‘I’m one of the mercenaries, yes,’ Pirojil said, gesturing toward a chair in an unvoiced question, and seating himself at the sergeant’s nod. ‘My name is Pirojil.’
‘Gardell,’ the sergeant said, introducing himself. ‘Glennen, Darnell, Roland, Garden, and Spotteswold,’ he said, pointing to each man as he named them in turn. ‘But you didn’t quite answer my question, Pirojil – shouldn’t you be watching our lord’s back?’
Pirojil spread his hands on the table in front of him. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but if there’s any reason why Baron Verheyen should try to have your baron killed, it hasn’t reached me.’
Gardell snorted at that. ‘Then you haven’t been listening much, have you?’
There was only so much you could do to try to persuade men who wouldn’t be persuaded, and Pirojil was tempted to let it all go. However …
‘I was just at the Baronial Council this morning, and both barons – and all the rest – made it clear that they think that there are other, more pressing, issues right now than whatever disagreements –’
‘Disagreements, bollocks.’ Roland spat on the floor beside him.
He was a big man, perhaps a finger’s-width taller and broader even than Durine, but his voice was surprisingly high-pitched – enough so that Pirojil wondered if some battle wound hadn’t gelded him, not that there was an easy way to ask such a question.
‘Yes, disagreements.’ Pirojil raised a finger. ‘Disagreements that won’t be improved any if, say, a bunch of you go at it with the bunch of Verheyens over there. And never mind for the moment that I think they’re waiting for more of their own people to arrive.’
Gardell nodded slightly, and seemed to relax in his chair. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘maybe we ought to go over and … discuss things with them while it’s just six-on-five, eh?’ He started to push back from his chair, and didn’t even pause when Pirojil raised his hand.
Then the others started getting out of their chairs, which didn’t go unnoticed by the Verheyens across the room, judging from the sound of scraping chairs behind him.
‘Sit,’ Pirojil said, throwing back his cloak to expose the captain’s tabs on his right shoulder. ‘Now.’
Gardell thought about it for a long moment – too long a moment – then sat down suddenly, visibly wincing at the laughter that erupted from the other side of the room when he did. ‘Captain, eh? Those wouldn’t be counterfeit rank tabs, by any chance?’
Pirojil allowed himself a smile. ‘You can ask the Swordmaster himself about that, if you’d like,’ he said.
Gardell grunted. ‘Remind me never to play pa-kir with you … Captain. I can’t tell if you’re bluffing or not.’ He thought about it a moment, the added, ‘As I’m sure you do know, here in the Kingdom they hang men for impersonating officers, so putting that into the centre of the table against my getting a tongue-lashing from the Swordmaster seems to be overbetting the pot. I’ll take your word for it. Captain.’
Pirojil said, ‘I have a suggestion: when you get back to the castle, you might also want to ask your own captain what he thinks about you fighting with Verheyen men –’
‘I can swear that Captain Martin has as little love for Verheyen and his gang as any of the rest of us do,’ Gardell said. ‘Only reason he broke up the fight in Barracks Three last night is because he wanted us to save it all for another time – like now.’
Gardell’s words sounded sincere, and Pirojil was torn between wondering if this Captain Martin was an utter idiot for not having just stamped on the idea of internecine fighting, or whether he was a real genius for having found a formula that had quickly ended a fight, at least for the night, no matter what it threatened for the all-too-near future.
Pirojil turned back to Roland.
‘Very well, then, I’ll make that suggestion an order: ask him about brawling in the city. And tell this Captain Martin of yours that the Swordmaster might be asking him, later this afternoon, about whether or not he understands that there’s to be no fighting at all, and what the responsibilities are for captains loyal to the Earl of LaMut in enforcing his commands.’
None of the others said anything in response to that. Which he couldn’t let stand.
Pirojil wasn’t much used to giving orders – whether they were liked or not – but he had taken more orders that he hadn’t liked than he cared to try to estimate, much less count, and he remembered how Baron Morray had phrased it, just the other day.
‘I’m not much used to giving an order twice, Private Roland,’ he said, ‘and I wouldn’t like to have to do so a third time.’
He eyed Roland levelly, unblinkingly, until the big man nodded and Pirojil carefully avoiding taking notice that Roland’s nod was itself preceded by a quick nod from Gardell – there was no point in being a stickler for detail – and rose, gathering his cloak about him.
‘Yes, sir,’ Roland said, drawing himself stiffly to attention, though not removing the sneer from his face. Then he walked towards the front of the tavern.
As he did, three of the Verheyens pushed their chairs back from the table.
‘Hey, why the rush?’ one said.
‘Kind of cold out,’ added another.
‘You sure you don’t want to hang around and play for a while?’ a third asked, as two of his colleagues moved to block the doorway.
‘Don’t move a muscle – that’s another order,’ Pirojil said quietly to the Morrays.
Pirojil was already on his feet. He shrugged out of his cloak and dropped it to the floor, revealing his new rank tabs, then strode over towards the Verheyens, more hoping than believing that Gardell would keep his men in place.
‘Is there some problem here?’ he asked as loudly as he could without, he hoped, seeming to shout.
The Verheyens had been ignoring him, but their eyes widened when they saw the rank tabs.
‘Sir,’ one of them said, and was followed by the others.
Grudgingly, the six Verheyen men drew themselves up to attention, and Pirojil gave them a long stare, as did a pair of men who had been blocking Roland’s way, ignoring the manner in which he ungently elbowed his way between them.
‘I’m in need of six volunteers to haul some ale up to the keep,’ Pirojil said. ‘You’re them.’
‘Captain, we –’
‘Is the discipline in Baron Luke Verheyen’s troops so bad that they don’t understand how to obey a simple order?’ he roared.
He didn’t quite know how it would break – he was sure how it would have broken if he’d had only sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve rather than captain’s tabs on his shoulder – but if it broke the wrong way, he would kick the table towards three of them, knock down a fourth, and hope he would be able to make his own escape after triggering the very fight he was trying to prevent.
How he would explain that to the Swordmaster later, would have to be a problem he saved for later.
‘No, sir. We know how to obey orders, sir,’ one of the privates said, his eyes fixed on Pirojil, although the glowering expressions on the faces of the other men served as well as a mirror to reflect the smirks of Gardell and the other Morrays.
Some people, it seemed, didn’t know when to keep smiles off their faces.
‘Very well, then,’ Pirojil said, accepting the concession with a nod. ‘Innkeeper – Innkeeper! Get out here, now, if you please.’
The tavernkeeper was so quickly out of the door from the kitchen and into the room that Pirojil felt sure he must have been watching the whole scene through the beaded curtain.
‘Yes – Captain Pirojil,’ he said, with only a slight overemphasis on Pirojil’s new rank. ‘Is there something I can do?’
‘The Earl is requisitioning three hogsheads of ale. These men will carry them up to the castle, and this one – what’s your name, soldier?’
‘Garrick, sir.’
‘– and Private Garrick will carry your bill to his captain, Captain …?’
‘Captain Ben Everet, sir.’<
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‘Captain Ben Everet, who will present it to the paymaster. Captain Ben Everet will, I hope, meet me at Barracks One in an hour; please convey my request to him, Private Garrick.’
‘Yessir.’
The tavernkeeper simply nodded and successfully repressed a smile. The casks would probably contain the local human-brewed swill while the bill would be for the more expensive dwarven ale. A regular provisioning officer would have been specific, but Pirojil not only had no idea what a hogshead of either human or dwarven ale would normally cost the Earl and he had other far more pressing concerns at the moment than the Earl’s kitchen being overcharged by a few coppers.
Sullenly, pretending to ignore the chuckles of the Morrays, the Verheyens shuffled towards the kitchen and the access to the cellar beyond.
Pirojil reclaimed his cloak from the floor, and folded it carefully on the stool before sitting back down with Mackin and Milo.
‘Captain Pirojil, eh?’ Milo didn’t meet his eyes; rather, he seemed to focus on running the tip of his index finger through a small puddle of spilled beer.
Pirojil shrugged. ‘As you said, there are some advantages to my present billet, all in all.’ Not to mention the disadvantage of being held responsible for things that he couldn’t control, but there was no reason to go into that, not at the moment.
‘Giving orders seems to become you,’ Milo said.
Mackin snickered. ‘Yeah, it did, this time.’ He frowned. ‘And cost me some coppers: I bet Milo that the Verheyens were going to jump you, and not just go meekly down the stairs then out into the cold, just because you’d asked, er ordered them to do so.’ He carefully counted out six copper coins and slid them across the table to Milo, who looked for a moment as if he was going to say something, but instead just shrugged and pocketed them.
‘I take it that you and the others in the corner would just have found some other place to be,’ Pirojil said.
‘I would have.’ Milo nodded. ‘And as quickly as my dainty little feet could carry me, at that.’
‘Me, I would have stayed and watched,’ Mackin said, taking a thoughtful sip of his beer. ‘But, no, it wouldn’t have been my fight, Captain.’
Pirojil didn’t blame him, but it was the first time in a long time that it had occurred to him that making some sort of connection with anybody other than Kethol and Durine would have had its advantages, rather than just the obvious disadvantages. The trouble with people was that if you expected them to get involved in your problems, you had better be willing to get involved in theirs.
Pirojil probably could have got Mackin and Milo involved in the fight on his side, lessening the odds that Pirojil was beaten to death, but that still wouldn’t have done any good. Once a fight of any kind started, every baronial soldier in the tavern would be going at it. Even if the Watch arrived quickly enough, to put the fire out here, once any blood was drawn, those two baronies would be fighting on sight. And as everyone was happily snowed in together in a small part of town, they’d be seeing one another frequently.
Pirojil dug the Watch whistle out of his pouch, and held it in the palm of his hand. ‘Do you have a problem taking orders?’ he asked.
Milo’s face didn’t change expression. ‘Not usually. As I think you’ve seen, from time to time. Depends, I guess, on what the orders are.’
Pirojil slid the whistle across the table to Milo. ‘Consider this tavern as your post. Keep the peace here – blow for the Watch if there’s any problem.’
A quick look passed between Milo and Mackin, and Pirojil recalled how Milo tended to make himself absent when the Constable was around. Pirojil didn’t know what that was all about – it wasn’t any of his business – and now was definitely not a good time to bother asking for details.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor, and the three pairs of Verheyen men walked out in single file through the wooden-beaded curtain from the kitchen, each pair carrying a hogshead.
The snickers from the Morrays were cut off even as Pirojil turned towards Gardell, although the smiles remained, some of them hidden behind mugs of ale raised in a sarcastic salute to the departing Verheyens.
Shit. That wasn’t going to be enough.
In fact, Pirojil had just probably made things worse in the long run, even though he had been successful in preventing a fight breaking out right here and now. The Morray men might hold their derision in check now, but, later? Would they avoid snickering here, or in the barracks, or avoid moving to another tavern and bragging to anyone who’d listen that the newly-breveted, ugly captain had taken their side in the Verheyen-Morray feud and sent the cowardly Verheyens stumbling meekly out into the cold?
Not bloody likely. All Pirojil had done was to dump more wood on top of an already-smouldering pile. It might take some time for that fire to break into flame, but the fire would just burn brighter and hotter, later on.
‘Halt,’ he called out to the Verheyens, just as the first pair of men was just about to step out into the mud-room. ‘Just stand there for a moment.
‘Everybody,’ he said, addressing the whole room, unsurprised to find that all eyes were on him. ‘Listen up. It seems like I made a mistake – the Earl is going to need another three hogsheads of ale, and I know that everybody just heard the men from Barony Morray volunteer to move the next three hogsheads up to the castle, just as soon as the nice folks from Verheyen get back from their own labours.’
He walked over to the Verheyens, and spoke softly: ‘So I’m sure you men will want to take your time, set your burden down and rest every few feet, if you like, and be sure not to tire yourselves out speeding up to the castle, so that your friends from Morray will have plenty of time to rest and fortify themselves with food and drink before it’s their turn to stagger out into the cold. You can –’ he stopped himself. ‘No; just wait here for a moment. I’ve got one more thing to say, and it’s for all of you.’
He walked back to the centre of the room, halfway between the two parties.
‘Although I know the Swordmaster’s made his feelings clear to the captains, and that the captains have already made it all clear to anybody with two ears who is capable of listening, I’ll repeat the message, just in case anybody here failed to get it,’ he said. ‘There are to be no problems. There are to be no fights. It doesn’t matter who starts it, or why. Any brawls will get people tossed into the city jail. Any bloodletting will get people sent to the labour-gangs in the mines. Any killings will get people hung. So, it’s just not going to happen. Understood?’
There was silence in the room. ‘Is that understood?’
Murmurs of yessir echoed through the room, and Pirojil gestured towards the Verheyen men that they could go.
The Verheyens moved through the mud-room and out of the front door of the Broken Tooth Tavern almost as quickly as they could have walked unburdened, and Pirojil returned to his seat next to Milo and the dwarf, ignoring the glares from Gardell and his companions.
Yes, it was unfair – from the Morray men’s point of view. It was the Verheyens who had set a trap for them here, after all, and the fight would have been the Verheyens’ fault, not theirs – even though they could have just walked out when the Verheyens walked in.
If Pirojil had let it lie as he had first intended to, he would have only earned the enmity of one side.
Now, he had both sides hating him. On the benefit side of the ledger, however, maybe it would distract some of them from the fact that they hated each other even more, at least for a few hours, maybe even a day, and the only cost would be that Pirojil had another dozen or so men that he would not want at his back on a dark night.
A captain’s pay was starting to look like awfully cheap coin for this.
‘Well, that was probably a better way to handle it,’ Mackin said, quietly. ‘I was thinking that, myself, even before you decided to speak up.’
‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’ Pirojil regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth.
??
?Not my job.’ The dwarf shrugged. ‘As I said, Captain Pirojil, it’s none of my business how my betters conduct themselves. You may remember that feeling, from when you were a lowly soldier … what was it? Yesterday, eh?’
‘Be still, Mackin,’ Milo said, frowning. ‘The man’s doing the best he can.’
‘Still none of our concern.’
‘Maybe not. Maybe so.’ He turned back to Pirojil. ‘Okay, Pirojil – I’ll do what I can,’ Milo said. ‘No promises about how successful I’ll be.’
‘Be successful,’ Pirojil said, as though ordering something done would make it done, something he had always despised when officers had done it to him. No matter what the legend was, when an officer told you ‘jump,’ asking him ‘how high’ on the way up was utterly pointless.
Milo made a face. He was probably thinking the same thing.
‘Please,’ Pirojil added. It seemed to be the thing to say, officer or not.
Milo nodded. ‘I’ll do my best. Until when?’
Pirojil hadn’t thought about that, although if he had been on the other end of the order, he certainly would have done.
‘Until you’re relieved, that’s until when,’ he said at last, trying to work out who, exactly, he could get to relieve them. He jerked his head towards the other mercenaries off in the corner, who were watching the three of them far too intently for Pirojil’s taste. ‘Enlist some help, or your own replacement, if you need to. Find someone reliable, and I’ll see they’re paid, same as you.’
And how a group of mercenaries were supposed to keep the peace between the feuding factions, even in the cramped confines of the Broken Tooth Tavern, was another matter. They would have to improvise, just as Pirojil had.
‘Easier said than done,’ Milo said. ‘Maybe if I was a sergeant?’