by Anna Thayer
Eamon strode to the front of the ranks and looked at the young men in his charge. Officer training was given to cadets during their preparation, but such training in Edesfield had been lax and he was not as prepared as he might have liked. Most officer training was done as an ensign. Eamon had admittedly spent his own years as a cadet watching how dozens of officers, Ladomer not least among them, handled their men, through fear or honest enough affection. But to be suddenly faced with a group of young men whose obedience he had to win was daunting. It had been easier on the holk; the cadets there had seemed but boys, and they had known him. These cadets were more like men – well settled in their opinions, competent, capable, close to swearing to the Master – and he was a stranger on their turf.
“Sign!” he barked.
Beginning at one end of the line the cadets gave their surnames. Most of them would be local to the West Quarter. They answered crisply and, when the last man was reached, the cadet added:
“Third Banners all present and correct, sir!”
A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. “I am Lieutenant Goodman. Captain Waite has put you in my charge to make you more than cadets; he wants you to be officers and lauded Hands.” He changed his tone. “You had better be swift in demonstrating your capacities, gentlemen, because I can’t see why the captain has such faith in you. Packs!”
At his command the cadets picked up the heavy loads that they had to carry round the course. Wooden practice blades, used in training, awaited them at the far end of the course. Some of the cadets disposed of their red jackets, unwilling to get them muddy. Eamon watched the cadets adjusting the straps about their shoulders. He picked one of them at random.
“Mr Ostler.”
“Sir?” the young man answered swiftly – and with the slightest trace of insolence.
Eamon chose to ignore it. “Whom are you facing this morning?”
There was a pause. Eamon waited.
Ostler glanced quietly at his fellows, seeking reassurance. Eamon cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. He was strangely aware of the cadets at the far end of the field and the first lieutenant who strutted among them. But he waited.
“They’re the Third Ravens, sir,” Ostler answered at last. “The West Quarter’s finest.”
“Does that worry you, Mr Ostler?”
“We never beat them, sir,” Ostler answered grimly.
“On a field of battle, Mr Ostler,” Eamon told him, “banners fly courageously in the thickest press. On such a field, a raven is no more than a latecomer and a carrion bird.” He matched the cadet’s gaze, and smiled. “What you mean to say is that you haven’t beaten them yet.”
The cadets exchanged brief, unsure looks.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?”
“Sir!” At his command they charged the course.
Eamon followed them round it, berating them and encouraging them to remember the beating they had to give the Third Ravens at the other end. His own arms felt the strain as they tackled the frame and slid down the ropes into the mud. As he harried them Ladomer’s voice was in his mind, harrying him. He soon found his friend’s remembered words on his lips.
“Come on, Ford!” he shouted. The young man had climbed the frame and slowed considerably, almost to a walk. “Run as though the Serpent himself were before you!”
Most of the cadets neared the river at about the same time; they were energetic young men and handling the course well. Eamon followed them, realizing that his status was no protection against mud; it spattered him regardless. He yelled at the stragglers, forcing them to press on to the river.
It wasn’t long before the Banners, led by a determined Cadet Manners, were forging a path through the river, up to their thighs in mud. Eamon exhorted them to pull themselves through it and out to the other side.
Manners escaped the river first and grabbed one of the swords on the far side of the ditch. The cadet charged the Ravens, yelling. A few feet behind him the first of his fellows were also emerging. The Ravens, most of them smug, stepped forward one at a time to tackle their filth-ridden foes. Behind them Eamon saw the first lieutenant, a thin man with tawny hair, inciting his cadets.
“Give the third bastards a beating!” he yelled.
Eamon took an immediate dislike to him. He called encouragement to his cadets and to Manners in particular. The young man was making a valiant attempt at his foe but he would be bested, his sword heavy in his weary hands. The cadet he fought answered his thrusts with mischievous parries. Manners tripped, fell, and his opponent declared victory. The next Banner went down seconds later.
“On!” Eamon yelled, but he knew as mud-man after man emerged that the Ravens were simply going to pick the tired cadets off one by one. He sighed inwardly, watching as the defeated hauled themselves off to one side, the victors to another. Both groups cheered their own comrades. The Banners had done the course swiftly and efficiently but only in beating an opponent at the far side could a man be said to have completed it. Ladomer had never failed. “Move your feet, Smith!”
His encouragement made little difference. None of the Banners would finish. But he kept calling them on, rallying them to fight to the last.
“It looks as though I whipped your B-hinds,” said a sudden voice by him. The first lieutenant wore the kind of superior smile that Eamon hated.
With effort he forced his tongue to civility. “With respect, sir, I didn’t see you fighting any of them,” he replied curtly.
“No.” The first lieutenant favoured Eamon with a piteous look. “Normally the officer of the winning party duels the losing one, to give him one last chance to redeem his company’s honour. But I fear, Mr Goodman, that there’s nothing left to save. And,” he added, with the singsong intonation of insincere platitudes, “I think you would merely make the predicament worse. Such a pity.”
Eamon’s blood boiled; it was Spencing all over again. He wanted to challenge the man but such behaviour was not condoned among officers. Every eye was on him. It was his first day in Dunthruik, his first morning as a West Quarter officer. He could not make a spectacle of himself. Responding to the first lieutenant’s baiting would only mark him out as an easy victim in the future.
He looked with forced calm at the first lieutenant. “I could hardly duel you, sir. I am, as you see, somewhat muddy, and I fear that you might find your pins tarnished if I answered you.”
So saying, he turned his back and strode to his muddy cadets. “Third Banner Cadets, fall in!” It was time for them to get cleaned up.
The cadets lined up in all their muddied glory. They were exhausted, but even in the face of their unilateral defeat they found it in themselves to cheer. Cadets on both sides jeered their opponents while others offered congratulations and praise: their positions would soon be reversed.
But as Eamon led the Banners from the field he felt the first lieutenant’s eyes pinned to his back.
A system of water troughs was arranged in one of the college yards and it was to them that Eamon and his company went. Eamon gave the cadets free rein to clean up while he brushed the drying mud from his trousers and jacket. The stuff adhered to the fabric as though to tempest-tossed driftwood. There was mud stuck to his face and hands.
“Good work, gentlemen,” he told the cadets. The sun was rising higher; he loosened his tight collar. “You came very close to teaching those pomposities a lesson they deserve.”
“Is ‘pomposities’ a word, sir?” piped up Overbrook. He had a scholarly look and had been among those lagging in the course. The cadet’s query elicited snickers and groans, as though only Overbrook would ask such a question.
“It isn’t a word!” Overbrook insisted, exasperated. His tenacity was met with more groans and attempts to cover him in water.
“Ignore him, sir!” called Ostler.
“A question often deserves an answer, Cadet Ostler,” Eamon replied with a small smile. “Mr Overbrook, you will find that ‘pomposities’ is indeed a word. Even were it not, I would
say to you that the distinguishing mark of our greatest playwrights is their brazen invention of words each time they set their tremulous quills to paper. I would in the latter case, therefore,” he continued, “be not only an officer of the Gauntlet, but also a fine playwright in the making.”
There was a moment of silence that suddenly filled with noise as the cadets jibed their bested company scholar. Overbrook stared at Eamon for a moment. Then the cadet’s face broke into a grin.
“A good answer, sir,” he said, and returned to his washing.
They spent what was left of the morning engaged in the weapons drills and practices that were the quotidian affairs of Gauntlet colleges: weapons and swordplay, tactics, River Realm law and geography. Eamon turned his hand to each of them. He was sure that many of the cadets viewed him with suspicion but at least none of them was willing to challenge him openly. They might grumble behind his back (all cadets did), but they would do as they were told, which was as good a place to start as any. Even Manners seemed to be getting over the morning’s ungainly introduction.
When lunchtime finally came, Eamon felt exhausted. He dismissed the cadets to their own mess to eat and made his way slowly to the main courtyard. He saw another building, fashioned from dark stones, across the way, and paused. A black banner showing the raven marked the threshold. The building had to be one of Cathair’s haunts. It made sense that a Quarter Hand would have offices in his quarter’s college. He peered up at the windows but was relieved to see no shapes behind them.
He obtained directions to the officers’ mess from a passing servant. His uniform, still patched with dry mud about the ankles, pulled awkwardly at him.
He reached the mess doors and went inside as nonchalantly as he could. Despite his effort every eye from every table turned to him as he went up to the hatch serving food. Lunch appeared to consist of thick soup and some bread. He obtained both from the old woman serving and made his way to one of the tables that was still empty. Sitting down was more pleasurable than it had been for a long time, and as he began to eat – and it became clear that he meant to do nothing more – the curious gazes fell from him.
He didn’t stay sitting alone for long. A group of officers approached him, jibing among themselves. One of them was the first lieutenant.
Eamon made an effort to look more involved with his food in the hope that they would leave him alone, but his effort was in vain. The party came to an expectant halt before him; he was obliged to give the odious first lieutenant some mark of respect.
Silently, he rose and saluted.
“Sir,” he said, formally. His eyes met the first lieutenant’s own. The man looked him up and down, his gaze lingering with withering criticism on the mud stains.
“Might we join you, Lieutenant Goodman?”
Eamon didn’t see that he could refuse and so, like a welcoming host, gestured to the table.
“Of course.”
The officers sat and Eamon regained his seat. Quietly he looked askance at each of them. Two other lieutenants accompanied the first lieutenant. One of these was tall and lank, pale-skinned and dark-haired, while the other seemed of a slightly more than average build and had an ostensibly friendly face.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?” Eamon began. The friendly looking lieutenant smiled.
“I’m Lieutenant Best,” he volunteered. “I command the First Crimsons.” He gestured to the lanky man beside him. “This is Lieutenant Fields. He has the Second Arrows. You’ve already met First Lieutenant Alben.”
“Yes, we had an altercation this morning,” Alben said with a smile.
Cordially, Eamon shook hands with each of them over the table. “A pleasure, gentlemen,” he said, turning his attention firmly back to his food. His new companions failed to take the hint.
Alben took up his mug. “You must tell them, Eamon – may I call you Eamon?” Eamon nodded reluctantly. “How kind – how badly yours did against the Third Ravens today. Well and truly slaughtered.” He took a delicate sip of his drink. Eamon supposed that he was probably born of a reasonably well-off family, and liked to show it. “Then again,” Alben added, “cadets are young things. They can hardly be held responsible for being set under poor leadership.”
“I’m sure Captain Waite wouldn’t –” Best began and then, seeing the look on the first lieutenant’s face, he reddened and muttered: “Of course, poor leadership, very poor.”
Eamon grimaced, trying not to rise to the bait.
Alben ate a while, and then leaned across the table to him again. “Mr Goodman, they say that you were captured by wayfarers and that you surrendered your sword. Is that so?”
Eamon was stunned. How could that be known already?
Taking his silence as confirmation, the first lieutenant tutted his tongue between impeccable teeth. “Surrendered his sword!” Alben raised his voice such that most of the mess could hear. “Would you believe that, gentlemen? To snakes! Foolishness, trite foolishness, and quite unforgivable. A Gauntlet officer should have died rather.” He turned to Eamon again. “I hear you came up from Edesfield, one of Captain Belaal’s boys?” Alben smiled with empty comfort. “Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, even if you were given a commission when he was drunk. Or maybe you were given it in return for something else?”
“Backwater folk,” Fields added, laughing with force at odds with his slim frame. Best looked momentarily tempted to contradict this searing generalization, but instead chuckled uncomfortably.
Eamon fought still harder to keep back the retorts and impulse to strike Alben. Why was he being so purposefully baited, and how did the first lieutenant already know about the holk? He was sure that Cathair would not have made it public information.
The laughter continued.
“Have you nothing to say, Mr Goodman?” Alben persisted. “Or have we hit so close to the mark that you are robbed of speech?”
Eamon finished a piece of bread and looked the first lieutenant straight in the eye.
“I am sure that the Third Banners will give your company a good lesson tomorrow, Mr Alben,” he said. “Should they not, I would be more than happy to answer your curiosity as to my commission at a time and place of your convenience.” The words had slipped out before he could stop them.
The laughter stopped abruptly. There was no hiding what Eamon had proposed.
“I hope you’re not suggesting a duel, Mr Goodman,” Alben said. Officers were not forbidden to duel – indeed, sometimes it was the only way to reconcile differences between conflicting men – but the Gauntlet did not endorse it. Duelling could lead to black marks on personal reports.
Inwardly cursing his lack of restraint, Eamon offered the man a smile of his own. “Quite the contrary,” he answered civilly. “I am merely suggesting that you might like me to assist you in making a thorough, practical inspection of your sword; it seemed to me today that it had rusted to your scabbard.”
For a moment Alben looked as though he might retaliate. But then he laughed.
“I should be only too glad to, Mr Goodman,” he said. “I am sure there will be time for us to settle the matter. Shall we say tomorrow evening?” Eamon nodded silently.
With another laugh, Alben rose and strode away. Fields immediately followed him. Best rose more slowly. He leaned across the table, his large face genuinely perplexed.
“You need to be careful, Mr Goodman,” he said. “The Third Banners needed a new lieutenant because Mr Basildon…” The lieutenant fumbled for words and his face grew red. “He was incapacitated in an accident,” he finished, as tactfully as he could. “A great loss.”
“Thank you, Mr Best,” Eamon answered.
With a half smile and a mournful shake of his head, Best left the table.
Eamon breathed deeply, as though the air had cleared at the lieutenants’ departure. But as he thought about what had happened he felt his uniform tight and sticky about him.
Already sworn to a duel? He was a fool. If he carried
on at this rate the only reputation he would garner would be that of never having lived long enough to learn anything for Hughan.
Sighing, he stood, dry mud falling from his trousers and boots. He left his plate unfinished. None of the other officers watched him as he went. They were, he mused, probably well accustomed to the first lieutenant picking on new arrivals, and had probably all been subjected to it themselves. They had seen what interested them.
He ducked out of the mess hall. The courtyard was now in the full light of the midday sun and it was hot, especially for September. It was a day for swimming, not soldiering. But he had the Handbook to attend and then duty at the palace. Somehow, he needed to find a way to reach Mathaiah. The thought of the cadet remaining in Cathair’s charge was not a comforting one.
Eamon reminded himself that Mathaiah Grahaven was a resourceful young man, and that Hughan had faith in him.
Hughan. The name brought him up short.
Rubbing at his palm, Eamon stepped out across the courtyard. He saw Best and Fields moving towards the Long Room where most officer classes were held. Doubtless they were also going to the Handbook; the thought of spending the whole afternoon in their company did not improve Eamon’s mood.
His boots crunched the gravel as he walked sullenly after them. Suddenly he heard a woman’s laugh.
Alben stood in the shadow of one of the arches of the entrance hall. Beside him was a woman, nobly dressed. The airy laugh was hers.
Eamon looked away. Alben’s private affairs were no concern of his, however public they were.
The afternoon passed slowly and Eamon, stuck behind a desk like a schoolboy, followed Waite’s Handbook in distraction. The Hand who led the class was one of the West Quarter’s own and spoke clearly and convincingly on duties, capacities, and passage papers in particular. But Alben had taken the desk behind and Eamon’s skin crawled throughout the afternoon with the sense of being watched and ridiculed. The scent of the woman’s perfume – floral, intoxicating – clung to the first lieutenant’s clothes and seemed unbearably impudent to him.