“I saw the golds on the manifest for the regiment, but what would you pay for what he’s offering?”
“Ten golds.”
“Can you do fifteen if I add a few personally?”
Skarpa laughed again. “The governor already told me to give him twenty, for all he’s done, and not to take your coins. Not here, anyway.”
“The men won’t mind if we eat … there?”
“Most of them won’t care so long as they’re dry and fed. The company officers understand that holders like to feed officers and that means their men get quarters, even if they’re just dry barns.” He smiled. “They hope they get promoted so that they get fed that way someday.”
In the end, after Skarpa and Quaeryt had seen that all the men and company officers were fed, Rhodyn provided a late supper for Quaeryt and Vaelora, the commander, and the battalion majors. Rhodyn sat at the head of the long table, with his wife Darlinka at his left and Quaeryt to his right, with Vaelora beside her husband. Lankyt sat at the end of the table.
As the serving women set the platters on the table, after all the glasses had been filled with ale or lager, Rhodyn lifted his glass. “To your health and safety on your journey to come.”
The second toast was Quaeryt’s, and he offered, “Our deepest thanks and appreciation for your kindness and hospitality.”
“We cannot thank you enough,” added Skarpa after the toast.
“Commander,” replied Rhodyn, “most times holders bear the brunt of quartering armsmen, wincing and saying nothing. I’ve been more fortunate. The princeps favored me by going out of his way to do tasks that benefited me and my family. He offered counsel in an indirect way that let me keep my family and my pride, and his wife has graced my hold so that we will be able to tell our children and grandchildren how we’ve been favored. On top of that, Lord Bhayar removed the last of the ship reavers and made the Shallows Coast safe to ride and travel again … and that will allow us to graze lands closed for generations. All that would not have happened, I suspect, without the princeps’s presence in Tilbor.” The holder’s eyes twinkled and he inclined his head to Vaelora. “And yours, Lady. Now … enjoy the fare before it cools.”
The heaping platters held slices of mutton covered in dark gravy, fried potato/onion cakes, and large pickles cut into halves lengthwise. Another bowl held applesauce, and the bread in the baskets consisted of small warm golden loaves.
For a time, no one spoke.
Finally, with a grin upon his face, Skarpa did. “The princeps has never said much about his meeting with you, Holder Rhodyn, only that he praised your kindness and courtesy. Might you tell us more?”
“I only did what any good person would do,” demurred Rhodyn.
“Since the good holder is too modest,” said Quaeryt dryly, “I will offer a bit more. I was shipwrecked in a storm off the Shallows Coast. An elderly lady there offered me water, which I foolishly accepted, thinking water would be safe, although I worried about her very mien. After that I was chased by brigands through the fog following the storm. While I was able to escape them, when I reached Ayerne, here, I spoke but a few words to Holder Rhodyn before I collapsed. He and his wife nursed me through the poison and the injuries I had suffered until I was well. Then he even persuaded the local ostler to sell me the very mare I still ride for far less than she is worth. Mind you, he did not do this for the princeps, but for the mere scholar assistant to the princeps, and he did so without a thought of himself.”
Rhodyn shifted his weight in his chair, and Quaeryt thought the older man had blushed slightly.
“As I said, I only did what any good man would do.”
“And what very few men in fact do,” added Vaelora softly.
“I was not quite so selfless as the princeps says,” protested Rhodyn. “I did read the letters he carried. One appointed him as a scholar assistant. The second was from a lady, and it was written in a fine hand. It asked the kind of questions any ruler should ask. More than anything, it was her letter that told me about the man who lay close to dying in my house. Darlinka read it and told me that it would be a great loss to the lady and the world if I let him die.”
“I’m so glad you did not,” murmured Vaelora.
“As am I,” stated Darlinka.
“Now that you have your answers, Commander,” said Quaeryt, “might I turn the tables and ask how you came to serve Lord Bhayar?”
“You have me there, Princeps,” replied Skarpa. “Simple enough, it was. My father was a cooper, and after I’d destroyed enough staves in trying to make barrels, he said that the only trade there was where a man got paid for hacking everything to pieces was being a soldier … and since he had other sons who weren’t so destructive…” The commander shrugged.
From that point on, everyone talked.
More than a glass later, once the door had closed behind the departing officers, Rhodyn turned to Quaeryt. “Might I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you write me about Syndar?”
“Originally, I wanted to find some way to tell you that Syndar was not suited to be a holder, but that did not seem … right. When Yullyd told me how well Syndar did in helping with the ledgers, I realized that while my feelings had been correct, I hadn’t fully understood why. Your son Jorem has made the produce factorage more successful because he loves his wife and what they do together. Lankyt will make a good holder because he loves the land so much that he has gone out of his way to discover ways to improve what can be grown and how. Those were obvious to me, but when I saw, through others, that Syndar truly loved the life of study and numbers, I wrote … because men and women, I believe, find the most in life when they love what they do, either because they always love that or come to find that they do.”
“And you, Princeps,” asked Darlinka softly, “what do you love?”
“Besides Vaelora?” replied Quaeryt with a smile.
“You still answer some questions with questions,” said the holder’s wife.
Darlinka looked to Vaelora, questioningly.
“I would not dispute my husband’s answer, nor would mine be much different.”
Rhodyn laughed. “Then it appears you are well matched.”
“I only hope that you are strong enough together to survive what you love,” said Darlinka, her voice still soft, with a hint of sadness beneath the words.
15
South of Ayerne, the ice-covered snow of Tilbor and the north gave way to softer snow that was little more than calf-deep and soft and slushy. Even so, only by concentrating could Quaeryt make out the snow-covered remnants of the towns that Rhodyn and the other holders north of the Ayerne River had leveled years earlier. Progress for the regiment was slow until they reached the small town of Sullys, three days south of Ayerne, where they turned west on the solid stone-paved post road built generations earlier in the time of Hengyst.
Roughly at midmorning on Samedi, under high gray clouds, Quaeryt and Vaelora were riding beside Skarpa near the front of the column when a scout headed toward them from around a wide curve in the road. The scout reined in his mount, then drew alongside the commander.
“Sirs! The bridge is covered with water. It’s deep, more than head-high. The water’s running too fast to cross, even if we could see where the bridge is. There are chunks of ice everywhere.”
