Child of Flame (Page 83)

“Nor will I,” agreed the frater, “although I was hoping for a wash.”

“Who’s on water duty, Captain?”

Fulk had been regarding the frater with surprised admiration. Now he turned to the prince. “I had meant to bring the matter to your attention, Your Highness. The ruins make a good defense, but there is no nearby water source. I’ve got the men carrying in buckets, enough for the night. Brother Zacharias may go down to the stream, if he wishes.”

“Nay, wait a moment, Captain.” Heribert stepped forward. “This is a Dariyan fort, is it not?” He surveyed the ruins with the eye of a man familiar with ancient buildings.

Sanglant had camped in old Dariyan forts before. Well built, they had usually weathered time and war so well that their walls still provided a good defensive position, and Sanglant had fought for too many years to pitch camp even in peaceful territory without an eye to defense. This fort, like all the others, had square walls and two avenues, one crossing the other, that split the cramped interior into four quarters, with four gates. Fulk had posted sentries along the outer walls and had placed the camp in the central square, itself ringed by a low wall. Heribert crossed to that inner wall and began a circuit, bending now and again to brush accumulated dust from the reliefs of eagle-headed soldiers and women with the muzzles of jackals that adorned the walls, a parade etched into stone that ringed the entire square.

Abruptly, Heribert struck at the ground with his staff, then called over a soldier. With a spear’s haft and a shovel, they dug and levered and, that suddenly, got a stone lifted. A cloud of moisture billowed up.

“Sorcery!” murmured one of the soldiers.

“A miracle!” said a second.

Heribert returned in time to hear this comment. “Nay, there’s no sorcery or miracles involved,” he said, somewhat disgustedly. “All Dariyan forts were built to the same plan. One cistern always lies in the central square, marked by a woman dressed in a skirt hung all around with lightning bolts and carrying a water lily. Usually, in forts that were inhabited for a lengthy period, an entire network of rain spouts and channels leads rainwater into that central cistern, and—”

Because he seemed ready to go on indefinitely, caught up by his passion, Sanglant interrupted him. “Let me taste the water first.”

A rope and bucket were found. When a soldier brought him the half-full bucket, Sanglant dipped a hand in the cool water, sipped, and let the taste of it wash over him. No taint of poison or foulness burned him. The water smelled fresh, and had been covered for so long and so tightly that no animal had fallen in to poison it. “I judge it safe to use, Captain.”‘

“Truly, that will save us labor, Brother,” said Fulk, eyeing Heribert with new respect. Captain and cleric went aside, and Heribert began pointing out to him certain features of the fort. Zacharias left camp to wash himself in privacy. Blessing stirred and woke from her nap, and Sanglant unwound her from the sling as the soldiers built up a good fire and brought out their equipment for mending torn cloaks and tunics. The cooks roasted the six deer they’d shot in the course of their march that day.

In this manner, they settled down for the night. Sanglant fed Blessing a paste made of pulses and goat’s milk, sweetened with honey that the soldier Sibold had stolen from a bee’s nest two days ago, although the poor man still had swollen fingers, the price he’d paid for this prize.

“Da da!” Blessing said in her emphatic way. “Da ma ba! Wa! Ge! Ge!” She wriggled out of his lap and grabbed his fingers, wanting to walk. In the past ten days she’d gotten so steady on her legs that she could now run, and did, whenever he wasn’t holding on to her or she wasn’t in her sling. She was so used to the soldiers that she would run, screaming with excitement, to any one of them, as her father chased her, and hide behind their legs. This had become part of the nightly ritual of the war band. Once she had exhausted them in this way, she presided, from her father’s lap, over the singing that followed dinner. Every man there knew a dozen tunes or twenty or a hundred. Blessing babbled along enthusiastically, and although she couldn’t quite clap her hands together to keep time, she waved them vigorously.

When she finally slumped into her father’s chest, eyes half closed, he called Brother Zacharias over to him and questioned him closely about Bulkezu and the Quman. The frater had managed to wash the worst of the dirt off him, although his clothing still stank. He had the accent of a man born and bred in the east among the free farmers, those who had settled in the marchlands in exchange for land of their own and the protection of the king. Of the Quman, Zacharias had a slave’s knowledge, incomplete and sketchy, but he noticed details and he knew how to talk.