It’s Halston. I’m at White Oaks. Orders?
A message came back the next day, in his father’s usual effusive style.
Glad to hear it. You’re needed. Report to Temple Church as soon as able.
As soon as Hal could extract himself, he was riding hard toward Temple Church, where the rebellious thanes had gathered. Rolande was, of course, eager to come along, but Hal ordered him to stay behind on pain of court-martial.
Temple Church was a good strategic position—astride the North Road so that they had a good road straight to the enemy should they choose to use it. The same could be said for the king’s forces, of course. Prior to the fall of Delphi, such a position would also have blocked access to the weapons factories and mines in the north.
Now, with Delphi at their backs, hills to the east, and Tamron Forest to their west, it wouldn’t be easy to come at the thanes from any direction other than the south.
Ordinarily, Hal might have actually looked forward to fighting in the flatlands for the first time in a long time. But this time, he’d be pushing for diplomacy and negotiation, tasks he had no skills for.
There had always been a small garrison house and other military facilities at Temple Church. Hal arrived after sunset, and it seemed that campfires and tents spread across the plains as far as he could see. That was good news—up to a point. Armies are not good at waiting around with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Hal guessed that the command post would be in the garrison house; if not, those posted there would be able to tell him where to find his father.
As it happened, he didn’t have to do any fast talking to get in to see his father. The first person he encountered after handing off his horse was Jan Rives, who was walking the paddocks, a list in his hand. Rives had been one of the first officers Hal served under when he joined the army, before he’d got his growth.
“Why, it’s Little Hal, I believe,” Rives said, a smile breaking across his face. “Lord Matelon told me that you’d survived that hellhole in Delphi after all.”
After Rives had lost an arm during an uprising in Bruinswallow, Lord Matelon had taken him on as quartermaster for White Oaks. Hal still called him Sergeant, and Rives still called him Little Hal, though Hal towered over him now.
Rives was the only one allowed to call him that, as Hal had made clear to some of his fellow soldiers who’d tried to follow suit.
“Sergeant Rives,” Hal said, grinning and clapping him on the back. “Can you tell me where to find my father?”
“He’s in with some of the other lords, fighting toe to toe as usual,” Rives said. “It’ll do him good to see you.”
“I hope so,” Hal said, wishing he could meet privately with his father and win him over before springing his news on the other thanes.
He heard voices before he reached the door of the meeting room.
“My men need to get home and into the fields or we’ll have no harvest at all this year,” someone was saying. It was a voice Hal didn’t recognize. “The buds are already breaking, and with the vines not properly trellised, the quality of the—”
“Blood of the Martyr, DeLacroix, can you give it a rest?” That was his father’s unmistakable bass rumble. So the first speaker was Pascal DeLacroix, Rolande’s father, until recently a firm ally of the king. “If we don’t strike now, when we have the advantage, you won’t have to worry about your swiving harvest this fall. Someone else will be drinking your wine.”
“All I’m asking for is a few weeks to get the estates in order,” DeLacroix said, his tone suggesting that he was trying to reason with the unreasonable. “I don’t understand why you say we have the advantage when the king still holds our families hostage. We should attempt to negotiate their release before we—”
“Jarat is stalling,” Matelon growled. “We both know that. He wants to put us off until the marching season is over in the north so he can commit his full army to dealing with us. Better to go now, when his forces are divided.”
Bloody hell, Hal thought. I’m coming in on the wrong side already. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door.
There were a half dozen thanes in the room, and all heads turned as he entered. He recognized DeLacroix, young Lord Heresford, Lord Henri Tourant, and his father, huddled around a battered wooden table. Dirty cups and plates around them suggested they had been at it for a while.
Hal brought his fist to his chest in a salute. “Captain Halston Matelon, reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.
Wood scraped on wood as his father shoved his chair back and stood. He crossed the room and roughly embraced Hal, murmuring in his ear, “Good to have you home, Son.” Holding him out at arm’s length, he looked him up and down. “You need a shave,” he said.
“I know, sir,” Hal said. “But you said to come as soon as I was able.”
Sliding his arm around Hal, Matelon turned him to face the other thanes. “I believe you all know my son Captain Matelon,” he said. “He was taken prisoner in the fall of Delphi. By the grace of the Maker, he’s escaped and come back to us.”
They all stared at him. From the look on their faces, none of the others had been alerted to his recent resurrection. Which meant that his father didn’t trust any of them to know.
Finally, DeLacroix said, “I was told that you and everyone under your command were killed at Delphi.”
“A few of us were taken prisoner, sir,” Hal said.
“My son Armond was with you at Delphi,” Tourant said eagerly. “Was he captured as well?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Hal said. “I didn’t see him among the prisoners, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t survive.
