It meant something to Jord when he became Captain, a small piece of polish that Jord kept to himself. Jord was a good fighter, he was loyal to his Prince, but that didn’t add up to a captaincy. Captains were the sons of aristocrats—even if the Prince’s Guard was a little different, drawn from the dregs.
He almost fumbled the badge when it was tossed to him. ‘I like my orders obeyed quickly, and you’ve just seen what will happen if you don’t come when I call you.’ The Prince glanced at Govart, bleeding in the dirt.
Indeed: watching the Prince skewer Govart had instilled a dumbfounded obedience in the new troops, and put a shocked look on the face of the Akielon slave. Everyone stood around uselessly while Govart was ejected from the camp.
Then they had to make up a day’s ride in half the time. Jord shouted at the men to decamp, shouted at them again to mount up, dragged Lorens onto a horse himself, and ordered Orlant to toss a pail of water on Andry, who had slept through everything. The troop finally started to move, and he had to call on the Prince’s Guard, over and over again, to stop stragglers and keep the rest of the mercenaries in formation.
‘Take four men and get the tail of this squadron back on the road,’ said Jord.
Orlant grinned. ‘Their tail? Want me to—’
‘No,’ said Jord, who had known Orlant a long time.
By the time they reached camp, the Regent’s men had recovered enough from their shock to grow mulish about orders. Most of them knew very little about soldiering. All Govart had required of them was that they stay out of his way. Jord had his hands full: the mounts weren’t penned properly, there were hoarse shouts from under a collapsed tent, and there was a constant stream of expletives against the Prince—that cold, blond son of a bitch, that high and mighty prick made of ice.
When night fell and torches flamed along lines of straight(ish) tents, Jord found himself alone on the edges of the camp near the trees.
Out here he could hear the rustling of the leaves, louder than the sounds of the camp, where fires and sentry torches were bright spots against the darker shadowy shapes of the canvas tents. The quiet ranks were deceptive, since the Regent’s mercenaries would spend the next few weeks looking for any excuse to cause trouble.
Jord took out the flecked, dinted Captain’s badge and looked down at it.
The Regent had sent them to the border to fail. The task of captaining these mercenaries was not one any man would volunteer for. Even for an experienced captain, holding discipline together among this rabble, against attacks from eight different sides, was impossible.
The Prince had known the scale of the task when he had tossed Jord this badge. Jord thought about that.
And, passing his thumb over the dinted starburst in the solitary clearing, he smiled.
A twig snapped to his left.
He quickly wrapped up the badge, flushing a little at being caught in a moment of private pride.
‘Captain,’ said Aimeric.
‘Soldier.’ Too conscious of his new title, spoken in Aimeric’s aristocratic accent.
‘I hope it’s not too forward of me. I followed you out here. I wanted to say congratulations. You deserve it. That is . . . I think you’re the best man here.’
Jord let out an amused snort. ‘Thank you, soldier.’
‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘First time an aristocrat’s tried to impress me.’
A familiar look flew onto Aimeric’s fine-boned face, but he didn’t drop his gaze. At nineteen, Aimeric was exactly the kind of highborn that usually made it in the Guard, a fourth son, destined for officership.
‘I meant what I said. I respect you.’ His young cheeks were high with colour. ‘I want to do well here.’
‘Doing well here’s simple. You don’t have to polish my buttons. Just work hard.’
‘Yes, Captain.’ Flushed. Turning.
‘And soldier?’
Aimeric turned back. The bruising on his face was mottled in the moonlight. Since he had arrived, he had been the victim of fights. The Regent’s mercenaries had targeted him, and any clashes were bound to have Aimeric at their centre, getting knocked around.
‘What happened to Govart this morning wasn’t your fault. The Prince made his own choice there.’
‘Yes, Captain,’ said Aimeric, his eyes in the moonlight for a moment oddly wide.
Like most of the Guard, Jord served Laurent because of Auguste.
He remembered what it was like to try to impress someone: Auguste was a memory of gold that never faded; a bright star to guide by, cut down before his time. Jord had been younger in those days, with enough skill to get hired as a guard on merchant trains. Auguste had seen him fight from a distance, and had pointed him out to the Captain of the regular militia. Or so the Captain had told Jord later—a recommendation from a Prince. It was something Jord never forgot. Working in the capital, Jord had seen the Prince’s Guard from the outside—had seen it at its height, handpicked, the best of the nobility, riding through the palace gates, their starbursts shining gold on their livery.
And he had watched it fade and dwindle in the years after Prince Auguste’s death. The young nobles who had flocked to the Prince’s starburst banner abandoned it to follow the Regent. The Regent’s faction was the place to gain advancement; and the new heir—Laurent—was thirteen and had no influence, and no interest in military matters whatsoever. The blue and gold flags were taken down, the starburst banners rolled up and put away.
For two years, the symbol of the Crown Prince never flew. It was replaced by the red banners of the Regency, until it was hard to remember that there had ever been a time when the ordered ranks of men in the palace had worn stars on their chests.
Rubbing down armour in the regular barracks, Jord was interrupted by a set of sharp footsteps in heeled riding boots—and in walked a boy with the sort of profile that could kick a man out of his chair, blond hair and slightly narrowed eyes the colour of—
‘Your Highness.’ Scrabbling up.
‘Everyone else my brother recommended to the palace left to serve my uncle. Why haven’t you?’
The Prince was fifteen, midway through his growth spurt, his face no longer childish. His voice newly broken, a tenor.
Jord said, ‘The Regent only took the best.’
‘If my brother noticed you, you are the best.’ The blue
eyes on him were steady. ‘I want you for my Prince’s Guard.’
‘Your Highness, I’m no one to—’
‘And if you follow me, the best is what I will demand of you. Will I get it?’
The Prince looked up at him. Jord felt every speck of dirt on his own face, the unevenly sewn tear on his sleeve, every worn buckle on his armour—even as he heard himself say, ‘Yes.’
Arriving with the rest of the men that the Prince had assembled, he saw his pride at the Prince’s request for what it was: foolishness. They were a collection of scraps, like you’d throw to a dog. He snorted when the others had to drag Huet out of bed, and dunk Rochert in a trough to sober him up. He remembered Orlant, a big man who’d been tossed out of the capital’s militia two years before.