One Good Knight (27 page)

Amaranth looked disappointed.

Gina smiled. “That was the
first
tale,” she said. “And it served the nobles' purpose to have it spread about that the pure-minded peasantry had risen up on their own and brought down the evil Seneschal. Thus the Traditional path was begun. The tale spread, changed a little, grew in the telling. And the
next
Ragged Company that arose really was composed half-and-half of trained and untrained peasants, and with clever leadership and the help of The Tradition along the way, they, too, destroyed their
evil Seneschal and put the rightful heir back on the throne. And again the tale spread and grew, and the third time—in the Rebel Companions—all but the officers were untrained. The fourth time—which is, I believe, Robbing John—only the leader had any training at all. By now The Tradition is highly in favor of an army of untrained peasantry with only the leader knowing anything about fighting. And this is where we are now.”

Cleo pondered this and raised her hand. “Are we better or worse off being girls?” she asked, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “I mean, should we all start pretending to be boys?”

“My guess would be better off,” Gina replied after a moment of thought. “It's clear that The Tradition is favoring an army made up of unlikely heroes. So the more unlikely we are, the more likely it is that we'll get Traditional luck in force behind us.”

“Maybe we should all be hunchbacks or something, too,” Dita said from their rear, prompting giggles.

“I wouldn't go that far,” Gina replied. “But it's pretty clear that the more we invoke the Traditional path, the better off we will be. So those of you who have noble blood, I would like you to renounce it and swear blood-sisterhood to the band.”

A couple looked reluctant for a moment or two, but the rest, some of whom were exceedingly angry with their families for giving them up, readily agreed. Then there was some chaotic nonsense and a little girlish squealing over having to extract a bit of
blood to mingle with the others, during which both Adam and Gina stood by impassively until they had all settled again.

“Now,” said Gina with a grim smile. “I am going to prove to you that this has already worked.”

She crooked her finger and summoned Dita, possibly the least likely fighter of them all, from the back of the group. She picked up one of the two fighting staves she had at her feet, and handed it to the girl, who held it uncertainly. Then she herself took the second stave, looked off nonchalantly into the distance, then suddenly whirled and executed a lightning three-strike attack on the girl, holding nothing back.

The others gasped, squealed or screamed. Dita herself yelped.

But her hands moved surely and of themselves.
Crack, crack, crack.
All three attacks were met. And countered.

Gina grounded the staff and went back to parade-rest with it tucked over her shoulder. Dita stared at her hands, dumbfounded.

“Now, that will only work if you are attacked without any warning,” Gina said. “And with an audience. However, you will find yourselves picking up fighting skills at a rate that would make most commanding officers weep with envy. Your real job will be to get yourselves into good fighting condition so that you can use those skills. I trust I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Adam rumbled. And turned an eye with a wicked glint in it on the girls. “Exercises,
ladies. Strength and flexibility training. Twice a day, at dawn and at dusk.”

Gina smiled. She liked the way Adam thought. “We'll start out training with staves. You're less likely to get damaged, and they're easy to replace. Shockingly versatile to use, too, and invoking Robbing John's Tradition, as well. Meanwhile Adam here will be getting you proper armor and arms. And they will fit well and look like garbage.”

Some of the girls' mouths dropped open, as Gina continued. “This will be armor that would make a cat laugh. You will all look as if you'd dug the stuff up out of the backyard. This will be the
Ragged Company,
remember. We need to invoke The Tradition. If you look like a lot of hardy war-maidens, shining and beautiful, you'll lose. If you look like a disorganized gaggle of girls who didn't have brothers to take the family armor, you will win.”

Actually, it was by no means certain that this was the truth. There were plenty of “Ragged Companies” that had gone down into the obscurity of failure. But they hadn't had three key things that Gina was pretty certain were going to make the difference.

They hadn't had a Champion leading them.

They hadn't had a Champion trained by a Godmother planning their moves and their appearance.

And they hadn't had dragons.

“All right, ladies, you know what our plan is. You're dismissed to take care of community busi
ness, but from now on, you're each going to have to decide just how fit you are and how much extra time you are going to want to devote to training to make yourselves fitter. This, of course, is going to be as well as the morning and evening exercises and the afternoon weapon-work.” Gina nodded as a couple of the girls sighed in resignation. Still. They had volunteered. They could unvolunteer at any time. Gina did not want any reluctant fighters on her side.

The group broke up, and Adam brought his head back down to Gina's level. “How much of that was true-talk and how much was morale building?” he asked quietly.

She shrugged. “Most of it is true. Glass Mountain Champions study The Tradition quite extensively, because Godmother Elena and Grand Master Alexander send us out on some rather complicated missions. If there are any Champions in the world that are good at manipulating The Tradition, it's us. Now the question of just exactly how much this is going to make a difference remains to be seen. You and I have to come up with good strategy. I think we can do this. The way that the Palace itself is situated plays to our advantage. The fact that the Princess is known to most of the Guards there plays to our advantage. The isolation of the Palace plays to our advantage.”

Adam nodded, eyes glowing with enthusiasm.

She shrugged. “Now, can you get me Dwarven armor that looks as if it's been dragged through hell?”

He pondered that for a moment. “Well, I can get you Dwarven armor, and we have more than enough to pay for it, but they're pretty peculiar about pride-in-workmanship, and getting them to do something that looks bad—I don't know.”

Gina smiled. “You just get the Armor Master up here and leave that to me.”

 

They had a visitor. An Armor Master of a Wyrding Dwarf clan. Andie was playing the Princess, which was, evidently, a Traditional role that needed to be invoked occasionally—like today—in order to keep the good luck flowing.

So today, when they had a visitor, the rightful-heir part of the story needed to be displayed. Andie was gowned in the one white sacrificial dress that had survived intact, with a gold belt, a gold circlet and a gold collar from Adam's hoard making her look regal. She felt like an idiot, but evidently the Dwarf was impressed.

The visitor was a female Armor Master, which was something of a shock. There were rumors that female Dwarves didn't exist, that there were never more than one or two, that there was no way of telling them from the males because both sexes had beards.

It didn't appear that any of that was true.

The lady in question was sturdy, short and fairly rough-hewn; you would expect that of a Dwarf. She was also unmistakably female, beardless and very much in charge of her entourage.

Andie's role here was to be silent and serene. The former was easy; the latter she could fake. Apparently, according to Periapt, Dwarven rulers never said anything themselves. They let their underlings do all the talking. So she, flanked by Peri on the left, sat on an improvised throne, while the Armor Master, flanked by a swarthy dwarf with an ax almost as big as he was, sat on a section of column. Two younger Dwarves, with much shorter beards than the swarthy one, negotiated with Adam and Gina.

A price was agreed on. All of the girls were brought in and measured meticulously. Several “adjustable” sets of armor were added to the list, because it did not appear that destroying the scale was having any effect on the spell binding Adam to carry off the sacrificial virgins.

Now, finally, the subject of “appearance” came up, and Andie braced herself.

“Gold-washed, or silver-washed?” the elder of the two negotiators asked. “With these lovely ladies, I would personally recommend gold-washed armor—it will set their—”

“Actually—” Gina said, with a note of apology in her voice, “neither. We want it to look like this, more or less—”

And with that, she laid out a set of shabby armor. A mail-coat that was tarnished and even rusted in places, with ragged edges to the hems, as if the armor-er had gotten tired of weaving in links and had just
given up. A helmet dinged and dented. Bracers and greaves that had clearly seen better days.

The four Dwarves stared. The two youngest went absolutely round-eyed. The Armor Master's guard made as if to draw his ax.

But it was the Armor Master herself whose reaction was the most unexpected.

She rose out of her seat, bristling, outrage in every line of her. “Impossible!” she shouted. “Out of the question! We are masters of the craft! What do you take us for?”

Adam looked nonplussed and diffident, but Gina simply raised an eyebrow.

“I beg your pardon,” she said politely. “I was under the impression that you were masters of the craft. I'm sorry you can't manage to give us the sort of armor we need. Have you any recommendations on who could?”

All four Dwarves stopped. Just stopped. No movement, hardly any breathing, nothing to show that they were even alive at that moment.

The Armor Master gave Gina a look that could have blistered paint, but asked, with icy politeness, “This is not what Dwarven armor should look like.”

“But it is what the armor of a Ragged Company should look like,” Gina replied, just as politely. “We are not only needing the best possible protection, we need to invoke the aid of a powerful Traditional path.”

There was a long silence. A very long silence. And then, “Ah. I see,” said the Armor Master. She sat
down again, then leaned over and pondered the pathetic armor laid out in front of her.

“This is quite a challenge,” Gina said casually. “Something that would take a great deal of finesse. Every suit must be slightly different. Suits that all had the same apparent flaws would be recognized immediately for a ruse. And it is going to be an even greater challenge to create those apparent flaws without weakening the armor. Anyone can make beautiful armor. It will take a true master to make these.”

The Armor Master stroked her chin. “True, true,” she muttered. “A challenge. Quite a challenge.”

“We wouldn't ask just anyone,” Adam said helpfully.

“Hmm.” The Dwarf ignored him. Finally she nodded brusquely. “We can do this.”

“I rather thought you could,” chuckled Gina. “Shall we conclude our negotiations, then?”

The Dwarves departed with their measurements, their instructions and their fees. Andie divested herself of circlet, necklet, belt, bracelets and rings with a sigh of relief, turning them all over to Peri to be put back in the hoard. “That was cleverly handled,” she said to Gina in a voice full of admiration. “Very clever. I don't think I would have thought of that appeal to their vanity.”

“Oh, you would have, and I've had the advantage of dealing with a Dwarf or two before.”

“Still. I'm glad I didn't have to.”

Gina just grinned. So did Adam. “I will admit,”
the dragon said playfully, “that I was seriously wondering about your sanity there for a moment.”

“Only a moment? I'm the leader of this herd of cats,” she responded. “I doubt my sanity every day.”

Andie went back to her room to change, carefully folding up the sacrificial gown and putting it away. They might need it again another day. Actually, they probably
would
need it again another day.

Nevertheless, it was not a role nor an image Andie was particularly comfortable with. Too much of a figurehead. Too much like the role that she thought her mother might be playing.

In the past few days she had been wavering back and forth between certainty that her mother was the puppet in the hands of Solon and certainty that her mother was equally guilty. And when she actually thought about it, she had to admit to herself that when she was certain that it was the former, it was because that was what she wanted to believe—and when it was the latter, it was because that was what logic told her.

But there was more than enough to think about and more than enough to do without brooding on something she couldn't change and something that would not affect her anyway.

While the other girls learned the sword, she was learning the sling, and evidently, The Tradition strongly approved of her taking up this ancient Acadian shepherd's weapon, because she could put a lead bullet through the eye-slit of one of those old helms at sixty paces.

She and Peri were also busily engaged in a search of history books as well as those one might lump under the category of “lore” for more ways of manipulating The Tradition to their own ends. So far the prospects for both a peasant army and an all-female army looked quite good. Granted, there had never actually been an all-female army before, but there had been a Unicorn army, a wing of a full dozen dragons, innumerable instances of Gryphons, Hippogriffs, and other creatures forming something like an army—and doing well, too.

Speaking of which… “Have you spoken to the Unicorns yet?” she asked Peri.

He dropped his head a foot. “No,” he replied. “Actually—no, I haven't.”

She sighed. “You know that someone is going to have to. And you know that they are too busy serving up adoration to pay much attention to anything I tell them.”