Post by rainstormamaya on Jul 11, 2012 23:05:02 GMT 10
Title: The Art of War, 1/2
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: heavy war references, oblique racism
Summary: War is the only good reason to let Kourrem bint Kemail and her atrocious bedside manner loose on anyone, let alone vulnerable patients and cross generals. Roald of Conté can attest to this personally.
A/N: Follows on from Sand in the Wind, makes reference to events in that fic, might not make too much sense without it?... Beta’d by Cassie, without whom I would basically just never write anything ever. <3
Kourrem bint Kemail rode up to Fort Giantkiller with a disapproving expression on her face, the dust of a hundred countries on her tightly wound scarf, and a spatter of blood on the edge of her robe.
“I was summoned,” she said rather loftily to the guards, who were sufficiently awed by her – one woman, with only the belongings a couple of heavily laden saddlebags and a pack could hold and a very pretty horse - that General Vanget came out in a towering temper to address her.
“You weren’t called to my fort,” he said disrespectfully.
“Yes, I was,” Mistress Kemail said flatly, and produced a small roll of parchment from one wide sleeve, which she handed to General Vanget. He read it, snorted in a manner betokening extreme distaste, and turned and stamped back into the fort.
Mistress Kemail showed no expression, but followed him sedately, sharp eyes cataloguing everything about the fortress as she entered and handed her horse off to a grinning Bazhir soldier, who addressed her in her own language and received a gracious smile and a ripple of commentary in return.
Roald tapped his fingers on the wood of the parapet and watched her with interest. Mistress Kemail was not a regular feature in anyone’s life; her peregrinations were almost as legendary as her scoldings, and Roald had seen her exactly once in the past eight years, on which occasion she had been in and out of meetings with his father and lectures at the university. Roald had been a page at the time and had met her only once during her whole four-month stay, during which she had asked him clever questions and given him rose-flavoured sweets from Tyra and taught him a few better spells for wilderness survival than Harailt of Aili had ever known.
Her presence here would certainly relieve the monotony of playing at being a knight while his friends and subjects risked their lives. She might even find something useful for him to do.
Mistress Kemail’s leisurely examination of the fort stopped, and her eyes narrowed; Roald froze as he realised she was staring straight at him.
Then she cracked a tiny smile, and inclined her head a fraction.
When she broke her gaze and made her way into the hospital, evidently about to turn it upside-down, Roald sagged against the parapet, feeling slightly drained.
“Promising, your highness,” Sir Sacherell remarked.
Roald made a small, squeaking noise unbefitting the crown prince, and wondered for the hundredth time why Sir Sacherell was here. Was it solely to sneak up behind him and disconcert him?
“Exactly so, your highness,” Sir Sacherell said, and grinned fiercely. “Where Kourrem goes, mayhem follows. But it all ends up all right in the end.”
“Oh good,” Roald said, instead of ‘oh gods’.
“Five will get you ten,” Sir Sacherell declared, nodding sagely, “that Vanget tries to have her thrown out by the end of the week.”
“Not buying it,” Roald said, without committing himself to actual monetary expenditure. He never bet money with Sir Sacherell; it was a rule, up there with Never Drink With Zahir, Never Rely On Cleon (Unless You Absolutely Must) and Never Let Neal Rant For Upwards Of An Hour. “End of the day.”
There was a roar of fury from the headquarters, drifting gently towards them on the bitter northern breeze.
“Here we go,” Sir Sacherell said, with totally unwarranted glee.
Feeling sorely in need of a soothing pastime, Roald went away to write to Shinko.
The soothing influence of unloading his worries onto paper was interrupted by a very loud banging on the door. Roald flung his pen down crossly and covered the distance to the door in two long strides before wrenching the door open and glowering at the person on the other side. Squire Owen, jolliness impaired by the sight of the heir to the throne staring poisonously out at him, took a step back.
“Oh, Jesslaw,” Roald said, and relaxed slightly; he couldn’t freeze out a friend of Kel’s. “What is it?”
“Er – General Vanget bids you to dinner, sir,” Squire Owen said.
Several thoughts went through Roald’s head. Few of them were polite. “When? Where?”
“In two bells’ time,” Squire Owen said promptly, “in the general’s quarters. It’s a dinner to welcome Mistress Kemail, sir.”
“Is it really?” Roald said before he could stop himself.
Squire Owen nodded as if he didn’t trust himself to open his mouth. Roald’s limited acquaintance with him suggested that that was a wise decision.
Roald gave him a measuring stare. “Come in, squire.”
Jesslaw’s eyes widened, and he sidled into Roald’s quarters, looking profoundly uncomfortable.
“Take a seat,” Roald invited genially, seating himself at the chair drawn up to his desk.
Jesslaw looked around with vague panic, and eventually perched on the edge of the small armchair tucked into a corner.
“If you were talking to Kel,” Roald began, then recalled Jesslaw’s chivalric tendencies and added “Or Neal, or Merric... What would you say about the general reaction to Mistress Kemail’s arrival? Be as specific as you like. None of this will go beyond these four walls.”
“We-ll, your highness,” Jesslaw started uncertainly, “the men-at-arms and the younger knights, mostly, they aren’t very sure. I don’t think they care. The older knights, like Sir Sacherell?” He looked at Roald for confirmation, so Roald obligingly nodded. “Some of them are very pleased, and some of them are angry. One of the Stone Mountains called her a – said rude things about her. Sir Zahir dealt with him.”
“Good for Sir Zahir,” Roald said blandly.
Jesslaw grinned. “The Bazhir men-at-arms are all thrilled. It’s like a lucky mascot has arrived, or a sort of powerful ghost. They’re all really polite to her, if there’s anything she wants they’ll see it done, but they’re a little... frightened of her, I think? They think of her as someone to – er - be really nice to-”
“Propitiate?” Roald suggested.
“... That, sir.” Jesslaw cleared his throat. “Of the most high-ranking officers – Lord Raoul is delighted, Deputy Commander Evin is confused, my lord Wyldon is pleased, General Vanget... isn’t.”
“I see.” Roald sat and thought for a minute. “Thank you, Squire Owen; it’s much appreciated.”
Jesslaw looked unspeakably relieved, and then the ripples of remembering his duty passed across the untroubled fishpond of his face. Roald sincerely hoped the boy never had to deal with a real moral dilemma; the resulting facial contortions would be like loosing a shark in a bucket of squid. “Your highness, what about General Vanget’s dinner? I mean, um.”
“Send my compliments and thanks for the invitation,” Roald said absently, “and I will of course be attending.”
Jesslaw got up, bowed, and then fled.
Roald tapped his fingers on the scarred wood of the desk for a moment, then cleared the dried ink off his pen on a corner of his breeches pocket and returned to his letter to Shinko.
Shinko, something has just happened that I think will amuse you. You have probably not yet been told tales of Mistress Kourrem bint Kemail, a wander-mage of the Bloody Hawk tribe of the Bazhir and one of my father’s most loyal vassals (I do not think anyone has ever dared to call her ‘subject’ to her face) if one of the most unpredictable...
An hour later, the bell rang for a half-hour before dinner, and Roald twitched and almost spilled the contents of his inkwell over his letter – which would be a nuisance, given that it now covered five closely written pages. He closed hurriedly (yours always, Roald) and folded the letter into a neat packet marked for the attention of Her Most Serene Highness the Princess Shinkokami, and sealed with two large dollops of wax and Roald’s personal signet. He paused for a moment, pen hovering with the word EXPRESS at its tip, and then dried the pen and inkwell, capped the ink-bottle and regretfully set the letter aside. It would be inappropriate for his love-letters - Roald felt a faint tingle at his fingertips and in the pit of his stomach when he realised that that was, in fact, what they were; he had never expected to be able to write such letters, at least, not openly, and certainly not to his betrothed - to go by the express messenger service intended for vital orders and information.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t tempted, though, Roald thought viciously, and occupied himself by changing for dinner with combined haste and meticulousness. Of course, he would never hear a word of it if he was late, but that, too, would be inappropriate. And Roald suspected that Mistress Kourrem would have silent ways to express her displeasure.
Giantkiller being only a border fort, Roald could get away with warm and robust woollen breeches, shirt and tunic, rather than tunic and hose – even if the shirt was linen and embroidered with thin blue and silver bands at collar and cuffs, the boots polished until some unfortunate standard-bearer could see his own face in them, and the tunic and breeches made of finer fabric than Giantkiller generally saw and trimmed with a double band of silver braid. He splashed his face hastily, dug a small amount of dirt from under his nails with the point of a dagger, shaved away a five o’clock shadow with more caution and the aid of a small bobbing light of blue Gift which made him look anaemic, and combed his hair. Squinting at himself in a small square of looking-glass, he decided that he was presentable, and hurried out of the knights’ barracks in which (at his own insistence) he had been housed, and along the side of the parade-ground to the headquarters and General Vanget’s private rooms.
Roald was not late. He was, in fact, moderately early; only Lord Wyldon, being a stickler for punctuality, Mistress Kourrem, being a terrifying harpy of whom anything might be believed, and General Vanget, being present in those rooms on a semi-permanent basis, were there. Lord Wyldon had possessed himself of a glass of wine; General Vanget was working his way down a tumbler of brandy with agonising slowness. Mistress Kourrem appeared to be abstaining. As Roald entered, there was a brief flurry as Vanget and Wyldon both bowed slightly, showing proper respect to the heir-apparent, while the heir-apparent returned this respect with an equally slight and courteous bow. Mistress Kourrem did not stand and curtsey, but treated Roald to a gracious and dignified nod of the head.
Roald was not remotely surprised; if palace legend were true, Mistress Kourrem had only once curtseyed to his father, and it wasn’t even at his coronation. Lord Wyldon merely looked a little stonier. General Vanget, however –
Roald decided that the atmosphere could quite reasonably be cut with a knife, and also that he ought to change the subject. “Mistress Kemail. May I be permitted to convey my parents’ respects, and their pleasure in your safe arrival?”
Mistress Kourrem’s dark eyes glittered appreciatively. “You may, your highness. Truth be told, there was little difficulty given the time of year and the current conflict; only a minor party of skirmishers.”
“Minor party of- Mistress Kemail, this was not mentioned in your official report!” General Vanget exploded.
“Considering,” Mistress Kourrem said with a sort of cold sweetness Roald had last heard from his sister Lianne taking Doanna of Fenrigh down a peg or six, “that all I had to do was maim one or two of them, dispose of their leader, and strongly recommend to their shaman that she remove herself from the vicinity, I did not think it was a matter of sufficient importance to repeat. Particularly given that the incident took place some distance from Fort Northwatch, and the closest authority to report it to would have been Lady Knight Keladry, who I understand is perfectly well occupied without worrying about a band of raiders who are no longer a problem.”
“This is true,” Lord Wyldon said, dry as dust, “but I think I speak for General Vanget as well as myself, Mistress Kemail, when I say that information on raiders’ movements is always of interest.”
“In that case, Lord Wyldon,” Mistress Kourrem said, “I would be delighted to inform you that Thora Erikasdóttir and twenty men in her thrall have moved to the other side of the Vassa, effective as of two days ago, and there they intend to stay for at least the rest of the war. Or until Thora feels she can safely disregard my warnings. Whichever comes sooner.”
There was a kerfuffle in the hallway outside, and Jesslaw ushered in Roald’s cousin Faleron, Deputy Commander Larse, Sir Sacherell, Lord Raoul and Sir Zahir with all his customary grace, and helped Roald to a goblet of wine much less clumsily than he might have done. This did not change the fact that he ought to have done it five minutes ago, but Jesslaw wasn’t Kel or Neal, and his understanding of protocol was commensurately more limited. Roald gave him a smile and murmured thanks anyway. Greetings and introductions took place, all of which were largely standard except that Lord Raoul had grabbed both Mistress Kourrem’s hands and shaken them firmly while telling her off for riding through a warzone without an escort, and that Sir Zahir had eschewed the usual bow, instead touching his folded hands to heart, lips and brow before delivering a courtly greeting in Bazhir.
Roald looked forward to an unusual meal with extreme misgiving, and was very glad when Faleron sat down beside him, and Zahir opposite; Fal was always to be relied on. “Difficult?” Fal murmured sympathetically. “Zahir says Mistress Kemail is a lady of Strong Views and Much Learning.”
A lesser prince would have flinched at the capital letters, which Fal pronounced with great relish; Roald did not twitch. If Fal had a flaw, it was the fact that he really, really liked to see the cat put amongst the pigeons, and by this time Roald was used to him. “Vanget can’t stand her. Zahir’s not Bloody Hawk, though, is he?”
“A distant cousin by marriage only, Prince Roald,” Zahir murmured, thus making it clear that they were noisy, clumping northerners, and anyone with the true delicacy and keenness of Bazhir hearing – or, like Sir Sacherell, a habit of eavesdropping – could hear every word they said.
Roald took the warning to heart, but also flicked Zahir a mildly irritated glance. He liked his father’s former squire on a personal level, and admired and respected him on almost every count except for his unfortunate pagehood friendships. He was reasonably certain that Zahir had decided, after much deliberation and careful thought, to give Roald his personal support. He was absolutely certain that he’d told Zahir to use his proper name more than three years ago. “Zahir, please.”
“We’re in for a cold snap, my lords,” Sir Sacherell announced cheerfully, taking his seat at the table hurriedly turned from a council-of-war table into a dining table and successfully distracting everyone. “It’s chilly enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out there. What with the mud from last week’s rains, the Scanrans will have to skate to us.”
“Yes, and our horses won’t be able to get out of the stables,” Lord Wyldon said grimly, and then added politely, “I do not, of course, refer to the Riders’ ponies, but the warhorses...”
“No,” Deputy Commander Larse agreed. “Bred for weather like this, but not for great cavalry charges, I’m afraid.”
“Strong animals,” Mistress Kourrem said with approval, “and intelligent. I prefer Bazhir horses, of course; but I have ridden such ponies before and I like them. There are few breeds that acquit themselves better on rough terrain.”
“I noticed your mare in the stables,” Lord Wyldon remarked. “A lovely creature. Not, I think, pure-bred Bazhir?”
“Well observed, my lord,” Mistress Kourrem began, with a note of interest in her voice. She, Lord Wyldon, and Lord Raoul promptly descended into an extensive discussion of the mare Atiya’s bloodlines, with occasional brief reference to Zahir, whose father had apparently bred Atiya’s dam, and Roald himself, who was surprised to learn that Atiya descended from his father’s favourite warhorse Darkness. The conversation swept away from dangerous territory like wars, warzones and Scanran raiders, and anchored itself solidly in horse-breeding.
Fal breathed a sigh of relief. Roald didn’t have that luxury, but spared a moment to be grateful for the few conversational graces Lord Wyldon possessed, which included the ability to steer any discussion onto safe ground provided the other players in the conversation were interested in horses, dogs or military history. He allowed himself to fall out of his own quiet conversation with Zahir and Fal for a moment, something he never could have done at an official court banquet or any larger gathering than this, and kept one eye on Mistress Kourrem as Jesslaw and a standard-bearer served the first course. The standard-bearer was doing a much better job of it than Jesslaw.
Mistress Kourrem was only five or six years younger than Sir Sacherell, perhaps in her mid-thirties. A small, fine-boned woman with a sharply carved nose and mouth, strong, sharply defined eyebrows, and fine lines at the corners of her large dark eyes, she looked as if the fierce Scanran gales had blasted her back to her bones, smoothed and streamlined her like glass running with the tide until all extraneous matter had been scythed away and she bore more resemblance to a well-sharpened blade than a human being. She wore a dark red dress with full sleeves trimmed with amber ribbon and an old-fashioned rigid bodice; if there was a film of thinner lawn or gauze reaching from the top edge of the bodice to her neck, Roald couldn’t see it, for she also wore a dark red silken scarf edged with the same amber ribbon covering her hair, the folds of which fell across her shoulders. A brooch of amber and garnets was pinned to her bodice.
She looked intimidating. Sir Sacherell didn’t appear worried, but then, Aunt Alanna referred to Sacherell – not always affectionately – as a complete idiot and total bumbler without the sense of self-preservation the Goddess gave a squirrel.
Roald finished his soup without really tasting it, savoured a final morsel of bread, and reserved judgement.
“Roald? Roald,” Fal said, and Roald realised his cousin had been trying to attract his attention for a while.
“I’m sorry, my mind was wandering...”
“No matter,” Fal said impatiently. “Have you heard from Kel lately? I’ve had nothing but two or three lines from Neal. He says they’ve had killing devices, if you can believe it – at a refugee camp –”
“It is vulnerably positioned,” Zahir said neutrally.
“There is a horrible sort of logic to the killing devices attacking Haven,” Roald pointed out. “Killing devices have the voices of children when they are destroyed. Thom tells me they’re driven by the spirits of children. Where else but Haven could you find so many children in one place?”
Fal went grey-faced and drew the sign of evil on his chest. Roald tightened his lips, but refrained.
“If anyone can hold back repeated assaults with few resources,” Zahir said, in a tone of strictest blandness and neutrality, “it will be Keladry.”
Fal and Roald both blinked at him in astonishment. Zahir looked a little defensive.
“True,” Fal said slowly, “but...”
“Sarrasri’s not very reliable, is she?” said General Vanget’s booming voice from the other end of the table, and all three young knights were distracted.
Roald cast a quick, assessing look up the table. Deputy Commander Larse had pasted an exceptionally silly Player’s mask to his face, presumably to hide his displeasure; Roald remembered that Daine was a personal friend of his. Lord Wyldon looked stony, Sir Sacherell puzzled. Jesslaw had almost dropped a platter on hearing the comment, and – most worryingly of all – Mistress Kemail’s sharp-lined face had settled into a perfect textbook example of disapproval.
Roald was not best pleased with Vanget’s comment himself, and wondered if he could get in a quick comment that would be bland enough to make it clear that he was only Sir Roald while reminding everyone that he was also, in fact, Prince Roald, and that Veralidaine Sarrasri had been a good friend to him in years gone by. Preferably before Mistress Kemail said anything lethal in defence of a fellow female mage.
Lord Raoul beat them both to it. “Daine’s information is valuable, clear and comprehensive, Vanget,” he objected. “She’s irreplaceable. And she’s never failed an assignment Myles has set her yet.”
“She has scruples,” General Vanget said flatly. “Spies shouldn’t.”
“Mages must,” Mistress Kourrem said, equally flatly. “Without scruples, what is there to stop us bringing the world down around your ears?”
Roald very nearly winced. General Vanget went puce.
“A sense of duty, mistress, if you understand the word.”
Zahir sat up a trifle straighter, face impassive with something unpleasant hiding at the corners of it, and Roald recalled that one of the lies often told about the Bazhir was that they would break any oath to their northern countrymen without thinking twice.
“Precisely. Scruples,” Mistress Kourrem said, with a hard smile and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
Vanget sat back in his seat. It was possible, but unlikely, that he realised he had now managed to offend everyone in the room, as opposed to just Daine’s closer friends. “My quarrel with Sarrasri isn’t her devotion to duty, anyway; I’m prepared to admit she does her work well.” (Roald doubted that.) “It’s that she has no sense of strategy. I can’t be worrying about a pack of commoners here and there when I have Scanran troop movements to counter.” Vanget huffed, mishandled his knife and fork in a fit of pique, and sent a slice of duck in plum sauce flying into his lap. “I suppose she has some fellow feeling.”
Momentarily, Larse’s Player’s smile fell off his face and was replaced by a look of narrow-eyed dislike. Lord Raoul shifted in his seat, the Player’s smile reassembled itself, and Roald mentally filled in the brisk kick to the shin Larse must have received.
“I imagine,” Lord Wyldon said rather coldly, his excellent table-manners highlighting Vanger’s shortcomings, “that being rather more acquainted than most nobles with the human impact of food shortages and banditry on the common people, Mistress Sarrasri seeks to bring it to your attention before it becomes a full-scale famine – and therefore another strategic problem to counter.”
“Lord Wyldon makes an excellent point,” Mistress Kourrem agreed unnecessarily.
General Vanget began to redden around the ears again, but was thankfully distracted by Jesslaw whisking his plate from under his nose. Roald, fearing a relapse as soon as Jesslaw had staggered out the door with more plates than he could really see over, began a loud conversation with Fal and Zahir about the weather.
The rest of dinner passed unremarkably; the few jabs General Vanget got in at Mistress Kourrem were largely parried by Lord Raoul, who appeared to be treading on her feet at regular intervals to prevent her from answering back and souring her reputation with the general even further, and once or twice Lord Wyldon. On one occasion, Zahir raised his head in answer to an aside themed around Mistress Kourrem’s status as a Bazhir, and Vanget stopped cold, perhaps remembering that Mistress Kourrem wasn’t the only Bazhir at the table – wasn’t even the only Bazhir at the table with royal favour. Still, they got through the dinner with only a few more conversational disasters to harrow Roald’s feelings, and eventually a decanter of port appeared and Mistress Kourrem excused herself on the grounds that she had promised Duke Baird she would spend the last half of his shift going over the infirmary’s workings, while Lord Raoul said he had supply details to straighten out.
Roald wondered both whether Duke Baird had extracted any such promise and whether General Vanget had forgotten that Lord Raoul didn’t drink anything stronger than hot cider and hated to have alcohol waved under his nose, but rose to bow as all the others did at Mistress Kourrem’s and Lord Raoul’s leaving.
“Bloody woman,” General Vanget said, when the door had hardly swung shut. “Gods only know why their M- Lady Fortune saw fit to inflict her on me. Can’t stand her. Never have done. Always was an uppity little thing, even when she was only Baird’s student.”
“I find her proud,” Lord Wyldon said, “but not disagreeable.”
“She’s useful,” Sir Sacherell said, with unusual bluntness for a relatively low-ranking knight. Roald asked himself who Sir Sacherell reported to; it didn’t seem to be General Vanget. “She hears and sees things that other people don’t. She’s spent more time in the Copper Isles and Scanra over the past three years than she has in Tortall, and she tells what she hears and what she learns. Before Emperor Ozorne fell and Carthak allied with us, there were few people with a better knowledge of grassroots Carthak – I don’t mean the city itself, but the coasts, where the pirates come from.”
Vanget snorted. “That’s as may be, Wellam. But why have I been told to have all mages report to her as soon as possible?”
“Probably to arrange some teaching,” Sir Sacherell said, with a shrug. “Mistress Kemail has a funny way of learning all the little tips and tricks foreign mages wouldn’t tell white Tortallans with Corus accents, and the Scanran shamans’ singing magics are a plague and a torment to our lines, sir. The men fear them only slightly less than the killing devices. It’s no fun to be blinded in battle.”
“She’s got no reason to tell what she learns. How do we know she isn’t holding back?”
Roald decided it was time to say something. “Sir - I was once told by someone that knows Mistress Kemail well that her loyalty is not rooted in mercenary considerations, but in her personal opinions. She is loyal to those she likes, admires or respects.”
“Of course, Conté,” Vanget said gruffly. “She has a personal connection to your family, doesn’t she?”
“She cared for my grandmother in her last illness, and supported my father during the period before his coronation,” Roald agreed. “She also fought at the Battle of the Hall of Crowns.”
Lord Wyldon gave him a sharp look down the table. Roald let it slide off him, and watched his barb sink home in General Vanget’s thick skin. Fal, Zahir and Larse would not know, and Sir Sacherell had probably chosen not to remember, that the Minchis had dragged their feet over recognising a younger Jonathan as King.
“I am also told,” he said, letting a hint of rueful respect slip into his voice, the same way the better knights Kel had bested as a squire had spoken of her ability to pop a man out of his saddle and dump him on the floor, “that she has a very challenging personality. Difficult to get along with.”
General Vanget harrumphed his way back onto an even keel and the assumption that the heir to the throne had not just made tacit reference to one of the ha Minch family’s less honourable episodes. “Hardly as if I care, eh? Provided she follows orders. She’s Duke Baird’s problem now.”
Roald smiled blandly, and endured the twin fishy looks he was getting from Zahir and Lord Wyldon. He very much doubted that General Vanget’s confident assertion would come true, but immediate disaster – or at least, unpardonable rudeness - been averted.
***
The battle came mere days after Lord Raoul had left, taken Third Company and moved on, and Lord Wyldon had returned to Mastiff. Roald, on the walls and blinking in the dusk-light, saw the glitter of steel creeping at the treeline, and sounded the alarm along with three others, and then movement became giants and killing devices, a tide of Scanrans sweeping around them in battle-order as they and everything started to move very quickly. Roald ran off the walls in search of armour and bow, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowed to ride out, but hoping that he might perhaps get to be of some use –
“Easy, your royal highness, easy,” said Quartermaster Walsh’s placid voice, and his iron hand on Roald’s shoulder drew him into headquarters, into a small and well-defended room.
Roald spat with fury and swore.
“Image of your father thirty years ago, you are,” the Quartermaster said indulgently, “in the Tusaini war. And if he weren’t gods-touched, Mithros bless His Majesty, we’d have lost him then.”
Roald stared coldly at him. “So I’m to sit here while others fight and die for me, because my father was a hothead when he was young?”
“For you, sir? For Tortall.”
“Tortall is as much my home as theirs!”
“And what would your good lady say if we lost you now?” the Quartermaster added, apparently heedless.
“Shinko understands,” Roald snapped, and paced the room like a trapped tiger.
The Quartermaster sat and watched him for a while, then sighed. “Do you mind if I remove my leg, your highness? I could stand to get a bit of air on the stump, like.”
“Do as you please,” Roald said bitterly.
The Quartermaster raised an eyebrow, removed his wooden left leg, and settled to some accounts that wouldn’t do themselves. Roald paced for a little while longer, then stopped short and sighed.
“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t snap at you.”
“Better me, sir,” the Quartermaster said precisely, doing sums on a slate, “than the likes of Squire Owen, who’ll think he’s about to be hauled off to Traitor’s Hill if you so much as poke him.”
Roald laughed shortly, unwillingly. “Owen? Owen would be helping me break out of here and declaring it wasn’t very jolly of my lord Wyldon not to let him fight. Mithros, he was a terror as a page...”
“Tell me, sir,” the Quartermaster invited. “I always like to have a little blackmail on side, and Squire Owen is a holy terror. I’m wishful of keeping him under my thumb somehow, but the lad bounces and wriggles his way out of just about anything, and every time I try to put the fear of the gods in him Lord Wyldon whisks him back off to Fort Mastiff again.”
Roald laughed again, and thought for a moment, raking up the most embarrassing yet harmless of Owen’s misdeeds he could remember. “Well... have you heard about the time he got lost running errands and was left behind by the Royal Progress?”
“No.” The Quartermaster grinned. “Say on, Prince Roald. The time goes faster with stories.”
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: heavy war references, oblique racism
Summary: War is the only good reason to let Kourrem bint Kemail and her atrocious bedside manner loose on anyone, let alone vulnerable patients and cross generals. Roald of Conté can attest to this personally.
A/N: Follows on from Sand in the Wind, makes reference to events in that fic, might not make too much sense without it?... Beta’d by Cassie, without whom I would basically just never write anything ever. <3
***
Kourrem bint Kemail rode up to Fort Giantkiller with a disapproving expression on her face, the dust of a hundred countries on her tightly wound scarf, and a spatter of blood on the edge of her robe.
“I was summoned,” she said rather loftily to the guards, who were sufficiently awed by her – one woman, with only the belongings a couple of heavily laden saddlebags and a pack could hold and a very pretty horse - that General Vanget came out in a towering temper to address her.
“You weren’t called to my fort,” he said disrespectfully.
“Yes, I was,” Mistress Kemail said flatly, and produced a small roll of parchment from one wide sleeve, which she handed to General Vanget. He read it, snorted in a manner betokening extreme distaste, and turned and stamped back into the fort.
Mistress Kemail showed no expression, but followed him sedately, sharp eyes cataloguing everything about the fortress as she entered and handed her horse off to a grinning Bazhir soldier, who addressed her in her own language and received a gracious smile and a ripple of commentary in return.
Roald tapped his fingers on the wood of the parapet and watched her with interest. Mistress Kemail was not a regular feature in anyone’s life; her peregrinations were almost as legendary as her scoldings, and Roald had seen her exactly once in the past eight years, on which occasion she had been in and out of meetings with his father and lectures at the university. Roald had been a page at the time and had met her only once during her whole four-month stay, during which she had asked him clever questions and given him rose-flavoured sweets from Tyra and taught him a few better spells for wilderness survival than Harailt of Aili had ever known.
Her presence here would certainly relieve the monotony of playing at being a knight while his friends and subjects risked their lives. She might even find something useful for him to do.
Mistress Kemail’s leisurely examination of the fort stopped, and her eyes narrowed; Roald froze as he realised she was staring straight at him.
Then she cracked a tiny smile, and inclined her head a fraction.
When she broke her gaze and made her way into the hospital, evidently about to turn it upside-down, Roald sagged against the parapet, feeling slightly drained.
“Promising, your highness,” Sir Sacherell remarked.
Roald made a small, squeaking noise unbefitting the crown prince, and wondered for the hundredth time why Sir Sacherell was here. Was it solely to sneak up behind him and disconcert him?
“Exactly so, your highness,” Sir Sacherell said, and grinned fiercely. “Where Kourrem goes, mayhem follows. But it all ends up all right in the end.”
“Oh good,” Roald said, instead of ‘oh gods’.
“Five will get you ten,” Sir Sacherell declared, nodding sagely, “that Vanget tries to have her thrown out by the end of the week.”
“Not buying it,” Roald said, without committing himself to actual monetary expenditure. He never bet money with Sir Sacherell; it was a rule, up there with Never Drink With Zahir, Never Rely On Cleon (Unless You Absolutely Must) and Never Let Neal Rant For Upwards Of An Hour. “End of the day.”
There was a roar of fury from the headquarters, drifting gently towards them on the bitter northern breeze.
“Here we go,” Sir Sacherell said, with totally unwarranted glee.
Feeling sorely in need of a soothing pastime, Roald went away to write to Shinko.
***
The soothing influence of unloading his worries onto paper was interrupted by a very loud banging on the door. Roald flung his pen down crossly and covered the distance to the door in two long strides before wrenching the door open and glowering at the person on the other side. Squire Owen, jolliness impaired by the sight of the heir to the throne staring poisonously out at him, took a step back.
“Oh, Jesslaw,” Roald said, and relaxed slightly; he couldn’t freeze out a friend of Kel’s. “What is it?”
“Er – General Vanget bids you to dinner, sir,” Squire Owen said.
Several thoughts went through Roald’s head. Few of them were polite. “When? Where?”
“In two bells’ time,” Squire Owen said promptly, “in the general’s quarters. It’s a dinner to welcome Mistress Kemail, sir.”
“Is it really?” Roald said before he could stop himself.
Squire Owen nodded as if he didn’t trust himself to open his mouth. Roald’s limited acquaintance with him suggested that that was a wise decision.
Roald gave him a measuring stare. “Come in, squire.”
Jesslaw’s eyes widened, and he sidled into Roald’s quarters, looking profoundly uncomfortable.
“Take a seat,” Roald invited genially, seating himself at the chair drawn up to his desk.
Jesslaw looked around with vague panic, and eventually perched on the edge of the small armchair tucked into a corner.
“If you were talking to Kel,” Roald began, then recalled Jesslaw’s chivalric tendencies and added “Or Neal, or Merric... What would you say about the general reaction to Mistress Kemail’s arrival? Be as specific as you like. None of this will go beyond these four walls.”
“We-ll, your highness,” Jesslaw started uncertainly, “the men-at-arms and the younger knights, mostly, they aren’t very sure. I don’t think they care. The older knights, like Sir Sacherell?” He looked at Roald for confirmation, so Roald obligingly nodded. “Some of them are very pleased, and some of them are angry. One of the Stone Mountains called her a – said rude things about her. Sir Zahir dealt with him.”
“Good for Sir Zahir,” Roald said blandly.
Jesslaw grinned. “The Bazhir men-at-arms are all thrilled. It’s like a lucky mascot has arrived, or a sort of powerful ghost. They’re all really polite to her, if there’s anything she wants they’ll see it done, but they’re a little... frightened of her, I think? They think of her as someone to – er - be really nice to-”
“Propitiate?” Roald suggested.
“... That, sir.” Jesslaw cleared his throat. “Of the most high-ranking officers – Lord Raoul is delighted, Deputy Commander Evin is confused, my lord Wyldon is pleased, General Vanget... isn’t.”
“I see.” Roald sat and thought for a minute. “Thank you, Squire Owen; it’s much appreciated.”
Jesslaw looked unspeakably relieved, and then the ripples of remembering his duty passed across the untroubled fishpond of his face. Roald sincerely hoped the boy never had to deal with a real moral dilemma; the resulting facial contortions would be like loosing a shark in a bucket of squid. “Your highness, what about General Vanget’s dinner? I mean, um.”
“Send my compliments and thanks for the invitation,” Roald said absently, “and I will of course be attending.”
Jesslaw got up, bowed, and then fled.
Roald tapped his fingers on the scarred wood of the desk for a moment, then cleared the dried ink off his pen on a corner of his breeches pocket and returned to his letter to Shinko.
Shinko, something has just happened that I think will amuse you. You have probably not yet been told tales of Mistress Kourrem bint Kemail, a wander-mage of the Bloody Hawk tribe of the Bazhir and one of my father’s most loyal vassals (I do not think anyone has ever dared to call her ‘subject’ to her face) if one of the most unpredictable...
An hour later, the bell rang for a half-hour before dinner, and Roald twitched and almost spilled the contents of his inkwell over his letter – which would be a nuisance, given that it now covered five closely written pages. He closed hurriedly (yours always, Roald) and folded the letter into a neat packet marked for the attention of Her Most Serene Highness the Princess Shinkokami, and sealed with two large dollops of wax and Roald’s personal signet. He paused for a moment, pen hovering with the word EXPRESS at its tip, and then dried the pen and inkwell, capped the ink-bottle and regretfully set the letter aside. It would be inappropriate for his love-letters - Roald felt a faint tingle at his fingertips and in the pit of his stomach when he realised that that was, in fact, what they were; he had never expected to be able to write such letters, at least, not openly, and certainly not to his betrothed - to go by the express messenger service intended for vital orders and information.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t tempted, though, Roald thought viciously, and occupied himself by changing for dinner with combined haste and meticulousness. Of course, he would never hear a word of it if he was late, but that, too, would be inappropriate. And Roald suspected that Mistress Kourrem would have silent ways to express her displeasure.
Giantkiller being only a border fort, Roald could get away with warm and robust woollen breeches, shirt and tunic, rather than tunic and hose – even if the shirt was linen and embroidered with thin blue and silver bands at collar and cuffs, the boots polished until some unfortunate standard-bearer could see his own face in them, and the tunic and breeches made of finer fabric than Giantkiller generally saw and trimmed with a double band of silver braid. He splashed his face hastily, dug a small amount of dirt from under his nails with the point of a dagger, shaved away a five o’clock shadow with more caution and the aid of a small bobbing light of blue Gift which made him look anaemic, and combed his hair. Squinting at himself in a small square of looking-glass, he decided that he was presentable, and hurried out of the knights’ barracks in which (at his own insistence) he had been housed, and along the side of the parade-ground to the headquarters and General Vanget’s private rooms.
Roald was not late. He was, in fact, moderately early; only Lord Wyldon, being a stickler for punctuality, Mistress Kourrem, being a terrifying harpy of whom anything might be believed, and General Vanget, being present in those rooms on a semi-permanent basis, were there. Lord Wyldon had possessed himself of a glass of wine; General Vanget was working his way down a tumbler of brandy with agonising slowness. Mistress Kourrem appeared to be abstaining. As Roald entered, there was a brief flurry as Vanget and Wyldon both bowed slightly, showing proper respect to the heir-apparent, while the heir-apparent returned this respect with an equally slight and courteous bow. Mistress Kourrem did not stand and curtsey, but treated Roald to a gracious and dignified nod of the head.
Roald was not remotely surprised; if palace legend were true, Mistress Kourrem had only once curtseyed to his father, and it wasn’t even at his coronation. Lord Wyldon merely looked a little stonier. General Vanget, however –
Roald decided that the atmosphere could quite reasonably be cut with a knife, and also that he ought to change the subject. “Mistress Kemail. May I be permitted to convey my parents’ respects, and their pleasure in your safe arrival?”
Mistress Kourrem’s dark eyes glittered appreciatively. “You may, your highness. Truth be told, there was little difficulty given the time of year and the current conflict; only a minor party of skirmishers.”
“Minor party of- Mistress Kemail, this was not mentioned in your official report!” General Vanget exploded.
“Considering,” Mistress Kourrem said with a sort of cold sweetness Roald had last heard from his sister Lianne taking Doanna of Fenrigh down a peg or six, “that all I had to do was maim one or two of them, dispose of their leader, and strongly recommend to their shaman that she remove herself from the vicinity, I did not think it was a matter of sufficient importance to repeat. Particularly given that the incident took place some distance from Fort Northwatch, and the closest authority to report it to would have been Lady Knight Keladry, who I understand is perfectly well occupied without worrying about a band of raiders who are no longer a problem.”
“This is true,” Lord Wyldon said, dry as dust, “but I think I speak for General Vanget as well as myself, Mistress Kemail, when I say that information on raiders’ movements is always of interest.”
“In that case, Lord Wyldon,” Mistress Kourrem said, “I would be delighted to inform you that Thora Erikasdóttir and twenty men in her thrall have moved to the other side of the Vassa, effective as of two days ago, and there they intend to stay for at least the rest of the war. Or until Thora feels she can safely disregard my warnings. Whichever comes sooner.”
There was a kerfuffle in the hallway outside, and Jesslaw ushered in Roald’s cousin Faleron, Deputy Commander Larse, Sir Sacherell, Lord Raoul and Sir Zahir with all his customary grace, and helped Roald to a goblet of wine much less clumsily than he might have done. This did not change the fact that he ought to have done it five minutes ago, but Jesslaw wasn’t Kel or Neal, and his understanding of protocol was commensurately more limited. Roald gave him a smile and murmured thanks anyway. Greetings and introductions took place, all of which were largely standard except that Lord Raoul had grabbed both Mistress Kourrem’s hands and shaken them firmly while telling her off for riding through a warzone without an escort, and that Sir Zahir had eschewed the usual bow, instead touching his folded hands to heart, lips and brow before delivering a courtly greeting in Bazhir.
Roald looked forward to an unusual meal with extreme misgiving, and was very glad when Faleron sat down beside him, and Zahir opposite; Fal was always to be relied on. “Difficult?” Fal murmured sympathetically. “Zahir says Mistress Kemail is a lady of Strong Views and Much Learning.”
A lesser prince would have flinched at the capital letters, which Fal pronounced with great relish; Roald did not twitch. If Fal had a flaw, it was the fact that he really, really liked to see the cat put amongst the pigeons, and by this time Roald was used to him. “Vanget can’t stand her. Zahir’s not Bloody Hawk, though, is he?”
“A distant cousin by marriage only, Prince Roald,” Zahir murmured, thus making it clear that they were noisy, clumping northerners, and anyone with the true delicacy and keenness of Bazhir hearing – or, like Sir Sacherell, a habit of eavesdropping – could hear every word they said.
Roald took the warning to heart, but also flicked Zahir a mildly irritated glance. He liked his father’s former squire on a personal level, and admired and respected him on almost every count except for his unfortunate pagehood friendships. He was reasonably certain that Zahir had decided, after much deliberation and careful thought, to give Roald his personal support. He was absolutely certain that he’d told Zahir to use his proper name more than three years ago. “Zahir, please.”
“We’re in for a cold snap, my lords,” Sir Sacherell announced cheerfully, taking his seat at the table hurriedly turned from a council-of-war table into a dining table and successfully distracting everyone. “It’s chilly enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out there. What with the mud from last week’s rains, the Scanrans will have to skate to us.”
“Yes, and our horses won’t be able to get out of the stables,” Lord Wyldon said grimly, and then added politely, “I do not, of course, refer to the Riders’ ponies, but the warhorses...”
“No,” Deputy Commander Larse agreed. “Bred for weather like this, but not for great cavalry charges, I’m afraid.”
“Strong animals,” Mistress Kourrem said with approval, “and intelligent. I prefer Bazhir horses, of course; but I have ridden such ponies before and I like them. There are few breeds that acquit themselves better on rough terrain.”
“I noticed your mare in the stables,” Lord Wyldon remarked. “A lovely creature. Not, I think, pure-bred Bazhir?”
“Well observed, my lord,” Mistress Kourrem began, with a note of interest in her voice. She, Lord Wyldon, and Lord Raoul promptly descended into an extensive discussion of the mare Atiya’s bloodlines, with occasional brief reference to Zahir, whose father had apparently bred Atiya’s dam, and Roald himself, who was surprised to learn that Atiya descended from his father’s favourite warhorse Darkness. The conversation swept away from dangerous territory like wars, warzones and Scanran raiders, and anchored itself solidly in horse-breeding.
Fal breathed a sigh of relief. Roald didn’t have that luxury, but spared a moment to be grateful for the few conversational graces Lord Wyldon possessed, which included the ability to steer any discussion onto safe ground provided the other players in the conversation were interested in horses, dogs or military history. He allowed himself to fall out of his own quiet conversation with Zahir and Fal for a moment, something he never could have done at an official court banquet or any larger gathering than this, and kept one eye on Mistress Kourrem as Jesslaw and a standard-bearer served the first course. The standard-bearer was doing a much better job of it than Jesslaw.
Mistress Kourrem was only five or six years younger than Sir Sacherell, perhaps in her mid-thirties. A small, fine-boned woman with a sharply carved nose and mouth, strong, sharply defined eyebrows, and fine lines at the corners of her large dark eyes, she looked as if the fierce Scanran gales had blasted her back to her bones, smoothed and streamlined her like glass running with the tide until all extraneous matter had been scythed away and she bore more resemblance to a well-sharpened blade than a human being. She wore a dark red dress with full sleeves trimmed with amber ribbon and an old-fashioned rigid bodice; if there was a film of thinner lawn or gauze reaching from the top edge of the bodice to her neck, Roald couldn’t see it, for she also wore a dark red silken scarf edged with the same amber ribbon covering her hair, the folds of which fell across her shoulders. A brooch of amber and garnets was pinned to her bodice.
She looked intimidating. Sir Sacherell didn’t appear worried, but then, Aunt Alanna referred to Sacherell – not always affectionately – as a complete idiot and total bumbler without the sense of self-preservation the Goddess gave a squirrel.
Roald finished his soup without really tasting it, savoured a final morsel of bread, and reserved judgement.
“Roald? Roald,” Fal said, and Roald realised his cousin had been trying to attract his attention for a while.
“I’m sorry, my mind was wandering...”
“No matter,” Fal said impatiently. “Have you heard from Kel lately? I’ve had nothing but two or three lines from Neal. He says they’ve had killing devices, if you can believe it – at a refugee camp –”
“It is vulnerably positioned,” Zahir said neutrally.
“There is a horrible sort of logic to the killing devices attacking Haven,” Roald pointed out. “Killing devices have the voices of children when they are destroyed. Thom tells me they’re driven by the spirits of children. Where else but Haven could you find so many children in one place?”
Fal went grey-faced and drew the sign of evil on his chest. Roald tightened his lips, but refrained.
“If anyone can hold back repeated assaults with few resources,” Zahir said, in a tone of strictest blandness and neutrality, “it will be Keladry.”
Fal and Roald both blinked at him in astonishment. Zahir looked a little defensive.
“True,” Fal said slowly, “but...”
“Sarrasri’s not very reliable, is she?” said General Vanget’s booming voice from the other end of the table, and all three young knights were distracted.
Roald cast a quick, assessing look up the table. Deputy Commander Larse had pasted an exceptionally silly Player’s mask to his face, presumably to hide his displeasure; Roald remembered that Daine was a personal friend of his. Lord Wyldon looked stony, Sir Sacherell puzzled. Jesslaw had almost dropped a platter on hearing the comment, and – most worryingly of all – Mistress Kemail’s sharp-lined face had settled into a perfect textbook example of disapproval.
Roald was not best pleased with Vanget’s comment himself, and wondered if he could get in a quick comment that would be bland enough to make it clear that he was only Sir Roald while reminding everyone that he was also, in fact, Prince Roald, and that Veralidaine Sarrasri had been a good friend to him in years gone by. Preferably before Mistress Kemail said anything lethal in defence of a fellow female mage.
Lord Raoul beat them both to it. “Daine’s information is valuable, clear and comprehensive, Vanget,” he objected. “She’s irreplaceable. And she’s never failed an assignment Myles has set her yet.”
“She has scruples,” General Vanget said flatly. “Spies shouldn’t.”
“Mages must,” Mistress Kourrem said, equally flatly. “Without scruples, what is there to stop us bringing the world down around your ears?”
Roald very nearly winced. General Vanget went puce.
“A sense of duty, mistress, if you understand the word.”
Zahir sat up a trifle straighter, face impassive with something unpleasant hiding at the corners of it, and Roald recalled that one of the lies often told about the Bazhir was that they would break any oath to their northern countrymen without thinking twice.
“Precisely. Scruples,” Mistress Kourrem said, with a hard smile and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
Vanget sat back in his seat. It was possible, but unlikely, that he realised he had now managed to offend everyone in the room, as opposed to just Daine’s closer friends. “My quarrel with Sarrasri isn’t her devotion to duty, anyway; I’m prepared to admit she does her work well.” (Roald doubted that.) “It’s that she has no sense of strategy. I can’t be worrying about a pack of commoners here and there when I have Scanran troop movements to counter.” Vanget huffed, mishandled his knife and fork in a fit of pique, and sent a slice of duck in plum sauce flying into his lap. “I suppose she has some fellow feeling.”
Momentarily, Larse’s Player’s smile fell off his face and was replaced by a look of narrow-eyed dislike. Lord Raoul shifted in his seat, the Player’s smile reassembled itself, and Roald mentally filled in the brisk kick to the shin Larse must have received.
“I imagine,” Lord Wyldon said rather coldly, his excellent table-manners highlighting Vanger’s shortcomings, “that being rather more acquainted than most nobles with the human impact of food shortages and banditry on the common people, Mistress Sarrasri seeks to bring it to your attention before it becomes a full-scale famine – and therefore another strategic problem to counter.”
“Lord Wyldon makes an excellent point,” Mistress Kourrem agreed unnecessarily.
General Vanget began to redden around the ears again, but was thankfully distracted by Jesslaw whisking his plate from under his nose. Roald, fearing a relapse as soon as Jesslaw had staggered out the door with more plates than he could really see over, began a loud conversation with Fal and Zahir about the weather.
The rest of dinner passed unremarkably; the few jabs General Vanget got in at Mistress Kourrem were largely parried by Lord Raoul, who appeared to be treading on her feet at regular intervals to prevent her from answering back and souring her reputation with the general even further, and once or twice Lord Wyldon. On one occasion, Zahir raised his head in answer to an aside themed around Mistress Kourrem’s status as a Bazhir, and Vanget stopped cold, perhaps remembering that Mistress Kourrem wasn’t the only Bazhir at the table – wasn’t even the only Bazhir at the table with royal favour. Still, they got through the dinner with only a few more conversational disasters to harrow Roald’s feelings, and eventually a decanter of port appeared and Mistress Kourrem excused herself on the grounds that she had promised Duke Baird she would spend the last half of his shift going over the infirmary’s workings, while Lord Raoul said he had supply details to straighten out.
Roald wondered both whether Duke Baird had extracted any such promise and whether General Vanget had forgotten that Lord Raoul didn’t drink anything stronger than hot cider and hated to have alcohol waved under his nose, but rose to bow as all the others did at Mistress Kourrem’s and Lord Raoul’s leaving.
“Bloody woman,” General Vanget said, when the door had hardly swung shut. “Gods only know why their M- Lady Fortune saw fit to inflict her on me. Can’t stand her. Never have done. Always was an uppity little thing, even when she was only Baird’s student.”
“I find her proud,” Lord Wyldon said, “but not disagreeable.”
“She’s useful,” Sir Sacherell said, with unusual bluntness for a relatively low-ranking knight. Roald asked himself who Sir Sacherell reported to; it didn’t seem to be General Vanget. “She hears and sees things that other people don’t. She’s spent more time in the Copper Isles and Scanra over the past three years than she has in Tortall, and she tells what she hears and what she learns. Before Emperor Ozorne fell and Carthak allied with us, there were few people with a better knowledge of grassroots Carthak – I don’t mean the city itself, but the coasts, where the pirates come from.”
Vanget snorted. “That’s as may be, Wellam. But why have I been told to have all mages report to her as soon as possible?”
“Probably to arrange some teaching,” Sir Sacherell said, with a shrug. “Mistress Kemail has a funny way of learning all the little tips and tricks foreign mages wouldn’t tell white Tortallans with Corus accents, and the Scanran shamans’ singing magics are a plague and a torment to our lines, sir. The men fear them only slightly less than the killing devices. It’s no fun to be blinded in battle.”
“She’s got no reason to tell what she learns. How do we know she isn’t holding back?”
Roald decided it was time to say something. “Sir - I was once told by someone that knows Mistress Kemail well that her loyalty is not rooted in mercenary considerations, but in her personal opinions. She is loyal to those she likes, admires or respects.”
“Of course, Conté,” Vanget said gruffly. “She has a personal connection to your family, doesn’t she?”
“She cared for my grandmother in her last illness, and supported my father during the period before his coronation,” Roald agreed. “She also fought at the Battle of the Hall of Crowns.”
Lord Wyldon gave him a sharp look down the table. Roald let it slide off him, and watched his barb sink home in General Vanget’s thick skin. Fal, Zahir and Larse would not know, and Sir Sacherell had probably chosen not to remember, that the Minchis had dragged their feet over recognising a younger Jonathan as King.
“I am also told,” he said, letting a hint of rueful respect slip into his voice, the same way the better knights Kel had bested as a squire had spoken of her ability to pop a man out of his saddle and dump him on the floor, “that she has a very challenging personality. Difficult to get along with.”
General Vanget harrumphed his way back onto an even keel and the assumption that the heir to the throne had not just made tacit reference to one of the ha Minch family’s less honourable episodes. “Hardly as if I care, eh? Provided she follows orders. She’s Duke Baird’s problem now.”
Roald smiled blandly, and endured the twin fishy looks he was getting from Zahir and Lord Wyldon. He very much doubted that General Vanget’s confident assertion would come true, but immediate disaster – or at least, unpardonable rudeness - been averted.
***
The battle came mere days after Lord Raoul had left, taken Third Company and moved on, and Lord Wyldon had returned to Mastiff. Roald, on the walls and blinking in the dusk-light, saw the glitter of steel creeping at the treeline, and sounded the alarm along with three others, and then movement became giants and killing devices, a tide of Scanrans sweeping around them in battle-order as they and everything started to move very quickly. Roald ran off the walls in search of armour and bow, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowed to ride out, but hoping that he might perhaps get to be of some use –
“Easy, your royal highness, easy,” said Quartermaster Walsh’s placid voice, and his iron hand on Roald’s shoulder drew him into headquarters, into a small and well-defended room.
Roald spat with fury and swore.
“Image of your father thirty years ago, you are,” the Quartermaster said indulgently, “in the Tusaini war. And if he weren’t gods-touched, Mithros bless His Majesty, we’d have lost him then.”
Roald stared coldly at him. “So I’m to sit here while others fight and die for me, because my father was a hothead when he was young?”
“For you, sir? For Tortall.”
“Tortall is as much my home as theirs!”
“And what would your good lady say if we lost you now?” the Quartermaster added, apparently heedless.
“Shinko understands,” Roald snapped, and paced the room like a trapped tiger.
The Quartermaster sat and watched him for a while, then sighed. “Do you mind if I remove my leg, your highness? I could stand to get a bit of air on the stump, like.”
“Do as you please,” Roald said bitterly.
The Quartermaster raised an eyebrow, removed his wooden left leg, and settled to some accounts that wouldn’t do themselves. Roald paced for a little while longer, then stopped short and sighed.
“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t snap at you.”
“Better me, sir,” the Quartermaster said precisely, doing sums on a slate, “than the likes of Squire Owen, who’ll think he’s about to be hauled off to Traitor’s Hill if you so much as poke him.”
Roald laughed shortly, unwillingly. “Owen? Owen would be helping me break out of here and declaring it wasn’t very jolly of my lord Wyldon not to let him fight. Mithros, he was a terror as a page...”
“Tell me, sir,” the Quartermaster invited. “I always like to have a little blackmail on side, and Squire Owen is a holy terror. I’m wishful of keeping him under my thumb somehow, but the lad bounces and wriggles his way out of just about anything, and every time I try to put the fear of the gods in him Lord Wyldon whisks him back off to Fort Mastiff again.”
Roald laughed again, and thought for a moment, raking up the most embarrassing yet harmless of Owen’s misdeeds he could remember. “Well... have you heard about the time he got lost running errands and was left behind by the Royal Progress?”
“No.” The Quartermaster grinned. “Say on, Prince Roald. The time goes faster with stories.”
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!