“We saved chops for you gents. That be all right, with a bit of burhka on the side, and some late pearapple sauce?”
“That would be fine,” Drakeyt said. “And to drink?”
“Just dark ale or gold lager…there’s Vyrna…but…”
“That doesn’t come with what we paid for,” finished Drakeyt.
“No, ser.”
“Dark ale,” said the older captain.
“Gold lager,” added Rahl. He didn’t care much for drinks he felt he should be chewing rather than swallowing.
“Be right there, sers.”
Rahl glanced around the public room. While the old tables were oiled and clean, and the floor swept, the wood of both was worn, and a sense of age and tiredness permeated everything. He’d sensed age in the buildings in both Land’s End and Nylan, but not the tiredness. Did order keep tiredness at bay? Or was it chaos constrained by order that did that?
“You’re deep in thought, Rahl.”
“The place feels tired.”
“I feel tired,” replied Drakeyt, “and we’re not even halfway to Nubyat. We’ve not seen a rebel force, and we’ve already lost nearly half a squad to traps and floods.”
The servingwoman reappeared with two large mugs. “Your ale and lager. Be just a moment more for your dinner.”
“Thank you.”
Drakeyt waited until she was well away from the table before continuing. “It’s less than fifty kays from here to Dawhut, but we’ll have to take it slower from here on in.” He took a long pull of the dark ale. “That’s because there are all sorts of back roads and hamlets between here and there. According to the maps, anyway, and the old road joins the one we’re following some fifteen kays southwest of here. Folks don’t think about it, but there are more places to hide when there are more steads and hamlets. In a place where you’ve only got a score of families over ten kays of road, everyone notices a stranger and whether something’s missing. You can’t get supplies and food if there’s no one around to grow them, either.”
“That makes sense.” Rahl sipped the gold lager. He was famished, and he wasn’t about to drink much on an empty stomach. “You think there are many rebels or supporters in Dawhut?”
“There’ll be some. It’s big enough to have some people who weren’t happy with the way things were going. How many?” Drakeyt shrugged. “That’s why the submarshal sent us.”
“It would be helpful if we had some idea how far behind he is.”
“Far enough to let us flush out the trouble and not close enough to help if we get in too deep. That’s what recon in force is all about.” The captain looked up as the servingwoman carried two platters toward them.
Neither man spoke for a time once their food arrived.
Rahl ate everything on the platter. He was hungry enough that it all tasted good.
As they were finishing, Drakeyt took a last swallow of ale, then said, “I’m going to run over to the other inn and check how things are going.”
“I could check here,” offered Rahl.
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I need to get into more things with the company.” Rahl was tired, and he wanted to write a bit more on his letter to Deybri since he had no idea when he might have another chance, but he also needed to be visible to the troopers as well, and Drakeyt could use another set of eyes.
“I’ll meet you back here in the front hall, and we can talk over what you saw.” Drakeyt stood.
“I’ll be here.” As he stood, Rahl noticed the copper on the table, and he added one of his own.
Once outside, Rahl moved across the courtyard and through the darkness toward the end of the stable and the hayloft where second squad was billeted. The door was ajar, and he slipped inside. Ahead, he could sense four men in the corner of the barn, the corner barely lit by a wicked-down lantern. He raised a sight shield around himself and eased forward quietly.
“…never make your point, Cheslyn…”
“…know when to throw and when not to…”
Rahl could sense the chaos around the knucklebones—except it wasn’t exactly chaos—and he took several more steps until he was within a few cubits of the gamers. After watching for several moments, he realized that one of the troopers had two sets of bones and switched them when he took the bones for his throws.
“Whose bones are those?” Rahl’s voice was quiet, but firm, as he dropped the sight shield.
All four troopers froze.
“I asked whose bones they were.” Rahl kept his hand on the truncheon at his belt.
“Ser…we were just having a friendly game.”
Rahl waited in the dimness, but no one spoke.
“Are they yours, Cheslyn?”
The burly bearded trooper did not speak, but Rahl got the clear sense of fear that he would be discovered.
“I think you’d better hand me the bones in your hand,” Rahl said.
Cheslyn whirled and jumped to his feet, his hand on his dagger.
“Don’t even think about it.” Rahl’s voice was like ice, and he projected order-force behind the words. He extended his left hand. “The bones.”
The trooper froze. Then the hand holding the weighted bones moved back toward the slot in his jacket that held the unweighted cubes.
“You’ve got them in your hand,” Rahl said coolly. “Just hand them over. In the morning, you can talk to the captain and me.” He could sense fear and fury within the trooper. “Don’t make it worse, Cheslyn. Just hand them over.”
“Yes, ser.” The trooper’s words were even, but the rage behind them was barely held in check. He dropped the bones in Rahl’s hand.
Rahl sensed that they were the weighted bones. “Very wise, Cheslyn. Come see the captain and me first thing in the morning after muster.”
“Yes, ser. I certainly will.”
“Good.” Even in the darkness, Rahl could sense that, had Cheslyn’s eyes been crossbows, Rahl would have been spitted to the wall behind him. He stepped back, then raised the sight shield.
His disappearance cooled some of the trooper’s rage. Some.
“Cheslyn…you’re an idiot…he’s killed officers…think he’d hesitate a moment to put you down?”
“…man’s got a right to game on his own time…can’t take that way…”
Rahl found no other problems with the other troopers in second squad or with third and fifth squad, but he also did not see Khasmyr—the second squad leader—or Quelsyn. That concerned him as well.
Drakeyt was waiting in the small front foyer of the Turf Inn. “How did it go?”
“I didn’t see any of the squad leaders, and we had a little trouble,” Rahl admitted. “Some of the troopers in second squad were gaming bones.”
“You didn’t see any squad leaders because Quelsyn had gathered them together over at the other inn, and gaming isn’t really a problem, so long as they’re quiet.”
“The gaming wasn’t,” Rahl said. “But using loaded bones and switching them isn’t something that ought to be going on.”
Drakeyt looked at Rahl, almost expressionless. “So what did you do?”
“I asked to see the bones—when Cheslyn had the loaded ones in hand. Then I said that I thought I’d better keep them, and that Cheslyn could talk to us in the morning.”
“Why not right then, if you were so intent on stopping the game?”
“The game didn’t matter. Cheating your mates with loaded bones does. But if I called him then, there would have been trouble, and we’d lose another trooper, one way or another. This way…if you agree…I can tell him quietly that if I ever catch him cheating his mates again, he’ll be the one investigating the rebel traps.”
Drakeyt laughed. “For such an innocent-looking fellow, you have a devious way of thinking, Rahl. What if you catch him again?”
“I wouldn’t say a word. I’d just send him into every nasty situation around, and when he finally didn’t make it, I’d give the bones to one of his mates, and t
ell him that Cheslyn had to pay off on his wagers.”
The smile drained from Drakeyt’s face. “You mean that, don’t you?”
Rahl shrugged. “I haven’t been a mage-guard as long as a lot have, but one thing I’ve learned is that the people who don’t heed the first warning don’t heed the second…or the third—not unless they get slammed upside the head, and hard.” As he finished speaking, he realized that he sounded cold, and that his words could have been applied to himself.
“What if you were Cheslyn?”
“I was,” Rahl replied. “That’s why I know. That’s why I’m a mage-guard.”
“A crooked gamer?” Drakeyt was incredulous.
“No. One of those people who didn’t listen to the warnings. Once upon a time, I was a scrivener in Recluce…” Rahl ran through a quick summary that left out more than a few things, but wasn’t misleading, he hoped, ending with, “…and once I got my memory back, they made me a mage-clerk in Luba.”
“I thought Recluce only exiled chaos-mages.”
“I’m a different kind of ordermage—the kind they didn’t know how to train. So they decided I’d be better off elsewhere.”
“Sounds like they thought they’d be better off if you were elsewhere.”
“That, too,” Rahl replied.
Drakeyt shook his head slowly. “You could have fooled me. You speak so well I just thought you were one of those Atlan merchant heirs whose family discovered he was a mage and bought him the best training possible.”
“It would have been nice to have that kind of coin behind me,” replied Rahl with a laugh, “but it didn’t happen that way.”
“We’d all like coins, but we’re just poor captains of the Imperial High Command.” Drakeyt paused. “Or poor mage-guards drafted to help poor captains.” He yawned. “It’s been a long day. I’m about to turn in.”
“That was my thought,” Rahl said. “Good night.”
“Good night, Rahl.” Drakeyt’s smile seemed warmer, although Rahl couldn’t have said why.
Rahl turned and climbed the creaking stairs to the second level slowly. Tired as he was, he still wanted to write at least a few lines to Deybri. Writing made him feel closer to her, and at times when he wrote, he felt she was just around a corner or beyond a door. That had to be his imagination, but it felt that way all the same. He tried not to dwell on the impossibilities of any future with her. He’d worry about that after the campaign against Golyat was over.
XL
Drakeyt and Rahl were finishing breakfast before muster when Khasmyr appeared in the public room and crossed to the table where the two officers sat.
“Sers,” began the second squad leader, “word is that Captain Rahl ordered Cheslyn to see you two this morning.”
“That’s right,” Rahl replied. “After muster. You were meeting with Quelsyn at the time when I told him.”
“Captains,” began Khasmyr, “Cheslyn’s a good trooper in a fight. Did well in that mess in Worrak. He doesn’t always see how some things might not be wise, but…” The squad leader paused and looked at Rahl. “…gaming with friends isn’t a real offense.”
Rahl smiled politely and extended his hand. In it were the knucklebones he’d taken from Cheslyn. “I took these from him last night. That’s all I did—except I asked him to see Captain Drakeyt and me this morning.” Rahl gestured to the table beside them. “Roll them. Several times.”
Khasmyr looked to Drakeyt. The older captain nodded.
The squad leader rolled the bones twice, then a third time, a fourth, and a fifth, before he looked at Rahl. “Begging your pardon, ser. I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t want to call him out in front of the others,” Rahl said. At the same time, he hadn’t felt much surprise from the squad leader, almost as if Khasmyr had expected something like loaded bones.
“It might be best if you were with us, Khasmyr, when Captain Rahl tells Cheslyn that there will never be another pair of weighted bones in second squad.”
Rahl appreciated Drakeyt’s way of conveying what was necessary. Khasmyr should be present, but Rahl hadn’t thought about that. He glanced toward Drakeyt, then Khasmyr. “I should have let you know sooner. Would you prefer to bring Cheslyn yourself after muster?”
“Yes, sers. That might be best.” A faint and ironic smile followed. “If you’d excuse me, sers?”
“See to your squad,” Drakeyt replied.
The squad leader nodded, then turned and left the public room.
Rahl was surprised that the squad leader felt little resentment and hoped that was because Khasmyr understood Rahl’s inexperience.
Drakeyt grinned. “He’s a good squad leader. He managed to let you know that you’d bypassed the chain of command without being either obsequious or offensive. You acknowledged and rectified the situation, and he accepted that.”
“I won’t do that again. I mean, I’d stop Cheslyn, but I’d hunt down the squad leader…” Rahl shook his head. “You told him, didn’t you, and you told him how to handle it.”
“Of course. It works better that way.” Drakeyt rose from the table. “We might as well get saddled up.”
Rahl followed him.
He had the gelding saddled and was waiting outside the inn stable with Drakeyt under a gray sky that suggested rain—but would not deliver it, Rahl felt—when Khasmyr appeared with Cheslyn.
The squad leader stepped back and waited as Cheslyn presented himself to the two officers.
“Sers, you wanted to see me?” Cheslyn was far more subdued than he had been the night before.
Drakeyt nodded to Rahl.
Rahl opened his hand and revealed the knucklebones. “These are very well weighted bones, Cheslyn. A man wouldn’t fail to make his point often with these. Sooner or later, he might get stabbed or strangled in his sleep, but until then he’d make his points. A friendly game of bones for a few coppers isn’t anything an officer needs to get upset about, but a game where someone’s using weighted bones is something else. Sooner or later, you’ll end up dead if you keep that up. Or someone else will. You’re a good trooper, your squad leader says. We don’t like losing good troopers. I don’t know if the squad leader told you, but I’m an order mage-guard. That means I can tell when someone’s cheating. You’re not ever to cheat other men out of their coins. Ever. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ser.”
“I’m also telling you that there won’t be another warning. The next time you’ll be flogged or dead.” Rahl smiled politely and extended his shields until they pressed against the trooper for a moment. “Even when we’re assigned to the High Command, mage-guards can execute Codex breakers without going to a court-martial or a flogging board. Is that clear?”
Cheslyn had paled somewhat at Rahl’s words and extended shields, and he did not reply for a moment. “Yes, ser.”
“Good. You can return to your duties.”
“Yes, ser. Thank you, ser.” Cheslyn turned.
Khasmyr escorted the trooper toward the other end of the stable.
“About now,” Drakeyt said, “Khasmyr will be telling Cheslyn that he’s lucky to be alive.”
“And that he’s fortunate you’re his commander and not me?” asked Rahl with an ironic smile.
“He probably won’t say that.”
The intimation was that Khasmyr wouldn’t have to.
“Why don’t you take fourth and fifth squads out along the road to the south and see what you can find out on the west side of the road?” said Drakeyt. “Quelsyn can go due west with second squad, and I’ll take first and third south on the east side.”
Rahl nodded. “I’ll see what we can find.”
“There probably won’t be much, but you never know. Don’t push the mounts.”
“I won’t.” Rahl knew too well that Drakeyt wanted an easy day for the horses—and the men.
This time, the scouting went exactly as Drakeyt had surmised. Rahl found no signs of rebels, no tracks, and no holders or turf-cutters who
had seen any sign of either.
When Rahl and fourth and fifth squads returned to Fhydala while the sun was still above the western horizon, if barely visible through the clouds that had gradually thinned throughout the day, four troopers were waiting on the narrow porch of the Turf Inn.
“Ser, Captain Rahl?”
“Yes?”
“You have a dispatch bag from the overcommander. Have you seen Captain Drakeyt?”
“He should be here before long. He was patrolling to the southeast.” Rahl turned in the saddle. “Squads, dismissed to your squad leaders.”
“We have command, ser.”
Once Fedeor and Fysett had ridden with their troopers past Rahl and across the square to the Red Coach, Rahl dismounted and tied the gelding to the iron ring on the brick hitching post, then climbed the three steps to the porch.
“Here you are, ser.” The trooper handed a leather pouch to Rahl, tied shut with a simple knot.
“Thank you.”
“Our pleasure, ser.”
Rahl walked to one side of the porch and untied the pouch. He didn’t feel like sitting, especially on one of the hard wooden backless benches. In the leather bag were two envelopes. One bore a Mage-Guard seal; the other was addressed to him in Kysha, but in care of “Mage-Guard Overcommander, Merowey.” The handwriting was feminine, and the single initial on the seal was a “D.” Deybri. She’d written him. How had she thought of sending it in care of the overcommander? Did he dare open it? Was it a sweet and polite dismissal? Could he expect any more than that? He couldn’t take that thought, not at the moment, and he slipped her letter inside his riding jacket.
The other had to be from Taryl, and the sooner he opened that one, the better. He used his belt knife to slit it carefully, absently noting that the edge of the blade bore a slight white sheen of chaos that he had not felt before. He read quickly but carefully.
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