My Lord King:
Greetings and prayers for your good health. Your request was far too flattering to us but comes timely, as you know. Caliam is needed here, and the boys are all too young to command, but the captains I send are known to you and competent. If it pleases you to tell Talgan what you want done, he will send word for the rest. I have two hundred I would be grateful if you could find employment for, and another hundred could be spared.
Something about Aliam’s tone bothered Kieri, but he couldn’t quite understand it. Of course Aliam and Cal would stay at Halveric Steading—no need for them yet, at least. He headed for the kitchens, where he found the steward talking to the cooks.
“What have we for tonight’s dinner?”
The cook started listing the meats; Kieri held up his hand. “That’s ample,” he said. “We have fifty hungry soldiers to feed out of this kitchen tonight—can you do it?”
“Yes, my lord king!” The head cook looked happy at the thought.
“Good. They’ll have marched most of the day; they’ll be hungry. Plenty of meat and bread, anything else you can cook in a glass or two.” He nodded, dismissing the cook, who turned at once to the assistants.
“Have a horse saddled,” Kieri said to the steward. “I’ll ride out presently to speak to Aliam’s captain.”
The camp, when he came to it, looked a proper camp: they had not dug ditches or made a barricade, but the tents were set up in neat rows, and a safe fire pit already flickered, though no pots hung over it.
“My lord king,” Talgan said, going down on one knee. Kieri remembered him only slightly; he had been Seliam’s replacement, but Aliam had always praised him.
“About your provisions,” Kieri said. “I see no pots on the fire.”
“Mm … yes, my lord. We … came away in a hurry. We have only hard travel rations.”
“You will eat well tonight. The palace kitchens are at work on it. Send a squad to the kitchens in a glass.”
“Thank you, my lord king. If I may—it’s good to see you again, sir, and we were all glad to hear about you.”
“Thanks, Talgan. How are the Halverics, down south?”
“Very well, sir, though we were crowding them, all of us there together so long.”
“I had the same problem in the north,” Kieri said. Talking to Talgan, he felt himself sliding back into that world he’d left. “But with the gods’ aid, Arcolin’s got them down south again. I would have taken them myself—” The memory of all those trips to Aarenis went through him like a knife blade—the sights, the smells, that view coming down into the Vale of Valdaire with all the south open before him and every opportunity. He pushed that aside; it was not his world anymore.
“I’d think being a king a lot more pleasant,” Talgan said, relaxing.
“I don’t have to wear armor in a Southern summer, at least,” Kieri said, laughing. “That last year—it’s a wonder Aliam and I both didn’t end up skin and bones from sweating off so much weight.”
Talgan grinned, then sobered. “Well, my lord king, Lord Halveric said to ask you for orders, and then let him know what you wanted of the rest. I’m to send word.”
“Do you have Lyonyan maps in your tent?”
“No, my lord.”
“Well. I should have brought them. I’ll get you one later. Let’s go sit down and I’ll do my best to explain.”
Kieri laid out his plans for the northern defense. “I can use two full cohorts easily. How soon do you think they could move?”
“A few days,” Talgan said.
“I’ve already sent the Royal Archers north,” Kieri said. “After you’ve provisioned here, you should position your group about a half day from the river. I’ve marked that on the map I’ll show you. I’ll send Sier Halveric to you in the morning to discuss provisioning.”
“Shall I send a messenger back for more, Sir King?”
“No,” Kieri said. “I have a new courier service of King’s Squires. I’ll send one of them, and you can have one with you, to use as a messenger here in case of any emergency.”
As he wrote out the message for Aliam, he wondered if his first letters, sent even before the coronation, had reached any of their destinations yet. He still thought of travel times between the north and Valdaire.
Arcolin led the cohort south, away from Cortes Vonja, on a narrow road bordered on either side by fields where young grain stood knee-high. As they approached the first village, they saw people running out of the houses to hide from them.
“Surely the Cortes Vonja militia told them we were coming,” Burek said. “They must know we aren’t brigands.”
“Unless the Cortes Vonja militia’s been robbing them,” Arcolin said. “Or someone else in uniform. I wonder if the brigands are uniformed and the militia commander just happened not to tell us.”
“Surely not.”
“Cortes Vonja had a bad reputation,” Arcolin said. “We’ll find out. I’ve been here before; if the village headman’s still around, he’ll recognize our colors and come talk to me.”
By the time they’d reached the little village square, an older man was hobbling toward them, leaning on a stick.
Arcolin held up his hand and the cohort halted. “Is it Maenthar, my old friend?” he called to the man.
“Is it really the Fox’s company, come to start the war again?” the man asked. “I am Maenthar, indeed. Friend? That depends.”
Arcolin dismounted. “And I am Arcolin, as you see. If it depends on me, we are friends still.” He reached out his hand. The man hesitated but finally reached forward and touched his fingers, then put his own to his chest and forehead; Arcolin did the same.
“I thought you must have died,” Maenthar said. “They said the Fox was gone forever, back over the mountains to the north, and we were forgotten.”
“Never forgotten,” Arcolin said. Something was seriously wrong here; Maenthar had always been friendly and open before. “Even if I had stayed north the rest of my life, I would not have forgotten you and yours.”
“Me alone, now,” Maenthar said. He spat, barely a polite distance from Arcolin’s boots. “Before you wake memories better left asleep, I will tell you. My family died—two sons taken by the Cortes Vonja militia and both died in battle, they told me. One killed here, with my wife and daughter, while I was away to the city, summoned to be told of the other deaths. I have no love for soldiers now, Captain, though I remember you gave us aid that time.”
“I’m sorry,” Arcolin said.
“And they say it’s because the Fox left and went north, and left the land aflame with war. War grows no grain. He started it; he should have ended it. Let the hungry eat, I say, and kill no more.”
“Before,” Arcolin said, “you had wanted Siniava dead.”
“So I did,” Maenthar said. “He was a bad man and his raids threatened us. But now—there are many bad men, all with swords and torches. More bad men with swords than good ones, is what I see. And no peace to grow the grain, but the taxes still go up.”
“We were hired to put down brigands,” Arcolin said. “The ones that rob you and spoil the grain.”
“It does not matter whose boots trample the grain,” Maenthar said, in the same hard voice. “The grain gives no harvest, whoever marches across it. We nearly starved, in the great war, and we are still hungry. If you tell Cortes Vonja what I say, they will arrest me and have me torn in the square. And I no longer care.”
Pity filled Arcolin’s heart. He remembered Maenthar’s open, smiling face from before, his wife who made such good sweetcakes and sold them on market day, his daughter who had peered at the troops from the window of their house until her mother pulled her back inside.
“I have no reason to tell Cortes Vonja,” he said. “I only wanted to assure you that we would do your village no harm; we but march through, and perhaps, by ridding you of brigands, we can ease your burdens.”