“Welcome, my lord Duke,” he said. The cloaked figure pushed back the fur-edged hood, revealing rumpled red hair above a bearded face.
“Early for breakfast, I’d have thought,” said the Duke. “What sharp eyes spotted us this time?”
“A recruit, my lord,” said Valichi.
The Duke scanned each of the recruit units; Paks felt his gaze like a dagger blade, cold and keen. Then he grinned at Valichi. “Well,” he said, “let’s keep that one. Good work, Captain.” He dropped his reins and stretched. “Tir’s bones, Val, I’m ready for breakfast if no one else is. It’s cold out there, man. Let’s get to a fire.” He lifted his reins and rode through the wide aisle of the formations to the Duke’s Gate. Behind him came two youths, also in chain mail, a tall man in flowing robes and a peaked hat, two richly dressed men in velvet tunics edged with fur, and a troop of men-at-arms. One of these carried a pennant on a long staff. Paks wondered if its polished tip had caught the light, and that’s what she’d seen.
Grooms ran out to take the horses; the men-at-arms dismounted as the Duke went through into his court, and led their own mounts to the stables. Horses, Paks noticed, and not mules. The guard sergeant came out of the tower with all but the dayshift guards; he caught Stammel’s eye and made a lifting gesture with his hand. Paks could not yet read the hand signals the veterans used, but Stammel grinned. He turned to Paks. “Good eyes. The Duke tries to take us by surprise, and he likes to fail—at that, if nothing else. Where did you see him?”
“I saw something—but I wasn’t sure what—between that high ground and the village. It must have stuck up fairly high; could it have been that pennant?”
“Could have been, or a squire’s helmet. The sun must have caught it just right—and then you were looking in the right place. Well done, Paks.”
Duke Phelan might have traveled half the night to arrive at his stronghold at dawn, but that did not mean he planned to sleep the day away. Shortly after breakfast, he appeared in the courtyard to watch Kefer’s unit at weapons drill, and by noon he had observed every recruit unit in its work. He said little that any of the recruits could hear, but his sharp glance seemed everywhere at once. In the afternoon the recruits lost sight of him; they were doing two-on-one engagements in the mud, with Stammel’s unit the one, and trying to maneuver in the square. None of them had a glance to spare for the wall, or the cloaked figure atop it, watching. The sergeants saw, but said nothing.
In the next week, while the sergeants muttered and fussed over the recruits like hens with too many chicks, the Duke managed to see everything. He appeared in one barracks when the recruits were just getting up, and in another while they were sanding the floor. He walked through the mess hall during meals, and even ate there twice. The recruits could hardly choke down their food. He ate as if he liked it, and talked easily to his squires. They all knew by then that the young men in mail were his squires, and one of them a nephew of Count Vladiorhynsich of Kostandan. He was there when Vona’s unit made a brilliant reverse in square and threw Kefer’s unit off balance, and still there when Stammel’s unit managed the same thing, not quite so well, against both the others.
“I wonder if he ever sleeps,” muttered Arñe to Paks in the jacks, the one place they were almost sure he wouldn’t be.
“I don’t know. He was on the wall last night when we came on. Gave the watchword, just like Captain Valichi, but I nearly fell off the parapet.”
“And this morning he was waiting in the courtyard when we came out. I wish I knew what he was thinking—”
“I don’t.” Paks had, in fact, been wondering what the Duke had done to Stephi, but she was afraid to ask anyone. Surely Stammel knew, from the men who had come, but—“If I knew,” she said in answer to Arñe’s quizzical look, “I’d be even more frightened of him.”
“It’s not like he’s done anything to anyone,” mused Arñe. “But I have the feeling he would. I’d like to be first on the road,” she added, bringing up the unspoken thought of all of them. One recruit unit would be chosen to lead the march south to join the Company. The best unit, of course. They all knew who the best unit was—but a little coolness came into the friendships that had formed between recruits in different units.
“Barra and Natzlin think they’re getting it,” said Paks. Arñe snorted.
“After the way Vona’s pulled them off two days ago? They’ll have to do something big to make that up.”
“Ours wasn’t so sharp,” Paks reminded her.
“Against both of ’em. Kefer’s was only one-on-one. I hope—”
“We’ll make it,” said Paks, suddenly full of confidence. “We’re much better with spears, and we’ve got four of the best swords—”
That week was, in fact, one long round of contests. Those few dimwitted enough not to catch on to that by themselves were forcibly enlightened by their companions. Mock combat the last day was hardly mock: collarbones and fingers, one or more in each unit, snapped under the blows of wooden swords. When the entire recruit cohort gathered in formation in the courtyard, there were no smiles. For the first time, they were being addressed by the Duke himself, formally.
Paks, in her usual position at the front of the formation, ignored the bruise that had three of her fingers swelled up like blue sausages. It had definitely been worth risking them broken to break the front line of Vona’s square. Especially since they weren’t broken; the surgeon said they’d bend in a few days. She watched for the Duke. One of his squires came through the Duke’s Gate and nodded to Captain Valichi. The trumpeters blew a fanfare; Paks’s skin rose up in chillbumps. The Duke strode briskly through the gate, cloak swirling. He spoke to Valichi, nodded, then moved to Vona’s unit, on the far side of the courtyard. Paks suppressed a groan. Had they lost to Vona’s? But the Duke made no announcement. Perhaps he was just inspecting, as he had twice before. She dared not glance over to see. Her hand began to throb more insistently; the pain edged up her arm. She listened to the rasp of the Duke’s boots across the court. It seemed a very long time before the sound came closer. Now he was at Kefer’s unit. She could hear that he was, indeed, passing along the ranks. She could even hear the rumble of his voice as he spoke to this recruit or that.
Then he was in front of them, greeting Stammel, and giving a quick glance along the front rank. Paks wondered if he would speak to each of them. She reminded herself of Stammel’s instructions: “Say ’yes, my lord,’ or ’no, my lord,’ instead of just ’sir’ as you would for the captain.” The Duke came closer, with Stammel now a pace behind him. Paks could feel her neck getting hot. She tried to stare through him to the mess hall windows, but he was tall; it was hard to avoid meeting those gray eyes.
“Fingers broken?” he asked her.
“No, sir—my lord,” said Paks, stumbling over the honorific and blushing even more.
“Good.” The Duke moved on, and Paks heard nothing for some time but the blood drumming in her ears. After Stammel had told them, and she had reminded herself, she’d still said it wrong. When she could hear again, the Duke was already on his way to the front of the formation.
“When you were recruited,” he said to them all, “you agreed to stay with this Company for two years beyond your training, and to fight at the orders of your commander. Back then you didn’t know your commander. Now you do. All of you have qualified to join my Company, and that means you follow me—obey my orders, fight when I tell you to, march when I tell you to. Your sergeants will tell you—have told you, I expect—that I’m hard. That’s so. I expect a lot of my soldiers. Skill, courage—and loyalty. To me, personally, as well as to the Company. Now if there’s anyone who, after seeing me, can’t swear fealty—now’s the time to leave.” There was a long breathless silence. The Duke nodded. “Very well. Then give me your oath.”