L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

“One moment, you were riding,” Demyst said, “and the next you weren’t.”

“Happens sometimes after magery,″ Kharl said slowly, coughing some more.

After a time, he struggled into a sitting position. He’d thought that he wouldn’t collapse anymore after doing magery. He’d been wrong. Again. “There’s some bread and cheese in my saddlebags … might help.”

“Sileen … get the provisions from the mage’s saddlebags.”

“Yes, ser.”

Kharl just sat on the ground on the shoulder of the road, looking blankly eastward. The River Val bridge was less than ten rods away. He supposed he’d been lucky. He could have fallen off on the bridge, hit his head on the railing, and gone into the water and drowned. At least, that way, he wouldn’t have to explain how he’d been trapped by Hensolas. He hoped Hagen and Norgen didn’t ask too many questions … but Hagen didn’t miss much.

“Ser …” As the undercaptain extended the provisions bag, and a water bottle, his voice was both solicitous and respectful.

Kharl wondered why. He’d led the squad into a trap, almost gotten them burned to ashes, and then he’d collapsed and fallen right out of the saddle. That sort of behavior shouldn’t have created respect. “Thank you.”

He forced down the bread, which tasted of ashes, like the water had, and chewed off several morsels of the hard yellow cheese. The black patches that drifted across his field of vision shrank, but did not disappear entirely. Much to his surprise, he did finish everything in the bag, as well as empty the water bottle.

After eating, he took a damp rag and wiped the blood from the gash over his forehead and the ashes from his face.

“We could wait here a while,” suggested Demyst.

“No. I should have eaten right after the … fight. Magery takes food.” Except that he doubted he could have kept anything down then.

“You’re in charge, ser.”

“In a moment, we’ll start back.”

Demyst nodded.

Kharl’s legs were still a bit weak when he finally stood and walked toward the gelding, but he remounted, if carefully. He patted the horse’s shoulder. “Be trying not to fall out of the saddle again,” he said to the gelding. “Makes us both look bad.”

Kharl and his small force reached the Great House less than a glass before sunset. They’d had to stop several times for Kharl to rest. His left leg was sore and getting stiffer, and the lump on his forehead was tender, occasionally throbbing, as he made his way into the Great House from the stables.

He decided to report to Hagen on the expedition, first, but when he made his way to Hagen’s first-floor study, there were no guards there, and the heavy oak door was locked. That meant the lord-chancellor was off somewhere and unlikely to return soon. With a shrug, Kharl went off to get some supper. He’d have to talk to Hagen in the morning-or whenever the lord-chancellor returned.

After eating in the small dining room, alone, Kharl checked to see if Hagen had returned, but the lord-chancellor was nowhere to be found. So Kharl retired to his quarters, took a lukewarm bath, trying to clean out his scrapes and bruises, and finally climbed into bed. His sleep was fitful, but undisturbed by outside influences.

When he woke the next morning, his left leg was almost as sore as it had been the night before, and far stiffer. The black holes in his vision had diminished to large spots, but his mouth still tasted like ashes.

There were guards stationed back outside Hagen’s study, but Kharl decided to eat before reporting to Hagen. Then, he stood outside, silently, for almost half a glass before a lord he did not know departed. The man shot Kharl a quick glare, then strode off without a word.

“You can go in, ser. The lord-chancellor … he’s waiting,” offered one of the guards.

Hagen didn’t say a word until Kharl had seated himself. “I understand that you had a pitched battle with Hensolas and his forces and the white wizard. You’ve got more bruises and scrapes, I see.”

“We did. They were tracking us while we were tracking them …″ Kharl described, as briefly as he could what had happened-but not how. “ … there were but a few armsmen left on their side after it was all over. Most everything around us got burned to ashes.” He decided against explaining how he had been injured.

Hagen laughed, harshly. “So I just heard. Lord Sheram is less than perfectly pleased.”

Kharl had no idea even who the lord was-unless he was the man who had left just before Kharl had entered. “Why?”

“Your battle with Hensolas and the white wizard destroyed his red pear orchard. That orchard is one of the few that survived the red blight of twenty years ago, and the yearly crop of those pears provided Lord Sheram with several hundred golds a year.” Hagen’s voice was level, with little sign of either wry humor or anger.

“I certainly didn’t intend to destroy the orchard. Hensolas and the white wizard attacked us.”

“That may be, but Lord Ghrant does not like to create more unhappy lords.”

Kharl suppressed his reaction to snap back. Hagen was only stating facts. After a moment, he said, “Hensolas was the one responsible. He rebelled. He attacked. Why not allow this Lord …″ Kharl hadn’t caught the lord’s name, or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to.

“Sheram,” Hagen supplied.

“ … this Lord Sheram to pick a property of comparable value from Hensolas’s lands and estates?”

“That might be acceptable to Sheram. Lord Ghrant will doubtless find it so, because it will further weaken Hensolas’s son’s ability to raise arms in the future.”

“If they had all stood behind Ghrant, none of this would have happened,” Kharl declared.

“That is true,” Hagen agreed, “but that is not the way they will see matters. They will claim that Ghrant’s weakness led to the revolt.”

“They were revolting and following Ilteron before Ghrant even had a chance to show strength or weakness,” Kharl pointed out.

“They do not see it that way. They never will. They perceived Ghrant as weak, and they hold him responsible for their perceptions.”

Kharl could see no point in arguing against that. “And now they’re angry because I show that he has strength?”

Hagen laughed. “That makes them twice as angry, because they have found they were wrong, and your actions have shown them to have been mistaken for all of Austra to see.”

Kharl took a long and deep breath.

“Do you see why I would rather be back on the bridge of the Seastag ?″ asked Hagen.

The mage nodded. “Nothing pleases any of them, and yet they are largely responsible for what has happened.”

“As I said, that may be true, but they do not see it that way.”

“Do they ever?” Kharl was convinced that most lords were that way. Certainly, Lord West and his son Egen had been. It had all been Kharl’s fault that Egen had been humiliated, when Egen had been in fact assaulting and raping young women at will. But Kharl had been the one flogged, and his consort executed for a murder that had been committed by an assassin hired by Egen-not that Kharl would ever be able to prove such.

“No,” admitted Hagen.

“Does Lord Ghrant know about Hensolas?”

“The circumstances of Hensolas’s death were acceptable to Lord Ghrant.”

“Acceptable?”

“That was the word he used,” replied the lord-chancellor, not disguising the sardonic tone of his words. “Acceptable,” Hagen glanced at the goblet on the table desk.

“How is your throat?”

“Better. So long as I don′t have to talk too much placating lords who wish everything and risk nothing. None of them would last a season as traders.” The lord-chancellor took a sip from the goblet. “Lord Ghrantwishes to know how long before you can arrange an equally suitable incident for Fergyn.”