“‘Don’t fight Pryce,’” said Roper, voice trembling. “Thank you.”
“That was my pleasure.” Roper thought he meant it. “Back now, and quick.”
He helped Roper to his feet. His left hand was cut deep and he could barely limp on his wounded ankle, but his injuries were nothing compared to Pryce’s. Blood was pouring off the lictor and he was ignoring it, even hooking Roper’s arm over his shoulders and helping him walk back into camp. “Quickly,” he urged. They began passing by fires and Pryce roared out instructions, scattering men from their hearths and sending them out in all directions. They needed surgeons, they needed water and, most of all, they needed Gray. “Somebody find him!”
But he found them. He was at their side in a flash, white-faced and furious. “What the hell is this? Asger?”
“The bumptious prick is dead,” said Pryce savagely, still supporting Roper back to his own hearth. “Gosta did almost all of this.”
“Thank god you were there,” said Gray, before taking command. The camp was in uproar; officers clucked and swarmed about the little group and Gray batted them away. “Search for the bodies! Bring them to me!” he commanded. The surgeons were there and began seeing to Roper’s wounds. He lost sight of Pryce but could hear him snarling as he too was attended to.
“Gray?” called Roper.
“Lord?”
“Pryce saved my life. Will he live?”
Gray gave a short laugh. He placed a hand on Roper’s shoulder. “It’ll take more than a pair of Uvoren’s finest to kill that man.”
“There were four of them,” muttered Roper. “Four guardsmen.”
This shocked Gray. “Forget it, lord. We have you now; you’re safe. There is only one important thing to think of: tomorrow’s battle.”
12Open the Gates
Uvoren was not accustomed to being absent during campaign. Ordinarily, he would be shaping the victories on the field rather than waiting anxiously within the Hindrunn for news. It had raised no more than an ironic eyebrow from him when he had seen the crowds cheering Roper as he led the legions out of the fortress. But news of the first victory had been rather harder to accept. Word had reached the Hindrunn of a dawn raid in which Roper had played a tactical master-stroke. The legions had marched and fought like heroes and people were saying that Roper had ridden alone through the Suthern encampment, killing dozens. That could not be true, of course, but it smarted.
Taking the Hindrunn when it was offered to him like a ripe fruit had been the right decision, but Uvoren could hardly bear to wait within its walls. When he had been sure that Roper was leagues away, he had taken some of his remaining cavalry out, looking for a fight, but found nothing. The Suthern army was more cohesive than expected for such a horde. He was restless and infuriated.
But Roper was not the only one who knew how to inspire loyalty, and Uvoren started from a more elevated position than his rival, commanding considerable respect through sheer reputation. He trained alongside the legionaries that had been left to him in the fortress, aware that his mere proximity was enough to please his warriors. He saw the way they behaved around him. These grizzled, battle-hardened men stuttered and stumbled under his gaze. They beamed absurdly if he chose to speak to one of them, offered him their water-skins, flattered him, and asked if he might recount the tale of how King Offa had died. Unlike Roper, Uvoren did not seek to earn loyalty through service, but through insisting on service to him. He knew that if men performed a favour for a gracious lord, it quickly built respect. Uvoren was therefore everywhere, making demands of every soldier and thanking them handsomely when they fulfilled them. He made sure to issue a different compliment to each group of warriors he encountered: admiring the sword-craft of one here; professing to have heard of the deeds of another there.
He held a tournament almost as soon as Roper was gone, with the aim of keeping the fortress occupied. Uvoren did not himself fight (better to keep his fighting prowess the subject of wild speculation than have it confirmed), but watched and applauded as the warriors clashed and wrestled in front of a roaring crowd. He supplied the tournament prizes (an immensely expensive cuirass of Unthank-silver for the First Sword and a fine Unthank-silver blade for the winner of the wrestling), as well as the food and birch wine served for the grateful crowds. Roper’s reputation might be growing, but Uvoren made sure his grew faster.
He next staged one of the brutal games of pioba in the streets. The rest of the Hindrunn delighted in watching as two huge teams wrestled for control of the inflated pig’s bladder used as a ball, each side throwing punches and seeking to carry the ball into their opponent’s district. The ball-carriers weaved down backstreets with cheering subjects looking down at them from the windows; or else joined one of the great presses of men, seeking to build some advantage for their side in a main street by heaving the opposing team backwards.
Finally, and most effective of all the entertainments Uvoren laid on, were the athletics contests. There were sprints with and without armour, contests of strength and, the Hindrunn favourite, a gruelling twelve-lap race around its perimeter. The races had not been so open in years, with lesser athletes emerging from Pryce’s shadow for the first time in decades to claim his titles in the sprints.
Uvoren made a great show of riding every day on the back of his finest horse, dressed in full war gear and accompanied by a retinue of esteemed warriors, down to the Outer Gate, where he would stand on top of the gatehouse and survey the horizon, as though seeking some indication of how Roper was doing. He accepted the adulation he received sternly, raising a hand in acknowledgement but
