“Your name will be removed from every list in every Guild League city,” the Guildmaster said. “The penalty for falsely claiming Guild membership is public whipping and a brand. Do not think you can pass yourself off as a Guild merchant any longer. You are nothing to us, a mere peddler.”
The man wept; Arcolin felt pity for him, but not much.
The Guildmaster turned away and went back into the Guild Hall; the Councilors told the city guardsmen to take all the men into custody.
Arcolin sent two of the men now holding mules to fetch the carts; Burek went with them. The others took the packsaddles, and, stripping off the harness, saddled them. The senior Councilor looked at Arcolin. “I thought they were soldiers—but they know the ways of teamsters and grooms?”
“Soldiering requires many skills other than sticking someone with a blade,” Arcolin said.
“Our militia commander claims he needs grooms and teamsters as well as troops to move his forces about.”
“I’m sure he does,” Arcolin said, buffing his nails on his shirt. “After all, your militia are tradesmen and craftsmen who serve but two years unless there’s a war, isn’t that right?”
“Yes—but what has that to do with it?” The senior Councilor frowned.
“There’s scarce time in two years to learn to handle a pike in formation, maneuver, and fight. We train recruits for a full year before they see battle, and they are with us, many of them, for the rest of their lives. All these can groom, saddle, and harness horses or mules; they all ride; they all dig ditches and build barricades.”
“But that takes time away from weapons practice, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t they be better if they did that only?”
“No,” Arcolin said. “They need all the skills I mentioned, and more, to do the work you hired us to do. A tailor does not merely sew cloth pieces together, like a housewife patching a shirt.”
“True. So … how long will you stay in the city?”
“I expect to march again tomorrow morning,” Arcolin said. “Unless more of the horses need shoes reset. If you have more questions for me, Burek can take them on, and I can catch up.”
“What can you tell us specifically about these men?” the Councilor asked.
Arcolin shrugged. “The village headman knew about the brigands and lied—tried to tell us they had no problems and knew nothing.” He told the rest of what had happened that day and night, and then why he had captured the headman.
“And you saw him—”
“We saw him run from the village as we marched back through, and captured him. He gave some tale about a stray cow; his excuse the first time was a stray bull.”
“No doubt our city guard will hear about a stray calf,” the Councilor said. “But the others? You said they were the merchant’s hire; would they be complicit in his crimes?”
“They could be,” Arcolin said. “They offered no resistance when we told them to stand aside, but few men, criminal or not, will oppose their single sword to a hundred. One I am fairly sure has a criminal past, the tall black-haired man with the scarred forehead—”
“Ugly brute,” the Councilor said. “But I suppose that scar proves he’s really a soldier, at least.”
“Not if it’s a brand that’s been cut over to obscure the design,” Arcolin said. “I never saw the man myself, but my senior sergeant, when he was on recruit training one year, saw a recruit branded for multiple crimes. My sergeant thinks this is the same fellow. If it is, he will not have changed his ways.”
“How can we tell?”
“Have your guards strip him. If he has well-marked stripes on his back, not just white scars, that’s a strong suggestion, with the scar on his forehead. It was a fox-head brand once.”
“What about the others?”
“The merchant said he hired one, and that one hired the others. I didn’t talk with them on the way here; as long as they didn’t give trouble, that was enough for me. They were under guard the whole way. I’d talk to the merchant.”
“Oh, we will. Now the Guild has withdrawn protection, we will have out of him whatever he knows.”
“Indeed.” Arcolin heard the noise of cart wheels and hooves. Burek came in, leading his horse and the men with the carts and the carter.
The men loaded sacks of grain and hams into the carts, and when the carts were full lashed the last bundles of swords to the packsaddles. “If you do not need me presently, I should get back to the camp,” Arcolin said. I am at your service, should you call.”
“Go on, then,” the Councilor said. “We must examine the merchant and the others; we may send for you later today, and perhaps you would care to dine with the Council this evening?”
Arcolin rode back to camp well pleased with the day’s business. The matter of the mules’ harness had been an afterthought when he was working out contract details in Tsaia; he had not thought of harness, but of saddles and bridles. Still, “all accouterments, tack and the like, attached to the bodies of said animals” certainly did include harness.
His quartermaster examined the supplies with the suspicion of one who had found pebbles in the bottom of a grain sack before. “Mixed grain, sir. This here is wheat, right enough, but this other is spelt, and this is some grain I don’t know. Not bread-quality grain, but should make mush of some kind.”
“Not poisonous, though?”
“No. I think I saw that red grain in the far south, when we was here before, but I never tried it.”
The salt meat and fish went to the cooks. The Duke’s Company had never developed a taste for salt fish, so that, Arcolin decreed, would be used first. “Start it soaking,” he said. “We have a river of water here, and it’s a market day. Fish stew.” There were groans, but only for effect.
To Burek, he said, “We need a good solid arms practice today. Basic drills, then file against file, then pairs of files. We’re about one-third novices, and they tend to sloppy shield-work.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If they call me back to talk to the Council, I’ll need a few for escort, but otherwise, make sure everyone cycles through. Those not drilling can work on camp chores. I’m going to be looking at those swords with our armorer.”
When they’d opened all the bundles, they found a mix of blades, some new-forged and some obviously hard-used. Most were heavy blades with a slight curve, the type Arcolin knew as falchion.
“Good for cutting a way through undergrowth,” the armorer said. “If we’re going into the forest, these might be useful, though I don’t like the lack of a guard.”
“Can you put crosshilts on them?”
“Yes, but not as fast as a city smith with a full-size forge and some boys. If we cut up some of the worst and sell the metal, it’d pay for the new guards, if they’re simple.”
“How long, do you think?”
“Half-glass to a glass for each—another day or two here, for all of them.”
“We can’t stay here that long—we’d need a trustworthy sword-smith and I’m not sure I trust any of them in Cortes Vonja unless we were here to supervise.”
The armorer grinned. “That’s a captain’s problem, that is. What about their militia armorer?”
“They’ll charge enough to get the cost of the swords out of us. I need someone honest and reasonable. Well, let’s look at the rest.”
“This one’s Halveric Company,” the armorer said. “Same design as ours, just about, with that extra little curl to the guard and the H stamp on the pommel. Haven’t found any of ours yet, and I’d better not. If Halverics were down this year, they’d pay us to get this back. They usually clean up a field better than that.”
“Then it came out of someone’s pay. Let’s see … these are longswords … someone’s officers? Do you know this mark, Captain?”
“Sofi Ganarrion’s … he won’t be happy about this. Well, unless it’s to do with the marriage. Officers’ swords, not the dress ones. Someone sold them to pay for something—gambling debts, like as not.” Arcolin picked one up, tapped it with his fingernail. “Not bad steel at all, but Burek and I both have better. Might do for a spare.”