in trees, behind the hummock, but she knew which clumps of trees to watch. It was still too dark. Her legs felt brittle with cold; she did a little jig at the corner, waiting for Coben to finish his circuit so they could talk.
“Gah—it’s cold!” he gasped, shivering, as he came close enough.
Paks nodded, dancing from foot to foot, both of them numb. “N-not long,” she said. “Did—did you see the smoke? Soon.”
Coben grinned. “B-better be soon. Better go on; it’s colder to stop.”
Paks turned away. It was light enough to see colors now, muted though they were. There was the dark blur of trees along the river—the larger blur of the trees near and beyond Duke’s East. When she got to the gate tower, the guard sergeant opened the tower door and beckoned her in.
“Here’s something to warm you,” he said. “Just came up from the kitchens.”
Paks nodded gratefully, too cold to speak, and took the mug he offered. Even in the tower it was cold; steam rose from both mug and pitcher on the table. She sipped the scalding liquid; it burned her tongue. Her hands around the mug began to ache with cold, then warmed enough to tingle. She felt a warm glow inside, and drained her mug. “Shall I take some to Coben?”
“Let him come in, out of the wind,” said the sergeant. “You walk both segments for a few minutes, then come for a second dose.”
“Yes, sir.” Paks rubbed her arms hard a moment, then opened the door and went back out on the wall. It was just as cold. A red streak fanned across the east. Coben was waiting at the corner; Paks waved him in. He jogged past her with a stiff grin. She walked on, looking east at the nearby slopes, and turned north at the corner to take Coben’s place. North of the stronghold she could see more ridges through a gap in the nearest. Orcs laired there, someone had said. West were great rounded folds of moorland that the villages used for sheep pasture. She thought back to the moors above her father’s farm. It had been cold there, too, but you could stay in with the sheep at night. Her nose wrinkled, remembering the smell. She grinned to herself. She did not want to be back there, even for a warm place at night. She turned and started south along the wall.
A chip of liquid fire lifted above the eastern horizon, south of the ridge: the sun, a fat red-gold disk. Crisp blue shadows sprang across the walk from the stones of the battlements. The early light gave the fields below a rosy glow. Evergreens along the river were clearly green, and bare branches on other trees glinted as they swayed in the wind. She looked again for Duke’s East. Yes—smoke, now gold-white against a pale blue sky. She looked along the road, idly, then stiffened. She had caught a glimpse of sunlight on something—something that glittered.
She strained her eyes, squinting against the cold. Whatever it was lay between the hummock and Duke’s East, where the road itself was out of sight. Another glitter, a vague sense of movement. Paks let out a yell. The guard on the other side of the tower, who had been heading for the west corner, turned and looked at her. She yelled again, and pointed toward Duke’s East, then jogged to the tower. The door opened.
“What is it?” asked Coben. “Was I too long?” Behind him, Paks could see the sergeant.
“No—something on the road. On the road to Duke’s East.” Coben erupted from the doorway just ahead of the sergeant. “Where?” asked both of them at once. Paks pointed.
“Beyond the hummock—I saw something in the light, something moving.”
“I can’t see anything,” said the other guard, a recruit from Kefer’s unit, who had come through the tower. “What were you yelling for?”
“It may be the Duke,” said the sergeant. “If she saw anything—we’ll know soon enough. Get back to your posts; I’ll rouse the others. If it is the Duke,” he said to Paks, “I’ll thank you for the extra warning. He won’t catch us unprepared—not that we were.”
Coben went back to the east wall, but kept looking over his shoulder to the south. Paks could not take her eyes off the road, where it came back into view over the hummock. Behind her in the courtyard she heard a sudden commotion, but she was not even tempted to turn around. The tower door opened, and half the complement of regular guards poured out, all armed, to space themselves along the wall. Paks saw two trumpeters waiting in the doorway. The other half of the guards, she realized, had gone out the far side of the tower. The sergeant reappeared.
“Paks, you and Coben come down and parade with your unit.”
Paks tore her eyes from the road; the sergeant eyed her kindly. “Go on, now. I know you want to stay and see it, but the Duke likes everything done regularly. All the recruits should be together.” Paks nodded, and slipped down the tower stairs to the courtyard. The recruit units were already forming. Stammel was watching for Paks and Coben with another jug of asar.
“Here—you two look half-frozen. Drink this quickly, go use the jacks and straighten yourselves up, and get back here as fast as you can.” They took the jug into the barracks. Paks took down her windblown hair and rebraided it quickly, then downed a mug of asar. She ran to the jacks, rubbing her arms and stamping her feet. It seemed much warmer down off the wall. When they came out, Stammel took the jug and sent them into formation. Corporal Bosk moved out of her place and into his own.
Just as Paks stepped into her position, the trumpets rang out from the tower. She wished she was up there to see. After a breathless pause, the trumpets sounded again; this time she could hear a faint answering call from outside. Captain Valichi strode around the courtyard, checking each recruit unit in turn. Across the court, Paks could see his horse waiting. The trumpets sounded again. Captain Valichi mounted and rode to the gate. A bellow from the guard sergeant, high overhead. A rumble from outside. The sergeant yelled down into the court: “Captain, it’s my lord Duke.”
“Open the gates!” ordered the captain. Paks could hear the grinding of the portcullis mechanism, and the great brown leaves on the main gates folded inward. For a moment nothing happened. Then the clatter of horses’ hooves on stone, and a figure in glittering mail under a long maroon cloak rode through the gates. Valichi bowed in the saddle.
“Welcome, my lord Duke,” he said. The cloaked figure pushed back the fur-edged hood, revealing rumpled red hair above a bearded face.
“Early for breakfast, I’d have thought,” said the Duke. “What sharp eyes spotted us this time?”
“A recruit, my lord,” said Valichi.
The Duke scanned each of the recruit units; Paks felt his gaze like a dagger blade, cold and keen. Then he grinned at Valichi. “Well,” he said, “let’s keep
Grooms ran out to take the horses; the men-at-arms dismounted as the Duke went through into his court, and led their own mounts to the stables. Horses, Paks noticed, and not mules. The guard sergeant came out of the tower with all but the dayshift guards; he caught Stammel’s eye and made a lifting gesture with his hand. Paks could not yet read the hand signals the veterans used, but Stammel grinned. He turned to Paks. “Good eyes. The Duke tries to take us by surprise, and he likes to fail—at that, if nothing else. Where did you see him?”
“I saw something—but I wasn’t sure what—between that high ground and the village. It must have stuck up fairly high; could it have been that pennant?”
“Could have been, or a squire’s helmet. The sun must have caught it just right—and then you were looking in the right place. Well done, Paks.”
Duke Phelan might have traveled half the night to arrive at his stronghold at dawn, but that did not mean he planned to sleep the day away. Shortly after breakfast, he appeared in the courtyard to watch Kefer’s unit at weapons drill, and by noon he had observed every recruit unit in its work. He said little that any of the recruits could hear, but his sharp glance seemed everywhere at once. In the afternoon the recruits lost sight of him; they were doing two-on-one engagements in the mud, with Stammel’s unit the one, and trying to maneuver in the square. None of them had a glance to spare for the wall, or the cloaked figure atop it, watching. The sergeants saw, but said nothing.
In the next week, while the sergeants muttered and fussed over the recruits like hens with too many chicks,
