“More like the middle of the park. It’s … extensive.”
“Also … if I could drop off some uniforms to be cleaned and if we could stop for a moment so that I could brief my officers?”
“Naturally. I took the liberty of having the mounts brought to the north entrance.” Valatyr gestures, and the two leave the salon.
Waiting outside the salon are Captain Waell and several rankers, presumably to return the salon to its primary function.
Valatyr does not speak as the two cross the main hall to the north corridor and then continue to the north wing. Lerial hurries up to his chambers and reclaims the soiled uniforms. By the time he has dropped them off and made his way out the north entrance, Valatyr, a half squad of Afritan Guards, and Lerial’s gelding are waiting.
“It’s unlikely we’ll run into trouble, but one never knows,” the subcommander declares as he mounts.
True enough. Lerial nods, then rides beside the older officer as they circle around the circular entrance plaza toward the south. When they reach the Cigoernean area, Lerial reins up short of the officers’ tent, but he barely dismounts before Strauxyn, Kusyl, and Fheldar appear.
“Good morning, ser.”
“Good morning. This won’t take long. I’ve just come from the senior officers’ meeting, and I’ll be getting a tour of the areas where we might be called to fight…” Lerial quickly goes over not only what Commander Sammyl has said, but also some additional information about the current location of Heldyan forces. Then he lays out what he wants from the men for the day, including blade practice. Even so, he is finished in less than a third of a glass, and is back in the saddle.
One of the Afritan Guards opens the southern gate, and Valatyr leads the way through the gate, then immediately turns left, heading eastward toward the Swarth River, which has to be a half kay away.
A brisk wind, neither warm nor cool, sweeps out of the south, but given the hazy sky, the sun does not provide that much warmth, and Lerial is glad for his riding jacket. He studies the hunting park to his right, which seems to be a mixture of a woodlot with long-needled pines, well-trimmed groups of bushes and olive trees here and there at random, with browned grass covering the ground in most places, except around the bases of some of the pines.
“What sort of game does the duke hunt here?” he finally asks Valatyr.
“I don’t know that the duke has ever hunted here. His sire liked to hunt the small gazelles, it’s said. I’ve only seen a few. They’re fast and very wary.”
“How much of the edge of the river between Lubana and the point opposite Khesyn’s new piers is marsh, and how much is open water?”
“You’ll see. There’s open water immediately east of Lubana. That’s because Duke Natroyan had the marshes dredged away back to where there was bedrock. That’s where he built the east wall.”
“Natroyan?”
“Duke Atroyan’s grandsire.”
At the east end of the south wall there is another corner tower, and Valatyr reins up and points to the north. “You can see what he did.”
Lerial can indeed. The east wall of Lubana is the riverbank, although stone riprap perhaps three yards in width extends from the base of the wall then drops another two yards to the water’s surface. The marshes begin less than twenty yards south of the corner tower, largely rushes and reeds with only small patches of open water, and extend a good thirty to fifty yards out into the river. A graveled lane, with a low hedgerow—trimmed to a height of two yards—separating the lane from the park proper heads south along the western edge of the reed marshes, and Valatyr gestures. “The lane has been well maintained.”
“It looks like parts of the marsh were filled to make sure the lane is straight.”
“Duke Natroyan’s doing. Even then, when Heldya was far less strong, he wanted roads along the river.”
“All of the good roads along the Swarth were his doing?”
“Most of them,” Valatyr admits, turning his mount.
Lerial eases the mare alongside Valatyr. “You were a battalion commander once, I take it.”
“For a time.”
“Where, might I ask?”
“Here. Drusyn was my successor.”
“Does that mean that Ascaar’s forces are normally posted somewhere between Luba and Swartheld?”