FORTY-FIVE
In the wake of our first battle, once the worst of the aftermath had been dealt with, I found I had a rebellion on my hands.
Alain Guillard, the hotheaded Azzallese baron’s son who had bunked in one of the wardroom’s cabins aboard Naamah’s Dove with us, was arguing that we should turn back; and he’d convinced at least three others.
“This was madness from the beginning!” he railed. “What in Elua’s name were we thinking, any of us?”
“I was thinking I abandoned some of my dearest friends and the Dauphin of Terre d’Ange to their fate!” Denis de Toluard retorted with unexpected force. “And that I’d been given a chance to redeem myself!”
“That’s your burden, Denis,” Alain said in a remorseless tone. “I didn’t.”
“Be glad I carry it!” Denis shouted at him. “It gives me nightmares until I can’t sleep at night!” He jerked his chin at the waiting common grave dug into the earth and the line of D’Angeline dead nearby, stripped of their armor. “If it didn’t, we’d all be like them!”
“And so we all will sooner or later!” Alain shouted back at him. He gestured savagely in my direction. “She doesn’t know where she’s going, Denis! None of us do!” With an effort, he wrestled himself under control. “We’ve been on the road for months, and we’re not even in sight of these fabled jungles. Now we’re supposed to rely on people like to slaughter us in our sleep to assure us we’re on the right track?” He shook his head. “We’re only days away from the borders of the Nahuatl Empire. If we turn back now, we stand a chance of surviving this.”
His allies murmured in agreement, and others looked uncertain.
“Don’t let him get the upper hand, my lady,” Septimus Rousse murmured in my ear. “If you do, he’ll never relinquish it.”
Bao nodded. “He’s right, Moirin.”
I took a deep breath. “My lord Guillard speaks the truth! I don’t know where we’re bound. The task is harder, and the journey longer, than I knew.”
“That is not what I had in mind,” Bao muttered.
I ignored him. “But I do know that Thierry de la Courcel lives, and I know it is my oath-sworn duty to attempt to rescue him.” The spark of my diadh-anam blazed steadily in my breast, lending me strength. I pointed at Alain Guillard. “You volunteered for this, my lord. All of you did. You begged for the chance to accompany us. Will you turn back now, just because it is hard?”
A few men chuckled.
Alain glared at me. “Do you think it is easy for one of Azza’s scions to admit he made a mistake?”
“No,” I said softly. “I don’t.” I glanced at the D’Angeline dead lined up beside the open grave, at Clemente DuBois, his slit throat gaping, his empty blue eyes gazing at the sky. He would never make another nervous jest.
Stooping beside his body, I closed his eyelids gently.
I straightened. “If anyone wishes to turn back, now is the time,” I announced. “My lord Guillard is right. In a few days’ march, you may return to the protection of Emperor Achcuatli’s realm.” I glanced at Arnaud Latrelle with his arm in a splint, and Gregoire d’Arnes, the fellow with the broken clavicle. To be sure, there was no point in their continuing onward. “You can escort the injured to safety. You can carry word to the crew of Naamah’s Dove in Orgullo del Sol that the journey to Tawantinsuyo is harder and longer than we knew, and order them to wait for us. I will not compel anyone to accompany this expedition. But I mean to press onward. I mean to find Prince Thierry, and restore him to the throne of Terre d’Ange as the rightful heir to his father’s realm.”
At that, there were cheers, and a few murmurs of dissent.
I ignored the latter. “Who is with me?”
As it transpired, quite a few—but not all. We lost Alain Guillard and two out of his three allies. The third, a fair-haired young man named Mathieu de Montague, changed his mind.
“Will you trust me to address them, my lady?” Balthasar asked me discreetly.
I nodded. “Of course.”
“D’Angelines!” Balthasar got their attention in a ringing tone. “All of you who are hale and unharmed, think well before you make your final choice here.” He locked gazes with Alain Guillard, contempt creeping into his voice. “Will Azza’s famous pride allow you to sleep at night knowing yourself a coward and a quitter, Alain?”
The fellow reddened, but did not reply.
Balthasar turned to Mathieu de Montague. “And you, Messire de Montague! Do you imagine you can have another change of heart at the next skirmish?” He shook his head. “Don’t. Lady Moirin is overly generous. She is in command of this expedition, but I am in command of you.” He glanced around at all the men. “I will not attempt to gainsay her generous offer, but I will say this. It will not be repeated. Make your choices here and now. From this day forward, anyone who argues for turning back will be considered guilty of fomenting mutiny!” His voice hardened. “Is that clear?”
There were nods all around.
“See, Moirin?” Bao said to me. “That’s what they needed to hear.”
“I suspect they needed to hear both things,” Septimus Rousse said diplomatically. “Commanding men unwilling to serve is a dangerous business.” He nodded toward the picket-line. “That is a lesson we may take from Pochotl’s betrayal.”
And a bitter lesson it was, too.
Once the matter of rebellion was settled, we buried our dead. Each of the slain men was wrapped in a cloak and lowered into the grave as gently as possible.
I’d witnessed battles and tended to the dead before. In Kurugiri, Bao and I had been the only ones willing to handle the corpse of Jagrati the Spider Queen, winding her into a shroud to lend a measure of dignity to her death. But I’d never been responsible for the actual burial of the dead.
There was a terrible finality to it. Once the last body had been lowered into the grave, we stood about uncertainly. I did not know the protocol for such matters, but I suspected I knew who did.
“My lord captain,” I addressed Septimus Rousse. “Would you be willing to offer an invocation?”
He inclined his head to me. “Of course.” He knelt to gather a handful of loose soil, then rose and stretched out his closed fist, holding it over the grave. “Today we bid farewell to six dear companions,” Septimus said in a firm, steady voice. “They perished in pursuit of a noble cause. May they pass through the bright gate into the Terre d’Ange-that-lies-beyond, and may Blessed Elua and his Companions receive them gladly.” Opening his hand, he let the soil trickle into the grave. “Blessed Elua hold and keep you.” He nodded at Balthasar. “Will you commence the speaking of their names, my lord?”
Balthasar stepped forward to gather a fistful of soil. “Clemente DuBois,” he murmured. “You were the most annoying companion with whom I’ve ever shared a living space. Now I will miss your dreadful jests.”
There was a brief, shocked silence; and then men laughed and groaned in rueful acknowledgment. With a quiet smile, Balthasar sprinkled dirt on the grave.
Another fellow came forward. “Richard de Laroche,” he said in a ragged tone. “You were a good man and a good friend to me. I promise not to tell your mother that you died because you couldn’t manage to buckle your helmet properly.”
One by one, others came forward.
All the dead were named, all were acknowledged with a last tribute and a fond jest. When it was done, the mounds of dirt painstakingly hewed from the plain were shoveled by hand into the grave and tamped into place.
And then there was nothing left to do but carry onward. Men with damaged gear sorted through the armor and weapons of the slain, replacing pieces as needed. Septimus Rousse outfitted himself with a full set of gear. Bao declined an opportunity to do the same.
“You might at least consider a helmet,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “It does not suit the style of a stick-fighter. The weight would unbalance me. Besides, I have a very hard head, Moirin.”
I eyed him. “The gods know that’s true.”
In accordance with our plan, all the unclaimed armor and weapons were loaded onto a pair of pack-horses and carried half a league downstream to be dumped into the deepest part of the river. Temilotzin and Eyahue regarded this development with obvious regret, but neither of them spoke against it.
Despite Balthasar Shahrizai’s speech, there had been no shifting in the lines of rebellion that had been drawn. Alain Guillard and his two allies remained firm in their resolve to turn back. Our injured fighters raised no protest. Although they were not happy about the prospect, they recognized their limitations. And having relocated his courage, Mathieu de Montague remained desperately adamant that he would not lose it a second time.
I could not help but pity the lad, who was another of the youngest members of our party.
“There’s no shame in it,” I said gently to him. “A warrior’s path is not for everyone.”
Young Mathieu flushed, the blood creeping in a crimson tide beneath his alabaster skin. “Do you think me unworthy, my lady?”
“No!”
“Moirin, don’t coddle him,” Balthasar said in passing, slapping the lad on the back. “You’ll do, won’t you?”
“I will!” the lad said fiercely.
“That’s the spirit,” Balthasar noted with approval. “Remember, if I can do this, anyone can.”
Keeping a sharp eye on the distant mountain-top settlement of the Cloud People, our fighting men at last allowed themselves to wash the dried gore of battle and the dirt of its aftermath from their skin in the river.
I consulted with the knowledgeable Septimus Rousse and the pochteca Eyahue regarding what we could spare from our goods to aid those turning back toward the Nahuatl Empire in their journey.
Some hours past noon, we parted ways. It might have been wiser to wait, but no one wanted to linger on the plain beneath the shadow of the Cloud People’s mountain where their dead awaited retrieval.
I’d allotted one pack-horse, a sack of ground maize and a quarterfull sack of cacao beans to our rebels, reckoning it generous.
“You needn’t do this, my lady,” Alain Guillard said in a stony voice, not meeting my gaze. “We’ll find a way to manage.”
“I am not doing it for you,” I said calmly, nodding toward the injured men. “I am doing it for them.”
He said nothing.
And so we parted, trudging across the plain in opposite directions.
Terra Nova stretched endlessly before us.