by Guy Antibes
Pol later admitted to Paki that he preferred a bed to sleeping outside. His friend admitted that he agreed. They didn’t take long to get to sleep, and to Pol it only seemed like minutes when Kolli woke them up in the pre-dawn light. They walked down to a hastily prepared breakfast by the groggy staff and rode back into camp.
Kolli led them to their tents in a somewhat roundabout way, missing the sentries that the General had posted. When they arrived at their tents, she whistled softly.
“It looks like we had visitors,” Kolli said.
Pol surveyed the damage. Both of the tents had been torn down and the fabric slashed with long cuts. The armor had been strewn about their little camp.
“This has gone too far,” Kolli said. “Mount up. It’s time to wake the General up.” She picked up the remains of her tent and galloped to the General’s camp quarters and burst into his tent.
“What is the meaning of this?” the General said. His hand held a straight razor and his face was half-covered with dripping soapsuds.
Kolli threw the shredded tent at the General’s feet. “Someone attacked our camp. If you didn’t remember, a Prince sleeps there.”
“This is yours, Haverhill?”
She nodded. “The Prince’s tent is worse. Our armor was thrown about and stomped on by horses. Was this by your command?”
“See here. Just because you are no longer under my command doesn’t mean you can accuse me of something so dishonorable.” The general’s face began to get red. It only made his white beard stand out.
“And setting the Prince at the back of the train is?”
The General cleared his throat. “Well, we all have to follow orders.” His anger seemed to turn to embarrassment. Perhaps he wasn’t to blame. Pol tried to make sense of the shifting patterns.
“Orders?” she pointed to the remains of her tent. “Luckily, I suspected something like this, so we spent the night at the inn in Bancor’s Lift.”
“Ale still as good?”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Kolli’s face as she nodded.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“We have extra tents, and today you will ride just behind the officers and the knights.” General Wellgill’s gaze turned on Pol. “Is that acceptable?”
Riding in front didn’t remove the peril that Pol faced on this trip. “What about those who destroyed our camp?”
“Haverhill?”
She looked at Pol. “We don’t have any idea who did it.”
Pol held his tongue. “We will sleep with the officers as well. Is that acceptable General Wellgill?”
“Of course, My Prince. The attack changes things.”
“Indeed,” Kolli said. “Thank you, General.” She nodded to him. “I am sorry to disrupt your morning preparations.”
Paki and Kolli left Pol still standing in the tent. “I intend on returning to Borstall with my life, General. There are those who have other ideas. Kolli is my bodyguard and will defend me against any who threaten. Any who threaten. Do you understand?”
The General raised his eyebrows at the threat that Pol struggled so hard to give. “I do, My Prince.”
“I am also sorry to have bothered you.” Pol turned around and left. His hands were beginning to shake and his breathing had become more labored, but not until he was out of the General’s sight.
He slowly walked to the horses where Paki held the reigns and mounted. “I wouldn’t be so sure there isn’t any evidence at our camp,” Pol said. In his mind he was following the investigative pattern that Val had so vividly set in his mind.
They rode back and surveyed the damage.
“Let me look at the damage by myself,” Pol said.
“You really think you can find something?” Paki said, the disbelief plain in his voice.
“I won’t know until I look for evidence. Val and I found that South Salvan Lion, remember?”
Paki nodded. “Oh. You did.”
Kolli looked at Paki. “What?”
“I’ll tell you all about it while Pol looks at our tents.”
Pol hoped he knew what he was doing. He squatted over the ground and looked at footprints and hoof prints. He carried a charcoal and a wrinkled sheet of paper and began to write notes about what he observed. Pol looked at the armor and noted how it was destroyed and then examined the shredded tent that he shared with Paki.
Then he walked over to the pair of them. “I have a list. There were five men, all mounted. That means they weren’t foot soldiers, doesn’t it?” Pol looked at Kolli.
“It does. Go on,” she said.
He showed them a sketch of two horses hooves. “This one has lost a shoe. So we look for a shoe put on this morning or it may still be off the horse.” Pol pointed to another. “This horse has a cracked hoof. I think that they get patched with a metal plate and screws? I can’t quite remember. So at least a hoof with a crack right here.” Pol pointed to the hoof. “I can show you the prints. All of the men had sharp swords.”
He brought over the remains of the tent. “See the slashes? They start from the top. None of them men dismounted while they cut the tents to ribbons. That means mounted soldiers.”
“Knights, officers, and squires,” Kolli said. “Scouts generally carry shorter swords, and I can’t imagine them leaning over far enough to make a cut down so low. Few in the infantry carry sharp swords. Their weapons are more like the practice swords you used to train with for the tourney. So we have an idea of who our enemy is.”
Pol liked to hear her say ‘our enemy’. “Do soldiers wear different boots?”
“More evidence?” Paki said. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“From Val,” Pol said. He didn’t mention the pattern discipline that Val and Malden had taught him.
Pol looked at Kolli. “Taller heels?” Pol lifted up his leg to show them the bottom of his riding boots. “Like this? Now look at Paki’s shoes.”
Paki’s boots had a much lower, flatter heel. “That is what the infantry walked on, am I right? Unfortunately I didn’t see any boot patterns much different than mine. They were all about the same size.”
“You’ve done enough. The hooves are the best lead. I’m afraid your evidence isn’t going to be enough for General Wellgill,” Kolli said.
“We’ve already eaten, so we should pick this mess up and head over to the officer’s horse line and start looking at hooves,” Pol said.
~
They quickly found the patched hoof. As Pol had described, there was a metal plate screwed to the hoof, and the crack was in the right place.
A soldier wearing a farrier’s badge brought two horses to the line.
“Did these just get re-shod?” Kolli asked.
The young man nodded. “One had a loose shoe and the other threw hers.”
“Who do these horses belong to?” she said.
“This one is Sir Gilbott’s, and this is Sir Northbell’s.”
Sir Northbell rode the horse that threw a shoe.
Paki walked up. “You should check the shoe of this horse, too.” Paki pointed to the horse with the patched hoof.
The farrier shook his head. “This poor horse shouldn’t be on an expedition with a patched hoof,” he said, “but Earl Caster…” The soldier leaned over. “This seems okay to me.”
“Maybe I looked at it wrong,” Paki said.
“Could you look at our horses’ hooves? That’s why we came over here,” Kolli said. “The Prince is riding with the officers today, and we don’t want any mishaps.”
“Prince?”
“I am Prince Poldon,” Pol said, bringing over his horse.
“You don’t dress like the other officers, My Prince,” the soldier said. He looked at their hooves and pronounced them sound.
“I’m here to observe, not to fight,” Pol said. “Thank you for your assistance.” He gave the soldier a short bow, making the man color a bit.
“Anything you need, My Prince.” The soldier bowed mor
e deeply and quickly left.
“Northbell and Caster,” Kolli said. “Bootlickers, both.”
“Along with three others,” Pol said.
Kolli nodded. “We will have to stay observant. If it were up to me, I would head back to Borstall immediately, My Prince.”
“It’s not up to you,” Pol said. For the briefest of moments, Pol wished Val were with him to keep a cold, cruel eye on the two officers. “We will have to be vigilant. Do you know who might be friends with the knight and the earl?”
“Oh,” Kolli said, “you are smarter than I am.”
“You know more than I do,” Pol said. “I’m just applying what little I learned from Val.”
“Valiso is a lot smarter than me,” Kolli said. “I wish he were here.”
~
The next few days were long and hard, but Pol took the opportunity to expand the flexibility of his patterning by riding next to different officers and talking to them. He had the opportunity to converse with Sir Northbell and Earl Caster. Both men had seemed uneasy, but then how often had they ever talked to a fourteen-year-old prince, no matter how precocious?
Sir Northbell struck Pol as a man of plodding intellect, but an experienced fighter. The earl reminded Pol of Grostin. The man was suspicious of Pol and he never volunteered the boastful stories that Northbell had. In talking to the other men, Pol had six others who he thought might be candidates.
He didn’t tell Kolli of his suspicions since he knew he didn’t have the breadth of experience in talking to these men and had no idea how to evaluate their interactions with the other men in the officer train.
At the end of the fifth day from Borstall, a scout galloped into camp, his horse lathered from a hard ride.
Pol managed to be in the proximity of the General’s tent when the man rode in. He entered the tent as the scout delivered his message.
“Five hundred men have crossed the border and have begun to fire villages. Baron Forest has driven them back, but more men are assembling.”
The General rolled out a large detailed map of the border as officers filled up the tent. “Where?”
“Here and here, General, sir.” The scout pointed to a spot northeast of where they were currently heading.
“Then we will split our forces. Earl Caster, take your command straight north to the garrison. I will move the remainder with this scout.” The General eyed Pol. “Prince Poldon, you will go with the Earl.”
The thought of traveling under the command of a man who might have tried to kill him, nearly brought Pol to his knees with fear.
“I’d rather go with you, General Wellgill. There is danger all along the border. I’d feel safer with the largest force.”
Pol could tell that his request had no effect on the General’s decision.
The General appeared to get angry. “You will do as I say. Is that understood?”
It looked like Pol had no alternative, so he pursed his lips and didn’t say another word. Now he would have to rely on Kolli to survive. Pol looked over at the Earl, who gave Pol a smirk. That smirk fit the pattern that Pol had constructed about those who attacked their camp.
“Those are your orders. Prepare your soldiers to leave at first light,” the General said. “Prince, you stay behind. I’ll have some more words with you.”
Pol endured the stares from the officers as they filed out of the tent. The Earl continued his smirk as he walked past.
Wellgill sat down and offered a seat to Pol.
“I noticed the Earl’s face when I put you in his company. What is there between the two of you?”
The General surprised Pol by his expression of concern.
“Five mounted men cut up our tents and trampled on our armor when we spent the night at the local inn. We showed you the evidence of their malice. One of them was Earl Caster. Sir Northbell was another.”
“If you were gone, how did you know they did it, and why didn’t you report it to me?”
Pol considered not answering, but he needed the General’s help. “I didn’t think you would believe me. Our evidence is not strong.” He described what he had found at the site and how he had found the owners of the two horses.
The General leaned back in his camp chair. Pol looked around at the tent and noticed that the man lived no better than common soldiers, taking into consideration that he needed more space in his command tent. He saw the cot with a single blanket neatly folded at its foot. The General did have the comfort of a pillow.
“You aren’t asking me to arrest the Earl, then, are you?”
Pol shook his head. “I know I don’t have enough evidence to bring against Earl Caster, but I don’t want to travel with him.”
Wellgill put a hand to his chin to fondle the chin beard that the General affected. “Very well. When we leave tomorrow morning, you can travel with us. Put yourselves back among the supply wagons.” The General raised his hand to stop any objection. “I want you there for protection, not to make you uncomfortable. There will be fewer soldiers in the column, anyway. I’ll send a messenger to Caster once we are underway. I’m sorry I was so short with you, My Prince. I had thought you were challenging my command.”
Pol didn’t know how to respond to the compliment other than to say ‘thank you’ and left the command tent. By the time he found Paki and Kolli, Pol was exhausted.
“We leave tomorrow,” he said, and then he relayed the contents of the short meeting and his conversation with General Wellgill.
“We are still in danger,” Kolli said.
“I meant it when I said we were in danger no matter which part of the army we joined. But at least one of the attackers, and I would guess most if not all, will be in Earl Caster’s command. Doesn’t that sound right, Kolli?”
“My faith in the General has just been restored,” she said. “But I don’t like to depend solely on others for my survival. I agree we are less exposed in the middle of the supply train, but that doesn’t mean we can let up on our vigilance.”
Paki looked very concerned. “Why don’t we just turn around and return to Borstall? We can’t be expected to fight enemies inside and outside the army.”
“You are just here to observe,” Kolli said. “Neither of you have a chance against any of the officers who slashed our tents, and it’s my job to keep you out of any battles.”
“So we should stay with the wagons?” Pol said.
“From here on out. I’m sure you’ll trade safely eating a bit of dust to being in the vanguard with the officers when the Taridans attack.”
Both boys nodded.
“Make sure you’re wearing your armor, especially your chest protection,” Kolli said.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Nine
~
POL WOKE TO CHAOS AS THE ARMY SPLIT INTO TWO. He scrambled out of the tent he shared with Paki after shaking his friend awake.
“Hurry,” Pol said. “We can’t be left behind.”
“No one’s going to leave us behind,” Paki said. “We’re in the back, remember?”
“Well, you go hungry then,” Pol said.
That was enough to get Paki into motion. The two boys quickly donned their armor and broke down their tent. Pol noticed that Kolli sat on a log, watching them work as she sipped from a waterskin. She gave them a little wave.
“I’ve already pulled your horses from the line.” She pointed to the three horses tied up on a bush. “Hurry and eat. I want to check out your armor.”
Pol and Paki hustled to the end of the meal line. Breakfast consisted of a mush that was cold by the time the boys got theirs. They wolfed it down anyway as they walked over to Kolli.
“Take off your armor,” Kolli said. She got up and gave them both hard leather vests. “These go underneath your chests. Your armor is so beaten up that no one will notice the difference.”
“But I’m going to get awfully hot,” Paki said.
“Better that than getting awfully dead,” Pol said as he thanked Kolli for
his vest. “You’ve got one on, too?”
She nodded. “I might be the one an attacker might go after first.”
“Where did you get these?” Pol asked.
“Val suggested that I bring them along to wear when we drew nearer to the border. I agreed with him. I wish there were three or four of me to protect you, My Prince.”
“I’m here,” Paki said.
“You certainly are,” Kolli said, laughing. Her laugh carried genuine amusement, whereas Val’s laughter always had an edge, Pol thought.
~
For the first half of the day, Pol rode next to Kolli, while Paki stayed behind a length or so at Pol’s request.
“I have a question for you, if you are willing to answer,” Pol said. He described the night he saw Grostin enter his mother’s suites. “Why did you let my brother in to see my mother?”
“That has been bothering you all along, hasn’t it, My Prince?” Kolli said. “Valiso told me you listened in that night.”
Pol nodded. “I’m, uh, disappointed that my mother would align herself with my siblings against me. Why has she?”
Kolli laughed. “Do you think I’m her confidant? I follow her orders, just as I now follow yours. Your mother is experienced in the noble game and must work with what she finds to secure her position. It’s no secret that you are ailing and under attack from your brothers and sisters.”
“Amonna isn’t attacking me.”
Kolli gave Pol a look that chilled him to the core. “Don’t be so sure that will always be the case. Would your mother act differently if you were a healthy prince? I think she would. If you think she is one with your siblings, think again. Molissa is as exposed as you are, except she is King Colvin’s wife, and that provides her with a bit, only a bit, of protection.”
Pol sat back in the saddle and gritted his teeth. He tried to expand the pattern of his family and put more perspective into the model of the pattern in his mind. What he came up with scared him. He still thought too much from his own point of view, and he knew that kept him from getting a good grasp of his own situation. He had never tried to establish what his mother might be facing, and now that made it even more important for him to get more perspective.