“Well, I’m thinking of starting some cavalry for the Guard, just a couple of squads, and I wanted to hear about any experience you’ve had with cavalry so I know what to expect,” Alec explained.
“You know, my advice would be not to do it,” the major told him. “You try to attach one or two horsemen to each platoon, and you just raise problems. The horses have to slow down to the men on foot, or the foot soldiers can’t keep up with the mounted men, just for example. They either carry supplies for the men, or they don’t. There are lots of good reasons not to do it.”
“What if we just created a couple of squads that were each completely mounted soldiers? That’s what I have in mind,” Alec explained. “Have you tried that?”
“No. I’ve never heard of it. The usual plan is to scatter the mounted soldiers out so that each platoon or company has a couple for scouting or carrying messages,” the army colonel replied. “No, you wouldn’t want to concentrate them together like that. It’s not the way we do things.”
Alec gave a large inward sigh. “Okay, that’s all I was checking on. I think it’s a good idea to hear what other folks think,” he said out loud.
“For such a young fellow, that’s pretty good thinking. You listen to older folks and you’ll learn a lot about the way things are done,” the major said as Alec started to rise. “That’s all then? Very well. Please stop by again sometime if I can help you with advice.”
Alec left the building and the post, discouraged by the conservative attitude he had experienced, and walked back to the palace. On his way he went through the cathedral grounds, and stopped to go inside the holy building to pray briefly, asking for wisdom and patience. He thought about all the examples of wise leadership he had seen, Aristotle, Ryder, the Duke, and Rubicon. Each had shown patience and an ability to think before acting, something he hadn’t done very well during his very short tenure in command.
When he got back to the Guard offices, Mortis was waiting for him. “Hello my friend,” Alec said when he saw his former fighting companion. “I wanted to ask you to do a favor for me. I need someone to serve as my aide here, and I hope that you’ll consider doing that for me.”
“Colonel Ryder just told me what you were going to ask. Here’s how I see it; right now, I report to Lt. Callen,” Mortis replied. “And she is much prettier to look at that you are, plus I feel like I at least have a chance to beat her in a fencing contest once in a while, unlike I’d do against you. I don’t know; that’s a tough decision,” he said, putting his hand to his jaw in contemplation.
“Yes, absolutely, Captain,” Mortis said with a grin after a second of dramatic pause. “I’d do anything you ask.”
“Thank you Mortis,” Alec said. “That’s the first thing that’s gone right in a while! Ellison,” he called through the doorway.
“Yes, sir?” the Guard stuck his head into the room.
“Come on in,” Alec said. “Mortis has agreed to serve as aide, so you will soon be free from having to pick up after me. Can you start teaching him whatever you think he should know for a day or two, and send an official letter to Lt. Callen, notifying her of the change?”
“We’ll make it happen,” Ellison said. “And how was your trip to the army?”
“I was told that it was a mistake to consider having any cavalry, and especially unthinkable to create an independent, totally mounted unit.” He said with exasperation. “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t see what seems so clear to me. There are so many obvious reasons to consolidate the cavalry into a cohesive unit that fights differently from the foot forces and gives you an advantage.
“Oh well. We’ll do it our way and let the results speak for themselves. Will Tarpa be joining us soon?”
“Yes, she’ll be here to talk to the colonel a bit later this afternoon,” Ellison assured him.
“Good. What should we work on in the meantime?” Alec asked.
“The colonel just finished writing the assignments for recruiting and training,” Ellison said.
“Why don’t we look those over,” Alec suggested, and the three of them then sat and looked over a calendar with assignments for each officer to take fortnight long shifts traveling through the villages of the duchy recruiting new members of the Guard. They then arranged a schedule for all officers to become trainers in fortnight shifts for squads of new recruits, and also made sure that each officer had a fortnight without either recruiting or training.
“This means each officer will have to make sure that both their squads have a sergeant or someone in place to enforce discipline when the officer is out recruiting,” Alec said. “What do we do in terms of training officers and promoting from within the ranks?”
“Colonel Ryder always took it upon himself to work with any new officer who was promoted to oversee their training,” Ellison said. “Of course, we didn’t have many promotions because we only replaced officers as they left the service at that time. It looks as though we’re going to be creating lots of new officers to provide leadership to the expanded Guard.”
“Yes, that will be the next headache to tackle,” Alec agreed. “We’ll work that out soon.”
“Send out copies of these assignment schedules to all officers, and let them know I’d like to practice swords with each of them again tomorrow, in reverse order of today’s practice. I’ll cross swords with every officer in the city every day, and I’ll take on some sword practice with every recruit squad that comes in too,” he said, then listened as there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Alec said loudly as Ellison rose to see who it was. In walked Tarpa, another of the Guards who had been with Alec, Mortis and Ellison when they had saved the Duke from his rebellious son’s uprising.
“Tarpa, thank you for coming,” Alec began. “Have you spoken to Colonel Ryder?”
The stout brunette nodded. “Yes sir, captain, and he said to work everything out with you.”
“That’s wonderful Tarpa; it’s a load off my mind. You know Ellison and Mortis of course. We’re talking about some assignments being made to help the Guard with growth and development. Captain Elcome will be away on a recruiting assignment for a while, and I had thought to ask you to take over as temporary quartermaster in his absence.
“Plus, we’re going to establish a new cavalry unit for the Guard, and that will require building a new set of stables here. I’d like for you to be in charge of that project, and then maybe do some ordering of supplies on the side,” Alec offered. “You did such a good job persuading the coopers to make caskets, I figure you can provide goods and materials as well,” he smiled.
“Old Elcome hasn’t done anything but sit in his supply warehouse for a decade,” Mortis said. “You’ll do three times the work and probably better.”
“Yes, I’d be pleased to help you anyway I can, captain,” Tarpa told them. “When would you like for me to start?”
“Let’s get going this afternoon,” Alec said. “I’ll show you where I hope to add the stables, and you can start thinking about builders and suppliers. Tonight I’m going to meet a blacksmith who I’m told used to do fine metalwork in Stronghold. If he is what is claimed, I thought we might make him blacksmith for the Guard in a smithy in the new stables, and he could start producing swords and work for us directly instead of us relying on so many others. Plus, there’s Delvin too, in the city we can ask to produce the items we’re going to need.”
“If any of you would like to join us for dinner tonight and meet this alleged Stronghold smith, feel free to come,” Alec offered. “I’ve already told Ellen to expect a large dinner crowd,” he said to Ellison. “I expect to have more ingenaire apprentices taking refuge in my shop in the next few days.”
“Which reminds me,” Alec added. “I’d like to see these ingenairii able to use a sword, and Ellison, I wonder if you’d be willing to teach them? We can ask them to come to the palace here for lessons every day to make it more convenient for you. That way they’ll also get the benefit of se
eing the Guard regularly and the Guard can grow used to seeing these ingenairii as friends of the Duke.”
“I’ll plan on joining you for dinner, if you’ll give me directions,” Tarpa said. “If the blacksmith is real, we ought to let him help plan the stables.”
“You ought to talk to Imelda too,” Alec suggested. “She’s going to be part of the cavalry, and she knows horses, so she should know something about stables.”
“I’ll eat your food as well. If you tell Tarpa how to get there, I’ll follow her,” Mortis said with a grin. “Will you leave a trail of bread crumbs for us?”
“I’ll bring these two with me when I come over, does that take care of everything?” Ellison volunteered.
“I believe it does,’ Alec answered. “Thank you everyone, that will be all for now. Tarpa, why don’t you go see if you can find Imelda and tell her I’d like to talk to her?”
The three staff members left, and Alec sat back to rest for a moment and think about all that was waiting for him to do. Recruiting was barely underway, and he was starting to train his officers in swordsmanship. Fortunately, that was more pleasure than work, especially since most of them were already good. He needed to get the stables built. Then he had to further consider the nebulous plans he was making for the group of ingenairii that he believed would refuse to return to Oyster Bay. A few threads of possibilities were coming together. But if Elcome proved to be a problem, or if the army opposed his cavalry, or if the ingenaire leadership tried to discipline his followers, or if the Colonel grew tired of hearing that Alec was always clashing with everyone around him, many plans could come crashing down.
And still he wanted to know where Ari was. Alec believed the master ingenaire had survived, just as Alec knew he had survived so many other disasters. More troubling was the fate of Rubicon, Nathaniel and Moriah, the warrior ingenairii he trusted. Were they alive too, and hopefully with Ari, or had they been a target for the usurpers to move against when Ingenairii hill was purged? The defeat of three warrior ingenairii seemed impossible to contemplate, but if the other warriors had sided together against them, then his friends could have faced daunting odds.
“You wished to see me?” Imelda stepped into his office.
“Do you have an hour to spare?” Alec asked.
“Probably. Maybe. It depends,” Imelda said with a grin. “Okay, for you, yes.”
“Let’s go fence and talk in the armory,” Alec said as he rose from his chair.
“Wasn’t this morning enough sword work for you?” Imelda asked him as they walked across the yard under the late afternoon clouds.
“I need to work out some tension, and I wanted to talk to you, and you give the best match of any sword I’ve faced here,” Alec told her.
“Such high praise,” Imelda responded wrily.
They arranged their equipment and started to fence, Imelda trying to learn left-handed while Alec practiced his right-handed skills.
“The colonel’s agreed to place the cavalry in your hands Imelda, which means that you’ll no longer be on the Duke’s bodyguard service,” Alec began. “And when recruiters go out to the countryside they’ll look for horsemanship as a key quality to consider in new recruits. Tarpa is going to be in charge of building the stables, and I have faint hopes of recruiting a Stronghold metal smith to work in a smithy in the stables to create the weapons and other items we need to fight a war.”
“So, what are you going to do with all that?” he asked her as he lunged in a new attack.
Imelda stepped back, flipped the blade back to her right hand and began a furious counter-attack that took advantage of Alec exposing himself in his right-handed attack. He was forced to retreat.
“I’m going to count on you accomplishing all of those things in a hurry,” Imelda said. “And I’m going to set up an archery range for our cavalry to work on. I listened to your plans for the cavalry, and it seems to me that if we want to go out and attack and disrupt over great distances in little time, which is what the horses let us do, then bows and arrows just extend our attacks farther and faster. We can hit from one or two hundred yards away instead of being in contact, if we can learn to use bows accurately from horseback.
“I also want to keep us traveling as lightly as possible, so I want to look into having some type of trail bread that will be light and easy to carry and last for a long ride of a month or more without spoiling. It needs to be a bigger better cracker, with more taste,” she said,” and then the biggest issue of all is getting the best horses for our folks. I would like to go out among the eastern village herds and see what’s out there, and I’d like to do that right away. Those farms and ranches out there have traditionally had some very good horses. It’s where Inga and I were raised,” she explained.
Alec tried to remember where Inga’s name stood in Colonel Ryder’s planned rotation of recruiters. “Plan to go in three days time. In the meantime we’ll insert another Guard into your Bodyguard duties,” Alec agreed. “Do you have any cavalry squad members in mind to take with you?”
“I have five in mind for immediate training,” she replied.
They stopped fencing and sat down. “All right, take those five and bring back a sufficient number of horses to outfit one squad. We’ll arrange for temporary stables in the city, and hopefully the recruiters will bring in enough for you to fill your first squad out without raiding our current Guard units too heavily. We want to mix some tradition from our Guard in, but you’re going to be different too.”
“Anything else?” Imelda asked.
“Yes, one thing, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Alec began. He saw Imelda take on a guarded look. “Where was Elcome at the time we were saving the Duke? He must have been here in the Guard sector itself, if not in the city, but I don’t remember seeing him ever.”
Imelda relaxed, and Alec knew he hadn’t touched whatever raw nerve she had expected. “Elcome’s been a lazy excuse for an officer since the day he became quartermaster. I hear you’ve had a dust up with him, and that just makes you stand that much higher in everyone’s eyes. We all know he was missing in the rebellion, but he’s stayed pretty tight-lipped. He claims he was in this place or that place, but none of us saw him. I suspect he was hiding in the warehouse the whole time while the rest of us were fighting.”
“Thank you, “Alec said. “I hate to do this to you, but Elcome’s supposed to go on a long recruiting trip of his own, coincidentally in the same direction you’re going. He’s supposed to leave tomorrow, so you tell him what village you want to meet him at in four days, and make sure it’s a long way away so I get him out of here for a while.
“And one other thing,” Alec finished as he started to leave the armory. “You understand perfectly what I intend the cavalry to be. We’re going to have a new weapon that other armies haven’t thought about; even our own army does think about fighting like this. Fast, deadly, flexible. Build it just the way we see it, Imelda. You can give the Duke a great new power and make the Guard more glorious; I have faith in you.” With those words of encouragement he left the building.
Alec walked across the yard and continued on his way back to his shop. The sun was starting to set behind the clouds, and the streets were growing murky as he turned onto Bakers Street and opened the door to his shop. Inside he heard the noise of many voices. Walking through the front room and back to the kitchen, Alec found Ellen working in a kitchen filled with large pots of food. “This is like cooking for the army!” she exclaimed to Alec, but with a cheery smile on her face. “Go upstairs and have a look. They’re all up there, and dinner won’t be ready for another half hour or so.”
“It looks like you can cook for them all. Now the question is, where are we going to feed all these folks, Ellen?” Alec asked.
“I think you’ll have to put a big table out in the waiting room and use that for a second dining room in the evening,” she said. “I’ve thought about it and that’s the only solution I can see, other th
an just taking turns.”
“Oh, by the way, Ellison and two others will join us as well tonight,” Alec told her as he started towards the stairs.
“Well, I’ve made plenty, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” Ellen replied.
Alec went up the stairs and found a hive of activity. “You’re Alec, aren’t you?” a young man asked him as he entered the hallway.
“Yes I am. Who are you?” Alec asked.
“My name is Haythe. I’m an air apprentice. Thank you for doing this, and for everything you’re doing,” Haythe said to Alec, approaching him to shake his hand.
Alec had a sudden sense that his life was out of control as the stranger introduced himself to Alec in his hallway. Shaking his head ruefully, Alec asked, “Are Cassie or Bethany around?”
“Well, they’re both upstairs with the other girls, aren’t they?” Haythe told him.
Alec was about to take a step in that direction when Ellen called from downstairs, “Alec, there’s a man out front to see you.”
Alec wasn’t sure whether he was distracted or relieved by the need to leave the hustle and bustle of the upper floors as people moved in and out of rooms. Turning abruptly, he returned downstairs. “You’re smiling so much not because you like cooking,” Alec accused Ellen. “It’s because you get to stay down here where things are reasonably calm!”
She smiled at him as he walked past, expecting to meet the Stronghold metal smith he hoped he could count on to build blades and equipment for him. Instead, Alec found Tarkas, the son of Natha the trader, standing in the parlor. “Have a seat, Tarkas,” Alec told him. “This is an unexpected pleasure. How is your family?”
“Everyone is doing well, thank you,” Tarkas said. “You’ve certainly shaken up Annalea’s life, I understand.”
“I hope I’ve done something good for her,” Alec said. “Now, what’s on your mind?” he asked just as two loud thumps on the ceiling indicated more furniture apparently being moved around upstairs. “Don’t mind that. We’re just moving furniture,” Alec said.
The Loss of Power: Goldenfields and Bondell Page 10
