Paksworld

He was wet, naked but for boots, and armed, already out of the water, partway to them, sword in one hand, dagger in the other.  His clothes lay on the grass at the water’s edge; he had stamped back into his boots without their hearing or seeing him do it. He stopped when they rose from the grass, some of them already turning to flee.  Kirgan Marrakai frankly stared; the man’s pale skin was finely striped with scars, perfectly aligned, overlain by later scars clearly from war-wounds: larger, more irregular, one or two still colored darker.  And yet the body itself–he had never seen such perfect balance of muscle and bone and sinew.  Or such a perfect mask of indifference to his situation: naked and alone before wealthy men clothed.

Then he grinned.  “Oh, come, gentlemen, as I suppose you to be.  Sons of nobility.  Surely all of you are not afraid of one man, even if he holds a sword!  Draw yours, if you would feel more comfortable, while I go and dress.  If you want to enjoy the water, I am through bathing, and the pool has been refreshed by the river’s flow; it will not taint your…purity.  And it is a perfect coolness today, refreshing without biting.”

Every syllable etched as finely as any courtier’s, with a precise fraction of indulgence, courtesy, scorn, and humor; Kirgan Marrakai felt striped by it, as the captain’s body by whatever had scarred it so.  He felt his face heat with a telltale flush, and his friends, he saw, felt the same.  Damn the fellow!  And then the fellow turned his back on them, heedless of their reaction, and walked back to his clothes.  There on his back, the same pattern of fine scars as on his front, and on one firm buttock, what could only be a brand.

Horror forced the indrawn breath he heard from all of them.  The man shrugged, pulling on a shirt, toeing off his boots, carefully holding his sword in one armpit and dagger in the other, while pulling up his trousers, his socks, fastening the belt on which hung the scabbard, and sliding his weapons home, stamping back into his boots, then turning around.

“So, then: have you seen enough? Is your understanding now complete? Because if you want to see anything else–”

What else could there be?  What other horrors?  Kirgan Marrakai felt sick, and saw that Kirgan Serrostin, his closest friend, was faintly green around the lips.  Had he actually thought of what else there could be?

“–Then we must come to blades,” the captain said.  “I think we would all benefit by not doing so, do you not?”

None of them had drawn a blade.  None of them wanted to draw a blade now.  They all, knowing each other well, had the certainty of nervous cattle that what they all wanted was to get back to the army, their safe herd, and never speak of it again, at least to anyone else.  Maybe someday, when two or three were alone together, it might be mentioned but…not now.

He gave them a long, level stare out of grey eyes feral as a wolf’s.  Then a sharp nod.  “Good.  We understand one another.  I am returning to my unit.  Please do not follow me closely.  You may go ahead, or aside, as you please, of course, but I really can commend the quality of the bathwater here.”

As he came up the rise, they parted, as for a prince, and when he had gone by they did not turn to watch, but stared at the ground awhile.  No one wanted to bathe there.  Kirgan Marrakai wondered if he would ever be able to strip off in front of his father’s body servant–or anyone else–again.  Inside his clothes, his body felt alien to him, wrong in some way.  He knew it wasn’t flabby or misshapen, but he felt ashamed even so.  It was days before he realized that what it lacked was scars.

They came back to the camp slowly, reluctantly.  Would the captain have reported their spying on him? There was nothing wrong with seeing another man bathing naked in a stream…they had played in streams and ponds naked before.  But they knew–and knew they had known when they did it–that sneaking after someone, some particular person, to peer at his nakedness, hoping to see something laughable or disgusting, was different.  Not honorable.  The Crown Prince would not, they knew, approve.  Their own fathers would not approve.  They could not approve themselves, or each other, and each one sought for another to blame. Kirgan Marrakai saw them glance at him and look away–he was the one who had told them about the captain.

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The other parts will come later this week, God willin’ and the power stays on, the roof stays on, and I get some other critical things done.

“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.  As Kirgan, he could attend the daily briefings.  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,  who had the Prince’s ear when it came to matters military.

Well, he was a professional, after all.  A hireling soldier, fought for money: not honor, not loyalty.  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.  But he displayed no ruby.  Had he dropped out?  Been thrown out?  Had Halveric refused to hire him?

Arrogant young cock, thought Kirgan Marrakai, seeing the back of the man’s head tilt toward the Crown Prince.  And nothing to be proud about.  Couldn’t even keep a horse.  Probably rode as badly as any farmer’s brat.  He amused himself that afternoon, imagining how his own stallion, who regularly threw him, would throw the arrogant young cock faster and harder.

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.  They had servants to set up and take down their tents, cook their meals, care for their horses and their clothes.  They were–barring the arms practice all their fathers insisted on, under direction of an armsmaster or Girdish Marshal–on holiday.  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.  The younger men found places for water play.

Kirgan Marrakai noticed that Captain Phelan let his men take quick baths, but did not bathe with them.  Arrogant, he told himself.  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.  He told his friends.

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.  Too shy to bathe with his men?  Well.  It would be good sport to know why.  Maybe he…lacked something.  They sniggered over that delicate suggestion.  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.  Perhaps he was a branded criminal and the Crown Prince would definitely need to know that.

They turned aside, walked fifteen strides back toward the army, and then back around.  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.  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.  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.  And their target.

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Back when I was writing the original DEED, I often wrote extra bits from various POVs.  Side stories, I called them.  Didn’t have internet, didn’t have any place to put them, hadn’t been published yet.  Some of those stories stuck to my mind and when, in time, I had misplaced printouts of them, and was back in Paksworld, I wrote newer versions in Word.  Various times, some older, some newer.  This is part of a group of incidents involving Kieri Phelan on his first independent contract for the Crown of Tsaia (he’d been a subordinate commander to other merc commanders or nobles who needed a small unit for some reason.)   Pargun had invaded Tsaia north of the Honnorgat; this army was combined of the feudal levy and one little bitty merc group: Kieri’s.   A single cohort, one hundred.   Siger (yes, the same Siger) was his sergeant.  None of the captains you’ve seen before; not even Arcolin was there yet.  For most of the people in that army, he was a complete unknown,  with no family, no friends, no history.

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Kieri Phelan’s First Command

As the Tsaian army marched out of Vérella, unit after unit swung into line.  They were on the road to Pargun, to take back the land the Pargunese had invaded, and they were full of confidence and pride in their numbers.  The Tsaian Royal Guard, in its rose and white uniforms led the way.  Every feudal troop, under the small banner of its local lord, and the larger banner of its lord’s lord, and those highest lords–the dukes–following (and not exactly under) the banner of the royal house, the rose circlet of Tsaia.  All the nobles accompanying their troops rode, though except for cavalry units the troops marched.

All but one.  One small group, one hundred and one strong, infantry with short swords and shields, marched under the pennant of no land-holder at all, but a mercenary captain.  Maroon bars bordered the white center, and a small maroon fox mask smirked out at the world from the white.

Its commander marched with his men, on foot, through the dust that hung over the the whole army.  His clothes, maroon with white trim, like his troops, were coated with dust, gray or tan from whatever soil they marched over.  His face was masked in dust, his fox-red hair dulled with dust.  His armor coated with it.  And this dusty, increasingly unkempt-looking unit marched directly behind the Crown Prince’s entourage, because this unit–holding a contract directly from the Crown–ranked equal in standing–according to the Crown Prince–with any other that had contracted directly with the Crown, and the Crown Prince himself had dictated the order of march.

It was ridiculous, and many of the nobles or their sons had mentioned–with delicate courtesy–to the Crown Prince that it was perhaps injudicious to so honor a foreigner, a mere mercenary.  “If I’d known you wanted a mercenary unit, I could have hired you one,” Duke Verrakai had said.  “No need to deal with him yourself.”

Young Marrakai, his father’s Kirgan, had said as much to the younger prince, two steps farther from the throne.  “Any of us could have hired him.”

“Yes, but Gerry wanted to.”

“But why?”

“I have no idea.  I asked and he told me to figure it out for myself.  He’s a bastard, no doubt of that–no family anyone heard of anywhere…”

“Any history at all?”

“Was in Halveric Company–”

“Ahhh.  Lyonya, then.  A bastard from that family?”

“I heard it was not, but you know–bastards.  Some people don’t claim them.”  That with a sniff.  The Mahierans, at least, acknowledged theirs, which made it fashionable to do so and less fashionable–honorable, they would say–not to do so.  Kirgan Marrakai had often wondered if his father had sired any, but was afraid to ask, given the lectures he’d received as he grew into the ability.

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(Part One)

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