Nell stood with crossed arms and didn’t do anything to support the boy. He flushed with anger, but he swallowed it and went to get wood. Nell followed him. “She’s Lady Kaitlin’s maid, and she’s sort of the head non-combatant in your mess group. She and Robin give the orders.”
“What’s a fewkin’ mess group?” Diccon asked.
She looked at him, as if enjoying his confusion because it reminded her how far she’d come. “Do you know what a lance is?”
He didn’t stay in an ill-humour long. He grabbed a good armload of wood-nice dry maple-and started back to the fires. Just to be supportive, Nell took an armload, too.
“A spear about ten feet long?” he said.
“It’s a knight, a squire, an archer or two and a page,” she said. “Two lances make a mess group, with their lemans and their-”
“What’s a leman?” he asked.
“Lover. Whore. Partner. Wife. Husband. Whatever.” Nell laughed. “You only get to have one permanent-like with the captain’s permission.”
“Christ, it’s worse than being a monk!” Diccon said. He dropped his wood on the right pile and then stooped to stack it before going back for another load. Six pairs of watching eyes noted him stack the wood he’d just dumped with approval.
Nell shrugged. “Lemans cost money for food and bedding and everything. Any road, we don’t leave ours behind. So the veterans have lemans and they bring up the numbers of a mess group to ten or twelve. Everyone in that group eats together, sleeps together, and works together. Most of us fight together.” She grunted as she lifted a big chunk of oak.
He took it from her and held out his arms to be loaded up. “You in my group?” he asked.
“No, sweet. If I were, I wouldn’t buss you or allow any liberties. Got that? It’s a rule, too.” She smiled. “I’m the captain’s page. I’m in the command lance.”
“Is that special?” Diccon asked. His eyes were brimful of questions.
“It’ll be more than a mite special if I don’t have the horses ready for inspection. We move in two hours.” She dropped her load on the pile. “Stack mine, will ye?” she asked. “I’ll come see you later. Anything you fuck up, just say you’re sorry. Don’t cross the captain or the primus pilus. That’s all the advice I have.”
She went back to where Robin was sitting. He had a cup of hippocras in his hand and he was looking at Ser Michael’s sabatons, which had somehow started to rust overnight.
“I’m a dead man,” he said.
Nell thought that was probably true, but felt no pity. She bobbed her head. Squires got one bended knee first thing and then they were pretty much just folk. “I don’t think the new boy has anything,” she said. “Not even a blanket, and certes no horse or arms.”
Lord Robin sighed. “I’m going to catch it. Nell, can you ask Toby to help me?”
“If’n you’ll see to it that the new boy gets sorted,” Nell said. She smiled to show she wasn’t entirely serious.
Robin looked pained. “You like him,” he said.
Nell shrugged. “Yes, sir.”
Robin nodded. “Please find Toby,” he said.
Toby was attending the captain, and Nell didn’t even try and find him until all the horses were done. The sun was well up by the time she found them both, out behind the inn’s barns.
“Toby, Toby,” the captain said. “Again.”
Toby was stripped to hose and a doublet and both men were covered in sweat. They both had arming swords in their hands and, after the captain spoke, Toby cut hard at the captain’s head.
The captain retreated his front foot to his back foot so that he stood in a narrow stance and his forward leg was pulled out of an adversary’s range, standing straighter as he slipped the front foot back and covered his head with his sword. Garda di testa. Nell knew all the guards, now.
Then he uncoiled like a viper striking and Toby got his sword up. But his slip wasn’t deep enough-he didn’t pull back his front foot enough. Still, he covered his head well, and he countered-the same cut.
The captain pulled back his front foot and covered his head. And cut-
Toby raised his sword without retreating.
The captain’s sword moved so fast that it was like watching a hummingbird strike. It came to rest against Toby’s outthrust thigh.
Ser Gabriel frowned. “You’re tired. We’ll call it for today, Toby. But you have to learn to move your legs.”
Toby looked frustrated and angry.
The captain’s eye caught Nell. “Good morning, young lady. How is my beautiful new horse?”
“Eating, my lord,” Nell answered. “It’s all he does. He’ll need exercise today.”
The captain smiled. “If I don’t get on him today, you take him tonight. Yes?”
“Of course, my lord.”
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Do you need something, Nell?”
“No, my lord. But I need Toby, if he’s at leisure.” She hoped that Robin appreciated how well she was keeping her end of the bargain, because this was leading with her chin. The captain could be savage, especially early in the morning after he’d been drinking.
Toby sheathed his arming sword after looking at the blade for nicks. “I’m with you, Nell,” he said.
The captain made a sign that they could talk. He was examining his own blade, the new red-gripped arming sword that matched his long sword for war-gilt-steel guard and round pommel, and two newfangled finger rings on the guard.
“What do you need?” Toby asked. He was breathing hard.
“Robin needs you. He’s hard pressed for time and water got at Ser Michael’s armour.”
“Sweet Jesu and all the saints!” Toby shook his head. “If a man will spend all night in the arms of a-” He looked at Nell. “I’ll go.”
“Feel free to give him some shit,” Nell said. “But I promised to fetch you.” Whatever Toby lacked in fighting skills-he was late to the life of arms and a slow physical learner-he was the best metal polisher in the company.
The captain had not sheathed his sword. “Nell-do I gather that you are at leisure?”
Nell’s heart did a back-flip. “Er… yes?” she said.
The captain nodded. “I don’t think I’ve paid enough attention to your training, lass. Have you been practising?”
“Yes, my lord. Sword and poleaxe. Ser Bescanon and Ser Alison. And gymnastika with Ser Alcaeus and swimming with-” She flushed. “With the women.”
The captain nodded. “You relieve my mind, Nell. But I know you took a wound in Morea and I have a mind to be a little more attentive to your life of arms. Draw.”
She had her arming sword on her hip and she took her sword carefully from her scabbard.
She was afraid of the captain at the best of times. She admired him, but he was older, bigger, and he had a temper. And his eyes glowed red when she made him angry or frustrated him.
Standing across the grass from her, he was as tall as Ataelus and his sword seemed huge, but the worst of it was that his eyes weren’t red. They were reptilian.
“I’m going to make some simple attacks,” he said. “Try not to die.” He smiled. “It would take me years to find another page as good as you.”
That cheered her up.
He struck.
She’d gotten into a guard-Ser Alison said always do what you know, and she knew that she liked having her sword out in front of her. In a world where everyone was bigger, stronger and longer limbed than she, Nell had learned that basic centreline guards were for her.
She flicked her blade into frontale, crossing the captain’s blade. His wrist was like iron, but she’d swaggered blades with Wilful Murder and Long Paw and even Ranald Lachlan in the practice yards of Morea.
He bounced back and cut again. She made sure to slip her front foot and sure enough, he cut at her leg.
He saluted her. “It’s such a pleasure to find that someone is paying attention.” He cut at her head-left/right in two tempi.
She covered and covered, but the second was sloppy and late.