Chapter 7

“I can’t believe we agreed to ride with him,” I thought, “it was only yesterday we had lunch.”

“Why do you say that?” Julie asked, keeping the conversation going, bouncing with the latest rut in the road. The mid-morning sun glared through a lace curtain, which covered her window, touching her black shirt and pants. The morning sky was a brilliant blue with little wind, and it was obvious the sun would beat down on us later.

“We have found evidence that there have been some material discussions between the raiders and someone in the Amarian court,” Count Vee Score divulged as we rolled through the last fortified city gate, putting us into the countryside. “My information points to Heraldsburg, a small city with a convenient harbor that supplies us food. Conquest Point has always maintained friendly relations with our northern neighbor, and we want to keep it that way; but, if the Caldavian raiders are trying to extend their influence near our peninsula we want it stopped. At a minimum, we need to ensure it won’t pose a threat to our city’s trade.”

“That seems to be something my sister wife would have mentioned, if she had known,” Julie said, sort of tweaking the Count’s nose. “Heraldsburg is the Amarian princess’s home, right?”

He held her stare with no discomfort. “Yes and yes, it is a new piece of news to me also; and, I doubt the princess is involved with any schemes. Why just last night we had a pleasant message from her about the next food shipment...”

I tuned him out to look outside the carriage, surprised we were passing my men. They were in their distinctive armor waiting on the side of the road with our mules. We were almost past them when I leaned out and shouted. “Stop the carriage!”

“Von?” Julie asked, removing herself from their intense conversation to look out her own window.

“Why are we stopping?” the Count added, unhappy with me.

“At our compound, I said we are riding with my men once we reached them,” I responded impatiently.

“That was a jest, surely?” The Count answered, clearly perplexed.

Julie put her arm on the Count’s arm. “Von doesn’t jest about his responsibilities.”

His mouth gaped like a fish as the carriage stopped at the side of the road and I stepped out in front of Scratch.

“Sergeant!”

“Good to see you, Lord Solon,” Scratch responded, hitting his chest with a fist in salute.

I saluted back the same way, looking over the mule train that was lined up in a neat row on the grass beside the dirt road. The Wolves stood at ease by their animals, which were just past the city’s checkpoint for people seeking entrance. Surprisingly, the last curtain wall entrance wasn’t as busy as I’d have expected for this time of day. Only a few farm wagons were at the checkpoint, making me realize how much the city depended on its maritime trade. I didn’t care for the impatient looks from the Count’s mounted escort, so I ignored them. The horsemen had stopped behind the carriage, blocking the gate with their black stallions. The gate guards didn’t complain as they knew whose carriage had stopped and they didn’t give me a glance. At a guess, the horse guards were made up of the younger sons of the local gentry and the gate guards were made up of commoners.

“Madam, why ride those nasty beasts when you can ride in the carriage?” the Count asked in a pleading tone as Julie was half out the door behind me. “A noble woman shouldn’t have to ride a mule, it’s uncomfortable.”

“And, it’s so common,” I finished for him in my mind.

She stopped and looked at me with questioning eyes.

“I don’t mind if you ride with him until the first village, we’re likely to take a rest break there,” I commented, knowing that was only a couple of hours.

Julie shrugged her shoulders and ducked back inside the carriage, closing the door herself.

Inside, the Count banged on the roof with his walking stick, which started the procession back up. Scratch waited silently beside me as the carriage rolled away and the pennant flying mounted lancers rode by us. The quarter horses were fine animals, worth a fortune if I understood things right. As Conquest Point’s envoy, Count Vee certainly ranked high enough to have a first class troop of guards. I counted two dozen mounted men, each guard wore a curved sword along with their long lance, an open helm, a light chainmail shirt, brown pants and shiny black boots. The carriage wasn’t moving fast, but they quickly left us in a cloud of reddish dust.

“The Black Horse are a fancy outfit, but I have never heard of them being in a fight,” Scratch commented. “Nevertheless, I wouldn’t fancy receiving a lancer’s charge.”

“Me either,” I reassured him.

“The Old Buck’s would take their lunch and burn their pretty pennants,” a familiar voice said.

Looking behind me, Scratch laughed and commented, “I’d want to be at the edge of the forest doing it, Corporal Tanner.”

I turned to see Zetia Tanner, the female guard that went to dinner with us at the Envoy’s manor. She had ridden home with us and provided Julie and me an abbreviated account of her time with Derwen’s mercenary company. She was the company’s official assistant quartermaster, responsible for the stable’s supplies, when not acting as an ad-hoc liaison between the Wolves and her company.

“Zetia had called her commander Old Buck, so it was reasonable to assume that the mercenary company’s nickname might be after their leader,” I thought, surprised to see her on a brown shaggy horse with a thick mane and forelocks.

She saw my questioning look and said, “Wooly’s my animal, a northern mountain horse. While I might be responsible for your mule train, I own a horse.” She sat on his back with a prideful smile on her pretty face.

“No one seems to think mules are worth riding,” I teased.

“No offense was intended,” she sputtered. “Lord Solon, I would never...” Zetia stopped when I raised my hand.

“It’s not you,” I teased. “The Envoy thought I was jesting about riding with my men. You’ll find I often act the opposite of a noble. Furthermore, no other merc company has thought of their infantry riding mules, so I might not be making a favorable impression with him.”

“Oh, I see,” she responded, nervously and not quite believing me. “Then telling you that your promised guide isn’t here will go over well. We received a message confirming your wilderness guide is waiting at the border. He didn’t think it important to ride back and meet you at Conquest Point as Derwen expected.”

If she was waiting for a chastisement for her casual tone and the bad news, I didn’t give in to her expectation. I winked at her instead. “Let Zetia chew on that,” I thought.

“Let’s not give those pretty pennants and the Envoy any time to dash ahead,” I declared.

Scratch immediately went to his mule and put a leg over its back. Zetia had my mule and I gently pulled myself up on it, by the time I was comfortably sorted out with the big animal all of the Wolves had mounted their own large mules. Fortunately, we had an additional string of six animals to carry supplies and extra things like our special armor and tents. What we didn’t have I expected to pick up on our trip. We’d hunt for fresh meat in the wilderness, which was beyond the border of Conquest Point’s territory.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to leave this city behind,” I shouted to the men, looking back to clearly see the dual-filed column.

They all threw a fist in the air in agreement with a bit of barking laughter, which released their nervous tension. Meanwhile, Zetia’s eyes danced with mischief while thinking I hadn’t noticed her watching me. She dropped back behind me with Julie’s unused mule and joined one of the female Wolves. Scratch took up position next to me not saying a word. I just grinned to myself, certain this trip would prove to be interesting in all sorts of ways. After confirming again that the men were paired up in the column to my satisfaction, I simply pointed down the road and started after the Envoy’s dust cloud.

The women behind me started to chatter about Wooly and his temperament. My grizzled sergeant kept his own thoughts hidden behind his neutral face, which was fine with me since the fine dust particles were annoying me. “It won’t take long before the lancers get ahead enough for the dust to settle,” I thought.

My mind drifted as I surveyed the countryside, while getting the feel of riding a mule again. Off to the sides, we saw large pastures with grazing sheep and rutted trails. The unimproved land was green with few bushes or trees of any real size. The city fathers were smart enough to keep the immediate area around the curtain wall free of buildings and farmers. From our commanding view, the openness of the green landscape looked picturesque, beautiful in its own way.

After twenty minutes of traveling down the hill from for the heights the city, the ground started to rise again, beginning the first of a series of hills that I knew were ahead of us. The carriage and lancers already had crested the long slope and disappeared into the next valley, our mules were steady and slow in comparison. I didn’t worry for Julie’s safety, she had a few hidden weapons on her person and a not so hidden laser pistol, which was totally unappreciated and unknown to those of this world. To be sure, my combat trained wife was quite capable of handling herself, and giving her a little exposure to the local nobility seemed like a smart idea.

Scratch broke our silence when we reached the point where the lancers had crested the hill. “This is where my father was born.”

His proclamation surprised me and I stopped my mule. A stone hovel at the side of the wide dirt road lacked its roof, which was destroyed by fire long ago. A gray stone wall about waist high, ringed the shell of the residence. Knowing this was his family home marked his prior silence more understandable. The site had the look of a malignant entity, a blot on the green land around it with black soot staining the interior walls. The most visible characteristics of the open field beyond the low walled homestead were many long, narrow furlongs for cultivation. Of course, the furrow pattern was overgrown with grass rather than an active crop. My eyes swept over the reddish dirt by the road that didn’t look like it could grow much of anything.

“Not the best place to farm,” I suggested to the sergeant whose eyes were lost in the depth of the ruined hovel.

“Poor dirt,” he said, nodding in profound agreement.

Whatever the family’s story might have been he didn’t offer more and I didn’t ask. I suspected it was a painful memory. I noticed there were no obvious walls marking the end or the beginning of the tenant’s land, only a small cluster of outbuildings on the next hill indicated other attempts to farm these hillsides. Scratch straightened up and mopped his brow making me aware of the rising temperature and my own growing discomfort. I put a friendly hand on his shoulder for a moment before turning to see our men. Having silently acknowledged his sorrow, I raised my arm and snapped it out at the next hill, indicating to the men the continuation of our journey.

Vestiges of other failed open-field farms marked our passage until the steadily ascending hills plateaued out at the village where Julie was waiting with the Envoy and his men. As expected the sun began beating down on us as it hit its zenith, so it was the perfect time to rest our men and animals. We saw the count’s carriage tucked under a large oak tree and Julie was strolling with the count in the shade. The hamlet wasn’t big enough for an inn or roadside house, but it was built among a small woodland area that had lots of shade and a handy communal well. The village was ringed by a low wall of collected stones from cleared fields. All the buildings were well-made stone structures with a prosperous look of good care, enough though I felt like we were in a ghost town.

Not surprisingly, laborers and farm families gave us a wide berth upon our arrival, which surely was the same treatment the lancers and the count received. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, but a reasonable one when a troop of armed men enters your life. Indeed, not a door or window was open among the ten or twelve stone dwellings. Besides the lancers sitting around, only men working oxen in a distant pasture were immediately visible. When Julie heard us she turned with bright curiosity, smiling at the sight of our column of mules.

“I’ll take care of the men,” Scratch stated, as if dismissing me to see my wife.

“A good man,” I thought, giving him a grin and a wave as I got off my animal and handed him its reins.

“Corporal,” he shouted as I walked away, “see to this animal.”

Strangely, the familiar sight of my wife renewed my store of energy and I quickly forgot my stiff joints.

Julie wagged a finger at me. “Sir Bow legs, I see you finally made it.”

I chuckled. “Am I walking funny?”

“It’s true,” she stammered through a laugh, wiping a tear from her eye.

“You’ll have a turn soon enough.”

She still grinned at me while wringing her hands.

“How was the trip for you?” I asked.

“We bounced around the carriage like an amusement ride. In particular, I didn’t care for the sharp little switchbacks before we crested into this village. We could have done without them,” Julie responded without humor.

“I won’t complain about my bowed legs then,” I quipped and teased. “The mules never faulted in their business, no sudden bounces for us.”

She punched my arm for no other reason than to punish me. Julie wasn’t the submissive type, she expressed herself well, leaving me in the uncomfortable position of rubbing my arm when the Envoy walked over with a bemused expression. I toyed with the idea of giving her a love tap back, but she wouldn’t appreciate it, so that impulse was dismissed. Besides, I wasn’t going to give the Count a story about me hitting my wife; he already had seen a noble woman striking her husband, something that just wasn’t done. Indeed, his face broadcasted his desire to laugh in my face but he regained control of himself.

“Thanks for waiting for us,” I injected before he said the words forming in his mouth.

After shaking his hand the Envoy simply bowed in return. “It was my pleasure to entertain your wife. She is quite cultured and articulate. My late wife never could hold a long conversation and finding such good company on a dreadful ride was certainly pleasing to me.”

Julie nodded to him at the compliment.

“Yes, she holds her own in a discussion, doesn’t she,” I answered.

He gave a mocking laugh. “Yes, she is a fine lady.”

Julie stared ahead for a minute in contemplation, obviously tuning Count Vee out, and then she said, “It’s time for me to check on my mule and personal effects.” Without looking at either of us she walked over to the line of mules waiting at the well for their turn at some water.

Once Julie was beyond hearing the count said, “She is a high-spirited woman, if even a couple of your new wives are like that I can see why you agreed to this expedition. You needed the time to separate this one from the herd for personal training, so you could bend her to your will.”

He winked and walked away, leaving me stunned at his pigheaded pronouncement. I watched him yell at his men while he jumped into the carriage. Naturally, the Black Horse quickly formed up and followed the Envoy out of the village. The knot in my stomach only passed when the lancer detachment’s dust swirled away as they dipped out of sight, down the other side of the hill. My feet walked me over to the well while my mind struggled between my training about cultural differences and the desire to wring his neck.

Julie was trying to get to know her mule when I announced, “He is an asshole.”

Corporal Zetia nodded her agreement, stepping around Julie’s animal to back out of sight, while remaining in earshot.

My wife laughed. “Don’t be thin skinned, I’ve known men like him, marines even. I wouldn’t call him harmless, but he’ll hold tightly to his honor and any promises he makes. However, his views on women are very classical, if not caveman like.”

I gave Julie a rueful grin. “If you say we can trust him, then I’ll bear him.”

Julie kissed me, ending the conversation, giving me a pleasant jiggle of her perky breasts. Zetia peeked at us behind the mule’s head, surreptitiously watching Julie’s animated antics, only to disappear at my stare when Julie’s lip lock ended.

In the meantime, Scratch approached us, not in the least showing any emotion to me kissing my wife. “Lord Solon, at this rate, I expect us to reach the border fort by sunset. The watering will go slow with only one well to tend the animals, so we have time to rest and eat some rations.”

“That polite reminder was telling me to order a break for the men to relax and eat,” I thought.

“Scratch, let’s feed and water both the men and animals. If you think we can make our destination by sunset that is fine with me.”

“Yes, Sir.” He brightened up, saluted and started to yell instructions to the men. Scratch’s voice rose an octave with each shout.

“This is so like marine boot camp,” Julie noted, “I deal better with this than chatting with flowery diplomats.”

We walked to the edge of town just to look around and stretch our legs. Julie was the first to comment on the sickly plants in the field. I hadn’t been paying attention, but the dirt here wasn’t much better than what we’d seen at Scratch’s family farmstead. The local variety of corn didn’t look healthy, even I knew corn was picky about its soil. If it wasn’t a soil problem these fields had some sort of pest problem, because the blighted plants should have looked more vibrant. We weren’t agriculturists, but it wasn’t hard to spot sickly plants; our walk around the village garden plots left us sad for the locals. Any village with a food problem didn’t need warriors taking what they had, so I was sure they were glad to see us gone.

However, after riding the mules out of the hamlet and upon seeing another sickly looking field, I stopped the column; and, I retrieved my computer tablet and took close up pictures of the plants. Webster might have something about agriculture in his database, and hopefully some insights to the poor looking corn plants. We could talk to him later about our findings. I was suspecting our mission was something more than worrying about investigating the raider problem.

Much later, with the sun threatening to set, a score of happy, grubby-faced children greeted us on the outskirts of the border town from behind an orchard’s stone wall. They didn’t seem fearful or unhealthy, just a bit dirty, presenting a totally different atmosphere than the village we had visited. The children’s laughter and welcoming waves cheered the men, who broke out into a short chorus of a popular fairground song about friendship. We rode on and the children followed us for as long as they could. The orchard lined road gave way to a cleared crest of a ridge, overlooking our destination; the hilltop approach gave us a fantastic view of the town and river below us. The water flowed north between the rich farmland on the south shore and the thick forested hillsides that covered the far shore.

We saw an awe inspiring river, wide and rapid that created a natural border for Conquest Point’s city state. In the middle of the unwalled town was a fortified stone bridge that enforced the border’s sovereignty. Any ambiguous invader would certainly turn back from the fort, unable to pillage the town or general area. Hastily fashioned rafts would be of little use in getting across the raging river, and few row boats were in view. The fort’s walls were thick and tall, if you managed to fight your way through the fortified gate house in the middle of the bridge you still had to deal with the fort. Given the importance of the location of the town, I believed well trained troops were assigned to the garrison. In fact, the town looked prosperous enough to have more than a token number of soldiers.