The Maiden of Moonfane Forge

In all of Ennric’s fifty years, he could not recall a day during which he had not been a soldier. That included his childhood, for what was the youngest son of a soldier, but a soldier-in-waiting? He had known his path from his first memories. As he sat now in the driver’s seat of the wagon leading the Moonfane Forge delegation south down The King’s Road, he reflected on that. Since he was sixteen, what were the most days in a row he had gone in which he did not don his garrison’s uniform at all? Three days? Four? He had surpassed that now, and he didn’t miss the heavy, padded uniform that chafed and stifled, even as it protected. Not in the least.

Clattering along on the cart, he felt light in his townsman’s shirt and trousers. He wore no gloves on his callused hands, no heavy sword belt. The sun warmed his back, the breeze played at his shirt collar and across the hairs of his forearms. If the reason for the expedition were not so tragic and vital as it was, Ennric would have found it a pleasant one. He had not once touched his sword. It still lay behind his seat, exactly where he had placed it before setting off. There, it would remain. He had no designs on taking up his blade ever again, as he’d made clear to Vetch.

He chuckled, of a sudden. “Damn. Should’ve requested my formal release from the garrison from ‘im while he was captain,” he grumbled under his breath to himself. The cart horse shook her mane and lashed her tail once. Ennric yawned and delicately adjusted his left arm in its sling. “Who’m I kidding? He wouldn’t have granted it.”

“Ennric, a word?”

Ennric startled. Pay attention, old man, he thought to himself. Too much daydreaming. Thankfully, Purcell didn’t seem to notice that she had caught him off guard. “What is it, Purcell?” he asked her.

Purcell struggled to bring her horse in close to his cart and keep it walking along at the same pace without it yanking at its bit or trying to sidestep away. Ennric could tell that Purcell had little experience with horses. Still, she had insisted on riding one rather than accepting a place in one of the wagons or walking beside them.

“They’re at it again,” she said.

“Who?” asked Ennric. “Who’s at what again?”

“Um, the grain merchant. I forget his name. Arguing with his wife again.”

Ennric shook his head, irritation creeping into his voice. “They do that, Purcell. They’ve been arguing nonstop since we left. Leave them to it.”

“But ... it could be a problem,” Purcell said.

“Not your problem and not my problem.” Ennric wanted to return to watching the miles slowly creep by, not listen to Purcell’s hemming and hawing right now. “It’s not a fight in the street you have to break up, right?”

“Um ...”

“No, it’s not. We’re not in town. No need to be a town guard here. If they want to argue, they can argue.”

Purcell looked down at her guardswoman’s surcoat, but whether she felt embarrassed to have it pointed out that she was still trying to do her job days removed from Moonfane Forge, or injured by the dismissal, Ennric couldn’t tell. Out of all the townspeople who had decided to join the delegation, she was the one he interacted with the most, though frequently not by choice. It was an odd assortment, this caravan bound for the King’s Capital City. Despite Ennric being in charge of the mission to the king, it wasn’t as if he were in charge of any of the individual people who had agreed to come with him. Nobody had to be who they’d been in Moonfane Forge anymore if they didn’t want to. In fact, Ennric suspected that that was the entire reason many had chosen to follow; they were simply looking to leave their old lives behind. So long as that didn’t interfere with his mission to petition the king for aid, nor with the folks who were along to help him do that, Ennric took no issue with anyone else’s motivations. Purcell was different. The woman seemed incapable of shedding her status as a town guard, and seemed to see it as her personal mission to continue playing that role for the jumble of carts and wagons that made up their little ‘town’ on the road. Since leaving Moonfane Forge behind, she had attached herself to Ennric like a cocklebur, reporting to him daily as if he were her captain.

“But they’ve stopped,” she mumbled, prompting Ennric to ask her to repeat herself. “They’ve stopped, sir,” she said more confidently.

“What?” Ennric twisted in his seat, felt a twinge in his back and grimaced. Sure enough, he could see the final wagon was stopped in the middle of the road and growing smaller in the distance behind them. “Shit.” Briefly, he considered stopping the entire train, but then thought better of it. “Come up here, Purcell.”

“Sir?” she queried, with such a look of confusion that Ennric had to master his temper. How many times had he told her she didn’t need to call him ‘sir’, that he’d never been her captain?

“Drive the cart, Purcell,” he clarified. “I’ll go back and talk to ‘em. No, just leave your horse there. I’ll take it with me.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. His little cart horse would continue trundling along even without him in the seat. He stepped down from the cart and indicated with his head that Purcell should take his place. The firm scowl on his face must have clued her in to the fact that he hadn’t the patience for any more questions today, because she did as told without another word, climbing awkwardly down from her horse and taking what had been his spot at the cart reins.

“Just keep us all moving ahead,” he told her. “Easy down the road. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Ennric took her horse’s reins and went on foot, trudging back up the road against the flow of the slow-moving train, past townsfolk in little rickety wagons, herdsmen driving yaks and goats, merchants with all the wares left to them bundled upon their backs, and carts driven by townspeople of varying trades and statuses intent on bringing their plights to the king. As he passed by them in the other direction, he invariably had to greet each, or pause to listen to a new complaint, or explain what he was presently on his way to deal with. When had it become his job to play nursemaid to so many squabbling people? Was this what the heads of the town’s council had dealt with on a daily basis, an endless train of townsfolk bickering over petty slights? He was not the kind of man made to handle such things. Not in the style they would have.

As soon as Ennric had the thought, he chastised himself for his inward complaining. He might be more suited to being a soldier than a diplomat, but was it not he himself who had chosen to put away his sword for good? Did he expect he could up and leave one responsibility behind and no others take its place? Ennric himself had suggested this mission and Vetch had put him in charge of it. And, since there was no more town council of Moonfane Forge to represent them before the king, Ennric was, for all intents and purposes, Moonfane Forge’s town council now. That notion lent a nerve-wracking new gravity to his responsibilities.

“Foolish old man,” he admonished himself. What was he getting himself into going to the capital and asking for an audience with the king? Maybe he had been too hasty in putting up his blade. Soldiering was difficult, but it was straightforward. This, however, was not something he could solve with a sword, even if he were in his prime again. No, he’d better learn damn quick how to deal with things in other ways. His town, where his wife and daughters waited on his return, was depending on him succeeding. The last thing he wanted to do was make a fool of himself in the royal court and lose the chance at securing aid for Moonfane Forge. Despite the young king’s reputation for fairness, Ennric was loathe to trust anything entirely to the whims of a boy so newly come to the throne after his father’s untimely death. There was a lot of pressure bearing down on his aging shoulders.

The grain merchant’s stationary wagon had fallen so far behind the rest of the group that it was almost out of sight of it by the time Ennric reached them. The merchant and his wife had both climbed down from the seat and were standing there in the middle of the road yelling at each other, the wife gesturing in anger at the sacks of goods in the back of their wagon. The quarrel was so heated that neither of them noticed Ennric’s approach.

He drew a deep breath into his broad chest and, in his soldier’s voice, bellowed, “What in all the hells are you two doing? Get back on your wagon and catch up with the rest of us! We don’t have time for this!”

For their part, they both looked appropriately cowed, after their startlement dissipated. Then, the wife’s demeanor changed as she immediately sought to win Ennric to her side.

“Do you see what my oaf of a husband did?” she asked Ennric, gesturing at the wagon. When Ennric looked at the wagon, he saw nothing amiss. It was piled with sacks of grain and the couple’s other possessions, same as it had been when they had departed Moonfane Forge.

“I don’t, and I don’t care,” he said, hoping that would put an end to it, but the woman persisted.

“Well ... he went and made no inventory of what we’ve brung, so now ...” she perused the contents of the wagon, as if assuring herself she was in the right before forging ahead. “Now, I’m dead certain we’re missing a few bags. And not only are they missing, but this ... this ...” she waved her hand at her husband. “He doesn’t even know what was in the ones what are gone! Someone stole ‘em!”

“There’s none missing, woman! As I’ve told you.” He stood scowling with his arms crossed. Turning to Ennric, he made his expression kinder, as if sharing tavern-talk with a companion about the pitfalls of wives. “I traded a couple sacks, one grain and one flour, away the other night for extra blankets and some other things, and she’s just forgotten. You know how it is.”

He winked at Ennric then, and Ennric had to restrain himself from backhanding the codger across the face. Here they were, still half a day’s ride out from the next nearest habitation, where any number of mishaps could befall a caravan such as this, and these two would lag behind arguing in the middle of the road. And now both sought to win Ennric’s favor to their cause, like two children competing for their teacher’s attention?

“It’s more than two! And I ain’t seen no new blankets—” the wife began.

“I don’t want to hear it, you couple of idiots!” Ennric raised his voice over hers, and put just enough of his soldiers’s meanness into his tone that they both thought better of speaking again. He looked from one to the other, turned his good hand palm upward. “We’re done then? Good. Get back up on your wagon and catch up. You can argue all you damn well please once we reach the next town. But for the rest of today, shut up and don’t fall behind again.”

Then, he stood and watched as they both climbed grumbling back into the seat of their wagon and got their pony moving once more. There. How was that for judicious? he thought as he watched them clatter down the road.

Now came the difficult part. He hadn’t been waiting and watching them because he wanted to ensure they were minding his orders. Getting up on a horse had become difficult enough with his back paining him as it was, but with a broken arm in a sling, it was downright embarrassing in its awkwardness. Only once the couple were far enough ahead not to notice his attempt did Ennric grab the saddle horn of Purcell’s horse and lever himself up, grunting. He made it into the saddle first try, surprising himself.

“There,” he said, patting the horse’s neck. “Wasn’t so bad.” Ennric appraised the horse. It was a good mount who would remain so steady and still for such an awkward mounting up as he’d just done. A good horse for a beginner. Perhaps Purcell could learn to ride properly on this one if he gave her some instruction.

Ennric chuckled at himself, took up the reins, and clicked his tongue. He bypassed the grain wagon and returned to his own cart at the head of the train. Dismounting wasn’t any easier, but he managed it. He looped the horse’s reins onto the back of his cart so it would follow along and then climbed up onto the seat beside Purcell.

“It’s taken care of,” he said, leaning back in the seat. “But Purcell, next time you have something important like that to tell me, rather than bobbing around the subject and waiting for me to draw it out of you, just out and say it first thing. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” she answered, dropping her eyes down.

Ennric chose not to concern himself with correcting her about calling him ‘sir’ yet again. It really wasn’t that important, was it? Besides, the guardswoman was only trying to help, and Ennric would certainly need good allies when they reached the capital. Along the way there, he would have to decide who in this motley company could be counted on and who could not. Purcell, at the least, was showing that she wanted to be one of those who could be counted on.

“Sir, here you are,” the guardswoman said quietly, offering Ennric back the cart horse’s reins.

He shook his head. “You keep driving for a time. I need a break.” Purcell nodded her head and squared her shoulders. She drove the wagon stiffly, as though she feared scrutiny. After a while watching this, Ennric took pity on her. He tapped her on the shoulder. “Relax. The horse can feel when you’re tense, even through the reins. If you’re calm, your horse will be calm.” He saw her make an effort to ease the set of her shoulders, yet she still looked tense. Trying to prove herself, he realized. He’d seen it in plenty of young soldiers in his time, how they always longed to show they were capable of doing things they had not enough experience doing yet. Sometimes that led to recruits biting off more than they could chew. Sometimes it was best to let them, in order to teach them a lesson. Other times, it was not.

“We should reach the next town before sunset,” he said. “Then we can all let our guard down for a night, eh? Eat in a proper inn, have some ale. That should do everyone some good.”

“And you, as well,” Purcell said. “You look as if you could use it.”

He offered her a wry smile. “Hm. Suppose I could.”