by Rex Sumner
She halted a few yards in front of them, running her eyes over each in turn, trying to guess which would be the commander. She stood with her feet a shoulder’s width apart and her hands on her hips, unable to hide the grin of delight at these so different boys.
“I’m Lieutenant Starr of the Pathfinders, with despatches for your commander. Which one of you rabid, ugly dogs is Lionel?”
Two boys uncoiled themselves, rising to their feet, while another leapt lightly from his horse, alighting inside her personal space. Her grin deepened as he moved round her, before stopping in front of her.
“Well, how nice of the Harrheinians to send us entertainment instead of supplies,” he said, putting one hand on her hip and reaching for her insignificant breast bud with his right.
Asmara knew the right waited for her counter to incapacitate her, and stepped into him instead of away. She smiled as he felt the point of her knife, slipped out in a fluid motion and resting against his neck as part of the forward motion.
“Always pleased to cheer you up, darling,” she said as he backed away with a smile. He turned as if returning to his horse and his right foot swung up at speed, knocking the knife from her hand. She reacted without thinking, a backwards somersault to give herself space and drew her rapier as she arrived on her feet, her cap flying off and her hair spilling free, an auburn mane framing her hard features.
The boy laughed in delight, performed a back flip to his horse, removed a sabre with a substantial curve in it and with a forward somersault arrived in front of her with a lunge at her midriff. Asmara took the blade in carte, deflecting it sideways and her riposte should have taken his biceps but for inhuman reflexes pulling him out of the way. She stamped her foot and lunged again, for him to slap her sword sideways. She caught her lunge, kept her wrist low while stabbing upwards for his face. The boy still kept his sabre in the previous parry, unable to get it up to save his face and threw himself backwards, lying on the ground looking up at her with surprise.
“You are quick, boy, but you have little skill. I’ll give you some lessons later. Now, are you Lionel?”
“I’ll be Lionel if I’m getting a lesson,” he said, “especially with my sword.”
This caused a laugh around the onlookers, and most of them cried that they were the real Lionel.
One boy, dark haired like the boy she fought, raised his hand and the banter slowed to a halt.
“Enough, Jez, can’t you see this is the Princess? I’m Lionel,” he said to her and her heart did a most uncharacteristic flip as she looked into his dark eyes. She studied him as she approached, sliding her rapier back into its scabbard. Short black hair, parted on the right, the broad shoulders and slender waist of a rider, rather than a thickset knight. He was younger than most of the boys, and bore a distinct resemblance to the boy with whom she had fenced, though his chin was more square and chiselled.
He held out his hand, palm up, and she slapped the papers into it, fascinated to see he could read as he scanned the orders. Silence reigned across the plain, broken by the sound of Jez’s horse cropping grass. All the boys waiting to hear their orders. Asmara glanced at them as Jez came up to read over Lionel’s shoulder, brothers she guessed.
“What are the words?” Lionel asked, without looking up.
“I’ll take you to the vantage point overlooking the field where the armies will be drawn up at first light. I’m thinking you boys are woodsmen, so we can approach closer than the marshal suggests. Take out the pickets, if they have any, Spakka often don’t bother. And we wait. If we hit them too early, we won’t break the whole army. They must commit to a breach so they can be destroyed.”
“Who decides when we go?”
“I do.” The words caught his attention, and now he studied her, eyes meeting the strength in her own, before checking her hands and limbs. Asmara managed to restrain a voluptuous shudder under his gaze and wondered at her own reaction. Towards a commoner as well.
“I will not commit us to die by your word,” he said, his voice hard edged. “We did not come to sacrifice ourselves to Harrhein politics.”
“I ride by your side,” she answered with an infectious grin which he did not return. “It is not Fearaigh that Harrhein wishes to humble, but Spakka. Though it would be nice if the churchmen take a beating, which they will.”
“We will not rescue churchmen,” said his brother Jez, a hard gleam in his eye. “Bastards cause enough trouble as it is.”
“There is more to this,” said Lionel. “Breach, you said. I presume you mean in the shield wall, but I don’t understand.”
“The general prepares a trap.” Asmara considered the array of boys hanging on her every word, doubting she should continue, before deciding the impossibility any could be Spakka and surely too young to subvert. “The wall is not strong enough to hold against the Spakka and will break. Here I will show you.”
With rapid strokes, she swept the ground clear, retrieved her knife and cut a river along one side of the cleared ground. She collected some of the targets from the game, small stakes, and used them to lay out the armies, stating who they represented as she went. Purloining a blanket, she arranged it to represent the hillside.
“This hill is deeply forested, though with clear slopes to the plain, much like here. We will approach to overlook the field of battle, and indeed slightly to the rear. When the shield walls engage, you will see that the general keeps two reserves, heavy horse and infantry. Our wall will break on the right, and through the breach will pour the Spakka, to destroy the fleeing army. Waiting for them will be the Pathfinders, arrayed in a new square formation. This will channel the Spakka and the heavy horse will clear the channels. As the Spakka rush to fill the break, we hit them from the hill.”
Asmara rocked back on her heels and considered the impassive faces looking at her model. “According to the general, you boys can hit the running Spakka from behind and stop them from following down the breach.”
“Unless the fuckers put up another shield wall,” murmured one of the boys.
“Nobody has ever recovered from a broken shield wall,” said Lionel.
“I know.” Asmara gave him her most brilliant smile. “We’ll be the first.”
*
Princess Asmara fidgeted as the Fearaigh lancers packed up their camp. She would have liked to leave earlier, but the men refused to leave the deer and other game brought back by the hunters. These now roasted over fires, overseen by constant arguing and copious amounts of beer. She wondered where that came from; there didn’t seem to be enough baggage to bring it.
Lionel strode to her and passed over a mug of ale, which proved surprisingly good for being transported on horseback. Asmara remembered another document she carried.
“What is your family name, Lionel? Nobody knew at headquarters.”
“We don’t bother with such stuff in Fearaigh. More important what you can do rather than who’s your dad.”
“There are other Lionel’s in Fearaigh, how do we tell them apart? Who is your father?”
Lionel allowed suspicion to creep into his eyes. “He’s the Summoner of the Law Court in Barndton.”
“Think your crafty, don’t you?” Asmara smiled at him. She pulled out the paper and found a quill which she sharpened before mixing up a smidgen of ink. With fast sure strokes, she wrote on the parchment before handing it to him. His eyebrows lifted as he read it. “Call your men over, I will tell them.”
Lionel thought a moment, before calling to a nearby rider. “Hugo, call the men around. The princess wants to say something.”
Hugo’s stentorian voice brought men and boys from all over the field, less those guarding the fires and the sentries. As they assembled into a ragged crowd, no military formation for them, Asmara rose to her feet. They towered over her, the ones at the back quite unable to see her.
Sensing her trouble, Lionel�
��s brother rammed a lance deep into the ground and pulled the strapping Hugo beside him. “Here you go, Princess, use the lance for support and stand on our shoulders.” His eyes challenged her and she raised her chin.
“My thanks, Jez,” she said, having overheard his name. She disdained climbing but used his linked hand with Hugo’s to vault onto their shoulders, turning to face the men while holding the lance for balance. The men cheered, enlivened by this theatre and she grinned at them. She adored performing in the royal manner, and her father afforded her far too few opportunities, knowing the liberties she would take.
“Lancers,” she cried. “Today I ride with you so it is not right to call you the Riders of Fearaigh, instead I decree you are the Royal Lancers of Fearaigh, first of that name, and may you lay waste to our Nation’s enemies.”
The Royal Lancers cheered to this, many raising their mugs.
“Shortly we will come up to the main Harrhein army, with leaders and commanders having no idea how to use light riders in warfare. These leaders will delight in five hundred troops with no noble to lead them and seek to bind you to their service.”
The men fell quiet at these words; indeed something they discussed around the camp fires.
“Therefore I present to you Lionel Summoner of Barndton, Colonel of the Royal Lancers, appointed by my hand, The Crown Princess Asmara, this twenty sixth day of Maret, in the Year of Our Lord Thirteen Ninety Two.”
A brief mutter swirled through the crowd, and Asmara realised she shouldn’t have mentioned the Church chronology, but there was no counting of the years in the old ways.
She leapt from the shoulders to land on the turf with barely a tremble of her thighs, whipped out her rapier and turned.
“Kneel before your princess, Lionel, rider of Barndton.” Her voice rang through the silence of the plain, while the riders craned and shoved for a better look at this little girl, so confident and she believed in them.
Lionel went down on one knee, his face solemn as he raised it to her. He pulled out his sabre, laying it at her feet.
“Princess, I swear by the True Gods, my Ancestors and my Blood to be your man, to come at your call, to fight your foes and to defend the weak in the Realm. I shall lead my men to my best ability, to ensure their success and the safety of the Realm.” He raised his sabre, slicing his palm and smearing his blood down the blade before running his bloodied palm over his face. A murmur of approval went through the men and the Princess withheld her smile.
Not quite the usual oath, but it would do, more than do and a good thing no priest to witness the sacrilege. Asmara decided to follow the old routine which she was not supposed to know about, but had found in a banned book. She sheathed her own sword, bending to collect his sabre.
She raised it to her lips, feeling the men tense behind her, and kissed his blood on the blade, feeling the rich saltiness on her tongue, with a metallic under-taste she knew to be from the blood, not the blade.
“I take thy blood for mine, Sir Knight, and let it mingle with my own.” With solemn ceremony, moving with slow precision and holding her left arm aloft so all could see, she sliced her own hand, smearing her blood down his blade. “With thy blood and my blood I do bind thee, Sir Lionel, to my care and to my guard, my personal guard. From this day forth you are mine to call and to cherish, FOR THE BLOOD!” She saw his eyes widen and knew his awareness of the old stories. The last personal guard belonged to her great aunt, Rowena, a fearsome lady killed in battle with the Spakka more than sixty years before, much loved by the people.
The riders behind also remembered the old ways, as they erupted, cheering, “FOR THE BLOOD” and throwing hats in the air. A few on the edge bestrode their horses, which now reared and neighed adding to the confusion.
She rested the sabre on first the right, then the left shoulder before returning the sabre to his grasp. Asmara hesitated a moment, knowing what she should do but finding herself shy and hesitant, ‘I’m only thirteen,” she thought to herself, for the first time in many years worrying about her age. Following her great aunt’s custom, she leant down and kissed Lionel lightly on the lips, smearing his blood and hers together, before recoiling sharply as his tongue shot out, taking from her lips much of the blood and for the briefest instant slipping between to touch her teeth.
She steadied her nerves as unlooked for emotions whipped through her, holding her breath to calm her racing heart, before taking a backwards step and crying out in a strong voice. “Arise, Sir Lionel Summoner of Barndton.”
Lionel arose, turning to his men with a silly grin on his face and found himself met with a torrent of good natured abuse, while Asmara tried to come to terms with her first kiss and the uncomfortable feelings it engendered, feelings and emotions with which she had no truck, being most unsuitable for a Fighting Princess.
“Hey, Princess,” cried one bearded rider after pummelling Lionel’s back. “If he’s your personal guard, and he’s our boss, means we all are, right?”
“She hasn’t got any others, Matt,” said Jez before she could speak. “I reckon she’ll need us all when her dad finds out. Church won’t be too pleased either.”
“Church is finished,” said Matt. “The Duchess sorted them out, didn’t she?”
Asmara found herself amazed at the knowledge of ordinary soldiers, knowing Susan Taylor as the Duchess which she thought was a nickname reserved for the Pathfinders.
“Only some of the corrupt side,” said Jez. “Rotherstone is here with the army, isn’t he, Princess?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet. Jez sidled a little closer, taking her arm and whispered in her ear, while Matt leant forward, eyes shining and nodding at his words.
“Want us to have a little accident as we race past the shield wall tomorrow? I’ll run a lance through his ear, see how he likes that,” Jez grinned as he made the offer.
“Oh yes,” said Matt. “It’ll be easy, nobody will realise it is not an accident, hey, they will probably think it is a Spakka spear.”
“Don’t put yourselves in danger, boys. Besides, there is no way he will be near the front rank. He will be quite out of reach surrounded by his personal guard.”
“That isn’t something we offer, Princess,” said Jez. “We move too fast to be guards, and all the lads want a tilt at the Spakka. You will need to stay in the middle of us and we will take it in turns to ride outside and spear a Spakka.”
“I want to spear one too. Will you teach me how to use a lance as we ride?”
“Sure, for a kiss.” He smiled at her in a roguish way, causing her to feel pleasure and alarm at the same time, while she glared and punched him, aiming for the nose but glancing off the cheekbone as he dodged, laughing.
“Grub’s up,” cried Hugo, interrupting the moment and the troopers moved towards the fire. A tall skinny boy with big eyes came running up with a plate full of venison and hare for the princess, with slices of camp bread.
“Hey Lenny,” said Matt, his mouth full of bread and venison. “Have we got time for a dance before we ride?”
“No, we do not,” said the Princess in some alarm. “I’m a fighting princess not a bloody dancing one.”
“We ride in fifteen,” said Lionel. “Make sure you all have fodder and breakfast. Will be a cold camp on the hillside tonight.”
“I’ll get fodder for your horse, Princess,” said Matt, pushing the last of his meat into his face and turning away.
“Get some for me too,” said Jez. Matt replied with a raised finger, which Asmara knew to be a rude gesture, and filed it away for later use. Probably best to experiment on Andy, she thought, her master-at-arms, before wondering what kept him. He should have caught up by now.
*
Sergeant Russell, her master-at-arms, arrived as they assembled for departure, bringing with him a change of clothes for the princess and information, which he passed on to t
he princess as she rode beside Sir Lionel. He brought with him a squadron of Pathfinders, their job to clear the hillside of Spakka pickets to allow the horses to approach as close as possible.
The Lancers watched as each man in turn came and knelt to the princess, where she touched their foreheads and whispered a word to them. She knew their names, a fact not lost on the Lancers, many of whom began to look at this young teenager in a different light, while the Pathfinders mounted and rode ahead.
Sir Lionel led off, Asmara by his side and the Lancers came behind in column of two, with gaps between companies. Asmara wondered at the formation of the regiment, but given the lack of talking, refrained from asking. She noticed every trooper moved quietly, nary a metallic noise from steel parts of the harness colliding, nor even creaks from the saddles. This brought her attention to the saddles, quite the smallest she ever saw, unlike the ponderous chairs of the Heavy Horse. She wondered how they could spear armoured foe when the shock would send them clean off the horse. Why, there was but a single girth strap around the horses’ bellies, rather than the double strap with extra chest holder worn by the shock cavalry. She anticipated discovering their abilities in the morning and in the meantime went to sleep on her horse, content to follow along.
The cessation of motion woke her, and she found Sergeant Russell holding the reins while extending a hand to help her down. A quick glance and her night vision allowed her to see the troopers dismounting around her, giving the fodder bags to their horses and rolling up in blankets. A night camp, lancer-style.