For his part, Caolle gave grudging credit for Arithon’s contribution to the defence strategy: he did not curse his liege lord’s failing out loud, but in tones of mulish reserve, requested help to shift Arithon back to Steiven’s lodge tent.
‘That’s twice in a week our chief’s left us to haul deadweight like deer-dressers,’ the scout grumbled. The candle fluttered at his movement as he kicked back Steiven’s stool, leaned over and hooked his forearms under Arithon’s shoulders. ‘Phew. What’s he got on his clothes? Smells like burnt spice or something.’
Caolle shrugged. The finicky habits of mages being outside his province to fathom, he hefted the royal legs without comment.
As both men manoeuvred their prince around the chart-strewn table, the scout gave a breathless, short laugh. ‘Well, he’s small enough, Ath be thanked. Easy to sling as a puppy. If I have to strain a sword hand for my liege, I’m glad to know I’ll do it killing townsmen.’
‘Ye’ll do it standing extra turns at duty!’ Caolle snapped, moved at last to vent the spleen he had too long bent aside to please his chieftain. ‘Get back to your post where you belong, and leave yon princeling’s nursing to me.’ The mettlesome captain of the Deshans shouldered the unconscious prince like a game carcass and huffed on alone to Steiven’s lodge tent.
Dania’s extravagant expenditure of candles by this hour had burned low; those few wicks that still struggled alight fed on drafts, half drowned in puddled wax. Other candles snuffed to conserve resources stood tall white in a gloomy play of shadows. As conscious of their cost as of the life in the burden he carried, Caolle took care not to knock against them as he bore Arithon toward the cushions in the comer where Halliron’s lyranthe lay propped, unshrouded still, if not forgotten.
Caolle shucked his load, tugged straight a twist in his tunic, and considered his duty to his sovereign completed. He raised a forearm to blot his brow, caught a whiff of his leather bracers and nearly spat. The exotic reek from whatever rite of magery the prince had trifled with had transferred itself to his person. Moved to seek fresher air outside, Caolle spun to depart, but checked halfway to the doorflap as Steiven re-emerged from the alcove set aside for his children.
To forestall answering for the prince, Caolle asked, ‘Is Jieret settled?’
Steiven sighed, strolled crunching through scrolls of dry birch bark and uncorked the wine flagon his wife had left out for the Masterbard. ‘He’s coherent. Halliron’s telling him a story. If we’re lucky, he’ll choose something boring that will ease the boy back to sleep.’
‘The nightmare was truesight, then?’ Ruled by habit, Caolle braced broad shoulders against the king post and regarded the master he had first raised and now served without question. Neither man could have named the day when duty had deepened to respect; the nuance of who was master had never mattered between them. ‘Did Jieret say what he dreamed?’
Caught in mid-swallow, Steiven parked the flagon on his forearm. He shook his head. ‘Dania says he told nothing beyond the name of Fethgurn’s daughter. Though what Teynie has to do with an ugly precognition, Daelion Fatemaster knows. My boy cannot tell us. Whatever Jieret dreamed, it’s too much for him to bear. His mind has closed to recall, as mine did, once.’ And he stopped, knowing Caolle would remember: it had been the captain’s gruff hands that had soothed him, the night before his father found his death.
A shiver swept over Steiven. His regard lay heavy with understanding upon his captain: too soon, Etarra’s troops would invade these valleys.
Wordless, Caolle extended his hand for the flagon. Steiven watched while his first captain drank, his eyes as deep with worry as his oldest confidante had ever seen them. ‘We must withdraw the girls and women as Arithon wishes. Seer or not, his objections and Jieret’s nightmare are too close to be a coincidence.’
‘The boys over ten years of age will have to disarm the fallen then,’ Caolle insisted, his eyes beneath the crag of his browline deepened to pits as the candle by his elbow fluttered out. ‘Those few absolutely can’t be spared.’
Steiven nodded, took back the wine, and paused with the neck of the flagon half-raised. As if he expected a rejoinder, he glanced around and across the darkened tent. ‘Where’s the prince?’
Caolle jerked his chin past his shoulder. ‘There. Fell asleep on the tactical maps, so I brought him.’ Deshir’s war captain folded thick arms in expectation of Dania’s scolding as she and Halliron emerged from soothing Jieret into bed.
‘Ah well.’ Steiven sighed, aware how little reprimand would accomplish with his war captain planted like a bull. Finally, softly, he set the flask aside. ‘Our Teir’s’Ffalenn’s entitled to his comforts, I would guess, if he spent last night smacking midges in the open.’
A rustle of skirts and more flickering from spent candles, and Lady Dania reached her husband’s side. ‘Arithon ought to sleep,’ she said tartly. ‘When he left here, he was unwell.’
Caolle smiled. While the Masterbard crossed the lodge to fetch his instrument, the captain stole the moment to bait her by hooking back the flagon. ‘A man can be unwell, and not be the least bit sick.’ He drank, his eyes on hers.
Dania gave no ground. The captain’s blistering insolence she suspected held a hint of jealousy; at least, Caolle had never subjected her to teasing before the day she had wed. Her lord shied well clear, since better than anybody else, his lady could keep the war captain in his place.
Dania’s mouth tautened in conclusion that Caolle’s antagonism toward Arithon was the same: that he would treat even a dog with contempt, if it dared to claim Steiven’s affection. As though the grizzled captain were an overbearing brother, she reached out and slapped the flagon from his mouth. ‘Now what would his Grace be drunk on, stream water?’
Caolle choked to kill an untimely burst of laughter. ‘He has a weak head, our royal heir, or maybe just a weak stomach?’
The discussion was cut short, as Halliron cried out from the corner, ‘Ath Creator,
Steiven spun round on reflex; Caolle, with considering deliberation. Half-lost in the maze of deepened shadows, the Masterbard bent over Arithon, one hand clasped over the royal wrist and feeling in concern for a pulse.
‘Sithaer’s fires, man.’ Caolle rubbed his eyes, which were stinging tired from too much stress. ‘You act as if he’s dying. He only dropped off to sleep.’
