Kings of the North (19 page)

“Hats w’ feathers,” the boy said. “And they leader has shiny things—around he neck and he arms.”

“How far away was your father, that he could see all that?”

“Oh, he hid in a log,” the boy said, scratching one bare leg with the dirty toes of the other. “He’s lookin’ for berries, this time summer, an’ he heard ’em, and into a log he went, same’s I would, on account it’s t’other village’s berry patch.”

“And?”

“And they come right by ’im, walkin’ proud, he says, but some limpin’ and blood on they clothes. And pickin’ every berry they saw.”

“How many?”

The boy stared at his hands, scowling, moving his fingers up and down, and finally said, “Two hands maybe.”

“They’ll be no trouble to us for a while,” Burek said. “But to the farmers …”

“It’s late to move today; we’ll move tomorrow,” Arcolin said. “I’m not going to risk our people on the trail at night. The woods are more open up that way—we should be able to pick up a trail.”

Cortes Vonja

O
nce a tenday the grange drilled outside the city, in the water meadows. As soon as the Marshal allowed, Stammel went along, his hand on Suli’s shoulder. He wore his own uniform again, though it was loose, and a banda over it. The Marshal insisted on a straw hat over his helmet; he was sure it looked ridiculous, but the Marshal wanted to protect his eyes.

“I’m blind,” Stammel said. “Why worry about them?”

“Because an infection in them could kill you,” the Marshal said. “And if there is any chance your sight might come back, staring into the sun you can’t see will finish it.”

So now he followed Suli and the others, stumbling only a little now and then. She was good at noticing what might trip him and murmuring warnings. “Rut here. Big root ahead, high step.”

This was drill as he knew it, but with slightly different commands. The yeomen knew them and started off at a strong walk; Stammel, next to Suli, felt out of place this close. At least he hadn’t tired on the walk out of the city, and when the Marshal called a rest, he wasn’t out of breath like some of those he heard huffing and puffing.

“Unarmed next,” the Marshal said. “Pair up. Stammel, you’re with Groj.”

Stammel grinned. He’d won the argument, then; he hadn’t been
sure until this moment. Unarmed fighting, once in grip of the other, wasn’t about sight but about feel … and he was sure his feel would come back. Groj might throw him, but he would be fighting again. Suli guided him some twenty paces.

“I’m Groj,” a voice said in front of him. “I’m one of the smiths. Marshal says I’m not to kill you.”

“I’d prefer not,” Stammel said.

“I’m a head taller,” Groj said. “He said I should tell you that.”

“I could tell from your voice,” Stammel said. He could feel his body’s adjustments, the same as always. For a taller man, this shift. Around him he heard other pairs moving into position.

“But I won’t let you win,” Groj said. “I told ’m I wouldn’t, and he said that was all right.”

“I won’t let you win, either,” Stammel said. Just as he wondered whether pairs signaled each other some way or the Marshal started it, he heard the command.

All the pent-up emotion of the past tendays exploded as he charged. He heard the rasp of Groj’s boots on the grass as the man tried to swing aside, but he was faster, and his arms, reaching wide, caught the man’s belt. Pivot, yank—Groj’s big hand touched his shoulder, but he already had the leverage, and Groj went down. He rolled up quickly, caught Stammel’s arm, and then they were in grip, hands and elbows and knees, struggling for mastery.

Groj was bigger and very strong, but Stammel had more speed and many more years of experience; he fought silently, exulting in the expertise he had not lost to blindness, feeling and hearing Groj’s surprise, the grunts of effort, the gasps as Stammel found yet another way to pin the bigger man. If demons could not defeat him, no big hamfisted smith—

“Hold!” came the command. Groj fell back, gasping; Stammel pushed himself away a little, only somewhat winded.

Footsteps on the grass. “Well,” Marshal Harak said. “What do you think now, Groj?”

“You’re right, Marshal. He’d have half-killed anyone else. I’m blown.”

“Sergeant, I expected you’d explode some way, so I gave you Groj. I didn’t think you could hurt him, but you’ve left marks on him will take tendays to vanish.”

He hadn’t realized that. He’d been so happy … “I’m sorry,” he said.

“No need,” the Marshal said. “You’ve been entirely too controlled since your ordeal; it had to come out sometime.”

Arcolin’s Camp

T
he messenger from Cortes Vonja carried two letters for Arcolin, one with the seal of Gird on the flap and the other addressed in Arñe’s writing, sealed in the same wax as the other but without a seal. Arcolin felt his heart sink. Good news would have been Stammel riding into camp with the others.

He slid his dagger blade under the flap of the Marshal’s letter first.
Your sergeant lives
, the Marshal had written.

Arñe’s letter was less formal:

That part was scratched out. Arñe added,

What work could he give a blind man when they might be in combat at any time? Yes, he had hired a half-blind captain, but the man still had one eye. Stammel … Arcolin squeezed his eyes against the thought of telling Stammel he must leave the Company. At least he must take Stammel back north, back to the stronghold, to safety. He called Burek into his tent and showed him the letters.

“Blind!” Burek said. “I thought he would live or die, and if he lived, recover.”

“It is … hard to imagine,” Arcolin said. “Hard for us all; you knew him only a short while, but for many of us …”

“You will pension him, surely.”

“I will think,” Arcolin said. “Go find Devlin and send him to me.” Devlin, who had been Stammel’s corporal for so long before the disruptions of Siniava’s War had promoted him.

“You have word,” Devlin said as he came into the tent.

“He’s alive, but blind,” Arcolin said. Devlin looked stunned, the way he himself felt. “He can walk; he can even drill, after a fashion. He threw a yeoman in an unarmed fighting drill. The Marshal pressured the Council to give him a small pension, if he wants to stay there, and will find him a room in someone’s house.”

“No,” Devlin said. “No, that can’t be.”

“I’m sorry,” Arcolin said. “But it’s true.”

“That’s not what I meant, sir. I understand: he’s blind. But he can’t—he will die—if he’s penned up in some spare room, alone, without us. Sir, you have to bring him here. He can walk; he can march with us. If he can drill, he’ll get stronger. He knows so much—he can teach me, and Arñe and Jenits and the rest.”

“But if we’re in combat—he can’t fight—”

“He can at least be with us,” Devlin said. “I know that’s what he’d want—he probably won’t ask you—but it’s what he wants. What he needs. And we need him. If he’d lost a leg or something, if he couldn’t keep up—but you say he can—”

“The Marshal says he’s well enough to move out of the grange, but—ours is a hard life for men with sight.”

“And the life he knows,” Devlin said.

“The Duke—” Arcolin began; Devlin interrupted him.

“It’s not Phelan’s Company anymore, sir, but yours. Maybe you think Kieri Phelan would have sent him back north, but you can do what you want.”

He wanted Stammel back, but he wanted the Stammel who no longer existed, the Stammel who had not lost his sight because Arcolin had agreed to a civilian’s request. But he wanted Stammel back here to talk to, to steady the troops.

“They’ll need horses,” he said. “Let me think—Stammel should have my ambler; he’s steady and a smooth ride. He won’t have ridden in a while. Arñe or Doggal can ride the fast one I left up there. And four more. We don’t have four spares, unless we don’t move and send the wagon teams … or switch out mules …”

“I’ll take care of that, sir,” Devlin said. “Thank you, sir!”

Arcolin wrote out the orders for Arñe. He wanted to go himself, but the cohort could not afford to lose another senior person; the courier could take the orders back. He wrote a letter of thanks to Marshal Harak and one each for the Captains of Tir and Falk.

Only a few days later, a small party of horse travelers proved to be the missing six, all wearing absurd floppy straw hats over their helmets. Arcolin thought Stammel looked perfectly normal at first and wondered if he had regained his sight, but then he saw Suli, riding beside him, touch his arm and take the rein of the horse.

Arcolin strode forward, but Stammel had dismounted by the time Arcolin reached the group, and Arñe greeted him. “No problems on the road, Captain.”

“Glad to have you all back with us,” Arcolin said. “You’ll want to see Sergeant Devlin; we’ve made some temporary assignments. He will explain.” Arñe told Tam and Doggal to put the horses up, then, at his nod, headed for Devlin, who was near the fire-pit. The other two, at another nod, headed for their companions. This close, Arcolin could see that Stammel’s eyes did not focus on him, but wandered, as if searching for the light, their once-clear brown clouded. It was eerie; he tried not to shudder. At least the whites were no longer red. Stammel stood upright, rigid as if at inspection, his face unreadable. “Stammel—” Arcolin said; he felt his throat close, took the two steps
forward, and gripped Stammel by the shoulders. The bones were closer to the skin than they had been. “I thought—I was afraid we’d lose you, man.”

“Thank you for letting me come back, sir,” Stammel said. He sighed. “But you have lost me, one way. A blind sergeant—not much use in a fight. I’ll try to be useful at something, until—until we go north. I can still scrub pots and chop redroots.”

“Stop that,” Arcolin said. “I didn’t order you back here to scrub pots. We need you, your expertise. You’re the senior sergeant, just as if you’d broken a leg and were riding in a wagon. From what Marshal Harak told me, you were already starting to train his yeomen.”

Stammel’s face relaxed. “Just wanted to give you a chance—”

“What, to waste the best sergeant I ever had? I may not be Kieri’s equal, but I’m not stupid. Let’s start this over. Welcome back, Sergeant Stammel.”

“Glad to be back, Captain,” Stammel said.

“Devlin already has some ideas for you,” Arcolin said. “But I wanted to brief you on the situation. It’s gotten complicated.”

“Complicated?”

“It’s not just brigands we’re fighting. I don’t know if someone—Alured, for instance—is trying to infiltrate a whole army into southern Vonja or something else …”

“That money the merchant we captured had. I heard in the city it was counterfeit.” That sounded like the old Stammel.

“You heard?”

“People see a man being led around by a young woman, they think neither of them can hear. Or think. Suli’s my eyes now, sir, but I’m the ears. I don’t think I hear better, but not seeing … I pay more attention. Anyway, she’d take me out on walks in the city. We stopped in a tavern … and I heard men talking. Merchants, I think, because one was talking wool prices, and then their voices got lower and it was about coins. That some of the Guild League cities are minting false coinage, cheating their own people.”