Chapter 16: Stormtroopers are your friends

Because of our increased activity, I made sure that we ate very well. This did have a side effect of consuming our food all that much quicker. To alleviate this, whenever we came near a farmer's cart I tried to buy anything that was edible and portable. The farmers, who historically were always short on coin, were ecstatic to sell to me. Since we usually only bought a couple of apples or pears off a cart full of them, we pretty much paid for a bushel and just received the top couple of pieces. I was happy to get fresh fruit and he was happy for the extra coin.

It was strange; the young farmers all looked at my sword with some reservation, whereas the older ones seemed to be comfortable dealing with me. I just figured that they knew that I would look funny bringing in a cartload of fruit to the city with my sword in tow. Every single one, though, gave Meri a strange glance, one that I could not interpret. I hoped that it was just that she was a girl acting as my page instead of a boy. When we left each cart, I would grill Meri on each. I wanted to know numbers of baskets, type of produce, how much they would expect to sell for, and how much that they would get. The last couple she didn't know but I tried to figure out myself. She initially had problems with the answers, but quickly improved.

By the end of that day I was feeling better, although I could still hear Her voice. I don't think that I'll ever not be able to hear it, though.

That night and the next day went according to schedule. It was in the evening before I decided to stop for the night when we saw a cloud of dust heading in our direction along the road. Since the carts did not put much dust in the air, it had to be a mounted patrol of some sort. They were about a mile away, and if I could see them, then they could see us. I told her to get ready for anything, but let me do the talking. Of course she readily agreed to this, since she was going to do just that anyway.

There were eight of them; they seemed to be in some sort of matching leather and steel armor. No pennants or banners were showing, but they definitely looked like they were in formation; four by two, with the oldest one in front. They slowed when they came fifty yards in front of us, and the older one in front raised his right hand as the came closer. I stopped and waited.

He lowered his hand, "Who are you?" He asked gruffly.

I sat back and looked bored. "I am Lord Charles. Who are you to stop me?" I tried to sound like a spoiled aristocrat, and succeeded better than I expected.

He bristled at my tone, it was obvious that he disliked it but couldn't do anything about it. He introduced himself as sergeant Cornerstone of Rose Duchy.

"And?"

Sergeant Cornerstone looked confused for a second, he, obviously, was not used to people questioning him outside of his normal chain of command. "What is your purpose, Milord?"

"I am traveling to Royal Oak Keep, now if you don't mind, we will continue our journey." With that I started riding again without looking back, I figured that I would hear him if he decided that he wanted more from me. They let us go, and without turning I asked Meri to look behind us and see what they are doing.

"They are watching us." She sounded a little worried.

"Ok, keep and eye on them, and if they start in this direction, let me know."

Whew.

They never did follow us, just watched us for a while.

The following afternoon gave us our first glimpse of the walled keep, with a town sprawled around it. Remembering Kira's admonishment to stay away from it, we circled well clear of the town. The path to Royal Oak was marked with a large signpost that had a picture of a three spire castle on it. Seeing this, I turned for a better look at the duchy keep, it only had two spires.

Hmm, definitely a status symbol.

The roads around the town were quite busy, as all the farmers in the area were bringing in the early crops. There were a few sets of patrols that rode in what I now considered the standard set of eight mounted horsemen, riding four by two. We were watched but left alone. We were watched by everyone; we must have been an oddity even in the much busier area surrounding the keep.

Only once did anything odd happen. That was when a pair of girls wearing hooded, dark gray robes stared at us as we rode by. I couldn't see inside the hoods, but they obviously followed us. I nodded politely as we passed, that was when they looked at each other and stepped back, turned, and ran towards the keep.

I didn't think that anything good was going to come of that, but figured that I couldn't help it.

"Have you ever seen the like before, Meri?"

"No, Milord, I haven't." She had her worried expression on again.

"Meri, sometimes you can't do anything until more information comes your way. Worrying about everything isn't always the best way to handle every situation. Sometimes preparation helps, and even then not always. The best that we can hope for is that we stand ready and deal with whatever comes as it comes. Keeping a straight face and an even disposition is the key."

"Letting your emotions; anger, hate, fear, love, sadness, joy, cloud your judgment means that you are not thinking before you act, you are feeling. That will get you into trouble more often that not."

"Does that make sense, Meri?" She did look like she was mulling it over.