Dragonlance Tales, Vol. 3 – Love and War

them, too, would keep them spotless and dry for the battle

we knew was coming, inevitable as weather.

It was a mist at first, undecided between snow or rain,

though you could guess it would decide as soon as the

temperature dropped, the steam rising like mist from the

horses, from the breath of the soldiers, until we rode

through a fog and I could see no farther than Sir Heros in

front of me. I followed his horse and assumed he followed

the man in front of him, and he the man in front of him, and

somehow I reasoned that whoever led our column had

ridden out of the mist by now or at least had the wisdom to

know where he was going. And the ground turned to mud

beneath us – not that you could see it, but you could hear

the hooves of the horses suck and spatter within it. Had I

foresight I would have seen this as training for blindness.

But foresight in this country was as dim as the horseman

ahead of you.

And the footmen sang no songs about Huma’s breast,

about the kingfisher, crown, sword or rose, or about the

high honor of battle, but a new drinking song picked up on

the march – a song the knights had hushed before because it

was an embarrassment to ladies, a song I suppose they

figured was no longer embarrassing because there were no

ladies among us. Perhaps you have heard it, the real song of

the army:

YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE’S A SAILING SHIP

THAT ANCHORS AT OUR PIER.

WE LIFT HER SAILS, WE MAN HER DECKS,

WE SCRUB THE PORTHOLES CLEAR,

AND YES, OUR LIGHTHOUSE SHINES FOR HER,

AND YES, OUR SHORES ARE WARM;

WE STEER HER INTO HARBOR –

ANY PORT IN A STORM.

THE SAILORS STAND UPON THE DOCKS,

THE SAILORS STAND IN LINE,

AS THIRSTY AS A DWARF FOR GOLD

OR CENTAURS FOR CHEAP WINE.

FOR ALL THE SAILORS LOVE HER,

AND FLOCK TO WHERE SHE’S MOORED,

EACH MAN HOPING THAT HE MIGHT

GO DOWN, ALL HANDS ON BOARD.

I trust you will not show this song to Mother, for I

could almost hear the nurse blush as I sang it, she who has

bathed me and dressed my wounds over many weeks. As I

think further, perhaps it would be best to show none of this

to Mother. The story becomes no more pleasant.

We were speaking of snow and the trip to the tower and

the indecent singing of footmen. One of the knights – it

might even have been Sturm Brightblade, whose name you

have no doubt heard in the histories and will hear again and

again in this story – took exception to the song, and raised

his voice in the Huma chant of which you are, dear Bayard,

so fond. It faded into the fog behind us, for few knights took

it up, weighted down as they were by the drizzling cold, and

the footmen were not about to join in, the only version of

that chant I had heard pass their lips an immodest parody in

which the breast is no longer Huma’s, is a different and

softer reward entirely for the warrior.

I keep forgetting that the nurse is here. The Measure is

still new to me. And I forget where . . .

THE SNOW, she says.

The snow. It was misery on horseback. I trust it was

more miserable on foot, for boots were scarce, and most of

the men had wrapped their feet in rags against frostbite and

the sharp edges of ice. Breca, an old veteran among the foot

soldiers, had bargained, begged, and finally threatened my

boots from me on the road to the tower. And though I was

angry at first, when I saw the boy to whom he gave the

boots, saw the blisters and blackness about his ankles, the

blood through the rags bright on the merciless road, the

threats were unnecessary.

We passed the first night of the blizzard in marching.

Breca returned the boots the next morning. Averted his

eyes, said that the boy had no further need, that he rested