Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [140]
“As soon as the Count is rested and can travel again,” Dorrin said. “Andressat needs a strong escort to Vérella—the king must know what he told me, and it is not safe for him to travel alone. I presume you’ll be staying on with Arcolin as a captain.”
“I hope so,” Selfer said. “Though I still want to complete my training as knight.”
“I’m sure you will,” Dorrin said. “I expect the Count will be ready to travel in a few days.”
Andressat, when she asked, looked out the window at what was now a steady cold rain and asked if there was any chance the weather might clear later on. Dorrin thought of the high, dry hills near Cortes Andres and wished her magery could whisk him home. “It might clear,” she said. “Not today or tomorrow, but perhaps the next day. Rain comes with the cold blowing down from the north this time of year.”
“How many days to Vérella?” he asked.
“It depends on the roads,” Dorrin said. “Right now they’re muddy; this rain won’t help. When they freeze, later in winter, before the snow’s too deep, it’s easier, but—” He was shivering at the thought. Dorrin looked more closely at his clothes. He wore southern style, she realized: cloth woven from the fibers of southern plants; her own shirts for campaigning were of the same stuff. His silk sur-coat wasn’t heavy enough for this cold spell.
How could she offer what he needed without offending him?
“After the Evener, people here wear wool,” she said. “I daresay you brought no wool, thinking it too warm, is that not so?”
“Yes. At home we hardly feel a chill in air until half-winter and then it is but a chill.”
“My lord Count, please honor me by accepting warmer clothes—plain but more suited to our climate—for the rest of your journey.”
Andressat grimaced but then nodded, and she had warm winter clothes delivered to his suite. When he came back again, clothed in layers of wool, he looked much more cheerful and said he could be ready to travel in a day or two.
Dorrin took that opportunity to talk to the cohort herself. One or two, she thought, might want to stay with her rather than face a season of hard combat or retire to the harsher climate of the north. To her surprise, eight stepped forward at once.
“We never swore oath to Captain Arcolin,” Vossik said. “Our oath was to Duke Phelan, only when he took the crown he released us, and then we came with you—we been with you all these years; we know you—”
“You know Arcolin, too,” Dorrin said. “A fine captain he’s always been and a fine count now. He’ll be a duke in time, if that’s what—”
“It’s not.” Vossik swallowed and looked at his companions.
“And there’s Captain Selfer, who’s your captain—he needs you—”
“Not as much as you do, my lord.” Again that hasty look aside and back to meet her eyes. “We want to stay here. We want to serve you, give our oaths to you.”
Dorrin looked at them: five men, three women, all veterans she’d known for years. All were Girdish, not too surprising, but—“Did the Marshal-General tell you to keep an eye on me?” she asked. “Is that why you want to stay?”
“No, my lord,” Vossik said. “We wasn’t even in Vérella with you, as you know.”
“I know she’s written Selfer,” Dorrin said.
“Aye. He told us, too. And it’s not that we don’t respect him, but he’s not you.”
“I can’t abide the thought of the stronghold without the Duke,” Voln said. “It was him I swore fealty to, that first year, and now he’s gone—”
“I can’t go back,” Natzlin said. She had been silent until then, as she had been since she returned from Lyonya, recovered from her physical wounds, but very different from before. “I can’t go and see—think about—Barra—”
Dorrin felt more sympathy for Natzlin than the others; she had been so dependent on Barra, putting up with Barra’s difficult personality and by that relationship isolated from others. But they were all correct: legally, these men and women had been oathbound to Phelan only so long as he was both their liege and Mikeli’s vassal. Now it was as if he had broken his oath, and those who had sworn fealty to him were free until they swore to another.
“I’ll talk to