Elizabeth Moon: Oath of Fealty

“Val?” Arcolin asked.

“Yess …” Valichi’s answer came slower; he was frowning. He was older than Arcolin, and had spent more time in the North, as Kieri’s recruit captain. Perhaps he had hoped to be chosen, if Kieri ever left. “But I can’t say as I’m willing to stay on as the only captain of a cohort, not longer than it takes to find another.”

“We all need co-captains,” Arcolin said. “I’ll be hiring captains, either in Vérella or Valdaire; I’ll send them north.” He leaned on his elbows. “You two take your cohorts away tomorrow, if the weather mends at all. Cracolnya, you take the other surgeon and smith; Val will be near enough Burningmeed for a Marshal to help with healing and they have a smith. I can’t leave for another day at least: I need to find the village charters and take them to Duke’s East and West, for all to take oaths on and sign. Val, let the merchants travel with you, if they want an escort, or they can go ahead.”

They looked startled, but nodded.

By midafternoon, the storm had passed, though furrowed clouds still covered the sky. Arcolin had the Company paraded in the main court, cohort by cohort, to take their oaths. He gave the same speech to the recruits the Duke had given to every year’s recruit intake. The veterans, who had already been told as much as he knew, gave their oaths willingly, as near as he could tell.

The Vonja agents chose to ride with Val’s cohort to Burningmeed and travel on to Vérella by themselves. Arcolin spent the evening with one of the Company clerks, collecting the documents he would need the next day, making copies of those he would need in Vérella, rechecking his lists.

Next morning, the storm had blown past, leaving a thin skim of high cloud. After breakfast, the other two cohorts left, Valichi’s down the road to Duke’s East, and Cracolnya’s straight across country toward the rising sun.

Stammel had Arcolin’s cohort busy at once, cleaning barracks Arcolin was sure the others had left spotless, but it kept the troops busy. Arcolin gathered the bundle of charters and other documents he needed, and rode for Duke’s West first.

“Can you hold a Duke’s Court before you go?” Foretson asked, as he signed the charter under Arcolin’s name.

“I’m not a duke,” Arcolin said. “Authorization for a Ducal Court would have to come from Vérella. All I can do is hold petty court, same as usual.”

“That would help—if you can stay a glass, I’ll have Donag and Arv come in—they’re wanting a ruling on a field boundary.”

Once court began, others came in with problems; it was after midday when he rode for Duke’s East, to do it all over again. This time he set up in the Red Fox common room. Duke’s East had fewer cases for petty court than Duke’s West, and he made it back to the stronghold before dark. There he found everything ready for next morning’s departure.

Another clear morning. Arcolin looked around the inner court, imagining it as his—if the Crown permitted—and strode out the gate to the main court, where Stammel had the cohort ready, in marching order. Arbad held the roan ambler. Arcolin mounted and looked back at his cohort—the young faces still unblooded, the veterans with their weathered skin, their scars, their eyes full of experience. Stammel gave him a crisp nod.

Was he really doing this, really taking a mercenary cohort to Aarenis by himself? As commander? He put his hand in his tunic, feeling Kieri’s signet ring. No more time to doubt. If he could not do it, after all those years of serving with the best commander he’d ever known, north or south, he was a fool—and Kieri would not have trusted him with the Company. He lifted the reins and nudged his horse into motion.

As always, the villagers in Duke’s East came out to wave as the cohorts passed. Arcolin smiled at them, called out greetings to the mayor, to the innkeeper, to the village council members.

The world had changed. The sunlight, despite a clear sky, felt thinner, muted. The trees looked different, the little river beneath the bridge; the road he had ridden so many times, so many years, looked new, untrodden, unknown.

He scolded himself, told himself it was the same: the road, the trees, the sun, the world itself. One man could not make that much difference.

He knew he lied.

At the border of the Duke’s territory, the post Valichi had set up saluted them as they marched past on the road to Vérella. The marches were no longer than usual, but they seemed both longer and shorter as his mood shifted again and again.

Mikeli, crown prince of Tsaia, listened to his best friend, Juris Marrakai, joking with Mikeli’s cousin Rothlin Mahieran about the behavior of their younger brothers. Dinner this evening felt almost normal again, with his friends around him and the worst of the peril—his advisers had said—over. Fourteen days had passed since Kieri Phelan left for Lyonya, and nine since the paladin’s ordeal ended. For a full hand of days, the city had been in turmoil as city militia, nobles of the realm, and Marshals of Gird sought to find and destroy Liart’s followers.

He and his friends had wanted to take part, prove their courage, in those raids on the city’s underground lairs. Their elders had refused to risk them despite their protests. Instead, his friends had been kept at home to guard their families, while he and his younger brother had been confined to the palace, closely guarded. They’d all been told to stay close, be careful, be alert, report anything suspicious.

But finally the city quieted, and the High Marshals had declared it safe enough to relax some restrictions. Once more his friends were together, sharing a meal, as they had so often before. When the door opened, Mikeli expected servants to bring in the next course, but instead saw one of the palace guards escorting a man in Girdish blue and gray, a yeoman by his tunic, travel-stained and obviously near exhaustion.

“My lord prince,” the yeoman said, his voice hoarse with cold. “I bear urgent news.” He glanced around the table, as if uncertain which was the prince, then dug into a pouch and produced a crumpled scroll.

“Here,” Mikeli said. The man handed him the scroll and he unrolled and began reading. The words “well-armed troops … refused your order … Pargunese … magery … treason” sprang out at him. “Treason!” The word escaped before he could stop it; he heard the surprise, the horror, in his own voice. He forced himself to silence, and looked up, scanning the room. The startled faces of his dinner companions, their mouths open, stared back at him. Juris Marrakai, Rothlin Mahieran, Rolyan Serrostin, all dukes’ sons whose fathers sat on his Regency Council. Manthar Kostvan and Belin Destvaorn, counts’ sons whose fathers were also on the Council. He glanced at the messenger, noting the air of suppressed alarm.

“Treason?” That was Juris Marrakai, quick-eared and quick-witted as always. “Whose? Not Phelan’s, surely?”

“No.” Mikeli caught his imagination by the scruff of the neck, mastered his tongue, and tried to think how to say it. If he could say it at all to these, the friends he’d asked in for a quiet supper. The guilty party was also on his Regency Council.

“Not Phelan’s,” he said, this time more calmly. “Someone else, against us and against him. He was ambushed, but survived. The paladin reached him in time.” To the messenger: “Sir, your name, if you please?”

“Piter, my lord,” the messenger said. “Yeoman-marshal of Blackhedge.”

“Were you a witness to this?” Mikeli tapped the scroll.

“No, my lord. To make haste, it was passed hand to hand, like. But the Marshal, he had it from the other Marshal, who was there, and he told me some. It’s Gird’s grace—”