His stomach knotted. How was he supposed to eat, faced with such a dismal choice? But not appearing would only affront the generals who served under him. He nodded to the hovering serf: a sharp, brusque motion. “I’m coming,” he said.
His subordinates sprang to their feet when he strode into the dining room. All three of them bowed low. “Your Grace!” they chorused.
“Gentlemen.” Thraxton returned the bow, not quite so deeply. He sat down in the empty chair at the head of the table. Once he was comfortable, the other officers sat down again, too.
“May I pour you some wine, your Grace?” asked Leonidas the Priest, who sat at Thraxton’s right hand. Instead of the blue tunic and pantaloons that uniformed Geoffrey’s men, Leonidas wore the crimson vestments of a hierophant of the Lion God, with a general’s sunburst over each shoulder. Not only did he worship his chosen deity, he fed him well.
“Blood of the grape,” Thraxton said, and Leonidas smiled and nodded. Thraxton nodded, too. “If you would be so kind.” Maybe wine would let him see something he couldn’t see sober. Maybe, at the very least, it would help ease his griping belly.
On Thraxton’s left, Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill filled his own goblet with red wine. He was younger than either Thraxton or Leonidas, and waxed the tip of his beard and the ends of his mustache to points, as if he were a town dandy. Fop or not, though, he made a first-rate fighting man. Dan offered the bottle to the officer at the foot of the table, who commanded Thraxton’s unicorns. “Some for you, General?”
“No, thanks,” Ned of the Forest answered. “Water’ll do me just fine.” The harsh twang of the northeast filled his voice. Thraxton wasn’t altogether sure he could read or write; one of his lieutenants always prepared the reports he submitted. He was a gentleman only by courtesy of his rank, not by blood. Before the war, he’d been a gambler and a serfcatcher, and highly successful at both trades. Since the fighting broke out, he’d proved nobody could match him or his troopers-most of them as much ruffians as he was, not proper knights at all-on unicornback.
Baron Dan withdrew the wine bottle. Leonidas the Priest clapped his hands a couple of times in smiling amusement. “Any man who drinks water from birth and lives,” he observed, “is bound to do great things, much like one who survives snakebite.”
“Oh, I got bit by a snake once,” Ned said. “Any snake bites me, it dies.”
He might have meant he killed snakes with his knife or with a boot. By the way he made it sound, though, he thought his blood more poisonous than any venom. And he might have been right. He was the biggest man at the table, and without a doubt the strongest. His face was handsome, in a hard, weathered way. His eyes… His eyes worried even Thraxton, who had seen a great deal. They were hard and black and unyielding as polished jet. A killer’s eyes, Thraxton thought.
A lot of men were killers, of course. The world was a hard, cruel place. But most men pretended otherwise. Ned of the Forest didn’t bother.
The serf who’d led Thraxton in began carving the pork roast that sat in the middle of the table. He also served Geoffrey’s commanders baked tubers. Thraxton, Leonidas, and Dan ate in the approved manner, lingering over their food and chatting lightly of this and that. Ned’s manners proved he’d been born in a barn. He attacked his food as if he were a wolf devouring a deer he’d pulled down. In an astonishingly short time, his plate was empty. He didn’t bother asking the serf for a second helping. Instead, he stood up, leaned forward to grab the knife, and hacked off another big slab of meat. He slapped it down on the plate and demolished it with the same dispatch he’d shown at the first helping.
“A man of appetite,” Dan of Rabbit Hill said, more admiringly than not. He waved to the serf, who gave him a second helping about half the size of Ned’s.
“We are all men of appetite,” Leonidas said with another smile. “Some have a passion for spirituous liquors, some for the ladies, some for our meats, some for arcane knowledge and enlightenment.” He inclined his head to Count Thraxton, who acknowledged the compliment with another of his curt nods.
“This here is just supper,” Ned said, helping himself to still more pork. He took a big bite, then went on with his mouth full: “What I’ve got me an appetite for-a passion for, if you like-is killing those stinking southrons who reckon they’ve got some call to come up here and take our serfs away.”
“That is well said,” Thraxton murmured, raising his wine goblet in salute.
Had he been dealing with another proper gentleman, the lower-ranking officer would have drunk wine with him and graciously changed the subject. Ned of the Forest did not drink wine and had few graces. Staring across the table at Thraxton, he demanded, “Then why did we let those sons of bitches run us out of Wesleyton, southwest of here? Why are they running us out of Rising Rock, too?”
Leonidas the Priest coughed. Turning to Thraxton, he said, “What the distinguished soldier commanding the unicorns meant was-”
“I said what I meant,” Ned ground out. “I want a proper answer, too.” Those black, black eyes of his held Count Thraxton’s.
He is trying to put me in fear, Thraxton realized. Ned wasn’t doing a bad job of it, either, though the army commander refused to show that. Thraxton said, “The unfortunate truth, sir, is that General Guildenstern commands more soldiers than I do. We shall withdraw-I see no other choice-regroup, and strike back toward Rising Rock as opportunity permits.”
“Guildenstern’s got more men than we do, sure enough.” Ned nodded. “That’s an unfortunate truth, no doubt about it. Way it looks to me, though, the unfortunate truth is that nobody figured out what in the seven hells the bastard was up to till after he got his whole army over the Franklin River and started coming straight at us, and that was a lot too late.” He snapped his fingers. “So much for all your fancy magic. Sir.”
“Really, General.” Leonidas wagged a finger at Ned of the Forest. “You forget yourself.”
Thraxton waited for Dan of Rabbit Hill to come to his defense against the border ruffian, too. Baron Dan sat staring at his goblet as if he’d never seen such a thing before. He said not a word. From his abstracted silence, Count Thraxton concluded he agreed with Ned.
Realizing he would have to speak for himself, Thraxton said, “I confess, I thought Guildenstern would turn north after crossing the river instead of making straight for us. Perhaps I let myself be distracted by the enemy’s demonstration toward Wesleyton.”
“Demonstration?” Ned made the word into a reproach. “What they demonstrated was, we couldn’t hold the place.”
Leonidas the Priest and Dan looked at each other. Then they looked at Thraxton. And then they looked at Ned. After coughing a couple of times, Leonidas said, “What Ned meant was-”
“I said what I meant,” Ned repeated. “We didn’t hold Wesleyton, and we aren’t going to hold Rising Rock. And it’s a shame and a disgrace that we aren’t, if anybody wants to know what I think.” He stared straight into Thraxton’s eyes again.
Thraxton glared back. His temper was slower to kindle than Ned of the Forest’s, but it burned hot when it did catch fire. “Now you see here, young man,” he growled. “We may have lost Wesleyton. We may lose Rising Rock, and in part that may even be my fault. But I tell you this.” He pointed a forefinger across the table at Ned, and his voice rose to a shout: “We may have to fall back now. But we will take back Rising Rock. We will take back Wesleyton. We will! My army will! And that’s not all. We will rout General Guildenstern and the invaders out of Franklin. And we will rout them out of Cloviston south of here, too. We’ll push them over the River and back among the rabble of robbers who sent them forth. By all the gods, we will! My army!” He slammed down his fist. Silverware jumped on the linen. Wine jumped in the goblets.
Dan of Rabbit Hill’s lips shaped a word. He didn’t speak it out loud, but Thraxton, among his other arcane skills, had learned to read lips. He knew what that silent word was. Dan might as well have shouted it. Braggart.
King Avram’s men called him Thraxton the Braggart. He’d sworn a great oath to beat them at Pottstown Pier, back when the war was young. He’d sworn it… and events-bad luck, really; nothing more-had left him forsworn. He’d chased Guildenstern back into the Province of Cloviston, chased him almost to the Highlow River, and sworn an even greater oath to drive him out of Geoffrey’s realm altogether. He’d sworn that second oath… but the hard battles of Reppyton and Reillyburgh, somehow, had gone no better for his cause and Geoffrey’s despite the savage sorceries he’d loosed.
Braggart? He shook his head. He didn’t see himself so. If anything, he felt put upon, put upon by fate and by the blundering idiots it was his misfortune to have to endure as subordinates. If only I led men worthy of me, he thought. Then everyone would know me for the hero I know I am.
Meanwhile… Meanwhile, Ned of the Forest stared steadily back across the table at him. “All right, your Grace,” the backwoods ruffian said. “Remember you said that. I aim to hold you to it.”
Arrogant dog, Thraxton thought. He muttered to himself. Not all sorcery was showy. Not all of it required elaborate preparation, either. He waited for Ned to leap up and run for the commode. The spell he’d just cast would have kept a normal man trotting for a couple of days.
But Ned of the Forest only sat where he was. For all the effect the magic had on him, he might have been carved from stone. Thraxton ran over the spell in his mind. He’d cast it correctly. He was sure of that. He’s been drinking water all his life, he remembered. His bowels might as well be made of cast bronze.
His head, too. That piece of malice helped ease Thraxton’s bile-filled spirit. So did the words of Leonidas the Priest: “So long as we all stand together, we shall drive Guildenstern back into the southron darkness whence he sprang. Rest assured, the Lion God will eat his soul.” He made a certain sign with his fingers.
Thraxton, who was an initiate in those mysteries, made the answering gesture. So did Dan. Ned of the Forest kept on stolidly sitting. Scorn filled Thraxton. But why should I be surprised? The gods must hate him.
The serf brought in a honey cake piled high with plums and peaches and apricots. “A sweet, my lords?”
Count Thraxton took a small helping, more for politeness’ sake than any other reason. Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas matched him. Ned attacked the honey cake with the same gusto he’d shown with the pork roast. “Sir, you have crumbs in your beard,” Leonidas remarked after a while.
“Thank you kindly,” Ned replied, and brushed at his chin whiskers-a surprisingly neat adornment-with rough, callused fingers.
“How is it,” Thraxton asked, “that your whiskers remain black while your hair is going gray?” Did fearsome Ned of the Forest resort to the dye bottle? If he did, would he admit it? If he didn’t admit it, what clumsy lie would he tell? How ridiculous would he look in telling it?
Ned’s smile was the one Thraxton might have seen over dueling sabers. But the ruffian’s voice was light and mild as he answered, “Well, Count, I reckon it’s likely on account of I use my brains more than my mouth.”
Silence fell in the dining room, silence broken only by the serf’s smothered guffaw. Thraxton turned a terrible look on the fellow, who first blushed all the way up to his pale hair, then went paler than that hair himself and precipitately fled.
“Any more questions, sir?” Ned asked with another carnivorous grin.
“Enough!” That wasn’t Thraxton. He said nothing, reckoning Ned of the Forest would not listen to him if he did. But Dan of Rabbit Hill’s voice commanded attention. Then Dan said, “Enough, the both of you.”
“Sir?” Thraxton sounded winter-cold, the cold of a bad winter. “Do you presume to include me?”
“I do,” Dan said stubbornly. “If you get people quarreling with you-if we quarrel among ourselves-who wins? Avram the serf-stealer and the stinking southrons, that’s who. Nobody else but.”
“You’re right,” Ned said at once. “I’ll let it lay where it’s at. Count?”
“Very well.” But Thraxton’s voice remained frigid. It might not have, had Dan phrased his request a little differently. King Avram was the worst foe, true. But that did not mean no wretches, no enemies, marched behind King Geoffrey. And now Dan of Rabbit Hill had chosen to add himself to that list. Your time will come, Dan, Thraxton thought, yours and Ned’s and everyone’s.
* * *
“Up, you lazy sons of bitches!” somebody shouted. “Think you’re going to sleep all bloody day? Not bloody likely, let me tell you.”
Rollant’s eyes flew open in something close to panic. For a horrid moment, he thought he was back on the indigo plantation outside of Karlsburg, and that the overseer would stick a boot in his ribs if he didn’t head out for the swampy fields on the dead run.
Then the escaped serf let out a sigh of relief as full awareness returned. His pantaloons and tunic were dyed gray, not the blue of the indigo he’d slaved to grow. The traitors wore blue, not King Avram’s men. And that wasn’t the overseer screaming at him, only his sergeant. As a matter of fact, Sergeant Joram had more power over him than the overseer ever had, but Rollant didn’t mind. When he joined Avram’s host, he’d chosen to come under the rule of men like Joram. He’d never chosen to do as his one-time northern liege lord and overseer told him to do. He’d expressed his opinion of that relationship by fleeing to the south the first chance he got-and then again, after the serfcatchers ran him down with dogs and hauled him back to his liege lord’s estate.
All around him, his squadmates were stirring and stretching and yawning and rubbing their eyes, as he was doing. Sergeant Joram roared at them as loudly as he roared at Rollant, though their hair was dark. Joram treated everyone like a serf-or rather, like a free man in the army.
No, Rollant hadn’t had to join King Avram’s host to return to the north country to make war against the baron who’d chained him to the land-that was how he thought of the fight, in purely personal terms. He’d been making pretty good money as a carpenter down in New Eborac. He’d married a pretty blond girl he met there; her family had escaped feudal ties a couple of generations before. They had two towheaded children.
Norina had wept when he took King Avram’s silver bit. “I have to,” he told her. “Geoffrey and the northern nobles are trying to make sure we never get our place in the sun.”
His wife hadn’t understood. He knew that. Norina took for granted the freedom to go where she wanted when she wanted and do whatever she pleased once she got there. Why not? She’d enjoyed it all her life. Rollant hadn’t, which made him realize exactly how precious it was.
Right now, that freedom consisted of standing in line along with a lot of other poorly shaved, indifferently clean men and snaking toward the big brass kettles hung above three fires. When Rollant got up to the fire to which his line led, a bored-looking cook slapped a ladleful of stew down on his tin plate. Rollant eyed it with distaste: barley boiled to death, mushy carrots, and bits of meat whose origin he probably didn’t want to know. He’d eaten better back on the baron’s estate.
“You want pheasant and asparagus, blond boy, you pay for ’em out of your own pocket,” the cook growled. Rollant went off and sat on the ground to eat. The cook snarled at the dark-haired fellow behind him, too.
One of Rollant’s squadmates, a youngster named Smitty, sat down beside him. He ate a spoonful of the stew and made a face. “The crocodile they threw in the stewpot died of old age,” he said.
“Crocodile?” For a heartbeat or two, Rollant thought Smitty meant it. His horizons had expanded enormously since he’d escaped his liege lord, and even more since Norina taught him his letters, but he remained hideously vulnerable to having his leg pulled by men who’d been free to learn since birth. He took another spoonful himself. “Just a dead jackass, I think, or maybe one of the barons who live up here.”
Smitty grinned at him. “Bet you’d like to see every traitor noble from Grand Duke Geoffrey on down boiling in a pot.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Rollant said simply.
“And to keep the kingdom from breaking in two,” Smitty said. “If Geoffrey gets away with this, Detinans’ll be fighting wars among themselves forever.”
“I suppose so.” But Rollant couldn’t get very excited about the idea. Smashing the nobles who held down serfs like him-that was something he understood in his belly.
He went down to a little stream to rinse his tin plate, then stuck it in the knapsack in which he carried most of his earthly goods. Along with the meager contents of the knapsack, he had a shortsword on his right hip (he always hoped not to have to use it, for he knew nothing of swordplay but hack, swing, and hope for the best), a quiver full of crossbow quarrels, and the crossbow itself.
He patted that crossbow as he took his place in the ranks for the day’s march toward Rising Rock. It was a splendid weapon. All you had to do was pull to cock it, drop in a quarrel, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Thousands of flying crossbow bolts made battlefields very unhealthy places for unicorns-and for the men who rode them. A quarrel would punch right through a shield, right through chain, and right through plate, too.
Smitty came up to stand beside him. “Did you ever shoot one of these things before you joined the host?” Rollant asked.
“On my father’s farm, sure-you know, hunting for the pot,” Smitty answered. “How about you?”
Rollant shook his head. “Never once. Northern nobles don’t want serfs knowing how easy crossbows are to use. They’re afraid we’d find out how easy they are to kill. And do you know what?” He grinned a ferocious grin. “They’re right.”
“Why do you say `we’?” Smitty asked. “You’re not a serf any more. You haven’t been one for a while.”
“That’s true,” Rollant said in some surprise. “But it’s not just something you can forget you ever were, either.” The way he talked proved as much. Having grown up tied to his liege lord’s land had marked him for life-scarred him for life, he often thought.
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