“Sir …!” It was more protest than anything else. Arcolin shook his head at them. “Could he be in better hands? Can any of us pray like three Marshals of Gird and a Captain of Tir? Stammel will have our prayers as we do our duty; he will have five of the Company with him at all times. Sergeant Devlin has chosen them well. Form up!”
His horse, rested, fed, saddled, stamped outside; Vik held the rein while he mounted. “Devlin—take them back to camp; tell Burek to start out. Once more I must finish a few things in the city before I follow.”
“Sir, with all due respect … put your helmet on this time.”
Arcolin unhooked it from the saddle and put it on, fastening the chin strap. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said, torn between grief and pride. “You’re absolutely right.” At the end of the street, he turned toward the street of moneychangers, and heard his men marching away.
32
It was noon before Arcolin made it out of Cortes Vonja. In addition to visiting Kostin the banker, where courtesy demanded he accept a glass of cordial and nibble a few of the seed-crusted cakes while ensuring the Marshal would have access to Company funds, he had to visit the Council chambers once more. They insisted on having one of their clerks take down his story of the previous day’s events and were inclined to blame him for not warning them of Korryn’s magical abilities. He set them straight, and they finally agreed that he could not be blamed for not knowing what they and their guards had also not seen.
Now, in the heat of midday, with the sun beating down on his helmet, Arcolin set his slower mount off at a steady amble. He had left the speedier chestnut in the city, for his people to use if they needed to contact him. The cohort was long out of sight; they would be—if Burek had them moving as briskly as he hoped—between the first two villages.
Away from the city, the countryside was just as hot but smelled better. Fat cattle grazed in the water meadows near the river; beyond that, a patchwork of grain fields in brilliant greens, orchards in darker colors now the flowers had fallen. In a few, early cherries were turning color, red as blood. Along the hedgerows, brambleberries flowered in shades of pink and rose; boneset and heal-all raised their white and blue clusters; myriad other flowers—yellow, pink, red, blue—made the hedgerows a ribbon of color. Arcolin noticed the beauty, but his mind was fixed ahead on the cohort and behind on Stammel.
Within a half-glass, dust showed where the cohort might be, just beyond the village he could see. His horse pricked its ears and quickened its pace a little. Arcolin squinted, but could not make out the details under the dust. He heard nothing; the wind blew across the road, not along it.
As he came to the village, no one fled. A woman hanging washing on the bushes outside her cottage barely looked at him; children ran beside him a short way, then went back to whatever they’d been doing. It was too hot for the two dogs he saw to give chase; each barked from its own resting place under a berry bush, but without getting up.
Now he could see a little better … wagons, with horses tied behind. Burek had mounted scouts out on the flanks, as he should; at that distance, he could not see the colors, but the formation was enough. In spite of his worry about Stammel, his heart lifted. This was his place; these were his people; of course he had to be here. He nudged his mount out of the amble into a canter. The guards on the rear wagon raised a shout … and then he was within easy hail.
“Yo, Captain! How is he?”
Arcolin reined in. “The Marshal thinks the fever may have dropped a little. Where’s the surgeon?”
“Asleep in the first wagon, Captain.”
“Good. And the others—?”
“The same. Captain Burek said he wanted them ready to fight later.” The slightest tone of uncertainty there.
“Exactly right,” Arcolin said. He lifted the reins, and his mount picked up the fast amble again, past the first wagon, past the pack mules loaded with sacks of grain, past the cohort—smaller than it had been—Devlin alone at the head of it, and then Burek, on his roan.
“Sorry it took me so long,” he said to Burek as he came abreast of him. “First the bankers, and then the Council. Would you believe they thought it was my fault Korryn attacked? When they were the ones who’d insisted on an examination?”
Burek shook his head. “Vonja,” he said.
“Yes, indeed. I’d rather deal with Foss Council any day.”
“How is he, sir?”
“Still fighting,” Arcolin said. “Three Marshals and a Captain of Tir are with him; they’ve pledged the resources of both grange and camp to do everything they can. I don’t know—” He took a breath. It would not help Burek or the cohort to hear him say they could not go on without Stammel. He should not even think it. “I’ve been thinking about who to make temporary sergeant and corporals. With Arñe back there, we’re short on both. I’ll talk to Devlin, of course, but I wanted to ask your thoughts.”
“Mine?” Burek looked surprised, then thoughtful. “I haven’t been with them long enough, is my thought. Let me think. There’s Jenits … he’s always right there, doing what he should and more. Volya’s another good one, but you have many good troops. And I’m not sure—besides that—what to look for.”
“You’re on the right track with Jenits,” Arcolin said. “It’s not just being good with weapons, or obeying orders. We have long-time veterans who are steady as stone in a battle, reliable when someone else is giving the orders, but will not stir themselves without. What we need in corporals is someone with the potential to be a sergeant, and what we need in sergeants is someone who can see what needs to be done and do it—or know who to tell. It’s not age and experience; you find youngsters with the ability to see and the will to do, and older ones too. We may not have formal battles this season, but if we did you’d see that our sergeants and corporals also keep order in battle. Exhorting, encouraging, reminding recruits what commands mean. So they must be steady, able to stay calm in any situation.”
“I don’t think all companies choose them that way,” Burek said, frowning slightly.
“No, they don’t,” Arcolin agreed. “But it works for us, and it worked for Aliam Halveric. Some companies won’t let women into those positions, which is silly. One of the best sergeants I ever had—no shame to Stammel—was Dzerdtya. She didn’t want to be a captain, she said when offered the chance at knight’s training, but you could not ask a better cohort sergeant. We saw that in her from the first tenday of her training.”
“She retired?” Burek asked.
“She died,” Arcolin said. “At Dwarfwatch, along with my junior captain Ferrault. She and Stammel I would place at the top rank. Different personalities, but everything you could want in a sergeant.” And the cohort had survived Dzerdtya’s death; it would survive Stammel’s, if that came to pass.
“My father said I was crazy to become a soldier,” Burek said. “He was content as horsemaster, and thought I should be, but I said you could die of a kick to the head or a bad fall.”
“Crazy or not, I’m glad to have you here,” Arcolin said. “You did well keeping the cohort in order while I was in the city.”
His horse threw up its head; so did Burek’s roan. Arcolin raised his hand and signaled halt; behind him the cohort stamped its halt; far behind, two horses snorted. One of the forward scouts came into view, waving for attention. Arcolin checked his flanking scouts; both had halted, waiting for orders. He waved to the forward scout to come in and report.