One thing Galin had underestimated when he thought about command was the number of things that were suddenly his concern, and not simply the ones that were properly a commander’s province.  Instead, because the company had shrunk, things that were once shared among the cadre of officers rested squarely on his shoulders and it was a burden that chafed.  He had organized for the rations to be prepared, sorted, packed onto a handful of wagons, and then transported with the troops overland toward the less-than-defined border between Vilpamolan and Adeluna.  The Crown said there were nobles there raising a small army to cause trouble, though considering their last intelligence that a handful of peasants were stomping around in the west and could be put down with a stern glance or two, Galin was wary.  There were not enough men to risk like they had before and he had come to like them, after a fashion.  A good many of them were men that had stayed with him, not out of loyalty, but because they had nowhere else to go.  Criminals fleeing from justice in the north, drunks who could not care for their families and preferred a sure gallon of beer a day to working in a field, and every other manner of degenerate and undesirable under the two moons, but they fought well and Galin found that he could trust them, and that was enough.

Except, it seemed, he could not trust them not to mire one of the carts in a muddy ford.  Harry Deepdale, one of the skirmishers that had not initially welcomed Galin’s leadership, was at the reins and he reeked cheap wine when Galin splashed and squelched through the ford to get alongside him.  “Now you’ve done it, you sot,” Galin growled and grabbed hold of the clearly inebriated man’s ankle.  “Time to go, Harry my lad.” He said almost sweetly as he yanked hard and pulled the man from the high seat of the cart and sent him splashing into the freezing stream.  “Oi, one of you lads that’s reasonably sober and good with a horse, and most importantly doesn’t want to get wet, volunteer and Harry’s cart’s y…”  Before he could finish, Colum vaulted into the seat and grinned impishly.  “Da was a drover before he joined up, see, and I’ve always had a way with the beasts.  And I’m tired of walking, so there.”  Galin shook his head and grumbled good-naturedly.  “Next time, boy-o, I won’t say lads.  Cheeky bugger.”

The rear right wheel of the cart had slipped off the stones that generations of drovers had laid in the ford to ease the crossing, and was mired in mud along the edge of the stones.  He jammed the shaft of his spear behind and under the wheel, hoping to use the ash shaft as a lever and lift the heavy oak wheel free.  “Cooper, Duncan, give me a hand at the back here!  And when I say heave, you get that nag moving, Colum, or you’ll be the one getting horsewhipped, you understand?”  The two other men leaned their backs against the cart and braced their legs while Galin tightened his grip on the spear.  “Ready… Heave!”  Colum cracked the whip and the horse lurched forward as the men strained behind the cart.  For a moment, nothing moved and then, with a great, sucking squelch, the wheel came free and the cart jolted back onto the stones and across the ford.  Galin, however, was not as lucky.  When the wheel finally came free, he found himself suddenly off balance and without even a moment to curse, he fell face first into the muddy morass that had stalled the cart.  Cooper, not bothering to contain his laughter, offered his hand and pulled Galin up out of the mire.  “Looks like the cart’s moving again, sir.  Maybe a camp here for the night wouldn’t be the worst idea?”  Galin spat out a mouthful of mud and nodded and Cooper, still laughing and starting to whistle, studiously oblivious to Galin’s glare.

It took him until the sun set to finally scrub some of the mud from his clothes, beating them against rocks on the bank of the river and watching the water muddy and brown before being swept downstream.  It was moments like these when he regretted saying that the wives and camp followers had to remain in the fortress with the garrison sections.  Maria would have had his clothing cleaned and dried in the time it took him to make himself look slightly more respectable than a pauper at the gates of the palace in Adeluna City.  Bundling his wet clothes under his arm, he wrapped his cloak around his waist in the traditional style of the Northmen.  Some of the clans still wore their cloaks as such, belted about the waist over their tunics and eschewing the trousers of the Southern peoples.  Galin had grown up wearing such a cloak, mottled brown like his was now, to blend in among the hills, but the scarcity of proper material and the general ease of finding trousers had made it an unnecessary form of dress for most man of the company.  But with his only proper trousers drenched and needing a good hang in front of a fire until they were fit to be worn, he would embrace his ancient styles out of necessity.  

A few of the men snickered when he passed but a crack form the butt of his spear taught them to have the decency to mock him behind his back, as he knew they would.  In his heart, he knew he could not fault them because he would have done the same in their place.  Thankfully Luthene had the good sense to set their fire a bit removed from the others and he gratefully sank down next to it.  “Water’s damned cold,” he said and leaned over to kiss her, “so I hope you, or more particularly, I hope Maria who I have had the good grace to pretend was not in one of the supply carts, has made something to take off the chill.  Speaking of,” he stood again and hung his trousers and tunic on branches that learned over the fire from the cork tree where he had stacked his arms.  As he turned back to Luthene, the trailing edge of his cloak caught on one of the loose branches that were stacked to feed the fire and, when he stepped toward her, it held fast and the entire cloak came away.  Galin stood there a moment, naked as the day he was born, then laughed, throwing back his head.  For once his cheeks where coloring and he yanked the cloak from the branches and draped it over himself before he sat alongside Luthene again and grinned as the color still rose in his cheeks.  “Pity we couldn’t find a way to pack that door in one of the wagons, eh darling?”

There wasn’t much to the job, at least on paper. Mercenaries, paid by more disaffected nobles, were looking to claim some land along the border, and it was the Company’s job to investigate and, ideally, eliminate the threat to the Crown. But their last job under Cedric had been, on paper, quite simple, up until the cavalry showed up. The men were, understandably, nervous. At least this time, their leader was not incompetent, which meant there would be proper scouting done before they engaged. Other men, like Cooper, were reluctant to leave the women behind. Luthene advised against hiding Maria in the back of the cart and bringing her along, especially in her condition, but they rightly pointed out that she and Galin would be together the whole time and couldn’t possibly understand, and while she knew Galin was going to find out eventually, Luthene promised not to be the one to tell him.

As it turned out, ‘eventually’ meant ‘partway through the first day’. One of the wheels of the cart got stuck, and Maria wasn’t able to sneak out before Galin saw her, though he was more concerned with getting the cart moving again than with her. Once the cart was free, Galin found himself in need of a wash, and they decided to make camp.

Luthene moved their fire a bit away from the rest, so as to allow Maria to more easily get something for herself. “Same stew everyone else is eating, but she added some spices to it, so it’ll be warm. Ginger, of course, and a few other things.” Maria added ginger to everything these days. Luthene was about to get a bowl for Galin when his cloak caught on a branch, leaving him stark naked and laughing. His cheeks reddened, as did hers, but she did laugh a little alongside him nonetheless. “You know, there’s not a thing under there I haven’t seen before,” she said with a smile, pouring a generous amount of stew into a bowl for Galin, which she handed to him when he sat down next to her. “A door isn’t much use unless we have walls, too,” she said with a blush. “I didn’t bring any tea with me, anyway.” She didn’t expect to need it when they were out, and she and Galin had agreed she would keep using it until they were properly wed. Still, he had said that, once the fight was over, they might plan it, so what did it matter?

“You know, we may nee to speak to Cooper and Maria before we plan our handfasting,” Luthene said between bites of stew. “She’s been trying to convince him to do it for months, and I think he’s finally agreed.” She smiled in the dim light. “She’s due in a little over six months. I imagine they’ll say something soon. She’s lost a few before, but this one is going to stay.” She held up her bowl. “Thus all the ginger. Anyway, assuming Cooper has relented, we should let them have their day to celebrate first.” Finishing her stew, Luthene set her bowl aside, then leaned over to kiss Galin. “And don’t you take that as a sign I have cold feet, either. I’d wed you tonight if I could, and you know it.”

“Cheeky one, you are, tossing that line back at me,” he said, chuckling. He sat next to her and spooned some of the stew into his mouth and grimaced. Maria’s cooking was generally regarded as the best in the company but her new fixation with ginger was spoiling Galin’s meals. He could not stand the stuff and it seemed that every time they ate together, it made its way into the dish, no matter what the dish was or even if it made sense to add it. “Can’t stand the ginger, you know. If she keeps this up, I might have to take my life into my own hands and trust you with the cooking. That should tell you how much I truly dislike the stuff,” he said and wrapped an arm around her shoulders affectionately to show his words were not meant as anything but a jest. “Shame about the tea, though. Might have been romantic, after a fashion, like them poems say. Under the stars and all that.” He forced down more of the stew while Luthene spoke about Cooper and Maria’s situation. He nearly choked when she mentioned that the pair would be wed properly and Maria’s condition.

“Fuck’s sake, that old bugger and Maria, wedded up proper, and with a wee’un on the way? What sort of strange world is this, eh? Madness, that, totally bleeding madness. And there’s no way I am waiting for Cooper to shift his arse for making a proper honest woman out of you, you know. Ain’t the sort of thing a commander’d have to run by his officers, marrying his woman, after all.” He put his stew aside, a good half the bowl still left as a result of the ginger, and kissed her back. “I think I’ll be a proper soldier, a good Highland man and take what I want, Cooper be damned. And we both know what that is, eh?” He kissed her again then gave her a crooked grin. “Oh, love, where did my gear end up? The cork tree, yeah?” When she confirmed it, Galin wandered over, whistling to himself and rooted around until he found his coin purse, He kept his back to Luthene while he fished around until he found what he was looking for. During one of his trips into the city to gather provisions for the march, he stopped at Blas’ shop again and left an order that the smith was able to produce inside the week. Galin was happy with how it had turned out, with the craftsman recreating the sort of patterns that a man would expect to see in a Dunholm shop and not in Adeluna. He concealed the silver band in his hand and turned back to Luthene.

“Sorry love, had to check I didn’t lose anything when I took the header into the stream, so if’n I had, I would be able to check before the light’s all gone.” He walked back toward her but did not take his seat again. Instead, he squatted in front of her until he could look her in the eyes, then dropped to one knee. “Well, I know it ain’t handfasting tonight like you said, but I hope it’s a step in the right direction,” he said and held up the silver band between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s how your folk down here do things, if I am not too far off the mark, and I figure, might as well do like they do where I am. So, Luthene, will you marry me?” He looked at her from the ground and smiled, hoping her words before had not just been bluster and that her answer would be yes as his heart pounded in his chest.

“Well, she’s shown me a few things, so if you did need me to manage the cooking, it’s less likely that I’ll burn it, or poison you somehow. Try holding your nose when you eat, you don’t taste as much that way.” That was how Luthene managed to force down her tea each morning. “Been reading ahead in the poetry book?” she asked, blushing. “I don’t remember that one.”

Galin’s reaction to the news about Maria made her laugh, but she also beamed. It was good, and also a relief, to know that Galin wanted to wed her without delay. “Cooper be damned, indeed, I’m thinking about Maria! She doesn’t have the time you and I have. And not so loud, either!” Luthene added, kissing Galin again. “She told me more than a month ago. The ginger was my idea, helps her keep food down, I didn’t know you disliked it so much. Anyway, I don’t want the men to find out because they can hear you.” In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure what Galin was getting at when he mentioned being ‘a good Highland man’ and taking what he wanted. Was he speaking about marrying her when they got back to the fort? Or something more immediate?

When Galin left to find his things, Luthene took her empty bowl and wandered over to the next nearest fire. “Any stew left?” she asked the men. The men nodded. “Mind if I take some? Galin hates ginger.” While what remained in their pot wasn’t enough to fill the bowl, and didn’t smell all too appetizing, Luthene offered it to Galin all the same when he returned. “No ginger in this one,” she explained.

He didn’t sit down right away, Luthene noticed, nor did he pay much attention to the food. Then she saw the glint of metal in the firelight, and gasped when she saw what it was. “Yes,” she replied the moment the words had left Galin’s mouth. “Yes, I will marry you,” she said again, holding out her hand for him to slide the ring on to her finger. The knotwork pattern around the band was a Highland design, she noted, and it couldn’t be more perfect. The giving of a ring was a Southern custom, but this one had a special Northern character to it, indicative of the culture of the man giving it. Luthene wrapped her arms around Galin’s neck and kissed him. “Yes,” she said a third time when she finally pulled away long enough to say the word. It seemed even more real, now.

“Is that a ring?” Luthene looked up to see Maria reaching for her hand.

“It is!” Luthene said, still beaming. “Galin asked me to marry him, and I’ve accepted.”

Maria wrapped an arm around Luthene and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m happy for you,” she said, and she meant it. “Now, did you happen to see where Owen went? Seems I need to have words with him.” Luthene pointed to a nearby fire, where she had gotten more stew for Galin. “Owen Cooper!” she shouted as she wandered over. “Did you see what Galin just gave to Luthene? A ring! More importantly, he asked to marry her! They are going to bed wed, and here I’ve put up with you for near three years, and all I’ve got to show for it is a bun in the oven! It’s the first day of Rhea’s festival, and you’ve forgotten again…”

Luthene burst out laughing and couldn’t hear the rest. “I had forgotten about the festival. It’s a celebration of love, or lust, sometimes it’s hard to tell what people are celebrating. Not that it matters much to you and I, as Rhea is one of Conclave.” She nestled in closer to Galin, then pulled him closer so she could kiss him, properly, this time without interruption from Maria. It really was a shame they had no door.

Reconnaissance elements from Cooper’s sections had reported back that they had seen the enemy encampment three hours away, based around an abandoned farmstead. The camp was laid out with military precision, not the haphazard collection of tends bandits or raiders would have put up, and there were small, two man patrols of the camp’s perimeter during the night. The forces were much as the report had suggested, about a hundred or so men as well as the two disaffected knights, or at least that was what the men assumed from the banners they saw outside the farmhouse. It would be simple enough to attack the camp with stealth and surprise but Galin was quick to caution his officers that there would be challenges here that they had not faced when they took their fort. The men they were fighting were men like themselves, professionals who knew their way around a blade and would not die as easily as bandits who were better versed in assaulting old women on market days than the crash and blood of battle. These men would prove a tougher nut to crack, Galin thought, as he crawled up the crest of a small ridge near the encampment and waited, his crossbow’s cord drawn back and a quarrel fitted in the groove. He had wrapped the tip in parchment stuffed with wool dipped in pitch. Beside him was a small clap dish filled with embers from the night’s cooking fires. Other men crawled up the ridge some of Cooper’s best skirmishers, and they spread out along the crest, each man with a fire arrow and pot of embers.

When the patrol passed in front of them and turned to circle the far side of the camp’s perimeter, Galin nodded to the men on either side of him and rose to his knees. He took the quarrel from the crossbow and shoved the tip into the pot of embers until the parchment and wool began to smolder and smoke, then flamed to life. He slipped the bolt back into the groove in the crossbow’s stock, brought it up to his shoulder, and loosed the bolt into the cluster of tents. As the flaming missile glowed, arcing through the night sky, the other skirmishers lit their arrows and sent them speeding into the camp. As they struck tents, the flames quickly spread and with them, chaos. When the tents flared up, Galin dropped his crossbow and sprinted down the hill while Hugh and Padraig’s sections stormed the camp from the west. Men stumbled from their tents, sometimes with their clothes on fire, screaming and trying to make sense of the attack and Galin’s men slammed into the midst of them like a battering ram. Before they left their own camp, each man tied a strip of white cloth around their right arm to distinguish friend from foe in the darkness of the fight, and now, with the Highlanders streaming into the opposing camp, these white-wrapped sword arms began to do their bloody work.

Galin used his shield to parry the wild thrust of a man’s spear as he ran among the tents then hacked down with his heavy war sword, taking the head off the spear’s shaft. Before the man could recover, Galin revered the blade and sliced it into the man’s stomach, twisting it left and right before ripping it out with a wet squelch. The man collapsed with a mew of pain and Galin backswung his blade one more time and half-severed his neck. Running ahead in the fiery chaos, Galin saw one of his men being set upon by two of the mercenaries. Without even a word of warning, he closed the distance and hacked down with his heavy blade, splitting open the man’s skull to the base of his neck. When the other man saw his comrade fall, he dropped his weapon and sank to his knees, hands up in a sign of mute surrender. “Bind him,” Galin barked, and turned toward the far side of the camp as the sounds of battle drifted toward the barnyard itself. “With me!” He sprinted through the camp, legs pumping as he leapt over corpses and the burning debris of tents. Cooper’s sections followed him, strung out in a loose column behind him.

When they arrived at the barnyard, Padraig and Hugh’s men had encircled a small band of men, well disciplined by the look of them, who rather than panic, had calmly armed themselves and fought together as a unit, cutting through their own fellows to carve a path out of the slaughter. Something about them sparked recognition in Galin but in the flickering light of dozens of small fires, it was hard to say for sure. Pushing his way through the ring of men around the survivors, Galin shouted for them to throw down their weapons and they would be spared. “There’s no need for more bloodshed tonight. We’ve won and either you lot thrown down and we’ll take you in alive or we butcher every mother’s son of you. Me, I’ve seen enough men dead today, so how about we end this now, eh?” The men, drawing even closer in their knot of shields, appeared to confer for a few moments and whispers and snatches of conversation carried on the evening wind. Their tone, Galin realized, was familiar. It was the brogue of the Northlands and it explained their calm while under attack. Night raids were part and parcel of the Highland way of war and it was nothing these men had not experienced since their childhood.

“Aye, we’ll throw down, but I want yer word we walk out of here alive. Yer word, Galin.” A voice called out from the middle of the survivors and Galin was halfway through his answer when the thought struck him that he had not given his name. Other men noticed it as well and an angry murmur rippled through the surrounding men.

“Aye, you have it, you won’t be harmed,” Galin continued, more concerned with averting a slaughter than the confusion over his name. One by one, swords and spears were tossed to the ground outside the mass of survivors as the men surrendered, content with Galin’s offer. One of them stepped forward and laid his sword down more carefully and when he stood, his face was illuminated in the light of a hay bale burning behind him. One of Galin’s men growled and drew his own sword, his lips pulled back in a rictus of rage.

“They’re the cowardly fuckers that killed the camp. They’re Cedric’s fucking men! Fucking kill the bastards!”

With a howl, the man leapt forward, his blade flashing lightning quick in the light of the fire and blood spouted from the unarmed man’s neck as the steel bit deep. The roar of the attacking man was taken up by the rest and Galin, shouting over them to halt, to stay their blades, was helpless. And in the eerie, flame-lit night, the husbands and fathers and brothers of the company exacted a brutal revenge for the horror visited on their wives and families by Cedric and his escaping men. Galin, unable to stop them and unwilling to watch the butchery, sank to the ground against the barnyard’s wall, hung his head, and wept from sheer frustration at it all.

This battle was not a complete rout from the moment it started, but it was close. While the numbers were about equal on both sides, Galin had planned to take them by surprise, at night. Luthene was west of the camp with her section, along with Hugh and Padraig. When the fight of the fire arrows touched cloth and set the tents ablaze, they rushed into the confusion, and the killing started.

Men fled from burning tents— some having grabbed a weapon first, and others with empty hands— and were cut down as the Highland Company fell upon them like wolves on hares. Luthene’s section was the last to reach the camp, and there was little left for them to do. She saw one man, already cut down, but grasping for a weapon, and she drove the point of her blade into his neck before moving on.

The trouble was at the barnyard, where men had managed to arm themselves and formed a small ring of shields and sword that might be difficult to penetrate. Duncan ordered his section to advance, and Luthene followed him towards the ring. One of them stepped forward with a spear and tried to pierce Duncan before Hugh arrived with his troop and cut the spearman down. Luthene pulled Duncan back, and was relieved to find that his cuirass had done its job stopping the spear. There was very little blood, and while she couldn’t be certain while he still had it on, she didn’t think the point had penetrated very deep. “I think you’ll be fine,” she said.

Galin had arrived by this point, and advised the ring of men, now surrounded by the Company, to surrender. There was a pause, and the one man, a man with a distinct Highland accent, asked Galin by name to give his word that they would not be harmed. The hairs on the back of Luthene’s neck stood on end. The voice was a familiar one. Worse, as she saw some of the other men exchange glances, she did not think she was the only one who knew it. Galin gave his word, and the men in the ring threw down their shields, spears, and a few swords.

Murtagh, a section officer under Hugh, was the one who finally voiced what Luthene and some of the other men had suspected: these were the men with Cedric who had attacked the camp. They had raped and killed the women left behind, Murtagh’s wife among them. Galin may have given his word that the men who laid down their arms would not be harmed, but the rage of Murtagh and others was too strong, and they descended on the ring of now-unarmed men with sword and spear and axe. She could hear Hugh trying to order his men away, and Luthene was surprised not to hear Galin giving the same command.

When she found Galin, he was slumped on the ground against the barnyard wall, and weeping. She couldn’t recall ever having seen him cry before, and was cautious as she crouched down beside him and wrapped an arm around him. For a while she was silent, squeezing his shoulder every so often when the shouts of the men crescendoed. “We need to make camp ourselves for the night,” Luthene said finally when the sounds of butchery grew quieter. “The men order to stand down, and a watch set.” Luthene stood up, and offered a hand to help Galin up as well. “Whenever you’re ready. I’ll be right beside you, always.”

“You think I don’t know that, Owen? You think I didn’t fucking have the sense to think of that?”

Galin paced up and down the length of his chamber, glaring at Cooper who lounged near the hearth, looking on as Galin stalked the room like a caged animal. The march back from the assault had been done as quickly as Galin could manage as he tried to distance himself from the needless slaughter in the barnyard. Most of the men in Hugh and Padriag’s troops were marched in the center of the column, some, like Murtagh, under guard and disarmed. Their massacre of the prisoners was an egregious breach of both discipline and the rules of war and it left Galin in a terrible position. He needed to discipline them and ensure that in the future, his orders would be obeyed even if they were not popular but if he were to exact the traditional punishment, the execution of the mutineers, he would destroy the company as a fighting unit. So he was left between the stresses of discipline and expedience and there was no simple answer and that truth had been gnawing at Galin the entire march. He had the officers who participated in the massacre in irons in the fort but the men themselves had been allowed to return to their families until Galin had decided their fate. Cooper, in his drawling, frustrating way, had suggested that the men in irons might be allowed to return as well, otherwise the men might start to think Galin was being unfair, and moreover, that he had to choose a punishment that would not deprive the rest of the men of a chance to earn a living with at least a third of the company executed for the events in the barnyard.

“If I kill the bastards for breaking an oath and killing prisoners, as well as disobeying orders while under arms, I won’t have more than a handful of men left. But I can’t just give them a stern talking-to and let them off. They fucking disobeyed orders, Cooper, and you know how bad that is. If it happens once and it isn’t dealt with, it will happen again. It isn’t just the orders that you like that you have to bloody obey. Maker’s bollocks!” He slammed his fist into the side table then poured himself a mug of wine that he quickly drained. “They’re good fucking men, Cooper, I know that and you know that. Murtagh was in the Valley for the Maker’s sake, and yet here we fucking are. Good men, in a bad situation to be sure, but not a bloody impossible one. They’re men, not damned animals, and they’re soldiers. I expect them to act like it. And that means following my fucking orders.” While Galin refilled his mug and drained it again, Cooper spoke softly, in sharp contrast to the near shouts of his commander.

“It was not right, but you have to understand them. They saw the men that tortured their families and it was a madness. Maria weren’t there, but if she was, maybe I’d be under guard in your dungeon as well. What if Luthene was, eh? Would you be so high and mighty if it were here corpse all burned up we dragged from a hut? You’ve got to show sense, show mercy.”

Galin glared at him and hurled his empty wine mug at the big man. The clay shattered against the wall next to Cooper’s head and he ducked to avoid the shards that rained down on him after. “Who the hell do you think you are, Owen?! You telling me what I’ve got to do like you’re what? My bloody father? Take your self-righteous preaching and stuff it up your arse. I’ve got to make sure we don’t lose the bloody discipline of the fucking company. That’s what I’ve got to do, not to coddle men that don’t have the good sense the Maker gave them not to slaughter unarmed men who damn well surrendered, and in direct defiance of my bloody orders. Get out, get the fuck out of here, and gather the officers. I will meet with you when I am good and fucking ready to decide how this ends. Go, Cooper, now.”

The big man bit his tongue, saluted, and walked silently out of the room, his hobnailed boots echoing on the flagstones of the hall as Galin tried to calm his temper. Luthene, silent through this exchange, could see the struggle on his face but waited for him to speak instead, knowing that it would be more effective than trying to guide him to an answer. “I can’t kill them all,” he said, his tone suddenly flat and defeated. “And deep down, I don’t fucking want to.” He collapsed into the chair at his writing desk and let his head hang. “They’re men who were made to bury murdered families and they acted like it. I can bloody well understand that, but they are still soldiers, and they are still subject to orders, even when they are distasteful. I bloody hated giving the order, but it was that or cold blooded murder and that makes us no better than them. So someone has to pay for it. There is a price for disobedience, for mutiny, and for murder. And I can’t have my feelings on the matter come into play. I lead these men, for better or worse. I am not their friend, not when things like this happen. I am… I am the bloody hand of the Maker and he himself only knows how much I hate it.” He looked up at her and the pain was evident in his face as he struggled to find a way to maintain order without brutalizing men who had already suffered enough at the hands of Cedric and his men. “The men… the troopers… they’ll be on a reduction in pay, half wages for a month, and working details whenever I decide they look too happy. And I am halving their ration of spirits. Maker knows I’d like to beat a few of them bloody but they only followed their officers and there’s no way to know who did what exactly. The officers though…” He sighed and his expression hardened again.

“The officers should have known better. They are leaders of men and they set the example, and it’s one of them that will be the example. To a man, they know the way things are done, what is expected of them, and every one that participated in the massacre is not worthy of that title. Each of them will be punished as with the other men, but are stripped of their ranks and pay. And one of them will have to die. There is an obvious candidate, of course,” he said heavily. “Now, he did not want anyone to know this, but Murthagh’s dying already. He’s known since before the plague, before everything with Cedric. The old physician told him it was a karkinos in his throat and chest and he would not live past this summer, even with the Maker’s own luck. He told me when he was made an officer, didn’t want to saddle me with picking another before too long, but he was a good soldier, a Valley man, and I trusted him. And now he ain’t got the wife and bairns anymore, so it would be a mercy to end it before the karkinos starts to make his life a living hell. A hurting man gets relief and the company sees that defiance has a price. It ain’t how I’d prefer it, but maybe, for once, it ain’t about what way I’d want it, but what the company needs. Been through more’n enough these last months that a bloodletting would kill us, sure as I sit. So maybe the company gets its punishment, Murthagh gets his wee’uns back, and we can put this nightmare behind us?” He looked back at her, questioning, wordlessly asking if she thought he was doing the right thing.

When they checked the bodies in the morning, it proved difficult to tell just how many men had died in the slaughter, and harder to recognize them. All in all, they figured about twenty men butchered in the barnyard had followed Cedric, but Cedric himself was not among their number. That was unfortunate, Luthene thought. It meant that this wasn’t over; worse, it might happen again. She had tried to comfort Galin on the march back, when they had finally stopped for the night, but she didn’t really know how.

When they arrived back at the fort, the officers who were involved in the massacre— as far as anyone could tell— were put in irons. Cooper joined Galin and Luthene in their chamber, more as a friend than as an officer, to discuss the mess they were in. And it was a mess, a bloody one, and there was no good solution. There had to be some penalty for disobedience, they all agreed on that, but Cooper also pointed out that many of the men were sympathetic to Murtagh and the others who had directly participated in the killing. Furthermore, to execute or discharge the men who had participated would leave the already-small Company much smaller, and perhaps unable to fulfill the duties required of them.

Cooper had the sense not to say anything more when Galin dismissed him in a fury. Luthene could tell Galin wasn’t done. She had been sitting on a small stool near their bed, and remained there, silent, waiting for the anger to dissipate. When it did, he seemed so dejected. He already knew what had to be done, decided on a punishment, and now he was looking to her to see if he was, in fact, doing the right thing. Luthene stood up, crossed the room to where Galin was sitting, and put her arms around him. “Whatever you decide, know that you will have my support.” She kissed him tenderly, then stood up, behind him, gently massaging his neck and shoulders. “Speak to Murtagh first, before the officers. He’s a good man. See if, perhaps, he would say something, condemn his own actions, or at least some of them, in front of the rest of the men. Have him accept his death as the price of his disobedience. I think it would go better with the men if Murtagh willingly goes to meet his Maker. Then let him go to his death as a man; take the irons off, ask him if he… has a preference where his execution is concerned.” Her hands were still for a moment. “You must be the one to do it. If he wants to die by the axe, you must wield it. If his choice is hemlock, you must hand him the cup. You are the one giving this order, and the most honourable thing to do is to carry it out yourself.”

Luthene resumed rubbing Galin’s shoulders, quiet again for a moment. “It was dark that night, and the men were a mob. It’s near impossible to be certain which of the men took part, and which did not, unless they admit their crimes; sadly, I don’t think they all would. Then the pointing of fingers would start, and you’d have another mess.” She sighed. “And besides, even those of us who did not participate in the killing, most did little or nothing to stop it. I agree, officers who are known to have participated ought to be stripped of their rank. But I’m not sure anyone is entirely blameless in this, save perhaps young Colum. Half wages for everyone. Yes, me as well. And half rations of spirits. We are one Company, we fight together, and when so many of us behave badly, we are all guilty in some way. As such, we all must accept the consequences of our actions or inactions. And if all men are punished, perhaps going forward, no one man will risk stepping out of line in case the whole of the Company ends up paying for it.”

Speak to Murtagh… He sighed when she said and he realized that she was right. He would have preferred to let the matter rest until the execution and be done with it in a single swing of his blade, but she was right. He owed it to the man to tell him, to speak with him after he was to die at Galin’s hand, and maybe there would be something Murtagh could do in death to help heal the wounds in the company. If he made a statement and repented, even in part, even just the mutiny, it would do a great deal to help repair relations with the men that had joined him in that frenzy of blood and revenge. “Aye, I’ll speak to him, of course. The poor bastard and I ate the same dirt in the Valley running your lot through their paces. He deserves to have words with the man that means to send him over the Bridge of Swords.”

“And for the rest… it won’t be the whole company. I can’t punish men I know are innocent for the actions of others. Cooper’s sections, the two not with Hugh, not yours, that is, they had no hand in the killing and I won’t deprive their families for the sake of hurt feelings. But everyone else… aye. Half pay, half rations, hard labor, and the officers are stripped of their ranks. They sure as hell will not like it but it is the only way. More like as not, I’ll restore them in a few weeks anyhow, the officers, but don’t tell that, eh?” He winked at Luthene and kissed her tenderly, then sighed, deep in his chest. “I think we’ve got to go get our visitor,” he said, accepted that even if he put it off, the conversation with Murtagh would have to happen. Rising slowly from the chair like a condemned man himself, he walked to his door and opened it, shouting for one of the men to bring Murtagh to his chamber. “You can stay, love,” he said when he looked back at Luthene, “so long as he don’t mind. I’d like you here, if I could, a bit of moral support while I tell a man than in half a day I’ll be the one ending his life. Ain’t my finest moment, that.”

The old man, looking more like a disheveled boar with his hair askew and his wide, shuffling gat, walked into the room and sat without biding at one end of a small table. Galin poured wine into one of the remaining cups and pushed it to the man who drank it gratefully in a single swallow and put his cup out for more. “Ain’t no sense having this talk sober, eh?” He rubbed his wrists, chaffed raw by the manacles that the guard had taken off him in the dungeon’s low cell. Galin smiled and refilled the man’s cup, then filled his own and sat across from him, letting the man speak at his own pace. “Well bucko, it looks like you’ve learned what Domnall always said about command, eh? All the men in the world around you but you’re the loneliest bastard in the army. I… I’m sorry I put you in a spot like this. Well… I can’t say that exactly, but…”

Galin reached out and gripped the man’s calloused hand. “I know, old friend. You saved me in the Valley when Bohari lancers turned the line and we bled there as brothers. You only did what your heart said had to be done and Maker knows that if it were me and not you, I may have done the same.” He saw a spark of sad understanding in the man’s eyes and took a long swallow of the heavy red wine. “I would still have been a mutineer, but I know how you could see that as worth the price. But… the price has to be paid. I haven’t told the officers yet, nor anyone but my woman, but… I think you may be able to save me and the company one more time.”

Murtagh looked at him, more resolute, and nodded. “Go on, wee man. Let’s see if Domnall was right after all.”

Galin smiled and nodded back, almost laughing at Murtagh called him what his messmates had called him when he first left the North, still not fully grown into adulthood, and knew that he had made the right choice. “There needs to be blood and we both know it. By the letter of the law, by the old ways, every man that left the line and followed you should die. But… they left for a reason I can’t ever hope to understand and pray to the Maker I never do. So, in deference to their suffering and their service, I will commute their sentences and only one man will have to die. And…” Galin downed the rest of his wine and took a deep breath before he continued. “Murtagh, I know you miss your Aisling and the wee’uns. Every man can see it on your face and now ain’t the time to deny it. And the karkinos’ll kill you before the shearing times and it’ll be a terrible death, not the death of a warrior. So..”

“I’ll do it.”

Galin let out a breath he did not know he had been holding and refilled both their cups. “I will be the one to carry it out, old friend, and it will be painless. Wear your armor, carry your sword, and when you die, you will cross the Bridge of Swords with your name intact, dying a hero to save your friends with a blade in your hand. You will be welcomed to the Maker’s feast and see your loves again…” He patted the man’s hand as he spoke, seeing tears pricking at the corners of his deep brown eyes at the idea of being returned to his family. “Before you do, you’ll spend tonight with the men. Eat, drink, tell stories, sing songs, and tomorrow, at dawn, you will begin your journey home. All I ask is that you tell the men it is your choice, and that they are being redeemed by your sacrifice. It will begin to heal the wound of that night.” Murtagh gripped his hand and shook it firmly, a hint of his old fire back in his eyes.

“Are you sure, bucko? Sure you have what it takes to finish so great a warrior?” He laughed and threw back his wine. “You are a better man than even Domnall would have expected, wee man. If I was you, I would have taken half the men who broke ranks and had the company kill them to a man. Ain’t sayin’ you’re soft, mind, just that you’re a damned sight smarter than you look. How about the rest of the men? I can’t expect that they don’t suffer a whit for all this?”

Galin smiled at the unexpected compliment and looked to Luthene a second before turning back to Murtagh. “Half pay for all the men but that were on the hill with me and Cooper who were for sure not involved. Officers are broken back to the ranks, and half spirit rations. When you go out there, tell ‘em it’s three months’ punishment you heard, but between us, it’ll just be the month, and some hard labor. We have all suffered enough.” It was, he thought, the most equitable thing he could do and Murtagh deserved to know the leniency his sacrifice was buying for his comrades.

Murtagh stood up and waited for Galin to do the same before stepping forward to embrace him in a chest-bursting bear hug. He leaned close and whispered something in Galin’s ear, and Galin whispered back, “I promise.” Then he let go and took a step back. With the precision of a man bred to war and schooled as a soldier, he cracked a salute, turned on his heel, and left, calling for the guard to clear the way and warn the camp, Murtagh was on the loose. Galin walked over and closed the door behind him, then sat heavily alongside Luthene. “I just pray we are making the right choice. He is a damned good man.”

It was no easy thing, to tell a man that he was condemned to die the next morning. When Galin asked her to stay while he did so, Luthene nodded. “Of course,” she said, reaching for his hand and holding it tight until Murtagh arrived. The two men sat down at a table, and she stood behind Galin. Murtagh was considerably more interested in the wine than in her presence, so she stayed, silent, and doing nothing more than placing a hand on Galin’s shoulder so he knew she was there.

They did not speak to each other as a commander to a section officer, but as two men who had been through a war together, and all the camaraderie that went with it. Luthene suspected that Murtagh knew, from the moment he was summoned, that Galin meant to execute him. Knew it, perhaps, from the moment he drew steel against an unarmed man, in defiance of his commander’s order. But Murtagh would go to it willingly, in acceptance of the price a mutineer must pay, and that is what he would tell the men.

Luthene did not hear what Murtagh whispered, just before he left, but she knew, anyway. When Galin sat back down, she took the other chair beside him, and took both of his hands in hers. “It is the only choice. You and I both know it, and so does he. It’s part of what makes him a good man.” She sighed. “I hope you can keep that promise. I think Murtagh suspected he wouldn’t live to see Cedric pay for his crimes, but it’s a certainty now. It’s hard to leave a task like that unfinished, but having your word on it, Galin, that is the next best thing. He knows what it means for you to give your word.” She squeezed his hands. “He’s wrong about one thing, though, and Domnall, too: you are not alone. Perhaps I can’t be right beside you to help you bring that sword down, but I’ll be there to witness it. So long as I live, you are not alone.” Luthene leaned in and kissed him, firmly, and then found that neither of them were willing to pull away.

Someone pounded on the door and forced them apart. Luthene was about to curse Cooper aloud when another voice called out, “Galin! I’ve just come from the tavern, is it true? You’re really going to kill Murtagh?”

“I’ll try to make him understand,” Luthene said quietly. She kissed Galin’s cheek as he stood, and walked over to the door, opening it slowly. As expected, Colum tried to rush through and ambush Galin, but she caught him, and turned the lad around. “I need you in the armoury. Come with me,” she said, in a tone Colum knew meant there would be no arguing with her.

The armoury was empty, and Luthene was silent until she saw the great sword hanging on the wall. She guided Colum over to it, and they stood in front of it. “Do I get to sharpen that?” he asked, sounding far more eager than he usually was with her.

“I expect Galin will want to do that himself,” Luthene replied, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “That sword was Domnall’s, before he died, and to the commander before him, probably going back to before you were born. This is what he’ll use, tomorrow. With Murtagh.”

“But… why?” Colum asked. “Weren’t they Cedric’s men?”

“They were.”

“Then I’m glad Murtagh killed them. They killed my Ma! They deserved to die!”

“Yes.” Luthene said simply. “But not there. That is why Murtagh must die tomorrow.” Colum looked up at her, confused. Luthene shook her head. “Colum, you really shouldn’t be in the tavern, but if you must, you should stay long enough to hear everything. What Murtagh did, that was mutiny. Galin asked those men, Cedric’s men, to surrender, and gave his word they’d walk out of that yard alive. It means a lot, when a man gives his word, and he must not break it. Murtagh, though… he disobeyed Galin’s order. He killed a man, even though Galin said that wouldn’t happen, and after those men had put down their weapons.” She sighed. “Those men deserved to die, and likely they would have, but only after being brought back and tried, first. It’s not the killing that’s the problem, not really. A soldier must never disobey an order, you see. And when Galin gives his word, that is the Company’s word. Do you understand?”

Colum frowned, but nodded. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t think anyone does. But it has to be done. There must always be a price paid for mutiny, and Murtagh has agreed to pay it. Tomorrow, at dawn. All the men must be there to witness it. Will you stand with me?”

“Yes,” Colum said quietly, eyes fixed on the sword.

Luthene rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “You and I have to be strong tomorrow, for Galin’s sake. It’s easier together; we can support each other.”