L. Modesitt: Heritage of Cyador

“And?”

“I rode almost to the gates. They’re barred. No one’s in the watchtower. No smoke from the chimneys. No smoke in midwinter, ser?” Vominen shakes his head.

“What did you see, Naedar?”

“Same as Vominen, ser. One of the herder boys said they took three wagons, too.”

Lerial nods slowly.

After another third of a glass with the two scouts, Lerial feels they have told him everything they can recall, and he dismisses them. He looks to the dispatch he had written earlier. You’ll need to rewrite that and send it off immediately.

Why … why in the name of the Rational Stars would Rhamuel pull three companies of guards from Ensenla when for the past two years those guards have been patrolling the border and looking for any excuse to provoke the Mirror Lancers into a skirmish?

Lerial can think of only two reasons-a crisis in Swartheld, even an armed uprising, since Duke Atroyan has been far from the most effective ruler of Afrit, or an attack on Afrit, most likely on Luba or even Swartheld itself, by the forces of Duke Khesyn of Heldya. Either of those events would be far worse for Cigoerne than another Afritan attack on Ensenla or anywhere else along Cigoerne’s northern border.

Could there be other reasons? Quite possibly, although Lerial has no idea what they might be, only that it’s unlikely that they would be any better than the alternatives that he already suspects are the reasons for the Afritan withdrawal.

By fourday morning, just before muster, Lerial has still heard nothing from headquarters, not that he expected a dispatch in the morning, but he had thought there might have been one on threeday afternoon. He’d even sent lancers to check the lone pier that serves Ensenla, and the scouts had talked to more of the Afritan herders and growers, but none of them knew anything more than Lerial and the scouts. A delay in response from the commander means nothing in itself, but Ensenla post is less than a day’s ride north of Cigoerne-though a fast ride to make in that time-and Lerial sent out the dispatch on oneday.

There’s no helping that, he thinks as he steps out of headquarters to receive the morning reports. Both officers are waiting on the narrow porch.

“Eleventh Company stands ready, ser,” reports Undercaptain Strauxyn.

“Eighth Company stands ready, ser,” reports Senior Squad Leader Fheldar, who handles the muster for Lerial, since Lerial is both Eighth Company captain and post commander.

“Good.” Since Eleventh Company is the duty company for the day, Lerial turns to Strauxyn. “Keep up the scouting runs on the Afritan post … and to the west, just in case the withdrawal was some sort of feint. If anything changes, let me know. Keep someone posted at the pier as well.”

“Yes, ser.”

At the inquiring looks from the two, Lerial shakes his head. “You’d have already heard if we’d gotten a dispatch from the commander. He may not know anything more than we do.” In fact, he might not even have known what we know. Lerial understands the need for following the chain of command, but there are times when not following it might result in better information … and sooner, and this might be one of those times, since it is just possible that either his father or his aunt might have information that would be useful.

“Yes, ser,” replies Fheldar blandly.

Lerial manages not to smile, knowing exactly what Fheldar’s blandness signifies. At the same time, having served under Phortyn, the previous commander of the Mirror Lancers, Lerial would far rather have the not terribly imaginative, and very honest and loyal, Jhalet in that position. “I’ll be riding out on my own inspection in half a glass, Strauxyn. If you’d have four rankers…”

“Yes, ser.”

It is closer to a third of a glass later when Lerial rides out through the post gates on the brown gelding that has been his primary mount for almost six years, accompanied by four lancers. The post stands on high ground to the west of Ensenla, ground not quite so high as that of the rise along which the border between Cigoerne and Afrit runs, but with a swale between it and the border rise.

As always, but especially when he leaves the post, Lerial has created an order-shield that will repel chaos-bolts and iron weapons-and linked it to his belt knife. Even after five years of trying, for reasons he cannot fathom he has been unable to create shields directly linked to himself, and that could pose a problem at times, because the linked shields have a tendency to fade, unless renewed, roughly two glasses after being created. He can create momentarily larger shields, enough to protect a company, for a short time, but holding them for any longer than a tenth of a glass quickly exhausts him.

You should count yourself fortunate, he reminds himself. And he should, because his father, for all his Magi’i bloodline, has no ability to shield himself at all, and his brother Lephi’s shields, although based on chaos rather than order, are far weaker than Lerial’s.

Lerial turns the gelding onto the main road from the post through the town and to the river pier. Less than half a kay from the post gates is a dwelling under construction, its walls of sun-dried mud bricks that will be covered with a mud plaster when the house is completed and roofed and then whitewashed with numerous coats until the walls are almost a shimmering white. The walls of the older dwellings, not that any are more than four years old, are beginning to take on a faint pinkish shade from the reddish dust that is all too prevalent in summer.

As he rides into the center of the town, and across the small square, he sees that the small walled and roofed terrace of the inn on the south side of the square is vacant, as it usually is in winter, but that two men watch from the narrow front porch.

“Good morning, Captain!” calls Carlyat, the taller of the two, and the son of Harush, who owns the inn and tavern.

“The same to you,” returns Lerial cheerfully.

Carlyat grins and shakes head.

Beyond the square are a handful of crafters’ shops, and the only chandlery north of the city proper of Cigoerne. More than once when he was young, Lerial had questioned his father about why the city that held the palace and the duchy itself were both called Cigoerne, and the answer was invariably the same: “Because that is the way it has to be.”

Now … it doesn’t have to be that way, but the habit is so ingrained that it’s unlikely to change, at least not anytime soon. Beyond the crafters’ shops is the single factorage in Ensenla, and it is, given the herders, a wool factorage that sits almost at the foot of the single brick and stone pier extending some twenty yards from the shore out into the gray-blue water, which also holds a touch of brown. At the moment, no craft are tied there, as is usually the case. Lerial glances across the river toward the marshes on the far side, but he sees no fishermen or bird hunters there, nor any flatboats or trading craft.

While he has never measured the width of the river, it is more than half a kay across when it reaches Swartheld, according to Emerya, and from Lerial’s own best judgment it is not that much narrower at Ensenla or even Cigoerne, although it narrows considerably upstream of Cigoerne. That, he does recall from the few journeys he had taken with his father when he was much younger.

After a short time, he turns the gelding away from the pier and rides north along the river road, which quickly turns into little more than a trail, well before it reaches the faded green post that marks the boundary between the two duchies. He takes his time as he heads west along the border. Almost three glasses after he set out, Lerial rides back into Ensenla Post, his winter jacket loosened because the sun and the still air have made the day almost pleasant. He has seen no sign of any Afritan troopers or raiders … and he has been able to sense no bodies of men within more than five kays of Ensenla … and that worries him.