LITMIR.BIZ

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me there because you wanted me to feel badly for them, enough that I would take the command. But all you have to do is order me.’

      ‘Sometimes it’s better to have understanding than obedience,’ Wyldon informed her. He got to his feet with a grimace. ‘I know this is not what you wanted. No matter what I say, you and others will think this is a dungheap assignment.’

      He sat in a chair and motioned for Kel to sit opposite him. She did so gratefully. The long day’s ride and the time standing with the refugees had made her ache.

      ‘The truth is, you are the only one I can trust to do this job properly,’ Wyldon explained. ‘You care enough about commoners to do the task well. I did consider Queenscove, but he is much too fair. He shares his sarcasm and his inability to abide fools with all, regardless of rank. If they didn’t kill him within two weeks, I’d have to see if he was drugging their water.’ He winced as he flexed the hand on his bad arm. ‘Anyone else will order them about, create more resentment, and turn the place into a shambles – or pursue his own amusements and leave them to get into trouble.’

      Kel rubbed her face. He was right. She’d heard her peers’ opinions of commoners, had been accused of caring too much about them. Not so long ago, she had learned that the maximum punishment given to a noble who’d arranged the kidnapping of another noble’s servant was a fine, to compensate for the loss of the servant’s work. That law was being changed, but there were others like it. A noble owed a duty to those who served him, but such duty was not glorious. Fairness and consideration were unnecessary; the affairs and pride of commoners were unimportant. The noble who worried too much about them was somehow weak. Kel knew her world. Her respect for common blood was a rarity. Her father’s grandparents were merchants. Every branch of their family save his was still merchants to the bone. Perhaps it was also because her parents, as diplomats, were so used to seeing other points of view, foreign or Tortallan, that they had passed their attitudes on to their children.

      She also knew Wyldon was right about Neal.

      ‘Well?’ her former training master enquired. ‘Will you do this, Keladry of Mindelan?’

      Blayce! she thought, suddenly panicked. The Nothing Man! If I’m pinned to a camp, how will I find him? How will I stop him?

      She remembered those thin faces in the barracks, child and adult alike. She remembered Tirrsmont, crammed with people. Looking at Wyldon, she saw trust in his face, the face of a man she respected as much as she did her father and Lord Raoul.

      Kel sighed. ‘I’ll do it, my lord.’

      Her first task was to choose supplies. Wyldon cautioned her not to get greedy. The next morning he sent Owen with her to write down her choices. When they reached the storehouse, Kel stopped to look at her unusually quiet friend. Owen wouldn’t meet her eyes.

      She put her hand under his chin, startled to feel the scrape of newly shaved whiskers, and made him look at her. ‘You didn’t know,’ she said.

      Owen grimaced. Words tumbled from his mouth: ‘Kel, I swear I didn’t! He told me this morning. He – he apologized, for keeping something important from me,’ he said, ’specially when I have to learn about making camps like this, but he said you’d see it on my face, and he wanted to talk to you first. Kel, if I knew, I’d’ve argued him out of it. Well, I’d’ve tried to,’ he amended as Kel took her hand away from his chin. ‘He’s hard to argue with. But I would’ve tried! I’m so sorry!’

      Kel grinned. ‘Of course he wouldn’t tell you,’ she informed him. ‘You’re the worst liar I know, even if you’re just not saying anything. You ought to feel virtuous, that he knows you can’t lie.’

      ‘I feel like a failure,’ Owen confessed. ‘A true friend would have found out and warned you.’

      ‘How?’ Kel asked reasonably, leading the way into the storehouse. ‘Search his papers? That’s hardly proper. And what could I have done if you’d told me? Run off? Stop fussing.’ She opened the shutters, admitting the morning light so they could see the rows of goods. Her sparrows flew in. Some perched on Owen; others zipped around the stacked supplies, as if taking their own inventory.

      ‘But, Kel, making you a, a nursemaid!’ protested Owen, stroking a male sparrow’s black collar with a gentle finger. ‘When you’re a better warrior than anybody but my lord! And Lord Raoul, and the Lioness,’ he added, belatedly remembering that there might be others Kel would think were better. ‘It’s just not right!’

      ‘My lord says I’ll see plenty of fighting,’ Kel told him.

      Owen studied her for a long moment. Whatever he sought in her face, he seemed to find it. ‘Anything you want me to do, Kel, you let me know,’ he told her seriously. He gripped her arm for a moment, then let go. ‘Anything I can do to help.’

      For a moment they looked at one another, Owen’s gaze firm, Kel’s thoughtful. He’s growing up, she thought, surprised. And he’s growing up well.

      She patted his shoulder, then surveyed the storehouse. ‘For now I need a quartermaster,’ she said. They might never talk about what had just passed, but neither would they forget it. ‘Someone who can say what’s reasonable to draw for my people.’

      ‘Be right back,’ Owen promised, and trotted out the door.

      Tobe and Jump came in as he left, Tobe directing a scowl at Owen’s back. ‘I can do anything he might do,’ Tobe informed Kel.

      She clasped his shoulder, amused and yet flattered. ‘I need you for other things, Tobe,’ she informed him. ‘We’ve a lot of work ahead.’

       CHAPTER 4

       KEL TAKES COMMAND

      With the men who had built the camp – soldiers, convict soldiers, and refugees – already in residence, Kel saw no reason to linger at Fort Giantkiller. She needed a thorough view of her new home and its surroundings before the bulk of her charges arrived. Once they did, she would be short on time.

      Two days after her arrival at Giantkiller, she left at the head of a train that included Duke Baird, Lord Wyldon, Neal, Merric, and Owen, as well as the supplies she had taken with the quartermaster’s approval. She had been disconcerted to find that Neal, the camp’s healer, and Merric, their patrol captain, would technically be under her command. Neal didn’t seem to mind, but Neal never reacted like most people. On the other hand, she would have to be extra careful with Merric. She wasn’t sure that she would like being under the command of one of her year-mates.

      Once the train was assembled, Giantkiller’s defenders opened the gates of the inner and outer walls. Lord Wyldon gave the signal, and they rode out in a rumble of hooves, the jingle of harnesses, and the creak of wagon wheels.

      A pure, beautiful voice rose in the crisp air, singing an old northern song about the waking of the sun. Startled, Kel looked for the singer. It was Tobe, his face alight as he sang. A deeper voice joined his, then others: the song was a common one, though the words might vary from region to region. Above the baritone, bass, and tenor voices of the men and older boys soared Tobe’s perfect soprano. Even Kel, Wyldon, and Baird sang, their voices soft. Only Neal scowled at his saddle horn, still not awake.

      Giantkiller’s refugees clustered around the gates to watch them go. Fanche had been quite vocal when she had learned who was to command their new home. The kindest phrase she’d used was ‘wet-behind-the-ears southerner’. If the gods were good, perhaps Fanche would change her mind. If they weren’t, Kel would have a long time to get the formidable woman on her side.

      ‘When people tell me a knight’s job is all glory, I laugh, and laugh, and laugh,’ Lord Raoul had once told Kel. ‘Sometimes I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.’

      She knew what he meant.

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