After choking down as much cold stew as I could stomach, we found the barracks and I set eyes on the deplorable conditions that made me seriously reconsider my years-long determination to come to this place. Rows of bunks made from no more than roughly-hewn timbers lined the walls, three levels high. It was cold, damp, dark, and stank of stale bodies despite the place being all but empty. We managed to find two adjacent lower bunks, thin pads of wool and wool blankets their only accompanying comforts. As I poked at the bundle of stained bedding in horror, I caught James watching me out the corner of my eye.
“What?” I snapped, snatching my hand away.
“Not too late to change your mind.”
I held his gaze and dropped my saddlebags onto the floor beside my bed with an unambiguous thump.
“Suit yourself,” he muttered.
Sore from the day’s ride and secretly appalled at the situation I’d willingly put myself in, I curled up in my scratchy blanket and learned firsthand how little good those pads of wool did to soften the planks of wood beneath.
After a short night of troubled sleep, I awoke with a start to the roar of male voices and the clatter of gear. Shooting upright in my bed, my forehead slammed into the planks of the bunk above me, sending a burst of blinding pain through my skull. I collapsed backward and curled onto my side in agony, eyes watering and hands clutching the throbbing knot at my hairline. Not a half-second later, I heard James release a string of curses and guessed that he had done the same.
“On the field, you worthless dogs!” someone shouted as men scrambled around us. My bunkmates above dropped down with a loud slam and dressed, shedding tunics and trousers with complete disregard. I quickly hid my beet-red face behind my blanket, but not before a hairy eyeful had branded itself irrevocably into my memory.
Perhaps I’d not quite thought this venture through.
When the sounds had mostly faded, James roused me from my mortified cocoon with a stiff shake and a told-you-so smirk. Luckily still dressed from the night before, I tugged on my boots and we hurried out after the rest.
The recruits assembled in the bailey, eighty-or-so unkempt young men milling about and waiting for further instruction. I stuck close to James’ side and scanned the crowd around me. We were a sad-looking lot, with the exception of a few broad-shouldered crofters’ boys, a mismatched band of eager lads looking to prove their worth and earn some coin. Though it was by no means required by law, most fathers sent their sons to the fort as a rite of passage and many were encouraged to return for at least one three-month patrol before settling into their lives as tailors or blacksmiths.
The cavalry patrols kept order in Laezon, dealing with bandits and thieves as well as acting as scouts for my father to maintain a firm hold on the province. The tradition also had the added benefit of keeping a sizeable skilled militia at the ready. A generation had passed since Alesia saw open war, but our people had suffered greatly during the months of Brandon’s siege and many who had endured the Black Company’s cruelties firsthand yet lived to counsel vigilance. If war did come again, Laezon would stand ready.
Not that any of these knob-kneed boys would be much use yet. Half of them looked as though they’d topple in a strong breeze. The other half looked like they’d just staggered out of the village tavern, still drunk from the night before and itching for their next brawl. I’d no delusions regarding which category I fell into. I might be tall for a girl, but I lacked the breadth and brawn of any man – or boy, for that matter.
“You sure you want to do this?” James murmured close to my ear, his warm eyes watching me with poorly-masked concern. Before I could reply, a barrel-chested voice thundered over the assembled recruits.
“Line up, you little bastards!” it bellowed, and the sea of flesh around us stirred to action. James and I scrambled to follow suit as the men spaced themselves into tidy rows. Once safely entrenched near the back, I peered through the mass of bodies to locate the source of such unquestionable command.
Two soldiers in fine leather armor stood at the front of our motley company. Both looked to be near my parents’ age, throwing our collective youth and inexperience into even sharper relief. Even the most formidable of the crofters’ boys looked like children in comparison.
The smaller of the two men stood still as a statue, hands folded behind his back and sleek cinnamon hair bound in a neat club. A bow and bristle of arrows peeked over one shoulder, a subtle promise of skill only reinforced by the way his keen eyes wove through our numbers. Across his chest, a bandolier of slender knives glinted in the morning sun.
His companion paced slowly before the front row of recruits with a scowl to rival Samson’s. A born brawler, by the build of him, his thick dark hair and towering height made him look a bit too much like a bear for my comfort. A massive two-handed broadsword was strapped to his back, a bone-handled dirk sheathed at his hip. It was his voice that had called us to order, and he continued berating those in reach while the rest of us did our best to remain invisible.
“The captains?” I heard James whisper to a nearby recruit, a slight boy with a crooked nose.
“Aye,” he confirmed quietly, jutting his chin at the bear-man. “Briggs. One of Lord Damien’s own. The tracker’s Rowan.”
“Red Rowan?” another lad interjected with a hint of awe.
“The same.”
“Fuckin’ hells.”
James shot me a nervous glance, but I’d no notion of who this ‘Red Rowan’ might be. At the mention of Briggs’ name, I realized I’d seen him a time or two in my father’s company. A few times a year, Father would made a weeks-long circuit of Laezon, visiting the various towns and villages to hear complaints and settle what grievances the local Elders were unable to handle. He always took a handful of his most trusted armsmen on such journeys. Few of them maintained permanent posts at the manor, preferring the open air and comradery of the patrols to the tedium of estate life.
Whatever my father saw in that man, though, I was hard-pressed to see it myself. Briggs proved to be just as sharp-tongued and merciless as Samson. With a barrage of curses and bullying shoves, he marched us out to the main training field outside the walls. Rowan brought up the rear, his hawk-eyed stare discouraging anyone from dawdling. My stomach twisted itself in knots of hunger and fear, the latter of which was only compounded when we were ordered to pair off and spar. The hordes of young men around me obeyed with enthusiasm, calling each other out with good-natured taunts and no small amount of roughhousing.
“They expect us to just…fight?” I balked, heart hammering as James squared up opposite me. “But we’ve had no instruction!”
“Taking our measure. Sorting us. Infantry or cavalry,” he explained somberly, raising his fists. “Ready?”
“I have no clue what I’m doing!” I hissed back, but raised my own regardless.
“You know how to punch. Swing at me.”
I’d thrown mud and scrapped with the stable boys plenty in my youth, but this was something else entirely. The two lads to my right were already tangled in a vicious heap on the ground. On my left, a pair of crofters’ boys hammered one another with fists the size of meat mallets, each of them sporting a bloody grin as though it were all just a bit of fun. Despite my determination to hurl myself into this brutal world, I suddenly found my feet frozen to the ground and my mind utterly blank.
“Come on,” James pressed, eyes flicking to something behind me. It was then that I recognized Briggs’ rumbling baritone growing steadily closer, shouting pointers, condemnations, and the occasional compliment. As his heavy steps neared, the last threads of my resolve faltered.
“Just like when we were children,” my friend urged in a near-whisper. “Come at me!”
I did my best, which wasn’t much good at all. Embarrassingly bad, to be honest. Poor James didn’t have the heart to hit me outright – not yet, anyway – so he looked nearly as foolish as I did. We traded a few feeble blows to the ribs a
nd stomach before clenching and toppling to the ground.
“What in the hell is this?” the captain thundered down at us as we scrabbled for advantage. “You’re fighting, not fucking, you ninnies!”
I’d just managed to get my arm around James’ neck in a paltry attempt at a chokehold when a pair of rough hands grabbed the back of my tunic and hurled me backward off my confidant. I stumbled in surprise at the sheer force of it and fell squarely on my backside with a yelp, the men around us pausing to snigger at me.
“You’ve a height advantage and a good forty pounds on him,” the captain snarled at James. “My old nan could’ve thrashed him by now!”
“Aye, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“And you,” Briggs growled as he turned my way, the words falling flat the moment he laid eyes on me. I watched a deep crease form between his bushy brows, suspicion flickering across his face. At first, I feared he’d somehow recognized me from our few brief encounters at the manor. It had been years since our paths had crossed, but I still had the same dark hair and Lazerin eyes as my father. What if that alone was enough to betray me? Just as the panic began to seize my lungs, I realized his attention was fixed not on my face, but on my chest.
Sprawled on my back, my tunic was pressed flat against my torso, laying the faint mounds of my bosom plain for all to see – or not, since mine was barely a swell worth noting at the best of times. For once, my lack of marketable feminine qualities might work in my favor. What little evidence there was of my gender could easily be dismissed as a convenient bunching of my tunic or an awkwardness of figure, but only at a passing glance. Longer examination would betray me in full.
It took all of my self-control to keep the terror from my face as I scrambled upright, slouching over my knees in a manner that looked carelessly boyish and let my tunic hang loosely about my chest. With just as much calculated nonchalance, I turned my head and spat crudely into the mud nearby.
Whatever Briggs thought he saw, he quickly dismissed it, stomping over to me and giving my mud-smeared thigh a firm kick.
“On your feet, whelp,” he snarled and I hurried to obey. The captain peered down at me with those dark eyes, face twisted in a remarkably Samson-esque scowl. “How old are you, boy?”
“Sixteen, sir,” I mumbled, throwing my voice a pitch lower.
“Might’ve believed you if you’d said fourteen.” He gave me a quick once-over. “A scrap like you won’t last the week.”
I lifted my gaze to his, equal parts indignation and terror rising in my chest. Of all the things to ruin my chances, my age had not even come into consideration.
“I’ve as much right to be here as anyone else.”
“Fifteen’s the minimum age for the garrison. Piss off home before I have you flogged.”
“He’s sixteen, Captain,” James called from behind the towering brute, having found his feet once more. “I’ll vouch for it.”
Briggs didn’t bother to turn and face him as he tilted his head at me and replied, “And why should I believe you over my own two eyes?”
“I’m a man of my word.”
He did turn at that, a humorless bark of laughter rasping through his lips. “Let’s get something straight, boy-”
“I’m of age,” I interrupted before he could lay into my friend, drawing the captain’s formidable ire back onto myself. “Flog me if you like. I’m not leaving.”
Born brawler or otherwise, Briggs was a seasoned commander and not quick to anger. Even so, my insolence challenged his authority and he wasn’t about to let it go unchecked. He took a menacing half-step closer, his massive bulk towering over me.
“Interrupt me again,” he warned, low and dangerous, “and you’ll earn as much, lad.”
I made a show of swallowing thickly and dropping my gaze. If he was focused on stamping out my insubordination, he wouldn’t be thinking about my age or the faint swell of my chest anytime soon.
“Aye, sir.”
With one more searing glance to each of us, he turned to continue his rounds, finally catching sight of the good number of recruits who had ceased their matches to gawk at our exchange.
“Back to work!” the captain roared as he stalked away. The chaos around us quickly resumed, but I noticed several pairs of eyes still watching us with marked suspicion.
“You should’ve stayed out of it,” I scolded as discreetly as I could manage when James and I closed ranks once more.
“Worst ‘thank you’ I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I thought that’s why you brought me here.”
“I brought you here to help.”
“Then let me,” he insisted, bristling with impatience. “I’ve a far better idea of how to survive this place than you do, and it starts with not shooting your mouth off in front of the fucking captain.”
“You want to help?” I challenged, leaning closer. “Then hit me.”
His mouth dropped open in disbelief, voice rising to a dangerous volume. “I’m not going to-”
“Yes, you are,” I hissed, more to shush him than anything else. “Or so-help-me-Adulil, I will kick you right in the stones.”
He took a step back, throwing up his hands. “This is ridiculous.”
James was right about one thing: I knew perfectly well how to punch. Without warning, I stepped in and cracked him hard across the jaw, immediately retreating to shake out my hand. He swore colorfully at me, clutching his face, brown eyes blazing with fury. When the pain in my knuckles had diminished from blinding to throbbing, I fetched up close to him again, keeping my voice low and earnest gaze locked on his.
“I knew what I was getting into, coming here. If you don’t hit me, one of them will, and I’ll give you two guesses which one will hurt more. You want to help me?” I repeated, giving him a hard shove and squaring up with fists raised. “Then quit your whinging and hit me, James.”
If ever there was a time to lay the groundwork for our ruse, that was it. Every nearby recruit had seen Briggs dress us down and heard him challenge my place among their ranks. They’d all be looking at me far too closely for comfort unless I could find a way to put their doubts at ease. The best way to accomplish that was to look like any other foolhardy young man: long on ego and short on experience. If I had to take a beating to prove it, I’d much rather James be the one to administer it than one of the crofters’ boys.
Clearly, my friend worked his way through the sense of it just fine on his own, though the grim look on his face told me he didn’t much care for the conclusion. He raised his hands anyway, resignation and reluctance battling in his eyes.
“Do me a favor, will you?” I mused with a nervous smirk. “Go for-”
His fist slammed into my gut before I could finish, doubling me over and driving the air from my lungs. I stumbled back a step, clutching my abdomen and gasping for breath. The second blow followed shortly after, a half-pulled punch to the ribs that sent stinging fire up my side. A knee connected with my torso before I had a chance to straighten my thoughts, sending me toppling to the dirt.
His boots shuffled over, every step stiff and forced. No amount of coughing or heaving seemed capable of restoring my breath to me, but I rolled onto my back anyway to look up at him through pain-slitted eyes. For some absurd reason, the pale, miserable look on his face made me want to laugh, and a deranged smirk forced its way through the grimace on my face.
“Yes,” I wheezed. “Precisely.”
CHAPTER 8
I thought the first day was bad. I soon learned I had much more to be sore about than hurt pride, though I had that aplenty. The thrashing I took from James had quelled our comrades’ suspicions, but I was still a soldier in training and the training was made for men.
We worked from dawn to dusk, pausing only a moment in the early afternoon to eat a hunk of bread and drink from the massive barrel of rainwater in the bailey. Hours were dedicated each morning to learni
ng and repeating circuits of one-handed sword drills. Those, I relished. Even though the weight of the blade combined with the length of the practice left me with a persistently sore shoulder and plenty of blisters, I rose with purpose each morning, eager to lose myself once more in the steady hum of steel.
Sparring, though, was another matter entirely. I had no innate gift for the sword. That much became clear right away. Not only did my lack of comparable strength and size hinder me, but a sharp bite of terror took hold every time I squared up against one of the other recruits. It slickened my palms with sweat. Turned my knees to jelly. Froze my feet to the ground. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to escape the welts those dulled practice blades would invariably imprint upon my skin, and there was no salvation from that same brutal certainty except by my own actions. But in order to act, I had to find a way through my fear to a place of stillness, of numbness. A place where the fear couldn’t cripple me.
I stared across the circle into the faces of my comrades and saw reflected in them a bitter truth: that this world would not give me anything I did not take for myself. If I wanted strength, I couldn’t just stand still and wait for it to come to me in some moment of revelation. I had to mine it from the deepest depths of me, melt it down, and forge myself anew in its image. I had to choose strength, over and over again every day, until it was no longer a choice at all.
So I chose. I stumbled through the fear and found tiny pieces of that stillness within. Enough to move my feet. Enough to block a strike. Enough to duck a swing. Bit by bit, I patched together something vaguely resembling courage and learned to face those bouts without flinching.
But I still wasn’t any good at it.
Taking those beatings earned me a measure of respect amongst our comrades, a contradiction that James assured me was one of the unwritten laws of men. After the first week, I noticed my opponents’ dedication to removing my head from my shoulders started to dwindle. They began offering me pointers and openings instead, the way they might if they were teaching a younger brother. I still earned my share of bruises, but the shift toward acceptance made the mornings far easier to bear.
Traitor (A Crown of Lilies Book 1) Page 8
