by M. C. Planck
She leaned forward as she talked, until she lay in his lap, looking up at him with tender, bright-green eyes.
“No, Lala,” he said softly, “I will not be angry with her.”
“You are truly not a man of this world.”
For a brief instant he did not realize she was only jesting.
“At least I have fresh, warm news for you, even if all you give me is the same cold shoulder. Duke Nordland will be your commander. He is a good man, if somewhat stiff-necked and unimaginative. His county lies northeast of here, and he is an ally of your Church. But his lands have their own faith, an old one, so do not preach theology at him.”
That was a safe bet. Christopher didn’t know any theology.
“When will I get to see this august personage?”
“When he is ready. Do not think to upbraid a lord, Christopher. You must curb your tongue and bide your patience. Not all are so informal as your Church, and even it demands respect from those it does not call Brother.”
“What of my assassin? Does she lurk in alleys, ready to spring on me the minute my back is turned?”
“Probably. Don’t do anything stupid. Like going into that cesspit of a city.” She stroked his arm absently.
“Well, thanks for the news. And now you must go. It’s getting late.”
“I don’t have to go yet.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” He shooed her out of the tent. “Yes, you do.”
It was a full week before their commander came down to see them. Karl and the officers struggled to maintain discipline during the long, boring, cold days. They had the boys marching and drilling, but the city lights beckoned every night and the boys were getting frustrated. Christopher could empathize, as could the officers, since they were all enticed by the lure of the city, and consequently they rode the boys even harder, trying to drown their own frustrations.
So everybody was happy to line up when they saw the riders coming down from the city. Two men, one dressed in green leathers, the other in shining blue armor, on horses that screamed nobility. Christopher grinned. He had a horse like that.
He tried to ask about the proper protocol, but Karl told him to just speak when he was spoken to. No fancy salutes or anything. Probably just as well, since he was sure they would have screwed it up.
The blue man dismounted from his horse, a thick, squat, barrel-chested mass of muscle. And that was the horse. The man was even more so.
“Who is the oldest boy?” he asked the neat lines of troops.
The green-clad man did not dismount but scanned the area carefully. He had a longbow on his back. Christopher stopped staring and stepped forward.
“I am, sir. Uh, Ser.” What was his name again? Lalania had told him, and he’d already forgotten.
“You address the Lord Duke Nordland,” the green man said, but without anger.
“You’re not a boy,” Nordland said. Oh, he was a sharp one, he was.
“No, Lord Duke. But I am responsible for this lot.” Christopher decided he could have phrased that more diplomatically.
“Where are your priests?”
Stephram was up at the Cathedral. He said he’d know when they were moving out and would come join them then. Christopher was annoyed that the man didn’t make regular visits to the camp so he could have a communication line to the Cathedral, but he couldn’t blame the priest for not wanting to sleep down here.
“I am one,” Christopher said, “and the other is up at the Cathedral.”
“You’re not a priest of the Lady. You’ve got a sword.” The man was not smiling. This was not going well.
“Yes, Lord Duke, I know. I am a priest of War, pledged to Marcius.”
“Oh, that one. I knew you were in the camp. I just expected someone younger.” Nordland was thirty-something himself, and Christopher had to bite back a snide response.
“Is it true, then, that your sword has no power?” Nordland asked. When Christopher nodded his agreement, the Duke shook his head in disappointment. “That is too bad. A weapon like that would have been most interesting.”
Nordland started to look around the camp, which Christopher thought was suitably orderly, especially given the competition, but he didn’t get any farther than Karl.
“What is that?” he asked, pointing to the huge sword Karl wore on his back.
Karl said very carefully, “It is a sword, Lord Duke.” Christopher had to bite his lip and clench his hand so as not to laugh or smack Karl upside the back of the head, or possibly both.
But Nordland did not seem overly perturbed. “It is Black Bart’s sword, is it not?”
“Yes, Lord Duke.”
“What rank are you, man?”
“None at all, Lord Duke,” Karl said, and Christopher was sure he was the only person there who could hear the satisfaction hidden deep in Karl’s voice.
“Who arms you with such a weapon, Goodman?” The Duke was not happy, but he wasn’t taking it out on Karl.
“The Pater Christopher, Lord Duke.” When the Duke didn’t look enlightened, Karl wiggled his eyebrows in Christopher’s direction.
“I know his name, boy.” The Duke was not as clueless as he let on. “Pater, explain to me why you bear a common sword, yet your servant wields a ranked blade.”
That was a good question, but Christopher had an airtight answer. “The sword I bear is the symbol of my god, Lord Duke.”
“But why give such a blade to an unranked man?”
Christopher couldn’t explain why, in words. “He needed a sword” was the best he could do.
Had he just called Marcius his god? What an unnatural feeling. He realized his mind was drifting again, and he forced himself back to the present.
“He does that often, Lord Duke,” Karl was saying. “We like to think he is communing with his god.” In this case, it was vaguely true. At least he’d been thinking about Marcius.
“I was led to understand you were a missile regiment,” Nordland said. “Yet all I see are spears.”
This was another question Christopher could answer. “They are both, Lord Duke. The weapon is called a rifle, and it is a combination of half-spear and crossbow.”
Nordland actually looked like he approved. “I heard you were contriving some folderol, but I did not realize it was as practical as this. Very good.”
“Would you like a demonstration?” Christopher asked eagerly. They hadn’t fired a single shot since they’d left Burseberry. A little shooting would release some of the frustration.
“Not particularly. I know what crossbows do.”
Christopher wanted to argue, but the Duke froze him with a glance and continued talking. Christopher did not dare interrupt.
“This is the Baronet D’Arcy.” He obviously meant the man in green, although he didn’t bother to point or anything. “You will accept his orders as my own.” Then Nordland mounted his horse, shared a nod with the green knight, and rode away. He didn’t wait for Christopher’s agreement or understanding. It wasn’t optional.
“We march north,” D’Arcy said from his horse, “into County Romsdaal, on the morrow.”
“May I ask what our orders are, Baronet?” Christopher needed to know where to have Fingean send his wagons, and when.
“No,” D’Arcy said. “You will be told only what you need to know.” He dismounted lightly and stood stroking his horse. It whinnied softly, and from the paddock Christopher could hear Royal answer. “I will inspect your camp now.”
Christopher had had his fill of lords and didn’t trust his patience to hold out much longer. “My lieutenant is at your service,” he announced.
D’Arcy did not recognize the word, but he obviously understood the concept well enough. “Conscripts can hold no office.”
Christopher was going to object that Karl was a two-time veteran, but then he remembered that legally Karl was indistinguishable from the draftees. They weren’t soldiers in a troop; they were a peasant levy.
Karl objected for him. “These
men are not conscripts, Ser. They are trained soldiers, not hapless farm boys.”
“We were not informed of this change in your Church’s policy,” D’Arcy said neutrally.
“We were surprised by it ourselves, Ser.”
D’Arcy grinned, and Christopher was impressed at how easily Karl’s insolence was tolerated by these high ranks.
“Then they will be disciplined and well-behaved? The Duke would not have Romsdaal be given cause to complain.”
Christopher started to relent a little. D’Arcy wasn’t that bad; he was just expecting the usual. The people around Christopher had become so used to his changing everything that he had forgotten how unsettling his methods were. Now he had a whole new world of people who needed to get used to change.
“There will be no cause for complaint,” Karl stated. “Now, if you wish, I will show you your provisions, so that you may judge if they are adequate to the need.”
The two men left together, sharing a common bond despite their differences in rank. Both of them had seen more than enough combat to know what mattered and what did not. Christopher was torn, wanting to be in that special club, but not really. The price of admission was high.
28.
INTO THE WILD
They reached the hamlet of Tyring an hour after dark on the first day of their march, their practice and discipline finally coming together. D’Arcy was impressed and not too proud to mention it.
“Your wagons are surprisingly fleet of wheel,” he told Christopher as they watched camp being pitched.
“Thank you, Ser.”
The man looked at him a little oddly, and Christopher realized he probably didn’t know they were, in fact, Christopher’s wagons. He’d designed the suspension. Mentioning it now would seem like boasting, though.
“Still, they will be difficult in the Wild. We will make slow progress.”
Christopher couldn’t argue with that. There were two other wagons waiting for them in the village already, the old style, full of horse-feed. These people didn’t seem to understand that an army moved at the speed of its slowest member.
But again he wasn’t being fair. D’Arcy didn’t know there were better wagons to be had.
“When will the Lord Duke be joining us?” he asked, to change the topic. “Or is that a secret, too?”
“It is, but I can tell you now. My Lord will meet us at our destination. We wait for the signal and then have twenty days to arrive at our position. In the meantime, see to the discipline of your men.”
That wasn’t easy, since they were basically confined to the camp. Christopher even had to buy firewood from the locals, instead of gathering it. Too many days of this would be positively grating. But still better than that filthy pit outside the city.
They only had to wait five days, though, and three of those were spent coping with a tremendous blizzard. The locals were overwhelmed and let Christopher’s men “help” them gather firewood, even though Christopher still paid the same price for it.
“That should be the last storm of winter,” D’Arcy told Karl and Christopher. “I expect the signal any day now. Timing is critical. This is a coordinated action, of which we are only a small part.”
Christopher didn’t approve of the condescension, but at least the man was talking to them now. His time with the boys had loosened him up. They were good kids.
The signal came in the form of a large hawk. No kitty parts here, just pure bird. It landed on D’Arcy’s outstretched arm, screeching in complaint at anyone who tried to come within twenty feet. D’Arcy opened a small pouch hung around its neck, took out a green marble, and put in a blue one. Then he sent the bird back to the sky.
“We march in the morning,” he announced.
Karl was deeply unhappy about going into the Wild alone, so much so that he brought it up to D’Arcy.
“You are not alone,” D’Arcy said. “I am here.”
“With all due respect, Ser,” Karl said, “you are only third rank.”
Apparently it was a legitimate complaint, because D’Arcy was not offended. “These lands are well patrolled,” he said with a smile, “and I expect no threat. Still, I take your mark. If mere soldiers can march around hither and thither in the Wild, what do we pay those lordlings for?”
Karl couldn’t answer this without committing insubordination, so he didn’t say anything at all. Christopher could see that the young man was stretched tight, disgusted at his own reliance on the high ranks he despised.
Crossing the border into the Wild, the boys fell silent. Automatically they sought to hide their presence, tiptoeing and whispering so as not to attract attention. Christopher felt the same instinct, but he did not want to let it slip into fearfulness.
“The men seem kind of subdued,” he said to Karl and D’Arcy. “I’m worried about morale. Shouldn’t we be singing marching songs or something?”
“Gods no,” D’Arcy said. “They make enough noise as it is.”
“They’re right to be subdued,” Karl said sourly. “Here there be monsters.”
So even Karl was affected. The one person who seemed comfortable was D’Arcy. Ever since they had lost sight of the last building, the green knight seemed to have relaxed, actually smiling when he thought no one was looking at him.
“I suppose you have a point,” D’Arcy said after a while. “If you will not find my absence too disturbing, I will go a-hunting. Meat will do much to raise their spirits.”
“Please do,” Christopher said. “I only ask that you take two of my scouts—not to help you, but so you can teach them. Someday we might have to forage on our own.”
Surprisingly, D’Arcy agreed. He took four scouts with him, showing them the path the army must take that day, and sent two back as guides. He could do this because the horsemen could travel much faster than the wagons. On the open ground the wagons were invaluable, transporting tons of supplies at a fast walk. But cutting a path through woods or thickets was time-consuming, and several times they had to unpack the wagons, carry them by hand across a gorge or ravine, and reload them on the other side. With all this effort they were lucky to make eight miles a day, which struck Christopher as incredibly slow. But none of the professionals found it unreasonable.
The venison roasting over the fire did not excite as much comment as Christopher had hoped. If anything, the boys were more fearful, looking out from the campfires into the darkening gloom.
“The first night is always the worst,” Karl said. “Sleeping in the dark Wild, you keep expecting something to leap out and eat you.”
“You know what would make them feel better?” Christopher said. “A little target practice.”
They still hadn’t fired a round since Burseberry. Christopher was getting unreasonably worried. What if the rules of physics were different out here in the Wild?
“Not a bad idea, Pater,” D’Arcy said. “We’ll make some time for it in morning.”
D’Arcy almost put a stop to the practice after the first shot.
“What in the Dark was that?” he demanded furiously. The white smoke drifted up while the blast still rang in their ears. Christopher had made everybody wear earmuffs while practicing back home, but they didn’t have baggage room for such luxuries in the field.
“Perhaps the Lord Duke should have accepted that demonstration,” Christopher said, a little annoyed.
“The Lord Duke would not have been impressed,” D’Arcy answered. “Your spear-bows are not worth this much noise and stink. You can hear this from a mile away, at least.”
Christopher decided not to schedule any target practice with the cannons.
“They are what we have,” Karl said.
D’Arcy could not argue with that, so he took his hunting party and left.
But the exercise lifted the pall of helplessness and fear, and the boys started to recover their normal spirits. As the days wore on, and nothing leaped out of the woods at them, the march of doom gradually turned into a Boy Scout adventure,
with D’Arcy as the wise Scout Leader. He fed them meat every night, taught them how to find soft ground for their tents, how to bank a fire so it made no light, or how to burn it clean so it made no smoke, and a dozen other bits of woodcraft. He took different teams of scouts out every day, and Christopher began to feel that he should pay the man for all the training he was doing.
“Thank you, Ser,” he said one night, as the long week marched into the next one. “Our lives will depend on those scouts when you are gone.”
D’Arcy was surprisingly dismissive. “Scouting is a dying art. Everybody uses birds these days.” But he clearly enjoyed teaching his craft to appreciative students.
They got to their destination early, breaking camp at the foot of a small mountain chain.
“We have a few days,” D’Arcy told them. “We should not attract any attention, on this side of the mountain, but we should not invite it, either. There will be no more shooting practice.”
“Can we build a fort?” Christopher’s boys could use some practice in that, too.
“No,” D’Arcy said, with a tinge of exasperation. “We only wait here. Must you advertise your presence at every turn?”
He spent the next two days trying to show them how to make their camp blend invisibly into the forest, without much success.
And then a cavalry troop rode into camp, armor glinting in the sun, and Christopher sighed. The fun was over.
Nordland was not unhappy, but you could hardly tell.
“So far, so good,” he growled, and fed his horses from the clunky wagons Christopher’s men had all but carried here. He had brought twenty men with him, all armored in blue enameled full plate, with blue ribbons on their heavy warhorses. They were gorgeous.