Oath of Fealty (56 page)

Arcolin went back to talking, encouraging Stammel with everything he could think of: memories taken from their years fighting together, reminders of times Stammel had held a line, prevented a rout, answered one demand after another, always faithful, always steady, dependable … he knew the Marshal and Captain were praying, knew the surgeon was doing his best to cool the fever, knew vaguely that his troops, across the grange, had finished cleaning, scouring the stones, then drying them. Some had come to the platform to pray with the Marshal.

Evening slipped into night; someone lit candles around the grange. Those who came to stand in the doorway murmured to the troops, and then more came, and more. The slow dark hours passed with all of them working over Stammel, with Stammel—as Arcolin could sense—fighting to hold off what fought to take him over. Arcolin’s back ached; his knees burned from the platform, but he dared not shift his position. Anything he changed might be the wrong thing, might lessen Stammel’s will to fight. Stammel’s lips were dry and cracked now; his tongue, held forward by the surgeon’s forceps, looked unnatural, a fissured dry stone. The surgeon reached over and squeezed a little water onto Stammel’s mouth. His tongue glistened a moment then looked dry again. The surgeon squeezed a little more, enough that a tiny trickle ran down the back of Stammel’s tongue. His throat moved.

“That’s good,” the surgeon said, as if to himself. “Now I can try more …”

Arcolin realized that the surgeon had done this before, but he had scarcely noticed. Now he met the surgeon’s eyes.

“If I can get water into him, it will help with the fever,” the man said. “And you, Captain—you look like half a demon yourself. When did you last drink something or move?”

Arcolin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Oh, gods take the lot of you,” the surgeon said crossly. “If Gird and Tir can’t save him, you kneeling there turning into a lump of stone won’t do it. You need to move, and you need to eat and drink something.”

The Marshal and Captain had turned to look at the surgeon when he spoke; they now looked at Arcolin, at each other, and nodded.

“You must,” the Marshal said first. “You have the cohort to look after. Let someone else take your place, and refresh yourself.”

How could anyone take his place? But he saw Vik, sober-faced, and Tam, and others who knew Stammel as well, if not for as long as he had. He nodded, realizing then his neck was so stiff he could scarcely nod, and motioned to Vik, as the nearest. Vik helped him up, and then knelt in his place; Arcolin staggered, coming off the platform, and his people caught him, held him, thumped his shoulder.

“Bathing room and spare clothes back there—” the Marshal said. “Water, bread …”

Arcolin made it back to the bathing room, where a butt of water sat on its stand, the spigot over a shallow tub with a plug in the bottom. He stripped off his filthy blood-stiffened clothes, and dipped a half bucket of water over himself. The cold water woke him up; he took the lump of soap on a ledge and washed carefully—blood contained tiny demons, the surgeons always insisted, that brought disease. Then a rinse, then out to pad wet-footed across to the Marshal’s own rooms—the small office, the simple bedchamber with its clothes-press. Coarse gray trousers, too short for his long legs. A blue shirt that looked too big for the Marshal—perhaps it had been inherited. It was long enough for his arms, but twice as wide as he needed. A soft lump that turned out to be gray woollen socks with a hole in one heel, rolled into a bundle. He sat on the Marshal’s bed to pull on his boots, and realized he had not cleaned them. He walked out to the main room carrying his boots and his filthy clothes, sock-footed, feeling the chill of the stone through the hole in that left sock.

The surgeon turned to look at him. “Did you eat? Did you drink something? Did you visit the jacks?”

He’d forgotten that. He started to drop his clothes and realized he had no idea where the jacks was.

“Back corner,” the Marshal said, anticipating his confusion. “And your surgeon’s right. Eat. Drink.”

“Here, Captain; I’ll take those.” One of his troops—Bran, he thought—took his boots and clothes, and patted him on the shoulder as if he were a tired horse. He felt like a tired horse. He turned back to the side passage, found the jacks and used it, found water and drank a little, found a half loaf of bread and managed to haggle off a piece because he’d left his dagger, with his belt and all, out in the main room.

His imagination revived, horribly, with the water and food; he saw himself having to tell the troops that Stammel was dead, and by whose hand … having to tell Burek … having to find another sergeant, only no one, no one in the world, could replace Stammel, not really.

No one can replace anyone
.

He jerked upright, eyes open, only then aware he’d slumped over the little wooden table in the Marshal’s tiny kitchen. How long had he slept? Was Stammel—? He tried to get up but could not.

Rest. You are not the only one
.

Rest? He had no time to rest. And only one what? But even as he tried to rise, darkness came over him again.

W
hen he woke, it was to hear voices nearby, voices he should know, but could not understand at first. Gradually sense came back to him. He was no longer at a table, but stretched on a bed; daylight came through a window, morning light by its color, by the feel of the air. He opened his eyes. Overhead was a plain plastered ceiling; the bed wasn’t his—wasn’t in a tent, but in a room, in—in the grange? He looked around.

“Sir.” That was Devlin, by the door, red-eyed. Arcolin felt his heart sinking; he wanted to close his eyes and be somewhere else.

“Yes,” he said instead. “I’m sorry—I fell asleep—”

“He’s still alive,” Devlin said. “Still fighting. But Captain Burek wants to know if he should start the cohort on the road today.” He cleared his throat. “I—we brought you clean clothes. There, sir.”

“Right,” Arcolin said. He pushed himself up. The clothes were on a chair; his boots were clean and polished; his sword—no doubt clean—in its scabbard on the hanger on the belt. Sleep had done its work; he was awake; he was not as tired. He ached, nonetheless, in ways he had not known he could ache. He went to the bathing room, stripped, poured another half bucket of water over himself, dried, and dressed again in uniform. Went to the jacks, came back.

“Sir, are you going to stay—?”

Arcolin shook his head. “I cannot. We have a contract; I cannot
neglect the rest of you—you are
all
my people, not just Stammel. Gods know what Stammel is to this cohort—to the whole Company—but you know what he’d say—”

Devlin said it, in a mock-Stammel tone.

“Right,” Arcolin said. “And Dev, I can’t let you stay either. You’re the only active sergeant now; I need you. We’ll leave some here, to help out. One corporal—which?”

“Arñe,” Devlin said at once. “Because she was Paks’s good friend. It might help.”

“Good. Is she here?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll send her. We can’t afford to leave a whole tensquad: pick five. Range of ages, anyone with good stories to tell.”

In the main grange, five of his people were around Stammel, along with the surgeon, a different Marshal, a different yeoman-marshal, and the Captain of Tir. “Where’s Harak?” Arcolin asked, just as Harak appeared in the entrance, with a third Marshal.

“I’m glad you slept,” Harak said, before Arcolin could say anything. “If you’ll trust us, I swear by Gird and the High Lord we will care for him. Everything. He’s still fighting; the fever’s a little less, your surgeon says. I think we’ve convinced him we’ll keep up the cooling cloths. They do seem to help a little. The Councilors came by, wanting to talk to you, but I sent them away. You’d been in a fight yourself—”

“Nothing like his,” Arcolin said.

“If he recovers,” Harak said, “it will be several tendays—perhaps as long as Midsummer—before he’s fit to return to you—if he can. I will send word, if there’s anything—”

Arcolin went to the platform again. Seli was at Stammel’s head, whispering to him. When he saw Arcolin he moved aside; Arcolin laid his hands on Stammel’s head—would it be for the last time?—and said, “Stammel—old friend—hold that line! Hold it, until the enemy’s gone. I will be back; I swear it. Friends are with you.”

“I have Girdsmen enough for the chores,” Harak said. “Your people are needed elsewhere, but for four or five, if you can spare them, to keep talking to him, reminding him who he is.”

“Yes,” Arcolin said. “Sergeant Devlin—your choices?”

“Corporal Arñe, Little Tam, Bald Seli—he’s here, Doggal, Suli—she’s only a first-year but she was promoted in that fight—”

“I remember,” Arcolin said. “Good choice. So we have someone here to watch with him now, and we’ll send the rest back. Marshal, I thank you for your hospitality, but I cannot let it stretch to feeding and housing five of my soldiers without compensation.” He dug into his belt pouch and pulled out a handful of natas. “Here’s a start; I’ll stop by my banker on the way out and make sure he knows you can draw on the account as you need. Captain—” The Captain of Tir looked up. “My thanks, and Stammel’s, for your prayers.” To the rest of his people, Arcolin said, “All you Phelani but Bald Seli, come with me now. Time to go—”

“Sir …!” It was more protest than anything else. Arcolin shook his head at them. “Could he be in better hands? Can any of us pray like three Marshals of Gird and a Captain of Tir? Stammel will have our prayers as we do our duty; he will have five of the Company with him at all times. Sergeant Devlin has chosen them well. Form up!”

His horse, rested, fed, saddled, stamped outside; Vik held the rein while he mounted. “Devlin—take them back to camp; tell Burek to start out. Once more I must finish a few things in the city before I follow.”

“Sir, with all due respect … put your helmet on this time.”

Arcolin unhooked it from the saddle and put it on, fastening the chin strap. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said, torn between grief and pride. “You’re absolutely right.” At the end of the street, he turned toward the street of moneychangers, and heard his men marching away.

I
t was noon before Arcolin made it out of Cortes Vonja. In addition to visiting Kostin the banker, where courtesy demanded he accept a glass of cordial and nibble a few of the seed-crusted cakes while ensuring the Marshal would have access to Company funds, he had to visit the Council chambers once more. They insisted on having one of their clerks take down his story of the previous day’s events and were inclined to blame him for not warning them of Korryn’s magical abilities. He set them straight, and they finally agreed that he could not be blamed for not knowing what they and their guards had also not seen.

Now, in the heat of midday, with the sun beating down on his helmet, Arcolin set his slower mount off at a steady amble. He had left the speedier chestnut in the city, for his people to use if they needed to contact him. The cohort was long out of sight; they would be—if Burek had them moving as briskly as he hoped—between the first two villages.

Away from the city, the countryside was just as hot but smelled better. Fat cattle grazed in the water meadows near the river; beyond that, a patchwork of grain fields in brilliant greens, orchards in darker colors now the flowers had fallen. In a few, early cherries were turning color, red as blood. Along the hedgerows, brambleberries flowered in shades of pink and rose; boneset and heal-all raised their white and blue clusters; myriad other flowers—yellow, pink, red,
blue—made the hedgerows a ribbon of color. Arcolin noticed the beauty, but his mind was fixed ahead on the cohort and behind on Stammel.

Within a half-glass, dust showed where the cohort might be, just beyond the village he could see. His horse pricked its ears and quickened its pace a little. Arcolin squinted, but could not make out the details under the dust. He heard nothing; the wind blew across the road, not along it.

As he came to the village, no one fled. A woman hanging washing on the bushes outside her cottage barely looked at him; children ran beside him a short way, then went back to whatever they’d been doing. It was too hot for the two dogs he saw to give chase; each barked from its own resting place under a berry bush, but without getting up.