Sheepfarmer's Dauther dop-1

by Elizabeth Moon

  “It’s where some spice comes from, and fancy embroidery,” said Paks.

  “Umm. That’s not enough. We have time for better. Have you heard of the Immerhoft Sea, that lies south of the land?” Paks nodded. Jornoth had mentioned it. “Across the Immerhoft was Aare, the old kingdom. Those people settled islands in the Immerhoft, then sailed on to find a great land they called Aarenis, the daughter of Aare. They settled it, and spread, and the land was divided among great lords and their children. In time they spread to the Dwarfmounts, driving the elves ahead of them, and found passes to the north. That’s what we call the south—Aarenis is what it’s called when you’re in the south—from the Immerhoft to the Dwarfmounts. These same folk settled the western kingdoms of the north.”

  Paks frowned. “I thought the Eight Kingdoms were settled by seafolk and nomads from the north. My grandfather—”

  “Was probably a horse nomad. In part, they were. But all these groups met in the Honnorgat valley. The eastern kingdoms, those below the great falls, have more seafolk. Tsaia and Fintha have more nomads. And Lyonya and Prealith have elves. But most of the folk in Tsaia and Fintha came from Aarenis long ago.” Paks nodded, and Stammel went on. “There’s a great trade between Aarenis and the Eight Kingdoms and most of it comes through the pass we’ll use, up the Vale of Valdaire. Long ago it came by water, up the Immer and its tributaries. Southbound trade sailed from Immer ports to Aare itself. But Aare is a wasteland now, and the sea trade goes to other lands—I don’t know where myself, and the tales are strange enough. Anyhow, for one reason and another, a group of cities agreed to build a new trade route, a land route. Some say the river trade was taxed too heavily by the lords and cities along it, and some that river pirates made it too dangerous. I think myself that these cities traded more with the north, and for that a land route was needed anyway. So their merchant guilds joined in the Guild League, and they built the road and maintain it, and they send their caravans north each year, and we send ours south. The wars in Aarenis come partly from rivalry between the Guild League cities and the river cities and old lords.”

  “Which side are we on?” Effa had come near to listen, with several others.

  “Whoever hires us,” said Bosk, leaning on the wall nearby.

  Stammel nodded. “He’s right. The Duke makes a contract with someone—a city or a lord, whoever will pay his price—and that’s who we fight for.”

  Effa looked shocked. “But—surely the Duke wouldn’t make a contract with just anyone.”

  “Well—no. We’re a northern company, after all: an honorable company. He has his standards. But we’ve fought for one city against another, and for a lord against a city, and the reverse. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean, we’re an honorable company?” asked Barra. “Aren’t all companies much alike?”

  “Tir, no! I wish they were. The good ones—mostly northern—agree on some things—we won’t harbor each other’s criminals or traitors, we won’t torture prisoners, we treat prisoners fairly, and so forth. We don’t steal supplies from peasants, or destroy crops if we can avoid it. We compete, but we know there’s wars enough to keep us all employed; we don’t try to kill each other off, except in battle. And that’s our business. But there are some others—” Stammel paused, and looked around the group; more recruits had come to listen to him, and Captain Pont lounged nearby. “Captain Pont will bear me out—”

  Pont nodded, his long face splitting in a grin. “Surely. The south is full of so-called mercenaries. Most of ’em are robbers that blackmail some poor town into hiring them to keep order. Some are fairly honest hired blades in summer, and robbers in winter. A few are fairly well-organized and independent, but downright nasty—”

  “The Wolf Prince—” muttered Stammel.

  “Yes—the Wolf Prince. He’s definitely a bad one. Uses poison, assassins, and anything else he can think of. Tortures prisoners and sells ’em to the searovers. Takes ransom only in coins or hard jewels, and only within three days. We broke into his stockade one year—were you there, Stammel?”

  “Yes, sir.” Stammel picked up the tale. “He’d captured a patrol of the Sier of Westland’s light cavalry, and chained them all in the open, without food or water. Three were alive when we broke in, and only one lived to make it back to Westland, with all we could do.”

  “But didn’t you kill him?” Effa broke in.

  “No. He’d gotten away a few days before; we never did know how he got through the lines.” Stammel paused, his face grim. “Then there’s the Honeycat. Calls himself Count of the South Marches, I think it is, and runs four companies or so along the coast and up the Immer valleys. There’s a bad one. We’ll probably come against him again this campaign. He’s not exactly a mercenary, in the usual sense. He stirs up wars; they say he has factions in every city, and has even bought out some of the guilds. He hates the northern companies, because he can’t scare us or bribe us.”

  “Why is he called Honeycat?”

  “It’s what he’s like, they say—sweet words, soft voice, and then claws in your belly.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” said Barra suddenly. “Isn’t he the one that hung the witwards of Pliuni upside down from the city gates?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t the witwards. It was the priests of Sertig’s Anvil and the Lord’s Hall. That’s why five priesthoods have banned him—not that he cares; he believes in none of them. Some say he worships the Tangler or the Master of Torments, and others say he follows the Thieves’ Creed. Whichever, he’s bad clear through. His captains are as bad as he is.”

  “Is that why we’re going to fight him?” asked Effa. Stammel glared.

  “Haven’t you been listening at all? We’re a mercenary company; we fight for pay. If we do fight the Honeycat, it’ll be because some enemy of his hires us. We have nothing to do with good and bad—not that way, I mean.”

  Paks was still thinking about something Stammel had said earlier. “You said the honorable companies treat prisoners well—”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Well—how do we—I mean, isn’t it dishonorable to surrender? And for the others? I thought we just fought until—”

  “No, no,” Stammel interrupted. “We’re hired fighters, not fanatic hotheads. We fight hard when we’re fighting, but if our Duke or captains tell us to quit, we quit. Right then. You remember that, or you won’t make it back to wherever—Three Firs. There’s no sense in losing the whole Company out of pride.”

  “But don’t we owe it to whoever hired us?” asked Saben.

  “No. The Duke hired you—remember your oath to him?” He looked around until they all nodded. “You agreed to obey the Duke, and his captains—no one else. That’s where your honor lies. Somebody who has a contract with the Duke, that’s between the Duke and him. Our honor is between the Duke and us.”

  “It—it doesn’t happen often, does it? Being surrendered, I mean, and captured?” Paks still could not imagine it.

  “No. Not to us; the Duke’s careful. He won’t take a contract where we don’t have a chance. But it has, and it may again.” Paks sat frowning at her bare feet as the talk went on around her. It had never occurred to her that they might surrender; she did not like that idea at all. Effa was still arguing, talking about St. Gird and the honor of a warrior, and Arñe, as usual, was trying to shut Effa up.

  “Effa,” said Pont finally, “if you wanted to be that sort of warrior—a paladin or something like that—you should have talked to your Marshal about joining a fighting order—”

  “He said I should get experience,” said Effa, red-faced.

  “You’ll get that here,” said Pont. “And even Marshals and paladins, Effa, must follow orders—”

  “But they don’t surrender! They fight to the death—”

  “Not always,” said Bosk. “I’ve known them to retreat: any good warrior must learn when to withdraw.”

  “You’ve seen that?”

  “Yes. Think of the lege
nds; Gird himself retreated once, at Blackhedge, remember? If you finish your service with us, and join a fighting order, you’ll see—fighting’s fighting, Effa—war doesn’t change. If Girdsmen never backed out of a fight, they’d all be dead.” Effa looked unconvinced, but subsided.

  Late that afternoon the rain stopped. By next morning, the clouds had cleared. They were on the road early. When they fetched breakfast from the inn, well before dawn, they learned that another caravan had come in the night before, from the east.

  “You might’s well go across the fields,” the landlord told Captain Pont. “We’ve wagons wall to wall in town, and stuck on all the roads in. You’ll not harm plowed or planted ground if you swing east a bit and then south: that’s fallow this year.

  So they made good time on the turf for some distance. They climbed a long gentle slope. The view opened around them: pastureland nearby, and blocks of woodland in the distance. Something along the woods’ edge was in bloom; puffs of white that looked like plum blossom. As they topped the rise, Paks noticed an irregular cloud bank to the south and east.

  “There they are,” said Stammel cheerfully.

  “What?” Paks could not see anything cheerful about more clouds.

  “The mountains—that’s the Dwarfmounts.”

  “They’re not very big,” she said doubtfully. “I thought they were big mountains.”

  Stammel laughed. “They are. We’re a long way from them. Keep watching.”

  Day by day the mountains crawled above the horizon, showing themselves taller and taller. Eastward the highest peaks were snow-covered from tip to foothills below—but even the western end of the range was higher than anything Paks had seen. The tales went round the fires at night: those dun-colored hills were home to gnomes, the princedoms of Gnarrinfulk and Aldonfulk. The mountains themselves sheltered tribe after tribe of dwarves: Goldenaxe, Axemaster, Ironhand. Rich dwarves, immensely rich with the gold and silver and gemstones they delved from the mountains’ roots.

  Now the road swung west, along the line of the range, and west again, as they climbed higher into the hills. The mountains seemed to dive into the earth just west of their path. “That’s the pass,” explained Stammel. “And just beyond is the Vale of Valdaire.” Here the road was busy. They passed caravans headed north, great wagons pulled by powerful mules, each with its armed guard atop, and a squad or so of men-at-arms marching before and behind the train. They saw more dwarves, traveling in troops, heavily armed, peering up at the humans suspiciously from under their bushy brows. Elves here and there—single travelers, mostly, but once a small band of elven knights, who hailed the captain in silvery ringing voices that thrilled the ear like harpstrings lightly plucked.

  As the road rose higher over every hill, Paks could see behind them the great tumbled rug of forest and field that sloped from the mountains to the Honnorgat. Far away north was Vérella of the Bells, and upriver from that Fin Panir that she had never seen. And somewhere very far north and west, beyond the Honnorgat and at the springing of one of its minor branches, were the moors above Three Firs and the low stone house where she’d been born. The miles to the Duke’s stronghold had seemed no barrier to return, nor the crossing of the great river, nor the miles since. But when she looked up at the mountains’ snowy wall, she felt that crossing them would be to leave the land of her home.

  As she mused, someone noticed the blue shadow to the west. Still many miles away, it hung a blue curtain on the sky—the arm of a great mass of mountains that bordered Aarenis on the west. The pass south lay between the two ranges.

  * * *

  The pass itself was easier than it looked. For hundreds of years that road had been worked and reworked; it wound between hills and around them, taking the easiest way up, and only at the last did it lift itself from beside a streambed and crawl over one rocky knob. At once, having crossed, it returned to the easy path, winding along as it must, among hills now green with spring.

  For it was full spring in the south, a lush spring. The Vale of Valdaire lay lovely and green before them, a vast bowl with snowy mountains in the background, green pastures on the uplands, and darker green forests below. From the top of the pass, it took two days to reach the city, but every step of the way was pleasant.

  Valdaire, as they saw it gleaming beside the laughing waters of its little rivers, looked far more welcoming than Vérella. Its walls seemed more apt to hold up the backs of shops than to form a defense. As they neared it, great inns lined the road, each with a huge walled court for the caravan wagons and draft animals. Across the river from the road, on rising ground not far from the city, they saw what looked like a small stone village. Bosk pointed it out.

  “That’s Halveric Company’s winter quarters,” he said. Someone bolder than Paks asked what “Halveric Company” was. “Mercenaries, like us. They usually contract with the Sier of Westland, these last few years. A good company, all things considered.”

  “Where’s ours?” someone asked.

  “East of the city. We’ll go through, just to show you. Now keep it sharp.”

  Valdaire swarmed with people, and not only merchants and craftsmen, as in Vérella: it swarmed with troops of all sorts. They had been told it was the truce city, but they had not expected so many different colors and badges. Green tunics much like their own, red tunics over black or gray trousers, green leather over brown wool, brown tunics over red—it was bewildering. Riders in chain mail on slender, quick-stepping horses, riders in plate on massive chargers, crossbowmen on mules. Now and again one of them spoke to Captain Pont or Stammel, commenting freely on the recruits’ appearance. Paks noticed the strange accents, and the gods they swore by—she had no idea who or what Ashto and Senneth were.

  At last they were through the city. On the right was a last inn, The White Dragon. A row of men in leather armor lounged outside it, and stared as the column went by.

  “Phelan’s new recruits,” she heard one of them say.

  “Wish they were ours,” said another. “That load of blockheads we got this year—”

  “Think these are better?”

  “They march better, that’s something. By Tir, I hope we don’t close that contract with—”

  “Hssh!” Then the column was past, and she heard no more.

  They turned from the road into a lane. Ahead clustered whitewashed stone buildings, most long and low but three of them two-storied. Paks took a deep breath. This had to be the Duke’s winter quarters—in a few minutes they would see the veterans for the first time, would find their places in the full Company. They marched closer. She could see people walking around between buildings. No one seemed to pay them any attention. Paks tried not to let her eyes wander as they came between the buildings. The veterans looked incredibly tough. They came to an open space, and Stammel halted them. Almost at once, a voice she did not know bellowed a command, and the Company formed so fast it seemed the bodies snapped into place. Instead of men and women casually walking about or standing in doorways, now there was a compact, precise formation of hard-eyed soldiers. Paks blinked; several behind her gasped. She could feel the veterans’ eyes scanning the column. It made her uneasy, like an itch. Then the Duke rode out, and greeted Captain Pont, and within moments the column was dispersing to the three cohorts of the Company.

  All in Stammel’s unit went into Arcolin’s cohort. He was a tall, stern-faced man with dark hair and bright gray eyes. Arcolin’s junior captain was Ferrault, who had ridden with them as far as Vérella: sandy-haired, bearded, both shorter and slighter than Arcolin. Barra and Natzlin and the rest of Kefer’s unit were assigned to Dorrin’s cohort. Paks was startled to find that Dorrin was a woman. Sejek was her junior captain—and Stephi, then, was in another cohort. Paks was relieved.

  The next few hours were even more chaotic than her first as a new recruit. Each novice was assigned to a veteran, and the veterans made it clear that they would have to prove themselves all over again—if they could. Donag, a heavy-set file lea
der with dour dark brows, gave Paks an unfriendly look.

  “Are you the one that got Stephi in such trouble?” Paks froze; she had relaxed too soon. Donag interpreted her silence to suit himself. “I thought so. You ought to be ashamed enough to keep quiet. A good friend he’s been to me, Stephi—cause more trouble, and you won’t see the north again.” He glowered at her a moment longer. “They say you can fight; it had best be true.” He led her to her assigned bunk without another word. Paks felt a smoldering anger. She had not gotten Stephi in trouble; it had been his fault. She glared at Donag’s back.

  The next several days were uncomfortable. They drilled every day, marching and weapons, and it was obvious how much they had yet to learn. Paks had been coasting, as one of the best recruits. Despite Siger’s nagging about speed, she had thought she was as fast as she needed to be. The slower veterans were faster. The best—and Donag was one of these—seemed inhumanly fast. She acquired a lot of new bruises, and the only time Donag smiled at her was when he dealt them.

  “He’s down on you, isn’t he?” asked Saben one evening on the way back from supper. Paks nodded. She didn’t want to talk about it. She had heard, through the grapevine, what had happened to Stephi, and had decided Donag would just have to wear out his resentment. Barra, of course, had noticed and urged Paks to complain. “It’s not your fault,” Saben went on. “He shouldn’t be like that.” Paks shrugged.

  “I can’t stop him.”

  “No, but Stammel could. Or the captain.” That was what Barra had said, too.

  “No. It wouldn’t work. Just—don’t say any more, Saben, please.”

  “All right. But I’m on your side, remember.” He looked worried, and Paks managed a smile, her first in several days, to reassure him.

  Later that evening, Stephi showed up in their barracks. Donag smiled at him, and gave Paks a warning glare. She went on with her work, polishing her helmet. To her surprise, Stephi greeted her first.