<\/p>\n
“And yes, Gerry spent a campaign season studying something military with them down in Aarenis a few years ago, but that doesn’t explain it, really.”<\/p>\n
It didn’t explain anything, Kirgan Marrakai thought.\u00a0 As Kirgan, he could attend the daily briefings.\u00a0 His father had a seat at the table with the other senior nobles, the lesser standing behind them, while he–and other kirgans–stood silent, backs against the canvas wall, supposedly learning something from watching their elders give way to the Prince and this stranger, this mere Captain Phelan,\u00a0 who had the Prince’s ear when it came to matters military.<\/p>\n
Well, he was a professional, after all.\u00a0 A hireling soldier, fought for money: not honor, not loyalty.\u00a0 Rumor, gleaned from servants, was that the man had squired for Aliam Halveric in Aarenis, that he had attended the Falkian equivalent of the Bells.\u00a0 But he displayed no ruby.\u00a0 Had he dropped out?\u00a0 Been thrown out?\u00a0 Had Halveric refused to hire him?<\/p>\n
Arrogant young cock, thought Kirgan Marrakai, seeing the back of the man’s head tilt toward the Crown Prince.\u00a0 And nothing to be proud about.\u00a0 Couldn’t even keep a horse.\u00a0 Probably rode as badly as any farmer’s brat.\u00a0 He amused himself that afternoon, imagining how his own stallion, who regularly threw him, would throw the arrogant young cock faster and harder.<\/p>\n
The army moved slowly, leaving plenty of time for the young men of noble families to amuse themselves with sport: hunting and arms practice and mounted competitions.\u00a0 They had servants to set up and take down their tents, cook their meals, care for their horses and their clothes.\u00a0 They were–barring the arms practice all their fathers insisted on, under direction of an armsmaster or Girdish Marshal–on holiday.\u00a0 When they came to a tributary of the river behind them, flowing from the north, the army paused to water the stock and the people, and some of the servants went to washing clothes. \u00a0The younger men found places for water play.<\/p>\n
Kirgan Marrakai noticed that Captain Phelan let his men take quick baths, but did not bathe with them.\u00a0 Arrogant, he told himself.\u00a0 He bathed every day from a tub in his father’s tent, water brought in by his father’s servants, the proper way to bathe.\u00a0 He told his friends.<\/p>\n
They noticed the red-headed captain–hard to miss that flaming hair in the sun–heading still further upstream, with a rag of some sort over his shoulder.\u00a0 Too shy to bathe with his men?\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 It would be good sport to know why.\u00a0 Maybe he…lacked something.\u00a0 They sniggered over that delicate suggestion.\u00a0 Maybe he was disfigured in some way not visible when he was covered neck to wrist and head to heel in cloth and leather or metal.\u00a0 Perhaps he was a branded criminal and the Crown Prince would definitely need to know that<\/u>.<\/p>\n
They turned aside, walked fifteen strides back toward the army, and then back around.\u00a0 He was out of sight; the stream here ran lower than the rest, and they headed that way, but at a distance, sure he could not see them, moving as quietly as dozen young men with no training could.\u00a0 One would go ahead, bending low then taking quick looks, until he could see the red head and if it was moving, then signal the others.\u00a0 Finally, their forward scout waved them down and forward, and they came crawling through the lush grass to where they could see a wider space of moving water.\u00a0 And their target.<\/p>\n
………………………………………………………………………………………<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“And yes, Gerry spent a campaign season studying something military with them down in Aarenis a few years ago, but that doesn’t explain it, really.” It didn’t explain anything, Kirgan Marrakai thought.\u00a0 As Kirgan, he could attend the daily briefings.\u00a0 His father had a seat at the table with the other senior nobles, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,73,115],"tags":[22,7],"class_list":["post-2876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-excerpt","category-snippet","tag-characters","tag-new-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2877,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}