Oath of Fealty

32

It was noon before Arcolin made it out of Cortes Vonja. In addition to visiting Kostin the banker, where courtesy demanded he accept a glass of cordial and nibble a few of the seed-crusted cakes while ensuring the Marshal would have access to Company funds, he had to visit the Council chambers once more. They insisted on having one of their clerks take down his story of the previous day’s events and were inclined to blame him for not warning them of Korryn’s magical abilities. He set them straight, and they finally agreed that he could not be blamed for not knowing what they and their guards had also not seen.

Now, in the heat of midday, with the sun beating down on his helmet, Arcolin set his slower mount off at a steady amble. He had left the speedier chestnut in the city, for his people to use if they needed to contact him. The cohort was long out of sight; they would be—if Burek had them moving as briskly as he hoped—between the first two villages.

Away from the city, the countryside was just as hot but smelled better. Fat cattle grazed in the water meadows near the river; beyond that, a patchwork of grain fields in brilliant greens, orchards in darker colors now the flowers had fallen. In a few, early cherries were turning color, red as blood. Along the hedgerows, brambleberries flowered in shades of pink and rose; boneset and heal-all raised their white and blue clusters; myriad other flowers—yellow, pink, red, blue—made the hedgerows a ribbon of color. Arcolin noticed the beauty, but his mind was fixed ahead on the cohort and behind on Stammel.

Within a half-glass, dust showed where the cohort might be, just beyond the village he could see. His horse pricked its ears and quickened its pace a little. Arcolin squinted, but could not make out the details under the dust. He heard nothing; the wind blew across the road, not along it.

As he came to the village, no one fled. A woman hanging washing on the bushes outside her cottage barely looked at him; children ran beside him a short way, then went back to whatever they’d been doing. It was too hot for the two dogs he saw to give chase; each barked from its own resting place under a berry bush, but without getting up.

Now he could see a little better … wagons, with horses tied behind. Burek had mounted scouts out on the flanks, as he should; at that distance, he could not see the colors, but the formation was enough. In spite of his worry about Stammel, his heart lifted. This was his place; these were his people; of course he had to be here. He nudged his mount out of the amble into a canter. The guards on the rear wagon raised a shout … and then he was within easy hail.

“Yo, Captain! How is he?”

Arcolin reined in. “The Marshal thinks the fever may have dropped a little. Where’s the surgeon?”

“Asleep in the first wagon, Captain.”

“Good. And the others—?”

“The same. Captain Burek said he wanted them ready to fight later.” The slightest tone of uncertainty there.

“Exactly right,” Arcolin said. He lifted the reins, and his mount picked up the fast amble again, past the first wagon, past the pack mules loaded with sacks of grain, past the cohort—smaller than it had been—Devlin alone at the head of it, and then Burek, on his roan.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he said to Burek as he came abreast of him. “First the bankers, and then the Council. Would you believe they thought it was my fault Korryn attacked? When they were the ones who’d insisted on an examination?”

Burek shook his head. “Vonja,” he said.

“Yes, indeed. I’d rather deal with Foss Council any day.”

“How is he, sir?”

“Still fighting,” Arcolin said. “Three Marshals and a Captain of Tir are with him; they’ve pledged the resources of both grange and camp to do everything they can. I don’t know—” He took a breath. It would not help Burek or the cohort to hear him say they could not go on without Stammel. He should not even think it. “I’ve been thinking about who to make temporary sergeant and corporals. With Arñe back there, we’re short on both. I’ll talk to Devlin, of course, but I wanted to ask your thoughts.”

“Mine?” Burek looked surprised, then thoughtful. “I haven’t been with them long enough, is my thought. Let me think. There’s Jenits … he’s always right there, doing what he should and more. Volya’s another good one, but you have many good troops. And I’m not sure—besides that—what to look for.”

“You’re on the right track with Jenits,” Arcolin said. “It’s not just being good with weapons, or obeying orders. We have long-time veterans who are steady as stone in a battle, reliable when someone else is giving the orders, but will not stir themselves without. What we need in corporals is someone with the potential to be a sergeant, and what we need in sergeants is someone who can see what needs to be done and do it—or know who to tell. It’s not age and experience; you find youngsters with the ability to see and the will to do, and older ones too. We may not have formal battles this season, but if we did you’d see that our sergeants and corporals also keep order in battle. Exhorting, encouraging, reminding recruits what commands mean. So they must be steady, able to stay calm in any situation.”

“I don’t think all companies choose them that way,” Burek said, frowning slightly.

“No, they don’t,” Arcolin agreed. “But it works for us, and it worked for Aliam Halveric. Some companies won’t let women into those positions, which is silly. One of the best sergeants I ever had—no shame to Stammel—was Dzerdtya. She didn’t want to be a captain, she said when offered the chance at knight’s training, but you could not ask a better cohort sergeant. We saw that in her from the first tenday of her training.”

“She retired?” Burek asked.

“She died,” Arcolin said. “At Dwarfwatch, along with my junior captain Ferrault. She and Stammel I would place at the top rank. Different personalities, but everything you could want in a sergeant.” And the cohort had survived Dzerdtya’s death; it would survive Stammel’s, if that came to pass.

“My father said I was crazy to become a soldier,” Burek said. “He was content as horsemaster, and thought I should be, but I said you could die of a kick to the head or a bad fall.”

“Crazy or not, I’m glad to have you here,” Arcolin said. “You did well keeping the cohort in order while I was in the city.”

His horse threw up its head; so did Burek’s roan. Arcolin raised his hand and signaled halt; behind him the cohort stamped its halt; far behind, two horses snorted. One of the forward scouts came into view, waving for attention. Arcolin checked his flanking scouts; both had halted, waiting for orders. He waved to the forward scout to come in and report.

“Captain—that village where we took the headman—the brigands must’ve attacked. There’s smoke—looks like two cottages burned—no sign of that herd of cows.”

“They probably attacked the night after we went through,” Arcolin said. “Any sign of the villagers?”

“Could be bodies on the lane, I didn’t go closer to count.”

“They massacred the whole village?” Burek said.

“Probably not,” Arcolin said. “Probably killed a few, took a few prisoner to do work in their camp, and sent the rest away with threats. They want to scare their food supply, not destroy it.” He looked at Devlin. “Devlin, come up the road with me a bit.”

Out of earshot of the cohort, he said, “We may be fighting later today or tonight. Who do you want for sergeant and corporals?”

Devlin shook his head at first. “None of ’em’s ready to be sergeant—but I have been thinking—”

“Well, think faster. They may have set up that village as a trap and it’s less than a glass away.”

“Yes, Captain. In that case … Jenits as sergeant. Kef and Sim as corporals. They’re all young, so they won’t mind being bumped back when we’re back to normal.” His look at Arcolin pled for reassurance Arcolin couldn’t give.

“Or when we have more time to consider,” Arcolin said. “Good point. Go tell ’em; let them know it’s temporary.” So far, he told himself.

Devlin pulled Jenits up to the front, then Kef and Sim, and told them what they’d need to do as they continued on to the village. Arcolin sent additional scouts out.

They all smelled smoke now, wisps of it still rising from ruined cottages. The headman’s cottage—a ruined heap. The one next to it, and the one across the lane, also burned. Heaps of rags that were, as they neared, clearly bodies … three men … four women … two children. The other cottages, still whole, were tight-shuttered in the midday heat. A trampled track across the young grain showed which way someone had come and gone.

Arcolin raised his voice. “If anyone is hiding here: Your former headman is under sentence in Cortes Vonja for aiding the brigands who did this to you. You have no safety here while the brigands prosper; you should go to the city, or a village where you have relatives.”

No one answered, but he was sure there were listening ears, whether villagers or brigands.

“Do we follow them?” Burek asked.

“Not where they want us to,” Arcolin said. “They’ve had plenty of time to set up a good ambush on land they know far better than we do. We’ll go on south and then cut east where I hope they won’t see us doing it. But we will bury these bodies and make sure the village well’s clean. Someday people will live here again.” He looked at the sky. “If we do all that, we might as well camp in the village tonight.”

By nightfall the dead had been decently buried, and timbers and stones from the ruined cottages arranged in a barrier to protect a perimeter around the remaining buildings. Arcolin insisted on checking inside each of the cottages. “Not for survivors,” he explained to Burek. “For brigands waiting to attack us.” They found neither people nor food.

Somewhat to Arcolin’s surprise, they were not attacked that night, and made an early start the next morning without incident. They passed through the village where they had found the merchant and his wagons before; the headwoman grinned at them and waved as they approached.

“We have one friend,” Burek said.

“As long as we bring gifts,” Arcolin said. “You ride on; I’m going to talk to her.”

“I knew you’d come back,” she said, when he reined in beside her and dismounted. “What did them in the city do to that fellow with the wagons?”

“The merchant? Threw him out of the Guild. Confiscated his wagons and his merchandise.”

“Them brigands is mean, angry folk,” the woman said.

“Angry?”

“Yesternoon, it was, when they come riding down the road like a pride of princes. Smelled of smoke and death; I had all my people hidden. Said they was hunting the one as told the Fox army—they mean you—how to find their supplies.” She grinned wider. “I told ’em you didn’t need anyone’s help; you’d done no more than walk past the wagons and you knew about the false floors.”

“Did they find the gifts?”

She shook her head. “Gifts, my lord? I never saw no gifts, nor did anyone else. Nobody gives us gifts; the tax man takes away and so do them villains, I told ’em so. They looked in my house, walked in like they owned it, but o’ course I have nothing of theirs.” She leaned close. “We had full bellies that night, my lord, all the mush even the childer could stuff down, and our hogs had the rest. Wasn’t a single extra grain here when they searched, nor anything but what they expected. And it was good warning you gave us, not to store any. They was looking for that red southern grain in our jars—stirred every one and found only what we grow here, wheat and spelt.”

“When did they come?” Arcolin asked.

She thought a long time, spreading one hand to touch her fingers, then shaking it to cancel the count; he wasn’t sure she knew how to reckon days. Finally she said. “It wasn’t the night we feasted, or the night after, or the night after that, but the next day.”

“Thank you,” Arcolin said. “And now—do you know where the outbounds of Vonja are? We’re bidden to stay within them. Is there another village within the bounds farther on this road?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, my lord. There was one before Siniava’s War, but I heard it had been destroyed, and I haven’t left here since I got back. There’s our hog-wood just to the south of us—and there’s a sort of ford over the creek in about a sunhand’s walk, but your wagons may have trouble with it. The pigherds say someone should have repaired it. That other village was most of the day’s walk at one time.”

“Perhaps we should look,” Arcolin said. “Thank you, for your time. I am sorry I have no grain for you this time—but this—” He handed her two of the copper coins southerners called pages.

“Thank you, my lord. You was kind before and these’ll hide easy, if them brigands come back.”

Beyond the village, the lane deteriorated even more as it led into the woods. The wheelmarks of the merchant’s wagons showed clear, and old ruts with them, but certainly wagons passed this way only a few times a year. Soon the trees shut out all sight of the village behind. The road twisted back and forth as they climbed a low rise. Around one turn, they came on a sounder of swine, the herdboy trying to prod them off the way, but two were intent on something on one verge, rooting determinedly, and the boy’s stick made no difference to them. A prick from the tip of Arcolin’s sword was another matter; with an annoyed grunt, the two trotted off down a woods path after the others; the boy gaped at Arcolin, then ran after them.

Down the other side of the rise, they came to the stream the headwoman had mentioned, the remnants of a gravel ford now scattered by many a spring flood, and mucky holes on both banks. Rough-trimmed timbers along both sides showed how the merchant had managed to get his wagons across. But with only seven men altogether? Arcolin rode out into the stream and looked upstream and down. On the right bank of the stream, a game trail wide enough for humans ran alongside the stream, and when he looked closely—yes, rain-softened boot marks.

“Checkpoint,” he said to Burek. “The ford’s been deliberately made more difficult. They’d meet the wagons from the south here—check the cargo—help them across—and then meet them again at that village—must be closer to their camp.” He chewed his lip, trying to think out the logic of it. How was the merchant paid? Wait—those two sacks of coins he’d found in the false-bottom of the first wagon, under the sacks of grain. They had not been marked with the seals of the Moneychangers’ Guild. Would a merchant carry so much of his own money after he bought goods and before he sold them? Arcolin had first thought of that money as a bribe … but if the brigands hadn’t taken it—why not? What if, instead of a bribe, the brigands had added it to the load?

“Burek, when I was in Valdaire, my banker told me some Guild League cities had started minting bad coins. Did you hear anything about that?”

“Yes, sir.” Burek rode his horse into the ford. “M’dierra’s company got some; she was furious. It was while I was with that cohort in Andressat. She had the rest over in Cilwan, and her banker refused about twenty percent of the payment. She had a row with the Count of Cilwan—it was Cilwan-minted coins the banker refused—and the Merchants’ Guild came in on his side, until the banker gave a public demonstration. The coins were counterfeit, all right. The natas were the weight of nas, lead-cored. The Count blamed merchants for bringing in counterfeit, swore up and down his mint was honest. The merchants were furious and blamed the Count; the Moneychangers’ Guild backed M’dierra’s demand for the rest of her pay. But Cilwan’s not the only mint to turn out bad coins—there’s been complaints of other mints, too.”

Arcolin felt stupid. “I should have looked at our merchant’s coins more closely. They looked fine to me, but now I wonder—why was he carrying so much money, not as an agent of the Moneychangers’ Guild?”

“Were they all southern mint?”

“I didn’t even see that,” Arcolin said. “Some were gold, some silver … I did see a Cortes Vonja mark on a few on top.”

“Seems unlikely all the mints would start minting bad coins at once,” Burek said. “Though it’s a way to stretch a treasury until people figure out there’s plenty of money and few goods.”

“But … if someone else were making the false coins—sending them to various cities—that would cause trouble, as in Cilwan.” He looked around. Nothing to see, nothing to hear but the gurgle of water over the ford. “Alured, I’ll wager. He wants the Guild League broken; he knows it financed the last war … if the cities war against each other, if the merchants can’t trade as they have … he could move in with more than brigands.”

“I don’t see why he isn’t happy with a dukedom,” Burek said.

“Nor I,” Arcolin said, with a sigh. “And our immediate problem is these brigands and tonight’s camp.”

Burek flushed. “Sorry, sir—”

“No—that wasn’t a correction. Thinking long-term is what made Phelan successful, but while thinking long-term we must not lose track of today’s duties. Let’s get these wagons across—we may have to unload them—and try to reach that village—ruined or not—tonight.” He cast a last look at the bootprinted game trail before turning to the cohort.

Devlin’s choices as junior sergeant and corporals had already shown their ability and energy in the previous night’s camp. Now Jenits in particular pulled almost equal weight to Devlin. Arcolin, remembering the brash youth of Jenits’s first campaign year, the last of Siniava’s War, watched the serious, determined young man organize his two files quickly and get the second wagon unloaded even before Devlin had the first one ready to cross. And it was Jenits who suggested using the spare horses and the four mules to move cargo across the stream alongside the wagons.

More quickly than Arcolin expected, they were across, the wagons reloaded, and on their way. The next village site, when they came to it, looked clearly deserted—the cottages no more than tumbled stone walls pierced by saplings and weeds. It had backed on the woods, with fields before it … fields now growing up in weeds and bushes, even young trees. The village well, surprisingly, had a few flowers, barely withered, on its curbstone.

“Someone uses this,” Devlin said. “And it smells clean.”

“Dip a bucket,” Arcolin said. The wellhouse and axle were gone, but the stone edging was remarkably clean. Someone was maintaining this well—someone who cared about the merin. The bucket came up with clear water that smelled fresh. Arcolin dipped a handful—it tasted as clean as it smelled.

He took the bucket and walked around the well, pouring a thin stream. “Thanks to the merin of the well, for the good water,” he said aloud. “We honor the Lady and her handmaidens. No harm will come to this well by our use.” Then he turned to Burek and Devlin. “We’ll camp here tonight. A solid defensive perimeter. When my tent is up, I want to talk to both of you.”

While Devlin organized the camp, Arcolin rode out into the fields a short way, weeds brilliant with yellow, blue, and white flowers up to his horse’s belly. Ample cover for a force to approach on that side, the old furrow ridges and hollows concealed by tall vegetation. He saw no sign of disturbance, off the wagon track, but with the thick growth he knew he could miss such signs easily. He rode across the wagon track and there, near the forest edge, found a well-traveled footpath running just along the margin, between field and wood. Well-traveled, but not by many, and the only footprint he found was bare.

In the last year of Siniava’s War, he’d seen the like: peasants driven from their villages, eking out a poor living in the edges of woodland, hiding from everyone. A clean well would be a boon to them. And such people would not welcome brigands any more than soldiers. If he could convince them to talk to him, he might save the cohort time and blood.

He rode back to the camp, now bustling as his people dug a ditch, cut stakes, and laid out the campsite itself. All were at work but the sentries and the scouts he’d assigned to patrol beyond the perimeter, even Burek. As he dismounted, he caught a glance from Devlin; he nodded, tied his horse to the tail of a wagon, and went over.

“Problems, Sergeant?”

“Not exactly,” Devlin said. “But—I have a feeling.”

“So do I,” Arcolin said. “There’s a lot more going on than some brigands bothering farmers or merchants. Is the feeling about this place, or more than that?”

“I wish we had two cohorts,” Devlin said. “Or all three. Marching through the woods today—I don’t know, sir, I just—it’s been a long time since I felt like we were a small group.”

“We are a small group,” Arcolin said. “For what it’s worth, I had the same feeling. I’m half inclined to go back tomorrow, just patrol in the open land closer to the city. But I think it’s as much having Stammel gone, and the five we left there, as real danger. You’re having to bring along juniors faster than ever and we’re down six, including a sergeant and a corporal.”

“I know we’ve lost only one in combat,” Devlin said. “It’s just …” He shook his head.

Arcolin clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk when camp’s made.”

As soon as the camp was set up, Arcolin called Burek and Dev into his tent. “We’re in over our heads,” he said quietly. “There’s much more going on here than some leftover homeless peasants and soldiers from Siniava’s War.”