“You’re lucky we were delayed,” Sir Rodard said.
He was a young knight of the Grand Constable’s menie, standing by the doors in breastplate and tassets and fauds, half-armor. The squad of crossbowmen behind him were calmly alert, not expecting trouble but very ready for it.
“And that we got that message from Ogier. Good work, by the way. Come on in, make your devoir and get something to eat.”
They nodded to the brown-haired knight and ducked into the hall. It was fairly well lit by high-placed gaslights, a barnlike structure of plain plastered concrete floored in basalt blocks, and full of the smells of the evening’s inevitable stew and not-particularly-well-washed soldiers of the two households and the Protector’s Guard. Nothing fancy at all; this was a Crown castle, designed simply for a garrison at a strategic spot rather than a resident lord or as a possible headquarters for the high command like Castle Goldendale. It didn’t have any of the plundered artwork the Lady Regent’s salvagers and their imitators had used to furnish the greater keeps, or the modern equivalents she’d sponsored. Logs crackled in a big, shallow hearth backed with slanted iron plates that threw the heat out into the room.
The two squires went and made their bows before the Grand Constable and the High Queen at the upper table on the dais, sweeping off their hats and bending a knee. The two leaders were deep in conversation with a cluster of scouts and officers as they ate, folded maps and documents amid the platters and bread-baskets and one propped up against a hunk of cheese with a knife in it.
Mathilda looked up, extending her hand for the kiss of homage.
“That was good work, Huon,” she said, smiling. “And you too, Lioncel. Especially for junior squires. A knightly deed. I’d have hated for Ogier to die in a scuffle like that.”
Lioncel flushed. “Sir Ogier would probably have handled it himself, Your Majesty,” he said. “We just…reacted.”
“It was the right reaction, both of you. That did you credit, and any honorable accomplishment of yours rebounds to the honor of your lieges.”
Tiphaine d’Ath nodded. “Though from the time stamp on the heliograph message, you took your own sweet rambling way getting back. What were you two up to all afternoon?”
Lioncel froze, wide-eyed, and made a choking sound. Huon coughed and managed to say:
“Ah…this and that, my lady. The High Queen did say sunset, my lady, so we didn’t push the horses.”
D’Ath made a slight throat-clearing sound, looked at him for an instant with an unreadable expression, and then went back to the report and sketch-map which had claimed the High Queen’s attention. Lioncel mimed wiping his brow as they went over to the trestles where dinner was being handed out, barracks-style. They took big chipped plastic bowls from a stack; the cook ladled them full of the stew that steamed in a cauldron, and her helper stuck a spoon in each and stacked thick slices of bread and butter on top. They took their meal to the juniors’ benches, signed themselves, murmured Grace and ate in contemplative silence for a while.
I’ve got a lot to think about.
The stew was better than usual this evening, with plenty of onion and garlic, dried tomatoes and chunks of potato as well as the inevitable beans and salt meat.
Or maybe it’s just relief, Huon thought as he spooned it down. What a day!
They went back for seconds, and Huon had another mug of the raw red wine. As they turned in the empty bowls, he paused to extend a hand.
“You’re all right, de Stafford,” he said seriously. “I’m glad to have you at my back anytime.”
The blond youngster flushed as they shook, meeting his eyes with a look as firm as the grip of his hand.
“You too, de Gervais. We’re comrades now, brothers-in-arms who’ve stood side by side in battle!”
Rodard looked up as they passed on their way out, tired as the day caught up with them and eager for their bedrolls.
“Ah, Huon.”
“Yes, Sir Rodard?”
The young man grinned, with a slight hint of a wink. “You’re quick-witted, Gervais. But while you were doing ‘this and that,’ Mistress This and That bit you on the neck.”
Lioncel choked again, and Huon clapped his hand to the sore spot behind his right ear.
“Boys will be men, it seems. There are worse ways to spend what may be the second-to-last day of your life. Go get some sleep. The High King’s ordered the general reserve to close up behind the main force. The enemy are coming. It ends now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE HIGH KING’S HOST
HORSE HEAVEN HILLS
(FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
OCTOBER 31ST, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD
The High King of Montival drew rein, turning off the road past the time-wrecked and rust-gnawed length of an irrigation machine of the ancient world, all wheels and pipe at the foot of a low rough rise.
“Sooo, sooo, Dando,” he said, stroking a gloved hand down the beast’s neck; it was lively with good oats and alfalfa, mouthing the bit and stepping high and showing every sign of wanting to run. “Easy does it, lad. We’ve a long day before us, and more work tomorrow and the day after that.”
The courser turned its head nervously at a harsh whicker from the remount herd following as the headquarters crew badgered them past and took the opportunity to let them roll and graze. Rudi’s charger Epona was there, and she was never altogether easy seeing him riding another horse. Even her own get, much less some anonymous gelding she barely acknowledged as one of the horse-tribe at all. Moving this many strange horses together was always tricky, though at least few disputed Epona’s claim to be lead mare of any group she was in…and she didn’t tolerate sass from stallions, either.
One shied a little from her rolled eye and cocked hoof-ready hip even as he watched, probably wisely. He could see Edain Aylward grinning at the pale anxiety on the faces of the horse-handlers as he deployed a platoon of the High King’s Archers off their bicycles and into a loose screening formation about Rudi; they all had high-geared mountain bike models and could keep up with horse-soldiers easily on this sort of terrain. Epona would tolerate the master-bowman…mostly…because he’d been Rudi’s friend from earliest boyhood and because he knew better than to take liberties. Strange grooms were fair game, and she had never liked the human-kind in general much.
A platoon of Bearkiller mounted crossbowmen were sharing the guard duty today, grimly silent and businesslike as they cantered about to check folds in the land for a couple of hundred yards in every direction. Catapults and aircraft aside, that was as far as bodyguards need worry.
“Epona’s getting even more testy in her middle-age,” Rudi said.
The jest hid real concern. She’d been all the way to the east coast with him, and he’d been worried for her the way she’d lost condition then; Epona had amazing endurance for a seventeen-hand warmblood, which was what her looks said of her breeding. But even so she wasn’t an Arab, or a cow-pony used to living on grass and hard work. Coming back had been easier-big chunks of it through the Dominions where they’d been able to haul her on a horsecar on the rails-but the fact remained that she was nearing the end of her working life.