Prince Edward politely swallowed his mouthful of stew before replying. "For the fences and the palisade."
Obviously, Nightfall’s surprise showed clearly, because Edward continued explaining.
"I learned how to build a strong, defensive camp from my lessons. I’ll teach you."
Nightfall suppressed a groan. I don’t believe this. Prince Silk Sheets is going to teach me how to sleep outside. Then realization struck him. His lessons. His history lessons. His "how to be a war general" lessons. By the Fathers crown, he’s building a pissing fortress! The image of a towering buttress filled his mind, along with the weeks of hard labor it would cost for two men to erect it. The picture threw him over the edge. No longer able to restrain his amusement, he broke into a raging torrent of laughter.
"What’s so funny?"
The somberness of the prince’s tone only tripled the humor. Nightfall howled.
“What’s so funny," Edward demanded, his voice breaking as he started to chuckle himself. Within seconds, they were both laughing hard enough to burst. Every few moments, Edward caught his breath to ask the source of the laughter again, and each time the question began a new wave of mirth.
Finally, they both sat, gasping, beneath the moonlight. A long time had passed since Nightfall had laughed except with cruel satisfaction in the wake of an enemy’s death. Despite the pain in his lungs and exhaustion, he felt good.
The pause gave Edward the time he needed to fully regain his composure. "Sudian, why are we laughing?"
At you, you ridiculous simpleton. We’re laughing at you. Nightfall passed up the straight line. "Master, we’re both overtired to giddiness. As much as it pains me to leave work undone, it might be best if we both got some sleep."
"Without defenses? And let something attack us in the night?"
Nightfall wondered what Prince Edward would think if he knew his squire was the most horrible and dangerous thing in the forest. "Master, what good are defenses if we’re too tired to fight?"
Edward’s eyes narrowed. All humor left him. “Sudian, are you questioning me?”
Nightfall stared, annoyed by the malice in his prince’s tone. "Master, are you asking me if I asked you a question?”
Now Edward seemed startled. "I’m pointing out that you’re questioning my judgment.”
"Is that a crime in Alyndar?"
"Yes.” Edward retrieved his bowl of stew. "Well, no, not a crime actually." He gripped the bowl, fingers white with frustration. "It’s considered rude. You’re a servant. You can’t just run around questioning nobles’ judgments? “
"Master, I don’t understand.” Nightfall adopted a wide-eyed innocent look. "My loyalty is to your welfare. If I see you making a decision I think might hurt you, I should say nothing?"
The prince chewed another mouthful of stew, swallowing before replying. "You have to trust that I see things you don’t."
"Master, I trust you. I trust you more than anyone." And if you believe that, you galley-clod, you’re even stupider and more naive than I thought.
Edward softened. "Very well, Sudian. I appreciate your loyalty. And you do look tired. Why don’t you get some sleep. I’ll take first watch."
"Master, thank you." Nightfall managed to turn his back before the smile overtook his face. Curling on his side in the clearing, he fell asleep almost instantly.
A movement awakened Nightfall. He opened his eyes to the darkness of wee morning and an exhausted Prince Edward headed in his direction. Beyond the campfire, the prince had gathered at pile of pine needles to serve as a bed.
"Ah, Sudian, you’re awake. It’s your turn to take watch. Can you handle it?"
Nightfall sat up quickly, giving an enthusiastic gesture of respect. "Master, I’m alert and ready for anything.”
"Very good." Prince Edward sprawled across his make-shift bed, turning his back to his squire.
In thirty-four years, nothing has ever approached with-out waking me from the soundest sleep. Nightfall lowered his head, curling back into a ball on the ground. You could have spared yourself the watch. I ’m more wary in my sleep than you are awake. He waited until Prince Edward’s gentle snores wafted across the camp, memorized the normalcy of its sound and the layout of the clearing, then swiftly returned to sleep.
Nightfall awakened to the numbing chill of sunrise. He sat up, curling a leg to his chest, and a soreness in his inner thighs and buttocks reminded him of yesterday’s ride. The pain brought a familiar satisfaction. In his years as Etan, the laborer, stiffness at sunrise always followed a day of noteworthy accomplishment. But, this morning it only means I’ve got a fool for a master; one who doesn’t know when to ride and when to rest.
Nightfall sighed, glancing around the camp. The fire had burned to piled charcoal splattered with a few red coals. Prince Edward lay on his back beneath a blanket, with one arm thrown across his forehead. Nightfall had often heard that people looked innocent in sleep, and he found it fascinating to think that Edward could appear more guileless than he did awake. If he became any purer, I’d have to diaper him.
Not quite ready to rise for the day, Nightfall stared between the trees. Early sunlight reddened the gaps between branches, filling the sky with waving patches of scarlet, green, and gray. He crouched, watching the colors change as the sun inched upward. The tatters of sky between needled branches diffused to pink.
Oddly, of all his personae, it was Nightfall, himself, who liked to watch the dawn. He recalled nights in his childhood, when his mother or her client had barred him from the room, and he had hidden from the world and its dangers between the wheat stalks of a farmer’s field. He would awaken to sunrise creeping over a billowing sea of gold, mesmerized by the rainbow parade that preceded the sun. Legends spoke of the seven sisters on horseback towing the burning chariot across the sky, chasing night’s demons over the world’s edge and back into their hell. The young Nightfall would pretend that the twilight beauty was the sisters’ gift to him; that, one day, they would carry him across the horizon to a land where bowls of food sprang from the ground, where summer stayed all year round, and where the same man slept in a woman’s bed every night. The sisters would all be his mothers, playfully arguing over which loved him more, though he loved them all the same.
The pinkness faded, intertwined with, then replaced by, a pale, blue-white expanse, back-lit by yellow. Standing, he chuckled faintly at the reverie. Back in the days when I was as unenlightened as my master. He glanced at Prince Edward, watching the youth twist in his sleep, tangling himself into the blankets. Shaking his head at the spectacle, Nightfall amended. No. I think I was born more worldly than he is now.
Trotting to the pile of wooden stakes, he collected a handful and tossed them on the coals. Smoke poured from beneath one of the logs, then trickled into oblivion. Leaving the coals to smolder against fresh wood, Nightfall prepared a breakfast of bread, cheese, and fruit, leaving it in place for Edward’s awakening. Then, quietly sating his hunger on a slice of bread and a handful of winter berries, he finished preparing the packs for travel.
The horses stood in a row, alternating head to tail, swatting flies on one another’s faces. Still disliking the beacon whiteness of Ned’s gelding, Nightfall considered driving it away. But that would mean piling its share of the load onto the other two, already overburdened, horses. He combed the tangles from his red-brown hair, then set to grooming the mounts.