Norina had wept when he took King Avram’s silver bit. “I have to,” he told her. “Geoffrey and the northern nobles are trying to make sure we never get our place in the sun.”
His wife hadn’t understood. He knew that. Norina took for granted the freedom to go where she wanted when she wanted and do whatever she pleased once she got there. Why not? She’d enjoyed it all her life. Rollant hadn’t, which made him realize exactly how precious it was.
Right now, that freedom consisted of standing in line along with a lot of other poorly shaved, indifferently clean men and snaking toward the big brass kettles hung above three fires. When Rollant got up to the fire to which his line led, a bored-looking cook slapped a ladleful of stew down on his tin plate. Rollant eyed it with distaste: barley boiled to death, mushy carrots, and bits of meat whose origin he probably didn’t want to know. He’d eaten better back on the baron’s estate.
“You want pheasant and asparagus, blond boy, you pay for ’em out of your own pocket,” the cook growled. Rollant went off and sat on the ground to eat. The cook snarled at the dark-haired fellow behind him, too.
One of Rollant’s squadmates, a youngster named Smitty, sat down beside him. He ate a spoonful of the stew and made a face. “The crocodile they threw in the stewpot died of old age,” he said.
“Crocodile?” For a heartbeat or two, Rollant thought Smitty meant it. His horizons had expanded enormously since he’d escaped his liege lord, and even more since Norina taught him his letters, but he remained hideously vulnerable to having his leg pulled by men who’d been free to learn since birth. He took another spoonful himself. “Just a dead jackass, I think, or maybe one of the barons who live up here.”
Smitty grinned at him. “Bet you’d like to see every traitor noble from Grand Duke Geoffrey on down boiling in a pot.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Rollant said simply.
“And to keep the kingdom from breaking in two,” Smitty said. “If Geoffrey gets away with this, Detinans’ll be fighting wars among themselves forever.”
“I suppose so.” But Rollant couldn’t get very excited about the idea. Smashing the nobles who held down serfs like him-that was something he understood in his belly.
He went down to a little stream to rinse his tin plate, then stuck it in the knapsack in which he carried most of his earthly goods. Along with the meager contents of the knapsack, he had a shortsword on his right hip (he always hoped not to have to use it, for he knew nothing of swordplay but hack, swing, and hope for the best), a quiver full of crossbow quarrels, and the crossbow itself.
He patted that crossbow as he took his place in the ranks for the day’s march toward Rising Rock. It was a splendid weapon. All you had to do was pull to cock it, drop in a quarrel, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Thousands of flying crossbow bolts made battlefields very unhealthy places for unicorns-and for the men who rode them. A quarrel would punch right through a shield, right through chain, and right through plate, too.
Smitty came up to stand beside him. “Did you ever shoot one of these things before you joined the host?” Rollant asked.
“On my father’s farm, sure-you know, hunting for the pot,” Smitty answered. “How about you?”
Rollant shook his head. “Never once. Northern nobles don’t want serfs knowing how easy crossbows are to use. They’re afraid we’d find out how easy they are to kill. And do you know what?” He grinned a ferocious grin. “They’re right.”
“Why do you say `we’?” Smitty asked. “You’re not a serf any more. You haven’t been one for a while.”
“That’s true,” Rollant said in some surprise. “But it’s not just something you can forget you ever were, either.” The way he talked proved as much. Having grown up tied to his liege lord’s land had marked him for life-scarred him for life, he often thought.
Sergeant Joram strutted up in front of the men. “Let’s go!” he boomed. “Next stop is Rising Rock.” Rollant cheered at that. So did most of the soldiers with him. They all knew Geoffrey and his forces couldn’t afford to lose the town. They all knew he couldn’t keep it, either, not with the small army he had there. Joram went on, “Any traitors get in our way, we smash ’em into the mud and march over ’em. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
More cheers rose. Rollant yelled till his throat hurt. The chance to smash the men who’d mistreated him was all he wanted. He’d dreamt of revenge for years, ever since he fled the north for New Eborac. In a way, he was almost grateful to Geoffrey and the other high lords who were trying to carve their own kingdom from the flesh of Detina. If they hadn’t, he might never have got the chance to hit back.
Thin in the distance, trumpets blared at the head of the column. As with an uncoiling snake beginning to crawl, that head began to move before the tail. Rollant’s company was somewhere near the middle. He breathed the dust the men ahead of him kicked up marching along the dirt road, and his feet and his comrades’ raised more dust for the men behind them. His toes wiggled inside his stout marching boots. He’d rarely worn boots, or shoes of any kind, on Baron Ormerod’s estate near Karlsburg.
Through the haze of reddish dust, Sentry Peak punctuated the skyline to the northwest. Most of the countryside hereabouts was pretty flat; were it otherwise, Sentry Peak would have been named Sentry Knob or some such, or perhaps wouldn’t have been named at all. Rising Rock lay by the foot of the mountain. West of Rising Rock swelled the lower elevation of Proselytizers’ Rise, named after the bold souls who’d preached about their gods when Detina was first being colonized from the west. Rollant’s early relatives hadn’t cared to listen; they’d had gods of their own, and the proselytizers had got no farther than the rise.
Rollant knew the names of the gods his forefathers had worshiped, and some of their attributes. He believed in them, but didn’t worship them himself. The settlers’ gods had proved themselves stronger.
And so has our southron army, he thought. Most of the war had been fought in the traitors’ lands. They’d mounted a couple of invasions of the south, but had been beaten back each time. When Rising Rock fell, they’d be driven out of Franklin altogether. Rollant’s hands tightened on the crossbow he carried. He wanted the northern nobles to pay for everything they’d done.
Where was his own liege lord? Somewhere in one of Geoffrey’s armies-Rollant was sure of that. Baron Ormerod wouldn’t be a great marshal; he hadn’t owned estates wide enough for that, and he was no mighty mage. But he was convinced the gods said he had the right to keep serfs on the land whether they wanted to stay there or not.
A farmer looked up from the field he was cultivating as Rollant’s company marched past. He was old and stooped with endless years of labor; otherwise he probably would have been fighting for Geoffrey, too. Shaking his fist at the men in gray, he shouted, “By the seven hells, why don’t you sons of bitches get on home and leave us alone? We never done nothing to you.”
Rollant pushed his way to the edge of the company so the farmer could see him. “Say that again!” he called to the northern man. “Go ahead-try and make me believe it. I could use a good laugh.”
“You!” The fellow shook his fist again. “Wasn’t for your kind, we wouldn’t have no trouble. I hope the Lion God bites your balls off, you stinking runaway.”
Rollant started to bring up his bow and pull back the string, then checked himself and laughed instead. “What’s funny?” Smitty asked him. “Nobody would’ve blamed you for shooting that bugger.”
“I was just thinking-he hasn’t got any serfs of his own,” Rollant answered. “He couldn’t dream of a farm big enough to work with serfs. Look at his homespun tunic. Look at those miserable pantaloons-out at the knees, a patch on the arse. But he thinks he’s a duke because his hair is brown.”
“A lot of these northerners think like that,” Smitty said. “If they didn’t, Grand Duke Geoffrey would have to fight the war by himself, because nobody would follow him.”