The Knight Marshal intended the whole army to march at first light, but it took till midmorning for the Queen’s force to heave itself up, like a barely conscious animal rising from its slumbers, and begin its daily trudge in the direction of the rebels. The rain clouds began to break apart shortly thereafter, and blue streaked the gray sky, with bright sun shining down through flurries of rain.
By early afternoon my task was done, and I rode on to catch up with Lord Utterback. Which I did at the top of the Exton Pass, a broad, bare, stony sett lying between a pair of high bluffs. The place was swept by wind and bitterly cold, and so wide that our little force could not hope to hold it against a more numerous foe.
“The Marshal wants us to hold this?” cried Lord Utterback. “The wind itself will blow us off the pass, never mind the rebels!”
“Let us go a little farther,” I counseled. “There must be a more defensible place farther down—and of course there is this Exton-town, where we may place a roof over our heads.”
“It grows dark,” said Utterback. “We cannot march far.”
I rode ahead with the dragoons, and less than two leagues from the pass we found a suitable place called Exton Scales, a narrow piece of summer pasture that sloped gently to the east, in the direction of Peckside. The pasture was cut by a crossroads, where the road to Peckside carried on straight while the track to Exton broke off to our left. The few lights of the village were just visible on the left, gleaming from behind a stony bluff, and the Exton road was bordered by hedgerows of blackthorn intended to keep flocks of sheep and cattle penned in the road until they reached their destination. The wind was much reduced here, and the hedgerows would provide a windbreak. Off on the right, shepherds had built a small earthen dam to make a pond and provide water for their flocks, and they had also built some drystone huts for themselves and stone pens for their flocks. It was already near dark, and I was unable to fully scout the place, but it was clear that no enemy force was camped in the vicinity, and I sent a rider back to bring Lord Utterback and the rest of his force. I myself rode with some of the dragoons to Exton, and found no enemy there, and few people to welcome us. These told us that they had seen no soldiers in years. I returned to the camp.
The dragoons lit fires of the sheep dung found on the field, and it was a cheerful if malodorous scene that greeted Utterback as he arrived a couple hours later. I had appropriated one of the stone huts for myself, and another for my commander, and had warm fires burning merrily in the hearths.
“A message arrived from the Knight Marshal,” he said as he eased himself from the saddle. “He holds the pass above Peckside, but his attack on the usurper has been postponed till tomorrow.”
“I am not surprised,” I said. “Nor will the enemy be, I’ll warrant.”
The rest of the soldiers and their support straggled in for the next hour, and camped wherever there was room. Fires were lit and our supper cooked. Utterback fretted as he paced back and forth, looking ever to the east, and I knew he was worried that he would miss the war altogether.
I myself thought the war would be one siege after another, starting down below at Peckside, and there would be plenty of time for everyone to get killed. It seemed to me that Lord Utterback would not welcome this wisdom, however, and I kept my peace.
I spent a pleasant night in my warm shelter, and rose when trumpets called me to breakfast. I came through the low door into the morning light, stretched, and viewed Exton Scales properly for the first time.
The rosy sun hung above distant Peckside, still half a day’s march away. The storm had blown itself to shreds overnight, and the sky was a deep blue that shaded to indigo in the West. The pasture was still in its winter colors, brown and faded gold. It was too early in the season for the shepherds to have brought the sheep up from their winter pasture, and the only sign of life were the crows that swooped low overhead, bright eyes alert for anything they might scavenge from our refuse piles.
The soldiers lined up for a brief parade, to be counted. The cavalry then went on watering parade to the pond, and the rest went to their messes for breakfast. Various ensigns and cornets and sergeants jogged up to report to Lord Utterback—which is to say to me, for it was I who wrote down the reports. For the first time, we now knew how many soldiers Utterback commanded, and in what order.
The two troops of cavalry, Utterback’s own and Lord Barkin’s, made up four hundred, with Frere’s Dragoons adding another hundred sixty. The four regiments of foot soldiers massed in excess of three thousand men, and Captain Lipton’s eight pieces of artillery required a hundred men to serve them.
I was able, that morning, to congratulate Utterback in commanding nearly three thousand seven hundred soldiers, not counting teamsters, sutlers, quartermasters, laundresses, camp followers, and the occasional wife. This was over twenty percent of the Queen’s Army, I pointed out, a very significant responsibility for a young man on his first campaign. “The Marshal has placed great trust in you.”
He frowned as he stared off in the direction of Peckside. “It’s a compliment to my father, not to me. I’m sure my father argued for my command with the understanding that this errand is a needless precaution—I was never meant to use these men in battle.” He looked down at the brown turf, and scuffed it with his boot. “Well,” he said, “we shall do what we may.”
By which he meant that he wished to get into battle as soon as possible. While Oscar and Utterback’s varlet were still frying the breakfast bacon, Utterback turned to me and said, “We shall send Frere scouting toward Peckside, and get everyone else on the road as soon as we can sort them out into proper marching order. I want to support the Marshal’s attack if I can.”
I wished to stress caution. “Let us not get too close to the enemy. If the main army is delayed again, you don’t want to attack without supports.”
“The Marshal said he would attack at first light.”
“He also said he would attack yesterday. We don’t know his dispositions, his delays, or his problems.” And, to Utterback’s petulant look, I said, “At least wait for the sound of the guns.”
He nodded. “Ay,” he said. “But we must be close enough to hear the guns, at least.”
He mounted and rode to Frere’s camp to send the dragoons toward Peckside as soon as the men had eaten, and the horses given their water and fodder. When he returned, he found me eating the bacon along with porridge and a glass of cider.
“It would have gone cold, else,” I said. “I knew not when you would be back.”
Bacon was not on Utterback’s mind. He dropped from his horse and had his trumpeter blow the officers’ call.
“They will not love you for interrupting their breakfast,” I said.
“Open your book,” said he. “I want everything set down.”
I finished my breakfast before I went for the ledger and my pot of ink. As the ledger had previously recorded only the information for Utterback’s single Troop, I had to begin on a new page, which I headed with the words “Lord Utterback’s Division of the Queen’s Army.”
Utterback intended but a simple march down the road, but it took some time to marshal his forces, as some of the regiments had precedence over others and would insist on having the post of honor on any battlefield, and had to be placed in the column so that they could take their place without delay. I duly recorded all this, and then it was time to don my armor, strap on my spurs, and hang my sword on its baldric.