Chapter 15
"People scoff when I speak of love, but that is only because they live in the shadow of its deficit. Though there are countless lesser forms, true love inspires us to live as our best selves."
- Katisha Franklin, 35 Joocem, 1787 AC
Aidan woke to the sight of Ygretta and Connel standing over him, looks of urgency on their fresh-washed faces.
"I was afraid I'd have to wake you," Ygretta said. "The War Council humbly requests your presence."
He had slept in the clothes he intended for that day, a golden doublet, which he had paid one of the women skilled at embroidery to add a brilliant white tulip over the left breast. He rubbed a hand through his short but bushy hair and hoped he'd remember, after their current trouble had passed, to have Three-Fingered Jack give his curly mane a neat trim.
"Our fearless leader awakens," Charlene said. Aidan's eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright morning light, but quickly saw that Charlene was wearing her hood low to hide the bruises which were now visible only to someone who knew to look.
"My people," Aidan said, taking up her playful tone and giving his council a broad, confident smile, "I serve at your pleasure."
They chuckled, but clearly couldn't shake the anxiety Aidan saw on the face of every man and woman who bustled about the camp burying their refuse and double-checking their baggage. Ygretta smiled sweetly at him, no doubt happy now that she had an excuse to wear her Kannitick Plate all day. When she donned the helmet, none would guess that beneath its matte-gray reinforced plate was a woman.
"We need direction," Marke said, flatly stating a fact and glowering at Aidan, "or else we'll get shredded."
"Our people can handle a few armored jackanapes." Charlene shrugged, and Marke shifted his glare to her, pausing for a moment as if he'd noticed the bruises she worked so hard to conceal.
"Marke is right." Aidan pictured the smug face of the Deputy's Herald and fantasized about punching his arrogant teeth out of his head. "Ambuscades are one thing; we could be facing an all-out assault."
"I'm of the opinion," Ygretta said, still smiling as though this were the happiest day of her life, "that our best bet is to split them into their platoons, each armed with a horn."
"That won't be easy to coordinate," Marke glanced nervously at the packhorses, which Aidan remembered contained most of their food supply, "especially rationing."
"I've been thinking on that," Rodrig said, to Aidan's surprise. He generally didn't believe in speaking about matters not directly concerning him. "We can't hide it, too much risk of it being found. We can't protect it, too much risk of it being ambushed and all our hopes and dreams scattered in the snow."
"What do you suggest, Mr. Rodrig?" Marke asked, his face turning red with frustration. Those must have been his ideas.
"We give them to the Sergeants to distribute among their troops. Each Soldier keeps his own supply, each is responsible for eating sparingly."
"Don't you worry that some of them will gobble up their portions in a day?" Ygretta said, her brother's face indicating that he shared her skepticism. "Have you seen how they eat?"
"They know the stakes. It won't be the first time we've stretched our food a bit thin, eh, Charlene?"
"Indeed," she said, adjusting her hood a little as if worried that the others might see, "a Royal Feast compared to three winters past."
"Hm." Marke grunted, still clearly unbelieving that common people were capable of any personal discipline at all. "As long as they understand this might be the only food they get for three weeks."
"Also," Aidan scratched at his matted hair as he admitted an uncomfortable truth, "their ability to fight will be diminished with each passing day. An army marches on its stomach, and all that."
"True," Rodrig said, holding his hands palm up as he agreed, "but they understand what a fight with an armored posse means. They know that losing means death, and none too pleasant if they survive the battle." He looked Marke in the eye. "You'd be surprised how hard men will fight when it's life or death."
They broke the meeting with a rough plan to spread the platoons out and give them each an area of patrol. They were ordered to hide for as long as they could before changing positions, always moving as if going counterclockwise around a great circle. They should try to keep eyes on each others' groups as much as possible, but mostly protect the horn blower, who would sound alarm at the first sign of trouble. The packhorses now being free, Aidan assigned his own platoon, which consisted of the War Council and division Captains. They were to be the glue that held the other groups together and gave aid and support during an attack. He prayed to his House gods that this plan would work.
The first day was spent getting the groups into position after they briefed the Captains with a map and some of Charlene's whittled Kahess pieces. It was no easy matter, and there were two platoons that accidentally were assigned to the same area and nearly ambushed one another. After a day of false alarms and frustrated redeployments, nerves gave way to exhaustion, and sentries were chosen from each group to guard them for half the night as they slept.
"This can't continue," Marke complained, taking nibbles of a tough slice of dried smoked deer. "We ought to horsewhip the next man who sounds a false alarm."
"Three times was excessive," Aidan agreed, chomping his own piece of smoked hawk, which he'd kept preserved with some packed snow in a pouch. "They're nervous, and it shows."
"Likely to get each other killed." Ygretta said, sitting closer than the others to the smoldering, smokeless fire they'd built.
"Let's not get dramatic," Charlene said, face still half covered with her green, gold-trimmed hood.
"You're not the one whose face was nearly blown off," Ygretta snapped. The others chuckled, which made things worse. "Stop laughing, damn you all! I could have been killed!"
"Sorry, Lady Deumar," Rodrig said, belly still quietly bouncing, "but I think we all just need to let loose a bit. Nothing like laughter to slay your worries."
"I suppose." She smiled, and Aidan was glad. "It was actually kind of funny, the face that broken-nosed idiot made when he realized who he'd been aiming at."
They all nodded in agreement, munching on everything from thick-crusted bread rolls to rips of bacon and even a few crunchy green vegetables they'd found peeking through the snowpack. Asparagus, Rodrig called them, and made a sound close to a squeal when he saw them from horseback. Now that he had fried them until they were tender in some butter he'd traded for a few weeks ago, Aidan had to agree they were worth a squeal.
"Tomorrow will be better," Charlene said, lying on the ground and wrapping her cloak tightly.
"Tomorrow will be better," Aidan agreed, taking a last bit of his new favorite green and lying down on his back. The ground in their chosen campground had a little give from the moss that hadn't yet frozen beneath winter's cruel blessing, and Aidan did his best to enjoy the sensation. How long has it been since I've slept in a proper bed? It didn't take him long to remember; it was on the ship that had delivered him to New Mongolia, the RS Dartagnon, and he'd spent a good deal of time in that bed. That was where he'd first read Lord Deumar's letter and learned that he would never see his family again.
The next morning, they split into pairs and agreed upon a rotation schedule where they would check on the different platoons throughout the day and do their best to lift the Soldiers' spirits. Aidan was paired with Rodrig, and he enjoyed the man's silent companionship. He only spoke when they addressed the Soldiers and otherwise seemed content to simply keep watch over their forest home.
"Your horse should be killed for its meat," Ygretta said to Charlene as their elite platoon ate dinner with one another. "Or else you ought to start training it not to whinny when it sees the Soldiers."
"I can't help it if Giacomo gets excited when he sees them approach," Charlene said, her voice shrill and clearly weary of Ygretta's companionship, "they usually give him carrots."
"He's giving away our position," She
looked at Aidan as if expecting him to agree, her blonde hair turning slightly red as it reflected the light of the burning charcoal in their smoldered fire. "What's the point of a horse who can't keep his fucking mouth shut?"
"I'll tell you who needs to keep-"
"Enough!" Marke yelled, and Aidan was glad of it. He wasn't comfortable getting between the two women. He certainly didn't want to ponder whether their feud sprang from their mutual desire for his company. I've made my choice, and Ygretta needs to accept that. But I don't need to go rubbing her face in it.
"You've got something to say, little Brother?"
"I'm your older brother, Ygretta, both in years and wisdom." Marke's voice had an edge, and it was clear to Aidan that he was worried. Does he still think I suspect him? I'm not sure of the answer myself. "The King's posse won't need Charlene's horse to give away your position - the noise from you two arguing all day will more than suffice!"
"What say we rotate our partners, eh?" Rodrig asked, again proving the voice of wisdom in times of crisis. And all these years I thought you were just a simple horse trainer. You had us all fooled, old man.
"Sounds good to me," Charlene said, eyes smoldering like embers from beneath the shadow of her close-drawn hood. Ygretta opened her mouth as if to return the insult, but she glanced at Marke, who shook his head darkly. They drew lots. Charlene was paired with young Connel, Ygretta with Rodrig, and Aidan with Marke.
"Give us a chance to have a chat," Marke said, staring flatly at Aidan.
"I look forward to it."
Aidan tossed in his sleep, terrible apocalyptic visions of dead Redtail Soldiers and his friends wandering the ground around them trying to find missing limbs. In the middle of it was Katisha, Aidan's beloved sister, strolling through the chaos and blood and smoke as if she were in a tranquil garden. Aidan called for her, but she seemed not to listen.
An armored brute bearing the bear paw Crest of Meadows ran toward her, his wide tapered longsword raised high above his head. Its isosceles blade shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, and he charged straight for Katisha. Aidan made to run, to try and protect his precious sister, but he stayed in place no matter how hard he charged. He brought his sword down on her head.
With a great thunderclap, the sword's blade shattered as though it were made of glass, and the stunned Soldier took a few steps back. He made to punch Katisha but she waved her hand, the first indication that she even saw the man, and he changed form into a small jackrabbit. He blinked a few times, then hopped around the battlefield, sniffing corpses and dodging other fighting men who didn't even notice him.
Katisha suddenly turned to Aidan and put her finger to her lips, and though she was at least fifty strides away, he heard the sound she made as though she were only a few handspans in front of him. Shhhh ...
He woke up cold, his face wet and numb. Something small and very cold landed in his eye, and he flinched, rolled out of his bedding, and drew his dagger, which he kept on his hip even when he slept. But he wasn't being attacked, it was merely snowing. All around him, white flakes floated to the ground in thin, irregular sheets, as though the Heavens couldn't quite make up their mind.
"Let's get going," Marke said after they'd all broken fast about an hour later and tied their bedding to the horses. "No time to waste, day like today."
For most of the morning, Aidan rode with Marke in silence. The snow came and went throughout the day, most of it collecting in the boughs and branches above. Better tell the others to mind where they sleep. Under the right conditions, someone could get buried in their sleep and suffocate while those around them just kept slumbering.
"Marke, I'm sorry if-
"You should have told me they attacked Charlene."
Aidan's breath stopped. His mind recalled the horrific scene, Charlene fighting for her life while the bastards held her down and beat her, spreading her legs for the final insult. He shook himself out of the memory, and found he was clutching the hilt of his mace as though he meant to draw it.
"They tried. She killed two of them. I introduced one of their brains to the back of his skull. Felt good."
"I'm sure it did." Marke sighed. "Did they rape her?"
"No."
"Thank the gods for that, at least."
Aidan's neck burned at the implication that Charlene's own honor would somehow be tarnished by such a thing. He had never understood that principle, and how Marke could go along with it when he had a sister himself was beyond Aidan's understanding. "For her sake, yes, I am grateful."
"I made it a point to divide the other men I brought evenly and randomly throughout the other platoons." Marke rustled through a hip pouch for a snack. "If any others belong to the Crown-"
"We will hang them. Hang them as the criminals they are, Royal covering or no."
Marke nodded at that notion, munching on a bit of dried fruit. He offered some to Aidan, who took a few pieces to occupy himself as he considered the big picture. He was confident in the fragmented strategy they were employing in the forest, but spring was only six short weeks away. With the Shrikes joining them, they would be around two hundred thirty. If they could get some of the other nearby forest bands as well - the Cougars, the Tigers - they might get close to four hundred. The garrison at Barrowdown was by most accounts at least three hundred, but how many additional Soldiers could be raised could be anywhere from two hundred to six hundred.
And he didn't dare consider other Nobles coming to help. Allies could put the total enemy troop count to two or three thousand easily. Can four hundred stand against three thousand? Or more? It would be better to face them in the field, of this he was absolutely certain. There was no way they could prevail in a siege, and Aidan didn't think he would be capable of besieging the city that his father had worked so hard to develop and prosper. Their only hope lay in the field, but what if Lord Keiferwald refused to face them? Would they be forced to burn crops and loot the surrounding villages? Could he give such orders?
"Here comes your Lady now," Marke said, shaking Aidan out of his daydreaming. "Urgent business, no doubt."
"Do you think little of her?" Aidan did not want to drive the wedge between himself and Marke any deeper, but he was growing impatient with some of Marke's offhand comments.
Marke pursed his lips, clearly trying to find the right words. He was still staring at her distant approach from their right, and didn't seem to notice the edge in Aidan's voice. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another woman who finds your most wool-headed characteristics as endearing as she apparently does."
"Not what I asked." Marke looked Aidan in the eye, now realizing the gravity of the situation. "Do you have some problem with her being a commoner?"
Marke shook his head and smiled. "Truth be told, and I mean this Aidan, I think she is cleverer by half than most of the Noble Ladies I've met. If you weren't courting her yourself," he winked and smiled impishly, "I might just press a suit."
Aidan chuckled at his friend's clowning. "Get yourself to Connel, and see if he has a sister. We'll find someone for you yet, old friend."
Marke chuckled and rode in the direction Charlene had come from, nodding respectfully to her as he passed. After he was out of her sight, she removed her hood and continued her approach to Aidan. He saw her face openly for the first time since the incident. It was already healing fairly well, the cut on her cheek almost invisible now and the bruise over her eye had now faded to a light purple already yellowing at the edges. She had re-woven her braids, and they lay in two clumps over each shoulder like bundles of rope.
"I've missed you," she said, piloting her horse so close to Aidan that their mounts touched. She caressed his head with her fingers, running them over his matted hair. He felt her hand grow suddenly firm against his skull and press his face into hers. They enjoyed a deep, satisfying kiss.
"I've missed you, too," Aidan said when they finally released each other. She took up position next to him, and they carried on with their patrol. "You should
make peace with Ygretta."
Charlene looked at him as though he'd asked her to swallow a live chicken.
"I am a lover of peace, but your old girlfriend is not."
"Is that what you two are quarreling about?" Aidan couldn't believe they would be so petty. He and Ygretta had never officially courted or been betrothed, but there was always a kind of pressure from their parents that the two of them ought to marry.
"Oh, Aidan. I know you're crazy about me." She laughed, and he felt his cheeks burn at his own pride. "I get the feeling she doesn't get along well with other women."
"Hm. I have heard as much." Aidan recalled all the different Lady's maids Ygretta had gone through over the years, always finding fault with one and sending her away. Marke once admitted to Aidan that he didn't bother learning their names. Ygretta was also rarely invited to outings with the neighboring Noble Ladies, which she said she preferred. Give me steel and horse over needle and frame any day.
"It's stupid, really. It started with her brother. I complimented him to her, and she laughed and said he was a mutton head. I took it overly personal, I know, but I told her I didn't tolerate mutton heads to handle the accounting. Then it kind of ... branched from there."
"Rivalry is good soil for discord, my brother used to say."
Charlene humphed and glared at him. It was a far cry from the expression of pure hate he saw on her face when she was staring him down while aiming an arrow at his face, but it was still sufficient for him to explain himself.
"I don't mean you and Ygretta. I mean her and Marke. They've always been competitive. I used to wager with our other friends over which of them would finish their tea first at our meals together."
Charlene squinted at him sideways, but chuckled at the story. "Would it help if I called Marke a mutton head?"
"I think you'd get further by fighting her. Or drinking with her. She doesn't like to be treated like a Noble Lady. She wishes she were born a boy, it's no secret."
"That may be truer than you think." Charlene laughed, and although Aidan laughed politely along, he actually had no idea what she meant by the comment.
"More to the point, my love," he said, smiling at how her Sienna complexion would redden until it was nearly orange when he addressed her this way, "how are you feeling since the attack?"
"Normal, I guess. A bit sore around the face, but nothing the snow can't help."
"When I fought on New Mongolia, I would often find myself still angry days or even weeks after terrible battles. At everything, everyone. I once punched a common Soldier over some trifling comment I normally would have ignored. Smashing his face only made the anger build, though. It did nothing to release it."
"We all have our hobbies, I suppose."
"I'm serious, Charlene. The only thing that helped was talking about it."
She looked around the woods, and Aidan wondered if she was hoping they'd be attacked so she didn't have to talk about it. The light snow that had been falling just thick enough to obscure the distant trees ceased, and to Aidan it felt almost as though time itself stood still. Finally, she sighed and answered seriously.
"I feel like murdering every man I see."
"Including me."
"Especially you."
Pretending he was still tending to his patrolling duties, he peered into the distance behind them, almost regretting pressing her for an answer. Sometimes you need to cause a little pain now to avoid greater pain in the future. The words of his father right before they cauterized a wound he'd received in a tournament. They stuck the heated iron into the flesh of his back right where a spear had slipped between his plates during a melee. He had fallen asleep, the pain was so bad. And this is probably what this feels like to Charlene. He had just decided to change the subject when she spoke again.
"I'm sorry. I know it's not fair, that not every man is a rapist, but I can't help it. I hate them all, and I hate Ygretta for being too petty to discuss this with, and I hate you for rescuing me. I don't like to think I need a man to save me, but I did, and I hate myself for it. I hate myself most of all."
"It wasn't your fau-"
"I know! I know it wasn't my fault, so that makes me hate myself even more for my stupidity! I know what I should feel, and I hate myself for not feeling it! It's like ... it's like ..."
He reached out and touched her shoulder, afraid she might shrink away. Instead, she leaned in, and they stopped their horses for a moment, just embracing each other, clinging to one another as if for safety. She sobbed a little, clearly trying to fight her tears and losing the battle.
"I love you, Charlene. Always."
"Even if I hate you?"
"Especially if you hate me."
She laughed through her tears a little, and he couldn't help but smile. Speaking truth cleanses the soul, Katisha used to say. The fact that she often recited this proverb whenever trying to find out whether Aidan or Troy had hidden her dolls didn't tarnish its veracity.
"I've never told anyone this," she said as she pushed away from Aidan and wiped the tears from her cheeks, "but my mother was raped. That's how I came to be, actually."
Aidan's breath caught in his throat. He had no idea what to say, so he said nothing.
"A shit-eating lily-skinned Noble from some House now long gone. She was a housemaid, and he held her down on the bed she was making up and had his way. I'll spare you the details, even though she never spared them for me."
"Gods ... I had heard that other Houses did such things, but ... gods ..."
"It made her crazy, obsessive. She found work as a maid for an inn in Greenmountain. She dressed me as a boy, taught me to act like one."
"She raised you as a boy?"
"Yes. Explains my sparkling personality, doesn't it?" She laughed and shook her head. "She was convinced that if I was a boy, I wouldn't be raped. Then when I was fourteen, a local doctor took hold of me with nothing but bad intentions. I fought him off, mostly because he was so stunned I was a girl that he gave me an opening. I punched him in his crotch and ran away. And I kept running."
"How did you survive?"
"It was hard at first, but mum did teach me how to wait tables. I'd been doing it at the inn where she worked, and I wandered from town to town, stealing what I needed as I went, until I found a place that hired me. I had learned on my own how to deal with the bleeding."
Aidan blanched a little when she mentioned the woman's burden. She chortled a little when she noticed this, and he gave a sheepish smile.
"Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, M'Lord." They shared an awkward but cleansing laugh. She reached out and squeezed his hand. For a long, lingering moment, they simply rode side by side, their horses ambling through the white-blanketed forest that still smelled of cedar and pine. In the distance, some birds took flight, and a hawk cried out.
"How did you come to join with outlaws?" Aidan asked, curious about Charlene's past.
"That is an interesting story. The manager at the inn where I was working went and-"
The dead silence in the air was violated suddenly by a long blast from a horn far south of them. Aidan cursed under his breath, certain that this was yet another false alarm. Then another long blast sounded to the north. Then to the west.
In the distance, yet more birds took flight, and now Aidan knew why.
They've come.