was to be on the move before noon. The major, surprisingly, had them all ready to move well in advance of noon and if the men were angry at the short notice they hid it well, too well in fact. They seemed the opposite, almost eager to get moving. That too, did not bode well. Brent felt almost like an outsider to his group. The men in the Guard were not well known to him. They were men from the fringes of the Guard. Not the aggressive kind vying for notice and promotion. Which is not the norm, thought Brent. Guardsmen are all alphas and fighting their way out of the Army to the elite Guard and then fighting their way upward in the ranks was the norm. These men were different. They kept to themselves and Brent simply didn't trust them. The deck was stacked against him and he knew it.

  A shrill whistle blew through the fingers of the major followed by sharp orders to mount up and the men quickly responded, loading their gear into the three carts and mounting their horses. Two guardsmen per cart climbed up onto the bench seats and waited patiently for the order to start the journey. One of the carts, he knew, contained all their rations for the journey to Jaipers. Once there, they would restock and probably clean the town out. One more cart contained their extra equipment, weapons and armour. Blacksmiths in small towns knew nothing of smithing weapons and armour and so they carried their own replacements.

  The last cart was for Redgrave's belongings and carried a large, heavy strong box for which only Brent carried the key; a key handed to him by the Advisor in private. With the key came the orders that none knew but himself: Redgrave was suspected to have a significant amount of coin on him and Brent was to oversee its covert and safe return to the castle
and hand it over directly to the Accountant. The Advisor informed him it was the money that Redgrave had stolen all those years ago from the Treasury during his acts of treason. Brent feigned a suitably shocked and awed response. The tale was not far from the truth, but the timing was wrong.

  Redgrave stole from the Treasury months after the so–called treasonous acts. A strange revenge in hindsight, Brent often thought, but one that obviously meant something to Redgrave. A slow smile crept up on Brent's face. Without that theft he would never have risen to General of the Guard. Marshall Ran Pawley had disappeared the same time Redgrave was stealing the Treasury. The rage of the Protector had been a sight to see. They had scoured the entire castle and Munsten looking for evidence but all efforts to find Redgrave and the gold had failed. No one thought to look in Brent's residence. If they had, they would have found Redgrave sitting cozily and smugly in his loft with a rather large chest of gold coins beside him.

  With Ran gone and the Protector devoid of coin to bribe his people, both Brent and his brother had advanced quickly in their careers. They owed their current rank and positions in the Army and Guard to Redgrave. Redgrave had gloated and admitted to having killed Ran. He described it in excruciating detail that turned Brent's stomach. Ran Pawley had not died well. Bill had also tried to reach the Protector but was forced to abandon the effort. He said he had been too tightly guarded and that he could not kill those who did not deserve to die – and certainly not innocent Guardsmen doing their duty. So the Protector had lived, much to Redgrave's visible dismay.

  Redgrave had shown Brent the inside of the chest. It took him hours to remove it from the Protector but when pressed, Redgrave would not explain how he had achieved it.

  "This," Redgrave had said, waving an arm over the chest. "Was only a tiny portion of the Protector's stolen wealth. A sizeable portion," he chortled gleefully, "was safely hidden deep within the castle itself."

  When pressed, all that Redgrave would say was that he would take this small portion with him, spreading the coins across the land to distract the hunt. Redgrave would keep the Protector searching for years for his gold, never knowing the bulk of it lay beneath his very feet. Seeing Redgrave with a smile on his face was so out of the ordinary that Brent could easily recall it without effort. He smiled at the memory.

  Remembering he stood out in the open with eyes on him, Brent wiped the smile from his face. After all, it wouldn't do to be seen grinning like a fool when he was supposed to be pissed off. He adjusted his open–faced helmet and checked that his sword was secured to the saddle in easy reach and waited, looking around again in feigned angry boredom.

  Over the years, Brent had almost forgotten Redgrave until unexpectedly, he had received a letter from him with a simple request. He had been looking for a coin with a strange marking on it. Coincidentally, just the day before, one of his officer's presented him with that exact same coin; found when he had taken residence in one of the better chambers in the castle. One owned and left vacant when that Arbor woman had fled the castle following the coup. His man found it lodged in a crack in the mortar in the corner of the room. He thought it peculiar and had given it to Brent out of curiosity. Brent had given him a gold piece in exchange and asked him to keep it quiet. It was a man he could trust, he was certain of that, and he was sure he would keep it quiet. Brent was the godfather to his oldest child after all. He had thought it strange at the time that Redgrave would be searching for the coin so soon after its discovery, but he thought nothing of it at the time and he had simply sent the coin immediately to Redgrave by courier and hadn't thought of it until recent events. He now was starting to wonder if somehow his death was linked to the coin and whether or not his officer had spoken to anyone about it. A second shrill whistle from his major interrupted his thoughts. Lord, that is annoying, he thought. You whistle to dogs and horses, not men.

  Brent watched the major take a quick trot on horseback along the line of men, looking sharply for any last second faults, and finding none, stopped next to next to him and saluted sharply. Brent returned the salute.

  "Ready, major?" he asked.

  "Sir, aye," was the simple reply from an emotionless face.

  "Let's be about it," he ordered and Brent took one last look over his shoulder at Munsten, and at the castle that loomed high in its centre and wondered if the Protector looked out now. He nodded to his brother, still high on the wall, and then turned and spurred his horse to a slow walk down the road. A sharp order to move out came from the major and behind him his men followed in his wake and he heard the creak and rattle of the carts as the horses took the strain. A tethered train of replacement horses took up the rear. Shouts from his men beside him cleared the people off the road as it spread out before them.

  Earlier that morning, shortly after Bairstow had left his outer office in a temper, the Lord Protector John Healy had received Major Gillespie into his inner office and bade him sit. He was settled in behind his desk and looked the man over. He was only one of his many spies in the Army but he had not truly used him with sensitive issues in the past. Certainly he had never invited him into his inner office before. But this was a critical matter and would require some direct involvement with the man to make certain he understood the mission.

  The major sat confidently and quietly under his gaze. That was a good sign.

  "You understand what is at stake here, major?" he asked after a moment.

  "Sir," he replied sharply. "Yes, sir."

  "Good," he said simply. "Do not disappoint me. Bairstow does not return. I'll have you transferred to the Guard on your return. I suspect a man of your talents will rise quickly in the Guard."

  Gillespie nodded and fought to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up into a smile.

  "Ensure that none tell the tale of this adventure. Am I understood, major?"

  The major openly grinned at the Lord Protector. "Yes, sir," he said. "No witnesses."

  An hour after Brent's troop had disappeared over the horizon, a rider hunched over on the back of a piebald horse made his way carefully past the southern gate, and was unopposed by the guards. The rider was cloaked despite the heat of the day and nothing about him was exceptional other than it seemed that the various people lined up along the road, waiting to gain entry into the city, failed to notice him as he passed. Their eyes would slide off him without seeing him. If asked, few of the people would have remembered spying him even seconds after his passage. And those that noted his passage kept it to themselves and shuddered, but without knowing why they did so. The only thing people remembered or noticed was that for a moment the air grew chiller despite the heat of the day.

  Once the traveler had cleared the gate and the number of travellers on the road had dwindled to nothing, the rider pulled back the cowl of his cloak and stopped his casting, and suddenly appeared with his horse in the bright light of the day. A crow beside the road, pulling with its beak at the rotted meat of a long deceased rabbit, took flight, cawing loudly in startled fright. The horse shuddered underneath him as the powers that had hidden them both dissipated back into the earth. The rider grinned despite the weariness that now flooded over him and thanked God for his gift. He sat up straighter in his saddle and pulled off his cloak to allow the breeze to dry the sweat that soaked and covered him. He wiped the sweat that beaded his face and looked down the long, empty road. He didn't need to cloak himself so heavily for his power to work but he felt safer knowing should his power fail, he would not be recognisable.

  He fumbled for his water skin tied to his saddle and took a deep draught to quench his thirst. The shaking in his hands would pass as his energy returned to him. Using his powers did not come easily. It caused an indescribable pain to flood him. It always felt like something was tearing deeply inside his body. Pain was something he knew well. It was the cost of doing God's work. Shivering in delight, the rider looked up and down the King's road and satisfied that he had left the city unnoticed, heeled the ribs of his horse with his so
ft–soled, black boots and the horse responded by breaking into a swift canter.

  Seth Farlow rose in the stirrups and let the horse move gently beneath him, quickly putting miles between Munsten and himself as he followed behind General Brent Bairstow.

  Twenty

  On the Road to Belger 900 A.C.

  I FOUND THAT having a fixed destination in front of me was making my trip that much more enjoyable. In all the years before I had wandered more or less where I wanted never giving too much thought to anything more than where to go the next day or the day after that. I was free to travel from one interesting copse of trees to a particularly engaging outcropping of rocks. Whatever caught my fancy at the time and moment. Truth be told, more often than naught, it was the herbs that pulled me from one place to the next. Now, as I placed one foot in front of the other and slowly paced out and reduced the distance to my goal, I found that each step was eagerly placed before the last. Slowly and surely, the distance behind me stretched and the distance before me dwindled. The journey was exciting to me and this strong sense of purpose drove me like no other time in my past.