Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (4 page)

He knocked at the closed door of the captain’s office and heard Selfer’s familiar voice. “Come in.”

“Squire M’dierra with a message from Commander M’dierra,” he said as he opened the door and saluted properly.

“You grow a finger a day,” Captain Selfer said. “Any news?”

Poldin closed the door. “Yes, Captain. A message from Count Andressat, very urgent my—Commander M’dierra says. And she asks when Duke Arcolin will be coming, if you are permitted to say.”

“Immer’s on the move?”

“I don’t know what the message is, Captain,” Poldin said. “It’s for the north.”

“The pass isn’t open yet,” Captain Selfer said. “Though I hear it may open in the next hand of days. Let’s see.”

Poldin put the leather message case into Selfer’s hand, then stood back.

“Sit down, lad. I may have an answer to return.” Selfer untied the strings and lifted the flap. Inside were two scrolls and a folded sheet, the sheet marked with M’dierra’s sigil. He unfolded that. “So,” he said aloud without looking at Poldin. “She worries for your safety, Poldin—and for the safety of the message. Andressat declares it most secret and most urgent, and she advises me to find you something to do that will take a half-day and look as if you’re idling. She will send a few men to escort you back later.”

“I’m careful!” Poldin said, stung.

“I’m sure you are, but these are chancy times. The worst since Siniava. She says to tell you to expect an undeserved scolding—it’s all for a reason.”

“Yes, Captain,” Poldin said. Would Captain Selfer open the other scrolls or wait until he was out of the room?

“I’ll tell you what,” Selfer said. “You rode her chestnut stallion over here, she says. Why not show him off to the troops—exactly what you wouldn’t dare on your own. Have you practiced any fighting on horseback?”

“Only a little,” Poldin said.

“Captain Burek’s out with a troop at our practice ground—you know where it is. I’ll write him a note for you to take, and then you dawdle about showing the horse off. That’s something a boy your age with less sense than you have might do.” Selfer scrawled a note and handed it to him. “Then you’ll eat midday with us, and by the time the escort arrives to scold you for not returning right away, everyone will have seen a safe reason why.”

Poldin reclaimed his mount, told the gate guard he had a message from Captain Selfer to Captain Burek, and—feeling very daring despite the permission—touched the stallion with his spurs. The horse was more than ready to prance along, in full view of the main road down the hill, to the east side of the compound, where Captain Burek and his cohort were doing mounted exercises.

“That’s a fancy fellow you’re on, Squire,” Captain Burek said. “Your commander’s favorite, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Captain; here’s a note from Captain Selfer.”

Burek halted, waved the troops on to continue their exercise, and took the note, nodding as he read it. “Well, then, your riding’s improved a lot—let’s see how you do with our formations. Unless you have to get back.”

“I can’t stay too long,” Poldin said.

“Join up with that third group,” Burek said, pointing. “See if you can keep an even line.”

Jumping low obstacles—a row of rocks, a log—followed formation riding. Poldin had been through that with Golden Company, though not on this mount. The stallion had his own idea of the pace they should take and bucked after some of the jumps, apparently just for fun.

“Enough,” Burek called, and the troop halted. “Our former
squire’s doing so well, I think we can risk a little weapons practice—if he wants to.”

Poldin nodded. Soldiers fetched odd-shaped lumps—balls made of rag strips, he saw—and put them on top of poles standing along one long side of the exercise area.

“You’ll start with a wooden waster,” Burek said. “We don’t want to risk a cut on Commander M’dierra’s favorite mount. Start out at a walk, knock off two, then pick up a slow trot for the rest of the line.”

The stallion was jigging before Poldin even got lined up and would not walk composedly along the line. Poldin missed the first rag ball, knocked off the second. When he lifted the reins slightly, the horse charged forward, straight along the line but so fast that Poldin missed all but two of the balls and almost fell off when the horse skidded to a halt, wheeled, and charged back down the wrong side of the line at full tilt. Poldin reached across and caught two more balls, then concentrated on stopping his mount, this time managing a straight stop.

No one said anything. No one laughed. Captain Burek rode over, close enough to speak quietly. “I gather you didn’t plan that.”

“No … sir.” He had a stitch in his side.

“I saw that horse pull the same trick on your commander three years ago. I thought he’d have calmed down by now or she wouldn’t have let you ride across the city on him. You did well to stay on and take down four heads.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Take him across the field and walk him dry. I’m going to have one of the others walk with you.”

Poldin could feel the flush rising to his ears.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Squire. That’s a top commander’s battle mount, and they do sometimes take over.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Kerin rode beside him as he guided the stallion across the field to the far side. “That’s some horse,” Kerin said. Poldin remembered him from his time with Fox Company. “Glad I wasn’t on him when he pulled that stunt. These fellows—” He patted his horse’s neck. “—are
just transportation for the most part. Officers’ mounts learn that kind of thing.”

“Commander M’dierra will be angry with me,” Poldin said. “I didn’t touch him too hard with the spur, did I?”

Kerin looked down. “Not a scratch, not a rumple. Didn’t look like you used the spur at all. He’s just a warhorse, that’s all. Give him a bit more rein now; see if he’ll relax.”

They rode up and down the length of the practice field; Poldin relaxed enough to watch the others. Walk, trot, swiping at the rag-ball heads. Some missed even at the walk. He felt better. By the time the stallion was cooled out, the rest had finished, and they all rode back into the compound together. Kerin took Poldin’s horse as well as his own to the stables, and Poldin followed Captain Burek into the captains’ office.

Captain Selfer nodded to them both. “Squire, I have a message for you to take back when it’s time—two, in fact, one to be sent on to Count Andressat. For now, though, get yourself over to the mess hall. I need to talk to Burek in private.”

Poldin found the mess hall busy but sat down at the nearest table and helped himself to slabs of beef, redroots, and steamed grain.

“Growing lads,” someone said down the table.

“Did well staying on that horse,” said another.

He was watching unarmed practice in the courtyard when he heard the hail from the gate. He looked over his shoulder and gulped. His aunt had sent a sergeant and a full tensquad for him.

The scolding began right then, in front of all the others. “You knew you were supposed to come straight back! What do you mean spending the better part of the day over here when there’s work to do with Commander M’dierra?”

“I just—”

“He was showin’ off that big stallion,” one of the men said. “Should’ve seen him ride—squire’s damn good. Even took off some heads in the weapons exercise.”

“You were riding
her
horse in a
weapons
exercise?” Sergeant Valud’s tone cut like a blade. “Boy, she’s going to take the hide off you, and you won’t sit down for a week, let alone ride. If he’s got a mark on him—”

“He don’t,” Kerin said. “Squire rode him easy; horse just took off.”

“Well, of course he took off: it’s how he’s trained. You know that,” he added to Poldin.

The scolding continued as he got the stallion out of the stable and mounted and as they rode out the gate, down into the city and across it. Boxed in on all sides by the tensquad, Poldin could do nothing but sit there, ears burning, as Sergeant Valud let all Valdaire know what he thought of spoiled boys taking advantage of their relationship to their commander, showing off when given the privilege of riding a high-bred, well-trained battle mount. One of Clart’s troopers, reining his own mount aside to let the tensquad pass, called, “Bet it was fun, though, wasn’t it, lad?” and Sergeant Valud yelled, “Don’t encourage him. He’s for punishment drill, he is.”

Despite all that and his fear that his aunt really would take it out of his hide, when he was in her office with the door closed and had handed over the messages from Captain Selfer, she read through them then gave him one of her rare smiles. “You stayed on—that’s well done, Poldin; he’s unseated more experienced riders with that maneuver. I really thought Stony would behave better for you.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Not with you. You won’t get to ride him again for a while—you’re being punished, after all—but you did exactly what I hoped you’d do. Gave people plenty to talk about other than why you might have gone over there again today when you’d been yesterday.”

“Do you really think it was too dangerous for me to ride back alone?”

She clasped her hands on her desk. “You know what happened to Andressat’s son.”

He shuddered; he couldn’t help it. “He … his … skin was sent to his father.”

“Yes. I don’t want such a package coming to me or to my sister, your mother. War is never safe, but this is more than ordinary war. Our enemy is a mage; he has powers I do not understand. Tell me what you saw on the way over and back.”

“On the way over, three thieves near an alley this side of the horse market—that one that angles off from the little fountain. Just
standing there in those black clothes. A scuffle in the far corner of the main market, where the fruit sellers are, but I couldn’t see what, exactly. I watched for anyone coming too close.” Poldin scowled, trying to remember every detail he’d noted on the way over and back: known thieves, soldierly-looking men not in a recognized uniform, the city militia, down to the fellow peering out an upper window and then flipping a bit of cloth twice. “And the smell is worse this afternoon, on the way back, and I heard one woman complain that the well in the fruit market square was low, two turns low.”

“A good report,” his aunt said. “And yes, there is danger, and danger to you more than to someone not related to me.”

When she said nothing more for a moment, Poldin said, “I understand.”

“That’s why I can’t tell you what Andressat sent me or what Captain Selfer wants taken to Andressat. We’re fairly sure Immer’s spies suspect you of carrying messages of more import than a joint training exercise or a social engagement between captains. If you’re captured—and I pray Camwyn’s Claw that you’re not—you will not know anything that can harm the Company. I thought of sending you home until this is over with—”

“Please don’t—”

She shook her head. “I won’t, because I don’t think you’ll be any safer there and because this is the life you wanted—you saw last campaign season what it’s like, and you said you wanted to stay.”

“I do!”

“You’ll spend a fiveday in camp, ostensibly punishment for your escapades today. The next time I send you out will be with a small escort, again on the grounds I need to make sure you don’t stray. Be especially careful any time you eat or drink away from camp, Poldin. Food and drink can be drugged, and a ‘helpful’ person helps the victim into an alley or a small room … I don’t want to lose you.”

“I will eat here, then,” Poldin said. “But what about water—are the public fountains drugged?”

“No. That should be safe enough if you use your own mug. Don’t let anyone draw the water from a well for you. Do it yourself.”

“Do … do
we
have spies?”

Aesil grinned. “Indeed we do, and very busy they are right now. But again—I cannot tell you who or what they’re doing.”

Six days later, one of Valdaire’s outbound scouts came back from the pass to report that it was open enough for foot and horse travelers, still not passable for wagons. A stream of couriers and scouts rode out at once, Fox Company’s official couriers among them.

“Wherever you meet Duke Arcolin,” Selfer told the couriers, “let him know the situation here, but be sure he understands this one—” He tapped the packet. “—is for King Mikeli and has not been opened. It must go on at once; Andressat thinks it’s urgent to the welfare of the Crown.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Selfer tapped the courier’s knee, and the man nudged his horse into a trot. The courier did not know—no one knew, he believed—that a gnomish courier had taken Andressat’s letter on to the north the very night it arrived. Having a commander who was also a gnome prince had many advantages, though it added complications.

Back in the stronghold, Selfer met Burek. “I have a word for you, Captain, now that the courier is off.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I have another letter from the new Count Andressat, to be handed to you once the pass is open, he said in his note to me. He says he is your father.”

Burek nodded. “He told me that when I was coming back from Cortes Andres.”

“He may want you to come there—to stay, I mean. I would, if I were … he has to recognize your ability.”