Chapter 15 — The Margrave’s Road

Chapter 15: Chapter 15 — The Margrave’s Road

Chapter 15 — The Margrave’s Road

The southern watch challenged someone on the road shortly before midnight.

Walter left the fire and drew his sword. Two apprentices moved with him while the nearest families remained beneath their blankets; after several quiet days beyond Northgate, most had learned not to run toward every disturbance.

"It’s Hales," Walter called a moment later. "Open the wagons."

Simon Atwood entered the camp first with a bulging pack across his shoulders. Adam Fletcher followed with another pack and several captured weapons tied together. Both looked exhausted but remained on their feet.

Godfrey and Thomas came behind them carrying Peter Cobb on a litter.

Christopher was beside them before he remembered crossing the distance. Peter’s eyes were closed. A dark bandage covered most of his thigh, and blood had soaked through one side.

"Mabel," Godfrey said.

Walter had already sent someone to wake her.

Mabel arrived wearing her cloak over her nightclothes, her hair hanging loose around her face. She knelt, touched Peter’s neck, then examined the bandage without removing it.

"Was it a spear?" she asked.

"Through the outer thigh," Godfrey said. "The head was barbed. I broke it off and pulled the shaft back."

"How badly did it bleed?"

"Heavy at first. Slowed under pressure."

Mabel nodded once. "Put him in the covered wagon. I need boiled water and my case."

Everyone obeyed. Godfrey had done what soldiers did when a healer was miles away, and Mabel took charge of the patient.

Bram took Thomas’s end of the litter. Martha put water over the fire while Joan fetched clean cloth. The settlers watched for a moment, then returned to their bedding when Walter told them there was no attack.

Christopher followed the litter until Mabel stopped him at the wagon.

"I need room, my lord."

"Can you tell whether he will live?"

"Not until I open the bandage and see what the spear damaged."

The cloth dropped between them.

Godfrey walked to the fire and lowered himself onto a log. Snow had melted into his hair, and dried blood marked his coat. Christopher stood across from him.

"How many orcs were in the hollow?"

"Eleven. Nine dead. Two escaped east."

"Were any of the others wounded?"

"Simon has a cut on his arm. The rest are untouched."

Simon had already rolled up his sleeve for Adam to clean the shallow wound. Neither appeared concerned.

"You said the orcs were weak," Christopher said.

"They were weak. They still carried weapons."

Christopher’s eyes went to the covered wagon.

Godfrey followed his gaze. "Even starving orcs can kill."

Thomas stood nearby cleaning his shield. Walter checked the captured weapons. Godfrey took a cup of hot water from Martha and drank. None of them looked shocked by what had happened.

"Was the camp a threat?" Christopher asked.

"Yes. If we had passed them, they could have followed us after dark."

"Was removing that threat worth risking four apprentices?"

Godfrey looked at him over the rim of the cup. "Ask me after we know whether Cobb keeps the leg."

Christopher disliked the answer because it was honest.

Walter opened one of the packs near the fire. Coins, bracelets, buckles, silver cups and broken jewelry had been wrapped inside a piece of stained cloth, a small gold chain tangled around a decorated spoon.

"Four packs came back," Walter said. "The rest was hidden near the hollow."

"Could we find the hidden plunder again if we returned later?" Christopher asked.

Simon nodded. "I marked two trees beside the trail."

"We could send riders at first light," Walter said.

Christopher looked around the camp. Two orcs were still somewhere east of the road, and Peter had been wounded collecting what they already carried.

"No. Leave it hidden. We won’t risk another man for cups and jewelry."

Walter tied the pack closed without objecting.

Inside the wagon, Peter groaned once. Thomas paused with the cleaning cloth against his shield, but Godfrey told him to finish his work.

"You will take first watch tomorrow," Godfrey said.

Thomas stared at him. "Sir?"

"You heard me. First watch tomorrow."

"Yes, sir. I will be ready."

Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it and returned to his shield. Godfrey watched until the last stain was gone from the rim.

Mabel emerged after the water had gone cold in Christopher’s cup. Blood marked her hands, but her voice remained steady.

"The main artery was missed. I cleaned the wound and stitched both openings."

"How serious is the wound?" Christopher asked.

"Bad enough. He lost blood, and the spear was filthy. If the wound stays clean, he should live."

"And if the wound does not stay clean?"

"He gets a fever. Then we see whether the medicine is enough."

Godfrey set down his cup. "Can he travel?"

"In a wagon. Pad the floor with straw and blankets. Keep the leg tied so it doesn’t roll."

Christopher had expected her to demand that they remain in camp.

"You believe he can travel tomorrow?" he asked.

Mabel wiped her hands on a wet cloth. "We can keep moving. Take the worst ruts slowly."

Godfrey studied Christopher but said nothing.

Christopher saw a badly injured young man and wanted the road to stop. Mabel cleaned the wound, bound it and prepared for whatever came next, and Godfrey had probably seen men march with worse.

Stopping the entire convoy would leave every family exposed on the road, so he let Mabel decide what Peter could endure.

"We leave at the usual time," he said. "Walter, double the eastern watch. The escaped orcs may follow."

"Yes, my lord. I will place two more men along the eastern side."

The camp settled again. Mabel remained with Peter while Godfrey ate cold bread beside the fire. Christopher returned to his tent but slept little, because every sound from the wagon brought him awake. Before long, he found Godfrey adding wood to the fire.

"Is he worse?" Christopher asked.

"No. His breathing has not changed."

"Then why are you sitting beside the fire instead of sleeping?"

Godfrey gave him a tired look. "I have the second watch."

Christopher had forgotten that the camp still needed guards and firewood, that two surviving orcs remained somewhere beyond the light while Peter bled in a wagon.

He stood in the cold until Godfrey nodded toward the tent.

"Get what sleep you can, my lord. If Cobb takes a fever, Mabel will wake us."

"You make a spear wound and a night watch sound ordinary."

"It is." Godfrey stirred the fire with the end of a branch. "Not pleasant. Ordinary."

That answer followed Christopher back beneath his blankets.

At dawn, the convoy prepared to move.

Wat Cooper and two carpenters padded the covered wagon with straw and blankets, and Mabel secured Peter’s leg to the side rail before they moved him.

Peter woke while they moved him. His face was pale, but he recognized Christopher standing outside the wagon.

"My lord."

"How does the leg feel this morning?"

Peter looked down at the shape of his bandaged leg. "Like an orc stabbed me."

Mabel pulled the blanket over him. "Don’t make him laugh. It pulls the stitches."

"I was not trying to make him laugh."

"Neither was he, my lord. That’s the problem."

Peter closed his eyes again. Christopher stepped down from the wagon.

Thomas was waiting nearby with Peter’s shield and spear, and he placed them beneath the wagon cover where Peter would see them when he woke.

"He won’t need those for some time," Christopher said.

"They’re his. He should see them when he wakes."

Christopher left them there.

The convoy moved shortly after sunrise on the seventh day from Northgate. Walter rode at the front, Ivo guarded the rear, and Godfrey placed an extra apprentice on the eastern side.

Breakfast was no different from any other morning. Walter and Ivo checked on Peter once, accepted Mabel’s answer, and returned to their posts. The camp continued around the healer’s wagon.

The road remained narrow and damp beneath the trees. Walter ordered the lead wagon to slow at every deep rut, and each delay travelled back through the line until the last carts stopped without knowing why.

Christopher rode beside Peter’s wagon until Mabel promised to tell him if the wound opened. Then he returned to the front of the convoy.

Near midday, Simon found tracks along the eastern edge of the road. Only one set was clear enough to follow. It approached the convoy’s trail from the trees, remained parallel for a short distance, then turned away.

"One of the escaped orcs?" Christopher asked.

"Probably," Simon said. "It never came close."

Godfrey studied the forest. "Keep the side guard. We don’t chase."

Christopher agreed, and the convoy continued.

They camped beside a low stone wall. Peter ate half a bowl of broth and complained that Mabel had removed all the salt. Martha took that as a good sign, though Mabel warned that infection might come later. At dawn, the wagons moved again.

Christopher woke before the camp horn on the eighth morning.

The cold had found the gap between his blankets during the night. He lay still for several breaths, listening for movement from Peter’s wagon.

Mabel climbed out of the covered wagon while the cooks prepared breakfast. She washed her hands in a basin, rubbed warmth back into them, then approached Christopher.

"His wound is clean," she said. "He slept most of the night."

"Has the fever returned?"

"Not yet, my lord. I will check him again at the midday halt."

Christopher had begun to understand that not yet was the best answer she intended to give him.

The convoy left after sunrise. The road climbed through low hills where old stone walls divided abandoned fields. They passed one burned farmhouse and another stripped of its hinges and half the stones from its well.

Near midday, Simon rode back from the forward watch.

"Riders ahead," he told Godfrey. "Nine. Northern colors."

"Which house colors do they carry?" Walter asked.

"A black tower on a red field."

Walter knew the banner. "House Bell."

Christopher remembered the damaged Bell village where they had camped before reaching Northgate. Its soldiers had watched the convoy from behind a patched gate and made no offer to open it.

"Form the guards along the wagons," Godfrey said. "Weapons down unless they raise theirs."

The order travelled through the convoy without shouting. Apprentices took their places. Walter rode forward with Christopher and Godfrey while Ivo remained near the rear.

The patrol appeared around a bend several minutes later.

They had none of the polish southern guards worked for. Their cloaks did not match, and two horses wore pieces of harness repaired with rope. Every rider carried a spear. Their shields bore the same black tower, though smoke and old scratches marked most of them.

The man leading them wore mail beneath a heavy brown coat. His patrol stopped across the road without lowering their spears.

"Sir Christopher Drake?" he called.

Christopher felt a small unease at being known before giving his name.

"I am Christopher Drake," he answered.

The man bowed from the saddle. "Wystan Nettleby, one of Margrave Bell’s patrol sergeants. Northgate told us your convoy was coming this way."

"You found us quickly," Christopher said.

"There are few convoys this size on the road, my lord." Nettleby’s gaze settled briefly on Godfrey. "May I see your northern patent?"

Christopher took the folded document from inside his coat. Walter accepted it and carried it across the space between them.

Nettleby checked the seals and the lines naming Christopher and Dragonwatch, then handed it back.

"The road is under House Bell’s protection until the old boundary stones," he said. "We record armed parties passing through."

"Does that protection include the orcs east of the road?" Christopher asked.

Nettleby’s expression did not change. "How many?"

"Eleven when we found them. Nine dead. Two escaped."

The sergeant eyed the weapons tied behind Adam’s saddle. One of the orc axes was difficult to mistake.

"Where did the attack happen?"

Simon gave him the location of the hollow and the direction taken by the survivors. Nettleby listened without interrupting, then sent two riders to speak with Simon in greater detail.

"One of my apprentices was wounded," Christopher said. "A spear through the thigh."

Nettleby turned toward the covered wagon. "Can he travel?"

"The healer says he can travel if we take the road slowly."

"Then he was fortunate."

The Bell riders accepted the wound as part of northern life. One had only three fingers on the hand holding his reins. Another carried an orc-made cleaver in an empty sword sheath.

Nettleby turned his horse slightly so it no longer blocked the center of the road.

"The western fork ahead leads to Bellford," he said. "Your road continues northeast. Do not take the low crossing marked on the old milestones. Spring water took part of it, and the bank will not hold your wagons."

"Is there another crossing?" Godfrey asked.

"Two miles farther upriver. There is a timber bridge beside an abandoned toll house. We replaced the center beams last month."

"Is the other crossing guarded?"

"Not anymore. We lost the watch post during the war."

Godfrey looked toward the Bell patrol. Nine riders were expected to watch miles of damaged country. Nettleby noticed.

"We guard what we can," he said.

His calm answer closed the subject.

Christopher asked, "How far to the boundary stones?"

"Three days for your wagons. After that, the road belongs to whoever still has men on it."

"What can you tell me about the road to Dragonwatch?"

"I have never gone that far, my lord. My grandfather claimed he saw its towers from the eastern hills when he was a boy. He also claimed he killed a snow bear with a wood axe."

A few Bell riders smiled. It was the nearest the patrol came to showing warmth.

"So you don’t believe Dragonwatch exists?" Christopher asked.

"The ruins exist. Whether there is anything worth reclaiming is for you to discover."

Nettleby bowed again.

"Stay on the road and keep your fires small. If you see a large Orc party, sound three horn calls. One of our patrols may hear you."

May.

Christopher noted the patched harness, scarred shields and tired horses. It was probably the most honest promise the man could make.

"Thank you, Sergeant Nettleby."

The patrol moved past the convoy. Several settlers bowed their heads as the riders passed between the wagons.

The last rider had nearly passed when Peter called weakly from inside the wagon.

"Were they House Bell men?"

Thomas walked beside him. "Yes."

"Tell them we left two orcs for them."

"Tell them yourself when you can sit up."

The nearest Bell rider heard and knocked twice against the wagon with his spear shaft before continuing south.

By afternoon the patrol had vanished behind them.

Christopher expected Godfrey to comment on the meeting. Instead, the knight studied the tracks left by the Bell horses.

"They came from the northeast," Godfrey said.

"They did not come from Bellford?"

"No. Their trail came from the northeast."

Walter looked back down the road. "They were searching for the escaped orcs before they found us."

"Should we be worried?" he asked.

"We were already worried," Godfrey said. "Now someone else is looking."

They reached the fork late in the day. The western road was wider and led toward Bellford. Christopher turned northeast toward Dragonwatch, and the convoy followed.

They made camp less than a mile beyond the fork. The pines crowded too closely for the wagons to form their usual circle, forcing them into two uneven rows. Godfrey disliked the ground, but fading light made searching for another site more dangerous than staying.

Christopher watched Walter place the sentries.

"Nettleby will report our numbers to the margrave," he said.

"Of course he will," Walter replied. "Any decent patrol would count the armed men, wagons and animals in a strange convoy."

Christopher glanced south. "You don’t find that troubling?"

Walter tightened the strap beneath his shield. "A frontier patrol should count every armed convoy it meets."

It was another sensible answer that did little to make Christopher comfortable.

At supper, Mabel allowed Peter a piece of bread with his broth. His wound had not begun bleeding again, though his skin felt warmer than it had that morning. She refused to call it a fever until she checked him after nightfall.

Christopher ate beside the fire and listened to axes striking dead branches beyond the wagons. Somewhere behind them, nine tired riders were searching for two hungry orcs. Ahead waited a damaged crossing, an unguarded bridge and more road than he wanted to count.

House Bell had welcomed him to the north. The welcome sounded like a warning.

Mabel found no fever when she checked Peter later that night. Christopher accepted the news and slept until the first wagon driver began shouting at a mule before dawn.

They reached the ruined low crossing two hours after leaving camp.

The old road descended toward a broad stretch of brown water. Half of the stone causeway had fallen into the river. What remained looked solid from a distance, but the earth beneath its northern end had been washed away. A cart might cross it. A line of loaded wagons would eventually bring the whole thing down.

Christopher imagined finding that out without Nettleby’s warning.

"We take the upriver track," he said.

Everyone agreed. The wagons turned onto a narrow trail running beside the bank. Branches scraped the canvas covers, and the wheels sank several inches into wet ground. Twice, the men had to put their shoulders against the rear grain wagon while Bram pushed beside them. His boots disappeared nearly to the ankle, but the wagon moved.

The timber bridge stood beside a roofless toll house. Several beams were pale against the older wood, exactly as Nettleby had said, House Bell’s black tower cut into one of them.

Godfrey crossed first and inspected the far bank. Walter then guided the wagons over one at a time. The bridge groaned beneath every loaded cart, but it held.

Christopher waited on the northern side until the last wagon reached him. He looked back at the black tower carved into the new beam, then followed the wagons into the pines.