And I'm short a dozen men-at-arms and a knight, he thought sourly. The infantry weren't that much of a much, but losing skilled lancers hurt. Men-at-arms had scarcity value, and knights also had relatives and comrades who mattered at court.
"So I reckoned the only thing I could do was get the word to you," the mercenary said, tugging at his forked beard. "There were a few too many of 'em for my boys to tackle. They didn't lose more 'n four, five all up when they ambushed your folks.
"'Course, a lot of them peons got it where the chicken got the ax while they was swarmin' over your boys. We had a ringside seat over there on the other side of the water."
He jerked a thumb at a file of nearly fifty bodies laid out in a row, all of them with the iron collars still on their necks.
"You're not here just to drink and screw the peon girls, Sheriff Bauer," Renfrew rumbled.
He knew his face intimidated most men, which was some compensation for the memory of pain. The fact that they were surrounded by the household knights of the Constable's personal guard shouldn't have hurt either, but Bauer was smiling slightly … or that might just be his own scar, which was as spectacular as any of the Constable's, and stood out more for being alone. Renfrew tapped the serrated steel head of his mace on his stirrup-iron with a chink … chink … sound and stared at him; the other's green eyes blinked innocently.
Aloud the Portland commander went on: "Or to sit in the saddle across a chest-deep creek and watch my men getting massacred while you pick lice out of your beards."
Bauer shrugged. "We ain't here to get kilt for no reason, neither. Your men weren't outnumbered much but they managed to lose that fight good and proper, the way them Rangers outsmarted 'em and took 'em by surprise; the only ones got out was the ones we took with us. Then I lost three good men chasin' the Rangers into the woods when they pulled out afterwards. You got too many woods around here for comfort. But that was fair business; like you say, we're here to fight, and I'm a man of my word. We're not here to get our asses kicked certain-sure."
Renfrew shrugged massive shoulders made more so by armor and padding. It was a fair point. The Pendleton area was theoretically under the Association now, but they couldn't afford to lean too hard on the men from there yet. They were volunteers from the winning faction the Protector had backed, and from a mercenary's point of view, Bauer had been making a perfectly valid argument. You couldn't expect hired men to throw themselves away on a forlorn hope just to do the enemy some damage, and you couldn't punish them if you wanted them to stick around. A mercenary leader's men were his capital assets, and if he lost too many of them then he had nothing to sell. This particular band were the Sheriff's friends and kinfolk and neighbors, as well.
In fact, that little pursuit was well handled. At least thanks to Bauer I've got some idea which way they went, and he did save a dozen crossbowtnen.
"OK," he said, turning and looking at the wagons again. "We'll salvage the metal; they can rework it at the foundries up in Oregon City. And get someone to pull those oxen out of the river and hang them up to drain. No sense in letting good meat spoil."
"My boys already got one ready to barbeque," Bauer said. "We can handle the rest iff'n you want us to."
He gave a vague, sketchy salute and wandered off. Renfrew looked over at his clerk. "Do up a report and have it ready for dispatch to the Lord Protector inside twenty minutes," he said.
That got the man out of earshot. He was probably reporting to the Church and certainly to the Chancellery as well; it was amazing how a country with fewer people than a medium-sized city in the old days could develop layers of competing institutions and factions. Then he turned to the young knight beside him who commanded his guards.
"Buzz, get that idiot Melford's body packed up and send it on back to his kin with the usual nonsense about how bravely he died."
"Why not leave it for the buzzards and the coyotes?" Sir Buzz Akers said.
He was one of the Constable's own vassals, whose father had seizin of a manor near the castle at Odell; Renfrew had known the family in the Society before the Change, and arranged to get them the estate when he led the conquest of the Hood Valley for the Association, back in the second Change Year. The father stayed home these days and did his military service as castle garrison commander, since he had a leg that would never work very well again; that happened when they were smoking a lunatic archer in green out of the ruins of Seattle on a salvage mission five years ago. The son was here to learn, as well as serve.
And because my family will need loyal, able vassals if I kick off too early. He hadn't married until after the Change; his countess was a gentle soul and his children were all young.
"I won't leave the carrion where it belongs because it would piss off his family," Renfrew said. "Otherwise that's just what I'd do. Who cares if the coyotes choke on it?" He looked up at the sky; three hours to sunset. "That fool didn't scout carefully enough, and it's cost us a day and that fort, God damn it!"
Akers nodded. "Are we going to bring up more timber?"
"Not in time enough to do much good. Without the steel cladding and braces it's too vulnerable; we'll do what we can with earthworks for now and get fancy later. You take over here, Buzz; I've got to get back and make sure that Piotr doesn't screw things while I'm gone. Though how he could foul up a straight advance to the Santiam with three hundred troops, God only knows."
"Sir Ernaldo's a good man," the knight observed.
"And if Piotr would listen to him, I wouldn't worry so much. I wish he was over fighting the Bearkillers. He hates them but he doesn't underestimate them. I've tried to hammer into his head how dangerous the kilties can be if you let them call the tune for the dance, but it won't sink in. Sometimes—"
He made a gesture with the steel mace to show how he'd like to hammer some sense into the younger nobleman. Akers laughed.
"It's a pity Old Man Stavarov's too important to diss," he said, shaking his head regretfully.
Renfrew nodded. That was one of the drawbacks of the Association's setup. His aide went on: "I think Piotr may underestimate the kilties because they look so fucking weird—all those kilts and plaids and bagpipes, and that dumb face-painting thing they do. And that screwy religion of theirs. All that makes it hard to take them seriously, unless you know what's under the make-believe."
Renfrew started to nod, and then looked around at his host of spearmen and crossbowmen, the armored knights with the plumes fluttering from their helmets and the pennants from their lances, the golden spurs on their heels and the quartered blazons on their shields, the peasant laborers in their tabards by the oxcarts and the monk-doctors seeing to the wounded …
Akers glanced at him oddly as he started to laugh. "What's so funny?" he enquired.
"How old were you at the Change, Buzz?"
"I'd just turned twelve … well, hell, you'd been giving me sword lessons for a year already then, my lord Count. Why do you ask?"
"If you have to ask why it's funny to say the Mackenzies look weird, you're too young to ever understand," the thickset, scar-faced man said. Then he looked southward and scowled.
"This whole plan is too fucking complicated," he muttered. "Not enough allowance for screwups and accidents, too many separate things we're trying to do all at once."
"My lord? If you think it's too complicated, why didn't you advise the Lord Protector and the Council of War?"
"Why do you think it isn't even more complicated, Buzz?" Renfrew grunted.
"This ambush couldn't have been anticipated," his aide remarked, obviously trying to be fair.
"Not exactly. Not the details. But Sir Buzz, when you're up against anyone good enough to give you a run for their money, you can be pretty damned sure that they're going to fuck you somehow at some point and the first you'll know about it is when the bunny dies. That's why you build in a margin of error; every added bit of fancy footwork means another opportunity for the other side. We're not fighting some pissant village militia in
Lower Butt-Scratch, equipped with baseball bats and kitchen knives tied on broomsticks and old traffic signs for shields. Not this time. I get this feeling I'm trying to juggle too many balls with not enough hands."
"Not to mention the kilties are tricky," Akers said. "Christ, how I wish we'd managed to wipe them out when they were small, back in the first Change Year. Now those bastards have plans of their own."
Renfrew forbore to mention that Akers had been a page then, and just getting used to the idea that all this wasn't a tournament or a trip to the Pennsic War with his folks, and that he'd never be going on to high school.
Instead he shrugged. "Right. The enemy, that dirty dog, usually does have a plan of his own. That's why we call him the enemy. It's a mistake to think your plan isn't going to trip over their plan."
Such frankness was slightly risky, since it was the Lord Protector's orders they were critiquing, but Sir Buzz and his family were the Count of Odell's own sworn vassals, not the Lord Protector's. The Grand Constable was Arminger's own vassal himself, but Norman needed him nearly as much as vice versa.
And if he wanted to avoid his noblemen saying what they thought sometimes, he should have based this setup on Byzantium or the Chin Legalists, not William the Bastard's Normandy.
He slapped his gauntlets into the palm of his left hand, then began to pull them on. "All right, let's get to work. Keep a sharp eye out and don't let your lancers get in bowshot of any cover without beating it clear first. Those damned Rangers are too tricky for comfort and the kilties aren't much better."
Dun Juniper, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9
Epona turned her head and butted Rudi Mackenzie affectionately in the chest. He laughed and shooed a horsefly away from her nostril; it was starting to get warm enough for them. Then he hugged her neck as she tried to nibble at his hair, the warm scent of horse all around him. The long dark stable smelled of horses in general, manure-musk, the sweet hay stored above their heads, the dry sneeze-scent of straw and sawdust on the ground, of liniment and leather. Light came through the big double doors down at the other end, or through knotholes that had fallen out of the fir boards, spearing into the dimness in shafts of yellow swimming with dust motes. Now and then a horse would shift a foot with a soft, hollow clop of horn and steel on the dirt floor, or make wet tearing and crunching sounds as it stripped grass-and-clover fodder through the wooden bars of a crib and ate.
We did a lot of shoveling out, Rudi thought virtuously. And we oiled all that tack and pitched the hay down and groomed all the horses that're left. And got all that schoolwork done this morning. I deserve some time for myself. 'Sides, Epona'll get antsy if she doesn't get a run. She needs to run.
Besides, it would help him forget that his mother and so many of his friends were away at war.
Mathilda's big black tomcat Saladin looked at him with bored yellow eyes; the feline didn't think it was warm enough on the ground, and was curled up on the withers of the black mare. The two animals had become friends, which was strange, since Epona still wasn't friendly much with anyone but him, and usually responded to small annoying things with an uncomplicated stomp. But then, she and Saladin had come to Dun Juniper about the same time, last Lugh-nasadh, and they'd both lived in the stables; Saladin ran the gauntlet every evening so he could cadge stuff at dinner and sleep on Mathilda's bed, but the Hall cats were still hissing and spitting and generally making him unwelcome every chance they got.
Mathilda was off in one corner of the loose-box, sitting cross-legged on a bale of hay and watching him currycomb his horse, with a book open on her lap—he could see an archer in a helmet and jack drawing a longbow on the cover. He recognized his own copy of The Free Companions with the Wyeth illustrations, a gift from his great-great-uncle to Juniper before he was born, and from her to him; he'd read it with Matti while he was in the tail end of his convalescence, restless with the orders that kept him quiet and in bed so much.
It was a great story, and the people and everything in it were a lot more understandable than most books from before the Change. Sir Nigel had told him more stories about the people in it, too; he'd had more books by the same writer when he was a kid, a man named Donan Coyle.
Two big, shaggy, brown dogs named Ulf and Fenra were curled up with her, siblings from a litter old Cuchulain had sired with a mastiff bitch three years ago. Ulf had his head on her feet, thumping his tail absently when she patted him now and then, and Fenra was pretending to be asleep, but occasionally sneaking a mock-casual peek at Saladin and heaving a wistful sigh. She was far too respectful of Epona's hooves and probably of the cat's claws to do anything about it, though.
"She needs a run," Rudi said to the air, clearing his throat to add emphasis. "Epona needs a run."
Aoife and Liath were on guard, which for the past half hour had meant sitting in the next loose-box; they'd been talking softly until a few moments ago.
He cleared his throat again and spoke more loudly: "I said, Epona needs a run! I'm gonna take her out."
A giggle came from the loose-box beyond this one, hidden by the barrier between, planks as tall as a grown man's chest. Then Aoife cleared her throat in turn and said from there, a bit breathless: "Didn't Sally say something about an arithmetic assignment your crop of little goblins had to have ready by Monday?"
"Aoife, I haven't told anyone about that poem you wrote about Liath. And it was really soppy. I bet everyone would laugh and laugh and laugh when they heard you said her eyes were like two pools of—"
"Poem?" Mathilda said, looking up with interest from the book.
He felt a little guilty about blackmailing Aoife—she'd been using scraps of smooth bark for practice and probably hadn't thought anyone would go to the trouble of picking them out of the Hall's kitchen-kindling box. On the other hand, he was a ten-year-old kid … nearly ten … and she was twenty-one, so it was only fair that he was sneaky now and then. Aoife had been so caught up in composing it she barely complained when Uncle Chuck—her father— made her and her friend stay here on guard duty rather than ride with the First Levy.
"Poem?" another voice from the other loose-box said, even more breathless. "You wrote a poem for me?"
"Hey, I'll tell you about it later, all right, honeybunch?" Silence, and then Aoife rose and came around to the door of the stall, brushing straw out of her dark red hair and off her kilt. "OK, sprout. Just on the meadow, though. It's a couple of hours till dinner, anyway."
Epona tossed her head as if she knew what was happening, and tossed it again and stamped a foot eagerly as Rudi and Mathilda started to get the tack ready. The big black mare had the loose-box all to herself, and did even when the stables were full; there were three horses in the next, though. The girl's favorite horse was out with the levy, who had first call, but a good solid cob was available from the remains of the common pool kept for Clan business; it crunched a carrot enthusiastically, and then sighed as the saddle blanket was tossed over its back. They led it ambling over to a mounting block so that they could saddle it.
"Lazy old thing!" Mathilda said, shaking a finger at the bay gelding. "See if I give you any more carrots!"
"Well, how would you feel if someone put an iron bar in your mouth and made you run around carrying them on your back?" Rudi said reasonably.
"But that's a horse's job," Mathilda said. "Look at Epona—she'd put on her own tack if she could."
"That's Epona," Rudi pointed out.
"Yeah," Mathilda agreed. "I think she could talk, if she wanted to."
"She does talk, to me. But for most of them, it's just what they have to do cause we tell 'em to," Rudi said. "What they really like is hanging out with their herd, and eating."
He lifted his own saddle—both the children were using a light pad type— off its rest and carried it over to Epona; she stood patiently while he clambered up on a box and laid it carefully on her back over the saddle blanket. The tall mare seemed to be on the brink of a run even
standing still; she was glossy black, her mane combed to a silky fall; she was also sixteen hands, and better than a thousand pounds, for all that she was as agile as the sulky Saladin, now looking down at them resentfully from a cross-timber where he'd jumped when pushed off his equine heating pad. Aoife leaned against a wooden pillar with her arms crossed, chewing on a straw and offering comments as he arranged the straps and buckles.
Epona stood still for it, though, with no more movement than shifting weight from foot to foot, not even swelling her belly out when the girth was buckled on. He didn't use a bit, just a hackamore bridle; Epona needed no compulsion to go the way she should.
Liath appeared a few seconds later, blushing furiously when Rudi made a languishing kissy-face at her behind Aoife's back. The two adults carefully checked the harness on both horses, then nodded before picking out mounts and getting started on their own heavier war-saddles, what the oldsters called a Western type. When the horses were ready they pulled on their own harness; padded jackets with elbow-length mail sleeves and leather-lined mail collars and the brigandines that went over that. The torso armors had a heavy, smooth, liquid motion as the warriors swung them on and buckled the straps on their left flanks, making a subdued chinking sound as the small rectangular plates shifted between the inner and outer layers of green-dyed leather.
"Good job, sprout," Aoife said, running her fingers over Epona's harness without quite touching it—the tall warmblood mare still didn't like anyone but Rudi laying a hand on her. "You've got a natural talent for horses. Yours is pretty good too, Matti. You're really picking it up."
"I'm glad I've learned how to do it for myself," Matti said. "Now I'll always know how."
Unexpectedly, shy Liath spoke up with a grin and a joke as she strung her long yew bow: "What don't you have a natural talent for, Rudi?"
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