Rollant took a look at Marthasville itself, not at the Detinans still living in it. “I can see why Bell finally left this place,” he said. “Hardly enough left of it to defend.”
“Are you sorry?” the company commander asked.
“Sorry? Me? No, sir,” Rollant answered. “But I’ll tell you something: even with Marthasville all smashed up the way it is, the Detinans are still living a lot better than they ever let their serfs live.”
“From what I’ve seen in the countryside, Corporal, I’d say you’re probably right,” Griff told him. Rollant blinked again; he wouldn’t have bet Griff noticed anything unmilitary in the countryside.
At last, the regiment tramped out of Marthasville. Hereabouts, people reckoned it a big city. Before escaping from his liege lord’s estate in Palmetto Province, Rollant would have thought it one, too. After ten years of living in New Eborac… He shook his head. As far as he was concerned, Marthasville was nothing but an overgrown town.
“We camp here,” Griff told him, pointing to a meadow next to a stand of pines.
“All right, sir,” Rollant said. “Any particular place you want me to plant the standard?”
Griff pointed to a tiny swell of ground. “How about right there?” Rollant shrugged; it seemed as good a place as any other. He stabbed the butt end of the flagpole into the brick-red-almost blood-red-dirt. That done, he took up a pinch of earth and sprinkled it at the base of the pole. Griff nodded approval. “You know all the rituals, sure enough.”
Even though you’re a blond. That had to be lurking behind his words. That lurked behind so many Detinans’ thoughts whenever they dealt with blonds. Rollant knew it would keep on lurking in Detinans’ thoughts for as long as he lived. Maybe by the time his children were grown, Detinans would be able to accept blonds as people like any others. And maybe they wouldn’t, too.
Colonel Nahath came up to the standard and spoke to Griff: “We’re going to act as provost guards in Marthasville, keep the men from tearing the place up too much and keep them from squabbling with the locals. I’m sending companies in on rotation. Yours will go in there tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Griff said, the only thing a junior officer could say at an order from a senior. “Uh, sir, a question?” When Nahath nodded, Griff asked, “What about Rollant here and the other blonds I’ve got?”
Nahath plucked at his beard, but not for long. “They’re soldiers,” he said. “They can do a soldier’s job. If they can’t do a soldier’s job, they shouldn’t wear the uniform.” He eyed Rollant. “What do you say to that, Corporal?”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Rollant answered. “Of course, some of the traitors won’t be used to doing what a filthy, stinking blond serf tells them to.”
“A point,” Colonel Nahath said. “Do you think you can persuade them?”
Rollant’s smile was large and predatory. “Sir, I look forward to it.”
Nahath and Griff both laughed. The regimental commander said, “Try to leave them breathing once they’re persuaded.”
“Oh, I suppose so, sir,” Rollant said, which made the two Detinan officers laugh again. Rollant asked, “May I pick a partner, sir?”
At the serious question, the colonel and lieutenant looked at each other. “Well, that’s probably not a bad notion. You should have someone you can trust at your back,” Nahath said. Rollant gave him a grateful nod. At least Nahath recognized he couldn’t trust all Detinans at his back.
“Why me?” Smitty asked as they walked back toward Marthasville together. “What did I do to you?”
“Saved my neck a few times,” Rollant answered. “Maybe you’ll do it again.”
“After you hauled me off to go patrolling?” Smitty shook his head. “Not gods-damned likely, pal. I could be asleep right now.”
“Thanks, Smitty. You’re a true friend.” Rollant thought-he was almost sure-the farmer’s son from outside New Eborac City was joking. Smitty cracked wise about anything and everything. But a bit of doubt still lingered. Would Smitty have said the same sorts of things had Sergeant Joram plucked him into duty? Knowing Smitty, he likely would, Rollant thought, and relaxed a bit.
Marthasville looked bigger when he came into it as part of a two-man patrol and without an army at his back. Torches blazed in front of every surviving business. Eateries and taverns and brothels looked to be thriving, with long lines of men in gray snaking forward in front of the latter. The women inside those places were almost sure to be blonds. Rollant shook his head and did his best not to think about that.
A Detinan in civilian clothes stared at him and Smitty. “You think you’re a soldier, butter-hair?” he asked Rollant. His accent proclaimed him a local.
“No,” Rollant answered. “I know I’m a soldier. I’ve been through the war, and that’s a hells of a lot more than you can say.”
Even by the torchlight, he saw the northerner flush. “You ought to be unicornwhipped, talking to your betters like that.”
“Get lost, traitor. If you don’t get lost, you’ll be sorry.” That wasn’t Rollant; it was Smitty.
The northerner swore at him: “Gods-damned son of a bitch, you’re the traitor-a traitor to the Detinan race.”
“You’d better get lost,” Smitty said, “or we’ll run you in.”
“I’d like to see you try,” the northern man said.
Rollant didn’t need a second invitation. He jerked his shortsword from its scabbard. Smitty’s came free, too. “Come along, or you’ll be sorry,” Rollant said. He took a step toward the man from Marthasville.
Not till the fellow’s hands writhed in his first pass did Rollant realize he might have made a mistake. Not till his own feet seemed to freeze to the dirt of the street did he realize he might have made a very bad mistake. Laughing, the local said, “If you’re going to net a dragon, you had best think on where you’ll find a net to hold him.”
Smitty seemed stuck, too. He howled curses. Laughing still, the man-the mage-from Marthasville drew a knife and advanced on them. “In King Avram’s name, let us go!” Rollant exclaimed.
And he could move again.
The mage hadn’t let him go, or Smitty, either. When they did move, the fellow’s jaw dropped. He tried his enchantment once more; it did him no good. He tried to flee, but Rollant and Smitty were younger and faster. Rollant brought him down with a ferocious flying tackle. “Cut the bastard’s throat,” Smitty urged. “He’s dangerous.”
Rollant shook his head. “We’ll hogtie him and give him to the provost marshal,” he said. “Practicing magic against us? They’ll make him wish we’d cut his throat.” He and Smitty bound the northerner hand and foot, threw his knife in the gutter, and hauled him away.
After they’d handed him over to higher authority, Smitty said, “You called on King Avram, and that freed us from the spell.”
“I thought the same thing,” Rollant said. “What do you suppose it means?”
“It means King Avram, gods bless him, has a powerful name, that’s what,” Smitty said.
“That powerful?” Rollant asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought so, either,” Smitty said. “But you saw what happened, same as I did. That stinking wizard had us in trouble.” Rollant shivered. The wizard had had them in a lot of trouble. Smitty went on, “Then you spoke the king’s name, and we were all right again. Good thing, too.”
“Yes, a very good thing,” Rollant agreed. “Now we know King Avram is someone very special indeed.” He frowned; that didn’t get his meaning across so well as he would have liked. He tried again: “We knew it before, but now we know it.” His frown got deeper. That still wasn’t right.
Or maybe it was. Smitty said, “We know it in our bellies, you mean.”
“Yes!” Rollant said gratefully. And, knowing it in his belly, he got through the rest of the patrol without trouble. By then, he wanted a chance to use Avram’s name again. As he went back to camp, though, he decided he might have been lucky not to get one.