Sheepfarmer's Dauther

Paks laughed. “By the gods, Barra, I’m not that easy to kill.”

“You looked it that morning. A real mess, I tell you—I was ashamed—”

Paks felt a flicker of anger. “You—and why you? I was the one out there in front of everyone—”

“You’d always been a strong one, Siger’s pet, and there you were, looking like something that’d come from a lockup—”

Paks grinned in spite of herself. “Well—I had—”

“Blast it! You know what I mean! You looked—”

“Gods above, Barra! She doesn’t want to think about that now!” Vik shoved his way between them, and winked at Paks. “Don’t worry—even bruises and chains can’t make you ugly, Paks.”

She felt herself go red. “Vik—”

“Like a song,” he went on, unmoved. “Did you ever hear ’Falk’s Oath of Gold,’ Paks? When Falk was taken in the city of fear, and locked away all those years?”

“No. I thought Falk was a sort of saint, like Gird.”

“Saints!” snorted Barra from Vik’s other side.

“He is,” said Vik seriously. “And Barra—I wouldn’t scoff at them. Maybe they’re far above us—but they have power.”

“The gods have power,” said Barra. “I’m not like Effa—I don’t believe that men become gods when they die. And I’d rather be alive anyway.”

“But tell me about Falk,” said Paks. “Isn’t he the one that wears rubies and silver?”

“I don’t know what he wears now,” began Vik. “He was a knight, a ruler’s son, who kept his sworn oath and saved his kin by it, even though it meant years of slavery for him.”

“Ugh. Why didn’t he just kill his enemies?” asked Barra. “I heard that he spent a year cleaning the jacks of some city—”

“That and more,” said Vik. “It’s in the song, but you know I can’t sing it. My father did, and I know most of the story. You’d like it, Paks—it’s full of magic and kings and things like that.”

“A magic sword?”

“Oh, yes. More than one. Someday when we’ve made enough money, we can hire a harper to sing it for us.” Vik kept the conversation going until they reached the stronghold, where they broke up into their separate units. Barra shook her head, but stayed away from the topic the next time they drilled together. But others wanted to know what the underground cells were like, and what Stammel had said, and what the corporal had said. Paks fended off these questions as best she could: the cells were cold and miserable, and she wouldn’t repeat any of the talks she’d had. Eventually they let her alone.

Meanwhile, Stammel had taken the unit in to help Kolya with her apple harvest. This was their first time to see Duke’s East, since they had arrived from the west. Children playing in the streets waved and yelled at them; the adults smiled and spoke to Stammel. They passed an inn, the Red Fox, and a cobbled square surrounded with taller stone houses, and came to a stone bridge over the little river. Upstream Paks could see a weir and a millpond, and a waterwheel slowly turning. Kolya’s land lay south of the river, beyond a water meadow where cattle grazed.

Kolya’s orchard had more trees than Paks could count; she had never seen such a thing. Her aunt had been famed for five apple trees and two plums, but Kolya had rows of apples, plums, and pears. Only the apples remained so late, scenting the air with their rich, exciting fragrance. Soon Paks was high on a ladder, picking the apples at the top of her assigned tree. It was cool and sunny, perfect weather for the job. Below, in the aisles between the trees, Stammel and Kolya strolled together, directing the pickers and talking.

Paks caught a few snatches of that conversation, between orders to the workers. It seemed to be far removed from apple harvest, something about someone named Tamarrion, who had once been in the Company.

“—wouldn’t have happened like that at all,” she heard Stammel say. “She would have made sure first, before she called for a ban.”

Kolya snorted. “In her day, you’d never have brought back someone like Korryn at all, would you?”

“No—you’re right about that. But things are different.” Paks saw his head shake, far below, then he peered up to see that she was working. She wondered if the mysterious Tamarrion had been a sergeant—even a captain—but something in their tone kept her from asking.

* * *

As fall turned to winter, the recruits honed their weapons skills, now learning to use a shield with their swords. They began drilling in groups, one line against another, learning to work together with their weapons. They were allowed to stand guard, first with the regulars, then alone. On guard duty on the wall, with her sword hanging heavy at her side, Paks felt very much the professional. One gray, sleety day, she was on duty when a traveler came up the road from Duke’s West, and called the challenge herself. She thought he did not notice that her tunic was recruit brown instead of maroon.

Along with all this, they were introduced to tactics. Paks had thought that after mastering the intricacies of drill, nothing remained to learn about engaging the enemy. She was wrong.

“But I thought we just ran at them and started fighting,” said Vik, echoing her thought.

“No. That’s the way to get killed, and quickly. None of you will make these decisions now, but you all need to know something of tactics. You can do your job better if you know what you’re trying to accomplish.” They were gathered around Stammel in the mess hall between meals; he began to set out apples on the table. “Now suppose this—here—is the Duke’s Company. And this over here is the enemy. Look at the length of lines.”

“Theirs is longer,” said Saben, stating the obvious. “But we—”

“Listen. Now suppose we engage just as we are. What happens on each end of our line, on the flanks?”

“They can hit the side, too,” said Vik.

“If they have enough, they can go all around,” Paks put in.

“Yes. That looks bad, doesn’t it? But it depends on why their line is so long, and what they’re fighting with.” He added more apples to the array. “Suppose they’ve only as many men as we have, so their line is long and thin. We form the square, and we engage one-on-one all the way around. With our depth, we actually have them outnumbered at each position. If they’re fighting with swords, they won’t have a chance. We have concentrated our strength on their weakness—or rather, they have stupidly chosen to make themselves weak all over.”

Effa frowned at the table. “So it’s better to make the square?”

“Not always. We can’t move fast or far in the square—you remember—” They nodded. “Mobility is important, too. So is terrain—where is the good ground?” Quickly he showed them how slope, water, and such hazards as swamp and loose rock could change the choice of tactics. “It’s the commander’s responsibility to choose the best ground—for our side, of course. The Duke’s famous for it. But you need to know how it’s done, so you’ll know what to watch out for, and which way to move—”

“But we’re under orders, aren’t we? We just do what we’re told—”

“Yes. But sergeants and corporals get killed—even captains. In battle, there’s no time to send questions to the Duke. If the regulars don’t know what to do and why, the cohort will fall apart. Be captured at best. That’s what Kolya Ministiera did—took over her cohort, kept ’em moving together, the right way. That’s why she made corporal so young. If she hadn’t lost an arm at Cortes Cilwan, she’d have been the youngest sergeant in the Company, I don’t doubt. But when she went down, someone else took over—that’s what we train for.”

They looked at each other, wondering. Paks hoped she would do as well—without losing an arm. The only thing that frightened her was the thought of ending her career as a young cripple, with nothing left to do.

Soon the lessons in tactics had gone beyond table demonstrations to live practice fields. Each recruit unit made a mock cohort, and they practiced engagements, disengagements, squaring, flanking, and other maneuvers: first without weapons, and then with wooden swords and shields. In smaller groups they learned to fight in confined areas: stairs, passages, stables. They made ladders and scaled the walls of the stronghold in mock assaults, then learned to hold the wall against assaults. And since the Duke sometimes hired mounts when he wanted to move his