***
That episode disturbed him for a while. More strange was the way the other men had got to know about the general's prediction that he'd be a master of horse some day. A couple of the older men started calling him “Master”, sarcastically, but somehow the name stuck, and within a few days everyone was calling him it. Even the general, which surprised him.
Lessons with the general resumed, as if there had been no interruption in their regularity or the relations between the two. The boy found himself sometimes distracted by flashes of memory - the way a thin line of greying hair ran up to the general's navel, the mole on his left thigh - and he'd feel hot and prickly for a moment, with lust or embarrassment he wasn't sure, before he could wrench his mind back to the subject of the lesson. Increasingly, the general touched on matters of politics as well as military strategy; the relationship between the different Etruscan cities, the importance of the Greek settlers, Karthagos as a possible ally. Once or twice the name of the Rumach was mentioned; a nation that had become troublesome, though inconsequential in the scheme of things.
Then a few months later he saw his first secondment. No action at all, really, just a foot patrol; by now he'd realised that military life wasn't all battles and parades, it was more a matter of holding yourself still and ready, long hours of waiting, or of accurate reporting. Like his detail to look after Ramtha; he never knew what information the general had really wanted, or whether he'd given it him, but it wasn't something he was ever going to know. It wasn't his place to know it.
To his surprise, Rasce came with them; Master, and two of the older men from the household. He hadn't understood what use Rasce could be, without any horses on the detail, and he'd unwisely said as much to one of the other men. “Rasce was fighting before you were born,” he was told.
But a day's march further on, as they stopped to make a bivouac for the night, he learned why the lad had come with them; they weren't just patrolling the border lands, but they had a mission to find out the strength of the Faliscan cavalry. As they approached the plains of Capena, they took care to remain unseen, lurking in the hedged boundaries of fields, or staying on forest tracks too narrow for horsemen. They were, technically, over the border now. No fires, no using the same spring for water twice, no noise, and if they were caught, no chance. They were to bed down in the dirt, two men keeping watch while two slept; though it was plain summer, the night was cold, and Master woke five, six times, feeling the hardness of the earth under him numbing his side. He must have slept, but it felt as if he'd spent only a minute each time in sleep, and most of the hours in waking, or trying desperately to fall back again into senselessness. In the morning, though he stretched his muscles and massaged his legs into feeling, he still felt stiff and unwieldy.
“Are we in enemy territory, sir?” he'd asked.
“They're not enemies,” the captain told him.
“But they might as well be,” his second added.
“If we just strolled in, we'd be okay.”
“Without arms. Without helmets. Yes, we'd be fine.”
“But we're not going to.”
“No, we're not.”
They lurked for a week on the edges of the plain, living off the dried fruit and seeds in their packs, too careful to light a fire. The nights got no easier; he was ragged with sleeplessness, and felt empty, light-headed with fatigue and hunger.
Then one morning they saw five chariots out on the plain. “Wish me luck,” Rasce said, and wriggled forwards, out of the safety of cover.
“How the hell... he'll be run over!”
“No. Look. He's worked out the pattern. They're running manoeuvres. See? This one goes. This one comes back. The same each time. Look! There he goes.”
When Master looked, he could see the longer grass just stirred by Rasce's passing.
“They'll stick to the short grass, anyway.”
He wondered what they were here for, if Rasce could manage on his own. But that again was something he couldn't ask, and perhaps shouldn't know. Were they there to save him if he was found? Or to show up looking like a regular patrol that had, somehow, got lost in the woods? He thought to himself, if I have my own command, I'll let my men know what's going on.
But Rasce made it back safely, squirming under a low branch before finally sitting up. The front of his body was covered in dust; sticky-burrs and grass seeds had stuck in his hair.
“Nothing new. It's an old pattern,” he said.
“The general will be glad to hear that.” The captain's voice was even, but his relief was obvious. He wouldn't have to bring bad news.
“They're slack, too. Harness hasn't been cleaned in a while. Chariot axles squeaking. Very slack. And three of the teams are running in young horses. Must have had a few losses recently.”
“No sign of the foreigner?”
“What does a foreigner look like?”
“The black.”
“No. no sign.”
“So it's all a story, then.” That was the second.
“Just the fact that we haven't seen him doesn't mean he's not there.” A rebuke from the captain. “Still, Rasce tells us there's no new formation. So perhaps...” His voice tailed off.
“New commanders get spit and polish,” Rasce said. The captain nodded. “So they do. No foreigner, then. Looks like the Phoenicians aren't doing deals with the Faliscans. That's a relief.”
“So we've come all this way to find something that isn't here.” The second laughed curtly, a little staccato sound with no mirth in it.
“Correct,” said the captain.