Crown of Renewal(60)
“Good, then. Is it settled, Arvid? As soon as you’re able.”
“Yes,” he said. His head was swimming again, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Clear as a painted picture, the broad face and graying yellow hair of Gird looked back at him and nodded.
You’ll do. Good lad.
Arvid woke hours later in the first light of dawn. The shutters were open; he heard a rooster crow in the courtyard below and Arvi’s breathing in the room. He looked around. Arvi slept on a pallet near the bed instead of in his own bed at the far end. Arvid was suddenly thirsty, hungry, and restless all at once. He sat up cautiously; his side twinged, but not badly. He put his feet on the floor, fitting them between the bed and Arvi’s pallet, and made his way to the table. Pia had left a pitcher of water there and a clean mug. He drank and walked a little unsteadily to the window.
Everything that had happened ran through his mind as if written on a strip of ribbon pulled through his hands. He felt all the emotions he had felt—the alarm, the anger, the urgency, the need to convince others, the pity, the anger again … and finally, the acceptance. Marshal. It was ludicrous. It was inevitable. It was …”How did I not know?” he asked the lightening sky, speaking softly not to wake his son. No answer this time. He didn’t really need one. It didn’t matter anymore.
Across the room Arvi woke with a little snort, sat up, and stared wildly at the empty bed before seeing him. “I’m fine,” Arvid said.
“Da?”
“Really. Come, let’s get dressed, see if I can manage the stairs, and then the jacks and the bathhouse. We both have work to do.”
Arvi leaned into him. Arvid put an arm around those shoulders, not now so thin—or so far down: the child had grown fast once freed from the thieves. “It’s all right, Son. Gird healed the bad wound; the other one’s hardly a wound at all.”
After Arvi had gone off to class with the other youngsters, Arvid made his way down the city to meet Marshal Hudder. Unusually for this time of day, a dozen adults were there: guards, he realized, to prevent another attack. All had the sullen expressions of deeply angry men. Marshal Hudder, a short square-built man with graying black hair, came out to greet him.
“I didn’t expect to see you for several more days, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have, Arvid. Nobody can replace Mador, o’ course, not really, but everyone in the grange wants to thank you. Marshal-General’s told me what she wants and what you already know. I’d like you to take over the adult sword-side drill groups and the records keeping that Mador did.”
“Certainly, Marshal,” Arvid said.
“We think the children would be too likely to spend their lesson time asking you questions until they get used to you—but our yeomen, right now, are eager to work on their fighting skills.” He gestured. “Come on in and I’ll show you the offices.”
By the end of that day, Arvid had met the parents of the children he’d rescued and seen the children themselves at study in the barton with the other yeoman-marshal, Nadin. Nadin’s arms were still wrapped in bandages—though the Marshals had been able to start the bones healing with the help of a herbwoman, his arms were still painful and not strong enough for drill.
Arvid took the drill sections, one after another, and trudged back up to the Loaf as tired as he’d ever been. But—he’d done it. He’d remembered all the drill commands; he’d learned all the names. He could do this. The knights going off-duty for the night walked with him, then waved and walked on up to their quarters.
Arvi woke when he came into the room, quiet as he’d tried to be. “Da?”
“Here. Tired. Go back to sleep, lad.” He laid his hand on the boy’s head for a moment. His lad. Safe. The three who’d been killed had been buried while he recovered; he’d missed that.
Chapter Twelve
Chaya, Lyonya
She had changed again, Kieri thought, watching the tall yellow-haired paladin dismount in the courtyard. He wasn’t certain yet what the change was and hoped it would not alter the Paks he had known beyond his recognition. Foolish thought, he knew. With a dragon loose in the world again, they were all being changed.
By the time he reached the palace entrance she was there, chatting with one of the doorwards about—of all things—darning. The doorward had his shoe off, showing a hole in the heel of his left sock, and Paks was explaining, in exactly Stammel’s words, why everyone in any uniform, anywhere, any time, should be able to mend and maintain his or her own uniform.
“But it’s just a sock,” the doorward said, as Kieri had heard many recruits say. He waited, just in earshot, and sure enough, Paks said it just as Stammel had.