Red Rowan: Book 3: Return of the Reluctant Hero

by Helen Gosney

  Uncharacteristically, Fess blushed, breaking the sombre mood.

  “Well, I didn’t like to brag, Rowan,” he said.

  “I should hope not. But you deserved it, Fess, you truly did… Did you say there was something you wanted to show me in the Mess?”

  “ Aye, there is, a couple of things actually, but maybe it’d be better to go to the Museum first… it’ll make more sense then, I think.”

  “Fine… just let me look at this for a bit longer…”

  Rowan absently put his hand on the horse’s scarred rump as he turned to study the Memorial a bit more closely. There was something about it that he couldn’t quite grasp. It wasn’t that the men were listed together irrespective of garrison or rank; they’d truly been a united troop on the trek home and it was fitting that be recognised, but… It took him a little while to work out what it was, and then it was blindingly obvious.

  “Fess… why have they got it like this? Use names first and family names last? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

  Fess grinned at him.

  “Aye, it should be. But… well… there was a slight problem with that…”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Well, you see, the men wanted to list the survivors on the memorial too… they said that those men had been heroes too and that they’d suffered and… well, anyway, that’s what was wanted and that’s what was done.”

  “Aye. ‘Tis a good idea. Those poor brave souls deserve some recognition too. But…?”

  “Ah, yes. Well… er… the trouble was that bloody Siannen names are so damned complicated and nobody was sure which bit went where if we turned it around, so we…” Fess shrugged, “Well, we just put everyone’s names as you see them.”

  Rowan stared at him in astonishment. He shook his head and laughed.

  “You poor silly buggers! I can’t believe it,” he laughed again, delighted at the absurdity of Wirrans. “You only had to ask any Siannen you saw walking past! There’s a few of us around, even here in Den Siddon. No foresters, but that wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “Aye, I suppose we could’ve. But we like it like this.”

  “So do I, Fess! So do I. It makes me laugh and that’s a good thing. None of these lads would want us to be hanging about forever with long faces.”

  “No, that’s what we thought too.”

  Rowan absentmindedly patted the horse’s bronze rump and then stepped back a bit so he could see all of it.

  “I like the statue too, Fess,” he said slowly, “They both look exhausted… well, shattered really, poor brave buggers, but they’re still determined to struggle on and get home somehow…That’s just what it felt like when we… when we left Messton with the carts…sometimes we’d walk through the worst of the mud if we could, to try and save our poor horses a bit. Not everyone could of course,” he tilted his head a little, puzzled, studying the horse more closely as Fess had known he would. “The horse looks a bit like Mica…”

  “Aye, it does, doesn’t it? It’s taken from a painting in the Men’s Mess that I wanted you to see…” Fess said nonchalantly as he waited for the other boot to drop.

  “A painting…? Of Mica?” Rowan’s eyes widened. “Great Bloody Hells…” he said very softly as he took in the rest of the statue, the man the horse was resting its weary muzzle on as it nibbled his hair while they plodded off between the great slabs of the memorial. The man with the ragged Wirran uniform and the messy Siannen braid.

  “No wonder Stefan looked so bloody stunned if he expected me to look like this poor scruffy bugger…” he said, very stunned himself.

  Fess smiled to himself. The survivors all said the poor scruffy bugger looked exactly as Rowan had when he’d come back from Trill, when he’d somehow got them moving and kept them moving on their way home to Den Siddon.

  **********

  Finally Rowan patted the bronze horse again and stepped away from the memorial.

  “Thanks, Fess,” he said quietly.

  Fess nodded, looking at him carefully. He was a bit pale, his face sad but composed and he had his emotions under firm control again.

  “I’m fine, Fess, truly. But you’d have to be made of stone yourself not to be affected by that,” he said.

  “Aye, you would,” Fess agreed soberly.

  “Well, ‘tis the Museum next, I suppose. “You said there’s something there that I should see…? I know where it is, Fess. Do you not have any, er… I hate to say it, reports to do something with…?”

  “Only a month’s worth, Rowan! And you’re right, I should go and… No, dammit. Not just yet, I want to do this first…” Fess shrugged. “But after that, I’ll have to put in another appearance, I suppose.”

  Rowan smiled at him and they strode off to the Guard Museum, a good-sized building full of countless items of the long proud military history of Den Siddon and Wirran, situated near the wall of the garrison.

  “Well, here we are, Fess.” Rowan looked around him, his old fascination reasserting itself despite his experiences. There really is a lot of stuff in here, he thought. I should have another good look at it while I’m here. “What was it in particular that you thought I should see in all this lot?”

  “Only two things, Rowan. The first one’s over here…” Fess led the way to a set of long flat glass-topped display cases set against a wall.

  “What is it…?” Rowan began, then stopped as he saw what was in the cases. Medals. Rows and rows of medals.

  “Fess…” he said reluctantly as he suddenly realised where this was heading.

  “Rowan, you should at least see the damned thing! You’re here now and I’ve asked them to open the case for you. It won’t bloody bite you!”

  Rowan sighed and looked away for a moment, unconsciously twisting the gold and silver ring on his little finger as he always did when stressed. Aye, he probably should see it, he supposed. Fess had gone to a lot of trouble and the cursed thing probably wouldn’t actually take a piece out of him.

  There in a little case of their own were his medals, still familiar to him after so long. Service medals, two Champions’ Trophy medals, all the rest of them… no, there were a couple of new ones that he realised must be for Messton and Trill as well as two Blood Stars, for being wounded in action at both. He thought irreverently that they’d have needed a hell of a lot of those after Messton: nobody had been uninjured. It was an impressive collection that Fess had given to the Museum when Rowan simply hadn’t wanted them after he’d got his shattered troopers back to Den Siddon. He’d set the Commandant’s courtmartial in motion and then walked away.

  He looked more closely. Above the medals were his Silver Spurs; below them, below the filthy bloodied rags of a Captain’s insignia, was the Star of Yaarl.

  Rowan had never seen one and nor had any other Guardsman that he knew, but he’d seen pictures of them in dusty old portraits hanging in a couple of garrisons that he’d served in. It was unmistakeable. The pictures hadn’t done it justice though. An elegant eight-pointed silver star with a blood-red silken ribbon; in the centre of the star, a circular boss with the words ‘for valour’ in the same distinctive blood-red. To be worn at the throat, it was deceptively simple and very beautiful.

  Rowan stared at it, then carefully lifted the lid of the case and reached in. The Star sat cold and heavy in his palm and he gazed down at it for a long time without saying anything. Fess watched his friend bite his lip and shake his head and wondered what he was thinking. He’d said he was all right, and he must be or he’d simply not be here, but it had to be a difficult and emotional return for him. Rowan seemed to come back to himself with a start as he blinked and looked up.

  “’Tis beautiful, Fess. ‘Tis truly beautiful, and I’m glad I’ve seen it. I didn’t think I would be, but I am…” Rowan paused as he replaced the lovely thing in the case. “But its price was…” he glanced at it for a moment longer, sighed, and then looked up at Fess, “’Twas too high…”

  Fess nodded
solemnly as Rowan turned away from the highest military honour in Yaarl.

  “Aye, it was,” he hesitated for a moment, “Rowan, I’d like you to see just one more thing in here, if you’re…”

  Rowan smiled at him.

  “Aye, Fess. I truly am all right. I’m saddened by it all, and ‘tisn’t easy, but… I’m all right. Now, lead on, lad.”

  “Just over here, Rowan. I… I asked them to put these out for you too.”

  ‘These’ were a collection of sketches and a smallish blue-covered book. The book and the many pieces of paper were tattered and grubby, covered with grime and the unmistakeable stains of dried blood.

  **********

  4. “… it should be recorded…”

  “Who did these, Fess?” Rowan asked in amazement. The sketches in his hand were so raw and so powerful that the artist had to have been there at Messton.

  “Do you remember a lad named Jethro Olverson, from Den Bissen? Darkish blond hair, brown eyes, leg injuries, would have been twenty-two or so?”

  Fess knew Rowan was good with names, but he thought this might be a bit of a stretch even for him. Rowan frowned as he thought about it.

  “Jethro Olverson … Jethro … from Den Bissen? No…” he looked puzzled and shuffled through the sketches a bit. Suddenly he became very still as he stared at a sketch of a dagger beside a stub of a pencil. Unmistakeably a g’Hakken dagger.

  “Bloody Hells! I’d forgotten… how could I forget this…?” he said in wonder. “I was… I was going past one of the carts and… and there was a lad there asking if someone could lend him a decent knife because he’d lost his … the other lads were all telling him to shut up and let them rest, so I went over and asked him what he wanted a knife for and he said…” Rowan looked at Fess again for a moment. “It’s daft what you remember, isn’t it? He said he’d broken his pencil. I thought the poor lad must have been raving but bugger me, he held up this bloody pencil and sure enough it was broken… I must have gawped at him like a damned fish…”

  He shook his head slowly as he remembered a bit more of Trooper Jethro Olverson.

  **********

  “Sir, I need this sharpened so I can draw…”

  “Draw?” Rowan thought it had finally happened. He’d gone completely daft. Here they were, struggling through rain and mud to get themselves home to bloody Den Siddon; after a truly horrible battle everyone was injured and men were suffering and dying in pain every day and this lad wanted to draw…?

  “Aye, Sir… I can’t help do anything because I can’t bloody walk…” Jethro looked down at his injured legs, “But… Sir, my father’s a painter and I draw a bit too… see…” he held out a smallish book with a grubby blue cover.

  Staring up from one of the pages were some of the men in the cart, the pain and anguish in their faces heartbreaking. It was simply stunning. Rowan fumbled the pages over one-handed. There was the camp at Messton. The next page showed a pile of bodies, then the line of carts with weary horses plodding through mud. Finally he saw himself, hunched in pain, his battered face desolate, writing a report by a tiny campfire.

  “You did these?” Rowan couldn’t believe it.

  “Aye, Sir. I just… it should be recorded, Sir, so people will know… I see you writing your reports and…” Jethro looked up at him, “Sir, I… this is all I can do…”

  Rowan stared at the injured trooper’s face, a young face as filthy and exhausted and lined with pain as everyone else’s, and nodded slowly. He fumbled awkwardly at his belt.

  “Take good care of this, lad. And be very bloody careful, ‘tis sharper than anything you’ve ever seen. We’ve no bandages to spare if you cut a finger off.”

  The young man’s eyes widened as Rowan handed him a beautiful dagger decorated with a tree chased in silver and gold: a g’Hakken dagger. He’d never imagined anything like it.

  “I can’t take this, Sir,” he said hesitantly.

  “Why not? You wanted a knife didn’t you? I can’t sharpen the bloody pencil for you.” And he truly couldn’t, with his right hand and shoulder as heavily bandaged and useless as they were. “Just give it back to me when you’ve finished with it…when we get back to Den Siddon.”

  “And he did,” Rowan shrugged. “He gave it back to me as we came over that last hill.”

  **********

  As the days had dragged by Rowan had given Jethro the few bits of paper that he could spare, and he remembered a couple of troopers burning their fingers as they’d scrabbled about in a campfire for some charcoal. But he’d had no idea that the lad had done so many drawings. Some were on tiny scraps of paper that some of the other men must have given him, some on larger bits with several drawings to a page and the little book was filled from cover to cover.

  There were the healers, their faces grim as they knelt by some poor soul; some of the injured troopers sitting awkwardly on their tired horses; the battlefield again and again; tattered standards and bloodied swords and broken spears; one of the two farm lads who’d helped them, curled up asleep under a cart; tents and tiny campfires with shadowy figures hunched around them; somebody rolling bandages; somebody else giving his injured friend a drink of water; an exhausted ragged man with his arm in a makeshift sling, plodding painfully through the mud beside a scarred dappled horse that nibbled at his hair; the same man on a dark horse, speaking with an equally tattered lieutenant driving a cart; the healers again, bandaging a man’s leg; an injured trooper holding the g’Hakken dagger very carefully, his face awed with the beauty of it; more exhausted, battered men with their faces haggard with pain; more weary horses; a cart stopped under a straggly tree for the night; the other farm lad and a sergeant struggling to carry a body into the darkness; Sergeant Nils and his men… it went on and on.

  There was an older man with his head in his hands; ragtag troopers handing out food; a young-looking lad with tears rolling down his face; another screaming as a healer bandaged the stump of his arm; Rowan himself biting his lip, blood running freely from it as the healers bound his damaged chest; bits and pieces of discarded, battered armour; a shabby water bottle; a wild dog that had crept into their camp looking for scraps and left disappointed; men huddling under canvas in the rain; more men doubled over with the racking cough of lung fever; a magpie carolling from the top of a wagon as the sun struggled through; wagon wheels deep in mud…

  It was all there: the pain, the suffering; the desperation and anguish, the squalor and heartbreak. And the incredible courage and determination of all who were there.

  Rowan raised his head slowly.

  “I had no idea, Fess…” he shook his head, “I just thought it gave the lad something to do to take his mind off it all… something else to think about. I’m… I’m astounded.”

  Rowan stared at the drawings again, mesmerised. The images were so real, exactly as he’d remembered it all, but… he’d always blamed himself for not being able to get more of his injured troops back to Den Siddon alive. Even when he knew how irrational it was, that he simply couldn’t have done more, it had still gnawed away at him for a long time. Finally it had resolved itself into a deep sadness and regret that lurked deep within his mind to catch him unawares sometimes, as it had on the way here. But now, seeing Jethro’s sketches made him realise that it truly had been a miracle that any had got home at all.

  “How the hell did any of us survive…?” he said so softly that Fess wasn’t really sure if he’d heard him properly.

  **********

  “Some of these sketches were… well, I don’t know the right words, but they were made into paintings,” Fess said after a little while. “There’s a series of them in the Men’s Mess, that’s what I wanted you to see… they’re mostly to do with when you and the men came back from Messton. There’s a couple of the battlefield too, I think… smashed shields and raggy standards and broken blades… you know the sort of thing. But the others…”

  Fess shook his head as he leafed through the little book until he f
ound the picture of the injured man and his horse struggling so determinedly through the mud.

  “This is the basis for one of the paintings, and also for the bronze statue in the memorial. Maybe you can see yourself more clearly in this…” he said as he passed the book back.

  Rowan studied it more carefully. Aye, this horse was definitely Mica, brave Mica who’d carried him so gallantly and saved his life more than once at Messton. But the man, with the pain of his injuries obvious in his stride, in the way he held himself as if he was trying very hard to protect his side…? Had he really looked like this very determined young man with his bloodied battered face, he wondered. Apparently he had, because nobody else had had tattered Captain’s insignia hanging half off their sleeves, he’d been the sole survivor of that rank, and nobody else had worn a bedraggled forester’s braid either. He recognised the other faces that Jethro had so carefully drawn, it was only his own exhausted face that was unfamiliar to him.

  “Aye, I suppose so, Fess… it has to be…” he said slowly.

  **********

  Fess had returned to his office with great reluctance and a weary resignation. He’d never known anyone who actually enjoyed paperwork. Rowan wandered over to the Men’s Mess and carefully put his head around the doors. No, nobody there. He could see a group of paintings on the back wall; well, truly, you couldn’t miss them. He went over to have a look.

  And there it was:

  A picture of the convoy of injured troopers making their weary way home to Den Siddon. Rowan thought it was probably the first or second day of the trek, before Sergeant Nils and his men had arrived to help them.

  There was the muddy trail the Wirran troops had made on their way to Messton to face Duke Rollo of Plait, with a motley assortment of farm carts and a dray, spread out a bit on it. They were filled with exhausted, injured troops with tattered uniforms and bloodied bandages and anguished, pain-filled faces. Some of the men were flushed and sweating heavily, racked with the horrible cough of lung fever. Weary, scruffy looking healers perched among them or rode alongside the carts.