by Pam Uphoff
"I regret to inform you that I don't know your daughter." Easterly sighed, seeing what was coming.
"She informs me that you promised to marry her, prior to deflowering her and getting her with child." The lord's eyes were narrowing.
"Not having been here for, um a bit over six months, I think I must insist on a first person witness." He met the judge's censorious glare. "And I suspect it will save time if you send a bailiff for my cousins Tyrone, Erald and Lew. I expect it's one of them, using my name."
Lord Dates left to fetch his daughter, and the bailiff was dispatched, with helpers armed with clubs. The judge frowned and scanned Easterly's uniform again. "We've had trouble, out that way." He turned to the remainder of his case load and Easterly stepped out and cleaned up before settling in the back of the small courtroom. A number of people seemed to be hanging around for no reason and sneaking looks his direction.
Young Lady Heather arrived first. She looked around the room and sat with a pretty pout. "I thought you said he was here, Daddy."
Daddy pointed at the Easterly. She sniffed. "Don't be silly. Morti is cute and smart." Daddy looked grim.
A roughed up looking Tyrone strode angrily through the door, with Lew and Haro looking apprehensive behind him. The bailiff swapped a look with the judge. "Old Gods alone know which of that lot these are, they seemed to have changed names three times since I laid eyes on them."
"That's Morti!" Lady Heather was all perked up and pointing at Tyrone.
"All of you be seated. I'll be with you in a minute." The judge turned to the fascinated farmer in front of him and gave him a schedule of payments for his late taxes and sent him away. He went as far as the nearest seat.
"I call the case of Lord Dates verses Mortimer of Easterly Farm. I understand a matter of identity needs to settled first. Young lady, will you identify the man whom you accuse of breach of promise?"
Tyrone was prodded forward when he was pointed out.
"Please state your name for the Court."
"Mortimer of Easterly Farm."
"Is there anyone present to dispute that?"
Easterly stood up. "Yes, sir. I am Mortimer of Easterly Farm, and that is my cousin Tyrone of Westerly Farm."
The cousins all turned and gawped at him. "When did you get here?" Lew yelped, then looked around for sympathy, and failing to find any, the door.
"Wow." Haro was staring at the uniform.
Tyrone just gulped.
"Now, let's try this again." The judge smiled toothily. "State your name for the court.
"Tyrone of Westerly Farm." He blinked, then suddenly smiled. "I have nothing to do with this. That is my cousin Mortimer. He's the one you want."
It went down hill from there, with the girl in hysterics as Tyrone first denied knowing her, then accused her of having other lovers, and stubbornly denied his own guilt. Then a young woman in seriously revealing clothing stomped into court and demanded to know what kind of trouble her husband was in. Lady Heather turned red, and challenged the legality of the other woman's marriage, based on her having a previous marriage and putative lack of divorce. The bailiff had to restrain the newcomer, who admitted to the name of Maci of North Knob. Easterly drew the furious Lord Dates to the side and informed him that there were worse things than an illegitimate baby, and marrying into his family was definitely one of them. He turned down the Lord's invitation to marry the girl himself (She glared from just within hearing), and offered to hold Tyrone while Lord Dates had him horsewhipped.
In the end, the judge, having sent minions off to check the records and ascertain that Tyrone didn't hold title to the farm, and had no money, sentenced him to a labor gang for six months, and seconded Easterly's recommendation that his lordship avoid any legal connection to "that" family.
Lady Heather was removed, sobbing and casting looks back at Tyrone, who ignored her, looking stunned as the bailiff removed him to the jail. Maci was left standing in the middle of the courtroom, until the judge suggested that she return to her father's protection.
She turned and stalked out.
The judge apologized for bringing one of the King's Own from his duties. Easterly shook his head. "Unfortunately it is my family's fault. I thank you for so quickly straightening that out. I suppose I'd better go see what else they are up to."
His parents were glad to see him. The rest of the family gathered and glared at him. Lew and Haro had beaten him home with the story.
"Six months of labor—assuming they can get any out of him—will do him a world of good." Easterly informed Aunt Susto, and stomped out to check his cows.
Two of the cows had already calved, and the others looked to be due soon. The weather was too damp to consider haying, so he pulled weeds in the garden and helped his mother can vegetables and jams.
For all the trouble they made, the family as a whole was still eating well. Ericka's boy and Melodi's girl were sturdy toddlers. Vonne and Nielle had crawlers, Nabelle had a month old son and Marylu looked pregnant. If they'd had husbands, and worked the gardens instead of the streets they'd have made a prosperous looking clan. Might as well wish for the God of Luck to drop a bag of gold off as he passed by.
The orchard was a bit buggy this year, the plums just ripening, along with the last of the peaches.
He helped his dad, checked with the bank and tax office, delivered the next two calves and butchered one for the stomach lining.
His mother was happily making cheese as he mounted up and left again.
He refused to notice the provocatively dressed Vonne, Rache and Melodi on the way through Grantown. Unfortunately he was unable to avoid a double take at Dare in a lacy shirt and makeup. He kept going. There were some things that just couldn't be changed, and his family was one of them.
***
The Training Grounds were in use when he returned.
"The Young Lords, all flocking in to serve their two years." Wacolm shrugged. "The regular officers like it, even though the kids can be real pains."
"They only serve two years?"
"Yep. They get trained in how the Army works, and the Army looks them over and tries to recruit the best for five more years." He looked over at the milling horses. "At this point in the process, they're real snotty. Avoid them if at all possible. In fact, come and let me show you how codes work. You'll be sending messages soon enough."
Some codes were fascinating number games, and Deena cursed his memory as she also fought her way through the various types. He tried breaking codes too, but in the words of the captain in charge, his mind was too straight forward.
He was back to family duty again until the weather warmed, then he returned to his specialty—obviously stupid wagoneer.
Chapter Six
Spring Equinox1383
Karista, Kingdom of the West
"Didn't I start out this way?" Easterly asked, as he made up to the four horses he'd be driving.
"Yep. Poor lad, going nowhere. Now, go present yourself to the wagonmaster, he'll treat you just like one of his own hires and load you up with whatever." Wacolm, for some reason, considered riding a horse to be a superior means of transportation, and was delighted to be one of the supposedly private hired guards for the trip.
Easterly followed directions, found the wagonmaster and helped load. They were on their way an hour after dawn. Seventeen wagons. Ten belonged to Laughlier Mining, the other seven were all short hires of privately owned wagons and teams. Four of those were owned by four brothers, all black haired with light brown, almost yellow eyes. Their teams were beautiful, the lighter lead horses all chestnuts and palominos, the heavier wheel horses bays and blacks. All with good legs and beautiful heads.
Easterly sighed and admitted that perhaps there were horses worth owning. Not that his army foursome was bad, they were all good strong horses. But they didn't catch the eye like any horse of those four teams.
He chatted with the other drivers over dinner, and complimented the brothers on their teams. "Beau
tiful animals."
Zip nodded. "We breed them locally, there's these two stallions, a medium weight palomino and a heavy black. Depending on the mare, you can get about any size, weight, or color you want."
Joffe snickered. "Except small, Guy and Phantom don't produce small foals."
Bos sniffed. "Bet we could get a small one. Use a pony mare . . . Uh, no, now that I think about it, poor pony!"
They all laughed, and then started asking about the road. "We haven't been this way before, we wanted to earn some money this year, and this looked like the best route for it." Zip polished off his dinner. "Even if I am missing home cooking."
You could tell the bachelors by the number of shook heads. Or maybe the nodders were living with their mothers. Easterly sighed wistfully at the thought of his mother's cooking. He didn't figure he'd have time to walk home if they camped near Grantville. Last time had raised so many suspicions, he preferred to not do that again. Last winter had been so mild, perhaps his poor cows had survived the cousins' allergy to work.
They pushed the pace a bit to take advantage of the good weather. No doubt his mother's garden was sprouting and the orchard would be done blooming and have a cover of new green leaves. They camped in the usual spot outside Grantown, and Easterly stubbornly sat with his back to the town, and didn't join the other drivers for a beer.
Wacolm stopped by. "Not going home this time?"
"Nope. Overnight isn't enough time to do any good, I'd just end up fighting with my cousins."
One of the other Army drivers sat down with them. "You don't get along with your family?"
"Nope. Take every farm boy and backwood hick joke you've ever heard, and altogether they can't encompass a single cousin. And there's fifteen of them."
The man laughed. "I've got two brothers, and they'll be doing nothing but working the docks, loading boats until their backs give out and they turn into bums."
Easterly looked over his shoulder at the lamplit end of the street. No whores in sight, so he didn't have to not-recognize them.
It had only been sixteen days since they'd left Karista, and they had double that ahead of them, so the drivers trickled back before midnight, quiet enough that he slept through everything but Joffe laughing about the effects of wine on a girl named Nabelle. He pulled the covers over his head.
What might have been spotters for bandits were too far away to catch, although Wacolm circled around and tried to trap them. It was otherwise an uneventful trip to Havwee, where they joined an even larger convoy for the two weeks to Farofo.
Gold. Mining was picking up fast, with boom towns springing up wherever the miners collected in any number. The wagons looked empty and moved heavily as they rolled back out of Farofo, heading north. With an army escort. Halfway to Havwee they met the escort from there and the first company returned to Farofo. Three days north of Havwee, soldiers from Three Palms took over, and as they left that fort, the escort was a quarter the size it had been down south.
"In theory you can't hide a two hundred member bandit gang up here." Wacolm said. "Twenty or thirty men, yeah. But we shouldn't need an escort at all much longer."
Ech wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't that just encourage the bandits to move further north, for easy pickings? They might not stay long, like you say it's hard to hide that many men and horses, but you'd think they take the risk for gold."
"They do. You can't completely get rid of bandits." Wacolm shrugged. "Men that don't have work, or think digging the stuff out of the ground is for fools, will always show up for pruning." He tapped his sword and mounted as the wagonmaster whistled them into order and got them underway again.
The bandits hit them the third week on a long upgrade, moving slow with no chance to run. They whipped up the horses anyway, as the troops and guards faced off with them and managed to keep them almost out of arrow range. The stiff gusty wind that whipped up suddenly turned the arrows that did reach them into something closer to a thin shower of sticks, twirling and without power.
A trio of bandits broke through and charged at the wagons. A man in a filthy black shirt charged at Easterly, saber out. Easterly dropped half his reins and threw out his hand to reach for the sword hilt sticking up behind the bench. Something hit the man a stride away, man and horse falling flat on their sides. Easterly looked at his hand. No. The horse tripped. His team stopped as the wagon ahead stopped and Easterly abandoned the reins and stepped into the back of the wagon to repel borders. Two men galloped up, and something flew from the wagon behind him. The first man collapsed, then the second man screamed in pain and hunched over spurting blood as his horse panicked and bolted.
With no bandits close, Easterly grabbed his crossbow and cocked it, laid in the bolt. The riders and the gusty wind were raising a dust cloud. Easterly waited until a raider was close, and distinct before loosing. He cocked the bow again, but the fight, dust clouds and all, was moving quickly away. The bandits were retreating.
It was over that quickly, troops and guards in pursuit. Easterly jumped down and started catching loose horses, and checking bodies for signs of life. The bandit whose horse had tripped was whimpering over a broken leg, reins clutched desperately in his hands. The horse was back on her feet but when he tried to mount Easterly punched him and knocked him out. He caught the mare and tied her to the wagon, and kept searching.
The four drivers from Rip organized the injured, and had the troops and guards, and two injured drivers back on their feet quickly.
"No point in wasting medicine on the bandits." Zip said. "The troops will take them for questioning and then hang them."
Easterly nodded grimly, and privately thanked the old gods that his family was too lazy for this sort of crime. Not that Tyrone might not end up hung eventually, but Easterly didn't want to be the hand of justice that did it.
And thank the Old Gods, no glowing things. He glanced uneasily at the horse still tied to his wagon. She tripped.
The riders returned, Wacolm looking pleased at the number of prisoners. They loaded the prisoners and the injured troops into the wagons, found harness trained beasts among the captured horses to replace the injured harness horses and drove four more days to Fort Eyre.
The captured horses were handed out as prizes to the private guards and the drivers who'd fought. Still undercover, Easterly found himself possessed of the mare that had fallen flat.
"So, you going to keep her?" Zip asked. "She's good looking, long legged. Breed her to Lava, that black stud of Ech's and you'll have a proper lead horse."
"Eventually." Easterly patted 'Splat'. Last thing he needed, but a year out to pasture and the mare would fill out and be worth more. And Lava was such a handsome heavy beast. Perhaps he could get a plow horse out of it. He set himself to bargain on the stud fee, and was a bit surprised to find they wouldn't charge one.
"It's a local tradition." Joffe grinned. "We all steal stallion services from each other, but since you're new to horse ownership, we won't make you sneak. Oh, and you'll probably need this." He made an extravagant gesture with his left hand. There might have been something glittery that wrapped itself around Mortimer . . . but more likely not.
They got to Grantown in the early afternoon and the wagonmaster decided they'd gone far enough for the day. Easterly used the extra hours to take Splat home and check on the state of everything. The pasture was still lush in the mid summer, and no one had done any haying.
He walked through the orchard with his father, gave himself a head ache worrying about bugs, scarfed an excellent dinner and walked back to the camp. He ignored the familiar looking whores picking up plenty of business from the guards and troops.
They pulled into Karista three weeks later without further trouble.
Easterly drove one more round trip without trouble, then went home for a month's leave.
He bought a ticket on the new stage. Switching teams, and driving all night, it was the fastest way to get home. He hoped the bandits didn't start targeting it. He really li
ked the speed. Grantown was one of their relay stations, and he climbed out stiffly. Two and a half days, with only three breaks a day for quick meals and the privy . . . and of course the station attracted whores.
"Hello Capt . . . oh. Mortimer." The woman's voice flattened.
Easterly looked down and shook his head. "Hi Ericka. I thought you were going to marry Riki?"
His cousin flipped her brittle bleached hair out of her face. She looked a lot older than nineteen. "He started talking about what he was gong to buy with all the money I earn, so I figured I was better off just spending it myself."
Easterly nodded glumly. "Sorry."
She shrugged. "It's too damn late to try for a higher class fellow, you know? I tried that once and that's what started the whole sorry mess."
"Yeah. It just seems like the whole family just gave up."
"Except you. We really ought to have listened to you." She shrugged and turned away. "See you later, Morty."
He walked through town, noting the empty stores, vacant houses. There simply weren't any jobs here. Some of his cousins could have kept farming, but that was about the only option apart from the one they'd taken. It was surprising that not a single one of them had caught the gold fever. Too lazy to dig holes and break rock, he supposed.
He waved to his Aunt Susto, sitting on her porch, and hugged his mother. "I've got about twenty days off. What do you need me to do?"
What he mostly did was make hay, lots of hay. With the horse and if they kept the two heifers they'd need more than usual. He even sprung for oats, to keep the mare in good condition through the winter. He chatted with all his aunts, uncles and cousins—his visit being an excellent reason for them to mooch off the branch of the family with money. Or food at any rate. He slaughtered one of the two bull calves and helped his mother cook and preserve what the vultures didn't consume. Their bull was old enough to be getting territorial, so he sold him and bought a good looking bull calf not related to the cows and heifers. He decided to keep the heifers, the cows were starting to show their age. He got enough for the big bull to pay a year's taxes, and did so
