“He paid you off?”
“Yeah, with my freedom. That’s how I ransomed myself.”
“Ah! Yes, that would make sense.” Cort nodded, enjoying the talk—it kept his mind off Violet. “Especially since, once you were free, he would have had to pay you.”
“Exactly. He didn’t have another war brewing at the moment, so he dismissed me rather than give me silver. I signed on as a merchant’s guard, took a short stint as a tax collector and hated it, and started riding the roads looking for work.”
“You’ve been at liberty ever since, then?”
“Yes. Nice way of saying ‘out of work,’ isn’t it? But I’m a long way from home, and much though I’d like to go back, I don’t know if I’m willing to sign on as a sailor again.”
“Make enough money to buy passage on a merchant ship, then,” Cort suggested.
“I’m working on it.”
“You’ll never make it one job at a time,” Cort said, with certainty. “Sign on full-time with a mercenary company, stay with them a year or so and save your money behind your belt instead of spending it on easy women and watered brandy, and you’ll have enough.”
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Dirk sighed. “I don’t like being tied down to one place that long, though.”
“No other way,” Cort pointed out, “and you’re more likely to be killed hiring out battle by battle, than by joining with a company of men who depend on you as you depend on them. A free lance gets put in the front line every time.”
“Don’t I know it,” Dirk said wryly.
“I could use another sergeant,” Cort said slowly. “My master sergeant has been talking retirement for some time, and the captain’s been telling me he has too many recruits—he needs to set up another platoon. Why not try some steady work for, a change?”
“Why, thanks.” Dirk straightened, looking surprised. “I really don’t know enough about you to accept, though.” He grinned suddenly. “But to tell you the truth, I’m inclined to accept.”
“I hope you do.” Cort smiled. “Learn more about me, then. Ask.”
“Well, for starters, what’s the name of your company, and who’s your captain?”
“Yes, that might be handy to know, mightn’t it?” Cort said with a laugh. “Well, we’re Captain Devers’s Blue Company, my lad, and proud of it. We’ve taken our share of losses, it’s true, but we’ve had far more victories.”
“That’s a track record I can live with. What about you yourself, though, lieutenant? How did you get into this line of work? Not exactly the most secure future in the world.”
“A grave is very secure.” Cort sobered suddenly. He didn’t like the feeling, so he took another drink. “As to the chances of staying out of that grave, well, they’re better as a peasant hoeing crops, but it’s a lousy life, with never enough to eat and a house that might blow down around your ears.”
“I didn’t think you had the look of a peasant,” Dirk observed.
“Of course not,” Cort said impatiently, “but I grew up playing with their children, then learning to rule them. I’m the third son of a bully. Do you have the Third Son rule where you come from?”
“First son to stay with the estate, second for the army, third for the navy?”
“You must have grown up near the sea. Close, but here the first son becomes his father’s chief bruiser, then a bully when his father dies. The second joins the mercenaries, which gives the bully an ‘in’ if he needs a troop. The third goes out into the hills to find a sage, so he can sit at a teacher’s feet and learn how to save the souls of his whole family.”
“At least you believe in souls,” Dirk said. “I take it you didn’t want to become a sage?”
Cort shook his head, mouth a grim line. “I still have hopes of marrying. Oh, I know the stories about the village girls visiting the male sages to learn the arts of love, just as the village boys go to the female sages, but I wanted a wife, home, children…” His gaze drifted away, Violet’s sweet face coming into his mind’s eye again, bringing with it a melancholy so sudden and powerful that he feared that he might weep.
“That the only reason you didn’t go into philosophy?” Dirk asked. “Not the best reason for becoming a soldier, I’d say.”
Suddenly, and rather oddly, Cort was very much aware that he was on trial here. He shrugged off the mood and turned back to Dirk, wondering why on earth he should care what the man thought—but he did. “My spirit was too active and restless, so I took service as a mercenary. Being a bully’s son, I started as a sergeant and moved up to lieutenant two months later.”
“And the life suits you?”
Cort shrugged. “Every life ends in death, but at least a soldier has a chance to fight. The risks are greater, but the pay is better, too. The work suits me—life becomes very vivid, very intense, in battle. Yes, the sight of a sword slicing at me sets fear burning through me, but it. sets me afire with the lust for life, too, and there’s no feeling like victory, when the battle’s done and many lie dead but you’re still alive. It even makes the panic and horror of defeat worthwhile; just knowing that there will be another victory some day—and the camaraderie of men who have lived through a battle together, and know they can depend on one another no matter how much they hate one another’s guts, is closer than anything else I’ve experienced. That’s why my men obey me—not because I’m a bully’s son, and not because I can beat any of them into the ground, but because I’ve done my best to keep them alive, and the battle’s come and gone, but we’re all still here.”
He drew breath, amazed that he had talked for so long, but Dirk only nodded, looking very serious. “Yes. I think I’d like serving with an officer who feels that way about his men.”
“Stout man!” Cort grinned as he clasped Dirk’s hand. Then he fished a silver mark from his beltpurse and set it in Dirk’s palm. “There’s the coin of enlistment. Welcome to the Blue Company, Sergeant Dulaine.”
“Thank you, lieutenant,” Dirk said, grinning. “What’s my first duty?”
“On liberty? To get drunk and make the whores rich. For an officer, though, it’s a bit different. On leave, I spend most of my time watching out for my men, breaking up fights before they start and calming outraged burghers. I even patrol the streets.” Cort set his hands on the edge of the table and shoved himself to his feet—but the table shoved back, and he half fell into his chair again, looking about him in stunned amazement.
“No patrolling tonight, I think.” Dirk stood slowly and helped Cort to his feet. “Drank more than you knew, and faster, didn’t you? Well, keeping the troops in line is sergeant’s work, really; lieutenants just keep the sergeants honest. Introduce me to your men, lieutenant, and let me take the watch.”
“But I always…”
“Not tonight.” Dirk didn’t mention that Cort was obviously in the mood to get drunk, dead drunk. “Let me earn that mark you just gave me.”
“All right.” Cort decided that it did sound like a good idea—and wondered why it was so hard to think, so hard to keep shoving Violet out of his mind. He took a badge from behind his belt, one with three chevrons on it, and waved it in the general direction of Dirk’s chest. “Here’s your rank, until we can get you livery.”
Dirk intercepted the badge before sticking could turn into stabbing and pinned it on his tunic. “Handsome piece of jewelry, that. Okay, lieutenant, take me to meet the boys.”
They rode out through the gates of Loutre with Master Ralke in high spirits. “A very profitable stop, Gar Pike, and a pleasant one, thanks to your knowledge of the language. Really, I’ll have to give you a bonus when this is done!”
“I won’t refuse it,” Gar said with a grin.
“Worth it ten times over! We sold the whole cargo, and bought another worth half again what we paid for it! Off to Zangaret Town, now, where they value the kind of gauds these Loutre folk make!”