“Yes—you’ll be weaker than you think; you lost a lot of blood.” Vanza reached down an arm, and Paks pulled herself up. She felt dizzy at first, but it passed quickly. “Try walking,” said the surgeon. She took a step, then another. She felt no pain, but she was shaky. “That’s expected,” the surgeon reassured her. “Don’t push yourself for the next day or so—rest when you’re tired. Eat and drink as much as you can.” He turned away. Paks looked at Vanza.
“Where are the others? Were they all—”
“No. Not all.” He sighed. “We lost more than we should, though. I still can’t believe it. No one does this—I knew the Wolf Prince was bad, but even he—”
“Is that who it was?”
“It must have been. You saw the wolf’s head, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But I’m confused—”
“We all are. Now—all you wounded are being healed, as you were, by the Duke’s command. For today, stay close. You can help with food, and that sort of thing, but don’t try to do too much—no hauling mules around.”
“But—what did that Master Vetrifuge do? And why not do it all the time, if it works so well?”
Vanza stopped short and gave her a startled look. “You mean you don’t know about magical healing?”
“No. Effa said something about St. Gird, but—”
“That’s different. Or somewhat different. Let me see—first of all, Master Vetrifuge is a mage. Wizard, they’re called in the north. Surely you’ve heard of them?”
“Yes, but—”
“Just listen. Some mages specialize in one sort of magic; healing magic is one particular kind of magic. I don’t know how it works—I’m no mage. It’s great learning, I’ve been told, and great power—but whether of a god, or the mage himself, I don’t know. But healing mages can heal wounds, if they aren’t too bad. Too old, say, or full of fever. Sometimes they can heal diseases, though not so well. But it takes a lot of money. Mages don’t work for nothing.”
“What about potions?”
“You had that too? Mages make potions, to speed healing. Those are even more expensive; don’t ask me why. Our surgeons always have a few of these, but of course they don’t use them most of the time.”
Paks frowned. “Why not? If wounds could be healed so fast—”
“Because of the cost. Paks, the Duke will have spent the whole contract’s profit, I don’t doubt, just healing the few of you here. No one could afford to have every wound magically healed. It’s cheaper to train and hire new fighters. Our Duke is one of the few I’ve heard of who will use such healing at all for his common soldiers.”
“Oh.” Paks thought about it. She had no way of valuing things, but it seemed strange that a tiny vial of liquid, however rare, could be more costly than a person. “But what did Effa mean, then?”
“About St. Gird?” Paks nodded. “Well, the gods can heal, if they will. Those who serve them—Marshals of Gird, or Captains of Falk, or whatever—have the power to ask healing of the gods and have it granted. Before my time, the Duke was friendly with Girdsmen—I even heard he was one himself—and had a Marshal with the Company for healing. I’ve seen men who say they were healed that way.”
“Does that cost so much?”
“Well—I can’t say. They usually heal their own, and no one else: Marshals heal Girdsman, and Captains heal Falkians. I’d think it would cost, though maybe not in gold. Why should a god give healing for nothing?”
“The gods give rain and wind for nothing, and sunlight.”
“For nothing? Surely your people gave back, wherever you’re from—” Vanza stared at her. Paks remembered the little shrines by the well and the corners of her father’s fields; the tufts of barley and oats, and the lamb’s blood they left there. For an instant she felt cold as she realized how close she had come to impiety.
“You’re right,” she said quickly. “But the gods have the power to give as they choose, whatever gifts we give. That’s what I meant, that we give gifts, we do not compel.” She hoped that was what she’d meant.
He nodded. “True, no one can compel—but they are honorable, or the good ones are, and generous.” He nodded to her and went away. Paks stared after him, thoughtfully. Wizards… magical healing… somehow when she’d heard of magic potions in songs, she’d never thought of the cost in gold. Or lives.
Chapter Eleven
The next day Cracolnya’s cohort marched in. Pont, his junior captain, escorted the survivors back to the Company’s camp while the Duke, Cracolnya, and most of that cohort went on to Valdaire.
“I thought the Czardians were defeated,” said Callexon. “What happened?”
Erial, the junior sergeant in Cracolnya’s cohort, chuckled. “They were. But they’d hired a mercenary band to help them, only it was late. Then the Duke pulled us out—so when their hirelings finally arrived, they quit talking to Foss Council again and decided to fight for it.” She paused to wipe the sweat from her face. “Won’t do them any good. As long as Foss Council still has three cohorts in the field, and we have two—”
“Who’d they hire?” Varne’s face still looked patchy and pink, but she was otherwise healthy.
“Some southern company. We don’t have to worry; they won’t be any better than the Czardian militia.”
“Unless they’ve got the Free Pikes,” said Vanza.
Erial looked startled. “I never thought of that—they hardly ever hire out.”
“Who are the Free Pikes?” asked Paks.
“The only decent southern company,” said Erial. “They’re from the high mountains in the southwest—I think they call it Horngard.”
“That’s right,” said Vanza. “They don’t hire out much—they fight in defense, or if their land needs money. But when they fight—!” He shook his head.
But the Czardians did not have the Free Pikes; they had hired, Stammel explained, a renegade baron of the Sier of Westland and his so-called knights. They were best known for their woodswork—sneaking into enemy lines at night to kill sleeping men, or steal supplies, or start fires—but could put up a respectable fight on the field, as well.
Paks had hardly realized, in the excitement of her first battle, that the Duke’s Company was not fighting alone. Now she had a look at the Foss Council militia. They wore short gray tunics over trousers of bright red (from Foss) or green (from Ifoss); they carried short straight swords and light throwing javelins. Foss Council held the right wing of their position; their camp, like the Duke’s, was in the forest. Trees ended on a gentle slope, opening on a wide expanse of grass and sedge that faced another tree-shaded ridge some distance away. To the left, the trees made an arc connecting the two ridges; to the right, the grassy meadow grew wetter, finally producing a stream that trickled away to the north.
When the next battle came, two days later, Paks was more than ready for it. Someone had made it through the lines; Arne was in the surgeon’s care with a knife wound, and Kir of Dorrin’s cohort was dead. Even so, her breath came short as the two lines closed. For an instant she was even more frightened than the first time—she could feel the sickening blow that had opened her leg. She thrust the thought away angrily as the remembered noise and confusion swept over her. This time she was able to keep her head, battering at the enemy stroke after stroke. She was aware of the man beside her, able to adjust her strokes to his so that they fought as a unit. It seemed to last forever: dust, noise, confusion, the rising and falling blades. Then the ground softened under her feet. She realized that they had advanced to the center of the field, where mud churned up instead of water.
Some time after midday, both sides withdrew a space. Paks drained her water flask and wiped sweat from her face. She had come through uninjured. Her stomach growled—a long time since breakfast. They stood quiet in formation: across the way the enemy lines shifted, milling.
“Pass your flask back,” said Donag, handing her his. “They’ll send water forward.” Soon the dripping flasks returned, and they drank. Slabs of bread came forward, then more water. Paks ate hungrily. When she looked again, the enemy seemed a little further away. She nudged Kiri beside her.
“They’re giving back,” he said. “Don’t look at ’em, and maybe they’ll go all the way.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Means they don’t want to fight the rest of the day. Fine with me—it’s too blazin’ hot anyway.”
And in fact the enemy were soon back in their own camp, and to Paks’s surprise they were not sent in
