Legends of the Riftwar (43 page)

Raising his hand for attention, Kethol gave out a forester's shout, and the hammering desisted for a moment, only to take up again. Good. The bird was sufficiently wild to go silent in the presence of men, but sufficiently used to men to resume his work quickly; and that helped to verify that they were still alone in the forest.

He smiled as he rode. You could develop quite a legendary ability for being able to hear things in the woods if only you let the woodland creatures help you.

A cold wind picked up from the west, bringing a chill and a distant scent of woodsmoke, probably from some nearby franklin's croft. Birch mixed with the tang of pine, if Kethol was any judge of woodsmoke, which he was.

Morray kept up a steady stream of complaints about his franklins, which Kethol listened to with only half an ear, and then only because the Baron griped better than most grizzled cavalry sergeants.

By edict of the Earl, and probably the Duke himself, the borders of a franklin's croft were inviolable by the barons–who were always looking to increase their own holdings, and settle bondsmen on any vacant land–but the actual house itself was, in law and in practice, the property of the Baron, and while franklins were forbidden from expanding their wattle-and-daub buildings, the barons were required to make necessary repairs to ‘their' property.

If you believed Baron Morray's complaints, not only had Tsurani troops put the red flower to every thatched roof in his barony last autumn, forcing the Baron now to spend sizeable sums for the hire of carpenters, daubers, and thatchers, but the mud and straw of LaMut invariably crumbled if a harsh thought was sent in its direction.

Arrangements would have to be made with Baron Mondegreen, the earldom's Hereditary Bursar, for some loans of Crown money, no doubt, and Baron Mondegreen was as famous for being stingy with Crown money as he was for his own personal generosity, and it was likely that there was some other conflict between the two, given that Morray was serving as the Earl's wartime Bursar, if only because he was more mobile and healthy than Mondegreen was. His position would enable–and require–Morray to pay soldiers, fealty-bound or mercenary, as well as provisioning troops and suchlike; it would not permit him to dip into the Crown purse for repairs to his own barony.

For Morray to be tupping the Baron's wife while trying to get him to authorize a loan was probably not the wisest of ways to proceed, but Kethol had long since decided that wisdom and nobility seemed to go together only by coincidence.

 

The farming road they were using to make their way through the North Woods wound down into a draw, and then up and out through a shallow saddle between two low hills. The Earl's Road
cut across the top of the hills, but it wasn't the fastest way to Morray, or from there to Mondegreen.

Lady Mondegreen left her maids behind as she rode up beside him. He nodded a greeting, and idly touched a hand to his forehead.

‘I want to thank you for escorting me,' she said. Her voice was surprisingly low and pleasantly melodic, like a baritone wind-flute.

‘You are, of course, welcome, my lady,' Kethol said.

And never mind that it was none of his idea, and he would have been perfectly comfortable leaving her to wait for the next company of Mondegreen cavalry to be cycled back to the barony. The larger the party, the better, sure–but that was only when you were counting fighting men, not when you added on baggage like noble women, no matter how pleasing to the eye they might be.

‘There's something…frightening about a late-winter forest,' she said. ‘When you look at the branches out of the corner of your eye, they sometimes look like skeletal fingers, reaching out for you. Add a few black robes, and you might think you had the Dark Brotherhood on every side.'

She rode almost knee-to-knee with him, letting the others lag behind.

‘I guess that is so.' Kethol nodded. ‘But I've always liked the forest. All forests.'

‘Even when it looks so bare and desolate?' she asked, lightly.

‘Looks can be deceiving, Lady.' His knife came to his hand without him having to have thought about drawing it; Kethol reached up and cut a twig from an overhanging branch. A blunt thumbnail cut through a grey bud on the twig, revealing the green hidden inside. ‘No matter how dead it looks, there's always life hidden here,' he said.

Ahead, ashy corpses of burned trees told of where a raging fire had scarred the forest. Kethol remembered that specific fire, which
had been started by fleeing Tsurani troops, and his jaw clenched at the memory.

‘The winter trees are merely…sleeping,' he said. ‘But, in fewer days than you care to think, if you'll probe with your fingers or a stick at the base of that burned oak, you'll see sprouts reaching out to the sky.'

‘I see.'

‘You will.' He smiled. ‘Ten years from now, you won't be able to tell that there was a Tsurani bastard who lit a fire here like a dog puking over food he can't steal in order to prevent somebody else from eating it.'

He gestured with his twig at the top of the hill that rose up beside them. ‘And right over there, maybe twenty or thirty years from now, there will be a nice little stand of oaks–short ones, granted, but real trees, and not merely saplings–drawing their sustenance from the ground below.'

She laughed, the sound of distant silver bells. Kethol normally didn't like being laughed at, but her laughter was in no way insulting.

‘Why, Kethol,' she said, as though more in shock than surprise, ‘one would think you were a poetic philosopher, not a soldier. Oaks, you say? Why oaks, rather than elms or pines or beeches? And how could you know that they'll grow there, and not somewhere else?'

‘I could–' No. He caught himself, and forced a shrug. ‘I guess there is no way that I really could know,' he said. ‘But I believe it will happen. Tell you what, Lady: come back in twenty years and think kindly of me if you find a stand of oaks here.'

‘I just might do that, Kethol,' she said. ‘In fact, you may have my promise on it, and if you're still serving the Earl, I'll bet my silver real against your one copper that it will be elms or pines or something other than a stand of oaks, if you'd care to wager.'

He smiled. ‘Well, I doubt that I'll still be in LaMut even come
spring, but if I'm in the earldom twenty years from this day, I'll knock on your castle gate, and ask to collect that bet.'

‘Or pay it.' She raised an eyebrow, and smiled. ‘Unless you'd flee the earldom to avoid losing a copper?'

‘No, I wouldn't do that, Lady.'

There was no point in mentioning that it was a safe bet, as the top of the hill was where he and Pirojil and Durine had buried the Tsurani Force Leader who had ordered the fire lit, scattering dozens of acorns over his bare chest before they had filled in the hole. The Tsurani's eyes had gone wide as they started to shovel in the earth. But gagged with a leather thong that held his acorn-filled mouth half-open, he hadn't said much beyond a few grunts, and hamstrung as he was at elbows, ankles, and thighs, he wasn't going anywhere. They had not packed down the earth very hard after they buried him; he probably had at least a few minutes to think over the wisdom of having burned down that which he could not conquer.

Kethol didn't mind the Tsurani having tried to kill him–that was business–but he took damage to a forest personally, and neither Durine nor Pirojil had raised a word of objection; they had just helped him shovel in the soil. He had no regrets, but burying a man alive wasn't the sort of thing that he really wanted to mention to a pretty woman, much less a pretty noblewoman, not when she was flirting with him.

Which she clearly was.

That was probably just to make Baron Morray jealous, but that was fine with Kethol. His sleep would be warmed by thoughts of her this night, and if she slept under Baron Morray that did Kethol no harm.

Still…

 

They broke at midday for a skimpy meal of cold bread and sausage, washed down with water and a gillful of cheap wine for
the soldiers, while the nobles shared a glass bottle of something finer.

Pirojil would have had the Tsurani ex-slaves water and feed the horses–they seemed well-tamed, after all, and didn't quite get the notion that they were now free–but Tom Garnett had a different idea: as usual, one man from each squad was detailed to see to the animals of that squad, while the others ate and rested. There was little enough time to take your ease when you were on patrol, and it made sense to get what rest you could.

Pirojil didn't argue. He just let Kethol take his turn seeing to their three horses, while Pirojil ate his bread and sausage quickly enough to avoid tasting it, then drank his wine even more quickly. It warmed him a little, as he huddled in his cloak against the cold.

Even so…

‘I'd best go see about watering something that needs watering,' he said to Durine, as he slung his swordbelt over his left shoulder, then stalked off over the crest of the hill to relieve himself.

Below, one of the regulars, a lanky man with a bald patch on his scalp where a Bug had nicked him, took out a set of pipes, and another a small drum, and soon off-key renditions of old martial songs filled the air.

‘We are marching on Bosonia, Bosonia, Bosonia,

‘We are marching on Bosonia, Bosonia, today…'

The Tsurani, as usual, seemed confused. Presumably, in the Empire, soldiers didn't sing or drum unless ordered to do so. They probably didn't fart unless explicitly instructed. These former slaves would find things much looser in service to the local nobles and franklins.

Pirojil's lips tightened. The Tsurani were even worse than were the Kingdom regulars when it came to showing individuality. What was there about a regular soldier's life that robbed him of any initiative?

He relieved himself quickly behind the broad bole of an ancient
oak, while above a squirrel chittered at him. As he buttoned up his trousers, it was only a matter of reflex to check that the hilt of his sword was near his hand.

A twig snapped behind him, and his sword was no longer simply near his hand, but in his hand as he spun about to face–

Durine, a smile playing across his broad face, both hands up, palms out. ‘Stand easy, Pirojil,' he said. ‘I guess I should have cleared my throat instead of stepping on a twig.'

Pirojil had to laugh. Snapped twigs as warnings of impending attack were a staple of late-night, campfire stories. For the most part, twigs bent and didn't make any noise, except in the driest times of the year. Besides, in real life, an enemy was rarely considerate enough to give a warning before an assault: it kind of ruined the whole idea of a surprise attack.

Pirojil replaced his sword. They might be friends and long-time companions, but Durine's hand never strayed far from the hilt of his own sword until Pirojil finished resheathing. Some habits were hard enough to break that they probably weren't worth breaking.

‘Excuse me,' Durine said, politely turning his back as he unbuttoned his own trousers.

A stream of piss steamed and smoked in the chilly air for an improbably long time.

‘With all the places to relieve yourself,' Pirojil said, ‘did you really need me to be a witness?'

Durine buttoned his fly. ‘Well, truth be told, I always do prefer to have you or Kethol at my back when I'm occupied handling something this large and delicate, but no, I figured we ought to talk.'

‘So, talk.'

Durine shook his head. ‘I don't like any of this. Playing bodyguard to an officer is one thing–you don't have to worry about your own soldiers trying to knock him off–'

Pirojil's eyebrows rose and he gave Durine a fish-eye.

‘All right, you
usually
don't have to worry about your own soldiers trying to knock him off, just about enemy troops bothering him while he's busy running a battle. I like doing bodyguard stuff.' He patted his waist.

Pirojil nodded, though he did not meet the other's gaze. It wasn't that he was unwilling to. It was just a reflex for him, after all this time, with both Kethol and Durine: they automatically divided the world into fields of fire; it had saved their lives more than several times.

‘I know,' Pirojil said. Bodyguard duty usually meant some extra coins, and the meals tended to be better, and while you were near enough the front not to get bored, you were also not so close that you had to worry about somebody leaping out at you while you were harvesting a bit of loot. ‘Not the sort of thing I would have volunteered for, but I don't remember being asked to volunteer, do you?'

‘So why us?'

‘I don't know, although I have some ideas. For whatever they're worth.' Pirojil shrugged. ‘I don't think it's because the Swordmaster thinks we're better than his own troops.'

‘We are.'

Pirojil couldn't help but grin. ‘Well,
I
think that, and
you
think that, and
Kethol
thinks that we're better than they are–but I'm willing to bet that the locals don't think we are.'

‘Their problem.'

‘No.
Our
problem. What we are is uninvolved, which is good.'

‘Good?'

‘Good for us. We're not expected to take sides in local rivalries, which means that we can expect not to have our throats cut for making the wrong move at the wrong time.'

‘So you like this?'

‘I didn't say that. The bad part is that we're uninvolved–'

‘You said that was the good part.' Sometimes Durine was just
too slow. Not that Pirojil would complain; Kethol was worse.

‘It's good and bad,' Pirojil said slowly, patiently. ‘Most things are. The bad has two parts: someone might try to cut our throats for just being in the way.'

‘Nothing new in that.'

‘And we're expendable.'