The barracks house had been built to house a hundred men and was easily large enough for all of them and their horses as well, once some of the bunks had been pushed up against the walls. The Carrowmen had been all through it scavenging everything of value, but the walls and ceiling were in good condition and there was glass in the windows. Once they were inside, the men all picked a bunk and Teena hung some blankets from the ceiling beams to create a private space for the Princess. Ardria found the presence of the men comforting, though, and decided to sit among them for a while. Tamwell selected two men to take Darniss to the other side of the room and keep an eye on her. "I don't think she's likely to try anything since we're already taking her back home," he said to the Princess, "but I don't like to take chances."
“I don't like this,” he grumbled later. “It's a little too like a prison for my liking.”
“It's what’s waiting for us in Charnox,” replied Ardria, “and look on the bright side. We're all together, and you've still got your weapons. What would you have done if they'd tried to disarm us?”
Brailsford answered for him. “Refused,” he said. “And woe betide them if they'd tried to make an issue of it. We would have taken it as an assault upon us.”
“I'd like to repeat my words of gratitude to you for doing this, Captain,” said the Princess. “You saved us from death or capture just by being here. When this is over, the whole Kingdom of Helberion will owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“If there is still a Kingdom of Helberion,” muttered one of the men sitting nearby.
Tamwell rounded on him angrily. “I'll hear none of that defeatist talk!” he snapped. “I firmly believe that we are going to win this war. If you think otherwise, keep your thoughts to yourself.” The man mumbled an apology and moved to another bunk further away.
The incident caused an awkward silence to fall across the room and the Princess found herself wishing the Captain hasn't been quite so severe. This was not the time to be building tensions and fuelling resentments, she thought. There was nothing she could do to amend the situation without damaging his authority, though, so she decided to change the subject instead and inject a little humour into the room.
“That Captain is going to have a story to tell his grandchildren,” she said. “The time the future Queen of Helberion turned up on his doorstep and posed him the deepest dilemma of his life. He'll probably tell it so many times they'll be heartily sick of it! What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you, Captain?”
“Well," said Tamwell, smiling gratefully. "There was this time doing the last war. I was just a raw recruit then, less than six months in the army and still hadn't seen any real action. The actual fighting was all over by then and I'd joined my unit just in time to chase the enemy over the border and back into their own country. We'd bunked for the night just outside this little town called Pokby, a few miles south of Salford. Twelve of us in a leaky little stable that let the rain in in half a dozen places. One of the men, Austin I think his name was, decided to go see if he could find something to supplement our trail rations and came back leading this huge pig by a rope he'd tied around its neck. It was gigantic! Way bigger than he was, at least double his weight. It would have fed an entire village for a week!”
There was a slight chuckle from some of the men, all of whom were listening. Good, thought the Princess. And it was clever of the Captain to choose an anecdote that reminded the men of their former victories.
“It was way more food than we could eat," Tamwell continued. "More than we could even cook. I've no idea what he had in mind. Some kind of giant spit with a couple of men to turn it over a roaring fire, perhaps, like something from a Royal banquet. We would have had to just cut bits of meat from the carcass, stew them in a cook pot and leave the rest to go back into the ground. We never got the chance, though. Before we could do anything the door opens and in comes one of the lads the Corporal had left on guard. Said there's a man anxious to see us. So Corp goes see what he wants and there's this Carrow farmer, completely naked, saying one of our men had kidnapped his son.”
Ardria stared. “Did the pig show any human characteristics?” she asked.
“None whatsoever. We'd looked. You always look, everyone knows that, but this man insisted it was his son. Well, maybe he was intending to adopt it one day, but it didn't look as though a parent bond had formed yet. The pig was certainly willing enough to be led away from him, although it would probably have been rather less willing if it had known what Austin had in mind for it.”
“Who adopts a pig anyway?” asked Teena.
“They're just animals,” pointed out the Princess. “There's no logical reason why you shouldn't adopt one, and if you're a pig farmer you've got plenty of chances to assess them. Pick out the healthiest.”
“This was apparently the last pig the man had left,” said Tamwell. “They'd butchered the rest to feed themselves, but kept one to be their son. The poor man was almost in tears! When he saw the animal he ran over to it and wrapped his arms around it. Said anyone who wanted to harm it would have to kill him first.”
“So what did you do?” asked Ardria.
“Corp let him have it back, of course. What else could we do? The poor man kept thanking him over and over again, still with his arms around the animal, and then he pulled it out of there before we could change our minds. If he did adopt it, it’s probably human by now. Might even be one of our friends outside.”
“I don't recommend asking any of them whether they were raised from a pig,” suggested the Princess. “Might damage the deep bonds of friendship we've...”
“Radiants!’ said one of the Kelvon troopers, looking out through one of the windows. “Two of them, coming this way.”
Ardria and Tamwell ran over to thee nearest window and stared out. They were still far away, nothing more than two tiny points of brightness just above the horizon to the north. “Everyone away from the windows,” the Princess ordered. “Don’t let them see you.”
“Bit of luck, being under a roof when they passed by,” she heard Geoffham say. “If we’d been out in the open...”
Ardria nodded to herself. This was flat, open pasture land with no cover except whatever man made structures they happened to come across, most of which were far to small to contain them all. If they hadn't been so close to the border...
“Carrow’s likely to be full of those creatures,” Geoffham continued. “How are we going to get all the way to Charnox without being seen?”
“One day at a time,” replied the Princess. “Everyone quiet, now. We have no idea how good their hearing is.”
“They can't understand human speech, surely,” said Teena in a quiet, scared voice.
“No, but if we make too much noise they'll know there's someone in here.”
“They'll know that anyway when they see the Carrowmen guarding us.”
As if to emphasise the point, one of the Carrow soldiers chose that moment to pass by the window outside. He turned to gaze up at the Radiants, shading his eyes with his hand.
She was right, Ardria realised, but there was nothing they could do about it. They just had to hope the Radiants thought they were prisoners of war under guard. Maybe they wouldn't even be curious, she hoped. Maybe they were on their way somewhere on some urgent business and wouldn’t want to waste the time to investigate.
“Hey, Helberries!” said the Carrow man outside the window. “Radiants! They're on our side, you know. They know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, hey?”
Nobody bothered arguing with him. The man had been indoctrinated with the Carrow version of history all his life. He wasn't going to be converted by anything they said to him now. The man apparently wasn't finished mocking them, though. “The Radiants want to kill you all, because you're the bad guys. Maybe I should tell them you're here so they can come get you.”
Tamwell moved towards the window, his hand going to the pistol on his belt, but Ardria put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Anything we do will only draw the Radiants,” she said. “He's just, what’s the expression? I heard one of the maids using it once.”
“Yanking our chains,” suggested Teena helpfully.
“Right. I don’t think he’s actually going to do anything.”
“If the worst happens, we've got the incendiary ammunition,” said Corporal Munn.
“Right,” said Tamwell. “All eight rounds, and what do you think the Carrowmen will do if we kill a Radiant right in front of them? If that idiot decides to take the joke any further, we're all dead! I could knock him out, apologise to Leese afterwards...”
“Let's pray to Those Above that that's not necessary,” said the Princess.
They watched anxiously as the Radiants drew closer and the Carrow man continued his taunts and mockery, but as the airborne creatures passed by overhead he just gazed up at them and waved. The creatures ignored him and continued on, and everyone relaxed as they began to recede into the distance. “Some other time, Helberries!” said the Carrowman, tapping the window with his finger. The Radiants’’ll get you some other time. Hey, how does it feel to know that they want to destroy you? With them on our side, you have no chance! No chance at all! How does that feel, eh?”
“They want to destroy Carrow as well,” muttered the Princess angrily. “They want us to destroy each other.”
“Yes,” agreed Tamwell, “But there's no point trying to tell him that. He'll never believe it.”
“Then what are the chances Nilon will believe it? Do we have any hope of convincing him? Any hope at all?”
“We have to believe we do. Otherwise, what's the alternative? Go back to Marboll and wait for the enemy to come knocking at the gates?”
The Princess could only nod glumly at that. “Well, since evening's getting on and we're already camped for the night, we might as well have something to eat. Break out the food please, Teena.”
, The handmaid nodded and went to obey.
☆☆☆
They were all awake early the next morning and had already eaten a light breakfast when the Carrow soldier came for them. “The Captain will see you now,” he said. “Same three as before.”
Tamwell, Brailsford and Ardria accompanied him to Captain Leese’s command bunker. Carrow soldiers watched them as they went. One of them pointed a finger at Tamwell and mimed shooting him while others snickered in amusement. They ignored them.
Inside the bunker, Leese stood up from his desk and came around from behind it to greet them. “I have decided to allow you to proceed,” he said, and Ardria forced the relief not to show on her face or in her bearing. Neither of the men reacted either, she was pleased to see. Showing fear in the face of the enemy was a court martial offence.
“There is a road three miles west of here,” Leese continued. “You will make straight for it, then follow it to Tibre where there is a military base commanded by Colonel Hemdall. You will report to him and explain your presence in this country. You'll be his problem then.”
“Thank you Captain,” said Ardria. “Future generations will thank you, when peace reigns between our two countries.”
“I hope so. A more likely outcome is that Hemdall will send a rider to put me under arrest. Despite that, though, I believe that your mission is important. Saving lives by ending the war sooner can only be a good thing. It can't be easy for you, though. Fancy diplomatic language aside, you are basically on your way to offer your country's surrender.”
Ardria chose not to correct him. “We owe you a debt of gratitude,” she said. “If your superiors do react badly to your decision, I promise that I will do everything in my power to protect you. You may think that that won't be much, considering our present situation, but I think I still have some influence.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. You had better be on your way. Your presence has caused some unrest among the men. Those of them I can trust tell me that there is some disagreement over what should be done with you. The sooner you are away from the border, the better.” He held out a letter. “This is a notice of permission to be on Carrow soil. Technically, I have no authority whatsoever to write any such thing, but showing it to any soldiers you encounter may give you the time to explain yourself.”
Ardria took it and tucked it away with the King's sealed letter. “Thank you again, Captain. We will take your advice.” She bowed her head to him, a gesture that a member of a Royal family normally only made to equals or superiors. Leese didn't know enough about Royal etiquette to recognise the honour he was being shown and so simply bowed his head back. Then the three visitors turned and left the bunker.
“So far, we have been unbelievably lucky,” said Ardria as they rejoined the rest of their people. “That we should encounter a man like that at such a sensitive moment...”
“Those Above are with us,” agreed Tamwell, “but we will need a great deal more luck before this journey is over.”
“We also need the Brigadier," said the Princess. "He's hopefully waiting for us in Bonewell, but our new course takes us nowhere near there. As soon as we're well over the border, I want you to ask for a volunteer. A man will need to go to Bonewell to find the Brigadier and bring him to us. He'll need to be out of uniform. A Helberion soldier in uniform will be killed or taken prisoner by the first Carrowmen he comes across.”
“If he’s captured out of uniform, he’ll be shot as a spy.”
“I know. That's why it has to be a volunteer.”
Tamwell looked at her. “If I weren’t in charge of protecting you, I’d volunteer myself.” He sighed. “I’ll talk to the men when we stop for our midday meal. They'll probably all volunteer.”
“Then choose the man you think has the best chance of making it. We need the Brigadier, and every day he’s waiting in Bonewell he’s at risk of discovery." She sighed. "Okay. Get us out of here, Captain.”
Tamwell nodded, and gave the order for the column to move out.