Kings Of The North Part 12

"Unless they want them to be noticed," Burek said.

"Not this obvious, I don't think. If the idea is to show that the city mints are adulterating their coins, they'd want them to look nearly the same."

That evening, Arcolin wrote out a report for the Council, and Burek added notations to the map they were making. Next day, by daylight, he set Burek to making a fair copy of the map to send back to the city with his report. In midafternoon, a farm boy came to the camp to report that his father had seen "fancy men" moving along the woods' edge.

"Fancy?" Devlin asked. He was questioning the boy; Arcolin listened from inside the tent where he worked.

"Hats w' feathers," the boy said. "And they leader has shiny things-around he neck and he arms."

"How far away was your father, that he could see all that?"

"Oh, he hid in a log," the boy said, scratching one bare leg with the dirty toes of the other. "He's lookin' for berries, this time summer, an' he heard 'em, and into a log he went, same's I would, on account it's t'other village's berry patch."

"And?"

"And they come right by 'im, walkin' proud, he says, but some limpin' and blood on they clothes. And pickin' every berry they saw."

"How many?"

The boy stared at his hands, scowling, moving his fingers up and down, and finally said, "Two hands maybe."

"They'll be no trouble to us for a while," Burek said. "But to the farmers..."

"It's late to move today; we'll move tomorrow," Arcolin said. "I'm not going to risk our people on the trail at night. The woods are more open up that way-we should be able to pick up a trail."

Cortes Vonja

Once a tenday the grange drilled outside the city, in the water meadows. As soon as the Marshal allowed, Stammel went along, his hand on Suli's shoulder. He wore his own uniform again, though it was loose, and a banda over it. The Marshal insisted on a straw hat over his helmet; he was sure it looked ridiculous, but the Marshal wanted to protect his eyes.

"I'm blind," Stammel said. "Why worry about them?"

"Because an infection in them could kill you," the Marshal said. "And if there is any chance your sight might come back, staring into the sun you can't see will finish it."

So now he followed Suli and the others, stumbling only a little now and then. She was good at noticing what might trip him and murmuring warnings. "Rut here. Big root ahead, high step."

This was drill as he knew it, but with slightly different commands. The yeomen knew them and started off at a strong walk; Stammel, next to Suli, felt out of place this close. At least he hadn't tired on the walk out of the city, and when the Marshal called a rest, he wasn't out of breath like some of those he heard huffing and puffing.

"Unarmed next," the Marshal said. "Pair up. Stammel, you're with Groj."

Stammel grinned. He'd won the argument, then; he hadn't been sure until this moment. Unarmed fighting, once in grip of the other, wasn't about sight but about feel...and he was sure his feel would come back. Groj might throw him, but he would be fighting again. Suli guided him some twenty paces.

"I'm Groj," a voice said in front of him. "I'm one of the smiths. Marshal says I'm not to kill you."

"I'd prefer not," Stammel said.

"I'm a head taller," Groj said. "He said I should tell you that."

"I could tell from your voice," Stammel said. He could feel his body's adjustments, the same as always. For a taller man, this shift. Around him he heard other pairs moving into position.

"But I won't let you win," Groj said. "I told 'm I wouldn't, and he said that was all right."

"I won't let you win, either," Stammel said. Just as he wondered whether pairs signaled each other some way or the Marshal started it, he heard the command.

All the pent-up emotion of the past tendays exploded as he charged. He heard the rasp of Groj's boots on the gra.s.s as the man tried to swing aside, but he was faster, and his arms, reaching wide, caught the man's belt. Pivot, yank-Groj's big hand touched his shoulder, but he already had the leverage, and Groj went down. He rolled up quickly, caught Stammel's arm, and then they were in grip, hands and elbows and knees, struggling for mastery.

Groj was bigger and very strong, but Stammel had more speed and many more years of experience; he fought silently, exulting in the expertise he had not lost to blindness, feeling and hearing Groj's surprise, the grunts of effort, the gasps as Stammel found yet another way to pin the bigger man. If demons could not defeat him, no big hamfisted smith- "Hold!" came the command. Groj fell back, gasping; Stammel pushed himself away a little, only somewhat winded.

Footsteps on the gra.s.s. "Well," Marshal Harak said. "What do you think now, Groj?"

"You're right, Marshal. He'd have half-killed anyone else. I'm blown."

"Sergeant, I expected you'd explode some way, so I gave you Groj. I didn't think you could hurt him, but you've left marks on him will take tendays to vanish."

He hadn't realized that. He'd been so happy..."I'm sorry," he said.

"No need," the Marshal said. "You've been entirely too controlled since your ordeal; it had to come out sometime."

Arcolin's Camp

The messenger from Cortes Vonja carried two letters for Arcolin, one with the seal of Gird on the flap and the other addressed in Arne's writing, sealed in the same wax as the other but without a seal. Arcolin felt his heart sink. Good news would have been Stammel riding into camp with the others.

He slid his dagger blade under the flap of the Marshal's letter first. Your sergeant lives Your sergeant lives, the Marshal had written.

But he is blind, and like to remain so. Despite this, he has been drilling with my yeomen, greatly to their improvement, I may say. The first time he attempted unarmed fighting, with the biggest in my grange, he threw him down. Though he is not yet recovered to his full strength, I judge his health improved enough to leave the grange, and so does he. The Council, at the urging of all three Marshals and the Captain of Tir whom you met, and also a Captain of Falk you did not meet, awarded him a small pension, enough to survive on if he chooses to stay. I understand he will have a pension from your Company as well. He knows of the pension but has said nothing to me. He wants to know your will in this and considers himself still under your orders.

Arne's letter was less formal: Captain,Sergeant Stammel is well and strengthening daily, but he is blind. We have all done what we can; Suli has a blind uncle and so guides him the most. We have been calling her Stammel's eyes. I know-

That part was scratched out. Arne added, He wants to come back, but he won't ask. He would do any work you gave him.

What work could he give a blind man when they might be in combat at any time? Yes, he had hired a half-blind captain, but the man still had one eye. Stammel...Arcolin squeezed his eyes against the thought of telling Stammel he must leave the Company. At least he must take Stammel back north, back to the stronghold, to safety. He called Burek into his tent and showed him the letters.

"Blind!" Burek said. "I thought he would live or die, and if he lived, recover."

"It is...hard to imagine," Arcolin said. "Hard for us all; you knew him only a short while, but for many of us..."

"You will pension him, surely."

"I will think," Arcolin said. "Go find Devlin and send him to me." Devlin, who had been Stammel's corporal for so long before the disruptions of Siniava's War had promoted him.

"You have word," Devlin said as he came into the tent.

"He's alive, but blind," Arcolin said. Devlin looked stunned, the way he himself felt. "He can walk; he can even drill, after a fashion. He threw a yeoman in an unarmed fighting drill. The Marshal pressured the Council to give him a small pension, if he wants to stay there, and will find him a room in someone's house."

"No," Devlin said. "No, that can't be."

"I'm sorry," Arcolin said. "But it's true."

"That's not what I meant, sir. I understand: he's blind. But he can't-he will die-if he's penned up in some spare room, alone, without us. Sir, you have to bring him here. He can walk; he can march with us. If he can drill, he'll get stronger. He knows so much-he can teach me, and Arne and Jenits and the rest."

"But if we're in combat-he can't fight-"

"He can at least be with us," Devlin said. "I know that's what he'd want-he probably won't ask you-but it's what he wants. What he needs. And we need him. If he'd lost a leg or something, if he couldn't keep up-but you say he can-"

"The Marshal says he's well enough to move out of the grange, but-ours is a hard life for men with sight."

"And the life he knows," Devlin said.

"The Duke-" Arcolin began; Devlin interrupted him.

"It's not Phelan's Company anymore, sir, but yours. Maybe you think Kieri Phelan would have sent him back north, but you can do what you want."

He wanted Stammel back, but he wanted the Stammel who no longer existed, the Stammel who had not lost his sight because Arcolin had agreed to a civilian's request. But he wanted Stammel back here to talk to, to steady the troops.

"They'll need horses," he said. "Let me think-Stammel should have my ambler; he's steady and a smooth ride. He won't have ridden in a while. Arne or Doggal can ride the fast one I left up there. And four more. We don't have four spares, unless we don't move and send the wagon teams...or switch out mules..."

"I'll take care of that, sir," Devlin said. "Thank you, sir!"

Arcolin wrote out the orders for Arne. He wanted to go himself, but the cohort could not afford to lose another senior person; the courier could take the orders back. He wrote a letter of thanks to Marshal Harak and one each for the Captains of Tir and Falk.

Only a few days later, a small party of horse travelers proved to be the missing six, all wearing absurd floppy straw hats over their helmets. Arcolin thought Stammel looked perfectly normal at first and wondered if he had regained his sight, but then he saw Suli, riding beside him, touch his arm and take the rein of the horse.

Arcolin strode forward, but Stammel had dismounted by the time Arcolin reached the group, and Arne greeted him. "No problems on the road, Captain."

"Glad to have you all back with us," Arcolin said. "You'll want to see Sergeant Devlin; we've made some temporary a.s.signments. He will explain." Arne told Tam and Doggal to put the horses up, then, at his nod, headed for Devlin, who was near the fire-pit. The other two, at another nod, headed for their companions. This close, Arcolin could see that Stammel's eyes did not focus on him, but wandered, as if searching for the light, their once-clear brown clouded. It was eerie; he tried not to shudder. At least the whites were no longer red. Stammel stood upright, rigid as if at inspection, his face unreadable. "Stammel-" Arcolin said; he felt his throat close, took the two steps forward, and gripped Stammel by the shoulders. The bones were closer to the skin than they had been. "I thought-I was afraid we'd lose you, man."

"Thank you for letting me come back, sir," Stammel said. He sighed. "But you have lost me, one way. A blind sergeant-not much use in a fight. I'll try to be useful at something, until-until we go north. I can still scrub pots and chop redroots."

"Stop that," Arcolin said. "I didn't order you back here to scrub pots. We need you, your expertise. You're the senior sergeant, just as if you'd broken a leg and were riding in a wagon. From what Marshal Harak told me, you were already starting to train his yeomen."

Stammel's face relaxed. "Just wanted to give you a chance-"

"What, to waste the best sergeant I ever had? I may not be Kieri's equal, but I'm not stupid. Let's start this over. Welcome back, Sergeant Stammel."

"Glad to be back, Captain," Stammel said.

"Devlin already has some ideas for you," Arcolin said. "But I wanted to brief you on the situation. It's gotten complicated."

"Complicated?"

"It's not just brigands we're fighting. I don't know if someone-Alured, for instance-is trying to infiltrate a whole army into southern Vonja or something else..."

"That money the merchant we captured had. I heard in the city it was counterfeit." That sounded like the old Stammel.

"You heard?"

"People see a man being led around by a young woman, they think neither of them can hear. Or think. Suli's my eyes now, sir, but I'm the ears. I don't think I hear better, but not seeing...I pay more attention. Anyway, she'd take me out on walks in the city. We stopped in a tavern...and I heard men talking. Merchants, I think, because one was talking wool prices, and then their voices got lower and it was about coins. That some of the Guild League cities are minting false coinage, cheating their own people."

"I wish I'd thought to look at those money bags," Arcolin said. "All I saw was silver and copper coins; when he said it was his own, I thought I'd let the Council figure it out."

"Well, they have. 'Course, what I heard could be just rumor, but I heard other things that fit in. Those coins were supposed to have been minted here, in Vonja-had the Vonja die marks. But the Vonja Council swore they weren't, by some secret mark no one's supposed to know. The odd thing is, most of 'em were the right weight and pa.s.sed the float test, whatever that is. Only some of the silvers were too heavy. Why would anyone make counterfeits with too much silver?"

"I'm not sure," Arcolin said. "Burek told that last season, most of Golden Company contracted there and the bankers turned back a lot of their contract payment as counterfeit. Those were Sorellin natas...or they bore Sorellin's mint marks. Burek said it almost caused riots."

"Did M'dierra tell you about it, sir?"

"No. She did mention some counterfeiting-so did the banker-but she didn't tell me specifically about her experience."

"Burek still doing well?"

"Very well. And I found out what Andressat has against him. He may be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d grandson of the old man, and he chose not to take the job the count offered him. That would be enough with Andressat; he'd think it ingrat.i.tude. His foster father is a horse master at the count's stud."

Talking to Stammel the way he always had eased the strangeness; Stammel sat the same way, held his hands the same way, had the same expressions on his face. Arcolin tried not to look at his eyes.

"The thing is," Arcolin went on, "there are more brigands-or whatever they are-in the woods around here than can possibly be supported without regular resupply. You know that village we camped near at first?" Stammel nodded. "They came down on that village, destroyed a couple of the cottages, killed some of the villagers and took the rest-left a trail a blind-sorry-anyone could follow across the grain. We stayed there the night after I left Cortes Vonja. No attack. We went as far as the deserted village beyond the one where we found the merchant."

Stammel scowled. "Is that the one just south of a stretch of woods?"

"Yes. I remembered it when I rode out into what had been fields; we pa.s.sed that way coming up from Sibili, last year of Siniava's War. The cottages are all collapsed now, but someone's tending the well. Flowers, and that."

"And the merchant came that way..." Stammel said.

"Yes. There's a ford in the woods, well out of sight or hearing of either village if they were both occupied. In the old days, it had stones laid down-they've been moved, to make a hole-wagons can't get through without risking an axle unless you unload and load them. And there's a footpath-a wide one, with bootmarks-along the stream to the east."

"So the merchant could deliver the food and money there. Why did he have it still when we found him?"