“Burek, when I was in Valdaire, my banker told me some Guild League cities had started minting bad coins. Did you hear anything about that?”
“Yes, sir.” Burek rode his horse into the ford. “M’dierra’s company got some; she was furious. It was while I was with that cohort in Andressat. She had the rest over in Cilwan, and her banker refused about twenty percent of the payment. She had a row with the Count of Cilwan—it was Cilwan-minted coins the banker refused—and the Merchants’ Guild came in on his side, until the banker gave a public demonstration. The coins were counterfeit, all right. The natas were the weight of nas, lead-cored. The Count blamed merchants for bringing in counterfeit, swore up and down his mint was honest. The merchants were furious and blamed the Count; the Moneychangers’ Guild backed M’dierra’s demand for the rest of her pay. But Cilwan’s not the only mint to turn out bad coins—there’s been complaints of other mints, too.”
Arcolin felt stupid. “I should have looked at our merchant’s coins more closely. They looked fine to me, but now I wonder—why was he carrying so much money, not as an agent of the Moneychangers’ Guild?”
“Were they all southern mint?”
“I didn’t even see that,” Arcolin said. “Some were gold, some silver … I did see a Cortes Vonja mark on a few on top.”
“Seems unlikely all the mints would start minting bad coins at once,” Burek said. “Though it’s a way to stretch a treasury until people figure out there’s plenty of money and few goods.”
“But … if someone else were making the false coins—sending them to various cities—that would cause trouble, as in Cilwan.” He looked around. Nothing to see, nothing to hear but the gurgle of water over the ford. “Alured, I’ll wager. He wants the Guild League broken; he knows it financed the last war … if the cities war against each other, if the merchants can’t trade as they have … he could move in with more than brigands.”
“I don’t see why he isn’t happy with a dukedom,” Burek said.
“Nor I,” Arcolin said, with a sigh. “And our immediate problem is these brigands and tonight’s camp.”
Burek flushed. “Sorry, sir—”
“No—that wasn’t a correction. Thinking long-term is what made Phelan successful, but while thinking long-term we must not lose track of today’s duties. Let’s get these wagons across—we may have to unload them—and try to reach that village—ruined or not—tonight.” He cast a last look at the bootprinted game trail before turning to the cohort.
Devlin’s choices as junior sergeant and corporals had already shown their ability and energy in the previous night’s camp. Now Jenits in particular pulled almost equal weight to Devlin. Arcolin, remembering the brash youth of Jenits’s first campaign year, the last of Siniava’s War, watched the serious, determined young man organize his two files quickly and get the second wagon unloaded even before Devlin had the first one ready to cross. And it was Jenits who suggested using the spare horses and the four mules to move cargo across the stream alongside the wagons.
More quickly than Arcolin expected, they were across, the wagons reloaded, and on their way. The next village site, when they came to it, looked clearly deserted—the cottages no more than tumbled stone walls pierced by saplings and weeds. It had backed on the woods, with fields before it … fields now growing up in weeds and bushes, even young trees. The village well, surprisingly, had a few flowers, barely withered, on its curbstone.
“Someone uses this,” Devlin said. “And it smells clean.”
“Dip a bucket,” Arcolin said. The wellhouse and axle were gone, but the stone edging was remarkably clean. Someone was maintaining this well—someone who cared about the merin. The bucket came up with clear water that smelled fresh. Arcolin dipped a handful—it tasted as clean as it smelled.
He took the bucket and walked around the well, pouring a thin stream. “Thanks to the merin of the well, for the good water,” he said aloud. “We honor the Lady and her handmaidens. No harm will come to this well by our use.” Then he turned to Burek and Devlin. “We’ll camp here tonight. A solid defensive perimeter. When my tent is up, I want to talk to both of you.”
While Devlin organized the camp, Arcolin rode out into the fields a short way, weeds brilliant with yellow, blue, and white flowers up to his horse’s belly. Ample cover for a force to approach on that side, the old furrow ridges and hollows concealed by tall vegetation. He saw no sign of disturbance, off the wagon track, but with the thick growth he knew he could miss such signs easily. He rode across the wagon track and there, near the forest edge, found a well-traveled footpath running just along the margin, between field and wood. Well-traveled, but not by many, and the only footprint he found was bare.
In the last year of Siniava’s War, he’d seen the like: peasants driven from their villages, eking out a poor living in the edges of woodland, hiding from everyone. A clean well would be a boon to them. And such people would not welcome brigands any more than soldiers. If he could convince them to talk to him, he might save the cohort time and blood.
He rode back to the camp, now bustling as his people dug a ditch, cut stakes, and laid out the campsite itself. All were at work but the sentries and the scouts he’d assigned to patrol beyond the perimeter, even Burek. As he dismounted, he caught a glance from Devlin; he nodded, tied his horse to the tail of a wagon, and went over.
“Problems, Sergeant?”
“Not exactly,” Devlin said. “But—I have a feeling.”
“So do I,” Arcolin said. “There’s a lot more going on than some brigands bothering farmers or merchants. Is the feeling about this place, or more than that?”
“I wish we had two cohorts,” Devlin said. “Or all three. Marching through the woods today—I don’t know, sir, I just—it’s been a long time since I felt like we were a small group.”
“We are a small group,” Arcolin said. “For what it’s worth, I had the same feeling. I’m half inclined to go back tomorrow, just patrol in the open land closer to the city. But I think it’s as much having Stammel gone, and the five we left there, as real danger. You’re having to bring along juniors faster than ever and we’re down six, including a sergeant and a corporal.”
“I know we’ve lost only one in combat,” Devlin said. “It’s just …” He shook his head.
Arcolin clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk when camp’s made.”
As soon as the camp was set up, Arcolin called Burek and Dev into his tent. “We’re in over our heads,” he said quietly. “There’s much more going on here than some leftover homeless peasants and soldiers from Siniava’s War.”
33
Matthis Stammel burned in a fire that had no beginning and no end. It had been before he could remember. Voices he dimly remembered called on him to hold a line he could not see, to stand in the fire, to endure … Don’t give in, they pled. Don’t quit. Young voices, older voices … he had no way to answer them, to ask what, why, who? Something—someone—dire held him down in that fire, someone who demanded that he give in, give up, let go, die. Someone who promised ease and rest if only he would retreat.
He fought with every fiber of will and strength to do what the voices asked, but the other one, the interior one who needed no voice to speak, demanded surrender. He wanted to ask the captain … ask the Duke … if he couldn’t please, just for a moment, have someone else take his place. He had not heard their voices for a very long time. The last thing the captain had said … the captain trusted him. The captain trusted him to hold.