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He had no trouble finding the army camps. Even before he reached the town, he could see the tents—hundreds of them in the fields and woods. Many of them had banners and pennants flying, or coats of arms hung on a stake out front. The men weren’t even bothering to conceal what they were doing.
William had left Formacaster early that morning fully anticipating that he would have to sneak around Hamstowe, asking, threatening, and cajoling until he found out the secret of where these men were hiding. But they weren’t hiding at all. They were defiant, bold. They clearly didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.
No one stopped him as he strolled through the camp, and in fact quite a few men called out greetings. William had served in the Loshadnarodski War with a lot of these fellows, and they surely remembered who he worked for. But either the ties of comradeship were still strong, or they didn’t care.
As he walked along, he kept a mental list of the arms and banners on display. Ned Slorcus had mentioned the Earl of Wellenham’s men, and those of the earls of Hyrne and Stansted. But lots of other knights were here, too. There were full companies of men-at-arms from Atherton and Brawley, for instance. The largest portion of them by far were from Newshire, home of the Sigor dynasty. But he saw one knight he knew from eastern Trahernshire, up by the Loshadnarodski border, and another from Drohen, at the edge of the western desert.
William knew this last fellow, Sir Logan Xylander, well enough to stop and talk for a bit. When William asked what the men were planning to do, the Drohen knight grinned and said, “We’re going to hold a tournament in memory of the old king, and in honor of the new one.”
A tournament.
It wasn’t, on the face of it, a ridiculous notion. Sir Logan’s grandfather had been a legendary jouster in his day. The bigger tourneys, like the royal ones, or those sponsored by the dukes or the Immani ambassador, drew thousands of men. But they were planned months and even years in advance, and no one had made any sort of public announcement of this one. So clearly Sir Logan was lying. There wasn’t any point in calling him out for it, though. William knew damn well what these men were here for. Everyone did.
He left the camps and made his way into the town of Hamstowe, where he got some ale at the Oxcart Inn. He had stayed there many times over the years, and it was worn and faded like an old slipper. The doorways leaned, the floors sagged, and the chairs wobbled. But the ale was good and strong, and that made the place a success in any old soldier’s opinion.
In the dark, tobacco-stained common room, he talked to a group of men who had the rounded, red-faced look of regular patrons. To hear them tell it, the locals were distinctly unhappy about their out-of-town guests. “They want everything on credit,” fumed one man, the local butcher, “and if you complain about it, they threaten to burn your house down.”
“Exactly what is the king planning to do about this?” demanded the innkeeper. “They’re no better than bandits, and stopping banditry is the king’s job.” He leaned closer over the bar. “My girl that works here, Molly Oakley—I won’t let her leave at night without me and my son to walk her home.” He gestured to the far end of the common room, where a slim, red-haired young woman in a starched, embroidered apron and head cloth was whistling as she swept the floor. The innkeeper dropped his voice to a whisper. “Silly girl keeps going off by herself all the time. My wife tries to tell her she’ll come to grief with all these ruffians about, but she won’t listen.”
“You can’t argue with the young,” said a toothless old farmer.
William watched the bar girl. There was something oddly familiar about her, though before he could think what it was, someone tapped him on the arm, and he turned to see Sir Robert Tynsdale slip into the seat next to him.
“Hello, William. Here to see the sights?”
“I heard this was the place to be,” answered William.
They stared at each other. Neither man went for his weapons, but each knew what the other was capable of. After a few moments, they arrived at an unspoken truce, and William began to breathe again.
He liked Tynsdale, as far as that went. They had been in the war together, where Sir Robert had done many of the same sort of jobs for his uncle, King Edgar, that William did for Lord Broderick. They had been on several missions together, in fact.
The most interesting had been the first one, when they had helped Grigory Sobol, the Loshadnarodski Minister of Mines, defect. William and Robert had ended up fighting each other at the end, but only because their orders had conflicted. That was hardly something to be bitter about. The mission had gone well; they had gotten Sobol safely out of Loshadnarod. And Tynsdale had been a good enough traveling companion. He kept to himself, knew how to move silently when it counted, and didn’t snore. That went a long way, as far as William was concerned.
Still, William had seen Tynsdale swear allegiance to Queen Rohesia four days earlier. That was hardly a surprise, since Robert was in love with the queen, and had been for years, even after getting married.
Robert didn’t want to trade old war stories. He’d probably followed William here from Formacaster, and William hadn’t even noticed him doing it. That was pretty impressive, and William paid for Tynsdale’s mug of ale as a mark of respect. Then they left the locals and went out to a bench in the inn yard to finish their drinks in privacy.
“You saw the camps south of town,” said Tynsdale, matter-of-factly.
There was no point in denying it. If Tynsdale had been following him, then he knew exactly where William had been. “They look like they’re enjoying themselves.”
Tynsdale gestured with his mug down the street, where the ground fell away in a long, gentle hill toward the forest. “There’s more out to the east. A thousand men in all. And more coming every day.”
“Who’s sending them?”
“They’re coming on their own. Patriotic fervor, you know. Love of their new king.” Tynsdale wasn’t even troubling to hide his smirk. He was lying, and he wanted William to know it.
“Let me guess. The Earl of Hyrne?”
Tynsdale’s smile broadened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But if you’re finished with your ale, there’s something in those eastern woods I’d like you to see. I’m pretty sure you’ll find it interesting.”
“I felt like stretching my legs.”
Leaving their mugs on the bench, they left the inn and walked down the hill, through the fields, toward the trees. William had a hand on the hilt of his sword, and he kept an eye on Tynsdale for even the slightest hint that he was starting to draw his weapon. William hadn’t told his wife where he was going when he had left home, and he wasn’t about to die here in the middle of nowhere, with Gwen left to wonder what had happened to him.
There really were soldiers camped out there. Tynsdale hadn’t been lying about that. Nearly all these men were from western Trahernshire—the lands of the Earl of Hyrne. A lot of them had new swords and very expensive-looking crossbows. William sauntered up to one of the men and asked to inspect the weapon. He found it to be Immani-made, probably from Presidium. Very expensive, very beautiful, wickedly powerful.
“Where did you get this?” William asked, handing it back.
“My mother sent it to me for my birthday,” said the big man-at-arms who had given it to him.
Tynsdale sidled up. “The rain falls at planting time. There’s no point in asking where it comes from. Come along now.”
He led William down a long row of tents, then around a thicket of holly bushes, and they came out by a large pavilion, made of extravagantly dyed green wool and hung with the arms of the Earl of Hyrne himself—a gold chevron with three gold suns on a field of green. Pages and servants rushed to and fro, and a half-dozen knights in spotless new green surcoats stood guard.
William turned to Tynsdale and asked, in a low voice, “Is it really him?”
“Well, I don’t think he let someone borrow his tent,” said Tynsdale. “He and his men got here last night, by the way. Oh, look. Here’s another new arrival I’m sure you’ll be interested in.”
As they watched, an older knight in a red surcoat rode up and dismounted. To his dismay, William recognized the arms—a red saltire on black—as he recognized the man’s bald pate and drooping huge mustache. It was Colonel Sir Vernon Goss, one of the most renowned regimental commanders of the Loshadnarodski War, and probably the most admired field officer in the army. He had held his troops together and made an orderly retreat at Yusipova’s Fields when men with older names and bigger estates had cut and run. William knew that Baron Broderick had immense respect for Goss, and considered him a personal friend. The news that he had gone over to the Earl of Hyrne’s party would be a heavy blow.
“Why are you showing me this?” William asked, turning to Tynsdale.
Robert crossed his arms. “I want you to go back to Formacaster and let the captain general know what’s going on here. I want him to understand that this isn’t some random rabble. We’ve got all the best men of the army here, and we’ll have more soon.”
“That’s treason,” said William.
“No. It’s the captain general who’s heading toward treason. He’s insulted the queen, and a lot of people are going to find that hard to forgive. We don’t want a war, but if he starts one, he needs to know we’re ready.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” said William.
Robert walked him back to the inn, and then went with him to the docks, where William found a river barge headed down to Formacaster. “Don’t forget what I said,” Robert told him. “Don’t forget what you saw.”
“I assure you I won’t,” said William.
The barge pushed off and headed out into midstream, passing another small boat coming upriver. William turned, idly watching the little blue riverboat slide past and thinking about everything he had learned.
He was startled out of his reverie by the sight of a beautiful woman pacing the quarterdeck of the other vessel. She was dressed in blue silk, and a soft wind made it ripple around her and sent her dark hair swirling about her head in long tendrils. At the exact moment William’s boat drew alongside, the woman corralled her hair and tied it back.
William recognized her as that Immani woman who was staying in Formacaster. Liliana Serrana—that was her name. People called her “Lily.” She was the mistress of Senator Pellus, and from what William had heard, she had made herself very popular with all the ladies and gentlemen of the court.
He watched her as her ship slid astern of his and headed for the Hamstowe docks. What on earth was she doing here? He remembered the expensive, Immani-made crossbows at the camp, and the thought crossed his mind that perhaps there was more to Lily Serrana than met the eye.