And the footmen sang no songs about Huma's breast, about the kingfisher, crown, sword or rose, or about the high honor of battle, but a new drinking song picked up on the march — a song the knights had hushed before because it was an embarrassment to ladies, a song I suppose they figured was no longer embarrassing because there were no ladies among us. Perhaps you have heard it, the real song of the army:
Your one true love's a sailing ship
that anchors at our pier.
We lift her sails, we man her decks,
we scrub the portholes clear,
and yes, our lighthouse shines for her,
and yes, our shores are warm;
we steer her into harbor
any port in a storm.
The sailors stand upon the docks,
the sailors stand in line,
as thirsty as a dwarf for gold
or centaurs for cheap wine.
For all the sailors love her,
and flock to where she's moored,
each man hoping that he might
go down, all hands on board.
I trust you will not show this song to Mother, for I could almost hear the nurse blush as I sang it, she who has bathed me and dressed my wounds over many weeks. As I think further, perhaps it would be best to show none of this to Mother. The story becomes no more pleasant.
We were speaking of snow and the trip to the tower and the indecent singing of footmen. One of the knights — it might even have been Sturm Brightblade, whose name you have no doubt heard in the histories and will hear again and again in this story — took exception to the song, and raised his voice in the Huma chant of which you are, dear Bayard, so fond. It faded into the fog behind us, for few knights took it up, weighted down as they were by the drizzling cold, and the footmen were not about to join in, the only version of that chant I had heard pass their lips an immodest parody in which the breast is no longer Huma's, is a different and softer reward entirely for the warrior.
I keep forgetting that the nurse is here. The Measure is still new to me. And I forget where…
The snow, she says.
The snow. It was misery on horseback. I trust it was more miserable on foot, for boots were scarce, and most of the men had wrapped their feet in rags against frostbite and the sharp edges of ice. Breca, an old veteran among the foot soldiers, had bargained, begged, and finally threatened my boots from me on the road to the tower. And though I was angry at first, when I saw the boy to whom he gave the boots, saw the blisters and blackness about his ankles, the blood through the rags bright on the merciless road, the threats were unnecessary.
We passed the first night of the blizzard in marching. Breca returned the boots the next morning. Averted his eyes, said that the boy had no further need, that he rested with Huma now. Breca rejoined his column, and Sir Heros, uncomfortable but safe at least upon horseback, told me I had seen the dark side of war, that men die, boys die, laying down their lives for justice and for a higher cause. It was almost inscribed, surely a speech he must have prepared for this moment as a promise to our father, something that smacked of the song of Huma to reassure and hearten his squire, the son of his fallen comrade. As if I had no idea that men die, boys die, from the ambushes that had followed us for a week. Breca, among others, began to claim that we guided our march by ambush — that when we were waylaid, again the knights were assured that we headed in the right direction.
For draconians, Bayard, do not fight in the lists. The Dragon Highlords may show elegance, breeding, but the war has nothing to do with the Measure, with a stately dance of challenge and courtesy. Often a footman would drop at the rear of the column, a barbed black arrow sprouting in his back, a chorus of catcalls and sometimes hisses from the woods nearby. Indeed they have no love of the cold; their blood thickens and their movements slow. But there are humans among them, and even the draconians can survive such weather, wrapped in furs they do not bother to cure or tan, and they know we have no love of the cold either.
Two days from the tower they struck a final ambush, a flurry of arrows from a stand of vallen-woods, falling harmlessly short. We could see them through the mist and the snow and the bare branches, some recognizably human, all moving like spectres or shadows. A few of our archers returned fire, their arrows falling short, too, which was what the dragon-armies wanted, their own supplies virtually endless.
One of them called out, Footmen! Listen to the voice of the dragonarmies! Melodramatic, yes, but effective across the mist and the dead land. Our bowmen ceased fire, glancing at one another nervously.
Footmen ! the man shouted again. How do you like being fodder for the knights? An old trick, spreading dissension in the ranks, and indeed some of the knights — Lord Derek, Lord Alfred, our own Sir Heros — were outraged, Heros reaching back to me for his sword, Derek preparing to charge the stand of trees, alone if necessary, Sturm and his strange companions bristling in their wet saddles, until the loud voice of Breca stilled the bravery and muttering in the column.
I expect I could explain it better over here. Perhaps you could, the dragonsoldier shouted back. But answer me this: have you ever seen a dead solamnic knight?
It was as though the eyes of the world had refocused. We knew it was a lie, a base ignoble charge, as Heros would have said, and I thought of our father returned on his shield. I thought of the centuries since the Cataclysm, of the Code, the Kingfisher, the Crown the Sword and the Rose, of the sacrifices. But all of that meant nothing after such a question, do you understand? For it was Breca's answer, not Sturm's or Hero's or Derek's, we awaited, had to await.
The smell of oil in the room. My nurse has lit a lamp so she may continue to write. Bad for the eyes, my dear. They play tricks enough as it is. We shall continue this in the morning.
TWO
It was Breca's answer we awaited, there on the road to the tower, the landscape white on white and blending into a faraway whiteness, only the thin dark lines of the trees and the shapes among them giving us any idea of distance, of measure. And the answer, though it lay nowhere within the rules set down by chivalry, not a thee or a thou or an elegant challenge, could not draw complaint from even the most strict of the knights — after all, he was not one of them, and after all, the footmen listened and applauded, their backs to the rising wind.
Every dead Solamnic Knight I've seen, Breca shouted, Had about a dozen of your lizard boys on his dance card. We find them around the bodies, all statued and pretty like a damn rock garden.
The footmen laughed, but most of the knights sat uneasily atop their uneasy horses, who pawed and snorted as though they had crossed into a country of leopards. Sturm and Lord Alfred smiled. But Sturm had traveled with outlandish folk
he had, after all, served with dwarves.
But what even Sturm and Lord Alfred knew, what most of them knew, and Breca especially, was that the dragonsoldier was not finished with Breca, that this attack was as fierce and as lethal as any with a bow or with those terrible curved swords I still see in sleep until the welcome darkness of morning comes again. For the heart of the battle was at stake before the arrows flew, before the swords clashed, at least in the eyes of the knights, who thought in terms of spirit and morale, of a high game which begins not when the first piece is taken nor even the first pawn moved, but when the players sit before the chessboard.