In the absence of a real bowmaster, Martuhn, hesitantly at first, placed Bahb and Djoh Steevuhnz in charge of the small contingent of bowmen, with Sir Wolf to back them up was their authority to be questioned. But Wolf soon returned to the commander requesting a more urgent assignment, remarking that every bowman deeply respected the deadly and matchless accuracy of the two boys and was more than anxious to himself acquire such a degree of skill. Martuhn too respected the nomad boys, and not solely because he. had never known them to miss any target—still or moving—at which they had loosed their short, black-shafted arrows. Under his and Nahseer’s tutelage, Bahb and even the slower-witted little Djoh had rapidly learned the Game of Battles, and a session or two in light brigandines with dulled lancer sabers—Martuhn taking a blade somewhat shorter to allow for his longer arms—had pleased the veteran captain immensely. The wiry older lad was as fast as a greased pig, though he depended little on the various point attacks, seeming to prefer the hack and the slash and the drawcuts of a horseman. But that the boy was a quick study and highly adaptable was proved early in the second session, when he startled Martuhn by employing the entirety of an attack he had seen but once and penetrating the older man’s guard almost to the juncture of contact. “I tell you, Nahseer,” he had averred that night, when once the two boys had been packed off to their bedchamber, “if Bahb had been but a wee bit bigger with no more than three more inches of arm, he’d have had me. A perfect thrust to the high belly or low chest. And I know he could’ve learned that bit from no one but me. The only things those nomads ever stab with are their dirks and their spears. All their saber drill is pure edge fighting. Some of their sabers don’t even have real points.
“But he’d only seen it once, man, and that in the midst of a very brisk bout of fence,” Nahseer, lounging back in one of the four chairs set at the table-cum-desk, which with the narrow bed and a trio of clothes and weapons chests made up the only furnishings of the captain’s spartan chamber, sipped at the cup of cool apple juice—cider which had been briskly boiled to rid it of the alcohol that was forbidden him by his religion. “Yes, Martuhn, you, I, Sir Wolf, any man would feel proud to be able to name as his get such sons as Bahb and Djoh, especially Bahb.
“You obviously stand high in the regard of the duke, your sometime employer and now your overlord. And your lordship of this city and its environs is worded to be a hereditary one. But, my friend, your age is a bit advanced to go about the siring of heirs, if you mean to see them grown and properly reared. So why not, once this silly little war be concluded, prevail upon the duke to legalize your adoption of these two boys and make Bahb your legal heir?” Martuhn sighed. “Would that I could, my dear Nahseer, but they two talk of nothing else but a return to their clan and their prairies.” Raising a shaggy eyebrow and nodding, Nahseer replied, “Yes, I know, but I also know, as do you, what they do not Returning them to the prairies were difficult enough, reuniting them with their clan a virtual impossibility, as it could now be hundreds of miles away in any direction. As they get older, the boys will come to appreciate just why they could not be returned to their savage relatives. Of this I am certain, my friend.”
“I promise to think on your idea, Nahseer,” agreed Martuhn, “and to discuss it with you and others at more length once Duke Tcharlz comes to lift the siege and affairs of the duchy normalize once more.”
In the press of everyday affairs, Martuhn had almost forgotten Sir Djaimz Stylz. Then, one night, pikemen and a sergeant of infantry marched that very man before him. This Sir Djaimz, however, looked more like a half-drowned rat than like the precious young fop that the captain remembered. With a crashing salute of his poleaxe, the sergeant intoned the ritual phrases, then got to the meat of the matter. The prisoner had swum the moat and had made sufficient racket to draw the attention of the wall sentries. They had, of course, called for the sergeant of the guard, who had, in his turn, sent for the officer of the guard. That worthy had had a rope lowered that the sodden, shivering swimmer might be hauled up the outer face of the wall. “He don’t know nary a one of the passwords, m’lud count, but he tawks like gentry and he swears he be a friend of m’lud, so Lootenunt Brysuhn ordered he be haled afore m’lud. It was a sword strapped ‘crost his back, a dirk at his belt and a dagger in the boots he had slung ‘rount his neck, but he ain’t armed now, m’lud.”
“Very good, sergeant,” Martuhn said. “You have done well this night, as has Lieutenant Brysuhn. Return to your duties.”
With another crashing salute, the sergeant ordered his brace of pikemen to face about, then marched them out of the chamber and down the narrow, spiraling stairs.
“So, Sir Djaimz, we meet again. But whatever possessed you to take such a deadly chance, man? Had you not lucked onto a set of level-headed sentries, you could now be on the bottom of the moat or floating toward the river with an arrow or two in you.”
However, despite the heat radiated by two large braziers, the chattering of the young man’s teeth made his reply all but unintelligible. “Wait, Sir Djaimz, hold on.” Martuhn sprang to his feet and crossed to one of his chests in two long strides. From it he removed a thick blanket and tossed it to his visitor. “Strip those wet clothes off and wrap up in this while they dry; hang them from those hooks, there, near that brazier.” Then the captain filled a jack three-quarters full with strong honey wine, added a generous dollop of barley hwiskee, pulled a loggerhead from among the coals of the other brazier and blew off the ash before plunging it into the jack, releasing a small cloud of fragrant steam. He proffered the jack to Sir Djaimz, then filled another for himself.
“Get yourself outside this, lad, and you’ll have another. Now sit you down and tell me why you risked your life to join me this night.” “My lord count did, after all, invite me,” said Sir Djaimz, bluntly. “He offered to teach me, to make me into a true knight and soldier, not simply one of Duchess Ann’s lapdogs.”
“You’d forsake your sinecure then, Sir Djaimz? I am certain that Duke Alex would’ve taken you into his army, if you’ve just a taste for the life of a soldier. Then you’d have still had the good graces of her grace to fall back upon, if you chose to return. By coming to me, man, you’ve burned your bridges behind you, with a vengeance… unless…” Martuhn rested his elbows on the table and, with hooded eyes, stared at his blanket-wrapped guest over steepled fingers. “Unless you are doing your mistress’ bidding by coming here. Are you, Sir Djaimz?”
When the young man made to speak, Martuhn raised a hand in warning. “Wait, before you say a word, I do not hold it dishonorable to perform the dictates of one’s overlord… or lady, as the case may be. But if you are doing such by coming here, tell me now and I’ll have you put outside tomorrow morn in health and honor.
“For if you say not and I later discover the lie—as I will eventually—you will die very slowly and painfully in humiliation and dishonor, as befits a spy and a forsworn liar.
“Do I make myself clear, Sir Djaimz?”
The head of water-plastered hair sticking out from amid the folds of the gray military blanket nodded wearily. “Abundantly clear, my lord count, but all that I shall tell you will be the unadorned truth. I swear this by all that I hold dear. I have done many things for her grace, a few of them of a base nature, but I have never and would never perjure myself for her… or for any other man or woman.