I wonder how you become a brigand. Do you have to go to brigand school or something? Is it something you can get a degree in from a community college? Just asking...

 

 

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The first thing we needed was intelligence, which Kit offered to supply. “You’re not going to use a bird again, are you?” I asked him the next morning.

“Just to find out where they are,” he said. “No point in wandering all over the countryside. By the time I found them on my own they’d be on their way here.”

He went for a more impressive display than before. In response to his silent call there came not a sparrow, but a great golden eagle. It descended lazily as he stood waiting for it in the center of the square, and then to the amazement of everyone watching it alighted on his outstretched arm. Heedless of the blood its talons drew as they gripped his flesh, he stared with his bright blue eyes into equally bright eyes of shining gold, and then off it flew.

“They’re a bit smarter than sparrows,” he told me. “They fly a long way too, and have great eyesight. She should spot them before too long.”

I never saw her return because my own job was to retrieve the arms from our camp. I took a couple of the boys with me as well as the cart, and we retrieved not only the swords, but the bows, all the arrows I had stashed, and those of the bandits’ jerkins that were usable. For good measure I also grabbed all the personal gear we’d left behind, as we had no reason to expect a protracted stay when we left. We made good time and returned well before sunset. Kit wasn’t there. When the eagle reported back, he’d immediately gone off.

Since Crispian had only been teaching about fifteen boys regularly, there were enough blades to go around with extras for any others who wanted them. He and I spent the rest of the evening getting them into usable shape. A damp cave isn’t the best place to store a collection of swords in ill-fitting scabbards, and many of them had been poorly cared for in the first place.

We handed them out the next morning even though not all the boys were present. Some of them reacted to receiving arms with awe, but others got so excited that Crispian had to literally bash heads together to make them treat the swords with proper respect.

We followed with a set of drills to get them used to handling live steel. The stragglers drifted in one by one as it progressed. They were defying their parents to be there, and had to wait for an opportunity to sneak away. Crispian put them up in the stables with Grig and Shim so they'd be around when they were needed.

By sunset Kit hadn’t yet returned, and I was getting a little worried about him. I assumed the brigands weren’t very close by and the round trip alone would take some time. I also knew he was more than capable of ensuring his own safety. None of that made me any less anxious. He was more and more on my mind as the night grew older and there was less work to occupy me.

Around midnight Crispian and I were sitting in the otherwise empty common room, which was beginning to look like a military headquarters, when I heard the approach of Kit’s jogging footfall. I ran to meet him at the door, and was so relieved to see him that I completely forgot Crispian was there and greeted him with a long, lingering kiss which he eagerly returned. When it ended I remembered where I was and flushed a little, but if Crispian noticed he didn’t show it. He drew Kit in and sat him down with some stew and beer. Kit was sweating a little from his run, and bore a long bundle that he set down onto the floor next to his seat. As he ate, he reported what he found.

“They’re camped about a day and a half march away,” he said. “I’m not sure where the baron’s lands begin, but they weren’t worried about him so it must be no-man’s land. There wasn’t a lot of discipline. They weren’t paying much attention to who was there and who wasn’t, and showed no sign of missing your new post horse’s old master yet. I think we have time before they decide to react.”

“How many are they?” said Crispian.

“Not easy to tell. Like I said, they weren’t too sure themselves how many weren’t around, but I counted forty-five and heard mention of three others as being somewhere else. On missions similar to our deceased friend’s I gathered, but to other villages in the area. Assuming one of those three wasn’t ours, that makes at least forty-eight. No, wait.” He lifted the bundle onto the table and unwrapped it. It held two sheathed swords. “Make that forty-six.”

“What happened?” I said.

“A couple of them wandered close to my spot. I saw I could take them out without anyone noticing, so I did. It might give away that they were being scouted, but I thought we’d need any numerical advantage we could get. Not to mention more weapons.”

Crispian glared at him. “In my old centuria you’d have been flogged round the troops. And then given a pay raise.”

“Which is as good a reason as any to avoid joining the legions, isn’t it?” he replied with a grin. “Anyway, they had ten horse, probably more if some of those not present are mounted, so we might have a small cavalry to deal with too. As far as arms go, other than swords I saw bows, but not as many as there were men.”

Crispian sat thinking for a while. “I’d say this is good news on balance. For one thing, it means you two put a big dent in their numbers a couple of months ago. You cut them down by a quarter, maybe more. It doesn’t make sense for them to send that many off in the first place, so maybe their captain wanted to get rid of that lot for some reason, but they still might have been able to call on them and now they can’t. We don’t have a numerical advantage, but I expected that. It’s just as big a problem that aside from us three, everyone is as green as could be. The situation’s not good, not good at all. But it could be a lot worse. I think we have a chance.”

“Crispian, it might not be a good idea to think of Kit and me as seasoned troops.” I said. “It’s not like we’ve been in a real battle.”

“You mean to tell me I have to worry that you’ll panic and run the first time a fight goes bad? You’ll get so confused in a battle that you curl up in a ball and hide until it’s all over?”

“No, but―”

“I didn’t think so.”

He quizzed Kit on a few more particulars before Kit excused himself and headed upstairs to bed, but not before kissing me goodnight right in front of Crispian. That made my color rise again, but once more Crispian paid no attention. Instead he was looking over the new swords.

“You know, Kitaro almost might have brought these back as proof he was there. Because without them, right now I’d be asking you how far I could trust him.”

This obviously wasn’t about Kit and me being demonstrative. “What do you mean by that?”

He caught my tone. “Nothing personal. And I do trust him. But I’d ask anyway. Maybe you know him too well to think it’s strange, but think about it. Sixty miles he runs there and back again since yesterday afternoon, and somehow in the middle of that he finds time to scout them for nearly a full day. At the end of it he’s no more blown than I’d be after a run down to the river. Any officer in the legions would give his left nut for a scout like that. One that could fight would have been a gift straight from the Warrior himself. Too good to be true. More likely a scout would shirk his duty and then lie about it. Where’d you find him, anyway?”

“He just showed up one day.” I told Crispian about our first meeting. He thought it was funny.

“You’re lucky the first guy who could take you and decided not to pay was someone like him,” he said after he stopped laughing. “Ah, well. It obviously worked out for you.”

The room suddenly felt very warm. “Um, Crispian, about that―”

“Never mind. Listen, son. A centuria goes through a lot together in battle. You and your buddies, you have to support each other, trust each other, stand by each other. Usually you owed your life to at least one of them, and others owed theirs to you. And you have to be willing to sacrifice yourself for them at any time. When you already have all that... Let’s just say that when battle fatigue hits and you think you’re going to snap if you don’t get relief from the strain, some things don’t seem like such a big step to take. Regulations said it wasn’t supposed to happen, but that was one reg no one in the infantry gave a damn about.”

“Mind you,” he called after me as I headed up to our room, “I’m glad you guys are keeping it quiet up there. Last thing I need when I’m trying to sleep is for a bed to crash down through the ceiling.”

I didn’t turn around, but let my finger talk for me. His laughter followed me up the stairway.