Firethorn Read online

  The horsemaster led out a brood mare, several years past her prime, and handed her halter to one of the priests. He kept his hand on her flank for a few moments, then gave her a pat and stepped back. As the rim of the Sun showed over the mountain, the priest cut the mare’s throat. The jetting blood looked black in the dawn light and steamed when it met the air. The mare’s forelegs buckled, and she lurched and fell with a thud.

  The Auspices reported to the Crux in low voices. Whatever they learned from the Heavens, from the mare’s ungainly death, they did not choose to share with the rest of us.

  We stood about too long waiting for Sire Pava, and were late starting. Neither his men nor his supplies were in good order. The cataphracts’ stallions began to quarrel, and a mule bolted into the crowd of onlookers and knocked down a little girl. The Crux masked his impatience behind courtesy when he spoke to Sire Pava, but he was not so courteous to the steward, who’d achieved such a muddle.

  After the formal farewells at the manor, half the village followed us down the road, until the women with babes on their hips tired and waved us out of sight, and the men went back to the fields. At last the boys and dogs, dodging about the feet of the horses, gave up the chase.

  But some of the village stayed with the company. On horseback there were Sire Pava; Divine Narigon, serving as his armiger and riding the second-best warhorse; Sire Pava’s jack, Gaunt, armed with sword and stave; Harien, the horsemaster (that I trusted less than a weasel in a dovecote), with two spare mounts on a lead behind him; and Ev, the horseboy, riding an overburdened pony and leading an overburdened mare. Dogsbody, Sire Pava’s bagboy, drove the oxcart, and three men—boys, rather—trudged beside him: Fleetfoot was one, along with Dag and Snare. Az had made Fleetfoot a padded leather vest, called a jack; I’d seen her stuffing it with horsehair and muttering blessings over it. He carried a billhook and the others bore scythes. They were younger sons all, big bones and meager flesh, who ate their fill once or twice a year at best. Their idea of plunder was roasted meat and white bread; they never stopped to think what kind of harvest they’d be asked to reap next with their blades.

  Sire Pava heard that Sire Galan was bringing a sheath and he tried to add his mudwoman to the baggage. She refused, unwilling to give birth on the road; he left her to Dame Lyra’s gentle care. So Iza and I were the last and least of those leaving the village that day. Iza, the drudge from the manor who’d made a mooncalf of herself over Sire Guasca’s jack, followed him on a bony mule. I (no better than Iza, perhaps) came along on Sire Galan’s chestnut mare. We had no place with Sire Pava’s men, with the other villagers. In truth, we didn’t know where we belonged, so we rode together. We passed the men afoot and lagged behind the men on horseback, in a gap that grew larger as the day went on.

  When the Dame was alive, Iza had prepared wool and flax for weaving, which was dull, exacting work of many steps, each having to be done well or the next would be ill done. The Dame had preferred Iza’s thread, for she spun very fine, but she couldn’t abide her chatter. After I left the manor, Dame Lyra had taken Iza for her handmaid. No wonder the first jack to wink at her looked like a gift of the gods, if he could save her from Dame Lyra’s pinches.

  Iza would not stop talking. She boasted that her jack, Lich, had given her this new dress—and what had Sire Galan given me? And Lich was in Sire Guasca’s good graces, and Sire Guasca (the king’s bastard, you know) was a favorite of the king. And what of Sire Galan? She’d heard the Crux was vexed with him, over me. It rankled her that I was with a man of the Blood and she was not, and she tried this way and that to get around it. I gave her curt answers, and after a time I took the lead without seeming to try, and I rode alone.

  The troop had traveled north through the mountains from the capital of Ramus, stopping at fortified keeps and village manors to gather the warriors who had answered the king’s summons on behalf of the clan. Sire Pava was the last to join the company. Now our road led west toward the Marchfield, to the place chosen by the king for his army to assemble. We’d started so late that the Sun was in our eyes. The Equinox had passed, and I could smell the change of season in the wind. Cold gusts from the heights stirred up the loamy scent of fallen leaves.

  We followed the river road down the valley and around the shoulder of a mountain, and when I looked back the fields and pastures of the village had disappeared. But the Kingswood marched with us, ranks of trees on steep slopes, the evergreens in somber liveries, others bearing the gaudy banners of autumn. Sometimes the road went straight where the river bent, and sometimes it climbed a hill when the river plunged into a ravine. The way was ditched and banked for leagues, and the forest cleared around it to discourage ambushes, for that is part of the service owed by the master of each holding to the king, and therefore owed by drudge to master. Nevertheless, in some places the road was neglected, and saplings had crowded close, ditches had filled with marsh flowers and ruts with weeds.

  The wind pushed the clouds of the morning beyond the horizon. Sunlight pressed on my skin through my clothes, like a weight, like a blessing. I watched the river running smooth and fast, muscular currents under the surface. Leaves shimmered on the poplars near the road, the undersides silver and the tops gold.

  The Crux sent men back to make us keep the pace. Geese crossed our path, heading south, and I thought how we were like a flight of geese, with the Crux at the point and the Blood stringing along behind, and the rest of us jostling to find a place. I didn’t want to catch the First’s eye, so I urged my mare to catch up with the last of the horsemen. They were strangers to me, and I took care not to return their glances.

  One said to another, “Is that a boy or a woman, do you think? By the sinews of the legs, I’d wager it’s a boy.”

  A mudwoman can’t spare the cloth to make a skirt lavish enough to drape over a horse’s saddle down to the stirrups, such as women of the Blood wear to go on horseback. As usual when I went riding, I’d brought the front of my skirts between my legs and tucked it into my girdle at the back to make a sort of trousers, which covered me to my knees and left my calves and feet bare (I had no shoes, either). I’d never thought to be ashamed of it before.

  “Maybe. For two copperheads I say it’s a woman. Shall we see?” The second man made as if to ride toward me, and I stopped my mare in the middle of the road. He laughed and turned away. He’d never meant it.

  When I dismounted that night, I wobbled and held on to the stirrup, unsure of my own legs. My skirts were stained from sweat and saddle leather. I hadn’t ridden for over a year, and I was sore everywhere, from my legs to the back of my neck.

  Sire Galan had a feather-stuffed quilt in his baggage. We lay down among his men and wrapped ourselves in it. He wouldn’t wait until they slept to take his pleasure. Our breathing resounded in my ears, loud enough to be heard over the crackle and hiss of the fire. A man muttered a curse and turned away from us. When Sire Galan moaned I put my hand over his mouth.

  Late in the night I woke up with Sire Galan’s breath on the back of my neck. It was quiet, except for the wind, the river, and the whickering and rustling of horses. I nestled close to him, and he woke up fast. With his lips against my ear, he told me what to do, what he would do. He captured my hands in his, and I found it hard to care if anyone heard us.

  In the morning I was ashamed. A man takes his wife on their pallet on the floor, among their sleeping children; drudges lie together in the hall. This was not the same. There were too many men without women here. The UpsideDown Days were over, and I was food for foul mouths now. I tied my headcloth tight and looked for something useful to do that would not be in the way.

  The Sun was just peeking over the mountains through a fringe of trees. Sire Galan’s jack had gotten up before me and built up the fire and started oat porridge while it was still dark. When I asked, he pulled a pot out of the baggage. His hair stood out on his head like a fodder stack, and his leather jerkin was stained down the front from wiping his hands on it. He had
a smallsword and dagger hanging from his belt in worn scabbards.

  I fetched water upstream from the camp, and found a handful of wake-me-up leaves to brew a tisane. Sire Galan’s head had disappeared under the blanket. I squatted down, shook him, and handed him a wooden cup. He went under cover again; he was a stay-abed when the Sun came up.

  The jack took a cup of wake-me-up and thanked me, after he tasted it. I began to hope he was sleepy, not surly. He unbent enough to say that his name was Spiller, and it was a pricking cold morning.

  Spiller woke the bagboy, Noggin, with a hard nudge of his boot, but Noggin wouldn’t get up. Spiller nudged him harder, then kicked him, and at last the bagboy scrambled up and pulled on a dirty tunic to cover his scrawny chest, and took the spoon to stir the porridge, casting sullen looks at Spiller.

  “Mind it doesn’t lump, now,” Spiller said, “or I’ll give you a lump or two.”

  Sire Galan’s armiger emerged from his blanket. He took a bare few steps before he turned his back on us to piss; he didn’t aim too carefully, for I noticed he sprinkled Sire Galan’s foot soldiers before he was done. They were sleeping all jumbled together, without a cover between them, taking refuge from the cold in a twitching sleep.

  When the armiger came back to the fire, he wore a lopsided smile. He sat down and wrapped himself in his blanket. He looked older than Sire Galan. ’d shaved his beard to show his clan tattoo, and his cheeks were dark with stubble. He’d lost most of the hair above his temples; what was left was brown and coarse as a horse’s mane, and hung to his shoulders.

  “Food, Spiller,” he said. “And you,” he added, pointing to me, “bring me some of that.”

  I poured him the last of the wake-me-up. He took a sip and spat it out.“ This is foul!”

  “Maybe you find it so, Sire,” I answered, “but it will open your eyes in the morning.”

  “Fetch me something sweeter,” he said. I didn’t like his smile.

  “I’m afraid I have nothing to your taste, Sire.”

  “Then mull me some wine, and stir some honey in it.” He pointed toward the pile of baggage, where Sire Galan had his store of wine. The rest of us would drink ale, if we could get it.

  So I was to be the armiger’s servant? He’d bid me wash his dirty hose next. I turned and walked away, but not toward the wineskins. I let my stiff back answer for me. I didn’t know if I could look to Sire Galan for help or not. Perhaps he had brought me for this: to drudge for all of them while I warmed his bed. I’d not wake him to find out.

  “I know you’ve a honeypot hidden away; I’ll stick my spoon in it yet,” the armiger shouted after me.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Mind the bees,” I said. “They sting very fierce.” I tried to turn it into a jest, but the armiger was glaring. I had not begun well, making an enemy so early in the morning.

  I went around the fire to where Spiller was cooking bacon, and asked him in a low voice, “What is his name?”

  “Sire Rodela dam Whoreson by Sowpricker of Crux, that’s what I call him.”

  The bagboy snickered, said, “Sowpricker!” and jabbed the air with his spoon. Noggin’s yellow teeth were crowded into his mouth, and now he showed too many of them. It was no mystery how he came by his name, for he looked as though he hadn’t a thought of his own to slosh around in his wooden head.

  “So what do you call the armiger to his face?” I said.

  “Rodela dam Antlia by Musca. He’s Sire Galan’s cousin by bastardy—they have the same grandfather, but Sire Galan’s father was bred on the wife, and his father on a Musca concubine. Although they do say Sire Rodela’s mother is such a whore there’s no telling who his father really is, and that makes him a bastard twice over, so say I. For sure, his blood is tainted with mud. I can always tell.”

  “Bacon, Spiller,” Sire Rodela yelled.

  Spiller tore off a piece of bread and put a slab of bacon on it. Then he turned his back on Sire Rodela and spat on it, winking at me. The spit looked like the foam of fat that sizzles from bacon, and the armiger was none the wiser. So we were at war long before we reached the battle field.

  Sire Galan rode his lesser courser that day, a dark bay a hand taller than my mare. He stayed ahead with his armiger and the other warriors of the Blood. Among so many men, I still could find him.

  I rode with his horse soldiers, now that I’d made their acquaintance. Already Sire Galan’s varlets had worn against each other enough to be at ease; even their gibes and scuffles, as they rode along, seemed a matter of habit. Each man knew his place and his duties, whereas I, a woman and a latecomer, could see no chink or cranny where I might fit among them.

  Spiller was on my left, and Sire Galan’s horsemaster, Flykiller, just ahead. Flykiller was short and wide, with thick muscles in his thighs and forearms and a torso that would have suited a much taller man. His face was half hidden behind a heavy black beard. Now and then he broke his long silences to scold Sire Galan’s best warhorse, Semental, on a lead behind him, for snatching at grasses beside the road or dawdling to nip at my mare. The horseboy, Uly, had care of Sire Galan’s lesser mounts; he led two geldings and rode a third. He was as slight as Flykiller was brawny, and too young to have grown more than a tickle of a mustache. Along the way, Spiller filled Uly’s ears with such gossip—or lies, if I guessed right—as made his earlobes turn pink.

  Noggin rode behind us in the baggage train, on a mule already laden with sacks. Since we had risen that morning, the bagboy had been clouted by Spiller, Sire Rodela, and Sire Galan, one after the other, for mislaying things. When he loaded the pack mules, I marked how he clouted the beasts in turn.

  The three foot soldiers, Cinder, Nift, and Digger, trudged along with the baggage. All of Sire Galan’s varlets would fight, of course, ahorse or afoot, but the footmen had no special duties; they did everyone’s bidding, even Noggin’s.

  My mare’s name was Thole and she endured me well. Noggin had ridden her before I came, and I daresay I treated her more gently. Her hide was the color and gloss of a polished chestnut. My legs ached from straddling the barrel of her back, and the saddle grew harder by the hour. No doubt the mare had the worst of it, for the Crux set a stiff pace that day to make up for time lost the day before, and soon Thole’s belly and flanks were dark with sweat. When we stopped at midday, I watered her upstream from the other horses and rubbed her down with swatches of coarse grass. I fed her oats from my hand and scratched her under the chin as if she were a cat. Flykiller had not yet given me a word, but when he saw that I’d tended to her well he gave me a nod.

  Sire Galan and the other cataphracts and the priests sat with the Crux, feasting on cold dishes conjured up by his provisioner. The First’s men had conjured up a table too, and spread it with a white cloth. Stools appeared, clever contraptions of leather and wood, unfolded from neat bundles in the luggage. The cataphracts ate while their armigers served. Then the armigers were served by the Crux’s varlets, and at last the varlets got the leavings—but the cook made sure there was plenty to go around.

  I’m certain it was better than what Spiller gave to Sire Galan’s men and me: cold pottage scraped from the pot with a bit of leathery brown bread, without even the grace of salt. I saw I’d have to look out for myself, if that was Spiller’s idea of a meal. There was better food all around us in the woods and beside the road. I found some tiny wild pears and put them in a sack I made by tying knots in Na’s old dress. There were walnuts too, and enough chestnuts for a feast (I dote on a roasted chestnut), and mouse ears for greens, gone to seed but good enough for stewing with a bit of bacon. Best of all, I found a rare patch of sweetrod, long white roots that cook up sweet as honey.

  When I’d said good-bye to Cook, she’d told me I’d be wise to seek out the Crux’s provisioner (who also went by the name of Cook); he’d be a good man to befriend, she said. So I took him some sweetrod in my gather sack. He was gruff at first, thinking I’d come to beg, but more amiable when he saw what I carried. He gave me a s
lice of mutton, and I made a fine meal after all.

  I looked for Iza among Sire Guasca’s varlets, thinking I’d given her scant courtesy the day before, and it would do my eyes good to see another woman, even if she was an empty-headed prattler. The men were taking their midday rest, sprawled in the shade under the poplars, waving away flies with an occasional flap of the hand or snoring like bellows. But Iza was nowhere to be found, not among Sire Guasca’s men, nor among Sire Pava’s.

  Later I heard she’d turned back for home early in the morning. The story went up and down the line with laughter in its wake. Sire Rodela dallied behind to tell it to Spiller and Flykiller. He said, with a rapid, hammering laugh, “Her buttocks were so bony the mule complained. Lich took pity on the beast and sent the baggage home afoot.” Some wag had said it first, and everyone after passed it off as his own.

  Spiller said, “I heard she had meat enough, but she was stingy with it. Lich offered his friends a go at her—for a bit of coin, mind you—but she refused to take to the blanket. He says, ‘You’re no use to me then,’ and she says, ‘Oh, Lich, I beg you,’ and he says, ‘You will or else,’ and she wouldn’t, so she left. So I heard.” Then Spiller, pleased with his own wit, repeated in a high squeak, “Oh, Lich, I beg you,” while they laughed and whooped until tears ran down their faces and they leaned helpless over their horses’ necks. As if they were the finest of friends.