John Flanagan: The sorcerer of the North

"If there's nothing else then, my lord, I'll take my leave," Will said. Ergell nodded, and Norris rose from the bench again.

"Of course, Will," said the Baron. "If there's anything you need at the cabin, let Gordon know." Gordon was the chamberlain who had shown Will into the office.

Will hesitated, then said quietly, "You have my commission, sir" He indicated the parchment roll on the desktop. Ergell nodded several times.

"Yes, yes. Rest assured I'll look through it shortly." He smiled. "Although I'm sure you're not an impostor." Strictly speaking, Ergell should have broken the seal and read the commission when Will first handed it to him. Things seemed a little bit easygoing in Seacliff Fief, he thought. But perhaps he was just being a stickler for detail.

"Very well, my lord." He glanced at Norris. "Battlemaster," he said, and the knight shook hands with him once more.

"Good to have you with us, Ranger," he said.

"Will," Will reminded him, and the Battlemaster nodded.

"Good to have you with us, Will," he corrected himself. Will gave a slight stiff bow to the Baron, turned and left the room.

Back in the cabin, he found the dog lying where he had left her. She was awake now and her tail thumped the floor two or three times as he entered. There was another bowl on the table and he saw that it contained a meat broth. Underneath the bowl was a small piece of parchment bearing a crude drawing of a dog. Edwina, he thought. The broth was still warm so he placed the bowl on the floor for the dog. She stood carefully and limped a few paces to reach it. Her tongue began a steady lap-lap-lap as she ate. He fondled her ears, checking the wound in her side. The stitches were still holding.

"Lucky she left the drawing, girl," he said. "Or I might have eaten your dinner."

The dog continued to lap at the savory broth. The smell was delicious, he realized, and his empty stomach groaned. Edwina had also left a small loaf of bread with his stew. He carved himself a slice and chewed it eagerly as he waited for the stew to heat on his stove.

The following days seemed to go by in a blur as Will became familiar with his new surroundings. The welcome dinner that Ergell held for him in the castle dining room was a pleasant enough occasion. As it was an official function, Craftmasters such as the Armorer, Horsemaster and Scribemaster were all in attendance, as well as the knights attached to the castle and their ladies. The faces and names were a blur, but Will knew that over the coming weeks he would begin to remember them, and assign individual traits and characters to each person. For their part, they all seemed curious to meet the new Ranger, and Will was sufficiently pragmatic to realize that a certain reputation preceded him.

As the former apprentice of Halt, one of the greatest and most famous members of the Ranger Corps, Will would always have enjoyed a degree of celebrity. But he was also the one who had discovered and thwarted the secret plans of Morgarath, the evil Lord of Rain and Night, when he had attacked the kingdom little more than five years ago. Then he had served as protector to the Princess Cassandra during her captivity by the Skandian sea wolves. That particular interlude had been rounded off by a major battle with the Temujai, the fierce cavalry from the Eastern Steppes, and finally, the signing of a non-aggression treaty with the Skandians-a treaty which still held to this day.

In fact, it was his part in securing the Hallasholm Treaty that had given Will the name by which he was known these days-Will Treaty. Raised as an orphan at Castle Redmont, he had known no family name in his childhood.

So perhaps it was natural for people to be surprised at his apparent youth and even, in some cases, to assume that they had mistaken him for some other Ranger-someone who must be older and far bigger in stature. In the years he had spent with Halt, Will had often witnessed the disbelief evident on people's faces when they first met the small, gray-bearded man whose untidy hair looked as if it had been cut with his own saxe knife. People expected their heroes to live up to a romantic ideal. The fact that most Rangers were on the small side, albeit wiry, agile and fast moving, seemed to go against general belief.

So Will faced an air of puzzlement and even mild disappointment as he met his new neighbors-particularly among the ladies of the court. Seacliff was a backwater, as he had surmised, and the arrival of a celebrity-one who had been thanked personally by King Duncan for protecting his daughter-was cause for great anticipation. If the reality was not quite up to people's expectations, that was simply too bad, he thought.

For his part, the more he saw of Seacliff, the more his own sense of disappointment grew. It was a pleasant enough fief, set in a beautiful part of the kingdom. But the years of peace and safety had brought with them a sense of carelessness and neglect in the castle's garrison. And the blame for that neglect could only be sheeted home to the Baron and his Battlemaster. It created an awkward situation for Will, as he felt a genuine liking and respect for both men. But it was undeniable that the readiness and training among the knights and men-at-arms maintained by Ergell was way below the acceptable level.

For days he had considered how he might bring the matter to the Baron's attention without causing offense. He had hinted as broadly as he could that things seemed a little too… comfortable. But Ergell and Norris had laughed off the comments, seeming to take them as compliments on the relaxed and enjoyable way of life in Seacliff.

Every baron in the kingdom was required to maintain a force of mounted knights and men-at-arms to ensure the King's peace in the fief. And, in the event of war, each castle would send its men to join the King's army, under the leadership of King Duncan and his inner council. A large fief such as Redmont would maintain a force totaling several hundred mounted warriors and infantry. Seacliff, as one of the smaller fiefs, was required to field half a dozen knights, ten Battleschool warrior apprentices, and an infantry force of twenty-five men-at-arms. An irregular force of fifteen archers was also available if needed, its members drawn from among the villagers and farmers living nearby.

In several weeks at Seacliff, Will was yet to see any formal drilling of the knights and the men-at-arms. There were some weapons drills, held on what seemed to be a haphazard basis, but no real program of training and practice-the sort of constant work that warriors needed to maintain their edge. In addition, the Battleschool apprentices, under the overall guidance of Sir Norris and his two senior knights, were sloppy in their drill and even to Will's young eyes their skill levels seemed to be behind their contemporaries in other Battleschools.

The one area in which Seacliff excelled was in the kitchen. Kitchenmaster Rollo was a true master indeed and his skill rivaled that of Master Chubb at Redmont, long recognized as one of the kingdom's finest. Perhaps that was part of the problem, Will thought. Life at Seacliff was too comfortable, too settled.

Altogether too uneventful.

At the same time, he had traveled to the mainland several times and visited some of the other villages and hamlets within a day's ride of the castle. On several of these occasions, he discarded the symbols of his authority as a Ranger-the gray and green mottled cloak, the longbow and the distinctive double knife scabbard-and took the guise of a traveling peasant. He found that people spoke more freely in front of an anonymous traveler than they would if one of the mysterious Ranger Corps was in their midst. Will sensed that all was not totally well in Seacliff Fief. Life at the castle might be comfortable enough. Life among the outlying hamlets and farms was somewhat less so.