In the Company of Gentlemen Read online

  Colin gasped. Zorey smiled at the expressions chasing themselves across his open features. “I was just back from barracks in Lordune after the West Collian fiasco. It was my first circuit with the 31st, but I wasn’t the only seasoned fighter—though at the time one of the hardest. Our captain was a noble fellow from Ysthar. He was itching to win glory and promotion. I fancy he wanted the Emperor’s favour even more than the prize money. He insisted we act as sharp as if we were on the Collian front or southwest Alinor, trim, alert, in full gear, even though we were just patrolling the main highway between Astandalas and Damara.

  “It was midsummer, a hot day; everyone was feeling lazy and bitter about being in those mountains, which are boring as hell—or were, anyway. There’s no way through that Border now. The locals didn’t have any alcoholic drinks at the time, which you can imagine went down well after a day’s patrol. Our captain, Young Jack we called him, decided we’d practice stealth patrolling for a bit. Just for fun, you see. Whichever unit got the best catch would get a prize from the captain’s store.”

  Zorey paused to wish for ale and accept the cup of water Domina Black offered him. Someone said, “Smart man, your captain. That’d be Jakory Goldlake?”

  “Yeah.” Zorey guessed from the rough tone and southwestern accent that this might be another old soldier, perhaps even the one behind the barracks, though the speaker was out of sight behind a couple of huge undergraduates. He wiped his mouth, marshalling the story.

  “My unit was under Young Jack himself. We caught a silver rabbit—as I said, we were near the edge of the Silver Forest—and thought we were doing well. We did a cross manoeuvre with Second unit and realized we’d come across a party of travellers’ tracks.

  “We put out the word for a pincer, and came together—not to arrest them, you know, we thought them honest travellers, but to see if we could capture them without them knowing we were there, and take them to our camp as prize. Young Jack would feed them and that’d be it, we thought—we weren’t the sort of company who’d loot travellers.”

  He caught a couple of sardonic glances being exchanged, and though he hated to say it he added: “I know what you’re thinking. Those companies sure existed, and I was in one of them for a bad couple of years before I managed my transfer to the 31st. I was in Bayesthers’ Twelfth when it was out on the wildland edge of Voonra.”

  He shook his head. “That was a bad place, boggy and misty and hardscrabble for everyone. No one knew which were the locals, the brigands, the rebels, the monsters, or the enemy, which makes for unhappy soldiers—but our captain was half-mad and didn’t care. He used to say none of them were innocent and all were game in the Trigoon Wastes. That was a bad time and even after six months at Lordune being retrained, I was glad enough for a lazy few months with the newbies in the sunny heartland of the Empire. But I was about the only one.”

  He took another sip, wondering if that little admission had cost him audience and nephew’s admiration. The little group was listening, a bit graver now. Colin was frowning and worrying at one of the straps that fastened the codpiece.

  “So though I might have had some wicked thoughts, as I did now and then despite the retraining, most of my unit were good men, and Young Jack was our officer. We did as pretty a stealthy pincer as you can imagine, and I don’t know who was more surprised when we came into the clearing to show the travellers they were surrounded that we’d caught the Red Company.”

  “You just recognized them like that?” someone asked.

  Zorey had to laugh a little. “They were pretty damned famous then, you know. Even though mixed groups were common enough in the Empire, we’d been issued descriptions—this was the Red Company just coming into their heyday. Five men, five women, mixed origins, and a bloody great eagle owl sitting on a saddle. That’s not something you see every day.

  “So there we were, the joke company, made up of the newbies and the dregs of other companies—I knew why I was there well enough! We stood there, thinking how we were the laughing-stock of the army, and here we’d gone and captured the Red Company.

  “Our Jack came forward, and bowed like it was a court, and said: ‘I am Jakory Goldlake, captain of the 31st Goldlake and Varra. You, I presume, are the Red Company. You perceive that we have you surrounded. I have had the bugler call for the rest of our company, which is, I fear, larger than yours, and within earshot.’

  “Damian Raskae bowed. And yes, it was obvious it was him: he was as blond and as handsome as the stories say. A kinglier man I have never seen. I have to say I hated him on sight. He said, ‘I am Damian Raskae, Captain indeed of the Red Company. I perceive that you are a man of skill at tracking; are you as skilled with the sword?’

  “Young Jack bowed again. ‘I am tolerably well acquainted with its use, sir.’

  “We were in this clearing in the woods, a mile or so from the road, near a stream. The Red Company had obviously just stopped for a rest: their horses were grazing but they hadn’t taken off their tack or set up camp or anything. They all held weapons, but even with only two of our units there were fifty of us, and five to one odds without a defensive wall aren’t what anyone wants.”

  “Even with a defensive wall,” Domina Black murmured, and Zorey had to smile again.

  “True. So we were all standing there on edge, and I have to say my thoughts were bloody, but Young Jack was near me. He knew I’d been in bad places but was better than most with weapons. He liked to make sure he knew when I went for blood. I was mad. I’d never understood why people admired the Red Company, I thought they were fools, and seeing them there in our power I despised them.”

  Several people made small movements or noises of surprise. Zorey shrugged, grinned ruefully. “That’s how I was then. The Trigoon Wastes and the West Collian campaign had marked me. But I didn’t do anything, our Jack keeping me back. And then Damian Raskae smiled and spoke again.

  “‘You have done us the honour of mentioning that the rest of your company is approaching. This will bring the odds against us to the region of fifteen to one, if my knowledge of Imperial companies is not altogether inaccurate.’

  “‘No, that is our number sir; and yours is famously ten, some of you warriors of the highest renown.’

  “He bowed again—both of them did, most politely.” Zorey paused at another stir in the crowd, as some of the middle-aged members smirked. The younger ones were lapping it up, of course, old-fashioned courtesy was making a resurgence. The ones his age, who’d lived in the latter days of the Empire, knew he spoke the truth. “This is how people spoke in those days, I assure you, though the words are perhaps a little different. It’s been many years.”

  “That’s how you were going to arrest them?”

  “I told you, this was an honourable company, and Young Jack hadn’t been to a real war yet. Old campaigners like me could have told him to stop yakking on—but he didn’t ask me, he knew what I’d suggest doing—and we were looking at this little group of people. Five men and five women. They didn’t look a match for ten of us, let alone a hundred and fifty. We just didn’t want them to do something stupid and heroic.

  “Neither did their captain, it seemed, for he kept looking at Young Jack, kept smiling, and finally said, ‘I do not think my companions will be inclined to go with you without a struggle, and nor do I expect you to let us continue on our way without one.’

  “‘I remind you that we are one hundred and fifty to your ten; I also say that we are required to bring you alive before the Emperor, and he is my liege lord.’

  “‘You are currently fifty to ten, but that is no matter. We seem to be at an impasse, unless my friends think otherwise?’

  “One of the women, I think it was one of the sisters Avramapul—” Zorey paused at a movement from Domina Black, as if she’d shaken out her hair, and was haunted by a sudden wistfulness he rarely felt. He was tired, he reminded himself. “—One of the sisters Avramapul said, ‘I would consider it, but we are expected at a wedding, if yo
u recall.’

  “‘That is true,’ replied her captain, as if he’d forgotten. ‘Captain Goldlake, I am certain you realise that if we were to fight en masse, or indeed en mêlée, some of your number would be killed, and some of ours injured or perhaps killed – which would be grievous to us and disappoint your Emperor.’

  ‘And yet you say you will not come peaceably, and so we must fight.’

  ‘In this age of the worlds, it appears we must. But I ask you, would you consider settling the matter by single combat?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It is a common practice in some regions. I mean that you are tolerably acquainted with the sword, and I have some skill at that art myself, and I suggest that you and I fight for the right of passage—ours to go free if I win, yours to take us if I lose.’

  “We all just stared at him for a moment. I don’t know what Young Jack was going to do, because before he spoke one of our young hotheads, a nobleman’s younger son who went by the name of Taft, stepped forward, saluted, and said. ‘Please, sir, may I have leave to duel this man?’

  “Damian Raskae bowed to him. ‘By all means, if your captain prefers.’

  “Young Jack flushed, but he was a cool-headed young man and he started to smile—I could see from where I was standing, though I kept being distracted by that ruddy eagle owl clacking its beak at me, and I was getting impatient. Then our Jack said, ‘Captain Raskae, if you can defeat my company in single combat then yours can go freely on your way.’

  “It was a good response, I remember thinking at the time. Half of our company jeered and whistled and did things like that, for were we not of the Imperial Army? Also you need to know this was still relatively early days for the Red Company, and Damian Raskae had yet to make his name as the greatest swordsman on the nine worlds.” Zorey paused. “It was because of this that he did.”

  He remembered afresh the look on Damian Raskae’s face as he lifted his head and laughed, and the expressions on those of the companions he could see. “Fitzroy Angursell the poet whooped as loud as any of our young blades, and the others looked, well, wary but trusting.”

  He paused again, sipped a bit of water, added more quietly, “I’ve never forgotten that trust, how they had confidence that their captain would get them safely out of the pickle they were in. I think it was then I started to realise why people loved them.”

  Domina Black looked at him without smiling. Colin was frowning, his eyes on his feet.

  Zorey continued more loudly. “So Taft came forward. He was fancy with a blade but Damian Raskae disarmed him in about four minutes. The sound that sword made when it landed—it hit a rock and pinged, then just kept ringing into the silence, until Fitzroy Angursell stepped on it.

  “Taft felt a right fool, of course, but it was a beautiful bout, no one could doubt that. Damian Raskae was just that much better him. Then Taft’s unit, naturally, was all keen to avenge him, but young Jack was a man of his word, and made them come forth one at at time. And the rest of us just stood there watching the captain of the Red Company disarm soldier after soldier.”

  He paused for another drink; he didn’t normally speak so much. The faces of the group were eager, disbelieving, interested, credulous, blank, wry —that last Domina Black, smiling, still twirling the end of her braid, something Zorey almost thought was self-mockery in her eyes. He blinked away a sudden ghost of a suspicion that he knew her from somewhere, continued with his tale.

  “By this time—when he was on the twentieth or so man of the Second – we were all silent, dead silent, except that the rest of the company were crowding into the clearing and wanting to know what was going on. Damian disarmed the sergeant of the Second with as pretty an example of Bosult’s Shift as I’ve ever seen, and I remember thinking he barely looked sweaty. Twenty-five men disarmed, their swords in a single pile, all done without an injury, and none of them had a bout longer than five minutes, most of them less than half that.

  “Captain Jakory let Damian have a breather while he told Old Jack—Jaokon dol Gethlau, that is, his second in command—what was going on. Old Jack nearly pitched a fit, but when he heard that Damian Raskae had just defeated twenty-five men in single combat he insisted on his unit going next out of pride. We had some rivalry between the six units of the company, you see. Friendly stuff, mostly.

  “Most of his men did no better. A couple lasted four or five minutes, and Damian Raskae was looking a bit tired, but he never faltered, and the pile of swords grew bigger. That was an amazing thing, he wasn’t just disarming them, he was doing it so their weapons all fell within a small area.

  “Old Jack took him on at the end, after he’d defeated forty-nine men. That bout lasted a good ten minutes, all around the clearing, and I saw moves like I’d barely heard of. But it was for nothing, except another sword on the pile. When he was disarmed Old Jack stood shaking out his wrist—Damian Raskae had used Higgerell’s Extraction—”

  He saw a few nods, more blank faces; well, not so many people studied the old manuals like he had devoured as a boy and young man. “And then Old Jack bowed to him with seven flourishes, as to a grand master. And several of the soldiers clapped. But most of us were getting a bit angry at being made to look like fools.

  “He’d defeated fifty men, a third of our company. He looked at Young Jack, who was starting to look a little worried at this display of skill and strength, but Young Jack thought—we all thought—there was no way he could sustain it for another three hours. It was hot and he was sweating now, though moving smoothly. One of his friends brought him water, and he drank it down, but that was about the only sign that he’d been fighting hard for two and a half hours with barely a break.”

  Zorey drank some more water himself. He had to steel himself up for the next bit, which was not to his credit. “I suggested to Young Jack that we needed to push him harder. He’d been letting Damian have a bit of a break between opponents, just a minute or two, being a real gentleman. I wasn’t—”

  He caught Colin’s anguished expression, grinned fiercely.

  “Well, by birth, but not by temperament at that point of my life. I’d been in the army seven years, five of them with Bayesthers’ Twelfth, and I’ve already said they were a bad lot and in bad places. I was hard, bitter, and knew how to fight dirty—and I had forgotten why you shouldn’t. So I told Young Jack to send the men of the third and fourth units at Damian Raskae right after each other, without a pause, almost on top of each other. He’d promised single combat, but they hadn’t made any other rules.

  “He didn’t like it, but he saw the sense of it. People were getting fractious, our men and the Red Company both. They were still holding weapons, in case we mobbed them, I reckon, except for Fitzroy Angursell who was doing something else. I found out later he was preventing our mages from interfering, or calling reinforcements, or doing anything useful. As I was watching I thought he was just goofing around.”

  He saw Domina Black’s smile sharpen, as if she were reminded of something bittersweet.

  “So Young Jack sent the next three companies on in a whirlwind formation. Seventy-five men, all eager for glory, all fired up by watching their fellows being defeated, all aching to be the one to defeat this man. Most of them were newbies; perhaps a third more experienced. Not that it helped much. Damian Raskae, it turned out, had been holding himself back. When he had men coming at him nearly on top of each other, he blossomed.”

  Zorey looked around the room. “You’ve all seen it, I expect, one time or another, or felt it. When you break through a level, are suddenly working at a higher grade, as if your ability was dammed and all at once breaks free.

  “I’ve seen it happen many times, but never so marvellously as that day. It was as if the first fifty had just been a warm-up, and now he was really fighting. It didn’t take him three hours to defeat them: it was as if the sun stopped to watch. He moved like the god of war. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen—and I hated it.”

&
nbsp; Colin bit his lip to stop from crying, as if he didn’t want to break the tale but was hurting to speak himself. Zorey nodded solemnly at him.

  “This is true. I hated beautiful things then. I’d seen so much ugliness I didn’t think anything was really lovely, I thought it meant there was corruption and cheating and lies underneath. The more beautiful something seemed the more I thought it had to be bad.”

  “You’re not the only person to have come back from the Trigoon Wastes thinking that,” said Domina Black, and Zorey nearly wept at the understanding without pity in her. Other people had pitied him; but that was because they didn’t realise what had happened, what had changed in him, after Bayesthers’ Twelfth had been disbanded dishonourably and scattered around the Imperial Army to retrain as useful soldiers.

  “Yeah. Most weren’t as lucky as I; I learned differently. By that time I was functional in the army, but had no eye for beauty, even in my own field. I was sure Damian Raskae was cheating somehow, was using magic, something.”

  “And was he?” Colin asked, the horrified question bursting out of him.

  Zorey laughed, a little grimly. “No. Our company mages were absolutely clear on that point, afterwards. They’d been blocked from acting by Fitzroy Angursell, but one of them was a specialist seer, whose expertise was looking for enchantments and enchancements, and Fitzroy Angursell couldn’t or didn’t block that. Millory said that there was no magic at all in or on Damian Raskae when he was fighting. He was just that good.”

  “Good enough to defeat seventy-five men without a break?” someone said in clear disbelief.

  “Good enough to defeat a hundred and twenty-five men in five hours,” he said. “Good enough to defeat seventy-five men without a break, and be grinning at the end. The sun was going down by this point, throwing that rich yellow light across the Silver Forest and into the normal woods where we were. After the last man of the sixth unit lost his sword to the pile—or really, piles, he’d had to start another one—it was just us of the first unit, under Young Jack and me.