A brilliant moon bathed the clearing in silvery light, the scents of wildflowers, jasmine, spruce, and pine permeating the air.
Eloquin's cool gaze looked over the assembled Squires, their eyes alight with excitement for what was to come.
Out of a class of sixty, half their number had dared to answer the King's Call. And of the Aspirants, Hyve's chosen future knight commanders who under no obligation to partake of such dark acts, only two were to be seen. One was Johan Silverman, well versed in the poleaxe, smiling at his midnight brethren with eyes almost innocent, his chestnut hair blowing in the breeze. The other was Mord de Plaga himself, favoring his co-conspirators with the darkest of grins.
Malek grimaced, exchanging glances with Neal and Erica both.
“I knew I should have accompanied her to quarters.”
Mord smirked. “Did you truly think your little lamb had the stones to blacken her dagger? The hot resolve to cleanse foul infection from this, the greatest of all nations?” He gave a mocking shake of his head, utterly ignoring Eloquin's increasingly cold gaze. “I had some faint hope that perhaps there was some fire to her after all. Oh well. She does look quite fetching in a dress, Malek, does she not?”
Malek glared at the smirking Aspirant, far too handsome for his own bloody good.
Jess couldn't stand him. "Sorry to disappoint, Mord, I was delayed." As one, thirty startled pairs of eyes turned to her, Eloquin's gaze the hardest, yet Jess felt both fierce horror and delight in knowing that she had caught him off guard as well. "Grass and twig give no echo, lest I will them to," she said softly. "Mercy and I walked in shadow, as you had taught, sir. Our armor is blackened, our links oiled, all of it tailored to be as silent as death. The noise you take for granted with our horses is undergrowth as much as anything else. And when grass and crackling twigs favor you, it muffles all sound, like wearing naught but silk."
At that Eloquin gave the tiniest of approving nods, and Jess swallowed. “I am sorry for being late, General. I was...delayed, and there was no one to help kit me up at the stables.”
Their commander nodded once more, turning to Malek.
“Yes, sir. Jess? Let me make sure everything's secure.”
A shared grin, the tightening of a single strap, and Malek turned to their commander. “I believe we are ready, sir.”
Eloquin nodded. “Check your cavalry weapons. Warhammer, estoc, saber, and shield.” Jess did, finding her armaments secured to their saddle hooks and sheaths. “Your longsword, dirk, and longknife. Are they secure upon your person?”
Jess forced her racing heart to calm. She could draw her longsword from its carefully designed back sheath without fail. Her poniard, made for thrusting into weak points of armor in close quarters, or finishing off a downed opponent was also secure, as was the blade strapped to her left thigh, the short light sword to be drawn in the press of close quarters combat, used in tandem with the slender bronze bars presently secured to all of their armored left forearms, all Squires versed in how to catch cuts and thrusts with their gauntlets.
Though reinforced parrying gauntlets were not as protective as shields, unlike a shield, it would hinder them not at all when using longswords, spears, or poleaxes on foot.
“Do any of you need to relieve yourselves or drink water? Now is the time. There is no shame, so long as you do not die, distracted by an aching bladder in the middle of combat.”
Jess and Malek both shared anxious grimaces, and did what needed doing some feet away, their peers mocking them not at all, not even Mord, coldly smiling, sipping from his flask.
“Are you ready, Calenbry?” Her breath froze in her chest, heart racing, as Eloquin's eyes pierced her own.
There was no hiding anything from that man. Her tremble worsened, even Malek looking at her with some concern. "Jess?"
“I killed two people today.”
A sob, eyes widening with horror all around her and she shook in her saddle, unable to contain herself, when she had wanted so desperately to be as hard as steel.
Soft whispers filled the clearing, and Jess wilted under her mentor's gaze.
“Explain.”
Jess swallowed, forced her breathing to slow.
Panicked no longer, she was a simple soldier, giving her report.
“Two servitors I have a... history with attempted to accost me outside my quarters, returning from our meeting at Neal's quarters, after slipping free of Putrice's gala.” Jess took a deep breath. “Usel and Vidic were their names.”
“I knew them, sir,” Erica's soft voice broke the hushed silence. “They worked in the piggery. Brutes, they had raped a girl two years ago, only no one could prove it.”
Eloquin turned his gaze to Erica who paled, but did not look away. “Rapists should never have been allowed to continue their employment, even if they had been castrated.”
More than one boy paled and shuddered at those words. Erovering laws were rather old fashioned regarding rape, everyone knew, but to hear it said aloud...
Calmly Erica shook her head. “There was no proof. The girl wouldn't come forward, and, well, with a charge that serious, no constable wants to risk condemning and castrating a man, lest it become a tool of politics and persecution.”
And there was the rub, everyone knew. Without the strongest of evidence, any snake could use a law designed to protect the innocent to instead horrifically maim any man she was displeased with, or who competed against her own interests. Social censure and suicide were so common after such a sentence was carried out that it was considered more merciful to simply hang a convicted rapist outright, unless he pleaded for life, knowing what the sentence would be.
For those of noble blood, no lord would dream of persecuting another for the precedent it would set, and as false accusations were also a serious crime, many women who had been ill-used were too terrified to speak out if their attacker held any kind of rank that would see favor in a justicar's eyes. Practically speaking, most nobles were untouchable, so long as they limited their predations strictly to common folk.
Jess shook her head. No matter the good intentions of laws designed to protect the victims of abuse, or the accused from predatory accusers, someone always suffered unjustly.
Eloquin nodded. “Yet the accusation still stuck, and no one was tried for bearing false witness.”
Erica's smile was bleak. “It was Jess who made the accusations, offering to champion the girl in a trial by combat, and Jess being female and noble born both, no Justicar would dare dismiss her challenge, even if her foe had been of noble birth. Though of course if those bastards had been noble born, it would have been considered a trial of honor, and nothing more.” Erica smirked. “Despite their bulk, Usel and Vidic had outright refused, as the two fools were already much the worse for wear after running into Jess fully armored. Jess could not force a trial by combat without at least one witness, but no one would take the words of filth over our noble sister. So the brothers were free to do as they would, for all that they were now openly despised.”
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Mord smirked. “Stupid, Jess. You should have just killed them outright and claimed self-defense. No one would dare challenge your word for such filth, and I'll bet most of the staff would have considered it good riddance to bad rubbish.” Mord glowered at several frowning Squires. “You know it's true, don't you dare stare at me like that. After Jess blackened their names to the color of pitch, their hatred and thirst for vengeance was inevitable.”
Eloquin's gaze locked upon Jess's own. “Continue with your report.”
Jess swallowed and nodded. “No girl would share their bed, no man would call them friend. Humiliation had turned to darkest hate, and I, a fool, had thought it best only to avoid them this last year. Not to check to see if malice radiated from their pores.” Mord chuckled darkly at that.
Eloquin's mount whickered softly. A single pat of its mane and it was calm once more, Eloquin himself focused entirely upon Jess. "And tonight was the night they confronted you. When you were at your most vulnerable, constrained by a woman's attire, caught in Lady Putrice's snares.”
Jess flushed and looked away. “It is as you say. Fool that I was, I had not even mailed gloves or dagger upon my person. I well and truly played the victim.”
Eloquin nodded. “You did. But you are here now, Calenbry. Survival forgives any number of sins, so long as you learn from your folly.”
Jess dipped her head. "They had come to my quarters at Putrice's directive." Eloquin's gaze turned hard as steel. "No, General. I don't think it was Putrice who put them up to it. I sensed no Malice from her, locking gazes with me. It was... different. I truly think Putrice was intent only on having me spend the night in the arms of a Velheim noble, a prize of conquest, but of the marriage bed, not the blade."
Eloquin's gaze did not waver.
Jess licked her lips and swallowed. “They gloated on how they were going to... do things to me, butchering me in cold blood when all was said and done, wrapping me in the cloak of a nobleman they had stolen and planting evidence to suggest that he, not they, had been the culprit behind a crime of passion and murder.” Jess shrugged. “They talked a lot, as men who find courage only in fury and drink tend to do, before Vidic charged me with a cleaver.”
Jess permitted herself a bleak smile. “As you can see, I am still in one piece. But at that point, there could be only one outcome.”
"Their deaths." Eloquin turned to her peers. "And this is just one example of why it is greatest peril, greatest folly, to leave any enemy at your back. What you thought was a mercy, a sign of compassion, is instead the greatest of weaknesses that leaves your whole family vulnerable to the vindictive madness of one you once held in your power. Horror and death, perhaps your children, perhaps your own, are the inevitable result of lacking the courage and conviction to do what must be done when your foe is at his weakest, and you at your strongest.” Eloquin favored Mord with the tiniest of nods. “Mord understands this. See that you do as well.”
“Death to our enemies! May they suffer, may they burn!” Mord roared, slamming fist to chest like any Squire, all of them shouting in chorus, many gazing at Mord with newfound respect.
Eloquin flashed the bleakest of smiles. “Correct. And this is why we show no mercy when battle is joined. Why you will all show no mercy tonight. You will cut down every man who dares to unsheathe steel, no matter how they plead or beg, so they may never track your clan down and cut the throats of your children in the dead of night, ten years hence. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir!” Squires and Aspirants shouted as one.
A solemn nod. “Good. On my mark alone do you show mercy to those who would see you dead.” Eloquin turned to Jess. “The bodies?”
Jess grimaced and swallowed. “In storage, sir. The door is of wood.”
A slow nod. “Your brothers and sisters in arms will help you do what must be done in the days ahead. Discretely. And I shall assure that none see fit to look your way, let alone interfere.” His gaze left her breathless. “Think upon it not a moment more, Calenbry.” He turned to the assembled students. “Outside of a lawful duel, what is the price for a commoner bearing naked steel to one of noble rank, one of named rank?”
"Death by torture, sir," thirty voices rang out.
A satisfied nod in turn. "The sacred covenant between our nation's enlightened policies and the serfs and freemen who benefit is that they dare not take their privileges for granted. They dare not let gratitude morph into ugliest arrogance, and they dare not think to callously threaten those noble men and women who even now fight for our nation's sovereignty and freedom."
A tentative hand raised, Eloquin's eyes spotting it immediately.
“Yes, Smith?”
A nervous swallow. “But...what if we ourselves are of common stock, Commander? We, we master live steel, we train to master our foes against all odds, but what if the son of a tradesman crosses blades with the son of a baron?”
Eloquin's gaze caused Johnathen to pale, bowing his head. “I'm sorry, sir.”
“You are a Squire, boy. And none can question your authority, purpose, or rights, while you fight under my banner. Know that in your heart.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eloquin let loose a dry chuckle, one of the few Jess had ever heard from him. “Do you truly think you would graduate as anything other than a lesser, with my name to your commendation, should you fulfill your duties to me as a Squire of War?”
Johnathen swallowed, but was silent.
"No, Johnathen. You were born of common rank, and the price for your scholarship is four years in the king's service, though you are no fool, boy, for all that you are woefully ignorant in this. You will serve the king and I for so long as it suits us to have you, and you shall be feted as a knight for all intents and purposes, save different title and responsibilities. No commoner will you be, boy. Your duty to king and country will define you, and all will know to pay you respect."
“So long as you don't go mouthing off to your betters,” Mord smirked.
Jess hissed at Mord's interruption, bold as brass, even Eloquin looking his way.
"Correct," Eloquin said. "Respectful deference to any named lord, even any lesser, shall be your bulwark. Gracious courtesy which none can take offense at, or challenge you for. You serve the king directly, and it is his pension and stipend for loyal service, not land that you are tied to, so you are removed from the petty games of Court, and no Squire of mine is so foolish as to throw insults at named lords, and so shame yourselves and me as well."
Johnathen paled, shaking his head vigorously. “Never, sir.”
“Good.” Eloquin turned to Jess once more, his gaze now strangely gentle. “Are you ready for what is to come?”
Jess swallowed. “Yes, General.” Forcing herself to say what needed to be said. Deference was no excuse for carelessness. “Spearheads and poleaxe heads?”
Eloquin nodded his approval. “Sealed between multiple packs.”
With that, a sharp series of whistles were blown, Jess and her fellows forming up ranks behind Eloquin and Neal.
“Jess, by my side. Assure neither dip nor brush nor bramble threaten the legs of our mounts.”
“Yes, sir.” A subtle weight, like silky smoke, flowed up her shoulders.
"Ooh goody. Feel that evening breeze, the way the moon glows like the Lady's own smile, as we make our way to the killing fields once more."
Jess frowned at her familiar. “You make it sound righteous, or like we've done this before.”
Eloquin turned to Jess. “Calenbry?”
Jess flushed. “Just talking to Twilight, sir.”
Surprisingly, Eloquin only nodded. “If he sees that which we do not, tell us immediately.”
Twilight grinned. “I knew there was something I liked about him. Is it his ruthless savagery? His fanatic devotion to a king who would happily use us all as tools for his own purposes? The dark secrets he keeps close that he thinks not even we can deduce? Perhaps it is all of the above.”
Jess smirked. “Let me know if you spot anything interesting, Twilight.”
Her familiar purred. “Don't I always?”