"We'll buy from the locals."
"Will you be paying for all those supplies, sir?" Blaylock asks, his expression sour.
Lord Renard shakes his head. "Don't seem fair to make one man pay for the whole squadron's supplies out his own pocket. Better if each of us pays for his troop, wot?"
"Not all of us can rely upon 800 crown a year," Blaylock grouses before turning to you. "Spare a thought for those of us not heir to a dukedom, sir?"
Blaylock has a point. Lord Renard aside, your junior officers would likely find the financial burden of buying enough fodder for their troops to be onerous indeed. Your lieutenants look to you for a decision.
"This is my responsibility as squadron commander; I shall take on the cost myself."
The reply to your decision comes as a chorus of "yes sir," and in Blaylock's case, a barely-hidden sigh of relief. Working together, the four of you quickly put together a list of villages to visit before setting off once more.
At each village, the routine is much the same. The serfs who work the surrounding fields are always the first ones to greet your approaching column, but the instant the mention of money is made, they are shoved aside by an entirely different sort of figure.
It is a different man in each village, of course, but they are all of a model—bright felt jackets, a sabre at their belts, an ingratiating smile which does not reach their eyes—the village factotum, a baneless freeholder who manages the village in the absence of his noble lord.
These are the men you must deal with, for under Antari law, serfs are not permitted to handle money, a tradition too entrenched for even nearly a decade of Tierran occupation to overturn. Unlike the serfs, the factotums are literate, numerate, and crafty traders as well.
Although you try your best to spend as little as possible at each village, you cannot help but feel somewhat cheated as your column rides away from each settlement with your feed bags heavier and your coin purse lighter.
You end the day 120 crown poorer but with fodder enough to keep your column's horses and mules fed for a few days longer. Your men sleep well that night, resting easy in the assurance that they shall not have to watch their beloved mounts starve.
-
The ground around you changes once more as your column works its way down the final stretch of road to Solokovil, the town where the King's Army is encamped. The trees begin to thin out, and the brush becomes more sparse as you begin to see steep hills rising to the east, towards the faint blue shapes of distant mountains.
You are near the source of the River Kharan now, where the northern edge of the Great Forest meets the place where the plains abut the mountains that split the Calligian continent from east to west. As the forest falls away, the road begins to twist and turn in on itself, winding its way around scree-footed cliffs, rough hills, and rocky drumlins. Unfettered by the interference of the forest, your banesense is not so obstructed as it was when your route was bounded on both sides by living forest, but that only seems to make things worse. Instead of a solid wall of interference on either side of you, the chaotic profusion of bushes and isolated clumps of trees that cover the hilly ground seem only to play merry havoc with your senses, littering them with potential threats and hinting at the possibility of an ambush behind every rocky outcropping, an enemy skirmisher atop every hill.
It is thus perhaps understandable how you do not realise that your column is not alone until you turn a forested bend to find yourself not thirty paces in front of them.
They are mounted, all seven of them, on superb horses. Most of them wear the bright jackets of a noble house's livery, of a vaguely familiar pattern. Some carry carbines; the others, slim lances. All of them look like veterans, hard-faced, their weapons leaping to hand as you appear before them.
Their leader is of an entirely different calibre.
She sits in her saddle astride, like a man, but with all the straight-backed bearing of a highborn lady. She wears the tight-cut frogged jacket and trousers of a Lancer officer, both of which do little to hide her full-bodied figure, the softness in her features behind the intensity of her expression, and the severe style of her chestnut hair. She is, to put it bluntly, like nobody you have ever seen before.
She is also pointing a pistol at your head.
"A full squadron of cavalry approaching the encampment of the King's division from the general direction of Prince Khorobirit's army," the young lady muses in the polished mezzo-soprano of a Warburtonian noble. "Ain't that seem the tiniest bit suspicious?"
You open your mouth to explain. The woman responds by pulling her pistol to full-cock. "Your jacket is green-grey and crimson, double-breasted. Your helmet is black leather, silver fittings, white and red plumes," she rattles off. "You are dressed as Royal Dragoons, a regiment which is currently stationed with the Duke of Havenport in Kharangia; that makes you an imposter." She peers down the sights at you with bright-green eyes. "So, what I would like to know is who you
really are."
It is at this moment that you hear the slow beat of hooves approaching from behind you.
"Might I enquire as to why we have sto—" Lady Katarina begins, only for her eyes to widen in recognition. "Ellie?" Then, louder, with a genuine cheerfulness. "Ellie!"
The woman before you lowers the pistol, one hand deftly slipping the hammer forward as her expression turns from hostility to delight. "Rina! I thought you were in Kharangia!"
Lady Katarina, animated by a brightness which you have not often seen in her, shakes her head. "I was. Now I am here." She turns to you. "Sir Alaric, I present to you, Lady Eleanora d'al Welles, Countess of Welles." With the lightest of smiles, she turns back to the Countess. "Ellie, Lord Major Sir Alaric d'al Castleton of the Royal Dragoons." Her smile turns impish. "Yes, Ellie, the real ones."
"You are the fellow who led the assault on Kharangia!" the Countess exclaims with a remarkable alacrity for one not actually a soldier. "Oh, but my apologies! I should have recognised you from the gazette sketches!"
She peers at, then past the men sitting uneasily in their saddles behind you for a moment before glancing at Lady Katarina. "A diplomatic escort?"
The dark-haired noblewoman nods. "The Takaran ambassador," she replies. "What about you, Ellie? What are you doing in Antar?"
Lady Welles shakes her head. "Best not to discuss it out here," she replies. "Perhaps at dinner? The King is sure to put together something to welcome the ambassador." She turns to you. "You must come with me, sir. It is the very least I could do by way of apology; I insist."
You nod. An invitation to a dinner with the King by a lady of the blood as a formal apology? It would be the height of churlishness to refuse.
The Countess smiles brightly. "Excellent, quite excellent. I'll form up my Houseguard and see you to Solokovil. It's no more than two hours' ride."
Thus, freshly acquainted, you follow the Countess's guards as they lead your weary column down to the walled town where the King and his army await.
