“I don’t think he likes milksops,” said Annis meditatively. “Which were just as well; for methinks I’d find it hard to be one.”
It was several days before Annis suddenly became aware that sword practice was hurting less. She had been rubbing the aching muscles, which had only performed the weight exercises by sheer will power sometimes, each night with a warming salve to prevent them from knotting. But suddenly they seemed to have learned how to keep up with the arduous exercises set by her grim master! She tossed back her tied-back hair, laughed up at him in sheer joy and attempted to press forward an attack where hitherto she had been forced to do little but defend.
For a moment her laughing eyes took him off guard; then he parried her assault, disarmed her and kicked her feet out from beneath her.
Annis pulled a rueful face and looked up at him from the ground.
“I did do better though, didn’t I?” she asked.
“It were a reasonable attempt,” he allowed. He reached a hand to her to pull her up. She took it; grinned wickedly at him as warning; and aimed a kick at his crotch. He leaped back swearing.
“Blast!” she said in chagrin “I thought that one might work.”
Gyrfalon laughed.
“You little vixen!” he said with appreciation “Well you have the right attitude; you want to win and while you live you are not defeated. We’ll make a swordsman of you yet.”
Some of the men that had idle time on their hands were watching now as much to see the swordplay as to ogle Annis’ body; and less were the scornful comments passed on her prowess. Annis had only had some basic training but she displayed a natural aptitude and retentive memory that pleased Gyrfalon. Only his half-brother, Falk, had learned so fast; his adoptive son, Buto, for all his willingness to please his adopted father, had possessed the soul of a bully boy, not a warrior. Gyrfalon’s mouth pulled sideways as he helped her up one morning following her epiphany of skill. He remembered Buto still with pain. The boy had got himself killed by his own arrogance, by attacking a foe he was unequal to manage.
“You should have been born a boy,” Gyrfalon said, half regretfully.
“Why indeed my lord, that were a waste,” she countered.
“How so?” he demanded.
“Consider; as a girl I can be feminine and wear pretty things and learn womanly arts – but I may also, with your kind indulgence, put on boyish garb and learn the manly arts of war. Think you that a boy could so well put on petticoats? Why my lord,” she dimpled at him “I fear such would not become you; and I fear you would not ply a needle so well as I do the sword, nor manage so graceful a curtsey!” And she curtseyed to him, blithely uncaring that she had no skirt to spread.
He snorted.
“And nor would I wish to” he said.
“Then truly it is as well that you are a man and I a woman – for we might then both be happy in what we are,” she said.
“Yet a woman is ever a pawn. Does that not irk one of your spirit?”
She shrugged.
“A hit, my lord; for it irks me oft times. ‘Tis why I took mine own fate into mine hands and fled my father’s demesne. As to now, when I be your pawn, ‘tis surely irrelevant what my sex be that it please Lord Gyrfalon to hold me; and be I never so male I would still have had to yield before you in the wood. Indeed, you might have been more inclined to kill me as trouble; for a wench is a bigger prize with which to bargain. Thus I come out the winner, at least as things stand. And yet as a wench, my father doth despise me; and may not pay, as may be the best outcome from my point of view. Whence I shall be free to be your healer with no obligations on your part to give me up” she shrugged “I live in great hope; though I suspect he will attempt passage of arms to retrieve me purely because I am a possession of his however much despised. We shall see,” she added philosophically.
Gyrfalon shook his head in wonderment.
“You are a strange child,” he said. And yet what she had said was valid; and it would have been a waste of her pale, almost ethereal beauty to have it laid upon a male face. Almost she was a parody of feminine pulchritude; delicate and dainty, tiny and pale, looking as thought the wind might blow her away like thistledown! Yet her eyes, blue as midnight, grey as steel, held a life and fire that suffused her whole body transforming her into a creature of fire and élan that any man should be glad to see in his offspring! Gyrfalon’s mouth hardened. Peter Haldane was a fool not to appreciate his child; yet he, Gyrfalon, had no child to call his own, or train, or delight in the growing skills thereof.
“Does it displease you so much then?” Asked Annis, of his last comment, seeing his mouth harden.
He shrugged.
“No; why should I care?” he said carelessly “I think your father a fool to lose you.”
“I keep telling you he’s a fool,” said Annis.
“And I think I agree with you,” grunted Gyrfalon. “But you are still a strange child.”
The warlord also took to summoning Annis to his chamber for an hour in the evening to instruct her in the theory of warfare and combat; which took the form of him posing questions to her and correcting her fiercely when her answers displeased him and pushing the discussion further when she got it right.
He started with a question about mounted warriors.
“Which is it better to have, knights or foot soldiers?” he barked at her.
Annis considered.
“I don’t think there’s a definitive answer, my lord; surely that is dependant on circumstance?”
“Go on.”
Annis considered.
“For a set piece battle knights are essential to provide the heavy troops; that may break a group of foot soldiers if the enemy have only such, and to provide balance and protection of the foot an the enemy have horse too. I think, though I’d not want to take mounted men on a long journey through country I did not know,” she said.
“And why would that be? Horses can carry a lot more than men.”
“But if there is insufficient forage, then the horses will die and the men have more equipment to carry than they realised; if you take fodder you have to know how much, for how long, and carts of such will slow you up. Also, horses take a lot of caring for; in enemy territory, the morning feeding and grooming of the horses and tending their feet is going to be an ideal time for an ambush- or so it seem to me. Unless there are military tricks around that?” she asked. “I would think on an extended journey horses will be more trouble than they be worth and I’d prefer to make my proud knights use their own little feet.”
He laughed. The girl had very little reverence for knights in shining armour then!
“A good answer. Yes, on extended campaign, horses are more trouble than they be worth; and if a march be of greater duration than five days, men marching can get there faster for the time that must be expended on horses. Neglected horses die rapidly; to ride several horses to death for the speed to get an essential message through is one thing but to needlessly spend expensive assets is foolishness. It is wise to have a few mounted men; that may be used as scouts. Then there is more than one man to see to the needs of one horse, as may speed matters up; and they may too be guarded while being cared for. A leader too should ride that his troops can see him. On the whole I had rather had more footmen than a few horsemen.”
“I would think mules and asses might be useful to carry equipment,” said Annis, “being hardier and less delicate than horses and also able to go where horses cannot; in mountainous terrain for example.”
He nodded.
“Another well made point. But then I can see that you would like asses; they have stubborn streak like yourself. Or is it their association with your God?”
Annis grinned.
“You learn to know me, my lord! Asses obey because they feel like it not because they are trained to it and I must say I like the independent spirit. I had not considered their relationship with Our Lord; but presumably he did not disapprove of independence.”
“I thought it were supposed to show His humility that He rode a creature seen as low. And false humility is part of the stinking rites as a whole.”
Annis shrugged.
“That too; that He is not a conqueror. How others behave in His name becomes them not but is nothing to do with it. What do you care? Leave religion out of it; we differ on that my lord; and so there is no point discussing it. We spoke of asses for their usefulness I thought.”
He grunted.
“As you say; and for baggage train asses have their uses. Mountain campaigns are to be avoided where possible; that is if invading mountain country. Inevitably the defenders know their land best and may make devastating ambush.”
“But one must surely cross mountains at times that need not be enemy territory; or at least not securely held,” said Annis. “A pass considered hard to traverse might be lightly defended to preserve men; that a clever lord could send some men that know mountains to climb ahead covertly so they may watch as a larger body of men come that will draw out ambushers; and ambush them. We got off the subject of mounted troops here.”
“We did, but you use your intellect, which is what I hope to instruct you in” he said “Aye; if one has the right troops one might do much. Drawing out ambushers is a good idea, though not always so easy as it sounds in the comfort of a castle. What is important is that you have no preconceived ideas, no conventional wisdom; that you think beyond the set piece battle, beyond the art of war laid down in the classics. Which is not to say such things are not valid; they are. But when a particular action calls forth an almost formalised response, if one does something different then one has the upper hand. Why?”
“Surprise?” suggested Annis.
“Shouldst have been a boy,” he said. “Aye, surprise. By all the demons in hell, with your quickness, if you were my child I’d be proud to own you.”
“There is much I do not know” said Annis “But if you will instruct me I will be glad to learn.”
“Heh; and much of it common sense that you seem to possess in abundance,” he was pleased to be in a good mood with her for not returning the conventional answers – or those he expected from an ignorant young girl – that horses meant better mobility.
“I believe I am on the whole quite pragmatic,” said Annis. “And I am not generally like to loose my cool head when under pressure; for it seem to me that if one might rattle an enemy – by, say, doing the unexpected – one has half won, whether hand to hand with swords or in larger battle.”
“Quite right child. Remember too that an angry opponent is oft times a defeated opponent; and that I speak as one with a hot temper who must strive not to let others know how to do so goad me. Only one man know me well enough to raise mine ire hot; but I can overcome that. You should be aware of your own weaknesses; that is why I needle you when we fight. You heed not insults to your God; or on your appearance; but methinks that you rise to me calling you feeble and puny and sneering at your ability.”
Annis flushed.
“Aye; that is a fault,” she said. “I suppose one is angered most by those things that one knows have much truth in them. What you say about God hurts him not; He can afford to laugh at it and so too will I; mine appearance is bound to be dishevelled when fighting; and I know I am good looking and if it is not a look you admire, that is your loss not mine. But I am weak and it irks me that I have not the stamina to match my will.”
“You do your looks down,” he said harshly. “Art not really whey faced that I have called you; and that you hast the wit to know. And you are weak. But shouldst learn not to let me taunt you.”
“I try to rectify my weakness rather than getting angry; it is that I be overcome by frustration as I tire,” said Annis. “But I will endeavour to do better. The frustrated, angry and ill-considered moves I make open me to your attacks. I would have done better, methinks, to feign greater weakness than I have, ere I tire; and fall perhaps to one knee to husband strength that I might then make a final attempt to kill mine opponent as he come to take me prisoner or whatever. That way too I would not compromise honour by yielding and then treacherously attacking.”
“No man expects a woman to obey any code of honour,” said Gyrfalon.
“No; but if I am a warrior I expect to behave by the code that warriors must follow as a code of mutual respect. Those that do not obey a code cannot expect to be treated according to it; it has nothing to do, really, with honour; but more to do with a pragmatic desire of all warriors to live to fight another day.”
He stared.
“I had not looked on it in such light before,” he admitted. “You really do think deeply! But be aware, girl, now I know your ideas of feigning weakness I shall be looking for it!”
“Oh of course!” Annis agreed “But I would not want to use my last strength to kill you; I should hope perchance to come close to wounding you, but you train me to fight others, over whom I shall feel no such qualms; and I wanted to know if you think it would work.”
He nodded.
“I think it is one situation where your fragile feminine beauty might be in your favour; for no man would expect you to have the strength to find a last attack; nor the ability to think and be duplicitous when tired; nor the resolve; nor the iron will to wait helpless until the best opportunity present itself. It is a good solution that takes advantage of the strength you may extract from your weakness. As any warrior knows himself and knows how to make best of his strengths and minimise his weaknesses. To make a virtue of a weakness is a rare ability. I have trained only one other with the potential such as you possess.”
Her face flooded with joy at his praise.
“Does that mean you’ve decided to keep me and bite your thumb at my father?” she asked hopefully.
“It means nothing,” he said, his face closing. “I have still not decided. Now about your business girl!”
Annis curtseyed and left him; but she was pleased that she had pleased him. He was a harsh mentor; but he cared that she learned.
She left him for her self imposed tasks in sewing; for it was relaxing after what might be unsettling sessions with the warlord!
Chapter 4
After she had been in the warlord’s castle for two weeks, Annis felt in need of spiritual renewal; and having kept track of the days by her Book of Days that she had brought with her rose early on Sunday morning. Elissa, disturbed, blinked sleepily. Annis had put on her best gown, which was well fulled wool, almost as soft as a velvet, in a dark rich indigo blue, embroidered at hem, cuff and neck with real gold thread in an intricate knotwork pattern that shimmered as it caught the light.
“What are you after now at this hour of the morning?” Elissa demanded irritably.
“Church,” replied Annis succinctly.
“Church? Are you mad?” squawked Elissa, startled into being fully awake and sitting up scrubbing at her eyes. Annis shook her head, laughing at her.
“I want to attend early Mass,” she said.
“The old … Lord Gyrfalon’ll have forty fits!” cried Elissa in lively horror.
Annis shrugged.
“His heart is strong. He will surely survive that calamity. Are you escorting me or not?”
She swept out looking every one of her few inches a great lady, leaving Elissa gawping and struggling hastily into her trousers to catch up with the girl. Church indeed! Really, Elissa fumed to herself, this Lady Annis might have been less trouble had she been some cowed milksop of a gentlewoman who would not find new and innovative ways every day of irritating Lord Gyrfalon! Even if she, Elissa had had to wait on such a silly creature hand and foot!
Gyrfalon met Annis as she descended the narrow stair, Bible in hand.
“Where are you off to?” he demanded tartly.
“Church,” Annis’ voice was patient, as though explaining to a slow child for the umpteenth time.
He blinked.
“I forbid it,” he growled.
“Then if I am a total prisoner, you may then brew your own balms,” she snapped. “I am not asking you to go with me as my escort; nor am I intending to recite my catechism to you. I want to go to church; and if you stop me I can think of a dozen ways of showing my disapprobation that may get me punished by you but will still irritate you. Even if I am locked in my room I can still be in your ears all day reciting Bible stories and singing sacred songs out of the window until you capitulate.”
“Until I – girl, has it not occurred to you that I am the one who makes terms to you?”
“My Lord Gyrfalon, I had understood that we had accommodation between us that was to our mutual satisfaction; that I am given limited freedom for my healing, that I am douce in my behaviour in return for martial studies. I can withdraw goodwill as you will notice in the lack of salves almost as quickly as in my making of myself a great nuisance by being no help and a great hindrance. Like refraining from teaching your indifferent cook how to make better use of herbs and spices and how to be a bit more adventurous in his cooking; as you have surely noticed.”
Gyrfalon blinked.
The cooking had improved. He was no gourmet to care much about what he ate save that it were wholesome; but the tastier dishes served of late had been welcome. He had given it no real thought but now he did the idea of returning to unappetising watery stews and meat burned on the outside and half raw within was not attractive.
“But you despise the church,” he said baffled.
“I despise those who use the church, the venal rapacity of some high ranking churchmen. I have a mind, however, to hear the simple sermon of a country priest,” she said firmly, thrusting forward her tiny delicate chin.
“Church!” his voice was filled with venom “Well then go – not for fear of your silly threats but because I promised you freedom in the environs of the castle. And I wish you joy of it!” he swept away ignoring her demure,
“Why, thank you my lord.”
Falconburg Divided (The Falconburg Series Book 1) Page 5