The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (59 page)

Nothing made sense any more. He could see the chain of events that had led him here, the lie that had started it. It all came from the doctor who had refused to treat him, and his decision to promote himself and keep up the deception. If he had not pretended to be an officer the council would have shunned him. He would not have been given the regiment. He would not have been a general, not a lord.

How much else in the world comes from a simple lie, he wondered? He had gone from an ordinary sergeant to celebrated general in less than half a year. He had money, lands, friends, and the deep and abiding suspicion that he deserved none of it.

But what did any of it matter? Winter was come, and on its heels would be spring, and with the spring war would come again, and thousands of men would die. There was a good chance that he would be one of them, and so there was just this one season to enjoy his good fortune, and then one more when the debt would be collected. He had given the matter much thought. For all practical purposes Seth Yarra seemed to have an unlimited supply of men, and no matter what the strategy, no matter how bravely the kingdoms fought, those numbers would tell in the end. If there was a wall across the White Road they might have a chance, but the White Road was wide, much wider than the Green Road, and building something to block it would take years. They did not have years.

Yet Narak seemed to cling to some hope. Perhaps there was some secret thing, some knowledge or magic that he could bring to bear as a last resort, but if so then why did so many men have to die before they should be saved?

He was forced to conclude that there was no magic, that Narak’s optimism was no more than a front, a mask that concealed conclusions similar to his own. But then again, perhaps he did not know everything. Perhaps there
was
some secret, some plan or strategy of which he was unaware. Narak could know the limits of Seth Yarra manpower, or he could know some other forgotten fact that might turn the war their way.

He would just have to trust the Wolf. He wished that he could choose to have faith, to believe, but belief was not a choice. It just was, or in his case was not. Narak was a strategist without equal, however, and he could choose to trust that skill.

He reached out to snuff out the last lamp, and stopped with his arm half way to the light.

“Sheyani?”

She was standing at the foot of his bed. He had not heard her enter the room, or caught any movement as she crossed the space between the door and the bed. She could have been standing there for minutes, watching him. Wrapped in a dark cloak she looked for all the world like a disembodied face, her skin the colour of dark honey in the lamp light, her eyes black, her hair a dark cap about her head.

“Sheshay,” she said. Her voice was barely audible.

“Do you need something?” he asked. “Why are you here?” She looked afraid, or nervous. He could not make up his mind.

“I must speak,” she said. She took a half step towards him. “I must tell you.”

“What is it?” He was half out of the bed. Something was wrong, for sure. She was sick, or there was some danger that he was unaware of. But her hand stayed him. She held it up in front of her and took a half step back again, and the weight came off his feet as he sat back down.

“What?” he asked. “What?”

“You have my heart, Sheshay,” she said. “I want to give you what remains of me.”

“What?” For a moment he did not understand. The meaning of the words eluded him because they were so unexpected, like hauling up your fishing line to find a rabbit on the hook. Her heart?

Incomprehension was followed by confusion. She was declaring her love to him; her love of him, of Cain Arbak. It was a strange moment for him. This was something he had wanted, wanted so much, but had never dared to hope for. She was younger than him, prettier by any measure, unscarred, high born. She was everything that he was not. It was a match of such uneven character that he was forced to protest it.

“Sheyani,” he said. “You are the daughter of a king, a Mage of Durandar, and I am low born, crippled…”

“Again you say this,” she replied, cutting him off, and there was a touch of frustration in her voice, even desperation. “You are a rich man, a Lord of Avilian, A Knight Talon of the Order of the Dragon, an elected general, a councillor of Bas Erinor, and I am a refugee with no title, no money, no position. Yet none of this matters. You do not see that none of it matters, but it is the truth. You are kind, and just, and generous. The men who work in your tavern love you, your soldiers would die for a kind word from you, your words to them are as powerful as the music I play.

“I love you, Cain Arbak. Of all the men in the world I choose to give myself to you, but say that you do not want me and I will go away and not trouble you again.”

Her words struck him like a blow to the face. Go away? No, he didn’t want that. He had to say something. He had to say the right thing because this was the most important moment of his life, however short the rest of it turned out to be.

“Sheyani Esh Baradan, my most trusted friend,” he said. “If you bear for me one tenth part of the love I bear for you then I am a fortunate man indeed. I did not dare to hope that this would be so, but now I find that it is, and yes I want you, as much as I can and for as long as I draw breath.”

He saw the relief on her face, even in the lamplight, and was amazed by it. She had been afraid that he would reject her – something that he could never have contemplated. But now the words were said. Sheyani let the cloak fall from her shoulders, and he saw that she was naked beneath it. He watched open mouthed as she came to the side of the bed, drew back the coverings and stepped in beside him. He felt her warmth, the softness of her skin.

“One thing,” he said. His hand was on her shoulder, her scent filled him up and her face, her eyes, were inches from his own.

“Sheshay?”

He took a deep breath. Cain Arbak was not a stickler for form. He was a practical man, a do before you’re done sort of man. Never in his life had he worried about doing the proper thing when he knew it wasn’t what worked. But he knew what he had to say, and he knew that he had to say it now, or it would never sound as right, it would never work as well as it would at this moment; right now.

“Will you be my wife?” he asked.

He felt her warmth wrap around him, her face press close to his ear.

“Yes, Sheshay.” He could hear the smile on her lips. “Yes. I will be your wife.”

The Lord of Latter Fetch was a busy man. Indeed he was so busy that he had yet to visit his recently gifted estates. At least now that his blood was raised up again he was entitled to board and lodgings in the high city, in Aidon’s castle.

He didn’t spend much time there, though. Mostly it was just an evening meal, a few ales with a friend if he could find one, and then sleep. There were few people from before the war that still called him friend, and he didn’t have time to make new ones. He missed Feran. He spent his days on the fields outside the city overseeing the training of his new regiment.

It was getting cold. Even this far south he often had need of a woollen tunic and a heavy cloak. Many times he took a hand with the training, beating aside the blades of new recruits, putting their feet into stirrups, correcting their stance or their handling of a bow. Mostly it was just to keep warm.

Tilian Henn was a blessing. Skal had dressed the boy in red and grey; good winter trousers, a woollen tunic, a heavy cloak. Two pairs of new boots had opened his eyes. Tilian had never had two pairs before, just one that fell apart around his feet until he could scrounge another pair near the end of their life from some more fortunate fellow with the same size feet. Now his feet gleamed in polished black leather. Skal had also got the boy a black leather belt and a good quality sword with a leather and wood sheath, and given him another stripe to add to his veteran’s bar, and that made him a little more than just another common soldier.

He insisted that Henn train with the others; pushed him to do better than those around him. Sometimes he took a hand in the boy’s work himself, showing him little tricks and fresh moves that gave him an edge. The boy responded well. He worked hard and improved quickly. He became worth his corporal’s stripes.

Henn’s true value lay in his ability to get things done. Skal quickly learned that the incident with the tea was by no means an isolated feat or a stroke of luck. If he asked him to do something, it got done. The means by which he did this were sometimes less than proper. Henn was not above offering inducements to tradesmen, merchants and the like to see his end achieved, and though he stopped short of threats he was capable of adopting a kind of sad, disappointed manner that had men worried for their lives and livelihoods.

When Arbak took a week’s leave to visit his estates he left Skal nominally in charge of both regiments, though the innkeeper’s second, a major by the name of Shale Gorios did all the real work with the first regiment. Skal took the opportunity to deal with an outstanding debt.

Ever since Henfray he had been troubled by the ghost of Saul Bruff, Bruff the Tanner, Bruff the volunteer who had saved his life on the line when he had been caught between two blades. It was not that he saw his spirit; Skal did not believe in such things; but he thought about the man most days. He had never had the chance to thank him, to buy him a drink, even to nod and smile as soldiers sometimes do in acknowledgement of a service done.

He didn’t even know if Bruff had a family, though someone had said so.

That was the task that he set for Tilian Henn: find out if Bruff had a family, who they were, what their business was, and anything else about them that was worth knowing.

“And he’s a tanner, my lord?”

“He’s dead,” Skal replied. “He died at Henfray.”

They were sitting in a tent on the training grounds. It was supposed to be a break for lunch, but Skal wasn’t hungry. Tilian had found him a flask of hot, mulled wine and he was sipping that, still wrapped in his cloak. There was a nagging north-wester tugging at the canvas around them, making it snap and boom, pushing under and around the tent as though it was hardly there at all.

“Do you know his wife’s name, my lord?” Tilian asked.

“I don’t know if he had a wife,” Skal replied. “He was a young man, so maybe not, but there might be a mother, a father, an aunt. I don’t know. Just find out.”

“I could start now if you wish, my lord,” Tilian said. Tilian always stood in his presence, and he was standing now, legs braced, hands behind his back. Skal sipped the wine again. It was sweet and still hot; just what he’d needed on a day like this. Could he do without Henn for a few hours? Was he really getting so soft?

“Yes, start now,” he said.

Tilian bowed and turned through the tent flap and was gone.

Skal looked around the tent. There was nothing to see, really; bare canvas, a chair, a table, a jug of rapidly cooling mulled wine. He poured another cup and took a large swallow, feeling it spread its warmth down his gullet and into his stomach. He envied Cain Arbak. The man wasn’t staying in the castle, but had put himself up at his own tavern. And why not? He had friends there, endless food and wine and that pretty little Durander girl he seemed to like so much. Daughter of a king. Well, there was no accounting for fortune. He’d thought more than once of asking Arbak to rent him a room there too, but hadn’t thought it quite proper. He’d been, of course. He’d visited the tavern and been greeted like a hero, slapped on the back, stood free drinks all night, eaten a prime cut of the house roast, and that had made it worse. He should have turned all those things down, or at least insisted on paying for them, because now he felt he couldn’t go back. They’d all think he expected the same again.

He drained the cup and looked at the jug again. No. Another cup would be excessive. He didn’t want to be drunk in charge of a regiment; two regiments, technically.

Still, he had his own leave to look forwards to. Arbak had insisted that he take ten days, go to Latter Fetch, and put the place in order the way he liked it. Arbak was fair. It was the least that could be said of him, but the man had a peculiar way of running a regiment. He never seemed to give any orders. He just talked to people, asked them what they thought, discussed it with them, and that was that. Even so the men trained as hard as ever, the officers seemed to respect him, and everything ran as well as might be expected. Skal had always thought that a commander seeking advice from his men was asking for disrespect, or even mutiny. It was a sign of weakness, and ambitious men would push you aside if you showed weakness, lazy men would take advantage. Then again, all the men were volunteers. Perhaps that approach worked with volunteers, and he had tried it himself a few times with no discernable decline in discipline, and it had made him feel more connected with his officers, like he was
in
the regiment, and not sitting on top of it.

He looked at the wine, rejected it again and stood up, picked up the helmet that lay by his feet and left the tent. The official break wasn’t over yet. There were still a few minutes to run, but he was fed up with sitting in the tent not drinking. He felt like hitting something with a blade. That would warm him up.

On the field the air was misty with smoke. It was ringed with bonfires. Arbak had insisted that the men have a chance to get warm, and the fires were built every day so they had somewhere to sit when they weren’t training, and the smoke gave the training ground an authentic battleground feel, an air of confusion.

Arbak trained with the men. He had picked up the same shield technique that Feran had been teaching Skal; probably from his man Bargil. It suited the general because he had only one hand, and the shield was strapped to the forearm, making his crippled arm useful again. Arbak trained every day with a short sword in his left hand, and when he wasn’t facing off against one of his men he spent time hacking at a sack shrouded post, building up strength. It reminded Skal of Quinnial.

And there he was: Quinnial. It’s odd how often that seems to happen, Skal thought, when you think of someone and then they turn up. Perhaps it was just those times that you remember, forgetting all the other occasions on which you thought of someone and they stubbornly refused to appear.

He began to stamp his way across the battered grass to where the stand-in ruler of Bas Erinor was standing, surrounded by a small group of men, or to be accurate men and one woman. Skal stopped walking. It was Maryal. That was damned awkward. He hadn’t seen the woman since his ill judged trickery concerning her betrothal. At the time it had seemed a clever thing to do. It was a slap in the face for Quinnial, who he saw as a rival, and Maryal was a fine looking woman. She’d have made a fair mistress of Bel Arac, and if she didn’t like it, well, that hadn’t seemed so important.

Have I changed that much? His actions now seemed foolish, even cruel. He’d known full well that the two of them were in love, and that much was confirmed is so far as they’d become betrothed as soon as he’d been disgraced by his father and lost his title. Well, it had ended satisfactorily enough for them at least, but he doubted that would cut any ice with Maryal.

Oddly he didn’t worry about Quinnial’s feelings on the matter. He’d spoken to Quinnial many times since then, and if he kept the conversation to business they seemed to do all right. He didn’t imagine that Quinnial liked him any more than Aidon did, but at least the man was fair.

There was no way he was going to avoid this, so he gritted his metaphorical teeth and carried on towards the well dressed little group. He was, after all, the officer nominally in command of two regiments.

Quinnial saw him coming.

“My lord,” Skal said as he approached. “How may I serve you?”

“Just routine,” Quinnial said, accepting Skal’s respectful bow with a brief nod of his own. “I wanted to see for myself how the men were coming along, see the conditions. I like to have a grasp of the details, as you know.”

Like to check up on my reports, more like, Skal thought. One of the other men was the secretary, and another he recognised as a significant lord from the north of Avilian, a portly high ranker whose estates bordered what had once been his father’s land. His name was Bizmael, or Bizfael, something like that. As far as Skal knew he was a buffoon, but a buffoon who could raise a regiment of two thousand men.

“You turning Berashi on us?” the buffoon asked. Skal assumed he had seen the round shields and short swords.

“Indeed you might be forgiven for thinking so, my lord,” he replied. “But the short sword and shield are very effective in a melee, and that’s how Seth Yarra like to fight.”

“Let them dictate terms, eh?” the idiot said. Skal drew a deep breath. He could feel Quinnial watching him, and he could sense, more than feel, the waves of ice coming his direction from Maryal.

“Surely you’re not suggesting we run away rather than engage the enemy, my lord?” Skal asked. He carefully pitched his tone so that what he said could be taken as a joke, but knew that the man would no see it so.

Bizmael huffed and turned a slightly redder shade, but Quinnial spoke before the conversation could take a more bitter turn.

“You can’t deny their record, lord Bizmael,” he said. “The Seventh Friend has been honoured by King Raffin as well as our own duke, and we are pleased to see them adopt tactics that have proven effective against the enemy. You should consider it yourself, perhaps.”

“We did well enough against Seth Yarra in our own way,” Bizmael said. Skal recalled that Bizmael’s two thousand had been east with Narak, and taken part in the destruction of the main Seth Yarra army.

“Indeed. I envy you playing a part in such a famous victory, my lord,” Skal said. It was laying the butter on a bit thick, but he saw a twinkle in Quinnial’s eye, and knew it for approval. Why he cared about Quinnial’s approval he could not say, but it seemed that he did.

“Yes, well,” Bizmael said, squinting uncomfortably against the wind. “We did have cavalry. You had to do without, so I suppose some tactical adjustments might be needed.”

It was the best he could hope for. The buffoon had sensed Quinnial’s desire for peace and backed down as far as he was able, which was good. They were in the same army after all. He heard a whistle behind him, and knew that the rest break was at an end.

“My lords, my lady, I would happily show you our various drills, and you can judge our progress for yourselves.” It was the first time he had addressed a word to Maryal. The title was complimentary, of course. Maryal was not raised up, but as Quinnial’s betrothed she was honoured with the title never the less. He saw Quinnial glance at her.

“Very good,” Quinnial said. “Carry on and we’ll follow.”

Men were pouring out from their seats around the fires and forming up into groups. Officers and sergeants were shouting orders and as they drew nearer he heard the first ring of steel and steel. Somewhere in the distance he heard horses and the hiss of arrows in flight. It took very little time for the men to be back into the swing of training.