Mage-Guard of Hamor (33 page)

“It's not obvious, except to those who know and who look closely. The reason is that seniors still patrol and handle many of the same duties, and it was discovered years back that citizens and merchants inevitably tried to play off the differences and discount the judgments and actions of mage-guards who were not seniors.”

“Will the officers in the High Command notice?” Rahl studied Taryl's insignia, but it didn't look noticeably different from his own.

“Only some with a great deal of experience, and not all of those.” Taryl smiled faintly. “You'd better go.”

“Ah…ser…I do have a letter, but not with me.”

“To the healer?” Taryl smiled more broadly.

Rahl could sense a certain warmth that had not been there a moment before. “Yes, ser.”

“If you'll drop it by later, or in the morning, when we meet after muster, I'll make sure it gets sent with the dispatches. I'll caution you that it will probably take two to three eightdays before it gets on a ship.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Now…I have a few matters to attend to.”

Rahl inclined his head, then vaulted over the porch railing, untied the gelding, and mounted. When he returned to the inn, he stabled and groomed his horse.

As he was about to leave the stable, he saw Drakeyt finishing up with his mount and walked over to the stall. “Are you about ready for something to eat?” he asked over the low stall wall.

“And something stronger.”

“It's been a long day,” offered Rahl.

“Could be short compared to those ahead.” Drakeyt did not speak for a time, not until he finished grooming his mount and was leaving the stall. “I saw the overcommander stopped you.”

“He had a few things to say,” Rahl admitted. “Not quite so directly as the submarshal.”

“They always do.” Drakeyt shook his head.

They crossed the dusty courtyard, and Rahl could see a number of mounts tied to the long hitching rail outside the inn. To the north, the green-blue sky looked clear—and chill—in the fading twilight.

As they entered the public room, Rahl could see three tables that held officers, undercaptains and captains, while two majers sat at another. “Do you know all of them?”

“Most of them, but mainly just in passing, except for Majer Mezlyr. He's the bigger one.”

“Drakeyt! Did you have to wash out the bridge?” called out one of the captains.

“No. I did it just to give your company experience in fording rivers.” Drakeyt grinned.

Rahl could sense the anger beneath the smile, but he said nothing. What could he have said that would have been better than the captain's words?

Rahl let Drakeyt choose the one unoccupied corner table, slightly away from the nearest other table. No sooner had they settled into the armless straight-backed chairs than the servingwoman appeared.

“You're the captain who's quartered here, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“You get the burhka and noodles tonight. Drinks?”

“I'll have a beaker of Vyrna.”

“That's extra, ser. Two coppers more.”

“I can spare two coppers.”

The servingwoman looked at Rahl.

“Just good lager…whatever you have.”

“Yes, ser.” She looked at Drakeyt, almost apologetically.

The captain placed two coppers on the dark wood of the corner table.

She nodded, but left them there. “Won't be but a moment with your meal and drinks, sers.”

“Thank you.” Rahl's stomach felt more empty than it usually did by dinnertime. He turned back to Drakeyt. “The submarshal was hard on you. I should have told him that it was my lack of experience…”

Drakeyt laughed, harshly. His eyes glittered like a mirror before a brilliant lamp for a moment. “He wouldn't have listened. Or he would have blamed me for not instructing you in more detail. Or the overcommander for assigning an inexperienced mage-guard.” The older captain looked at Rahl. “Besides, it isn't true.”

“I've never done this before,” Rahl replied. “I've only been a city mage-guard.” He looked up as the servingwoman walked back toward them carrying a glass beaker and a large mug.

“Here you are, sers. Be back with your food in a moment.” This time, she did sweep up the pair of coppers before she left.

“Only a city mage-guard?” Drakeyt raised his thin and silvering eyebrows. “I've been around, and I've talked to the other captains, and I talked to the majer for a moment after the marshal dismissed us. The majer doesn't recall any mage-guard assigned to the High Command who could tell where the enemy was from the distance you were doing. The submarshal's looking for people to blame even before the campaign gets going. The majer didn't say that, but he might as well have.” Drakeyt took a sip of the Vyrna. “You're not just a plain city mage-guard. The overcommander wouldn't have planted you on me if you were. Do you want to tell me why he did?”

“I can't,” Rahl admitted. “I asked him, but all he'd say was that I needed the experience, and that there were good reasons for it.”

“How good are you, Rahl? Compared to other mage-guards, that is?”

Rahl took a slow swallow of the lager before answering, trying to compose a truthful answer that didn't reveal too much. “I don't know exactly. I've been tested, and I do better with weapons than all the other mage-guards of my experience. I have more control of some abilities than most of the regular mage-guards, but how that compares to the higher-level mage-guards, I just don't know.”

Drakeyt grinned. “I think that says that you've been put on point in a dangerous maneuver. Dettyr doesn't know how good you are, or how capable the overcommander is, and the overcommander doesn't want him or the marshal to know that.”

“How can he not know about the overcommander?” Rahl almost burst out that Taryl had been a former Triad, but stopped those words.

“What do you mean?”

“There are only a handful of Mage-Guard Overcommanders, and I'd guess that all of them are capable of becoming a Triad. Any one of them could remove or destroy Dettyr without raising a sweat.”

“I doubt that thought has ever crossed the submarshal's mind. Mage-guards are just peacekeepers among civilians to him.”

“Do most officers in the High Command feel that way?”

“Too many.”

“Why don't you?”

Drakeyt grimaced. “I did, but I've been watching and getting reports on you from the squad leaders. They're impressed. Most officers don't impress them much. The other thing is that you've learned to ride better than most officers.”

That had to do with Rahl's sense of what the gelding would do and his ability to project what he wanted to the horse…although he had learned to stay glued in the saddle, painful as it had been. “I had to. It hurt too much not to.”

The older captain laughed, then stopped as the server returned with two crockery platters heaped with burhka and noodles. Each had a sliced pearapple on the side.

“Thank you,” Rahl said. “It's been a long day.”

“I thought it might have been.”

Rahl knew she was angling for something extra, but he was happy to give it, and slipped her a copper. So did Drakeyt.

“Much obliged, sers. Much obliged. I'll be seeing if you'd like more to drink in a bit.”

Rahl was so hungry that he took several mouthfuls of the burhka and noodles before looking up to see that Drakeyt was also eating heartily. The dish didn't even seem that spicy.

The captain swallowed, then took a sip of the Vyrna, and asked, “What orders did you get from the overcommander?”

“He said my job was to keep Third Company from taking casualties. He wouldn't say more than that.”

“I can't disagree with that…much.”

“He actually said 'too many casualties,'” Rahl added.

“That's more realistic.”

“He's very realistic,” Rahl said dryly. “About everything.”

“It's good someone is.” Drakeyt shook his head. “You know, after all that this afternoon, nothing's changed. The majer said we're to make a thorough sweep of the road to Dawhut in the morning. Then the submarshal will decide.”

“Decide what? We have to go through Dawhut to get to Nubyat, don't we? We haven't found any sign of any rebels. Does he think they'll appear overnight?”

“They might be closer to Dawhut,” suggested Drakeyt with a smile.

“We haven't found any in over four hundred kays, and there are three companies in Dawhut, and we're going to run into rebels in the ten kays between where we stopped patrolling and the city itself?”

“We just follow orders,” Drakeyt replied. “There's no point in questioning stupid orders that are just stupid when no one is going to get killed.”

Rahl nodded, although he certainly didn't like the implication. Not at all.

After dinner, Rahl cleaned up and changed his sunburst insignia, finally comparing the old and new sunburst and insignia. Side by side, he could see the difference, but without looking for it, or knowing that there was such a distinction, he never would have seen it—and hadn't. The tips of the two sunburst rays in the middle—the ones that extended directly out from the side of the center—were straight in the junior insignia, but the very tips curved up in the senior insignia. That small difference would not even be visible from more than a few cubits away, even on the larger insignia for his visor cap, let alone on the smaller collar devices. He doubted that Drakeyt would notice, and he wasn't about to tell the captain, because that would only confuse the troopers.

He thought about writing more to Deybri and telling her that he'd been promoted, but that would have been read as boasting—and it would have been. Besides, he could always add it at the appropriate time in the next long letter he wrote, assuming he had time now that Taryl and the submarshal had arrived.

Tired as he was when he collapsed into the narrow bed, he lay awake, his thoughts alternating between Deybri, the campaign ahead, and the insinuations and implications raised by Taryl's words. Why hadn't the overcommander said more? Or was Rahl supposed to figure things out as he went along? Taryl was attempting a deep and dangerous strategy. That was obvious. It was also clear that Rahl had a part to play, but not immediately. Rahl just wished he had some idea of what Taryl had in mind. All he could figure was that Taryl was on the same side as the Emperor and Jubyl, and the other two Triads might not be, and that it was possible that one or both of them might actually want the rebellion to succeed—or at least take a long time to fail.

In time, he did drift into sleep…and nightmares he could not remember when he woke.

Sevenday morning dawned gray and cold, with a bitter wind out of the northeast. The clouds were high and dry, and Rahl doubted they would have rain or snow—not for several days, in any case. When he rode up to the house serving as headquarters right after he and Drakeyt had mustered Third Company, Taryl was again waiting on the side porch, wearing a heavy riding jacket.

Rahl dismounted and vaulted the railing to join the overcommander.

“Here's the letter, ser, and five silvers.” Rahl didn't have that much left in the way of coin, but he couldn't think of a better way to spend it than on letting Deybri know how he felt.

Taryl took the letter, smiling and weighing it in his hand. “That's a heavy letter.”

“I had a few things to say, ser.”

“I hope you said them well. At your age anger is expressed too often, and gentler feelings too seldom.”

Rahl shrugged, hoping he had written the right things but not wanting to say so.

Taryl slipped Rahl's letter into a leather case slung on a strap over his shoulder, then lifted out a cloth pouch and extended it to Rahl. “Before I forget, here's your pay for the time since Kysha. From here on out, as a senior mage-guard, you get five silvers an eightday. I can't promise regular pay after this, but I can promise you'll get it all in time.”

“Thank you, ser.” A half gold an eightday? Rahl never would have dreamed that he'd make that much. No wonder there was respect for the senior mage-guards. He slipped the pouch into the wallet he carried inside his trousers.

“I can't have a senior mage-guard without coins. There are two extra golds in the pouch. Those are for expenses—special supplies or to help Third Company. It's not much for what you'll be doing, but I will need to know on what they're spent when the campaign's over or when we hold Nubyat.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl paused. “Might I ask what we will be doing in the next few days?”

“Submarshal Dettyr intends to ride into Dawhut on oneday. He wants no losses and no surprises,” Taryl said evenly. “You and Third Company, as well as scouts from other companies, will spend today and tomorrow making sure there are no surprises. By the time you return to the company, Captain Drakeyt should have those orders.”

“After that…”

“He intends to build up supplies and wait for the marshal.”

Rahl winced.

“He's the kind that wants others to take the losses.”

“Won't waiting just give the rebels more time and cost us more troopers?”

“That's usually what happens,” Taryl said mildly. “I'm working to persuade him that losses are inevitable and that early action will reflect favorably upon him, and that he can assign the most perilous duties to those officers he does not care for so that they will incur such losses.”

“Meaning Third Company?”

“And others. The officers he does not like are generally those who look to be most effective. He has his own ideas of what makes a good officer.” On Taryl's thin face, the smile that followed his words looked close to predatory. “Now…you'd better get back to Third Company. Don't bother sending me any more dispatches. If I want to know something, I'll find you, and if you discover something I should know urgently, it's best if you come to me directly.”

“Yes, ser.” Rahl offered a smile, a nod of respect, then turned and swung over the porch railing.

On the short ride back to the Dun Cow, Rahl reflected on what Taryl had not said, not directly. One of the principal deficiencies of poor commanders was that they encouraged poor subordinates and discouraged able ones. Was that true in Recluce as well? Certainly, Puvort had that tendency, and Kadara had been the least accomplished of the magisters and magistras with whom he had come in contact—and she'd been the most critical.

Then he checked his pay—almost two golds, in addition to the two golds for expenses. He wouldn't have to worry nearly so much about coins, not for a while.