Alec waited dutifully then went down to Bethany’s door and knocked softly. He hesitated a minute then opened the door and stepped in. She was waiting inside, wearing the robe he had inadvertently seen that morning. “Of course you’ve already seen this,” Bethany told him, but this afternoon I went out and bought this too!” She opened the robe to reveal a short, sleeveless pajama gown. “I decided I should respect your modesty the next time you come into my room while I’m sleeping!” she with a laugh.
Alec looked at her with affection. A moment later a noise at the open door announced the arrival of Hannah. “We’re done playing. What are you doing up here?” she asked as she walked into the room. Cassie followed her into the room a moment later.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, “she came up faster than me. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“We were just modeling clothes,” Bethany said. She bent down to Hannah. “Alec watched me try on my new clothes, but he hasn’t seen Cassie try hers on yet. Do you want to sit here with Alec and me and we’ll watch Cassie show us her new clothes?”
Hannah thought that sounded like fun, and despite Cassie’s protests, she eventually found herself walking down from her room to Bethany’s room with new clothes on, as Bethany described why they had chosen each outfit.
“It’s late, and your bedtime,” Cassie told Hannah as she finished showing her last outfit. “Time to get in bed.”
“It’s my bedtime too,” Alec said. “Tomorrow’s another early day. Thank you for the fashion show, ladies. I enjoyed every minute of it, didn’t you, Hannah?”
“Yes, I want to buy some new clothes too to show you and Mommy and Ellison,” she announced as she hopped off Bethany’s lap.
“Good night everyone,” Alec said, and the little group broke to go to their respective locations.
Chapter 8 – Desk Work with the Guard
The next morning Alec got up at his typical early hour and went to the Guard quarters in the still dark streets. He found a stack of papers Ellison had left for him. With a lantern lit on the desk, Alec went over the information about levels and rosters for each squad, platoon, and company, and a list of several men and women who had stopped by to volunteer for the cavalry unit they heard he intended to start. Some of the company personnel information was noted with question marks to show that those were companies out on the eastern front or elsewhere and their information was unverified.
Alec was going over the lists when the door opened and Ellison arrived. “If you try to get here before me on a regular basis I’ll be very unhappy with you,” Ellison growled.
“Not to worry,” Alec assured him. “I wanted to get an early start before the sword work started. I’ve been thinking about who to appoint as my own aide to relieve you of some of this. What do you think of Mortis? And more importantly, do you think Colonel Ryder will allow me to have an aide?” Alec asked, mentioning one of the Guard members who had been in their small group that had freed the Duke and flushed the rebels from the palace.
“I’m sure the colonel will approve; it’s standard. As far as Mortis, I think he’d jump at the chance to work with you, Alec,” Ellison said. “Any of the survivors of that battle, Toopane, Tarpa, Rail, they’d give their right arm for you after they saw you do so much to help save the Duchy for them.”
“Then ask him to stop in before lunch. I’ll ask his commander, uh, Lt. Callen,” he said looking at his notes. “Or I could just ask her during sword work first I suppose.”
“Speaking of which, it’s time for you to meet the first one,” Ellison reminded him.
Alec went to the armory, and found three officers already there with pads on, waiting to start showing him their abilities. Alec greeted them and put his own pads on, carrying the left-handed blade made especially for him. “Who’s first?” he asked.
“I am, sir,” a lieutenant only a little older than himself said. “Lt. Stappel.”
“Good morning, lieutenant. What I want to do today is to evaluate the abilities of our officer corps with swords, both for the sake of training all of you to address any improvements you need, and to help select those who are going to be training new recruits,” Alec explained. “This isn’t much more than that, other than a chance for me to get to know you better as well.”
They took positions at the practice mat and began. Alec took a defensive mode at first, waiting to see how Stappel would approach him. As they drew closer and engaged, Stappel became more aggressive, and Alec began to enjoy the engagement while they moved slightly in one direction and the other. Eventually he saw a pattern of neglect in Stappel’s defenses and penetrated repeatedly, winning the match.
He took Stappel aside and demonstrated the flaw he had seen his defenses. “Who’s next?” he asked.
Up stepped another of the first three arrivals, Lt. Liam. Others had arrived before their times, and were stretching preparing and watching as the bout began.
Liam attacked only irregularly, but relied on his defense and battled for a draw until the very end of their match, when Alec applied a more intense attack and managed to narrowly defeat him. “Liam, you are very good on defense, but there will be situations where you’re running out of time, and you need to attack and win quickly for whatever reason. We’ll work on your initiative,” Alec promised, and turned to the next contest.
The third contestant was Lt. Callen. As they prepared for battle, Alec asked her about Mortis. “He’s a good man,” she said, studying his footwork carefully as she prepared to engage. “He thinks the world of you since the battle at the palace here.”
“I think he’s good too. I wanted to ask if I could borrow him for a few weeks to act as my aide while I’m second in command her?”
Callen suddenly attacked while Alec was awaiting her response to his question. She started high, then tried to move low to trip him up. Alec parried and managed to skip her low sweep, then tried to make a high stab while her blade was low. Both managed to fall backwards at the same time, and started laughing together.
“I wouldn’t keep Mortis from you if you want him, although I hate to lose him,” she answered as they shook hands.
“I suspect I’m only a short-timer here at the palace, so you’ll get him back in a few weeks,” Alec assured her.
“That’s too bad, because I like everything I’ve heard you say so far, captain. I’ll be on your team if you ever need me,” she said, then turned to head to the equipment room.
Throughout the morning Alec worked with the officers, not losing a single match, but winding up with no clear winner in a few cases, as with Imelda, who smiled quietly at her success in achieving the draw. As the officers’ matches finished, they often stayed to watch other contests, or took up another match to begin working on their techniques. When Ellison brought the recruits in for training, they watched the officers work for a few minutes before taking up swords to work with one another or with officers waiting their turns.
The last match of the day was with Captain Elcome, the quartermaster who Alec was beginning to suspect was not doing his job very well. Much of the earlier crowd had filtered out already as Elcome stepped onto the mat. “Ready to start?” Alec asked him, starting to feel winded by the string of tests he’d faced.
“Always ready to dance with you, Alec,” Elcome smiled as he raised his sword and began an attack, one that seemed inept to Alec, one which he quickly defended, setting Elcome back two steps. The older captain began again, and Alec stopped him as easily. When Elcome tried the same tactics for a third time, Alec took advantage of the openings he left and quickly ended the match.
“You need to learn from those first mistakes and change what you try,” Alec told him as he stepped off the mat. “You won’t win many battles using the same offense if it keeps getting beat every time.”
“There’s no reason to change what you know,” Elcome replied in a slightly surly voice. “Anyway, I’m not expected to use a sword in my job,” he added.
“After what we’ve s
een recently, I think everyone is expected to use a sword. We may need every one before this war is over,” Alec said in a gentle voice that he hoped would take the sting out of the disagreement, and he left to remove his pads.
Alec returned to his office for a bit, then went to the quartermaster’s office to voice his concern about their lack of readiness. “Captain Elcome, I’d like to start working with you on insuring our supplies and materials are secure enough for a wartime footing.”
“That sounds very good,” Elcome replied. “We’ll do what we need to make sure we have all our supplies in place. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years since Captain Langder retired from the Guard, and everything works pretty well.”
“Where do we get out best blades from?” Alec asked.
“Some are made her at Delvin’s shop, but most come from Stronghold,” Elcome told him.
“If we have two or three hundred new recruits in the next six months, and if our shipping with Stronghold is cut off, how will we arm those men?” Alec asked.
‘Hypothetically, that would be a problem, but those things aren’t going to happen,” Elcome told him bluntly. “We can’t handle that many recruits at once, in my opinion. And there’s no real reason to think we’ll be cut off from Stronghold; they need our business as much as we need them.”
“We will begin recruiting to grow rapidly. By the end of the day, I imagine Colonel Ryder will have some directives begun for our recruitment drive,” Alec said, trying to maintain an even temper, severely disappointed in his friend’s casual attitude. “We’re here to serve the Duke and serve the duchy, and in these circumstances with our small numbers we can’t really do either, as we saw a few days ago.”
“You may start your recruitment drive, but in a few weeks or less you’ll no longer be second in command here,” Elcome said, growing red in the face and speaking loudly. “There’s no reason for us to swerve all over the land trying to follow impetuous plans you aren’t going to carry out. I’m the senior captain in the Guard, and I may be the next commander. When that happens, we’ll be a lot less full of hot air about recruitment and cavalry and expensive supplies, let me tell you.”
“Captain,” Alec began in shock, then stopped to control his temper. He failed. “Listen, you have been my friend, and I appreciate all that you’ve done. But your attitude here is wrong – just wrong. And what’s more, I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation about where you were when the palace was attacked. For the moment, as far as I am concerned,” Alec paused, aware that he was blindly charging down an angry path without considering all the consequences, “you are dismissed. I am going to leave this office now, and you may await your next assignment,” he shouted as he rose and left the office. He was so angry he couldn’t see clearly as he stormed back over to his own office and tried to control his temper.
“What have I gotten myself into?” he asked himself out loud. “That was no way for an officer to behave.” He imagined that Colonel Ryder would strip him of his duties before the end of the day, embarrassed as he was by his failure to control his temper. First he’d been belligerent with the ingenairii after they didn’t see eye-to-eye with him, and now he was in a shouting contest with another Guard officer who was a friend.
Ellison suddenly opened the door. “You’re next appointment is here to see you sir,” he said, and several seconds later Cassie peeked in.
“I’m sorry Alec. As soon as I got here I heard you shouting at yourself and I wanted to leave, but Ellison wouldn’t let me,” she said, not stepping inside the office.
“A member of the Guard is always a gentleman for a lady,” Ellison said. “Step inside, please, so I can stop holding this door.”
Alec laughed at Ellison’s deadpan request, and felt much of his tension drain away. Cassie stepped in and Ellison closed the door.
“Alec, maybe we should talk later,” Cassie said, not taking a seat.
“I tell you what,” Alec said. “Come with me and we’ll talk while we do something else too.”
He walked around the desk to the door and opened it, grabbing Cassie’s hand and leading her over to the armory.
“Let’s start showing you how to handle a sword,” he said as they entered the armory. “And you can tell me why you are kind enough to honor me with this visit.”
“I really only wanted to stop by for a minute,” Cassie protested. “I plan to go open up the healers shop in a little while, as I told everyone yesterday.”
“That’s important,” Alec agreed. “Let’s just go over the basics then.”
“But I do have to tell you,” Cassie said, “that Merle has tested me this morning, and I have the talent for a healer ingenaire!” her eyes were shining as she told Alec.
He stared at her in delight, then wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. “Oh Cassie, that is so incredible! There’s nothing I could imagine that is better news for this world! What else did Merle say?”
“He said that it is your responsibility to begin immediately to train me in how to use my talent. You’re the only one who can, he said,” she said in a beseeching tone.
“I will do it, no question,” Alec assured her. “We’ll have to work out a regular time to hold your training. It will be easier to train you to handle a blade, though.” He placed a sword in her hands. “Feel that? Feel how you can balance the sword at a spot so that there is a natural hinge it swings on? When you learn where that point is, and how to move your sword according to the natural leverage of that balance point, you’ll be a swordsman.
“And when you learn where that hinge point is to release your healer powers, you’ll be a healer. I want to train you to know both points so that you can be the most you can be, because I know there is so much good in you.”
“Thank you Alec. I have to go now. Thank you for everything,” Cassie said as she placed the sword down. “I’ll see you later. Have a good afternoon,” she told him and headed to the door.
Alec watched her sudden departure in surprise for a moment. Uncertain whether he had said something wrong, he decided to go back to his office and return to the headache of management.
“Back rather soon, aren’t you?” Ellison asked as he re-entered the office.
“Yes, I am,” Alec said without further comment for a moment. “Would you arrange for Mortis to meet me here late this afternoon? We’ll see if he’s ready to take on that job.”
“Is Colonel Ryder available?” he asked with great trepidation.
“He’s in his office at the moment,” Ellison said is a neutral voice. “Go on in, there’s no one else with him at the moment.”
“Alec,” the colonel said looking up from a map on his desk as Alec entered the room, “How did the sword work go?”
“She didn’t stay long enough to learn anything at all. I’m not sure what she was thinking,” Alec said, still puzzled by Cassie’s abrupt departure.
He noticed the quizzical look on Ryder’s face. “Oh, you mean with the officers earlier today,” the truth dawned on Alec. “They almost all did well. Some have some improvements they can make, but against most armsmen they’ll win the day every day.”
“However,” Alec added after a brief, uneasy silence.
“However?” Ryder asked.
“Captain Elcome performed poorly at swordsmanship, and when I went to talk to him about re-supply and preparation, he spoke so poorly and showed a poor attitude that I removed him from his office,” Alec said in one hurried sentence.
Ryder looked at Alec with an expression of shock on his face. “I don’t think you have the authority to do that Alec. As the commanding officer it’s really my responsibility to make those decisions. You need to talk to me, not speak for me,” he told his young protégé.
“As it happens, your judgment is sound, and I will support the removal of Elcome. It’s something that could have been done a long time ago. Do you have anyone in mind as a new quartermaster in his place?” Ryder asked, glancing down at his desk.
&n
bsp; “Tarpa would do well, in my opinion,” Alec ventured.
“That seems like a reasonable choice. Why don’t you have Ellison get Elcome out of Tarpa’s hair by sending him recruiting in the corner of the Duchy farthest from the city,” Ryder ordered. “Now, what other trouble are you going to stir up for the rest of the day?” he asked, with a smile lighting his face for the first time in their interview.
“I’m going to go visit the army and ask them about cavalry,” Alec said. “And then I’m going to ask Mortis to serve as my aide, if that’s alright?”
“Yes, go ahead, let’s appoint Tarpa to serve as temporary quartermaster. Ask her to come see me right after I have a chance to speak to Mortis, and I’ll make sure they feel up to their new prospects,” Ryder decided out loud.
“Thank you sir,” Alec said gratefully. I’ll be back soon,” he said and headed out the door, grateful to have not lost his rank. He thought at considerable length about his need to control his tongue, while he had a nice long walk in the cool autumn air at mid-day. He strolled through the city and past the cathedral, slowing to look at its beauty as he skirted the walls around the cathedral yard. Several minutes later he found the barracks of the Army outpost for the city of Goldenfields, and stopped at the gate to enquire about directions to the commanding officer’s headquarters. He was directed to a large, imposing building facing a parade square in the center of the outpost.
Alec was shown into the office of the commander, Colonel Mount. “It’s a pleasure to have you come visit out here at the barracks,” he said with a smile, shaking Alec’s hand. “So how is the life of command treating you so far?”
“It’s been a trying day, but that is as it is, I suppose,” Alec replied with unfeigned weariness. “Fighting and swinging a sword seem easy by comparison to managing people.”
“You’ve learned the first rule of command already, I’d say,” the army officer replied. “Is there any particular item that you wanted to talk about, that you came out here for?”
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 9
