Disciple, Part I: For Want of a Piglet Read online

  He chuckled, at that. “So you got my missing feed.”

  “Your missing feed?”

  “I’m master of the horse for the Prince’s Guard,” Anders said. “I was there about a wagon of hay and oats as well. A shame we didn’t happen to meet then, we could have cleared it up quickly.”

  It had been a chaotic pavilion, or seemed so to me, all managed under the hawk’s eyes of the duchess of Prohzgrad. To find Sir Anders in it, I had to comb through a still moment of my memory to find him. I hadn’t noticed one more mail-clad knight in a black tabard, even if it did have two gold stars on it for the Prince’s Guard.

  “You saw me there?” I asked. “In all that confusion?”

  He infected me with another one of his smiles. “I always notice a pretty face. Even in a crowded room.”

  There wasn’t much to say to that, so I said, “I only caught a couple glimpses of you. Duchess Vysokova was in a dark mood, by all the shouting.”

  “M’lady was not pleased by how many things had gone wrong. I saw you beside the Elect and thought you must be that apprentice there’s been a fuss about. Prettier than I expected.”

  “What did you expect?” What had ‘pretty’ to do with apprentices?

  “Perhaps I didn’t expect, exactly. The fuss I’d heard had been over older students being passed by in favor of some Englic peasant girl.” Sir Anders took on a stuffy, disgruntled voice as he went. “Outrageous. A fourteen-year-old peasant? Chosen by the elect when she can barely read?”

  I couldn’t help a grimace. “I read well enough. I studied hard, those two years.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Sir Anders said. “If they’d known you were pretty to boot, they’d have been doubly outraged. There.” He tucked a black-eyed susan under my braid, just by my ear. As I’d been glaring at the pebbly dirt road, I didn’t see the bright yellow coming and flinched at first.

  My father and mother had told me I was pretty, now and then. It rarely came up when there was so much studying to do and so many patients to see to.

  “I saw you after the battle,” Sir Anders said, voice a little lower now that he walked closer by me. “A friend was in the infirmary with a gash in his side, and I tracked him to there. You were trying to feed one of the worse-off men. Barely conscious and twitching, but you kept trying to get some soup into him. I thought it a touching scene. Compassionate.”

  He looked me in the eye and it sounded likely enough. Except… “After the battle? That afternoon?”

  A moment’s thought. “I believe so. I hauled Viktor out of there and was back in time for dinner. Late afternoon.”

  I had to say, “I was in the surgery with Master Parselev until full dark. That wasn’t me you saw.”

  His turn to echo. “In the surgery?”

  “There was a late ambulance of knights from the king’s attack.”

  “Are you sure? She wore her hair braided up, like you.”

  “You don’t think I misremember, do you?” I tipped my head toward him an inch or two. He was tall enough that he ought to have a good view of my Blessing in any case.

  That quieted him. There were several women with blonde hair long enough to braid and wrap. I usually let my braid hang free, as I wasn’t wed yet. “It’s not so odd to confuse me with one of the Ters,” I said, to excuse him in an honest mistake.

  Anders frowned, and then a burst of open sun made him squint as well. When we reached a patch of shade, he looked over at me. “Still, I was glad to see you again at the chapel that morning. A touch of kindness will do the journey well.”

  That late ambulance had been full of broken bones on men who’d survived lying or crawling for hours on the field. As we’d been out of charms, and kir, and even my master exhausted by then, it had been a great deal of blood and screaming. The saw and the cauterizing iron had been needed. Little kindness to speak of, at a glance.

  “If you’d fallen from your horse and come to me with both leg bones jutting from your flesh, you might think differently.”

  Sir Anders said nothing after that, and I let my pace slow as my ankles were aching. He didn’t seem to notice, and then a whistle from up ahead marked that we were stopping to rest. A small branch in the road led down to the Felsherz.

  As Puck walked by, he reached with his lips and plucked my black-eyed susan to eat. I chuckled under my breath. A far better use for the poor flower.

  Evening light clung to the mountain peaks well after darkness fell on our camp. Their glowing slopes peeked through the high canopy when the lodgepole pines swayed in the high-up wind of winter drawing breath. I sat on a tarp eating ham pan-fried with cabbage and onions, stuffed into half a round of bread. The grease, soaked into the crust, kept me from stopping until it was gone. Ther Boristan, across the fire from me, wrote and sketched in his book. I’d volunteered to clean up after dinner so he would have time. Ilya brought the ponies back from their drink at the stream.

  The song began with one note, again, high and pure and far more human than any monster had a right to sound. Two more voices joined in, then a third.

  We all looked up, breath billowing before our faces, the quiet chat about horses between Sir Anders and Bjorn dropping.

  “They’re higher up, near the kir fount,” Ulf said, after listening to the song. “Not likely to stalk us tonight, but we should set a watch all the same, m’lord.”

  “For wolves and bears?” Ilya asked.

  Ulf shook his head. “Lamia drive out wolves and bears. They’ll brook no competition in their forest from animals. Or humans.”

  Chapter 4

  Saint-day began with frost. We’d slept atop one tarp and under another, each wrapped in a bedroll and laid alongside each other like sausages. As I had no watch duty, by morning I was in the middle of the sausage-line and had to crawl out on all fours when I woke. Ilya always drew the last watch and always began by stoking up the fire and checking the oats left cooking overnight in a spider-legged pot over the coals. When I saw him busy, I knew it was close enough to morning to get up.

  Sir Anders settled beside me when the porridge was ready and passed me the maple syrup bottle with a smile. I added a dollop and passed it on to Ulf.

  “You wake early,” Anders said, between spoonfuls of oatmeal. “You left half of me cold when you climbed out.”

  “Was that you?” We all looked about the same when wrapped up. “You were up soon enough after me.”

  “Chills keep me awake — they get into my bones and then I’ll be sore all morning. I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so I had to follow before the cold crept in.” He even added a melancholy sigh.

  Master Parselev had a keen eye for the health of anyone standing before him; he said it was a sense I’d learn with time. I couldn’t claim to have too much yet, but Sir Anders wasn’t ill-fed or consumptive. “Do you want me to believe you’re so fragile? The master of horse for the Prince’s Guard?”

  That got me a wry smirk, so I guessed I’d scored a hit.

  Then there was the cleaning up and the repacking to see to and we were underway by the time sun peeked into the forest. Our woodsmen knew a good place to set the next camp, they said, atop a waterfall where there’d be a clear view of the valley. And we’d get there by noon, in time for the Saint-day washing and the disciple’s dance.

  “If we keep a good pace, we’ll be there with time to spare,” Ulf said. “And it’s far enough from the kir fount that we won’t draw the lamia.”

  We parted from the road — more a trail, in truth, since we’d passed through a tiny village yesterday — and climbed a slope that gave way to bald rock near the top. The Felsherz tumbled a few dozen feet onto rocks; at the top, it lay in a flat pool. Shorter, denser evergreens had replaced the lodgepole pines over the morning’s walk and from here we saw just over their heads. The sun above was warm, once I was in it, and I pulled my hood back.

  Hills fell away into golden prairie, and far in the distance the western mountains rose jagged and grey. Throu
gh the middle of the basin, the Neva River twisted southward toward its falls on Wodenberg’s southern border. Mount Woden stood alone by the river. Its peak cut through the belly of a foolish puff of cloud as it passed over. That was one of a flock of clouds rolling eastward toward us, still some distance off.

  “Weather changes quickly up here,” Bjorn reminded us. “Clear one moment, ice or snow the next. And the river’s fed by snowfields — ice cold, so take care. It’ll nip you to buds, in washing, and kill you if you fall in.”

  I braved the pool first, bathing by halves. Men’s clothes were good for that, I had to allow. In a dress, I’d have to strip entirely. Each of the men took a turn behind the hanging blanket at the shore, and we all went shivering to the fire to warm. Once Ther Boristan had the stew simmering, he went to wash last. In returning, he began the gathering song, which drew Sir Anders back from the ponies and the woodsman from hanging the tarp.

  Ther Boristan took a moment to compose himself, and said, “I don’t often give the homily, so I’ll be brief. Saint-day so far from home is strange for most of us. Though we met only a few days past, we are as much a community of disciples as in our own Orderhäuser. We are answering the call of Father Duty and we’ve traveled under his protection thus far. Mother Love has kept the weather fair and the road clear for us.” With a glance over his shoulder at the clouds, he added, “Pray she keeps it as fair as she can. Even though we’re far from home, we will obey the instructions of those children the Father and the Mother sent to guide us: our saints. Saint Qadeem bids us wash, Saint Aleksandr bids us eat as a community, and Saint Woden bids us dance.”

  It took a moment for us to get all boots and socks off, and spread out around the fire. Boristan checked the stew.

  Ther began with slow, careful stretches, held long to loosen our joints. Gently, at first. Then the poses progressed into deeper muscles, required more flexibility. Boristan did not push us so hard as some Thers; I could manage these, at least in part. And sidelong, I tracked the others. My eyes kept creeping to Sir Kiefan.

  From stretching we moved into balance and focus, where I often wobbled and had to settle for the less intense poses. Ilya was with me in that, I was secretly glad to find. Ulf and Bjorn had all the focus of hunting hawks, and stood firm when even Ther Boristan and the knights began to waver.

  Came the strength movement, which Kiefan and Sir Anders took with ease, and my legs were already crying for rest. Perhaps Boristan’s were as well, for he eased up at last and didn’t lead us to some of the toughest strength poses. I was sweating and breathing in time with my pulse when we finally stood, on both feet with palms pressed together, at the end.

  “Thank you,” Ther Boristan said with a bow. “Don’t stray far. I’ll call when the stew is ready.”

  I cast about for some chore to do, and thought of the work my master had given me for the journey. Ulf and Bjorn caught my eye, though, odd in their caution approaching me.

  “Dame Kate,” Ulf said, “you’re the Elect’s apprentice? And were at Ansehen?” When I nodded to both, the elder archer continued. “It’s said the Elect stole Margrave Schutze back from the Shepherd. Did you see that?”

  “The margrave was not dead.” I was quick to correct him. “It was a mortal wound, yes, but the Shepherd didn’t have him yet.”

  This drew Ilya, and Ther Boristan left off stirring the stew to listen. Sir Kiefan and Anders hesitated on the verge of starting sword drills a few yards from the campfire. “Tell us of it?” Ilya asked. “I heard it said, too, that the margrave died on the field. Or so most thought, until he walked into the command pavilion.”

  “He was in Vorspitz half a moon ago, but wouldn’t speak of it,” Bjorn said. “I told Johanna he couldn’t have been dead — the Shepherd can’t be cheated — but none of our garrison were at Ansehen. Please, m’lady?”

  I settled by the campfire, cross-legged, and called up the memory to give them the truth.

  Master Parselev’s surgery, at Ansehen, was sectioned off from the main infirmary by canvas walls. We had kettles boiling just outside, for cleansed water, and cauterizing irons in the fire. The day had run long, already, through a stream of ambulance wagons bringing dozens of wounded from the battlefield. We stood catching our breath betwixt arrivals, drinking cups of water and washing what we could. In the general noise, I didn’t hear more hooves riding up to the infirmary pavilion.

  One Ther and a knight burst through the tent flap, carrying a travesty between them. My cup hand was suddenly empty and my shoes wet. They had the patient by a shoulder and knee apiece and I had no idea who he was. I could only see the length of four-inch sapling stake rammed through his ribs.

  “No help for the dead!” Parselev shouted over their voices, putting up a hand.

  “M’lord, please! He lives!” The knight — a lieutenant, by the brass rings on his epaulettes — heaved his burden onto the surgery table. “He’s my lord, sir, please! Margrave Schutze!” The stake’s sharpened end scraped on the table and its movement tore a weak cry from the man. The margrave. They rolled him on his side, the Ther putting a hand on the bloody end of the stake to hold it steady.

  My master touched the patient, calling up his kir. His mouth pursed, tight. To the lieutenant, “You. Your day’s kir?”

  He blinked. “I have much of it. If you need it, take it.” He held out his hand.

  Only the charm-handed could give their kir, or so I thought. But Master Parselev gave him a sharp look and even I could feel the force he sucked the kir out with. It arced from the knight’s hand to my master’s chest in a golden strand. The lieutenant’s knees buckled and I ducked under his arm to steady him. He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. His tabard was soaked in blood; wetness seeped into my dress.

  “Hold him,” Master told the Ther who’d helped carry Schutze in. My master put his hand on the margrave and looked to Ter Biya, who aided him in surgery. She had a strength Blessing. “Biya, pull the stake. And Kate? Don’t look away.”

  The margrave was ashy grey, barely breathing. Biya put both hands on the cruel stake and checked it with a little twist. Then she bit her lip, pulled with her Blessing strength, and it slid out red, ragged, scraping on bone. Gore splattered. Screams ripped out too, but they were sucked down into silence as kir blossomed in my master’s hand, spinning up from his palm in knots of green and gold. I could feel it flowing through him, it was so clear and strong. The kir twisted, tightening down, stars igniting in the misty stuff until the whole mass of it lit with a flash, brilliant as the sun. Stars spun around the sun in my master’s hand and scattered, confused, when he threw the mass of kir into the margrave’s chest.

  It landed on him in heavy ripples, like a cloak, and his body clenched. Kir patterns flooded the wound, pulling the flesh with them. The stars chased after, each strike sending out ripples of green and smoothing the kir’s dance.

  The world released the breath it held.

  I wobbled at the suddenness, and my hand fell on the lieutenant’s sweaty hair. He glanced up, startled, and hastily let go of my waist. I hadn’t noticed him clutching me, either. He left me half covered in blood from his tabard. The Ther fell to his knees, letting the margrave drop onto his back. Biya already sat on the grass, the stake in her hands, her eyes calmly closed.

  Master Parselev and I alone stood, in the room. Margrave Schutze breathed, unconscious, as the Ther straightened him on the table. Through the hole in his armor and gambeson, a purple bruise on the mended flesh roiled to a stop before my eyes.

  “That lesson must wait, I’m afraid,” my master told me with a thin smile. “Let’s hope the king isn’t brought in as well. A cup of water, please, Biya? Ther, take the patient out to a pallet. Lieutenant? You served your lord well today. I’ll tell him that myself.”

  The lieutenant bowed, still on his knees. “Elect, I…”

  “Stay with him now. He may wake before dark.”

  Scrambling to his feet, the lieutenant followed the Ther and his lo
rd. Parselev took a fresh cup that Biya offered him and drank deeply as another Ther carried in the next wounded knight.

  My story earned me thanks and a few questions, but after that my audience melted away to their chores, scouting, and sword drills. It left me with little to do, so I hunted through my bags on Puck’s back and dug out the book Master Parselev had entrusted to me. I hadn’t known why, when I was packing, but now it was clearer. It was a philosophy text that I was partway through already. As it was written in Arceal, it was a struggle for me to work through the language. Arceal was a strange, jumbly tongue, not like Alemannic or the Englic I spoke at home with my parents.

  I hadn’t known how I could manage to read any more without my teacher. Now I had two knights on hand who had to know some Arceal. And if this Caercoed kingdom sent merchants to Temitte, they must speak Arceal themselves. I had both a reason to keep learning and the means, if I could find a way to ask one for help. Perhaps Sir Anders, if he could be weaned off the teasing and the flowers.

  I settled cross-legged by the fire again to read.

  A few words in, the crash of steel in the forest caught my ear. Both knights dashed into the campsite clearing, Anders leading by a few steps and pivoting into the prince’s unprepared guard. My eyes could hardly catch Kiefan’s block and counter-stab and Anders’ tumble to one side that came up on his feet and ready as if he’d planned the whole thing.

  They were far enough off that I only heard a mutter of what they said. By mutual agreement, they paused a moment to catch their breath and then started a new line of practice. Slow, at first, like the disciple’s dance, swinging and blocking with the flats of their swords. When the pattern began again, they moved to half speed.

  At full speed, I found I followed it clearly and could pick out the individual poses even as they blended together. But then they shifted into Blessing speed and it all became a frightening, blurry tangle that kept going far too long for the one series of moves. With a louder crash, one of them fell and they were on the ground scattering dry pine needles until they abruptly froze. Anders pinned Kiefan, a knee on his chest, arm drawn up to hold the sword-tip to the prince’s throat.