by John Ringo
“Agreed,” Kane said with a sigh. “And bow archers are even harder. I’d love to have a squadron of them. But this area will never develop the skills; too much woodland, not enough plains.”
“True. But I want you to start working on it. They don’t have to be full, professional quality cavalry, just the best that you can do. Start with the group that helped in the roundup. The main thing I need is cavalry scouts and those just need to be able to find their way around and stay on a horse.”
“Okay, I’ll start with Herzer,” Kane said with a grin.
“Well, you’ll have to discuss that with him,” Talbot temporized and then chuckled. “He’d probably make a damned fine archer from evidence, Jody has been asking to have him back on his clearing crew, you want him for cavalry and from what I saw of him in my forge the other day he’d make a damned fine smith. The only person who’s not asking for him is John Miller who called him ‘a hack-handed idiot.’ ”
“So who gets him?” Kane asked with a smile; the sawmill manager was well known to the old re-enactors.
“He told me he wants to be a legionnaire,” Edmund said with a shrug.
“Does he know about the cavalry?”
“No, but I doubt you’ll change his mind,” Talbot replied. “Actually, I think that once they’re done training, we’ll probably want some of the archers and infantry to get used to riding. But not as true ‘cavalry.’ ”
“Okay, I’ll work on it,” Kane said with another grin. “Even without Herzer.”
“The second item is like unto the first,” Edmund said, starting to walk the horse sedately back down the hill. “I need someone to organize the militia. You can delegate that as you wish, but you’re well known in the ‘fighter’ portion of the reenactors. And I just don’t have time. I have Robert for the archers and Gunny for the legionnaires but I need someone to organize the disorganized militia.”
“Fun, are you giving me the cavalry in compensation?”
“Something like that,” Edmund chuckled. “Again, you can delegate it to others, but I want you to manage it in your munificent free time.”
“Since the roundup I’ve actually had free time,” Kane grumbled. “So much for that.”
“We’ve all got our crosses to bear,” Edmund said as they reached the flats. They were about a kilometer from the fences and that caused Edmund to grin. “Race you.”
* * *
“Herzer, you have visitors,” Rachel said, from the doorway of his bedroom.
Herzer looked up and smiled as Courtney and Mike came in the room and Rachel faded away. “Ah, visitors from far away lands,” he said, setting down the book he had been reading. The visit to Edmund’s forge had, not too unexpectedly, taken it out of him and he had suffered a small relapse. But he was feeling well again and getting tired of being confined. Fortunately, Master Talbot had a fine collection of old books so while the time was not passing pleasantly, it was passing.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Courtney asked.
“Never mind,” Herzer chuckled. “I’d say ‘pull up a chair’ but it’s more like ‘pull up the chair.’ I haven’t been getting a lot of visitors,” he continued. “So tell me all the news.”
“How are you feeling?” Courtney asked, instead.
“Fine. I wish they’d let me out of here.”
“You took a really bad hit,” Mike said, leaning on the wall and crossing his arms. “You nearly punched out on us.”
“Yeah, well, that was then, this is now,” Herzer replied with a frustrated tone.
“Trust me, it’s better than working,” Courtney sighed, tossing her hair. “That’s why you haven’t been getting many visitors; we’ve all been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And having seen a chicken with its head cut off, that now has a whole new meaning to me.”
Herzer chuckled at the image and shook his head. “So, come on, what’s been happening? I understand I missed quite a party at the big slaughter.”
“Yeah, well, we did gorge ourselves for a couple of days there,” Mike admitted.
“But we paid for it,” Courtney said with a shudder.
“Pretty bad?” Herzer asked.
“You know that creek behind the slaughter buildings?” Courtney said and waited for a nod. “It was running red with blood. We ended up with about six hundred carcasses and it was like an assembly line. Hanging them, skinning them, cutting them up, separating out the guts…”
“Offal,” Mike interjected. “It sounds better. Especially when you end up eating it.”
“But we rounded up a lot of feral domestics,” Courtney pointed out. “And tons of food that’s being smoked. And that’s part of what we wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“The class has been breaking up,” Courtney said. “Emory ended up going to work with Jody clearing land and burning charcoal and Shilan has joined the weavers. We’re in the farming portion of the class but… after that we’re planning on quitting as well and we’re nearly done. They’re starting to parcel out the land for farms and there’s a lottery for the domestics that were captured. Anyone can apply for land and everyone who was involved in the roundup gets tickets for the lottery.”
“You see,” Mike said. “They’re going to take all the animals and parcel them out. There were a lot rounded up, but not enough for everyone to have what they want and everybody wants certain kinds.”
“Am I in this lottery?” Herzer asked with a smile.
“Uh, yeah,” Courtney replied with an embarrassed expression. “And we kind of wondered…”
“What I was planning on doing with whatever I got?” Herzer asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I didn’t even know it was going on, so this is all kind of new.”
“You can apply for a land parcel, too,” Mike said. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. But if you apply for one that is next to ours, I can try to break and work both of them. You have to pay for the land in increasing size of payments. I don’t know if I’d be able to work both of them, but I could try. And if it does work, I can split whatever profits we got off of it with you. And that would give you another source of income. Someday.”
Herzer thought about it for a minute and then nodded his head. “Okay, hang on a second. Tell you what I’ll do. Courtney, there’s a pouch in the cupboard. Could you pull it out and toss it to me?”
She handed it to him and he dumped out the tokens that were in it onto the bed.
“I’m going to go for soldier,” he said, sorting out the money that was in it into full tokens and change. “And from what I’ve been told, everything is going to be issued to me. But I got paid for the day before the roundup, the roundup and three days of convalescence. As a ‘skilled rider,’ no less. So I got a bonus on the roundup.” He pulled out a full token and change and handed the rest to Courtney. “You guys can have whatever I get off of the lottery and I’ll file a land grant alongside yours. That,” he continued, pointing to the chits, “is a loan. There ought to be enough there to get you a few spare farm tools. And a few decent tools might a big difference.”
“Thank you,” Courtney said, looking at the money as if it was fairy gold.
“Aaah, I don’t know about this,” Mike said. “I was going to ask if you could do a loan on the lottery animals, but I don’t know about this…”
“Oh, hush,” Courtney snapped. “Just say ‘thank you,’ you dummy.”
“Seriously,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “You don’t even have to say thank you. Like you said, you’re going to try to work both farms. If you can do it, and I’ve got a feeling you’re going to do well at it, then long term that means that not only is there, as you put it, a little extra income coming in, but in the old days soldiers used to dream of retiring and buying a farm. And I’ll already have one!”
At that Mike laughed and shook his head but he obviously wasn’t convinced.
“And on the cash I said it was a loan
. You pay me back when you’ve got the money, but not until you’re free and clear on everything else. I know you’re good for it.”
“Okay,” Mike said, finally, shrugging his shoulders. “With that I can get some stuff that will help out. Woodworking tools, parts for a stump-jumping plow, spare rope. And if the lottery doesn’t work out, we can put it all on a draft animal.”
“So how’s farm life suit you?” Herzer asked, changing the subject.
“Hard,” Courtney replied. “I mean it’s just constant. There’s always something to get done. But…” she shrugged. “I agree with Mike; it’s better than the other stuff we’ve done.”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I could probably do woodworking or construction, something like that. But you do all of that with farming.”
“Would you go back?” Herzer asked, crinkling his brow. “I mean, if everything suddenly turned back on? If you said ‘genie’ and your genie appeared?”
Mike thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. There are days when I wake up and wonder where I am for a second ’cause it’s all wrong, then it all comes back to me. And, man, those are some rotten days.”
“Yeah, me too,” Herzer said. But there was an odd note in his voice.
“Why am I unconvinced?” Courtney asked with a chuckle.
“Ah, it’s hard to explain,” Herzer admitted. “If I could just throw a switch and turn everything back on and have it go back to the way that it was, would I do it? Yeah.” He sighed again and shrugged. “But. Hah! There’d be days I’d wake up and wonder where I was for a second; then it would all come back to me. And those would be some really bad days.”
“That’s weird,” Mike said.
“Yeah, well, it’s a long story.”
“And one you’re not telling today,” Rachel said from the doorway.
“Oh, Rachel, come on!”
“The term is bed rest, not bed activity,” Rachel said, then blushed. “That wasn’t what I meant to say.”
“I couldn’t tell,” Courtney laughed.
“I am resting, look!” Herzer said, leaning back in the bed. “See. Rest.”
“Do you know what this idiot did the other day?” Rachel asked Courtney.
“I haven’t a clue,” the girl replied with a smile. “What did this idiot do?”
“He helped my father in the forge for four hours.”
“Oh, now that was a good idea!” Courtney said.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Herzer complained. “So I got a little headache.”
“I think you used the term ‘blinding’ at one point?” Rachel asked. “Something about purple spots? Bed rest. Bed rest.”
“Okay, we get the point,” Mike said. “We’re going.”
“Herzer, I’ll write up those agreements and get them over to you,” Courtney said. “Thanks again. Get somebody else to look them over for you and make sure it’s what you want before you sign them. Then I’ll get them registered at the courthouse.”
“Okay,” Herzer replied. “I trust you guys. But if you insist on getting it written down…”
* * *
Herzer wasn’t sure if it was by intent to make sure he was in the first class, but the day after Dr. Daneh stated that he was “fully recovered” the first call for recruits went out.
Herzer was at the recruiting station just after dawn the next day, walking up and looking around with interest in the predawn half-light. The recruiting station was a simple table in front of a group of tents, most of which had lanterns hanging in front of them. There were about a half dozen standing around who had beat him there. One of them was Deann.
“Decided to go for soldier?” he said, walking over and sticking out his hand, grinning.
“We were working in the tanneries,” Deann admitted, taking it and shaking it hard. “I decided I had to find something else when the head tanner pointed out that once you lost your sense of smell things got a hundred percent better.”
Herzer chuckled and looked around at the group, which was about half youngsters like himself and Deann and about half older. There wasn’t much physical difference in the individuals, but it was noticeable in little ways, stance, gestures. With modern technology, people didn’t start to get “old” until they were well past two hundred. Herzer wondered how much of that was “built in” and would stick and how much was nannite generated and would go away with the Fall. For now, the “oldsters” seemed to be holding up.
They waited in companionable silence as others filtered up. Deann was the only one he knew by name, but several of the others nodded their heads at him as if they recognized him, which was odd. He was having a hard time adjusting to lots of people knowing him on sight.
“You’re still the talk of the town,” Deann said, chuckling quietly after one of the older arrivals had come by and tapped Herzer on the shoulder wordlessly.
“All I did was herd a few cattle,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Bull,” she answered with a grin. “I made five chits off of you myself. Nobody thought you’d survive the first tiger. The way you were charging around, nobody thought you’d last half an hour.”
Herzer’s face worked but he didn’t reply because about then the tent flap opened, revealing a figure in armor in the doorway.
“Step up to the table, give your true name, true age and answer the questions,” the figure said brusquely. He stepped to the side as two women took up seats at the table.
Herzer waited for the line to form and took a place near Deann. The process was slow and he realized there was probably going to be a lot of waiting around today.
Finally it was his turn and he stepped up to the table. The sun was up by then and his belly rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t gotten any breakfast this morning.
“Herzer Herrick” he said. “Seventeen.” Barely, he didn’t add.
“Okay, I think I can put you down as experienced with horses and a bow.” The woman chuckled.
“I’m not an expert…” he temporized.
“Not an expert, got it. Do you have any other skills you would like to list?”
“I am trained in individual swordsmanship,” Herzer said. “Enhanced reality training. Some with a spear.”
“And lance,” the woman said.
“Not lance,” the figure in armor said. “That was luck as much as anything. His seat was bloody awful.”
Herzer cast a quick glance at the man. He was an oldster, he had white hair and wrinkles even, but he was a hard-ass, that was clear, wearing a loricated armor, armor made of curved plates that overlapped like the carapace of a centipede. Herzer wanted to dispute his statement, at least mentally, but he really couldn’t. It had been lucky. The man was just being brutally honest. And astute.
“Do you know the fashioning of arms and armor?”
“No, I didn’t even put it on myself in training,” Herzer admitted. “And I don’t know that much about caring for horses. I can ride, though.”
“That is true,” the armored figure said.
“Anything else?” the woman asked.
“No.”
“Step into the tent and follow the directions you are given,” she said, handing him a folder. “Hang onto that,” the woman continued in a rote voice. “You’ve just become a record and that is it.”
* * *
Herzer held onto his file and passed through the stations. There was a test of reading and writing, a simple test of strength involving mostly lifting various weights and then a physical examination. He submitted to this last with good grace; at this point he was so used to being poked and prodded that it just didn’t seem his day was complete unless someone told him to stick out his tongue and say “aaaah.” The examiner was one of the nurses being trained by Dr. Daneh who had turned up from time to time during his convalescence. She was a pretty enough brunette with the annoying habit of talking with her teeth clenched. She had been friendly enough during her visits but was professionally distant during the examina
tion. Right up until the end when she chuckled.
“Given that Dr. Daneh did a complete exam a couple of days ago, this one seems pretty unnecessary,” she said, making some notes on a piece of paper and slipping it into his file.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Herzer replied with a smile.
“Well, other than needing some exercise, you appear to be perfectly adequate sword fodder,” she said with a frown in reply. “Do me a favor and don’t get yourself killed. We’ve got a lot of work invested in you.”
“Well, since you care so much, I’ll try really hard not to.”
“Okay,” she smiled. “Through that door.”
Herzer passed through the door into the outside, finally, and saw a small group of recruits milling around, one of whom was Deann. There was a man in mail, light helm and leather bracers who seemed to be in charge of the group and he nodded when Herzer appeared.
“That’s twenty,” the man said. “You lot, follow me.”
The area behind the examination tents was a large, recently cleared, stump-covered field in the northeast quadrant of the Raven’s Mill valley. One end of it had been set up with archery butts at various distances, each with a number at the top, and the man led them to a table where a series of bows were laid out. At one end of the table was a water bucket and a half barrel filled with arrows, the fletchings in multiple colors and patterns. To Herzer’s eye something about the fletchings looked wrong.
“My name is Malcolm D’Erle,” the man said when the group was gathered around. “Today I will be testing you on your ability to draw and fire bows. We’re not really expecting anyone to be able to hit anything. We just want to see how much basic capability you have to draw and fire.”
Herzer saw that, blessedly, there were some gloves and bracers laid out with the bows.