Emeric had no need of further space. “I would be happy to stay with the others.” The rest of the men were being barracked in communal tents; one for the Blackshaws, and one for the sailors and sellswords. “You needn’t have troubled yourself on my account..”
Rikkard wouldn’t hear of it. “It was no trouble, Emeric. A lord ought to have his own space.”
I am no lord, Sir Rikkard, Emeric thought to tell him. But of course he knew that already. As with Borrus and the others, he was giving him the styling as a courtesy.
The heir of Amadar smiled pleasantly, then showed him a map of the encampment, which had been thoughtfully scrawled on a piece of parchment and placed upon a small table inside his tent. He pointed out where the command pavilion was, somewhere at the heart of the ward, and where Borrus’s pavilion would be. He spoke too of the nearest training circle he might want to visit, and the privy outhouse that he would be permitted to use, built into the walls with a shoot that deposited a man’s excretions out into the moat.
“There is a mannequin for your armour as well,” the knight went on, pointing it out. “If ever you decide to remove it, that is.” He said that with a knowing smile.
“Not for a while,” Emeric said. “The perils of the road…”
“You will be safer here. Or will at least have more warning if there is an attack, time enough to put on your armour so you don’t have to sleep in it. It’s uncomfortable, I know. Do you have a squire?”
Emeric shook his head. Not once in his life had he had a squire.
“Then your armour can be removed and dressed by your own hand?” That was common enough, though most knights still preferred to keep squires to tend to their chores, and train the next generation in the chivalric arts. A dying art, Emeric believed. He could count on one hand the number of true knights he had known in his youth, without pride or vice, committed to the ideals.
“It’s manageable, yes,” he said. “Lord Merrymarsh keeps large stocks of good armour, Sir Rikkard.”
“Ah yes. I did hear a rumour that you had stopped in Calmwater. You returned the long lost Lady Kathryn, did you not?”
“She was in the same pits as Sir Torvyn. Jonik was adamant that we return everyone back to their own lands.”
“Jonik,” repeated Sir Rikkard, mulling on the name. “The more I hear about him, the more I am convinced of his virtue. He sounds a good man.”
“He is. I can attest to that personally. So will Borrus, I’m sure.”
“Yet he isn’t with you. When we received word from Lord Ghent that you were coming here, I had assumed Jonik would be part of your host. I wanted it to be so, in fact. I have an interest in meeting the man who killed my nephew.”
Emeric detected no venom in the way he said it. “He is haunted by that, I assure you. It drives him every day to be better.”
Rikkard contemplated that for a moment. “Sometimes a man has to pass through the darkness in order to walk in the light. Such it is with this war, would you not say? We are all enshrouded by it, and striving to reach the light beyond…to see the glow of that far-off dawn.”
Emeric raised a brow. “You speak well, sir. Yes, this is how I feel as well.”
Rikkard gave a smile, dipped his chin, and stepped over to a small possessions trunk set beside the pallet bed. He opened it and drew out three pewter cups and a stoppered clay bottle. “I took the liberty of provisioning you with a drop of wine, Emeric. I hope you don’t mind if I partake?”
“By all means.”
Rikkard returned to the table, placed down the cups, and poured out three portions.
“Are we expecting company?” Emeric asked.
Rikkard handed him his goblet. “She’ll be along any moment.”
“She?”
“Yes, the female of the species, though with Lady Marian there is perhaps some scope for debate.” He smiled. “She is as fearsome as any man I have ever met. An extraordinary woman. I think you’ll like her.”
Emeric frowned, wondering where this was going. He had heard the name of course. Marian Payne had developed a network of spies and sneaks, always women, though it was said she was an outstanding swordswoman too, one of the finest Bladeborn in all of Rasalan, utterly redoubtable of spirit. Quite what they wanted with him, though, he could not say.
Rikkard was looking at him with a half smile on his face. “I remember getting drunk with you at a feast tourney once,” he said, reminiscing. “After the war. At Eastwatch, I think it was.”
Emeric recalled that as well. He recalled every tourney, every feast, every joust and melee. It was a life he’d lived for a few years only, so remembering such occasions was easy enough. “You were drunk, Sir Rikkard,” he corrected. “I would not say the same about myself.”
“Well…I was often drunk back then. The afterglow of the end of the war, and all that. Mostly I was drinking my grief, though. I lost two brothers to Vallath.”
Emeric remembered that too. It was said that Rikkard Amadar would never hear a bad word said against Amron Daecar, for avenging the deaths of his older brothers when he slew Vallath at the Burning Rock.
“You know that grief, of course,” Sir Rikkard went on. “You lost your father too, during the war.”
“To an arrow,” Emeric said. There was no great glory in that death. Just a lucky arrow that had come out of nowhere to plunge down into his eye. He had his faceplate upturned at the time, to better shout his orders to his knights. A mistake that cost him his life. Most deaths in war were luck, Emeric knew.
“And you were raised to lord thereafter,” Rikkard said.
“For a time,” Emeric murmured. “Before my exile. I have no lands and titles anymore, Sir Rikkard.” He sipped his wine, keen to change the topic of conversation. “Ought you not be accompanying Borrus to his pavilion? He will want to convene a war council at once, I know. He has been speaking about it for days.”
“I can quite imagine. Having known Borrus Kanabar for many long years, I am fully aware of his proclivities and habits. Like his father, he is bellicose, belligerent, and will no doubt be keen to march out and smash Ven’s horde to pieces.” He sighed, taking a sip of wine. “I tell you, Emeric, Lord Rammas was more delighted than I could say to hear that you were coming. And when I say you, I mean Borrus. Never have I seen him so restless as we awaited you, nor so courteous as when he presented Borrus with his brooch just now. Do you know what it denotes?”
“It is the brooch worn by the Warden of the East,” Emeric said.
“Just that. A rank Rammas held for a short time, though only as a surrogate. He never wore that mantle comfortably, because he knows he is not worthy of it. Lord Rammas is the Lord of the Marshes, a lesser title. Borrus far outranks him, and now that he is here…”
“He will command the army to war.”
“I worry so, yes. Our orders have been to stand down and wait, but those orders are growing stale. Elyon Daecar brought them, direct from the mouth of his father, but Elyon has been gone long days now and the men are growing restive. Rammas wants his vengeance for the rape and ruin of the Marshlands, and Raynald wants his glory. And what Borrus said out there, about Vargo Ven…” He paused, checking Emeric’s eyes. “How did he take the death of his father?”
“Not well. He has spoken of retribution for months.”
