Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [210]
“I thought he was with Golden Company.”
“M’dierra sent him away. On my account, I learned.” He swallowed a spoonful of hot spiced soup, then another. Meddthal dipped a slice of bread in oil, sprinkled it with salt, and nibbled on it as he waited. “So then he went to Phelan’s Company—which isn’t Phelan’s anymore; it belongs to his former senior captain, Arcolin. Count Arcolin, now.”
“Northern title …” Meddthal muttered.
“Don’t, Medd,” Andressat said. “But by the humor of the gods—and in this I can see the hand only of the Trickster—it was Burek who undertook to see me safe home, and Burek who saved my life.” He drank more of the soup and sopped bread in the dregs. “I have many things to tell you all, but I am very tired. I was wrong about Captain Burek, though … wrong from the first …” He shook his head.
“Father—sir—”
“Not now. I must rest, but make sure he is not left alone, and wake me if there’s a crisis.”
In the morning, Burek’s arm was no worse; the surgeon was guardedly hopeful. “His fingers are still warm; he roused once and drank more of the infusion.”
“How long before he can travel?”
“You’re not going to make him leave!”
“No, no, of course not. But he told his troops to expect him in Foss—if he cannot make that meeting, we need to send word.”
“He won’t be fit to move at all until I know whether the arm must go or not. A tenday, at the least, most likely longer. What are you going to do with that body?”
“I don’t know what their customs are. And he is their captain; I should ask him.”
“Not before noon, and he’ll be groggy then. Ask one of the others.”
Selis and Cam had made a neat Phelani corner of the fort barracks, all the gear stacked and covered with a cloak, but they were both in the stable, where Dort’s body lay on a trestle. “How is Captain Burek?” Selis asked, and then—apparently noticing Andressat’s change of clothing—added a belated “my lord.”
“The surgeon hopes he might not lose the arm,” Andressat said. “It seems no worse this morning, he told me. But now—I do not know your customs of respect for the dead.”
“We bury them, of course,” Selis said, as if that were obvious. “I was going to ask—”
“The soil here is thin,” Andressat said. “Over solid rock. There’s a dell a glass or so from here, where we’ve buried before, but it filled up during Siniava’s War. We could raise a mound of stone—”
“It’s winter,” Selis said. “We can take him back to the others—it’s only a few days. When can the Captain travel?”
“The surgeon says not for ten days or more,” Andressat said. “That’s if he doesn’t lose the arm. The swelling must go down completely; the surgeon wants to be sure there’s no pus forming.”
“What’s he doing?”
Andressat explained as best he could. “I know the rest of your cohort was expecting him to be at Foss when they arrived or shortly after. You will need to go and tell them he’s not able to come. There are only two of you—I could send—”
“No, my lord.” This time Selis remembered the courtesy. “We’ll travel faster alone.”
“Not with a body,” Cam said.
They both looked at Andressat as if he might have some solution. He had none.
“We’ll have to leave him,” Cam said. “We have to let the others know about the Captain—get word to Captain Selfer. We’ll need to ride fast, and we both have to go—you know that, Selis.”
“I know, but—”
“Dort would say the same. So would the Captain, if he could.”
Selfer watched the column coming up the track from Valdaire and wondered if Burek had stayed behind in the city for some reason. With or without a captain present, the cohort rode in perfect order and dipped the Company pennant crisply, as it should.
“What report?” he asked.
“Sir, Captain Burek was wounded; he’s in Andressat, in the care of a surgeon.”
Selfer listened to the rest of the story. Burek had been rash to take less than a hand of Phelani—two more would have changed the flow of battle—but he understood the reason: five could travel more quickly than seven, and he had already detached a hand for the decoy party that had approached Andressat from the west.