Assignment

Aldric Vane had killed twenty three men in the service of the crown. He did not keep count out of pride. He kept count because each one sat in him like a stone in a river and he wanted to know how heavy the pile had become. Twenty three stones. Twenty three faces. Some of them he remembered clearly and some of them had blurred together into a single shape that came to him in bad nights. He was thirty one years old and he had been a knight since he was seventeen and he had never once questioned an order.

That was what they said about him in the barracks. Ser Aldric does not question. Ser Aldric does not falter. Ser Aldric does not refuse. They said it like a compliment but the tone underneath was something else. Something closer to pity. A man who cannot refuse is not a man who is loyal. He is a man who is broken in a useful way.

He stood now in the hall of assignment where the knights of the household were given their postings each season. The hall was long and cold and the stones underfoot were worn smooth by generations of armored boots. Sir Maren who handled the assignments sat behind a table with a ledger and a cup of wine that he refilled more often than he turned the pages.

"Greyhollow," Maren said without looking up.

Aldric said nothing for a moment. Greyhollow was a holding in the eastern reaches. Not large. Not wealthy. It sat on the edge of the Ashwood which meant it saw bandits more often than it saw tax collectors. It was not a punishment posting but it was not an honor either.

"Under whose banner?" Aldric asked.

"Lady Elara. She has requested a household knight." Maren turned a page and his eyes moved across the text without interest. "Her previous man departed. She needs someone seasoned."

"Departed how?"

Maren looked up for the first time. His face had the practiced blankness of a man who had learned to say nothing. "He left her service. That is all I have. She wrote to the crown three months ago requesting a replacement and the request was granted."

"And the crown saw fit to send me."

"The crown saw fit to send someone who would not ask so many questions." Maren closed the ledger. "You leave in the morning. Take the east road through Verin. You should arrive within four days if the weather holds."

Aldric took the folded parchment that Maren pushed across the table. It bore the seal of Greyhollow. A heron standing in reeds with its wings folded. He had never seen the seal before and he had never heard the name Elara attached to it. A minor lady of a minor house with a holding that most maps did not bother to mark. He did not know why the crown would send one of its better swords to such a place but he had asked one question too many already and Maren's face told him that plainly.

He saluted and left the hall.

The barracks were half empty. Summer campaign season had pulled most of the household knights south to the border where the skirmishes with Darrow had been growing for two years. Aldric had served two tours on that border and had expected to be sent back. Instead he was going east to stand in a keep he had never seen and guard a woman he had never heard of.

He spent the night preparing his kit. Mail and plate both because he did not know what he was walking into. His sword he cleaned and oiled even though it did not need it. His hands knew the work and his mind could rest while they did it. He thought about the knight who had left Lady Elara's service. Men left service for many reasons. Injury. Better offers. Disagreement with the lord or lady they served. But there was something in the way Maren had paused before he spoke that sat wrong with Aldric. Departed. That was the word he had used. Not retired. Not released. Departed.

He slept poorly and woke before dawn and rode east.

The road through Verin was good for the first two days. Packed dirt and gravel with drainage ditches on either side and villages close enough together that he did not need to carry much in the way of provisions. On the third day the road narrowed and the trees thickened and the villages became hamlets and then became nothing. The Ashwood pressed close on both sides and the canopy was so thick that the light came through green and grey and it could have been dusk at midday. He saw no one on the road. He saw tracks. Boot prints and hoof prints and once the deep gouge of a cart wheel that had gone off the path and been dragged back on. People lived out here but they moved quietly and they stayed off the road when they could.

On the fourth day the trees broke and he saw Greyhollow.

It was not what he expected. The keep was old but solid. Three stories of grey stone with a curtain wall that was short but thick and a gatehouse that had been rebuilt recently. The stonework did not match. Newer stone sat on older foundations and the mortar between them was a different color. Someone had been spending money on this place. Not a lot of money but enough to matter. Behind the keep the land sloped down to a river that he could hear but not see and the fields around it were small but worked. Wheat or barley. He could not tell from this distance.

The gate was open and two men in plain leather armor stood on either side with spears that they held more out of habit than readiness. They watched him approach and one of them stepped forward.

"Ser Aldric Vane," he said. "I am expected."

The man looked at him for a long moment then nodded and turned and called something through the gate that Aldric did not catch. The other guard stepped aside and Aldric rode through.

The courtyard was clean and ordered. Stables to the left. A well in the center. Storehouses and a smithy to the right. The keep door was heavy oak banded with iron and it was closed. A boy of maybe twelve took his horse and Aldric dismounted and removed his saddlebags and waited.

The door opened and a woman stepped out.

She was not tall. She was not small. Her hair was dark and she wore it pulled back and braided in a way that was practical rather than decorative. Her dress was dark green and simple and she wore no jewelry that he could see. Her face was the kind that you would call pleasant before you would call it beautiful. Straight nose. Dark eyes. A mouth that did not smile easily. She looked at him the way a craftsman looks at a tool that has been sent from a distance. Measuring. Assessing. Deciding if it would do the job.

"Ser Aldric," she said. Her voice was low for a woman and carried well in the stone courtyard. "I am Lady Elara. Welcome to Greyhollow."

He bowed. "My lady."

"You will have had a long ride. I will have water and food brought to you and a room prepared. We can speak of your duties tomorrow once you have rested."

"My duties can wait until I have reported to you properly. I am at your service."

She looked at him and something moved behind her eyes that he could not read. It was not warmth. It was not coldness either. It was calculation. She was measuring something and he did not know what.

"Very well," she said. "Follow me."

She turned and went back through the door and he followed her into the keep.