Oath of Fealty

28

“We’re inviting attack,” Arcolin said to Burek when they met again in his tent. “With brigands, you can hardly ever bring them to pitched battle. They live by ambush and trickery; they are not crazy enough to come out of their hiding places at a challenge, even if they have a force large enough.”

“But we don’t know how many there are,” Burek said. “What if they have superior force?”

“Supply,” Arcolin said. When Burek looked confused, he explained. “Brigands must eat, the same as a regular army. They get their food by stealing it, or by scaring peasants into giving it to them. Where peasants are well fed, brigands are few. Too many for the comfort of travelers on the road, but too few to worry us if we’re alert. These brigands have made deals with the villages, that much is clear. But the villages still have food; none of the people look pinched, any more than those we passed coming into Cortes Vonja on the trade road. How many extra men—hungry men—can a village supply?”

“If they’re a clandestine invasion, though, could not their commander be importing food for them?”

“That’s possible for a few, much harder for many. We moved multiple companies around Aarenis, that last year against Siniava. We used every wagon, every road … we left evidence everywhere of the size of our force. It’s true we’ve been here only briefly, but I see nothing like the mess just a few hundred men leave when they inhabit a countryside.” He took another swallow of watered ale. “The cohort will rest until dark; so must we. If they come, it will be after dark, first a probe to see if we’re alert, and then, if we’re lucky, an attack.”

Arcolin woke to the smell of cooking; torches lit the center of the camp. Someone had lit the candle on his desk; it had burned down a finger-mark. Rain still fell, the persistent soaking rain he remembered. Burek stirred; Arcolin considered letting him sleep another half-glass, but already the younger man’s eyes were opening. “Sir?”

“It’s dark, and supper’s almost ready. I’m going out; come when you’re ready.”

The sentry posts, unlighted and placed so the sentries would not be silhouetted against the central fire, had just been relieved. Arcolin spoke briefly with each sentry, low-voiced in case someone had crept close in the wet darkness to listen. They would be stiffening if they had; he himself had spent more than one wet night creeping up on someone else’s sentries, and it was a cold, miserable job. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just make out the outer perimeter.

Coming back to the fire, he noted light glowing from the tent that would—if anyone had been injured—have been the sick tent, and a shadow within, bending down. So Stammel had already thought of that—no real surprise. He found Burek at the fire with the last of the soldiers.

“Do we eat here in the rain, sir?”

“No. In the tent, as the others are—they just aren’t lighting all the tents. It’s standard with us. The darker it is, the harder for the brigands to keep track of time.”

Burek nodded; they carried their supper back to Arcolin’s tent and ate by candlelight. The glass emptied before they were through; Arcolin turned it and marked the turn in the log. Burek took the dishes back to the fire. Arcolin went outside again to regain his night vision. Stammel had gathered a few men near the fire to sing for a while.

It was two turns of the glass, and the singing had dwindled to nothing, when the first warning came, a rhythmic tap on the tent. Burek looked up; Arcolin nodded, and snuffed the candle. In moments, their eyes adjusted. Over the way, the “sick tent” still glowed faintly with the candle inside it. Arcolin had planned for attack from either the stream side—which offered attackers the best cover on approach—or the road side, which offered attackers better ground position. “Or both,” he’d told Burek and Stammel. “It’ll tell us something about their training.” True brigands, in his experience, were more likely to come up from the stream—easier navigating from their usual route of travel. Trained troops able to navigate in the dark would cross upstream of them and take the road itself … a longer march, and technically difficult, but they would not be attacking uphill. A clever commander might try both. Rain and a little wind would cover the sound of either. The rain drummed lightly on the tents, made its hissing and pattering sounds on the grass and trees. It should cover the sounds of their movements from the attackers just as well.

A stifled yelp came from the downhill slope … someone had staked himself, Arcolin thought with satisfaction. Unless it was meant to lower their guard, direct their attention to the stream side of camp. He moved to the road side, peered into the wet dark. A veteran grabbed his arm, fingers working in the Company finger-talk. Someone at the inner barricade had heard noise on the road.

Arcolin pulled the man closer and whispered in his ear. “Torches on my signal.”

The double tap of understanding; he knew the signal would be passed to those with the flints. Moments crept by. Was that a squelching in the mud ahead? Breathing? That was certainly a human grunt, as someone stumbled or stubbed a toe. Now he could just sense movement, darker shades in the dark. He clapped his hands, once. Movement he had not been certain of seeing stopped.

In that moment of stillness, the torch bearers pulled oiled leather covers off the oil-soaked torches, snapped sparks onto them from flint and steel, and more than half the torches caught light, just as a yell from the stream side jerked his attention that way. But he was not fooled, nor were the veterans: as the torches flared, the enemy in front of them, eyes gleaming in the light, were clear to see. They wore dark cloaks, but glints through them suggested mail underneath. They wavered a moment, but a sharp command from the rear sent them forward, yelling. The front rank tore off their dark cloaks, threw them onto the bramble barrier and tried to run across it; Arcolin’s troops made short work of them, but those following did not stop. The penetration was narrow; Arcolin peered into the rainsparkled darkness to estimate how many there were.

Behind him, he heard more fighting, across the camp. Burek’s voice, Devlin’s—apparently there the enemy had hit a wider front. In front, Stammel and the first two files were engaged at that one penetration, holding it back with ease. Arcolin signaled the torchbearers, who leaned their torchpoles out beyond the barrier—there he was, the enemy commander.

“I’m going out,” he said to Stammel. “Follow me!”

“Captain, are you—?” But that was as far as Stammel got before Arcolin was moving, catching the first two standing on the much-flattened bramble barrier by surprise with his longer sword. Behind, he heard the files coming, as he raced toward the gleam of the enemy commander’s helmet. The torchbearers almost caught up with him, so the light gave him just enough reflection to follow as the enemy commander turned and tried to slip away into the darkness.

“Look—!” came a shout from behind, just as someone rose from the darkness and lunged at him. Arcolin felt a blade scrape against the mail over his ribs and struck out with the buckler on his left hand. Nothing; the fellow had rolled aside. Arcolin whirled, searching in the uncertain light as Stammel and the others came up beside him.

“Got him!” someone said with satisfaction.

“I saw their commander,” Arcolin said to Stammel, half-ashamed now of the impulse that had sent him to chase the man. “I thought he was close enough to catch.”

“He might have been,” Stammel said. Neither of them mentioned the other possibility, that it was a planned ambush. They looked at the dead man in the torchlight. Arcolin took the narrow, wave-curved blade from his hand.

“Southern work. And those other two blades we found were south-coast. Could have been sailors’ blades.”

“Indeed, sir. Alured never got this far north and west, did he?”

“Not that I know. Siniava, maybe. These could be escapees from his army … but I think not.”

“Back to camp,” Arcolin said. They were scarce three hundred paces from it, and on the way back found no more enemy until they reached the barricade, with the bodies of those who’d attacked it. By then the hubbub on the far side had ended as well.

“Thirteen,” Burek said when he came to report. “They came up the slope pretty quietly, and laid cloaks over the brambles, then thought to scramble over, but we were ready.”

“Any guesses how many more?”

“About that many ran away downhill as soon as the torches lit. Might have been more behind them; I couldn’t see that far.”

“We killed ten on our side—they chose a narrow front and a column attack, just what this cohort knows how to handle. They fought competently, though it was the wrong formation for them. More than ten got away, when we went after them. Their commander, to my sorrow. None of our people killed or wounded—what about you?”

“One dead, two wounded, all first-years,” Burek said. “Gan ran out over the barrier—young idiot.”

“There’s always one,” Arcolin said, and caught a look from Stammel. Well, he deserved it.

“The wounded are Peli and Aris. Surgeon says Peli will be back on duty in two days; Aris will be out at least three.”

Arcolin winced. Novices were most at risk in their first battles; that’s why the cohorts went to war ten percent or more over strength, but it always hurt. And this was the first time he had been in complete command—he had chosen the contract, he had chosen the route and the camp and its defense. He pushed that away—commanders who could not accept risk were as dangerous to their people as those who ignored it. What his troops needed now was his approval.

“We came through this very well.” Arcolin cocked his head at Burek. “So—how do you like the way your command fights?”

“Very well. I’d heard, of course, but seeing it—it’s no wonder you were—are—considered one of the best companies in Aarenis.”

“Good. I’ll need a report from you—talk to Devlin if you’re uncertain—on the demeanor of each of the recruits on that side. Our tradition is that recruits may be promoted after their first battle; if they aren’t promoted after their second, we dismiss them. This wasn’t a full battle, but we’ll be promoting some of them anyway. I saw three on my side, for instance, who did extremely well.”

“Were the enemy as many as you were expecting?” Burek asked.

“Within the range, but enough to suggest outside aid,” Arcolin said. “An attack force of about forty—they probably left some behind—the nearest villages would be not only under their control but stripped bare if they lived only on the land. And a competent commander.”

“So—now we look for the supply route?”

“Exactly.”

The rest of the night passed quietly; Arcolin checked with the surgeon and saw that both the wounded were sleeping under the influence of numbweed. The rain stopped sometime before dawn, though the clouds and ground mist impeded visibility almost as much. Arcolin looked at the obvious track the enemy had made going up and down the slope to the stream.

“Armor up,” he said to Burek, back at the tent. “We’re going to scout the stream, on horseback to save time, while the cohort breaks fast.”

They rode up to the road first, looking for traces, but rain after the attack had washed away any traces between the camp and the road.

“Do you think they came on foot?” Burek said. “To coordinate, covering more ground …”

Arcolin shook his head. “I think they came at least partway ahorse. I’m hoping to find some evidence, and perhaps the horses will help us.” At that moment, his mount lifted its head and pointed its ears to the right, toward the stream. “Like that,” Arcolin said. He felt his mount’s sides swell and tremble, precursor to a whinny. He tapped the horse on the neck. “Quiet, you.”

Burek’s horse was looking the same direction; Burek slipped off and clamped the horse’s nostrils. Far to the east, Arcolin heard a distant whinny, then others nearer, from the direction of the camp. “At least three horses,” Burek said. “No … four, five …”

Arcolin raised his brows. “Are you that keen of hearing?”

“No, Captain. I spent years on a horse farm. Someone over there has a mare, and walked her past a stallion … that was the first whinny. They wanted to find out where our horses were.”

“Well … they don’t know we’re here, then. That’s good.” Arcolin rode on, attending to his horse’s reactions and to the look of the ground. There … a pile of wet, rained-on horse droppings. And there—a round hole, another, that could have been made only by horses carrying riders in the mud. The trail to the stream showed clearly when they came to it. Rain could not disguise the hoof-chopped leaves, the place where horse after horse had skidded a little on a steep downslope, creating a hillock at the bottom, the pock-marks of many hooves in the mud.

“Can you estimate how many?” Arcolin asked.

“Not more than a dozen, I think,” Burek said. He dismounted and looked more closely. “It’s muddled—they used this trail both ways, rode back over their tracks. Shod horses and barefoot both … this track’s distinctive, an unusual shoe. This … here’s a barefoot horse with a bad flare on the right fore. Much work in this muck and it’ll go lame.” He walked up and down the track while Arcolin held his horse, bending now and then to measure a track with his hand. When he came back he held a shoe, bent nails hanging from it.

“This one will definitely go lame if they don’t have a farrier,” he said. “I still think ten to twelve, and that they rode double on the way in—the few good tracks I could find pointing to the road were much deeper, even after the rain.” He put the horseshoe in his saddlebags and remounted. “The horses aren’t that good. By the hoofmarks, most have some problem. Bought cheap at a horse fair, I’m thinking, and overdue for hoof work.”

Arcolin reined around and they headed back for the road and camp. “I had no idea you were so knowledgeable about horses.”

“It’s why I tried a cavalry company first,” Burek said. “I thought my background would be useful there.”

“Why not horse breeding or training?” Arcolin asked.

“I didn’t want to stay in one place,” Burek said. “And besides—I also like swords and fighting.” They were up at the road by then. “I had the chance, sir … to stay, to become a horsemaster … but it would be the same thing the rest of my life, year after year. I had seen the local militia drilling, and later saw the armies come through, in the war against Siniava. Including this one.”

“Where was that?” Arcolin asked. “We covered a lot of ground that last year.”

“Andressat,” Burek said. “That’s why the Count made complaint of me, I’m sure, when I was sent back there with troops he’d hired. I’d hoped he wouldn’t recognize me as a man grown, but he did, or someone else did, and told him.”

Arcolin had hoped Burek would mention Andressat and clear up that mystery; he had not expected this. “You were a horsemaster’s son?”

Burek nodded. “Though there were rumors, my looks being different than my father’s. At any rate, I grew up in the stables and fields of Andressat’s stud. As I grew older, the Count approved my work and named me successor to my father. The other prentices said it was only because my father was not my real father, and said things about my mother—and then there was a fight, and I was punished for it. So I ran off for a few days, and when I went back, the Count declared me outlaw and I left forever.”

“Are you angry with him?” Arcolin asked.

“Not anymore. At the time—I was sixteen perhaps—I thought it was unfair and hated him heartily, but he did me a greater favor than he knew and I’m grateful for it now. I like horses and I know a lot about them, but I found my true calling when I left.”

Arcolin looked at him. “Did you ever see your family again?”

“No. My duties with Golden Company sent me nowhere near the stud, and I was still hoping to go unnoticed. I sent messages—twice—but with no answer. Likely they were glad to be quit of me. My father never understood wanting to swing a sword.”

The camp was in sight now, busy and orderly, the thorn barrier repaired, sentries in their daytime locations.

“We have a choice,” Arcolin said. “We can spend the day pursuing them—though they have a good lead and know the ground better than we do—or we can move on and see what the next village tells us. Or we can sit here, as if planning to stay awhile. What would you do?”

As Arcolin expected, Burek was able to lay out reasons for and against each choice. “I don’t think I’d pursue them,” he said finally. “Too much chance of ambush, and on ground they know, they can move faster than we can. Staying—they’ll move away, won’t they?”

“They may move some of their force away, but they’ll need to keep an eye on us,” Arcolin said. “What I would worry about, given their use of poison so far, is whether they have the means to poison the water. We hurt them; that makes some men hot for revenge.” They had come to the camp entrance by then. Arcolin dismounted and led his horse to the horse lines. Burek followed, handed the roan to one of the grooms then went to see his other mount. It whuffled at him and he leaned to check the gash on its chest then breathed into its nostrils.

“So we move?” Burek asked on the way back to their tent.

“Yes,” Arcolin said. “After the promotion assembly.”

The newly promoted privates fairly glowed with pride—they were the ones actually engaged against the enemy—and the remaining recruits looked ready to attack any number of troops if only they could earn promotion. Arcolin glanced back as he led the cohort away from the camp, well pleased with their appearance. It still felt strange to have no one over him—no Kieri Phelan to approve what he had done, or correct his errors. It felt strange to have no other cohorts, too. He imagined himself coming down next year with another cohort to join this one, perhaps Cracolnya’s, to give him archery support.

The day brightened as the morning wore on, clouds lifting and thinning. The scouts reported nothing alarming; the next village, as they neared it, looked placid enough. His horse pricked its ears, and mules brayed ahead. Mules? The peasants here did not use mules, but oxen, in their fields.

In the village, he found two wagons blocking the way. Four armed men stood before them, obviously frightened but determined, a motley group with a tall skinny black-haired man on one end. Behind them, an obvious merchant and someone who might be an assistant or family member.

“Who are you?” one of the armed men said.

“Duke Phelan’s Company,” Arcolin said. “Hired by Cortes Vonja to restore peace to the countryside. And you?”

“A merchant of the Guild,” the merchant said, coming forward. “How many are you? Enough to lend us escort on the way to Cortes Vonja?”

“No,” Arcolin said. “That is not our contract. However, we fought off a brigand attack last night, and you should have fewer problems on the way north than before.” He looked the merchant, his guards, and his wagons over carefully. What was a Guild merchant doing out here, so far from major transport routes? “Where are you from?”

The merchant frowned. “That is Guild business,” he said, “and none of yours.”

“I must insist,” Arcolin said, with a gesture to his cohort. “You have four men; I have a hundred.”

“Sibili,” the merchant said. “I come from Sibili with silks and tiles, oilberries and wine.”

“So you came through Andressat?” Arcolin said.

“No. It is too hard to get the wagons up that damned cliff at Cortes Andres, and that’s the only crossing. We followed the war road to the east and curved back around.”

“War road” must mean the way armies had taken through the forest Alured had once guarded, and then north … Arcolin tried to remember just where it went. Was this story plausible at all?

“Where did you hire your guards?” Arcolin asked.

This time a guard answered. “Me in Sorellin, two years back; I’m Arnen. Them others, I hired. One of our regulars got sick in Sibili, so Pedar—” He flicked a thumb. “—he’s from Sibili. Meddes comes from some vill in the Immervale, and Kory from Valdaire, he says.” Arcolin looked at each man; he would not have hired any of them.

“And what’s the cargo?”

“What Master Rieran says, I suppose,” the guard said. “Haven’t seen it m’self, but to keep count of the bales and barrels and make sure no seals is broke.”

“As you can’t bear witness to it, we will have to check,” Arcolin said. He looked at the merchant. “Master Rieran, is it? I’m Captain Arcolin. We have no intent to plunder, but we must account for your cargo—we were told the brigands we seek were being supplied from outside.”

“You think I—how dare you!” Rieran puffed up like a rooster; Arcolin ignored that. The man was pale-faced and sweating, not red … he was feigning indignation.

Arcolin looked back at the guards. “Step aside, gentlemen. Sergeant—?”

They moved aside without demur; Stammel and a tensquad herded them out of the village, to sit in the shade of a tree under guard. They gave up their swords without protest, and in return Arcolin saw them provided with water, bread, and cheese.

“Likely they are not involved,” he said to Burek. “Though the guard leader seems none too bright, and might have hired foolishly. Now for the merchant—”

The wagons did indeed contain bales of silk, boxes of painted tiles, and barrels of oilberries, goods worth aplenty in more northern markets—but while riding around the first wagon Arcolin smelled something the merchant had not declared. He flicked his fingers to Devlin and again when the second wagon yielded another smell that did not belong. He said nothing aloud, but had the wagons unloaded there in the street, his troops keeping back curious villagers, who might well want to snatch a few oilberries.

Devlin found the latch to the false bottom in one wagon; Vik found it in the second. One held sacks of unground southern grains, sides of dried salt meat, dried salt fish … though packed round with herbs, the smell could not be hidden. The other held weapons … more of the curved swords, short-stocked crossbows ideal for use in wooded areas, hardened leather armor, some strengthened with metal plates or mail.

“Well,” he said, looking at the merchant, now fishbelly white and trembling. “This looks like smuggling, not trading. Who are these for?”

“I don’t know,” the merchant said. “I—I didn’t know about that. I swear it; I’m an honorable member of the Guild. One of the guards must have—”

“I wonder what the courts in Cortes Vonja will say,” Arcolin said. “They do not look kindly on those in league with their enemies.”

“Enemies!” The merchant nearly squeaked. “There is no war—there are no enemies—you—it can’t be treason—” That last in a wail. Arcolin looked down from his horse until the merchant collapsed in a heap, shaking. Then he dismounted, drew his sword, and walked over to the wretch.

“You know I could kill you here, and tell them in Cortes Vonja I executed a traitor and they would give me gold.”

“Please … I have a family …”

“Then, for your family’s sake, tell the truth. Who hired you to bring these things here in secret?”

“I—I can’t. He’ll kill me; he’ll kill us all.”

“That may be,” Arcolin said. “But I will surely kill you if you do not. You follow Simyits, do you not?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then chance comes as it comes. Your chance now is life, if you tell me who hired you, or certain death, if you do not. What does Simyits say about chance?”

“It was by following chance that I ended here,” the merchant said, raising a tear-stained face.

“You could always change your allegiance and choose a better god,” Arcolin said. “There are many.”

“Don’t let them hear,” the man said. He looked at the villagers. “Make them go away.”

“Why? Is one of them a spy who will tell your master?”

“It could be. Please … I will tell you, but not here.”

“Get him up,” Arcolin said. Two of the soldiers pulled the merchant to his feet and half dragged him away, closer to the cohort. “Now,” he said to the merchant.

“The Duke,” the merchant said. “The new Duke of Immer.”

“Alured, you mean,” Arcolin said. “Once pirate, then brigand, now Duke?”

“Who’s your assistant? Your choice or his?”

“My nephew Harn. I wanted my son, but he—the Duke—has my son hostage. Harn isn’t … he isn’t very smart, sir. Captain.”

“When were you due at the Guild Merchants’ Hall?”

“A hand of days, sir.”

“Where did you offload the supplies to the brigands?”

“Next village north, sir. Well, just south of it. There’s a sort of old barn there, and a thicket grown up around it. We camp there overnight; they come and take their supplies. They’re honest, at least; I’ve never lost a thing to them, though I take my hard coin into the village and have dinner with the headman and leave them to it.”

“How often do you come through with supplies?”

“Me? Three times a year: Sibili to Cortes Vonja, Cortes Vonja to Sorellin, then down the Immerhoft Vale to the coast, Aliuna or Immerdzan, then west to Sibili. But there’s others, I was told. I don’t know who they are.” He looked back at the wagons and villagers then lowered his voice even more. “Look here, Captain—I’ll give you every coin I have, I swear, if you’ll only let me go …”

“After the village has seen what you carry and what we would be letting go by—do you think that secret would last?”

“Last long enough for me to get home and take my family away, aye.”

Arcolin shook his head. “It would never work. And I don’t break contracts. No, you must go to Cortes Vonja for judgment. If you tell them you were coerced, they may show mercy.” He doubted that, and was sure the merchant did too, but it was the only good outcome.

“You will ruin me,” the merchant said, gasping. “The Guild will strike me from their rolls; even if the courts are kind, I will be ruined—marked forever—”

“I am not ruining you,” Arcolin said. “You are the one who chose to deal dishonestly. Now quit sniveling and get back to your wagons.” He followed, signaling Burek to his side. “We need to get these wagons and their cargo to Cortes Vonja. The brigands know it is their supply train; we can expect them to attack, even though their numbers are reduced. If indeed this is a widespread plot, as it seems, they may be able to call on neighboring bands. My first thought was to split the cohort and send you back with twenty or thirty … but it’s a solid three days with these wagons, if you push the pace, and there are too many places where wagons are easily ambushed.”

“So we’re all going?”

“Yes. The question is what to do with those guards.” He nodded to the little group under the tree. “Very likely one or more of them are part of the conspiracy, told to watch the merchant for any attempt to inform on it. The others may be honest or may not. I do not like killing men without cause just because they work for someone dishonest. Hunger drives men to many deeds they would not do if they were not ruled by their bellies. But the cohort is my first responsibility; a traitor among them puts all at risk.”

“Are you asking me?” Burek said.

“I am thinking aloud,” Arcolin said. “And you may have some ideas I have not thought of.”

“Disarm them, bind them in the wagons?” Burek said.

“Disarm them, of course. Bind them … I had thought to have them walk, but then they could still call out to the brigands, if that was their intent. I don’t want them in the wagons; they know where the secret compartments are, and they could rearm themselves.”

“Wait—the poison they used on my horse—a little of that would make a man weak and slow, the surgeon said. Would a little of it in food do the same for them? Make them drowsy, even put them to sleep?”

“It might.” Arcolin nodded slowly. “I’ll speak to the surgeon on the way. We need to get these wagons reloaded and make a start—the longer we wait, the more chance of attack. I’ll speak to the village headman.”

The headman in this village was a stout gray-haired woman with arms that looked strong enough to handle a pike. Arcolin introduced himself.

“I thought you lot were the tax collector again, and we just paid the spring tax three hands of days ago,” she said.

“No, we’re here to deal with brigands, give you some value for that tax you paid.”

She spat sideways into the street. “Value! The only value them in Cortes Vonja cares about is what lines their pockets.”

“Tell you what,” Arcolin said. “I must take the contraband with me, but I think some of it might spoil by the time it would reach Cortes Vonja. It’s my choice, under my contract. Could you make use of some salt pork and a sack of grain?”

“We could make use of all of it,” she said, staring at the stack of grain sacks and meat.

“I’m sure you could,” Arcolin said, “but so could my men.”

“What you want for it?” she asked.

“Nothing more than you’ve done,” Arcolin said. “Maybe, some other day, some information on brigands in your area.”

“What’ll they do if they finds we tooken it?”

“I don’t know,” Arcolin said. “If you want, we can take it all with us.”

She looked around at her villagers, whose expressions made it clear what they thought.

“We’ll take it and thank you,” she said at last.

Arcolin put two sacks of grain and most of the meat aside. “If I were you,” he said, “none of this would look like what it is, by dark.”

“Trust me for that,” she said. Then, to his surprise, she bent and kissed his hand.

Soon the reloaded wagons were on their way north at the best pace the mules could manage on the soft road, the unhappy merchant perched on the driver’s seat of the second. For the time being, the five guards, disarmed and hands bound, walked behind the wagons, closely followed by the rear guard.

Four wagons, two of them heavily loaded, made a mess of the road, which here was scarce more than a lane. At every turn of the glass, they had to rest the mules and horses. By nightfall they were abreast of the previous night’s campsite. Arcolin shook his head and pushed on. That open field was too easy, when the brigands now knew its secrets. A few hours north, the road would firm again, even after the rain, and he hoped the brigands would be waiting, instead, at the place they usually got their supplies.

The jingling harness and grunts of the mules and horses, and the creak of wagon wheels made more noise than the soldiers afoot; Arcolin blessed the sharp breeze that came up just after sunset and blew the sound away west, where he hoped the main mass of brigands weren’t. Moving at night was risky, but it was as risky for the brigands, and every distance he made north improved their chances of reaching Cortes Vonja without an attack.

Before the middle of the night, he halted them on the road, now firmer, to rest until dawn. Stammel came to him after they halted.

“Captain, that tall caravan guard, Kory—”

“What about him?”

“I think I know him; I think he’s that bad recruit who poisoned Corporal Stephi, the one Captain Sejek had branded and whipped. That scar on his forehead could’ve been a brand. His name was Korryn then. Kory’s close enough.”

Arcolin had never seen the man; he started to say that there were many tall, lean black-haired men with scars, but this was Stammel. “Are you sure?”

“Almost, sir. None of ’em talked much, but he said nothing at all. He never looked straight at me, but little glances out the side of his eyes, like.”

“Well … after he left he’s none of our concern. If he’s satisfied his employers—”

“That’s true, sir, but I wonder who his employer really is. Not that merchant, I’ll wager.”

“He harmed Paks, I remember that—but now we think it was Venner who gave Stephi the drugged ale, not Korryn.” Stammel said nothing. Arcolin sighed finally. “What do you think he’s doing, then?”

“Nothing good, sir. And loose, he’ll be eager to hurt us, for that punishment. There’s hate in his eyes when he looks at me. Devlin thinks the same.”

“He was there too, wasn’t he?” Arcolin sighed again. “We can tell the Vonjans what we know of him, but we’ll need proof. It’s been—what?—five years or so?”

“Sejek used the sea-ink dye on the stripes, sir. Made sure it was in deep. It should show.”

“Well. I’ll tell the Vonjans, when we get to the city.”