"She's in no danger, Kalvan," Xentos assured him. "None of us would be here if she were. Brother Mytron is with her. If she's awake, she'll want to see you."
"I'll go to her at once." He clinked goblets with the mercenary and drank. It was winter-wine, aged quite a few winters, and evidently frozen down in a very cold one. It warmed and relaxed him. "To your good fortune in Hostigos, General. Your capture," he lied, "was Gormoth's heaviest loss, yesterday, and our greatest gain." He set down the goblet, took off his helmet and helmet-coif and detached his sword from his belt; then picked up the wine again and finished it. "If you'll excuse me now, gentlemen. I'll see you all later."
Rylla, whom he had expected to find gasping her last, sat propped against a pile of pillows in bed, smoking one of her silver-inlaid redstone pipes. She was wrapped in a loose gown, and her left leg, extended, was buckled into a bulky encasement of leather-no plaster casts, here-and-now. Mytron, the chubby and cherubic physician-priest, was with her, and so were several of the women who functioned as midwives, hexes, herb-boilers and general nurses. Rylla saw him first, and her face lighted like a sunrise.
"Hi, Kalvan! Are you all right? When did you get in? How was the battle?"
"Rylla, darling!" The women sprayed away from in front of him like grasshoppers. She flung her arms around his neck as he bent over her; he thought Mytron stepped in to relieve her of her pipe. "What happened to you?"
"You stopped in the Staff Room," she told him, between kisses. "I smell it on you."
"How is she, Mytron?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Oh, a beautiful fracture, Lord Kalvan!" the doctor enthused. "One of the priests of Galzar set it; he did an excellent job…"
"Gave me a fine lump on the head, too," Rylla added. "Why, my horse fell on me. We were burning a Nostori village, and he stepped on a hot ember. He almost threw me, and then fell over something, and down we both went, the horse on top of me. I was carrying an extra pair of pistols in my boots and I fell on one of them. The horse broke a leg, too. They shot him. I guess they thought I was worth making an effort about… Kalvan! Never hug a girl so tight when you're wearing mail sleeves!"
"It's nothing to worry about, Lord Kalvan," Mytron was saying. "Not the first time for this young lady, either. She broke an ankle when she was eight, trying to climb a cliff to rob a hawk's nest, and a shoulder when she was twelve, firing a musket-charge out of a carbine."
"And now," Rylla was saying, "it'll be a moon, at least, till we can have the wedding."
"We could have it right now, sweetheart…"
"I will not be married in my bedroom," she declared. "People make jokes about girls who have to do that. And I will not limp to the temple of Dralm on crutches."
"All right, Princess; it's your wedding." He hoped the war with Sask that everybody expected would be out of the way before she was able to ride again. He'd have a word with Mytron about that. "Somebody," he said, "go and have a hot bath brought to my rooms, and tell me when it's ready. I must stink to the very throne of Dralm."
"I was wondering when you were going to mention that, darling," Rylla said.
HE did speak to Mytron the next day, catching him between a visit to Rylla and his work at the main army hospital in Hostigos Town. Mytron thought, at first, that he was impatient for Rylla's full recovery and the wedding.
"Oh, Lord Kalvan, quite soon. You know, of course, that broken bones take time to knit, but our Rylla is young and young bones knit fast. Inside a moon, I'd say."
"Well, Mytron; you know we're going to have to fight Sarrask of Sask now. When war with Sask comes, I'd be most happy if she were still in bed, with that thing on her leg. So would Prince Ptosphes."
"Yes. Our Rylla, shall we say, is a trifle heedless of her own safety." That was a generous five hundred percent understatement. Mytron put on his professional portentous frown. "You must understand, of course, that it is not good for any patient to be kept too long in bed. She should be able to get up and walk about as soon as possible. And wearing the splints is not pleasant."
He knew that. It wasn't any light plaster cast; it was a frame of heavily padded steel splints, forged from old sword-blades, buckled on with a case of saddle leather. It weighed about ten pounds, and it would be even more confining and hotter than his armor. But the next thing she broke might be her neck, or she might stop a two-ounce musket ball, and then his luck would run out along with hers. His mind shied like a frightened horse from the thought of no more happy, lovely Rylla.
"I'll do my best, Lord Kalvan, but I can't keep her in bed forever." War with Sask wouldn't wait that long, either. Xentos was in contact with the priests of Dralm in Sask Town; they reported that the news of Fitra and Listra-Mouth had stunned Sarrask's court briefly, then thrown Sarrask into a furor of activity. More mercenaries were being hired, and some sort of negotiations, the exact nature undetermined, were going on between Sarrask and Balthar of Beshta. A Styphon archpriest, one Zothnes, had arrived in Sask Town, with a train of wagons as big as the one taken by Harmakros in southern Nostor.
A priest of Galzar arrived at Tarr-Hostigos from Nostor Town with an escort and a thousand ounces of gold-gold and silver seemed to be on a twenty-to-one ratio, here-and-now-to pay the ransoms of Count Pheblon and the other gentlemen taken at Tarr-Dombra. The news was that Phebion was now Gormoth's chief-captain and was trying to reorganize what was left of the Nostori army. Gormoth would be back in the ring for another bout in the spring; that meant that Sarrask must be dealt with this fall.
He was having his own reorganization problems. They'd taken heavier losses than he'd liked, mostly the poorly armed and partly trained militia who'd fought at Listra-Mouth. On the other hand, they'd acquired over a thousand mercenary infantry and better than two thousand cavalry. They were a headache; they'd have to be integrated into the army of Hostigos. He didn't want any mercenary troops at all. Mercenary soldiers, as individual soldiers, were as good as any; in fact, any regular army man was simply a mercenary in the service of his own country. But mercenary troops, as troops, weren't good at all. They didn't fight for the Prince who hired them; they fought for their own captains, who paid them from what the Prince had paid him. Mercenary captains, he could hear his history professor quoting Machiavelli, are either very capable men or not. If they are, you cannot rely upon them, for they will always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, their master, or by oppressing others against your intentions; but if the captain is not an able man, he will generally ruin you. Most of the captains captured in East Hostigos seemed to be quite able.
Klestreus was one exception. As a battle commander, he was an incompetent-Fitra had proven that. He wasn't a soldier at all; he was a military businessman. He could handle sales, promotion and public relations, but not management and operations. That was how he'd gotten elected captain-general in Nostor. But he did have a wide knowledge of political situations, knew most of the Princes of Hos-Harphax, and knew the composition and command of all the mercenary outfits in the Five Kingdoms. So Kalvan appointed him Chief of Intelligence, where he could really be of use, and wouldn't be able to lead troops in combat. He was quite honored and flattered.
Nothing could be done about breaking up the mercenary cavalry companies, numbering over two thousand men. The mercenary infantry, however, were broken up and put into militia companies, one mercenary to three militiamen. This almost started a mutiny, until he convinced them that they were being given posts of responsibility and the rank of private first class, with badges. The sergeants were all collected into a quickie OCS company, to emerge second lieutenants.