“Can your sons not speak for themselves?” Reva asked he woman. “Both the Ten Books and Fief Law decree manhood at age seventeen. If your sons are of age, let them make the choice.”
“My sons know their duty . . .” the woman began but trailed off as the taller of the three young men held up his hand and pushed his way through the crowd.
“Allern Varesh, my lady,” he said with a bow. “I offer my service in accordance with the Queen’s Edict.”
“Stop that!” the woman growled, stepping forward to aim a cuff at the young man’s head before glowering at Reva once again. “He’s not yours to take!”
Reva was about to simply ignore her and thank the young man for his loyalty but paused as she saw the wetness in the woman’s eyes, how she moved protectively in front of her son. Reva stepped down from the cart, coming forward to stand in front of the woman. “Your name?”
The woman clenched her teeth and wiped her eyes with thick fingers. “Realla Varesh.”
“You have lost much, Realla Varesh. And it pains me to ask for more.” She pointed at the still-kneeling Allern. “Therefore, in recognition of your sacrifice the quota for this village will be considered fully met by this man’s service.”
The woman sagged, hands going to her face. From the shocked reaction of her son and the crowd Reva surmised it was probably the first time any living soul had seen her weep. “Lord Arentes,” Reva said.
“My lady!”
“This young man has sufficient height for a guardsman, wouldn’t you say?”
Arentes gave Allern a brief look of appraisal. “Just about, my lady.”
“Very well. Allern Varesh, you are hereby inducted into the House Guard of Lady Governess Reva Mustor.” She glanced again at the man’s sobbing mother. “You have an hour to say your farewells. Lord Arentes will find you a horse.”
• • •
She returned to Alltor with five hundred men and fifty women in tow, all volunteers willing to march at the Blessed Lady’s command. There could have been a thousand of them but they had neither the provisions or packhorses to supply so many. The lands south of Alltor had been richest in recruits and willing ears for her lie, having suffered much at the hands of Volarian raiding parties. They had fought a minor war of their own among the Cold Iron’s forested banks and tributaries and were rich in captured weapons. According to Arentes the region had always been the heartland of Cumbraelin archery, the first longbows being hewn from the yews that proliferated in the thick forest. In the face of the Volarian threat long-defunct companies, once the backbone of Cumbraelin military strength, had re-formed under veteran captains, fighting a deadly game of chase among the trees for months until Alltor’s relief.
Reva ordered the companies to stay in formation and gather more strength before mustering at Alltor in the spring. For all the fierceness of their commitment she found them a disconcerting lot, hard-eyed and grim of aspect, the many rotting bodies of captured Volarians hanging in the forest evidence of a lust for vengeance far from sated.
Ellese greeted her with a fierce joy, thin arms tight around her waist as she complained of Veliss’s endless lessons. “She makes me read every morning and every night. And write too.”
“Skills of great importance,” Reva told her, gently undoing her arms. “Still, I have a few to teach you too, in time.”
Ellese’s small face frowned up at her, the gauntness now gone though she retained a slightly sunken look to her eyes. “What skills?”
“The bow and the knife. The sword too when you get older. Only if you want to.”
“I want to.” She gave an excited jump, taking Reva’s hand and dragging her towards the mansion. “Teach me now!”
Reva caught the grave expression on Veliss’s face and hauled the girl to a halt. “Tomorrow,” she said. “I have another task today.”
• • •
“Still no name for me?”
The broken-nosed priest cast a single, tired glance at her and shook his head. They were lined up on the causeway, twelve men in threadbare clothing, besmirched from their captivity in the mansion’s cellars, some swaying a little as the effects of Veliss’s various herbal concoctions could linger for days. The notes she had accrued during the interrogations were fulsome, near five hundred pages of names, dates, meetings, murders, enough to see the Church of the World Father revealed as a nest of traitors from Reader to Bishop, perhaps enough to shatter it completely.
“He really thought he could do it?” Reva asked the nameless priest. “Bring down House Mustor and rule the fief in the Father’s name?”
The priest raised his head, swallowing as he mustered his courage. “A holy endeavour, blessed by the Father.”
