Roland Green: Knights of the Rose

Darin returned Hawkbrother’s dagger, and Pirvan drew his. The torchbearing guards shifted about, to form a square some forty paces on a side.

Before beginning his rounds to check the resolve of his troops, Pirvan lifted his weapon in salute to Hawkbrother, who returned the gesture with an easy grace.

There could be many worse opponents for one’s last fight, if this were to be it.

Sleep did not come to Gildas Aurhinius that night.

Many visitors did, however. He deemed it prudent not to have Nemyotes turn them away. Too many of his captains ignored the secretary’s scars and thought him a scribbling clerk playing at soldier. He was also from a family more outspoken than wise in its hostility to the kingpriest’s power. Only the mild disposition of the present kingpriest had kept some of Nemyote’s kin from arrest or exile.

Gildas Aurhinius wished to give his enemies a chance to strike at him themselves, rather than march the coward’s road against Nemyotes.

Those who came to Aurhinius during the night seemed divided into two factions. One was horror-struck at the temerity of insulting Zephros, a man chosen for his post by the vengeful and ambitious adherents of the late kingpriest. And all this on behalf of a dead kender!

Aurhinius was polite but firm with these, reminding them that the issue was not the vices of kender but the virtues of discipline. An army without it, or campaigning in the company of soldiers without it, was in danger from more than the enemy.

Did they wish him to turn a blind eye to brawls and disorders, until even their own women soldiers and female servants were not safe from the tax soldiers? (Captain Floria Desbarres had the grace to turn the same color as her hair when Aurhinius flung that challenge at her.)

The other faction, not much smaller than the first, came to praise Aurhinius and urge him to sterner measures. He spoke to these with more warmth, for they were of his own mind, but said much the same as to the others.

The fault of Zephros and others like him was not that they hated kender or loved-“certain factions” was what Aurhinius said, instead of “the kingpriest”-too much. It was that they did not understand the need for discipline, without which an army was a mob, and a mob this close to the desert was an array of dead men waiting for a place to fall down.

He would punish Zephros as much as the needs of discipline allowed, neither more nor less. They should take heed of this warning, and pass it on to their soldiers.

Neither faction left Aurhinius’s tent in any light spirits, which doubtless had something to do with the fact that it was now well on toward cockcrow. Also, the sky was growing clouded, with both moons and half the stars shrouded from sight.

Aurhinius had begun to longingly contemplate his cot when Nemyotes entered. The secretary wore a long clerk’s robe and a frown.

“Don’t tell me,” Aurhinius said. “You’ve come to tell me that I can’t arrest Zephros.”

“How did you guess, my lord?”

Aurhinius wished that he could doubt his ears. He did try to forestall the bad news by saying, “It is too late or too early for jests. Choose which one, then be silent.”

“Your pardon, my lord, but I do not jest. The warrant under which Zephros assembled his band and marched south is very specific. You do not have the right of high or middle justice over him or any of his sworn men, save in a case involving a crime against a man sworn into the regular service of the city.”

Aurhinius saw a leather pouch under Nemyotes’s arm. “Is that a copy of it?”

“Yes. It cost me-”

“Whatever you spent, take it from my strongbox. In the morning, please.”

The copy of Zephros’s Warrant of Captaincy over Tax Soldiers made quite as dismal reading as Aurhinius had feared. Nemyotes’s interpretation was correct, as it usually was. The man would have made a formidable law counselor.

“Very well,” Aurhinius said. He restrained an urge to tear the warrant into shreds. “I do not suppose that the kender Edelthirb was sworn into the regular service of Istar, by any interpretation?”

Nemyotes shook his head. “I inquired. He was not even listed as a servant to any of our sworn people.”

Aurhinius did not waste breath groaning. Truthfully, a kender was about as likely to be a registered servant in an Istarian army as Takhisis, the Dark Queen, was to be a virgin.

“Very well,” he said at last. “We must content ourselves with what we can do. Guard those two remaining kender as if they were high-ranking clerics.”

“We shall, when we find them,” Nemyotes said.

“When you-oh, to the Abyss with that!” Aurhinius snapped. “Also, if I cannot keep Zephros from moving about, I can at least keep watch on him. Guards will be posted where they can watch his tent at all times.”

“Ah-that may not be so easy,” Nemyotes said.

“The difficult I expect to be done. If you had said it was impossible-”

“It may be that, too, my lord. Zephros has pitched his camp well apart from the rest of us. All approaches are already watched by his sentries. They seem to be hand-picked men, and more seasoned soldiers than one would expect to find under such a captain.”

Not if the kingpriest helped him recruit them, Aurhinius thought. He wondered briefly if Zephros’s band was in truth the supposedly outlawed militia called the Servants of Silence, tricked out like an aging woman of pleasure in a fresh gown and new jewelry.

“Very well. Have a few trusted men ready to move, nonetheless. It looks to be coming on to storm. The best sentry in the world finds it hard to halt an intruder when rain or sand is blowing in his face.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Aurhinius nodded in dismissal. As Nemyotes left the tent, Aurhinius realized he was still nodding. Indeed, his head seemed too heavy for his neck. He pushed himself up and away from his camp desk, stumbled over the chair, but reached his cot before his legs gave way under him.

He did not awaken as Nemyotes reentered with two servants, to undress their commander and see him snugly abed.

Pirvan reckoned Hawkbrother had already tested the footing while standing captive under Darin’s gaze. It was what he would have done in the younger man’s place, and he would not assume that a desert chief’s son was any less shrewd that a Knight of the Sword.

From chronicles of battles the knights had fought for Istar against the “barbarians,” none of them had been despicable opponents. The knights had won, but they and Istar had paid a fair price in blood and treasure.

Tonight at least no one would be spending treasure, and neither side could readily lose honor-as the knights had sometimes done as Istar’s hirelings. Blood might be lost, but, the gods willing, not even much of that.

Pirvan made his rounds of the square, studying each man’s face as he passed. Good. No one looked to be harboring plans for treachery or folly. He hoped no one would dishonor him, even if he appeared in mortal danger.

More than his own honor was at stake here. The trust men placed in the Knights of Solamnia still stood between the kingpriest and absolute power. Any knight’s loss of honor weakened that barrier. If tonight ended with Haimya and the children weeping over his corpse, it would still be a fair price for keeping that barrier strong.

He gripped shoulders with Darin while standing on a patch of ground that felt like a hard crust over something softer below. They could even embrace now, he and the younger knight, without him standing on tiptoe or Darin stooping like a hunchback, although it had taken some years of practice.

Then Pirvan was face to face with his family. Their weeping over his body suddenly seemed not so small a price to pay, even for the honor of the knights or the downfall of the kingpriest.