“Oh.” Paks thought about it. She had no way of valuing things, but it seemed strange that a tiny vial of liquid, however rare, could be more costly than a person. “But what did Effa mean, then?”
“About St. Gird?” Paks nodded. “Well, the gods can heal, if they will. Those who serve them—Marshals of Gird, or Captains of Falk, or whatever—have the power to ask healing of the gods and have it granted. Before my time, the Duke was friendly with Girdsmen—I even heard he was one himself—and had a Marshal with the Company for healing. I’ve seen men who say they were healed that way.”
“Does that cost so much?”
“Well—I can’t say. They usually heal their own, and no one else: Marshals heal Girdsman, and Captains heal Falkians. I’d think it would cost, though maybe not in gold. Why should a god give healing for nothing?”
“The gods give rain and wind for nothing, and sunlight.”
“For nothing? Surely your people gave back, wherever you’re from—” Vanza stared at her. Paks remembered the little shrines by the well and the corners of her father’s fields; the tufts of barley and oats, and the lamb’s blood they left there. For an instant she felt cold as she realized how close she had come to impiety.
“You’re right,” she said quickly. “But the gods have the power to give as they choose, whatever gifts we give. That’s what I meant, that we give gifts, we do not compel.” She hoped that was what she’d meant.
He nodded. “True, no one can compel—but they are honorable, or the good ones are, and generous.” He nodded to her and went away. Paks stared after him, thoughtfully. Wizards… magical healing… somehow when she’d heard of magic potions in songs, she’d never thought of the cost in gold. Or lives.
Chapter Eleven
The next day Cracolnya’s cohort marched in. Pont, his junior captain, escorted the survivors back to the Company’s camp while the Duke, Cracolnya, and most of that cohort went on to Valdaire.
“I thought the Czardians were defeated,” said Callexon. “What happened?”
Erial, the junior sergeant in Cracolnya’s cohort, chuckled. “They were. But they’d hired a mercenary band to help them, only it was late. Then the Duke pulled us out—so when their hirelings finally arrived, they quit talking to Foss Council again and decided to fight for it.” She paused to wipe the sweat from her face. “Won’t do them any good. As long as Foss Council still has three cohorts in the field, and we have two—”
“Who’d they hire?” Varne’s face still looked patchy and pink, but she was otherwise healthy.
“Some southern company. We don’t have to worry; they won’t be any better than the Czardian militia.”
“Unless they’ve got the Free Pikes,” said Vanza.
Erial looked startled. “I never thought of that—they hardly ever hire out.”
“Who are the Free Pikes?” asked Paks.
“The only decent southern company,” said Erial. “They’re from the high mountains in the southwest—I think they call it Horngard.”
“That’s right,” said Vanza. “They don’t hire out much—they fight in defense, or if their land needs money. But when they fight—!” He shook his head.
But the Czardians did not have the Free Pikes; they had hired, Stammel explained, a renegade baron of the Sier of Westland and his so-called knights. They were best known for their woodswork—sneaking into enemy lines at night to kill sleeping men, or steal supplies, or start fires—but could put up a respectable fight on the field, as well.
Paks had hardly realized, in the excitement of her first battle, that the Duke’s Company was not fighting alone. Now she had a look at the Foss Council militia. They wore short gray tunics over trousers of bright red (from Foss) or green (from Ifoss); they carried short straight swords and light throwing javelins. Foss Council held the right wing of their position; their camp, like the Duke’s, was in the forest. Trees ended on a gentle slope, opening on a wide expanse of grass and sedge that faced another tree-shaded ridge some distance away. To the left, the trees made an arc connecting the two ridges; to the right, the grassy meadow grew wetter, finally producing a stream that trickled away to the north.
When the next battle came, two days later, Paks was more than ready for it. Someone had made it through the lines; Arñe was in the surgeon’s care with a knife wound, and Kir of Dorrin’s cohort was dead. Even so, her breath came short as the two lines closed. For an instant she was even more frightened than the first time—she could feel the sickening blow that had opened her leg. She thrust the thought away angrily as the remembered noise and confusion swept over her. This time she was able to keep her head, battering at the enemy stroke after stroke. She was aware of the man beside her, able to adjust her strokes to his so that they fought as a unit. It seemed to last forever: dust, noise, confusion, the rising and falling blades. Then the ground softened under her feet. She realized that they had advanced to the center of the field, where mud churned up instead of water.
Some time after midday, both sides withdrew a space. Paks drained her water flask and wiped sweat from her face. She had come through uninjured. Her stomach growled—a long time since breakfast. They stood quiet in formation: across the way the enemy lines shifted, milling.
“Pass your flask back,” said Donag, handing her his. “They’ll send water forward.” Soon the dripping flasks returned, and they drank. Slabs of bread came forward, then more water. Paks ate hungrily. When she looked again, the enemy seemed a little further away. She nudged Kiri beside her.
“They’re giving back,” he said. “Don’t look at ’em, and maybe they’ll go all the way.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Means they don’t want to fight the rest of the day. Fine with me—it’s too blazin’ hot anyway.”
And in fact the enemy were soon back in their own camp, and to Paks’s surprise they were not sent in pursuit. In the next week, before the Duke returned, they fought several such inconclusive engagements.
“Why don’t they want to fight and win?” she asked one night.
“Don’t complain,” said Donag. “If they wanted to win—I suppose you mean Foss Council?—it’d be our blood on the ground, and not their militia’s. Think about it. They want to win, but what they want to win is whatever it is they’re fighting about: where a border is, or a caravan tariff, or something like that. If they can convince Czardas to yield on that, without us having to cut our way through the entire Czardian army, so much the better.”
“But—” began Arñe, now back from the surgeons.
“No buts,” interrupted Donag. “Tir’s guts, you idiots! You’ll get all the fighting you’ve stomach for by the time you make corporal—if you live that long. Don’t look for trouble. It’s your profession—it’ll come to you.”
When the Duke returned, everything changed again. With Cracolnya’s archers, he decided to change ground. Under cover of darkness they slipped far to the left of their previous position. This left a gap between the Duke’s Company and Foss Council’s troops, and confused the novices almost as much as the enemy. Paks worried about the militia, and even more about what they might think.
“Don’t be silly,” said Canna. She had seen this before. “They’re moving too. It’s a trap, if it works, and a good move even if it doesn’t.”
They made it to the Duke’s chosen field without interference, and Stammel explained how it was better for their purposes than the other one.
“He wants to use our archers. So far the Czardians haven’t shown us any, so we don’t have to worry. But look—the mixed cohort will be up there—” he pointed. “They can’t get to ’em on foot or horse, but they’ll be in range to feel it when Cracolnya opens up. Just watch it come.”