“I said what I meant,” Ned repeated. “We didn’t hold Wesleyton, and we aren’t going to hold Rising Rock. And it’s a shame and a disgrace that we aren’t, if anybody wants to know what I think.” He stared straight into Thraxton’s eyes again.
Thraxton glared back. His temper was slower to kindle than Ned of the Forest’s, but it burned hot when it did catch fire. “Now you see here, young man,” he growled. “We may have lost Wesleyton. We may lose Rising Rock, and in part that may even be my fault. But I tell you this.” He pointed a forefinger across the table at Ned, and his voice rose to a shout: “We may have to fall back now. But we will take back Rising Rock. We will take back Wesleyton. We will! My army will! And that’s not all. We will rout General Guildenstern and the invaders out of Franklin. And we will rout them out of Cloviston south of here, too. We’ll push them over the River and back among the rabble of robbers who sent them forth. By all the gods, we will! My army!” He slammed down his fist. Silverware jumped on the linen. Wine jumped in the goblets.
Dan of Rabbit Hill’s lips shaped a word. He didn’t speak it out loud, but Thraxton, among his other arcane skills, had learned to read lips. He knew what that silent word was. Dan might as well have shouted it. Braggart.
King Avram’s men called him Thraxton the Braggart. He’d sworn a great oath to beat them at Pottstown Pier, back when the war was young. He’d sworn it… and events-bad luck, really; nothing more-had left him forsworn. He’d chased Guildenstern back into the Province of Cloviston, chased him almost to the Highlow River, and sworn an even greater oath to drive him out of Geoffrey’s realm altogether. He’d sworn that second oath… but the hard battles of Reppyton and Reillyburgh, somehow, had gone no better for his cause and Geoffrey’s despite the savage sorceries he’d loosed.
Braggart? He shook his head. He didn’t see himself so. If anything, he felt put upon, put upon by fate and by the blundering idiots it was his misfortune to have to endure as subordinates. If only I led men worthy of me, he thought. Then everyone would know me for the hero I know I am.
Meanwhile… Meanwhile, Ned of the Forest stared steadily back across the table at him. “All right, your Grace,” the backwoods ruffian said. “Remember you said that. I aim to hold you to it.”
Arrogant dog, Thraxton thought. He muttered to himself. Not all sorcery was showy. Not all of it required elaborate preparation, either. He waited for Ned to leap up and run for the commode. The spell he’d just cast would have kept a normal man trotting for a couple of days.
But Ned of the Forest only sat where he was. For all the effect the magic had on him, he might have been carved from stone. Thraxton ran over the spell in his mind. He’d cast it correctly. He was sure of that. He’s been drinking water all his life, he remembered. His bowels might as well be made of cast bronze.
His head, too. That piece of malice helped ease Thraxton’s bile-filled spirit. So did the words of Leonidas the Priest: “So long as we all stand together, we shall drive Guildenstern back into the southron darkness whence he sprang. Rest assured, the Lion God will eat his soul.” He made a certain sign with his fingers.
Thraxton, who was an initiate in those mysteries, made the answering gesture. So did Dan. Ned of the Forest kept on stolidly sitting. Scorn filled Thraxton. But why should I be surprised? The gods must hate him.
The serf brought in a honey cake piled high with plums and peaches and apricots. “A sweet, my lords?”
Count Thraxton took a small helping, more for politeness’ sake than any other reason. Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas matched him. Ned attacked the honey cake with the same gusto he’d shown with the pork roast. “Sir, you have crumbs in your beard,” Leonidas remarked after a while.
“Thank you kindly,” Ned replied, and brushed at his chin whiskers-a surprisingly neat adornment-with rough, callused fingers.
“How is it,” Thraxton asked, “that your whiskers remain black while your hair is going gray?” Did fearsome Ned of the Forest resort to the dye bottle? If he did, would he admit it? If he didn’t admit it, what clumsy lie would he tell? How ridiculous would he look in telling it?
Ned’s smile was the one Thraxton might have seen over dueling sabers. But the ruffian’s voice was light and mild as he answered, “Well, Count, I reckon it’s likely on account of I use my brains more than my mouth.”
Silence fell in the dining room, silence broken only by the serf’s smothered guffaw. Thraxton turned a terrible look on the fellow, who first blushed all the way up to his pale hair, then went paler than that hair himself and precipitately fled.
“Any more questions, sir?” Ned asked with another carnivorous grin.
“Enough!” That wasn’t Thraxton. He said nothing, reckoning Ned of the Forest would not listen to him if he did. But Dan of Rabbit Hill’s voice commanded attention. Then Dan said, “Enough, the both of you.”
“Sir?” Thraxton sounded winter-cold, the cold of a bad winter. “Do you presume to include me?”
“I do,” Dan said stubbornly. “If you get people quarreling with you-if we quarrel among ourselves-who wins? Avram the serf-stealer and the stinking southrons, that’s who. Nobody else but.”
“You’re right,” Ned said at once. “I’ll let it lay where it’s at. Count?”
“Very well.” But Thraxton’s voice remained frigid. It might not have, had Dan phrased his request a little differently. King Avram was the worst foe, true. But that did not mean no wretches, no enemies, marched behind King Geoffrey. And now Dan of Rabbit Hill had chosen to add himself to that list. Your time will come, Dan, Thraxton thought, yours and Ned’s and everyone’s.
“Up, you lazy sons of bitches!” somebody shouted. “Think you’re going to sleep all bloody day? Not bloody likely, let me tell you.”
Rollant’s eyes flew open in something close to panic. For a horrid moment, he thought he was back on the indigo plantation outside of Karlsburg, and that the overseer would stick a boot in his ribs if he didn’t head out for the swampy fields on the dead run.
Then the escaped serf let out a sigh of relief as full awareness returned. His pantaloons and tunic were dyed gray, not the blue of the indigo he’d slaved to grow. The traitors wore blue, not King Avram’s men. And that wasn’t the overseer screaming at him, only his sergeant. As a matter of fact, Sergeant Joram had more power over him than the overseer ever had, but Rollant didn’t mind. When he joined Avram’s host, he’d chosen to come under the rule of men like Joram. He’d never chosen to do as his one-time northern liege lord and overseer told him to do. He’d expressed his opinion of that relationship by fleeing to the south the first chance he got-and then again, after the serfcatchers ran him down with dogs and hauled him back to his liege lord’s estate.
All around him, his squadmates were stirring and stretching and yawning and rubbing their eyes, as he was doing. Sergeant Joram roared at them as loudly as he roared at Rollant, though their hair was dark. Joram treated everyone like a serf-or rather, like a free man in the army.
No, Rollant hadn’t had to join King Avram’s host to return to the north country to make war against the baron who’d chained him to the land-that was how he thought of the fight, in purely personal terms. He’d been making pretty good money as a carpenter down in New Eborac. He’d married a pretty blond girl he met there; her family had escaped feudal ties a couple of generations before. They had two towheaded children.