“If there is any chance of it, negotiate hot food for the men. It’s been a sevenday since we’ve seen so much as soup,” he says, as if I don’t know. As if my own belly is not an aching emptiness within me. But hope burns at the back of his eyes.
I can’t tell those eyes that I won’t ask. They’re so hollow. His cheeks, likewise, are sunken. I swallow down words of hope and worry. There’s no word that can bring the comfort he needs – the comfort any of them need.
A quick glance over the poor souls in my keeping, and I see his hopeful gaze echoed from eye to eye as they look at me. I’m their representative before the king. The last knight of Castle Tor. I’ll do what I can for them as long as I’m alive to do it. I clench a fist as I renew that vow in the deepest part of my heart.
Briskly, I nod my farewell to them and follow the latest messenger, a boy of perhaps eight summers. He shouldn’t be here. He should be home with his mother. Perhaps he no longer has one.
I follow his impatient steps. I don’t like how thin he is. Someone should be feeding him. Someone should be feeding all of them.
I wipe my face with a palm, trying to scrub away worry, and then grimace. My hand is dirty. I’d forgotten. Likely, I’ve made myself more disreputable-looking than I already am.
We move from the sprawling edge of the camp nearest the battlegrounds and inward toward the main body of the army. I can smell tension here. Muscles bunched, heads ducked, whispers, and sideways looks.
“What’s happened?” I ask the boy, but he doesn’t answer, and I don’t stop to ask someone else. When I get there, I will find out. Perhaps an important knight has fallen – or a lord. I think we still have some of those. Perhaps we’ve lost an entire band. God forbid, we may have lost the king.
I quicken my pace, still slower than the boy. He darts ahead like an eager puppy. Like Hessa when she was small.
Our king has positioned his command tent on a hill a little back from the sprawling fires of his army. We hustle up the bare rocks past the rings of soldiers keeping guard. Just a glance at the nearest one makes him grip his polearm tighter. They’re on edge. My presence shouldn’t spook them, but it does.
They take one look at my tabard, at the blue eagle sigil on the breast, and they let me through. Some look away or meet my eyes with pity. They all know who I am, though I know none of them. They’re the king’s vassals, not mine. I don’t owe them my blood and days. Those are for the poor ragged skeletons I left with Hessa.
Not a single soldier here in the main camp is at rest. None are eating, or patching gear, or sharpening blades. I clench my jaw. Something bad is happening. No one is this tense for good news.
I’m almost at the command tent before I realize what is different. It’s too bright. And who are those shadows on the other side of the hill? Is that a stag that I see?
I place a heavy hand on the messenger boy’s shoulder, and he pauses, looking up at me with fear in his eyes. I’m rough with battle and though I’m not yet filled in with a man’s full muscle, it’s enough to give a boy pause.
“There are visitors,” I say, and his eyes widen. I have spoken mildly. If you must speak, you should keep your words gentle on the ears of those who hear them.
“Yes, Sir Oakensen.”
“Fae?” I press quietly.
“Yes, noble Sir.”
“Numbers?”
“A dozen,” a voice from beside us says. It’s one of the King’s vassals. He’s brandishing a naked sword with a nick in it as if he expects trouble. The nick isn’t good. It will shatter in the next battle. I shake my head knowing there’s nothing to replace it with.
“Under the promise of peace?” I press.
“For now,” the man answers. He wears the red baldric of one of the king’s captains. Before my father’s death, I wouldn’t have had the rank to be allowed to address him directly. “They rode in bold as brass, their leader bright as a sunbeam. Asked for the king, and the fellows nearly wet themselves bringing the lot of them here. Even their mounts are nervous-making. They weigh as much as a feather. They sparkle in the sun.”
He shakes his head.
I tilt my head to the side in a question and he keeps talking.
“Their leader … the King of Iceheim. He’s with them. Their king.” He looks around and then leans in close, clearly troubled, clearly needing to show it only to someone of equal rank. Someone he doesn’t owe protection and confidence. “Why would they bring him right into our camp under a flag of truce? Maybe it’s a ruse. Maybe it’s a trap. But helookedlike a king with that shining gold hair and his fair face, pretty as a maiden’s. He claimed the banner of truce to treat with us.”
I nod my thanks and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He’s barely older than me – perhaps two and twenty – and my confident touch seems to calm him. I can offer nothing else but at least I can give that. Comradery in the face of turbulence.
I follow the boy.
This is why I’ve been called, then. If talks are possible, it will require all the king’s knights and lords. I am one of them. Therefore, my presence is requested.
It’s hardly necessary. I will give anything for even a temporary peace. I will serve under their yoke and be their beast of burden if it could save Castle Tor and the vassals left to me by my father. But if that were possible it would have been offered long before now.
Likely, they have come to demand our surrender and the heads of all our nobility. That’s what they did when they rolled over Marvalan and took that kingdom. I’d give them my head if it truly bought peace. But I have spoken to women who fled Marvalan after their nobles gave their heads. What they endured after the collapse was no peace. The memories of their stories still keep me up in the cold hours of the night.
