Agron now turned to Tipperton. 'Sir Tipperton, I know you are pledged to ride scout for me. Yet this I say: instead of joining my winter campaign in Gron, mayhap you and Beau should go with the Lian Guardians and represent the interests of the Litenfolk to High King Blaine, wherever he may be.'
Tip glanced at Phais and Loric, friends he had come to love. It would be so easy to go with them and search for the High King rather than ride into the cold wastes of Gron. He gazed down at the floor, remembering the courageous young man who had saved his life at his mill. Tip looked back up at Agron. 'Nay, my lord, I am pledged to you to avenge the death of Dular. A scout I am, and a scout I will be.'
Agron then looked at Beau, that buccan to shake his head. 'Nay, my lord, wherever Tip goes, so will I go. We started this war together, and together we will be when it ends. That we are separated is temporary, or so I do believe. Besides, you will need healers in this winter campaign, after all, and you can use my hands. I'm a hero, you know; you said so yourself.'
And so it was decided: the comrades would go their separate ways-three south, one west, and one to remain behind until he was well enough to follow.
Agron glanced at the light beyond the prison window; outside, snow had begun drifting down. ' 'Tis time we were going, Sir Tipperton, on this winter morn.' One by one, Agron looked at the others. 'Fare ye well, Sir Beau. Fare ye well DelfLord Bekki, Dara Phais, Alor Loric. May Adon watch over ye all.' Agron turned on his heel and strode down the passageway.
Bekki growled, 'Would that I were going into Gron with you, Tip, to lay Grg by the heels.' Bekki then smiled at Beau. 'Hear me, Chak-Sol: when you are well enough to follow Tipperton, take plenty of bullets for your sling, for surely you will need them.'
Beau nodded, then said, 'Oh, Bekki, that reminds me. Take a goodly amount of the gwynthyme and silverroot back to your mineholt; the Chakia will need it there. And, you, Phais and Loric, take some silverroot and gwynthyme, too. You as well, Tip, you as well; you never know when it will come in handy.'
Phais nodded and then leaned down and kissed Beau on the cheek in spite of his pustules. 'Take care, wee one. We shall meet again.'
Loric also kissed Beau, and laid a hand on the buccan's thin shoulder. 'I, too, think we shall meet again, little one.'
'Oh, Phais, Loric, Bekki, Tip, it is as if I am losing everyone I love.'
'Nonsense,' said Tip, embracing his friend, 'we shall meet again soon. After all, you said it yourself: everything is connected.'
'Connected, yes, but that doesn't mean we will all meet again.'
Bekki shrugged. 'In this war, who can say?'
A horn cry drifted in through the window slit.
'Oh my, Beau, I've got to go now,' said Tip, catching up his lute. 'Get well, and soon.'
'I will, bucco, and you can wager on it.'
Bekki, Phais, Loric, and Tip: they all stepped from the prison cell. 'Remember,' cried Beau, his voice tight with emotion, 'stop by the healer station and get gwynthyme and silverroot to take with you.'
Beau heard Tipperton call back, 'We will,' and there came a chord on the lute, and Tipperton's voice lifted in song:
Oh-fiddle-dee hi, fiddle-dee ho,
Fiddle-dee hay ha hee.
Wiggle-dee die, wiggle-dee doe,
Wiggle-dee pig die dee.
Once there was a very merry man
Who came to Boskledee…
Tipperton's voice faded away as he went down the hall and into the stairwell. And Beau sat propped in his bed, tears running down his face, humming along with Tip's song, Beau's favorite: 'The Merry Man of Boskledee.'
Long moments later Beau heard a second horn cry, followed by the shouting of voices and the clack of hooves on the cobbles below, the ching of arms and armor and the clatter of the cavalcade to fade into the distance…
… And then he could hear nothing more but the silence of the prison.
Chapter 19
In the last seven days of October and the first nine of November, Agron's cavalcade pressed on toward the muster at Alvstad. And during these sixteen days of travel, snow fell five of them altogether, unusual in Aven this time of year. Some claimed 'twas Modru's doing, while others claimed 'twas not. Regardless, in spite of the early snowfall and the cold, Agron's company finally arrived at their goal on November the ninth.
Alvstad itself was a stockaded city nigh the banks of the River Argon, yet with the muster at this place it was more tents and wagons ringed all 'round than buildings of wood within. Down through this gathering fared the cavalcade, down through snow churned to mud. And when the blue and gold of the king passed by, followed by the king himself, men stood along the route and cheered their monarch, slayer of the Gargon and conqueror of Modru's Swarm. Coming after the king and astraddle a horse towed behind a mounted soldier rode a legend alive: one of the Litenfolk.
Through cheering men and into the town proper fared Agron King, Tipperton and others following in his wake. At last they stopped before an inn, the king to dismount and signal a handful of others to follow, Tip among these latter. The remaining soldiers gathered up the horses and rode on toward the town stables, where they would quarter until time to leave.
As Tipperton stepped into the inn, he was glad this part of the journey was over, for he did not enjoy being on a tall horse tethered behind one of Agron's kingsmen, nor did he enjoy sleeping on the hard ground. Yet it seemed as if he had done nothing but such for absolutely ever so long, and for this night and the next several, he would sit adoze before a hearth and wallow in a soft, soft bed.
As a wide-eyed serving maid brought him a sweet-smelling cup of hot mulled wine, Tip shed his cloak and jacket and plopped down in comfort dear. A week from now they would be leaving for the wastes of Gron-but that was a week from now… practically forever.
In Alvstad as Agron had promised, there were several stables where ponies were available, and the very next day Tip spent long candlemarks looking over the stock before finally selecting two for his own use: a small brown pony from the hills nigh the Rimmens, and a black from the Steppes of Jord.
'If I were you, I'd ride the black,' advised the stablehand.
'I fully intended to, but why did you say?' asked Tipperton.
'Why, lad, it's from Jord,' replied the hand, as if that were explanation enough.
Tip shook his head and grinned, then outfitted the black with a small enough saddle and shortened the stirrups to length. The hand threw in a blanket and bridle for the good king's coin he received. Saddlebags and a currycomb were added to the goods, along with a stock blanket and lade-rack for the brown, as well as nosebags and other such. Tip arranged for the keep of the ponies until it was time to inarch, but when the stablemaster found that the buccan was a kingsscout, he would accept no pay for such. 'Doin' my part for the war,' said the man. 'Doin' my part for the war.'
Over the next five days more wagons and men and soldiers on horses drifted in, but on the sixth, the bugles blew and Agron's army set forth-wagons rolling, men marching, horses prancing-the army thirty thousand strong, all led by a wee buccan riding far-point along with another scout, that one a grizzled man.
Across the Argon River they passed, crossing at the wide ford, breaking through a thin layer of ice all the way to the opposite bank. Behind Tip and his companion, as each ridden horse and each drawn wagon came to the ford, they paused to wait for the marching men, each rider taking on a walking soldier, each wagon taking several men. And thus they crossed the Argon, horses bearing double, wagons hauling more, as through the shallows they fared.
In all it took until late midmorn for the entire army to cross, for many were the men and wagons and horses, and the whole stretched for miles altogether.
