Bristling Wood (12 page)

With a jingle of tack the troop executed a perfect turn in ranks and began to file out the dun gate, two by two. As a mark of honor to a bard, Maddyn rode next to Caradoc at the head of the line. Over the next few days, as they worked their way southwest as quickly as possible, he had plenty of chances to study his new leader. The biggest puzzle that ate at his bardic curiosity was whether or not Caradoc was noble-born. At times, when the captain was discussing some point of the royal law or giving orders with his firm authority, Maddyn was sure that he must have been bom the younger son of a lord. Yet when it came to coin, he had the grasping shrewdness of an old peasant woman, an attitude he never would have learned among the nobility. Occasionally Maddyn dropped hints or half-questions about the past into their conversation, but Caradoc never rose to the bait. When the troop camped for the night, Caradoc ate alone like a lord, and Maddyn shared a fire with Aethan and a small crowd of Wildfolk.

After a week of riding, the troop crossed the Aver Trebyc at a point about a hundred miles west of Dun Deverry. Caradoc gave orders that the men were to ride armed and ready for trouble. He sent out point men and scouts ahead of the main body of riders, because they were approaching the border between Cerrmor-held and Cantrae-held territory. The precautions paid off with a rather strange prize. On the second day of riding armed, when they were finally getting close to the Eldidd border, the troop stopped for the noon rest in a grassy meadow that had never known plow or herd. When the point men came back to change the guard, they brought with them a traveler, an unarmed man with rich clothing, a beautiful riding horse, and an elegant pack mule that had obviously been bred from the best stock. Maddyn was surprised that the poor doll had survived unrobbed for as long as he had. The young, sandy-haired fellow looked so terrified that Maddyn supposed he was thinking similar thoughts.

“He says he comes from Dun Deverry,” the point man said. “So we brought him along in case he had any interesting news.”

“Good,” Caradoc said. “Now look, young fellow, we’re not going to slit your throat or even rob you. Come have a meal with me and Maddyn here.”

With a most discourteous groan, the stranger looked around at the well-armed troop, then sighed in resignation.

“So I will, then. My name’s . . . uh . . . Claedd.”

Caradoc and Maddyn each suppressed a grin at the clumsiness of the lie. When the stranger dismounted, Maddyn saw that he had a clubfoot, which seemed to ache him after so many days in the saddle. As they shared a meal of flatbread and cheese, the supposed Claedd told them what little he knew about the troop movements around the Holy City. The current rumor was that the northern forces were planning to make a strong strike along the eastern borders of the Cerrmor kingdom.

“If that’s true,” Caradoc said thoughtfully, “we’ll have no trouble getting a hire in Eldidd. Probably the Eldidd king will want to take the chance to raid into Pyrdon.”

“Oho!” Claedd said. “Then you’re a free troop! Well, that’s a relief.”

“Oh, is it now? Most men would think the opposite.” Caradoc shook his head, as if he were utterly amazed at the innocence of this lad. “Well and good, then. Who’s chasing you? It’s safe to tell me. I’ve sunk pretty low, lad, but not so low that I’d turn a man in for the bounty on his head.”

Claedd concentrated on shredding a piece of flatbread into inedible crumbs.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Caradoc said after a moment. “But think about traveling with us. You’ll be a blasted sight safer. Ever had a fancy to see Eldidd?”

“That’s where I was trying to go, and you’re right enough about it being safer. I’ve never swung a sword in my life. I’m a . . . uh . . . a scholar.”

“Splendid. Maybe I’ll need a letter written some fine day.”

Although Claedd managed a feeble smile at the jest, his face stayed deadly pale. Yet, when the troop rode out, he came with them, riding by himself just behind Otho’s wagon. At the night camp, Maddyn took pity on him and offered to let him share their fire. Although he brought out food from his mule packs, Claedd ate little of it, merely sat quietly and watched Aethan polishing his sword. When, after the meal, Caradoc strolled over for a chat, Claedd again said little as the captain and the bard talked idly of their plans in Eldidd. Finally, though, at a pause he spoke up.

“I’ve been thinking about your offer, Captain. Could you use a troop chirurgeon? I finished my apprenticeship only a year ago, but I’ve had an awful lot of practice at tending wounds.”

“By all the ice in all the hells!” Maddyn said. “You’re worth your weight in gold!”

“Cursed right.” Caradoc cocked his head to one side and considered the young chirurgeon. “Now, I’m not a curious man, usually, and I like to leave my lads their privacy, like, but in your case, I’ve got to ask. What’s a man with your learning doing traveling the long lonely roads like this?”

“You might as well know the truth. First of all, my name’s Caudyr, and I was at the court in Dun Deverry. I mixed up a few potions and suchlike for some highborn ladies to rid them of . . . ah, well . . . a spot of . . . er, well . . . trouble now and again. The word’s gotten out about it in rather a nasty way.”

Caradoc and Aethan exchanged a puzzled glance.

“He means abortions,” Maddyn said with a grin. “Naught that should vex us, truly.”

“Might even come in handy, with this pack of dogs I’ve got,” Caradoc said. “Well and good, then, Caudyr. Once you’ve shown me that you can physic a man, you’ll get a full share of our earnings, just like a rider. I’ve discovered that a lord’s chirurgeon tends his lord’s men first and the mercenaries when he has a mind to and not before. I’ve had men bleed to death who would have lived if they’d gotten the proper attention.”

Idly Maddyn happened to glance Aethan’s way to find him staring at Caudyr in grim suspicion.

“Up in Dun Deverry, were you?” Aethan’s voice was a dry, hard whisper. “Was one of your highborn ladies Merodda of the Boar?”

In a confession stronger than words, Caudyr winced, then blushed. Aethan got to his feet, hesitated, then took off running into the darkness.

“What, by the hells?” Caradoc snapped.

Without bothering to explain, Maddyn got up and followed, chasing Aethan through the startled camp, pounding blindly after him through the moon-shot night down to the riverbank. Finally Aethan stopped and let him catch up. They stood together for a long time, panting for breath and watching the silver-touched river flow by.

“With a bitch like that,” Maddyn said finally. “How would you even know that the babe was yours?”

“I kept my eye on her like a hawk all winter long. If she’d looked at another man, I’d have killed him, and she knew it.”

With a sigh Maddyn sat down, and after a moment, Aethan joined him.

“Having a chirurgeon of our own will be a cursed good thing,” Maddyn said. “Can you put up with Caudyr?”

“Who’s blaming him for one single thing? I wish I could kill her. I dream about it sometimes, getting my hands on her pretty white throat and strangling her.”

Abruptly Aethan turned and threw himself into Maddyn’s arms. Maddyn held him tightly and let him cry, the choking ugly sob of a man who feels shamed by tears.

Two days later the troop crossed the border into Eldidd. At that time, the northern part of the province was nearly a wilderness, forests and wild grasslands broken only by the occasional dun of a minor lord or a village of free farmers. Plenty of the lords would have liked to hire the troop, because they were in constant danger of raids coming either from the kingdom of Pyrdon to the north or from Deverry to the east. None, however, could pay Caradoc what he considered the troop was worth. With thirty-seven men, their own smith, chirurgeon, and bard, the troop was bigger than the warbands of most of the lords in northern Eldidd. Just when Caradoc was beginning to curse his decision to ride that way, the troop reached the new town of Camynwaen, on the banks of an oddly named river, the El, just as the spot where the even more strangely named Aver Cantariel flows in from the northwest.

Although there had been a farming village on the site for centuries, only twenty years before had the gwerbret in Elrydd decided that the kingdom needed a proper town at the joining of the rivers. Since the war with Pyrdon could flare up at any time, he wanted a staging ground for troops and a properly defensible set of walls around it. Finding colonists was no problem, because there were plenty of younger sons of noble lords willing to risk a move to gain land of their own, and plenty of bondsmen willing to go with them since they became free men once they left their bound land. When Caradoc’s troop rode into Camynwaen, they found a decent town of a thousand round houses behind high stone walls, turreted with watchtowers.

About a mile away was the stone dun of Tieryn Maenoic, and there Caradoc found the kind of hire he’d been looking for. Although Maenoic received maintenance from the gwerbret to the south, there was a shortage of fighting men in his vast demesne, and he had a private war on his hands. Since the authority of his clan was fairly new, he was always plagued with rebellions. For years now the chief troublemaker had been a certain Lord Pagwyl.

“And he’s gathered together a lot of bastards like himself,” Maenoic said. “And they claim they’ll ask the gwerbret to give them a tieryn of their own and not submit to me. I can’t stand for it.”

He couldn’t, truly, because standing for it would not only take half his land away but also make him the laughingstock of every in Eldidd. A stout hard-muscled man, with a thick streak of gray in his raven-dark hair, Maenoic was steaming with fury as he strode back and forth, looking over the troop, who were sitting on their horses outside the gates to Maenoic’s dun. Caradoc and Maddyn followed a respectful distance behind while the lord judged the troop’s horses and gear with a shrewd eye.

“Very well, Captain. A silver piece per week per man, your maintenance, and of course I’ll replace any horses that you lose.”

“Most generous, my lord,” Caradoc said. “For peacetime.”

Maenoic turned to scowl at him.

“Another silver piece per man for every battle we fight,” Caradoc went on. “And that’s paid for every man who dies, too.”

“Far too much.”

“As it pleases your lordship. Me and my men can just ride on.”

And over to your enemies, perhaps—the thought hung unspoken between them for a long moment. Finally Maenoic swore under his breath.

“Done, then. A second silver piece per man for every scrap.”

With an open and innocent smile, Caradoc bowed to him.

Maenoic’s new-built dun was large enough to have two sets of barracks and stables built into the walls—a blessing, because the mercenaries could be well separated from Maenoic’s contemptuous warband. At meals, though, they shared the same set of tables, and the warband made barely tolerable comments about men who fought for money and quite intolerable comments about the parentage and character of such who did so. Between them Caradoc and Maenoic broke up seven different fistfights in two days before the army was at last ready to ride out.

After he called in all his loyal allies, Maenoic had over two hundred and fifty men to lead west against his rebels. In the line of march, Caradoc’s troop came at the very end, behind even the supply wagons, and ate dust all day long. At night they made camp by themselves a little way off from the warbands of the noble-born. Caradoc, however, was summoned when the lords held a council of war. He came back to the troop with solid news and gathered them around him to hear it.

“Tomorrow we’ll see the first scrap. Here’s how things stand, lads. We’re coming to a river, and there’s a bridge there. Maenoic claims the taxes on it, but Pagwyl’s holding out. The scouts say Pagwyl’s going to make a stand to prevent the tieryn from crossing, because once he crosses against Pagwyl’s will, it’s his bridge again in everybody’s eyes. We’ll be leading the charge—of course.”

Everyone nodded, acknowledging that they were, after all, the disposable mercenaries. Maddyn found himself troubled by a strange feeling, a coldness, a heaviness. It took him a long time to admit it, but then he realized that he was quite simply afraid. That night he dreamt of his last charge up in Cantrae and woke soaked cold sweat. You coward, he told himself; you ugly little coward! The reproach burned in his very soul, but the truth was that he had almost died in that last charge, and now he knew what it felt like to be dying. The fear choked him as palpably as if he’d swallowed a clot of sheep’s wool. What was worst of all was knowing that here was one thing he could never share with Aethan.

All night, all the next morning, the fear festered so badly that by the time the army reached the bridge, Maddyn was hysterically happy that the battle was at hand and soon to be over. He was singing under his breath and whistling in turn when the army crested a low rise and saw, just as they’d expected, Lord Pagwyl and his allies drawn up by the riverbank to meet them. There was a surprise, however, in the men who waited for them: a bare hundred mounted swordsmen, eked out by two big squares of common-born spearmen, placed so that they blocked any possible approach to the bridge itself.

“Oh, here,” said Maddyn, forcing a laugh. “Pagwyl was a fool to rebel if that’s all the riders he could scrape together.”

“Horseshit!” Caradoc snapped. “His lordship knows what he’s doing. I’ve seen fighting like this before, spearmen guarding a fixed position. We’re in for a little gallop through the third hell, lad.”

As Maenoic’s army milled around in confusion, Caradoc led his men calmly up to the front of the line. The enemy had picked a perfect place to stand, a long green meadow in front of the bridge, bordered by the river on one side of their formation and on the other, the broken, crumbling earthwork of some long-gone farmer’s cattle corral. Three rows deep, the spearmen stood shield to shield, the spearheads glittering around the chalk-whitened oval shields. To one side of the shield wall, the mounted men sat on restless horses, ready to charge in from the side and pin Maenoic’s men between them and the river.