“I told him we don’t have oil to burn!” Edmund called back, taking a brimming tankard and handing it to Herzer. “And that he needed to get out more!”
“Thass ri’!” Cruz shouted drunkenly. “Eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we die!”
“And you’re drinking on credit,” Pedersen laughed. “Because you lost a week’s pay to me at dice!”
“Tha’ way you gonna make sure I li’!” Cruz said with a grin and a slap on the decurion’s shoulder.
“What did you think of training?” Edmund asked.
“Bloody awful!” “Issh… ish shou’ln’t happppen er a dog!”
“It was… interesting,” Herzer replied. “I think the death march at the end was a particularly nice touch.”
“Thanks,” Edmund replied. “That was all mine!”
“Was it you that had us stop at the clearing at the end?” Herzer asked. “What’s with the grave.”
“That’s for you to find out,” Edmund replied, somberly. “There’s a great man buried there. A great man. One of the finest generals in the history of the world. And totally forgotten except for a few relics like myself.”
“Do you put the lemons there?” Herzer asked.
“No,” Talbot replied with a grin. “That was implemented before my time. I’m glad to know it’s still happening.”
“Well, they’re not bad,” Herzer said with a shrug. “Not as sour as most lemons.”
“You didn’t eat it, did you?” Edmund asked, askance.
“Uh, yeah,” Herzer replied, worried. “Why?”
“Hmmm,” Edmund muttered. “You’re… not having any odd dreams, are you?” he asked, looking the boy up and down.
“No.”
“You sit up straight already, is that something you’ve learned or…”
“I’ve always had good posture,” Herzer said. “What the hell are you getting at, Baron Edmund?”
“Well,” Talbot replied with a shrug and a chuckle. “Probably no harm done. But if you start lifting your left arm over your head when you’re thinking, we’ll have to perform an exorcism.”
“What?!”
The band had completed their last song and Cruz looked up from his beer bleerily and started banging the table rhythmically. “Cam-BREATH, Cam-BREATH, Cam-BREATH!”
The chant was taken up by others, including the cavalry in the corner and the minstrel shook her head.
“Fie on you soldiers!” she shouted with a laugh. “You’re always calling for Cambreadth. I’ll give you your Cambreadth!” With that she waved to the band and they started the song, but the lyrics were different than Herzer remembered. He knew the song well; it was practically the anthem of the Blood Lords and they sang it on every march. But this one was so different he began laughing and couldn’t stop.
When it got to the part where the frog was attacking the heron, Herzer was laughing so hard he had a hard time staying on the bench.
“Boy definitely needs to get out more,” Deann laughed.
Herzer didn’t realize that the first mug of beer was done until he was halfway through the second. And since the two beers had gotten together, they decided they needed some friends. As the evening went on it got a bit blurrier right up until both the groups were singing “Yellow Ribbon” and one of the cavalry troopers was suddenly shouting at Cruz.
“It’s cavalry trooper you idiot!” the drunken trooper yelled, coming over to their table.
“It’s legionnaire you pencil-necked horse-lover!” Cruz said, standing up.
“Yellow is the color of cavalry, you slope-browed moron!” the apparently suicidal trooper said. He was at least a head shorter than Cruz and at least twenty kilos lighter.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Herzer said mildly, standing up and putting his hands on their chests to separate them. “Yel-low,” he enunciated carefully, “is the col-or of the cav-al-ry, Cruj.” Then he turned to the, yeah, pencil-necked cavalry trooper. “On the other han’, the song is tradit… tradeee… of’en sung with udder symbo… udder stuff,” he finished.
“Get away from me you cowardly fisk,” the trooper said.
“What did you say?” Herzer asked, dangerously.
“You cut and ran on Doctor Ghorbani,” the trooper sneered just before the fist crashed into his face.
Herzer didn’t really remember most of the next minute or so. Later he had a clear view of Kane’s face flashing past his eyes, apparently propelled through the air when trying to stop him and the cry of “BLOOD LORDS” from behind him. But the next thing he actually was aware of was a small, lithe body pressed into his back and holding his face to the floor with an absolutely unbreakable, and tremendously powerful, wrestling hold.
“No more drinks for you, Triari Herzer,” Estrelle said calmly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Herzer replied. The homunculus had his legs pinned in some sort of a scissors hold, his face braced into the floor and both of his arms twisted behind his back. And when he tried to writhe out she gave just enough of a twist for him to realize that she was only letting him have both shoulders stay together because she was programmed to reduce necessary harm. “I’ll be good.”
“Let him up, Estrelle,” Herzer heard The Gunny say in his most Gunny voice.
Estrelle unwound herself and lifted his well-over-a-hundred-kilos weight as if he were a feather.
“What happened here?” Gunny asked.
“It was entirely my fault,” Herzer said, miserably.
“There were words exchanged, Gunnery Sergeant Rutherford,” Kane said, waving his hand as if to dismiss the incident. “One of my troopers made, quite loudly, a rather unfounded accusation. And Herzer took… violent exception to it.”
“How is he?” the Gunny asked. “The trooper, that is.”
“Well,” Kane replied, rubbing a bruise that was starting to purple on his forehead, “we’ll all live. But I think we might have to consider giving the cavalry and the Blood Lords different nights off.”
“Herzer, did you lay hand on Cavalry Master Kane?” Gunny asked, coldly.
“I’m… not sure, Gunny,” Herzer admitted.
“It was all a bit blurry to me as well,” Kane said quickly. “I’d really suggest that bygones be bygones. Hot words, a few… clashes. They’re soldiers, Gunny.”
“No, my troops are Blood Lords, and they fight who I tell them to fight,” Gunny said. “Herzer, return to the barracks. You are confined to quarters until I decide how this will be handled. You can consider yourself stripped of acting triari status. You are dismissed.”
Herzer was lying in his bunk with his fingers interlaced behind his head when the other Blood Lords stumbled into the decuri bay.
“This is a fisking disgrace!” Deann said angrily. “That arrogant horse-fisker needed to be punched out. We can sing any damned thing we want!”
“I didn’t hear what he said,” Cruz said. “What the hell made you so angry; you practically punched him across the room. What a sweet sight, by the way.”
“He said that I had cut and run on Doctor Ghorbani when she was raped,” Herzer said, simply.
“WHAT?” Deann screamed. “When he gets out of the infirmary I’m going to kill him!”