footmen sat here joking and spinning stories.
LOOK AROUND YOU, Breca muttered as the laughter
died again, as some of the men looked up uneasily,
skeptically, looking into the rose embroidered on my
doublet as if it were an orb of prophecy, looking at me as
though I were a messenger from another planet.
LOOK AROUND YOU. SOON ENOUGH YOU’LL SEE
THE BIRDS NO LONGER LIGHT HERE. THE NEWS HAS
A WAY OF SPREADING AMONGST THE ANIMALS, AND
NOT JUST FROM KIND TO KIND. SOON ENOUGH
YOU’LL SEE THE RATS LEAVING. THE HORSES HAVE
THE SAME INSTINCTS, BUT THEY’RE TETHERED AND
STABLED AND – he glanced at me, smiled briefly, and
stared at his pipe – AND CURRIED. ALL THAT KEEPS
ANY OF US HERE IS THE KNIGHTS, WHO THINK THEY
CAN HOLD THIS PLACE WITH HONOR ALONE.
HONOR IS WELL AND GOOD, BUT IT DON’T STOP A
SPEAR, BOYS. BEST IT CAN DO IS LEAVE A CLEANER
WOUND.
BUT DON’T FRET, BOYS, he concluded, looking
directly at me with those huge gray eyes that the folk tales
say are the sign of marksmen or madmen, I forget which.
DON’T FRET, FOR AT LEAST YOU’VE FOUND
YOURSELF A WARM PLACE TO DIE.
Not a comforting philosophy to take with you back into
the upper chambers, where there were swords and armor to
be polished, and wine and a warmer hearth, and where the
truth muttered below you, scarcely heard for the crackling
of the fire, like a ghost in the stables or the barracks.
MARKSMEN, she tells me. GRAY EYES FOR THE
MARKSMAN. Then was it green for the lunatic or for the
poet?
Instead of the legends of eyes let me talk of monotony, of
the boredom in waiting for battle. It is no quick thing, no
gap between lightning and thunder, but a long waiting in
which breastplate and sword shimmer uselessly, in which
you worry the horses into a sleek and healthy gloss, in
which you watch the sky and speculate on wonders. No
time to be slow-witted, this waiting for battle, but a time to
attend to tasks, to trivial duties, until the duties become
reflex and you return to your thoughts alone.
But even among the thoughtful and the imaginative,
there were great dangers. After all, dear brother, there was
an enemy approaching, an enemy magnified by his absence.
The dragonarmies grew larger, their atrocities greater, as we
waited and imagined. A story passed through the ranks that
the slaughter of Plainsmen had been even more horrible
than first reported, that the draconians had found a way, in
the dark recesses of lore and intricate magic, to breed more
of their kind upon the Plainswomen – a hardier strain,
maturing quickly and able to withstand extremes of climate
– and that on the plains these children grew, feeding first
upon what little provision the country offered, then turning
upon themselves in a frenzy like sharks, until only the
largest and most hardy of the brood survived. Survived to
be armed with the black bow and the terrible curved knife,
which they would carry over the miles and the snow to the
Tower of the High Clerist.
And in addition to the rumors of war, a nightmare closer
to home, for the second night in the tower the wine ceased
to flow in the quarters of the knights, and we turned to
water and to mare’s milk, knowing that those, too, would
dry in the long weeks of waiting. We were fortunate, then,
that it was cold, for the food did not spoil as readily, but
even the youngest eye could pass over the stores in the
larders and see there was less today, would be less
tomorrow. Soon it would be biscuit, parched corn. Then
horses, and some of the older footmen talked ironically of
rats, providing they are stupid enough to still be here when
the time comes down to them.
So you occupied your time upon other thoughts, in
other pursuits. The footmen wagered, exchanging coins
over the strange, many-sided dice from the east. None
wagered against Sturm’s friend the kender, who eagerly
sought to join each game, standing on tiptoe to peer over the