tall heavy young man with a pale mustache, led them to the kitchen behind, where the cook’s helpers were heaping platters with roast meat, bread, cheese, and dried fruit. Paks took a platter and carried it back through the dining room and across the road. The food was good, spiced with strange flavors, and Paks devoured her share. The second rank took the platters back, and they settled down to wait until the captains returned.
“How do you like cities?” Saben asked Paks.
“I don’t know—it’s not what I thought it would be.”
“Did you see that dwarf?”
Paks nodded. “I didn’t know they were real, any more. Do you know what was on that horse with the fancy bridle?”
“No. I missed that. We can ask Stammel or Bosk.”
Bosk chuckled at their question. “You mean you don’t know? It’s a good thing you didn’t point. That was an elf, from Lyonya or the Ladysforest, a messenger to the Council.”
“Elf—” Paks and Saben looked at each other. “Will we see more of elves and dwarves and things like that?” asked Paks.
Bosk spat. “I hope not. Uncanny, they are, and unfriendly, too. We don’t have much to do with them, and the less the better, I say.”
“Now Bosk,” said Devlin, who had walked up on the conversation. “Elves are good fighters, you have to say that.”
“If it’s fighting alone, give me dwarves—not that I want them, but they’re hard as stone, and tireless. Elves —they’ll sing as soon as fight, or go off after some fool idea. And they think they know everything, and have to tell you about it—without answering any question you want answered, either.”
“I don’t know—” Devlin looked thoughtful. “I’ve met a few elves—five years ago, that year you stayed north, Bosk, I talked to one. She was uncanny, but beautiful. Sometimes she’d sing in Common, about the Beginnings, and where the elves came from, and battles long ago. It was strange, but very powerful. I liked it.”
“Your choice,” said Bosk shortly. “And you can’t say some elves haven’t gone bad—”
“The kuaknom? That maybe, but they’re all dead.”
Bosk snorted. Another recruit broke in. “But won’t we go past dwarf lands in a few days?”
“South of here, yes. But we go around the mountains rather than through them. We’ll see dwarves on the road between here and Valdaire, but we won’t see their caves.”
“Are gnomes just another name for dwarves?” asked Saben.
“Gird’s arm, no! And remember that, if we see any. The Aldonfulk princedom comes near the road for a day’s travel. They’re not like dwarves at all, save their love of stone and living underground. You saw that dwarf—wide as he was tall, and so they all are. Gnomes are slenderer, but still short. Good fighters; they’re lawful folk, knowing the value of discipline and training. They don’t say much, but what they do say you can trust with your life.”
“You like them, don’t you?” asked Paks.
“Of the elder races, yes. Trustworthy, brave, well-organized. Some of them are Girdsmen.” Paks had not realized before that Bosk was Girdish; she looked at him curiously.
The sunlight had dimmed behind thicker clouds as they ate, and now a fine drizzle sifted over the landscape. Paks stamped her feet, feeling the chill.
“I hope we start marching soon.”
“We’ll have to wait for the captains. I hope they don’t linger over their meal.”
“Where are they?”
“Probably with the vice-regent. They usually eat at the palace on these journeys; the regents always have some message for the Duke.”
Paks wondered what the palace looked like. “Did we pass the palace?” she asked.
“Do you remember that wall we marched beside, before we came to the square with the fountain? That was the palace wall. You can’t see the palace itself from outside.”
“Have you seen it?”
Bosk shook his head. “No. But Stammel did once, I think. It’s just a palace, though, like any other. I’ve seen the King’s Hall in Rostvok.”
“That’s in Pargun, isn’t it?” asked Vik. Bosk nodded, and Vik went on. “I heard it had a room lined in gold, polished like mirrors, and all the guards wore jewelled helmets and a ruby in one ear.”
“I never saw a golden room,” said Bosk. “But they do wear jewels in their ears, and not just the guards, either. I couldn’t say if they were rubies. As for helmets, the ones I saw were good polished bronze, nothing more. Tell you what they did have, though: in the King’s Hall itself, where the King sits and receives ambassadors and such, they had a hanging framework that held—oh—a hundred candles, I suppose. Much like what the Duke’s got, so far, only bigger. But all over it, and hanging from it, were little chips that looked like clear ice—much too big for diamonds—and they glittered in the candlelight, and made sparkles of all colors that danced over the whole hall. One of their men told me it was a kind of glass, but I never saw glass anything like that. It was something to see, I’ll tell you—all lit up and a hundred colors. Like the sun coming out after rain, or an ice storm, only more so.”
Paks tried to imagine such a thing and failed; she had never seen even the Duke’s dining hall. She shivered as the drizzle thickened. When she glanced back up the road toward the city, she saw nothing but a cloaked man on foot, trudging doggedly toward the gates. Just as Stammel spoke of moving them into the inn courtyard, they heard a shout.
“Good,” said Stammel. “Here’s the captains, and we can go on. What I heard of the roads, it’ll be a long march.”
“What about cloaks?” asked Devlin. “If this gets worse—”
“We’ll need them dry for tonight,” said Stammel. “If a caravan’s stuck in Littlebridge, we may not have shelter for everyone.”
The captains rode up. “Sorry we were held up,” said Pont. “The vice-regent insisted that we witness the seal on a letter for the Duke. Ferrault will go on, and I’ll stay with the column. We’d better march.”
Quickly Stammel reformed the unit, and they moved out. Ferrault’s bay horse trotted ahead, quickly moving out of sight. The last large building was indeed another inn, this one with a picture of a mounted fighter on its signboard. As they passed, a small group of men lounged out its wide door to stare at them.
“The carrion crows are moving, I see,” said one in green, with gray boots.
“Whose are those?” asked another. He had a delicately curled mustache.
“Some northern warlord. Duke something-or-other, I forget. They all ape the nobility, that sort.” Paks heard him hawk and spit. “Better they go south to Aarenis and die than cause trouble here, I say.”
The others laughed. Paks noticed that Stammel’s neck was redder than usual. He said nothing. She wondered if the captain had heard. They marched on, up a rise in a gentle S-curve. The road ran between low walls and hedges, with farmland on either side. Under the drizzle the plowed fields looked soft and black. Most of the cattle were dun, with white markings on their faces. Cottages near the road were stone below and white-washed wood above; the roofs were slate cut thinner than Paks had seen before. Each cottage had a block of fruit trees behind it.
The next two days taught Paks more than she wanted to learn about bad weather marching. First the hard- frozen road went from greasy to soft mud under the drizzle. As the afternoon and rain went on, the mud deepened, until they were all ankle-deep in thin slop. Paks felt the wet creep into her boots: first the toes, then the sides of her feet, and finally the whole foot, squelch, squelch, squelch with every step. Her socks pulled the dampness up her legs. Drizzle soaked her tunic at the shoulders, until little trickles of rain began to run down her back and sides. She worried about her sword in its scabbard. That was better than thinking about her cold feet. When the road lifted over low hills, the road firmed, but in the hollows mud was deep enough to slow them. Paks, in the front rank, could see how it had been churned already by heavy caravan wagons.
As the light faded, Paks began to wonder where they would spend the night. Usually by this time they had already camped. She glanced around. Thick leafless woods on either side of the road, as they toiled up yet another rise. Mud dragged at her feet. Several had stumbled in holes hidden by the mud; some had fallen. At the top, the road followed the ridge, swerving east. The drizzle thickened to a steady light rain, blown by a northeast wind. As it got darker, it was harder to see the road surface. Paks lurched as she missed her footing in the ruts and holes. The road swung right; she felt the change in grade as it dipped. Paks heard the captain coming up, the sucking of his horse’s hooves in the mud. He rode past her, his horse mud to the knees, and called to Stammel.
