“He was lucky not to lose either leg,” said Devlin. “That was as nasty a break as I’ve seen.” Paks shuddered, remembering the white ends of bone sticking out.
“If there’d been a Marshal here—” began Effa. Devlin interrupted.
“No. Don’t say that. Not here. Not in this Company.”
Effa looked puzzled. “But I thought Phelan’s Company recruited mostly Girdsmen—doesn’t it?”
“Once it did, but not now.”
“But when I joined, and said I was a yeoman, Stammel said it was good.”
“Sergeant Stammel, to you. Oh yes, we’re glad to get Girdsmen—the more the better. But there’ll be no Marshals here, and no grange or barton.”
“But why—?”
“Effa, leave be.” Arñe tapped her arm. “It’s not our concern.”
It was not in Effa’s nature to leave be. She worried the question any time the corporals and Stammel were not around, wondering why and why not, and trying to convert those (such as Paksenarrion, Saben and Arñe) who seemed to her virtuous but unenlightened. Paks found these attempts at conversion annoying.
“I’ve got my own gods,” she said finally. “And that’s enough for me. My family has followed the same gods for generations, and I won’t change. Besides, however good a fighter Gird was, he can’t have turned into a god. That’s not where gods come from.” And she turned her back on Effa and walked off.
Meanwhile, she and Saben and Vik discussed religions in a very different way, fascinated by each other’s background.
“Now my family,” said Saben. “We were horse nomads once—my father’s father’s grandfather. Now we raise cattle, but we still carry a bit of hoof with us, and dance under the forelock and tail at weddings and funerals.”
“Do you worship—uh—horses?” asked Vik.
“No, of course not. We worship Thunder-of-horses, the north wind, and the dark-eyed Mare of Plenty, though my father says that’s really the same as Alyanya, the Lady of Peace. Then my uncle’s family—I’ve seen them dance to Guthlac—”
“The Hunter?”
“Yes. My father always goes home then. He doesn’t approve.”
“I should think not.” Vik shivered.
“City boy,” teased Paks. “We gather the sheep in from the wild hunt, but we know Guthlac has great power.”
“I know that. It’s what power—brrr. Now in my family, we worship the High Lord, Alyanya, and Sertig and Adyan—”
“Who are they?” asked Paks.
“Sertig’s the Maker, surely you know that. Craftsmen follow him. Adyan is the Namer—true-Namer—of all things. My father’s a harper, and harpers deal much with names.”
“You’re a harper’s son?” asked Saben. Vik nodded. “But you’ve no voice at all!”
“True enough,” said Vik, shrugging. “And no skill with a harp either, though I had one in my hands as soon as I could pluck a string. My father tried to make a scribe of me, and I wrote as badly as I played. And got into trouble, liking to fight. So—” he looked at his hands. “So it became—wise—for me to move away, and make use of the skill I did have.”
“Which is?” asked Saben slyly.
In an instant Vik had turned, gotten his hold, and flipped Saben onto his back. “Throwing down great lummoxes of cattle farmers, for one.” Saben laughed and rolled back up to a sitting position.
“I see your point,” he said cheerfully. “But will it work against a thousand southern spearmen?”
“It won’t have to. You and Paks will be up front, you lucky tall ones, and you can protect me.”
After several weeks of switching places in formation, they received their permanent assignments. “Permanent until you do something stupid,” Bosk said. Paks, to her delight, was made file leader. She still had problems with Korryn, who teased and pestered her whenever the corporals weren’t around, but aside from that she had returned to her earlier pleasure in being in an army. She did wish that brawling were not forbidden. She was sure she could flatten Korryn, and ached for a chance. But after the formal punishment of three recruits from Kefer’s unit who had livened a dull rainy afternoon by starting a fight, she was determined to keep her temper. She did not want to lose her new position.
One afternoon a troop of soldiers in the Duke’s colors rode up from the southeast, and were passed by the gate guards into the courtyard. The fifteen men, under command of a yellow-haired corporal, were immensely impressive to the recruits. And they knew it, and swaggered accordingly.
“Get the quartermaster,” the corporal ordered a recruit from another unit, and the recruit scurried away. Paksenarrion, taking her turn at cut-and-thrust practice with Siger, was tempted to turn and look, but the Armsmaster brought her attention back with a thump in the ribs.
“When you’re fighting, fight,” he said grumpily. “You be gazing around at everything on earth and heaven, and you’ll be buzzard-bait soon enough.”
Paks concentrated on trying to slash past his defenses, but the old man was more than a match for her, and talked on without a break as she grew more and more breathless. “Eh, now, that’s too wide a backswing—what’d I tell you? See, you left your side open again. Somebody’ll plant a blade in there when you’re careless. Quicker, lass, quicker! You ought to be quicker nor an old man like me. Look now, I gave you an opening wide as a barn door for a thrust, and you used that same wide cut. Stop now—”
Paks lowered her wooden blade, gasping for breath.
“You’re strong enough,” Siger said. “But strong’s not the whole game. You’ve got to be quick, and you’ve got to think as fast as you move. Now let’s break the thrust stroke down into its parts again.” He demonstrated, then had Paks go through the motions several times. “Let’s try that again. Don’t stand flat-footed: you need to move.”
This time practice seemed to go more smoothly, and at last Paks’s blade slipped past his to touch his side. “Ah-h,” he said. “That’s it.” Twice more that afternoon she got a touch on him, and was rewarded with one of his rare smiles. “But you still must be quicker!” was his parting comment.
Chapter Three
It seemed to Paksenarrion that events had moved with blinding speed. Only that afternoon she had been a file leader, and Siger had praised her. Now she was shivering on the stone sleeping bench of an underground cell, out of sight and sound of everyone, cold, hungry, frightened, and in more trouble that she’d dreamed possible. Even with cold stone under her, and the painful drag of chains on her wrists and ankles, she could hardly believe it had really happened. How could she be in such trouble for something someone else had done? Her head throbbed, and her ears still rang from the fight. Every separate muscle and bone had a distinctive and private pain to add.
It was so quiet that she could clearly hear the blood rushing through her head, and the clink of the chains when she shifted on the bench rang loudly. And the dark! She’d never been afraid of the dark, but this was a different dark: a shut-in, thick, breathless dark. How would she know when dawn came? Her breath quickened, rasping in the silence, as she tried to fight down panic. Surely they wouldn’t leave her down here to die? She clamped her teeth against a cry that fought its way up from her chest. It came out as a soft groan. She could not—could not—stand this place any longer. Another wave of nausea overcame her, and she felt hastily for the bucket between her feet. She had nothing left to heave into it, but felt better knowing it was there. When the spasm passed, she wiped her mouth on her tattered sleeve.