Prince of Thorns

I turned to holler at the stragglers. “Close the line!”


Makin kept pace, waiting for an answer. “Let the soldiers die for their land,” I said to him. “If the time comes to sacrifice these fields in the cause of victory, I’ll let them burn in a heartbeat. Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.”

We rode on at a trot, west, trying to catch the sun.

Soon enough we found the garrison at Chelny Ford. Or rather they found us. The watchtower must have seen us on the trail, and fifty men came out along the Castle Road to block our way.

I pulled up a few yards short of the pikemen, strung across the road in a bristling hedge, double-ranked. The rest of the squad waited behind the pike-wall, with drawn swords, save for a dozen archers arrayed amongst the corn in the field to our right. A score of heifers, in the field opposite, saw our approach and idled over to investigate.

“Men of Chelny Ford,” I called out. “Well met. Who leads here?”

Makin came up behind me, the rest of the brothers trailing in after him, easy in their saddles.

A tall man stepped forward between two pikemen, but not too far forward, no idiot this one. He wore the Ancrath colours over a long chain shirt, and an iron pot-helm low on his brow. To my right a dozen sets of white knuckles strained on bowstrings. To my left the heifers watched from behind the hedge, complacent and chewing on the cud.

“I’m Captain Coddin.” He had to raise his voice as one of the cows let out a low moo. “The King signs mercenaries at Relston Fayre. Armed bands are not permitted to roam into Ancrath. State your business.” He kept his eyes on Makin, looking for his answer there.

I didn’t care for being dismissed as a child, but there’s a time and place for taking offence. Besides, old Coddin seemed to know his stuff. Putting Brother Gemt out of his misery was one thing, but wasting one of Father’s captains quite another.

I had my visor up already, so I used it to pull my helm off. “Father Gomst!” I called for the priest, and the brothers shuffled their horses aside with a few mutters to let the old fellow past. He wasn’t much to look at. He’d hacked off that beard he grew in the gibbet-cage, but grey tufts still decorated his face in random clusters, and his priestly robes seemed more mud than cloth.

“Captain Coddin,” I said. “Do you know this priest, Father Gomst?”

Coddin raised an eyebrow at that. He had a pale face, and now it went paler. His mouth took on a hard edge, like a man who knows he’s the butt of a joke that he hasn’t worked out yet. “Aye,” he said. “The King’s priest.” He snapped his heels together and inclined his head, as if he were in court. It seemed funny out there in the road, with the birds tweeting overhead and the stink of the cows washing over us.

“Father Gomst,” I said. “Pray tell Captain Coddin who I am.”

The old fellow puffed himself up a bit. He’d been listless and grey since Norwood, but now he tried to find a crumb or two of authority.

“Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath sits before you, Captain. Lost and now returned, he is bound for his royal father’s court, and you would do well to see that he gets there with proper escort . . .” He glanced at me, screwing up what courage he had behind the foolish remnants of his beard. “And a bath.”

A little snigger went up at that, on both sides of our standoff. It doesn’t pay to underestimate a cleric. They know the power of words and they’ll use them to their own ends. My palm ached for the hilt of my sword. I saw old Gomst’s head falling from his shoulders, bouncing once, twice, and rolling to a halt by the hooves of a black-and-white heifer. I pushed the vision away.

“No bath. It’s about time for a little road-stink at court. Soft words and rose water may please the gentry, but those that fight the war live dirty. I return to my father as a man who has shared the soldier’s lot. Let him know the truth of it.” I let my words carry on the still air, and kept my eyes on Gomsty. He had the wit to look away.

My speech earned no rousing cheer, but Coddin bowed his head and we had no further mention of baths. A shame, truth be told, because I’d been looking forward to a hot tub ever since I decided to turn for home.