The dining room was mercifully empty at this hour of the morning. In my reverie it had slipped my mind, but it was still only a little after six. One of the habits of the gentry I believed I would never be taking up myself was only to rise late in the morning when the sun was already high.

Fortunately after some brief negotiations with the chef we had come to an agreement concerning my peculiar dining hours, and though the lavish room was barren of the bulk of its usual dining accoutrements, a cloth-covered tray sat alone on the sideboard.

Murmuring a quick grace and seating myself at a corner of the table, I took a quick breakfast of marvellously fresh bread rolls and cold cuts, washed down with a cup of tea any of the residents would have deemed monstrously overbrewed. I always felt there was something anaemic about a cup of tea that couldn’t be used to dye leather, a taste I found common among the rank and file. For some reason, it was much scarcer among the officer corps.

I set my tableware right while smiling wryly at my own internal commentary, absconding from the room before any unexpected early risers could make an appearance.

***

I filled most of the rest of the time before departure with obsessively double-checking details; repacking packs and saddlebags, checking and cleaning the pair of dragonets I’d been riding with since Nachberg, inspecting all the tack for all the horses, and every other possible catch I could think of. Eventually I ran out of things to worry about, and was left giving Munter a final quick brush and inspection.

I preferred to care for the gelding myself for two reasons. First, although he wasn’t my horse per se, he and I had been through a great deal together, and I didn’t like to trust his care to anyone else. Secondly, the big bay had nearly taken the hand off one of the grooms and most of them were now a little nervous of him. I couldn’t blame them, in truth, since the brute had given me my share of trouble and some too.

The third reason I was here was simply that I liked the stable. The embassy’s airy stalls and wide aisles were nothing like the strict utilitarianism of the dragoons’ stables or open pickets I was used to, but some things were universal – the smell of horses and straw, mixed with leather and soap and hay and half a dozen other things carried in by this or that. The sounds were universal, too, although inside a stable there were more quiet huffs and sneezes and fewer carrying whinnies, except when Munter first noticed me stepping in.

I was picking an inconsequential knot from his mane and considering whether I should check the lanyard on my scimitar again when the grooms entered with a burst of chatter and the knocking of boots.

“We’re to bring the horses out, Captain Zerheim,” one of them said, saluting. “Should I bring you Munter’s tack, sir?”

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Ries.” I had naturally come to know the grooms as a result of the time I spent in or around the stables, either grooming Munter, exercising him, or training Prince Franz, Kaczmarek, or both, in riding. The prince had personally requested to learn more… military riding than the conventional dressage in which he had been tutored. The jäger I had pressed into it, on the assumption that it was a near-certainty that the next time we were dispatched somewhere both she and riding would be involved, and while she was a far better rider than she had been when we picked her up in Kurnich, that was a frighteningly low bar to clear.

Of course, the jäger being the jäger, she had spent as much time being thrown by her horse while she tried to aim a full-length arquebus as anything else, but I was at least now fairly confident she could keep her seat in a canter over poor terrain, and posed at least as much of a threat to the enemy with a sabre as herself at anything over a walk. The prince was much more restrained, and as such was by my reckoning less capable of trick riding, but far more consistent at the techniques I considered to actually matter, which was a great mercy. The thought of escorting a child with Kaczmarek’s temperament was a harrowing one.

Ries appeared after a moment with Munter’s tack in his arms. Having already groomed the poor gelding almost to excess, saddling him was quick work. Out the corner of my eye I noticed Ries stepping back slightly when I went to tighten the girth, and I smiled for a moment.

“Don’t fret, man, he’s safely tied. Besides which, if he wants to bite anyone right now, it’s me. Bridle?”

“Here you are, sir,” Ries said, stepping in again to pass Munter’s bridle over the stall door. I absently thanked him, loosing the halter before quickly passing the reins over Munter’s head and fitting the bridle to him. He took the bit without complaint, already pulling forwards.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Calm down, lad, it’s a long road ahead,” I chuckled, fastening the buckles and checking the fit was right, freeing his forelock from the crownpiece. “Hup, walk on.”

I led the horse out to the courtyard, the grooms still busy with the others. His shoes sounded loud on the cobbles in the quiet of the morning, echoing back off the manor’s front.

“Good morning, Captain Zerheim,” the prince greeted me. “I see you still don’t trust anyone else around Munter.”

His voice had grown into his body somewhat over the last months, no longer quite so off-kilter, but it still caught and broke somewhat. In some ways it was an improvement, that now his voice matched his growth rather than being oddly high, but in other ways it was more severely disjointed with his serious and reflective character.

I saluted, bringing my heels together at attention. “Good morning, your Highness. I must plead guilty, sir, you’ve hit the nail on the head.” I touched my hat again, ducking my head slightly in shame. “Besides which it’s comforting, knowing I’ve made my preparations myself.”

He chuckled lightly. “I can’t blame you, captain. He’s still a magnificent animal. But let us put that aside. I believe you and one of our travelling companions to Afamacia are already acquainted.” He gestured to the dark-skinned gentleman at his side, who I would already have greeted if propriety didn’t demand I wait for His Highness to speak.

“Magus Alemayehu, it’s a pleasure to see you, as always.” I saluted again, tipping my head.

“Captain Zerheim, the pleasure is mine.” Alemayehu inclined his head in return, features as impassive as nearly always, but tone warm.

It wasn’t entirely surprising to see the quiet tarisule magus here; he had been visiting the embassy from time to time, largely to answer some of the prince’s limitless supply of questions about everything from the climate in different parts of the world to the reason fireplaces were shaped the way they were. He had made mention that he was close to finished with his business in Wrislat, and I couldn’t imagine he would easily pass up the opportunity to travel with an armed guard, in these times. When I had first met him he had been evading a Torrean border guard, in fact.

Alemayehu in turn indicated the person standing a short way behind him, holding two horses. “This is Johanne. Ah, the rank would be soldat, you can say. Our armies, they are not exactly like.” He paused for a moment, arranging his words.

I took the moment to appraise the soldier; dark-skinned like Alemayehu, of course, of only slightly shorter stature. He wore a deep brown smock-like coat topped with a species of mantle of some kind of light cloth, hooded and draped about his shoulders like a shawl. The hood shaded his face a little, but showed enough to be sure he had refined features and both scalp and jaw were clean-shaven. A scimitar more in the North-Eastern style hung at his side, and the stock of an arquebus was visible below his elbow, the barrel apparently vanishing into the folds of his mantle.

“She is from the south provinces, so she can be, eh, a guide, as well. Like the jeger. The stars align with this, eh?” He nodded to Kaczmarek, standing a short distance away, while I mentally revised my understanding. Johanna, then, I corrected myself. It was fortunate the magus had said something before I had a chance to put my foot in my mouth; Kaczmarek should never have let me live it down if I she realised I had once again failed to recognise a woman.

Unaware of my internal anguish, Alemayehu continued. “She speaks only a little Ostdialekt. Please, ask me if you have any orders or there is something you wish to say.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. “An extra sword is welcome in these times, sir. Not, I hope, that we should be fighting too often, but… there it is.”

“‘Man plans and the Heavens laugh’,” Alemayehu quoted, and I half-winced, half-smiled. That idiom he’d learned from me, shortly before riding directly up to an enemy patrol in plain sight.

“I dearly hope we don’t have a repeat of that incident, sir,” I said. “I’m not certain I’d survive.” In fact I still didn’t have full use of the last two fingers on my left hand, after an ill-fated exchange led to having to shield my head with my forearm.

“I can’t say I’d like it either,” the prince added. “I’m a little less dead weight than I was before, but if we can, I dare say we’ll be avoiding it.”

“Let’s pray so, your Highness.” Hearing the grooms approaching from behind, I nudged Munter to circle him around and make room for the horses to be lined up. “Are the saddlebags ready?”

Kaczmarek pointed to the corner of the manor, where one of the servants was pulling a loaded dolly. “Coming right up. I think you should know better than anyone whether they’re ready, though, cap’n,” she quipped.

“Well, I can’t deny that, either. I’ll be glad when we’re on the road. The waiting is always the worst part, except for the fighting. That’s the worst part, except for the waiting.”

With that, I set to directing the grooms and distributing the bags. In a few short minutes, it was done, everyone was mounted, and I was watching the prince nervously.

“Well, then,” he said cheerfully, “To Afamacia!”