'It's very … comfortable. And kind of you to let us use it.’ Antyr's reply was a little awkward. He was fairly certain that the wagon would have been commandeered, and that they were about to be subjected to some acrimony on that account.
Bannor, however, simply inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Known the Duke a long time.'
'You know the Duke?’ Antyr could not keep the surprise from his voice.
Bannor nodded again, but did not amplify his observation immediately.
'Good man,’ he said, after another long pause. ‘Asked me to look after you.'
There was a chuckle from Tarrian. ‘Deep one, this,’ he said. ‘And quiet. Pleasure to be with. Not like you rattling townies.'
Antyr ignored the jibe.
'How do you come to know the Duke?’ he asked, speaking slowly in an attempt to make his curiosity seem less strident against Bannor's patient demeanour.
'Fighting,’ Bannor answered.
Antyr nodded. How else? he thought.
'And you?’ The echo of his own question from Bannor, albeit leisurely, caught Antyr unawares. He had a fleeting image of slow plodding feet following a plough; feet that would neither quicken nor slow with the terrain, but would continue relentlessly until the whole field was turned, and would then carry their owner to his hearth at the same pace.
'He … sent for us,’ Antyr replied eventually, fiddling with his ring of office.
Bannor nodded slightly and sucked on his pipe. ‘Knows his men, the Duke,’ he said. ‘Always did.'
And that seemed to be the end of the matter; at least for the time being. Antyr was quietly relieved. He made a note to himself to be careful with this seemingly slow countryman. He sensed no malice in him, but realized that his relaxed manner might extract confidences more readily than the craftiest Liktor. He wondered how many more ordinary people the Duke bound with old ties of personal loyalty. Probably a great many, he decided.
He turned his gaze to the baggage train ahead of them. Many of the wagons were of a standard army design, but the majority were obviously modified farm vehicles, although there were also hospital wagons and several specially made house wagons to accommodate the administrative personnel that were an integral and vital part of Ibris's army.
He leaned out and glanced back at the train behind them. In the distance he could see the lavish wagons that housed the lady Nefron and her entourage. It added an unnatural sense of incongruity to the scene. Like most Serens he knew the rumours about the reason for Nefron's confinement to the Erin-Mal, but official pronouncements had always resolutely maintained that she was ‘plagued by ill health'. Now she was suddenly recovered and trailing dutifully after her husband, ‘for the morale of the troops'.
Not for mine, though, Antyr thought, remembering that it was her unseen touch that had brought him to Menedrion.
He sided with the current refectory wisdom; Ibris had released her to guarantee greater unity among the various factions that comprised the city's government, but he didn't want her left to her own devices in Serenstad.
Antyr shrugged the conjectures aside. Whatever their truth, he had more urgent matters to occupy him.
'Double your guard on myself and Menedrion,’ Ibris had said to him and Pandra before they had left Serenstad. ‘I know you feel I'm strong enough to protect myself, but we're all of us going to be increasingly tired and preoccupied, and this bond between Menedrion and Arwain is too vague for me to rest easy with-especially as they're a long way apart now. Besides, with this matter coming to a head, who knows what … they'll … do before it's finished.'
Antyr could not dispute this precautionary recommendation, though he had expressed some concern that, not fully understanding what was happening, he might prove inadequate to the task.
Ibris could well have replied that, inadequate or not, Antyr was all they had to oppose these strange attackers, but instead he just looked at him and said, bluntly, ‘You won't be.'
It had done little to reassure Antyr, but he had done as he was bidden and, with Tarrian and Grayle, had assiduously guarded the Duke's sleeping hours, while Pandra and Kany had guarded Menedrion's. In addition, they had wandered through the night thoughts of the camp in search of the untoward. It had been a disturbing experience, full of doubts and fears and longings for home, shot through with red and screaming strands of madness and bloodlust. But they had found nothing unusual and had reported the same to the Duke.
Ibris had nodded knowingly. ‘They're waiting,’ he said. ‘Waiting to see what happens at Whendrak. Don't lower your guard.'
What guard? Antyr mused wryly, as the comment came back to him, but he did not voice the question.
Alongside the baggage train, the infantry flank guards were walking stolidly on in loose order, some alone and silent, others in groups, talking and laughing; above all, laughing.
The sound brought back memories to Antyr of his own time in the line; there were few things to compare with the camaraderie brought about by a common discipline and a common danger. And it lingered long after grimmer memories had sunk into the darker recesses of the mind.
Perhaps it was this selective recollection that helped keep such monstrous folly as war alive in the world, he thought, with a mixture of irony and bitterness as he looked at the young faces walking beside his wagon. Always it was the young who paid the price of their elders’ greed and pride and foolishness.
Yet people were predominantly forward-looking and hopeful, and by their nature they could not, would not, burden themselves constantly with the horrific memories that were necessary if such folly was to be prevented in future.
Balance was all. To remember all was to choke the future with the vomit of the past. To forget all was to leave the ground fallow for its re-creation.
'A deci for your thoughts,’ a voice said, interrupting his reverie. It was Estaan. He jumped up on to the wagon.
He was smiling broadly and Antyr responded as he moved along the seat to make a space for him. ‘They're worth more than that,’ he said with a profound shake of his head. ‘I've just solved all the world's problems.'
Estaan declined the seat and remained standing on the edge of the platform, supporting himself by holding the corner upright of the wagon. He drew in a hissing breath laden with reservation. ‘We'd better recruit another army then,’ he said. ‘It's people like you who start wars.'
Then he laughed loudly, infecting Antyr and Pandra and even raising a soft, shaking chuckle from Bannor.
As he subsided, it occurred to Antyr, not for the first time, that here was balance. The Mantynnai knew, remembered, and progressed. They protected the weak and they taught the less able to protect themselves where they could. Much of his time training with Estaan had been spent in considering the harsh logic of violence, and the insight derived from that revealed many other things. Indeed, it was a defensive weapon as potent as any sword and any amount of instruction in its use.
'It's a fine day, gentlemen,’ Estaan went on. He lifted his head and scented the air. ‘The fields are preparing for rest. Winter's on its way, sharp and clear.'
'We are going to war,’ Antyr said in some surprise at this enthusiasm.
'We're not there yet, and it's still a fine day whether we have a war or not,’ Estaan retorted, smiling again. He leaned out from the wagon and made an expansive gesture. ‘Look at those birds, those trees, everything.'
Further debate on the matter was ended, however, by the arrival of a messenger. Antyr judged that he was scarcely of an age to be serving his compulsory army duty. Probably lied about his age, he thought, and, with the thought, he had a vision of fretful parents moving about their house in awkward silence, unable to look at one another for fear that they would see in each other's eyes the spectre that the boy had invoked.
'Lord Antyr,’ the boy began, breathless and flushed. ‘Would you attend on the Duke immediately, please.'
Tarrian chuckled at the boy's wide-eyed promotion of the Dream Finder to the aristocracy. ‘He's probably misheard,’ he said. ‘The Duke probably said old, not lord.'
'We'll be along straight away,’ Antyr replied to the messenger, poking Tarrian with the toe of his boot.
Estaan jumped down from the wagon and Antyr followed him. He unhitched the horses from the back of the
