“What do ye think the odds are that we’ll be breaking camp soon and finally going home, Fal?” Duncan asked as he used the end of a blade of hay to pick his teeth.
“Breaking camp? I think the odds are pretty good. As for going home…the odds have to be worse than 50/50. Knowing the Prince as well as we do, I wouldn’t put any money on it, that’s for sure.” she said
“Even though we lost the last battle?” Ernest interjected himself into the conversation.
“Even though,” Falon agreed. “I mean, when has a little thing like defeat ever stopped him before?” she asked, thinking about his duel with Prince Hughes of the Ravenlands. Supposedly, the duel had been to settle the Flower War without actually having a war, but no sooner had his highness Prince William lost than they had a great big battle anyway.
Under the definition of ‘sore loser,’ there has to be a picture of the dashing young Prince who commands our army, Falon thought bitterly.
“Maybe,” Ernest said reluctantly, “but even a Prince can’t keep an army together without any money. I heard he spent lavishly over the winter and was hoping to recoup his expenses with this war in the rich midlands. Now that his treasure chest is low he has to be wondering if he can keep the army.”
“Even if he can,” said Duncan, “maybe he’ll just keep the best parts and cut the rest of us loose, Fal?”
“By ‘best,’ do you mean the toughest warriors or the cheapest fighters?” Falon asked bitterly. “Remember: we’re here in lieu of taxes.”
“Earth and Field, Fal; be a wet blanket, why don’t you?” Ernest threw his hands in the air. “All we’re doing is belly-aching and hoping for the best. Why do you have to go and ruin that?”
“I’m just being realistic, that’s all,” Falon shot back. “If you want to dream about pie in sky and fairy tale solutions, I won’t stop you. But you need to say that’s what you’re looking for up front. Because if you ask for my honest opinion then that’s what you’ll get.”
“Bah…ye’re no fun,” Ernest grumped.
“Don’t mind the killjoy, Ern,” said Duncan, easily switching gears as soon as the conversation started to flag. “So…if we’re not going to be released, then—”
“I didn’t say we wouldn’t! I just said the odds were low,” Falon shot back.
“Right, right,” Duncan soothed, rolling his eyes before continuing, “so, in that case, where do ye think we’ll be going next?”
“Camp scuttlebutt is that there’s trouble on the Southern border,” Ernest said a touch sourly, but turning back to take part in the conversation.
Falon and Duncan both groaned simultaneously, but Ernest raised his hands.
“I don’t make the rumors, I just report them,” he said, smirking at their expressions.
“Not the south,” Duncan protested, “we’ve already been to the far north and froze. What’s next? Turn into a burnt offering in the south?! You know how crazy his Highness is over that bint he’s been chasing.”
“Hey now!” Falon scolded. “First, the Southern Mountain Kingdom is not far enough south that you’ll burn your skin—unless it’s summer, in which case you can burn just as easily here! Second, the Pink Princess is not a ‘bint.’ In fact, I have it on good authority that not only can she fight as good as any man, she also has some of the finest dresses money can buy.”
“Yeah, yeah, brag it up why don’t ye?” Ernest laughed mockingly. “You baggage train raider, you.”
“Yeah,” said Duncan, “no need to gloat that your family got all the good stuff from the Princess’s bags. I bet your sisters all but fainted when they got their hands on a real Princess’s get-up.”
“Hey now,” Falon protested, “I’m not a ‘baggage train raider.’ That woman almost cut me down, remember? All I did was—”
“All you did was steal her underthings in revenge for using a magic sword on you. Bahaha,” Ernest laughed.
“Yeah, now that I think about it, that had to be just about the most epic panty raid of all time!” Duncan snorted conspiratorially.
Falon glared at the two buffoons as they mocked her. So she was a panty raider now, was she? One day, she was going to get her revenge—and it was going to be so good that the merest mention of it would send the two jokers running for the hills!
“If you’re done trying to humiliate me,” Falon said dryly before returning to the analysis part of this laugh fest, “I’d say the Prince has proven so eager to secure any advantage he can to win the hand of the Pink Princess in marriage—anyway that he can, fair or foul, I’ll add. Even the slightest whiff of a chance should send him running south as fast as he can…so long as his Father or something more concrete like another rebellious lord doesn’t crop up before then.”
“Let us pray that the rumor is just a rumor then, for all our sakes,” Duncan said wryly, and Ernest quickly seconded him.
They were still laughing and joking around with the conversation having turned to more inconsequential things when a rider bearing the Prince’s banner came pounding up.
“Is one of you Sir Falon Rankin of Brown Creek Manor?” he asked importantly.
“I’m Sir Falon,” Falon said, straightening up and cocking her head.
The herald nodded and then opened a scroll. “By the joint command of his Highness, the Prince Marshal, and Lord Warrick, your Captain, you are hereby ordered to prepare your company for the march,” he said, reading from the scroll before snapping it back closed.
“Any word on where we are bound, Herald?” Falon asked, her mood instantly falling now that it was confirmed that Warrick was still alive and they weren’t about to be disbanded and sent home.
The Herald lifted his brows as if to ask just where she had been lately. “The Great Mountain of the South has mobilized his army, and word is that they’re about to instigate a major border dispute with the Stag Kingdom over a critical pass,” he informed her. “Word is the Prince has decided to throw his support behind the army his Majesty is sending as an official response to this southern aggression!”
“Of course he is,” Falon nodded, and then dismissed the herald.
“Did ye hear that, Ern?” Duncan asked as soon as the Herald had departed. “First we were the victims of Northern Aggression, then there was a Tax Rebellion in the midlands, and now we’re under attack because of Southern Aggression.”
“Where ever can we go where we’ll be safe?” Ernest sneered.
“If you boys were looking for safety, you should have stayed home on the farm,” Falon growled. “Let’s get back to camp and see about getting the men moving.”
“Oh, not again,” the boys groaned.
“Chop, chop,” Falon shooed them back in the direction of the camp.
“Really, Falon,” Ernest demanded while they were running back to the camp, “you need to see if there isn’t anything you can do about it. I mean, this will be the fourth war we’ve been in so far. I don’t know about you, but aren’t we supposed to take a break? Fall, winter, spring, and now another Summer campaign—that’s just about one war every season. We need a break.”
“Maybe I will,” Falon said thoughtfully. Maybe she would. After all, how much could it hurt to ask?
Chapter 45: A Letter, and a Large Sale
Tongue caught between her front teeth, Falon focused with razor-tight precision on the parchment currently pressed out flat on her campaign table. Dipping the goose quill pen into the ink well at the top right corner of the table, and then pausing to adjust the stones on two of the four corners of the parchment, Falon began to write.
After she was finished, she sanded the paper and allowed it to air dry before finally rolling it up into a scroll. Tying it closed with a bit of twine and a twist-knot, she held the message scroll in her hand for a long minute before finally getting up and sticking her head outside the tent.
“Tug?” she called, reaching into her pouch .
“Right here, Lieutenant!” the not-quite-as-portly-as-he-used-to-be clerk
said, jumping out from behind his desk where he was busy managing the parchments and vellum that were necessary to keep a fighting company the size of the Swan Battalion running.
“Message for home,” she said, pressing the scroll and a handful of silver into his eager hands. “It is to go directly into the hands of his Lordship Lamont, understood?”
“I’ll send it directly by a fast courier,” Tug said quickly.
“Regular courier will do. There’s nothing in there worthy of attracting the sort attention a speedy delivery could entail,” she said after a moment’s thought. Honestly, she didn’t know if sending it via fast courier was going to attract attention outside of the Fighting Swans or not. But anything she could do to lower expectations inside her camp, as they regarded her message to the Swan Lord, would be helpful. The last thing she wanted was to be constantly pestered about her private correspondence.
“No problem; a regular courier it is,” said Tug.
“Oh, and make sure there’s a receipt and a proper accounting. I’ll be expecting any change to be given back to me,” Falon warned.
“Of course,” Tug said smoothly, “the last time was a simple accounting error and the spare change was thrown back into the general company fund. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” Falon glowered. It had only been a handful of coppers, but by the Lady that money was hers and it didn’t belong to the company—or in Tug’s private pockets.
Tug turned to go and then paused to look back at her as he hesitated. “I noticed that the remaining company treasures have been removed from the wagons and supply tent,” he paused, clearly waiting for her to jump in. But for once Falon was ahead of him and decided to sit back and gloat a bit.
“Yes,” she said, happy on the inside but not showing it on her face.
“You don’t seem surprised, so I suppose you know where all of it went?” Tug said.
“You suppose right,” Falon said.
“Then…?” he pressed eagerly and then winced, knowing he’d gone too far.
Falon frowned. “The company funds are not your private reserve,” she scolded firmly.
“My apologies,” he muttered.
“But if you have to know,” she said, feeling like she could no longer hold it in so she decided to share it, “after our last battle, I realized that if the enemy had got into our camp we could have lost not just all of our supplies, but the remaining spoils from the northern campaign as well. So I decided to sell them.”
Tug looked alarmed. “You…you decided to sell them…yourself?” he asked with dismay.
“Hey now,” Falon leveled a finger at him, “I’m not as incompetent as all that!”
“I didn’t mean to imply…it’s just that…that…” Tug stammered, looking fit to burst.
“That you think you’d have done a better job of selling them off?” Falon asked and then answered her own question. “Of course you did. Well, in this case, I doubt you would have gotten a good deal from the hostile populace of the Frog barony.” At this Tug nodded his agreement, so she continued “I thought the same thing…which is why I decided to use my brother as my factor to sell them. As local gentry, with a local understanding of the prices and purveyors, we should get a decent price. And, frankly, we can’t afford to carry the weight around anymore. This is the first small city we’ve come across since we left the north—or at least it’s the first one the Swans have been allowed near. It was high time we lightened the load.” Not to mention, she silently added, it was time to replenish the battalion treasury so that they could continue to make wages.
Tug’s face screwed up. “A well-reasoned decision,” he said, looking less than entirely happy that he’d been cut out of the loop—or, more precisely, from the chance to put his sticky fingers in the till this go-round. “But are you sure your brother is entirely reliable? I would remind you that you just fought on the opposite sides of a war and then took him prisoner. Extorting him for a ransom, even.”
“He’s good for it,” Falon said bluntly.
“Poor country knights—” Tug started.
“He’s always got his armor,” Falon said flatly.
“Most knights are not always willing to sell their armor to pay debts,” he riposted.
“If Justin tries to welch out on me when he knows that the majority of my private share is to be sent back home to my sisters, and the company share is to pay wages for the men, I’ll have no problem going back there and peeling him out of his armor,” Falon said, her face hardening. She trusted her brother to keep his word, but if for any reason he put himself—and his wife and children—above his sisters and brother by trying to steal her hard-earned money, then he was about to find out just how much of a witch his little sister could be.”
“Of course,” Tug said, probably recognizing it was a good time to get out of the subject.
“Have Duncan ready my horse on your way out while I change,” Falon said before Tug could get out of earshot. “I need to pay a call on someone.”
Tug nodded but didn’t reply as he kept moving until he was out of sight.
She’d just now sent a letter to Richard Lamont, but there was more than one way to skin a cat. She swung up on the horse after changing into her best clothes.
It was time to see a man about some relief.
Chapter 46: Seeking Relief
“Absolutely not,” the man said flatly.
“But we’ve been in the field for almost an entire year now without relief,” Falon pointed out patiently.
“Like the rest of us, you were encamped for the winter,” the Knight said firmly. “If you failed to give your men a furlough at that time then I’m afraid you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Look, General,” Falon started.
“My name is Captain Cromont,” he growled.
“Then Captain,” she said crossly, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but our battalion was posted in a burnt-out manor and spent the almost four months chasing raiders. That’s hardly what I’d call ‘restful’.” The Captain harrumphed and gave her the beady one eye. “Didn’t you say you were a lieutenant?” he demanded.
“What of it? Knight Lieutenant Falon Rankin—as I said when I first entered,” she repeated.
“The Fighting Swans, are you?” he shook his head as he said the name. “Hardly the most manly of names,” he sneered.
“Are you insulting our banner?” Falon said with disbelief—which was rapidly turning into outright anger.
“Where’s your captain? He should be making this request instead of you. Not that it would have been granted if he had, but sending a mere lieutenant—and second or third in command—is just an insult to the whole process,” he said flatly.
“The last I saw our ‘Captain,’ he had promised to find reinforcements to help stabilize our lines and was in the process of making a vigorous attack to the rear. I haven’t heard from him since. He could be dead or alive for as far as I know,” Falon said sharply, “in the meantime, that means I’m in command.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Sir!” Captain Cromont growled. “Else you’ll soon find yourself on the field of honor crossing swords!”
Falon’s body instinctively swayed back in the face of the angry male. And then she got angry with herself.
“What about my request?” Falon finally asked, refusing to give in to outright intimidation.
“Request denied!” he thundered, grabbing his seal and pounding it on table.
“Which one?” Falon said, refusing to gulp or swallow. Which, ironically, soon she had her entire mouth filling with saliva.
Her eyes narrowed. Cromont might have been a captain and a knight, and in charge of independent companies in the army by order of the Prince, but he was nothing more than a big bully in her opinion.
“Both. Any. All of them! I quite frankly can’t remember how many ‘requests’ you’ve just made, but I can assure they’re all denied,” he replied, the corner of hi
s mouth turning up as he gloated.
“Gah!” Falon threw her hands up in the air. “I demand to see the Prince, or whoever else in this army has the power.”
“Just who do you think you are? Get out of this tent before I have you thrown out for rank cowardice,” he thundered.
“Cowardice?!” Falon all but screamed. “I’ve fought in every major battle in wars and almost all the skirmishes. And while you sat nice and warm in Ice Finger Keep on furlough. I—”
At a sharp gesture from Captain Cromont, a pair of hands grasped her on either arm cutting her off mid-rant.
“Let go of—” Falon howled as she was dragged out of the tent. Then the next thing she knew she was sent flying to the air and landed on her rear with a thump and a spray of mud.
Rolling to her feet while trying—and failing—to wipe off the mud covering her best clothes, Falon glared at the other Captain’s tent and silently vowed revenge. Cromont’s day would come!
“Sir Falon?” came a familiar, shocked-sounding voice. “Is that you, Lieutenant?”
Falon’s teeth ground together until she could hear a squeal, then she forced a smile on her face and turned around.
“Lord Warrick…you live!” she said pasting eager surprise on her face. “We waited and waited, but when you never came we thought you lost in some heroic struggle with the foeman and dead on the field. Thank the gods you survived captivity!” she said, hiding the bite of her words behind an innocent face and happy voice. “Those foul Frogs did not force the Prince and your Father to pay too high a price for you, did they, my lord? When we heard no word from you at camp, we feared the worst.”
The pleasant expression on Lord Casper’s face curdled slightly, and then he pursed his lips in what could be mistaken for a pleasant smile. “Although I took a blow to the head, my helmet absorbed the most of it,” he said smoothly. “Thankfully, my father’s armsmen were able to drag me back to the Prince and safety. Alas, the Prince…” he trailed off, looking sad and conflicted.
The Channeling (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 3) Page 26
