Redoubt (4 page)

And so it proved. He danced a great deal, even if he didn’t dance well; he drank a
little, and when Dallen turned up to shove him into his own room in the stable, he
was tired enough and just light-headed enough, not to resist.

2

T
he morning was cool and the breeze still persisted, which was a good sign for the
game that afternoon. Mags got himself an early wash, courtesy of the stable pump,
knowing he was going to be wanting another before the day was over. The air was clear,
the sky cloudless as he walked up to the dining hall that was shared by all three
Collegia. He enjoyed the solitary walk; in a few hours, he wasn’t going to find anywhere
but Companion’s Field that didn’t have a crowd.

Breakfast—and, for that matter, lunch and dinner—for these three days was going to
be a free-form affair, at least at the Collegia. He wasn’t sure how it would be managed
at the Palace, and, of course, it would probably be just another day at the manors
around the Palace, so far as the servants of the highborn were concerned. But here,
since every possible hand was needed, the Collegia servants had been somewhat conscripted.
So at most of the meals during the wedding, cold food was laid out on the tables,
and you were expected to help yourself.

These were holidays for everyone except the servants. Amily had told Mags that there
was going to be a separate set of holidays for the servants still on duty, some of
them getting three days leave before the wedding and some getting three days leave
after, which only seemed fair to him.

And, of course, a great many things—even food—had been prepared in advance, so
all
the work wasn’t being done in these three days. But with so many visitors, and so
much to be done on the festal days themselves, there were still not quite enough hands
to cover all the work.

There was, of course, a solution for that here at the Collegia. Not a bad thing if
you asked him; after all, even the highborn Heralds, Bards, and Healers were going
to, one day, be in positions and places where they had to do their own cooking and
cleaning. Out in the Field alone, there were plenty of times a Herald would be living
in a Waystation and not at an inn or a Guardpost. From the way Amily had talked, it
looked as if the Deans had decided that they all might as well start learning how
to tend to such common chores now. All the Trainees were taking a turn in the kitchen
on cleaning duty, for instance; he had been on breakfast and dinner duty yesterday;
they were letting him off today because of the game, and he had dinner duty tomorrow.

He seemed to be one of the few up and awake this early. There was a Bardic Trainee
who looked as if he hadn’t gotten to bed yet, another who seemed to be nursing a hangover,
and a couple of Healers chattering away brightly enough to make the stricken Bardic
Trainee wince. Mags went over to the food tables to see what had been laid out.

After all that food last night and with a practice and a game ahead of him today,
he left the sweet stuff alone and ate lightly: some fruit, a couple of hard-boiled
eggs, a little bread and butter, tea. While he ate, he considered what the game this
afternoon was going to be like.

Gennie and Pip were the only Trainees from South Team on the Prince’s Choice, and
Jeffers was the only horse-mounted player, or Rider. The rest were all people he had
played
against,
never with, and a good solid practice was definitely in order before they went out
against the King’s Choice.

The two Bardic Trainees staggered out the door, leaving him and the Healers alone.
The sun outside the windows suggested it could get very warm. That could be an issue.
He knew how Gennie, Pip, and Jeffers reacted to heat, but not the others.

Then there was strategy to think about. Mixing members from all four teams meant that
strategies that had been worked out in the past were now flying completely out the
window. The things that had worked for Gennie on their own team
might
work for this one . . .

Of course, over on King’s Choice were Halleck, Meled, and Lord Wess, and Corwin and
Beales of the South Foot.

Both sides would have a good notion of the other side’s potential strategy. Unless
both sides came up with something brand new, there would be no surprises, strategically.
Provided nothing went pear-shaped, this would either be a lot of stalemate, or a very
interesting game.

The Healer Trainees left, and two more and a much more alert-looking Bardic Trainee
came in. They applied themselves to food without much conversation.

Mags, as was his nature, continued to worry at the possibilities ahead of him. When
the picks had been made, everyone on Prince’s Choice had voted Gennie as Captain,
so at least that much would be familiar. The hard part for Mags would be remembering
just who
else
he was supposed to Mindspeak to—not to mention who he
wasn’t
.

Good thing I haven’t got a mead head, for sure.

Mindspeaking was his forte. Even before he’d been Chosen, even when he’d just been
a grubbing digger in the mines, it appeared he had been a rudimentary Mindspeaker.
Mags was a superb rider even by Herald standards, and his coordination with Dallen
was phenomenal, but aside from that and athletic ability, what he really brought to
the team was the fact that he could Mindspeak everyone, even those who didn’t have
Mindspeech themselves. That was of tremendous value in the game—as it would be on
a battlefield, one day, if he ever had to fight. Being able to relay orders directly
into the head of a commander could mean the difference between losing and winning.
Being able to give the order to every single one of his men could mean saving the
day. Of course, in the game he had to be able to Mindspeak
and
play at the same time; in a battle situation, if it was at all possible, he’d be
kept off to one side to concentrate.

This was going to prove challenging with so many of his own people on the other side.
He wasn’t going to be able to go by “feel;” he’d have to be absolutely sure he was
talking to the right person. And looking wasn’t going to help. The only way to tell
the two sides apart was by color; all the normal armor and padding was replaced with
white for King’s Choice and with the deep blue the Guard wore for the Prince’s Choice.
The colors weren’t remotely like the usual team colors of sky blue, red, green, and
yellow; he’d probably hesitate a lot; overheated or otherwise confused, he might even
find himself trying to recall if his own team was blue or white. Last of all, everyone
was wearing full face shields. So he wouldn’t even have faces to remind him whom he
was supposed to be communicating with.

:Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep you straight,:
Dallen chuckled.

He finished his meal and hurried down to the practice grounds. It was early enough
still that almost no one was stirring except those who were cleaning up the gardens
and lawns in preparation for the day’s continuing festivities. Many of those wore
Guard Blue, and this was not punishment detail. Not only were they cleaning, they
were also looking for signs that someone had been lurking about who shouldn’t have
been there. After all the assassination and kidnapping attempts, no one was taking
any chances that someone had gotten onto the grounds amid all the comings and goings
of guests. Just because the assassins had vanished again, it didn’t follow they had
given up. On the contrary, if past history was anything to go by, they were definitely
still out there, and defeat only meant they were going to come back with someone more
skilled.

He and Dallen were early; only Gennie and Jeffers were waiting, with none of the King’s
team in sight. He didn’t even need the nod from her to begin warming up; he and Dallen
followed her over the course, going over the obstacles in a pattern they had established
months ago. First at a gentle jog, then at increasingly greater speeds, and gradually
the others joined them, catching up once they had warmed up their own muscles. Eventually
Gennie was leading the entire team at a canter in single file. When everyone had turned
up and gotten warmed up—and so had the other team—Gennie gathered them all in front
of their own goal.

They stood in a rough circle, with Gennie in the center, all dismounted, with the
Trainees and Riders standing beside their mounts’ heads. Mags was very glad there
was still a good breeze; there was no shade on the Kirball field at all, and the sun
had gotten high enough to make itself felt. He rested his hand on Dallen’s neck, surrounded
by the not-unpleasant smell of warm horse. Leather creaked as horses and Companions
shifted their weight; a couple of the horses snorted their suspicion of one another.
“Right, then,” Gennie said, when she had their complete attention. “Here’s the situation.
As I am sure you already figured out, the Prince and the King are pretty shrewd judges
of us players. We’re evenly matched in strength and speed, and I suspect it’s going
to amount to the best use of skills and how well we manage coordination. No Fetchers
on either side, and both sides have strong Mindspeakers. So it’s going to come down
to playing the game.”

And the heat. And accidents,
Mags thought, but they all knew that.

“What are their horses like?” Jeffers wanted to know.

“Ah.” Gennie smiled with satisfaction. “Now
that
is where we are not evenly matched. Have a glance over there.” She jerked her head
in the direction of the other team, who had lined up, rather than huddling up, in
front of their Captain. “The four Horse that the King picked are all mounted on light
cavalry. Which makes sense when you think about it; light cavalry is what the King
handled when he did his stint in the field. But the Prince commanded the Scouts, down
in the hills on the southern Border. He knows our sorts of ponies.”

Jeffers looked at his three fellow Horse, who all rode tough, smallish beasts, as
he did. “Well, the Prince knows light cavalry too,” he pointed out, looking more cheerful
than he had a moment before. “And he picked us.”

One of the others nodded. “We’ve all faced those four in the game, but you Trainees
might not remember them well. Us Guards though, we all train with ’em apart from the
game, and if there’s one thing the Lights hate, it’s being crowded by things other
than horses. Especially things they aren’t allowed to jump over. Good in the scrum,
but they’ll shy from the fence.”

All four of the Horse looked expectantly at Gennie. “Obviously we can use that,” she
said. “But they know it, and they probably know we know, so they’ll do their best
to keep off the fence.”

“They’ll have no choice if they can’t keep the ball off the fence,” Jeffers pointed
out. “And we’re closer to the ground and the ball than they are.”

“Which is good on the fence,” said another of the Horse. “Only problem is that those
beasts are taller than ours, with longer legs, so they’ll outrun us on the flat.”

“So that’s the first part of our strategy, then,” Gennie said.
“
No races if we can help it.
We
don’t mind the scrum, I know your mounts can keep their tempers, and they don’t think
twice about a fence. So we run to the fence as often as possible, and if we can scrum
against it, all the better.”

“Their Foot are good, though,” one of the others said doubtfully. “They’re all sneaky
beggars.”

Gennie shrugged. “They should be. I think they must have voted Corwin as their leader.
We don’t dare let their Foot get a chance at the ball, or there will be no way of
getting it away from them short of hurting someone.”

One of the Riders scratched his head as a horse pawed the ground restlessly, and another
let out his breath in an impatient snort. “That leaves us thin on the ground for strategy,
Captain.”

Gennie shrugged. “It’s what we’ve got, until we know how they work together.”

“Keep away from the Foot, get the Riders to the fences and scrum there?” Jeffers shook
his head. “That’ll make for a slow game.”

She made a wry face. “It’s not a demonstration, we aren’t trying to impress anyone,
and most of the people here are likely to drift in and out of watching the game. The
ones that care about Kirball love a good scrum, so we won’t disappoint anyone who
cares. For the rest? We’re just one of the entertainments. It won’t matter if it’s
slow; they’ve got plenty of other things to go watch and listen to. The thing is this—I
really want to avoid having an injury. Some people would take that for a bad omen,
and I know the Royals would be upset.”

Mags didn’t like to think about that. He’d had his fill of omens and what people made
of them. He didn’t want any omens marring Sedric and Lydia’s wedding. He knew at first
hand how people could blow such things up and twist them around.

One of their own Foot raised a finger. Gennie nodded at him. “You know, there’s something
nobody’s tried for a while,” he said. “Taking the flag while everyone’s tied up with
a long scrum.”

“Nobody’s tried it ’cause nobody ever leaves the goal unguarded even in a long scrum,”
Jeffers objected. Which was true; although it was, theoretically, still a viable strategy,
in practice it was impossible to pull off.

“Aye, but that was when the Mindspeakers were only chatting to their own teams.” The
fellow looked straight at Mags. “But what if our Mindspeaker was to make a mistake
and let slip something to both teams?”

It took Mags a moment to get the gist of what the fellow was suggesting.

Gennie gazed at him in undisguised admiration. “You sneaky beggar!” she exclaimed.
“Mags, what do you think?”

“That it’d be nothing to slip control and let both sides hear what I was telling you
all,” he confirmed. “It’s a lot harder to keep things confined, and no one would think
twice about it in the middle of the game.”

“Narvil can’t do that,” offered one of the other Riders. “He has to head-talk one
person at a time.”

“The only problem I can see is it’s awful hard for one Mindspeaker to lie to another,”
he pointed out. “The truth tends to leak through, no matter what you try.”

“It’ll be in the heat of a scrum,” Pip put in thoughtfully. “The Horse and Foot don’t
have Gifts, and they won’t know it’s a lie. All we really need is confusion for a
moment; we don’t really need to convince anyone of anything for very long.”